Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of emoticons

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 keep. Although this article is in ned of reliable sourcing, the consensus is to keep. Hopefully some of the "keep" proponents will take the opportunity to find reliable sources for this -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 12:05, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of emoticons[edit]

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

This is an indiscriminate and thoroughly unencyclopedic list that is almost entirely sourced to blatantly unreliable sources. Much of it is apparently based on original research, in addition. If this list is to be kept, it requires immediate overhauling, as the descriptions are written as in a fan-site or chatroom. I don't see such cleanup imminent; this needs to be removed from the project. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 02:52, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Speedy keep - This article contains many pieces of encyclopedic information. They are certainly notable for inclusion. There are probably many reliable sources that could be found. Emoticons are everywhere. NerdyScienceDude :) (✉ click to talk • my edits • sign) 03:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep it's like lots of lists, and ":)" amongst others are definitely clearly notable. 70.29.210.242 (talk) 04:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Copy to Wiktionary as well, as an appendix, as it seems like it should also exist there. 70.29.210.242 (talk) 04:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Some things to consider:
- We also have emoticon. The topic of emoticons is clearly notable, but the question for this particular article is perhaps whether or not an extensive list of emoticons is specifically notable.
- Many basic emoticons are already included at emoticon#Common western examples.
- This seems to have originally been split off from the emoticon article for size reasons, so this list might merit inclusion as a sort of series article.
- This was nominated once before, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of common emoticons for some possibly relevant points. The article was kept there, based on a rather clear consensus, though that was about a year ago.

I don't personally have a clear opinion on this yet, but I do think it would be a shame to have to delete this as it's a useful list. On the one hand it may lack secondary sources, and be a magnet for original research; but on the other hand, with a little effort now and then, it could probably be cleaned up and verified. Equazcion ^(talk) 03:26, 1 Mar 2010 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:50, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep Per above comment referencing previous deletion discussion. Gatemansgc (talk) 09:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Delete. As it has been said, this list is a magnet for OR. The sources should have a minimum of credibility (books, articles written by internet or pop culture experts, and software manuals are fine). But I object to reference 1, 5, 9, and 10. These seem to be compiled lists by amateurs without any information about his credentials. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eklipse (talk • contribs) 11:53, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - My issue with this article at the last AfD was the lack of sources, and it looks like they've been added. Yahoo and MSN are IMHO very reliable sources for emoticon lists, and quality problems should be fixed, not just deleted. If cleanup results in a very short article, it can be merged or redirected to Emoticon. --Explodicle (T/C) 18:48, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge into Emoticon. Reyk _YO! 08:00, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Very Strong Keep. Article informs users of emoticons which the reader may use instantaneously, therefore the source is incredibly useful. The lists may be compiled by amateurs, but that does not signify a need for deletion. The article is still a valuable source of information, and should be given a chance to be edited in the future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eklipse (talk • contribs) 11:53, 2 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.10.21.159 (talk) [reply]

Strong keep: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and encyclopedias are meant to inform people. This article contains useful information about many common emoticons not listed in emoticon#Common western examples, and is therefore very useful to anyone not familiar with certain emoticons. It also gives clear examples of emoticons to show what it's like; in the case of Western emoticons, you can also get enough examples from the main article, but it's hard to convey the style of 2ch emoticons with text alone. You need to actually see the emoticons to know how creatively some people on the Japanese parts of the internet construct their emoticons. VDZ (talk) 23:07, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: Also, User:Juliancolton didn't link to any policies to assert the need for deletion. According to what Wikipedia policy should this article be deleted? It seems like the only argument for its deletion is "I think it doesn't belong on Wikipedia", as bad sourcing is no reason to get an article deleted as long as it meets the notability criteria. VDZ (talk) 23:13, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: I am a secondary student, and I am not always up to date on this kind of stuff like emoticons. I understand the criticisms placed on List of emoticons (They are hard to verify). However, based on my knowledge on facebook and such, these things come all the time in new styles for the same old thing. This naturally makes it very hard to reference it properly. To the best of my own knowledge, many of these are also used by youth, who are not as influential when it comes to reliable sources as most older internet using people, although the older people may not use things like Facebook/IM as much. Additionally, with such quickly changing material where there is considerable amount of flexibility, with smileys being expressible in so many similar ways, maybe accuracy is not the top priority. In my opinion, keep it. Mjosefsson (talk) 18:58, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep: When I saw this at first I agreed with deletion but that impulse was probably because this list looks so messy and much of it seems very repetitive because of how easily new emoticons can be made by slightly modifying existing ones. I found this page because I was looking up the meaning of an unfamiliar emoticon so I definitely feel this is useful. Cleaning it up, removing some of the very similar ones, and making clearer distinctions between the symbols would improve it. The main emoticon page uses little boxes with single emoticons inside each one. That format would make this list look a lot less chaotic. Svenna (talk) 04:37, 8 March 2010 (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.