The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

This article was kept as keep in a previous discussion in 2012. Subsequent discussion over list content as suggested in the AfD was brief and unproductive.

What should this list contain? Does the list's inclusion of phone numbers or bare URLs violate WP:NOTDIR? Does the list's inclusion of non-notable crisis lines or emergency telephone numbers violate the List selection criteria? Should we ignore it? Should we also link to Meta:Mental health resources? 9³ (talk) 02:34, 29 April 2019 (UTC) Edited in the main question in bold 01:32, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I have a lengthier summary of the issues posed in the deletion discussion and my subsequent edits to this page at User:93/LoSCL RfC if it would help. 9³ (talk) 21:53, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging users involved in the AfD to notify them of the RfC: @Psychonaut, Dricherby, Carrite, TheOldJacobite, Stuartyeates, 7mike5000, Postdlf, DGG, Anthonyhcole, Matchups, Phil Bridger, LadyofShalott, Bearian, and ZackMartin. 9³ (talk) 22:28, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Clearly a WP:NOT#DIR problem. And a WP:EL one. This should probably be transwikied somewhere.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:16, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• If the list is kept it should be comprehensive with the links and phone numbers available for emergency information otherwise there is no point to it and it could actually cause serious harm if people google for an emergency number and come to this list and spend time looking for unavailable information. Not everything in an article or list has to be notable except for most lists of people. Atlantic306 (talk) 22:29, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• I don't see this list as a problem, it seems to be no better or worse than other lists of a similar kind, such as types of software of a certain type, TV show characters, songs, etc. It's fine. --Jayron32 23:38, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• WP exists for the benefit of the public, and considering the wide reach of WP, I think this is a page we need to have, and need to keep up to date. If it does not fit our written notability guidelines, WP:IAR is a sufficient argument. The place to decide the issue is not here; it's at another AfD. It is a misuse of RfC to use it instead of the ordinary facilities for dealing with disputed content. And there isa very simple compromise for those who care more about our guidelines than our usefulness: put it in WP space, with a cross namespace redirect. The reads won;t really know the difference. DGG ( talk ) 23:43, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I did not nominate this for deletion because the list, if we were to remove non-notable entries, would look like this and seems notable enough. I made the judgment to request comments due to WP:BRD and my past experience that sufficient discussion on exactly what to include in the list after the AfD failed to occur. 9³ (talk) 01:23, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Broad IAR should apply. Keep the list article, add (and maintain) the telephone numbers, and include the list in a neutral and non-judgemental hatnote at Suicide methods (possibly Suicide as well) encouraging people to also visit List of suicide crisis lines (obviously, don't do the reverse per WP:UNDUE). This is an encyclopedia yes, but it is also one where there is no deadline. Our encyclopedia should have this article. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 02:30, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Let me repeat myself because I was right and the consensus was wrong... DELETE Wikipedia is not a directory and providing a telephone book service is not within the scope of our mission. I appreciate the sentiment made above for an IAR Keep and quickly ran a Google search for SUICIDE+HELP+LINE, which returned plenty of good telephone numbers for someone in need. The odds of them seeking this information by typing "List of suicide crisis lines" in a Wikipedia search seem very, very small. Carrite (talk) 03:15, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Carrite: Google:Suicide methods (second result). This was why I suggested a hatnote. If we were to move the article to project space (as was suggested in the AfD, I think), then such hatnote would be inappropriate. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:24, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

