Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Saskatchewan Highway 703

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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 B1atv 14:23, 24 October 2007 (UTC) (non admin closure)

[edit] Saskatchewan Highway 703‎

Saskatchewan Highway 703‎ (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

What would make a road notable? That there's something encyclopedic to write about it, covered in reliable sources, of course. If however dozens of stubs are created for these and they never expand (except for a navigation template that takes more space than the article), it seems more appropriate to consolidate them into a list.

That's all the more the case if one takes as granted that "700s highways are minor highways (...) Many of these highways are gravel for some of their length." This doesn't sound like great potential for expansion.

I found these articles on the notability backlog, then proposed to consolidate them; after receiving no response, I merged them into List of Saskatchewan provincial highways. The redirects were reverted with comment: "take it to AfD if you disagree". I do disagree. So here they are.

I admit that the selection for deletion seems somewhat arbitrary. There are in fact many more articles of the same kind that would need cleaning up.

I also nominate the following related articles:

All three articles have already been merged, so they are redundant by now and can be deleted. --B. Wolterding 11:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Speedy keep There is an incredible amount of road stubs on Wikipedia. Why start with the Saskatchewan roads? It would be unwieldy to merge all of them with the list. You might find this interesting, by the way. Tim Q. Wells 15:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Also, are you going to merge Saskatchewan Highway 316 with the list? If you did (assuming you would trim it) we would lose a lot of the information in the article. If not, then Wikipedia would seem to have an indiscriminate collection of articles on Saskatchewan roads. Tim Q. Wells 15:22, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Note that I have not nominated Saskatchewan Highway 316. However there are indeed a large number of similar stubs that have never expanded, and that I actually do not expect to expand. Why start with the above? Because they had been tagged with notability concerns half a year ago. That's no reason not to clean up others, but WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is never a good argument. --B. Wolterding 16:53, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
By the way, before voting "Speedy keep", you might want to read Wikipedia:Speedy keep. Which of these criteria do you see fulfilled? --B. Wolterding 16:54, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is a great argument when thousands and thousands of other stuff exists. Especially when there were previous AfDs that voted to keep them. Who says I have to meet the criteria for WP:Speedy keep? It's a guideline. Tim Q. Wells 17:02, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
AfDs are about individual articles. The fact that an AfD on a road in Nevada was closed with "keep" 2 years ago does not mean much for an AfD on a completely different road in Canada, based on today's notability guidelines (yes, guidelines). But let's not discuss formalities: Could you explain what purpose these stubs serve, if they can be covered as 1 or 2 lines in a list? Can you say what sources there are that they should be expanded on? And why do you expect them to be expanded, if most of them have actually been unexpanded ever since? --B. Wolterding 17:13, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
The fact that it was about two years ago only strengthens my argument. Back then Wikipedia did not have 1,000,000 articles. So then the Wikipedians' thought on notability was much stricter. If that road in Nevada was created in 2001 then it definitely would be deleted. As Wikipedia gains more articles people's thought on notability becomes more loose. Tim Q. Wells 17:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Quite the contrary: In 2005, the WP:N guideline didn't even exist. But that leads us too far here, I think. --B. Wolterding 17:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I was not talking about actual guidelines, but Wikipedians' thought on notability. Tim Q. Wells 17:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
By the way, the notability tags were added by Wikipedians who didn't (I'm quite sure) understand that Wikipedia includes articles on highways and happened to stumble upon these articles. There is basically no difference in notability between Saskatchewan Highway 703 and Saskatchewan Highway 220. If the Wikpedian happened to stumble upon Saskatchewan Highway 220 instead, I'm sure they would mark that for unclear notability. If this AfD nomination succeeds, then Wikipedia has an inconsistent article coverage ultimately based on what a few Wikipedians with no experience in highway articles thought (again, assuming the Wikipedian unsure of notability did not understand Wikipedia includes those highways, which I'm almost certain of). Tim Q. Wells 17:26, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Note that this AfD introduces no inconsistencies whatsoever. It's perfectly OK to have a list of entries (highways) and expand only those into articles on which more information is available, and where somebody is actually willing to expand them. That's in fact encouraged. See WP:SUMMARY. --B. Wolterding 17:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
