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[edit] Conclusions

The discussion has ran for over two weeks, and there is a 22-to-6 majority in favor of merging mast stubs. Since few if any things on a Wiki are ever unanimous, I'd say 78% is a very good consensus. Thus I'm closing it now. This is a summary of Proposal One, below.

1. The table in list of masts should have added columns for Location, Coordinates, Purpose, Owner and FCC registration.
2. Mast articles should be merged and redirected with this list, unless they contain substantial additional information that does not fit in the list (for instance, Warsaw radio mast).
3. If the list gets overly large, it should be broken up by country (or possibly, region).

Contents 1 Conclusions 1.1 Issue for discussion 1.2 Proposal 1 1.2.1 Support 1.2.2 Oppose 1.2.3 Brief comments on this proposal 1.3 Proposal 2 1.3.1 Support 1.3.2 Oppose 1.3.3 Neutral 1.3.4 Brief comments on this proposal 1.4 Discussion 1.4.1 What's the point? 1.5 Vastly encyclopedic data 1.5.1 Size matters? 1.6 Changed vote 1.7 On the organic growth of mast articles over time 1.8 On the purpose of masts 1.9 Why deletion?

[edit] Issue for discussion

Nearly all of the entries in the List of masts table have an associated article. (The masts in question are mostly radio masts, used to television or radio broadcasting.) Most of these articles have little or no content beyond the geographical location of the mast, its date of construction, its height, and—for a U.S. entry— a link to its FCC registration information. For example, the entire Outlet Broadcasting Tower article is reproduced below.

Several mast articles have been proposed for deletion recently (See the group nomination at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/South Dakota TV Tower, which includes South Dakota TV Tower, Corridor TV Tower, Southeastern Media Tower Beech Island, Clear Channel Broadcasting Tower Caesars Head, WRJA-TV-FM Tower, Barnacle Broadcasting Tower Port Royale, KTMD-TV Tower, Cox Radio Tower Security and South Carolina Educational TV tower Sumter; and see also the nomination at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/KISS Radio Tower for KISS Radio Tower), and it may be appropriate to create a blanket policy to cover them all.

All these proposed deletions have resulted in 'keep'. It would seem the consensus is to retain articles about transmitter masts. Sandpiper 13:25, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal 1

• City and state information should be added (where available) to the table in List of masts. (Rename the Country column as Location).
• Geographic coordinates can be added to the table (create a column Coordinates).
• The use(s) of the mast (TV, radio, cellular, etc.) can be added to the table (create a column Uses or Purpose).
• The tower owner can be added to the table (create a column Owner or Ownership).
• FCC registration info can be added to the table (create a column FCC or the like).

• Once the existing mast articles have been merged in this way, they can be safely redirected to List of masts and unlinked from the List.
• New mast articles need no longer be created. The information can be added directly to the table of masts.
• Masts for which substantial additional information exists may persist as independent articles linked from the List.

