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. JForget 23:22, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Icons of American culture (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Looks like a pretty blatant example of original research to me, and some of the parts of it look unsalvageably POV ("Humvee: the coolest military vehicle ever."???). I doubt whether this could be turned into an encyclopedic articole, at least in its current format; the subject may be such that an encyclopedic subject could be written, but this ain't it. Grutness...wha? 10:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of this stuff was included in Americana, simply listing a wide variety of things without any content, and there they stayed for several years. I thought this was intesting but not very satisfactory, so collected images to start fleshing out the subject, intending to contribute to that article. Quickly realised it belongs somewhere else completely, hence this stub article, and a severe trim at Americana. I'm well aware how sketchy this is so far which is why I've asked for views, but the sources do support what I've started, it's not just POV - and hardly original. The gallery format is temporary, a way to outline the subject until there's a decent paragraph for each topic, and no doubt those themes would reorganise where some prove fruitful and others not. Maybe I should have developed it more before going live. Hold on and see how it develops? ProfDEH (talk) 13:14, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Delete Completely subjective article. More of an opinion essay that doesn't even rise to the level of original research. KevinOKeeffe (talk) 12:33, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Simply a series of pictures and POV comments. As KevinOKeeffe pointed out, this article's choices of "icons" is entirely subjective and based on its original creator's opinion of what the "Icons of America" are. Doc Strange^MailboxLogbook 13:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Actually it would be fairly cool on its own website, blog, etc. but doesn't belong in an encyclopedia which is supposed to be about facts, not someone's opinions and feelings. Steve Dufour (talk) 15:35, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete: Per WP:OR. Joe Chill (talk) 15:43, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete This "article" is very silly and it has nothing to do with its title. Mrs. Wolpoff (talk) 19:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I still think the subject has a lot of potential to be a good article. I really don't know if articles are expected to appear fully-fledged, and I've just made this public way too early.

In response to specific criticisms: random examples - yes, there is just one example for each theme, I discarded other examples to get a consist format, until there is a concise overview of each topic and a reasonably representative selection of examples. POV - yes some of the captions were hastily written, I've edited out the silliest bits now. It's not an easy subject to approach objectively, not like Architectural Drawing for example - clearly more rigor required. Original research - I can only assert that the references support the idea of iconic status. Format: the gallery is not ideal but I wanted to start with some images to encourage contributions and discussion. I obviously want to get this to an normal Wikipedia article format as soon as possible. Unless it's deleted, which look extremely likely. Anyway I've added references and cut out POV as far as possible, to show serious intent. ProfDEH (talk) 21:43, 5 August 2009 (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.