Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Taepyeong Station

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 Nominator withdrew/asked for closure. Crossmr (talk) 02:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Taepyeong Station

Taepyeong Station (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

• WP:NOTABILITY- A list of every subway or train station alone is not notable. Very few, if any, of these stations are listed in secondary sources, and if they are it is not because of the station itself and it is only mentioned in that geographic area. These articles only have the possibility of being important to a very, very select few of people, and it is probably a stretch to say that much.
  
• WP:NOT#DIRECTORY- Wikipedia is not a directory on where certain trains stations are in Korea. Could you imagine how many articles would be on Wikipedia if we had an article for every destination on every public transport system on earth?
  
• WP:NOT#TRAVEL- Wikipedia is not a travel guide. The only purpose these articles serve is to mention where there is a stop along certain subway lines.
  
• Other points that need to be raised:
  

Most, if not all, of the articles do not cite any sources, and most are simple "Blah Station is on the Blah line. It is located in Blah, Blah, Seoul" and they have an infobox and template of all the stations. The lack of content, notability, sources, ability to expand and the plain unencyclopedic nature of the articles call for a total Delete of each article. I am also nominating the following 250 related articles based on the prior reasons:

Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 21:18, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. I know "other stuff exists" is not a good argument, but I also know that any proposal to delete articles for the very many railway stations in places like London or Melbourne, would not have any chance of succeeding. These station articles should be given the same chance to grow into useful articles as are the ones for London underground stations and Melbourne suburban stations. --Bduke (talk) 22:18, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment You are right, that is not a good argument. Comparing articles is not a justification for keep or delete, we are here to discuss these articles and whether these articles meet the criteria for deletion, which they do.
Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 22:26, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• Merge into list or delete. A whole bunch of substubs is clearly a bad idea, so putting them all in a single list might be a good idea, but frankly, there is too little content in them. A subway station article needs more information than "X is a station on line Y in city Z". - Mgm|^(talk) 22:52, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
• NOT EVERY TRAIN STATION, BUS ROUTE AND AIRPORT TERMINAL IS NOTABLE!!!!!! </anger> I have not looked at every single one of these 250 (!) articles, but a spot check reveals the same thing. These stations are not independantly notable. Outright deletion is probably too much to hope for, but maybe merge them to some other list that should also be deleted eventually, but will probably be kept at AfD. I (talk) 23:31, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Railway stations are notable for a reason: there is virtually always an abundance of good source material, and thus plenty of potential for expansion, as we've found in virtually every other country where this has come up. Deleting these because that material is not currently in the article would be pure systemic bias: deleting them not because good sources don't exist, but because interested parties like me can't add them in on a week's notice without access to a public library in Korea. Rebecca (talk) 00:14, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment But what makes these articles notable? Just because there is info about something doesn't make it notable. There is a lot of information on all the bus-stops in Phoenix, AZ. Should we have an article on everyone of these stops too? It isn't a lack of info that these were nominated for deletion, it is because none of the articles assert any type of notability whatsoever, which is key for inclusion in this encyclopedia.
Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 00:22, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:N: "a topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." It is patently clear that none of those advocating deletion have made the slightest attempt to check if there are indeed reliable sources - which, as I have pointed out, there have been proved to be for stations in pretty much every other country where this issue has come up. It is patently unreasonable to expect them all to be expanded on a week's notice when expanding them would require access to a public library in Korea - thus, these are under threat of deletion because of systemic bias, not because they're not notable. Rebecca (talk) 00:45, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment, is this a record 250 in one go! I admire the nominators stamina, but to do this afd justice you'd really need to go through every one of them before deciding. Anyways here's one with a claim of notability Yeouinaru Station. RMHED (talk) 00:29, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• Delete (selective) per nom., in particular NOT#TRAVEL is important. Consider a typical "article": "Beotigogae Station is a subway station on the Seoul Subway Line 6." If deletion passes, I would ask the closing admin to look at each page and if any seem to give any evidence of notability to exempt them and relist. However, a check of the nominated station and the first 20 on the list gives no evidence of notability. (And being the closest subway station to a notable landmark does not in itself give evidence of notability). (As they are, I'd even nominate most of the articles for deletion on a travel site) -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 00:37, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment That sounds like a good idea, Id support that :-)
Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 00:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