[edit] Support

1. TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 18:43, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
2. —msh210 19:21, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
3. · Katefan0^(scribble) 20:43, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)
4. Sounds good. --Carnildo 21:45, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
5. --SPUI (talk) 23:21, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
6. --Calton | Talk 01:03, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC). Almanac-like information in almanac-like form.
7. Makes sense. --JP | Tark 02:16, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
8. Support, there is no need for these to be individual articles, unless there is something really unique about the tower--nixie 03:18, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
9. Support, and wish to note the diligence of TenofallTrades in contacting every voter on the vfd page. Meelar (talk) 05:35, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
10. Very good idea. Comprehensiveness is a Good Thing. Radiant_* 11:06, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
11. Support, noting that I have no problem with a separate article about any individual mast that is actually notable for some reason other than being a mast. RussBlau 11:02, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
12. This is generally fine. I'm sure that there are exceptions, e.g. an interesting article could be written about an unusual transmitter/tower site like Columbia/Pea Island off New Rochelle, NY, but most of these things are just sticks in the ground. --iMb~Meow 11:27, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
13. Partial support. I think many of the mast articles could redirect to articles on the radio or television stations that they are used by instead of the list. Often pretty easy to figure out when the call sign is in the name (except that many stations have changed names by now). —User:Mulad (talk) 13:20, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
    • Weak support (see concerns below). It's not a matter of notability so much as whether the information should be in one big article or a bunch of little articles. Stub articles are only good if they have significant potential for expansion, and I'd say 95% of these don't. —Wahoofive (Talk) 16:00, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
14. This would be a far superior presentation of this information; easier to make comparisons between masts, and to identify those masts about which there is something interesting to write. CDC (talk) 22:48, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
15. The proposal is well-intentioned, however it is only practical it if the List of Masts article is broken up by country (and in some large countries, by state/province). If not it will end up being so massive as to be impossible to negotiate in any useful manner.--Gene_poole 04:53, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
16. Zzyzx11 | Talk 07:03, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
17. Support - any notable mast, i.e. one for which more than a stub could be written, can always have its own article if necessary - location, height and date built are not enough for an article (or do we want millions of articles which say "My house is 11 metres tall, was built in 1997 and is located at No. 7 Somewhere Street, Nowheresville"?). SteveW | Talk 12:17, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
18. Support. Radio masts are not inherently encyclopedic (or interesting) on their own, but most should probably receive mention somewhere, and I cannot see any reason why not to support mentioning them in an article like List of Masts. Sjakkalle 10:09, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
19. Support. Many of these are owned by and named after the station that uses them. Those should be described in the station's article, not separately. Gazpacho 22:10, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
20. Fully support. Any truly exceptional masts that really need to say more can have their own article, if need be, though I doubt this will need to be. -R. fiend 21:42, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
21. Support. What's the point of scattering information in isolated fragments when you can present many related pieces together so they can be viewed in a single glance? Truly notable masts can always have their own articles. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:28, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
22. Support. It's not likely that everyone of these is encyclopedic. Those that are can keep their own page. Value is obtained by including good articles, not by trying to have more articles. Vegaswikian 07:58, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Oppose

1. This proposal fails to appreciate the flexibility of the category system. The lists of masts article will be dead to everyone but mast enthusiasts. Individual mast articles can be allocated to the appropriate locality, where they will be seen by the people most likely to be interested in them, that is locals. Wikipedia should be organised in a way that maximises the amount of interesting information people will come across unexpectedly. It is not just a academic resource for people who have to write an essay and know what they need to look up to get it done. Oliver Chettle 04:26, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

   So where would you place the information on the dozen or so radio towers that cover the Spokane, WA area? As far as I'm aware, every last one of them is in the county, rather than the city, and most of them are closer to suburbs like Spokane Valley, WA and Liberty Lake, WA, than to the city itself. --Carnildo 06:05, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

   • Oliver -> that isn't necessarily true (but note that the cat system is somewhat controversial). One could redirect all masts to the relevant list, and have a link with the mast's name in the relevant geography or city article. Radiant_* 11:06, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

