Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Xanadu (colour)

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 no consensus. Stifle (talk) 09:03, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Xanadu (colour)

This is only one of a large number of articles, each devoted to a single color on a color chart that I suspect is not notable belonging to a website that I suspect is not notable, xona.com. Is it even clear that the whole list would merit an article on Wikipedia, let alone squandering a whole page on every color on the chart? How does one submit a whole batch of pages for deletion discussion at once? Largo Plazo (talk) 04:59, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am also nominating the following articles for the same reason. There are many more; at the moment, this is as far as I've gotten with tagging them with the afd1 template:

Some of them are arbitrary names. Others are commonly used names, but they have been assigned to a point on the color wheel as though they have an exact definition that they don't possess, outside of an arbitrary (and subjective) color naming system that may assign them as such. WP:NOR seems to apply too.

Here's an example of the attitude that has gone into the use of Wikipedia to imply that these color names are somehow official: in the article on Zinnwaldite (color), it says

In the 1960s the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) marketed zinnwaldite colored telephones for offices and homes. However, they described the color as "beige." It is therefore common for many people to refer to the color zinnwaldite as "beige."

The implication is that "zinnwaldite" is objectively speaking the "real" name for this color, and people say the phones are "beige" only because AT&T flouted the "real" term and used "beige" instead—as though otherwise people would naturally have called the color "zinnwaldite". In general, these articles represent an attempt to create specific definitions that don't already, objectively speaking, exist.

Unfortunately, there are also many color articles that began with and/or now contain material that is actually notable information about the color (see Baby blue, for example) but that have been adulterated with these subjective color name assignments. —Largo Plazo (talk) 12:37, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I acknowledge that some related articles are about colors whose specific values were defined at the outset, such as Mountbatten pink. However, what that means is: A specific color was selected for a specific purpose, and it has been given, or has acquired, a name associated with that selection. It doesn't mean that that name is in any sense an official name for that color. —Largo Plazo (talk) 13:18, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The instructions on nominating a bunch of articles is at WP:BUNDLE (also at WP:Afd). Clarityfiend (talk) 05:55, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: The colour Xanadu is named after a specific identifiable physical object, the leaves of the Xanadu plant. Obviously the vast majority of the colors on the Xona.com Color List do not deserve to have their own articles because they are purely arbitrary names and none of them in fact so far have their own article, contrary to what you have stated. Only those colors on the list that are based on specific physical objects suchs as plants, flowers, minerals, etc. and that match the colors of these objects as identified from other sources should have their own articles. This article on the colour Xanadu meets that criterion. Keraunos (talk) 05:07, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This color name site, Name That Color: is very popular and includes most of the Web colors, some Wikipedia color list colors, the Crayola crayon colors, and the Xona.com Color List(Resene Paint Colors): all on a single list of more than 1500 colors. There is also an HSV color wheel on which you can move a cursor around, get a slice of the color wheel at that point, and find out which of the codes on of the colors on the list is to the color you have chosen. Keraunos (talk) 05:19, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can't for the life of me see how the name associated with some shade on some color chart is more notable than the name associated with some other shade just because it's the name of a real-life object while the other is completely made up. Besides that, more of the text of this article is about the plant than about the color that's supposed to be the article's topic!

As for the cool things that can be done on the website: they aren't pertinent to the issue at hand. —Largo Plazo (talk) 05:30, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is pertinent because the Name That Color website Name That Color: gets 12,000 hits on Google which shows that it is in fairly wide use, and most of the colors on it are from the Xona.com Color List. [1] . Keraunos (talk) 10:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Well-known colors (e.g. Kelly green) don't get their own articles, much less those few people have ever heard of. Xona.com, the originator of these "colors", hasn't even established its own notability. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote most of the original color article on Kelly Green as a separate article, but another editor merged it and a lot of the other articles about the minor green colors into an article I had previously created called Variations of green to cover only the major, not the minor shades of green.

