Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/July 29 in rail transport

This discussion was subject to a deletion review on 2008 December 3.
For an explanation of the process, see Wikipedia:Deletion review.

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. This is an unusual debate, because at heart it is not about eliminating material from the encyclopedia, but about how to organize certain material. The weight of community opinion in this debate is substantially against this structure. Since this is fundamentally a question of how best to present the material, it is one that I feel is up to consensus to a degree. But this debate is flawed, because WP:AFD is not the place to have debates about content; it's the place to have debates about whether to force deletion of articles, typically over objections of the editors that work on them. Just as AfD is categorically the wrong place for discussions to delete sections or articles or to discuss rewrites of them, it is the wrong place for what I see as the debate that needs to happen.

I suggest that this be discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains. Mango juice^talk 21:59, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

July 29 in rail transport

A random list of unconnected events: The only thing in common is that they both took place on July 29 on rails. See WP:TRIVIA. Tavix (talk) 21:15, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am also nominating the following lists for the same reason.

Page break for discussion

NOTE: Don't use WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS to keep it. I am using this AfD to achieve a consensus on these lists only. Tavix (talk) 01:50, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There has to be a better place to place this information. If not, delete. MuZemike (talk) 02:16, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Oh yeah, and if someone insists that WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is a valid argument for keeping, I would strongly look to AFD the articles they mention, as well if they want to play that game. MuZemike (talk) 02:17, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree with you, if someone thinks they want to keep this article just because there are other (date) in rail transports, I'll just nominate the whole lot. Tavix (talk) 02:43, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete It isn't even worth a category, let alone a list page.--Dacium (talk) 03:32, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. —Grahame (talk) 07:49, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is not only Category:July in rail transport, it groups up to Category:Anniversaries in rail transport with subcategories for the other eleven months. On top of that there's Portal:Trains/Anniversaries which was maintained by Slambo but nothing has happened to it since 2006. I agree with MuZemike that there has to a better place for some of this railway ephemera. Merge all relevant WP:RS items to Timeline of railway history, Timeline of rail transport, Timeline of railroads and Timeline of railways. However, I question the need for all four of these and suggest that they be rationalised to one. If the one Timeline that results is too large, then country-specific timelines could be done with a single "highlights" one that covers the significant events like Stephenson's Rocket and the completion of the Trans-American line.

