Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Santa Cruz Mountain Wineries

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. Please defer merge related discussion to article talk. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 01:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Santa Cruz Mountain Wineries[edit]

Article serves the purpose of essentially being a list and needlessly advertising for these wineries, which is something the Wine Project actively discourages with Wikipedia not being a wineguide. Furthermore we currently have a wine region article-Santa Cruz Mountains AVA that includes an appropriate external link to a list of Santa Cruz Mountains wineries. I have already taken the liberty of adding some of the non-spam content to the article. This article serves no purpose now. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 23:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, Move, It seems that Santa Cruz Mountains AVA is a recently (past 3 days) created cut and paste duplication of the non-list content in the Santa Cruz Mountain Wineries article by Agne. 3 of the 4 (WP:reliable)references are identical. To this user's valid point, I've removed the spamlist from the Santa Cruz Mountain Wineries article. It seems pretty pointless to duplicate an article, losing its original edit history and delete the original. I think the policy is to use the move page function keeping the entire edit history of the page if the naming convention is not in keeping with the Wine Project. Toddstreat1 01:40, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a bit of wine education here would be useful. In the United States, our wine regions are known as American Viticultural Area or AVA. It is the goal of the wine project to create articles for every AVA, of which the Santa Cruz Mountain AVA was recently a redlink in that article. So of course, I'm going to create an article just like I've recently created articles for Jahant AVA, Lime Kiln Valley AVA, San Pasqual Valley AVA and several more also created in the last week. Seeing the uselessness and spamlist magnet to an article of "Santa Cruz Mountain Wineries", I did merge some relevant content to the already created article (With www.appellationamerica.com as the primary reference) and gave proper GFDL attribution on the talk page as well as in the edit summary. For information relevant to the wine region of Santa Cruz Mountains, the AVA article is the most appropriate location for this info.Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 01:59, 3 October 2007

Further note Toddstreat is incorrect in his assessment that this issue is about wine project naming conventions. While I did use the page move function on articles unquestionably about the wine regions like Arroyo Seco AVA and High Valley AVA, this article positioned itself as being about the wineries and not the wine region as the early page creation clearly shows. There is fundamental difference between the two and hence the reason that I didn't do a page move. An article about just wineries is really not needed and is a violation of WP:NOT#DIRECTORY and goes against the fact that Wikipedia is not a wineguide. However, as a courtesy, I did attempt to salvage some of the morsels of relevant and encyclopedic content. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 02:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Check out Help:Moving a page to keep the entire edit history. Edit history is good. Copying others' edits is not.

Also, Not putting {{subst:adw|Santa Cruz Mountain Wineries}} ~~~~ on authors talk page(s) isn't good either. Please be sure to do that for the other articles you're proposing deleting. Toddstreat1 02:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well since I was neither moving a page nor copying other editors edits without giving due good faith attribution as I did in both my edit summary as well as on the article talk page then your link and comments don't really apply. As for the AfD notification, for that I apologize. I don't do AfD all that often and I assumed that anyone with a vested interest in the article would have the article watchlisted. I've have had a few of my own articles come up for AfD and was never notified so I did not know that was a common practice. But again, I apologize for that oversight. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 02:29, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Santa Cruz Mountains AVA as this article fails WP:NOT#DIRECTORY. Some useful content exists but has been merged into Santa Cruz Mountains AVA. "FooBar AVA" is the correct naming convention for this type of article. If we have a large list of notable Sonoma wineries, then it might make sense to include them, but not just a laundry list of all wineries. —dgies^t_c 02:30, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete the proper place for information about an American wine region and its related wineries really is the AVA article. ---- The Bethling ^(Talk) 02:35, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletions. -- Gavin Collins 08:17, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep or merge. Covering the wineries of this region is immensely important, and beyond notable, as per discussion about Sonoma County wineries. The notion that covering them is "advertising" them is utterly silly. We have to decide whether we want the article to be a portmanteau of both wine as a product and wine as a business/cultural issue, or keep two separate articles, one for the drink and one for the human side. Whatever the decision we should stick with it. The "not a wine guide" folks need to realize that this issue intersects other projects as well. This issue needs to be handled consistently with all of the other San Francisco Bay Area Counties. A point about wine in California. In California the wineries (and together with them the history, ancillary businesses, personalities, practices, and culture) are often a far more important than the specific wines they produce, and they are more clearly understood by county, not AVA. In cases where the AVA matches the geographic boundaries of the County, the two are interchangeable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikidemo (talk • contribs) 09:28, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quick question: What do you see being better covered in an article about just the wineries that couldn't be covered in an article about the wine region? Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 09:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's two subjects in one article. If that works, fine. But as per the above discussion you seem to be drawing a distinction between the two, and the advocating for deleting coverage of the wineries. As you say: "An article about just wineries is really not needed and is a violation of WP:NOT#DIRECTORY and goes against the fact that Wikipedia is not a wineguide.". I respectfully disagree. To cover wineries is to cover business and culture. Wikidemo 10:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

