Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Google Street View locations


 * 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 to delete; default to KEEP. - Philippe 04:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

List of Google Street View locations

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This is unencyclopedic and not useful information. Wikipedia is not a directory service, nor an advertisement for Google Street View. At the rate Google is adding streets to their service, it's virtually impossible to keep up with it. Dr. Cash (talk) 14:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep. This is a difficult case. The google street view service is already quite popular. the more popular it gets, the more relevant get the locations of the streetview. Therefore, given the relevance that already exists, I would currently keep the article, since the information is useful. --Abrech (talk) 15:00, 11 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep:This page is not a directory for Google Street View, but is rather here to provide encyclopedic information on the development of this growing service. Neither does it advertise, but it just provides complete information in a more organized fashion than it has been written in the GSV article. It was formed as a subpage to avoid making the GSV page too long or incoherent. GSV is extremely notable for all its locations, which are published often in media and other reliable sources. As GSV expands to more areas, in order to avoid making this page too long, the more appropriate action would be to create more pages pertaining to individual countries (...location in the United States, ...locations in Canada, etc.), not to do away with the idea altogether. I have also suggested including in this list whether each location is complete or partial, though no one has done that yet. Sebwite (talk) 15:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Google Street View is not up for deletion, and I actually have no problem with that article. But the List of Google Street View locations is nominated for deletion, and I fail to see how it is not a directory, or listing of cities that have been "street-viewed" by google. The list also has some serious WP:OR and speculation issues near the end, so IF it is to be kept, it needs serious work. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:03, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep per above. Google Street View is a form of reference source.  Like Sebwite, I can see where this page may become obsolete in the future, but it's a valid extension of the parent article.  72.151.55.27 (talk) 17:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Note This anonymous user has less than 50 total edits. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:04, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure why all suburbs are listed; it seems that it would make more sense to simply list metropolitan areas, which should then be of manageable size for the main article. --NE2 17:13, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - The suburbs are listed because not all suburbs in a metro area are street mapped right now (i.e., most of the Fox River suburbs north of Aurora in Chicagoland), so, at least at this point, it is an important distinction to list which are predominantly SV'ed so far. I have made a proposal to only list Cities/Towns that show up on the next closest zoom level after the first zoom level where the street view street outlines in blue are visible, which is zoom 9.  This has been more or less accepted by those regularly updating the page as a good guideline).   Also, some "suburbs" are really not suburbs, they are more just rural towns (under 25,000 population, but are the largest cities within 20-30 miles) that Google has already Street View'ed, but, it is not apparent from Google's Street View (i.e., the towns in Indiana that got Street Viewed from the Indianapolis "hub", many of these would not be considered a "suburb" of Indy, but, they are not given their own Camera icon, for various reasons, like size, etc.).   I don't disagree that at some point in the future, this page will not be viable, as Google's eventually goal I'm sure is for all major cities and surrounding areas to be Street Viewed.  At this point though, Google isn't getting it out that fast, as updates to the available Street View locales come at a minimum a month apart, if not more, and there are plenty of markets that are not Google SVed.  And that is all this page is supposed to be, and encyclopedic list of what locales are predominantly SVed, so far.    Dletter (talk) 19:37, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I still don't see why it's important to list all of them - someone's driven and recorded for Google, and has gone through a metropolitan area usually without regard for town lines. How much coverage does there have to be to include a town? What's covered by the lines on ? --NE2 19:45, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I never said we should list all of them. If you read the discussion for the article, the main contributors to the article have agreed that cities that only have an expressway/highway SVed should not be listed.  The purpose of the article is to identify the cities/towns/villages that have, at minimum, their downtown/business district SVed, if not multiple residential areas, which is still a pretty unique thing for a city, which makes it noteworthy, which is the reason for the article & list.   If any of those cities in your zoom link have been listed on the page, they should be pulled off, I'd have no qualms about that.   And as I said before, at some point, this list will not make sense, as if at some point 70+% of cities with 50,000+ population are street viewed, it isn't a 'unique' thing for a city anymore then.  But, that is a while off I would think.Dletter (talk) 19:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * So how do we decide where the line is drawn? The blue lines on that link pass through downtown Westfield - how much more would be required to list it? Is what's in Queens enough to list it? What about Hempstead? (Both of those are listed, and Hempstead has only slightly more than Westfield.) --NE2 19:59, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Unless I am mistaken, Queens is a borough of NYC, which is considered a county in NY, and the article is listed to list cities/towns/etc, not counties. I would not object to links next to the New York City link that state which boroughs are predominantly Street Viewed.  