Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Curb mining


 * 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. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:47, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Curb mining

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OR. Term is not supported by references. Article is purely one person coming up with a term and trying to give it credit on Wiki. The main article supporting the term "curb mining" is actually a blog on the NY Times, not an actual article. As the creation even says "this is an article about a new cultural phenomenon". Caffeyw (talk) 12:57, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 13:06, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 13:06, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * keep Is the problem with the article (sofixit), the article title (deletion is not renaming) or with the topic (maybe deletion)?
 * The phenomenon clearly exists and is discussed in adequate sources. Living in a country with kerbs, not curbs, I'm obviously unfamiliar with this term. However the New York Times is happy to use this term. Nor does a source evaporate because it matches the regex . An NYT column, even when labelled with the hipster-friendly 'blog' is a long way from the My Cat Mittens' Facebook pages that our policy against blog sourcing is about. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:30, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment Seems conceptually very confused to me. On the one hand is urban scavenging, covered in Garbage picking, on the other marketing by giving away free samples. On the latter, variations abound, and the idea of doing so with a large object such as furniture as a way of creating a Marketing buzz does not seem to me to be conceptually different from dressing somebody up in a silly costume to hand out free samples of food or drink. The product is different, so will the the method be, but I am not sure that this is the way to discuss how and why. As for that being covered by the term Curb mining, surely the point of the NYT source was that the use of the marketing method by one company had given some insight into the prevalence of scavenging (though I am not convinced, I think it was just a bit of journalistic copy prompted by a clever PR trick). It does not provide an RS for the expression being the name of the marketing technique. On the face of it this should be a redirect to Garbage picking. --AJHingston (talk) 14:12, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It's distinct from dumpster diving, often legally distinct. In many jurisdictions, ownership of waste changes once it's placed into a container for collection. It's thus illegal (although rarely enforced) to skip dive. Curb mining (which has long been popular in Germany and much of Europe) gets round this because the items offered are not yet placed (in a legal sense) into the waste stream, thus their ownership hasn't yet been transferred. It's often legal to curb mine, but illegal to skip dive. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:49, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * That raises very difficult issues though. If I leave something outside my property, but not on it, ownership is not automatically transferred or relinquished (think of cars and bikes). Only in certain circumstances, and dependent on local laws, will it be conveyed to somebody else in the absence of an express act or statement of conveyance. I might place a notice on it inviting anybody who wishes to take it - the act of doing so and obtaining a free collection as a result may be very attractive if I would otherwise have to pay or take it physically to an approved disposal site. That is a positive act on my part, though, and I do not understand how it can be described linguistically as curb (kerb) mining - in what way am I extracting from the curb except as a free and temporary use of public space (though the person taking advantage of it may be described as a miner)? I suggest, moreover, that there is a distinction to be drawn between those who walk the streets looking for anything they can steal or remove regardless of ownership, and those who look out for things clearly abandoned by their owners (and placing it for collection eg in a skip or otherwise set aside for disposal is a clear indication of this) and have no intention of committing an offence even if the item is still technically owned by somebody who presumably has no intention if asserting such rights. What it comes to is that Garbage picking is not necessarily illegal, is certainly not necessarily carried out with unlawful intent, and if Wikipedia wants to draw such a distinction it needs to do so in a different way. And it is a long way from marketing techniques. --AJHingston (talk) 16:06, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep I recall reading that happens in Japan, where bulky items are put out for disposal. The topic(s) should be retained for reuse and recycling per WP:PRESERVE, rather than being hauled off to the dump immediately. Warden (talk) 17:34, 29 August 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.