None of these articles are remotely purporting to be a travel guide. This is just a not particularly crafty way of trying to get around the above - that they're being deleted for reasons of pure systemic bias. Rebecca (talk) 00:45, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Please try not to accuse me of being biased. The main reason these need to be deleted is that they are not notable in any way, shape, or form, not that I am biased.
Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 00:53, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not accusing you of being biased or acting in bad faith - I'm accusing you of perpetuating systemic bias. This material is notable, but deleting it because the sources are in another country is unhelpful to say the least if we want a genuinely global encyclopedia. Rebecca (talk) 01:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Keep Encyclopedic content and a framework for expansion. Wikipedia articles need not be born full-grown. Fg2 (talk) 00:47, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment But they do need to be notable, someone please show me notability.
Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 00:53, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment They are train stations. Train stations are notable. Fg2 (talk) 00:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

As Fg2 said, see above. They almost definitely meet WP:N, but it's not possible to tell on one week's notice when the sources are in Korea. Rebecca (talk) 01:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. I believe there is an aspect of systematic bias. The nomninator asks "Could you imagine how many articles would be on Wikipedia if we had an article for every destination on every public transport system on earth?". Well, there does seem to be an argument, which I do not really follow, that train stations are notable and bus stops are not. We may not have an article on every train station on earth, but I believe we do have an article on every train station in the UK, and perhaps some other countries. These of course included the 1 millionth article and that was not really very notable at the time, but it was not deleted.If we do not want this, we should attack it head on and bring UK train stations to AfD, not ones that are possibly an easy target as sources are not easily and quickly obtainable as is the case here for Korea. That is the way to systematic bias and that is what I was suggesting in my keep comment at the top. --Bduke (talk) 01:43, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
• Comment although they might each be entitled to an article, perhaps it would be better to have them merged as sections of a more general article. DGG (talk) 01:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment If you feel like nominating the UK train stations here, then feel free, I will probably endorse the delete, but again, this AfD is for these articles. I do not care where they are from, they DO NOT ASSERT notability, which is the single most important aspect of any article, no matter what it covers. This not the discussion place for any articles other than the ones listed. I have yet to find one good argument that says these train stations are notable by themselves. I would fully endorse a larger article that covers the entire topic, because the train system itself is notable, but each stop on the system is not notable.
Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 02:16, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment -- I think RS and Notability are two separate issues. There can be many reliable sources for a non-notable object. To stick to something similar but that I know more about, I'm sure with a Lexis/Nexis search I could find sources detailing the cost, construction, etc., of every subway station in Boston, but that wouldn't make any of them pass the notability test. (I would think that probably very few Boston subway stations would get my Keep !vote if they were nominated for AfD. I agree also with DGG that even if they are individually notable, our readers are better served by a general article on the system itself, branching off into individual articles once they emerge from sub-stub status. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 02:44, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
• Summing Up So far there have been 5 main reasons argued for keeping:

1. Since there are articles on other train stations, there should be articles on these.
2. There are sources, but they are not easily accessible.
3. Time limit, cannot fix all the articles in such a short amount of time.
4. The nominator is supporting a systematic bias.
5. Train station are inherently notable.

So far none of these reasons have addressed the concerns that this is all WP:OR and that each train station is not notable in and of itself. My responses to the keeps.

1. What is someone said, there are articles on some professors, so there should be an article on every professor. You would reply that that is incorrect, that we need to judge the notability of each person. Same thing here, we need to judge each article as it stands by itself.
2. When has this ever been an argument? Wikipedia states that if content is to be added to its encyclopedia, that it needs "citations to reliable sources that contain these facts." If every editor could state that the reason they didn't add sources was that they couldn't access them, Wikipedia would be full of OR. There shouldn't be an article on a subject until proper sources can be cited (I am guessing I am the only one who has gone through every single article nominated here, I would like to state that my best guess is that 95% of these articles have no outside links, one even states that the source of their info is the sign at the train station, and the ones that do have one link, are mostly just a link to a small article saying that the station opened.)
3. When has time limit ever been an argument? I mean seriously, sources are the first thing that should be put in an article if it is not inherently notable. There has been plenty of time to fix these articles.
4. Um, well all I can say is that I am not. I do not support having articles on any train stations, no matter where they are, unless they are notable for some other reason other than just being a train station.
5. There are very few things that are inherently notable, and train stations are not even close. Examples of inherently notable would be presidents, wars, laws, geographic regions, etc.