2. I'd prefer to have it go the other way. Explode the list of masts article into indivdual articles held together by a catagory. Thanks to WP advanced search abilities, there is no need to worry about having hundreds of small articles aslong as they are associated with categories. IMHO, masts are a notable feature and public work. Klonimus 05:06, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
   • Once more, note that the cat system is somewhat controversial. It doesn't always work on mirror sites, for one. Also, a list of related things is far more useful for referencing purposes than individual stub pages. It is not about the 'honor' of having an own article - it's about the accessibility of information. Radiant_* 11:06, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
     • Should we even care what works on mirror sites? (Are sites like "answers.com" what you're refering to?) If doing something to facilitate a mirror site reduces the value of the main site in any way, that's not something I would ever support doing. --Unfocused 13:04, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
     • And how accurate is Radiant's repeated claim that cats are controversial? They seem to be in very widespread use for something that is supposed to be have some opposition. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:30, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
       • See Wikipedia:Categorization policy, where several people asked for categories to be removed entirely. I do not personally agree that Categories are Bad (in fact, I love them and would want to obviate many lists for that very reason) but in present software implementation, there is significant opposition. Also note that, for performance reasons, categories are not supposed to have a couple hundred articles in them. Radiant_* 13:57, May 9, 2005 (UTC)
3. Oppose. Cats are much more versatile than lists for this kind of application. If someone wants to dupe vital statistics in a list, fine, but use of individual articles seems the best way of presenting this information. Looking at random at some of the towers on List of masts I do not see any that could easily be trimmed down to just the contents of the table on that list. It seems that like other articles they tend to grow organically, which is what Wikipedia is good for. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:24, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
4. Oppose. Obviously someone cares enough to post a LOT of these in the Wikipedia. Since Wikipedia is not paper, it has the potential to fully contain hundreds of sets of articles in categories that serve as Encyclopedia of... whatever people are interested in posting here. Facilitate the mast enthusiasts, not alienate. Articles can be categorized, linked from locations, radio stations, or other places. I don't think such links to a monolithic list would be nearly as useful to the readers. Sure, masts are boring stops on the Random Page method of browsing, but individual articles are better points for adding data to. (Finally, if someone wants to list my small recorded edit count under this user name, please have the courtesy of signing your post when you do so.)--Unfocused 12:27, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
5. Weak support (see concerns below). It's not a matter of notability so much as whether the information should be in one big article or a bunch of little articles. Stub articles are only good if they have significant potential for expansion, and I'd say 95% of these don't. —Wahoofive (Talk) 16:00, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC) User changed his vote to Oppose at 00:42 on 5 May (see below). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:52, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
6. Oppose for now. Tony Sidaway has presented good evidence that these articles grow over time. Any merging is likely to curb this growth. Let's leave the articles as they are for now and if they are still almost all stubs in a year then we will know it is probably a good idea to merge them. - SimonP 14:33, May 9, 2005 (UTC)
7. Oppose Lists are harder to maintain than categories. Stub articles that will never expand should only exist in a list, but anything that adds to information on a specific mast, even a picture of graffiti at the base of it, is enough of a reason to give it's own article, linked to from the list, of course. SchmuckyTheCat 02:32, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Brief comments on this proposal