I realise that I'm in danger of treading into WP:IDONTLIKEIT, but the remainder of the events, such as the birth of the chief mechanical engineer cited in the July 29 article, seem to be only remotely related to the purpose of the articles and are bordering on WP:fancruft. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:03, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Sorting such events by year makes historical sense, since that bundles together things which are chronologically close in time, and the year things happen is far more relevant to history than the exact date. But this article elevates the date to greater importance than the year, and as a consequence, the entries on the list are only loosely associated. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:26, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Note. Per Slambo's vote a few lines below, I have no objection to putting these at portal talk or similar. If these pages have a useful function for setting up the daily "this day in rail transport" on the portal page then that is a Good Thing. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:53, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Sjakkalle. --Hans Adler (talk) 09:08, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also per Sjakkale: Moving into a different namespace would work for me. Otherwise delete the whole lot. There is no July 29 in physics or July 29 in music either, and that's for the same reason that these articles need to be deleted. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:32, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, horrendously arbitrary and narrow topic. Stifle (talk) 11:38, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete -- I am far from convinced of the merits of having this (and potentially 365 - including 29 February) similar articles. Their sole function is to enable people to determine what a given day is the anniversary of. However, is the nominator willing to bring forward AFDs on the whole tree, and CFDs on the monthly categories? If not, this must be a procedural keep, as ther is no point in deleting one article out of a series of this kind. I would guess there are 150 articles in the category tree already, and no doubt more arriving as I write. Peterkingiron (talk) 13:40, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply Yes, I am willing to nominatate all of them, I just picked out a random one to pick out a consensus first. I didn't do it all right away because I don't want to waste time nominating all of them only to have them kept. Tavix (talk) 16:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep this, and similar list articles, for all days and major subjects where there are more than 1 or 2 things to say. They are very useful for browsing, which is one of the key functions of an encyclopedia, and for a list, usefulness is a key criterion. The events are all significant, though it would be helpful to have an explicit criterion for this. Fowler was an very significant designer, well worth including, but that;s a content question for the talk page. DGG (talk) 15:37, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply Is this really major subject? Please note that this is the only category of anniversary articles. Another thing is how would you set up an exploit criteria? It's just a bunch of things related to rail transport on some random date, here it's July 29. Tavix (talk) 16:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The items listed on this page are basically an archive of events that can be included on Portal:Trains/Anniversaries/July 29. The rest of the DAY in rail transport articles are also used in a similar fashion. Just because I haven't gotten back to this specific page since 2006 is not a valid reason for deletion. If deletion is the result, I would ask for time to copy relevant information to the appropriate portal talk pages (Portal talk:Trains/Anniversaries/July 29 in this case) so events can be switched out of the portal content periodically. Slambo (Speak) 17:08, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- further comment as noted by others below; OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is sometimes used as an argument for deletion, so if we can't use it as an argument for retention, we can't use it as an argument for deletion. I repeat my request for time (perhaps a week) if deletion is chosen to copy relevant data to the appropriate portal talk pages. Slambo (Speak) 15:52, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per DGG and Slambo. WP:USEFUL isn't an "argument to avoid", as some people claim; it's our primary purpose. If a page is sourced, verifiable, non-disruptive, has no BLP concerns and is potentially useful to someone there is no reason to delete it. – iride scent 17:14, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply Then if WP:USEFUL isn't an argument to avoid, then why is it listed under the "Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions". Being useful is not a reason to keep it, as stated in WP:USEFUL. Tavix (talk) 17:32, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Arguments to avoid (including WP:USEFUL) is not any kind of guideline, let alone a policy, but a personal essay by User:Daduzi representing his personal opinion (hence the large "this is only an essay" banner at the top). He is entitled to his opinion; I am entitled to mine. – iride scent 17:37, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. Tavix (talk) 21:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:NOTDIR, as non-encyclopedic cross-categorization.--Boffob (talk) 17:36, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as essentially useless. There's nothing relevant about the fact that two events happened on the same day but in different years. There's also an issue of events not having one specific day. For instance, the Buffalo and Erie Railroad was incorporated:

Under special act of New York and general laws of Pennsylvania through articles of consolidation; dated May 15, 1867; filed in New York June 27, 1867; Pennsylvania June 28, 1867. [ICC valuation]

It doesn't seem right to include it in all these dates (and two states is by no means a maximum), but if it's relevant that one of these actions happened on a specific day of the year, it's relevant to all. It should also be noted that most sources will only give one of these dates, sometimes not the same one. (In this case I'd say "June 1867" for the date of merger in an article, but that can't be done on these pages.)

These are also a maintenance headache. When I create a disambiguation page, sometimes I come across links from these pages. I have been ignoring them while fixing other links, but I technically shouldn't be doing that. --NE2 17:45, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per WP:NOTPAPER Agathoclea (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply, just to let you know, it says this in WP:NOTPAPER. "This policy is not a free pass for inclusion." You are free to interpret this another way, but I think that means you are not allowed to use that as a keep argument. Tavix (talk) 21:14, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

