Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cuckoo clock in culture

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. Black Kite (t) (c) 05:52, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cuckoo clock in culture

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Spammy, poorly sourced. Boils down to "This work has a cuckoo clock in it" without any coherence, context or relevance. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 20:32, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep—A cultural icon, so it is worth documenting as such. Parts of the article need work, but it seems decent enough. Regards, RJH (talk) 20:55, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It needs work? What kind of work? Could you be any more vague? No, the problem here is that it's synthesis. All of the sources mention that yes, this has a cuckoo clock in it, but there's no common thread. None of the sources prove that the clocks are being used for something significant. They're just there. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 05:09, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- We're here to discuss deletion; not the specifics of how the article needs to be improved. If you want those, have it reviewed. Applying WP:SYNTH here seems like a stretch. RJH (talk) 18:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with R.J. here. This is a question of whether this is an unsourced original essay (it isn't), whether it's off-the-wall unencyclopedic original research (it isn't), whether it's an encyclopedia-worthy topic (debatable), and whether it represents a content fork of cuckoo clock (also debatable). It's very fan crufty, in the way that innumerable Wikipedia articles about popular culture are, as the nominator is no doubt aware. And, yes, WP:OTHERSTUFF means that is neither here nor there in the concrete question of whether this should be deleted or retained. But arguing for deletion on the basis of the arcane WP:SYNTHESIS guideline doesn't seem on the mark to me. Carrite (talk) 01:13, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: Nothing but OR. EEng (talk) 22:14, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:24, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:24, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Contains WP:OR and not well sourced - this could be fixed natch, but the subject is indiscriminate and trivial. If the cuckoo clock is (as stated)"often featured in literature, music, cinema, television, etc.", "more than any other kind of timepiece", then how are individual occasions notable? ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 12:50, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Though as you'll see above I agree this article should be deleted, it's worth pointing out that not everything discussed in a given article needs to be notable -- only the subject of the article needs to be notable. For example, an article on a notable writer might list all of his books, even though some of those books might not themselves be notable. EEng (talk) 22:38, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree insofar as it relates to WP:POPCULTURE sections/articles. As these are essentially lists of what could be considered trivia, every single "cultural reference" should be meaningful and referenced - Star Wars being parodied in Family Guy would be fine but Rush Limbaugh being mentioned by Jesse Ventura on WCW Worldwide would be trivial. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 23:06, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what you're disagreeing with. All I said was that article content need not itself be notable. I didn't say that everything (notable or not) related to a given article's topic should be in that article, nor that certain classes of content shouldn't have guidelines for deciding whether individual bits of content in that class should be included. That said, I'm not sure offhand why SW-FG is more worthy of inclusion than RL-JW, but maybe you know more about that stuff than I do. EEng (talk) 00:58, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was disagreeing with "it's worth pointing out that not everything discussed in a given article needs to be notable". - no, it's not worth pointing out at all as it has no relevance to the article being discussed. I think I explained quite clearly why articles of this type should contain solely notable information. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 01:20, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

AfD discussions are an important route by which editors learn their way around Wikipedia policies, and your original statement was easy to misconstrue as meaning that article content, in general, must be notable. Thus I think it was worth pointing out. So there! EEng (talk) 02:29, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well I disagree.

Well I disagree with your disagreement!

Well I disagree with your disagreement with my disagreement!

Well you should know better than to put a quotation in quote marks and italics!

Well you're being very disagreeable!

^{Well I want to have the last word!}

^{Well I won't let that happen!}

^...

Anyone who misconstrued my meaning is an idiot. Kthxbai ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 12:18, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, how quickly the true colors are revealed. EEng (talk) 03:39, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My true colours have been evident for a long, long time. (Per WP:LASTWORD: "Getting the last word means that you win the debate. It also shows your moral superiority, and willingness to stand your ground. This should convince your opponent that you are correct, and will certainly impress your fellow Wikipedians") ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 16:17, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: Indiscriminate list of trivial mentions with little reliable sourcing and no encyclopedic value. Looks like compiler put anything they could find from Google searches on the list. No context and no sources to gauge relevance or significance by. I don't see much hope for this ever becoming a useful article, no matter how much work is done to improve it. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 13:17, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. In its current state, this long list is not easy to defend. But there is a legitimate topic buried in there. Without spending too much time thinking about it, I can name at least two 20th-century literary uses of the cuckoo clock that rise to the level of essential content--that is, our coverage of the subject of "cuckoo clock" would be remiss without some mention of them, somewhere. The first, of course, is The Third Man, which is actually discussed and sourced here. The second, which (tellingly) isn't even in the current list, is in Ulysses (Episode XIII): this "cuckold" clock is the subject of extensive commentary (306 hits at GBooks,[1] 292 at GScholar[2] for the search string <"cuckoo clock" Ulysses>). Now, maybe we don't need an entire separate "in culture" article to cover these; maybe a merge into a compact section of the cuckoo clock article would take care of it. But I can't agree that the topic is hopeless.--Arxiloxos (talk) 23:48, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep per Arxiloxos; it's not completely worthless, but it needs more trimming down. Bearian (talk) 15:23, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Arxiloxos does make a good point. I wasn't convinced before, but after reading his argument, I went and did some searching. Google news archive search for "Cuckoo clock" "film" and you'll see ample results. [3] Other mentions of cuckoo clocks used in various films, some of the results notable. The New York Times has a bit stating the cuckoo clock is "among Switzerland's significant contributions to Western culture" [4] Dream Focus 16:02, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Any significant type of item of this sort can justify an article, if people are willing to look for sources. I think we have just enough to keep this--though of course it needs to be edited, need for editing is not a reason for deletion, or we'd be left with very few articles. DGG ( talk ) 04:34, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Needs slicing and dicing to detrivialize the piece and improve sourcing, but this does seem an encyclopedic topic, in my opinion. Yes, it's pop culture fan cruft. We should embrace pop culture fan cruft, it's part of what makes Wikipedia an invaluable resource. Carrite (talk) 01:13, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are plenty of relevant sources available, many not yet added of course. Searching "cuckoo clock" + "metaphor" is worthwhile, turning up such sources as this, this, this, and this to mention just a few. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:31, 21 October 2011 (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.