Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of haunted locations

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. Renaming is an editorial decision that can be made on the article's talk page. --Coredesat 04:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of haunted locations

List of haunted locations (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

This list is a complete farce and will never pass WP:NOR, i may as well claim my pc or cat is haunted Gnevin 23:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Weak delete the list is indeed a farce. Especially given the very affirmative title. I suppose there could be some value to a list of allegedly haunted locations but then again the latter would be so enormous as to make the whole thing pointless. If we're going to have an entry for every local superstition or folk-tale, there's really no point. Pascal.Tesson 00:10, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Folklore is a important subject in cultural anthropology... don't be so quick to dismiss it. I'd have no problem with renaming it "List of reportedly haunted locations" or some such. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete - the article is a mish-mash of legends, folklore, tall tales, and tourist attractions promoting themselves as "haunted". The article might have some value if it were strictly identified as Folklore, but how such an article might be administered, I don't know. --- LuckyLouie 00:33, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep The subject matter on this page is often subjective, and serves as a good point of entry for anyone with an interest in the paranormal to look up the facts behind what is often folklore, coincidence or tradition. A name change, and clear introduction into the subject would help and perhaps encouragement of referencing, but deletion would be a tragedy, a loss of a unique source for anyone with an interest in the subject. Ghostieguide 00:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment This article fails WP:V also. As i've said before what to stop me saying my pc is haunted . I'm from Ireland and i've never heard of the 4 irish places their being haunted where can WP:RS be found for this article?(Gnevin 00:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC))
• Keep - Essentially all this is is a dismabiguation page that links to existing articles that claim paranormal activity occurs at a certain place. WP:V is actually followed in the individual articles, as they themselves provide the links to reputable sources to back up the claims. As for the article itself failing WP:V, that's a bogus claim. Look at the bottom. References. A lot of the article IS supported by links to existing articles on the internet. That's WP:NOR satisfied too. Just because you haven't heard of something in the article isn't legitimate reason to delete the entire thing. The Kinslayer 00:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• 'Comment This is not a dismabigious page and if the articles it link to has WP:RS reference why arent the included in this list (Gnevin 00:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC))

• I said already. A lot are. Bottom of the page under 'References'. There are 38 of them, so I'm surprised you missed them. I certainly think a site such as this should be classed as a reliable source, don't you?The Kinslayer 00:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Apart from the Whitehouse and the BBC the rest are not WP:RS mostly ghostly fan sites , WP:V#Burden_of_evidence says you must prove to me not that i have to prove their not haunted (Gnevin 01:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC))

Your being selective. 'Most' are not in fact ghost sites. At least half of them are published books, which pass RS. We also have WGNTV, which is another news site like the BBC and the Seattle Times. At best only 25% of the links could be dismissed by someone truly depserate to find a problem.The Kinslayer 01:09, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, and since all of these say 'alleged' 'supposedly' or 'said to be' haunted rather than claming they ARE haunted, all I have to prove to you is that there are reliable sources that make the claim. I'd only have to prove to you they are haunted if we are actually trying to claim the stories were true, which we are not. The Kinslayer 01:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• 'alleged' 'supposedly' or 'said to be' says who .This is the definition of WP:NOR this article uses {{fact}} 66! times and could use it at least that amount of times again. (Gnevin 01:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC))

• No, NOR means WE can't make the claims. We aren't making the claims personally. This article has citation tags yes, Because it's still in the process of being sourced and cleaned up. You've alread turned round and tried to argue that 38 sources don't count, so I doubt you'd accept it even if the 66 tags were filled in tomorrow. Strange as it might seem, putting together a comprehensive article doesn't happen overnight. The article was certainly not abandoned, as the dit history shows. You claim the list is unmanageable too, but then again, you've not even tried. The Kinslayer 01:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I never claimed all the references don't count only that majority arent WP:RS (Gnevin 01:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC))

And we've already proven that claim is bogus, since all 38 of them are published articles, per NOR in a nutshell. We make no original anlysis of those articles. And WP:RS is a guideline not a policy and therefore is not a deletion criteria in itself. Next problem? The Kinslayer 01:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

10 books references and a couple of bbc and whitehouse is a minority and the 38 are not WP:RS. Anyway we are going in circles lets just see how this plays out (Gnevin 01:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC))

