Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Iron horse


 * 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 no consensus‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. I don't see a consensus among editor participants and opinion is so divided, I don't think further relistings would swing opinion strongly in one or the other direction. Liz Read! Talk! 23:28, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Iron horse

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

This would do far better on Wiktionary. Wikipedia is not a dictionary.  Bremps  ...  00:04, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 08:30, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete. There is only a single source which explains the meaning of the subject. (The link is now dead.) Other contents on the article are not sourced. 🛧 Layah50♪ 🛪 ( 話す? 一緒に飛ぼう！  ) 08:34, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The article as it stands isn't very good but it's one that feels like it could be expanded to be wiki-notable. SportingFlyer  T · C  09:35, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. What's there to expand? Move Iron horse (disambiguation) here afterward; the definition there is sufficient. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:14, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTDICT, directly broken by the article's description of itself: "Iron horse is an iconic literary term..." Well, we have articles on steam locomotives and steam engines already; if this is about a term, then it belongs on Wiktionary, not here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:37, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment (not !voting yet); the article has a mildly interesting history I think, but the title would probably serve better purpose as a disambiguation page for other topics. I will say I'm surprised that there's no mention of "iron horse" on any relevant locomotive articles, as some could be a good fit for a tangential wikilink in the disambiguation page lead. I'm only vaguely familiar with the term, however. Utopes (talk / cont) 06:54, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 23:58, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep - it is well beyond wiktionary.. and in reality was a very widely used term that had ramifications in the 19th century into the 20th that obvious elude the current 'delete/dictionary' voters.JarrahTree 09:04, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Comment the term is used in a fanciful way to describe railways. On the high iron, the iron horse etc. I'd !keep if the article had better sourcing or more inline citations. Oaktree b (talk) 01:22, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep I would have to do a bit more research myself, but think there's some interesting info on the page that could be expanded, also quite a few incoming links, and the page hits are not inconsiderable over its lifetime. Some usages (e.g. in book titles, poems, etc.) could be included, as well as its other uses (e.g. representing a bicycle in the novel Things Fall Apart). I can see at least one article (Iron Horse (board game)) which could probably be merged into this one too. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:11, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete and move Iron horse (disambiguation) to target. We all admit that this is a term that was used, but there is no reason we need a page for a particular nickname for trains.. we could easily address this on the locomotive page. I strongly oppose merging articles into this one just because they share a name, as suggested above.  ‡ El cid, el campeador  talk  16:54, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTDICT, Better off at WikiDictionary. Fails NOTDICT and GNG. – Davey 2010 Talk 20:32, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete, better in Wikidictionary per others. Nothing here that cannot be dealt with just as well at locomotive.  Mr.choppers &#124;   ✎  02:13, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep – this is not a dictionary article. There is already a Wiktionary article, here, and it says, and says only (and perhaps too narrowly), that "iron horse" means a "railroad steam locomotive". An accurate description of the Wikipedia article is that it is an article about the origins of the term, and how the term has been used over time. As such, it is an article that one would find not in a dictionary, but in an encyclopedic dictionary, and Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Indeed, as the article "encyclopedic dictionary" indicates, early major encyclopedias were an evolution of encyclopedic dictionaries. All of this does not mean that the Wikipedia article could not do with some improvement; it could. But the mere fact that it could do with improvement is not a sufficient reason to delete it, particularly now that it is better sourced than when it was nominated for deletion. Bahnfrend (talk) 06:47, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep as a concept and as literary term goes beyond dictionary definition; supported by the refs which satisfy GNG.Djflem (talk) 16:27, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Correction: Refs that support trivia desperately trying (and failing) to make the article look better. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:55, 11 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep. What Bahnfrend wrote is correct. -- Toddy1 (talk) 21:33, 12 September 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.