Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of cargo ships


 * 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. Stifle (talk) 14:32, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

List of cargo ships

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Worthless incomplete list. There have been many many thousands of cargo ships over the centuries, this is just too general to be of any use to a user Lyndaship (talk) 09:58, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom and WP:SALAT as too broad. Other than the Quinquereme entry (which is a type anyway, not an individual ship), nothing here seems to be earlier than the 20th century, and it's still grossly incomplete. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:12, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. — hueman1 ( talk  •  contributions ) 11:22, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. — hueman1 ( talk  •  contributions ) 11:23, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Convert to a list of lists. We have several lists of cargo ships, including List of largest container ships, List of Esso Atlantic class supertankers, List of gas carriers, List of tankers, List of largest ships by gross tonnage (most of which are cargo ships), and likely others a 2 minute search didn't find. Thryduulf (talk) 11:57, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep List of cargo ships that have their own articles on Wikipedia. I have erased the entriest hat did not.  This a valid navigational list.  If the list gets too long, then it can be split out into different smaller lists.  The nominator did not give a valid reason for deletion.  A list does not have to be complete, nor does it matter if you believe it useless or not.  If someone used a bot to grab information from the infoboxes of the ship articles, and put that in columns somehow, then that'd make it easier to find things people might be looking for.   D r e a m Focus  17:05, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment Well that would have some merit but I can't see how a bot could be made to do it. The ideal field would be class and type in the general characteristics info box however many ships articles do not have it filled in, secondly it's a free text field so sometimes you just have just the class listed there but no type and thirdly there re a profusion of different descriptions listed - reefer, container ship, tanker, gas carrier, freighter, bulk carrier, livestock carrier, vehicle transporter, VLCC etc etc. As this would change the list totally perhaps WP:TNT applies until such time someone has the interest to create a bot which could do it. Btw thanks for removing the ships which don't have articles but really every entry needs review - there are Ocean Liners, Fishing Trawlers and generic types listed there Lyndaship (talk) 18:17, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment: It has already been "split out into different smaller lists", some of which are already in Lists of ships. The existing (and new) cargo ship lists could be placed in a subsection of commercial vessels, rendering this list unnecessary. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:02, 7 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete Convert to a list of lists per Thryduulf. “cargo ship” is one of the three primary categories of large water vessel alongside passenger ship and warship. To say a list of every known current and past cargo ship, or even every notable one, is overly broad is a gross understatement. Dronebogus (talk) 03:04, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep, obviously. Delete voters seem unfamiliar with concept of lists in Wikipedia, and in particular wp:CLNT i think.  The topic of cargo ship is notable.  Some (many) cargo ships are notable.  It does not make sense to cover them all in the cargo ship article.  It is better to split them out to a list-article.  The huge size of this list goes to show some importance has been obvious to others.  Dropping the list would violate concept that lists and categories and navigation templates are complementary.  Basically, a arge category -> list is justified.  List can include redlink items and sources and discussion and photos. It would be fine for someone to develop this more, but it should obviously be kept. --Doncram (talk) 06:33, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Your logic doesn’t make much sense. It’s big, so it must be important? Both individual cargo ships and cargo ships as a whole are notable, therefore it has WP:INHERITED notability? Lists can theoretically carry more information than categories, therefore one that doesn’t and probably won’t should be kept? Dronebogus (talk) 08:53, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
 * No, you don't make sense, and you don't understand AFD guidelines. If you think the list-article is not good as it is, that means you could tag it and call for development and participate at its Talk page.  The current state of an article does not determine notability of the topic.  You are misapplying wp:INHERITED.  There's nothing inherited here.  The topic of cargo ship is notable.  And a list of cargo ships is notable.  Did you perform wp:BEFORE and look for sources on the topic?  Of course you did not.  Of course there are zillions of sources, many included in the articles that this list links to.
 * Further, you claim the list is overly broad? Well, that is not a reason to delete.  It is a reason to participate in editing, for example to subdivide the list in a different way, or to give the list multiple columns which are sortable.  Another editor suggests wp:TNT;  please see wp:TNTTNT, an essay to which i contributed, which explains why wp:TNT is almost always wrong (main exception being copyvio, not present here). --Doncram (talk) 09:13, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is a reason to participate in editing— namely converting the article to a list of lists per Thryduulf. Prettying up the article as you suggested isn’t going to make it less overly broad. But I don’t see how “it’s a notable topic therefore literally everything written about it on WP must be notable” isn’t just saying “it’s inherited”. Dronebogus (talk) 09:39, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
