Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of street names of drugs (4th 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   no consensus. It's clear that there are mixed feelings about this list. Some say that it's unmaintainable, others say that it's a useful list. It's clear that people can't agree, so it's a NC. ( X! ·  talk )  · @232  · 04:33, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

List of street names of drugs
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This "article" has a long history. There have been three previous nominations for deletion, the second actually carried it out. The third was in February of this year. This thing is totally unsourced, anybody can just come in here and add whatever names they want to add, and nobody would be the wiser. This is a direct violation of Wikipedia is not a directory, is completely unmaintainable, and should be burned with fire. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:14, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Not notable, and its a list with no criteria for inclusion. Fuzbaby (talk) 19:32, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete For the record, the article was created in good faith when I found a red link on a page buried somewhere in Wikiproject medicine. It took about 8 hours to research the names. The article is sourced, but I found inline citations for all the entries impossible to do. Since then the page has clearly become a beacon to all vandals in the world, and I think that Wikipedia would be a better place without it. It would be best if a nice admin would come along and put it out of its misery. Gilo1969 (talk) 20:12, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Encyclopedic and notable list. Sourcing needs improvement. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:58, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep- This helps those who might hear it and wonder what X name is. We can always remove the vandalism and lock the page. What message does it send if we let vandals dictate what we do here. I also see that a reliable user has been maintaining this page.Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:14, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Which reliable user? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 04:42, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 01:16, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong delete. I'm going out on a limb here because I'm basing a big chunk of this on my professional experience. (Please bear with me, I believe it is relevant). While there are a few that endure, so many change what seems to be almost weekly. From a professional perspective, I've seen lists come out from the DEA that were already outdated when they were printed. And what is meant in one city can be totally different in another city, let alone other states and countries. I can see huge sourcing and vandalism problems, as well as the fact that the vast majority of terms will be nothing more than neologisms. You can call my objection WP:OR if you want, but I see this article becoming nothing but a huge mess in the making. Niteshift36 (talk) 05:50, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Although I believe it is maintainable, I don't believe it's encyclopedic. Wikipedia is not Urban Dictionary. Perhaps a substantive trim and renaming to "Common street names of drugs" with a general reference to the DEA list mentioned above would help put some kind of limit to it's growth and allow us to preserve information here. -- &oelig; &trade; 16:00, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. I see this as a very useful list indeed.  This is yet another reason why our encyclopedia is so much better than Britannica!  Baileyquarter (talk) 16:55, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete- Lists like these can never have valid sources. Nominator is right here that anybody can add anything they want. These are slangs and slangs have no encyclopedic standards unless they turn out to be global. Not an encyclopedic material. Hitro  20:23, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Apart from that, best of those street names are already included in their respective articles. Hitro  20:26, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Improvement of the article seems easy as we already have authoritative sources. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:26, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete: (i) because the subject matter is not particularly encyclopaedic (WP:NOTDICT and particularly not a dictionary of slang); (ii) because of the lack of clear, inline, sourcing for such a bulky list (and the problems with maintaining such sourcing, even if an attempt were made to implement it) & (iii) because of the ephemeral nature of the material. A shorter, well-sourced list of enduring slang terms would reduce my opinion to 'weak delete' (but not to 'keep'). HrafnTalkStalk(P) 09:38, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Important and basic information for the  real world. Although these change,m we can keep up with the successive changes, and there are very good sources available. DGG (talk) 08:32, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sure some will do their best to keep up with it, but there is no way it will ever be current and comprehensive, while still meeting the WP:V standards. By the time media and/or govt. figure it out and print it, the many of the terms change. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Weak keep I have mixed feelings about this list. I believe that the topic of street names of drugs is notable -- these names are written about extensively. Also the topic is important to society, as life and death sometimes depend on understanding the meaning of street names. It's clear, however, that this list is much less well-developed than this source that it cites. Also, the lack of inline citations makes it nigh-on-impossible to ensure verifiability. I think the list would become worth keeping (mostly because of the value of its links to relevant Wikipedia articles) if it were thoroughly supported by inline citations. The list of street names in Purple drank (names that aren't in this list!) has remained remarkably stable ever since I inserted a bunch of inline citations and deleted all the alleged street names that I couldn't source. I suggest the same approach for this article. --Orlady (talk) 00:41, 8 July 2009 (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.