Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barker Crossing


 * 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   keep. All points considered, please continue merge discussion on article talk page. Regards,   A rbitrarily 0    ( talk ) 03:34, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Barker Crossing

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Wikipedia is not a news service. A temporary footbridge with no lasting notability outside of the wider event. MickMacNee (talk) 22:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions.  -- Martin 4 5 1  (talk) 23:58, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions.  -- Martin 4 5 1  (talk) 23:59, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Article has already been proposed to be merged before, discussion here Martin 4 5 1  (talk) 00:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge. Covered by several sources, but better not having a separate article for that. -- Cycl o pia talk  00:15, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. First there is the argument that this is a temporary structure. As far as I am aware, there have been no long term plans about if or when to remove it. Bailey type bridges can be in place for many decades, indeed the original "temporary" Bailey bridge that was constructed in the early 1940's is still in place. Until we have plans to remove it we should not be calling it temporary.
 * Second, this article is about a bridge, a transportation structure. The "wider event" is an article about an event. The bridge is still in place in 2010 after the 2009 event has finished. The bridge could be in place in many decades, and will have significance outside of the event. Martin 4 5 1  (talk) 00:40, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Note Article creator. MickMacNee (talk) 01:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It is not separately significant, and it is not equivalent to a permananent transportation structure (not that that is even an automatic pass to having an article). It might last a few years, but nobody is ever going to refer to it as anything other than the temporary footbridge put up because of the flood. The only information that is ever going to be added to the article, is a closure/dismantling date. In terms of significance, it is as 'over' as the event article, if not more so, because quite correctly, that article is covering all relevant subsequent developments as well. MickMacNee (talk) 01:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Could define what you mean by a temporary bridge, given your recent prods and subsequents AfDs for two bridges aged 55 and 57 years claiming "No assertion of notability. Just a temporary footbridge"? Martin 4 5 1  (talk) 23:43, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Temporary = not built to be permanent. The fact they were never taken down for whatever reason has zero bearing on their notability and right to an article. Please, if you are going to start making otherstuff arguments to try and keep this article, just don't, they are utterly irrelevant in this case. I'm happy for all these nominations to be treated independently. I only nominated them having been reminded of their existence in the merge discussion. If they are all kept, then maybe people can start the ludicrous proposal that all temporary footbridges are inherently notable structures which should have an automatic right to ignore notability issues and more generally, what Wikipedia is not. At that point, I'll probably defect to Citizendium. MickMacNee (talk) 11:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * OTOH you seem to be arguing that "Temporary" is a reason to delete. The method of construction of a structure should not be a reason to make it non-notable. In this case the method of construction, the conditions under which it was built, and the press coverage do make it notable for a UK bridge. Martin 4 5 1  (talk) 23:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * By your reading of notability, we should have an article on James May's lego house too. Which is of course patent nonsense, because that structure, like this one, has no independent notability whatsoever. MickMacNee (talk) 23:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Is James May's Lego house a piece of transport infrastructure built in adverse weather conditions? Is it a major crossing of a river? Martin 4 5 1  (talk) 01:49, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep The bridge is notable because it was covered by several sources. It also was a DYK at one point. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:51, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no rule saying DYK'd articles are not deletable. It only takes 1,500 characters of prose and a valid reference for the hook to get a listing. If you take out the redundant text it doesn't even make DYK. MickMacNee (talk) 01:39, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge. A temporary prefab army bridge (of Mabey Logistic Support Bridge type), which isn't notable outside of the event in which it was built. Pcap ping  02:00, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep This proposal is effectively a duplicate of the proposal to merge with 2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods. The result of that very recent discussion was that Barker Crossing should remain a stand alone article, and it is unfortunate that the decision made there is not being allowed to stand. The bridge is now notable in its own right: its construction was the subject of several news articles on the BBC and elsewhere. Very few if any MLSB's of this length have been erected for public use in the UK in recent years. Hallucegenia (talk) 07:49, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep or Merge. The circumstances in which the bridge was built was highly unusual, as was the way it was built (it is now very rare for a bridge that size to be commissioned, designed and built in a few weeks). It's consider it borderline as to whether it needs an article outside of the Workington floods, but it's certainly not a deletion issue. