Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unconstructed freeways in Florida

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.. CitiCat^♫ 03:22, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unconstructed freeways in Florida

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not notable, no references, seems OR Chris! _ct 05:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete WP:NOT a crystal ball, completely unreferenced, unverifiable original research. Oops, wait, I forgot the "old newspaper articles and old website that no longer exist" which were references. ::roll::. Leuko 05:34, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: With all due respect, just because something (like old news/web sites) can't (easily) be found doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Jason McHuff 08:19, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The wording Leuko used in quotation marks was a direct quotation from the references section in an older version of this article, as wrote by the article's creator, rather than an accusation on the part of Leuko. See this edit for the addition of the text, and this one for the changing of it. --Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 09:07, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see... (including a ban of the adding editor) Jason McHuff 05:01, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete; pitch it. Just more flotsam and jetsam around here. +ILike2BeAnonymous 06:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't Delete This page has no reason to be deleted , and I just added the references. Lilgunner94

Don't Delete This is a good page , even if it has no references . And hello , there are references . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.233.179.74 (talk) 06:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)— 74.233.179.74 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

Delete - lack of sources - the only reference is 'South Florida Roads' and this isn't a reliable source.--Addhoc 11:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - They'd barely be notable if they had been constructed, and it certainly isn't notable (in general, at least) when a construction project is cancelled... (ESkog)^(Talk) 14:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete because it's badly-written. Unbuilt freeways certainly can be notable - LOMEX, North Central Freeway - and when not, they can still be notable as a planned system. --NE2 01:41, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I couldn't find anything on the Tampa-St. Pete ones (maybe Google has no newspaper archives from there) but I found some matches for Miami: [1][2][3]. If someone improves the article I'll change to keep. Maybe the Broward ones could be in a Broward County Transportation Authority article; I'm not finding too much but it was apparently formed by state law, did some planning, and was involved in a lawsuit. --NE2 02:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rewrite, reference and keep. Unbuilt freeways are generally notable because of the reasons that caused them to be cancelled, often involving protests and federal lawsuits. —Scott5114 ↗ 01:54, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Saying that an article is badly-written, and thus is the reason why it should be deleted, is a position I would strongly hesitate to take. The problem with the article is a lack of sources. However, as NE2 pointed out, there is some information out there about these proposed, unconstructed freeways. A poorly-written article, IMO, is not reason enough to delete an article. A name change of the article might be in order, also, such as Canceled expressways in Florida. --Son 16:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Son and Scott5114 if cleaned up/developed. I think the subject can be deserving of an article (notable enough). In fact, where is the link/to from Freeway and expressway revolts? Also, just because a newspaper isn't offering Google, etc access to their archives doesn't mean those archives don't exist and aren't good source material. Jason McHuff 08:19, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Please note that the primary reason to delete is that the information provided is potentially OR in nature and not notable. Badly written is not the primary reason. Chris! _ct 01:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem that "potentially" is the correct standard/that the information that is currently in the article is the issue. It seems that there are many articles on worthwhile subjects that could contain arguments, concepts, statements, or theories. Also, OR is something that can make an article be badly written, and some of whats called "original research" can actually be unreferenced facts. Many theories can be proven to be either correct or wrong. As for the article at hand, the information provided may need to be referenced or replaced, but it seems that canceled highway projects can be a major, notable event (like with the Mount Hood Freeway here) and generate a good amount of verifiable news coverage.

Lastly, does anyone wonder about where the text came from? I see "All freeways in blue on the map to the left" in the original version. Jason McHuff 05:01, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if any individual unfinished freeway is notable, then they deserve their own articles. A bunch of non-notable unfinished freeway deserve no place here. I really don't see the importance or the encyclopedic value of this list. Chris! _ct 06:18, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"[S]ome of whats called "original research" can actually be unreferenced facts." Perhaps, but even if so they do not belong on Wikipedia. The standard is verifiability, not truth. --BlueMoonlet 02:07, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with having a list of items if we do not have enough information on many of the items to justify individual articles? See Freeway and expressway revolts (a possible "parent" of this article), maybe List of Google products and I think some of the Pokemon stuff. And, I think, that any time that there is real, honest (news story, plan and study-generating) work done on a major (multi-hundred-million dollar) highway and it doesn't get built, its notable.

Also, what I meant was that when something is labeled "original research", we should attempt to find the information in other sources and add those to the article (and I agree this is needed). In this case, we could reference the aforementioned news stories, plans and studies that should exist. However, I really don't think that we should be judging the article by its present contents here; we should instead be judging the article subject--we wouldn't delete the George W Bush article just because it contained a bunch of opinions and other non-encyclopedic content. Jason McHuff 07:41, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Freeway revolts article discusses building projects that individually generated a significant amount of debate and news coverage, and cites sociological sources that tie those events together into a social phenomenon. While notability can be a subjective judgment, I would say the collected projects of Google are more notable than the collected failed projects of the Florida Department of Transportation. --BlueMoonlet 14:40, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The sourcing is troubling, but perhaps not insurmountable. Inline sources are sorely needed to judge which statements in the article are actually supported by the only cited source. That source, by the way, seems borderline RS to me. The supposed old newspaper articles need to be cited if we are to take them seriously; Wikipedia is not limited to what's available online. Defunct websites, on the other hand, are not acceptable sources because they are not verifiable. Sorry. However, I would probably still recommend "delete" even if the above issues were addressed; the determining factor in my mind is notability. An individual canceled building project can certainly be notable; if so, write an article about it and include an assertion of notability for that particular project. A laundry list of non-notable canceled projects does not become notable simply because you bundle them together into one article. --BlueMoonlet 02:25, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, but Comment. Over on the talk page for Freeway and expressway revolts there is already talk about splitting up that page. Perhaps the article should be integrated into a subsection of that one, should the editors of the page decide to do so. ----DanTD 17:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Seems well written, is a reasonable, historical topic. Could use some references, but thats a quality, not notability issue in this case. Mbisanz 02:14, 31 October 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.