Original Kelly Green article when it was separate: Keraunos (talk) 11:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Only the most basic color names like red, yellow, green, blue, and magenta are abstract names. Most color names are based on physical objects. Examples include orange (based on the orange), violet (based on the violet), Purple (originally from the secretion of a mollusk), Indigo, rose (based on the rose), and cerise (based on the cherry--cerise is the French word for cherry). Therefore it is perfectly normal and standard to base the name of a color on a physical object as is the case in the Xanadu (colour) article. Keraunos (talk) 05:55, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody here has said otherwise. —Largo Plazo (talk) 11:37, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Non-notable regional color. Even if it is to be kept it should be on some sort of shades / variations of grey page and combined with some of the other stubbed / small grey articles (such as Arsenic (color), Charcoal (color), etc...) similar to what was done with the greens. PaleAqua (talk) 07:07, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - The above delete is for Xanadu (color), I'll update my comment later on the others. PaleAqua (talk) 13:08, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep for Variations of pink. Delete / merge for the rest of the articles. Davy's grey: notability not established, though I'd did find some sources when searching going as far back as quoting something from 1896. Arsenic: not notable. Charcoal: color is not notable, though use of charcoals in art is but covered in the main article. Zinnwaldite: I've not been able to find any non-wikipedia sources for this name as a color, though I'm sure I've heard a similar color name before. Xanadu: see my comments above. As for variations of pink, similar to Variations of green, etc, is it meant to house colors that have some notability but not enough for there own article. PaleAqua (talk) 14:22, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete It doesn't seem like an encyclopedia article type topic to me. I would have never thought that WP would have an article on any color. Northwestgnome (talk) 11:05, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Pardon, but how doesn't this pass notability guidelines? For Xanadu and Charcoal (I didn't check the others), we have two good-looking sources each for the colour itself. If we want to argue that individual colour shades aren't significant enough for their own articles, we shouldn't seek to delete properly-sourced ones — that's the purpose of merging. Nyttend (talk) 13:19, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What objective sources? With authority to dictate names for colors, to say "This is what this color name refers to, and it doesn't refer to any other shade"? In the case of charcoal, the notion is preposterous. Charcoal—both natural charcoal and charcoal used in drawing—Largo Plazo (talk) 13:24, 20 September 2008 (UTC)comes in a variety of shades. There is no non-POV basis for declaring it to refer to a single shade. —Largo Plazo (talk) 13:24, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's one of the problems with providing coordinates for colors that are not part of some standard is that it strongly implies that their is one particular color for any name. PaleAqua (talk) 14:22, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