I hope I have addressed all the concerns.
Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 03:53, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• Keep nominating 250 articles in one group makes it difficult to assess each reasonably. BTW lets take one station Banghak Station its an absolute stub you couldnt write it with less text than it already has. But lets see whats there doing a rough nasty google search(excluding wikipedia) 800+ seperate hits[1] lots of baggage information not relevent to an article but... Did you know its the site of one Seoul 10 best baths, DYK that its one the air quality monitoring sites for Seoul, DYK its planned to be a transfer station to the new light rail network[2] due to be complete 2016. I've just spent 60 minutes researching on this station alone, its going to take take me more then 7 days to form a response about each station. Considering the time constraints of AfD lets speak generally then apply it to these 251 article. Railway station are accepted as notable because they have commonality of information across other articles, plus they also get additional information like User:Mscuthbert pointed out and occasionally there are these abstract associations as shown with this one. So why Keep all because this was the first I chose at random from the list and I found information that warrants an article, its reasonable to presume that there are other nominated articles in this list that also warrant inclusion. Gnangarra 04:12, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

  Thanks for taking the time to do this search. I think if all that information were added to the article, I would still say "delete." I'm not sure that "site of one [of] Seoul['s] 10 best baths" (actually, it's not in the station; that's just the closest station to the sauna [3]), or being one of the air quality monitoring sites for Seoul (btw -- I couldn't find the reference; all I saw was that there was a monitoring site in the Banghak district), or a planned expansion as a transfer station creates any notability. And in particular, I don't think locations near a station give notability to a station. I just did a Google search on one of my old streets (Kirkland St. Cambridge, MA) and found that it has a center for nanoscale research on it, one of the few Swedenborg chapels, and a live theater--is this notable enough to get an article for the street? I don't think so, so I don't think a railway station with similar features would be notable either. Best, -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 04:59, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• Keep and comment My big concern here is the notability aspect, mostly about what would make a certain train station less notable then another. Just taking as an example this station from the Washington Metro. It contains mostly just the station location, expected year of opening and an infobox. Actually all stations on the Washington Metro have an article, even including the ones on the planned line. So what would make a train station in the US capital less notable then a station in South Korea's capital? Is it just because other station articles have external links?
  The main problem with these stations seems to be that the lack of sources listed makes them appear less notable, and almost OR. There are great sources out there, but because these stations are in Korea the best sources are written in Korean, and these articles were probably written by editors that have little or no knowledge of Korean. Just to show this I took at random Cheonan-Asan Station and instead of using Google I used Naver (a popular Korean search engine). I've found this page that contains a more complete description of the station.
  I think these articles shouldn't be tagged for deletion, what they really need is more work. And if people still want to address the notability of these, then maybe it's time we address the notability of stations as a whole, instead of just looking at stations in one geographical region at a time. That way it wouldn't bring the concern of systemic bias again.— Luccas 05:36, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment I agree with you Lucas that train stations need to be looked at as a whole, because I doubt many of them are notable for just being a train station. The reason I chose these Korean stations had nothing to do with it being in Korea, I just happened to come across them, and realized that none of them were notable. I figured 251 articles was enough, because I can imagine there are probably a thousand articles on train stations on Wikipedia, and I figured I would be boycotted if I listed a thousand articles at once, not to mention the amazing amount of time needed to tag all of them. When I look at these articles, I ask myself, "if you wanted info on train stations, where would you look?" and an encyclopedia is not where I would look, I would look in a travel guide or an atlas, or something like that, but not an encyclopedia. I like Cuthbert's argument, I mean when will it stop, like he said you can attach almost anything to something that is notable. Each article needs to be notable by itself. Ultimately it seems like the best choise here is to create a List of train stations in Seoul, South Korea article which would allow the information to stay in the encyclopedia while also making it easier to read because you don't have to search through 251 stubs, most of which consist of one sentence stating that "X is a train station located in Y."
Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 06:25, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• Keep (and a note to whoever marked these articles for deletion)

I am the author of the 250 "unnotable, contentless, unencyclopedic" articles that you listed for deletion.

