Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/County Road 850 (Lee County, Florida)

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. -- Cirt (talk) 03:43, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

County Road 850 (Lee County, Florida)[edit]

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This is an article on a non-notable road. The page's creator contested the PROD saying that it is notable for serving an area of 900,000+ residents and a university. Neither of these facts explain why this road is notable. The article sat for 2 months without any editing until the contest PROD. Imzadi 1979 → 17:21, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I think that most of these in the category could all be in a single article called "County roads in Lee County, Florida" (which is the category name), or something of that nature. Back in 2006, someone created some articles for County Road 869 (Lee County, Florida) and for #865, and a couple of years later, someone else followed that example, so that's what the creator of this article has had to go by. In '06, there was still that tendency to want to make a new article for every individual item, rather than to refer to things collectively-- roads, TV episodes, earthquakes, airplane incidents, etc., kind of the Ray Stevens approach of "Everything is notable.... in its own way...". In many cases, it's not necessary, and this is one of them. Mandsford 18:44, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 20:49, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I am the author. If you want to delete that is fine but then there are a few hundred other roads that should go with it. Someone needs to define "notable." Notable because of its history, car accidents, scenery, proximity to important locations, etc??? Give me a definition of notable to work with. We have lots of county (and state for that matter) articles and from what I have researched I have yet to come to a conclusive definition of "notable." jswfl09 (talk) 00:30, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- The usual working definition with respect to roads has been: "What makes this stretch of pavement special?" State highways at least have the imprimatur of the state separating them from the rest of the roads in the area for inclusion in the rest of the state highway system. That implies a greater level of importance. As for the other factors, history, scenery all contribute. Just being next to an important location doesn't confer notability on the roadway though. As for the other roads, let's take them all a few at a time, rather than swamp the PROD/AfD processess with them. Imzadi 1979 → 00:45, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Redirect as above. Jswfl09, you're falling into a common fallacy on Wikipedia of presuming that "notability" can be defined by yardsticks of relative importance. The fundamental notability guideline (WP:GNG) is this: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." That's the only broad definition of notability that exists. Any other notability guideline doesn't, in fact, set up alternative criteria; they work from the premise that a subject which meets the guideline can be presumed to pass the GNG. The usual premise with respect to roads is that while state highways are likely to pass the GNG, county roads aren't and so aren't presumed to be notable. The only way around that is by passing the GNG; be a subject ever so subjectively insignificant, if it's been written about in significant detail in multiple reliable sources, it passes WP:V. Ravenswing 18:35, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:17, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

delete or listify as Mansford suggested. I'd be happy to see it expanded into a properly sourced article and vote keep... but I don't believe that it may happen. And there's nothing like "serving an area of 900.000+ residents" (look at the map - where did they come from? Did all Ft. Myers residents and their inlaws rush onto a far-away country road?). Arguments like this do more harm than good. East of Borschov 00:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As a first choice, redirect to List of county roads in Lee County, Florida per precedent for other county roads. But that's a redlink, so we can't redirect there unless the page is created before this AfD is up. Therefore, as a second choice, delete per East of Borschov. I note that the population of the entire county where this road is located is only about 600,000, and I don't think every single person in the county has occasion to use this road, so the "900,000" claim is just mistaken. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:00, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - If someone wants to make a list of county roads that's fine, but other stuff exists is only a reason to delete this one and move on to all the others too. We have a specific criteria for roads (or did... I'm not sure the current status of that policy wrangling) and every paved road is not it. It's useful to remember that every additional page brings additional maintenance work, patrolling work, ripe sources for vandalism that goes unnoticed and unchecked, and risk making (if it isn't already) Wikipedia simply an almanac, which, by policy (a widespread known one), we are not. Shadowjams (talk) 10:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Florida-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:31, 17 November 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.