Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of courthouse buildings in the United States: A


 * 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.  Sandstein  21:11, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

List of courthouse buildings in the United States: A

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This seems like a list without much purpose. Organizing U.S. courthouses alphabetically in large lists doesn't seem like the best way to organize or manage them, and without separating between types of courthouses, the scope seems rather extensive and poorly defined. (Compare with, for instance, a list of county courthouses in a particular state, which has a defined scope and a geographical limit to keep it from becoming too big a list to manage.) Besides, this list is disorganized to the point of seeming abandoned; it's an alphabetical list without corresponding lists for other letters, the table is broken in half, and the list isn't organized in any clear fashion (and even includes a number of articles that don't start with A.) TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 15:42, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment The edit history and Talk page discussions show the article was under development by me as "List of courthouse buildings in the United States". It was moved twice by an administrator to the improper name. In my opinion then and now the actions constituted abuse of admin privileges in a harassing, bullying manner. The editor could have correctly noted the article was incomplete and called for development or other action. By ignoring the actual content and moving it to an unreasonable name using admin tools the editor was instead sabotaging the article and blocking development. It seemed likely they would obstruct further. I chose to cease editing there for at least a while. I will explain a bit more later after some offline or related online discussion concludes, and I request this AFD be considered on hold or withdrawn now. Thanks. do  ncr  am  17:06, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The latest move happened two years ago, you hadn't touched the page for two years before the first move, and it wouldn't change the problems with the scope. I'm not putting this on hold. (Besides, the list is tagged by WikiProject National Register of Historic Places; aren't you topic-banned from articles related to the NRHP anyway?) TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 18:25, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * That topic ban is what other discussion elsewhere would relate to. I will email you separately and you can choose to discuss this offline or not. Thanks. -- do  ncr  am  19:26, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

- Why don't you just move it your user-space for now? - the WOLF  child  18:40, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. clpo13(talk) 18:42, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Architecture-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:57, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:57, 27 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom; it's simply not a useful navigational device. No objection to userfication upon request, whether in lieu of deletion or as a rationale for post-AFD undeletion.  Nyttend (talk) 23:47, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:49, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment: I agree that this list is fairly useless, that it has formatting problems, that its scope is too broad, etc.; but I think lists on Wikipedia are of dubious value in general. They tend to accumulate unsourced information, including large proportions of trivia.  They generally list things that have their own articles, which can easily be found through a search.  But is anything wrong with this list that's not wrong with a thousand other lists on Wikipedia?  Does its existence prevent the creation of anything more useful?  Does it confuse or mislead anybody?  If we're going to have a list of football stadiums in Nagorno-Karabakh, why not a list of courthouse buildings in the United States?  J. D. Crutchfield &#124; Talk 16:12, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The problem is that it has such a huge scope, as McGhiever notes. A list of county courthouses in a single state (that's a better analogue to the N-K football stadiums), or a list of all federal courthouses, or a list of all county courthouses nationwide with a certain characteristic (e.g. the oldest one in each state) is workable, but having a single list for all courthouse nationwide is unhelpful, and splitting up such a list by alphabetical order is equally unhelpful in all ways except sheer page size.  I say this as someone with an almost-completed list of county courthouses in Illinois on my hard drive.  Nyttend (talk) 04:15, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete: There are 3,114 counties (including county equivalents) in the U.S.; nearly all of them will have a county courthouse, plus however many federal courthouses, former courthouses, etc. That's just too huge to be a list useful to anybody.  I could see maybe doing lists by state, but a huge list of all potential courthouses divided alphabetically (essentially randomizing the content geographically) serves no purpose except to warm those editors who feel in their heart of hearts that such a thing ought to exist. It would be a herculean effort better spent on the individual articles.  -McGhiever (talk) 00:35, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete, as a list that doesn't seem like it'll be that useful. APerson (talk!) 17:38, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment: The list-article has been revised by me in these edits. I started the article years ago with intent for it to be the list of United States examples within a world-wide List of courthouses (currently a redlink, but please see Draft:List of courthouses), to be ordered by state then city (it is now so ordered).  It would be unusual nowadays for a large article to be started in mainspace this way, but I started with a small, arbitrary batch of courthouses (each with their city and state) which were not expected to be the most important examples, but all of which I expected were all individually notable because they are listed on a historic register.  The starting material was selected to be just county courthouses because those would be complementary to the material covered in List of United States federal courthouses which another editor mostly developed.  The batch to start with was 67 county courthouses whose names happened to start with numbers or with the letter A;  it would be open to later addition of more county ones and city and town courthouses.  I was organizing the material into tabular form, and adding photos, and so on, developing it towards the form of many other large list-articles of U.S. places that I and others have created, such as List of Catholic churches in the United States, List of bridges in the United States, List of casinos in the United States.  ( Aside: Hey there should be a Category:Lists of things in the United States (redlink, temporarily). [What I was grasping for already exists: Category:Lists of buildings and structures in the United States.)  As alluded to above, I left the material in orderly but incomplete form in 2010, with a table of 32 sorted by state then city, including photos already for 13 of them, for two years apparently, then I returned to the article in 2012 when my watchlist showed several changes starting with this one.  As I recall I left the article again to avoid contention, until I came across it recently in Articles for deletion/Log/Today or Category:AfD debates (Places and transportation), which I browse frequently.  (My AFD editing is usually to Keep articles and often seek to save material and avoid affront to contributors by use of existing or new list-articles, with redirection of marginal article topics to appropriate list-items.)  If the intent for this list-article is clear, it was and remains a valid topic, IMO.
 * Note: Some time later I was banned from editing in a topic area applying here. I have long been eligible to appeal for the ban to be removed but have not yet appealed.  After I responded in this AFD and created Draft:List of courthouses, urgent stuff in real life has kept me away for several days.  My recent edits are expedient to clarify the situation for AFD decision purposes.  I put the article into what I believe is reasonable format essentially by rearranging material and inserting state sections, only.  I believe this removes concerns about what was intended for the article (it is to be organized sensibly, its scope is all notable courthouses in the U.S., which if too large will be split out probably by state, etc.).  I have removed the U.S. historic sites Wikiproject header from the Talk page, which I hope no one will object to, and which I think is justified as no one from the Wikiproject has sought to develop the list and as the scope of the list is broader.  I intend not to develop the article further unless I obtain explicit clearance.  And I will myself give notice of my edits at the appropriate arbitration-related page for their review next (please give me a chance to figure out how, and to raise the issue there, next for me in my limited "wikipedia-time"). -- do  ncr  am  01:24, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment: I grant that Doncram's recent edits mitigate my structural concerns, at least.  However the scope remains enormous, only a tiny fraction of the content is yet here, it has sat virtually untouched for years, and the only editor arguing to keep this list has "limited wikipedia-time" and is skirting rather close to an existing topic ban.  This list just doesn't seem developable.  And note that Draft:List of courthouses was declined recently. -McGhiever (talk) 18:49, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * You're right on all points besides the "developability" of this list. The draft "List of courthouses", created during this AFD, was declined for now with link to this AFD, and should of course be accepted into mainspace together with the "keeping" of this list-article.  If anyone is opposed to having lists of courthouses, then please move it into mainspace to avoid creation of separate lists of courthouses in Australia, Albania, Canada, Malta, etc. -- do  ncr  am  20:08, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not opposed to lists of courthouses, I'm opposed to kittens. I just don't want to see this list get roughly framed out by you and then left 97% undone for other editors to deal with.  If this list is kept, will you be able to see it through to a critical mass? I know that's not grounds for deletion; I'm just asking because no one else seems invested in the heavy lifting necessary. -McGhiever (talk) 20:38, 4 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep, although it should be moved to a reasonable name, probably List of courthouses in the United States (I would move it now but that requires admin tools). Courthouse is a valid topic;  a list of notable examples would be too large to include in that article.  There is Category:Courthouses and Category:Courthouses in the United States.  See wp:CLN for how lists and categories and navigation templates are complementary.  