Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of diver training organizations

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. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 11:50, 20 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of diver training organizations[edit]

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This article has deteriorated into a list of names and weblinks of any organisation that offers dive training, and Wikipedia is not a directory. The selection criteria for this list is simply too imprecise to keep out spammers and the list no longer has encyclopedic value. RexxS (talk) 22:55, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:41, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anything raised in your deletion rationale except for cleanup and maintenance issues. Those are not valid grounds for deletion; see WP:NOTCLEANUP and WP:SUSCEPTIBLE. And the selection criteria could simply be "merits an article", as it is with most lists of X where most examples of X are not notable. postdlf (talk) 01:01, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The current title allows a huge number of non-notable organisations on the grounds that they are organised groups of people and that they train divers. Virtually every dive shop, dive school and dive club in the world fits this requirement.

What criterion for notability would we apply in this case?

A more exclusive criterion would be diver certification organisations which independently issue diver certification recognised by at least one other notable organisation. The organisations currently listed are mostly in this category. I suspect that this was the original intention for the list, but the name was not well chosen, and no conditions for inclusion were provided. A better name for the article might be 'List of diver certification organisations • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:05, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What criterion? Simply, "does this merit an article"? For which we have WP:ORG and WP:GNG (probably nothing more subject-specific) to guide us in that determination. If it already has an article, then it obviously goes in, and judging from Category:Underwater diving training organizations it looks like there are plenty of articles on individual orgs. If it's a redlink, then we remove it if there's no reason to believe it should have an article based on available secondary sources. This is not a new problem or one unique to this list. We do this all the time.
And it's simply a matter of style choice that the title does not include "notable" as a limitation; the omission of that does not legally bind us to literally include all training organizations that exist. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists#List naming: "[T]he precise inclusion criterion of the list should be spelled out in the lead section (see below), not the title. For instance, words like 'complete,' 'famous' and 'notable' are normally excluded from list titles. Instead, the lead makes clear whether the list is complete, or is limited to famous or notable members (i.e., those that merit articles)." postdlf (talk) 16:30, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately you are mistaken, Postdlf. "Has a Wikipedia article" is not an acceptable list inclusion criterion for anything other than navigation pages. If the article is to be a list of diver certifying agencies, then there are grounds for the maintenance you suggest - although I don't see that you've made any attempt to do the maintenance yourself, otherwise I guess you would have realised how difficult it is to work out, for example, whether SNSI in Italy is actually a certifying agency, considering that the article is essentially free of any references that would help decide that point. As it stands, it is a spam magnet and continual clean-up is not a productive use of dwindling editor resources. --RexxS (talk) 21:35, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a navigational list in as much as it lists articles by a fact their subjects share in common, complementary to Category:Underwater diving training organizations. If an organization's status as such cannot be verified, then it should not only not be in the list, but also not be in that category (and its notability would be questionable if such basic info is not available in any RS). Verifying individual entries is, again, a clean up issue, as there are no doubt notable orgs for which that fact can be verified. BTW, I assume you meant to treat "training" and "certification" synonymously here, but it would be more clear to stick to the term the list uses. postdlf (talk) 22:35, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No it isn't a navigational list. The only ones that exist outside of category space are disambiguation pages. Don't get confused with the requirements for what needs to be included in a category - that properly only includes Wikipedia pages. A "diver training organisation" may be taken to be an organisation that delivers diver training and there are thousands of dive shops, dive centres and dive clubs that do that. It's simply too broad for a sustainable list. You also assume wrongly: Diver certification is a process defined by a diver certification agency which has to meet certain agreed standards in most jurisdictions world-wide; Diver training is the process undergone by a trainee diver in order to receive a certification. The number of agencies that set the certification process is relatively small; the number of outlets that are licensed to carry out the training is legion. And therein lies the problem with this article. --RexxS (talk) 04:37, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Care to tell us where you got the idea that the only "navigational lists" in article space are disambiguation pages? See WP:LISTPURP, which explains that navigation between related articles is one of the main functions lists perform.
I've also already addressed above the incorrect notion that this list is somehow obligated to include the "thousands" of such organizations, just because they exist; the truth is that we can limit it to only organizations that merit articles and we do this routinely with lists. Whether you want this list to include "training organizations", as it and its corresponding category presently do, or "certifying organizations" is a separate issue and not an AFD concern, one you can deal with through normal editing and discussion).
I also don't know where you got the idea that the list cannot have the same inclusion criteria as the category; WP:CLN tells us the exact opposite, that they are complementary methods of organization. We could decide that a list and a category of the same name have different selection criteria, if we see some value in including non-notable entries for example, or we could decide that a list be limited to notable entries only and so have only the articles that go in the corresponding category. postdlf (talk) 15:43, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The main purpose of stand-alone lists is to provide information, not navigation - see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Stand-alone lists. Here's the list of Featured Lists - please feel free to point out to me the ones that are navigation lists. This article is a stand-alone list. It has a clear description in the lead of what it contains: "This page lists SCUBA diver training organizations". The article on diver training states "Competent diving instructors may work independently or through a university, a dive club, a dive school or a dive shop. They will offer courses that meet, or exceed, the standards of the certification organization that they work with. Many dive shops in popular holiday locations offer courses that try to teach you to dive in a few days, and can be combined with your vacation". So yes, universities, dive clubs, dive schools and dive shops may be diver training organisations, and tens of thousands of them are eligible for this article as it stands. As you already know, subjects that are not notable are just as acceptable as entries in lists, which is why we don't use "Has a Wikipedia article" as the inclusion criterion. In any case, this article already has masses of entries that fit the current selection criteria (and potentially many thousands more). If you want to change the selection criteria to something useful (and "Has a Wikipedia article" isn't - because of the Western ethnocentric bias in en-wp), then please tell us how to trim the current list to fit your new criteria for "List of diver training organizations" at the same time. If it was that easy, it would have been done by now. --RexxS (talk) 22:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your comments continue to suggest that you still haven't read or understood WP:LISTPURP and WP:CLN regarding the navigational function of lists, but whatever. As you asked, I looked through the list of Featured Lists, and the FL List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people: A (among a few others in the same alpha-divided series) would be seen by most editors as primarily a navigational list. It is an annotated index of articles and articles only (i.e., "has a Wikipedia article" as the only inclusion criteria for which verified GLB people to include) subdivided alphabetically for convenience. postdlf (talk) 00:09, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've read them, and I understand - although you seem not to - that they don't represent the reality of lists on Wikipedia, as I've tried to explain to you. You see a list like List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people: A with a relatively full lead and each entry having birth & death dates, nationality, notability, notes and a reference ("annotations"!!); and you suggest it is "seen by most editors as primarily a navigational list" - and that was the best you can do? We obviously aren't likely to have much common ground, are we? Nevertheless, in the interest of finding consensus, I'll cheerfully concede that a "List of famous X" will almost certainly contain only entries that have a Wikipedia article, and "List of notable X" will always fit that bill, even when they are not navigational. But does that help us with "List of diver training organizations"? Are you suggesting that we retrospectively change the selection criterion to be "notable diver training organizations", and chop out all the ones that don't have a Wikipedia article? --RexxS (talk) 04:43, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If the article is to be deleted, what do we do with the useful information?