 * This is an AFD calling for deletion of the list-article, which I opppose; Thyrduulf's suggestion of an approach for editing could be pursued without the AFD, and the AFD should be closed "Keep" in my opinion, though perhaps with a call for editors to pursue some improvement program. Dronebogus, you don't need to reply to every comment that disagrees with you, and it is basically rude in AFDs to do so.  But, you are spouting nonsense as far as I can tell.  You suggest you are paraphrasing me with "'it's a notable topic therefore literally everything written about it on WP must be notable'".  What???  I think you are suggesting that writing in Wikipedia can be Wikipedia-notable so there should be articles in Wikipedia written about Wikipedia articles, nonsense.  I am glad you seem to agree you don't see what wp:inherited means and how it can be sensibly used in AFDs.  I don't care to receive further comment from you, and if you do go on, I probably won't reply further.  --Doncram (talk) 18:47, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. WP:SALAT most certainly applies. May as well have a list of people named "Smith" or "Jones" in English speaking countries. A list of lists has some slight merit. Palmeira (talk) 12:49, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep as long as it remains a list of ships with wikipedia articles, which to me would satisfy notability and also limit the length. Also beneficial to readers in terms of navigation. Rhino131 (talk) 14:10, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
 * This is more in the scope of categories than of useful lists, and current scope is impractical. However, it should be possible to salvage the content by splitting into more specific lists, which could be types of cargo ship, and renaming to list of lists, so modify and keep. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 16:44, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: The number of Liberty ships alone is so large that they require five lists, e.g. List of Liberty ships (A–F). Clarityfiend (talk) 20:57, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: All of the Liberty ships lists were up for deletion back in 2008, I recall. Now, the number of Liberty ship lists could/should be reduced by combining into just one or two lists now. It was I who combined numerous more ones, perhaps 26 in total, e.g. "List of Liberty ships (A)", etc. into those 5, and made them sortable, back in 2008!  Also there was a duplicate system of lists by their numbers rather than names, which I felt could be eliminated if I made the lists sortable, and that went over okay. To find any specific number, you'd have to sort or search in 5 lists. (Here is the list of A ones, just before I started making edits.  That was back when there was guideline that no Wikipedia article should be more than 100k i think. --Doncram (talk) 01:20, 12 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom and WP:SALAT as too broad. The sheer number of cargo ships from the sailing era...staggering. Llammakey (talk) 21:17, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Nonsense, we have lots of very big lists, e.g. National Register of Historic Places listings in the United States, which has more than 95,000 members, which is easily handled by breaking them into sublists. A particularly huge list is the List of species, I understand there are more than 8.7 million of them, which can be taxonomically arranged in several ways, and Wikipedia is well on its way to listing and covering them all. --Doncram (talk) 01:20, 12 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Those are a lot more specific than “cargo ships”. At the very least this list should be categorized by type— i.e. bulk carrier, container ship, tanker, etc. Dronebogus (talk) 08:16, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep everything currently in the list is clearly notable as they all have articles, and it's not a particularly large list. It seems useful and in the spirit of WP:STANDALONE. In fact it's small by most list article standards. I do think it should be qualified more though to stop people adding non-notable ships to the list. It does however need an inclusion criteria in the top description such as "list of notable cargo ships", and ships without a Wikipedia article will be deleted or the like, it can't just be "list of cargo ships". Canterbury Tail talk 12:49, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete - The project should consider an across-the-board purge of all 'list' articles. GoodDay (talk) 17:28, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment While that is an option, that is not a reasoning for this article. While our policies and guidelines, and even the main MOS, supports the creation of standalone list articles saying they should all go isn't a valid reasoning to delete this one. If you wish to change our guidelines and MOS you can by all means have that discussion in the appropriate place and try and change it across the project. However while the project as a whole supports such articles, this isn't a policy or guideline reason to delete this one. Canterbury Tail talk 18:31, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm content, to let the AfD closer evaluate my 'delete'. GoodDay (talk) 19:09, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   11:54, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Per Thryduulf, Convert to a list of lists. The topic is unquestionably notable but is too broad as it stands, so it needs to be divided up. The impossibility of handling a single list is no doubt the reason why such a small number of ships have actually been included in the list to date. Subsidiary lists would of course each be smaller and more manageable. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:15, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:SALAT which says we should split lists that are too big, it's not a policy that supports deletion of this article. Splitting should take place, but it's not within the remit of AfD to require it, especially as it may take time and lengthy consideration including further discussion on the article's talk page. It's not something we should mandate action on with any kind of time limit. Pontificalibus 08:40, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment. Nobody(?) is saying that more specific/manageable lists wouldn't work (there are some already). It's just that trying to somehow salvage the content in this list, rather than blowing it up and starting afresh (WP:TNT), would be more work than it's worth. And there's already Lists of ships, which has plenty of room for these other lists. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:49, 18 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep and convert to list of lists per Thryduulf and Dream Focus. Broad list topics can be kept as valid navigational lists per WP:LISTPURP which seems to be the case here. Turning this into a list of lists would be better for navigation than a very long list of notable cargo ships. Qwaiiplayer (talk) 13:20, 22 November 2021 (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.