Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/G-flat (musical note): Difference between revisions

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I. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. II. This article consists of a series of unacceptable content forks in an attempt to define the term G-flat as a musical note. It collates information from several different articles: Scientific pitch notation, Helmholtz pitch notation, and several articles about scales.

III. It fails the basic test of “significant coverage in reliable sources“, because it is not trying to be a Wikipedia article. Instead, it is trying to define the note G-flat, which is not the point of this website. In its defense, the article only offers one measly source: an archived copy of a deceased professor’s personal webpage at Michigan Technological Universtiy [Suits, B. H. (1998). “Physics of Music Notes – Scales: Just vs Equal Temperament”. MTU.edu. Michigan Technological University. Archived from the original on 27 November 2023. Retrieved 5 February 2024.].

The article was created 17 years ago by User:Torc2. User:Spesh531 made the biggest contribution to its size. Neither editor created content that follows Wikipedia requirements to support text with reliable sources.

This article clearly does not belong on Wikipedia. As per the guidelines, I redirected the page to where it belongs: Musical note. User:Chorchapu disagreed with that action and restored the page. After consulting Chorchapu and other editors, I am following their advice and nominating this page for deletion.

For these three reasons, I am also nominating the following related pages:

The articles are all copies of each other. Most of these articles only cite Suits’ webpage. Notes like C and B-flat have a few other unserious sources to support trivial material.
Trumpetrep (talk) 03:36, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I think that these could be better sourced, so I’m not going to !vote until I’ve had the chance to do a proper WP:BEFORE search. But I would note that just because it has one measly source: an archived copy of a deceased professor’s personal webpage doesn’t make that source an unreliable one; it also doesn’t appear to be a personal webpage, but rather one published by MTU’s physics department.

I also disagree with the WP:NOTDICTIONARY argument, as they all go beyond definitions and they delve into the physics of the note, and some into their histories (such as at C (musical note) & G (musical note)). Nil🥝 05:22, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The physics of the note are part of its definition, and that material is already covered in other articles, which is why these are content forks. Trumpetrep (talk) 06:21, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Given the inherent similarity of all of these articles, could it be appropriate to redirect and/or merge them all to a single target, e.g. Diatonic scale or Musical note? I agree that there probably isn’t a lot that can usefully be said about individual notes; information like frequencies would be better presented as a single table than splitting it across 12+ articles. Omphalographer (talk) 18:10, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That was precisely my sense of it when I found these articles, Omphalographer. There is a table for all of these pitch frequencies at Scientific pitch notation. Trumpetrep (talk) 19:57, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

1) Wikipedia is an encyclopædia and this is clearly encyclopaedic material, not ”dictionary” content 2) presented as lists that are wp:OKFORK of other pages. So that none of the first two reasons advanced for deletion convinces me that this should be merged back into the mentioned articles (let alone deleted). Keep all. As for sourcing, sure, it can be done, wherever it’s needed but deletion is not cleanup.–~2026-66550-6 (talk) 00:40, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The “lists” link you cited concludes, “Too much statistical data is against policy.” That’s precisely what’s going on here with these vacuous subpages for individual notes. Trumpetrep (talk) 03:59, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No, quite the opposite; that’s why it is better to split data into various list pages. ~2026-66550-6 (talk) 09:46, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The bulk of these pages are lists of scales, clearly a violation of policy and not enough material to justify an article. There’s no meat on the bone here. Trumpetrep (talk) 16:12, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I vote to keep all. Having separate pages allows more flexibility in editing in case the scopes ever change. Also, the other language versions of Wikipedia generally have separate pages for each of these notes, and it would be odd if English Wikipedia is the odd one out and didn’t have these pages. Royal Cannon 2630 (talk) 07:49, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Keeping the pages in the hopes they’ll get better is not in line with Wikipedia’s policy. These pages have been around for 17 years and no one has bothered to improve them. The non-English versions of these pages are simply copies of these. Some are even more vacuous, without even bothering to cite a single source.

We should set an example for those sites by removing content that obviously violates policy.Trumpetrep (talk) 16:16, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

These are fixed concepts (and have been so for some time), and I don’t think the scope is likely to change, especially as it hasn’t much since the articles were created Two pieces of toast (talk) 17:55, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~ – The article imparts little to no information which is not already mentioned in other articles. In addition it references only one source. Redirect all – as per below. Could be helpful to have a redirect to a page which contains most of the same info in an acceptable & sourced manner. Two pieces of toast (talk) 18:00, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect all to Musical note. ApexParagon (talk) 02:00, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all for now. I think this deserves a wider discussion among editors at music wikiprojects rather than an AFD. There needs to be some sort of discussion among editors who write in this content area regularly about how to best present the material. I’m not convinced we need a page on each pitch either, but I am loathe to remove these pages without talking about it somewhere like WP:WikiProject Classical Music which tends to take on music theory stuff more than the other music projects. I note that this page does have some unique scale content. For example if you go to Jazz minor scale you won’t find the pitch series beginning with G flat as tonic, you have to go to the G flat musical note page to get the content. The scale comparisons are highly useful, and I personally wouldn’t want to see them chopped entirely from the encyclopedia. Obviously they might need to be housed in a different article, but again this is where talking about where to move content and how to organize it outside of AFD would be helpful. I don’t think taking these here was the best editorial choice.4meter4 (talk) 05:42, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Do you really think Wikipedia should have a dictionary of scales? Isn’t it sufficient to say what a Jazz minor scale is? It seems far outside the bounds of Wikipedia’s policies to include all the permutations of every scale.
It’s also worth noting that the Jazz minor scale is a mess in need of cleanup. Given how junk accretes on Wikipedia, it seems a better use of editors’ time to curate accurate articles that hew to the policies of the site. Trumpetrep (talk) 18:24, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: This doesn’t seem to be headed towards consensus, but it will be useful to get feedback to 4meter4‘s idea. Please ping me to close if this is indeed taken to a discussion at a relevant wikiproject, which is likely the best way forward.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Owen× ☎ 08:28, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all – seems to me that by conventional ways to assess notability, including coverage in reliable source, the topic is clearly notable. So then the problems identified are about editorial decisions on how to present the information. I agree with others that I can’t really make a comment on how that should be best addressed but AfD surely isn’t that venue. JMWt (talk) 10:56, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The lack of “coverage in reliable sources” is precisely why these articles were redirected. A defunct faculty page is not a reliable source, and it is the only source this page has cited for 17 years.Trumpetrep (talk) 18:27, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

