Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Motels in the United States

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 delete. Sandstein 11:26, 29 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Motels in the United States[edit]

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This article was created first as an undiscussed move and then as a copy/paste content fork by an editor who thought the Motel article contained too much focus on the United States. However, other editors generally disagreed, and basically wanted to retain the content in the Motel article, because the United States has been an integral part of the history of the motel concept. There was a lot of fuss and edit warring and move warring and talk page (and user talk page) discussion, and a 24-hour block of the editor that created the article and a PROD of the article that was then removed by that same editor, who basically stopped editing on Wikipedia at that point. This was all more than six months ago (about 8 months, actually). The existence of this copy/paste article was basically never supported by consensus, and it has been abandoned without improvement ever since it was created. The information in the article is already in the Motel article, and this article is serving no useful purpose and it should either be deleted or redirected to Motel. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:06, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:20, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:25, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Architecture-related deletion discussions. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:47, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:52, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:54, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete (don't redirect). Clear WP:POVFORK arising from an edit dispute by the party responsible for that dispute through inappropriate long-term edit warring and wholesale disrespect for WP:ENGVAR. Article is unneeded, and its creation was pointy and against consensus. oknazevad (talk) 20:22, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as separate page, but remove the huge duplicate block of country-specific information which was inexplicably pasted back into the main motel article. That article is about motels globally, where the focus on one nation is WP:UNDUE and problematic to the article. This material was split out the better part of a year ago because an anon-IP back in 2012 had repeatedly dumped a progressively-growing quantity of US-specific trivia into the main article from a single source: ISBN 9780801869181, The Motel In America (The Road And American Culture) by Professor John A. Jakle. I have some reservations as to whether we need all this country-specific information at all, certainly we don't need a 70Kb cut-and-paste exercise recycling ISBN 9780801869181 and its book-length trivia about individual US-specific motel chains (a few of which, such as the Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts, have been dead for decades). I have no idea why text in motels in the United States was put back into motel as that is not only duplicative, but does violate WP:UNDUE and WP:TRIVIA as it's excess detail of questionable value. It should be removed from the main article entirely - either to be left just in the country-specific article or to be deleted outright; we don't need the history of every US motel chain, dead or alive, just to explain to the reader what a "motel" is. The over-reliance on "The Motel In America" as a single source, even with slight paraphrasing, is dangerously close to WP:COPYVIO. I'd be willing to allow motels in the United States as a valid stand-alone topic if it is notable and if it isn't merely a copyvio or paraphrased rehash of the "motels in America" book, but this level of single-country detail does not belong in the main, global-level article and should therefore be removed from "motel" - either to the subtopic article (if we need the info) or to the bit bucket. K7L (talk) 20:50, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- FYI to those less familiar with this issue, the comment above is from the editor who created the article (who showed up here with amazing rapidity after having made only one edit since May 2015). —BarrelProof (talk) 20:57, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as per Oknazevad – I've been arguing that it was a unnecessary content fork since the article was created. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 01:44, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- A content split is not a fork as the two resulting articles differ in topic. There are two situations where a WP:SPINOFF is appropriate, "(1) Articles where individual sections create an undue weight problem and (2) Large summary style overview meta-articles which are composed of many summary sections". If an individual section of motel sources 53Kb to "The Motel in America" and our entire coverage of motels worldwide is 73Kb (including the country-specific sole-sourced text) then yes, an individual section is creating an undue weight problem. That's an WP:NPOV issue per Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ#Anglo-American_focus. The issue of motel becoming a long list of individual (mostly US) brands was raised in 2006 and the issue of excessive focus on one country raised since at least 2011 by other users. The massive dump of "The Motel in America" book summary text in 2012 only worsened the problems. The article was therefore tagged as {{split}} in November 2013, following the proper procedure. As no objections were made at that time, the split was duly completed in 2015. Indeed, you asked for a third opinion which did confirm a split as legit in this context. All perfectly valid and consistent with established policy. K7L (talk) 18:05, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom, WP:POVFORK as described. Regards, Yamaguchi先生 (talk) 01:03, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
~~Keep~~ - The article should be kept and renamed "Motels in Canada and the United States". Motels in Canada and the US have unique and similar histories, architecture, and cultural significance, compared with the rest of the world. This is obvious from a read of both articles. Magnolia677 (talk) 16:10, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And why are two articles needed for that?! A section on this at the original motel article should easily suffice. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 22:48, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Good point. As long as the article establishes a section for motels in Canada and the US, then no need to split the article. Magnolia677 (talk) 23:32, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Motels are a US-born phenomenon so there's no reason the page for them wouldn't mostly concentrate on US. --Mr. Magoo and McBarker (talk) 13:47, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Which is exactly the point I've tried to make since the original disagreement. The fact is that motels are probably an 80-90% "North American" phenomenon, and the concept was "created" in the U.S., so it's not surprising that coverage of motels is mostly skewed towards the U.S. and Canada. That's not the fault of Wikipedia or Wikipedia editors... In any case, this article is almost a complete duplicate of the original motel article, and thus should be deleted/merged. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:47, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The only duplication is caused by one editor (conveniently, the very same user who's trying to get motels in the United States deleted) pasting the entire content back into the global-level motel article (bloating it from 23Kb to 73Kb in one edit, with a misleading edit summary claiming to be reverting speling issues). That edit needs to be undone.

