- 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. With the varying opinions on how to handle these pages—from deleting them all, keeping them all, keep the ones a certain editor is working on, keep the ones that are maintained, merge them all into the related outline pages, etc.—we've got ourselves an unmanageable WP:TRAINWRECK. Editors may want to consider other options in spirit of WP:ATD; perhaps smaller bundled or individual nominations where necessary. These indices are not absent of issues as pointed out in the discussion, but this mass nomination can not adequately address them. ✗plicit 13:03, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Index of Abkhazia-related articles (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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A recent series of AfDs, such as Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Index_of_Myanmar-related_articles_(2nd_nomination), reached agreement to delete this redundant and unmaintainable system of index articles about countries and territories. The most commonly cited concerns are that navigation is already provided by navboxes, categories, and lists with narrower scope, including outline articles like Outline of Turkmenistan; and that most countries and territories have a large number of associated articles — for example, even the Vatican City has about 2,000 articles indexed by its associated WikiProject. Most of these are exactly like the previously nominated lists, but any exceptional cases should be noted if you find one. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:37, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Geography and Lists. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:45, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete all per nom. The precedent is set that these types of articles are redundant in Wikipedia, and many have already been removed for that reason. Ajf773 (talk) 09:10, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: History, Africa, Algeria, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Somalia, Tunisia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Asia, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Middle East, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Europe, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia (country), Germany, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, Oceania, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Caribbean, South America, Argentina, Barbados, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela, and United States of America. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 09:16, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Poor maintenance and redundancy is not a good look. Some of them have had completely empty sections for over a decade now. As for extraordinary cases, I went through them and I've written down what can be salvaged.
General comments:
A lot of these articles have lists, which can be split to a list of lists or merged with the respective outline. Merge any external links like "Articles with (country name) in title" or "Atlas of (country name)"(Commons link) etc to outlines or the country articles where appropriate. I also think that they could be redirected to the respective outlines, if there are no issues with that. Some have redlinks which I guess can be added to the lists of requested articles, if nonexistent. A few have external links to Wikipedias in the language(s) of the countries, would there be any use in moving that to the respective outline pages? A few have sidebars, with the Soviet Union one having all the related sidebars I assume , would there be any use in moving something like that to the outline pages? Depending on this nomination's results, a cleanup of Lists of country-related topics will be needed, as well as navboxes that link to these indices. Dege31 (talk) 11:11, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree that many of these indexes should probably go. However, the usual arguments for deletion don't apply to all of them. Previous indexes got deleted because their scope was unmaintainably wide (this is not the case for the smaller countries), because they didn't get updated (some of the lists here may be better looked after), because they were redundant to wikiproject listings (quite a few of the ones here don't have associated wikiprojects). Some of the articles here are not alphabetical indexes at all, but structured lists that function like outlines (Dege31 seems to have identified those). Some indexes are unexpectedly popular (the Vatican one has been receiving hundreds of daily views since late last year [1]). – Uanfala (talk) 16:10, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Index of Vatican City-related articles not only receives hundreds of views a day, yes, for years, but often thousands. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:12, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- I would like to request to keep the Index of Singapore-related articles. This index is maintained by me for the last 3 years and is updated weekly, except for when I was truly busy in real life and was away for the computer for a week or two. I don't see me stopping the regular updates in the near future given that it requires less than an hour per week to do so. Nonetheless I have begun to work a tool to better involve other editors in the updating of the index (see below).
- The reason for keeping the list up to date are primarily to know what articles related to Singapore have been written and also to combat vandalism, and to a smaller extent, advise or step in when we see mass edits that go into contrary to the current standards/guidelines/standardisation across a topic. Vandalism watch is done primarily through the Recent Changes special page.
- The criteria for inclusion is a curated list of Singapore subcategories. The curated list was a result of an one-time exercise that I did to manually expand all subcategories of Singapore in the category page (although it is manual, I made use of jQuery and css classes to toggle open all sub-categories in batches which reduced the time spent). The curated list is actively being updated as well. I wrote a helper script (https://github.com/robertsky/wikisglinks) to parse through the curated categories list for the pages that are categorised in them and output them in the format and markup you see for the index. The updates can be considered as semi-automatic updates as I make use of git diff to verify the potential changes, as sometimes some articles may be inadvertently removed or included due to miscategorisations or category renames. It also requires manual intervention when there are updates to the header and footer content outside the article list by other editors on Wikipedia or when there's a change in APIs that affects the script.
