Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/London Buses route 237

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 keep. Scott Mac (Doc) 21:31, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

London Buses route 237

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There are some external links to demonstrate that this bus route exists, (though with no footnotes), but there is no evidence that it meets the notability test of WP:GNG: "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

Some of the material in the article could be incorporated in an expanded List of bus routes in London, so a merger may be appropriate. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:20, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. —Jujutacular ^T · C 18:38, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. —Jujutacular ^T · C 18:38, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or merge. Bus routes ought to be held to the test of "significant coverage in reliable sources". Otherwise they cannot be the subject of reliable encyclopaedic articles. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Procedural keep for now, there is already ongoing discussion on this elsewhere, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London Transport#London bus route articles. These AfD's certianly don't help the process users are currently going through to determine which articles are notable and which aren't. Jeni ^(talk) 22:15, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The assessments there seem pretty shoddy. For example, this comment praises London Buses route 187, but I see no evidence there of notability. Meanwhile, Jeni contested a series of PRODs for West Midlands bus routes for which there was no evidence of notability. If WikiProjects don't follow accepted standards of notability, then editors really do not have valid grounds for complaint that community-wide forums are used to remove non-notable material. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:09, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Then why are you choosing to ignore the discussion and mass AfD articles? You have noted in a comment somewhere that the discussion has been ongoing for a week, what you have failed to notice is that there is currently a couple of editors already going through each bus route article, assessing them for notability, adding references where needed and redirecting where notability isn't there. I see this as a pointy nomination more than anything. Jeni ^(talk) 23:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I only AFDed 6; I PRODded 13, which you disrupted by removing the PROD without offering any reason to keep the articles. If you persist in disrupting lightweight mechanisms for removing non-notable material, don't accuse anyone else of pointiness when the articles then get taken to AFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:49, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My reasons for removing the prods were very very clear, if you took the time to read the edit summaries (where it is generally accepted that reasons for PROD removal are located). Jeni ^(talk) 23:51, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly did read the edit summaries.

Your reasons for removing the West Midlands PRODs were that you asserted notability for those bus routes, even tho there was no evidence of notability and no claim of notability. Those reasons were indeed clear: clearly nonsense. If you think that this is a notable bus route, it's little wonder that you don't want the wider community to scrutinise the notability of any such articles, and prefer to keep these things away from AFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:06, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What relevance does that have to this discussion? Jeni ^(talk) 00:09, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's highly relevant. You object on procedural grounds to AFD, when you have repeatedly disrupted lightweight procedures for removing non-notable material. You can't have it both ways: if you contest PROds on bogus grounds, article will be taken to AFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:12, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are bringing up a completely different article which was objected to on different grounds. Tell me again how this is relevant? Jeni ^(talk) 00:14, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's relevant because it is evidence that all your procedural ruses are just a form of disruption, and that your actual purpose is trying to keep non-notable material. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:20, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural keep – since there is an on-going discussion elsewhere, please withdraw discussion to that location. The article can be renominated, if necessary, after the conclusion of the current discussion. Imzadi1979 (talk) 00:25, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on procedural keeps. These should be disregarded. Any editor is entitled to bring an AfD, regardless of whatever discussions are taking place within a Wikiproject. The community at large decides notability. --Mkativerata (talk) 00:27, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to List of bus routes in London. Much as I would like to keep this, it really isn't notable enough. A redirect would be prefereable to deletion as it is undoubtedly a plausible search term which is already linked to from multiple pages. Alzarian16 (talk) 10:23, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A redirect can be created after deletion, but redirecting without deletion leaves anyone free to simply revert the redirect. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:35, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is the worst argument for deletion I have ever heard in my life! Jeni ^(talk) 11:37, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's a bit harsh, but I agree that it isn't very convincing. Jeni redirected around 100 articles a year ago and only seven were restores - two were later re-redirected, and one is at an AfD. The other 4 actually show a form notability so were correctly restored. Alzarian16 (talk) 11:40, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As you should both know if you had read the nomination, the substantive argument for deletion is clear, and founded in policy: that the article does not meet WP:GNG. Neither of you have offered any evidence to counter that.

