Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/London Buses route 278 (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 redirect to List of bus routes in London. Consensus is that this topic does not have adequate sources to establish notability per WP:GNG. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 06:36, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

London Buses route 278[edit]

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Relisting per Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2021 July 14. I am neutral. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:16, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:16, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or redirect. The version I am looking at, the past, and the sources I saw are all failing WP:SIGCOV. A few sentences here and there confirm the line existed and had few different layouts. Nothing suggests it was significant to anyone but the city planners and the locals who used it. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:24, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The route doesn't need to be significant to pass WP:GNG. Do you think it passes? NemesisAT (talk) 07:34, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- NemesisAT, I don't understand your question, can you rephrase it? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:57, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  My point was that the number of people who find the route "significant" isn't relevant to a deletion discussion, and is a matter of opinion. What is relevant is whether we have ample sourcing for this article. So my question was do you think it passes WP:GNG? NemesisAT (talk) 16:10, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to List of bus routes in London per the result of the previous AfD, which I believe was the correct result. Reyk _YO! 07:07, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to List of bus routes in London as per the last AfD. I don't think the subject meets the general notability guideline. Of the sources in the article at the time of writing:

6 of the 11 are published by Transport for London and therefore aren't independent. (It isn't a good idea for an article to be mainly based on non-independent sources - WP:V.)
References 4 and 5 only seem to confirm the company operating the route and therefore aren't significant coverage.
[1] only mentions it in passing as one of many bus routes covered by a fare change, and therefore isn't significant coverage.
[2] is a self-published website of someone who's very interested in public transport - not a reliable source.
[3] is the best source cited by far. However it's a trivia book, and I suspect therefore not hugely reliable, and it only gives the subject a paragraph.

Other sources cited at DRV:

[4] is the website of a local residents' association, which isn't particularly reliable and is mostly just repeating what they were told by some public body. It also doesn't devote very much coverage to the subject.
[5] mentions it in passing as part of a long list of other bus services - not significant coverage.
[6] is behind a paywall but if you can get round that all it says is that the capacity of a certain garage will increase when route 278 starts operating - not significant coverage.

The fact that coverage of the route generally involves it being mentioned briefly as part of a list of other bus routes also suggests we should cover it as part of a list rather than as a standalone article. Hut 8.5 07:44, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I can't say I'm very impressed with [7] (linked below) either - it looks like a rewrite of a TfL announcement and therefore isn't really independent of TfL. Hut 8.5 11:43, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to List of bus routes in London per the many other AfDs for London bus routes. Absent significant coverage outside of the run-of-the-mill stuff that every bus route in London gets, I think (a) they don't qualify for articles, and (b) we can't write a decent article about them. firefly ( t · c ) 07:52, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Suggesting all London bus routes don't qualify for articles feels like a rather sweeping statement. We have routes like London Buses route 167 which survived deletion, and I have created and expanded others. NemesisAT (talk) 07:55, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The page already has plenty of sources and it is easy to find more such as this. The topic therefore passes WP:GNG and our policy WP:ATD applies, "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." Andrew🐉(talk) 08:05, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to List of bus routes in London as per the previous AfD outcome. Even with the moderate number of sources it is still not a notable route. As explained by Hut 8.5 the level of coverage is almost bare and most of the other sources are routine coverage. Ajf773 (talk) 08:45, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or Redirect - This is a restatement of my comments at Deletion Review. The proponent of keeping the article says that they have substantially improved the article by adding sources. I disagree. The adding of sources is not a substantial improvement, because the original problem was not the lack of sourcing, but that the route is run-of-the-mill, and it is still not notable. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:46, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
WP:MILL is an essay, not policy. So your reply has not given a policy-based reason for deleting this page. We have many other bus route articles on Wikipedia, do you feel we should delete them all? NemesisAT (talk) 16:06, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
User:NemesisAT - WP:MILL is a notability essay. The route is not notable for the reasons explained in the essay, and an essay sometimes contains explanatory text with which an editor concurs. Yes, there are some other bus routes that should be deleted.
Comment to User:King of Hearts as relisting admin: Should the editors who !voted in the previous AFD be notified that they may want either to make their statements again or to change their statements? Also, will the closing admin consider the previous opinions? (Sometimes, when an AFD is relisted after DRV, the original AFD is reopened. You started a new one, which is a reasonable alternate approach, but we need to include the previous editors and opinions.) Robert McClenon (talk) 15:52, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Robert McClenon: I think the closing admin here ought to reread Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/London Buses route 278 and the DRV before closing this AfD. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:44, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 19:32, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Between a book source, a newspaper article dedicated to the route, and another newspaper article which discusses the route, I feel WP:GNG has been met for the subject of bus routes in London using number 278. While redirection is a reasonable WP:ATD, I feel this would not improve Wikipedia as List of bus routes in London does not contain any details. This page has ample content, which would be lost were it redirected. This goes against WP:PRESERVE, which states "as long as any of the facts or ideas added to an article would belong in the "finished" article, they should be retained if they meet the three article content retention policies: Neutral point of view (which does not mean no point of view), Verifiability, and No original research." NemesisAT (talk) 19:56, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Subject appears to pass the WP:GNG and page does not appear to be promotional in nature or to pose any WP:BLP concerns. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 03:20, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, covered in multiple third party sources, while 6 of 12 cites are from Transport for London, they are stating basic facts rather than being promotional, so fine to use per WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD. Toviemaix (talk) 23:50, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You could have 50 sources in an article and that may still not be enough to prove notability. London Buses routes are essentially a product of Transport for London and even if some of those references aren't explicitly promotional, they aren't independent and certainly not considered significant coverage. Ajf773 (talk) 09:55, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Transport for London is a government body. Many services in London are council supported for the benefit of non-drivers, these services are not "products". NemesisAT (talk) 15:47, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Posting for the record, I maintain my position of leaning redirect from the previous AfD. The notability is mainly tied to the old 278 which has no relation to the current one (it ran in a completely different region of London) and the current version's coverage doesn't really impress me (mostly routine coverage). Jumpytoo Talk 17:36, 28 July 2021 (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.