• In my opinion, "substantial" additional information would be things like "the mast has a revolving restaraunt halfway up". --Carnildo 21:45, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, it really would have to be substantial. Like, it was the first tower ever built, or was involved in a spectacular midair collision, or is used to contact aliens. · Katefan0^(scribble) 22:14, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)
    • Or a really good revolving restaurant halfway up. --Calton | Talk 01:03, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • I would vote "keep" for a mast article if aliens were involved in a spectacular collision with a revolving restaurant. Maybe even the second place it happened. But few other masts come close to notability. The other thousands should just be listed with no redirect since so few have meaningful names, let alone encyclopedic significance. Barno 19:38, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
• I'm with Calton on this one--if you can come up with interesting, unique things to say about a particular mast, it's likely to sway my opinion. Meelar (talk) 11:08, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
• I wonder if the table in List of masts will get unwieldy. It's already full-screen width, and you're proposing to add four columns to it, plus greatly increase the width of the "Location" (née "Country") column. While I like having all the information in one place, it's much harder to access if you have to scroll horizontally, or will be hard to read if the text wraps much more (which will happen if the table width is tied to window width). If additional information must be "substantial" to warrant a separate article, then relatively minor additional information will have to be incorporated into this table also, further cluttering it. —Wahoofive (Talk) 16:00, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I share your concerns about the size of the table. On the other hand, if we're reasonably sensible about the order of the columns, then I suspect that most readers won't want to scroll anyway. To be honest, I'm actually not sure what purposes people actually use this list for, so I'm not sure how best to optimize it. Another option which bears serious consideration is breaking up the list somehow. Since it's already sorted by height, I might suggest breaking the list down into a series of lists (List of masts taller than 600 meters, List of masts taller than 500 meters, and so forth). It's easy enough to put a navigation template on all of them, and it would (hopefully) make both editing and reading the list easier. If the proposal here gets a thumbs-up, then I might just create a masts Wikiproject to formulate consensus on the gory details of refactoring List of masts. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 16:47, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • I can also see the opportunity to have separate lists List of masts by height, List of masts by location, List of masts by owner, etc. —Wahoofive (talk) 19:36, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Also, List of masts is far, far more than a "list." The table, along with a few sentences of explanation, should stay, but the large amount of explanatory material up top should be merged into mast, transmission tower, radio mast, etc. —Wahoofive (Talk) 16:00, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • For what it's worth, I agree with you. Maybe drop a note on the talk page of the article, and then be bold and merge away. I'm just going with this policy discussion here because merging a family of hundreds of articles is a mammoth job, and we want to get it right the first time. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 16:47, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • • I agree re: merging the information. Sounds like a job for the Cleanup Taskforce (shameless plug) · Katefan0^(scribble) 16:51, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
    • Regarding the possible width of the table - small fonts are your friend. For some of the columns, anyway. Radiant_* 21:31, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
• Could a mast-fan please give an example of an article on a notable mast? Except for the possibility of a very, very few historically interesting masts 99.99% of these seem like simple recitation of uninteresting directory-style information. Individual articles are a fundamentally stupid way to present this information because it would be extremely rare to want to look them up one-by-one instead of by region or type. Quale 02:21, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't know that I'd call myself a mast fan, but how about Sutro Tower, a San Francisco landmark and the highest structure in the city. —Wahoofive (talk) 15:58, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
    • This article I think is fine. It's a unique and recognizable part of the skyline, there's contextual information etc. But I would be careful about listing its height as a justification for the article's existence... there could be (and probably are) 1,000 tall towers located in prairie towns pop. 500 that are "the highest structure in the city." · Katefan0^(scribble) 19:46, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
      • For that matter, there are the old microwave relay towers, built to transmit radio programs across the US prior to the invention of satellites. There are probably several thousand of them, built about 25-30 miles apart. They are almost always the tallest structure in town, and I would consider them no more worthy of encyclopedia articles than individual telephone poles. --Carnildo 22:42, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the example. Sutro Tower is a nice article, and encyclopedic. I would vote to delete most other mast articles as non-notable and not encyclopedic. Quale 17:36, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal 2

• List of masts should continue to contain the brief data as at present.
• Editors are encouraged to add mast data from articles to List of masts.
• Mast articles tend to show organic growth over a period of months, so listing of mast articles younger than six months for deletion is discouraged.
• The development of a infobox format for use in mast articles is encouraged.

[edit] Support

1. Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:13, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Oppose

1. I agree with 1 and 2, but since they are pretty obvious, I assume your proposal is actually about point 3 and 4. I would like to see evidence of point 3, because I am far from convinced that mostmast articles actually grow (or, indeed, can ever become more than a stub). Radiant_* 10:53, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

• • Comment. I've already shown quite a bit of evidence to support this. I'll compile more. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:58, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
    • Thank you. However, while your evidence shows that some mast articles can get very lengthy and informative, I remain unconvinced that that is true for most masts. I believe a reasonable compromise would be to merge short mast articles into lists, and if and when substantial information is added on a mast, it can be 'broken out' and get its own article in addition to the list. Radiant_* 11:55, May 9, 2005 (UTC)
    • My investigations so far suggest that nearly all, if not all, mast articles become more informative with time. The ones that tend to get listed for deletion are the newer onces. I'm only concerned that premature deletion of articles may tend to hamper this natural growth (though I doubt it could have much effect in the long run). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:01, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral

[edit] Brief comments on this proposal

• The intent of this proposal is to track the observed organic growth of mast articles. Masts may well be anonymous, unvisited things in some locations, whereas in other locations (such as my own country where you're seldom more than thirty minutes walk away from a habitation) they are very familiar names and well known landmarks. I think the best way to find out which is which in an individual case is to give the article at least six months to grow. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:13, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
• So is it your proposal that all mast pages should be kept? (i.e. when they come up on VfD in the future, we would refer to this policy, if enacted, as an argument for inclusion?) All masts? —Wahoofive (talk) 02:42, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
  • No, the proposal is to advise people considering listing a mast for deletion to check its age, and consider leaving it to grow if it's new. People who don't think mast articles should exist in the first place can still list and may even successfully have some mast articles deleted. whatever their age--that would still be decided by consensus. No problem there. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:50, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
  • It's not a big deal. Proposal 1 seems to me pretty much the same as proposal 2 in final effect, but without the helpful advice. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:01, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
• The problem with new factual articles about things that aren't obviously interesting is that people are far too quick to nominate something VfD. It seems that some people get more thrill out of nominating something VfD than they do adding information. Every article that I started here was started with a one line post that I came back to later. I don't want to stamp THIS IS MINE! on a new article, so I start very small. Have some patience. --Unfocused 14:23, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm not really that bothered about people listing for deletion overzealously, because in the long run this does little damage to Wikipedia and I think we all go through that learning curve. And what to me seems overzealous may to others seem just fine. It all gets sorted out in discussion. I'm more concerned about this attempt to make new policy, really. Proposal 1, and even proposal 2 to a lesser extent, show symptoms of m:instruction creep. In the first proposal people who will probably would never willingly research and write or add to an article on a mast are being asked to opine on whether the greater part of the class of masts should be turned into merged-redirects and new mast articles made extinct. In the second proposal I'm trying to be nicer, recognising that the effects foreseen by proposal 1 are exceedingly unlikely ever to happen, and giving some advice to those considering listing a mast article for deletion.
  • Can you imagine someone successfully VfDing Pontop Pike Television Transmitter? It isn't gonna happen. There are dozens of masts like this in my country. They won't conveniently fit into some table and they're not deletable under the current deletion policy. I strongly suspect that the same applies to the masts in most other countries. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:49, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

• • • If I'd been the one to create that article, it would have started with a single line. It could have been VfD'd and deleted before I got back to adding to it. Had that happened to my first article, I don't think I would have come back to WP any time soon. For example, Big Sky Ski Resort, a patently obvious choice to write an article for, was VfD'd in less than 15 minutes, and not for nonsense or a copyvio! This is NOT a way to encourage new Wikipedians! Some VfD nominators have been acting like disk storage personally costs them money. --Unfocused 15:12, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Please feel free to add alternative proposals to this page. Confine longer comments to this article's Talk page.

• Maybe it would be good if somebody constructed a sample table containing all the merged information for a half-dozen or so masts, so we could see what it would look like. There's a tradeoff between consolidation and usability that would be easier to balance if we had something concrete to inspect. —Wahoofive (talk) 15:58, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
• Okay, so the somebody is me. Look at List of masts/Sample tables and see how the tables look. I think they look like crap and will be much less useful than the present system. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:50, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
  • But with a smaller text font, they would be okay. Most masts need only this as the total of their encyclopedic content, and the significant ones can be linked from the table, and the few people who care can find them from the list or from searching on the tower name. Barno 15:22, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
    • I've created a version of the wide table that uses a smaller font. --Carnildo 18:32, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the first iteration, Wahoofive. I poked at the narrow version of the table a bit, and I think it's salvageable. As Barno mentioned, perhaps judicious use of small fonts might be used as well. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 18:38, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm surprised that the change of fonts made such small difference. Oh well. Barno 01:41, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What's the point?

