Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of IWW union shops


 * 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   delete. the reasons given for keeping have not addressed the basic reason given for the nomination - lack of sourcing and not substantiation of notability. I'm happy to userfy this somewhere but this standalone article hasnt been demonstrated to passs the gng at this time.... Spartaz Humbug! 06:49, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

List of IWW union shops

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Per WP:NOT: This is just a short list mirrored from a single source, WP is not a mirror. WP is not a directory. A list with three entries by no means warrants its own page. Include information on main Industrial Workers of the World page and delete this page Nefariousski (talk) 18:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Delete per nom. but include what little content in other articles Alan  -  talk  21:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

KEEP as the original creator. The IWW is an organization whose activities span 105 years, and which has had many, many shops which have not only been notable, but been part of the actual recorded history of several nations. The problem is not that such shops don't exist, but that these shops have not (yet) been recorded on Wikipedia, largely as a result of the bias for recentism on Wikipedia and that a great deal of the IWW's history predates the Internet by 70 years or more. I created the list as a jumping-off point for the addition of more union shops as they are added to Wikipedia's record. I am greatly concerned that people who will be voting on this list are unlikely to have the knowledge of labour history required for proper judgement of the issue. SmashTheState (talk) 22:12, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment You don't preemptively create a list page for things that don't yet have articles in the hopes that some day there will be enough articles to justify a list page. List pages link related articles much in the same way categories do.  Nefariousski (talk) 22:55, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I just noticed that at 14:11 you took high offence to a comment I made at talk:Angel_Falls and just 11 minutes later you nominated an article I created for deletion. The two occurances wouldn't happen to be related, would they? SmashTheState (talk) 23:23, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I also replied to one of your comments on an RFC this morning and I've previously visited the city in which you live. Maybe there's a conspiracy?  I'd suggest you try to Assume Good Faith and not jump to some sort of conclusions that there's a witch hunt afoot.   Nefariousski (talk) 23:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

KEEP there is a lot that can be added here. Give it a little time. Richard Myers (talk) 23:45, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep The history of the IWW extends back to 1901. They have a vast history and yes, their popularity surged in the 30s but they are as relevant today as they were then. There are hundreds of shops of this union and just because the article might be a bit small right now does not mean we should rush to judgment and delete this article. If the right people put some work into this article it could be a very thorough history of the current and past shops of the IWW.Mundilfari (talk) 23:57, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

KEEP Concur with the statements on the historic significance of the IWW. I understand wiki has a tendency to discourage lists, but there are of course a lot lists that remain and are relevant. One way to deal with this issue might be to rename the article IWW Union Shop (which would then actually describe what a union "shop" is--given it is US English, not something a lot of readers might actually understand) and then the article could be used to describe important/significant IWW shops, historically and in the present and the article could include a list of union shops. --Goldsztajn (talk) 10:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Big Comment Nobody is disputing the historic significance if the IWW.  Nobody is saying that the IWW isn't notable or that the article on the IWW is in question here.  The issue at hand is that this article which is merely a list of the three remaining IWW union shops is nothing more than a misc list / directory which doesn't serve any purpose and is a good example of WP:NOT.  Please read the nom a little more clearly.  I'm not suggesting anything be removed from the IWW page (very well written IMO), just advocating the removal of a useless page that list links to other articles that could be easily wikilinked or added to the main page.  Nefariousski (talk) 18:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The IWW] article is already too large, and they've been forced repeatedly to split parts out of it. The last time someone who wasn't familiar with the IWW tried to shoehorn an article into it to justify its deletion, the overwhelming consensus was to keep it out.  The IWW has more than a hundred years of complex history which weaves through the entire history of labour and in many cases the history of the United States itself. SmashTheState (talk) 05:00, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The point of noting the "historic significance" of the IWW is that it is unlikely that one article can possibly deal with the many issues related to the organisation, hence support for related articles. Nefariousski's basis for deletion seems to be purely content related, something which can be remedied easily. --Goldsztajn (talk) 06:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Mild Keep but Rename A "union shop" usually refers to a specific unionized employer. This should be renamed List of IWW locals or List of IWW divisions.  Not much content here to argue over (although I added a tad to it just now), but the list has potential.RevelationDirect (talk) 01:13, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The IWW is organized into IUs, but there are dozens of them. It makes more sense to arrange Wikipedia articles by shop rather than by IU, which would mean little to people outside of the IWW. The equivalent of the "local" for the IWW is the GMB, the General Members Branch, and these are quite separate from both shops and IUs.  For example, the OPU (Ottawa Panhandlers' Union) is part of IU 630 but also liaises with Ottawa-Outaouais GMB -- but is its own shop with its own customs, rules, and bylaws. SmashTheState (talk) 05:00, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, maybe we can add a little one or two sentence introduction explaining what a union shop is in the IWW context.RevelationDirect (talk) 10:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep pending future improvement. The list can and should be expanded to include notable historic IWW union shops (and such an expanded list would indeed be too unwieldy for the already-lengthy IWW article). The list has only been around for 3 months; that's not a lot of time for improvement. Jd4v15 (talk) 07:51, 6 February 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.