Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/European route E404

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. After extensive discussion there is a consensus that an article about this road should exist in some form. Discussions about what form that should be are a matter for the article talk page not AfD. Thryduulf (talk) 11:21, 30 August 2023 (UTC)‎[reply]

European route E404[edit]

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This article is the only place I could find to suggest this road was ever planned. Seems to be a joke on HTML error 404. Sourceless since creation in 2012. The Wasp ^{[my nest]} 10:09, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Transportation and Belgium. Shellwood (talk) 11:14, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete: What seals the deal for me is this sentence: [[The route exists, but]] it is not signposted or on any maps.. This is clearly some kind of joke or hoax.~~ Actualcpscm (talk) 18:29, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As I learned below (with some help), this is not a hoax. But GNG still indicates that this is an unsuitable article subject. Actualcpscm (talk) 07:25, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I changed my opinion to keep. See reasoning far below. Delete. Not a hoax. It was supposed to be a road that has been planned and was designated an E number, yet it hasn't been built. gidonb (talk) 20:14, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, the map linked in the article does show a road in that location, but it doesn't even label it. Even if it's not a hoax, WP:GNG, WP:V, etc. Not a suitable article subject. Actualcpscm (talk) 20:23, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

~~That's why I propose to delete.~~ Just for the historic record, it was a plan and the number had been designated.[1] It's labeled on said map (you need to zoom in). [2] Some bridges for the road had even been built and were lately removed. gidonb (talk) 20:28, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I feel like I‘m losing my mind a little with that map: I can‘t find E404 to save my life. E403 is there, but E404 between the two named cities just isn‘t. Actualcpscm (talk) 20:39, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You are probably looking at the main map instead of at the top-left inset. gidonb (talk) 22:24, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Aaaah, there it is. Thanks. Actualcpscm (talk) 07:23, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Error 404, road not found. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:00, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

