Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of asteroids/1–100

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. The Evil Spartan (talk) 09:47, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of asteroids/1–100

This is certain to be controversial, because I am suggesting the deletion of not just this page but something like 1800 others with similar titles! It seems that whenever I am surfing through Random articles, several of these pages will be presented in a short period of time. None of them is anything more than a partial directory and the whole thing can be seen off-Wikipedia at Harvard's site, beginning with [1], and doubtless in other locations. As it is, these List of asteroid... articles are of little more interest than articles would be that repeated telephone directories. As "Wikipedia is not a directory", I suggest deleting all of these articles and making a prominent external link on the main Asteroids page. Can anyone suggest a reason to keep these pages? Emeraude (talk) 12:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep The admonition that "Wikipedia is not a directory" (found at WP:NOT) is worth reading. I suppose any list could be looked at as a "directory", although the intent is to avoid endless compilations of "everything that exists or has ever existed". The reason that you see the asteroids arranged as #1 to #100 on the list is because these were the first 100 that were discovered and identified by astronomers during the years 1801-1868. The IAU still considers this to be the primary form for arranging the asteroids. Unlike restaurants, TV episodes, movie characters, etc., asteroids were around centuries ago and will be here centuries from now. Let's not touch the encyclopedic stuff. Mandsford (talk) 13:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The trouble is that the number of these rocks is literally astronomical and, if each had its own page, would be ~10% of the Wikipedia - that's why they are showing up so often in random searches. If you extended the same principle to stars and galaxies, we'd be swamped as there are even more of those. The real test per WP:5 is whether there's a readership for this massive fragmented list. Casual readers will just be interested in the notable cases while I suppose professionals would prefer the consolidated list, from which these articles are generated. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep - This is clearly not a List or repository of loosely associated topics, nor a Genealogical or Phonebook entry, or a directory, or a Non-encyclopedic cross-categorization. I agree with Mandsford here. ViperSnake151 13:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep seems worth keeping to me, each asteroid has its own page which is well referenced. I feel these lists are a useful way of presenting the data - 86.152.227.176 (talk) 13:35, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Each asteroid on the first page has its own page, but this is not the case with the vast majority of the tens of thousands of asteroids listed in 1800 subsequent pages.Emeraude (talk) 13:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Sounds like we need more pages, not fewer. Mykej (talk) 17:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Satisfies directory warning as these are closely related articles (or possible articles) in an apparently standard/notable listing scheme. The only other option for organization would be categories, but that would destroy the numerical standard and be objectively more difficult to use. No point in degrading Wikipedia. Joshdboz (talk) 13:55, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, obviously, per Mandsford. Asteroids, like obscure place names or obscure ancient philosophers, are inherently "notable". Or better than that, "encyclopedic": even if for some of them, the only possible article is a stub containing the date and identity of the first observer and some mathematical details about its orbit. As pointed out, this is the standard way of cataloguing them. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:14, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the first page is a clear keeper; whether the 1800th is also is less clear to me. Would need a different proposal to draw a line (and not even sure then). JJL (talk) 15:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Mykej (talk) 17:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep—The first asteroid discoveries are particularly notable for being made before the introduction of photography. The case for the much higher-numbered pages grows increasingly weaker with the introduction of automated technology, but I'm not sure where the line should be drawn.—RJH (talk) 18:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep If we delete things on Wikipedia which can be sourced elsewhere there wouldn't be much left. If Wikipedia is merely going to be teenagers repository of japanese cartoon trivia and baseball statistics then we don't need these articles on, you know, parts of our solar system but if it's going to be a serious encyclopedia then this is exactly what it should cover. Nick mallory (talk) 23:54, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep this is pretty obvious no need to waste time on this any further Coccyx Bloccyx (talk) 00:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep : a list of known asteroids is certainly notable per WP:N. Mh29255 (talk) 01:17, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete most The list of the first 100 seems well worth keeping but another ~150,000 of them is silly. WP:NOT#DIR applies and so we should only list the notable ones. Colonel Warden (talk) 01:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment From asteroid: Hundreds of thousands of asteroids have been discovered within the solar system and the present rate of discovery is about 5000 per month.. I suggest we compare with List of mountains, List of galaxies and List of stars which seem to have sensible cut-offs and make more effort to focus on the notable cases. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep—although long, the list of numbered minor planets is an encyclopedic list with a well-defined inclusion criterion. Spacepotato (talk) 00:01, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment : With the advent of the Panstars project toward the end of next year, the rate of discovery will rapidly increase. A policy to decide which need to be added might be a good idea before then, but any named (as opposed to just numbered) asteroid is certainly notable. Chrislintott (talk) 13:12, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep' Useful--Phoenix-wiki ^{talk · contribs} 20:06, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The support for this article is astronomical Mandsford (talk) 17:07, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment As the nominator, may I add a comment? My original proposal concerned not this 'article' but some 1,800 'articles' (plural). It was clearly a tactical error to start with the first in the list, since quite obviously the earliest found and named asteroids are notable. Perhaps I should have started with List of asteroids/168301–168400 and worked back! Whatever, there is an incredible number of repetitive pages of information that is adequately covered in online directories, most of it not notable in any real sense. Compare this with a ongoing campaign in Wikipedia to delete articles on London bus routes (a few hundred, not 1,800 articles) on the grounds that Wiki is not a directory or depository for database information. Something needs to be done. Emeraude (talk) 17:51, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment concur that a policy or at least consensus is needed. The comparison suggested by Colonel Warden may be useful as a starting point. But indeed, the first page here is a keeper. I don't know how to resolve the Heap paradox in this case without the help of a clear proposal. JJL (talk) 18:20, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep this ideal list, no solid argument has been made for deletion. (jarbarf) (talk) 00:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, since clearly not in violation of WP:NOT (per Mandsford) or even WP:Five pillars. Please, remember WP is not paper, and we should include all topics fit for an encyclopedia. Awolf002 (talk) 12:56, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - this is appropriate apparatus to lead to articles on individual asteroids. However above perhaps 100 most of the articles (though they do exist) are mere one-line or two-line stubs repeating the information in the list. Is there any hope that many of these will be expanded into worthwhile articles? Several of the articles have a surprsing number of edits for something so brief, but much of this seesm to be adding links to equivalent articles in other WPs. How much is really known of the asteroids individually? Peterkingiron (talk) 18:06, 23 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.