STRONG MERGE ALL Merge all gray shades to variations of gray, all pink shades to variations of pink, etc. Individual types of colors do not have the notability or references to sustain so many short articles. Reywas92 ^Talk 21:03, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At least that, yes, but that wouldn't eliminate a couple of the problems—(1) the issue of color terms that are pure inventions and as such only mean what some self-designated person or small group says they mean, and (2) color names in popular use such as "charcoal" and "baby blue" cover a range of shades, and the association of each of them with a single set of color coordinates is a completely subjective and arbitrary assignment with no basis in actual usage. Both of these points boil down to the same thing: Wikipedia articles aren't supposed to declare terms to have meanings that they don't have. —Largo Plazo (talk) 22:55, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep for Charcoal, and Keep for the others. The color designation is very widely used for garments and other objects. A search for charcoal clothing on Google news gives 392 items, about half of which are relevant. [2]. "Charcoal suit" as a phrase gave 10. [3]." In at least a few of them the color is specified as being of significance in some manner. "charcoal-colored" gave 9 in GN, and an additional 225 in Google Scholar, 638 in Google Books, for a wide variety of types of objects. There are dozens of similar phrases to check for additional hits. As for the other colors, I suspect they might find at least a few such references. I don't see that anyone above even looked at all, and are just arguing about what ought to be included without actually checking for sources. DGG (talk) 23:16, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikipedia is not a dictionary." There is no argument that some of these terms don't exist or aren't used. Even with respect to them, one of the issues I've brought forward is whether any of them merits an article in Wikipedia as opposed to, at most, a dictionary. As for the ones like zinnwaldite and Xanadu: instead of suspecting that they might be used, the relevant question in an AfD is, I believe, is to replace suspicion one way or another with verification. Is zinnwaldite, in any notable sense, a color, and if so, then as a color, is there anything notable about it—is there anything worth observing about it—and can it legitimately be defined as narrowly as has been done? —Largo Plazo (talk) 00:53, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep they are all physical colors of the spectrum. How are they any more notable then say blue or purple? Tavix (talk) 13:07, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is Xanadu a color? Is zinnwaldite a color? As I noted, someone just made them up. As for the others, as I noted, someone made up the precise definitions given for them. Wikipedia is not for things made up one day. As for relative notability, is something called "Davy's gray" really as notable as "red"? The same question could be asked about integers. Is 31,472 as notable as 7? Should there be an article about 31,472 just because it's a genuine integer? —Largo Plazo (talk) 13:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All numbers are notable. ;) ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:25, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge. Walk into the paint section of any hardware store and you'll see hundreds of poetic names on color chips, that doesn't make them notable. Zinnwaldite (color) is already merged into Beige, and the color name beige predates the "zinnwaldite" telephones, which need a citation, by many years. Variations of pink should be merged to pink. Delete Arsenic (color) as neologism. Keep Davy's grey because it looks like a longstanding recipe for a pigment. Weak keep for Charcoal (color) because of the wide use of charcoal pencils in art. Xanadu (colour) should be merged to the Philodendron cultivar it's named after. And everybody knows Xanadu is really a discotheque. Squidfryerchef (talk) 17:33, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OMG - A separate article for every item in List of colors! Seems mergeworthy as there are separate articles on major color (colour) families. ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:19, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - FYI The List of colors is slightly misnamed, since it is actually a list of colors with articles. PaleAqua (talk) 18:55, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