ok we’ve heard you. Maybe talk to relevant wikiprojects? I don’t have anything else to say. JMWt (talk) 20:18, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant wikiprojects have left these pages withering for nearly a generation. At what point do we take editorial indifference as a given and delete pages that clearly violate Wikipedia’s policies? Trumpetrep (talk) 21:29, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all. Some editorial decisions need to be taken and AFD is the wrong venue for this. Thincat (talk) 11:37, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

What is the right venue? Trumpetrep (talk) 18:25, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Discussing how to provide this information somewhere is a good idea. These articles are a disaster. They manage to make something very simple look extraordinarily complicated while simultaneously drastically oversimplifying something very complicated. Basically they spend a lot of time giving no further information than the frequency of the note if you happen to be equally-tempered and starting from A=440Hz, while lazily sweeping the whole business of non-equal temperaments and situations where “enharmonic” notes aren’t enharmonic and G# actually differs from Ab under the carpet. The scales-starting-on section could be displayed in many much more helpful ways and I’m far from clear whether it’s wise to include the modal scales given that there are multiple different definitions of what “Phrygian” is, depending on whether you’re Greek, Medieval, or modern, and unless you’re modern, you wouldn’t have started on A-flat anyway, and your A-flat would have been somewhere different to where it is today. Elemimele (talk) 12:40, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all per 4meter4. The AfD is not suited for discussions on how to organize content about technical subjects that participants know very little about. Kelob2678 (talk) 20:56, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a discussion on how to organize content, though. It’s a discussion of a page that fails to meet basic policies that Wikipedia has in place to ensure the project meets its goals. Editors without specialized knowledge are even more valuable in this instance because they can see the forest for the trees. Trumpetrep (talk) 21:31, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Trumpetrep: please don’t try to moderate this discussion. Participants are eager to solve a content issue that may or may not involve deletion or redirecting. AfD may not be the best venue for editorial debates, but if this leads us to a consensus regarding the nominated pages, it was time well spent. Owen× ☎ 21:57, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help with this nomination, Owenx. Trumpetrep (talk) 22:34, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all per 4meter4’s arguments. Further, per WP:5P1, Wikipedia is also an almanach. — Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:29, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect all to Musical note. Redirection WP:PRESERVEs the content, such as it is, and if WikiProjects or other groups of editors wish to pick perceptible nuggets out from the dross for merging into new or existing articles, or even as the basis for a future re-creation (with the requisite sourcing in any case), everything will still be available in the articles’ history. As Elemimele says, These articles are a disaster, and it would be better not to have them hanging around in the encyclopedia in their current state. I would also support draftification or a move to a WikiProject’s space somewhere if an editor or group of editors wished to adopt them for more immediate fixup work. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 06:16, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect all. These articles indeed are a disaster and there is no reason to preserve them, no more than there would be any reason to create, say, separate articles for “one centimeter”, “two centimeters”, “three centimeters”, etc. Also, I wonder who would search “G-flat” on WP! — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 18:10, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 73: / Line 73: @@
 * ”’Redirect all”’ to [[:Musical note]]. Redirection [[WP:PRESERVE]]s the content, such as it is, and if WikiProjects or other groups of editors wish to pick perceptible nuggets out from the dross for merging into new or existing articles, or even as the basis for a future re-creation (with the requisite sourcing in any case), everything will still be available in the articles’ history. As Elemimele says, {{tq|These articles are a disaster}}, and it would be better not to have them hanging around in the encyclopedia in their current state. I would also support draftification or a move to a WikiProject’s space somewhere if an editor or group of editors wished to adopt them for more immediate fixup work. Cheers, [[User:SunloungerFrog|SunloungerFrog]] ([[User talk:SunloungerFrog|talk]]) 06:16, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
 * ”’Redirect all”’. These articles indeed are a disaster and there is no reason to preserve them, no more than there would be any reason to create, say, separate articles for “one centimeter”, “two centimeters”, “three centimeters”, etc. Also, I wonder who would search “G-flat” on WP! —  [[User:Hucbald.SaintAmand|Hucbald.SaintAmand]] ([[User talk:Hucbald.SaintAmand|talk]]) 18:10, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
+*”’Redirect all”’ to [[Musical note]]: reliable sources discuss individual pitches as part of broader music theory, not as standalone topics. These pages are reference material and better handled in an overview article. <span style=”color:#1f4e79; font-variant:small-caps; letter-spacing:0.07em; font-weight:700;”>[[User:HerBauhaus|HerBauhaus]]</span> · <span style=”font-weight:600;”>[[User talk:HerBauhaus|talk]]</span> 08:55, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

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