About the allegation that the articles have very little content, I agree that some articles could be expanded. But what I suspect is that you just took the article for Taepyeong Station - which admittedly is quite void of information - and just assumed that all of the articles that I contributed over the past few days are like that. Read all 250 articles (which I'm convinced you didn't do). Some of them have more information than your average article on a given train station. For example, some of the stations that you linked for deletion (e.g. Yeongdeungpo, Bucheon, Incheon) are at least a hundred years old, and hold historical significance pertaining to the modernization of Korea. Anyone with common sense would agree that articles on these stations have more notability than an article on some random station on the St. Louis MetroLink, for example.

And Wikipedia is a rapidly changing system where all users can contribute. I broke ground by creating the basic layout of these articles. I don't think, however, that I should be expected to write all the details of every station; that's why I posted these articles on Wikipedia, not my own website. It's up to other users to make the articles more informative, and marking 250 articles for deletion is not the way to do it.

I also sense prejudice against the Seoul subway, or even against Seoul/Korea in general. Take the New York City Subway, for example. All 468 passenger stations on this system have their own article. I'm not trying to deny the significance and importance of the New York Subway, but as of now, the 15 million people living in the city of Seoul and its suburbs are no less dependent on this subway system than the people of New York.

I'm not trying to diss St. Louis or New York here, it's nothing like that. I just smell some blatant bias here.

An average station on the Seoul Subway system has a ridership of at least 20,000 passengers per day. In the course of a year, each station serves several million, and the whole system serves BILLIONS. Just because it may not be important to you doesn't mean it's not important to other users on Wikipedia.

It's saddening that when some people see something they are not familiar with, they assume that it "lacks notability." To take another example, I couldn't care less about a station on the Miami-Dade Metrorail. However, I don't mark those articles up for deletion, because I know even though it may not be important to me, it could be important to somebody else.

Gonzofan2007, you're not the only person qualified to determine an article's notability; the 6.8 million users on Wikipedia are all entitled to their opinions, and they may think differently from you. I genuinely hope that you get my point. Sungminkwon (talk) 07:13, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Because we are clearly all anti-Korean, pro-everywhere else bigots here who are out to get you and anything you create. </sarcasm> The fact that there are articles on other train stations has no bearing on this discussion. We are discussing these on their own merits, nothing else. We are determining whether or not each of these articles has notability as defined by Wikipedia. This does not mean how important something is, or how many people depend on it, or whatnot. It's whether or not they have recieved significant, non-trivial coverage from sources independant of the subject. These, or at least the ones I spot checked, lacked that. Should he have nominated them all together? Probably not, since we should discuss all of them on their own merits. But nominating 250 articles seperately would almost have certainly been seen as a point violation. Of course Gonzofan isn't the only person to determine notability. Hence this request for other people to voice their opinion. I (talk) 07:42, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is relevant as it been indicated by the nominator that this is intended as precedent setting ...I figured 251 articles was enough, because I can imagine there are probably a thousand articles on trains tations on Wikipedia, and I figured I would be boycotted if I listed a thousand articles at once, ... diff. If people want to write Policy they should do so openly by ensuring people affected by a change in policy are able to be part of the discussion first. Recommend notifying WP:WPTWP:TWP and WP:KOREA would be a way of ensuring affected editors were able to contribute. Gnangarra 09:57, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you mean WP:TRPT not WP:WPT. --Bduke (talk) 10:15, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• Keep If we in the United States can have hundreds or thousands of articles on railroad stations within one system, so can Korea. From time to time I've heard users from other countries complain that railroad-related articles are too biased towards America, a myth that I've tried to dispell by encouraging those users to write about railroad-related subjects within their own countries. Deleting these would give the appearence of being biased against Korea, as well as other nations, should anybody decide to tag them for deletion. ----DanTD (talk) 13:00, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• Call for general guideline AfD is a bad idea for this kind of the matter. What we need actually is some idea of the inclusion guideline on train stations. I don't think there is one, since if there is one, we wouldn't be having AfD since all we have to do is to follow the guideline. Does every train station automatically notable? Suppose it is, then how about historical train stations? Are we going to have articles on, say, stations that existed in Korea when it was under Japanese occupation? I think the nominator of this afd doesn't understand is that we cannot delete or keep a large collection of articles on a case-by-case basis. To reiterate my point, afd doesn't work on this case. -- Taku (talk) 13:03, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Rebecca. Furthermore, countless AfDs and our local notability guidelines have upheld the principle that railway stations are notable, if not just for themselves than as part of a wider network. Mackensen (talk) 14:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• Keep We're already working on defining notability criteria for train/subway stations. We have a start at Wikipedia:Notability (Railway lines and stations). A mass deletion is inappropriate until such a guideline is accepted. Slambo (Speak) 14:34, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I'm pretty neutral here, but would had that something has to be decided about stations in the near future. Every UK station has a Wiki entry, and I many a closed station, too. Duke of Whitstable (talk) 14:38, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• STRONG KEEP ALL They're all notable for each area they serve. It's astonishing to see that those which are terminal stations on some lines have been put up here! JPBarrass (talk) 15:07, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep First of all, the lumping together of all the subway stations should end this AfD right now. While there are some genuine stubs and questionable articles here, the nominator has made the mistake of also including several very important stations (such as Gangnam Station), making a full delete vote near impossible. Second, I was shocked that the nominator did not post a note over at WikiProject Korea that he was nominating these articles for deletion, thereby soliciting input from people knowledgeable on the subject. Someone else had to do that.

