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. Consensus seems solidly in favor of deletion on the grounds that the content in question is not sufficiently discriminate or encyclopedic as presented. The "keep" votes have easily demonstrated that bird stamps are notable as a topic, but do not, in my judgement, directly address many of the concerns regarding these lists in particular. – Juliancolton | Talk 16:36, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This is a nomination of all 51 articles in Category:Lists of birds on stamps. Yes, stamps have an image, of birds or reptiles or churches or painters or ... and yes, people collect stamps by topic (or country or year or ...), just like they collect cigar wrappers by topic, or figurines of owls, or ... It's a smart commercial move by the stamp issuing offices. But they aren't encyclopedic articles, they are one of countless possibilities of listing characteristics of stamps. It doesn't convey any necessary information on the birds or on (in this case) Bophuthatswana, and a rather random piece of information on the stamps of the country.
These lists are unsourced or only reference the general stamp catalogues (which are not topically sorted). An article like List of birds on stamps of Finland is generally useless.
Also nominated:
List of birds on stamps of Abu Dhabi
List of birds on stamps of Afghanistan
List of birds on stamps of Aitutaki
List of birds on stamps of Ajman
List of birds on stamps of Åland
List of birds on stamps of Albania
List of birds on stamps of Algeria
List of birds on stamps of Andorra
List of birds on stamps of Angola
List of birds on stamps of Armenia
List of birds on stamps of Aruba
List of birds on stamps of the Australian Antarctic Territory
List of birds on stamps of Austria
List of birds on stamps of Azerbaijan
List of birds on stamps of Azores
List of birds on stamps of Bechuanaland
List of birds on stamps of Belgian Congo
List of birds on stamps of Bequia
List of birds on stamps of Bermuda
List of birds on stamps of Bhutan
List of birds on stamps of Biafra
List of birds on stamps of British Guiana
List of birds on stamps of the British Indian Ocean Territory
List of birds on stamps of Burma
List of birds on stamps of Cambodia
List of birds on stamps of Cape Juby
List of birds on stamps of Cape Verde
List of birds on stamps of Croatia
List of birds on stamps of Estonia
List of birds on stamps of Fernando Po
List of birds on stamps of Finland
List of birds on stamps of Guinea-Bissau
List of birds on stamps of Ifni
List of birds on stamps of India
List of birds on stamps of Italian East Africa
List of birds on stamps of Italian Somalia
List of birds on stamps of Japan
List of birds on stamps of Latvia
List of birds on stamps of Macau
List of birds on stamps of Madeira
List of birds on stamps of Malta
List of birds on stamps of Manchukuo
List of birds on stamps of Mozambique
List of birds on stamps of Pakistan
List of birds on stamps of Portugal
List of birds on stamps of Rio Muni
List of birds on stamps of Sao Tome e Principe
List of birds on stamps of Spanish Sahara
List of birds on stamps of West Irian
List of birds on stamps of Zimbabwe Fram (talk) 09:30, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Agree these are not encyclopedic and if allowed to proliferate offer endless permutations, all similarly useless. There is already a parallel "Fish on the stamps of xxxxx" which could be included. This was discussed at the Philately Project. If I remember correctly the consensus was that "People on the stamps of XXXX" was OK as those people are normally highly connected to the country of origin of the stamp, but opinion was divided on the other "on the stamps of" lists. Philafrenzy (talk) 09:43, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Agree on all counts. I haven't included the "Fish" lists or the lone "Bonsai" list to keep this somewhat controllable. If consensus here is for delete, I plan on nominating the other similar lists as well. And I agree that the "people" lists should either be left alone or considered separately, as they do provide information on the people and the country (i.e. which people are considered notable in which country, period, ...) which is absent or much less prominent on the animal lists. Fram (talk) 10:02, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete While I disagree with them being "pointless", not one of these lists has any references and most have been around for 10 years with nothing to verify the information. They all could be revamped and become Featured Lists at some point in the future, but right now, they show no levels of notability, no third-party coverage and no sources. LugnutsDick Laurent is dead 13:48, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - "totally unnecessary" is not a reason to delete things on wikipedia - almost every list could be said to be useless or unnecessary by someone who doesn't care about the information it contains. There is a concern about the lack of references, that's a fair comment. However it is not "unencyclopedic" to include detailed information in a list that you are not interested in. There are plenty of lists that other uninterested editors would find completely unnecessary. That is a quality statement and WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a reason to delete a page. JMWt (talk) 14:10, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