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 08:32, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep -- We have lots of articles on bridges over significant rivers. I am also voting for the article on Bill Barker (also nominated for AFD) to be merged here.  I suspect that the bridge, once erected will be found useful and will reamin for a considerable time.  If it is demolished, AFD may become appropriate, but not yet.  Peterkingiron (talk) 22:34, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The article can't be deleted later just because the bridge itself gets taken down, see WP:NTEMP. By saying keep now, you are effectively saying this temporary bridge was not simply written about in the daily news cycle because of its part in a wider historic event, but rather that the actual temporary bridge itself is also of separate historical note worth recording for all time, even if it gets pulled down. MickMacNee (talk) 00:32, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge per Pcap. Some of this data can be retained, so definitely do not delete.  JBsupreme (talk) 00:20, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep' just because the bridge is "temporary" doesn't mean that it is non-notable. It meets WP:N via WP:V through WP:RS. Nobody's suggestiong the Workington North railway station isn't notable, and that has a scheduled life of 2 years. No lifespan has been stated for this bridge. Mjroots (talk) 15:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 'Keep the bridge article because the station article exists' is nothing more than a paradoxical other stuff argument, and it ignores the fact that railway stations, even temporary ones, have inherent notability through being part of a national transport infrastructure network. This footbridge article by contrast, is only linked from the flood article, the Workington article, and the PC Barker article, and it only achieved coverage as part of the news cycle about the main event. If the council had just decided one day they needed one more bridge, the article wouldn't exist, even if they named it after the Lord Mayor. These are the facts that show how independently notable this temporary footbridge is, which is not very, whereas 'Meets N via V thru RS' is just a vague hand wave of an attempt to show or justify independent notability, and it pretty much ignores the nomination reason. MickMacNee (talk) 17:40, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The nomination reason is "A temporary footbridge with no lasting notability outside of the wider event". Notability is not temporary, once established it exists. As you well know, Notability is established via verification by reliable sources, which is clearly the case here. Mjroots (talk) 19:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * And by this interpretation, so would everything on Google news, 24/7. This is handwaving, pure and simple. MickMacNee (talk) 23:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. An interesting, well-covered, and worthy subject.  Also, this article will be better rounded with the merge of Bill Barker (police officer).  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:04, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Withdraw. I am not willing to legitimise the wrongheaded opinions in here with an official keep result, so I withdraw the nomination. It is clear Wikipedia has a long way to go before such hand-wavery will be properly ignored, and people will actually realise what the meaning of the phrase independent notability actually is, and what role news reports play in establishing it for Wikipedia articles. MickMacNee (talk) 12:59, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Your reasons for withdrawing this AfD are wrong. In my opinion you should only withdraw the AfD if you have changed your mind, and think the article should be kept. In this case you are withdrawing to stop a keep result. I would request that the closing admin not close this as nomination withdrawn. Martin 4 5 1  (talk) 01:41, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Well yes, there we are ... you don't even realise that a withdrawal results in a default keep, but you think you know what independent notability is and how it is shown. I am not withdrawing to stop a keep vote, I am withdrawing because there are enough people in here who will clearly just argue to keep with bit of handwaving, as if that's really a proper argument or even addresses the actual nomination reason. Even now, we have more hand waving below, and even another INTERESTING vote creeping in to augment the one above. Wikipedia clearly has to develop a long way yet before articles like this can be properly debated, but I really hope we never actually have to write a notability guideline just for temporary footbridges. And people laughingly even seem to have thought that just because I mentioned the word 'temporary' in the nomination, they seem to think I don't know all about WP:NTEMP, even though I myself explained NTEMP to somebody else earlier on, on this very page! It's right there in black and white, yet it's ignored. The key word actually was, as hopefully others can see when they read the archive, the word independent, but the point's lost on too many right now it seems. That's how much of a dead end this 'discussion' quickly became, especially given the fact any sensible conclusion such as pointing out the evidently strong support for a merge, will be responded to by some participants in a rather easy to predict way. As article creator, your scatter gun approach at trying to defend it is to be expected, but I am leaving this Afd with less of a clue as to what your actual policy based defence of it is supposed to be than when I started, but if you can find a policy that says footbridges across rivers built in bad weather are inherently notable pieces of transport infrastructure, then good luck to you. It's just depressing to see and wearing to read tbh, and after a certain point, it's not even worth trying to argue over. MickMacNee (talk) 22:26, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * A withdrawal does not always result in a default keep, it can be closed as "AfD withdrawn" If someone withdraws an AfD because they have changed their mind, then that is good. However to withdraw an AfD because your do not want to "legitimise a keep result" is disingenuous.
