Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Incidents at Walt Disney World Resort


 * 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, --Mike Cline (talk) 15:07, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Incidents at Walt Disney World Resort

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This article is, in the end, nothing but a cherry picked enumeration of trivial accidents, incidents and unimportant events that are only related to each other because they occurred in or near a Disney property, or involve a vehicle or employee of Disney's.

Every item seems to be sourced impeccably, but any newspaper will contain dozens of such unimportant incidents in every small town or public venue of the earth every month; and there is no indication that any of those events are particularly notable or why they are included. Such a list simply has no place in an encyclopedia. That the incidents, individually, are verifiable is necessary but not sufficient to warrant such a list - and I can't think of an argument that choosing to make such a list is neutral to begin with.

(As a note, it looks as though that list is part of a series of such articles that cover the other Disney parks and possibly other amusement parks; I expect they suffer from the same fatal flaws but I'd rather one be discussed before nominating others). &mdash; Coren (talk) 18:56, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: this particular article was broken out from the original Walt Disney World Resort (or related park) articles many years ago, where incidents were included as part of "Park History" or "Park Accidents" headings. SpikeJones (talk) 02:26, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. While the contents of this list could be trimmed down a bit to highlight only the most significant incidents, major incidents and deaths at Walt Disney World enjoy enduring, nationwide coverage in the United States (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). As a top tourist destination and seemingly safe and controlled environment, Walt Disney World enjoys a special scrutiny when it comes to incidents that would be regarded as trivial in other contexts.