- Looking at broad numbers, there are 12,000+ links currently on the index while there are 11,000+ being assessed for WikiProject Singapore. The higher number may be due to inclusion of tangentially related articles, like one-time ambassadors to Singapore, expatriates/international companies with regional HQs in Singapore, etc. , which may not be assessed for WikiProject Singapore due to the relatively light content related to Singapore on the article， or simply missed out in their assessments. Nonetheless, the updated Index has been serving its intended uses well.
- I did consider using WikiProject Singapore article assessment as an alternative to updating the index. However, as I had noted in a discussion at Wikiproject Singapore when I sought to update the index, the number of articles retrieved through categories was 4,000+ more than the number listed in the Article Assessment.
- I had been considering expanding the helper script into a frontend tool to allow other editors make use of the script for other indexes without diving into command line, or requiring manual seeding of categories as I did or minimal manual interventions, and am laying the foundations to start the work on. I don't intend for the script to turn into a bot, thus will definitely require editors to consciously accept the changes (and the usual responsibilities of publishing an edit) before the changes go live on the index.
- If some, if not all, of the indexes can be salvaged and maintained with the script/tool, editors are certainly welcome to do so.
- Outline of Singapore had been cleaned up accordingly as well in 2021, thus making the intents of the index and outline articles distinct from each other. – robertsky (talk) 16:56, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- I personally have no problem as long as these are maintained, since they do have daily visitors. It would be helpful if the process was (semi-)automatic, because most of them cover less than 5 % of articles that are in relevant WikiProjects. Dege31 (talk) 17:17, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- I think it would make sense to move any of these lists that are in fact maintained to Wikiproject space. This is good work and would be similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/List of mathematics articles (0–9) etc., which are kept up to date by a bot. Reywas92Talk 22:41, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Why would projectspace be a better location? If a list is of a manageable size and it's being actively maintained up to date, then it would be of benefit to readers. – Uanfala (talk) 22:53, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- I was notified of this discussion by a post to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/New Zealand, but there is no article on the list as far as I can see which is particularly relevant to NZ. Did someone miss adding List of New Zealand–related topics?-gadfium 19:05, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Maybe because Index of Cook Islands–related articles is up for deletion? – Uanfala (talk) 19:13, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Procedural note. It doesn't look like any of the articles listed for deletion apart from the Abkhazia one have been tagged. – Uanfala (talk) 19:13, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- There are too many to tag by hand, so I've filed an WP:AWBREQ to address that. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 19:23, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete/merge/move all Per my comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Index of India-related articles and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Index of Sri Lanka–related articles. Any that are actually maintained or more comprehensive may be better off in relevant wikiprojects. Any that are organized by topic should be combined with the relevant outline, as listed above. Delete the rest because just an unmaintained alphabetical list of links doesn't really serve a navigational purpose when we have a search bar, categories, and outlines. Reywas92Talk 22:47, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep any currently maintained, such as the Singapore one. Depending on how that script mentioned there turns out, I'm neutral on all other ones. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 00:36, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Strong Keep, I have been personally working on Index of Armenia-related articles almost daily/ weekly for over 2 years (as seen in the edit history). I have been diligently trying to improve it since January 2020. I think any country index being properly maintained/updated shouldn't be discredited and cast off so hastily. Rather, they should be given the chance to develop further. Honestly speaking, it was this index article itself which sparked my joy of editing on Wikipedia, and helped me to discover articles/topics I never knew existed related to Armenia. The past 2 years it has been a joy to try and improve/update it, and I plan on continuing such contributions given the opportunity. Regards, Archives908 (talk) 02:12, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete all. These kind of lists add nothing to Wikipedia, and navboxes and categories' systems already offer this kind of view. The indices with any kind of salvageable contents should merge that contents into their own outlines and make the index a redirect. I find the case of Singapore index not an exception but something that is currently overlapping the category system without any added-value at all, therefore it should be deleted. --Onwa (talk) 02:16, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Onwa, as outlined in my comment, the index is used for countering vandalism and monitoring for mass edits. Can articles in multiple categories be monitored with a single watchlist/recent changes watchlist? – robertsky (talk) 02:21, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- I think ns-0 space pages should be used to actual articles, not to coordinate or perform maintenance tasks. If that kind of page is needed in order to monitor changes, then move the pages to (or create this kind of "watchlist pages" within)
Project namespace. --Onwa (talk) 02:23, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Neither of these are encyclopedic purposes – maintained lists should be moved to wikiproject space if the purpose is monitoring the articles. Reywas92Talk 16:24, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Strong Keep, esp. currently maintained pages, i.e., much work and full maintenance has been done on Index of Vatican City–related articles, a major topic-related page sometimes viewed by thousands of readers a day. Please remove that one from this maybe unprecedented mass-deletion purge, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 05:55, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Oppose deletion of all indexes. Keep well-developed or maintained lists. Redirect the unmaintained lists to their corresponding articles per Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Alternatives to deletion. It is useful to preserve the content and history because the items in this list can give editors ideas about how they can create, expand, and improve articles, outlines, and other lists. It will allow editors in the future to reuse the content to recreate the indexes if they would like to maintain them.
