Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of cities in the European Union with more than 100,000 inhabitants

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. T. Canens (talk) 02:37, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of cities in the European Union with more than 100,000 inhabitants[edit]

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There are two problems with the article. One problem, which in itself doesn't merit deletion, is its poor quality. Different users happily put in the numbers they want for each city; sometimes with best intentions, sometimes with patriotic intentions. There is no single source on which the list is based, explaining why it's in such a bad shape. In short, for some cities the population of a greater area is included, for other cities just the population of the city proper. The only purpose of the list, I assume, is to provide a ranked list of European cities. The list is useless for that purpose, as the different figures used are not comparable. This far, I've merely mentioned a (severe) problem that could be fixed. However, I don't see any purpose of this list. We already have so many lists of cities in the European Union that we could make a list of those lists... There's Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits, Largest urban areas of the European Union, List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population, Largest population centres in the European Union. As this article is in a bad state, not possible to fix (there's no source to use) and quite frankly rather redundant, I suggest it be deleted. I don't see it adding any useful information to that found in the other four articles listed above. Jeppiz (talk) 13:36, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Each city listed has its own article, many of those contain population data with references. Seems this might be usefull to someone (students looking for jobs in larger cities, travelers, etc). Seems to conform to WP:LIST. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 14:08, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really buy either argument, but the only one relevant to deleting or not is the second one. The information might be useful but did you take the time to check out all the existing lists? The first one (out of the five lists of cities in the EU) is exactly the same as this one, except that it stops at 300.000 and this one stops at 100.000. If the information is useful, it would make more sense to include the cities with less than 300.000 and more than 100.000 in that list, instead of having this as a fifth list of cities in the EU.Jeppiz (talk) 17:15, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I was prepared to say keep because of the topic, but it's ridiculous that the "sources" are other Wikipedia articles. Lazy ass work like that is okay for things that people would not be expected to take seriously, but not for something that is supposed to be an encyclopedia article. So we're supposed to assume that the numbers are accurate? I don't think so. Take your collection of little flags somewhere else. Mandsford 19:40, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the sourced articles have their populations sourced. Someone just needs to do their homwork and add the correct sources to the list. Clean up is not a reason for deletion. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 20:54, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

True, but repetitive and redudant articles certainly are. I'm pointing out again, for the third time, that there are five(!) separate lists for ranking cities in the EU by population. Have you even read my motives for starting the AfD and looked at the other lists?Jeppiz (talk) 21:14, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List articles, by nature, are redundant. So are most catagories for that matter. (WP:CLN) However WP has plenty of space and as long as the list has a unique criteria for inclusion (which it does) I see no reason to delete. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 13:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And what would that unique critieria be? Going all the way to down to 100.000 instead of the one stopping at 300.000? By the same logic, we could create 20 more lists with cities in the EU. One could stop at 200.000, one at 150.000, one at 80.000 and so on. In your opinion, how many different lists ranking the population of cities in the EU do we need? I struggle to understand why five is the magic number...Jeppiz (talk) 18:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment In an attempt to rescue the article, Gtstricky has started adding references to it. While the effort certainly is commendable, it highlights two problems:

1.Despite my stating in every post here that the main problem is the redundancy (we have five lists about this), Gtstricky still seems to think that the problem is the numbers. It's not.

2. In adding "sources", Gtstricky has made my point better than I could have done myself. He has added references for the first three cities. For London, the reference is "Woodlands Junior School"... Bad as it is, it still pales in comparison to the source for Madrid, being an Iranian tourist agency. Sure, we can find some numbers for any city if we search the web and happily ignore WP:RS but what's the value of such a list? If a junior school and an Iranian tourist agency is what we resort to for London and Madrid, what on earth will we add as sources for small cities in Bulgaria or Latvia? The list is a mishmash of WP:OR, as Gtstricky has exemplified very well.

So once again: the numbers in the list are not reliable, but even if they were, the list would be completely redudant as there already are four lists ranking cities in the EU.Jeppiz (talk) 21:52, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I had spent all of 5 minutes looking fro references. I just went and changed them to official census data. As for the multiple list arguements, see above. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 13:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Don't get me wrong, I said that your effort is commendable. Still, it did highlight the problem of wildly improper sources being used and a general lack of reliability. At the moment, around 10 out of almost 500 cities are sourced, the rest are just random numbers.Jeppiz (talk) 18:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd note that a similarly-named article (List of cities in the United States with over 100,000 people) was moved to List of United States cities by population. I agree that there are problems with having "the statistics that anyone can edit" and that we seem to have problems with redundant lists. If this is neglected and has become inaccurate, then I would change my vote to delete.

