Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Knox County Courthouse


 * 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. The reds have been mostly blued. (non-admin close) RMHED (talk) 18:53, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Knox County Courthouse

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This is an unneeded disambiguation page as there is currently no articles of this name. This was originally prodded but was removed with a message saying that the Knox County Courthouse is notable. I am not here arguing whether these courthouses are notable, but that if there are no Wikipedia articles for a certain disambiguation, then there is no need to disambiguate it. Disambiguations are not lists as there already is a list which documents these courthouses. Note: This can always be recreated if there is a need for it in the future, but right now its not needed. Tavix (talk) 01:08, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per my !vote and follow-up comment at Articles for deletion/John Rogers House‎. Deor (talk) 01:32, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Changing to keep now that articles have been created, but reiterating my opinion that dab pages consisting entirely of redlinked entries are deletable. According to WP:DAB, "Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in article titles" (my emphasis); and whereas redlinks in list articles can serve the purpose of indicating articles in need of creation, such use of them in disambiguation pages is to be discouraged. Deor (talk) 02:02, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete - as the nom stated, disam. goes nowhere.-- S R X  01:35, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. The dab page is actually very informative. One searching for "Knox County Courthouse" now knows that there are four different places with that name, and knows the States where they are situated. In addition, articles on National Historic Registered Places are created by the dozens on a daily basis (I know, I patrol new pages). It won't be long before there are articles on atleast two of the listed places. -- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 04:13, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * But you can also find that information if you go to List of National Register of Historic Places entries and search for Knox County Courthouse. This is a disambiguation and not a list, and therefore goes against what a disambiguation is used for. "n addition, articles on National Historic Registered Places are created by the dozens on a daily basis" This disambig was created several months ago and there still isn't any signs that any of the articles are going to be created. If any of the articles are created, wouldn't it make logical sense just to recreate it? Right now, however, this "disambiguation" goes against policies. Disambiguation pages are "non-article pages that serve only to refer users to other Wikipedia pages." This doesn't refer to any pages. THERE ARE NONE! There are plenty more points I can bring up, but hopefully you get the point. Tavix (talk) 11:39, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You can find that information only if you know that it's on the List of National Register of Historic Places entries and only if you know how to get to the list. The people that I am catering to are the non=Wikipedians that don't know how to move around here like the rest of us at this discussion. -- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 16:53, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep, per above. These articles will all be created eventually. Deleting the dab page now and recreating it later just makes too much work for everyone. Zagalejo^^^ 05:45, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Reply How? It takes 2 minutes to create a disambiguation, literally. I've done them a few times and they take little work. Right now, this goes against policy. (See my reply to Brewcrewer). Tavix (talk) 11:39, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep 1. For a reader of the encyclopedia, the disambiguation page itself provides information on the location of the property, AND serves notice that there are multiple properties with the same name. Those are pertinent pieces of information when using Wikipedia as a starting reference point.  Minimal information, yes, but hardly unuseful. 2. As for style rules, note WP:MOSDAB: "For every style suggestion above, there is some page which has a good reason to do something else. These guidelines are intended for consistency, but usefulness to the reader is the principal goal. So ignore these guidelines if you have a good reason."  Utilty to the reader here trumps other style requirements. 3. For an editor of the encyclopedia, it's nice to know up front that an article should be unambiguously named; disambiguation pages are useful to flag repeated property names. For example, there are (at least) two Park Avenue Historic District, as I found when I wrote the Detroit article (and moved the Talahassee article, and edited links thereto). It's not a disaster to have to rename and relink, but it needn't be necessary, either. Andrew Jameson (talk) 12:12, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep WP:MOSDAB states that "A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should only be included on a disambiguation page when another article also includes that red link." All of these red-linked articles listed here appear to have inbound links from historic article lists by various geographic criteria. I see no reason, certainly on a policy basis, that would require deletion of this article. Alansohn (talk) 12:48, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Guide for editors toward needed notable articles. -- SEWilco (talk) 13:38, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete: It's a coatrack.  