 * Note: This list was recently split from Incidents at Disney Parks for purposes of edit and talk page history.Uncle Dick (talk) 19:27, 28 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete: Incidents at theme parks will always happen for a number of reasons, one of these are the carelessness of its passengers...this is why a notice exists for them to read before they ride. Do we need a forever list of trivial incidents. In short, Wikipedia is not a collection of random news clippings nor it is an indiscriminate collection of theme park incidents. May I suggest these to be nominated for deletion below. Incidents at Cedar Fair parks Incidents at PARC Management parks Incidents at Disneyland Resort Incidents at Six Flags parks Incidents at SeaWorld parks Incidents at independent parks Incidents at European parks Incidents at Universal parks Donnie Park (talk) 19:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Arguably, Incidents at Cedar Fair parks is even worse. I can't fathom why "On August 10, 2009, the train on this shuttle roller coaster stalled on the lift hill, stranding 24 guests. They were rescued from the ride without harm" would end up on Wikipedia, no matter how well sourced.  I think it's better to concentrate on one for the moment, and see where consensus lies, before nominating others.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 19:44, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I do agree with you about some individual items may deserve being culled from the overall article(s), but that does not mean that the article itself is flawed/deserves to be deleted. As an aside (and not an attempt to derail the current conversation), I present other "incidents" articles that may need to be considered in the future if consensus agrees that these theme-park safety-related articles are nothing more than "trivial, indiscriminate, unrelated random news clippings":
 * List of accidents and incidents involving general aviation
 * List of aviation accidents and incidents in the War in Afghanistan
 * Incidents on the Washington Metro
 * Incidents during the Hajj
 * List of fictional aviation accidents and incidents
 * List of road accidents
 * etc. SpikeJones (talk) 18:18, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete It's sourced and well-written, but I'm not convinced this is truly encyclopedia material. There's also an undue weight issue to consider: by reporting incidents at theme parks and not safety and crime incidents at, say, factories, city parks, beaches, warehouses, county fairs, and so on, we seem to be implying that theme parks are somehow inherently dangerous when in actuality the opposite is true.  I think an overview of each park's safety and security record with notes on some particular incidents makes sense, but an exhaustive attempt to list every incident like this is greatly overextending our reach as a general interest encyclopedia. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  22:22, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:27, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You said we seem to be implying that theme parks are somehow inherently dangerous when in actuality the opposite is true. That's exactly why an article like this should exist, as it points out either the rarity of such incidents by summarizing on a single page what has occurred... or can act as an indicator of the severity of such incidents when they do happen to occur. To not acknowledge that incidents have occurred is to, in effect, sweep such info under the rug (so to speak). SpikeJones (talk) 18:18, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep Sourced, encyclopedic. NPOV vs. coverage of other topics as Starblind posits above is irrelevant to this topic.  List entries each meet V, the total topic clearly meets N, and nothing about this fails NOT. Jclemens (talk) 23:39, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep meets all criteria fr a list. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 00:21, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Wikipedia is not censored, which this list surely would be from the article about the resort. As noted in the nomination, everything on here is sourced impeccably.  Mandsford 01:18, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Agreed that WP:NOT WikiNews, where more complete coverage should be provided on individual incidents, but there are Amusement park accidents articles that summarize the overall topic of how incidents are reported etc -- the various company-broken out incident articles provide additional detail in a single place without having the info scattered across all the related ride/attraction/park articles. When looked at completely, an incidents summary (note - these are SUMMARIES and not intended to provide ALL incident details...such as victim names... that one would find in a news article or WikiNews) can be used to determine if an individual park/company is providing adequate safety precautions, or if there is a safety trend being followed. In addition, all items are sourced with WP-valid 3rd-party references. There are guidelines in use by the page editors to determine what is an incident to be included (injury/death for sure, or one that significantly impacts park operations) or not (a man fell off a parking lot tram). SpikeJones (talk) 02:18, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete A random list of unrelated incidents of varying lethal degrees that just happened to take place at a popular theme park over a number of years. It is not encyclopedic, by any stretch. Regent of the Seatopians (talk) 01:08, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep: Everything here is well sourced (as in the other "park incident" articles), and where else can I easily read interesting information about these stories? Here, they're all in one place. If this goes away, finding this information (specifically the sources at the bottom of the page) will become a lot harder. dogman15 (talk) 23:13, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per reasons already noted above, but - in summary - specifically, the piece is sourced (although it could stand to be better sourced, in my opinion), is about a subject of global interest (Walt Disney World), contains events that are / were newsworthy, and (to me, most importantly) because Wikipedia is not censored. The delete opinions come across to me as censoring. Strikerforce (talk) 20:31, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Expanding on my commentary, per a question posed on my talk page, my statement about feeling that the article could be better sourced stems from the fact that, of the eighty-seven (87) references used in the article, twenty-five (25) of them are from the same source (the Orlando Sentinel). While I can see how this would be expected, given that it is the major newspaper of the market in which WDW is located, having 29% of the article attributed to one source (albeit in different articles each time) leaves a little something to be desired, in my humble opinion.  I would challenge the author or anyone who might wish to edit the article (I may take up the challenge, at some point, given my interest in WDW) to find sources other than the Orlando Sentinel for perhaps half of the existing citations, in order to make the article as a whole feel less reliant on only one source.  Right now, it just feels heavy toward that one source... again, just in my opinion. Strikerforce (talk) 05:12, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Although I think the article should be kept, it needs a bit of cleanup. Perhaps some of the less notable incidents (i.e. those that did not result in major injury, death, legal action, or national coverage) could be trimmed. That may satisfy some of the concerns raised by the editors above. Uncle Dick (talk) 17:30, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. The nomination is convincing. Wikipedia is not a news aggregator of the type "read about every single minor incident that ever happened at X". The "keep" opinions are unconvincing. Sourcing is a necessary, not a sufficient requirement for inclusion (see WP:IINFO). The "Wikipedia is not censored" argument does not apply because it is not proposed to delete this article on account of any moral or political objections against the content, but simply because it is a type of information not suited for an encyclopedia on account of its triviality and indiscriminateness. A succinct summary and statistic of incidents should be part of the main article instead.  Sandstein   11:43, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the listing of minor incidents that resulted in few or no injuries should probably be removed from the list, but there is still a core listing of major incidents (deaths, lawsuits, etc.) with national coverage that should remain. As SpikeJonze noted above, this list was originally part of the Walt Disney World Resort article and was split due to size. Reintegrating this list back into the main article will simply bring us back to an oversize article again. With some judicious editing, I think this list can be improved to address the concern that too many minor incidents are being highlighted. Uncle Dick (talk) 14:50, 5 November 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.