Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of private-use airports in California


 * 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.  MBisanz  talk 06:07, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

List of private-use airports in California

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This list is about topics which by their nature are almost never notable. (See WP:N and WP:WikiProject Airports/Notability.) The few non-redlinks on the page are mostly namespace collisions with airports outside California. The few that are in California are mostly questionable notability and could be prod/AfD candidates too. The redlinks here encourage creation of non-notable articles which most likely will never be written anyway or would be likely prod/AfD candidates if written. Ikluft (talk) 05:09, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep. While small airports such as these are not considered notable enough to warrant separate articles, a list of them may very well be.  And this is not a "bad", indiscriminate list, but a list whose members are well-defined.  I'd say the subject of general aviation in the state of California is notable. Squidfryerchef (talk) 05:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment. Though I would like to get rid of those redlinks and agree they encourage non-notable articles.  Do we have a script to scrub these? Squidfryerchef (talk) 05:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete The problem is that this is a list of private use airports and as such none will ever be notable without extraordinary circumstances. (There is a separate List of airports in California which includes airports that are open to the public and does not have this problem.)  The list is unnecessary clutter.   Ikluft (talk) 05:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm certainly not an opponent of airports. I'm a commercial pilot and flight instructor.  I have authored some articles about public-use airports.  But private-use airports are below the importance threshold to the point where AfD's usually succeed, and therefore below the Wikipedia community's consensus level for notability.  And for the land owners, inclusion of their private property in Wikipedia has already in some cases become an unnecessary cause for pestering questions - we don't want to encourage Wikipedia editors to become a paparazzi against people who should be left alone. That's my main concern with this. Ikluft (talk) 05:35, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment I think everybody voting "Keep" still wants to take out the redlinks.  So we wont have articles being created about these airstrips, and we wont have any Wikirazzi traipsing through people's fields trying to get a photo of them. Squidfryerchef (talk) 13:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions.   —Ikluft (talk) 05:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions.   —Ikluft (talk) 05:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. Although I was the one who created this page almost two years ago, it was only to remove a large list of private airports from List of airports in California. Most of these airports do not have Wikipedia articles and, in my opinion, most do not meet the notability guidelines. The few private-use airports in California which have articles or are otherwise notable can be added to small section in List of airports in California. For an example, see List of airports in Alabama which includes a link to Sharpe Field (IATA: TGE, FAA: AL73), notable for its former use as the Tuskegee Army Airfield. -- Zyxw (talk) 08:32, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. The only other U.S. state with a similar list is Oregon (see List of private-use airports in Oregon). In that case there is only one red-link because someone created articles for all the private-use airports and heliports. However, a number of these having started being placed through the AfD process, such as: Articles for deletion/Winston-Dillard Fire District Station Number 2 Heliport (already deleted), Articles for deletion/Reforestation Services Heliport and Articles for deletion/Davis Heliport. -- Zyxw (talk) 08:51, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT (talk) 13:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

