Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Continental United States

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was keep. Sjakkalle 08:23, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Continental United States
A dicdef with delusions of grandeur. You take the dicdef, add a pointless discussion of exactly what "Continental United States" means, then throw in a totally redundent list of statistics about the Lower 48 plus DC. That's it. Proof that every possible article has its partisans and hard-working contributors -- but not every such article deserves them! Isaac R 03:59, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete  &rarr;I&ntilde;g&#333;lemo&larr;   talk  04:37, 2005 May 20 (UTC)
 * Keep. Topic is notable and widely used. Article appears to be in reasonable shape. Capitalistroadster 04:47, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Articles don't have to be arcane to be useful.  --Unfocused 04:52, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete or move to Wiktionary as it is a (self-evident?) dictionary definition. --Fazdeconta 05:18, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. For disambiguation, if nothing else&mdash;or at least pointing out the ambiguities, and less ambiguous ways of expressing this.  Gene Nygaard 05:21, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is more than a dicdef. Svest 05:41, May 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's not self-evident what it means; as the article says, sometimes Alaska is included (since it's on the continent), sometimes it isn't (since it's an exclave). And considering the large number of pages that link to that page, and the fact that even the Slovene Wikipedia has an article on CONUS, I say deleting it would be a mistake. --Angr/comhrá 06:49, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Useful encyclopedia article. -- Jonel 06:56, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, much more than a dicdef. Useful article. the wub (talk) 08:19, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, used in federal law. Kappa 09:12, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep legitimate article, although maybe it could be improved e.g. explain the exact meaning of the term in various laws, more research on history of the term. PatGallacher 10:37, 2005 May 20 (UTC)
 * Delete: Duplicate information. Needs only to explain that it is the contiguous 48 states (i.e. dictdef).  Geogre 11:16, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Read the article. That's not the only meaning. --Jerzy~t 15:19, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge, extremely redundant with United States (for instance, the list of states with total area and population, minus the few non-continental states). Radiant_* 12:14, May 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * The purpose of the article is to clarify the concept, not to provide that info. That info may or may not belong here (i am of two minds on that), but arguing for deletion bcz CONUS is just part of US is like VFDing Human anatomy because leg of child is so less often cooked than leg of lamb. --Jerzy~t 15:19, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep deserves to be in a encyclopedia by all means . (Continental US is a diff way of sayin Mainland USA .)--IncMan 13:07, May 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Will be even more relevant when Puerto Rico becomes a U.S. State. ;-) -- BD2412  talk  14:29, 2005 May 20 (UTC)
 * Keep for reasons implicit in my various rebuttals above, and because, contrary to the abusive nominator (who implicitly calls, above, me and several colleagues fools) this a term used in contexts likely to have legal impact not understood by those who see it used, and (like f***, thou, and ye) has aspects that cannot adequately be treated in a dic-def. --Jerzy~t 15:19, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Ummm, merge with "United States" ...err, keep...I feel a better distinction might be between "east of the Mississippi" and "west of the Mississippi"...however, since there is much reference in everyday life to the Lower 48, then we might as well keep the page.   &mdash; Rickyrab | Talk 19:07, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Useful article on a US law quirk. Harro5 00:23, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, useful article. If it's not kept, redirect to United States or something, since it appears to be a valid search term.  JYolkowski // talk 00:26, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Widespread term better served by an article than by redirecting or tranwiki'ing. Looks a bit thin at the moment, but should grow, given the opportunity. Grutness...  wha?  00:44, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. I disagree with Grutness, though -- I think thin is fine for this one.  Not much more needed. JamesMLane 09:19, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge with United States. Too much imbellishment about the different terms (coterminous vs. contiguous, etc.)  Sammo 07:03, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. At the very least merge, but keeping would be better.  I'd love to see more information about how the idea is used in law. kmccoy (talk) 17:17, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
 * This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.