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. Merge may be a viable option, discussion should continue on the talk page. Courcelles 03:07, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of bus routes in Southampton[edit]

List of bus routes in Southampton (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Wikipedia is not a place for travel guides - that is what Wikitravel is for. Nor is it a place for minority interests such as bus/plane/train spotters - that is why the foundation set up Wikia. Simple Bob ^{a.k.a. The Spaminator} (Talk) 11:21, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Revising my nomination for those who may not have read the specific guidance in WP:NOTDIR - WP:NOTGUIDE states that travel guide content belongs at Wikitravel or Wikia travel instead. --Simple Bob ^{a.k.a. The Spaminator} (Talk) 14:51, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But that policy makes no mention of transport infrastructure such as bus routes, as the first two sentences make clear: "An article on Paris should mention landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, but not the telephone number or street address of your favorite hotel, nor the current price of a café au lait on the Champs-Élysées. Wikipedia is not the place to recreate content more suited to entries in hotel or culinary guides, travelogues, and the like." This article is already compliant with these requirements - the bus companies' addresses and telephone numbers aren't listed, are they? Alzarian16 (talk) 15:10, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment As per Alzarin16, the polcies you quote make no mention of public transport. A simple list of bus routes is neither a directory or a Travel Guide. Re WP:NOTDIR. A list of bus routes is not "Genealogical entries", "The White or Yellow Pages", "Directories, directory entries, electronic program guide, or a resource for conducting business", "Sales catalogs", "Changelogs or release notes", "Non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations", "A complete exposition of all possible details" nor really a "Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics", so WP:NOTDIR does not have any points within that a list of bus routes would contravene. Re WP:NOTGUIDE, I won't list all the points again, but the only one that could be argued a list of bus routes is against is point 2, "Wikipedia is not a Travel Guide". However, this is referring more to using Wikipedia as a sort of holiday travel guide with tourist destinations, restaurant, hotel or venue as it says in the text. You wouldn't use a list of bus routes to actually plan a trip out on the bus, therefore a list of bus routes is not a Travel Guide. You'd need the complete bus timetable for it to be anywhere near a travel guide. Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 18:53, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - IDONTLIKEIT is not a valid reason for deletion.  Adam mugliston  Talk  11:54, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - And WP:ILIKEIT is not a valid reason for a keep. Show me one substantial, independently published source for ANY of these Original Research Bus Route Cruft pieces, please. Carrite (talk) 03:53, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merge into a revised List of bus routes in Hampshire, a county-wide article to match with all of the other List of bus routes in England. Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 12:48, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• "Nor is it a place for minority interests such as bus/plane/train spotters - that is why the foundation set up Wikia." - what? Where on earth does this appear in policy? Using this logic, every article about buses - including four GAs, one of which is about an individual route - would be deleted. If you really feel that minority interests shouldn't be represented, why did you write List of artists who have performed at the Colston Hall, which gets less than one-third of the views that this article gets? This smacks of bias bordering on personal attacks, and should be ignored by the closing admin. And it's been copied across ten of these AfDs! There are plenty of good reasons why this article either shouldn't exist or should be rewritten in a different format, but this is not one of them. Alzarian16 (talk) 14:38, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Nice bit of canvassing by the way. WP:CANVASS explicity states that "The audience must not be selected on the basis of their opinions—for example, if notices are sent to editors who previously supported deleting an article, then identical notices should be sent to those who supported keeping it." Providing a non-neutral note only to a user who has called for the deletion of all such lists while failing to notify users who support them will do this debate no favours in the long run.
