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, both articles. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:06, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of development hell projects (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

List of films in development hell (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This list is entirely subjective. It will always violate WP:NPOV. The list doesn't even specify inclusion criteria, but even if it did, it would be an WP:NPOV issue. • If an author writes a book on development hell projects, and that book becomes notable, that book can have an article. If multiple such books exist, we might have a list of books on the topic of development hell. But making that call ourselves will always be a POV judgment. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 15:06, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete the name itself indicates its POV status. this is not a defined term, and covers too much territory. also, how long should something be in development before qualifying? announcement of something in development can be a purely promotional gesture, or it can have real money behind it, but face legit snags, or it can be caught up in business politics. the list would have to include all projects ever in development hell (how about the oxford english dictionary?). if its just current projects, it needs to be deleted. i would encourage people passionate about this subject to simply keep each projects regular article updated with sourced material. i dont see any way to rescue this article. (how about List of films in development hell?Mercurywoodrose (talk) 15:30, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge some of the more representative cases into Development hell, which recently passed an AfD; delete the rest. Hairhorn (talk) 16:43, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as inherently OR. Not every project that was delayed is inherently in development hell. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 18:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- TexasAndroid (talk) 18:37, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I added List of films in development hell which is basically the same thing. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 19:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep both and move the titles to something nicer. The films article is rather well sourced, and "development hell" is a trade term. The article about projects is a tougher sell, but the main problem that I see in lists that leads to all the POV objections is the use of the phrase "development hell" in the title of the article. Particularly with regard to films, production problems and cost overruns are notable enough that they get coverage by independent and verifiable sources. Is the implied comparison to fire and brimstone a bit too drastic? Then refer to the developmental problems as something that doesn't include the word "hell"... Mandsford (talk) 01:26, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • What would be the inclusion criteria? The reason I nominated these lists is that they just scream POV and original research. Say the new title is "Movies with development problems". Every movie has problems (ain't nothing easy in this world). "Movies with serious problems"? How do we define "serious"? You get the idea. Wikipedia must be (1) objective and (2) derived from other sources. While I'm sure there are sources that say "film X is in trouble", without an objective criteria that all sources follow, I don't see how we can use it. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 02:40, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment (as creator of the articles) both the articles were originally spun-off from Development hell, which was at the time was a bit of a mess. I've no strong opinion as to whether the articles should be kept or deleted, on coming back to it 18 months later, I'd tend slightly towards delete. Paulbrock (talk) 02:10, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete both. WP:NOT indiscrimate list that will never be complete, and will always rely on WP:POV. Niteshift36 (talk) 21:35, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete basically as original research, the sourcing basically describes describes the development of projects, few of them mention anything about development hell. Effectively the article is something like "List of projects that have been proposed or under are development and haven't progressed as far as would typically be expected", I don't see how that can be transformed into anything that is neutral and free of original research unless an external reliable source releases such a list. Guest9999 (talk) 17:25, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. —PC78 (talk) 11:22, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep all The nomination wonders if there's a book on the topic. Here's one devoted to nothing else and there seem to be plenty more sources. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:11, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Correction: The nomination does not wonder if there are books on the topic. The nomination states that if there are books, and the books are notable, the books deserve an article. Whether or not such books exist is irrelevant to the nomination. • The issue is that I (and others, obviously) do not think it is possible to treat the matter of "which projects are in development hell?" without running into problems with neutrality and/or original research. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 21:56, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• It is irrelevant what you and the nominator think of the difficulties of the topic. The test of WP:N is whether third party authors have written about it. If they have, then this demonstrates that the topic exists and that we have material to summarise. The existence of a complete book on the subject is prima facie evidence of this and so is very relevant. Colonel Warden (talk) 06:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

i dont think anyone questions the notability of the subject. its the inherent POV of this article. i would welcome an article on the book cited, with summary of each project mentioned in the book. and if multiple titles, then a whole article on development hell projects as referenced in those books. that would be static information, NPOV if summarized well. I would also welcome anybodys attempt to show how this current material could be made NPOV. im stumped. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 07:53, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is no special POV problem with this topic. Numerous topics are difficult to define exactly. Consider Hell, for example, for which there are numerous POVs and few definite facts. This does not stop us writing about the topic - we just take good care over sourcing and the way we present the information. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:02, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the contents as they stand are reasonably NPOV. My main concern is that the criteria for deciding what to include in this article is inherently POV. unlike, say, a list of canceled film projects, or top grossers, or even films with gay actors (all of which could have points of contention, as would any list thats not mathematically defined by one parameter), the criteria for what is in dev hell is extremely variable. terence malick has taken years to get his films produced, but he seems to like that. for another film, a 2 month delay may be disastrous. its the vagueness of any inclusion criteria that makes this article hard to pin down. and i also agree that some articles are inherently contentious, but no one would argue that we shouldnt have an article on hell for this reason. i do think we can argue that this article shouldnt exist, at least in its current form. But ive said my piece, and i will try to let this process continue.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 17:05, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Colonel Warden: It seems like you're arguing that the concept of "Development hell" is notable and should have an article, because there are books on the subject. I agree completely! That article exists, and it is not part of this discussion. • This discussion is about two lists of other things which are "in development hell". The issue is WP:NPOV/WP:NOR for inclusion in these lists, not notability. There's no objective standard that other authors follow. So we, at Wikipedia, would have to decide which authors are right and which are wrong. • I suppose we could create a list of projects which a reliable source has called in development hell, but that's not what these lists are. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 01:24, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as POV/OR-laden content. Eusebeus (talk) 19:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• 'Delete both. The articles include no specific inclusion criteria, which are necessary to prevent them from being pure OR, nor are any available from reliable sources. We can and should have articles about amorphous concepts but they cannot be used to populate lists themselves. We need reliable sources for that and none are present in the article or have been adduced in this discussion. Eluchil404 (talk) 02:23, 27 June 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.