Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of shopping malls in Thailand (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, leaning towards keep. The argument for deletion, to the extent it depends on WP:NOTGUIDE and unmaintainability, has been implicitly refuted by DGG's argument, i.e., that this is actually supposed to be a list of notable malls ("I expect some will be found non-notable and deleted"). The prone to OR argument has also been rebutted. While this article is not in good shape currently, there is not nearly enough support for a "delete and start from scratch" close to be justified. T. Canens (talk) 08:49, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of shopping malls in Thailand[edit]

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WP:IINFO. These kinds of lists are unencyclopedic and unmaintainable. --Divebomb is not British 19:13, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Also, please see the following AFDs

as well ----Divebomb is not British 20:08, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also...

-- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:11, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. There are many similar lists - can you provide some policy-based reason to support deletion? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:23, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Is my original rationale not sufficient? Also be aware that I have begun PRODding the "many similar lists" you speak of. ----Divebomb is not British 19:29, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Personally I don't think so - see Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Just unencyclopedic. But you may still get a consensus here, so we'll wait and see. Thanks for letting me know about the other PRODs, but as some such articles have been taken to AfD before and have been kept, I don't think PROD is appropriate now, so I hope you won't be offended if I contest your PRODs and suggest AfD - though perhaps it would be better to wait for this one to conclude so we can get a feel for community consensus before nominating the others? Best regards -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:41, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - Right. The "unmaintainable" argument, however, still stands. ----Divebomb is not British 19:48, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - Be advised, I have begun sending the de-PRODded lists to AFD. If anyone else wants to help, please do. ----Divebomb is not British 19:52, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        "Unmaintainable" is somewhat subjective. If you see a whole category of articles that have been around for a long time, and a number of them have already survived AfD (Lists in particular have been controversial over the years), it's usually better to just nominate one or two of them to gauge consensus rather than do a mass PROD/AfD on all of them - if the consensus is to keep them, it'll save an awful lot of work. So I'd really recommend you don't AfD them all until we've seen the result for one or two first. But if you do, you should really cross-reference them all with each other, so people commenting on one can see them all -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:55, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        I fail to see how "it is impossible to ever list all the shopping malls in Country X" is subjective. ----Divebomb is not British 20:03, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        Well, that's not actually what you said, but I see now that's what you meant. One problem is that any comment along the lines of "Impossible to always keep this article up to date" would apply to most articles. Anyway, I respect your opinion - I just think your argument would be stronger if you had some policy-based reasoning behind it, especially as these list articles seem to be kept whenever they're taken to AfD. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:18, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        
        AFDs cross-referenced. Phew. Suddenly my intense dislike of centralized xFDs seems ridiculous. ----Divebomb is not British 20:11, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        Hehe :-) That's kinda why its usually best to start with just a small handful of them. By the way, I haven't offered my opinion here yet because I'm never sure with these list articles - I did do a lot of work improving this one after its last AfD resulted in its being kept, but if the consensus this time is to delete it then that'll be fine. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:18, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per these lists are prone to OR and Wikipedia is not a travel guide. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 19:42, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think "Not a travel guide" applies, as there's nothing in these articles that is specifically travel-related - they apply just as much to the inhabitants of the countries/districts in question. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:25, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - while the list is in a rather sorry state, it is not unmaintainable in principle. Many of Thailand's malls are individually notable; I thus also fail to see why such a list would be unencyclopedic. It seems to serve several of the purposes laid out in WP:LIST, namely navigation and development. While, as The Bushranger notes, OR is a problem, that would be a reason for cleanup, not an indication that the list should be deleted wholesale. Huon (talk) 21:11, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment If so many of them are individually notable, then why are there so few links? I don't buy your rationale for a second. ----Divebomb is not British 16:30, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are many notable things in the world that Wikipedia does not yet have articles for, so the absence of a linked article does not imply non-notability. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:45, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the absence of an assertion of notability, I am forced to assume non-notability. Simple. As. That. ----Divebomb is not British 17:03, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Admittedly this article has fewer blue links than its daughter, List of shopping malls in Bangkok. If I lived in Thailand and could read Thai, I could probably write a few stubs right now to make the notability more obvious. But I'd assume that in general, significant news coverage should be rather easy to come by for a structure the size of a mall. Huon (talk) 17:36, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't live in Thailand and I can't read Thai. I can't verify any of the information. How do I know, for example, that the "Fairyland Plaza" mall in Nakhon Sawan even exists, let alone if it is notable? Hence my assumption of non-notability. ----Divebomb is not British 17:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

