Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Halcyon days

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 redirect to Halcyon Days. This was a difficult decision to make, particularly because the keeps clearly outnumber the deletes/redirects. The main reason for deleting/redirecting is WP:DICDEF and WP:RS; an invalid reason was WP:UGLY. But from the keep arguments I am seeing the following: ad hominem, concern with bad precedent, WP:NOHARM, WP:INTERESTING, and WP:BHTT. Bearian and Ikip mentioned that the article was sourceable, but failed to list any actual ones (WP:LOTSOFSOURCES). King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Halcyon days

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This is merely an unreferenced dictionary entry, giving the meaning (poorly written and incorrect) and etymology of an English phrase that already exists in Wiktionary, as well as a list of "cultural references". And as we all know, such lists of trivia are discouraged on Wikipedia. Delete under WP:DICTIONARY, and create a redirect to the Halcyon Days disambig page, copying any of this article's worthy trivia items there. (I attempted a very limited redirect/merge with Halcyon Days, but it was reverted.) Bueller 007 (talk) 03:17, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment half the article is largely replicative of the dab page, couldn't you just WP:BOLDly redirect it as a dupe? 76.66.200.154 (talk) 06:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I did and it got reverted. I'm looking for wider opinion on the matter. (And I'm trying to set some precedent for the deletion of idioms from Wikipedia, since I've recently noticed that Wiki contains a lot of crap that really belongs in a dictionary, not an encyclopedia.) Bueller 007 (talk) 07:31, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete and redirect to Halcyon Days, per nominator. Armbrust ^Talk _Contribs 07:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect (although a delete is just as well I think) in that this is covered more succinctly in the disambiguation page, Halcyon Days, and in that there is no reason to have Halcyon days and Halcyon Days existing as two separate articles. The "Days" article includes a link to Wiktionary and some explanation for a term that people would consult an encyclopedia for. The mention of the myth is in the Wiktionary link, and I can live without the pop culture references. Surprisingly, no mention of the prescription sleep aid Halcion in the pop culture part, the brand name for the triazolam, first marketed under the halcyon like name for the calmness that it promised. Mandsford (talk) 14:06, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The nominator seems to be on a deletion spree without having established good precedent for the swathe of articles that he is attempting to delete in an intemperate way. This is third such I'm following up and I should really go to bed. As a token, consider Etymological information: can it help our students? which explains that "Thus blackbird needs no 'why' etymology, but a phrase such as halcyon days does. The need for 'why' etymologies is particularly strong in the case of idioms, whose relation as wholes to the sum of their parts is (almost by definition!) opaque. ... Thus halcyon days is described as...". More anon. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:53, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per WP:BEFORE and the Colonel. Again, I must stress that (a) such idioms are perfectly acceptable, and are commonly kept at Wikipedia, and (b) mass nominations are straining our ability to rescue even a few of these. I am currently working on Make a mountain out of a molehill, also nominated for deletion after very clear consensus two and a half years ago. We also have to deal with the threatened deletion of 60,000 BLPs in the next six months. Quite frankly, this sort of deletionist behavior is unfair. If you are going to nominate articles, at least do a Google scholar search first. Bearian (talk) 01:00, 29 January 2010 (UTC) BTW, the precedent is contrary to the nom; several AfDs have ended up as "keeps" in 2007-2008. This would make a terrible precedent, as a hard case in a difficult situation, and I am noting so for the record. Bearian (talk) 01:03, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep needs sourcing but that is something that can be provided, (maybe you could stubify the article, moving unsourced information to talk?) like the history of the word. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Halcyon_days is a mere stub compared to this, with little history of this colorful term Ikip 02:25, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and combine all these related AFDs together to save time. Nothing wrong with a common idiom having its own article. Dream Focus 06:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
'Keep The Wikt entry is terse and descriptive (per def), an encyclopedic entry could provide a rich decription including examples of historic and cultural usage of the term. Clear expansion potential, no reasno to delete. Power.corrupts (talk) 20:21, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect - Having two articles with the same name (outside of a single capped letter) is a just a mess. The Halcyon Days page is a reasonable Wikipedia disambig and gives all the info it should. Halcyon days, otoh, is just a large pile of trivia on top of a dicdef. Dori ❦ (Talk ❖ Contribs ❖ Review) ❦ 22:12, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep major idioms of this sort can be notable, and belong here. for there is more to say than wiktionary permits. If wiktionary were actually an encyclopedic dictionart, man things could go there, but it keeps its content very narrow. DGG ( talk ) 04:04, 3 February 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.