• For my part, I would like to see the content in this article condensed down to a minimum and moved to a prose article on Buses in Southampton, a mainstream encyclopedic topic about which masses of material has been published. Alzarian16 (talk) 14:56, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • That is a very good idea. --Simple Bob ^{a.k.a. The Spaminator} (Talk) 15:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am revamping the article at the moment in my userspace. I am referencing it and fulfilling colour visibility criteria. It will also include some prose in it.  Adam mugliston  Talk  14:58, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and a compendium of popular culture. It is not a universal list of bus routes, nor should it be. There are places on the internet where this information may be rapidly obtained, riders do not and should not be coming to Wikipedia for this information. Carrite (talk) 17:00, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK then, if you actually check, you will find that "There are places on the Internet where this information may be rapidly obtained" is completely wrong, and that actually this information is very hard to find all in one place, especially for Hampshire-wide information. Unless of course you did actually check before making such a statement, and you can give a link that will show the same information in a similar format...? Besides, why should information about buses not be included on Wikipedia, when 1) there is no policy against it and 2) There is far more information about train, ferry and plane services, meaning without buses there's an odd hole in coverage? Arriva436^{talk/contribs} 19:08, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, so you're saying this should be kept since it's valid original research that can't be found elsewhere?!? Lists of bus routes are pretty much a textbook definition of unencyclopedic local cruft. Carrite (talk) 03:47, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If lists of bus routes were "textbook definitions of unencyclopaedic local cruft" then they would be mentioned, explicitly or implicitly, in at least one of the pages we have giving examples of things that Wikipedia is not for. However, they don't appear in such lists because they are neither unencyclopaedic nor cruft - unless you are going to present any evidence to the contrary? Many of these list of bus route articles are sourced, none of the others has been shown to be unsourceable. Just because there is no single place on the internet that gives easily accessed encyclopaedic coverage of a subject does not mean that we should delete our coverage of the topic - indeed our job is to be that single, easily accessed provider of encyclopaedic coverage. Thryduulf (talk) 11:26, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• • Should I really have to point out that content existing elsewhere is not a reason for deletion but a fundamental requirement of all content on Wikipedia, as WP:V and WP:OR make explicity clear? If sources didn't exist, that would be a good reason for deletion. But they do. Alzarian16 (talk) 19:33, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • May I just add that I am currently working on a new revamped, better looking, referenced version of the list, that will include elements of prose. This should be ready by tomorrow afternoon.  Adam mugliston  Talk  19:38, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 19:36, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 19:37, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 19:37, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. It is most unlikely that significant coverage in reliable secondary sources will ever be found for this material. The article fails General Notability Guideline, Notability of Standalone Lists guideline, Wikipedia is not a Directory, Wikipedia Stand Alone List Guideline Wikipedia is not a Travel Guide and Wikipedia is not a list of indiscriminate information. If this sort of material is kept it is always liable to become outdated and a source of misinformation if editors concerned lose interest. Even if we have legal indemnity against any unfortunate consequences of providing wrong data we have a moral responsibility to avoid doing so, not to mention the potential damage to WP's reputation. It is not just a case of not liking it as there are sound reasons for not keeping it.--Charles (talk) 20:18, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:NOTDIR, WP:NOTTRAVEL and WP:SAL do not mention buses or anything transport related, while WP:NNC clearly states most lists do not have to satisfy GNG.  Adam mugliston  Talk  20:40, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - Like with similar articles up for afd, this is a perfectly valid standalone list of routes of a major bus system in a major city. Bus routes are integral parts of the workings of a city infrastructure and that is very encyclopedic. I see "WP is not a directory" quotes frequently in bus route nominations but there is actually nothing in WP:DIRECTORY that bans list articles, nor list articles of bus routes. This isn't a "repositories of loosely associated topics" or anything of the like and this list is very discriminate. I also notice the nom and the delete voters are simply stating lists of bus routes are unencyclopedic in general and not making a case to delete this list article of this specific city's bus routes, yet again they haven't touched the List of bus routes in London List of bus routes in Manhattan or the like which one would imagine are much more colossal violations of encyclopedic content to those who don't like bust list articles. --Oakshade (talk) 22:58, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Just being the list without having excessive timetable details makes this a normal article. It is not indiscriminate or over-detailed unless it starts listing the detailed routes. I am unable to understand the opposition to these articles if someone wants to maintain them. I particularly don't see the point of deletion when its a major city like this one. It's only a travel guide if it has the schedule and prices--some bus route articles in the past have had them, and that is probably unjustifiable. DGG ( talk ) 23:56, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - nominating 8 "list of bus routes in ..." LISTS, with 'rubberstamp' rationals, separately was pointless. If your rational was the same in all of them, why not do a single AFD for the Group of them. All my keep reasons are stated in the currently ongoing Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of bus routes in Peterborough (2nd nomination) Exit2DOS ^{• Ctrl • Alt • Del} 00:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - This is a perfectly notable article which just needs a little expansion, is all. Rcsprinter (talk) 12:18, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. This is a perfectly encyclopaedic list. Yes it needs referencing (but sources are very likely to exist, given the presence of them for rural parts of Hampshire, and Southampton is an important city), expansion and work on colour. None of these are reasons to delete though. Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of bus routes in Peterborough (2nd nomination) for a detailed refutation of the arguments that WP:NOTDIR disallows lists of bus routes. Thryduulf (talk) 16:56, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Keep - Per my comments [1] I disagree with the nomination statement. The article does require sourcing though. Worm^TT · (talk) 09:19, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  I am currently collecting sources in my userspace.  Adam mugliston  Talk  09:36, 27 July 2011 (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.