Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Egged bus lines

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, default to Keep. Walton^One 15:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of Egged bus lines

This is a directory of bus services in Israel. It is not encyclopedic, The flatly contradicts WP:NOT#DIR and WP:NOT#TRAVEL. Samfreed 21:23, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom, or severe cull of lists. Oli Filth 21:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep article is an encyclopedic and informative list, and as was stated several times on its talk page, isn't meant to be a travel guide for Egged, which is what the Egged official website is for. No good reason to delete; the article does not violate any of the policies claimed by the nominator. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 21:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Israel-related deletions. -- Jon513 22:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. --Nenyedi • ^{(Deeds•Talk)} 23:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Ynhockey or Merge to the main article.--JForget 02:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Per WP:IINFO, WP:NOT#TRAVEL and WP:NOT#DIR. This is not something that should be in an encyclopedia. i ^said 03:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
STRONG delete per WP:NOT#TRAVEL - WP is not a bus schedule/guide. No point in documenting every bus in the world for the route it runs Corpx 04:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
STRONG Keep This is a perfectly valid fork of the parent Egged article. As usual, WP:NOT is being abused and utterly misinterpreted to mean WP:IDONTLIKEIT. A usual, those claiming that this article fails WP:NOT have not provided any indication of how this article fails their preferred section. The blatantly false claim that this is a "bus schedule" is belied by the fact that not a single time is listed here. Precedent shows that there are hundreds to thousands of similar articles for cities, states and countries throughout the world, and this one clearly satisfies the precedent. Alansohn 04:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No time is listed, but we do really want a list of ALL the buses that a company operates? All the buses that greyhound operates? All the buses run by state owned companies in countries like India? WP is not a directory of buses. Kerala State Road Transport Corporation operates almost 5000 buses, per the article and that's just the state provider in one state in India. Corpx 04:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Is the material non-encyclopedic or is it not broken up as finely as you'd prefer? New York City bus routes are listed in the exact same format by borough (See List of bus routes in Manhattan). In New Jersey and Long Island, they're grouped by ranges of route numbers. I would suggest that routes for Kerala could be grouped into a number of articles, by area within the state, route numbers, distance or other characteristics, and the groupings listed within this article could be broken into subarticles if that were more palatable. I don't buy the WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST argument, nor does the slippery slope of "what would we do for India" convince me otherwise. This is a well-structured, well-grouped and defined article that has nothing whatsoever to do with WP:NOT. Alansohn 04:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alansohn, Your argument runs basically like this: Because WP:NOT Has been violated so often, then the Wikipedia is now Anything and Everything, and therefore why not. Well, I have it in mind to go around and nominate each and every "list of bus routes" in the WikiPeida for deletion, or, alternatively, they can change the policy from "not a travel guide" to "yes a travel guide", and then I will shut up. Also, List of bus routes in Manhattan just lists who are the bus companies, and tells a bit about them, not a blow-by-blow directory. Bottom line, this page is a violation of policy.