A list of number-one records on a chart groups a major characteristic of certain records (same genre, period and level of success) and an essential characteristic of the chart. A list of birds on stamps of one country list a completely unimportant characteristic of a bird (it doesn't indicate anything about the bird (except that one national or quasi-national institution thought it a good commercial idea to picture it), a completely unimportant characteristic of the country, and a minor element of the stamps of one country (leaving you with a too narrowly defined intersection of characteristics to be a good list subject). There is little or no relation between the stamps on one of these lists (which bird is pictured in 1984 has little influence on which one is pictured in 2002) and no relation between the different lists (one country will hardly care which bird is pictured on stamps from other countries). In total, they are a collection of loosely related information grouped on non-defining characteristics. I gave the Finland example as one egregiously useless list: but being useless was not my reason to nominate these, being rather random and endless was. That they are mostly unsourced and unmaintained are additional but in themselves not sufficient reasons to delete them. Fram (talk) 14:40, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment If someone had done an article (or even a list) about the Birds of Finland on the stamps of Finland, now that might have been OK, but as Fram indicated, there is not a shred of analysis, discrimination, or wider significance in these lists. Philafrenzy (talk) 14:47, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - these lists are a convenient reference or serve as a good directory for philatelists, but they serve no encyclopedic purpose. I think an alternative outlet devoted to stamp collecting would be more appropriate. I googled "stamp collecting wiki", and the first non-Wikipedia entry I came up with was http://stampcollecting.wikia.com/wiki/Stamp_Collecting_Wiki; I suggest we contact them, give them an opportunity to copy all of these lists across to their wiki if they so desire, then delete. Aspirex (talk) 22:11, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: I agree with Aspirex, this stuff does not belong to Wikipedia, but rather to some fringe Wikia. They may have these, if they wish to. Ceosad (talk) 00:06, 14 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment All these articles seem to have been created in 2005, by User:JPPINTO a contributor who only seems to have only made about 700 edits, in total, most of them in 2005, and who hasn't contributed since 2010. While the articles have all had dozens of edits, since then, they seem to have all been cosmetic edits, to the metadata.
I think that it would have been more appropriate to have used 51 ((prod))s. This AFD is a waste of time.
I think JMWt made an important point. The problem with these articles is not their topic. People do write about postage stamp design. If there were good references on stamps with bird designs there would be no problem with the topic of these articles.
It is quite possible, likely, in fact, that newbie JPPINTO, the articles' creator, had access to reliable references, back in 2005. Geo Swan (talk) 06:15, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to postage stamp design. Keep revision history. Geo Swan (talk) 06:17, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Considering that that article has no information whatsoever on any of the above 51 lists, and would be overwhelmed if you added info on these (and on the 30 fish lists, and ...), it makes no sense to redirect them. It is better to make it obvious for a hypothetical reader that we have no information on a subject, than to redirect them to an article which tells them nothing about their search item. Fram (talk) 08:25, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And it's a bit hard to reconcile "this AFD is a waste of time, ProD would have been better" with "do not delete, redirect with history preserved" which would never have been the result of 51 prods anyway. Fram (talk) 08:43, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: I think the deletionists are missing some important points about these lists. Topical stamps are a very popular form of stamp collecting so much so that there is a specific Bird Stamp Society as well as about 50 specialised study units of the American Topical Association. Many countries issue stamps illustrating their native and sometimes foreign flora and fauna, such as Definitive postage stamps of Ireland#Birds that are important issues for those countries more so when they are definitive stamps but adding such list would not enhance such article which is why lists such as those for deletion are created. An alternative to deletion would be to merge the lists into the Postage stamps and postal history of ... articles such as List of birds on stamps of India into Postage stamps and postal history of India perhaps even in a collapsed form to avoid overwhelming those articles where they already exist.