So why exactly do you object to deleting the article, and then creating a redirect? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:03, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Because it would mean that we'd have to extend it to all other articles where this applies, including the previous 100 redirected articles, and a number of others not connected to this topic such as Unsigned Integers, CONCEPTiCONS, How I Conquered Your Planet and several thousand others. It wouldn't be worth the effort, so why should we apply it here? Alzarian16 (talk) 14:18, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, it wouldn't. We could decide to do that with other redirected titles, but we don't have to. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:43, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So why do it here if not anywhere else? The "preventing restoration" argument doesn't sound all that convincing - if it were correct we would have to do it everywhere. Alzarian16 (talk) 14:47, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is done in other cases when material is merged, in order to preserve the edit history for attribution purposes. However, in this case there is nothing to merge, so there is no need to retain that edit history. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:13, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Take a look at WP:Articles for deletion/How I Conquered Your Planet. This was an AfD of an unsourced article which was closed following consesnsus that the article was not notable, but where the closing admin chose to redirect rather than delete. There was no content merged in this case, so how is it any different to this one? Alzarian16 (talk) 13:30, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Redirection is preferable to deletion in such cases because

It maintains existing wikilinks
It assists reader navigation
It maintains the edit history and attribution
It is our editing policy

Colonel Warden (talk) 09:24, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not true. It is not wikiedia policy to retain vast chunks of unreferenced material on non-notable topics. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:29, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Keep Disruptive deletion spree made without due diligence per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/London Buses route 74. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:21, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WP:AGF, please. I did indeed follow WP:BEFORE. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:37, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
delete or redirect. No significant coverage in reliable third party sources. "procedural keep" arguments are non-starters by people who want to ignore the issue. The lack of AGF around here is rather disgusting.--Crossmr (talk) 00:47, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Article does not demonstrate significant coverage in reliable third party sources - name drops only. Karanacs (talk) 13:21, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all information contained in this article is verifiable. The majority of London bus routes are notable, and the system is notable. Dew Kane (talk) 04:21, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: While I still support this being kept, even if the majority say delete, it should be merged to a parent article, and the edit history retained, so in the future, someone can dig up what is already written in an old version, and improve upon it. Dew Kane (talk) 04:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I have sourced this article and so the comments based upon the lack of sources above are obsolete. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:36, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is a total of 2 sources, with huge areas of text unsourced. They are not obsolete until the entire thing is sourced. Aiken ♫ 00:28, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, this is not a GA review and so we are not trying to clean up the article to a high standard. All that is required is to satisfy ourselves that the topic has sufficient notability and promise so that it should be preserved in accordance with our editing policy for further work. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:19, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Col W, your statement that "I have sourced this article" is nonsense. Either you simply you haven't looked at the result of your edits, or you telling untruths in the hope of persuading driveby !voters to back you ... but I really cannot see any way in which a competent editor who had looked at the article could in good faith that it is sourced. I had hoped that the lack of sources would be self-evident, but since it apparently isn't, have just added {{fact}} tags to all the unreferenced assertions: see the result here, an almighty forest of [citation needed].

The two references you have added are to the 1952 Greater London Bus Map, and the Routemaster Omnibus, neither of which gives significant coverage of thus route. There is therefore no evidence of notability per WP:GNG. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:27, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The route has a complex history. The Routemaster Omnibus source has much to say about the route and I have not yet fully digested this. But, on my first pass, I found that the details in the article stood up and so I added supporting citations where there was a clear correspondence. I have no doubt that other sources which I have seen but not yet purchased would enable us to confirm the other details. As it appears that you have no direct knowledge of these sources yourself, your criticisms lack credibility. Please see WP:HONEST and also WP:TAGBOMB. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:45, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Col W, you said "I have sourced this article", but after your edits the article remains overwhelmingly unsourced. I had assumed that no competent and honest editor would question the lack of sourcing in the article, but in the face of your false claim to have "sourced the article", the tags are necessary to illustrate just how much of it remains unsourced.
No, I have not seen the Routemaster Omnibus book; I took on good faith your statement that the book includes only one page on another route, and since the Amazaon listing notes that contains only 288 pages in total, it is highky iunlikelt that one-route-per-age could even be the average coverage. As to the route map, I have seen the lo-res version of that, and if the few little symbols on that map establish the notability of any individual route, then we are both the world's first banana fritters to edit wikiedia.
The rest of what you say is pure crystal-ball gazing: you believe that some sources you have not yet checked will confirm unsourced details. So you have no evidence of notability, and no sources for most of the article; but you want to keep all this unreferenced stuff, contrary to WP:V, because of your belief that sources exist. Neither WP:V and WP:GNG rely on an editor's assertion of religious faith in the existence of as yet-unchecked sources, they rely on evidence. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:47, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep It has a very minor claim to notability, apparently being a rare case of switching back to a two-person operation. However, it lacks sources for the majority of the article. Aiken ♫ 00:28, 5 April 2010 (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.