Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/California locations by race

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. There were no arguments for deletion except for the nominator PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 22:54, 13 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

California locations by race[edit]

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Bundling in the following:

Wikipedia is explicitly not a collection of statisitics. and clearly, that is all this article consists of, it is nothing but a regurgitation of census data for California. The purpose of Wikipedia is to share knowledge, this is just information. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:33, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain. I am abstaining from voting because I am the author of this article, as well as two similar articles: California locations by income and California locations by voter registration.

Keep. Note, however, that I am the author of this article, as well as two similar articles: California locations by income and California locations by voter registration.

I would tend to disagree with the nominator~~, however~~. First of all, saying that "Wikipedia is explicitly not a collection of statisitics" is a bit misleading. WP:NOTSTATS redirects you to a subsection entitled "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information", and the third item of that list states that Wikipedia is not a place for excessive listings of statistics. What we're deciding is whether these articles meet this criteria.

Also, that item points out that "long and sprawling lists of statistics may be confusing to readers and reduce the readability and neatness of our articles." I don't think that these articles do any of these things. It states to "consider using tables to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists", which is precisely what I did.

On the other hand, if articles like this should be deleted, that would imply that we should delete many similar articles as well, such as the locations by per capita income articles for all fifty states and List of highest-income counties in the United States, as well as subsections like the list of congressional districts by the Cook Partisan Voter Index. Interestingly enough, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information specifically mentions the article Nationwide opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2012 as a case in which an article like this is necessary.

That said, if the decision were made to delete these articles, I would certainly support the creation of a "Wikistat" website for data like this. Extent Midpoint (talk) 19:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, I'd like to ask the nominator what (s)he means by "The purpose of Wikipedia is to share knowledge, this is just information." Wiktionary defines that sense of knowledge as "The total of what is known; all information and products of learning." In other words, all information is knowledge. And I would certainly think that these articles constitute a part of "the total of what is known." Extent Midpoint (talk) 20:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you're going to get all wiki-lawyer about the definitions of things, perhaps you should look up the definition of "abstain" as that is clearly not what you are doing. In any event, what we have here is a massive table of census data. So, this Wikipedia article is nothing but a long list of data that is already freely available from the census itself. that strikes me as the very definition of excessive amounts of statistics. No analysis, indeed no prose of any kind is present and the only citations are to the census website where the data was obtained. Wiktionary's definition aside, I would argue that there is in fact a distinction between actual knowledge and mere information. On top of that, the big table is so long that one can't really tell what's what unless they are o looking at the very top of it. And lastly WP:OTHERSTUFF is not generally considered a valid argument in a deletion discussion. On the other hand, since the other two articles you created are pretty much exactly the same thing with the same issues I have bundled them into this nomination. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:53, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

By the way a good way to get some clue of the difference between knowledge and information is to compare these articles with Demographics of California which is an actual encyclopedia article on these same subjects, meaning in addition to the other problems I have identified these are also redundant to an existing article. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:26, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to point out that Extent Midpoint, there is no need to abstain from giving your recommendation on these articles. AfD welcomes inputs from all editors and there are no conflict of interest rules in this venue to prevent your opinion from being voiced. --Mark viking (talk) 21:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Um, what he is doing is not abstaining anyway. You don't abstain from voicing your opinion by saying "I abstain! now here's three paragraphs of arguments explaining my position." Beeblebrox (talk) 21:41, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

He is indeed abstaining, in the sense that he has not registered his recommendation as a boldfaced 'keep', 'delete' or other action. By longstanding AfD convention, those boldfaced words are the editor's summary of, or verdict on, their position. I myself write comment entries when I have something to contribute, but have not yet decided what is to be done. Those entries may have keep or delete implications, but do not imply a final recommendation. --Mark viking (talk) 22:25, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Beeblebrox, it seems that what's bothering you is that there is no prose in the article, and the tables that are present are very long. You are certainly right about that. I'm curious about what you think the "data to prose ratio" should be. I can't find a specific guideline regarding articles like the ones I created; it would be helpful something like that existed. I do think, however, if the articles above were deleted, then we should also remove articles like Highest-income ZCTAs in the United States, which also have next to no prose in them. (What's more, that article contains data that's more than a decade old.) Go ahead and bundle that article in if you'd like, and see "Income in the United States" template at the top right-hand corner of that article for more.

I abstained from voting, not voicing my opinion. If it bothers you, I can change my "vote" from "abstain" to "keep", but I'm not even sure if the number of "votes" directly influences the final decision. Extent Midpoint (talk) 22:16, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Since this isn't a vote but a discussion it doesn't really matter what bolded word you choose to put in front of your comments. As you apparently knew that I am confused as to why you ever thought what you were doing was abstaining but let's not get hung up on that as it isn't the point.