On the notability issue, as said above, there are over 15 million people in the Seoul area, and millions of them ride the subway everyday. These stations are very notable to many people. Do a Google search on some of these stations (in Korean), and you will find stations with near 1,400,000 hits! Having lived in Korea, I would often read articles about different stations in the local English-language press. It may not be notable where you are, but it's darn notable to the people who use these stations everyday, and the external sources are there.

As for content, more is needed, without a doubt. However, if one would just look at the Korean Wikipedia versions of these pages it would be clear that there is a lot of content waiting to be added. Instead of posting a request for deletion on all these pages, we should post requests for translation. Also, please note how much information is contained on the info boxes on each page. We have: the Korean name, the Chinese name (which is important), two Romanized names, the station number, the station type, the platform design, the use/lack of screen doors (their use has become quite the issue/debate in Korea), who operates the station (there are several operators throughout Seoul), the opening date, and the location. This is good, helpful information that belongs on Wikipedia.

An overall discussion on train stations would be helpful. However, for now we are just looking at this AfD, which is rather misinformed, flirting with systemic bias, and ultimately far too overarching to be effective. Otebig (talk) 15:26, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• The difference between a bus stop and a subway station is that when the city transit corporation decides they want a new bus stop at the intersection of Hypothetical Street and Imaginary Boulevard, they can just put up a sign on the corner saying "BUS STOP", and announce a new route; sometimes they'll spend a few thousand dollars constructing a bus shelter, but this is by no means necessary. When the city transit corporation decides they want a new subway station, just the tunnel excavation can take upwards of a year and a half, and the whole process can cost upwards of 30 million dollars per station. Vehicular and pedestrian traffic flow patterns around the station are permanently altered, as are business viabilities. True, some of these Korean Subway Station articles have only minimal content; this is a weakness of those individual articles, not of the whole class of article. I strongly advocate that these articles be kept. DS (talk) 15:29, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• Very Obvious Keep per precedent, common sense and significance. Deiz talk 15:30, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Per Mackensen. Tim Q. Wells (talk) 18:37, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep as train stations are almost always one of the most notable locations in any given area due to the amount of use they get and for acting as a focus for business activity in an area (almost all train stations I've been to have multiple businesses located at the entrance due to concentration of people in one area). In addition (and as others have mentioned), nominating 250 (!) articles in one shot does not give the articles a fair chance at being resonably evaluated, researched, sourced, and expanded. While likely done in good faith, this is a bad nomination and leaning toward abuse of the AfD system. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:40, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
• Note to admin and voters Could an admin or some outside of the debate please close this nom as it is evident consensus has been reached. A note to every who voted and questioned my motives or me abusing the system, first I want to state that my nomination was in good faith and I am offended that anyone would question my faith just based on this nom. Second, I want to point out that there is no policy, guideline, or even an essay that points to there being a limit to the number of articles nominated at once. AFD says that if you find articles that are similar (which these are) that they can be bundled in the same nomination insomuch that they all have the same problems. I truly hope that all of you who worked so hard to keep these articles go and expand them and properly source them more than the OR that they are now. I hold no ill-will towards anyone, I just hope that you all assume the best before you assume the worst. Good luck editing everyone!
  Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 20:56, 18 November 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.