New York City is an exception to the rule though, because of its size and structure.   As for Westfield, NJ, it seems pretty clear that the only SVed thing is Highway 613, which pretty clearly means you don't list it, because none of the surface/business streets have been mapped (other than the one highway street, which happens to go downtown).  If it looked like Gas City, IN, then it would be listed.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dletter (talk • contribs) 20:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * So why is Hempstead, NY listed? Should Canby, OR be listed? --NE2 20:21, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, I have proposed that this could be made into a "Category" that gets linked up to city/town/village articles, instead of an article itself. Although, then the list would be totally alphabetical, rather than split up by state, which I think is helpful.  Although we could have a main Category for "Municipalities predominantly covered by Google Street View", and then subcategories for each state, which then have the city/town/etc links in them. Dletter (talk) 19:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the category is the better way to do this, but I do remain strongly opposed to keeping this article. I would favor transferring this to a category and linking to that from the Google Street View article. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:13, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment: The purpose of listing places like Elkton, Maryland or Westfield, New Jersey is to show these minute areas of these towns that are covered, which are the only parts of their respective states that are covered. The states of Maryland and New Jersey now have minimal amounts of coverage, and though I am unsure of the accuracy of the information given, it does state in the article it is for "national security" reasons. But for now, I see a lot of value to an article like this, which shows what areas do have some coverage and which ones don't. Google has stated its goal of SV-ing the whole world, but at the rate they are going, that is years, perhaps decades away. When the finally do reach that goal, articles like this would no longer be needed, and the focus instead could be the order in which different places were introduced. But for now, this is a good, completely organized list.Sebwite (talk) 20:36, 11 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment: Isn't this discussion about the AFD of this article. This looks like it has become a discussion on what should be in the article's content, and that really should be on the article's talk page.  With that...
 * Keep: it clearly is informative, useful, and has enough people interested to improve it.   Less  Than  Clippers   21:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep Seems notable enough. The list is definitely not an advertisement, and I'm not sure that updates will be impossible to keep up with. Maxamegalon2000 22:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. Indiscriminate, or soon to be. Good grief, the town of 6000 people outside my city of 60000 has Street View. (And we still have crappy-resolution satellite coverage, go figure.) --Dhartung | Talk 22:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's not indiscriminate because the percentage of locations on Google Street View is still very very small. It's possible that in the future this list may become unwieldy, but it isn't there yet. I agree this is a notable list, extremely easily verified (hint: go to maps.google.com and zoom in). It could perhaps be expanded a little to include more discussion on censorship of images and where. But short of merging this with the main article, which would make it unwieldy, I say keep it, with the understanding that it may need to be pared down in some fashion if we ever get to the point where the number of cities imaged enters the hundreds, as opposed to just dozens. 23skidoo (talk) 00:22, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The fact that the only way to verify this list right now indicates to me that the list should be deleted as a violation of Wikipedia's no original research policy. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:15, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete You are kidding, right? I thought airline destination lists was the farthest we would go. I know the following is bad afd-manner, but this list is like List of websites indexed by Google or List of articles on Wikipedia. The entire purpose of Google Street View is to show street views, there is absolutely no need to list every site covered by it (just as the purpose of Google is to index websites, and there is no need to list those). I suggest that this article be deleted and that the "Areas included" section of Google Street View is severely cut. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, this article has no encyclopedic value whatsoever. Jobjörn (talk) 00:37, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * You say 'The entire purpose of Google Street View is to show street views'. Yes, and the article would not be needed if Street Map covered the entire world (or even U.S.).  The fact that a city being predominantly Street Viewed is a unique thing is why the list is interesting and provides some information.  Even those for keep above admit that the page will become obsolete once a good majority of areas are street viewed in the U.S. (which is the primary focus of the article right now).  