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The result was withdrawn. Note: article was also moved by nominator. (non-admin closure) Ansh666 23:43, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of mobile phones with HD display[edit]

AfDs for this article:
List of mobile phones with HD display (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
List of mobile phones with FWVGA display (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
List of mobile phones with WVGA display (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
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Nominated for deletion before, but was kept by the influence of a response which only factored in usefulness. "Wikipedia is not a directory of everything in the universe that exists or has existed." (nor the "Compare smartphones" page on insert favourite technology site here)

This is merely a comparison of smartphones by screen resolution with otherwise poor sourcing (most of its entries do not have proper citations). Wikipedia is not a catalog or sales directory. This is henceforth, unnecessary. Categories, such as "Smartphones with 720p displays"/"Smartphones with 1080p" displays are a preferred manner in which to organize these.

Due to the large number of devices with such displays, this article is ultimately unmaintainable. See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of games with DRM and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of handhelds with Wi-Fi connectivity ViperSnake151  Talk  22:51, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: Please remember that usefulness alone is not considered a valid argument in deletion discussions, and I specifically said that the last "keep" was a result of invalid arguments that invoked only usefulness. ViperSnake151  Talk  15:32, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: You are wrong. You need to re-read the link you provided to WP:ITSUSEFUL. You are greatly inflating what it says about saying just the two words "it's useful" being an insufficient argument. It most certainly does not state that usefulness is not a valid argument, in fact it says that it is a valid argument, if explained. See below and re-read the link. Makyen (talk) 15:47, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I said "usefulness alone". i.e. usefulness with no further elaborationViperSnake151  Talk  17:03, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment:You said it in the nomination, which discounted the fact that it was explained in the previous AfD; explicitly discounting the fact that it was explained there to satisfaction of other editors. You then reiterated your argument above in response to Jusdafax who explicitly referenced the previous AfD where the usefulness argument was explained. By making that reference, Jusdafax effectively indicated agreement with the arguments in, and conclusions of, the previous AfD. As such, replying, as you did, with a reiteration of your inaccurate WP:ITSUSEFUL argument was, again, indicating that you felt a usefulness argument alone was not a valid argument to keep an article. Such belief is wrong. A usefulness argument is a valid argument, and even such an argument alone is sufficient. What WP:ITSUSEFUL says is that just saying "its useful" is not sufficient. Why it is useful must be explained. That is in bold at the link. The existence of this AfD and what you have stated in it indicates that you do not understand that. In fact, WP:SPLITLIST effectively states that a list should be created even for the sole purpose of being useful to another article if the information contained has grown to the extent that it is no longer appropriate to keep embedded in the article. Whether the FWVGA and WVGA articles have grown beyond that purpose is another discussion. Again, I suggest that you re-read WP:ITSUSEFUL. Makyen (talk) 00:47, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:48, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:48, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Now deletion isn't the only solution here. We keep them but remove items without an article or evidence of notability. As for the last two, there is also the option of turning them into categories. But again, the biggest problem here is that our subject of discussion is a passing trend. How much an article titled "List of mobile phones with black and white screens" have chance of not getting deleted? I'd say nothing. You'd have to accept that this article is doomed anyway. If not today, in a year or two.
Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 13:08, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It is not clear to me that the lists are appropriate ones from which to remove non-notable items. From the lists context, I would leave them in. It would depend on when we reach the change point between including all items to only including the notable ones (see WP:CSC). Makyen (talk) 15:57, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. WP:NOTDIR has made an exception for lists that catalog Wikipedia's contents. So, while you'd leave them be, I might delete those items. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 02:54, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What I said on usefulness two months ago:

"Both lists are useful additions to the articles which reference them. They are referenced in articles that discuss mobile phone displays and/or display resolutions. While I do not know the history of List of mobile phones with HD display, the List of mobile phones with WVGA display was created because the primary article that references it, Graphics display resolution, had a list of such phones in its section on WVGA as examples of such displays. That embedded list became long as multiple editors wanted to add their favorite phone to the examples listed. Multiple attempts were made to keep the embedded list to a reasonable size, or eliminate it. Eventually, it was clear that neither method was going to work. As described in WP:SPLITLIST the list was split off into its own set index article. [The FWVGA list was created for the same reason. In retrospect, I would not actually call them set index articles, just lists.]