One possibility is merge into an article titled Diver training and certification or something similar. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:36, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is a stub Diving certification, which is a redirect from Diver certification (possibly a better title) which might serve. Diver certification agencies is a redirect to List of diver training organizations, and would also be a better title. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:49, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The information is never lost, but it may be better to write the article you suggest, Peter, with an accurate title and manageable inclusion criteria. That would also allow the possibility of this list becoming a redirect to such an article rather that just being deleted. --RexxS (talk) 21:35, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What about a Smerge? Bearian (talk) 20:03, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I appreciate nom's concerns. Left alone one of three things will happen. (A) someone will set a limiting criterion and trim the list back. (B) Someone will set a limiting criterion, but not trim the list back, so that it will grow, but only slowly. (C) It will get parsed out by geographically, and you'll have pages like "List of diver training organizations in Australia." All three outcomes would be enough of an improvement. I don't see a need to delete the page as it currently is, and potential spamability, while a concern, is not a criterion for deletion. Listmeister (talk) 18:05, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 05:33, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep I don't see any reason why this shouldn't be kept. It's a standard list article, which is aide to navigation. The worries about quality control and spam are misplaced. The normal WP quality control processes will keep the list in order. I would certainly remove the URL's at the end of each entry as they incite advertisement, which is not the WP way. scope_creep (talk) 00:53, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per my above comments, which scope_creep also summarizes concisely. postdlf (talk) 18:55, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per scope_creep. The URL's definitely need to be either cleaned up or removed. -- Cheers, Riley 19:16, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I can see a consensus to keep and radically clean up the article. Rather than let this run too long, I would be content to withdraw the nomination, even though I expect it will be left to me to carry out the maintenance that the other contributors to this debate have suggested. I'd be delighted to be proved wrong. --RexxS (talk) 04:54, 18 April 2013 (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.