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. T. Canens (talk) 23:20, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of Chinese administrative divisions by population[edit]

List of Chinese administrative divisions by population (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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Unsourced,OR BsBsBs (talk) 20:40, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Chinese city population entries are completely unsourced. The footnotes 1-5 do not point to sources, but to explanations of the type of the administrative region. The comparison entries are all unsourced except for India. Comparisons with other regions may be viewed as Original Research.-- BsBsBs (talk) 20:47, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 03:26, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 03:27, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep: If an article has WP:V issues, that's what template tags are for. An AfD is out of the question, especially since you have only added the disputed, unreferenced and OR tags 7 minutes before nominating the AfD. This is not what an AfD is for. I would also like to mention WP:SOFIXIT - certainly if you are concerned about the welfare of an article, you'd be bold enough to fix it yourself? The same amount of effort following the three steps to AfD could have been made looking up statistics. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 03:39, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who is looking after the welfare of Beijing, I can assure you that

• it is not easy to obtain up-to-date population numbers in China
• once you have them, they are contentious (there was an edit war over Beijing's official population number of 22 million - pls compare to the number in this list)

I am all for this list, but to stay alive, it must be sourced. Thank you for the invitation, but maintaining it timely and correctly is beyond my capacities. The assertion that "the same amount of effort following the three steps to AfD could have been made looking up statistics" is patently wrong. Try it on a few major provinces. If it's so easy, why isn't there a single reference? -- BsBsBs (talk) 05:31, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep I believe all nations have official websites that list their census bureau's information on it. Some information is listed on the American government's Census bureau's website. www.census.gov Shouldn't be difficult to find if any of the information is sincerely in doubt. I don't see any reason to have the section "Comparable country (country rank worldwide)". Why mention what nation or state has the same population of that area? I don't see as how that helps anyone. Dream Focus 03:59, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Try it. Sourced in China. -- BsBsBs (talk) 05:31, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• • Comment: Just noticed a little something. Quote: "The footnotes 1-5 do not point to sources" - precisely. They are notes, not references. The article specifically states that. I don't see anything "wrong" with that. Many WP:FA also contain notes. They are used to clarify certain things that some readers might not understand, without completely ruining the format of the body article. Sources, on the other hand, are given as external links, because as the figures change each year, so does the page URL. I also don't see why linking to the main page of the Bureau of Statistics is "wrong". Linking to the direct page can lead to link rot. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:14, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Red herring. Where are the sources? Next time I write that someone killed someone, I provide the main page of the National Enquirer and say look for yourself, there might be link rot? -- BsBsBs (talk) 05:31, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• • • Comment I have fixed the problem with footnotes not being separated from references. 76.66.195.196 (talk) 05:13, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• comment I deleted all the nation comparison stuff, which got the nominator all worked up about OR and seems rather arbitrary to me. Yoenit (talk) 11:50, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It may seem arbitrary to you and me, but editors have been accused of Original Research in much less obvious cases. The fact that the list is unreferenced remains. I have made three good faith edits for Chongqing, Beijing, and Shanghai. Sorry, the numbers for Chongqing and Beijing are different than what was in the list, but now they are properly referenced. The other numbers should be properly referenced likewise. I happen to follow Chongqing, Beijing and Shanghai, so I have those numbers. As two out of three numbers were wrong, I expect further changes as this list is properly referenced. If it's not, all unreferenced data can be deleted. It is now unlikely that the whole page will be deleted. However, all unreferenced data can be deleted at any time. (Caution: Even after everything is properly referenced, giving a ranking could attract accusations of WP:OR on the grounds of "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources." I don't like it, but them's the rules.) -- BsBsBs (talk) 14:55, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I didn't even see the rank until now. A rather useless column as you can use the autosort function to sort the table on population size, so I removed it. If you feel the need to remove all numbers you can not get a reliable source for, please do so. It would leave the list utterly gutted for now, but eventually lead to improvement. Yoenit (talk) 15:33, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, a valid topic. If there is any uncertainty or dispute as to the numbers for a particular area, this should be noted and explained in the article. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 03:32, 27 June 2010 (UTC).[reply]
  • Comment: the article has been sourced by a number of editors since the AfD was nominated. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 05:21, 27 June 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.