Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Washington State Route 900

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was Screw the closure templates, I'm closing this with consensus to keep. --SPUI (talk) 14:57, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Washington State Route 900

I don't think Wikipedia should be a street directory. There are a lot of these articles. I feel all articles about roads should be deleted from Wikipedia unless of importance such as Champs-Élysées --Chammy Koala 18:28, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I now think that the article should be merged with other articles, such as all Washington State Routes. The articles are very short on their own, and one good article could be made from them all being together.

• Delete, non-notable road. Dave the Red (talk) 18:43, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, this is a highway, not a mere street. --Lukobe 19:08, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep In theory, I agree that WP should not be a street directory but the reality is that there are now hundreds, maybe thousands, of articles about streets, bus stops, subway stations etc. and the WP community seems to accept them as valid. I don't see that there's anything to be gained in trying to turn the tide on this one. --Lee Hunter 19:52, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete being a highway (as opposed to a street) isn't necessarily encyclopedic. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 19:54, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, along with all of the other several hundred state highways in the United States. Zzyzx11 | Talk 20:17, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep we have lots of road articles. N-Man^talk 21:53, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep if we can expand it a bit. Chris talk back 22:10, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep state-numbered highways. --SPUI (talk) 22:40, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Local roads are not notable. --Carnildo 23:05, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • The time to decide that was several years ago. Not now, AFTER all these articles have been created IN GOOD FAITH. --SPUI (talk) 23:23, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. I've written three or four California highway articles, but I tend to agree that a state highway shield doesn't always mean notability. Google "California State Highway 195" to see what I mean. It's not much more than a farm road. This one seems notable. - Lucky 6.9 01:03, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Wikipedia is not a directory. What does an article like this do that isn't done far better by Yahoo Maps or Google Maps or Mapquest? How is anybody going to use an article like this? Dpbsmith (talk) 01:24, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Seriously, try finding information like this on Mapquest. It's not as easy as it seems, especially to find ACCURATE information. Mapquest still puts US 1 and US 9 shields on New Jersey State Highway 139, which hasn't been US 1/9 since the mid-1930s. --SPUI (talk) 02:02, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• (Changed vote) Keep in present form as improved by SPUI. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:20, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as long as the article has more content than "where it is", "what other roads it is linked to" and "how many lanes it has". Things like history, why it was built, amount of traffic, influence on the society, etc. Otherwise, delete and put somewhere on Wikicities. The article as it stands right now is not much more encyclopedic than a stub and should be expanded. --cesarb 02:47, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • The last two paragraphs are about the history; thus this vote should be counted as a keep. --SPUI (talk) 03:08, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Couldn't you at least add when the road was built? --cesarb 09:42, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • Unfortunately that's nontrivial to find; I'd need some maps from the era. Not even Highways of Washington State gives a date for when it was built. --SPUI (talk) 12:53, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
        • This gives the Sunset Highway's opening as 1915, and this and this conspire to say that what's now 900 was the original routing for route 2, if I'm reading it all right. Does that work? --iMb~Meow
          • However, the Sunset Highway/PSH 2 was a long route across the entire state, and what's now SR 900 is just a small portion (most has been upgraded to or paralleled by I-90). The part on SR 900 may have been finished earlier, as a road for local use (and maybe connecting to a dirt road through the mountains). --SPUI (talk) 14:10, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
            • Better now, count my vote as a keep. --cesarb 17:48, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, articles for roads like this are normal for Wikipedia. --iMb~Meow 03:12, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. As per the above, this kind of information isn't collected in any other one place. Meelar (talk) 05:31, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
• Merge, anyone? Merging will make the information more usable for route-planning. Radiant_* 08:59, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. State highways are generally worthy of inclusion, and this one has enough content to merit such. Arkyan 09:10, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Merge. I began this quest for deletion, but a merge is fine, as deleting this one article wouldn't solve the problem anyway. For all you who have argued to keep, what would Wikipedia be like if it wasn't just filled with American roads/highways? How about an aritcle on the Hume Highway between Albury/Wadonga and Melbourne in Victoria, Australia? Sound interesting? If every major road in the world was added then every time someone did a random page search, guess what would come up? The only people who care about an individual road are either people who travel on it, or who are going to. They wouldn't look for it on Wikipedia in either case - they'd buy a map. I appreciate a lot of people have gone to an effort to create these articles, but the information won't be lost in a merge. You could even make it a very good article if it was.--Chammy Koala 10:27, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge with what? List of Washington state highways would be awfully big. By the way, we have a rather nice article on the Hume Highway. --SPUI (talk) 11:41, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I would support all major roads being added, yes. And there's plenty of material about roads that can't be found on a map. For people interested in local history, for example, these articles are invaluable. Meelar (talk) 19:07, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, we have lots of articles about highways (and not just U.S. ones). If we ever get any more 900-series articles, it might be worthwhile considering merging the lot into a single article. JYolkowski 19:50, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep for reasons above. Samaritan 20:22, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Notable highway. Klonimus 06:51, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep state highways. -- Decumanus 03:58, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)
• Keep. This ship sailed long ago. And it's not just a US thing--see Al, List of British Columbia provincial highways, List of Western Australian highways, Great Britain road numbering scheme, etc., let alone local road articles such as Queen Street and List of Toronto, Ontario roads (some of which I voted to delete as excessively granular, but obviously I was on the losing side). Merge/rediring articles destined to only be a couple paragraphs does seem prudent, however. Niteowlneils 05:19, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.