Wikipedia:TenPoundHammer's Law
If the name and track order of a future album are not yet known, the album is very likely to have its page deleted from Wikipedia.
Pages of this sort usually take the naming convention "[name of artist]'s [nth] studio album". There are occasional exceptions to this law, as sometimes a future album will contain enough verifiable information for a decent article even if the title is not known.[1] But if all you can do is look into a crystal ball or base your information off rumors posted to message boards, blogs, or Facebook, then it's best not to create a page on the album until you've got something more to say. Wikipedia isn't going anywhere; it's not going to hurt you to wait.[2] And if that wasn't enough, exacerbating the issue even more is that if the article is nominated for deletion, performing the relevant pre-checks for sources online is made extremely difficult by the fact that, by definition, no genuine search term exists.
This also applies to discographies; please try to refrain from listing "TBD" in a list of the band's albums, unless of course the album is actually called "TBD".[3] Again, it won't hurt you to wait.
Other applications
By extension, TenPoundHammer's law can also refer to any future subject for which a name is not yet known and no verifiable information from reliable sources yet exists.[4] This might include "future" video games,[5] movies, computer hardware, consoles, books, DVDs, software and other types of media and products. It can even apply to a future band whose name and final members aren't known,[6] proposed constitutions,[7] or professional sports teams that do not know what league they will play in.[8] It could also apply to speculation about potential or theoretical, but undiscovered, chemicals.[9]
Footnotes
- ^ For example, In Rainbows by Radiohead had a fully fledged article before its name was announced, because the page already contained sufficient sourced information for an article. Similarly, Chinese Democracy by Guns N' Roses had sufficient content to warrant an article years before a track listing was finalized.
- ^ Also consider the fact that arguments like "everybody knows it will be put out soon" or "this is going to be [name of artist]'s biggest album", or worst of all, "you just hate [name of artist], don't you?" don't hold water.
- ^ One of many examples here
- ^ Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wii 2 is the first deletion discussion to cite this essay beyond the scope of albums.
- ^ In particular those which have not even started their funding campaign
- ^ Yes, that actually happened; see this comment
- ^ Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Next constitution of Zimbabwe
- ^ See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carolina Silverhawks
- ^ See the discussions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nitrofullerenes and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ununoctium fluoride.