Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Donington Park services

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 all, in spite of the painful number of {{oldafdfull}} templates I'll have to fill out. Consensus appears to be that these are notable. If anybody has a beef with particular stations, I suggest single noms to sort those out. Luna Santin 21:58, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Donington Park services

I am nominating the following articles as well, under the same rationale: Hopwood Park services, London Gateway services, Keele services, Corley services, Hilton Park services, Knutsford services, Rownhams services, Westmorland services, Leicester Forest East services, Stafford services, Charnock Richard services, Lancaster (Forton) services, Southwaite services, Sandbach services, Northampton services, Fleet services, Tibshelf services, Heston services, Reading services, Chieveley services, Membury services, Magor services, Cardiff West services, Sarn park services, Swansea services, Pont Abraham services, Frankley services, Michaelwood services, Gordano services, Sedgemoor services, Bridgwater services, Taunton Deane services, Cullompton services, Exeter services, Burton-in-Kendal services, Killington Lake services, Norton Canes services, Harthill services,Stirling services, Birchanger green services, Maidstone services, Pease Pottage services, Clacket Lane services, South Mimms services, Thurrock services, Oxford services, Cherwell Valley services, Tamworth services, Severn View services, Chester services, Leigh Delamere services, Woodall services and Woolley Edge services.

Please note that Watford Gap services is excluded from this AfD. It may be notable in its own right.

