Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Postal district

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Contents

[edit] Conclusions

  1. Given the sheer amount of postal codes, and their overlap with districts and areas, it is not practical (or even desirable) to do an article on each of them.
  2. Instead, articles should focus on a city, district or area.
  3. Making a list of postal codes for a country would be useful. There is some debate on whether this list should be in Wikipedia or Wikisource - however, as Wikisource appears not to be interested in these lists, it would be prudent to keep them here.

[edit] postal codes

Search UK Postal Code (PostCode) of Place & City names in UK (Zip code, Postcode).<a href="http://www.postalcodesfinder.co.uk"> Postal Code </a>


[edit] Attempted consensus

Sometimes, a group of similar or related articles is nominated for deletion over a short period of time. In cases like this, it seems prudent to have one centralized discussion about the entire group, rather than repeating arguments over each member thereof. This is an attempt to forum consensus on one such groups of articles.

Note that individual members from the group may still be considered notable on other grounds. This discussion is purely to determine whether membership of this group, solely on its own, is merit enough for inclusion in Wikipedia.

[edit] Description

[edit] Arguments for deletion

  • What possible encyclopedic purpose is served by having a separate article for each postal code in London? Any conceivable purpose is going to be better served by simply enumerating the codes in the article on London postal district, in conjunction with the map. The articles that have been created are all stubs (at least every one that I checked was), and they are incapable of expansion. What more can be said about EN1 than "EN1 is the postcode for Enfield in the London Borough of Enfield in north London", which is the entire content of that article? --BM 19:19, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Oh my goodness, please no! In the USA alone, there are potentially 100,000 postal codes. Personally, I don't want to see one for 94117, 17301, 17103, or 94301 (all of which I have lived or worked in) or any others. Furthermore, most postal systems in developed countries have tools for locating postal codes on the internet. Wikipedia, in my opinion, must certainly not become a postal code directory. What's next, phone numbers? Not even exchanges, thank you very much! (For those who are unfamiliar with that terminology, in the USA a telephone exchange is the set of all phone numbers in the same area code with the same three-number prefix.) If any of that strong/weak vote stuff counts, please make mine a strongest possible delete. HyperZonktalk 19:22, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete There's no way that having aricles for every postal code in existence is either useful or encyclopedic. DaveTheRed 23:30, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not the Yellow Pages. Wikipedia is not a primary source. Wikipedia is not a telephone directory. This isn't even remotely encyclopedic, and having a separate article for each code is worse. I could imagine a single article listing some conventions, e.g. anything starting with 2 = near Rotterdam, 3 = near The Hague, etc. But not every individual code. Radiant! 08:31, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, of course. The map and lists in London postal district are sufficient, if not excessive. As far as I'm aware, there's only one notable postal code in the entire world, and that's 90210. --Carnildo 19:10, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete It was actually me who started this by putting the vfd entry on the page, I'm afraid I wasn't very confident of the procedure here, but I have now come back to this. I don't know the exact number, but I can assure people outside the United Kingdom that there must be several hundred of these 3-figure part-postcodes, the mind boggles at having an entry for all of them. Do we then have similar hundreds of articles on the postcodes of other countries as well? There is nothing wrong with having a single article on the UK postcode system.

PatGallacher 16:49, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)

  • Delete Hate to say it, but this is not a dumping ground for absolute idiocy.notanotheridiot

[edit] Arguments for keeping

  • "It is common to use postal districts as placenames in London, particularly in the property market: a property may be described as being "in N11". They are a convenient shorthand for social status..." (from London postal district). Kappa 20:21, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • You've just made an argument for making all of the articles into redirects to London postal district. Uncle G 07:28, 2005 Mar 1 (UTC)
      • Not London postal district, because I don't think that article is going to describe the characters of each area. They could however be redirected somewhere which does do that. Kappa 13:48, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • This argument is true of the old London postal districts - the S, N, SW, E, EC, NW and the like - that were based on compass directions. It is not true with the newer codes like EN, BR, and TW. Grutness|hello? 06:25, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Arguments for merging

  • The titles are useful; eg. CR5 means nothing to me (even though I go into it almost every day) but ... Create one article for each two (or one) letter code (I think they call them sorting centres), eg. UK postcodes CR. The individual titles, eg. CR0 to become redirects. -- RHaworth 18:57, 2005 Feb 28 (UTC)
  • I am strongly of the opinion that these do not need to have individual articles, but they should be merged into one document, as I'm sure the basic underlying info would be useful to some. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:58, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • I too think that only one article with a map is enough which can contain all the info that these stubs have. so merge and redirect individual stubs into a postal codes country article. kaal 18:55, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • One article with a map and an explanation of the postal routing system would be interesting and could be encyclopedic. Discussions about the demographics of individual areas should be moved to the logical name for the covered neighborhood, town or borough. Rossami (talk) 00:09, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge as outlined by RHaworth - I agree that what is there cannot be expanded and is of limited interest but people do use postal districts almost as alternative names for parts of London. This deserves some presence. Mtiedemann 23:59, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Specific postal codes (or telephone area codes, etc) should be deleted, but a list covering general conventions for and characteristics of postal codes would be useful. Using US codes as an example, we don't need to list where 01947 specifically is (if only because such codes are subject to change), but telling users that codes in the 01xxx or even 019xx range are in a particular region is helpful. -Sean Curtin 03:12, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge with London postal district. It's more useful to have the info all in one place than scattered everywhere like this. It helps you compare different postcodes if you can see them listed side by side. Miss Pippa 16:51, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect Individual nano-stubs aren't viable articles, but may have some marginal utility as redirects. Alai 05:18, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect, by district. Merge all the BRs into a single article, all the CRs into a single article, and so on. There would be around a dozen articles for the whole of outer London, which is adequate. Grutness|hello? 06:22, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Other arguments and comments

[edit] Original proposal

[edit] BR1

I didn't put the vfd tag on this page and oppose deletion, but the vfd job has only been half-completed, so I am moving it along... Mtiedemann 17:55, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Keep - this is part of Wikiproject London, with many other London postal districts in the series. Mtiedemann 16:05, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete -- You are kidding, aren't you? There isn't a "wikiproject" to add an article on every London postcode to the Wikipedia, is there? If so, where is the Wikiprojects for Deletion page? --BM 19:00, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] See also

Wikipedia_talk:Do_lists_of_postal_codes_belong_on_Wikipedia?