Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Irlam (1813 ship)

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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The result was Snow keep / withdrawn. Fram (talk) 07:48, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Irlam (1813 ship)[edit]

Irlam (1813 ship) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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I fail to see why this ship (or, for that matter, many similar ones with articles) is considered to be notable. There were many ships, which regularly got incidents (hundreds of shipwrecks in 1824 alone, see List of shipwrecks in 1824), so the incidents mentioned here are nothing noteworthy and only got a very short mention in the industry magazine Lloyd's. I don't think the purpose of enwiki is to be a list of every named ship, just like we don't list e.g. every large aircraft that ever was made (every model, yes, and noteworthy crashed individual planes, but that's it). Unless there are significant reports elsewhere beyod the short notes in Lloyd's, I don't think that ships like this one meet WP:N and should have an article here. Fram (talk) 09:58, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. MT TrainTalk 10:26, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. MT TrainTalk 10:26, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the purpose of Wikipedia is to (among other thing) maintain a complete listing of all relevant named ships, and that's basically what it says in WP:SHIPOUTCOMES. In this situation the ship is named, like practically every ship ever. But it is a merchant vessel, even in 1813 there were many such vessels. Most the ships in List of shipwrecks in 1824 don't have articles. Prince of Thieves (talk) 11:27, 1 March 2018 (UTC) (edited 13:02, 1 March 2018 (UTC))[reply]
  • Comment, i have notified the ship project of this afd on the project talkpage as this article does not have a talkpage, hence this afd has not appeared on the project's alert lists. Coolabahapple (talk) 12:13, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Response: As the author of the article under discussion, I am mystified why this has even come up.

  • First, WP:Ships takes the position that All ships are notable.
  • Second, the critics of this article and similar appear unaware of pointilism, a painting technique that uses individual spots of colour to paint a picture. Every one of the dots in a pointilist painting is irrelevant, but as a whole they paint a picture. The Irlam article in question is one of these dots. If one is interested in maritime history, one can pick a number of "not notable" articles and start to form a picture of loss rates, trade patterns, and the like. I am currently working on an article on the third Irlam, which had an ever shorter, less incident-filled life than its predecessor. Furthermore, the same company owned all three Irlams, (and perhaps a fourth, but the information is sparse). If I am permitted to write the article and a shipindex page and not censored, perhaps someone will learn something about entrepreneurship in the shipping business in Liverpool in the early 19th Century.
  • Third, by focusing in on one dot, we are losing sight of an even larger picture: the role of any one story in linking to other stories. The third (yet unpublished) Irlam was lost in the Great Barbados Hurricane of 1831 and someone reading that article may then explore the hurricane.
  • Fourth, removing articles like these reduces the probability that Wikipedia will delight someone. No one is delighted to find an article on Paris, or HMS Victory. However, someone tracing their family history may be delighted to find out a little more about how their great...great uncle died. True story: I was at dinner with a world-class astrophysicist. When I mentioned my bizarre hobby of writing on WP about ships of the 1793-1815 period, her remarked that one of his ancestors had been on one and told me its name. I mentioned that I had recently done A WP article on it. He was delighted to discover that family lore had paralleled what I had discovered, and was able to give me some family lore that helped me find more info. It is a strange aesthetic that says we make Wikipedia better by only covering topics about which we can write a great deal. Why do you think Wikipedia has fewer and fewer editors generating articles: all the "notable" articles are already covered.
  • Fifth, the only person harmed by these articles is me, as I spend my time researching and preparing them. Once they are up, you are free to ignore them if they don't interest you. Storage is cheap. Also, I don't know when I start pulling on a thread where it will lead. Sometimes it peters out quickly. But sometimes it doesn't. The first Irlam article started that way, and it led to the second, and if I am permitted to write it, a third, and a shipindex page linking them. If we start telling editors that one shouldn't bother researching an article unless one knows that certain other editors will find it important, we impose both a pre-publication censorship and reduce the opportunity for serendipity. Acad Ronin (talk) 12:59, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the arguments presented by Acad Ronin. Prince of Thieves (talk) 13:02, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "First, WP:Ships takes the position that All ships are notable." Then WP:SHIPS should learn to respect WP:GNG instead of imposing some local consensus over it. That's assuming such a local consensus exists, as WP:SHIPS makes no such claims apparently.