There is no specific guidance on a statistics-to-prose ratio but I would imagine something higher than 100/0 is what most of us would expect. I don't see the point of having articles that are not articles at all but merely lists of data that is already freely available elsewhere. This is an encyclopedia, not the database of every statistic ever collected. We already have a proper encyclopedia article on the broader topic (which I now see you were already aware of since you added a "see also" link to it) and you have been adding the relevant data to the articles on the individual places so I don't see any encyclopedic purpose to having a bunch of raw data that is just copied from another website. That is not an encyclopedia article, regardless of the fact that there may be others like it. (again see WP:OTHERSTUFF for why this is generally not considered a valid argument) Beeblebrox (talk) 22:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It might be freely available in terms of price, but certainly not in terms of time and effort. Constructing those tables was a painful exercise in data storage and manipulation, inner joins and scripting. The new American FactFinder interface is less than superb, and it certainly will not let you generate anything like those tables. Saying that these tables are a 'regurgitation' could be accurate, but only if extensive data processing counts as part of the 'regurgitation' process.

If the articles are deleted, would I be able to repost them as subpages of my user page, e.g. User:Extent Midpoint/California locations by income? Extent Midpoint (talk) 22:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Up to this point, the nominator's (explained) arguments haven't been very strong. Let's look at each one of them in detail.

1. "Wikipedia is explicitly not a collection of statistics." I haven't seen a guideline that (explicitly) says this, and WP:NOTSTATS certainly doesn't (see next item).

2. They are excessive lists of statistics per WP:INDISCRIMINATE, third item (also WP:NOTSTATS, third item). This argument is composed of five subarguments:

2a. Long and sprawling lists of statistics may be confusing to readers and reduce the readability and neatness of our articles. (Emphasis mine.) I wouldn't imagine the "lists" (if you can call tables "lists") would be confusing to readers. And they certainly do not "reduce the readability and neatness of [any] articles."

2b. In addition, articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader. The tables are self-explanatory. But I will gladly add any text necessary should there be any potential for confusion (I doubt it). (Edit: I've done this today.)

2c. In cases where this may be necessary, (e.g. Nationwide opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2012), consider using tables to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists. This very guideline acknowledges there are some cases when data like this is necessary, and links directly to an article similar to my own.

2d. Consider using tables to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists. I did that.

2e. Where it is not necessary, as in the main article United States presidential election, 2012, omit excess statistics altogether and summarize any necessary data concisely. The articles are necessary because otherwise it would be very difficult to figure out where locations rank with respect to one another in terms of various characteristics (see item 5.)

3. "It is nothing but a regurgitation of census data for California." Only if extensive data processing counts as regurgitation (see next item). (Edit: I've added prose to these articles, so this argument no longer stands.)

4. "This article is nothing but a long list of data that is already freely available from the census itself." Like I said, freely available in terms of cost, but not time and effort. I challenge you to use American FactFinder to generate tables containing all the data in these articles. It's just not possible. Programming knowledge and extensive data processing is required to display the containing county/ies for each place, and to replace numbers with percents. You can't even join different tables together; only individual tables are displayed. In the case of California locations by voter registration, the primary source of the data is the California Secretary of State, not the Census Bureau. That table doesn't provide population data, either. Displaying population data required a complicated inner join for data of different sources. (Edit: I've added prose to these articles, so this argument no longer stands.)

5. "No analysis, indeed no prose of any kind is present." Like I said, the tables speak for themselves. If you want prose, tell me what kind you want. I'd be happy to add it. Prose can also be added by others. And you said yourself that there are no guidelines regarding how much prose should be in an article. (Edit: I've added prose to these articles, so this argument no longer stands.)

I think other arguments should be provided. Extent Midpoint (talk) 17:03, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, but rename List of California locations by United States Census race and ethnicity (data?), as that's the only source, might as well say so. to address the lack of text: just add some. here: "This is a list of California locations by United States Census race and ethnicity. The list is derived from US Census data from 2010." und so weiter. I dont like the length of the main table, you lose track of which column is what, but massaging data into a new form strikes me as very useful. i have never been to the us census data site, and may never go, despite being a "datahead", so i imagine others may feel the same. As a list, this is definable, sourced, has very strict inclusion criteria, and has some discernable educational value, in a form measurably different than the source of the data.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 04:02, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Beeblebrox, I've added prose to each one of these articles, which addresses most of your concerns (also, see above). You may want to consider withdrawing your nomination. To avoid any confusion, I've explicitly changed my vote to keep, while keeping the notice that states that I am the author of these articles. Extent Midpoint (talk) 21:08, 7 November 2013 (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.