Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2016 Ottawa sinkhole


 * 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. (non-admin closure)  Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk)  03:04, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

2016 Ottawa sinkhole

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I was under the impression from reading Wikipedia's policies that this is not a newspaper. Sinkholes are common place and nothing makes this one special. EditorDownUnder (talk) 11:09, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2016 June 17.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 11:34, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete, fails WP:GNG per WP:NOTNEWS and WP:EVENT. Just another run of the mill news story, nothing to see here, move along.  :) - SanAnMan (talk) 14:38, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect to either Rideau Street or Confederation Line per discussions given below. - SanAnMan (talk) 18:10, 20 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Merge to Rideau Street where it should have gone in the first place. The utter banality of this event and routine news coverage would make me say delete if there weren't a suitable target. Incidentally, Ottawa is largely built on clay and has frequent sinkholes—2014, 2013, 2012, etc. etc. . Voceditenore (talk) 17:16, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:45, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ontario-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:45, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:45, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:46, 17 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Rideau Street; there's already a sentence there on it, which is enough for such a tiny event. ansh 666 18:55, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Rideau Street, leaving open the option to selectively merge if anyone's interested in doing so. North America1000 22:28, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Rideau Street; looks like the relevant material is already merged. Neutralitytalk 00:25, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge to Rideau Street as outlined by everybody above. There is some content that should be included. Secondarywaltz (talk) 16:12, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Rideau Street - I think there already is enough there so a redirect is enough. DeVerm (talk) 00:09, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge to Confederation Line - this is not a single event, but an ongoing story of a major construction project error, extensive disruption at a major intersection of a capital city over weeks-to-months compounding what was already the most disruptive construction in the city's history, and an investigation that will turn into a legal case to assign blame and costs, complicated by the delay in shutting off the water flooding into the tunnel boring project. Subsequent developments can be expected for years to come. The story has just begun. LeadSongDog  come howl!  15:22, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
 * OK. Do you want to keep or merge? Is it related to the construction of Rideau station? Secondarywaltz (talk) 19:05, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
 * There will be articles for all the new stations coming soon. Secondarywaltz (talk) 19:17, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I think keep is the better approach, as the alternative would end up with each of the affected-station articles, the Rideau Street article, and the Confederation Line article having duplicated content. By keeping this article, they need simply wikilink. LeadSongDog come howl!  16:52, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment There is absolutely no way to prove that these subsequent events will occur, or that "the story has just begun", WP:NOTCRYSTALBALL. This may indeed be the start of something more, but until that time comes, there's no need for this article, which deals solely with this one solitary event, existing.  I've changed my vote to a redirect to Rideau Street or Confederation Line, but that's the extent of it. - SanAnMan (talk) 18:10, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment If the 2016 sinkhole is such a big deal why isn't there an article about the 2014 sinkhole (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/road-collapse-leaves-8-metre-wide-sinkhole-at-tunnelling-site-1.2546074). EditorDownUnder (talk) 16:12, 24 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Merge. Nothing about this is so independently notable in its own right as to require a standalone article as a separate topic from its natural parents. It should certainly be mentioned in Rideau Street and Confederation Line as an aspect of those topics, and I'm torn as to which one should be the primary redirect target for the title (if we even keep a redirect at all) the title should be kept as a redirect to Confederation Line (we can then minimize duplication of content by briefly summarizing the event in Rideau Street and allowing the line article to hold the substance), but this in no way needs its own article separately from the ones that already existed. If the significant effects that LeadSongDog suggests above actually do come to pass, then a new article can be created at that time — but the justification for a separate article will be after those effects have already come to pass, not right away on the basis of one user's WP:CRYSTAL predictions about what might happen in the future. Bearcat (talk) 18:58, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm puzzled. If first-rank publishers in multiple countries do take note of an event, what cause do we have to think that it is not notable? Sure, we could put it on hold, then try to rewrite it later, but what's the value in that? LeadSongDog come howl!  19:57, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * You seem to be missing the point. Nobody in this discussion has said that Wikipedia should entirely erase any acknowledgement at all of the fact that it happened from appearing anywhere at all in Wikipedia — but the standard for "notable enough to warrant a standalone article about it as an independent topic in its own right" is quite a lot higher than the standard for "notable enough to warrant mention in the existing articles about related topics". This clears bar #2, and nobody's said otherwise — but it doesn't clear bar #1 as long as long-term implications, passing the ten year test, can only be speculated about rather than shown to already be true. It's a core principle of Wikipedia that we are WP:NOTNEWS — every single thing that happens does not always automatically need its own standalone article. There was a minor earthquake in my hometown last week, for example — but there were no reports of any damage or injury, so it doesn't require anything more than a brief acknowledgement in the section of the city's main article that already covers the seismicity of the region. The ice-storm blackout in Toronto a couple of Christmases ago does not have its own separate article; it's simply discussed in the article on the storm as an aspect of that, rather than being its own standalone topic. And on and so forth. Bearcat (talk) 21:44, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * That 10YT essay is in no way representative of normal WP practice. We routinely write on topics more recent than ten years old. It's simply the exercise of editorial judgement that the topic will have enduring interest. Of course no one is claiming that this will have as much long-term interest as Hurricane Katrina, but it will almost certainly be more impactful than a Pokémon, or a garage-band single release, or any number of other trivial topics we routinely accept. We have an entire category of articles like Etiwanda Fire. Perhaps the title is the issue here, so that editors here are thinking this is "just another sinkhole". Can you show me other examples that are more central to an urban core? Or is the issue just the absence of dead bodies? LeadSongDog come howl!  19:04, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Other stuff exists is also a fallacious argument... ansh 666 20:29, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Wrong. From wp:OSE: These "other stuff exists" arguments can be valid or invalid. In otherwords, judge them on whether they make sense, not on whether they are OSE arguments. Even mundane things can be interesting in extreme examples. LeadSongDog come howl!  15:33, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * You're missing the point of the ten-year test too, if you think the age of the topic has anything to do with it. There is not, and never has been, any rule that Wikipedia cannot write an article about something until ten years after it happens — what has to pass the ten-year test is the significance of the purported long-term effects of the incident, not the timing of when the incident happened. Bearcat (talk) 22:15, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
 * When, exactly, did we start treating essays as more important than policy? This is a simple matter of common sense, but if you're prepared to do a thorough job of the merge, I'm prepared to be the one to drop the stick. LeadSongDog come howl!  17:31, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The ten-year test is completely consistent with my definition of "common sense" — just throwing that term around like a football does not automatically imbue your position with the Crown of Righteousness and everybody else with the sceptre of the fool. And IAR, which you hid under that "common sense" link, only applies insofar as you can make a compelling and credible case as to how ignoring the rule is actually improving the encyclopedia — it does not, for instance, mean that you could move Barack Obama to the title Mister Piffles just because you felt like ignoring the rule that an article's title has to reflect the topic, and then cite IAR as an exemption from the consequences. But you haven't demonstrated (or even really tried to demonstrate) how having a separate article about this, instead of discussing it in the existing articles about the related topics, is "improving the encyclopedia" — you're citing IAR as if it meant "I can do anything I want just because I want to, and don't need any real reason because IAR", which isn't what it means. Bearcat (talk) 21:44, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Here's the thing: wp:AT actually is policy, including the wp:NAMINGCRITERIA section, so, no, Mister Piffles would not be subject to editorial judgement. The community has spoken clearly on that. An essay such as OSE or 10YT is a completely different thing. Now is there any more grave dancing to be done, or would you like to actually answer a question for once? LeadSongDog come howl!  01:16, 24 June 2016 (UTC)


 * 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.