For any indexes that are well-developed or where editors are currently maintaining them, I support retention. Keep Index of Armenia-related articles, Index of Singapore-related articles, and Index of Vatican City–related articles as they are maintained.
Below I have proposed where the pages are redirected to as an alternative to deletion. If there are better pages to redirect to (such as outlines or other lists), then I support that instead.
Cunard (talk) 10:34, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- I am good with redirecting these to keep the page history. The maintained ones still belong in Wikiprojects, not mainspace. Reywas92Talk 16:24, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete all Lacks sources supporting that WP:NLIST is met, purpose is better served by categories. MrsSnoozyTurtle 10:43, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Please never officially suggest lists should be replaced by a category, a common but utterly mistaken concept often used in deletion discussions. See, memorize, tattoo on forearm, rinse and repeat WP:CLN, whose summary reads "This page in a nutshell: Categories, lists, and navigation templates are three different ways to group and organize articles. Although they each have their own advantages and disadvantages, each method complements the others." Randy Kryn (talk) 12:41, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete all per others and precedent in related areas. Navboxes, categories, and lists are better suited for this. ValarianB (talk) 13:05, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: 1 this comment could be controversial, but currently indices I have seen are not obeying the WP:5P2 part that says that all articles must strive for verifiable accuracy, citing reliable, authoritative sources. I could not find a reason to be exempted from this rule (or to apply WP:5P5 over WP:5P2; does "no firm rules" refers only to policies and guidelines or also applies to the other pillars?) in the case of indices. Despite the claimed active support of some of them, I still can't see in them the citations. 2 According to WP:SAL, Indices, alphabetized lists of articles on a given subject, are part of Wikipedia's Contents navigation system, but this goal is not appropriate for a page in the article namespace, intended to contain encyclopedic entries, they should not work as full page navboxes. --Onwa (talk) 18:21, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, that's how people envisaged Wikipedia's index as working from nearly the start. Both the indexing system and the disambiguation article system are results of the fact that MediaWiki didn't have any ways to share titles between articles or to automatically index articles. The index is actually a (hand-written) part of the encyclopaedia proper, not part of the internal project namespace. It's there for readers. It's there for re-users. It's not solely a writers-only thing. If one were to design afresh a collaborative editing tool for an encyclopaedia writing project (and reading tool for its readers), not making the same mistakes again in this regard would I hope be high on the list. But as it is, we have hand-written indexes, and they go in the namespace where the encyclopaedia proper is. Uncle G (talk) 22:32, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete or Merge. Delete the unmaintained ones and merge any of the maintained ones to their outline article. As an example, List of Belarus-related topics while using a slightly different layout, duplicates Outline of Belarus. --Gonnym (talk) 08:49, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete, this is why there are categories. These lists are not updated and are out of date.Fulmard (talk) 04:40, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Please don't suggest lists should be replaced by a category, a concept often used in deletion discussions. See WP:CLN, whose summary reads "This page in a nutshell: Categories, lists, and navigation templates are three different ways to group and organize articles. Although they each have their own advantages and disadvantages, each method complements the others." Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:41, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete all. Per nominator really. The others mostly confirmed. My recommendation is that the closing message will say that articles can be made available for copying to wikiprojects or personal space. Kudos to the contributors who kept these anachronistic articles up-to-date. You're off the hook and can move on to the next challenge! gidonb (talk) 07:39, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. If we must make an exception for a few cases (maybe because of the traffic, which is a fact on the ground), my recommendation would be to make this for the three city-states: Monaco, Singapore, and Vatican City, rather than for the three articles here mentioned as well maintained: Armenia, Singapore, and Vatican City. This would be more systematic, for example, until we phase out such articles out entirely. Not at all convinced that making exceptions is necessary but there is for these rare cases at least the beginning of an argument to keep. My personal recommendation (item above) is and remains to delete all. gidonb (talk) 15:14, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep all without prejudice to focused nominations as it is clear that these articles span a wide range of quality, activity, views, structure, etc. Some of them can likely be kept, some should possibly be deleted, some will have scope for a merge or partial merge. However there are far too many to reliably evaluate nearly 200 individual articles in 7 days let alone for someone who didn't see the nomination until part way through. Thryduulf (talk) 12:32, 24 February 2022 (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.