Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of sex symbols (4th nomination)

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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 delete. Numerically, we're at 11 keep to 19 delete in my count, which is close to a 2:1 majority for deletion.

In terms of arguments, Cunard has made a strong (if overlong) case to show that this is indeed a classification of people reflected and discussed in reliable sources. Any strong argument for deletion would therefore need to be something other than non-notability.

The "delete" side does make such an argument: in their view, there are no clear inclusion criteria because almost every celebrity has been called a sex symbol by somebody at some point. Cunard rewrote the list during the AfD to attempt to address this argument, but many people subsequently wrote that they do not think that this resolves the problem of fans re-adding their favorite celebrity based on low-quality sources.

While we are fond of saying that AfD is not cleanup, I am ultimately convinced that the "delete" side's argument that the lack of consensus about inclusion criteria prevents us from writing a high-quality list with this title is a strong one. Together with the "delete" side's numerical majority, I am satisfied that we have rough consensus for deletion until there is a solid consensus among interested editors for establishing inclusion criteria. To establish such consensus, the article can be draftified or userfied, and if such consensus can be established, the article can be restored. Sandstein 08:13, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Deletion requires steward permissions; I have made the required request. Sandstein 08:17, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

List of sex symbols

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List of sex symbols (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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This list serves no encyclopedic purpose and should be deleted. It exemplifies everything that's broken with the way people have been applying the

list notability guidelines
in deletion discussions in order to keep garbage like this. It is an affront to all that is good and holy about Wikipedia.

Not again. The line must be drawn here. This far. No further!

Even if "Sex symbol" is a topic worthy of an article, it does not follow that a list like this is. A puff piece in the entertainment section of a newspaper that hypes Actor X or Actress Y as a "sex symbol" is no basis for inclusion into a list. That's not a reliable source. There are no reliable sources for something like this. Maybe you could convince me that a good scholarly study in a sociology journal could pass muster. But that's not what this list is, nor what it ever has been, nor what it ever would be. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 02:48, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 02:48, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 02:50, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Per NOT. Attempts to strengthen the inclusion criteria has gotten nowhere. Judging from the references, being a "sex symbol" is almost a requirement for a broad swath of the entertainment industry, and a commonly used label by publicists. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 03:08, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    To clarify, the approach we're taking just results in a list of people promoted as a "sex symbol", which is a fairly indiscriminate label when it comes to publicity. There may be a related, encyclopedic, article that we could create with a similar topic, if we can focus on historical significance rather than routine publicity. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 17:01, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, but drastically trim (Bela Lugosi???). Inclusion should require near-universal acknowledgement (e.g. Marilyn Monroe) by respected sources, not the opinion of some random writer. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:07, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep we shouldn't downplay the citations listed above that discuss sex symbols in detail. Also, the nominator's comments on keeping "garbage like this" and that the page "serves no encyclopedic purpose and should be deleted" are thinly veiled WP:IDONTLIKEIT points. The purpose of this page is to show that there are various people that society/the media has found sexy, though some admittedly are more famous for this distinction than others. While the article might not be perfect, AFD isn't supposed to be a place for cleanup. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 12:53, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    This list cannot be cleaned up. I called it garbage because it is garbage. I don't like it. It's unencyclopedic garbage, and we should delete unencyclopedic garbage. Not again. The line must be drawn here. This far. No further! –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:24, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Personal taste is irrelevant to whether something warrants an article. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 15:19, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@SNUGGUMS: My concerns are that: 1) The purpose of the page is to list people promoted with the label "sex symbol" which can apply to anyone with enough publicity behind them. 2) A "List of people notable for being sex symbols across multiple decades", or something similar where historical significance is clear, might be encyclopedic, but that's a different article entirely. Could you address these two concerns? (Apologies if they already are to some extent in your lengthy commentary). --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 16:55, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
1. From what I can remember, there was a point where somebody tried to limit citation use to those that specifically said "sex symbol" and not just synonyms (which may have at least partially been an attempt to avoid overfilling the page). Promotion of labels did not appear to be a concern as long as we kept our own personal views out (i.e. not saying we found one person sexier than another or that someone didn't deserve to be called sexy) and precise descriptions were used by a credible publication and the article accurately reflected what scholars/the press had written. 2. Using something like "notable for" in an article title is inappropriate POV and editorializing. A better idea might be splitting this into subpages for decades as that would give clear and neutral criteria plus could be easier to manage. See Lists of people on the United States cover of Rolling Stone and its listed subpages for an example of what I mean. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 18:03, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid I was unable to convey my concerns, as that response doesn't address either. Additional information in an attempt to clarify:
1) Because "sex symbol" is used fairly indiscrimately, we have ended up simply echoing publicity campaigns rather than present information that belongs in an encyclopedia.
2) You appear to dismiss this concern based upon the title I gave that served as an example, while completely ignoring the purpose: to stress historical significance. It's how we should separate WP:SOAP from clearly encyclopedic content. Further, I'm saying any such change in inclusion criteria will be a different article. I also am suggesting we indicate the tighter inclusion criteria in the title itself, to avoid SPA editors from repeating what they've done with the current article. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 18:31, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies for how that didn't help your concerns. Regarding the first point, I was saying that issues over promoting labels didn't seem to be problematic, at least when I was editing this article ages ago. Not sure how to filter out the worthy inclusions from the unworthy ones now when there's currently over 1,400 citations (substantially more than I ever remember seeing in the past). As for the second point, I knew what your purpose was, I just object to the proposed title suggestion. Any new inclusion criteria should probably be established within prose. I admittedly can't think of a good way to do that at the moment or how to appropriately convey it in the article title. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 22:25, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A person is typically included in a list of people only if all the following requirements are met:
• The person meets the Wikipedia notability requirement.
• The person's membership in the list's group is established by reliable sources.

