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. — Cirt (talk) 01:36, 2 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of places known as the capital of the world[edit]

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This article merely promotes cities added by some contributors depending on their good will or on their mood. Far too many arbitrary additions with no reliable sources. A lot of not logged-in users add their own town. If the goal of Wikipedia is to create a catalog, listing the claims to be a capital of the world of the 2,5 millions cities around the world, we are going to be very busy...... This article is unworthy of Wikipedia and as said in the discussion section: it is an utter a mess. What does this article bring to Wikipedia anyway? (apart from a lot of edit wars?) Does learning that the city of Salinas in California is allegedly the Lettuce Capital of the World is really relevant in an encyclopedia? At the very least we should put this article in the humorous section. Best regards. Mouloud47 (talk) 23:56, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The references here are a mixed bag. Some are articles from places like Forbes and The Wall Street Journal talking about economic and taxes in specific cities, and I think those are fair, reputable sources. There are other fantastically poor sources like this dictionary.com entry for capital with the sample sentence: New York is the dance capital of the world and this article written about some celebrities on their honeymoon. There is also the problem of several "self-proclaimed" entries come from nowhere or from Infoplease, which certainly isn't reputable. --I Jethrobot (talk) 00:15, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I have mixed opinions on this, as you can see by the history, I spent a lot of time and effort on this article a few months ago, seeing it as a 'work in progress', unfortunately what I foresaw never materialised, and I don't see that that as a personal failure by any means . My main problem is that I personally do not feel the RS available truly represent the topics. The phrase 'Capital of...' is an Americanism which automatically skews any potential objective discussion, there are (quite frankly) ridiculous claims such as "Garlic Capital of the World" to a small city (Gilroy) in California when the U.S. produces 2% of the Garlic compared to China. I could go on but I probably shouldn't, my point is that RS would probably not help contribute towards a worthwhile article. Zarcadia (talk) 00:26, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The issue isn't whether these cities deserve their titles, only whether reliable sources demonstrate that they are well-known by them. Gilroy, for example, may not really dominate the world's garlic supply, but so what? It's quite a well known nickname. Nothing wrong with this list that continued editing can't fix. --Arxiloxos (talk) 01:09, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment In principle, this is a great idea for an article, my problem is the lack of respectable RS. When developing this article I tried my hardest to get a balanced mix of candidates for each entry, but as I said earlier 'the capital of...' is not a universal paradigm so, by definition (through RS), finding a city that is 'capital of..' is not constructive. Zarcadia (talk) 01:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - A perfectly reasonable and encyclopedic article on a very common concept. It is important to main quality through ensuring that content is properly cited however, something that I have been attempting to do since coming across the article. Rangoon11 (talk) 01:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I still feel this article is worth saving though shouldn't be restricted to sources that claim 'capital of...' outright, the term itself will never help the article. If it's to continue it needs to conform to caveats other than the simple phrase 'Capital of...', anyway that's probably better discussed on the talk page rather than here. Zarcadia (talk) 01:55, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Figure out a standard or else delete I think there are reputable sources as per my comment above. However, there needs to be a better standard for what counts for inclusion on this list. It seems as though a mere mention on anything(even a sample sentence on dictionary.com) counts as a reputable source for a city being the "x capital of the word." I would suggest limiting the sources to reputable newspapers and journals and exclude vacation reviews, editorials, and travel guides. I Jethrobot (talk) 03:14, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that a defined standard for cites is needed in this case, and your proposal is sensible. It is worth noting that a lot of the cites are already from the sources that you suggest. Rangoon11 (talk) 13:01, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 19:18, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete This article does not provide any valuable information. I don't see the meaning of "Capital of the world"? This auto-awarded title does not relies on a legal or uncontroversial ground. Hence, it is purely subjective and violates WP:NPOV. Kathryn.boast (talk) 19:17, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete As stated by our guidelines: "The potential for creating lists is infinite". Hence, we have rules and Wikipedia content policies on stand-alone lists are clear on this. The claims to be capital of the world is not an appropriate topic for a list per WP:SALAT. A claim like this is not something broadly accepted, and a list of those claims is all but neutral. So, I think the list format is not the good one for this topic because a list affirms things without giving to the readers the essential informations suchs as why this topic is controversial, why the history of a given city led a lot of people to consider it as a "capital" of something.... So under its list form, this article is pointless because it will be subject to unexplained additions with doubtful sources. Hence, I really think this article will benefit from the advantages of starting from scratch and from being written in proper English, with complete sentences, in the form of a real article. OysterMaster (talk) 00:34, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete -This article is made out of some claims based upon unreliable sources, because these alleged sources consist of journalistic prose and journalistic expressions which aimed at drawing the attention of the reader with fancy expressions such as "capital of the world". The claims are not even repeated in the main articles of the cities, which adds to the lack of credibility of this article. Can you imagine putting in the New York City article that this town is one of the three "General Capital of the World"? That would be deleted in less than one hour... Lankdarhn (talk) 01:56, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - unencyclopaedic opinion piece. The List says that New York is the cultural capital but this source says it is Paris. Which is right? Does anyone care? The List says that Paris, Milan and New York are the fashion capitals of the world but this source says it is London. I note that the 'Chair making capital of the world', High Wycombe is an inexplicable omission. Hold the press, before you add it, this source says it is actually Mantua. And so you can go on. Limitless, pointless list. TerriersFan (talk) 03:08, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Any city can claim it is the capital of " " so this list can go on forever. There is no universal standard for determining the capital of something subjective.--EdwardZhao (talk) 15:55, 30 June 2011 (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.