Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of power outages (2nd nomination)

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. Wifione ^Message 05:22, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of power outages[edit]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

If the article has to have a "To be included, it must meet this crtieria" in the lead, then something's wrong. No matter what cutoff you institute, it will always be arbitrary. And if there's no objective limit, then there's no point in the article. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:16, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - While I sympathize with the nominator's take on this, with two dozen editors making five or more edits to the page and nearly 100 footnotes showing, the deletion cow has already left the barn. It's best to roll one's eyes and move along, I think... This list has established criteria, is logically constructed, is properly footnoted for the most part, and provides not only an in-link function but also serves as a good merge target for future "Blackout News" stories that spring up. Better in one place than in fifty, eh? I don't see any good point in blowing this one up the way it sits. Carrite (talk) 01:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Lists ought to have criteria, and this one's seem reasonable to to me but could be changed through consensus. It is reasonable to assume that people may want to study the history of serious power outages, and this well-referenced list would be a useful and encyclopedic tool for such research. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:01, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I think that having a criteria is good. Lots of info there, and reasonably good subject. North8000 (talk) 04:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Notable power outages will get their own articles because of the massive amounts of independant, reliable, significant coverage; this will attract editors to write brilliant prose. We don't need this list. We may want an "Index to articles about notable power outages" some day. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:35, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I do not see what you think is wrong with a list having criteria for inclusion. We even have an entry on selection criteria for lists in the Manual of Style and it specifically suggests inclusion criteria be included in the in the lead section of a list article. Grandmartin11 (talk) 16:38, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Grandmartin11 (talk) 16:43, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep, but... I'd say this is a reasonable enough article topic, but it would be much better keeping it to outages with their own articles or at the very least related events with their own articles. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:04, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and Cleanup I can see your point on why you think this article fails notability, but if you think about it, it's not that bad of a subject, ~~however, the entire article is in list form, this is not of an encyclopedia, which is more formal in prose.~~ Also, there are like 50+ {{citation needed}} in there. ~~A complete rewrite may sound ominous, but I think its required for this article to meet its requirements.~~ --Michaelzeng7 (talk - contribs) 22:35, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Widespread, unplanned, and prolonged power outages have serious effects on societies, and can lead to restructuring of power companies or legislation, not to mention economic consequences comparable to natural disasters. That said, someone will have to keep out the addition of every piddly outage which gets some newspaper space. It is reasonable to have screening criteria such as prefaces the list, but I'm not sure the "customer hours" get widely reported, rather than being internally kept data belonging to utilities. "At least 1000 people for one hour" sounds too small. "At least 1,000,000 customer hours" sounds more reasonable, if the editors can get that data rather than estimating it in original research. Some industry defined standard for a "major outage" would be more encyclopedic .Edison (talk) 03:10, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment If the outage had a significant effect, it will have significant sources. But "hey, were the lights out last night at your place, too?" is not signficant. The General Notability Guideline is our touchstone and prevents us from compiling trivial lists. If the Springfield Times is the only place reporting on the outage in Springfield, it's not terribly notable...if the London Times reports the outage in Springfield, it's notable. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:37, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I still think you're missing the point here. No matter what cutoff we use, it'll always be an arbitrary one. Who's to say that a power outage that affects X people is relevant when one that affects Y people isn't? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 14:59, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- - No, that's exactly the point; GNG trumps arbitrary cutoffs every time. If Obama couldn't recall the missiles because he got stuck in a White House elevator due to a power failure, that would ptentially change history and get written up in multiple sources (assuming the Wikipedia was still accessible after such an event). But Toronto plunged into darkness for a couple of hours is just a momentary inconvenience. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - I see a cutoff as a screen to keep OUT articles about outages which made the newspapers for one news cycle, and which were judged "newsworthy" by news editors, but which are simply not of encyclopedic importance. Another approach to achieve this would be to require national or international coverage for more than one news cycle. Edison (talk) 00:28, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Arbitrary cutoffs are not uncommon in article content. For example, we have List of centenarians but not List of nonagenarians. There is a list of NFL quarterbacks who have passed for 400 or more yards in a game but a similar list for 300 yards was deleted. And the List of top 300 MLB home run hitters was recently arbitrarily trimmed from the top 500. I think the key is that we keep the general notability guideline in mind and establish a cutoff which basically says, "if you meet this cutoff, then you would probably meet the GNG, but language or timing may make it difficult to find the references, so in the interest of having a global and non-current perspective and avoiding endless discussion about inclusion of each item, such references (beyond those needed to establish the facts, of course) would not be needed to prove notability." Ma^t_chups 15:49, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 16:59, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - OTHERSTUFFEXISTS says "Sometimes these comparisons are invalid, and sometimes they are valid." It seems to me that there is some validity to the comparison that Matchups made to that other stuff. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:45, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      - I'm not seeing how "other articles use totally arbitrary-ass cutoffs, so this one gets carte blanche" is a valid argument. Maybe, I dunno, the other articles are in the wrong too? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:25, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        I think it's clear the point of both Matchups and Cullen328 is that your argument 'it has an arbitary cutoff and therefore has to be deleted' is invalid, unless you can make an argument that all articles with an arbitary cutoff should be deleted, which is rather unlikely. (Realisticly, if you tried to delete all the articles listed you'd likely find yourself at WP:ANI and I suspect that's one of the reasons why you haven't nominated them all for deletion, so just saying they're in the wrong is a bit pointless.) This doesn't mean this article should be preserved, but without a valid argument for deletion, there's no reason to delete it either so we would default to keep. Nil Einne (talk) 02:43, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - A well-referenced list article with a concise, discriminate focus. Northamerica1000^(talk) 14:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Added to new Further reading section in the article: *Hordeski, Michael F. (2005). "Emergency and backup power sources: preparing for blackouts and brownouts". Fairmont Press. Retrieved February 04, 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help) ISBN 0881734853 Northamerica1000^(talk) 14:19, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Northamerica et al. Hammer, I have to disagree that the inclusion criteria are random. Bearian (talk) 21:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- - Comment It's not a vote, we don't decide by counting hands waved in the air. Does anyone have a basis for the arbitrary 1000 people and 1,000,000 people-hours as being in some way a notable outage? Nice, round, completely thin-air numbers. Guaranteed the North American economy blew more than 1,000,000 people-hours on the Superbowl half-time show and the economy seems to have survived. --Wtshymanski (talk) 00:53, 7 February 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.