Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WEGO

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 No consensus. Cbrown1023 00:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WEGO

WEGO (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - (View log)

WEAF (AM) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - (View log)

Disputed prod; my prod reason was "notability not asserted". Appears to be a minor community radio station. DGG removed the prod with "may be just as notable than the others on this list--just needs some editing". There have been an enormous number of radio station stubs added over the last two months; are these stations notable merely by their existence? I doubt it; hence this AfD.

Let me add WEAF (AM) to this AfD; simply because I prodded both at once. After prodding these two I noticed how many had been added, so I stopped at that point. It'd be great to get some consensus here. I'll stay neutral for this. Akihabara 05:12, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. There ought to be a policy which says "all radio stations are notable". The only relevant policy-like document that I could find is Wikipedia:Notability (TV and radio stations) which is labelled as inactive. I would argue that most radio stations which have ever existed are notable in the context of the culture, news and politics of the cities and countries in which they operate or operated, and that establishing notability in individual cases is difficult without detailed knowledge of the station's operations. A band or musician may have gotten its first big break by getting airplay on a particular radio station (which would help establish notability for that station), but how easy is it to verify this 25 years later? This is another example of the gap between notability and demonstrable notability. I would prefer to keep these articles, even if they are just stubs, and avoid deletion votes for radio stations which will be a lot like the deletion votes for high school articles, which satisfy noone and exhaust everyone. That way, when a radio station becomes famous for breaking a news story or being the first to broadcast a particular song, Wikipedia will have a good stub on which to build. --Eastmain 06:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

So every one is notable? Even campus radio stations, for example? Akihabara 22:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

(Reply to Eastmain) I don't think notability should be either speculative or inherent. Even if it turns out that, say, some band really did get its first play at WEGO, that would not automatically imply that WEGO is notable. Notability on Wikipedia is a totally practical concept: are there enough external sources that we can use to write a verifiable article? In this case the answer seems to be no for both WEGO and WEAF (which is no surprise -- most small radio stations wouldn't pass WP:N). Of course, if the articles are deleted now and appropriate sources surface later as you suggest might happen, nothing prevents anyone from recreating the articles. Pan Dan 15:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Conditional delete, there absolutely ought not to be a policy which says all radio stations are notable. Nothing, IMO, could be farther from the truth. Many are barely notable within their community (see WP:LOCAL), let alone outside. In any case, however, in the absence of tspecific policies and guidelines, more general ones must apply, This does not assert any notability nor does it provide independent reliable sources, so it must go! Change to keep if independent reliable sources are provided before AfD ends. Xtifr _tälk 22:40, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. The Federal Communications Commission's page listed at External links "Query the FCC's AM station database for WEGO" is an independent reliable souurce. http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?call=WEGO --Eastmain 05:02, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Lists that include all (stations ) or anything else are trivial sources for the purposes of notability --See WP:N ( "Non-triviality" is an evaluation of the depth of content contained in the published work, exclusive of mere directory entry information, and of how directly it addresses the subject.) DGG 05:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• neutral I asked for the AfD to get just this sort of discussion. We judge the subject as being notable, not the article, and I can tell what stations suit my interests, but not whether or not they are notable, so I was hoping for some guidelines. If there aren't any they all must stay is at least as stubs. A poorly written article which for some reason doesnt have the detail of the 100s of parallel articles needs the detail in, not the article out, and just needs to be marked for expansion.

On the other hand, looking at a number of radio station articles, most of them don't have much to say. They all have the same sources, which are reliable if not very informative. Some belonging to major chains have more (they CBS ones, for example, have the CBS box at the bottom.) The only one in this geographic area with real content has been protected over a debate on the reliability of a web site. In almost all cases the sources are 1/ the website 2/lists that include all radio stations. Neither of them counts. I don't want to do it myself as a project like the removal of transmission towers, but any argument for removing these 2 applies to 95% of them.

As I said, I'm neutral. In or out. I dont think it is essential content, since the outside lists are available & they all have websites. Someone thought them worth the boxes and the categories. Take a look at a few others before you vote. DGG 05:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete under WP:N or WP:CORP, take your pick. The references in the articles, and the passing mentions I find in local papers in Lexis-Nexis, are trivial as they are nothing to build a Wikipedia article on. Pan Dan 15:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
• Per WP:AFDP: Licensed radio and TV stations are notable if they broadcast over the air and originate at least a portion of their programming schedule in their own studios. Ergo, keep, and end debate — because until a new policy discussion takes place on the matter and decides on something different, established precedent is the final and non-negotiable word. Bearcat 23:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

You omitted the subsequent text Lower power radio stations limited to a small neighborhood, such as Part 15 operations in the United States or stations with a VF# callsign in Canada, are not inherently notable. It is not clear to me if this applies in these cases. Akihabara 00:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Part 15 stations are not listed in the FCC database, because they're not licensed operations. Since WEGO does have a page in that database, by definition, it has to be a licensed station. A Part 15 station wouldn't have a four-letter call sign beginning with W, either.Bearcat 01:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

You misread it. Are these lower power stations? Some I saw seemed to be. The rest of the text is an example, not an exhaustive list. Akihabara

I haven't misread anything. I was personally involved in the process of determining how best to write that particular precedent statement, so I know exactly what it means. What it means is that if a station operates under a legally-issued FCC license, then it gets an article. The exclusion applies to unlicensed operations. It does not permit any kind of cutoff that splits FCC-licensed stations into licensed-and-notable vs. licensed-and-not-notable piles on the basis of some arbitrary minimum transmitter power. If it's FCC-licensed, then it's in, period. That is the established AFD precedent, and that is what the precedent statement expresses. Bearcat 07:12, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be taking this the wrong way; perhaps I could have worded better. My apologies. It doesn't say what you claim though; if it did it would read "As an exception, Part 15 operations in the United States or stations with a VF# callsign in Canada, are not inherently notable."

