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. The vote count is very close, and both sides have presented substantial arguments. Although I am unfamiliar with UK roads, the second discussion leads me to believe that the road is not significant enough to warrant an article, while the first discussion has failed to find an appropriate merge target. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:53, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Roundway[edit]

The Roundway (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

As one can probably judge from the article, The Roundway is about as insignificant a road as can be imagined. I can just about accept (although I'm less than convinced) that its considerably more historic neighbour Lordship Lane, Haringey warrants an article by virtue of its age and the assorted notable buildings on it. Unless we really are going down the route of "every road in the world is noteworthy" (a legitimate view, but one wildly at odds with current practice), I don't believe that a short residential street in a north London suburb will ever be. For those who aren't familiar with London geography, none of the notable buildings mentioned here (Bruce Castle, Broadwater Farm, All Hallows Church) are actually on The Roundway or connected with it in any way, they just happen to be in the general area.  – iridescent 07:14, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • The fact you don't know where it'd merge to is telling. It's not unexpected CW would !vote keep, the fact he says merge as a possibility would be a delete by most other editor's standards. Shadowjams (talk) 06:20, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Many/most other editors here don't bother to research the topics under discussion. In your case, you don't seem to have done any more than establish that the article is about a road. Your reasoning is then that we should not have articles about roads but this personal opinion is not supported by any policy and so deletion on these grounds would constitute a violation of multiple policies. As for the merge target, we have multiple possibilities because the road is a major one and so appears in several contexts. Note that it forms part of the A10 — an ancient road which can trace its history back to Roman times. Our article about it already mentions this named portion. The nomination's assertion that it is "about as insignificant a road as can be imagined" is clearly counterfactual. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:15, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nonsense. A small section of the eastern end is officially designated as part of the A10, following the redesign of the Tottenham gyratory system, in an effort to discourage traffic from using the traditional route through Edmonton Angel which gets very congested, and where jams block ambulance access to the North Middlesex Hospital. It has no connection with the Great Cambridge Road (the historic A10); it's a small residential back street. It was only built in the 1920s, does not connect any significant locations, and has no buildings of any significance on it. (Even the sections of the Tower Gardens Estate which back onto it are the later, generic buildings, not the earlier buildings which form the conservation area.) – iridescent 12:34, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The A10 obviously has a rich history and this road now forms part of it. Your nomination exaggerated the road's insignificance as, the more one looks, the more one finds to say about it. In such cases of incomplete development, we should leave the article open to improvement per our editing policy which counsels against deletion in such cases. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:11, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • For heaven's sake! Aside from four small shops, is there a single building on the Roundway that isn't a generic house? There is nothing there of any significance. "Forms part of an A-road" has never been grounds on its own for keeping an article; at most, it warrants an very short paragraph in A10 road, as per the similar streets that make up A215 road or A1 road. – iridescent 13:20, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Our editing policy indicates that we do not delete in such cases. The problem here is that you are seeking the extreme measure of deletion when this is neither necessary nor appropriate. Please see our deletion policy: "Consider turning the page into a useful redirect or proposing it be merged. Uncontested mergers do not require an AfD. ... If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a good candidate for AfD.". Colonel Warden (talk) 13:31, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was being glib, so I'm sorry if my tone was inconsiderate, but this is the road we're talking about! I've lived in cities with hundreds of more substantial roads that don't warrant a page. This road is less than a mile long and I don't see any indication in the history that there's something unique about it. I'm fine with merging in the data to the A1 road article (or one of the others) but I can't see how this is a stand alone article. And I say this in light of the research everyone's done here so far. Shadowjams (talk) 01:17, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not understanding the point of the link which you cite. It seems to provide lots of geodata. How does this help us? Colonel Warden (talk) 06:24, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:04, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Google Maps is absolutely not reliable by the way, whether you consider it or not. The Roundway is part of a semi-major road, the A1080 which doesn't even have an article. What is your argument for keeping the article on this non-notable stretch of road? Aiken ♫ 15:19, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per my comments to you (DGG) on my talk, I think you're misunderstanding what constitutes a "major road" in the Great Britain road numbering scheme. Four-digit roads (in this case, A1080) are minor roads which run between the radial A-roads. A short section of the eastern end of the Roundway is designated as part of the A10—which is a primary road—but it has no connection to the historic Hertford Road (the "real" A10); the renumbering is purely an artefact of a scheme to reduce traffic jams on Hertford Road by encouraging traffic to take back-routes. (In practice, this entire area is now bypassed by the A1055 road, and only local traffic uses the North London sections of the A10.) The people claiming that it's some kind of major highway or dual-carriageway are incorrect; it's a completely ordinary narrow suburban back-street, with no notable buildings or significant history. (This photograph of the road in question may make the "this is a narrow and little-used residential street" point better than words can.) – iridescent 16:21, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I had a look on Street View as well, and it doesn't really look like a major road. Of course, it's not up to us to decide if something is notable, that's for sources to do - of which, there are none that significantly discuss it. I live on an A-road (and it's orange on G-maps) and it's busier looking than this one, and probably more notable. Aiken ♫ 16:25, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think part of this may be a US-UK cultural difference in color-coding of maps. In Britain, dual-carriageways (freeways/motorways) are blue, major single-carriageway roads are green and minor roads are orange; on US maps, it's major roads which are orange (flip from New York to London on Google Maps and you'll see the color-scheme reconfigure itself). – iridescent 16:32, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The western arm is certainly a dual carriageway with up to 5 lanes of traffic. This makes it quite substantial by UK standards. Colonel Warden (talk) 16:49, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • You can't have your cake and eat it. The short dual-carriageway section is the part which forms the A1080, and thus the minor-road section. The A10 section (on which the highly dubious claim to notability depends) is a narrow residential back street for its entire length. To reiterate, Find sources: "Roundway, N17" – news · books · scholar · images, Find sources: "Roundway, Tottenham" – news · books · scholar · images; find me anything to suggest that there will ever be anything to say about this street. – iridescent 17:15, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We-ell, its got a newsagent, a Chinese takeaway and a Snack Bar in a small parade at the junction with New Road. Maybe we'll grab a bite there sometime? Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:53, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was aware of the mapping symbols when I made my comment. In the UK it is clear from looking at a map of a wider region than blue is the colour for motorways , and green for "important" roads that are not expressways, with orange the less important roads, and then yellow, and then uncoloured. The Google colouring scheme does not follow any official designation, --I suppose they use traffic (or judgement) From the Great Britain road numbering scheme, it's clear that major/minor are not official designations. The two apparently overlapping official distinctions seem to be trunk/non-trunk for the purposes of funding and primary/non-primary, used for guidance -- with all roads labelled A being primary. I know the A10 is a primary road. From the map, part of the roundway is also marked A10, and is thus a primary road. That part of it is a primary road is sufficient reason to include it. The real qy is how far down in importance we want to go, given that we can no longer effectively use the GNG criterion, as everything on a map has a RS. DGG ( talk ) 03:53, 11 August 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.
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