Create the articles.  Why try to duplicate the register?  Why not just tell people to go there to see a list of articles to create?  What makes anyone think that this is likely to generate articles, if that won't?  I suspect the people who know about a Knox County Courthouse that's on the NRHP, they're just going to do it.  This does not perform a generative function, does not disambiguate anything in existence, and seems to be just another cadging of lists from outside sources without the hard work of writing articles.  Utgard Loki (talk) 14:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - Agree. If this DAB pages to red links are allowed, it may open a can of very disgusting worms, because articles that are not yet created not only may not be notable, their subjects may not even exist. It will lead to either a proliferation of nonsense DAB pages, or to complicated rules regarding what types of uncreated (!) articles can be included in a DAB page (notability of uncreated articles?!).- Samuel  Tan  15:33, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete - Cart before horse: disambiguation pages are internal navigation tools and so far here there's nothing TO disambiguate. Write the articles first - or at least one.HeartofaDog (talk) 15:06, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong delete - Per WP:DAB, disambiguation pages are to resolve conflicts in article titles, and they are "paths leading to different articles which could... have the same title". (1) If none of the articles on a DAB page exists, the DAB page is useless per the above quotation. (2) Editors do not need to use DAB pages to decide which articles are needed. WP:RA is there for that purpose. (3) The fact that red links can be included in DAB pages does not mean the DAB page must exist. It is like saying that a nose can exist on a head, so I must have a second head! (4) DAB pages are not meant to be directories about where a certain organization is located. - Samuel  Tan  15:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - the DAB page is useful now. Yeah, I agree with the user below that the nom should be withdrawn. :) - Samuel  Tan  02:04, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment Knox County Courthouse, Knoxville, Tennessee already existed. Just needed a re-direct. These exist and can be created. Seems to be a case of fix it. TravellingCari 17:20, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I took three minutes and wrote one of the articles, addressing your lone objection. While the dreaded slippery slope argument is in general a poor one, it has even less logical weight here as a list of articles for locations on the National Register of Historic Places where there is an extremely well-defined set of "different articles which could... have the same title". There is rather broad consensus that locations on the Register are inherently notable, and it is a trivial matter to create articles for such places, as I and other editors have already done. As each of these articles had already been listed as a link on one of the "List of historic places in Foo County" articles, backed by appropriate sources, it establishes no precedent whatsoever for the dreaded "proliferation of nonsense DAB pages", as every one of these potential articles is backed by a rather finite list of nationally-recognized landmarks. This particular AfD now appears to be moot, and I would argue that all of the others are no more worthy of debate, even without any of the articles having been created. Alansohn (talk) 16:32, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - the whole problem can be sidestepped in future in similar circumstances by ensuring that the articles, or at least one of them, are/is written BEFORE the dab pages. HeartofaDog (talk) 10:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - Agree! Perhaps that should be stated somewhere in WP:DAB.- Samuel  Tan  14:45, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep There are two articles already disambiguated on this page now: if the only objection is that this is a useless disambiguation page, it should be withdrawn. Nyttend (talk) 21:32, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep I think that Tavix's nomination of this disambiguation was more or less in good faith, but, as I explain in User talk:Tavix, there is considerable value provided in disambiguation of NRHP pages. It saves considerable amounts of work later, if the first NRHP page created under a common name is the disambiguation page pointing out all the NRHP sites, rather than a page for just one of the NRHPs (see that user talk page for expansion on this point).  I also ask that Tavix withdraw this AfD nomination. doncram (talk) 17:39, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep As someone that spends loads of time starting articles about historic places, I agree that is is extremely helpful to have the name of the article already on a disambig page even if the article has not been written yet. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 19:05, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep It now now 2 bluelinked articles and the other two have links to the articles that refer to them. It should be withdrawn by the nominator. clariosophic (talk) 22:28, 20 August 2008 (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.