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. Consensus is that the list needs work, particularly in terms of better defining its scope, but not to delete it.--Kubigula (talk) 22:12, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of Airlines in Alaska[edit]

List of Airlines in Alaska (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Unencyclopedic sampling of the thousand or so air carriers in Alaska. Discussion on talk page to determine what criteria are for list went nowhere. The bigger carriers have their own articles, the smaller ones are not notable. Beeblbrox (talk) 19:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I don't understand the "point" of this article. If someone needs to know where an airline flys, they can check that airline's article or its website. Tavix (talk) 20:13, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• According to the creator's comments on the talk page, the point is to serve as a clearinghouse for Alaska related aviation articles that have been or likely will be deleted. That is something more suited to userspace. Beeblbrox (talk) 20:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• It's also menant to be informative about such air lines. In the meantime, I have another article I'm going to work on. ----DanTD (talk) 22:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I suppose in the interest of full disclosure I should point out that I PRODed the now deleted article about Skagway Air Service, a defunct, non-notable air taxi, and this list came to my attention because the air taxi article was still on my watchlist and I noticed it had turned from red to blue. Beeblbrox (talk) 21:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC
• Comment. If cleaned up this might be a weak keep for me. While normally I would consider a state plus an industry to be a non-notable cross, Alaska has greater dependency on air taxi and short-haul airlines than any other continental state. At least it doesn't seem to be a list of airlines that once had Alaska as a small part of their service area. --Dhartung | Talk 21:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: Although I'm willing to accept any clean-up job that takes place, as well as an expansion. One of the airlines(Denali Air) got my attention when I was scanning for uncategorized articles. I thought it was a shame to have this deleted, so Obina recommended this list. The revival of the Skagway Air Services article was supposed to be temporary, so that I could add the info to this list. If you don't want that one, take it away. But trashing this one is an idiotic move! ----DanTD (talk) 22:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment It just occurred to me this might be better as a category, and the individual air lines that meet the notability guidelines would retain their own articles. Beeblbrox (talk) 18:12, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • If they all had their own pages, I might agree with you. Many of them don't however, some of them justifiably so. But deleting this makes as much sense as deleting pages that are currently listed in the Category:Lists of railroads by US state, or any other list. ----DanTD (talk) 18:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep There's nothing wrong with this list and its encyclopedic value stems from the fact that air travel is the primary means of transportation throughout most of Alaska. --Oakshade (talk) 18:48, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• But that is just the problem. What are the criteria for inclusion? There are literally hundreds of small airlines in Alaska, every tiny town with an airstrip has one or two, but they are no more notable than local land or water taxis, which there are also lots of in Alaska. It's basically akin to listing every cab company in New York. Sure, they exist, but Wikipedia is not a directory. Beeblbrox (talk) 19:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• We're talking actual airlines that this list includes, not "the village pilot." The WP:NOTDIRECTORY guideline is frequently incorrectly cited to remove encyclopedic lists. This list is discriminate and not a repository of loosely associated topics, as which WP:NOTDIRECTORY discourages. --Oakshade (talk) 19:47, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as all the the airlines but one (Denali Air) are listed in either List of airlines of the United States or List of defunct airlines. MilborneOne (talk) 20:52, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp (talk) 22:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp (talk) 22:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Alaska-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp (talk) 22:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • MilborneOne, this isn't just for defunct airlines. And major commercial carriers like Alaska Airlines, aren't even based in the state. ---DanTD (talk) 01:21, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I think you find that List of airlines of the United States has all the active operators apart from one that is on the list, the second link is for the one defunct airline on the list. MilborneOne (talk) 18:40, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• comment to Oakshade: how is the list discriminate? Era is scheduled passenger service, Denali Air is a flightseeing trip, Flight Alaska is a cargo service, Pacific Alaska was a unit of PanAm, Wings of Alaska is a charter service, Skagway Air was an air taxi. It is an indiscriminate collection of loosely associated subjects. Beeblbrox (talk) 18:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  It specifies actual air companies specifically based or that have major operations in Alaska. That is not anything near the description of "an indiscriminate collection of loosely associated subjects." --Oakshade (talk) 20:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to filibuster this debate, but this point goes right to the heart of why I nominated this list. In a state the size of Alaska, with a large number of airports, naturally there are a great number of different aviation operations, and this list samples each of them. If it is kept, it really needs some criteria for inclusion, as probably 85% of these operations (in total not just the ones on this list) are local in nature and no more notable than which taxi you take to work, or who delivers your pizza. If coverage in reliable third party sources per WP:NOTE is the bar for inclusion, most of the "airlines" in Alaska don't come close. Beeblbrox (talk) 00:18, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:LIST, there's no requirement that all items included in lists must be notable enough for their own articles. That's one of the reasons why we have lists. --Oakshade (talk) 07:18, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Where is it written that an incomplete list or one lacking consensus about what should be included should be deleted? Vegaswikian (talk) 22:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per Oakshade and Vegaswikian Mathmo ^Talk 08:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: Too many of the arguments advocating deletion are unimpressive. Not seeing the "point" of a particular list? Sheesh, Wikipedia would be a tenth the size if every article for which I couldn't "see the point" was flushed. There is nothing in either policy or guideline prohibiting a smaller, more inclusive list where a larger, less inclusive one already exists, and I'm amused at the concept that this list might propagate out of control where a List of airlines of the United States already exists, presumably without being AfDed out of such fears. To suggest that the list is indiscriminate because the various carriers serve different functions make as much sense as claiming List of classical composers to be indiscriminate because the people listed were not all Caucasian, male, British resident and composed Baroque music.  RGTraynor  19:05, 1 May 2008 (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.