Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of conservation areas in England (2nd nomination)

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 no consensus. There does seem to be consensus, however, that the article is not in good condition, both on accuracy and structure. Hopefully someone can find the time to improve the article and more generally the coverage of the topic on Wikipedia, as this will be the best insurance against future AfD's, which will inevitably happen if the article is unchanged. It might be worth talking to the relevant wikiproject to get some help. ‑Scottywong | confess _ 18:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of conservation areas in England‎[edit]

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This article was up for deletion five years ago and was allowed to stay assuming it would be added to and be updated. The list has been pretty stagnant for the last five years, and is really original research of an undefined sub section of conservation areas: the list is an attempt at urban conservation areas, but this is not an easily definable term. My own district is significantly wrong; claiming many more urban areas, but excluding the 120 odd village and rural conservation area. The article is not of assistance, contains errors and causes confusion and no editor has seen fit to try and fix it in the last five years. Warren (talk) 13:40, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am a little concerned about how much of the evidence to delete in this AfD relies on claims from the only WP:PRIMARY source subtype that I ever had any misgivings about: anecdotal evidence of eyewitnesses; in this case, WP editors (other PRIMARies have quite rightly been allowed back into WP with qualifications, as they come from trustworthy sources). Where is the proof that the article is in error? Anarchangel (talk) 20:48, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2012 April 13. Snotbot t • c » 13:59, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:24, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:25, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep It is our explicit policy that articles may be incomplete or otherwise imperfect and there is no deadline for work be completed. If someone wants to update this list then official data can be found here. Warden (talk) 16:30, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note - The fact that no editor has wanted to contribute to the article in any meaningful way in the last five years is obviously a concern, but more importantly, it is based on the assumption that "urban conservation areas" can be defined, and then listed. An article this incomplete and erroneous can only be kept in WP:INCUBATION at best, if not deleted. Warren (talk) 16:43, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Keep It is our explicit policy that articles may be incomplete or otherwise imperfect and there is no deadline for work be completed" does not address article's notability. LibStar (talk) 03:08, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That comment addresses the points made by the nomination which do not include notability. Warden (talk) 08:12, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The topic obviously has potential: look at how well developed List of conservation areas in Brighton and Hove is. postdlf (talk) 03:18, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I am inclined to think that this article should be kept, but that it should be (eventually) a list of lists. I would have thought that there would be lists of conservation articles for most of the areas of England, but I could find only two. See Special:Prefixindex/List of conservation areas. These would be worthwhile lists and I am quite surprised that no one has created such lists. Apparently there would be too many for one list, so it would need to by broken up be areas. •••Life of Riley (T–C) 21:21, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
delete Warden presents an excellent official up to date link, there is no reason why an out of date, WP list should replace this. Thanks Warden for finding the link LibStar (talk) 03:08, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We delete articles when the information contained is not available elsewhere, not because it is available elsewhere. The opinion above flies in the face of our verifiability policy. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

so should we put up bus timetables etc? WP is not a substitute for lists that are kept up to date and official. LibStar (talk) 09:18, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My comment simply was simply pointing out the obvious fallacy in the argument that you made above, rather than an argument for keeping either this article or any potential posting of bus timetables etc. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:18, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The bar is being moved so frequently that it ceases to make sense. Above, the rationale that there is no deadline for completion is pitted against an implication that the subject is not notable, when they are separate issues. Here, the no-deadline rule is ignored altogether, and Warden's reason to keep, an "up to date link", is used as a reason to delete. Anarchangel (talk) 00:53, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Per my reply above, Warden's source, and Phil Bridger's rationale Anarchangel (talk) 00:53, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(With slight regret) delete -- Conservation areas are generally small areas of a town or village. Where articles are linked, they are on the whole town or village. If we had articles on individual conservation areas (or Conservation Area sections in larger articles), an article listing them, thus identifying (as redlinks) articles that are needed would be useful. This could properly form the basis for a category or treew of categories. However, the majority of conservation areas are not per se notable, and most will accordingly not need articles. It follows that no list article is needed. My objection is not primarily about incompleteness or verifiability, as there should be no difficulty in finding sources on particualr conservation areas on Local Authority websites. My objection concerns the notability of the subject matter. My village has a conservation area, but it consists of the station and one street, perhaps 50 houses out of a couple of thousand. In my local town, much of the town centre is a conservation area, but the WP article is on the town, not the town centre. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:20, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. We have no deadline, but readers do expect our information to be reasonably accurate. An inaccurate article is worse than useless. If we fail to maintain this article in a useful state for five years (and consequently for the foreseeable future), then we are better off not having it at all. Sandstein 07:55, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:27, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Restructure by splitting -- (slightly changing vote) This article is hopelessly overambitious. It is trying to fulfil a function that is much better done by a category. I would suggest one list-article for each county. These articles should each contain (in tabular form) a list of named conservation areas; a brief description of the area covered (or a link to the article on the Conservation Area itself), including what is special about it; the place where it is; and the responsible Local Planning Authority. As I said above, the town centres of Stourbridge and Bromsgrove are both Conservation Areas, as is Station Road, Hagley, but we have no article spcifically on any of these, only on the places of whaich they are part. These articles should all be in Category:Conservation Area lists. When the split is complete, this article should be deleted. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:16, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree with that, yet: who does the restructuring?Marikafragen (talk) 01:38, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You have a point. I do not have the time; neverthless that is the best solution. The alternative is to keep it but tag it accordingly in the hope that some one will do so. Peterkingiron (talk) 14:15, 29 April 2012 (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.