Talk:List of model railroad clubs

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Untitled[edit]

Added clubs as following:

Massachusetts: Link to the Tech Model Railroad Club page here on wiki, plus offsite link.

Michigan: Link to Lansing MRR page here on wiki, plus offsite link.

New Jersey: Link to Cherry Valley O scale page here on wiki, no club website.

Pennsylvania: Links to East Penn Tractiom and Darn Ntrak.


Hiroe (talk) 15:42, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Major paring[edit]

I have pared this article down to its useful content.

Wikipedia is not a directory: it is not intended to be used to list every model railroad club in existence. Wikipedia list articles are intended to summarize in one page content that is available elsewhere on Wikipedia, so the goal is to only list model railroad clubs that already have Wikipedia articles. The goal is not, and never should be, to list every model railroad club that anyone happens to belong to. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 12:28, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article may be expanded by including articles in Category:Rail transport modelling associations and Category:Rail transport modelling task force articles. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 12:31, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct that Wikipedia is not a directory, but you are applying the policy incorrectly. As long as the existence of something can be verified (cited, referenced, etc.), it can be listed. Notability, on the other hand, and any particular club having its own article is a completely different subject, but its not a requirement for list inclusion. --Scalhotrod (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 08:01, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Content dispute[edit]

I had pared this article down to those entries that actually have Wikipedia articles, per WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Paintitup (talk · contribs) has twice reverted this edit, believing that the article should contain the extensive list that existed before I found it. I invite this user to explain his rationale for this choice. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 18:52, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Given that Paintitup (talk · contribs) appears to be uninterested in entering into this discussion, I will go ahead and revert the changes. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 16:10, 17 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

-- Why have this list (i.e., the article itself) anyway? The title is "List of model railroad clubs" and the only text below the heading is "This is a list of model railroad clubs", with no mention of the fact that the eight clubs are those that have Wikipedia articles. Mindful of the Wikipedia policy on lists, I don't see that any advantage to users accrues through having a list of eight model railroad clubs. This list has the most tenuous relevance to the policy, especially the section "Purposes of lists". Why not delete the article? SCHolar44 (talk) 23:46, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For lists like this where the subjects may or may not be Notable enough for Wikipedia, but yet do actually exist, I'm OK with non-links (just text) as along as there is a reference the verify its existence. A website, a single news article, even an entry on the NMRA website is fine with me, but a bunch of WP:REDLINKs are pointless unless there's a decent chance of an article. --Scalhotrod (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 07:12, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Scalhotrod: Well, you are OK with a list of entities that may not be notable enough for Wikipedia, but WP:CSC would appear to disagree with that. For a list such as this (where the exhaustive content could be exceedingly long and of little interest to anyone) the criteria should be higher than mere verifiability. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 12:19, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You're trying to strictly apply WP:GNG to every entry on the the list, and that's basically pointless unless someone is trying to be some kind of "train club elitist". For starters, at the top of the page you just linked to it says, "This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Use common sense in applying it; it will have occasional exceptions." (my emphasis added) So your strict adherence stance doesn't work either.
Keeping the average Wikipedia Reader in mind (which is what every Editor should be doing at all times), this List article should be helpful and supportive of the hobby. There are hundreds of formal and informal train groups around the world and many of them will likely never reach WP:GNG standards including the ones incorporated as non-profits. That's a simple concept that we can all likely agree on, but there are many who's existence is easily verifiable via a reliable source. WP:Primary sources like their websites, an entry on the NMRA directory or similar, plus of course sources about the clubs themselves which will likely be in the form of articles in their respective local press. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any groups that have had national or international attention, including ones with members that are celebrities versus just famous "train people", but that shouldn't stop this article from being as high quality as we can make it. --Scalhotrod (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 17:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Scalhotrod: I disagree with your reasoning, in that WP:CSC guides us to limit lists such as this one to only include groups that already have, or are likely to merit, an article of their own. The reasoning is that we wish to prevent the list from devolving into an indiscriminate list of every possible model railroad club. The fact that these groups verifiably exist is really not the criterion we should be using. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 17:58, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Dan its a continuum, not a binary choice. It's not "everything or nothing", in fact we (Editors) can even decide on the merits of every single entry if we want to on this Talk page. But your type of reasoning is the kind of logic that gets people banned or blocked. We don't have to include "every possible model railroad club". If they are not credible enough that we can't find a reference for them, then No, they should not be included on the List, but if we can, why not? --Scalhotrod (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 18:05, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Full article rebuild[edit]

I just completed a full rebuild of the article. Among other things, I restored content that I could find a source, removed promotional wording, removed unsourced content, and removed Wikilinks for non-existent articles. Every single entry now has a reference. I left the images that I found and added one more.

That said, there are a couple of red links, but for articles that were deleted. My assumption being that if they existed once, they can be recreated, improved, and ideally kept or survive an AfD at least. The article still needs cleanup, primarily links/refs need to be checked to see if they are still active.

We might also want to give some thought to a format for the list entries. Right now its a bit of a mishmash of club name, cities, and scales (if known). Plus, the assumption is that they are active clubs, versus former or defunct, but we don't state that in the article header., just that its a "list". Plus, given the format we have now, expansion should be easy.

I can understand the frustration with much of the content with all of the garbage that I found. This list either was not monitored very well or fell into a bad state without any format guidelines. Adding <!-- Editor notes --> can help. I guess this one is not coming off my Watch list any time soon... :) --Scalhotrod (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 07:58, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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