And to those who say they don't see how this violates policy - please refer me to a list of bus routes in any encyclopedia in the world, that isn't "The encyclopedia of Rome" or some suchlike. Samfreed 05:53, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Show me the Wigglytuff article in any encyclopedia in the world; I'll wait. A very long time. I do NOT advocate that "WP:NOT Has been violated so often, then the Wikipedia is now Anything and Everything, and therefore why not." I advocate that you have misinterpreted WP:NOT and that WP:NOT has NOT been violated. You have NOT pointed to any policy that this article violates, other than a hazy claim that this is a directory or travel guide. Each part of this policy provides specific details of what is covered and this article satisfies none of them. Precedent is clear that articles of this type violate no Wikipedia policy. Alansohn 06:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with you there. This falls under "WP is not a directory" - "Wikipedia is not a directory of everything that exists or has existed.", as well as WP:NOT#TRAVEL. I strongly do not think that an encyclopedia should be providing routes for any means of mass transportation. I'm really not looking forward to seeing bus routes of every metro bus/train/taxi service in the United States, or any other country. Corpx 06:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOT#DIR lays out specific definitions of what "Wikipedia is not a directory of everything that exists or has existed." means: 1) Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as (but not limited to) quotations, aphorisms, or persons (real or fictional). 2) Genealogical entries or phonebook entries. 3) Directories, directory entries, electronic program guide, or a resource for conducting business. and 4) Sales catalogs. The problem is that it doesn't meet any of these four extremely specific definitions provided. WP:NOT#TRAVEL states that "Travel guides. An article on Paris should mention landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, but not the telephone number or street address of your favorite hotel or the price of a café au lait on the Champs-Élysées." and again this is not even close to what is presented here: I see no prices or addresses. I understand the WP:IDONTLIKEIT approach, but there is no Wikipedia policy violation here. Alansohn 06:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alansohn, If you don't see how this violates policy then we probably aren't speaking the same language. Strange. Samfreed 06:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Addressing Wikipedia policy, not claiming a language barrier, would be a far more productive means of showing how this article violates Wikipedia policy. See above and pick which part of WP:NOT#DIR or WP:NOT#TRAVEL applies here. Alansohn 06:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now I understand. You believe that the examples are the definition of the policy, while I believe that the terms of the policy itself are categories. To me, a "List (of Egged) bus (lines)" is a directory or travel services, and hence doubly wrong. Is seems that under your interpretation if we defined "Citizenship" and gave examples from 5 different countries as to how this concept works, then when we meet a citizen of the 6th country he is not a citizen at all, because he does not fall under the examples in the definition. Maybe the source of the difference is that we come from different disciplines - Are you a lawyer? In law it sometimes works that way. This is Policy, not Law. Samfreed 06:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The policy provides definitions of the terms, using rather specific examples, none of which meet your interpretation. There's nothing here in this article that lists any information useful for travel purposes. The word "directory" that you refer to is defined as "a repository or database of information". There's no Wikipedia policy violation here, other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Precedent is clear that similar articles for train, plane and even bus routes are appropriate subjects for articles, even if they don't appear in most paper encyclopedias. Any luck yet with finding Wigglytuff? Alansohn 06:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You're certainly entitled to your interpretation, but I disagree with it. If not for travel purposes, is it not "a resource for conducting business" ? An article does not have to provide detailed contact information to be considered a violation of WP:NOT#TRAVEL. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of hotels in Hong Kong. Where exactly is this precedent set at, which allows for bus/train/plane schedules to be posted? From what I can remember, these are deleted, like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flight Schedule Cibao Intl Corpx 07:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of hotels in Hong Kong AfD cites 90% red links as a major factor in deletion and cites another article as an example of a perfectly valid article, Hotels in London, which consists primarily of a list of hotels, their location and the number of rooms. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flight Schedule Cibao Intl hit the travel issue, as it was a "flight schedule" as suggested by the title. Precedent is clear that there is a place for articles such as this one, even if they contain information that might be distantly travel-related. As long as we're in agreement that this is solely a matter of interpretation, and not a violation of policy, I'll agree to disagree. Alansohn 07:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The nom's claims have not convinced me of a reason to delete the article. Egged in Israel can not even be compared with Greyhound in the US with regard to visibility and pervasiveness across the country. I think that using US standards to judge worthiness is not fair and needs to be scaled down when dealing with much smaller countries where institutions (like Egged) form the backbone of the country's economy. Oli claims that it is not encyclopedic but frankly, neither are any lists for that matter - never seen them in Britannica or World Book either. The page provides information that is not available anywhere else, period. IMO, the power of WP is that it is a repository of notable information. --Shuki 10:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Major transit systems are notable, they are characterised by their routes, and whether to have them in a separate article is an editing decision. Though useful is not enough by itself for a keep, it is a reasonable additional factor. DGG (talk) 22:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is information that is hard to find anywhere else. Extremely useful and helpful. Israel is a country that relies heavily on buses and this is basic information for anyone in Israel. Leppi 11:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as inarguably clear violation of WP:NOT. Eusebeus 12:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, major transport routes are notable. Kappa 23:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing "Major" about every last suburban bus line. Samfreed 05:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In its current form, this isn't very encyclopedic. The way to make it suitably encyclopedic would be to add history, like on list of bus routes in Manhattan. --NE2 09:58, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep At the very least the patterns of the bus routes (160's are to gush etzion, 900's is for haifa) is notable. I agree that history is needed - the night lines for example are a recent invention - but I don't see the need to expand and prune as a reason to delete. Jon513 23:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is a flawed nomination. WP:NOT#DIR and WP:NOT#TRAVEL are about directories (i.e. lists of names and telephone numbers) which this patently is not. The article is a useful summary which, as a work in progress, is subject to further improvement. --Redaktor 22:36, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The standard interpretation of WP:NOT allows for a list of routes. The featured article El Al for example, has a subarticle with its routes. Note that this info was originally in the parent article, but was branched by consensus. In fact, the WP:AIRPORT wikiproject has a whole section explaining how to create airline destination lists. If we are encouraged to create destination lists for airlines, then I see no reason not to create a similar list for buses. Wikipedia is not paper. nadav (talk) 03:49, 22 August 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.