*Redirect to Error 404 as the road really cannot be found. Perfectly sensible redirect :) ^[Humor] (Sadly 1st April's long gone - I guess I have to be serious and say Delete for being a non notable road, Fails SIGCOV and GNG). –Davey2010^Talk 15:39, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per sources below. –Davey2010^Talk 20:09, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you can prove that it is an actual E-road, then WP:GEOROAD does apply. However, its existence is in question. --Rs chen 7754 21:33, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I understand it, the road was planned but never built. And how rigidly should we adhere to a guideline that says "typically" when we haven't been able to identify any good sources? I understand that SNGs are intended to supplement GNG, but an NEXIST argument for a road that never existed seems to be a stretch, and I don't think we should keep an article with no appropriate reliable sourcing, even if it technically falls into an SNG. Actualcpscm (talk) 21:39, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:31, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - The article would have to be completely rewritten, because this article about a fake road is, as far as I can tell, about a 100% real road. Such roads are "typically notable" but I'm not seeing GNG, only mentions and primary sources. It is worth noting that almost the entirety of Category:International E-road network is stubs - do we need to have some wider review, here? casualdejekyll 21:34, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Surely you cannot be serious about the last part. For example, European route E75 exists in 37 language Wikipedias. Are we the English Wikipedia so arrogant that we think we should delete an article that 37 other Wikipedias have? Rs chen 7754 00:02, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why should I care how many WIkipedias it's in - the English Wikipedia is the English Wikipedia. Anyway, there appears to be usable sourcing in the Italian and Russian versions of the E75 article for improvement of ours. But that's irrelevant to the discussion at hand. casualdejekyll 01:07, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: If I'm interpreting WP:NROAD correctly, this kind of road is not inherently notable. International road networks (such as the International E-road network), Interstate, national, state and provincial highways are typically notable (my emphasis). It's the networks that are notable, not every single road that belongs to the E-road network. At least that's how I'd interpret that sentence. What do you think User:Rschen7754? Actualcpscm (talk) 21:41, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That is clearly not the intent of the sentence. It would be like saying that states, provinces, cities, and counties are inherently notable... but countries are not. Rs chen 7754 00:04, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If this truly is a hoax, then of course it should be deleted. If not, keep per WP:DINC. –Fredddie ™ 00:26, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
gidonb's comment above includes supporting documents that confirm this was a serious proposal, at least for a brief moment of time. This one [3] appears to be the minutes of some city/regional council meeting where members debated the merits of rebuilding and expanding the existing road N348 (which OSM confirms does exist in this area) for E404. However, if this is the only other source that can be found, it implies to me that this proposal was short lived and fizzled, as the portion of it I read (via Google Translate of course) sounded like nobody was enthusiastic about it. Dave (talk) 00:41, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, as you imply, there sure are reasons it never got off the ground. I removed my delete because the ghost bridges and a tiny 404 road section on them actually received sufficient coverage. At nlwiki this is a second article next to the 404 article but we should combine. I don't have the bandwidth to redo the article or even to argue a lot about this. Sorry. The topic is notable. gidonb (talk) 00:54, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Liz, I donno if the below refers to my message above but I had already corrected my !vote. Sorry for putting you on the wrong foot, if I did. gidonb (talk) 16:33, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: This is confusing because in the discussion, it looks like some editors think this article should be deleted but are not coming out saying the word, "Delete". I understand that AFD is NOTAVOTE but the closer should not have to interpret your intent by reading between the lines of comments. Right now, we just have a nomination statement askinf for Deletion, two editors advocating Keep and a misguided Redirect request.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:03, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. WP:GEOROAD is a thing, and it explicitly mentions the International E-road network as types of routes that are typically notable. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 01:50, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: GEOROAD doesn‘t indicate that planned roads are also notable. Given that this was never built, I think coverage would be much more limited than in the cases GEOROAD was intended to refer to, so I don’t think this is notable under that guideline. We also have very little to go on to make, say, an NEXIST argument. I don‘t see it. Actualcpscm^{scrutinize, talk} 06:54, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete GEOROAD does not apply to roads that were not actually built. Reywas92^Talk 13:30, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep International E-roads are notable per WP:GEOROAD. Roads are notable even if they were never built and gotten past the planning stage since there was at least a proposal for a road to exist, and usually there are interesting reasons why a road never got built. Unless this is a hoax, which does not appear to be the case, then this should have an article. Dough4872 16:30, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't make things up. There is no precedent whatsoever that a nonexistent highway is automatically notable – significant coverage be damned – merely because a number has been assigned were it to be built. International e-roads might be notable, but this is not a road. There must be better sources to establish notability. Reywas92^Talk 17:11, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Genuinely not sure. Looking at other pages, we could create a start-class article for this, but only using sources from the EU, which may not be secondary, and even then it's not much of an article. I think deleting this would make the encyclopedia worse, but it also fails WP:GNG, and WP:GEOROAD doesn't provide clear guidance. SportingFlyer T·C 21:00, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note also different languages have different sources and the Dutch language version even includes a bit about ghost bridges which were constructed and then deconstructed (and the ghost bridges have their own article too!) If kept, this article should be revised to look like the Dutch one. SportingFlyer T·C 21:04, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The more recent delete comments are based on the idea that this road was never built. I'm.. not actually sure that that's true? It appears on File:International E Road Network green.png, for some reason. Clearly, it wasn't built as originally intended. I think it might be the otherwise inexplicable disconnected segment of A11 from Bruges to Westkapelle, Belgium, which doesn't otherwise appear to have anything to do with the rest of the highway.. or any other highway, for that matter. casualdejekyll 21:29, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, it doesn‘t appear on Google Maps, nor Apple Maps, nor satellite imagery. What piece of highway are you referring to? The A11 from Bruges to Westkapelle looks relatively normal to me. Actualcpscm^{scrutinize, talk} 21:41, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't built, it was a cancelled freeway dating back from 1977 according to the Dutch article. Stub ramps were built over the railroad tracks, that was the extent of it. Cancelled freeways can indeed be notable as well, so whether it was built shouldn't determine the outcome. SportingFlyer T·C 21:48, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I started a discussion about this over at the talk page of WP:GEOROAD. I think there is some agreement that unbuilt roads need to meet GNG, or at least are not automatically notable the way a comparable road that was completed is. This is really a question of how we read GEOROAD, so that discussion may be helpful for this AfD. Actualcpscm^{scrutinize, talk} 06:39, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
At the very least there should be a redirect to list of unbuilt European motorways - if this would be the only item in the list I think it's fine keeping it as a stand-alone page. It's very minor information but I don't want to lose it, especially considering it could be expanded. SportingFlyer T·C 20:00, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Or it can redirect to International_E-road_network#B_Class_roads where it is listed as "road never built". Reywas92^Talk 20:27, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Google Maps doesn't show E numbers at all in Belgium, and that's the only mapping service I checked. I'm generally unsure - that was just a guess. Note how I haven't !voted any which way, because I really have no clue. casualdejekyll 20:03, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think if we have no clue (because there seems to be no verifiable info on this whatsoever), that supports a deletion more than anything else. Actualcpscm^{scrutinize, talk} 20:31, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's absolutely wrong that there's no verifiable information on this. There's available sources in the Catalan wiki including potentially [4] (the other two don't mention the road, not sure if this one does but the Catalan wiki translates to that the works are available there) and in two Dutch wiki pages, and continues to appear on maps for some reason. Also considering this was cancelled in 1977 there may be more information in historical newspapers, and nobody has undertaken that search yet. SportingFlyer T·C 21:19, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What I meant was that we haven‘t actually identified verifiable information beyond „It exists.“ in the discussion. Re-reading my comment, it’s clear that this was not expressed well. My bad! Actualcpscm^{scrutinize, talk} 21:39, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's also not true. If you search for the right road, there's plenty on the cancellation for a stub, as per my previous comment. The problem is the information's potentially duplicative, as the E-routes combine a number of local routes, and this E-route would have been potentially concurrent with a single stretch of road. SportingFlyer T·C 21:53, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