All entries are notable enough to have their own article, and all of them are called "sex symbols" by reliable sources. Editors of the page have already reinforced inclusion criteria by requiring two citations for each entry, and I would agree that we should further tighten our standards by banning anecdotal mentions, jokes, puff pieces, and third-rate sources. That's a worthy discussion for the talk page, not AfD. — JFG talk 22:10, 24 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I'm sorry, but I no longer see the purpose of a list like this. Plus, overall, I think the list of sex symbols, particularly the 2000s and 2010s sections, is just too long. Mr. Brain (talk) 14:29, 26 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete/TNT Massive list does not serve a useful purpose to the reader. While the sources provided above could well contribute to the Sex symbol article or a selective list that provides deeper discussion about a limited number of the best known sex symbols, this is merely a indiscriminate list of attractive celebrities. Why do many people become celebrities? Because they're sexually attractive to some people – not that many ugly people make it big in showbusiness. Countless more celebs around the world have modeled or played a role in a romantic film or whatever else that makes them sex symbols, a term clearly used very broadly, and such a catalogue of any pop culture news article that uses the term does not make a distinguishing characteristic. If you don't want to ignore "citations listed above that discuss sex symbols in detail" then freaking use them in detail, not as an unencyclopedically context-free, overly broad bullet-point list. Reywas92Talk 20:12, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per JFG. RadioDemon (talk) 16:56, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete on the basis of TNT. This needs to be nuked from orbit and rewritten in a way that identifies only people who are clearly described as sex symbols but MULTIPLE RS. Not one off mentions in teenbop "omg look at these sex symbols!" It needs to be a defining characteristic and right now this list is so trivial and indiscriminate it's useless. Praxidicae (talk) 18:24, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, digging through this in an attempt to clean it up, it's also a massive blp vio but if for some insane reason this listcruft is kept, it should be moved to it's correct name which would be A list of anyone who has ever been referred to a sex symbol on the internet. Praxidicae (talk) 19:04, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
List of HOTTIES, List of Google search results for "sex symbol", [[List of famous folks some rando tabloid writer found attractive (but we're not gonna give you context about any of them, mostly because there isn't any as this has apparently become a meanless phrase applied in passing to anyone conventionally attractive [or not, just popular])]] Reywas92Talk 21:18, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Primefac (talk) 18:58, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete (or rename per Praxidicae's suggestion) - overly broad list based on subjective labels too commonly applied to be of any encyclopedic value. edit 30 Jun 20:22, to add: After Cunard's added edits to the article, my view is still delete per reasoning aptly stated below by Rhododendrites and Reywas92. Just adding this clarification to show that I'm aware of the changes in the article since I first posted, but that I still stand by my opinion. Schazjmd (talk) 22:13, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. This article is a disaster. In principle, if editors here took sourcing requirements seriously, this could be done, but practically speaking it can't, and so we have 400k of stuff, much of which drivel sourced to this or that tabloid. And Praxidicae's point about the BLP should be taken seriously as well, given the paucity of the sources. Drmies (talk) 22:17, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Ahecht ("Virtually every celebrity today has a puff piece or two calling them a sex symbol, and trying to narrow it down to people "primarily known for being a sex symbol" or other stronger criteria ends up being too subjective, so we're heading towards a list of every celebrity who was under 40 years old at some point") and Staszek Lem. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:02, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just make the article better: It makes me sad that the excellent work that Cunard did above may end up as an archived AfD discussion and not actually added to the vastly under-written sex symbol article. All of the time and energy spent in this discussion should be put to use improving the existing article/s. I don't think it matters whether this ends up as one article or two. This is obviously a notable subject with historical and sociological significance. Just make the article better. — Toughpigs (talk) 03:19, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The consensus that is building here is that the label "sex symbol" is too subjective for a Wikipedia list, unlike, say,
    POV nature, especially when unsourced or poorly sourced. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 05:59, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Keep: Cunard's new version is a huge step forward, well done. This is an area of real interest in the history of culture and entertainment, and deserves to be taken seriously. I think that we'll have to find the right balance for what kind of coverage is suitable to support these entries. Obviously, someone being called a "sex symbol" for the purposes of a magazine cover story is not serious; the writers are exaggerating in order to write an eye-catching article. On the other hand, I think Ahecht's proposed standard that the writer has to have a Wikipedia page is too restrictive; we don't require that for reliable sources on any other article. I think that published books like the ones that Cunard quotes above can be good sources. One possible standard is that the person is discussed as a "sex symbol" (not just in a list) in