Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fastest production cars by acceleration

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. Black Kite (t) (c) 00:54, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of fastest production cars by acceleration[edit]

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In the past weeks when I attempted to clean up to improve the quality of this list, all I got was edit warring by various IP editors who wish to include their non-eligible modified dream car onto this list without even discussing why it should be mentioned and another editor who objected to my attempt for a cleanup as I intended to tighten up the listing criteria. My reasoning is that anything less than 4 second is nowadays easily achievable by any modern $150k exotics that they see on Top Gear (as well as less than 13 seconds for quarter mile times) by the looks of this list, which was rare 20 years ago.

My attempt to reason with an editor have failed as he wanted a comparison of times by those currently on the market and those recently discontinued (looking at the state of the list) rather than what this list is intended for, about the list of fastest accelerating cars, especially when he has done nothing to deal with this edit warring that resulted in this article being semi-protected, it is difficult to source reliable third party times as media have the tendency to use manufacturer claims (which is not always reliable), therefore this list is heavily reliant on original research, otherwise unsourced, because that editor doesn’t want to deal with any problems on this list. I don’t think it is well referenced like it claimed on the original nomination; otherwise, things have changed since then.

I am very willing to withdraw this nomination if there is any reasonable way to clean up this list but not in this current state per reason. Donnie Park (talk) 09:34, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - not necessarily a nomination to delete this article, more of how it can be improved and I do not agree in this state. Donnie Park (talk) 11:00, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep - I do not find that claim that the article is WP:OR convincing. WP:PRIMARY sources are allowed if used carefully and the article contains WP:SECONDARY sources as well. Having dismissed the WP:OR claim, I see no other WP:DEL#REASON in the arguments presented above. This WP:AfD seems to be motived by an editing war. This is concerning, especially in light of the fact that no effort has been make on the talk page of this article to resolve the disputes in question. Sailing to Byzantium (talk) 10:18, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay though primarily not really a nomination to delete this article, how are you going to improve on this article if you had to, surely not in this state as any $150k bedroom wall dream car can achieve these times, wheras 20 years ago, it was impossible. Donnie Park (talk) 10:57, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying that the decision on whether to include a car in the list needs to be stricter? Like only including cars with a 0–100 km/h time under 3 seconds? That would be something to discuss on the talk page but not a reason to delete the article. If someone keeps reverting edits without participating in the discussion, the process for dealing with that is outlined in WP:DR. If you've got a good reason for your changes but a malicious user keeps undoing them, WP:DR will take care of it. Sailing to Byzantium (talk) 11:09, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not that strict, my original proposal was 3.4 seconds and 12 seconds maybe 3 seconds in 5/10 years time. Donnie Park (talk) 11:34, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - we have List of automotive superlatives which tells fastest cars then we have also List of fastest production cars which should be deleted also... -->Typ932 ^T·C 11:04, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That list is huge and per WP:SALAT should probably be broken up into separate lists. Deleting this article and adding the information to the superlative list would just make the problem worse. Further, this article provides far more information on speed than the superlative list, which only lists a couple of cars. Sailing to Byzantium (talk) 11:12, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - 'fastest production cars by acceleration' is a curious subject for a superlative list. While fastest cars by speed is a very common subject and accereleration is likewise a common industry statistic, combining the two to make a new superlative list not in common anywhere really. I find that a list like this, not in common usage is not really encyclopedic. If I had to site something, I'd suggest WP:TRIVIA. --Falcadore (talk) 12:58, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:TRIVIA explicitly "does not suggest the inclusion or exclusion of any information; it only gives style recommendations. Issues of inclusion are addressed by content policies." Sailing to Byzantium (talk) 20:45, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This article is over six years old and hasn't had a successful nomination for deletion. It is well written and well sourced and I think it is difficult to make an argument against WP:SALAT. I think it would be a shame to delete the article with an WP:AfD motivated by an editing war. Sailing to Byzantium (talk) 18:17, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Well sourced" huh! More like fallen into disrepair consisting of unsourced pieces and as with well written, more like a stub piece that needs more info written to it, not to mention, it would never qualify for DYK due to its length, don't forget, things have changed over the years. Plus how do you know claimed acceleration times by manufacturer are accurate. Donnie Park (talk) 18:40, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is not well written, it is barely written at all. The article lead is just two sentences long. It does not even attempt to explain the title of the article. Having escaped scrutiny for six years is not a reason to keep. --Falcadore (talk) 22:03, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I don't think that disagreement with the current scope of the article is a good enough reason to have it deleted. It could do with a bit of Wikifying though, as Falcadore points out. -- de Facto (talk). 22:33, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Context: there was a deleted comment above this one. This is not in response to DeFacto.) You keep repeating this, but it is not a valid argument in favor of deletion. You're having a content dispute with other editors of the article and instead of discussing it on the talk page or working through WP:DR you want to delete the article. I note no effort on your part to have a dialogue with the other editors of this page. This is not the appropriate forum for a content dispute and this AfD should be closed as keep, in part to discourage such behavior. The only argument I've seen that actually has merit is one based on WP:SALAT, but in my opinion no one has carried that burden. Per WP:NOTEVERYTHING, "an article is a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject". The cars themselves meet WP:N and I believe this list is encyclopedic, or at least certainly has the potential to become so. Sailing to Byzantium (talk) 20:45, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you work on improving the article, this delete discussion can be made irrelevant. It is up to you. --Falcadore (talk) 21:08, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's not correct. Per WP:BEFORE, "If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a good candidate for AfD." Further, an AfD cannot pass unless WP:DEL#REASON are shown. None are presented in the AfD, a few weak ones have been shown in the comments, and overall I don't think the burden has been met. It's up to whoever performs the closure, of course. Sailing to Byzantium (talk) 21:48, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Such a list compiling data gained from ununiform testing methods really doesn't help the reader.Curb Chain (talk) 12:56, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 15:09, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 15:10, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep A few musings: Is it encyclopedic? Well acceleration seems to be one way to measure a car's performance; and an article comparing various cars by that measure would seem within the realm of lists (we have plenty of Lists of Foos by Measurement of Somthing and where that something matters, it seems to be encyclopedic). There are numerous ways to measure acceleration as the article notes; however, there are numerous ways to measure lengths of geography: we have List of countries by length of coastline, when we have no uniform method of measuring how long a coastline really is; see: How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension. So, it's encyclopedic; so it should be kept. That it is based on un-uniform measurements seems to be no impediment, that point should be adequately flagged in the article.
Keep - all lists like this one, and similar are very useful.--BabbaQ (talk) 14:30, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per Falcadore. OSX (talk • contributions) 10:49, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete There are no uniform testing methods. The individual results may be difficult to replicate by others. Designed by the auto manufacturers and their marketers to increase the amount of boastful superlatives (BS). CZmarlin (talk) 12:22, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Valid topic, interesting list, content cars are notable, definition is good enough to make it all of these. Acceleration is a very commonly used metric, carmakers spend $ billions trying to achieve it. Trouble with inappropriate additions by other editors is not a reason to delete an article. North8000 (talk) 18:09, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Trouble is that those times cant be compared, they are made by very different magazines or what ever publications, its gives false info about cars. The same problem is List of fastest production cars which has been nominated twice for deletion, these lists are just "fanboy" stuff not encyclopedic content. -->Typ932 ^T·C 19:11, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The same could be said for lots of Wikipedia topics. The solution is the same as it is for those (e.g. wp:ver and editor work) rather than deletion of the article. And this is from someone (me) who thinks that there are too many list articles. :-) North8000 (talk) 22:07, 6 August 2011 (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.