It does introduce inconsistencies. Nominating Saskatchewan Highway 703 but not Saskatchewan Highway 220 when there is no difference in their notability is inconsistent. How can you say the opposite? Tim Q. Wells 18:00, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
See WP:BUNDLE. Bundling to many articles is generally not a good idea. That doesn't meet that other articles don't need cleanup. --B. Wolterding 18:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per WP:OUTCOMES. Numbered state/provincial and federal highways are generally notable. • Gene93k 18:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Where do you read this in WP:OUTCOMES#Transportation and geography? For me it says: "In the US, state and interstate highways (aka: freeways, turnpikes, expressways and motorways) are notable." This is Canada, but a gravel road comes far from a freeway, for all I understand. (By the way, WP:OUTCOMES is not even a guideline, it's just a rough list of frequent results, so some arguments towards notability would be preferred.) --B. Wolterding 18:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete I can't find any references to this road that aren't on wiki-mirrors. If no-one else on the internet finds this gravel road worthy of a mention (even in passing), I don't see what purpose is served by a 2-line stub, other than completeness. In which case, why not have articles on the next level down... oh... Thomjakobsen 21:05, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Perhaps check Google Maps and the provincial road maps instead of regular Google? Dl2000 03:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes, it appears on a map, as nearly all roads do. I was thinking more of people mentioning it somewhere, even in passing, as evidence that it isn't completely obscure. Thomjakobsen 12:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Part of the Saskatchewan provincial road system. This road is notable enough that it was selected to be maintained by the province rather than a county/regional/local government. The majority of roads don't get that. —Scott5114↗ 01:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - I would tend to think a gravel Highway is worth noting... how many gravel highways are you able to think of/know of/locate? Exit2DOS2000•T•C• 02:06, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Exactly...that's a unique highway. Tim Q. Wells 05:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • The ratio of road articles to editors on Wikipedia is 15:1. You're going to get lots of stubs if you only prowl around what's visible (i.e. the article). Not only that, but there's also the underlying fact that these designated highways were selected by the government to have this status, unlike some random county road somewhere. Doing a Google search on just the article title does not yield much, since sources are obscure to the point where you are hunting around in newspaper archives and the department of transportation documents. That said, please keep these articles. O2 (息 • 吹) 03:37, 21 October 2007 (GMT)
  • Keep, at least Highways 703 and 707, especially now that some sources are added for these. However, couldn't find a citation to support 704's existence, and it may have to go unless someone can find a source for it. Perhaps 704 is a defunct provincial road? Dl2000 03:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Per WP:OUTCOMES, consensus is clear that state/provincial roads are notable. Alansohn 05:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep 703 and 707 - Seeing how this is turned into quite the debate. Now 703 and 707 have info and sources. 704 i'm not so sure, like Florida State Road 5023, it may be deleted. That however should be a seperate, inter-project discussion. Let's keep 703 & 707 and decide on 704 later. Mitch32contribs 16:18, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • First, an important note: the 600- and 700-series highways are "primary grid roads": [1]. These are maintained by the rural municipalities: [2]; also the legend of the Saskatchewan highway map labels them as "municipal roads". (I can look for more sources if you want more.) Thus these are more akin to county roads numbered in a statewide pattern (to use a U.S. analogy). If this is all that can be written about them, I would say merge into an article like List of Michigan County-Designated Highways. --NE2 17:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Numbered highways form part of the backbone of a country's transportation infrastructure. Agree with O2. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't see how the numbering makes them notable. Every public road has a government-assigned name or number of some sort. (How else should the government refer to it?) The question is rather: Is there something to write about (or has something be written about) these roads beyond their number? --B. Wolterding 09:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
      • No one ever said the numbering makes them notable. Tim Q. Wells 22:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

{Indent reset) - User:Exit2DOS2000 and I expanded Saskatchewan Highway 994, a road even-less notable than the three up for deletion. I really suggest most Saskatchewan articles start following the basics of 994.Mitch32contribs 01:30, 24 October 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.