Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/General Code of Operating Rules

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. Stifle (talk) 08:39, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

General Code of Operating Rules[edit]

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Fails WP:GNG and is mostly copy/pasted from one source. Ironmatic1 (talk) 03:33, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. Ironmatic1 (talk) 03:33, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are three Wikipedia articles explicitly on railroad operating rules, two of which are nominated for deletion, and more articles on "railway signalling" which might be the broader topic.

Northeast Operating Rules Advisory Committee, at AFD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Northeast Operating Rules Advisory Committee
General Code of Operating Rules, at AFD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/General Code of Operating Rules
Canadian Rail Operating Rules, not at AFD currently

And all of these, plus many more articles, are within broad category , which includes an article for signalling (and operating rules) in each of many countries.

Note that the main article Railway signalling includes a section on Operating Rules.

Please consider commenting at other AFD(s) and closer should consider all AFDs together. --Doncram (talk) 23:01, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. This deletion request fails on at least two levels: (a) First, a standard that is applied by a major subset of an industry is per se relevant. This is e.g. also true for all ISO standards, and also all major laws. It is not necessary by WP standards that the amount of secondary literature about a subject is used as a indicator of the relevance - adoption of something in the real world by itself can make it relevant. (b) But additionally, there are thousands of documents citing and using the GCOR; first of all of course derived rulebooks, but then many FRA documents e.g. about accidents or incidents, and also secondary literature about e.g. adherence to standards. Probably quite a few of these can be found online (FRA documents), but also scientific literature. One article I found after half a minute of googling doesn't even mention the GCOR in its literature list - it just references the GCOR as a well-known resource, and only puts the four letters and their expansion in the abbreviation list. Yet, and of course, one can doubt the quality of an article that does not try to explain why its subjects matters - but this is no reason for deletion, only for improvement. --User:Haraldmmueller 07:43, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Haraldmmueller: Can you provide a link for "It is not necessary by WP standards that the amount of secondary literature about a subject is used as a indicator of the relevance"? AIUI, the term notability here on WP is a misnomer term of art; an article on an important or useful topic is not necessarily notable. Instead, an article is notable in the WP sense iff the secondary literature is rich enough to write a well-sourced article adequately covering the topic. Thanks, Bernanke's Crossbow (talk) 06:41, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per User:Haraldmmueller's comments. Further, encyclopedic information about GCOR is relevant to many users of Wikipedia interested in information about railways, as indicated by this article's longevity, created in 2007 and edited and improved by many Wikipedians. Truthanado (talk) 19:07, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Since both opposes were basically copy-pasted between Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Northeast Operating Rules Advisory Committee and here, I shall copy-paste mine from there as well:

Delete or Redirect to a suitable target. (Noting that I was made aware of this AfD at my talk page [1]) The above arguments against deletion do not make any reference to Wikipedia policy, merely saying "we can't delete it because people use GCOR in the real world!" People use textbooks all the time in the real world, that doesn't mean they are Wikipedia notable. Ideally I'd like to see an article on Railroad safety in the United States or Railroad operations in the United States, where something like this topic could be briefly mentioned. An article's longevity means nothing about its notability. I once got a 10 year old hoax article deleted. That it was present for 10 years did not make it any less of a hoax. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:06, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"The above arguments against deletion do not make any reference to Wikipedia policy". That's wrong. (a) First, I say that WP's policy(!) is a guideline that is used to establish notability, not a law that formally excludes objects if they do not fit to the letter. WP:GNG is so short and unclear that various subareas created their own, substantially differing notability guidelines - e.g., academics start with "The person's research has had a significant impact in their scholarly discipline", which is not at all "derivable" from the main guidelines WP:GNG; it is "newly invented as a common-senes guideline". By analogy, this guideline could immediately be adapted for standards: The standard has been significantly adopted in its area. That no-one has done this formally is no reason at all that it can't be taken as a common-sense guideline.(*) (b) As I said, there are 1000s of documents using, invoking, commenting (via use and selection) GCOR (and NORAC); just work at the FRA.

What I find astonishing is that someone calling himself Trainsandotherthings tries to remove an article about an obviously very relevant railroad subject. Why would someone want to do that??? - and not instead try to come up with any arguments of why it should be kept, ways of how it could improved, ideas of how we can repair WP if its current practices actually would be inclined to suppress such an obviously relevant topic?? --User:Haraldmmueller 09:08, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(*) Essentially, you make an exclusionary argument: What doesn't fit today's "rules", must die. I make an inclusionary one: What fits a useful interpretation of WP's intention, should remain (or be included).

--User:Haraldmmueller 08:57, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I did provide a method of retaining the material in my vote, rather than simply saying "delete". I do not think it is possible to retain a standalone page on the subject. I am quite familiar with these operating rules, in fact I am qualified on NORAC operating rules. But we need reliable, independent, secondary sources to establish notability. Another alternative would be to create a single article on Railroad operating rules as a topic, which is something that likely would meet notability. Operating rules would also be worth mentioning within Rail transport operations. The articles in question (NORAC and GCOR) lack citations to such sources. You keep saying "there are 1000s of documents using, invoking, commenting (via use and selection) GCOR (and NORAC)". If so, can you show some reliable secondary sources discussing the subject?

What I find astonishing is that someone calling himself Trainsandotherthings tries to remove an article about an obviously very relevant railroad subject. Why would someone want to do that??? - and not instead try to come up with any arguments of why it should be kept, ways of how it could improved, ideas of how we can repair WP if its current practices actually would be inclined to suppress such an obviously relevant topic?? This particularly grinds my gears. If you doubt my commitment to improving Wikipedia's coverage of train topics, I invite you to check my content work listed on my userpage, including literally bringing Train to GA status. AfD is not a place to complain about Wikipedia policy. If you want it to be changed, you're more than welcome to start a discussion at the village pump. Your use of terms like "obviously relevant" is but a matter of opinion as it stands - the way to support that argument is to provide examples of significant coverage of the topic in reliable secondary sources, which you have not done. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:58, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, although should be renamed to be more clearly about railroad operating rules and/or signalling, which were needed and are significant. The current article name could be about anything. Operating rules seem important, and there is history involved. It would also be acceptable to merge this into a combined article about railroad operating rules and/or a list-article describing the major ones such as this one. Or specifically it could potentially be merged into Railway signalling#Operating Rules. Personally, I think a list-article could be better in providing context, showing variety of the operating rules adopted. In the absence of an editor actively developing a merged list-article, at the Railway signalling article or separately, keeping seems best for now. --Doncram (talk) 23:01, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 17:49, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep More than enough discussion about the rules and how they apply to railroads, Railway Times, Trains magazine, Railway Age etc in Gnews. Also hits in GScholar. Oaktree b (talk) 19:23, 16 May 2022 (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.