User:Sambc/wip/Sprawl Control Policy Proposal

Preamble
It has been noted that there is large and increasing proliferation of micro-articles on individual highways, railway/subway stations, and similar topics. While some proposals and guidelines would suggest that these are all notable, opinion has been voiced that:


 * 1) This assumption of notability is misguided.
 * 2) These articles are too small to be truly worthwhile, are unlikely to grow, and thus the information is best held centrally.

This proposal is written with the assumption that either or both of these points are 'correct' to some degree, and aims to address this problem.

Aims and Objectives
The aim of this (policy/guideline?) is to give clear guidance on when a separate article is preferable, given a 'class' of subject that would tend to lead to a very large number of small articles, such as schools, highways, train lines, music albums and so on. Such articles are referred to as sprawl, alluding to the same sense as urban sprawl, with no pejorative intended.

The objective of creating such a (policy/guideline?) is, put most simply, the improvement of Wikipedia. While this policy does not deal with the value of the content or the inherent value of the subjects of sprawl, it deals with the validity of separate articles for each and every instance. Thus, the direct objective of this (policy/guideline?) is the consolidation of sprawl material into a smaller number of articles, grouping the individual subjects together except where individual articles are appropriate.

What is 'Sprawl'?
FT2's suggestion instead:

In the context of this (policy/guideline), sprawl can be characterised as the mass proliferation of related articles of little independent notability, on the basis that they are sub-articles of some class or subject which is notable. In this case, 'sprawl' refers specifically to articles which exist as part of coverage of some class, but where (examined neutrally) it is doubtful whether the members of that class actually meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria (notability, suitability, and verifiable reliable sources). Examples of articles characterised as sprawl tend to be about specific instances of things that may be considered notable (such as schools, music albums, TV episodes, and so on). They are often created in order to complete a set rather than because each and every one was notable. It's important to be aware that the fact something (or much) can be said on an item, and that it's of interest or useful, does not alone make it notable.

No insult to any subject is meant by the term sprawl; it is merely used to denote this rapid increase in small articles.

Existing Notability Policy
Notability deals with previously published material, not "importance", "popularity", or "fame". While a highway or railway/subway station may have significant importance so as to be "notable" as that term commonly is understood outside of Wikipedia, a highway or railway/subway station is not Wikipedia notable unless it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. In other words, if there is not enough reliable sources coverage to write a neutral and unbiased compilation of previously written, verifiable facts about the structure, then there should not be an article on the structure.

Previous Discussions and Proposals Related to Sprawl

 * Schools - a proposed policy and discussion thereof regarding articles on individual schools, with some similar suggestions to those herein.
 * WP:TV-REVIEW - A ongoing merge project dealing with television episode articles
 * The Pokemon Wikiproject - A Wikiproject that was created first to clean up the various Pokemon articles (per Pokeprosal), but is currently working on merging the bulk of them

New Guidelines
Here we consider the core principles of Sprawl Control.

Do Not Lose Information
Sprawl articles are not those that contain no worthwhile information; often, the content is, in general, very much worthwhile. Therefore editors must be very careful when dealing with sprawl to ensure that no information is lost, and that it is preserved in an appropriate and easy to find place. This is the most important rule of sprawl control.

Fold Back Into Main Articles
To this end, editors must take care to find an appropriate parent article for each sprawl article. Often this can be found through 'what links here'. It may be that the parent article is currently a simple list of links; it may also be that it is a fully-fledged article on the overall topic. Editors much decide whether the parent article is an appropriate host for the information in the sprawl article, or whether a new intermediate article should be created to house such sprawl information.

A peril in this approach is that one editor may feel that a certain selection of sprawl articles should be incorporated into their parent article directly, while another may feel that the same articles should be collected into an intermediate article, linked from the parent article. Whenever such cases are noticed, discussion should take place on the appropriate talk page(s) and consensus reached.

Redirect, Don't Delete
If the original article is deleted, it will be harder for people to find the information they are looking for. Other editors may not realise that it exists, and re-create the article. Because of this, no sprawl article should be deleted. Instead, once the information has been moved and linked to, as appropriate, the original sprawl article should be replaced with a redirect to the new location, and, where appropriate, the specific section within that article.

Retention of a redirect is also likely necessary for compliance with the GFDL, in that it maintains the contributor history that would otherwise be 'lost' to casual inspection.

Give Borderline Articles A Chance
Don't be too harsh in judging what is sprawl. Relatively new pages especially should be given time to grow, and see if those knowledgeable in the field expand to show individual notability.

Sprawl control should only be undertaken when there is some degree of consensus opinion, or when it is very clear that the subject will not become individually notable, nor the article sizeable, in the foreseeable future. The fact that "it might grow/become notable, you never know" is not an argument against sprawl control.

Fold As High As Is Appropriate
Sometimes sprawl forms a hierarchy - a page may exist about a network, linking to individual routes within the network, linking to individual nodes within the network. Editors should attempt to determine, for each branch, at what level the individual items are still notable. However, there may be individually notable nodes on a not-individually-notable route, a situation that requires application of common sense.

Process - Dealing with Sprawl
Once an article is determined to fall under these guidelines (however that would be done), take the following steps to fold it into the identified 'parent' article:


 * 1) Copy all data from the 'child' article to an appropriate place within the 'parent' article, or a new intermediate article created to hold such information. This may necessitate substantial reformatting, but if you can't be bothered to reformat appropriately, leave someone else to do the job.
 * 2) Replace the original 'child' article with a redirect to the parent or intermediate article, preferably to the specific section now holding the transplanted information.
 * 3) Notify somewhere??

WikiProject Involvement
It is hoped that the WikiProjects relevant to the articles in question will cooperate with the enaction of this process, and take an active role in the consolidation of small articles. This needs serious extending and to sound less judgemental