An article focused on the wine region will undoubtedly, if written to its full potential, cover the business and culture of the area. More pertinently, that coverage will be focused on the wineries that have made significant contributions to the area and are even notable enough to have their own article-discernment that a wine directory list could never have. As I mentioned on another AfD, while wine is wonderful the very act of making wine and being a winery does not confer on it any special notability. Wineries should still be held to same standard as every other business in Wikipedia. You will never see articles on San Francisco car dealerships, San Francisco marinas, List of bakeries in San Francisco, List of pizza places in San Francisco, etc. Again, though I am a fierce advocate for Wikipedia's wine coverage, I can not see giving wineries or list of wineries a free pass when it comes to Wikipedia's basic policies such as WP:NOT#DIRECTORY and WP:CORP. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 16:31, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

True .. but an AVA is only means something (or is notible) if there are grapes being grown and wines being produced. San Francisco is still notable without pizza places. An AVA without wineries is academic. Toddstreat1 19:51, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This last comment really confused me. Are there any AVAs where no grapes are grown and no wine made? If so, how come they were created as Viticultural areas? Not even the notorious French wine bureaucrats have come up with the idea of creating AOCs or VDQSs where there are no vines. Confused on the other side of the Atlantic, Tomas e 22:20, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you must know, there may well someday be an article on bakeries of the San Francisco Bay Area. It started the contemporary artisan bread movement in the US, and there are many books and newspaper articles on that. For bakeries that history may well be possible to contain in a single article on the topic - I just wrote such an article, in fact. The subject of wine-making in California, or in any of its major winegrowing regions, is far too big to fit in one article. An article can present an overview, but to drill down we have to refer people to articles on individual AVAs, wineries, winemakers, grapes, etc. Lists are often a good organizational structure for that, and in cases like this where the coverage is mostly empty they can contain redlinks or unlinked members as placeholders until we fill it out. The concern over directories is misplaced. We're not listing their phone numbers, driving directions, and tour hours. We're using the best organizational structure for our own coverage, and if that happens to be a list so be it. Wikidemo 02:26, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While we can not discern the exact motivation of Wikipedia editors in developing WP:NOT#DIRECTORY, there has been long standing consensus behind that policy. I think there is valid concern over Wikipedia becoming a list of commercial business. We are an encyclopedia and businesses that have notability beyond just being a business have wiki-links, notes and references throughout relevant and related articles. If a winery is only notable enough to have an article that says "Chateau Foo is a winery" and list what it makes and for how long it has made it--that is a red flag and typically those are the only type of articles that would be orphaned if not linked to a directory style "List of wineries". Though we do share agreement that the California wine industry deserves more than one article. After I'm done working on the American wine article, that is actually one of my pet sub projects. California wine certainly has the breadth of potential and information equal to our Bordeaux series of articles. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 03:36, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody is suggesting we get rid of WP:NOT#DIRECTORY. However, people often mis-apply the policy as a blanket prohibition on lists of things. The wording clearly stops far short of claiming that lists of businesses are considered a directory. Citing it for the proposition that any list of entities is "spam" or "advertising" (something untrue on its face) that should be removed is controversial, to say the least. I think the concerns about notability are a red herring. There are plenty of in-depth profiles of wineries, coverage of their business activities, books, oral histories, etc. Nobody is proposing we limst a winery simply because it makes a wine that somebody reviewed or carried somewhere. If there's a stray bad article, we can deal with just like we deal with any notability problem. I see no reason why wineries deserve some special level of attention. In anything, less. There are far fewer vanity and spam articles about wine than most subjects on Wikipedia. Wikidemo 06:03, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody is claiming that Wikipedia shouldn't have coverage about notable wineries and we are in agreement that wineries do not deserve any special level of attention. They should be treated just like any restaurant, boat maker, jewelry store, dance club, indie band, etc on Wikipedia. In that regard, can you explain what makes this article different then a List of restaurants in San Francisco article? Would that article violate WP:NOT#DIRECTORY? Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 06:42, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I'm quite surprised we don't have a List of restaurants in San Francisco. It would help to fill in encyclopedic coverage of this subject, as I'm pretty sure there are more than 19 notable restaurants there. DHowell 03:03, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and rename to it's wine region. Gateman1997 07:06, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Wine region article already exist Santa Cruz Mountain AVA. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 07:13, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Notable wine region, no problem with merging into a similar article if one exists, but this is definitely a search-worthy title worth retaining (worse case scenario). Burntsauce 17:42, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and expand using reliable sources such as Mountain Vines, Mountain Wines: Exploring the wineries of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and if Santa Cruz Mountain AVA duplicates this article than merge and redirect it to here, per my reasoning at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sonoma County wineries. DHowell 03:03, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So use wine and travel guides as sources to make it more of a directory? Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 04:54, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To be a directory we would list every one, with its hours and driving directions, phone number, a list of features, price of tasting, list of wines and where you can buy them, and reviews. WP:NOT#DIRECTORY tells us not to do that. It doesn't say we can't organize and index things. That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A list with links to articles and unlinked or red-linked items for articles yet to be written or that are worth mentioning but not quite notable is often the best navigational structure. Wikidemo 22:02, 6 October 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.