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. (non-admin closure) — Yash ^talk stalk 02:46, 31 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

List of businesses in Omaha[edit]

List of businesses in Omaha (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This is an indiscriminate directory of businesses that happen to be located in, or have their headquarters in, the same city - WP:NOTDIRECTORY points 3, 4, and 7 explicitly say that this sort of page is not encyclopaedic. There is no source that treats a business being located in Omaha as a defining feature of a business any more than any other location (contrary to WP:LISTN and possibly WP:NOTDIRECTORY point 6). There are four citations given, one is about Warren Buffett (only tangentially relevant to the topic of the list), the other three are solely to verify that a non-notable business is located in Omaha. Thryduulf (talk) 10:42, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Nebraska-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 10:49, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 10:47, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 10:47, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - per WP:LISTPURP and WP:LISTN, this list has a well-defined inclusion criteria, serves as a useful navigation tool, takes the place of a list as a part of the Economy of Omaha article, and similar lists can be found in reliable sources, such as regional trade magazines and newspapers. Smmurphy^(Talk) 14:11, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per WP:LISTPURP. The nominator seems to be confused about the purpose of the WP:NOTDIRECTORY policy; it was created to avoid Wikipedia become a poor, badly maintained copy of the original Yahoo or DMOZ, i.e. a partial, incomplete listing of links to external websites or entities. The nominated article is no such thing: it is a list of Wikipedia articles about companies, not a mere listing of companies. That makes all the difference, as the purpose of the list is to allow readers to reach the relevant article (i.e. no different to a category, and therefore allowed per WP:NOTDUPE)

Surely there's a couple of red links here and there in the list, though those have always been considered request for someone to create the article. If there are entries without a wikilink, those could be removed, but I don't think there are. Diego (talk) 14:19, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• • How is this any different to a DMOZ list of companies in Omah that have Wikipedia articles (along with some that don't, and some that might have in future)? Thryduulf (talk) 17:31, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Because DMOZ is not restricted to companies that are subject of encyclopedic coverage, and this Wikipedia list is. (Which BTW means that there should only be red links for companies that would merit a Wikipedia article, per WP:REDLINK). Being a navigational aid within the project to index its content is an accepted purpose for Wikipedia lists per the WP:LISTPURP guideline. Diego (talk) 17:57, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Diego Moya has a very good rationale for keeping this list. Most all of these items in the list are blue linked articles. A very few have red links. I think this is probably the most acceptable kind of list article that we have on Wikipedia. If this was a list that had no blue links, then serious pruning would be in order, and even deletion would be a possibility,. Also, because most all of these are blue linked, this means the articles are already sourced (supposedly), and therefore the list satisfies the criteria for inclusion across core content policies. Sometimes it is refreshing to come a across an article at AfD, such as this, which is a slam dunk. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 15:06, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The majority of the entries do have WP articles, but for those that don't, per LISTCOMPANY A company or organization may be included in a list of companies or organizations whether or not it meets the Wikipedia notability requirement, unless a given list specifically requires this. If the company or organization does not have an existing article in Wikipedia, a citation to an independent, reliable source should be provided to establish its membership in the list's group. I'm not seeing anything in WP:NOT that clearly overrules this, and if we don't want such lists to remain we'll have to get the policies and guidelines changed: Noyster (talk), 15:36, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The list has to be encyclopaedic, not just the contents, otherwise any list of X in Y would be suitable for Wikipedia, regardless of any other consideration but that is clearly incorrect. Thryduulf (talk) 17:31, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • A list index of available encyclopedia content is encyclopedic. Diego (talk) 18:00, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per WP:LISTN DarjeelingTea (talk) 15:53, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • LISTN requires stand alone lists to have been discussed as a group by reliable sources? I don't see any evidence in this case. Thryduulf (talk) 17:31, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strictly speaking, being discussed as a group is "one accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable" per WP:LISTN, not a requirement.