I don't really see the point of this policy. These mast articles are a pretty heterogeneous bunch (astonishingly so--you'd think a mast was a mast wherever it was). Some masts have interesting stories, others come with links to satellite photographs, others have rather pretty photographs of the masts themselves. We could have a policy on masts but in practice it would be pretty useless because as soon as someone comes along with anything remotely interesting to say about a mast (and this has already happened in most of the cases I've looked at) they'd just have to split the article out again. A completely pointless policy that only creates more work. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:20, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

I have to politely disagree with Tony Sidaway on this. I've looked at twenty or thirty of the mast articles at random from the list, and I would say that a substantial majority could be merged into the proposed table without loss of information. The very tallest masts near the top of the list are much more likely to have signficant associated content. I certainly wouldn't want to merge and redirect articles that have a story to tell or a good photograph.

The other reason for this policy proposal is that it is a (hopefully) nondestructive compromise. A number editors have independently nominated several of the stubbier mast articles for deletion in recent weeks. This merger would preserve the information, avoid clogging VfD with further mast nominations, and (again, hopefully) add value to the table at List of masts. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 00:01, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

If you can find any articles that could be moved entirely to List of masts without either loss of existing information or a high probability that someone will just have to revert to the existing version to add some information that won't fit there, then do so. You don't need a global consensus to do it. The answer to the problem of people listing mast articles for deletion is for those people to stop listing mast articles for deletion.

On the assumption that smaller masts may be less interesting, I examined the last ten masts on the list. I found the following:

• Mediumwave transmitter Bremen: reason for construction, type of antenna used, gain of antenna. Article was improved, it is no stuff for deletion any more.
• Transmitter Weisskirchen: type of antenna, construction detail, most powerful AFN transmitter in Germany.
• Transmitter Ehndorf: type of antenna, transmitter power, common name ("Sender Neumünster").
• Mediumwave transmitter Mainflingen: location detail, station transmission history, antenna history. Article improved, no case for deletion any more.
• Transmitter Nordkirchen: antenna details, ext link to owner details. Possibly suitable for tabulation at present.
• Transmitter Roumoules: political details, wavebands broadcast, directionality, spares, multidirectional capabilities.
• Transmitter Marnach: ownership, link to Radio Luxembourg (historically very important European radio station). Dual antenna details, ext links for both.
• Transmitter Villebon sur Yvette: historical details (WWII, terrorism). Ext link to site with excellent photographs and more detailed history.
• Transmission Tower Lindenfels: location detail, waveband detail (covers FM, AM and UHF TV). Possibly suitable for tabulation at present.
• Lisnargarvey Mast: unique design. Ext link to excellent photos and historical information.

So out of the smallest ten masts, I could find only two that at this time are suitable for tabulation. The minute we get a photo of one of those we'll want the article back. What's the point? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:33, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

--Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:33, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Interesting--the non-U.S. mast articles seem to be more comprehensive. I just looked at 10 consecutive entries from the middle of the table (I didn't pick and choose my starting point to slant the results, aside from selecting an American mast). All of the following could be merged; in fact many lack all of the basic information for the table.

• Clear Channel Broadcasting Tower Rosinton
• Pacific and Southern Company Tower Lugoff
• Young Broadcasting Tower Garden City
• Gray Television Tower Carlos
• South Dakota Public Broadcasting Network Tower
• Gray Television Tower Madill
• Spectra Site Communications Tower Orange City
• American Tower Christmas
• Richland Towers Bithlo
• Northland Television Tower Rhinelander

I would still suggest that many of the articles Tony Sidaway cites could be comfortably merged. Sites with multiple masts can have multiple rows in the table; the first column can be merged vertically to link them all together. Information about transmitter power and wavebands can go under the "Use" column; common names can sit under the transmitter's official name in the first column. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 16:24, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Let's look at the articles that you're apparently suggesting could be merged in and redirected. The information on these towers is pretty sketchy now, but the articles are barely six weeks old! Some of the articles I listed, as it happens, are nearly five months old and all show clear signs of organic growth. One of those in my list that I agree could be tabulated, it turns out, has only been around since April 12. So we've got a pretty strong picture of articles that start small and relatively uninteresting, and acquire information like snowballs--classic encyclopedia articles.