STRONG KEEP FOR ALL Tonight I changed the color codes for the articles on charcoal and Davy's grey after sourcing them to a widely used color list. Obviously, since charcoal has been in use as a color name since 1606, it should be kept! I added more references to the zinnwaldite article. I found that Zinnwaldite has been in use as a color name since 1953. It is very important that Zinnwaldite be kept in because so many people confuse the color Zinnwaldite with beige because of that A.T.&T. telephone. I would have no problem with merging Zinnwaldite with Beige, but I would prefer to keep them separate. I have sources for most of the unsourced colors in Variations of pink which I'll insert tomorrow. Keraunos (talk) 10:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Do you have a source for the "zinnwaldite" telephone? If so that's pretty interesting and should be added to the article. Squidfryerchef (talk) 02:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The point is that the telephone was called beige but in actual fact it was colored zinnwaldite and thus many people mistakenly identify the color zinnwaldite as being beige. Keraunos (talk) 07:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I've started trying to do more digging into what I can find out about telephones of that era. I believe the phone pictured on the Zinnwaldite page is a Western Electric 2500. I've found one set that lists some colors for the phones which appears to be part of the 500, 1500, 2500 family, see http://www.paul-f.com/we500typ.htm#Colors for WE 500 series. Note the -55 Rose Beige, -59 Rose Pink. Those might be the colors used. No mention of Zinnwaldite. There is also http://www.paul-f.com/color.htm#WE500 on the same site. Also see http://www.porticus.org/bell/telephones-colorcharts-1.html and http://www.porticus.org/bell/telephones-colorcharts-2.html, unfortunately both charts are after the color that is claimed to be "zinnwaldite" was discontinued. Looks like a chart from 1954-1957 might be best. Again haven't found anything that ties this to the name zinnwaldite. And the name does not appear in one of the larger color dictionaries that I have. PaleAqua (talk) 03:05, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What widely used color list? Sherman Williams'? Benjamin Moore's? Behr's? Lowes'? The World Wide Web Consortium's? If there's any one color list that could possibly be used as a source for notable names at the level of specificity you are aiming for, it would be something like Pantone. It certainly wouldn't be xona.com. (I had my house painted a Sherwin Williams color called "Innocence". In the end I chose it over "Demure" and "Romance". Should there be articles for those?) As it is, your source is a WP:NPOV violation, in my opinion. As far as zinnwaldite and beige are concerned, the two can't be "confused" because beige, like many color names, is a loose term that applies to a whole range of shades—and therein lies the fallacy in your arguments: the idea that every color name applies to one specific point in color space. Even the fact that you think it's a problem that people call phones beige instead of zinnwaldite indicates the level of subjectivity in your evaluation of this matter. To put it straight: no matter what other color term might be found from any of the numerous naming systems to describe the shade of the traditional light-colored phone, the fact remains that they were beige as well. —Largo Plazo (talk) 12:30, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the beige article with the color chart of colors in the beige range which I originally included in the article: [4]. Obviously, zinnwaldite can be regarded as a shade of beige, but it is not beige, just as Bondi blue can be regarded as a shade of blue but it is not blue (Here is the blue article with the shades of blue color chart I originally included in it: [5]). The color beige is a specific and definite color which is the color of undyed cloth. Beige is a pale cream/ivory color, not a pale brown color like zinnwaldite. Keraunos (talk) 07:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bondi blue is blue just like a Red-tailed Sportive Lemur is an animal. Color names for the most part are descriptive not prescriptive. Furthermore wikipedia needs to be verifiable. Just saying that that telephone was zinnwaldite doesn't make it true and without good external sources it really shouldn't be presented as true. For the sources listed in Zinnwaldite (color) oldid=240199563. The first is just an approximate RGB => CMYK conversion, especially since it doesn't seem to take color space into account. The second is about the mineral. The third is about the mineral. The phrase "Zinnwaldite color" occurs because that is the raw source of an HTML document. See http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/5455 for the link to the pdf version, which clearly shows that that phrase is from a table and two different columns. The forth source is the only thing that is close, but the page that the picture comes from http://www.zerosightaccessories.com/our_forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=116&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&sid=eb809f53d00151bbfcaf41108a524e72 makes no mention for Zinnwaldite besides in the filename of the picture, and the post it self lists them as "sun tan". Even the picture of the telephone shown does not seem to match the color shown in the infobox. PaleAqua (talk) 09:53, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Bondi blue can be regarded as a shade of blue but it is not blue." If that's what you say, then it is clear that you are attempting to change the language to suit your purposes. You are doing exactly what I claimed: assigning all color names to a single point each in color space and declaring that to be the correct meaning, and using this counterfactual notion as the basis for your argument here. This is a gross WP:NPOV problem. —Largo Plazo (talk) 10:15, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Each color IS at a specific point in color space. Blue is at #0000FF. That is its definition for computer display. Of course, there are many different shades of blue. The web colors are based on the definitions of Red, Green, and blue as defined at three specific points in color space as the three primary colors on the color wheel. There are also specific points for each of the web colors and each of the Crayola colors. Keraunos (talk) 07:32, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, as an aside, did you know, as I pointed out in the Color name article, that as a language evolves, additional color terms are added to the basic three basic color terms black, white, and red in a fixed order as a language evolves: first green and/or yellow (first one, and then the other); then blue; then brown; and finally orange, pink, purple and/or gray, in any order? ^[1] Keraunos (talk) 07:47, 25 September 2008 (UTC) To keep a sense of humor about this discussion, I'm sure if the research were continued, the color beige would be about 500 on the list and the color zinnwaldite would be about number 2,000 on the list! Just think how far we have advanced in color terminology in the English language by this date that we can even be talking about this!Keraunos (talk) 09:02, 25 September 2008 (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.

^ Varley, Helen, editor Color London:1980--Marshall Editions, Ltd. ISBN 0-89535-037-8 "The Vocabulary of Color" Pages 50-51

[1] Varley, Helen, editor Color London:1980--Marshall Editions, Ltd. ISBN 0-89535-037-8 "The Vocabulary of Color" Pages 50-51

[1]