Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:TLAs from AA0 to DZ9

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep. (Radiant) 10:35, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:TLAs from AA0 to DZ9

I have asked around to try to establish any use or purpose to this sequence of pages and failed to find any encyclopaedic purpose. I am not proposing a Transwiki because there seems no merit in adding it to Wiktionary either. This is a multi-nomination for all similar pages in Category:Lists of TLAs. Delete all. BlueValour 03:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• Reference: Previous discussions about deletion and the move into Wikipedia name space can be found at Talk:TLAs_from_AAA_to_DZZ. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Several of the creators and contributors to these pages, such as User:Ceyockey, are still active editors; may I ask whether you asked them what they envisioned the pages being used for, and if so, what responses you got? On the merits of the pages, while they will never be featured articles, on a first read I found them refreshingly free of, among other things, the slightest hint of any verifiability problems, original reseach, or libel concerns. Newyorkbrad 03:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - good point. I have invited User:Ceyockey's input. BlueValour 04:14, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• Uhm... (changed to keep) What is this page for anyway? I guess it shows us a group of redirects that need to be created (AA1 -> AA-1, for instance) and is sort of interesting. I'll vote keep if someone can show up and tell me what this page is supposed to be for. --tjstrf talk 04:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Bearing in mind WP:NOT#IINFO I would argue that the redirects should be created when needed not just because they are not there! I agree, if there is a good reason for being kept then fine, but since they were created in August 2005 little has been done with them. BlueValour 04:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• Reply Actually, I would say that creating non-contradicting redirects whenever reasonable is a good thing and does not break NOT#INFO in the slightest. Redirects are not articles, they don't contribute useless information but rather make navigation easier. For instance, making 5 or 6 redirects to a person's name (macronized and non-macronized, different romanization systems, etc.) is helpful because it aids in searching. For all intents and purposes, non-printworthy redirects are a form of meta-content. --tjstrf talk 05:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• What is it supposed to be? In what planet does this make sense? Why is there a list, in PROJECTSPACE even, consisting of all of the 46656 combinations of three letters and numbers? -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
• Strong delete Absurd use of project space for what should be a category, if anything. --Dgies 06:29, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all and stop being simple-minded. All these lists include important linguistic information and do not take much of Wiki's space. They do NOT violate WP:NOT and should stay. Ah, someone above says that since they were created in August 2005 little has been done with them. But of course, they don't need any updates, but are used by many as a starting point to research acronyms. There are many uses for these lists, for example, people looking for new names for computer communication protocols, for new products (including software products), marketing brands, linguistic trends and much more. Keep and stop nagging. --Gabi S. 06:59, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Question: What "important linguistic information" do you mean? The list of all possible TLAs? --Dgies 07:47, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep. A list like this one is useful when determining what acronyms/TLAs we still need pages for. If we were to use categories for that, we'd have to do an incredible amount of scrolling to find the combination we need (if it's even an existing page). A list like this can list the as of yet non-existing ones and makes finding all the existing ones a lot easier. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • We don't need pages for every possible TLA, only those that have notable subjects under that name. If someone wants a page for a particular TLA they can just search for it and see it is missing. According to Wikipedia:Only_make_links_that_are_relevant_to_the_context, redlinks should not be made for pages which will never be created, which is about 90% of the content on these pages. --Dgies 07:47, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
    • If nothing else, it's justified because creating redirects between the hyphenated and unhyphenated ones where one of the two exist sis a perfectly valid use for the list and would be unfeasible without that page since you would have to look at all of them by hand. --tjstrf talk 09:12, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep The purpose of the page is to look at the links and see which are blue and which are red. --ais523 12:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep This is a useful page, but an introduction should be added making it more clear what the pages purpose is. Danbold 19:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Two questions.
  • 1. Why is it necessary to have articles on all TLAs?
  • 2. Why is such a list in projectspace?
• -Amarkov ^blah_edits 00:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I could venture opinions on #1, but I think #2 is fairly clear. Like any list of articles, the list itself is in article space. Why would this be different than other lists? —Doug Bell ^talk 10:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep This is a useful page to find combination. Maksim-e 13:14, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - combination of what? Sorry to be obtuse but I really don't understand the use to which this page can be put. It would be helpful to hear from someone who does use these pages as to what purpose they find that they serve. BlueValour 03:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• Neutral I've been invited to say something here. I'm not going to input as either keep or delete because I can see reasons for and against inclusion and I've been deeply involved in the past in creating and maintaining pages of this kind. The reasoning for inclusion relates to the appropriateness of including almanac-like data in the Wikipedia namespace. I think that the standards for inclusion are different between the main and wikipedia article spaces, and this sits in the wikipedia space; if memory serves, it and articles like it were moved into the wikipedia space because there was consensus (albeit slim) that they did marginally violate the WP:NOT#INFO policy. However, I recognize the strength of categories in dealing with this kind of information; where alphabetical lists are involved, I have become more and more convinced that categories are sufficient. The 'identification of holes and missing information' is a laudable argument for inclusion, and the WP:CRYSTAL does not really apply here, as we are not predicting future events, we are describing a known and finite combinatorial character space - which fits with the content being almanaic in nature. Does the page and its type do harm? No, not in my opinion. Does the existence of the page further Wikipedia article development? No, not in my opinion - which I need to explain ... anticipatory creation of redirects and articles is not looked highly upon; redirects and dab pages should be created upon need not in anticipation of need. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 14:56, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
• Strong delete. Are we going to list all of the 2-letter/number combinations, 4-letter/numbers combinations, 5... etc? (Pardon my sarcasm). I would suggest just having a page filled with a list of common acronyms, but not a red link factory. Do we need such a list anyway? It's easy enough to find any abbreviation on Wikipedia, just by going to the relevant page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$ABBREV). Cheers, Yuser31415 01:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Apparently no notification of the this deletion discussion has been added to the pages that are being considered for deletion; only on the 'top' page of the stack. Why has this important step been omitted from the deletion process or was it done and the notices subsequently removed? (see Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion#How_to_list_pages_for_deletion) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:45, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Unlike articles, Wikipedia project pages should be kept unless they either are detrimental to the encyclopedia or serve no encyclopedic purpose at all. As some of the commenters here have expressed that they have a use for this, it should be kept out of good faith. — Dark Shikari ^talk/_contribs 18:03, 18 December 2006 (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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.