Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Campus of Bates College


 * 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__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__ to Bates College. as an ATD. Liz Read! Talk! 03:47, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Campus of Bates College

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Bates College is a small liberal arts school in Maine with less than 2,000 students. This particular article has become a repository of images, supplemented almost entirely of primary or exclusively local sources with a direct connection with the college. The information is best merged back into the article, which is already quite comprehensive, rather than being parsed into an article like this one that has become a dump for media, unsourced WP:NOR, and a WP:PROMOTION for campus features. GuardianH (talk) 18:18, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Education and Maine. Shellwood (talk) 18:22, 29 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Comment: the Bates College article is already tagged:
 * "This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. Please consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding subheadings. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page."
 * My advice is to clean up this article of any WP:OR and WP:PROMOTION and leave as is.
 * -- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 02:12, 30 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 12:48, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Architecture-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 12:48, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete While individual buildings on campus are clearly notable, I don't see this topic as a whole being independently discussed by secondary sources, meaning there are WP:SYNTH concerns. SportingFlyer  T · C  18:59, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Neutral defaulting to weak keep - I'm changing my vote on the assumption that there have to be sources which pass WP:GNG here. This article needs a lot of cleanup, but it's a typical split for a college or university, and we're only a couple secondary sources away from showing notability. SportingFlyer  T · C  22:16, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep as a needed subpage of the oversized Bates College. If this page is deleted now, it's going to get recreated in the near future based on the template on the main Bates College page. As for problems with the article, "cleanup ≠ deletion". Bates is an elite school known for its campus, so it's not surprising the campus would have a subpage, as opposed to one of the 50 ugliest campuses.
 * (Actually, a case can be made that the worst of those 50 campuses are probably more notable for all the wrong reasons, but I digress.)
 * -- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 20:16, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Reply @A. B. I don't think any of the issues you raised would justify a whole Wikipedia article for a college with just 2,000 students, elite or not. When I added the tag back in April, there was significant bloat, but now the article is a pretty average length for a college/university; I've since removed the tag. We should be aiming for condensing information rather than preserving a page that has become a repository of images and excessive information for the school. Like @SportingFlyer mentioned, this article also doesn't have the notability either; 2,000 students is minuscule, and the college certainly doesn't need a whole other article unlike a school like Texas A&M University.
 * We should aim for something like the article for Pomona College, a liberal arts school which has all its necessary info in one article. GuardianH (talk) 01:05, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation, @GuardianH. You've clearly given this thought and I trust your judgement.
 * -- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 01:15, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * My problem with it is that the vast, vast majority of sources here are primary. The ones that aren't are on specific buildings. I looked to see how Notre Dame University did their campus page - first North American university that I thought of that would have a well tended Wikipedia garden - and it actually has a similar problem: mostly primary coverage, all about specific buildings and not the campus as a whole. (That also has a lot of sources so perhaps I scrolled past the good ones, but "Top 50 campuses in America" is clearly not one of them.) I'm not entirely sure what's the right answer here... it seems like these may technically fail WP:GNG but it's not necessarily content that needs to be deleted, if that makes sense. But I'm not quite at an IAR keep yet. SportingFlyer  T · C  08:46, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe go to #1 on the ugliest (see above)! A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 17:28, 3 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Delete per GuardianH.
 * -- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 17:26, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Relisting to consider Redirect option. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 23:47, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Bates College, as an alternative to outright delete, especially as some content could be merged selectively and keeping the history is helpful. I am a bit on the fence about this, having considered the thoughts of SportingFlyer above too, but I am perhaps just about convinced by the nom's rationale that the size of the college would not ordinarily justify a substantially sized campus spin-off article, as well as being too close to needing a WP:TNT. It does seem like the sort of thing you would expect to read on their own website, rather than being a notable encyclopedic article. It could be a topic in future if someone really wanted to try and start it over again and find some reliable secondary sources, so I think a redirect is a fair balance. Bungle (talk • contribs) 16:52, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Keep or merge. I can see arguments for keeping, merging, or even redirecting, deletion is clearly the wrong choice here. This is a collection of notable items, that is part of a notable thing itself -- it's in a sandwich of notability. If it were "List of various things on the Campus of Bates College with a high level of detail, it would probably meet WP:NLIST. The nominator is correct to criticize aspects of the sourcing, so merging might be the appropriate answer until someone can write up a properly referenced article here. If it's kept I can try to clean up some of the more promotional bits. &mdash;siro&chi;o 11:02, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete: per nom. This isn't a subject that enjoys significant coverage in reliable third-party (independent) sources. Some photos may belong in a gallery in the school's article. JFHJr (㊟) 01:43, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * ...and as far as I know there's no reason to redirect. Campus of X isn't a widely redirected name space, or is it? JFHJr (㊟)
 * It would a former article that would be redirecting to a mention on another page, so it's completely proper to redirect if that's the choice here. SportingFlyer  T · C  22:19, 9 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I think one of the reasons why we're struggling here is because of the oddity of the source analysis. The only "good" source in the article - ie not clearly primary - is a scholarly article which talks about an environmentally friendly dining hall. I also found a book, Designing the Maine Landscape (Mattor and Teegardeb 2009), which I only have access to the references, but clearly talks about the Bates campus, and discussed in College Buildings in New England Before 1860 (Tolles 2011) where I also only have access to the references but also clearly talks about Bates. I also found which I can't read, and my search wasn't exhaustive, so there may be enough here to demonstrate notability, but even then those may not talk about the individual buildings on the campus in the way the article does. It's almost a WP:TNT thing... SportingFlyer  T · C  22:27, 9 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Redirect and Merge. I mostly agree with nom’s points. The sources here simply do not meet WP:GNG, and this section could easily be incorporated into the main article for the college. I agree with User:SportingFlyer here.
 * I do disagree with considering the number of students the college has, however. It has nothing to do with meeting notability, so nom should refrain from using this argument in the future.
 * However, I do think it’s worth considering User:siroχo’s suggestion of making this a list. I’m not too familiar with list guidelines, mostly standard articles, however. And, I haven’t seen this done on many other college pages, perhaps there’s a reason? Vergilreader (talk) 03:18, 13 August 2023 (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.