multiple published books/journal articles. Elizabeth Taylor is discussed in five of the sources that Cunard excerpted, and there's undoubtedly more discussion in published biographies and works of film criticism. But these standards can be worked out through editing and discussion, not as part of an AfD discussion. — Toughpigs (talk) 17:48, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There has already been lots of such editing and discussion over the years (including the proposal to require multiple sources), see the talk page archives. We are here because this has consistently failed. Regards, HaeB (talk) 02:13, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The reason to require a notable writer is that calling someone a sex symbol is inherently subjective, and we have to be very careful about what opinions we're presenting as fact (by including them in a list definitively naming them as sex symbols) about living people. It provides a clear bright-line, unlike other vague terms such as "reputable sources", and allows for easier sorting through the thousands of entries that this page would quickly grow to otherwise. The alternative is that we go back to having dozens of edit requests per day to add to the article, and people reviewing those edit requests will quickly get burnt out and not do their due diligance, or renaming the article to something like List of people considered sex symbols to make it clear that we're presenting some people's opinion. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:08, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - So with the new, shorter version, what is the remaining reason for retaining this as a stand-alone article? Not only is a smaller list a sensible inclusion at the main sex symbol article, but Cunard has done us the favor of using primarily prose. This seems clearly more at home in a main article. I still see this AfD as supporting a "this shouldn't be a stand-alone article" regardless of whether there's a merge. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:53, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you Cunard for your TNT of the article! I concur with Rhododendrites that this still does not need to be a separate page. Sex symbol is practically a stub, and short details about some of the best-known sex symbols can go there. I will still say that there are a lot of people known for being attractive and capitalizing on their appeal – that's kind of how celebrity works – and even limiting the list to those with more in-depth discussion in reliable sources is unsustainable. Just pick a top handful perhaps to show the cultural position of bombshells over time, illustrating what it actually means that the public is captivated by sexiness, but not as a list that attempts to be comprehensive. Reywas92Talk 20:07, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that's a good-faith way to respond to the page's improvement. Cunard has set forth a starting point to revamp the page in a more serious, well-sourced way, which answers the basic criticisms of the original page. What I'm hearing is essentially, "hey, great work, now delete what you've done, and let's forget about it." — Toughpigs (talk) 21:03, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Not at all. I interpret it as "hey, great work, now merge it into Sex symbol since it is so prose-heavy that it doesn't make much sense as a stand-alone list. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:14, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's a good start, but includes 9/10 people on the original list who were pre-1900, taking quotations from the sources starting at the top. I guess it's hard to compare since obviously this term is used retroactively for these folks, and perhaps with more candor than how much it's thrown around for the current celebs, but addressing my concerns that the list is "context-free" and "bullet-point" doesn't necessarily address "overly broad". So this is excellent for a limited number but can still get out of control since a fraction of the original 1000+ names is still huge and not going to be useful to a reader. Depends who would put in that work and how "in-depth" is defined... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reywas92 (talk • contribs) 21:31, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - vague and subjective. IWI (chat) 18:28, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – I support Cunard's bold initiative. A list with detailed analysis of how and why a person has been considered a sex symbol of their era is a much better encyclopedic way of approaching the subject matter. I would be happy to contribute to expansion of the list with other instances. Regarding the potential merge into the main Sex symbol article, I think it's too soon to decide. I think the list will easily get expanded to 100–200 entries, and that would be a bit heavy for the main article. However we should definitely expand the main article with citations to some of the better in-depth sources that are being surfaced in this discussion. — JFG talk 21:13, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete While Cunard has done a good job of cleaning it up, I fear this list is going to be blp problematic for eternity. Also, the idea that someone says "xyz is a sex symbol", even if the source be reliable, and we then go ahead and add them to the list is sketchy at best. Add to this the fact that the term itself is ill-defined and subjective (for example, what if one article blares "sex symbol" and another yells "plain Jane", do they cancel each other out?). --regentspark (comment) 22:51, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re-Delete, just as it was deleted in 2006. This is an inherently subjective list; and there is and cannot be a criterion for whether an individual is a "sex symbol". This unencylopedic list can never be more than what it is now, a list of persons that some published writer (often just a headline writer) somewhere has used the term "sex symbol" (often ironically) to describe. TJRC (talk) 00:05, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Standalone article

