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. (although I suggest that a redirect to NOAA Weather Radio would be helpful). Consensus is that these weather stations are, as a rule, not individually notable. Sandstein 19:49, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WNG560[edit]

WNG560 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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I recently discovered that we've got hundreds of these little stub articles about NOAA WX radio stations (see Category:NOAA Weather Radio stations). These are all automated stations which broadcast routine weather announcements. Other than minor details like where the transmitter is located and what counties they serve, these are all the same and should be deleted per WP:NOTDIRECTORY. I've picked one more or less at random to start discussing. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:46, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Radio-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 07:57, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 07:57, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 07:57, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. The Mighty Glen (talk) 07:57, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've also notified Talk:NOAA Weather Radio -- RoySmith (talk) 19:38, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: Per NOAA Weather Radio being HIGHLY notable, and WP:NMEDIA. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 19:16 on June 2, 2018 (UTC)

Sure, NOAA Weather Radio, in general, is notable. That doesn't make every one of their automated stations also notable. And, I don't think WP:NMEDIA applies. These aren't media, in the sense that a commercial TV or radio station is. They have no original programming. They broadcast routine automated weather announcements. In the old days, these were tape loops of humans reading the weather. Now, they're probably all computer synthesized voices. They're somewhat akin to airport ATIS broadcasts. Nobody (I hope) would think that LaGuardia Airport ATIS would be a suitable encyclopedia article. Everything in WNG560 is sourced to NOAA websites. WP:GNG requires independent, secondary, sources. NOAA websites are neither independent or secondary. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:01, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. NOAA Weather Radio is absolutely notable enough for an article about it as a company, but every individual NOAA transmitter across the country does not need its own standalone article — they aren't notable independently of NOAA as a whole, they can be referenced nowhere but NOAA's own primary source data about themselves because they get no standalone coverage in independent reliable sources that have anything whatsoever to do with the establishment of a topic's notability, and they all fail at least one of the NMEDIA conditions for the notability of radio stations (namely the one about having to originate at least a portion of their own programming, rather than operating solely as rebroadcasters of a larger parent service.) There was actually a consensus established a couple of years ago that all of the articles in Category:NOAA Weather Radio stations should be redirected to broader articles about the regional NOAA office that they operate from — but that never actually happened because nobody was willing to actually take on the work, and even the regional NOAA offices aren't really reliably sourceable anywhere but NOAA's own self-published content about itself either. There's simply no need for each of these transmitters to have its own standalone article independently of NOAA as a whole — we could maintain a list of them in the "name, frequency, location, the end" format that we use for lists of radio stations in geographic locations, if desired, but there's no encyclopedic value in each one having its own standalone article or even in maintaining all of the same content by merging them into regional omnibus articles. Bearcat (talk) 17:10, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. I found WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 September 5#Category:NOAA Weather Radio stations. Is that what you were thinking of? -- RoySmith (talk) 18:36, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so. That was a discussion about duplicate categories, not about any of the articles in those categories. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 19:09, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, it must have been these:

• WP:Articles for deletion/National Weather Service Chicago, Illinois
• WP:Articles for deletion/WWG24

-- RoySmith (talk) 19:34, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: The radio section of WP:BROADCAST has a sentence about Travelers' Information Stations ("On the other hand, licensed Travelers' Information Stations are generally not presumed notable, but might redirect to an article about the highway, park or tourist facility they cover, or about the company that operates them if that company meets WP:CORP."), and I see this as being very similar. I don't think there's any doubt that NOAA Weather Radio is notable. However I don't see that the majority of the many individual stations are notable. They would need to meet WP:GNG, and I would be surprised if there was in depth coverage from independent sources. For this test case WNG560 the references are not independent. The principle of WP:NOTDIRECTORY apply here. I am not sure of the procedure for a bulk nomination followed by bulk deletion or redirection, but that's what I think we need here. Anyone making those changes would need to check each article to see if there's special treatment required of individual stations on the basis that for some reason they have individual notability. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 19:09, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly possible that some of these are in fact notable. KWO35 would be one such possible case. I'm not convinced all the detailed radio-cruft actually meets WP:GNG, but it's clearly a case that would need to be evaluated on its own. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:23, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, but read on They meet WP:BROADCAST easily, but...I think a better mode of organization and article use would be to instead merge all these articles into one article serving a state or region, such as for this one List of NOAA Weather Radio stations in Oregon rather than individual articles about each station, which as-is has a skeleton of "station is based in city and serves these counties". There are obviously exceptions to large-market stations such as the much-better organized National Weather Service Chicago, Illinois article and New York's KWO35 (which has a long, long history), but for the most part NOAA stations are operated by a state authority for the NOAA, and that's a better mode of organization than having an article like this one about a station that literally serves a middle-of-nowhere national forest whose only listeners are campers on weather watch. Nate • (chatter) 06:20, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Your Oregon example is a redlink, but I found a similar example at National Weather Service Paducah, Kentucky. It includes a dozen or so stations, all of which are redirects. There's no information in it other than a compilation of raw data taken from NOAA sources (i.e. WP:DIRECTORY). The information is formatted in an absurdly verbose way, with infoboxes for each station. The lede is totally boilerplate, with the exception of mentioning that this station is equipped with NEXRAD and ASOS, both of which are extremely common pieces of equipment. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:44, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