Motels exist worldwide. We wouldn't write an article on motorways which focuses 70% on the German autobahn system, even though the freeway concept originated there; likewise, we wouldn't create a page on French fries which was 70% commentary on which Belgian chains serve the best fries, or which Belgian roads to travel to find this particular cuisine - which originated there, but exists worldwide.

Among the country-specific trivia which is being edit-warred back into the main global-level article (as already pointed out on Talk:Motel at the time) we find:

A lengthy description of the history of discrimination and Jim Crow segregation as it affected the traveller in the southern US, pre Civil Rights movement. The Negro Motorist Green Book, the bits about "interstate commerce" being at stake, all highly country-specific historical footnotes at best.
The "tourist guest home", an early B&B-style operation in the US during the segregation era. B&B's are not motels.
Excess detail about individual US-specific chains and entities, many defunct. United Motor Courts? The American Hotel and Motel Association? Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts? Of the US franchises listed that are still trading, most have left the motel business and are now midrange hotel or ELS hotel (economy, limited service) chains.
Purely US-domestic political commentary, like the American Magazine "camps of crime" diatribe.
The Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program and nostalgic restoration of a few neon motels on one road in one country which isn't happening anywhere else. Individual ghost towns on U.S. Route 66 (such as Amboy CA) whose fate has more to do with that road being bypassed by Interstate 40 than with motels per se.

At this point, 5/7 of the text is country-specific history and trivia which does nothing to enhance our understanding of motels globally. "40 Winks" in Ohio is a dump, "Alamo Plaza" in Baton Rouge is a dump, all of Aurora Avenue is a dump... but all are greatly relieved that the Maples Motel in some obscure corner of Ohio is still a viable family-owned business. I see no reason to merge this mess into the global-level article. K7L (talk) 20:00, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep -- This is a well-referenced article on a notable subject. If there are duplicate articles, of course merge them. I am neutral on the geographic scope, but I do not think the term is in common use outside north America. Peterkingiron (talk) 19:23, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Thats the thing, the article is quite duplicative; if all the duplicative material were removed from motel (where it was originally added before being copied into the article in question) then motel would be barely a stub and utterly deficient in properly covering the history. If anything, you're !voting for a merge, and then there's no reason to keep the redirect. oknazevad (talk) 01:11, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. Motel exists in Wikipedia in three dozen languages; even after splitting out the country-specific trivia, in English it's still 23Kb long - more than double the coverage in any other WP language (10Kb in Japanese, 5Kb in Portuguese, 1-4Kb in most of the others) and more than extensive enough. To pad the article with things that aren't relevant - from a long list of US-specific "in popular culture" references to the history of US B&B's as "tourist guest houses" in the Jim Crow racial segregation era to the entire history of U.S. Route 66 and the demise of bypassed ghost towns like Amboy, California just to make the page look longer? Not very useful, the added fluff does nothing to enhance our knowledge of the motel concept globally and (at more than double the length of motel in any other language) this is a comprehensive article (and not a stub) even without the WP:UNDUE pile of country-specific trivia. K7L (talk) 04:07, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above says, "If there are duplicate articles, of course merge them" – the fact is that they are already merged, and the merger is found at Motel. This article is just an excerpt of (an older version of) the Motel article. There is no dispute about notability or sourcing. This is a discussion about a content fork. —BarrelProof (talk) 03:01, 29 January 2016 (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.