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 no consensus. Stifle (talk) 10:36, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Virginia State Route 638 (Lee, Russell, Scott, Washington, and Wise Counties)[edit]

Virginia State Route 638 (Lee, Russell, Scott, Washington, and Wise Counties) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

VARoute638NotOneRoad --Tim Sabin (talk) 23:54, 17 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Virginia-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 02:15, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 02:16, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment No one has shown that this is a single route. According to the Virginia Department of Transportation, all secondary routes are numbered uniquely by county. Thus, this route is unrelated to the SR 638 in Fairfax County, and I believe that the roads mentioned in this article are unrelated small, non-notable routes. This belief is upheld by examining the VDOT AADT documents referenced in the article.

This article has many redirects associated with it. If this article is deleted, those redirects should be deleted as well.

I was one of the editors for this article and its redirects; that was a big mistake. Sorry. --Tim Sabin (talk) 02:20, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Is it clear how many routes are being described by this article? It's clearly more than one route, but since these routes often keep their numbers when they cross county lines, it's probably not 7 different routes either. Secondary state routes are usually somewhat of a gray area when it comes to highway notability, so figuring out which routes are which here is important to figuring out which ones are notable. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 02:30, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Based on some research (online mapping and looking at the VDOT primary source documents), this does indeed look to be seven separate secondary roads, each individually numbered by the counties with no correlation to any of the other Route 638s (as tends to be the case with Virginia Secondary Routes). Indeed, as User:Timsabin says, this isn't even an exhaustive list of VSR 638s; it just happens to be an indiscriminate choice of those in the western part of the state. While primary routes tend to have de facto notability, I fail to see evidence of notability for this particular secondary route. --Kinu ^t/_c 23:16, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, looking at List of secondary state highways in Virginia, most articles on secondary routes that do exist tend to show some sort of possible notability (actually crosses into another county, formerly a primary route, a relatively major thoroughfare, etc.), but nothing of that sort seems to be demonstrated in the article as written. --Kinu ^t/_c 23:28, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am changing my recommendation to merge/rename to Virginia State Route 638, to preserve this content until such time a consensus on Virginia SSRs can be reached elsewhere. --Kinu ^t/_c 23:55, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've decided to strike my recommendation altogether, due to my indecisiveness in this matter. On one hand, being a signed route does give some sort of legitimacy... but on the other hand, Tim Sabin makes an excellent point in that routes granted secondary status can also be patently non-notable, such as routes of several hundred feet that end in cul-de-sacs. --Kinu ^t/_c 21:22, 30 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Suggestion Could we move it to Virginia State Route 638 and rework as a list not unlike Louisiana Highway 1035? –Fredddie™ 04:06, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to List of secondary state highways in Virginia - From what it appears like, this article is a blend of five separate nonnotable secondary roads. The roads can easily be covered in the aforementioned list. Dough4872 04:10, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to List of secondary state highways in Virginia. The information contained here can be provided just as easily in chart form in such a list. Sebwite (talk) 22:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per the detective work of Kinu. Sven Manguard _Talk 04:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

