Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of churches in Kent

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The result was Keep/nom withdrawn (closed by non-admin) . RMHED (talk) 00:04, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of churches in Kent

~~Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.~~ • Freechild'sup? 18:28, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- Withdraw. • Freechild'sup? 13:29, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. We aren't the yellow pages, either. --Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 18:36, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Wikipedia is not a directory. Malinaccier (talk • contribs) 18:44, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Even given that only notable churches should have articles, and that non-notable churches should not be redlinked, this is nevertheless an obviously useful indexing page. There are historically important churches in Kent, aren't there? - Smerdis of Tlön 19:25, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just because a list can be made does not mean it should be. A list of churches in Manchester is not inherently any more valuable than a list of pizza parlors in Manchester, per Dennis and Malinaccier. • Freechild'sup? 19:27, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indexing and cross-indexing remain one of the weaknesses of the project. Lists help remedy this. And yes, a list of churches in Kent is indeed more valuable than a list of pizza parlors; few pizza parlors have any historic, artistic, or devotional significance, in other words they are not notable, but churches definitely have that potential. - Smerdis of Tlön 19:33, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep - there's no reason for deleting this that wouldn't apply equally to all lists in Wikipedia. Waggers 20:08, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Changed to keep. In WP:NOT it states: Wikipedia is not the yellow pages. A listing of places (like churches in my opinion) in a city would qualify as this. Despite this, the argumentst presented by all above have persuaded me to ignore this, and change to keep. Malinaccier (talk • contribs) 20:58, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The arguments of all the previous respondents who have indicated "Keep" are most telling, whilst the arguments of Freechild and others would, if adhered to across the board, mean almost all "list of..." articles would be deleted from wikipedia, and are most unconvincing. The deletion that might occur in that last case would be a great loss generally, and most specifically in this case. DDStretch (talk) 21:50, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note. This article is redundant to Category:Churches in Kent. • Freechild'sup? 01:36, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- This claim has been refuted many times in the other AfDs made by this editor at the same time. The same arguments apply here: The category lists articles for which wikipedia already have articles. The list of articles is more complete. Consequently, it is not redundant. Please see other nominations of list of churches to see the arguments in more detail. DDStretch (talk) 10:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
keep A good set encyclopedic information befitting WP. The only thing indiscriminate here is the deletion nomination and the additional misrepresentation of the facts regarding the content of the article. And these nominations just waste our time. Hmains 03:25, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. If there is already a category, what's the need for a list? The list provides no more information than categorization. Majoreditor 04:52, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Not the case, please see refuations, above, and in the other AfDs for list of churches initiated at the same time. DDStretch (talk) 10:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. It is becoming tedious in the extreme to duplicate identical counter-arguments in every similar AfD Freechild has proposed regarding lists of churches. I suggest people look through the other nominations and note the general issues regarding deletion that people have raised there. In fact, I suggest all of the nominations are immediately closed and the nominator invited to resubmit them as a "job lot", so they can be considered together. There are about 6 or so of them. DDStretch (talk) 12:25, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The list contains encyclopedic information that is not in the category. It is not "an indiscriminate collection of information" as claimed by Freechild and it is not in breach of the WP:NOT#DIR policy. --Malleus Fatuorum 15:38, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Another note. In addition to clearly violating WP:NOT#DIRhis, this is listcruft and there are plenty of current precedents, including List of churches in Fort Wayne, Indiana (2nd nomination) and List of shopping malls in Malaysia. • Freechild'sup? 03:40, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As previous refutations have indicated, it does not clearly violate WP:NOT#DIRhis, and the label of listcruft, as the article itself states, cannot stand on its own as a sole reason to delete the article. Indeed, reading the guidelines given in Wikipedia:Lists, one can see that this article is a completely valid example of a list (see the "In a Nutshell" summary section, and the main sections.) DDStretch (talk) 13:08, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

keep in accordance with WP:CLS and Wikipedia:Lists. --Paularblaster 02:11, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note Since there are no citations on the page and there is no content of notable reference, this list clearly violates WP:V. • Freechild'sup? 17:19, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- If it is so clear, I am puzzled why it did not form part of the justification for the initial AfD. Similarly, if it lacks citations, then label it as such (the templates are there to be used). An immediate AfD is an extreme first step to take. I suggest you withdraw this AfD, as you have already done with at least one other, and issue the appropriate warning labels if required. DDStretch (talk) 18:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- As suggested by an editor in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of churches in Oxford, the stating of new arguments, given that the old ones have been dealt with, and the repeated use of the same arguments, despite being refuted, across many of these AfDs, makes it difficult to not think that you are WP:POINTing here. DDStretch (talk) 10:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note: I have just seen that, despite being advised to do so as a matter of courtesy, the proposer did not inform the Kent Wikiproject of this AfD. A slight error there, I believe, since this article is one with which the members would have a great interest. I have now done so. DDStretch (talk) 09:59, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Whilst this list has the potential to be huge, it is not indeterminate. It has encyclopedic merit particularly if restricted to notable churches. Kent is a historic county and has a vast number of Norman and pre-Norman churches and thus this list cannot be comparable to a more contemporary index of churches in the USA. It urgently needs to be populated and should be descriptive beyond the realms of a category page. Dick G (talk) 10:11, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply Dick G, thank you for a reasonable reply. I do agree that there are a great number of historical churches in the vicinity of Kent; however, a quick search of Google Maps shows there are at least 6,343 churches near Kent. There is no verbiage in this article that limits inclusion to historic churches or otherwise, and surely all of the 6,343 churches Kent Florence are not historical. The editors of this list had a responsibility to present a discerning criteria for inclusion on the list and contributors should have included citations to prove the veracity of the claim that each listing merits inclusion. This list does neither, and as such merely demonstrates that it is merely listing-making for the sake of list making. • Freechild'sup? 12:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - This allegation of listcruft has been made on the other AfDs (sometimes more than once), and it has been refuted on the other AfDs as well. I fail to see why you are repeating these supposed criticisms when they have been refuted without addressing the refutations. Wikipedia:Lists, including the "In a nutshell" section shows that it is a perfectly good example of a list. The wikipedia definition of listcruft [[(WP:LC]]) is that it is an indiscriminate or trivial lists. This is not. Neither does the article deal with a subject that is not part of a legitimate wikipedia article. The lack of verification does not merit AfD as an initial step, and "not verified" does not equate to "unverifiable", which is another characteristic of supposed "listcruft". Therefore, this claim also fails. DDStretch (talk) 13:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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.