The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to Phallic architecture. But selectively, it looks like. Sandstein 19:06, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Most Phallic Building contest (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

A check of the sources:

1. Dead
2. Dead
3. Primary source
4. Gawker, a gossip website subject to various debates about whether or not it constitutes a reliable source
5. Blog which makes no mention of the contest
6. Dead
7. Listing in a "site of the week" listicle
8. Broken link to a 2007 book. I could not find the book on GBooks to verify how substantially it covers the topic
9. Primary source
10. Seemingly self-published source

In short, this was a one-shot joke contest done almost two decades ago and had no lasting impact. I could find no third party coverage of this contest whatseover. I suggested a merge to Cabinet Magazine in the last AFD (all the way back in 2008) but it was never executed; however, given the obscurity of this contest relative to the magazine, a merge to either the magazine or Ypsilanti Water Tower, the building that won, would be WP:UNDUE. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 04:30, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Architecture-related deletion discussions. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 04:30, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Michigan-related deletion discussions. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 04:30, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• More documentation has appeared since 2008, and that definitely needs consideration. Furthermore, it doesn't take much effort to find some of the above if one does more than merely expect a hyperlink from 14 years ago to work.
  • The "dead link" for Brendan 2006 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrendan2006 (help) is because the LA Times has shuffled its WWW presence around since 2008. It is https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-feb-21-et-book21-story.html now, which can be found by using the rest of the citation. The book reviewed is Ames's ISBN 9781555845926 of course. Ironically, the book review doesn't tell us anything more than a chapter title and that the chapter is "about, among other things, buying fruit and walking past the bank".
  • The ISBN for the 2007 book (ISBN 3936314772) takes me to it on Google Books, where it comes up with a German title, explaining why you could not find it I suspect. It's citing the dust jacket, of all things, which says:

    The Agbar Tower's distinctive rounded crown had already earned it a nominee spot in Cabinet Magazine's Most Phallic Building in the World Contest. Here, the Highrise Award's more serious honor cites the building's expressive shape, pulsating dynamism and a multi-layer outer skin that generates its varied and exciting appearance.

    It's a dust jacket blurb. I knew it wouldn't be in depth from that alone.
  • ISBN 9781780231419 was published in 2012, and goes into some detail on pages 87 to 88, with a long list of entries and a connection to Louis Sullivan's quote about the Marshall Field's Wholesale Store. The author is still a professor at the University of Edinburgh. This is quite the source, because not only could it support the existing content that is otherwise sourced to that book jacket, that book review, and the magazine itself, it could even be used to expand the current article.
  • ISBN 9780759123144 is a 2014 encyclopaedia which has an "Architecture" entry that has this in it on page 12. The (first) author is a professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University this time. Given this and Williams's section heading ("Phallic Towers"), if even if the instant subject were too minor, there's clearly a phallic architecture topic to be had since 2014. And — Lo! — there it is, already at the words that I simply hyperlinked without looking, the obvious supertopic that is neither the magazine nor the water tower, created in 2012.
  • Rounding off with a rebuttal of the "but it's undue" argument, I point out that the Ypsilanti Historical Society mentioned the contest in its own 2008 article on the tower. The local historical society doesn't think it undue.

    Rudisill, Alvin E. (Summer 2008). "The Ypsilanti Water Tower" (PDF). Ypsilanti Gleanings. Ypsilanti Historical Society. pp. 4–5.

• Uncle G (talk) 10:42, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to Phallic architecture. As Uncle G's analysis of the sources indicates, the topic is subordinate to that. Yngvadottir (talk) 01:14, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge. I came to this article, expecting an easy in-and-out !vote, but then I found myself searching long and hard, up and down, and back and forth for sources to support this content. Carefully, I examined the sources dangling at the bottom of the article, checking each for weight. Delicately I probed around the subject, hoping to find just the right spot on the web that could prove this was independently notable. Alas, after all of my exertions, the article hangs limp before me, unsupported, not backed up with any firm sources we could use to erect an article establishing notability. Certainly, there is enough to shrink it down and package it up and merge it into Phallic architecture, but here, on it's own, hanging in the wind, I don't think it's notable. I did find this alumni magazine that had another insignificant mention, but I think Uncle G found everything else that I did. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:29, 25 March 2022 (UTC) Here I am, over a year and 20,000 edits later, still making jokes at Ten Pound Hammer's AfD submissions.[reply]
• Merge per above. There's enough here for a sentence or two at the Phallic architecture article, probably not enough for a full article. --Jayron32 12:46, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Special:Diff/512943951 — Dr. Blofeld copied without attribution in 2012. Uncle G (talk) 10:01, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I have to go with delete on this one and oppose merging. The phallic architecture article is a junky synthesis of the ubiquity of phallic sculptures in non-Christian cultures, some feminist theory, and a lame list of buildings; but at least it's trying to be serious. This contest isn't, and it gets next to no GHits. I just don't see anything here that ought to be saved. Mangoe (talk) 04:30, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.