Oh I don't deny that a few of them could be shoehorned in somehow. I just keep asking myself why, after it is merged, one should then turn the article into a redirect and delink it. These articles are excellent examples of organic growth. Interesting histories, pictures, ideosyncratic antenna arrangements, connections and external links that require good descriptions fit very well into the relatively free article format, and they tend to show clear signs of growth with age. Why is it thought necessary to change from the status quo? It all comes back to the question: what's the point? It seems like you have what you think is a solution, but what is the problem that it's supposed to solve? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:55, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Vastly encyclopedic data

Just out of interest, noticing that a mast I've heard of wasn't there, I thought I'd document it. I'm totally uninterested in them so I had to start from scratch. In almost no time I had found an existing picture of it on Wikipedia, had historical information on it, and OFCOM and BBC data about reception. This is a vastly encyclopedic topic--a mast that stands prominently in a location (even though this one is out in the middle of nowhere--I've walked on Blanchland Moor and seen this one from miles away), broadcasts signals into millions of homes, and is licensed by a regulating authority tends to gather a history. I don't think it would be possible to reduce this all to a table.

• Pontop Pike Television Transmitter. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:27, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

And that's an excellent example of a good mast article, methinks. A picture, historic significance, detailed info. If you're prepared to do the same for the other masts in List of masts, this discussion would be entirely superfluous. (Though some of the information probably should still exist in list article, too.) --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 18:35, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

You say If you're prepared to do the same for the other masts in List of masts, this discussion would be entirely superfluous. But clearly there are such people engaged in doing just that. The articles listed as candidates for merge have one thing in common--they're all pretty new articles. The older articles tend be more interesting because people come along and add stuff. I happened to write a better stub than most because I was concentrating on a single mast, I got lucky with the photo, and of course I may have a good eye for significant history. Leave the other articles around and the same will happen, sooner or later, to them. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:44, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Size matters?

So far no vote, just two comment. First, the current List of masts is 64 kilobytes long. This may be longer than is preferable; see article size. How large will it become? An estimate: The List of masts/Sample tables use a little more than an average 300 characters per mast. The current List of masts as 800 of them listed. Estimated size of the current list using the proposed format is 300*800=240,000 bytes. That is more than 7 times the maximun recommended size of 32KB. And the list is supposedly still growing. How many mast are there in the world? Second, is this even encyclopediac? It is an almanac kind of information, in my opinion. Do we aim on gathering technical data on every set of objects in the world? Do we want a List of books (with title, author, publication date, ISBN and subject)?--Nabla 10:15, 2005 May 4 (UTC)

[edit] Changed vote

With great reluctance, I have changed my vote to Oppose. Not so much because I have any preference for the present layout, but because the drawbacks of the proposed table seem to me to be comparable to the present system; and it will be an enormous task to transfer the information (and since it's in all different formats, it's not something that can be automated), and there must be more pressing tasks on Wikipedia. The table as represented in the demo won't even accommodate most of the minor masts, as Tony pointed out.

I realize that you made this proposal as a compromise between the deletionists and the inclusionists, and if it falls through we'll still have to make a "deletion policy" for masts (as the title of this page suggests). —Wahoofive (talk) 00:42, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

• I don't find that a very compelling reason to oppose. Sure, there are lots of other things to be done, but if people want to work on this, let them. I'd be happy to chip in a couple of masts. Teamwork is light work :) Radiant_* 12:00, May 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • As a side point, you are correct that this page is somewhat misnamed. I'll add a notice to the Policy Consensus page reflecting that. Radiant_* 12:00, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

Maybe instead it would be wise to develop a template for a standard look for the mast pages. —Wahoofive (talk) 01:52, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] On the organic growth of mast articles over time

Here's a table of articles from List of masts alongside the date of first edit and the number of edits to date. I'll probably keep expanding this list. I think it shows clear organic growth in the articles. Information is added as time goes on. The now rather impressive Warsaw radio mast took over six months to get beyond three paragraphs.