Regardless, prior consensus is not set in stone and can change; this has happened several times already. What little consensus exists in this discussion does not match what it apparently was before. As another example, today you de-prodded the campus station WPPJ; however I really fail to see how that station has any genuine claim to notability. In other words, I think the precedent as you see it is too broad. Akihabara 11:54, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

If a radio station is duly licensed by the appropriate media regulation authority, then it's notable enough for Wikipedia. I'd really love to know how else you propose to distinguish notable radio stations from non-notable ones beyond that. Bearcat 00:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Established precedent is neither final nor non-negotiable! It does (generally) reflect a growing concensus, but concensus can change! Precedent ranks lower than guidelines which rank lower than policy. And only policy will absolutely trump AfD debate, since new issues may raised in any given AfD which may lead to a new precedent or even new guideline. (Of course, they'd better be very good issues to survive deletion review.) In this case, I stand by WP:LOCAL, WP:RS, and even, as raised by Pan Dan, WP:CORP. Address any of those, and I'll reconsider my position. Xtifr _tälk 11:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

You're misquoting me. Allow me to rephrase myself: until such time as somebody articulates a new policy specifically about radio stations, the precedent on radio stations is the final word on the matter of a radio station. It's not sufficient to cite general policies about which people can and do genuinely disagree on whether radio stations meet them or not — the precedent as it stands reflects a lot of debates in which those policies were already taken into account, and the determination was that radio stations do meet them if they're duly licensed by the appropriate regulatory authority and originate at least a part of their own programming schedule. It's not as though you're introducing some radical new litmus test that nobody ever thought of before; in fact, you're citing the exact same policies that were brought to bear in setting the precedent in the first place. So if you don't like the precedent as it stands, then try to build consensus around a new policy statement that specifically addresses radio stations in particular, because as things stand right now, it's not as though you're citing anything that hasn't already been taken into account. Bearcat 00:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

(Reply to Bearcat) The debate between you and Akihabara about what WP:AFDP actually means in regard to radio stations is fascinating but irrelevant. It's irrelevant because WP:AFDP is a description of what has happened in past AFD's, not a prescription for what should happen in future AFD's. Outcomes of prior AFD's have nothing to do with whether these 2 articles should be kept. In fact it says in bold at the very top of WP:AFDP that "This page is not policy." By contrast, WP:RS, WP:N, and WP:CORP are derived from WP:V and WP:NOT, core policies. I would say those trump WP:AFDP. Pan Dan 15:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

See reply to Xtifr above. Bearcat 00:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

"The precedent on radio stations is the final word on the matter of a radio station." -- I beg to differ, it's not even the final word on the specific radio stations that were nominated -- they can be AFD'd again -- and it's certainly not the final word on all radio stations ("This page is not policy").

"The determination [at prior AFD's] was that radio stations do meet [the general policies] if they're duly licensed by the appropriate regulatory authority and originate at least a part of their own programming schedule" -- You are citing AFD outcomes as if they can determine general policy. They cannot. Please, if you are convinced by the actual arguments that were made at prior AFD's that all such radio stations are notable, then cite those arguments. Those arguments may or may not convince others in this AFD. But outcomes of prior AFD's are neither binding nor convincing. Pan Dan 14:47, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• commentIf N and V are properly applied, they will give consistent decisions. If similar cases coming up now are being decided differently, then the standards are not being properly applied. The AFDD page states what is intended as an honest summary of past consistent decisions. As WP evolves, it may be desirable to change some of these. Some matters, like the wording of the N standard itself, are changed in a legislative sort of way by amending the standard; if thought desirable, a standard or guideline on radio stations could be developed. At present, it's essentially a judge-made standard, made by continuing AfD discussions such as this one here. I understand the meaning of precedent in WP to mean that we should continue prior practice in individual cases, until we intend to change it. As in the RW, one of the factors to consider is how such change will affect the cases treated in the previous decisions. Since WP has the peculiar rule that articles kept may be brought up repeatedly, those interested in consistence may want to re-discuss early articles.

So, do we intend to change it and make some radio stations NN? We can adopt whatever rule we like--there are adequate reasons for either policy. Or do we prefer a hit-and-miss approach? DGG 02:06, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd support and take part in creating a brief guideline for radio stations; no need to make it too long or wordy IMO. As a starting point I'd suggest notability is given by broadcasting to a sufficiently large area (certainly all large cities would qualify) or having a DJ or presenter that is notable. However I don't think mere existence should be one of the criteria. Akihabara 03:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep per Bearcat. Vegaswikian 08:52, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Bearcat. NTXweather 03:38, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete unless sourced. Lengthy keep arguments are meaningless. If you want to keep the article add some reliable sources. Addhoc 15:20, 21 January 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.