Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Berwyn Route 66 Museum


 * 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. In the sense of "not delete". The discussion is really about whether to redirect or merge this to List of Route 66 museums, but there isn't a consensus for that here and it's at any rate not a discussion for AfD, but for the article talk page.  Sandstein  06:35, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Berwyn Route 66 Museum

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Promotional article for very small museum, with only very local sources. It's already adequately discussed in a short paragraph on List of Route 66 museums. I bring it here instead of just redirecting because I think the article should be deleted first, and then a new redirect made.  DGG ( talk ) 03:41, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep The list article was created as a means of covering museums for which we only have a paragraph or so of info, so not enough for an article on each. To cut this one down to fit would require removal of valid, sourced info (and the criterion for sources is reliability, which has little to do with their being "very local" - the National Enquirer isn't local) K7L (talk) 10:48, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep I agree. There's nothing wrong with the sourced info.  I'm not as familiar as some of you with all the considerations that go into retaining Wikipedia entries, but as someone who knows something about the museum itself, I'd have to say that it hasn't had much national notice outside of Route 66-related organizations because it's specialized and it hasn't been around as long as other, larger museums; but that in itself doesn't disqualify it.  The citations may be from local media, but I don't think that should disqualify it, either.  Moreover, it's related to another entry already on Wikipedia about a piece of public art that no longer exists, called Spindle -- except for the two pieces of that sculpture that remain with this museum.  I doubt you can get all that into one or two sentences on this other page, and I don't see the reason for such short shrift.Mrtraska (talk) 23:05, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 *  Delete  Merge. Much as I love this kind of little museum, this one doesn't seem to meet the criteria of WP:ORG, which are required for a stand-alone article. Specifically, "attention solely from local media [...] is not an indication of notability; at least one regional, national, or international source is necessary."  Almost all the sources in the article are from the local newspaper; all the GNews hits are from Romeoville, which is about 25mi (40km) away. The Chicago Magazine source in the article doesn't mention the museum by name and the Auto Channel source is primarily about an event and only mentions the museum briefly. Most of what I could find with Google was blogs and directories. There's no reason that the single sentence at List of Route 66 museums can't be expanded to a couple of paragraphs, incorporating some of the information from the current article.  The result could be similar in style to something like List of recurring The Simpsons characters. Dricherby (talk) 12:04, 30 June 2013 (UTC) Altered to merge in the light of the good point about copyleft, made by K7L below. Dricherby (talk) 17:57, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment- "incorporating some of the information from the current article" may be incompatible with deleting the article and its history, as reusing any part of the text requires that the history be retained for CC-BY-SA copyleft compliance. K7L (talk) 16:21, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Illinois-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:33, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Museums and libraries-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:34, 30 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Merge per Dricherby. –Fredddie™ 23:08, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm not as familiar as some of you with all the considerations that go into retaining Wikipedia entries, but as someone who knows something about the museum itself, I'd have to say that it hasn't had much national notice outside of Route 66-related organizations because it's specialized and it hasn't been around as long as other, larger museums; but that in itself doesn't disqualify it. The citations may be from local media, but I don't think that should disqualify it, either.  Moreover, it's related to another entry already on Wikipedia about a piece of public art that no longer exists, called Spindle -- except for the two pieces of that sculpture that remain with this museum.  I doubt you can get all that into one or two sentences on this other page, and I don't see the reason for such short shrift.  I'm for keeping the entry. Mrtraska (talk) 23:01, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Above comment transcribed from the talk page. Given the last sentence of the comment, I added the bolded !vote on the front. Dricherby (talk) 23:13, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, the lack of notice outside the immediate area is what does disqualify the article. For a topic to have an article on Wikipedia, it must be notable, which has a specific meaning, here: it must have received "significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject."  The additional guidelines for organizations and companies explicitly say that "attention solely from local media [...] is not an indication of notability".  The problem with sourcing only on local media is that local newspapers tend to write about every tiny thing that happens in the town, and they often print pretty much what the subject of an article wants them to print. That means they're not good for judging the importance of subjects and they're often not really independent sources.  On the other hand, if you can find some non-local sources that give reasonably in-depth coverage to the museum, then the article would most likely be kept.  If the article is merged into the page on Route 66 museums, it doesn't have to be just one or two sentences.  If you look at the Simpsons characters page I linked above, it has several long paragraphs about some of its entries (e.g., about 500 words on Jebediah Springfield). Dricherby (talk) 23:48, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The guideline on "organisations" might be appropriate if we were attempting to determine whether an organisation (such as Berwyn Arts Council) is notable, but it does not even mention museums per se. It seems to be intended for national-level entities such as the Red Cross. K7L (talk) 12:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I think WP:ORG is appropriate. The lead of that page describes it as applying to "a group of more than one person formed together for a purpose. This includes commercial and non-commercial activities, such as charitable organizations, educational institutions, hospitals, institutions, interest groups, social clubs, companies, partnerships, proprietorships, religious denominations, sects, etc."  The museum is a group of more than one person (its staff) formed together for a purpose (displaying exhibits etc.).  The section WP:NONPROFIT explicitly talks about organizations with local scope so applicability is definitely not restricted to national or international bodies. Dricherby (talk) 12:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep Not sure what Simpsons has to do with a Rt. 66 Museum, but this seems to be a unique snowflake. I found a couple of Route 66 books that mention it, and of course the Spindle project. It also appears to be the home of the first electric charging stations in the area. Like the other editor, I'm slightly acquainted with it and it definitely meets WP:LOCAL for a Merge if not its own article. EBY (talk) 05:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 03:18, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

 
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, —Tom Morris (talk) 05:11, 14 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Mrtraska had suggested that merging the article into the list of Route 66 museums would mean reducing it to a couple of sentences. I pointed out the list of Simpsons characters to show that this is not the case: it's perfectly possible to have a "List of..." article that has several paragraphs about some entries. I'm not sure what you mean by saying that the museum is a "unique snowflake" since every snowflake is unique and we don't have an article about every little thing just because it's unique. And I'm not sure what you mean by saying that it "definitely meets WP:LOCAL". WP:LOCAL says that we shouldn't have articles about things that are of purely local interest. Unless there are sources from a wider area than Berwyn's immediate surroundings, WP:LOCAL says that the museum probably shouldn't have an article of its own. Dricherby (talk) 08:46, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:LOCAL is about commercial businesses, churches and hospitals - all of which serve a primarily local clientèle. Most of the Route 66 tourists seem to be seasonal visitors from Europe and other faraway places, not Chicago locals. It's as irrelevant as the Simpsons to this (doh!) K7L (talk) 09:01, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
 * From the lead of WP:LOCAL: "places and people, including but not limited to [my emphasis] churches, historic buildings, breweries, people, pubs, malls, masts, neighbourhoods, parks, schools, stations, highways and streets, that may be well-known locally, but little-known outside the community in question." This says nothing about having a local clientele: for example, a gas station by the interstate doesn't suddenly fall out of the scope of WP:LOCAL just because it's used by drivers from all over the country who happen to need gas in that location. The problem that we have here is that there seem to be no sources from outside the immediate area of Berwyn that demonstrate the notability of this museum. Do you have a source that indicates that most of the visitors to the museum are tourists from other continents? Dricherby (talk) 09:40, 14 July 2013 (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.