Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lists of diplomatic missions

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. - Bobet 09:44, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lists of diplomatic missions

I initially prodded a few of these, but when I discovered how many more there were, I decided more community input from AfD would be a good idea. All of the articles are just lists of where the countries' missions are located. I think this violates WP:NOT's section on directories. It's useful information, but it's better placed at wikitravel. If someone knows whether the creator of these articles can relicense them under wikitravel's CC license, please follow-up with him at User talk:Kransky. Thanks!--Kchase T 09:12, 15 August 2006 (UTC) Nomination withdrawn below.--Kchase T 16:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

• Albanian diplomatic missions
• Australian diplomatic missions
• Japanese diplomatic missions
• Nepalese diplomatic missions
• Vietnamese diplomatic missions

The issue at hand raised by Kchase is whether the diplomatic mission articles are simply lists. I referred to the Wikipedia is not a Directory for further clarification.

The first no-no mentioned is that Wikipedia should not be a list or repository of loosely associated topics. A list of aphorisms or quotes is definitely out, but reference tables and tabular information can be included. If the essence of the prohibition can be explained by is different between the examples, then it would be that what is listed should be reasonably focussed and the list in itself be reasonably integral. You would accept The Ten Commandments or the Periodic Table or Nixon's Enemies List, but not Chinese proverbs, since there is no direct relationship between the parts to one whole (though The Thoughts of Chairman Mao is okay).

I am not just listing a country's embassies, but I am also showing its diplomatic network. That is the whole that merits its inclusion. Where a country chooses to fly its flag gives an indication where a country chooses to rationalise and focus its diplomatic activities. Only by looking at the matricies of who's-represented-where in the form of a list can you discern some interesting choices - Why has Iceland got an embassy in Dar es Salaam? and Senegal has a consulate in Siena? How come Jordan has an embassy in Tel Aviv but Indonesia doesn't? Who has a wider network in Africa - Japan or China? Which countries choose to send an ambassador to Pyongyang ?

None of these articles can be considered to be in violation of the second point - they are neither genealogical or phonebook entries, nor do they violate the third point - they are not resources for conducting business.

I do not consider Wikitravel to be an appropriate solution, as the intention of the lists is to chart the constellation of diplomatic relations of countries around the world today, and not to help tourists who have lost their passports.

I foresee three solutions:

(a) the motion to delete the articles is defeated (b) additional content is added to the entries each article, such per List of locations in Spira which is cited as an example of merged groups of small articles based on a core topic. There is a limit to how much extra information can be given, and we could be just repeating details in other articles. (c) The pages are deleted and the contents are appended to a relevant article, like foreign relations of Japan. This would however make the other articles considerably large and I predict people will end up wondering why aren't they given their own space.

Kransky 12:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC) (author)

I should have been more specific. I meant subsection three, about directories and yellow pages. I acknowledge that it is weakly covered by that section and, frankly, I don't think these pages ought to be deleted based upon my weak argument to WP:NOT. As I alluded to above, the reason I've nominated them is because I don't think this content is appropriate for an encyclopedia, though I also don't want to see it deleted outright (but taken to wikitravel). To describe foreign policy or a diplomatic network in the way Kransky would like, prose seems more appropriate ("America has poor relations with the Middle East and doesn't even have an embassy in X country... etc."). I am reconsidering this nom, but I would like more input.--Kchase T 22:12, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The intention of the list is not so much to say "America has poor relations with the Middle East and doesn't even have an embassy in X", but rather to let the readers themselves work out the connections. That is where the value lies. Kransky 12:25, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - I don't think it violates WP:NOT, and I can see some use for the lists. If this list had names, it would definitely violate the directory rule, but as is I think it's alright. --Daniel Olsen 01:36, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. No sources have been provided for these. Content is little more than lists of embassies. What little useful information provided in these articles could be covered in sections or articles dedicated to each country's foreign relations. Rohirok 02:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Easy to solve your first issue - just add an external link to the website where I obtained this information (the foreign affairs ministeries). Otherwise I am happy to reinsert the lists into articles dedicated to each other's foreign relations, but I am not sure if other people would like this. Please go here and see as an example of what it might look like. If people are happy with this example I will migrate the lists over to the respective article Kransky 12:25, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Rather than giving each country its own heading, try just making a simple list using asterisks (*) at the start of each line. This will conserve a lot of space. And yes, citing a reliable source for this information is imperitive. Rohirok 18:01, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I just reformatted the list Kransky had merged (linked above). It took a while, and still takes up a lot of space. I'm still not sure how useful this information is. I say give Kransky a chance to link the source, consoldiate the information into the relevant articles and without using the cumbersome and unnecessary headings, then delete the list of diplomatic missions articles. Rohirok 18:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

• Please visit Foreign relations of Albania for an example based on Rohirok's suggestions. I think grouping missions by region and then country is the most logical taxonomy, and therefore it makes sense to use headings. Also I think it is still better to list one mission per line, otherwise it will look messy when a country has many consulates in another country. "Multilateral organisations" will be the heading for missions to such. And a link to the source where I picked up the information is included. Tell me if you are happy, let me migrate and modify the lists, and then delete to your hearts content. Just be aware that Wikipedia has similar lists for airline routes (e.g: KLM destinations) - on the basis of this precedence I did not expect something similar for diplomatic networks would violate the not-a-directory rule. Kransky 10:08, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I still think a list without headings is better, as shown here, since it compresses the information and doesn't clutter up the heading directory at the top of the page with links to sections that don't have a lot of information. With a multi-tiered list, the hierarchy is retained, but the space is much better used, and it's "easier on the eyes." Countries with only one embassy really ought to be listed in the same line as the city where the embasssy is hosted, since the great majority of the countries only have one embassy in them. As an exception, countries hosting more than one mission could have another embedded list so that each mission can be listed on its own line. Again, this is a space issue. I still don't see any links to Kransky's source. Rohirok 17:33, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

My example Foreign relations of Albania has a link to the website where it is sourced. Look at the top. I stand by the one-mission-one-line rule because (a) it will be messy to list multiple missions in one country and (b) Rohirok's suggestion means the formatting will become inconsistent and unnecessarily complicated (do I embed if there are two or three or what number consulates? what if the names of the towns are short?). If you are still worried that this is not "easy on the eyes" look at the airline destinations categories where not only a one-destination-one-line format is used, but there are *five* levels of categorisation (continents, regions, countries, cities and individual airports). This format is used for 132 separate articles, and nobody is complaining about the formatting. On the strength of the precedence can we agree that my listing of missions in Foreign relations of Albania be used as a model for other countries. Kransky 09:29, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep I'm withdrawing the nomination (which doesn't necessarily close the AFD). It looks like consensus is going for merge, with disagreement about the TOC and sectioning. I suspect that the articles will be broken out again anyway, but this will be even more likely if they have individual sectioning for each country, so we may as well keep them where they are now. My first choice is now to keep them, and second choice is to merge them as suggested above.--Kchase T 16:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I will take on board the recommendations for condensing the size of the list, cite the sources, and remove the lists from other articles. Thank you for your patience and suggestions, and I look forward to the removal of these articles from the AFD death list. Kransky 11:38, 23 August 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.