 * The bridge meets independent notability, it is now a major piece of transport infrastructure in a large town. The method of its construction does not reduce its notability. I doubt that there is a policy on bridges of this type, but that does not mean they should be deleted on sight. Martin 4 5 1  (talk) 01:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * And it continues. When you start out by saying "The bridge meets independent notability.....", you have to actually finish the sentence with a policy based reason. The reasons you keep trying to give, while trying to also put words in my mouth, are the reasons why I am losing the will to live here, and seriously wonder if I have infact, not actually gone a little bit insane by keeping on returning to this page when I already know what I am going to find. MickMacNee (talk) 17:09, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep Delete 'Bill Barker' but keep 'Barkers Crossing' this has local intrest and perhaps is some intrest to temprary construction/engineering. Cheers, Mtaylor848 (talk) 21:21, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Regardless of nominator's arguments, notability has been established here, and there's no reason that we should consider notability to be temporary. Nyttend (talk) 18:08, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: I hope the closing admin will ignore the clearly pointy withdrawing above. If the nom is not willing to "legitimise wrongheaded opinions" (using his own words), then the nom should just refrain to nominate articles at AfD. The nom would be probably better understanding, in the meantime, the difference between "wrongheaded opinions" and "opinions disagreeing with mine". -- Cycl o pia talk  13:22, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Likewise, I ask you to consider whether the opinions of keepers expressed here represent deficient hand-waving, or reasoned and detailed arguments which address not only the nomination reason but also the general notability guideline and various not news policies. I ask this myself as an editor who has created hundreds of articles, and participated in nearly as many afds, and not as an editor who would be so inexperienced as to think 'not agreeing with me' is the same as 'not having a leg to stand on' but giving it a good hand wave anyway. If the closer wants to ignore the perfectly legitimate call for a withdrawal outcome and officially close as keep, then he/she had better give a very detailed summary as to how on Earth this Afd contains any decent policy based arguments for keeping the article (assuming as said, he/she doesn't infact, conclude a merge result). In my experence though, he/she is just as likely to pretend the whole issue of strength of argument just doesn't exist, and give a one line closure, which is an outcome that would not convince me one iota as to whether the article is legitimate per policy or not, to be honest, but will have the inevitable result that some people will go out and make even more unworthy articles that have zero independent notability, until the whole issue comes to a head in the Wikipedia credibility wars of 2020. The fact of the matter is, we have the policies right now that say this article should not exist as standalone content, and the real issue is that Afd is all too often a useless venue for proving nobody has a credible case for how to properly deny that basic fact. MickMacNee (talk) 17:09, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I like to define myself as "inclusionist", yet !voted above for a merge, feeling that the subject does not warrant necessarily a standalone article. Thus I understand your concerns. I understand also how you feel, because I found myself often on the "wrong" (i.e. the minority) side of the fence in AfD's and similar discussions. But one thing is disagreeing with the opinions of keepers, another is making a point of withdrawing the nom only because you don't want to "legitimate" their consensus. Now, you have to understand that AfD's are more often than not borderline cases, and that your interpretation of the policy is not necessarily the only one. For example your argument seems to pivot around the concept of "independent" notability, which is for sure not a crystal-clear one and most importantly one I don't find in WP:N (it seems you mean something separate from "independent sources", if I understand correctly you mean: notability of the subject per se and not as part of something else -am I understanding your argument wrong?). Also, I disagree that credibility of WP grows by covering only strictly notable subjects: credibility depends much more on quality of articles than on the specific subjects they cover, and I personally prefer WP to err on the side of having an article more than one less, when undecided. So, you see, everything has more than a single facet. Also, I don't see how the article fails WP:NOT: since you say "we have the policies right now that say this article should not exist", you should provide examples of which policies are you talking about (If you did, please repeat them, as I missed them!). -- Cycl o pia talk  17:59, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Everything you just asked clarification for, was already in the nomination rationale, and the contents of the policy and guideline referred to in it (WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:NOTE) are