02:01, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:LC items 2, 5, and 8. Stifle (talk) 15:40, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * keep this is an ideal example of a list topic--specific, measureable, concise.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:43, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep I believe this meets the guidelines for a list.   coccyx bloccyx  (toccyx)  17:41, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Wikipedia isn't a directory listing. This list amounts to an arbitrary intersection of criteria (1:private, 2:airport, 3:california) with no encyclopaedic merit, as evidenced by the fact that the list entries are either redlinked or PROD'd for lack of notability.  S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 20:34, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Question technically, aren't all lists an "arbitrary intersection of criteria" ???--Paul McDonald (talk) 22:09, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not an arbitrary selection of criteria; it's a rather rational set of criteria. Other types of airports are notable enough to have their own articles; this article is essentially a many-to-one merge.  And the choice of a US state is a pretty reasonable way to break up such lists.  If anything, the fact that a list for such a large and populous state as California is still manageable implies it would be useful to complete similar lists for the entire US. Squidfryerchef (talk) 03:28, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep seems a reasonable compilation, especially in light of most of the airports mentioned being borderline on notability in the first place. Gateman1997 (talk) 22:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. Yes I agree that these, which are mostly helipads, aren't notable on their own.  But that is the reason for compiling them all into one article.  The list is not arbitrary; these airports are obviously recognized by the FAA.  As far as redlinks, while a corporate helipad isn't notable, often the place where the helipad is, such as a hospital, major corporation, news outlet, local government, etc, is, and we can wikilink to those.  And while a list like this may seem like bottlecap-collecting to some editors, it's obviously useful to those researching everything from medevac systems to disaster relief to drug interdiction, and can be intertwined with WP articles on those topics.  I wouldnt mind having these lists for every U.S. state. Squidfryerchef (talk) 01:25, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Please see the proposed guidelines at WP:WikiProject Airports/Notability - the WikiProject Airports recommendation is that heliports and other private-use airports (not open to the public or marketed in public) are not considered notable on their own. Heliports should rather be included in articles about their host facility, if mentioned at all. Ikluft (talk) 06:32, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, but nobody on this AFD is suggesting we create articles for each individual heliport. In the example of how this list could be referenced by a WP article on, say, a forest fire, it would use redirects/piped links to the list as a whole. Squidfryerchef (talk) 13:03, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep As per Gateman and Paul McDonald. Ecoleetage (talk)
 * Keep. Useful, encyclopedic information. We might remove the links to airports that don't have articles. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 04:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment There are only 3 airports on the list which are notable: LAPD Hooper Heliport (heliport of the largest city in the state), Torrey Pines Gliderport (national historic landmark) and Monterey Bay Academy Airport (former military base). I added those to List of airports in California in a new sub-section called "notable private-use airports".  Also, of the airports on this list, one editor removed two public-use airports which didn't belong here, another editor corrected three links that pointed to the wrong airports in other states, and I also redlinked 3 more namespace collisions. So hopefully that helps illustrate how unnecessary this list is.  Ikluft (talk) 05:05, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Notability is for an article as a whole, not for each line item within an article. It's sensible to create a list to group together things that aren't notable by themselves. Squidfryerchef (talk) 13:03, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * In a list of articles, notability is relevant - all but three articles in this list fail or would fail WP:WikiProject Airports/Notability. As Stifle points out above "WP:LC items 2, 5, and 8" shows guidelines for avoiding unnecessary lists, which this list violates because it is of interest to a very limited number of people, cannot be expanded beyond a handful of terms and is unencyclopedic (violates WP:INDISCRIMINATE).  In addition, because everything on this list is private property not open to the public, it is WP:OBSCURE.  There is no one who can use this list - it does not have an audience.  If a licensed pilot flying in California needs to use a private airstrip for a precautionary or forced landing, none would consult Wikipedia under such circumstances - there are printed and digital FAA charts which are appropriate to that task. No one else has access to these private properties without contacting the owner(s) first. Ikluft (talk) 06:18, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Nope, notability is only relevant to the entire list taken together. That comes from the notability guideline at WP:NNC: notability guidelines do not directly limit article content.  It's not "indiscriminate" either.  An example of an indiscriminate list would be something like "List of people who like ice cream".  The criteria for inclusion is vague and arbitrary.  Our list, on the other hand, has a very rigid inclusion criteria; recognition from the FAA.  We do this often with types of articles where the individual elements may lack notability, such as lists of low-power radio stations, lists of schools, and the like.  There is use for the list beyond pilots who might need to land in emergency situations; I did a little searching to see if the redlinks can be piped to articles about the entity that owns the airstrip, and quite often we already had an article about the hospital, ranch, power utility, etc, and these are not "obscure".  That means it can be woven into the fabric of WP articles and be part and parcel of the writings about those topics.  Also it appears that some of these airstrips host charter flights, so yes, it is possible that the general public will be interested in those airstrips. Squidfryerchef (talk) 03:16, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. Even the proposed guideline at WP:WikiProject Airports/Notability says Airport lists: A list of airports for a country or region may contain the names of all airports, notable or not..  Couldn't have said it any better myself. Squidfryerchef (talk) 03:20, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... you're right, it does say that. I don't think anyone was thinking of a list of private-use airports when that was written.  (California and Oregon are the only places where such lists were made.  Both lists were out of sight and out of mind until recently.)  The record of previous AfDs on airport articles shows that consensus has been to keep articles about public-use airports and not to keep articles about private-use airports.  That has been a major factor in where to draw a non-arbitrary line for notability of airports in the proposal - consensus could be reasonably expected where it has been found before.  So after this AfD is done and closed, I'll bring up your point as feedback for discussion of an update for consistency to the proposal. Ikluft (talk) 05:10, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Anyway I believe the difference in our arguments is whether this article is a list of articles about airports, versus simply a list of airports. I think that the article can be "rehabilitated" by turning the redlinks to plain text.  And about a third of them can be changed to piped links to articles about the entity that owns the private airport, which means that it's not just an isolated list. Squidfryerchef (talk) 00:20, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I can see this is a subject where you prefer to take the inclusionist view. While I am often on the inclusionist side on other topics, I'm still hoping I can convince you that private-use airports are below the threshold that they provide no audience or purpose for this article.  Everything that you're saying, if it were applied to public-use airports (open to the public), I would agree with. But not for private airports.  The only reason why private-use airports are part of the FAA's public information at all is for purposes of finding emergency landing sites.  Otherwise it's nobody else's business, just like any building with a locked door or property with a locked gate.  There is no use for posting such information about private property.  The few airports that are exceptions can be (and now are) listed under "Notable Private-use Airports" on List of airports in California.  I came to the opinion that we should avoid private-use airports on Wikipedia when another editor asked me what he should do when he visited a private airport looking for info to fill in a redlinked article, and was told to leave the property.  I told him to respect the owner's wishes.  We really don't want to encourage members of the Wikipedia community to become a paparazzi that harasses private citizens.  I know it doesn't and wouldn't happen often - but the same conditions that tempted that editor to do it will happen again to others if we leave it this way.  We know it has happened before. So we should try to remove the temptation for WP editors to do the wrong thing on behalf of our community. Ikluft (talk) 01:50, 12 October 2008 (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.