Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Grade I listed buildings in North Yorkshire

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, per WP:SNOW. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 02:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

List of Grade I listed buildings in North Yorkshire

List of Grade I listed buildings in North Yorkshire (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This is a very unwieldy, unmaintainable list that would be much better off as a series of categories (and in fact it's already duplicating Category:Grade I listed buildings in North Yorkshire). Most of the buildings listed don't appear to have articles, and there appears to be only one reference for the whole list. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 06:07, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• Keep A category can't contain redlinks, and this list can encourage article creation by showing what is missing. The list itself technically doesn't need to be references (unless it was hoping to become a featured list, for example), as the article would contain a reference. Also, is it a fair assumption to say that any building that is a Grade I Listed building is notable? Lugnuts (talk) 07:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Delete The list currently contains no sources and as it stands it will be impossible to properly source this article for verification. Furthermore, this list violates WP:IINFO as the topic is too broad for the list to pass our notability guidelines. Themfromspace (talk) 08:02, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Keep Each of he buildings listed is inherently notable - is considered to be " "buildings of exceptional interest". In England, the authority for listing under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 rests with English Heritage, a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport." The list can be added to with further details of year, architect, location etc as I'm doing with List of Grade I listed buildings in Somerset and several lists which started in the same state are now featured lists eg Grade I listed buildings in Bristol & Grade I listed buildings in Greater Manchester. They serve a different function to categories which only show those Garde I buildings with articles.— Rod ^talk 08:06, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Keep per Lugnuts and Rod. The redlinks included in this list cannot be included in categories and one reference is enough to confirm the status of the buildings. It's like the NRHP. You only need to link to the institution to confirm the place is on the list and there is ample chance for expansion. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Keep - perfectly "maintainable" as new listings are not particularly frequent. Useful compilation, going beyond what can be included in categories. The featured list at Grade I listed buildings in Greater Manchester shows the way forward - the existing list is the bare bones and has potential to be expanded along similar lines. PamD (talk) 09:45, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Keep. Helpful list of notable buildings. I'm not sure I understand User:Themfromspace's concerns that "it will be impossible to properly source this article for verification". All of these buildings are on the national list of listed buildings, which is available for public inspection at National Monuments Record, Kemble Drive, Swindon. I believe this source meets the requirements of WP:V. JulesH (talk) 09:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Keep As per PamD above.--Harkey (talk) 10:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Comment My concern with this article's sourcing is that a potential user wouldn't know if any and all of the buildings on this list are really Grade I listed buildings in North Yorkshire. Listing a source at the bottom of a list this long does nothing for verification of the individual entries of the list. To check that a building is really Grade I listed, a user would have to root around on the listed source. Wikipedia should serve as more than a redirect to the official source. There's no adequate sourcing to say that these buildings are really Grade I listed. To a discerning user looking for sourcing, this article provides little to no help and unless all of these buildings are verified as being Grade I listed. I can see no point of having this article around as its length and breadth combined with minimal to non-existant sourcing isn't helpful or encyclopedic. Themfromspace (talk) 10:22, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
  • I really don't understand this. Any individual building on the list can be easily verified. I've also added a link at the bottom of the article to National Heritage's search engine, which should be able to pull up detailed information for most if not all of these buildings. Certainly the ones I tested it with came up. I also understand that the relevant county/city councils can provide copies of the list of buildings in their area. This seems to present no issue of verifiability to me. JulesH (talk) 12:11, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Although, it may be worth actually verifying this list, rather than just being theoretically able to do so. One of the random tests I just ran to try to determine whether all the areas listed had their buildings included turned up an entry that was Grade II, not Grade I.[1] I've removed that entry, but this is somewhat concerning about the accuracy of the rest of the list. JulesH (talk) 12:17, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

It's actually Grade I. IoE was out of date and I hadn't yet updated the reference to include the English Heritage Gateway. I have now. I'll add individual references in time.Major-General Clanger (talk) 19:55, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• • It does, however, appear that all the regions included in the list have their lists in the search database (which I'm led to believe lacks data for some regions). The anomaly I describe above is the only one of around 15 searches I've run that has been incorrectly listed. JulesH (talk) 12:21, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Note the lists can also include grade A churches which are not searchable as a separate category on the source database. Grade A is the old designation for Grade I for those churches that have not been recategorised as yet. Keith D (talk) 12:29, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Keep The list is finite as it lists all currently listed on the source specified as that is where is was derived from. It forms part of a series of lists for England, one per county. The lists have recently been created and are in the process of being improved. Grade I listed buildings in Bristol is a featured list which is the aim for the series of lists but they all have to start somewhere. Keith D (talk) 12:29, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Keep as per KeithD's comments about there being a finite number of items that can go in the list. This should be a good, useful resource for both readers and editors, and will be an excellent addition to WP almost-instinct 13:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Keep - useful for both information and navigation. (and probably construction) WilyD 14:33, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• Keep. The list is useful, contains inherently notable items, and would be more useful if it were sourced more. In fact, this AfD should be a wake-up call to those who feel strongly that the list should be kept to work quickly to source it. But the lack of sources should not determine whether it is kept or deleted. Finally, a list and category have differing functions, and so one cannot make simple arguments playing one off against the other in the way some have done so far.  DDStretch  (talk) 15:06, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment I hate to say this but that wake up call could apply to most of the lists at Category:Lists of Grade I listed buildings in England by county & the amount of work in doing that is enormous - I've already spend at least 6 hrs on List of Grade I listed buildings in Somerset & it still has a long way to go - multiply this by all the counties & a lot of editors would do nothing else for a long while!— Rod ^talk 15:16, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment I know, it is a big job, but we have to start somewhere, and dealing with articles that crop up here where mention is made of the lack of sources is one way of determining a strategy for choosing which ones to deal with first. It merely highlights the problems of allowing articles to be written in which the appropriate verification is not added at the point of adding the material: an often fatal mistake well known to anyone who has had experience of writing up anything that can be challenged on grounds of evidence and suchlike. However, as I said, I don't think it should be a big argument counting in favour of the article being deleted in this case.  DDStretch  (talk) 15:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• Keep But I would say that wouldn't I. I've produced the equivalent list for every county in England. There is no other source on the Internet for these lists (except my flickr group). There is, however - new this month - the Heritage Gateway site which allows easy verification, and I am checking all the pages and updating them with the new reference - as alluded to above this is not quick work. It is not true that the article has 'no' sources - I will add individual references in due course but for now they can all be checked against the reference given. The topic is absolutely not "too broad" - this is the official list of the most important buildings in England.

I have also added dozens of buildings to the categories as I discovered them by wikifying the lists. Two or three lists already existed - at least one of which Grade I listed buildings in Bristol is a featured list, so you'd have to delete that too. And while you're about it you'd have to question the featured lists for "tallest buildings in Chicago" etc etc. I intend to modify the lists to match the same format as the featured lists but decided to start with stub lists to provide the most useful information - which buildings are Grade I (i.e. the 6000 officially 'most important' buildings in England).

The flickr group I mentioned has 4000 pictures, many of which the owners will be willing to license for inclusion in these articles. Rod has already picked up the baton and is planning to write many new articles based on his local list - I will doing the same for Wiltshire, at least. Even where there is not immediate scope for a full article, linkage can be made to a section in an article on a village.

I don't need a wake up call - just a few hundred more hours :-)Major-General Clanger (talk) 19:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

• Keep The list should be improved with information such as dates of completion and architect names, however the fact that an article is in need of improvement is nowhere near reason enough to delete it. King of the North East 20:12, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

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.