Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/British and Irish current events

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 of the debate was keep. -- BD2412 ^talk 21:14, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

British and Irish current events

It doesn't contain current events. It's July not May. ~~~~ 5 July 2005 20:15 (UTC)

Delete unless this is updated, and kept up to date regularly. ~~~~ 5 July 2005 20:15 (UTC)

Delete. The topic is far too broad for an encyclopedia, and Wikipedia is not a newspaper. -Thepinterpause 5 July 2005 20:38 (UTC)
Delete, so broad as to be basically meaningless and certainly unmaintainable. Dcarrano July 5, 2005 22:51 (UTC)

Strong keep. Wikipedia has reported Current Events from the early days of its existence (that's why there's a link in the main navigation bar). The fact that nobody has considered anything that's happened in the UK or Ireland particularly noteworthy in the last 6 weeks or so which has not alternatively been listed in Current events is neither here nor there. If you press this deletion request, why have you not also listed Current events, Current sports events, Current science and technology events, Current events in Africa, Current events in Iraq, Current events in Hong Kong and Macao, Chinese current events, Current events in Cisjordan, Canadian current events, United States current events, Current events in Australia and New Zealand, Current events in the European Union, and Current events in Poland, several of which have also not been updated since May? I point out that the regional current events pages were created because the world page was getting far too large. -- Arwel 5 July 2005 22:54 (UTC)
Delete: If nobody will maintain it, it won't be allowed to just sit. --Alex12 3 6 July 2005 00:49 (UTC)
Keep, first ever sub-global general CE page. Must remember to keep updating. James F. (talk) 6 July 2005 01:01 (UTC)
Redirect to current events so that the history can be preserved and so that it can someday be revived if there is enough interest. - SimonP July 6, 2005 01:43 (UTC)
Delete Not encyclopedic. Aaron Brenneman 6 July 2005 05:03 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. Should we also delete Current events? Would you care to nominate it, if you feel that way? James F. (talk) 6 July 2005 11:31 (UTC)
Keep, important page, although it does need to be updated more regularly. Not being updated (or otherwise being of poor quality) is not a criteria for deletion though. --bainer (talk) 6 July 2005 05:23 (UTC)
Comment (as I've already voted) - due to the nature of the page, I can't actually update it right now until the VfD notice is removed (needs to be moved, refactored, etc., things that are generally frowned upon for pages currently on VfD without community support. Also note that there are 5 successful month pages so far (2004.xii, 2005.i, 2005.ii, 2005.iii, and 2005.iv) - should these be deleted, too? James F. (talk) 6 July 2005 11:31 (UTC)
Delete, not encyclopedic. R adiant _>|< July 6, 2005 13:51 (UTC)
Keep. It's encyclopedic as much as Current events is. It needs to be updated, not deleted. -- Joolz 6 July 2005 18:49 (UTC)
Keep. I'm with Arwel Parry on the appropriateness of the page's continued existance on Wikipedia. This VfD is going to guarentee that the page is going to be kept updated in the future, and although I am a USian, I'm willing to help. func (talk) 6 July 2005 18:53 (UTC)
Keep I wasn't aware of the pages existence, but now that I am I will help to keep it up to date. Hiding 7 July 2005 21:09 (UTC)
Comment The discussion to date seems to hang on two points:

The Current events page exists so this should as well.
It will (we promise) continue to be maintained.

However neither one nor the other of these points adresses the central issue of this articles continued existance

The Current events page exists for a specific purpose. It, like WP:BJAODN, is deeply rooted in the community regardless of its merits for inclusion. (Any VfD on these pages would fail, and even I am not that much of a deletionist, James F.)
Regardless of how willing editors are to update, this does not belong here. In general, refer to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not for why there also exist Wikinews.

Thus, to restate - not encyclopedic. Aaron Brenneman 8 July 2005 02:35 (UTC)

Comment I believe Current events exists for a reason beyond that it is rooted in the community regardless of its merits for inclusion.