As an encyclopaedia we are a great resource for stamp collectors and can do much more in that regards so such list may not seem so important to some as specific stamp articles but neither are they a dictionary. In the previous discussion on topical stamp lists, Mike Cline and Stan made some very good points about such lists that you should probably consider before a final decision; there was no agreement to delete them then and I see no good reason to delete them now either. The many deletionists might spend some more time finding the many less significant lists that abound Wikipedia instead. ww2censor (talk) 11:40, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the tables are beautiful, and I can see they could be a useful resource to experts in stamps -- if they know they can trust the information. But the tables are completely without documentation.
JPPINTO may have been one of the world's experts, on stamps. There are wikis where this information would be welcome, even though it is completely without substantiation. In 2005, when JPPINTO added this information, standards were lower, but today, it requires references.
Volunteering information on the wikipedia can be frustrating for genuine subject field experts. Our rules don't let them rely on their hard won knowledge. They have to rely on authoritative references, same as everyone else.
If you are a stamp expert, and you think you can find WP:VerifiableWP:Reliable sources, then I suggest you request userification, to give you enough time to add the references the articles need. In my opinion they need some introductory text, to add context, to those of us who are not stamp experts.
If you commit yourself to bringing the articles up to today's standards, I'll change my opinion here to userify for improvement. And, I'll offer my opinion as to whether they are ready to be restored to article space, once they have references, and text to provide context to non-stamp collectors. Geo Swan (talk) 13:28, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The value of these lists, plus the difficulty of constructing and then maintaining them accurately, is one of the motivations behind my long-term effort to generate them automatically; this bird list at stampdata.com shows the current state of the work (note the WP links, which is part of the mechanism to ensure name accuracy). Another possibility, if these lists' existence is hurtful to people's eyes, is Wikibooks, which already has a good chunk of general catalog, and could certainly just justify adding topical lists. Stan (talk) 13:24, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Wait a second, your table uses information from these tables, combined with references to http://colnect.com, which has a wiki of its own, with detailed entries like this one on the Abyssinian Ground Hornbill? Where did the detailed information at colnect come from?
Where are the references used to construct the detailed entries at colnect? Have you, or other stamp contributors, considered bringing these articles up to date by citing those references?
Have you considered porting these tables to the colnect wiki? JPPINTO contributed it under a free license. People at the colnect wiki are completely free to re-use that table, so long as they acknowledge the original author(s). Under US law lists of facts aren't protected by copyright. This list may meet the criteria for being considered a list of facts not protected by copyright. Geo Swan (talk) 13:51, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
List of birds on stamps of Afghanistan has four columns for stamp catalogues, that lists "Scott", "Yvert", "Mitchell", ""Sta. & Gib." Maybe you stamp experts can instantly recognize what these columns are for, and what the numbers in these columns mean. But these articles should be comprehensible to general readers, who aren't stamp experts. Could you fix this table, so a reader could understand these columns? Geo Swan (talk) 14:10, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There is a little confusion, both stampdata and colnect have their own database, each independently developed, each with a completely different internal structure, and both independent of JPPINTO's tables (which were probably generated from a private database - many collectors have developed their own). All the databases typically confine themselves to agreed-upon facts, gathered from existing catalogs or authoritative websites such as the UPU. Personally I've been putting my time into coding and database massaging for stampdata.com, so as to get to a point where Wiki{pedia,books} could have lists based on an authoritative online source, but it's a big undertaking, has sucked up all my former Wikipedia time. In the meantime, the existing lists are not great, but not harmful either. Stan (talk) 15:00, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In the catalog columns, add an in-line citation to each catalog on the header line. No need to source each entry to a specific page, just each column to a specific catalog.
Add a legend at the top to explain the possible entries in the column type. I assume NOR means Normal but who knows. A legend, common to every topical list would be a big improvement.
Strengthen the lead-in to say a bit more in summary about the topic in the context of the country. Leace no doubt as to the inclusion criteria. Source those comments.