  • Second to fifth are all very nice, but have nothing to do with what is commonly accepted practice on enwiki about what may have a separate article, and what doesn't. We are not an indiscriminate collection of information, not everything that is verifiable belongs here. We write about the notable buildings of a town and ignore the smaller dots, we talk about the notable inhabitants of a village (or students of a school) and ignore the lesser lights, we write about large or otherwise notable companies and ignore the manu local companies without which our society wouldn't run (at least in pre-internet times), ... This is not "censorship", this is setting boundaries for what this website wants to be and what is out-of-scope. Now, do you have any actual arguments why this ship is notable, or will you simply stick with the "never mind notability, it's a ship!" line? Fram (talk) 13:17, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • We are host to an indiscriminate collection of articles about every city, every town, every village, every hamlet, every government district, every named geographical feature, every named star, all planetary bodies, countries, authors, higher tier sportspeople, higher tier athletes, all olympians, provincial politicians, national politicians, provincial or national elections, professors, scientists, every member of a royal house, and every historic site on a national register. Infact WP:GNG only seems to apply to boring things like films, companies, websites and mere normal people. I see no reason why all named ocean going ships should not be notable, which is what it says in WP:SHIPOUTCOMES. Prince of Thieves (talk) 13:28, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • It doesn't say that all named ocean going ships are notable, it says that " warships, cruise ships, ocean liners and other large commercial ocean going" ships are notable (emphasis mine). Whether this is a large ship is debatable, it certainly doesn't seem to fit in this row of major ships. Anyway, there are many professors, and very many authors and scientists, who don't get articles as they don't meet the GNG either. Basically, apart from geographic features which are indeed exempt, all these others have been shown to have normally plenty of sources about them, and that's the reason they are generally considered notable. Find good sources for this ship and the same applies. Fram (talk) 13:39, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • It would appear to have been so, by 1813 standards. It was a sailing ship which was large and commercial. But really my point is that there are numerous subject areas where we host masses of mostly unsourced articles indiscriminately. Prince of Thieves (talk) 13:53, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • ...and when these get noticed, they get nominated for deletion if there are no sources available for them (the sources don't have to be in the article, although any decent article should have them of course). WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Fram (talk) 14:04, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
          • They don't get deleted, people say "keep per WP:NSPORT" (or the specific WP: as it might be) and it doesn't matter that they were nominated, because they fit into some category that wikipedians have decided merits inclusion. This isn't even a otherstuffexists argument because you have expressed that if this is deleted you want to embark on a voyage of getting rid of similar articles, so the other stuff wouldn't exist then. Prince of Thieves (talk) 14:24, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as I understand it the ships project deem any ship over 100 tons (by any measure) to be notable and worthy of a page. Maybe this policy should be challenged but unless it is changed this article should remain Lyndaship (talk) 14:11, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Again, Wikiprojects don't set policy or decide notability. WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. A typical way to challenge such assumptions (which are not really stated anywhere or at least anywhere obvious, it seems) is by having an AfD of uninvolved editors (not the people who decided the local consensus in the first place), and more importantly by providing evidence that the "rule" actually may be valid because hey look, here are the indepth sources about this ship, which show that yes, it is notable. Fram (talk) 14:20, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • For everyone claiming that this meets WP:SHIPOUTCOMES (which it actually doesn't unless you take a very expansive reading of the rule), please first read the introduction to that page, "Citing this page in AfD", especially "This page is not a policy or guideline, and previous outcomes do not bind future ones because consensus can change. The community's actual notability guidelines are listed in the template at the right. Notability always requires verifiable evidence, and all articles on all subjects are kept or deleted on the basis of sources showing their notability, not their subjective importance or relationship to something else. All articles should be evaluated individually on their merits and their ability to conform to standard content policies such as Verifiability and Neutral point of view." Fram (talk) 14:35, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
          • It is not in contention that it meets WP:NRVE, WP:V and WP:NPOV. I don't see any indication consensus has changed either. And it's notability is not inherited. We aren't arguing about some company here, this is a large sailing ship built in 1813. Prince of Thieves (talk) 14:45, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
            • It definitely is in contention that it meets WP:NRVE, as all we have now are routine mentions in Lloyds, not any sources showing actual notability. A notable ship which gets shipwrecked, shouldn't be too hard to find sources about it, no? No such sources? Then perhaps it isn't notable after all? Fram (talk) 15:01, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:SHIPOUTCOMES Named warships, cruise ships, ocean liners and other large commercial ocean going or deep water vessels are generally treated as presumptively notable..