People do sometimes use Wikipedia in preference to Google to search discreetly for information on sensitive topics, and if the accessibility of information via Google were itself a good argument to remove such information from Wikipedia, much of Wikipedia could be considered redundant. I had a look at the page view stats for the List, and over the last 90 days it's averaged about 728 page views per day. Of course there are many possible reasons for people to view Wikipedia articles and it would be foolish to assume that most of those views are from suicidal readers seeking help, but it's also not unreasonable to suppose that a small proportion of them very well may be. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 17:46, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• We should ignore WP:LSC per the AfD arguments. This really is quite important. Weak support on the meta hatnote. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 17:52, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Remove all non-notable hotlines and add hat note to hatnote https://suicideprevention.wikia.org/wiki/International_Suicide_Prevention_Directory Stuartyeates (talk) 20:12, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• I would keep as much as humanely possible - we are a charity that serves the public - ignore all other rules. 22:57, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
• Keep the list and the phone numbers, but move bare URLs to references; as for selection criteria (all national numbers plus notable hotlines?) I'm open to hearing from other people. No need to invoke IAR or NOT#DIRECTORY here; this is a list which meets SAL criteria (appropriate topic; has many sensible potential selection criteria). — Bilorv (he/him) _(talk) 23:06, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#DIR (agree w/ Carrite)...delete--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:45, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Well evidence of benefit of these numbers is poor, this list is fine. WP:IAR is allowed. But if the issue is a lack of references, digging up more is not that hard. Should we add hatnotes to it to other pages? No we should have good evidence of benefit before we do that. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:49, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Summoned by a bot. While an argument could be made that this is "outside the scope" of what wikipedia is, I think the overall benefit the general public can receive from this page outweighs us nit picking over whether or not it should exist. Comatmebro (talk) 06:46, 9 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Wikipedia should aim to benefit its readers. I believe in this principle generally - that we are providing information for the general public not just for other editors - but particularly in a case like this. The information is already organised clearly by country, each of which has only a few services listed, so keeping entries of questionable "notability" is not going to hinder readers from finding information relevant to them. If the information is relevant and verifiable, it should remain on the list. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 19:57, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I came here from WikiProject Medicine. I am ready to ignore all rules here. For people who are making arguments for delete, I agree entirely- this is a highly problematic article in violation of Wikipedia's standards for scope of coverage, quality control, and sourcing. I also have serious doubts about the usefulness of these hotlines. The evidence is poor that they do good and frequently they provide a disappointing level of service that makes clients report dissatisfaction in the service. I am not convinced that we are helping anyone by providing this content and we do not have capacity to maintain this referral list. I am ready to agree with other criticism that other people have. I still vote keep because I think this is a unique situation. Lots of people search Wikipedia for everything, including crisis services. There was no formal global vote or designation that Wikipedia should be the reference source of information for everything, but in practice Wikipedia is this and no other media platform can or will do the job. Probably the correct response in this situation is for the Wikimedia community to demand that search engines including Google not link to this article and that instead they take responsibility for all crisis referrals in the world. In the absence of anyone else taking that responsibility, and because people expect to find content of this sort in Wikipedia, (this is among the top 0.1% of English Wikipedia articles by popularity), and because this would be the sort of list Wikipedia would curate if reliable sources actually existed to cover this topic, and because people literally go to Wikipedia for healthcare services, and because here and now in society many organizations like Wikipedia curate and present crisis referral services even when it is out of scope of their mission, I think we should keep this and treat crisis referral as an exceptional case. We are both not prepared to do this, and at the same time, much better than any alternative the world has to offer. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:15, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, expand and maintain. The question that needs to be asked is not whether this technically violates WP:NOTDIR but whether having this content benefits our readers, and the answer to that is very clearly "yes" for all the good reasons explained by others already. I was summoned here by bot. Thryduulf (talk) 07:34, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I'm not quite sure what criteria is being used for inclusion here but, as others have noted LISTN does not require all entries on a list to be notable only that the grouping of the entries be notable which this clearly is. In terms of the external links and phone numbers our readers who might need such information are well served by us having it. We're here to build an encyclopedia and serve our readers and so IAR/1st pillar (alamanac type information) suggests inclusion of phone numbers and external links is appropriate. (Summoned by bot) Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:35, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete I think the information presented in the article violates WP:NOTDIR. Also, if my memory isn't wrong, WP:NPOV discourage us to engage in the topics recorded. Then, there are other websites presenting such information (International Suicide Prevention Directory). Finnaly, reporting threat is targeted to prevent threat including suicide already.Mariogoods (talk) 00:36, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• I am sympathetic to the delete votes, because this is clearly, as presented currently, a directory and violates WP:NOTDIR. What should be included is a flat list of national crisis organizations (not "hotlines" or "lines"). The phone numbers should be removed completely from this list, just as we would do for every other list of organizations. We can link to articles like National Suicide Prevention Lifeline if they are notable enough individually, and for orgs which are less notable, we can link to them via url. I am not opposed to a hatnote linking to meta:Mental health resources - if the WMFT&S team is up for maintaining it, then they can be responsible if a number is incorrect, out of date, or vandalized. -- Netoholic @ 04:34, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]