Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of disasters (2nd nomination)


 * 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-- JForget 23:10, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

List of disasters
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Delete second time around for this one - was kept after a WP:POINT nomination a year ago, but still suffers from unfixable problems. What's a disaster? According to the article: "A disaster is a natural or man-made event that negatively affects life, property, livelihood or industry, often resulting in permanent changes to human societies, ecosystems and environment. Disasters manifest as hazards exacerbating vulnerable conditions and exceeding individuals' and communities means to survive and thrive. Most of the catastrophic disasters listed in this article have occurred at a specific non-enduring time in history rather than a longer time-period (e.g. this excludes entire long-lasting wars while including specific events during wars)." So this list is a mish-mash of WP:OR, WP:SYNTH and WP:NPOV matters - an earthquake that kills 2 is a disaster - I would think it a tragedy but hardly a disaster (my POV), but no car accidents that kill 2 - the article's POV apparently - unless it's because the Big Dig in Boston is what kills you in your car then 1 death suffices to make it a disaster. Face it: accidents happen all the time that "negatively affect[] life, property, livelihood or industry" - every car crash, industrial accident, product recall, tainted food product, hazardous chemical leak, OPEC meeting, along with even relatively minor (and nn) earthquakes, storms, military engagements. We have subsidiary lists which take care of notable items of each genre; we have categories, too. But to list some things as "disasters" while ignoring others without any definable threshold, is essentially comparing apples to asteroids here. Carlossuarez46 20:23, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. STORMTRACKER   94  20:48, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete I think this is begging for POV edits amongst other things. Yngvarr (t) (c) 20:51, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nomination, vague list title which serves little to no purpose in life.  Bur nt sau ce  22:26, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Carlos is right on about this list, which is redundant and not as thorough as individual lists, and, as he points out, wrong on so many levels. This one tries to find the worst disasters chronologically in a telescoped form (i.e., "Renaissance disasters" and "21st Century Disasters", and then the worst fires, plane crashes, earthquakes, etc.  Ultimately, it's the Grim Reaper's notepad, with room to add new finds every day, like the December '06 earthquake that killed 2 people.  Mandsford 23:09, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong delete, far too vague, listcruft, you name it. Personally, I think this list itself is a disaster -- should it then be self-referential? (Just kidding.) Ten Pound Hammer  • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 00:10, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete All of the reasons already mentioned. Ridernyc 05:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. All of the above, plus it comes close to OR.  Bacchiad 12:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. I won't challenge the consensus to delete this but wonder if there isn't some content worth keeping.  For instance would a List of Mining Disasters (and other narrower lists) be more manageable?  I found this article today trying to get some perspective on 3200 miners trapped in Elandsrand (see wikinews article) and found the mining section of use.  It seems a shame to just delete it.-- KenWalker | Talk 01:31, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Response Yes, there is some content worth keeping, but not in this "everything but the kitchen sink accident" form. I was surprised that there's not a similar list of mining disasters (as you would find in any almanac), and the Wikipedia model fails in that regard.  There is an article called Mining accident; Mining disaster redirects there, although most accidents are not disasters.  And there is a Category:Mining Disasters which in turn has (I'm not kidding) 13 subcategories called "Mining disasters in _______", the premise apparently being that mining disasters in the U.S. are different than those in Papua New Guinea.  This isn't much better than a bunch of subcategories called "coal mine disasters", "tin mine disasters", etc.  A good article about mining disasters could be written, and it would be a lot better than the categories.  I'm sure there are other parts of this particular list that might show the current shortcomings of Wikipedia.  Mandsford 15:41, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per above, although I find it highly inconsistent that we are deleting this loosely associated list of events and keeping another loosely associated list of people. My opinions on both are the same, however. RFerreira 19:40, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Impossible to scope. I reject RFerreira's point; there are no doubt many articles with differing opinions on whether they should be deleted and we can't expect agreement on them all.--Bedivere 21:19, 8 October 2007 (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.