When I checked last, our guidelines allowed non-English sources if no English ones were available. I'm pretty sure malls in Australia aren't inherently more notable than malls in Thailand just because you can read the sources about the former, but not the latter. Anyway, I'm not claiming that every single entry on that list could be turned into an article, and Fairyland Plaza indeed seems non-notable, even non-verifiable. But that's a matter for cleanup, not AfD. Huon (talk) 19:14, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am perfectly aware of the non-English source allowance and I'm not even sure why you said that. ----Divebomb is not British 19:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Thailand-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:30, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Malls-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:32, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:33, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Standard list, "unmaintainable" would only apply if the list was infinite. But if time is infinite then even List of Popes and List of Presidents of the United States will be "unmaintainable" by that standard. And of course every article and every list is prone to OR. If it weren't we wouldn't need the revert button. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Popes are elected when the old one dies. US Presidents are elected when the old President's term ends. Shopping malls are built all the time. ----Divebomb is not British 17:01, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Clearly defined list of a notable topic. EVERY article has the potential to be unmaintainable and prone to OR - AfD is not for cleanup. Lists and categories go hand-in-hand per WP:CLN. Lugnuts (talk) 10:23, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. (Adding same comment to all articles above). I've read the arguments for deletion, for this and all the other articles listed above, and I don't see any valid policy-based reasons for deletion. Open to OR? All articles are, and if there is any actual OR, we should improve or remove it rather than delete the article. Unencyclopedic? See Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Just unencyclopedic. Unmaintainable? Maybe it will never be completely up to date, but no article will ever be - and a number of these articles appear to be getting updated fairly regularly. Unreferenced? If the individual entries are bluelinked, then their own articles will have references, so those don't necessarily need additional references in the list article (and if you think they do, just copy one across). Genuinely unreferenced entries should be referenced if possible, or marked {{cn}} and given some time before possibly being removed. But this is all cleanup, and that's not what AfD is for - you don't delete articles just because some content is unreferenced. Tourist guide? There's nothing "tourist guide" about any of them - "tourist guide" refers to prices, recommendations, directions, promotional wording, etc. These are just geographic-based lists, which are applicable to anyone rather than specifically tourists, and if we deleted everything that's geographic we'd have nothing left - everything is somewhere. Some are too short to be needed as a list and a category will suffice? Well, all lists start off short - and there are distinct advantages and disadvantages of both lists and categories, and previous discussions have always failed to gain a consensus of one over the other. At least some of these articles are lists of things that are sufficiently notable to have their own articles, and they just provide a collection of links to them - and that's one of the things that list articles are for, as a complement to categories. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:50, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete -

the resulting articles need not include every tourist attraction, restaurant, hotel or venue, etc.
— WP:NOTGUIDE

NotARealWord (talk) 15:29, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think "hotel or venue, etc". should include any type of commercial centre or tourist spot. Thus, I'm sure we shouldn't have these kinds of lists. NotARealWord (talk) 17:42, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What has "hotel or venue", "commercial centre", or "tourist spot" got to do with it? It's a list of shopping malls. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:15, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in order to help develop the articles. In a part of the world we find difficult to work with, a list with a considerable number of unlinked malls or redlinks like this can be justified I expect some will be found non-notable and deleted--& fwiw, most of my opinions at AfD for individual malls have been delete. I think commercial establishments are meant to be included among the etc.-- it's a restatement of the principle of NOT INDISCRIMINATE, an important requirement to be an encyclopedia rather than a mere web directory. But this list when developed will not be indiscriminate. DGG ( talk ) 01:10, 5 December 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.