deleting sourced material that is as another user put it "On This Day type comparison is a common feature of historical and contemporary works, in any connected field of interest" encyclical is contrary to the idea that set up wikipedia in the first place. If not disruptive. Agathoclea (talk) 13:39, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Delete Unlike summaries of what happened in a particular year (such as 1908 in rail transport) this is an odd article that, as it says, "lists anniversary events" that nobody is celebrating. If someone feels that strongly about organizing information this way, they can add a section to the existing article July 29. I agree that this format is essentially useless, and I think that it trivializes even important events. Mandsford (talk) 19:24, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete It adds nothing to the encyclopedia. It contravenes WP:NOTDIR. Ludgate (talk) 19:35, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all - we ought to have a better way of arguing about all these date articles than sending random date articles through AfD. Wikipedia is made stronger by these sorts of articles. - Richard Cavell (talk) 22:26, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Its called Articles for Deletion, and these are articles. What is wrong with this? It isn't random either. Please tell me how it is. Also, I don't see how this makes Wikipedia stronger as it breaks MOS code through WP:TRIVIA. You must explain yourself more thoroughly because I don't see what your saying. Tavix (talk) 22:31, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to their respective pages on their respective dates. I.e. moving the stuff under July 29 in rail transport to just July 29. The information is notable enough to be kept, but the articles are useless and a waste of time, bandwidth, space, and memory to have their own separate, specialised, articles for them. Kortaggio (talk) 01:08, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Also, should the rationale for deletion be applied to the years in rail transport? Like this article? Kortaggio (talk) 01:16, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Things that happen in the same year are more closely related. But this doesn't apply to births and deaths, so 1797 in rail transport shouldn't necessarily exist, but 1897 in rail transport seems fine (I'd still remove births and deaths though, and maybe impose a limit on how important something has to be, since including every minor incorporation and opening will produce hundreds if not thousands of items). --NE2 01:23, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Agreed 100%. Hundreds upon thousands of lists of minor trivia don't work really well. Tavix (talk) 02:24, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- If you see my vote, (high up in the debate) you will see that I support keeping the articles sorting the events by year. A list of events by year are not loosely associated, because they are tied together by occurring at roughly the same time. The year lists can therefore aid a reader by keeping the various events which have happened in the history of rail transport in historical context and order. I feel that benefit is not present in the case of the date list. Timelines are often found in encyclopedias in some form or another, and if someone wanted to make a long treatise on the history of railways, then taking the events in chronological order, year by year, makes sense. Discussing things by date, and jumping from year to year, does not have the same appeal. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:51, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The nominator makes a big fuss of people should not be using other stuff arguments, and then makes references to the fact this is the only day anniversary category, as if no other stuff is any more of a bad argument than other stuff. I had no clue why Slambo might have thought these were not trivia, so I'm glad he turned up at the Afd without being asked, because the nominator certainly didn't appear to ask him why they might exist before passing, and then doggedly defending, his personal judgment of what is and is not trivial in this world. As we see, this content is used in a portal. As we are also surely all aware, On This Day type comparison is a common feature of historical and contemporary works, in any connected field of interest. I would hate to see outside journalists and publishers deprived of such a brilliant source of information. Changing these into lists by year misses the whole point by a mile I would have thought, nobody looking at these articles is looking for things close together on the linear timeline. MickMacNee (talk) 06:39, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

About other stuff exists, I don't like it at all. I don't see why you would get so upset at me specifically noting not to use it. Otherwise, I was afraid someone would try to keep the July 29 article because there is, for example, a July 31. (This was before I nominated all of them). About Slambo not being asked, since when does everyone have to be asked to come here? Everyone is automatically welcome to input their suggestions here, so I don't have to ask anyone to come here. If you have anything else to say to me specifically, please use my talk page. This is an AfD, it is not to be used to flame other users. Please remember to use good faith as I am trying to work on it myself. Tavix (talk) 18:10, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- You didn't get the analogy, no problem. Anyway, everybody knows that asking Slambo why he thought this was not trivia was not required by policy but would have been a sensible move anyway, just to be sure they weren't on a total ego trip. You were lazy enough to not bother nominating all articles at once 'just in case', so don't even pretend you had any interest in mind but your own. If you think this sleight on your character belongs on your talk page rather than here, tough. MickMacNee (talk) 03:01, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Wikipedia is not a directory. These article are not useful for organizing or navigation, as lists of events in years or decades might be.Edison (talk) 17:48, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Replies to some objections. In general, it does seem to me even easier to justify Events in Subject during Year, than Events in Subject on Day of the Month. There is a true connection between the items with Year--knowing the railways incorporated at a particular year indicates something. It is valuable both for study and browsing, while Day is valuable only for browsing on constructing "this day in..." tidbits, But people find such tidbits interesting, & we even put a list each day on the WP Main Page! That should settle the issue of the general view of whether browsing is enough justification for a list. In any case, there have to be items to include in a list . For Rail transport by Day of the Month there is (and considering the number of railroads, there should always be). As for what date of incorporation to use, what do we use generally in articles when there are multiple dates? I think it most logical to use the earliest one, for finding early ones is usually what people think more interesting, but if there's another standard, we can use whatever it is. We do need some guidelines here, and the people interested can work on them. It seems absurd to delete an article because some of the data that would go in it is imprecisely defined. And what's wrong with having 366 articles? objections based on the number of potential articles are NOT PAPER. As to whether its a sufficiently broad subject to be worth the trouble, considering the great number of rail-related articles here, this seems a good place to do. on that basis, I'd suggest football as the next field to get this full treatment. Browsing is a major valid use of an encyclopedia or other reference book. Our lists and categories should facilitate this every bit as much as purposeful navigatiotion DGG (talk) 19:15, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note WP:INTERESTING isn't generally a good reason for keeping an article. The reason that Wikipedia puts a this day in.. on the main page is different from keeping this day in rail transport because it contains material on a broad range of topics, not just narrowed down to rail transport which, in the least, is much narrower focus and harder to achieve noteworthy events on every day of the year. "And what's wrong with having 366 articles?" First of all, its not 366, more like 200. Whats wrong with have 4,000,000 articles on every event that happened this day in every topic you can think of. If we allow these kind of articles to stay, we open the door for possibly limitless trivia articles that would be impossible to maintain. Tavix (talk) 21:14, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, why are you excluding other stuff arguments, while simultaneously using other stuff arguments to back up your own argument? If x then y has always been a total nonsense of an argument. MickMacNee (talk) 01:43, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

