Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of selected countries in EU context


 * 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The result was   withdrawn. Article was moved to Draft: space. (non-admin closure) ansh666 19:03, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

List of selected countries in EU context

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I'm not sure what this page is supposed to be. The title says "selected countries" (with no indication how they're selected) and "EU context", but we already have Member state of the European Union, and about half the countries (such as the US and UAE) aren't in the EU (and many aren't even in Europe). And why is the size of the country represented in bicycles? Seems redundant to the many other lists of countries on Wikipedia. Ahecht ( TALK PAGE ) 17:37, 17 September 2014 (UTC) PAGE''' ]] ) 13:55, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Withdrawn per move to draft space. --Ahecht ( [[User_talk:Ahecht|'''TALK
 * I changed the icons for land area into more conventional ones. The train and bicycle, fast and slow transport were meant to symbolize distances to cover. Also the title was changed. Erik Zachte (talk) 09:40, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The basic macro introduced here is explained in a blog post and illustrated here:
 * Delete per nom - Also The article states "Data and markup maintained via spreadsheet. Please do not edit manually." ... Well if it's on a spreadsheet then what's the actual point of this article? ... – Davey 2010 •  (talk)  17:45, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The table shows a new way to present spreadsheet using Isotype. The spreadheet isn't needed per se to build such tables, only this one got unwieldy. If you think the selection process for the countries is arbitrary please improve rather than delete.
 * Population
 * GDP
 * GDP per capita

Erik Zachte (talk) 17:59, 17 September 2014 (UTC) PAGE''' ]] ) 18:03, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * How can we improve it when you've told us not to edit it? Only you have access to the spreadsheet and the macro. --Ahecht ( [[User_talk:Ahecht|'''TALK
 * Yeah that is almost a contradiction. Either I might not maintain the spreadsheet and rows can be deleted manually. Or criteria for which countries to include could be discussed at talk page. Erik Zachte (talk) 18:09, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The icons for fast and slow traffic to represent large and small areas, are a compromise, and I welcome better alternatives, as I explain in my blog post, small icon size makes many candidates less fit. Erik Zachte (talk) 18:47, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The idea was to build a EU centric table, but in a larger context, hence all metrics as percentage of EU total, all non EU countries, and the largest countries from other regions. This table is most interesting for Europeans I presume. We could do similar tables for other regions. Erik Zachte (talk) 18:47, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:01, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:01, 18 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete as WP:OR and an WP:INDISCRIMINATE jumble of statistics and facts about EU and non-EU countries. Countries like Argentina and Nigeria are rarely (if ever) compared like this to the EU. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:36, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * What is there original research here? It's merely a better way to present data. And far from original. Been used all over the place outside Wikipedia since 1930's Erik Zachte (talk) 14:28, 18 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I suggest shrinking the number of non European countries (which was admittely a bit chaotic) as follows: keep top 3 countries in population, land size, and GDP for global perspective. that would 9 at most. (done, only 5 due to overlaps) Erik Zachte (talk) 14:25, 18 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete Violates accessibility guidelines. Images cannot solely be used to convey information.   Article cannot be edit manually by others.  Duplicates Member state of the European Union Bgwhite (talk) 05:28, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Disagree on all 3 points: Data are both in numeric and graphical format. Also article can be edited by anyone, I removed the notice. No duplicates as this way of presenting data is new (on Wikipedia). Erik Zachte (talk) 14:25, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * You see the whole point of this new table design (new in Wikipedia) is that people glean very little insights from huge tables of large numbers, unless they spend an extraordinary amount of time studying the numbers. Just making the table sortable is not good enough. Erik Zachte (talk) 14:25, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * So I added this notice: "Unlike most lists of countries in Wikipedia metrics here are not in absolute values, but as percentages of a large entity, the European Union. If you need raw numbers please consult other lists. Here the primary goal is to help the reader obtain a better sense of proportions." Erik Zachte (talk) 15:16, 18 September 2014 (UTC)


 * delete This type of job is not for wikipedia, but for wikiDatabase or whatever it is under development. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:37, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Do you mean WikiData?

I agree this table might be fed from WikiData some time in the future, that would probably be neat. Still I think the end-product belongs on Wikipedia, like so much more structured data (infoboxes). Erik Zachte (talk) 15:25, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

So the presentation mode is far from original, here is another example: For many more see Google Images, search isotype — Preceding unsigned comment added by Erik Zachte (WMF) (talk • contribs) 23:16, 21 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Userfy, no need for deletion. I think this idea is kinda cool, though I should begin with a disclaimer and say that I am a big fan of Erik's blog and especially the wikistats he produces for the Foundation. That said, I am surprised at the chorus of deletes here and to see that no effort has been made to steer him in a positive direction, only towards 100% rejection. As far as the article goes, I am in complete agreement that the title was bad (it still hasn't gotten any better), the lead "Data and markup maintained via spreadsheet. Please do not edit manually." that Ahecht objected to (quite correctly) was laughably bad (and this together with the lack of any categories should have been a red flag that Erik was a new user in need of help, not rejection), and the legend could use some work. I am objecting to AfD process here. The template    should have been used, and the appropriate Wikiprojects (WikiProject Economics, WikiProject Statistics, WikiProject European Union) should have been informed. I would even have voted keep with the right title (something like Isotope list of Population, Area, and GDP statistics presented as percentage of EU totals). Unfortunately, when I viewed the page on my iPad the whole table was cut off and all the Isotopes were presented as long columns, making readability virtually impossible, so I think the java script used is not ready for mainspace.  Jane (talk) 07:59, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Update - Erik has taken my advice and put the article in his sandbox here. I am not familiar enough with AfD policy to send out the alerts necessary to the various projects. Isn't there some category for these economics-related deletion discussions? I have since viewed the table on my desktop and feel there is a valid need for this presentation method on Wikipedia. I think however, that there should first be a properly sourced table with these stats (which categories etc I don't know!), and then linking from that table, a link to this table with ONLY the country names and isotope columns (leave out all other columns, but point back to the source article from this article). As far as Wikidata goes, I think the datapoints for the first table belong there as "live" properties in the various country items, not on this English-only Wikipedia, where they can easily go out-of-date. Alternatively, try recreating a historical table from some old, out-of-copyright textbook and translating that into Isotope. Otherwise, the problem of validating and choosing proper sources will continuously pop up and all of this work will just get deleted anyway somewhere down the road. Now I can see it I like the Isotope style of presenting the numbers. Jane (talk) 08:51, 24 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Draftify. Clearly the user is experimenting with something that is apparently encyclopaedic but not how we currently do things. We should give the user a great deal of rope to because there is a chance (perhaps a small one) that they'll be able to improve our current practice. Moving to draft is better than userification, because it encourages collaboration and external input. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:17, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Userfy or Move to draft This is an interesting idea and one which could be very beneficial to Wikipedia. However, it needs to be fully tested and then reviewed and accepted by the community before it can replace our current processes. I'm in favour of having Erik retain and work on this in either user or draft space (with a slight preference for draft per Stuartyeates comment immediately above), but it doesn't belong in mainspace yet. Yunshui 雲 水 09:24, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Userfy or Draftify per comments above. An interesting idea, but not ready for Prime Time yet.  -- Jayron  32  10:30, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for constructive feedback. I had forgotten about Draft namespace, I agree that is a better place, so I just moved it there. Cheers, Erik Zachte (talk) 13:28, 24 September 2014 (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.