LISTN also says that "There is no present consensus for ... what other criteria may justify the notability of stand-alone lists". Diego (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Another way to look at this is - this can be viewed as a spinoff article and article that is related to "Economy of Omaha, Nebraska", which has been previously mentioned (above). So in essence, this topic has been discussed as a group, in a general way in the article entitled "Economy of Omaha, Nebraska". It can be seen that it is not necessary to look for reliable sources that cover the intro for this list article due to these circumstances. This list article and the "Economy" article seem to directly correlate to each other. Also, it seems that it would be easy enough to copy some of the refs, as needed, from the "Economy" article for the intro of the list article - I would guess. I haven't really taken a serious look at those references yet. --Steve Quinn (talk) 18:52, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete fails WP:LISTN and WP:NOTDIR per nom, no significance for this topic, could easily develop into unneeded WP:LISTCRUFT. - CHAMPION ^{(talk) (contributions) (logs)} 04:27, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. A bit of good faith should be applied here as the article title is misleading. It isn't just a indiscriminate list of businesses in Omaha (of which I would most certainly support deletion) but it really a list of notable companies or corporations that are centered in Omaha. I support renaming the article to suit the lists true purpose The outlying issue is that the list has been used for promotional by local businesses - I recently culled a good number of them, and could probably do plenty more, but this is really just a cleanup issue that can be easily maintained. So long as there is enough notable companies to be included in the list criteria, it passes WP:LISTN. Ajf773 (talk) 07:28, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. This list was carefully created to begin with. This is another indiscriminate Afd that demonstrates systemic bias against Omaha, Nebraska because it's in a fly-over state. Although I know we don't compare in AfDs, I think its worth noting that Chicago, Seattle and Dallas-Fort Worth all have identical lists, and they're all in similar formats. • Freechild | talk to me 18:50, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • This nomination has nothing to do with bias against Nebraska or anywhere else. It's simply the only list of this nature that I was aware of when I made the nomination (it's the only such article named "List of businesses in <city>"). Having now looked at those other lists I think they are just as unencyclopaedic as this one is. The lead section of the Seattle article is good prose and belongs in an article about the area. Similarly the list of Fortune 500 companies in Dallas could be a significant, discriminate list if there was a little bit of prose about why such companies have chosen to base themselves there (and if there were any citations that would be a bonus). Listing the hundreds or maybe thousands of other companies in these large metropolitan areas can never be anything more than a directory of businesses - even if restricted to those with Wikipedia articles there is no link between their notability and their location in most cases so it's not a relevant categorisation. As for being an extension of the economy article - nice theory but it would still need to add something encyclopaedic that was too large to include, but it doesn't it's just a directory. Thryduulf (talk) 11:05, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep A well-organized list of notable businesses in a well-defined area. This is exactly what lists are for. Per the editing guideline WP:CLN, lists and categories are intended to co-exist and "these methods should not be considered in conflict with each other. Rather, they are synergistic, each one complementing the others." Irrational fears inspired by the essay WP:LISTCRUFT are hardly a justification for deletion; for that matter, *every* list must be deleted lest LISTCRUFT become a problem once we take this to its illogical conclusion. Alansohn (talk) 16:14, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep another perfectly viable list co-existing alongside Category:Companies based in Omaha, Nebraska, per policy. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:55, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep – Qualifies for an article per WP:NOTDUP relative to Category:Companies based in Omaha, Nebraska. Also qualifies as a functional navigational aid per WP:LISTPURP. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:49, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Plenty of blue links on the list, so its an acceptable Wikipedia list article. Dream Focus 12:32, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. The list is certainly not indiscriminate--it is limited to the ones that are notable enough to have WP articles. Lists and categories serve complementary functions--a category is automatically populated and very compact; a list however gives some indication of what the subject is. If you are want to look at articles of some particular type of companies in Chicago, a list lets you select them. If you don't know the exact name, a list helps you find it. If, , you are looking for potentially dubious articles, or articles worth upgrading, a list helps you screen them DGG ( talk ) 16:43, 27 January 2017 (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.