*Procedural Keep Although nominator has included the entire set of articles, only the ~~July 29th article and those~~articles chronologically between January 1 and ~~February 22~~June 30 have been tagged with the notice that they are being considered for deletion. Mlaffs (talk) 01:01, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Look again. Tavix (talk) 01:52, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have done so. All due respect, when it's appropriate to strike my comment, I'll do it myself. In the meantime, I'm happy to refactor it to reflect the newer state of affairs. Mlaffs (talk) 02:25, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Two reasons why I'm striking your comment. One is that it is factually inaccurate and second is that there are no policies stating that an article can be kept because a little template isn't in place. Tavix (talk) 05:49, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Three reasons why it was completely inappropriate for you to strike my comment. First, it was completely and factually accurate when I made the comment. It only became inaccurate because you acted on the issue that it raised, almost two days after the initial listing, and a day-and-a-half after adding all the other articles to the listing. Second, the deletion guidelines specify that all portions of the process must be followed, and that's regardless of whether it's a single or a multiple nomination. There have certainly been other instances where deletion discussions were closed because the nomination process was not followed correctly - that's why I said Procedural keep. Now that you've addressed that issue, you should have no concern that this should happen in this instance - you're welcome.

Those two reasons make your comment above factually inaccurate and so, by your logic, I should be striking it. I'm not going to though because, third, and most important, the Guide to deletion states quite clearly "Do not remove or modify other people's comments even if you believe them to be in bad faith — unless the user has been banned from editing the relevant pages, is making a blatantly offensive personal attack or a defamatory commment about a living person." None of those three conditions exist in this situation. Once again, when it's appropriate to strike my comment, as it now would have been, I'll do it myself. Even if I didn't, I'd trust the closing administrator would have sufficient judgment to note that the problem has now been addressed and to weigh the comment accordingly. Either way, the last thing you should be doing is changing my, or any other user's, comments in any way - it's exceedingly poor form. Mlaffs (talk) 06:44, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So, where was the policy for the keep comment? Tavix (talk) 08:00, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I could point you to WP:BUNDLE, which outlines the steps that you're required to follow to list multiple related pages for deletion. Or I could point you to WP:DRV, which indicates that failing to tag a page for its deletion discussion could be considered a substantial procedural error that might justify overturning a completed deletion. Mlaffs (talk) 12:39, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~Merge~~ (see below) to History of rail transport This is very valuable information and I'm sure there is some place for it on Wikipedia, but this isn't the format for it. Listing notable rail events by day is extremely clumsy... some sort of a timeline would be a much better application of this material. I say delete due to the fact that none of the individual articles exhibits any notability. Putting the information into History of rail transport is an excellent idea, and I think several articles could be successfully spun-out regarding the history of rail transport during different periods of railroading. Themfromspace (talk) 03:15, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- As far as I know, all the events are already on articles like 1840 in rail transport, so there's no need to merge. --NE2 04:02, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Hmmm... that's better than this format but I was thinking more in the style of the History of rail transport article. If all this information is already included in the decade-format articles than these should be deleted. Themfromspace (talk) 05:13, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - History of rail transport would be really big if we put every incorporation, opening, etc. in it. User:NE2/valuations lists (more or less) all the common-carrier steam railroads that existed in 1918, and some of those have many predecessors. --NE2 07:00, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete A random list of anniversaries in rail transport events has no meaning. Unless the events were notable in some way or have a celebration of them or are observed by some group, lists like these just clogg up limited server space.Gilgamesh007 (talk) 13:54, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