Note a list allows photos and provides a good alternative for readers to scan what's available in a topic area,, and a list allows for sourcing and for redlinks identifying needed articles.  As for many other kinds of items listed in Wikipedia, the world-wide list is naturally split into sub-lists by country when the larger list becomes too big, and the larger states' sections within the U.S. list will naturally be split out when they grow very large, also.  "Too huge a list" is not a problem.  Note we have List of bridges, List of Italians, List of American film actresses, List of amendments to the United States Constitution, etc., which index huge amounts of material split out into sub-pages.  For places, as here, the most natural organization is by nation, state, city. -- do  ncr  am  01:24, 1 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete: A list of lists of things in the United States!  Ladies and Gentlemen, this has gone too far. I started out thinking that this compiling of lists, while rather pointless, was just harmless fun, but now I see our peril.  I must take a stand against it.  J. D. Crutchfield &#124; Talk 15:11, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Peril? :)  But I don't see what wp:DEL-REASON applies.  And hey, no one called for a List of lists of any type.  I remarked about a category of lists, and that already exists: Category:Lists of buildings and structures in the United States, which includes the lists of churches, bridges, train stations, government buildings, agricultural buildings, shopping malls, equestrian statues, zoos, pyramid mausoleums, etc. -- all of which are fine IMHO.  I would agree with you in objecting to a "List of lists of buildings and structures" because the group of lists would pretty much be a Wikipedia creation.  But notable courthouses exist, and they could be listed within the Courthouse article, and courthouses can be spoken of as a group, e.g. "the architecture of courthouses", and a list of them seems to comply with wp:LISTN. :) -- do  ncr  am  03:58, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that category link. It led me to discover that there are already lists of county courthouses in the United States for a couple states.  If more of those were developed, and federal facilities are already on the list of United States federal courthouses, what would be left for a general List of courthouse buildings in the United States that would pass WP:CSC? -McGhiever (talk) 18:59, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for finding those.  This list allows for short lists of county courthouses to be included directly, perhaps heading off creation of many separate list-articles.  By this edit I included links to the six existing "List of county courthouses in STATE" articles.  This leaves 25 tables of county and other non-Federal courthouses already started in the AFD-subject list-article.  About 20 state sections so far just have links to their Federal courthouses, but even that clarifies (correctly now) that there does not seem to be a separate list of county courthouses for those states yet.  This structure organizes the information well for readers and to allow for addition of all types.
 * Commentators in this AFD who are from outside the U.S., especially, will be unaware of how many historic city courthouses and village courthouses and state-level courthouses exist and are clearly notable, and will be included. -- do ncr  am  20:08, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * What is a WP category but a list of articles? A category of lists is a list of lists.  Where things naturally fall into a sequence (e.g., James Bond movies, novels by Agatha Christie, U.S. Secretaries of State); where readers are likely to want several examples, without having to pick through full articles to get at them (Statutes enacted by the U.S. Congress during FDR's third term); or where individual examples aren't easy to search for, most likely because they're notable only as members of the category being listed (Characters of Dark Shadows (TV Series)); then I can see usefulness in compiling lists.  I don't think any of these criteria applies to courthouses of the United States.  J. D. Crutchfield &#124; Talk 19:34, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * , if you oppose the creation of dozens more lists of courthouses, then you should vote "Keep" here. If you oppose having hundreds of separate articles for marginally-notable courthouses, then you should vote "Keep" here. -- do  ncr  am  20:08, 4 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I would tend to keep this list but it rises some questions. One: For me it does not make sense to sort the alphabetic list by states in an underlying level as it leads to many empty sections. Two: it is unclear how former and actual courthouses are handled. Three: There are courthouses which are used as feedderal and/or other official buildings as well. I think this list should be reorganised to a list trully sorted alphabetically by county, without having sub sections by state. However: I think a list by state would be more useful at all. --Matthiasb (talk) 18:36, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Questions partially addressed by these edits just now which hide (by commenting out) any so-far-empty tables of state and local courthouses, and clarifies in the lede. About courts in Federal buildings and otherwise sharing a building, I think that if the building is known/notable as a courthouse it should be included.  This and other list-management issues are suitable for discussion at the Talk page of the list-article, of course. -- do  ncr  am  19:14, 4 April 2016 (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.