Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of hotels in Guinea


 * 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   keep. Nominator has withdrawn so there are no arguments for deletion aside from one !voter. Also, this is now a different article from the one nominated. Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:46, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

List of hotels in Guinea

 * – ( View AfD View log )

This entry is merely a list of redlinks to non-notable establishments. Runs afoul of WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Regent of the Seatopians (talk) 22:07, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Withdrawn nomination Since this discussion began, the original article has been obsessively realigned into a very different direction and the original concerns regarding WP:NOTDIRECTORY no longer apply to the replacement article that has since been built. Therefore, the original AfD nomination is no longer applicable and is being withdrawn. Regent of the Seatopians (talk) 20:25, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * "obsessively realigned into a very different direction". LOL its barely any different to the list it started with!! Exept it now includes other buildings and has some sources to back them up and has more blue links. It is still exactly the same "directory" type of list which was the reason you nominated it for deletion, the only thing is you and others have unsavory views on hotels and see them as travel guide material not encyclopedic. Well Novotel Grand Hotel de L'Independance, Conakry and Hotel Camayene clearly show they are notable buildings. I agree that a list of buildings of all types is more encyclopedic but I think there are thousands of hotels missing from wikipedia which certainly have sources beyond travel guides to make them encyclopedic. I think a truly comprehensive encyclopedia like wikipedia would treat major hotels in any city or town as churches, mosques, palaces and other notable landmarks.♦ Dr. Blofeld  11:21, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Come on, when it started it was a massive directory of redlinks to various African hotels in each country, there was some traction in the argument that not every country automatically deserved a list of its notable hotels. Now it's a set of lists of the most notable buildings in each African country, you would have to be crazy to try and argue that there are NO notable buildings in a paticular African country. The focus is now on content and which buildings deserve to be on the list and therefore not suitable for Afd discussion. Bob House 884 (talk) 13:21, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Since nobody seems in a rush to close this discussion, I can't resist a comment. I agree with all the above. WP is not a directory of hotels or travel guide. But Conakry has several notable buildings, as have most cities. The AfD has caused certain obsessive editors to restructure the list and start several new articles - it has been productive. But the redlinks or stubs in the spin-offs badly need fixing - more stubs are not the answer. I blame this mess on whoever started it or got involved later. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:13, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep This isn't true. most of those hotels have multiple mentioning in google books and this is a poor African country too so books about them are not going to be in the thousands... Red links means nothing in terms of what is notable, and given the extreme lack of coverage for this part of the world I'm working towards building it up. The major landmarks and hotels in every country are notable buildings and people actually visit such pages on a daily basis and find them useful. Buildings in such countries are extremely poorly covered so anything towards working towards building up content in this area is a must. No we are not a directory or a travel guide but this is no different to a list of parks in a city or list of theatres etc and they are useful as resource building material and as a quick reference. Bad faith nom 4 minutes after creation. ♦ Dr. Blofeld  22:09, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment The "multiple mentions" are just a line or two in three travel books relating to a single hotel. I don't know where it says that "major hotels in every country are notable buildings" - is this Wikipedia policy? Whether people visit these pages and find them useful is irrelevant to this particular article. And calling this a bad faith nomination is, on its own terms, a bad faith statement. Regent of the Seatopians (talk) 22:26, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Again your comment illustrates you are clueless about this topic. Most of the entries have coverage in major journals and African economics and business papers. Most of them I've selected because of this and I think they are notable buildings and wikipedia is better off having a mention of them. Some of the hotels are discussed in publications about French colonial architecture in the 1950s for instance and things like that..♦ Dr. Blofeld  22:36, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should cool off accusing each other of bad faith AfDs and 'cluelessness' Bob House 884 (talk) 22:41, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * An AFD just four minutes after creation.... ♦ Dr. Blofeld  22:50, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe that the references to these hotels in multiple publications indicates that they are notable landmarks. Major cities have tens if not hundreds of hotels and small guesthouses, most are likely not notable. Lonely Planet etc generally only restricts what it mentions to the most notable. ♦ Dr. Blofeld  22:47, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment I'm currently in favour of a delete, for reasons which ironically Dr. Blofeld has given ("given the extreme lack of coverage","extremely poorly covered") but I'm prepared to give some time to see if anything comes of this. I think the best approach to this is to make articles actually about the notable hotels, rather than just assuming notability for 'List of redlink hotels in country X / Wikipedia's travelguide' Bob House 884 (talk) 22:51, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * That was the idea... To start the most notable ones at a later date.. Its a gaping hole of wikipedia's knowledge... ♦ Dr. Blofeld  23:02, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete Per WP:NOTDIRECTORY. This is not LonelyPlanet.com and the fact that these hotels exist does not, in any way, make them notable. The name calling by the article's author is not helping his cause. SanchiTachi (talk) 12:28, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Name calling? What name calling? You claim "per WP:NOTDIRECTORY" but the fact is we have thousands of lists like List of record labels: 0-9 which are nothing more than a directory and could probably all be deleted by this "criteria". If we did not accept any "directory" type information then we would not have any lists on wikipedia at all. The fact is some people find lists like this useful as a starting point. Hotels are extremely poorly covered on wikipedia because there seems to be this "NOT DIRECTORY OR TRAVEL" guide when actually a lot of them have decent coverage in books and architectural/historical books which could make them encyclopedic worthy. Lists of buildings are generally accepted on wikipedia. Maybe if I was to move this to List of buildings and structures in Guinea to include things like mosques, churches, bridges, monuments, universities etc it would be accepted. My work on this list is part of a wider effort I'm putting into developing African buildings on here as they are extremely poorly covered. ♦ Dr. Blofeld  12:55, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment The difference between the article you've cited there and the one you've created is that when List of record labels: 0-9 was created, a good number of the record labels on the list had articles which had existed for 2-3 years, some had been around longer. The starting point needs to be creating articles for the paticular individual hotels, rather than investing effort in making long and useless lists of hotels without articles. Once there are enough articles on hotels in general, it may be appropriate to create a list of hotels, and once that gets unmanagable then start listing by country or continent, (although i notice you seem to have turned List of hotels into a list of countries). Most hotels, I'm sure you'll agree, are by their nature non-notable as they tend to be small privately owned businesses, and the service they offer is inheritly transitory, so they are rarely likely to be the subject of major commentary unless operate some revolutionary business model, are the location of some major event or have some groundbreaking USP. If you want to improve wikipedias coverage of hotels, you should pick out some key hotels which you are knowledgable about and which have a great amount of coverage and write good articles about them, nobody will object to this. If at some point there is enough coverage of hotels then we'll be able to introduce a decent quality list of hotels, but that might take a long time. The starting point needs to be articles not lists imo. Bob House 884 (talk) 15:02, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I feel the list is more encyclopedic as a list of buildings in general. The info on buildings in Guinea is going to be tight anyway in books... But the top hotels in any capital city and any major city in my view are worthy of coverage if the sources exist. I will begin creating some articles on Guinea buildings shortly, as long as they are decent stubs. i believe we should be drawing up lists for each country like this, highlighting which buildings are notable and creating articles on them. I think generating lists like this for each African country would be the best way to start a coordinated approach towards this, the articles can easily be started at a later date. Its all part of the building process.♦ Dr. Blofeld  15:12, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep I see the article is now, very reasonably, expanded into List of buildings and structures in Guinea.  (I was asked on my talk p. to come here, btw, and I'm glad to have found out about it. I would not necessarily have said keep here if it were just a list of hotels. ) The criteria for inclusion on a list like this is that the items have Wikipedia articles or are obviously qualified for them. Few of the items now have articles. Almost all are however qualified for them. (we normally do cover major hotels, though  possibly some of these may not be major; we consistently do cover major hospitals, and we cover cathedrals, etc.)) Lists like this are a very practical way to get new articles, and Africa is an area where we very much need increased coverage. Strong keep rather than keep, because I consider this an important principle, and one important for the key mission of increasing the geographical areas where we have good coverage. It's not just important for increasing the scope of encyclopedic  information--it's even more critically important for the essential mission of encouraging new editors from these areas.    DGG ( talk ) 16:58, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