STRONG KEEP This is nothing more than a case of Wikipedia:IDONTLIKEIT, plain and simple. ----DanTD (talk) 17:18, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, I think that the keep arguments are more of a case of WP:ILIKEIT. I haven't seen any policy argument made in favor of a keep, and the decision has to be made based on policy. Unlike existing lists of what happened during a particular year in rail transport, where one looks at a development in the context of history, there is no point to arranging information by a day of the year. I can cite several policy grounds against it. Wikipedia is not a directory (in this case, it's not a directory of what rail transport events happened to take place on November 29 and which ones took place on November 30). Then there is trivia: "Avoid creating lists of miscellaneous facts." Finally, there's "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information", and that what each of these articles is-- a list of unrelated events that happened to occur on "July 29" or "January 1". Using the July 29 article as an example, we have (1) a train station opens in Los Angeles (2) construction is finished on particular route (3) rail traffic is suspended (4) a directive is adopted. There are plenty of policies against this group of articles; on the other hand, the only policy I've seen mentioned in favor of keeping is "this is not a paper encyclopedia". Mandsford (talk) 19:53, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also remember to use good faith. This was a good faith nomination because I thought it didn't meet policy. You, on the other hand, bash me for this decision and use no policy of why this should be kept. Thanks for the backup, Mandsford. Tavix (talk) 20:19, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. I think most of us are in agreement with the nomination and the policies cited. And I'm glad that this was brought up for a consensus discussion. Mandsford (talk) 02:11, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I apolgize if I seem a little hostile towards this nomination, but this isn't an issue of my favorite Pokemon being better than yours, or vice versa. We're dealing with daily anniversaries on a specific subject. Slambo and NE2 already explained why deleting and merging them would be wrong. ----DanTD (talk) 05:11, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me? Deleting and merging would be wrong because of WP:delete and merge. Merging would be wrong because the content already exists. Deleting would be just fine. --NE2 07:14, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You yourself already gave a good reason why articles like 1797 in rail transport shouldn't exist. All you have is the birth of two people who played a role in the growth of the railroad industry, one of which has an exact birthday, which is fine for July 29 in rail transport. And what is wrong with wanting to know the exact day the Golden spike was used to mark the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad, and other railroad-related events that happened on the same day? ----DanTD (talk) 18:32, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you really want to know what day the Golden spike was laid down, you can use the Golden spike article and it would give you way more information than the May 10th article, plus you wouldn't know what article to look for if you didn't already know the date. That is what is wrong with it. Tavix (talk) 18:36, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- That's all well and good, but it doesn't do much for other RR events on the same day. ----DanTD (talk) 20:13, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How so? Tavix (talk) 21:38, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If there were any on the same day, they should be listed in 1869 in rail transport. But there's only one entry for May 10 there, and only one for 1869 on May 10 in rail transport. There are others that happened on the same month and day of the month but a different year, but that's trivia and is not worth keeping given the need for maintenance. --NE2 21:47, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural Keep Apart from the original article listed, none of the other articles were listed originally. I was in a neutral mind about July 29, but see the listing of other articles days after the original AfD as an abuse of the AfD process. It does not allow the full timetable for discussion, but shortens it considerably.