I agree that these were excellent points, just what these lists need. Do you know how much progress those interested in stamps have made to follow your 2010 advice? Geo Swan (talk) 18:37, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't follow many philately related articles so I can't say one way or the other.--Mike Cline (talk) 19:59, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All: On two grounds. 1) I object to these mass deletions because of the strong bias it gives to delete votes!. One who votes! Delete merely has to generalize without any specific evidence of non-notability on any given entry. Whereas a Keep vote! is forced to either provide generalized evidence of notability which can be typically dismissed or is forced to provide entry by entry specifics. 2) Neither the nom or those voting! delete have provided valid rationale for deletion. Notability of lists is clearly spelled out in WP:NOTESAL a guideline that took a lot of work to achieve consensus on back in the day. The relevant portion of WP:NOTESAL is: Notability guidelines apply to the inclusion of stand-alone lists and tables. Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group. One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list. The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been. Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable,…
Without any doubt, the topics of these lists have been discussed as a group in American Topic Association (a national philatelic organization) publications and most likely discussed as a group in country and region specific philatelic publications or in Fédération Internationale de Philatélie Thematic Philately Commission publications. As a philatelist of some 60 years and once active in the highest venues of national and international philately as an exhibitor, I can say without any doubt, that most if not all of these lists meet the requirement of WP:NOTESAL and should not be deleted but improved. –Mike Cline (talk) 14:02, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
These lists aren't verifiable, as they cite no references. If you, or other contributors knowledgeable about stamps, can provide references, and some explanatory text, then I would change my !vote, and I believe some others who weighed in here would too.
If you need time to dig up the references I suggest you request userification, to give you that time. Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 14:21, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Geo - You miss my point completely. I contend these lists are notable IAW WP:NOTESAL and it is highly probable that reliable sources exist to support that notability. The fact that those sources are not listed is not a valid reason for deletion. If is was then the 218,603 articles in this category Category:Articles lacking sources would be ripe for deletion as well. AFD is not WP:Cleanup. Enough said. Time for someone else to decide. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:09, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I too suspected that it is highly probable that reliable sources exist that cover stamps with images of birds, of ships, of politicians, of writers and artists. When JPPINTO drafted these tables, in 2005, the wikipedia had far far looser standards for article inclusion, and far far looser standards for how articles should be referenced. In 2005 we hadn't yet begun to use <ref name=x></ref> tags and ((cite)) templates.
The wikipedia still includes lots of articles from 2005, that have been updated, so they measure up to the reference expectations of today. In spite of suspecting references existed, seeing that no one had made any effort to provide those references, during the last ten years, made me suspect no one would provide those references during the next ten years.
If you are asking for the lists to be kept because reliable sources probably exist, that it a non-starter.
If you are asking for the lists to be kept, because stamps fans will start to work through these lists, and will gradually make sure they all explicitly cite references -- sorry, I think that is problematic too. That is why I suggested the lists be (temporarily) moved from article space, to be restored when they do measure up to our current referencing standards.
Um, are you suggesting the lists don't need explicit references? Geo Swan (talk) 00:36, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the list cite 1-4 references per stamp. All the best: RichFarmbrough, 18:36, 17 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]
Really? Actually, many of them don't, and the references that are there (general stamp catalogues) say nothing about the list subject. You can use the same sources to create "list of stamps of Manama with perforation 13 1/2 by 14" or "list of stamps of Danzig with a crown watermark" and so on. Taking a catalogue and making your own selection from it based on whatever criteria you prefer is not a reason to keep a list as begin "sourced". You need sources about the list subject, showing that "birds on stamps of Ifni" is a notable subject, not that you can find them among all other stamps in catalogues which are not even ordered by topic but by country, type, and date of emission. Which you are all quite aware of, but why give a policy based reason? Fram (talk) 22:29, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Move all to the Draft space, to have the changes suggested by @Mike Cline: in 2010 made to them. Those with expertise in stamps say reliable sources exist, and AGF, I trust them. Restoration to article space should wait for referencing to measure up to today's expectations. Geo Swan (talk) 18:51, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I guess these could be shoved in one article but quite honestly I don't have time for that and I imagine no one else does either, Sourcing these individually would be next to none impossible and so the only best outcome here to delete these as