We are "running in circles" because you are being inconsistent and contradicting yourself. Firstly, you claimed that there are no reliable sources in the article. Then you changed it to "Besides BBC and Whitehouse, rest of them are not". Then you changed it to "Besides 10 books and news citations, rest of them are not". If you actually went through the citations before you nominate the list for deletion, you would found around 17 verified sources. AQu01rius (User • Talk) 01:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• We also have the Seattle Times, The Jakarta Post, WGNTV, Midwest Living magazine, the Chicago tribune, the houston chronicle and a few foriegn language news sites. Significantl more WP:RS than '10 books references and a couple of bbc and whitehouse' The Kinslayer 01:43, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep. Needs clean-up, and delete locations that cannot be verified. The haunting subject is influencial enough for us to keep the list. I would like to recommend the nominator to note his remarks of "no sources", "complete farce", when there are 38 references with 10+ book citations, and various news citation from sources like BBC News. AQu01rius (User • Talk) 01:21, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep I would agree that maybe a name change may be in order to resolve this dispute, but I do feel that people should be allowed their views on this subject. I will go along with a small name change but I have no issue with the content of the page as i had heard about some of these places before! Tankie ryan 01:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - an article like this can degrade into ghost-cruft if were not watching it carefully, but there is nothing wrong with the concept. Just strongly enforce WP:NOR and WP:RS and it should be fine. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:46, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - Tag unsourced locations, give users a chance to respond to them, and then delete those that are unsourced. There's no reason to throw the entire article out as it can otherwise completely conform to Wikipedia guidelines. --~Nealparr~ ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 03:08, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep (possibly merge) While it is not exactly well written, and could be better sourced, it is a solid point of entry with information that it both relevant and useful within the field of the paranormal. It is also more informative that a category, which is the only other alternative. perfectblue 09:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep the relatively ignored comment by J.S. at the top shows a good basic undertsanding of the subject Just because some editors might have what they consider highly rational ways of thinking should not dissalow other ways of thinking - and folklore in many cultures in the world have considerable issue with the phenomenon of haunting - whether their claims or folklore is true verifiable or otherwise is totaly irrelevent. The idea of this list being a way into the subject and locations of claims of such phenomenon is excellent and there should be every effort to maintain this facility! SatuSuro 11:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. The article has a terrible name and a vacuous introduction. Other than that, it's fine. YechielMan 05:55, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep It is fine and should just get a title facelift and a new intro sentence. -- Hrödberäht 01:28, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
• Absolute Keep in the Name of Jimbo Wales - let us go through the concerns here:

• "Complete farce:" "foolish show; mockery; a ridiculous sham."

Foolish show: This article is definitely not a show of any sort. Those who have been editing it for extended amounts of time have been pruning it of "showy" claims by less dedicated people.

Mockery: by no means is this article mocking in any way at all. A mocking tone is usually referred to as vandalism, and is reverted on sight.

Ridiculous sham: while "ridiculous" may be a POV thing to say about this article, "sham" is downright incorrect. Dedicated editors like Nealparr et al. have gone through sources and paragraphs making sure there is no "sham" in the article. On the contrary, I've watched them delete tons of sham from the article in keeping it up to Wikipedia standards.

• "Will never pass WP:NOR:" This was, in fact, my initial concern with the article ghost; I was sure that the only way people would be able to add material to the article would be through original research. To my surprise, and as you can easily find for yourself, there are plenty of reliable sources that this article contains. Those statements that have no source or contain original research, for example,
• "I may as well claim my pc or cat is haunted," are immediately removed, as a quick glance through the article history would have revealed.

It seems to me that the issue being addressed here is not whether the article meets Wikipedia standards - it meets them just as well as any other article - but rather, whether hauntings really occur. The question of its reality is irrelevant to the article itself (yes, as others brought up, the title may be changed to reflect this a little better), but if a newspaper says "such and such a place is haunted," who are we to treat it any differently than a newspaper claiming "an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima?" Who cares whether the place is haunted by your definition of the term? To insist that it isn't despite sources would qualify as original research. V-Man737 06:37, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep per Ghostieguide. Kamope · talk · contributions 12:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep the reason for this AfD is that it will never pass WP:NOR as the list now contains 50 references, individual listings may require further referencing but the list definately isnt a collection of "original research". Gnangarra 14:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep! Good grief, how could I have missed the fact that this was up for AFD for 3 days? I've been putting some effort into getting this cited and cleaned up with an eye towards nominating it for featured list in a few months. I thought it sort of strange that other people had suddenly taken off with the sourcing but was glad - now I see the reason, it's on AFD. However, there is nothing in this list that should cause it to be deleted. Everything I could say in favor of keeping it has pretty much already been said; but this list is improving by leaps and bounds and if it keeps up it won't be long before it meets all the featured list requirements. There's no reason on Earth not to keep it. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering if I would have to come to your talk page to wake you up... V-Man737 12:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. As the college professor and folklorist Dr. Bill Ellis argues, the study of alleged hauntings and similar phenomena is an important academic undertaking that provides cultural insight. --The Argonaut 22:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep someone needs to "adopt" this list, not just to keep on top of the sourcing, but to stop it getting too long. Every town in the world has a haunted house, and this list could become a huge cruft magnet. Totnesmartin 00:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment Not every town in the world has a haunted house that has been documented by reliable sources. V-Man737 00:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment reliable or not, if a ghost is written up somewhere, it's sourcable and so could potentially get on this list. Totnesmartin 13:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep but move to List of locations said to be haunted or List of locations claimed to be haunted or List of allegedly haunted locations or any other title that doesn't imply that the legitimacy of these claims. Hesperian 03:14, 1 February 2007 (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.