The other articles are the exact same type as the original article. There is nothing different about the other articles policy wise than the other one. You come from no position to keep the articles as you list no policy, but just blame it on my slight tardiness to get the rest nominated. That, my friend, is not a good thing to do as this was a good faith nomination and you think that you can get it kept because I was in error of nominating? How rude. Tavix (talk) 18:31, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What is rude about that? All I'm asking is that the full amount of time is allowed for discussion. Using your example, an editor could nominate an article, and come the end of the five days, add a load more articles just before closing as "delete". You're not going to tell me that that is a correct use of the AfD procedure, are you? Mjroots (talk) 19:21, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't 5 days, it was approx. 15 hours. You will still get the full 5 days to discuss. It is rude to suggest that an article can be kept for the reasons you suggest. Instead, aim to keep an article based on policies that has be set forth for articles. Yes, I will tell you it's correct, there is no reason to suggest otherwise. Tavix (talk) 21:37, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

01:50 to 22:07 is not 15 hours. I still say it is bad form to add in other articles after the discussion has been started. Editors who have commented on the basis of one article may be unaware that others are now included. All should be listed together at the start of the discussion, or a new discussion started for new articles. Mjroots (talk) 22:23, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The articles really are the same - you comment on one, you comment on them all. It's not like 1797 in rail transport vs. 1897 in rail transport. --NE2 22:51, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply for Mjroots That is why I said approx., I'm not in the mood to go back and get an exact time the other ones went up. I was busy that day (it was thanksgiving) and so I put the rest up when I had the time. 21 hours really doesn't make that big of a deal in the 5 days it takes for an AfD to go though. If you really think the editors who commented on this AfD will change their mind, why don't you BE BOLD and send them a little message. I'm sure none of them would change their minds. Tavix (talk) 02:50, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I actually agree with Tavix here. Although I think they should all be kept, I can't imagine a decision to delete some of the pages but keep others, or that someone with an interest in one of the pages wouldn't be interested in the others. All a "procedural keep" would accomplish would be to mean having an identical debate in a couple of days time. Credit us admins with some sense occasionally; if the closing admin has any doubts, I'm sure they'll have enough sense to leave the debate open for an extra couple of days so every article has been listed for the full five days. – iride scent 02:57, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And although I don't understand how these articles are useful (not a policy btw), thank you for your agreement, it means a lot to me after trying to argue with so many people with their little antics. Tavix (talk) 03:56, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. WP:TRIVIA clearly states that it is not a reason for removal or addition of information, just how to present it. If there is no other way to present valid and sourced information, lists are perfectly acceptable. Thus you cannot argue any nomination for deletion based on it. WP:NOTDIR does not apply to these articles, as none of it aims to forbid such lists as those proposed for deletion here. The arguments brought forth for deletion are mostly variations of "I don't like such lists", paired with vague-waving at some shortcuts that do not really apply to those articles but sound good to the casual observer. With no real policy-backed reasons to delete them, keeping is to be preferred. Regards So Why 09:19, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- The information is already presented, for instance on 1897 in rail transport. --NE2 09:31, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad that SoWhy quoted from the trivia policy. As NE2 notes, this is not a case of there being "no other way" to present the information, since each of these items is presented in the best possible form, as part of the year-by-year articles. Looking at the article for December 3, I would say that it is significant that the 20th Century Unlimited last ran in 1967, and hasn't run since. On the other hand, that the train's last run happened to be on the 3rd of December, rather than the 3rd of August, really is trivia. By now, you've seen all the reasons that we cite for having this type of article deleted, and you disagree on our take on policy, I get that. But I'll pose the question to you (SoWhy) -- what purpose do you see for having 366 articles on "this day in history" in any subject-- wars, politics, football, television, etc.? (I would add that the rail transport project stands alone in this type of specialized lists of anniversaries). We don't have anything against railroads, but the rest of us feel strongly enough about this type of presentation that the subject will likely come up again, whether for this or any similar new day-by-day projects. Mandsford (talk) 18:27, 2 December 2008 (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.