NOTE Dr. Blofeld has created a number of 'List of hotels in country X' articles which were similar in content to this one when it was nominated. It is likely that the nomination was a test case for speedy deleting the other articles. Since the nom, the focus of the nominated article and its name have changed completely (although it is still largely a redlink database), however the articles which this AfD may have been a test case for have not been changed in a similar way. It may be appropriate to close or restart this discussion. Anyways its probably best for everyone to notice the major change in focus since the discussion began. Bob House 884 (talk) 17:34, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

NOTE Dr. Blofeld has moved all 'List of hotels in country X' articles to 'List of buildings and structures in country X' articles and will continue developing them...♦ Dr. Blofeld  18:25, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep. Most of these buildings are presumably notable: multiple sources, plenty to say about them, and of interest to readers who live in the country or are visiting. A list, as in "See also: List of buildings and structures in Guinea", is a good way to encourage browsing. DGG has a good point that the redlinks are useful in encouraging new editors from a country with very poor coverage. These are subjects that are simple and uncontroversial to write about, good for a newbie. When the list grows large enough, perhaps it should be split by city. That is common with the USA and UK, and seems maybe a better split than by type of building, although I do not have strong feelings. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:24, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep. Not much of an article. But have to start somewhere.  Nipson anomhmata   (Talk) 21:21, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Lists are never very exciting, although useful. This list will become more useful as the redlinks turn blue. I may start one or two entries, but the editors who live there will know more, have better access to sources and can do a better job. I hope they will correct my mistakes, add missing information and generally improve any rough attempts I make. Aymatth2 (talk) 23:32, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I started a random sample: Cathedrale Sainte-Marie is the biggest Catholic church in the country, Presidential Palace (Guinea) is the equivalent to 10 Downing Street or the Élysée Palace, Monument du 22 Novembre 1970, Conakry commemorates an interesting historical episode, and Ignace Deen Hospital tells me not to get sick in Conakry. These are crude, poorly written and poorly researched starter articles, but they show notability (apart from the Presidential Palace). Can the nominator identify any buildings in the list that are not notable? Aymatth2 (talk) 22:45, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Africa-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 02:29, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 02:29, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The scope has been expanded and some articles started to demonstrate that Conakry does have some notable buildings, even a few notable hotels. Is "obsessive" a bad quality in people building an encyclopedia? Aymatth2 (talk) 02:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * "Obsessive" behavior is never a good quality, especially among hobbyists who spend endless hours on this website. Regent of the Seatopians (talk) 01:16, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

" Would somebody please close this AFD??♦ Dr. Blofeld  16:00, 21 March 2011 (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.