    • yes, that bit had been quoted already, and is a) subject to the "Citing this page in AFD" rule, i.e. "all articles on all subjects are kept or deleted on the basis of sources showing their notability" (emphasis in original), and b) on the unstated definition of "large": this one seems rather run-of-the-mill for an oceangoing ship, not especially large, and the suggested "100 ton" rule seems to set a very, very low bar: how many "commercial ocean going vessels" actually will be less than 100 ton? Fram (talk) 14:59, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You do realize, I hope, that the vessel in question was c.400 tons (Builder's Old Measurement), which at the time was a large ship. Most warships, privateers, slave ships, whalers, convict ships, etc. were smaller, some substantially so. Acad Ronin (talk) 15:29, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the Lloyds links where this number comes from, it doesn't seem to be exceptionally large, although many ships are smaller. 400 tons was a decent format, but nothing really remarkable. The same page (with every page having about 25 ships?) lists another one of 393 tons, the page before had one of 400, one of 473 and one of 555, so it looks as if this is a decent sized ship, nothing more. Fram (talk) 15:39, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
100t is the size of a large trawler. But in 1813, this would have been correspondingly bigger and this vessel in question is 400t which is a reasonable amount bigger. Lloyds is only reporting on the biggest ships, modern reports by Lloyds refer to ships that weigh in at many thousands of tons, but this is because of advances in technology. Prince of Thieves (talk) 15:42, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Lloyds is only reporting on the biggest ships" The Lloyds sources in the article report on many, many ships, of all sizes. I'm still waiting for the actual indepth sources about this ship. Fram (talk) 15:47, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well unless you want to go and visit the British National Archives it might be a long wait, because they haven't been digitised [1]. This also applies to sources such as it's loss report under the Merchant Shipping Acts, it's Registrar of Shipping registration, the ships logs and any Agreement & Crew Lists. Prince of Thieves (talk) 16:01, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Which are all primary sources. Please familiarize yourself with our notability guidelines. Fram (talk) 16:15, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I was still on WP:NRVE. But it seems other people have covered the notability aspect now. Prince of Thieves (talk) 16:34, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This ship was a West Indiaman; that in itself is a sole reason why we should keep this. Eastfarthingan (talk) 15:55, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note: this user was canvassed to vote here. Fram (talk) 16:15, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment WP:SHIPS does indeed hold that ships over 100'/100 tons (undefined) are generally notable enough to sustain an article. That said, it must still be demonstrated that WP:GNG must be met and it is recognised that the further back in time one goes, the harder it is to meet GNG. It is for this reason that I have not linked many of the entries in shipwreck lists of the era covered by this article. Mjroots (talk) 16:29, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - I've added to the article from newspaper sources. The ship's career is well covered by contemporary newspapers and it would be possible to list all voyages she made. Whether or not this should be done is probably best thrashed out on the article's talk page. In any case, GNG is now met. Before Fram complains I was canvassed, I will state for the record that I had seen this discussion and was already on the case before AR contacted me. Mjroots (talk) 16:29, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - This is a substential 400-ton ship (notable contribution to the ecomomy of the time), an East Indiaman (a privately-commissionned quasi-warship), and a notable maritime incident (element of the news of the time) ­— three good reasons to keep the article. On principle, please refrain from deleting sourced and well-redacted articles about ships:
    • These articles do no harm: Wikipedia is not bound by the limitations of a paper encyclopedia. When we decline to host an article it is because it is impossible to maintain in a neutral encyclopedic state, clearly not an issue here.