infact crystal clear that simple news stories do not in themselves establish independent notability of any topic, especially when the reason for their production is indivisible from the contents of another article. Therefore, given the fact I did not say it was just not notable at all, period, I do not expect hand waving votes saying 'sourced, notable, meets V and RS' to be taken seriously at all. In a proper debate, you would expect some proper arguments refuting the actual nomination, not this sort of handwaving. Nor do you expect random assertions that it's a significant footbridge (whatever that's supposed to mean), it goes over a river, it has street lights, its rare, it just like a railway station, we have lots of bridge articles, it was a DYK, it was in the news, its interesting, it might last for a few years, afd it if demolished, etc etc etc, or any other utterly irrelevant argument that has no real grounding in anything much, let alone policies or guidelines. When it becomes apparent that this is all that's going to happen, that nobody even bothers to read the nomination, or my subsequent replies, and even worse, want to start telling me what my nomination reason is to build some nice little strawmen for themselves (apparently I think all temporary structures are not notable and this is why I think it should be deleted, which is utter nonsense) and nobody is going to actually step in and stop the insanity, I have no choice but to point this all out, for the historical record, and withdraw. Quality is irreleant tbh, we have had in the past very high quality articles on all sorts of things that should never have existed in the first place. If you simply ignored the bits of the FA criteria that talk about notability, this article could be made into an FA. And once it made the front page, most people would laugh their bloody heads off at what Wikipedia thinks is worthy of a separate article. And for the record, I generally identify as an inclusionist too, but that position for me can never over-rides basic inclusion criteria. MickMacNee (talk) 19:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTNEWS does not apply so clearly: it applies clearly on routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia, which is not the case here (I don't see simple routine here). Same holds for WP:N: For example, routine news coverage such as announcements, sports coverage, and tabloid journalism is not a sufficient basis for a topic to have its own standalone article.. Now, that it is sourced and meets V and RS is not handwaving: it is a fact (I checked sources in the articles). About the strawmen, well, it looked like you were effectively arguing that it was not notable because it is temporary; it was not your intention and I acknowledge it, but you weren't very clear on that. About your last argument about quality, well, I cannot but strongly disagree. To me, if a subject is verifiable with reliable sources, I see no reason why an article shouldn't be written. A good article is a good article, no matter its subject. That most people would laugh at an article like this only because they think it's not important makes me worry more of the closed-mindedness and bias of these people than of the article's worthiness in itself. Again, I can prefer this article to be merged, but I don't find it laughable in itself. -- Cycl o pia talk  19:26, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * In the context of the wider event, it was routine news coverage. The policy can't outline every situation, but really, that's what the combination of both will always mean in this situation, where news coverage is being held up as evidence of independent notability. The claimed notability is inextricably tied to, and definitely not independent of, coverage of the wider event. MickMacNee (talk) 20:40, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * And to mangle this argument to try and show it another way, given that simple footbridges are not inherently notable structures (despite some views in here), it can be said that it is the RS coverage of the 'event' of this one being built to reconnect the town after a devastating flood, that is being argued as justification for this separate article. Well, on that basis, it would never pass WP:EVENT in a million years. MickMacNee (talk) 20:47, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, so I understood correctly your viewpoint on the matter. But -please feel free to prove me wrong- nowhere our guidelines or policies ask that notability must not be "inextricably tied" to a wider event. Would you argue that Mohamed Atta is not notable only because his notability is, obviously, inextricably linked to September 11 attacks? Also, non-trivial news coverage is evidence of independent notability. I personally think that we don't need a separate article, but that's more for content organization reasons more than for strict notability. It seems that we have two different interpretation of "routine news coverage". As you can see, what looks to you crisp clear, is really not so much. That's why I (maybe bluntly, I apologize) remarked the not-always-so-obvious difference between disagreeing with something and dismissing it as "wrongheaded". Let's all keep cool and let's see. -- Cycl o pia talk  20:52, 13 January 2010 (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.