An additional problem may be we might be looking for the wrong thing. The E404 was going to be attached as a European number to a motorway which was unbuilt as part of either the A17, A301, or A11 per several different sources: [5] [6] for the A11 extension, and then the A17/A301 through some Dutch wiki-sleuthing and List of motorways in Belgium. So this really should be concurrent with either the A11 article or more likely the A301 article. SportingFlyer T·C 21:48, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, lacks sufficient coverage to be notable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:15, 21 August 2023 (UTC) Keep per foreign language coverage found by @Gidonb: Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:01, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment following are just a few sources on the subject. The difficulty is that the national newspaper archive of Belgium blocks access to the more recent articles. That said, there is much more, also in other newspaper on the destruction of the road. [7][8][9]][10][11][12] gidonb (talk) 01:17, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Clearly notable after sources have been found on it. There's an editorial question as to whether this should be a stand-alone page or a redirect to a new page on a local Belgian road, considering most sources talk about the road and not the European designation for said road, but considering that page doesn't exist yet, this is currently the "correct" place for it. SportingFlyer T·C 13:07, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep in some form since there are clearly sources on it. --Rs chen 7754 18:02, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Final relist. The most recent commenters (who've looked at the recently mentioned sources) are advocating Keeping this article or at least leaving this page title as a Redirect. So, my question is if there is more support for a Redirect than Keeping this article and, if so, what would the target article be? I'd especially like to hear the opinions of editors who in the early stage of this discussion were advocating for Delete as this discussion has clearly evolved since it was started 3 weeks ago.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:44, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per everything above. I feel vindicated for never bolding a !vote until now casualdejekyll 22:12, 28 August 2023 (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.