Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of flight schools


 * 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. Spartaz Humbug! 06:20, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

List of flight schools

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This article is a list of flight schools. There are many thousands of flight schools worldwide, the vast majority of which are non-notable. If the article were expanded to nearer its goal it would therefore end up as a list of non-notable subjects and therefore an indiscriminate list of information and an inherently non-encyclopedic topic. Furthermore because nearly all flight schools are commercial enterprises this list has become a spam magnet attracting COI editors to add their schools to the list. Ahunt (talk) 19:27, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete as per nominator. MilborneOne (talk) 19:35, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete aPer nominator. - BilCat (talk) 20:34, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per nominator, can't really add to the rationale. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by)    21:20, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Crum375 (talk) 04:06, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Roger (talk) 07:49, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions.  —• Gene93k (talk) 16:08, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:08, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep The nomination (and therefore any "per nom" delete opinions) is flawed in that it is based on what the nominator fears what might happen to this list rather than what it actually is, which is a work-in-progress (as are all of our articles) list of notable flight schools, which clearly serves a navigational purpose, per WP:LIST. Many of our articles are spam magnets, but we have ways of dealing with that problem such as watchlisting, blocking and (semi-)protection, rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater by deleting articles. Phil Bridger (talk) 00:48, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. This argument is flawed because there is nothing in the article to substantiate the allegation of notability of any of the entities listed. The fact remains that the list is simply a random collection of flight schools and thus violates WP:INDISCRIMINATE. The article has existed for 2 years (almost to the day) yet it doesn't contain a single reference. Roger (talk) 11:11, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - I believe that Category:Aviation schools actually fulfills that function much more effectively than this list does. It avoids the problem of non-notable schools being added as redlinks, since the article must exist to be in the category and it avoids the relentless link-spamming by flight school owners for the same reason, they must have an article to be included. This list article is redundant to the more effective use of a category instead. - Ahunt (talk) 11:18, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Please read the WP:CLN guideline for an explanation of why categories and lists are not redundant to each other. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:20, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That still does not solve the problems the list has: It remains a random collection of non notable entities without any refs. Roger (talk) 07:36, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment - an alternative approach to deletion is to only allow blue-linked entries: - Something similar to List of aircraft by tail number, which only list articles where a specific aircraft is substantailly covered in that article. Mjroots (talk) 21:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - That would make it an exact copy of the category, thus pointless. Roger (talk) 07:36, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. There are notable flight schools. It makes sense to have a list of them for navigational purposes. Get rid of the non-notable entries and the problem is solved.--Mkativerata (talk) 07:24, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. I'm not convinced there is any point in having an article/list that is an exact duplicate of an already existing category - we may then just as well abolish the entire category system as a waste of bytes. See also the previous comments. Roger (talk) 07:41, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * But our guidelines are quite clear that categories and lists serve different purposes and are not mutually exclusive. For instance, lists give more freedom to the writer in respect of prose and structure. Phil Bridger has linked the relevant guideline - which is quite clear - so I need not do so again. --Mkativerata (talk) 07:45, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * What in fact is the different purpose served by this list? It contains no significant prose, there is nothing special about its structure, its just a plain list. A category is a much more sophisticated "list" in that is is subdivided/sortable in any number of ways. What does this list do that the category doesn't/can't do?  "Just because we can" is not a sufficient reason to do something. Roger (talk) 09:23, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Our whole project is a work in progress. We don't delete things before they have the chance.--Mkativerata (talk) 09:31, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Its been two years since the page was first created - even elephants are not pregnant that long! It has no references, contains a random mix of flight schools including non-notable ones, has no criteria for inclusion or exclusion. If you can't get it into any sort of reasonable shape in all this time its never going to happen. Pull the plug - there is no baby in this bathwater. BTW Not one of the issues raised by the Nominator have been addressed yet. Roger (talk) 10:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. Regarding the argument that this is an indiscriminate collection of information: in essence it is not; it is a list of notable flight schools. We can discriminate on the basis of notability. Regarding the argument of how long this list has been around: there is no merit to the argument to delete. From WP:CLN: "building a rudimentary list of links is a necessary first step in the construction of an enhanced list—deleting link lists wastes these building blocks, and unnecessarily pressures list builders into providing a larger initial commitment of effort whenever they wish to create a new list, which may be felt as a disincentive". This list has achieved that first step, and is just waiting for someone to clean it up, add references, and add prose. There is no time limit for this to happen.  Jujutacular  talk 17:00, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. As above, WP:CLN only really applies as an argument if there is any reasonable hope that the list might someday become more usefull than a plain category, otherwise, consensus is free to declare the maintaining of it is a waste of time. And I can't see any usefull embellishment ever happening with this list. What could possibly be done to it that cannot be done by categorisation? And currently, the list is even worse than a category organisation, as it contains entries that are not articles about flight schools, just places that have flight schools, which would be of no use to the theoretical person who just one day wanted to look thru a list of notable flight schools (if that mythical person even exists, I rather think he is made of straw). MickMacNee (talk) 22:03, 10 August 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.