    I agree with JFG (talk · contribs) that "I think the list will easily get expanded to 100–200 entries, and that would be a bit heavy for the main article. However we should definitely expand the main article with citations to some of the better in-depth sources that are being surfaced in this discussion." I have added nine more entries to the list (there are now 18 entries in total). The latest additions are from the 1900s to 1920s section of the list's previous version.

    Inclusion criteria is not subjective or vague

    The article's inclusion criteria is not subjective or vague. It meets the selection criteria at Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Lists of people by including only notable people who have received substantial coverage in high quality reliable sources about why they are considered sex symbols.

    It is fine for sources to conflict

    RegentsPark asked, "for example, what if one article blares 'sex symbol' and another yells "plain Jane", do they cancel each other out?" If the source that calls the person a sex symbol is a high quality reliable source that provides in-depth discussion of why that person is considered a sex symbol, then yes, the selection criteria would include the person. It is fine for Wikipedia articles to rely on subjective reliable sources as long as Wikipedia editors themselves are not being subjective.

    Regarding the source that calls the person a "plain Jane": The source should be included only if it has in-depth discussion of why the person should not be considered a sex symbol. Otherwise, the source is not relevant for use in a sex symbols list. A "plain Jane" could still be considered a sex symbol, so it would be original research to make the assumption that a plain Jane is not a sex symbol. Here is an example to illustrate the point:

    Example of someone with a facial wart who is still considered a sex symbol

    "The example of the greatest sex symbol classical music has ever produced - Franz Liszt - shows that looks are hardly the most important thing. True, Liszt was mesmerisingly good-looking when young ... But, 30 years later, Liszt had a facial wart to rival Oliver Cromwell's, and was routinely dressed in an abbé's vestments. Yet he still fascinated women (and not elderly ones either). One of his admirers disguised herself as a man to pursue him across Europe."

    This complies with
    WP:BLP, the revised list currently contains only dead people. To address the BLP and promotion concerns, the list's selection criteria could be tightened to allow additions of only dead people who received in-depth coverage from posthumous reliable sources about how they are sex symbols. I think excluding living people would be too restrictive, so another way to tight the inclusion criteria would be to adopt the suggestion by Atlantic306 (talk · contribs): only include "people who have been considered as sex symbols by reliable sources over a period of time say perhaps ten years so that temporary promotional descriptions of sex symbols would not be enough for inclusion".

    The list's inclusion criteria is a content matter and can be discussed on the article's talk page. Deletion should be considered a last resort if the BLP concerns cannot be addressed, which they have been.

    Cunard (talk) 11:59, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply

    ]

  • Delete per Ahecht and Staszek Lem. To add another perspective:
Since 2008, I have been trying to do my share to curate this list and make it work. (I'm only #11 by number of edits, but might be near the top by number of reverts.) I too thought at some point that the problem could be solved with enforcing sourcing requirements more strictly and defining inclusion criteria, but these attempts have consistently failed. This makes the "keep" votes above that basically go "but, but, this time it will really work, trust me, and if not, we could try X, Y and Z" very unconvincing. 18 years is long enough for this experiment.
While I appreciate the TNT attempt, augmenting the list with mini articles/essays about the sex-symbolness of each entry creates its own problems, and the format is unlikely to be maintained for long - editors have already started to add entries without that extra text. Also, it will likely just get reverted anyway to the old format after this AfD closes.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:03, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment now that it has been turned into a well referenced list with prose descriptions the reasons for deletion seem to have been countered and we should certainly not delete articles because of disruptive editing, page protection is the answer to that problem. The reliable sources coverage shows the article passes
    WP:LISTN and with a sensible inclusion criteria such as only permitting entries that have been classed as sex symbols by reliable sources over a span of say ten years would avoid celebrity pr coverage from expanding the list unnecessarily. Such an inclusion criteria would prevent the page being expanded too much. Finally criticising the prose such as mini-essays is not correct as this is the sort of prose that is included in featured lists so is totally acceptable. Overall then I can't see a policy based reason for deletion remaining that is valid in any way, in my opinion, Atlantic306 (talk) 21:53, 3 July 2020 (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.
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