    • They do lots of good: they allow connecting incidents, careers etc. and constitute a documentary canvas from which the economic realities of the time can be inferred. It is a valuable encyclopedic endeavour and the relative obscurity of the topic makes this work only even more precious. Rama (talk) 17:04, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • "When we decline to host an article it is because it is impossible to maintain in a neutral encyclopedic state" Um, no. It seems very strongly as if the people from WP:SHIPS are working at another project than the rest of enwiki. We delete articles because there are no reliable indepth third-party sources about them (like here), not just because we can't have a neutral article. We don't keep articles because the subjects had a "notable contribution to the economy of the time", but because they had a "noted" contribution; we don't keep articles because they are about East Indiamen, and which "notable" maritime incident would that be, one of hundreds of shipwrecks which happened each year and which barely got any attention unless they were major ships or had a large loss of life or so? Fram (talk) 17:43, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fram, are you seriously suggesting that Lloyd's Register, the Liverpool Mercury, The Morning Post, Lloyd's List and the Belfast News-Letter are not indepedent of Barton & Company, the ship's owners? Mjroots (talk) 18:03, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • I had bolded the necessary part, but apparently even that isn't enough to get the message across. "Indepth" <> "Independent", even if they are close together in a dictionary. Fram (talk) 20:49, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
          • I could write an indepth history of the ship, covering every voyage from June 1813 to January 1824, as the sources exist to do that. But that would be a bit pointy, wouldn't it? Mjroots (talk) 06:32, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, hi Fram, 1st thanks for the interesting afd (i have added it to my "intersting afds" on my userpage), i especially like the bit about WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and Warning! - some bias is about to show look forward to you tackling the elephant in the room - the thousands of non-descript/unknown (outside their sport sphere anyway) sports people article one-liner stubbies, yes i know we have WP:NSPORT with its numerous sngs but it could be argued that they have only developed due to good lobbying and the large no. of sports mad editors out there in wikiland, do we really need to know who the farnarkeling champion was (probably, yes:)) or that so and so, a [insert sport name] played one game for the [insert team name] in [insert year]? i am not a ships person but found the information about the Irlams very interesting (these are the sorts of articles that make wp such a fascinating place), but i would never had read about them if it wasn't for your afd so a 2nd thanks:), anyhoo enough waffling, with the improvements made, including extra sources added, by above editors it is a keep from me as meeting WP:GNG. ps. i am not a ships project person so it has now gone beyond the realm of "local consensus". Coolabahapple (talk) 19:42, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • You may check the NSports pages (main and talk), I have opposed the weakening of standards there and have successfully argued for the removal of some very loose "rules" there. You may also check my other recent AfDs, many of them are for sports-related articles. And at ANI I already get lambasted by a disgruntled editor for the deletion of some 18,000(!) sports biography stubs last year. So, while I'm glad you found this an interesting AfD, I think I have already done my part in tackling the sports stubs. Fram (talk) 20:49, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Admin snow close. The nom is arguing policy - the correct forum for that is the village pump. Szzuk (talk) 22:23, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment I personally find the rather self-serving judgement that every ship is notable implausible, with this ship an object example (and I'm fairly interested in things nautical). Reliance on Lloyd's and similar all-reporting material is not, to my mind, evidence that every vessel is special: being able to source a short narrative on everything isn't evidence that everything is notable. This ship was ordinary, and had an ordinary if short career. However, that all said, it's obvious that resolving this is going to need to be done in an RFC, and not here. Mangoe (talk) 23:16, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This nom is a silly waste of time. Brad (talk) 00:38, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Article subject seems to be notable, as in the past East Indiamen are considered individually notable. This point is also backed by a number of reliable sources.--SamHolt6 (talk) 01:08, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Not a ship person, but I think this clearly meets WP:GNG based on a review of the sources. I think it's proper to question this, but ships will always be easier to source due to the fact records were kept so well about them, and I have no problem with this; I also think the sources are sufficiently independent of each other. SportingFlyer talk 03:02, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Withdrawn (and snow keep by now anyway). Thank you to those of you who found and added offline (or behind paywall) sources which didn't show up on searches. Thank you as well to thos eof you who voted keep but at least looked at with an open mind and saw some merit or reason for the nomination, instead of making up inexistant notability guidelines or canvassing other keeps. In any case, I'll try to make some amends today by creating an article on a truly notable ship. Fram (talk) 07:48, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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