Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of MeSH codes

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. (non-admin closure) Dipankan ^{(Have a chat?)} 07:30, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of MeSH codes[edit]

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I am nominating this page and all of its subpages for deletion because they undermine the purpose of having wikipedia articles. Sure, we could group lots of related links to a national database instead of writing articles on things, or we could use wikipedia to write articles that link to related articles. Athleek123 20:59, 11 June 2012 (UTC) 21:49, 9 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here are the nominated subpages:

MeSH code sublists

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:59, 10 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:59, 10 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: Hopefully editors who have more knowledge of the subject matter will weigh in, but I don't feel that these articles add much value to the encyclopedia. They are just large groups of external links which could be found with a search engine like Google. Generally, lists on Wikipedia are made up of wikilinked articles in a similar subject area/topic. So I agree with User:Athleek123 here. Also, while not as relevant, these articles are a mess in terms of overlinkage. AdventurousSquirrel (talk) 17:31, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete the list and all of its sublists. Wikipedia is not a repository for this kind of primary information. Someone who wants to see the actual lists should be able to find an appropriate external link at the MeSH article; including all of them here is just clutter. In any case, the codes are updated yearly, according to MeSH, and I think it's unlikely that anyone is updating these lists on Wikipedia to keep them current. --MelanieN (talk) 16:39, 15 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep at least on the summary level; I consider this valid, as being a major way of classifying information. The main headings rarely change. Even if we kept the minor ones, we can handle annual changes in something. Probably at least half of Wikipedia's articles need changes and updates at least that frequently. DGG ( talk ) 05:36, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification of my comments above: the need for regular updating was not my primary reason for deleting. I agree that is true of many articles and is not a reason for deletion; I probably shouldn't even have mentioned it. The reason for my "delete" !vote was WP:NOTREPOSITORY. --MelanieN (talk) 20:34, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 06:39, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

strongest keep I don't have a problem with it. Wikipedia is not a directory, but this isn't the same sort of thing as a list of phone numbers. If you look at WP:NOTDIRECTORY, it really doesn't violate anything there. In fact, it PROVES that this article is OK: Wikipedia also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference. Roodog2k (talk) 18:08, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody has said it was a directory, so WP:NOTDIRECTORY is irrelevant. The relevant objection is WP:NOTREPOSITORY, which says: "Wikipedia is neither a mirror nor a repository of links, images, or media files. Wikipedia articles are not: 1) Mere collections of external links or Internet directories. There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia." --MelanieN (talk) 19:24, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is completely relevant, as a list of codes is acceptable per WP:NOTADIRECTORY. Your objection is to the extra content of the list, i.e. the links, which can be removed. If you think the links are inappropriate, then remove them. WP:SOFIXIT. Roodog2k (talk) 19:34, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The codes and the links are inappropriate. The codes are only useful to a specific audience and can easily be located using the MeSH code database. One can see that the MeSH tree and the Wikipedia pages for MeSH codes are the same. Anyone who is looking for MeSH codes can and should use the MeSH code database, because that is what the database is there for. Thanks, Athleek123 20:32, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Everything on Wikipedia is "useful to a specific audience." That's not a valid argument. -- 202.124.75.132 (talk) 13:45, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the code are inappropriate at all per WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Please state policy how the codes are inappropriate. The links are bad, I grant you that. But, at the very least, there is no reason to delete the highest level MeSH code page. Roodog2k (talk) 22:23, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The problem I have with leaving the MeSH article is that it isn't cohesive as an article. The classification of geographical locations is unrelated to the classification of foods, health care terms, etc. Thus, it might seem that I am advocating to split up each section into its own article (e.g. List of Geographical Locations). It makes no sense, however, to have a List of Geographical Locations or a List of Foods, because it isn't notable. If we started making lists of everything, Wikipedia would be filled with huge, useless lists. Regards, Athleek123 00:20, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Respectfully, there is a difference. The list examples you give are bad examples of lists, because they're ill-defined and open-ended, making them unmanageable. Per policy, this appears to be OK, although I do sympathise with your argument. I'm OK with the top-level list, but not so much so for the lower-level lists, because the lower you go, the less manageable they are. So I do see your argument. If we were only discussing the lower-level list article, I would be more inclined, maybe even likely, to vote delete based on policy. But, the top-level article is completely fine. Roodog2k (talk) 19:03, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So would you agree with deleting all of the lower-level lists, and then breaking up the top-level list into articles like "Types of Organisms", "Types of Diseases", etc? Athleek123 20:04, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I think these pages are useful encyclopedic content like many lists we have on Wikipedia - they are useful for both classification and navigation. Concerns about WP:NOTREPOSITORY are better addressed by removing the numerous external links (which I don't think are particularly necessary) rather than by deletion the pages entirely. -- Ed (Edgar181) 16:53, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the lists were complete (take https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MeSH_codes_(J02), for example), they would contain thousands of items, making them completely useless. In their incomplete state (as they are now), they are also completely useless because they are incomplete. Athleek123 00:32, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all. Essential encyclopaedic content, satisfying WP:LIST. For a taxonomy like this, WP:NOTREPOSITORY does not apply. The external links are fine too, as we generally accept external links for this kind of code. -- 202.124.75.132 (talk) 13:45, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But what is it a list of? I might me missing something, but this "list" seems very general; it's just a list of random things. If the lists were broken up into "List of Anatomical Terms", for example, I would be more ok with leaving them. Athleek123 06:14, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's a list of MeSH codes. -- 202.124.74.48 (talk) 08:37, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all – The material is inherently an encyclopedic reference that benefits the encyclopedia. Northamerica1000^(talk) 03:18, 23 June 2012 (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.