The only reason an entry like this is not considered encyclopedic by print encyclopedias is because, by their very nature, they cannot keep them current. Encyclopedias, however do contain pages listing events by year, as does Wikipedia. Therefore, due to Wikipedia's nature, these current events pages are encyclopedic, otherwise we draw some arbitrary line upon which events become encylopedic, so as to add them to 2005 pages.
Therefore the issue becomes precisely one of keeping such pages maintained. Far better, in my opinion, to archive pages of this type which become inactive, and leave a redirect behind so that they can be reactivated if people are prepared to maintain them, rather than drag them through a VfD.
Further to that, note Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not does not apply here as this page and other's like it do not deal in first hand news reports.
And finally, in light of huge list of current events pages as posted by Arwel, I would suggest that this page is encyclopedic as defined by wikipedia community. Hiding 8 July 2005 08:45 (UTC)

In response to the above, yes, current event pages have precedent, but I believe that does not mean we should have one for each country. Our sisterprojects are there for a reason; Wikinews is the place to store news events. Major news events such as the London bombing will end up with encyclopedia articles anyway, of course, because of notability. R adiant _>|< July 8, 2005 10:08 (UTC)

Wikinews does not have anything like the equivalent of June 2005, with lots of links to Wikipedia articles. Think of timelines as a different entrance point into Wikipedia (categories are another entrance point, a topic-oriented entrance point). Pcb21| Pete 8 July 2005 10:11 (UTC)
So at what point do we write these articles? Where do you draw your arbitrary line in time beyond which an event can be encyclopedic? One year, one month, one day, one hour, one minute or one second? Should we then delete any mention of events happening in July on any page? As Pcb21| states, timelines are encyclopedic, therefore this page is, otherwise Wikipedia has to set some policy on an arbitrary point at which events become encyclopedic. Consensus seems to be to record events as they happen, witness the updating happening constantly around us. Have people who are voting to delete considered the precedent that will be set if this page is deleted? Hiding 8 July 2005 10:42 (UTC)

Have I considered the precedent this would set? Yes. Would I be pleased with that precedent? Yes. We draw arbitrary lines around ourselves all the time. Look at WP:MUSIC and WP:Comic for arbitrary guidelines. I would suggest, as a discussion starter, that with the exception of Current Events no news item under six months old be considered encyclopedic. So keep your shirt on, Pcb21, I haven't gone mad! ;) The purpose of Wikipedia it to contain knowledge, not to hold information, and it takes time for knowledge to develop out of information. Aaron Brenneman 8 July 2005 11:40 (UTC)

Oh, and as to my short-sightedness, I like to think I'm taking the long view. How many pages have been added in the last month? How many in the last year? How many new administrators have been added in that same amount of time? What's the backlog on VfD right now? Every additional page of marginal inclusionary merit makes it harder to detect and correct vandalism and nonsense. JustMeAgain

Hmm, and all you've done since you got here is vote delete on VfD and list pages for VfD. Let's not forget wikipedia is for the readers, and this page is of use to readers. Hiding 13:20, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I understand much of this is about keeping the specific British & Irish page updated, but it appears that some of the delete camp are also against current events itself! This is lunacy. This month's current events page will become the backbone of our July 2005 article, which itself will be an invaluable resource (containing links to our articles on particular topics hot at the time, as well as to more primary sources) for future people researching this period. There is no question about the encyclopedic nature of these articles and am honestly a bit shocked by the short-sightedness of some commentators. Pcb21| Pete 8 July 2005 09:51 (UTC)
Keep as long as it's maintained in future. adamsan 20:31, 9 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep --bjwebb 20:39, 9 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is the sort of page Wikipedia should be updating, rather than minor trivia. Frankly, if we drop this and keep the Pokemon, I'm off. (That's not meant to be some sort of threat, by the way, I'm just saying this is a really, really strong keep for me) Average Earthman 16:09, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, It's not as if nothing noteworthy has occurred in the UK recently (lest we forget).-- Cyberjunkie ^TALK 09:57, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
keep - I wasn't even aware of the existance of this page before seeing the note on the UK Wikipedian's noticeboard. I'll try and do my bit for it. Thryduulf 16:49, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - regional news bulletin boards can only add to the value of information on Wikipedia, not take away from it. -- Francs2000 | Talk 22:55, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - it is a disgrace that anyone should consider deleting this. 06:44, 14 July 2005 (UTC) (Unsigned comment by Jooler (talk · contribs))

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.