---

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- Cirt (talk) 10:30, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Move. I like what Fredddie suggested: move it to Virginia State Route 638 and rework as a list like Louisiana Highway 1035. Herostratus (talk) 07:15, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: despite my deletion recommendation, I would not be averse to a move-and-merge as has been suggested above. Perhaps another discussion should occur outside of this AfD involving WP:ROADS to determine a harder consensus about secondary routes. --Kinu ^t/_c 09:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge/redirect. It takes times to make something of this sort of thing, and deletions are not helpful in cases like this. The road should be covered somewhere, somehow, so the information should not be deleted. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:54, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep but Rename to Virginia State Route 638. In Britain we have articles on most A-class roads and the possibility exists of articles on B-class roads. I would have thought that State Routes were equivalent. The problem here seems to be that some one has created five articles, one for each county; these have then been merged to give the present mouthful of a title. The fact that the road has different street names in different counties does not matter, as long as it is one continuous road (as i assume it is). Merging back to a list article is merely destructive. There appear to be a lot of articles on State Routes and no reason to delete this one just becuase it has issues over its structure. However, if Kimu is right and this is not one continous road (or a networks of linked roads), the right option is probably to delete. Peterkingiron (talk) 20:31, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • While you are right that primary state routes are notable, some states such as Virginia have both primary and secondary state routes. The routes being discussed here are all secondary routes, which are less notable than primary routes, and based on Kimu's research, they aren't all interconnected. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 21:00, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's Kinu, by the way. :) --Kinu ^t/_c 23:52, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment Kinu, the trouble is that these are separate roads, not one continuous one, in Southwest Virginia. They are unrelated to other SR 638s in the state, such as SR 638 (Rolling Road) in Fairfax County (Northern Virginia). The "namespace" for secondary routes in Virginia is the county; thus, each county can have its own SR 638, and they may can be completely unrelated. I can show you other examples of this. Fairfax County, Virginia has approximately 10,000 secondary roads - some as minor as a cul-de-sac (there are no local roads in almost all counties in Virginia). --Tim Sabin (talk) 01:45, 30 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I acknowledge that these are separate roads... I'm the one who indicates as much above. However, after further consideration, I feel that preserving the content is prudent, until such time when consensus at WP:ROADS gives us a guideline for whether secondary routes are notable. After all, they are state maintained (per the Byrd Road Act, except for Arlington County, if I'm not mistaken, and in the independent cities). While the numbers do repeat in different counties, they are effectively not county roads. If sourcing does exist to indicate such roads exist, at worst a list-type structure per route number is not WP:INDISCRIMINATE, given that the number of SSR 638s is limited, ostensibly, by the number of counties. Again, this is simply my perspective on content that could be useful, with sourcing and expansion to include the rest of the SSR 638s. I'm not advocating disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, but it could serve as a good test case for Virginia SSRs... this content could be useful, and ultimately there is no guideline telling us otherwise (after all, they are a collection of signed numbered routes, not just regular streets), with no prejudice to renomination for deletion later. Also, 10,000 secondary roads in Fairfax Country? Aside from the parkways in the 7000 series, aren't most signed SSRs in the 600-700 range? I will grant that most of the secondary routes are non-notable, like the 9000-series school routes, F-series frontage roads, etc., and probably anything in the triple digits... but the 600-700 range routes are generally well-signed, from my experience, and have at least some claim of encyclopedic legitimacy. --Kinu ^t/_c 01:57, 30 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Yes, Kinu, Fairfax County has about 10,000 secondary roads. And, you're right, a great many in the 600 & 700 series are well signed. I only bring up the 10,000 number to show that, by itself, being a Secondary State Route in Virginia is meaningless. Some other claim to notability must exist to be included in Wikipedia. --Tim Sabin (talk) 21:03, 30 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • Wow... I just looked at the AADT data for Fairfax County... no joke, there are way too many secondary routes. Looking at this and other AADT documents also, some counties don't appear to be very choosy about which secondary routes get the lower numbers... there are some (likely signed) 600 series routes that are only a few hundred feet long and end in cul-de-sacs, whereas some that are numbered higher (and likely unsigned) that appear to at least connect to two other numbered routes at either end. Perhaps the case could be made that information about these routes is indiscriminate, since most appear patently non-notable... they're just streets that have numbers assigned to them for maintenance purposes, unlike the primary routes. I've struck my !vote in this matter and ultimately recuse myself of making a recommendation; due to my swaying back and forth on this matter it's probably for the best. However, I do concede that perhaps that the subject(s) of this article, and secondary routes in general, lack any sort of notability and lie outside the scope of Wikipedia, which could possibly be interpreted as a deletion recommendation. --Kinu ^t/_c 21:22, 30 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Move/rework per Fredddie's suggestion. The content should exist somewhere, but these routes don't all merit separate articles, and the current article is somewhat misleading since the routes don't appear to be connected. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 21:00, 29 October 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.