• Delete all. These are all individual articles for motorway service stations (rest areas) on motorways of the United Kingdom. There are a few dozen of these, as listed above; most are genetic and have very little that makes them notable, even apart from one another let alone in their own right. Few of these comprise anything more than a description of where they are and who runs them; some have lacking content warnings, linkless warnings, cleanup warnings. None of the nominated articles is sufficiently notable for inclusion in Wikipedia in my opinion. Many of these articles have been attempted to be deleted before (at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Knutsford services) but no consensus was reached. This time, they are all being nominated, and a consensus is being saught. Erath 20:40, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Then you should have started a centralized discussion. I fearlessly predict right now that this discussion will end in no consensus, partly because of the mass nomination and partly because you have not apparently even considered merging. Uncle G 10:00, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Can I second Uncle G's proposal. I don't think this AfD is going to go anywhere for the reasons I wrote below: mass nominations like this never do, in my experience. Let's have a centralized discussion to hash out whether service stations are notable as a class or individually or not at all, then we'll know what to do with the individual articles. David | Talk 10:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete all - I proposed one of these for deletion a while ago but for reasons still unclear to me, the consensus was keep. Clearly nn, imo. Mikker ^(...) 21:08, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• Merge and Redirect to several omnibus articles. Could be grouped by motorway, or by region. Some service stations are, in my judgment, clearly notable - think Watford Gap services, the first of them, which has a nice long article. An obiter dicta remark: any AfD nomination which includes so many articles is almost bound not to end in a clear-cut result, because there are so many articles that AfD contributors will never bother to read them all, and are unlikely to support deletion just in case there's useful information in the bits they didn't see. David | Talk 21:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all. Every UK railway station qualifies for an article and the smallest of these service stations has many times more visitors per day than many small railway stations. -- RHaworth 21:42, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all Agreed with above. Most of these are stubs and just need expanding. I have fixed the missing links one and propose to go through and expand them. I am working on the main motorways at the moment, but this is my next project.Regan123 22:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all. Motorway service stations may not be very exciting but they are prominent features in Britain. -- Necrothesp 01:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• You guys have to be kidding. Do we really want an article on every rest area in the world? (If you include Britain's I can see no reason why, say, South Africa's rest areas shouldn't also have articles). These things are just not notable, they contain little sourced information (and is therefore WP:OR)... Mikker ^(...) 01:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
  • No one is suggesting the same for every part of the world. Service stations are large and prominent facilities on UK motorways. Surely we can look at this issue on a country, by country basis? Regan123 01:58, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. No, unsourced material is not necessarily "original research". This term has started to be bandied around a little too freely in recent months, usually by people trying to support their desire to delete something. It's a good idea to read WP:OR to see what actually constitutes original research on Wikipedia - it's summarised in the little box at the top. This clearly states the position - stating a fact (e.g. "Donington Park services is a motorway service station off the M1 motorway and A42 interchange near Derby, England") is not original research; advancing a theory which has not been published by a reputable source is. Yes, it's always better to source articles, but don't just dismiss articles as OR because they're unsourced. -- Necrothesp 02:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Ummm... getting on high horses about policy/guidelines is not called for. Please remind yourself of WP:FAITH & WP:CIVILITY, condescending remarks like "it's summarised in the little box at the top" is not cricket. In any case, my OR comment was ancillary, my main point is that these articles are nn. And, Regan123, there are prominent service stations in every country I've visited or lived in. In SA they seem to serve exactly the same functions as in the UK, so if the latter is notable enough, so is the former. I see no reason whatsoever, however, why Wikipedia should have articles like these. Mikker ^(...) 02:32, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Sorry if you took my remark as a breach of either guideline. It certainly wasn't meant to be and it doesn't read as being to me. I was merely pointing out a misinterpretation of the OR rule, which, as I said, seems to be getting incresingly common. Were you not getting on your high horse in the first place by claiming the articles were OR? -- Necrothesp 10:59, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all. As per RHaworth Mr WR 10:07, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all - I don't think the future of 50-odd articles should be decided at once and I agree that trhese are as notable in Britain as railway stations, which all have their own articles. -- Roleplayer 12:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all, and I would encourage looking at editorial actions such as merging instead of deletion. I'm sorry, but there's too much here to go through to research whether each of them meet our content policies, although I'm sure that most if not all of them do. JYolkowski // talk 15:47, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Merge and RedirectSomeone might want to know about them, The only problem is that they are all short. If there is a merger it will be a more completer artical. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Blaze1200 (talk • contribs) 17:02, 24 September 2006.
• Comment: There doesn't seem to be any parent article for these at the moment. For starters I suggest creating Motorway service areas in the United Kingdom or similar, which can have a list of them and any other generic information. Then I'd vote to delete any of these articles that doesn't pass the WP:HOLE test, retaining any that are particularly noteable (eg Westmorland services - which should be called "Tebay services" while we're at it - which is the only one in England not owned by the big chains); trouble is, there's probably something vaguely notable about all of them if you look hard enough. --Blisco 19:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Merge all without particular notability either into one or several list-type articles or into articles on the motorways they serve. (I'm not sure that UK railway stations deserve automatic inclusion, either, but most have a much longer history and a less generic feel.) Agree with Blisco that Tebay/Westmorland may deserve an article. Espresso Addict 09:57, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all (and don't merge). Each is a multimillion pound business in its own right, most long established, and certainly as or more notable that the high schools and shopping centres which, an apparent consensus asserts, are sufficiently notable. Secondly they form a component of our overall UK trunk roads article collection, which is getting pretty complete - omitting the service stations on Motorways seems like a willful omission. Southwaite services, a lamentable heckhole though it surely is, is certaily more notable (and with much more to say about it) than M876 motorway and its myriad ilk. That said, motorway services are a special case (they're large, the exist because of specific government action, and there aren't that many of them). A-road services, on the other hand, are far less special and far more numerous, and exist merely because someone got planning permission from Upper Scratching Parish Council, so I think motorway services is the line below which we shouldn't (barring special cases with more to say for themselves) we shouldn't go. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep all. This isn't a paper encyclopaedia, and these are all notable locations in the UK (I know I've been to many on that list personally). Motorway service stations are a necessary part of tranport life in the UK and frequented by perhaps a million people on a daily basis. If some old building that no one lives in and few people visit is allowed an article because someone once owned it or lived there, then why shouldn't these services? Ben W Bell talk 06:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
• Expand or die. If all Wikipedians can think to write on a topic is "Swansea services is a motorway service station on the M4 motorway near Swansea, Wales. It is owned by Moto.", then that's pretty much proof that it doesn't meet notability requirements, and that the article should be deleted (which is my current vote for all of them). Articles could survive if they had any substantial content, however, as Watford Gap services does. BrokenBeta [talk · contribs] 19:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. There is no reason to delete stubs because they're stubs (and it's not policy to do so). Just because not much has been written about something doesn't mean that a reasonable article can't be written about it, just that nobody has got round to it yet. To say that this is proof that it's not notable is frankly ridiculous. -- Necrothesp 15:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
• Merge all to the Moto article do not keep. These are nothing more then a yellow pages list. There is no attempt to assert notability. These could very well be a speedy delete as they now stand. Vegaswikian 05:50, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep All.per nomDINOMAN 16:19, 27 September 2006 (UTC) 17.18, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep All, against my instincts but in keeping with all the "Keep" arguments above. I hate the idea, but I see the logic to having them. Fiddle Faddle 15:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

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.