Article	Date started	Number of edits
Warsaw radio mast	16 November 2003	63
KVLY-TV mast	7 November 2003	44
KXJB-TV mast	8 January 2004	20
KXTV/KOVR Tower	28 March 2004	18
KLDE Tower	17 November 2004	11
KCAU TV Tower	31 March 2004	15
KATV Tower	11 April 2004	15
WECT TV6 Tower	15 April 2004	14
KOLR/KOZK Tower	15 April 2004	18
WOI-Tower	7 November 2004	10
Des Moines Hearst-Argyle Television Tower Alleman	1 March 2005	9
WEAU-Tower	7 November 2004	8
Diversified Communications Tower	2 March 2005	6
AFLAC Tower	23 April 2004	12
WBTV-Tower	7 November 2004	11
Hearst-Argyle Tower	24 April 2004	13
WTTO Tower	24 April 2004	16
WCSC-Tower	7 November 2004	6
KTVE-Tower	7 November 2004	7
WCTV Tower	7 November 2004	8

--Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:20, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

• Warsaw Radio Mast is impressive and a good article, but I can't say the same about the WOI tower for instance. How about we merge all stubs on masts, and break them out again if and when more information is added? Radiant_* 11:57, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

How would you go about merging WOI-Tower into a table without loss of information? Among the information in that article, you've got its proximity to another mast, a good satellite photo, and links to registration information and whatnot. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:22, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

• In WOI, I see height, location, purpose, coordinates, year of building and another tower that is close by, and a bunch of external links. I'd say that fits pretty well in the table. Radiant_* 14:02, May 9, 2005 (UTC)
• I think this is where I differ. I can't see the point of trying to cram all those external links into a table when they're perfectly fine in a list at the end of the article. Moreover the minute someone uploads a picture or wants to write a bit more about the history you need to escape out into article form anyway. I do think that we should continue to produce this long tabulated list, but I don't see why we should replace existing article content by redirects simply because some or all of the article has been tabulated. Each article already contains a link to List of masts so nothing is lost by keeping the article content in its current form. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:41, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Well, I guess it boils down to Eventualism vs. Immediatism, or the price of a stub. Let's agree to disagree for now, we'll see what consensus says. Radiant_* 15:05, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

Immediatism? No such thing. Few articles start off complete, or even very useful. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:31, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

My concern if those articles are left is they set a standard of how little it takes to make an encylopedic article. I have a few articles being developed. Some are in tables and others are in other articles. That works if some cases, but not all. Not every mast is likely to get a good article in my lifetime. Vegaswikian 19:57, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] On the purpose of masts

I just looked up a transmitter on wiki, since I needed some information, and found the article in question had the relevant transmitter frequency information. From my point of view, the purpose of a transmitter is to send out a signal, and I want to know its frequency, strength, and appropriate reception aerial. While I don't mind having this information tabulated, I can't imagine how you could put it on a page of manageable size, even just for the UK. There are about 100 major digital TV transmitters in the Uk, plus more analog ones and radio. This is useful information to people who like to mess about with TV receivers. This kind of information is very analogous to the parliamentary constituency data, which has many small articles with similar data about one place, which is very boring until you need it. One list for every country in the world arranged by height (technically the least interesting thing) is hopelessly un-usefull.Sandpiper 13:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why deletion?

As English is the "World Language" no article of remarkable architectural structures of any kind should be deleted from the English speaking Wikipedia, if the structure is real existing. Is there a problem with too much articles in Wikipedia? I think disk space gets cheaper and cheaper from year to year and there is no reason any more, to keep the number of articles restricted. Of course for individual small masts used for mobile phone services, there is no article required. But radio masts taller than 100 metres or used for strong long-, medium- and shortwave transmitters should be kept, if their existence is real. In my opinion articles of real existing architectural structures have a greater relevance as those about fictional objects.