Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of independent bookstores in the United States

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. I'll have a go at this - strip the redlinks onto the talk page, put in an editnotice ... hopefully that should fix most of the problems. Black Kite (t) (c) 16:48, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of independent bookstores in the United States[edit]

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Unreferenced steaming pile of redlinks for non-notable organizations, currently serving as a superconducting magnet for spammy external links WuhWuzDat 03:50, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Uncontrollable list, blatant spam-bait. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 03:52, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete discounting inappropriate links (which i removed), i get 30 actual, notable names on this list. i just made sure each store is given that category, so i dont think this list adds much. it does list them by state, but if we trim the redlinks, we will have less than 1 per state on average, so really adding the city next to them is all we would preserve. This would be nice, i suppose, but we arent a book store search page, and the obvious main use is as a commercial directory, so to save us trouble, i say delete. too easy for indie bookstores to violate their knowledge of library science and encyclopedia construction and add themselves here. i cry for the loss of local stores, but this isnt the way to revive them. there are some notable stores here, but they can be added as articles, even by a store clerk, as long as they arent breathlessly promotional.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 04:29, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as usual, all we need do is remove those without articles or significant mention in articles. It's true that deleting all articles with spam would get rid of the spam, but somehow that does not seem a reasonable approach to building an encyclopedia. Categories and lists are complementary, and there is no reason not to have both. Lists have the particular advantage of providing some information about the material in which they appear, thus facilitating identification and browsing. Browsing is a key function of an encyclopedia. As a general rule, for topics like this, if there is a category, there should be a list. DGG ( talk ) 04:30, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

if kept, i will gladly remove the redlinked and unlinked stores, and may actually keep a few if i can find references add next to their names on the list. Dreamhaven should be easy, for example. thanks to nominator for at least starting to rationalize the list by adding hidden text to stop external link spam.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 04:46, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and remove all red links. It might be good to put the redlinks on the talk page, since someone thought these were special stores. I bet Alaska has at least on notable book store, and it may just be Title Wave. In fact, it does look notable.[1] - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:58, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Mercurywoodrose. JBsupreme (talk) ✄ ✄ ✄ 07:32, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - This is another one of those lists, like "Youngest Politicians," that is pretty impossible to rein in. As it sits, it's basically gonna be about a 40,000 redlink mess, if taken to logical extreme. I do think that the concept of an index of Wikipedia articles on independent bookstores is important — but that's best left for the "Categories" feature, is it not? Still, if there is some way to redefine this into an index of bookstore links, which is a See Also off of independent bookstore, I could see that as a valuable navigating tool for the average user, who is not apt to understand or use Categories. Also, be advised that pages like this provide valuable Wikipedia "in-links" to avoid botted orphan tags, which is also an important positive benefit, in my opinion. Bottom line: Eliminate redlinks and rename "List of notable independent bookstores in the United States. Carrite (talk) 14:20, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see that this is a secondary list page off of independent bookstores — which has a See Also first listing independent bookstores by country and then this breaking things down to the state level. I think that's well-intentioned, but this definitely needs to have the redlinks dropped, since there are many thousands of independent bookstores in America and the long-term result of this page is going to be a mess. Carrite (talk) 14:24, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 17:11, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Mercurywoodrose. I really just don't think this is fixable. Even looking at the handful of non-redlinks in there I see that a bulk of them likely wouldn't pass an AFD. These kind of situations are exactly what we have categories for. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:13, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Independent bookstores in the US is a notable topic - given the market situation - some book refs: [2], [3], [4], [5] - so a list is an appropriate complement. Just remove the red-linked ones (some have already volunteered to do this) and post a note on the talk page asking that further entries be supported either by a WP article or by two good 3rd party refs. The American Booksellers Association keeps close tabs on its independent bookstore membership; 1,600 in 2009 [6]. A bookstore's membership in this organization may or may not show notability, but it does demonstrate that the number of entries has limits and so is manageable. Novickas (talk) 16:44, 4 August 2010 (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.