List of mobile phones with HD display is a high quality list that I find quite useful. I feel that it should be kept even if List of mobile phones with WVGA display is deleted.
At that time, I should have expanded on my comment about List of mobile phones with HD display. I did not because I felt its value was self-evident. As with many people, I am biased towards newer, more capable technology. I know that I have perused the List of mobile phones with HD display multiple times just for the information content.
The second thing the nomination states is that there is a problem "with otherwise poor sourcing (most of its entries do not have proper citations)". Other than an article has a fundamental lack of citations, a lower than desired number of citations is a reason to improve the article/list, not a reason to delete the list. If the original nominator had a problem with the citations, then he/she could improve them. For lists, entries in a list have a lower need for citations when the entry in the list is a link to a Wikipedia article about the item listed. Such links serve to effectively incorporate the citations in the linked article. There were a number of entries in all three lists that were not links to articles and that did not have references. All such entries in all three lists now have references. However, again, a relative lack of citations is not a criteria for deletion. It is an indicator that the list/article should be improved. In the future, if the nominator thinks that a lack of citations is a problem in an article requiring no specialized knowledge, then some time should be spent improving the article/list by finding citations. In this case, it did not take any special expertise to find references, just time and searching on Google. Deletion is not a valid alternative to spending the time to find easily obtainable references, particularly when there is no one challenging the contents of the article/list.
The nomination then quotes "Wikipedia is not a directory of everything". Explicitly, this is referring to WP:NOTDIR. That section lists six subsections. None of those subsections applies to these lists. The nomination explicitly mentions "catalog or sales directory". This implies that the original nominator was attempting to explicitly mention item "5. Sales catalogues." from WP:NOTDIR. All that subsection states is that prices should not be quoted in articles. No prices are quoted on any of the pages mentioned. Thus, it is not a sales catalog. Therefore, this argument is false.
The nomination then goes on to suggest that categorization should be used instead of having a list. If every single item that is a member of these lists had a separate Wikipedia page then having this done only as a category might be considered. However, there are a significant number of member items in these lists that do not have separate WP articles. This is not to say that they should not have such articles, merely that such articles do not exist at this time. Even if an item individually is not appropriate for a WP article of their its own that does not mean that they should not be included on a list (see WP:CSC, among others). Lists and categories are synergistic, not separate. It is ironic that three sentences after stating that one of the reasons these lists should not exist is poor references the nominator ten asserts that "Categories, ... are a preferred manner in which to organize these." Categories have no references. How the nominator can both complain that the lists "do not have proper citations" and then advocate no citations, I don't know. The positions an contradictory. It should also be noted that while the nominator suggested categories 2 and a half months ago, he/she appears to have done nothing to actually create such categories. Such cCategories would be useful. They would be synergistic with, not replace, these lists.
Finally, the nomination asserts that due to the large number of devices the lists are unmaintainable. The nomination gives no evidence as to their maintainability, or not. It does not state that there are a significant number of devices that should be on the lists that are not, or that the lists include items that should not be on the lists. The longest list is the HD one with 106 items broken into two sub lists of 54/52 items. In reality, the lists do get maintained. As is normal in WP, if an editor sees something that is missing, or inaccurate, then it gets corrected. Those editors that have the lists on their watchlist check the additions and deletions as they happen. There is no indication that the lists are unmaintainable. Even if they were not maintainable, that is not a valid argument for deletion. The nomination then gives links to two examples. The examples are not valid comparisons. Both examples were of WP:INDISCRIMINATE lists, which was a valid reason not to have the lists. The lists we are discussing in this AfD are WP:DISCRIMINATE.
Outdated: Argument has been made that the WVGA and FWVGA lists are outdated. This was a primary statement in the last AfD and it has been mentioned here. Yes, WVGA and FWVGA phones are not being introduced as regularly at this point. Phones with HD displays are getting most of the press. That does not mean that new WVGA and FWVGA are not being introduced, or, more importantly, that such phones are not still being sold in significant numbers.
The List of mobile phones with FWVGA display increased by 32% over the last year (from 25 to 33).
The List of mobile phones with WVGA display increased by only 4 phones over the last year (from 85 to 89).
It is likely that the people who are claiming the subject of the lists are outdated are biased towards the higher resolutions that their phones have, or the phone they are interested in getting has.
Even if the lists were outdated the relevance of being outdated would need to be demonstrated. I think that User:DGG said it well in the previous AfD with: "Outdated is irrelevant to notability . WP is an encyclopedia, and keeps historical information. This was of key importance a few years ago, and we should keep the record."
There are no valid reasons to delete. The lists are useful in Wikipedia in and of themselves and/or as supplementary material for other articles. I vote keep.
Makyen (talk) 15:39, 15 December 2013 (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.
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