Comment The problem with the other (redundant) lists is that they are much less comprehensive. --Boson (talk) 22:44, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep 100,000 is a typical division point. In Germany, for instance it is the dividing line between a city (Großsstadt) and a town (Stadt). So the list for more than 100,000 would suggest itself as the one to keep, if any are to be deleted. If the other lists are better sourced, the references could be copied from there. See, for instance, List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants --Boson (talk) 19:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
CommentSince verification seems to be a problem, I have downloaded the latest available figures (last update May 2010) from the Eurostat database and put them on the article's talk page. There may be some discrepancies, so the table may need adjusting, and it would probably be sensible to add the reference year, since some countries only supply older data. If these data are added to the table, that should make it not only the most comprehensive but also the best and most consistently sourced table; so we could then consider whether to delete the other redundant articles or, if they contain additional information, merge them with this article. --Boson (talk) 21:33, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 14:15, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 14:15, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Per Boson. Plenty of maps have towns identified by population, and the 100k threshold is one of them. Perfectly fine list, with a clear inclusion criteria. If the article is of poor quality, as the nom states, then fix it. Lugnuts (talk) 14:56, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Legitimate doubts about the accuracy of numbers do not fall in the category of "so fix it". This isn't a question of grammar or punctuation. We're still a long way from overcoming the stereotype of "You can't believe anything you see on Wikipedia". A big thank you to User:Jeppiz for nominating a page that was pretending to be an encyclopedia article. Mandsford 18:31, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Wikipedia is not a platform for the publication primary research (which is what this list is), by which I mean it is not place for compiling entirely original and novel standalone lists articles that have not been published in the real world. Lists that are newly created should be published in other venues, such as peer-reviewed journals, other printed forms, or respected online sites. Reliable sources are needed to demonstrate that that this list topic is verifiable, and not merely the editor's own research. This list is an amalgam of existing list that are published, but it is still an original topic. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:46, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If that is the case we better rewrite WP:LISTS and WP:CLN Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 13:19, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This list meets WP:list albeit much of the deletion rationale above about the sourcing, redundancy and inherently problematic issues with dynamic data such as population information are legitimate points for discussion. None of that rationale is strong enough to warrant deletion, but argues for article improvement. The deletion rationale claiming this list is OR because the list title has never been published anywhere is entirely without merit, displays a true lack of understanding of our policies on OR and is a tired refrain seen in too many List related AfDs that will become no more true no matter how many times it is repeated. --Mike Cline (talk) 11:58, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If kept, at least put a big disclaimer on the top that says "We have no idea where the authors got this stuff, they could have made the numbers up for all we know, one would have to be a f***ing idiot to rely upon this for any purpose, Wikipedia was not intended to be taken seriously." Mandsford 13:26, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mandsford, I don't necessarily disagree with you, although such a strong caveat might be detrimental to our credibility. That said, city populations are available in reliable publications--online and in print. We just need to find them and cite them in the article. Additionally, a bit more data about the timeframe as to when the population figure applies will make this a much more useful list. Our job as editors is to find ways to improve these types of articles and encourage and help others learn how to do the same.--Mike Cline (talk) 15:25, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Still, wouldn't it be better if this was in userspace until someone can verify it? The big mistake— and it's a huge one—- was for someone to compile this table without putting in any way to verify it. When it comes to statistics, not bothering to mention where the information came from is incredibly stupid, and it shouldn't be accepted. Put another way, if someone writes that Barcelona is the capital of Spain, I know fairly quickly that it's a mistake and that it can be corrected. But if someone tosses out the number that the population of Barcelona is 1,605,602 people, I don't know, and all sorts of questions come up-- When? Based on what? Who says? But most of all, where did you get that from? I can't see keeping an article on display to avoid hurting someone's feelings. And I certainly can't see keeping it as a backlash to the usual comments by Gavin Collins. He has his own view of what Wikipedia should be, but to the extent that they have any effect on the outcome of a debate, I think they result more often in an article being kept. This one needs to be kept in userspace until it's ready to be an encyclopedia artcle. Mandsford 16:40, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No need for a disclaimer. As I wrote above, I have put Eurostat data on the talk page. Just replace the data with the sourced data that I have already placed on the article's talk page. I think Eurostat must count as a reliable source for population data. I am not an expert with tables, and I didn't want to go to the trouble of putting the data on the article page while the deletion debate is still going on. Also, it wouldn't hurt for someone else to check the data. But anyone can take the data from the talk page at any time. --Boson (talk) 17:31, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Boson, Thanks for your initative on this one. Hopefully we can get the data and sourcing integrated in due course.--Mike Cline (talk) 17:46, 29 June 2010 (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.