BROADCAST requires a station to pass all four of its four conditions simultaneously, not just one or two of the four — so I'm struggling to understand how anybody can claim that these would pass BROADCAST, when they fail both "originating at least some of its own unique programming" and "reliably sourceable as the subject of media coverage". Bearcat (talk) 14:52, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OPPOSE deletion because of WP:BROADCAST and because these pages provide information and details in a structure that is easy to navigate, unlike the official government pages. I agree that there is lots of room for improvement.PetesGuide (talk) (K6WEB) 15:38, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Again, how does this pass BROADCAST, when it fails fully half of the four conditions in BROADCAST? A radio station has to pass all four conditions to pass BROADCAST, not just one or two of them — it's an "all four or nothing" test, not "as long as it meets one of the four". Bearcat (talk) 17:35, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Bearcat: I'm not sure we're looking at the same WP:BROADCAST. The one I'm looking at talks about one or more of a variety of factors. But, be that as it may, it's not the main issue here. The main issue is that WP:NMEDIA, under Notability of media topics in a nutshell, says, There is significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. This is repeated in WP:N, where it says, if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article. That's the core problem; there are no secondary sources. All the sources are NOAA's own websites. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:44, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The lack of reliable, independent sourcing is one of the conditions I'm talking about. The four conditions that a radio station actually has to meet, spelled out in much more detail further down the NMEDIA document, are as follows: one, it has an actual FCC license to broadcast (that is, excluding unlicensed Part 15 services); two, it is actually on the air (that is, excluding stations that exist only on paper as unlaunched construction permits); three, it actually originates at least a portion of its own programming in its own standalone studios (that is, excluding stations that exist solely as rebroadcasters of parent services, which is one of the conditions that these NOAA stations fail); and four, all three of those facts are reliably sourceable to some evidence of media coverage outside the station's own self-published content about itself (which is the other condition these fail.) A station has to meet all four of those conditions, not just one or two of them. Bearcat (talk) 15:48, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Oregon-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:23, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete because this article's subject lacks independent notability; keep the main article about the mother (even merge this text to her). Leave the gun; take the cannoli. -The Gnome (talk) 13:19, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete- these stations are not independently notable. Even KWO35's notability is questionable since there is a lack of reliable independent secondary sources in that article too, but the article in question here is a clear delete. Someone can create List of NOAA Weather Radio Stations to cover this.--Rusf10 (talk) 23:21, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge by State, as suggested above. Reasonable compromise solution. DGG ( talk ) 17:02, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

But, what would that gain us? We have some regional WX station articles now, such as National Weather Service Paducah, Kentucky. It's referenced entirely to NOAA sources, so it fails WP:PRIMARY. It doesn't say anything of significance about any of the stations, or about the region in general, so it fails WP:DIRECTORY. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:11, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@RoySmith: We could start taking the information from National Weather Service Paducah, Kentucky and placing it into List of NOAA Radio Stations in Kentucky. This would leave National Weather Service Paducah, Kentucky as a great candidate for deletion itself. In the past I proposed deleting the articles on individual weather offices, but people used the faulty reasoning that since the National Weather Service is notable then all its offices must also be notable, which is not much different from the keep arguments here. However, you do have a point, the list already exists in its entirety here, so why even add a directory listing? (since it would violate WP:NOTDIR as you pointed out)--Rusf10 (talk) 20:58, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Fails WP:NOTDIRECTORY and WP:BROADCAST. If someone generates a list of NOAA stations in the US (I'm not so sure state is needed) that can be handled outside this AfD. I don't foresee a redirect/merge being useful for anything here, so better to just delete and let someone pick up the listing topic independently. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:17, 16 June 2018 (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.