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 No consensus. I'd relist, but I doubt anything more useful would come out of it: there has been plenty of discussion already. —Sean Whitton / 13:37, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New prog (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This article is documenting a neologism. There are several sources on the page; however, only one article makes explicit use of the term as a genre name (the Times article) and even then only uses it as one of three possible terms. More often than not, the "genre" term is used in a happenstance manner (i.e. "this new prog rock..."). Moreover, many of the soures do not even use the term: the Entertainment Weekly article "Prog Rocks Again" gives various names for newer progressive rock bands and "New Prog" is not listed among them. Furthermore, the style itself is not notable, being a very limited example of recent progressive rock. DeletionAccount (talk) 15:52, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a more detailed rationale for deletion. This article is an exercise in original research by synthesis. It collects uses of the term "new prog" in certain music articles about bands, and uses those quotes to make an article on new prog itself, rather than on the bands. The problem with this is clear from an OR point of view.

Moreover, there are no sources given that actually on the topic of "new prog" itself, as would be required for notability. Incidental mentions in other works don't suffice for WP:N here.

Detailed examination of the sources provided shows that many of them only use the phrase "the new prog". Examples:

These articles are not trying to define something called "new prog"; they are just using the adjective "new" to describe the type of prog that certain bands represent. As a thought experiment, imagine if I wrote an article on the "next mayor of town" by accumulating all the news articles that use the term "next mayor".

The final quote above is particularly telling. If the music industry itself has not settled on a name for this genre (or, indeed, decided that it isn't just the next stage of prog rock itself), we are only speculating by collecting their quotes and making an article on "new prog". These things need to be settled in the real world before we try to write an article about them on Wikipedia. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:39, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And also 'New Prog Heroes', 'the so-called front-runners of the "new-prog" movement', which seem clearly non-incidental usages, especially the latter. Numerous genre tags are formed by this sort of "new", "post-" and similar malarkey, and obviously are often used in ways that the modifier could be read as being non-atomic. Sources that assert that this is a valid concept, but with a non-stable name are likewise not compelling arguments for deletion, just for noting said terminological variation. You make some valid points about the rigour of the current article text, none of which in my view comes close to a case for turning new prog into a redlink, which is the issue we're being asked to consider here. Bear in mind that we've significant internal linkage to the term as a genre descriptor, so we'd not be making a non-local change: if those descriptors are poorly-referenced, better to clean those up first. (On which good luck: I suspect the pecentage of musical articles in which the infobox-genre field coincides with a consensus of reliable sources (which see below) is somewhere between 'small' and 'statistically significant'.) As I've said, I'd be perfectly happy to merge into the main prog article and redirect, which would have been better accomplished by continuing the discussion there (rather than ignoring the point being made there, and using a throwaway SP account to go venue-shopping here). As I said there, the main issue here is not occurrence of the terminology, neologism, or referencing, but whether this is sufficiently separately notable and coherent a concept to merit a distinct article, as against a section or discussion in passing in progressive rock. Alai (talk) 21:11, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the issue is the independent notability of this concept, or lack of that notability. My point in the above quotes is that the sources in the article only mention the name of the article incidentally, and don't discuss "new prog" itself in any way. If this article deleted, that doesn't stop merging some text to the main prog rock article and redirecting the title there. Indeed, that's one possible outcome of the deletion discussion. The point of the AFD is to discuss the independent notability of this particular concept. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You could, of course, merge certain things into Progressive rock -- after all, there are a mountain of sources referring to these bands as prog rock -- but the question here is not whether these bands are prog rock or notable. The question is whether or not this article is documenting a neologism and non-notable style. More importantly, if you dig around, you'll find dramatically-different views about what new prog is. That is, at best, as noted below, "new prog" is just prog that is new. Is it Dillinger Escape Plan or is it Muse or is it Lightning Bolt or is it Porcupine Tree? These bands have much of nothing in common aside from era -- a common problem for neologisms. It is, of course, possible that the term will become notable, but for now it's just a term meaning prog rock that is new. As the EW article notes, "the new prog doesn't yet have an official name (neo-prog? post-prog? prog 2.0?)" -- no new-prog to be seen there, and an admission that the "new prog" genre here is just a prog rock revival similar to the original neo-prog. 81.51.232.219 (talk) 23:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)Clearly mostly of them are primarily about an album or a band, but for example the Times "Prog rock? Just say yes" is clearly discussing it as a concept (at least in passing, before wallowing in general proggy nostalgia at some length). "Prog Rocks Again" is not dissimilar in that respect. Deletion is not part of the merge-and-redirect process, unless there's some compelling reason for expunging the edit history, which I think is clearly not going to be the case here. It's a possible outcome from AFD only in (dare I say) an "incidental" manner, by way of being a "keep with words to the wise" result. (Thus my frustration with the on-going having in effect been discussion inefficiently and foreseeably ineffectually moved to this location, and thence to several others.) Whether merged or not, some suitably-sourced hedging as to whether it is really is a 'distinct' genre, or just "recent instances" of prog (or whatever else), would seem to be appropriate. I don't think Wikipedia should be attempting to come to a definitive conclusion on that at present, and certainly this discussion can't hope to. Alai (talk) 23:10, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Once again, it's not a question of whether or not there are new prog rock bands. There are, and there have been new prog rock bands for every decade since the original prog rock appeared. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia; it will never decide what is or is not a distinct genre. Wikipedia merely documents, and the documentation here is dubious. We see 543 hits on Google News and maybe 50 of them refer to music (and of them, most talk about Entertainment Weekly's May 2005 feature which this article references and the rest talk about "new prog rock"). Not to wikilawyer, but from WP:NEO: "If the article is not verifiable (see Reliable sources for neologisms, below) then it constitutes analysis, synthesis and original research and consequently cannot be accepted by Wikipedia. This is true even though there may be many examples of the term in use." Furthermore, "To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term—not books and papers that use the term." And finally, "Neologisms that are in wide use—but for which there are no treatments in secondary sources—are not yet ready for use and coverage in Wikipedia." The point here is indeed to redlink the article. If there is notable information about progressive rock artists, it can be placed in the progressive rock article, but not under the heading of a neologism and not as a WP:OR genre. 81.51.232.219 (talk) 00:00, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Carl's claim that there are no articles specifically on this genre is wrong: The Times article is one such, as Alai says above. Bondegezou (talk) 23:37, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Responded below. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:26, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Let's make a point here. First, the real article minus obvious synthesis can be found on my user-talk. All I did here was remove unreferenced statements and references which did not mention the "new prog" genre or refer to the bands as members of the genre (most simply called them progressive rock).
And here's what's worse: the sources are dramatically incoherent. EW calls the music aggressive and technical, citing SOAD, Dillinger Escape Plan, Lightning Bolt, Coheed and Cambria, and The Mars Volta. They specifically refer to how aggressive the music is -- "[They] create incredibly complex and inventive music that sounds like a heavier, more aggressive version of '70s behemoths such as Led Zeppelin and King Crimson." Now, take The Guardian Unlimited: "However much Radiohead and Muse may revile their "new prog" tag, their music is as aloof, intellectual and didactic as anything Pink Floyd or King Crimson produced." For those of you not aware, neither of those bands fit EW's description. Then we have the Times, which draws reference to old symphonic prog. Slightly inconsistent, perhaps? Is anyone talking about the same thing? Is it a genre or is it a period? Or is a it a "genre" that happens to exist because "new prog" is just too easy to inadvertently coin? 81.51.232.219 (talk) 01:34, 20 July 2008 (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.