they all fail GNG, (Had this been 5 or 6 articles I wouldn't mind moving to userspace/draft but moving 50 odd individually is just creating unnecessary work and if the creator wants these saved they can either move them themselves or go to WP:UNDELETE. –Davey2010Talk 02:15, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment re sources: Lack of sources is not a reason to delete and anyone with access to a set of hard copy stamp catalogues, Scott or Stanley Gibbons, or even an online database like Colnect.com could easily source these lists. They just need some time and motivation which obviously none of the deletionists have. I have sourced each stamp, except for one, in the List of birds on stamps of India and was able to do so by mostly using the UPUs WADP Numbering System has most, if not all, stamps issued since 2002 and can definitely be considered a reliable source. ww2censor (talk) 11:04, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Everyone of these lists could be sourced in part from:
Keep/merge I observed this nomination at the outset but the selection of topics seemed too bottom-up and tiresome, when a top-down approach might be more sensible. So, I started the page bird stamp and was wondering whether anyone would notice (it doesn't seem so). The topic seems notable at that level as sources include:
Bleeker, Sonia (1966), The Golden Book of Bird Stamps
Daly, Kathleen (1955), Bird Stamps
Eriksen, Hanne; Eriksen, Jens (1996), Collect Birds on Stamps, Stanley Gibbons, ISBN9780852594087
Esten, Sidney (1954), Birds of the World on Stamps, American Topical Association
Bird Stamps of All Countries with a Natural History of Each Bird, Grosset & Dunlap, 1935
But the lists we have here all seem to be for minor countries. Where are the major countries like the UK, for example? I suggest merging this up into a higher page such as list of bird stamps as an alternative to deletion. If the philately project then gets this topic area fleshed out more fully, the country-level pages can be opened up again as needed. Andrew D. (talk) 14:33, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I came here through an article alert for List of birds on stamps of Croatia. I knew nothing about birds on stamps before I read this list, and after reading the list and clicking through the links, I think it's fair to say that I still know nothing about the subject. The list is formatted as some sort of a specialized philatelic topic, with type, value and catalogue columns that I basically can't read. But they also then combine excessive biological classification terms - who exactly really cares if it was Linnaeus that first identified that bird in 1758, and why does the taxonomy matter in the context of stamps, when we can just link the bird article instead? In general, the list doesn't even seem to attempt to answer the question why? Why was a stamp released in '93 in Croatia with the white-tailed eagle on it? Usually when I come across this sort of information in general-purpose media (such as encyclopedias), it tells me things like "someone wanted to commemorate this specific item because it relates to them for reasons x and y". What is the encyclopedic value of this list when it doesn't convey this basic piece of information? The suggestion to move to a wikia and delete seems best, for this article at least. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 13:55, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Is it a joke? Such lists do not belong to Wikipedia. Zezen (talk) 14:54, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, or possibly merge all into list of bird stamps that's currently a redirect to Bird stamp, but I think it could reasonably exist as a stand-alone list which incorporates all the content of these various smaller lists. The problem is, according to Bird stamp, there's 10,000 of them. It's unlikely we would list all but a small fraction of them, and I don't know what the inclusion criteria would be. If we merged these into a big master list, we would have to address the issue raised by Joy that much of the data is cryptic. There would need to be some introductory material which explained the type, catalog, etc. -- RoySmith(talk) 20:46, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NOTCATALOG and WP:NOTSTATSBOOK. I agree with Joy that these lists lack any encyclopedic value and should move to some specialised wikia, if they don't already exist (catawiki anyone?). On a sidenote, I am slightly annoyed by the consistently incorrect spelling of the "Mitchell" catalogue in these lists, which should be "Michel". - HyperGaruda (talk) 06:50, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: I think Bird stamp has potential to be a really nice article about the subject, but the individual lists don't really tell us anything. If they were solidly sourced and said something about the stamps, rather than just a list, they might be appropriate. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 04:41, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I see where many of those opposing this deletion are coming from, but topical collecting fixating on certain objects is simply too specific for Wikipedia. smileguy91talk - contribs 03:08, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The same opinionated arguments were made against Bibliographies in the 2008-09 timeframe--they were indiscriminate, they weren't encyclopedic, they were useful, yada, yada. At the time there were only about 50 in the encyclopedia but reason won the day and WP:NOTESAL eventually became the guiding precept for lists of all kinds. Today we have hundreds of useful bibliographies for readers to review and use on all manner of subjects.--Mike Cline (talk)
Keep This oddly enough seems like the classic encyclopedia subject. FYI - There are even exclusive duck stamps and duck with retriever dog stamps! --MurderByDeadcopy"bang!" 05:28, 28 November 2015 (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.