As I also said, while it was made as a page list, I would see it as maybe more appropriate as a category linked to cities/towns (that would also give the added benefit of being shown on a city/town Wikipedia page in the categories section at the bottom).Dletter (talk) 03:31, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It is not a "unique thing" for a city to be "street viewed". Google is taking pictures of the streets of cities and towns across America. True, they started with the larger cities and ones that were easier for them to access; but their goal is eventually included all cities in America and the world. But to me, the only reason that this article seems to exist is to have a "feel good" list so people can easily say, "my city is better than yours because we're on street view." That's not what wikipedia is about. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:19, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.   -- Fabrictramp (talk) 23:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. Honestly?  Wow.  Why don't we make a List of locations covered by Google Maps? phoenixMourning ( talk/contribs ) 02:08, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Response This is not the whole world of Google Maps. This is just a unique, catchy feature that has gotten a lot of media attention, particularly for individual, obscure locations. It currently exists in only a minute part of the world and is growing, and getting a lot of scrutiny and attention as it does. Sebwite (talk) 14:52, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The article on Google Street View accomplishes the goal of covering this "unique, catchy feature" just fine. The list of street view locations requires us to perform original research to verify cities and towns that are "street viewed", which is a clear violation of Wikipedia policy. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * This is not OR. It is not originally published thought or knowledge from one's own study or inferences. It is something that is cleary, undoubtedly verifiable just by making the right clicks.Sebwite (talk) 22:49, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete As much as I dislike the idea of deleting articles that people worked hard to create, I think I might actually have to suggest something be deleted for once. I don't think that this has any potential to be a good article. Any content added to the article must be OR- there's not going to be any real sources about this.  I don't see anyway the article can be kept without violating the WP:OR policy. CrazyChemGuy (talk) 00:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Not OR: As I explained above, this is not OR. This information is obtained 100% from verifiable sources. Besides there being a large number of news articles about SV coming into individual communities, just a glance at the right point on the map clearly shows which areas have SV. And Wikipedia policy allows primary sources to be used for WP:V once notability is established. This is not a publishing of original thought or an inference that is made about a topic at one's own point of view. This is purely factual information from reliable sources.Sebwite (talk) 01:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I would recommend taking another look at the original research policy, because you clearly don't understand it. Any time you collect information that's not readily apparent in another source, that's OR. Furthermore, this information is encyclopedically worthless. Dr. Cash (talk) 13:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The information in here IS readily apparent, and thereby is not OR. Just staring at the map will provide it, no inferences required. Additionally, Google allows direct links to a map of a particular place at a zoom-level of choice, with or without the SV function enabled, so an external link to a page that would instantly verify all this information is possible. If someone counted the number of streets in a city/town that are SVed, compared it with the total number of streets in that city/town, and calculated what percentage of streets there are SVed on this basis, that would constitute OR. But this is all info that is published in the map itself.


 * Delete. I wouldn't call this original research, but rather a directory that unnecessarily and imperfectly duplicates some of the function of the primary source. If someone wants to know if their town has a street view, they can find out immediately and authoritatively using Google maps. The list is too big, too trivial, and changes too quickly to be worthy of encyclopedic treatment. --Itub (talk) 08:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep. This list will probably be uselessly large in a year or two.  But for now, it does seem useful given that there aren't all that many locations that are covered by google street view. Klausness (talk) 10:05, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand what you are saying that this info may one day become useless, but I do not think it'll be in a year or two. I think it'll be much longer, perhaps decades, before the entire world is covered by GSV, at the rate they are going. It has not even been introduced outside the United States yet. And even when the world is completely covered, the focus of articles like this could be modified to describe the historic development of this feature. I predict that in the future, there will be a lot of Wikipedia article on GSV, given the amount of attention and publicity this service has gotten, and what will come of it in the future. This is just the beginning.Sebwite (talk) 15:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds to me like you're in denial here and have some real issues. Might I suggest getting a life and editing something worthwhile, rather than duplicating some list that's better served by google doing this themselves? Dr. Cash (talk) 03:36, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. Yeah... right... let's have a list with every street in the world! OK... Seriously... WP not a directory. Keep record of expansion of the service on the service's article, no need to create an artilcle for that.- Nabla (talk) 00:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment:This is not a list of every street in the whole world. GSV at the present time covers only a small fraction of the world, and it probably will cover far less than 1% of the world for a long time to come. Therefore, places in which this service is available are quite unique.Sebwite (talk) 04:37, 17 April 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.