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November 26

Category:Idol categories

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was: keep. MER-C 09:53, 14 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: These categories seem to be suggesting that any notable person who performs C/J/K-pop should be referred to as "an idol" in Wikipedia's voice. This clashes with Wikipedia policy for a number of reasons. First, it's an example of overcategorization. All of the people mentioned here are already in categories for singers / actors / etc which make them easy to find. I haven't gone through the Japanese and Korean categories in detail yet but Category:Chinese idols has 9 male singers, 4 female singers and 4 groups. Category:Hong Kong idols has 10 male singers, 8 female singers, 1 male actor and 2 groups. Category:Taiwanese idols has 23 male singers, 12 female singers, 10 male actors, 3 female actors and 6 groups. Category:Vietnamese idols has 4 male singers, 11 female singers, 2 footballers and 1 group. Second, it is badly defined. How many fans need to buy merchandise for us to say that a singer is idolized? How many of them need to hang up relevant posters in their bedrooms? "Taylor Swift is a best-selling performing artist" is a statement about Taylor Swift. "Taylor Swift is an idol" is a statement about the people who go to her shows — one that might very well require original research to verify. Personally, I would only expect one of those fans to say "Swift is my idol" if she plans to go into show business herself. Third, it is not neutral. Wikipedia avoids terms like "superstar" and "supermodel" for good reason. We shouldn't categorize an artist based on how much people obsess over him. It is telling that the parent category here is Category:Teen idols rather than some other age group. Are we saying that when 50 year olds flock to a concert and order albums en masse that is automatically more dignified? Connor Behan (talk) 17:07, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • For example, about Asami Abe, the whole article is about her occupation and her works, and not a word on how she is marketed. And that applies by and large to all articles. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:24, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The article you listed shows that she was in an idol group called Gyaruru. So, yes, she was an idol at one point. lullabying (talk) 18:40, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • That is not the point. The point is that the amount of information about being marketed as an idol is negligable. It is simply not a defining characteristic. Marcocapelle (talk) 16:34, 28 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's just it. It's a promotional term used by companies with a vested interest in spreading the idea that everyone should love the boy-bands and girl-groups that are signed to them. It would be better to use a word that doesn't favour a particular industry's point of view. Even with the same word, we could make "idol" describe what a singer's producer wants her to be rather than what she is. E.g. renaming Category: Hong Kong idols to Category: Idol marketing in Hong Kong would be a marked improvement. Connor Behan (talk) 03:32, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • So where is verifiable information about e.g. Asami Abe's abilities to move people? (other than that she attracts an audience as a singer and actress, which all singers and actresses do) Marcocapelle (talk) 08:20, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • If "idols" are performers who can move people, then isn't the definition either based on "the number of fans they have" or the number of fans a company predicts they will have? I guess we could add some degree of objectivity by requiring that the production company has publicly admitted to not emphasizing the music of a musician they hired. Also, if there's a word for this that is uniquely Japanese (i.e. not aidoru), I would much prefer using that. Connor Behan (talk) 03:32, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wait, there is nothing special about having fans. All singers have fans. And applying an arbitrary numeric criterion for category inclusion is inappropriate per WP:ARBITRARYCAT. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:12, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think this is a case where the arbitrary criterion is being applied by others, namely marketing departments. If the numbers show that training someone as an "idol" instead of a singer is preferable, they undertake a campaign to help that word appear in as many sources as possible. So the Wikipedia articles simply follow this trend without worrying about how much the sources themselves justify their use of the term. Note that in many cases these sources aren't actually cited in the articles. I'm just surmising that editor who originally added the category did so due to knowing intuitively that the sources are out there. I.e. he or she has seen Jessica Jung described as an idol enough times to make that "common knowledge". Connor Behan (talk) 13:11, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Wikipedia articles do not follow this trend, the articles are largely about the singing and acting career of these persons, not about them being marketed. Idols categories have been assigned despite the fact that there is almost nothing in the articles about marketing. Marcocapelle (talk) 14:18, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I mean that sources establish a trend of calling someone an idol and the Wikipedia articles follow only that part. The fact that they don't see fit to include a marketing section which actually cites these sources indicates that being an idol or not is mostly trivia. And again, I consider it a loaded term. I'm only retracting the second point I made about where to draw the line being ambiguous. Since Asian entertainment companies openly admit to having multiple "tiers", we can avoid this problem if we adopt the controversial philosophy of always labelling people the way sources do. Connor Behan (talk) 16:02, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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

Category:Chinese fantasy-comedy films

Relisted, see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 December 14#Category:Chinese fantasy-comedy films

Category:Indian fantasy-comedy films

Relisted, see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 December 14#Category:Indian fantasy-comedy films

Category:Fantasy-comedy films by decade

Relisted, see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 December 14#Category:Fantasy-comedy films by decade

Category:American fantasy-comedy films

Relisted, see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 December 14#Category:American fantasy-comedy films