Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of years by country


 * 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. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:00, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

List of years by country

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Delete. Serves no good purpose and adds no value. It has been badly maintained and its presentation is poor. In any case, it is superfluous; it can only be viewed as a weak alternative to Category:Years by country which is of far greater use to the readers in terms of accessibility, readability and up-to-dateness. BoJó &#124;  talk  UTC 15:06, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep this is where WP:CLT is a helpful policy to keep in mind. It isn't superfluous, it's simply in addition, for editors who for whatever reason may not choose to browse by category. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:36, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:37, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:37, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm also unclear how it's "badly maintained", since each blue link goes to a "List of years in foo" main article. Now, I see that the nominator is part of both the Time and Year Wikiprojects and is likely well-versed in those fields, so maybe there's some issue that I don't understand. I'll keep a watch on this. Shawn in Montreal (talk)


 * Delete WP:CLT intones that a list article might have some value-added over using an existing category; I see no evidence of that here. The only reasonable rationale is WP:AOAL: "Can be referenced to justify the inclusion of listed articles.". Is that what this is? Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 19:26, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd say, again, it's the first criterion of WP:AOAL, for one: "Good for exploratory browsing of Wikipedia." Some editors might conceivably prefer to browse in list form. Plus, "Can include items that are not linked (e.g., List of compositions by Franz Schubert), or, if appropriate, red links." My !vote remains the same but I'll certainly defer to a consensus on this, best, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:39, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I was the GA Reviewer for Film career of Audie Murphy, which is a real value-added list. (The only reason it wasn't selected for FLC was the huge amount of prose.) While readers could use this list to browse, it's unfinished and I don't see any value over the category. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 19:47, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Film career of Audie Murphy has a filmography, but of course it's much more than that. Very nice article. This one here is indeed a bare-bones list. However I'm pretty inclusive, heck, all-inclusive, what it comes to lists per WP:CLT. Pretty much be in favour of every category having some form of master list, as allowed by policy -- or how I read the policy. You would probably think that'd be a pointless duplication. Let's see how this one goes, best, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:52, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * "...it's simply in addition, for editors..." - exactly, it's not a page for readers. DexDor(talk) 20:39, 8 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep as a purely navigational list. Not redundant to the category per WP:NOTDUP. It should be renamed Lists of years by country, certainly, and all of the red links either removed or created (if there are pages, rather than just categories, for that country). &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 16:06, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
 * At best Weak keep -- I do not like annual categories or related list articles. Categories probably do it better.  However, while we have list articles, we probably need a list of them.  I checked the Ecuador article which listed many years, but only about half a dozen actually had an article.  It might be better to fell the whole tree.  Peterkingiron (talk) 17:39, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete --> Abstain. Original comment: this is an uber-list of WP:LISTCRUFT list articles. I randomly followed to List_of_years_in_Libya and to 2003 in Libya and got: "The following lists events that will happen in 2003 in Libya." (emphasis mine). "Fell the whole tree" may be the right suggestion. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:34, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * 2003 in Libya is not nominated for deletion. For now, it -- along with hundreds of other similar lists -- exist. If they're deleted, this one should be, too, but as long as they exist this is a valid list that serves a navigational purpose (regardless of the quality of the articles it navigates). &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 04:11, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment: I meant I found the whole chain unnecessary, including List of years in Libya. As we are discussing List of years by country I don't see a reason to keep it, as the "head" of this unnecessary chain. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:40, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree - for example List of years in Lithuania says "This is a list of years in Lithuania. See also the timeline of Lithuanian history. For only articles about years in Lithuania that have been written, see Category:Years in Lithuania." (where the timeline is a redlink) which fails SELFREF in several ways. DexDor(talk) 20:39, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete, trivial list which adds no real value for readers. Kierzek (talk) 17:27, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete or move to Wikipedia namespace (e.g. as a subpage of a relevant wikiproject) as the list isn't a page for readers (and it's not a list of years; it's a list of countries, but for readers we have better lists e.g. List of sovereign states). DexDor(talk) 20:39, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete all, redundant to category.  Sandstein   06:34, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete (or maybe open an RFC, see my comments below). My first thought was, Huh?  I have no clue what this is, so we should delete it.  Then, I explored a little, and changed my mind to, Oh, this is how you would find articles about what happened in a particular country in a particular year.  That's really useful, but badly named, so we should keep it, but give it a better name.  Then, I explored some more and randomly looked at List_of_years_in_Lithuania, and discovered it was almost totally redlinks.  But, Category:Years in Lithuania had some bluelinks, and clicking through one of them eventually led me to Podlaskie Voivodeship (1513–1795).  So, while I agree that while the list-of-lists idea might be a useful navigation tool, in practice, it's so unlikely to be maintained, that it's worthless.  Categories just plain do a better job for this.  -- RoySmith (talk) 13:28, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Question - It seems like those !voting delete are largely in favor of deleting the whole tree/chain/whatnot. So to be clear, that would mean deleting e.g. 2014 in Ireland, which is just a random recent one I picked and looks to have 173 references. If that should be kept, does that mean the deletion chain would simply be this nominated article and the various "List of years in [country]"? List of years in Ireland, sticking with that example, is, surprisingly, mostly bluelinks (size/quality varies significantly of course). To that end it seems like a pretty natural navigational list to me (presuming there are articles and not just categories, it seems hard to say there's a redundancy issue). And if we have a bunch lists on a theme, a navigational list between those (the present discussion) seems sensible. That's my thinking anyway, but I'm not sure based on your !votes where in there it loses support. &mdash;  Rhododendrites  talk  \\ 14:06, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Just to go ahead and add some additional examples: List of years in Afghanistan is blue for the whole 20th century; List of years in France is blue for every year since 1700, and mostly blue going back to 1500; Germany is complete since 1871; List of years in Sweden has only 5 redlinks in the years since 1520; and List of years in the United States's only redlinks are in the future. Just going from the last one, 2016 in the United States is a 156k article with 157 references. I'm not saying definitively those are necessary lists, because I suspect a bunch may be copied from other lists (births and deaths, for example), but while those exist the "by country" seems logical, and while "by country" exists, the list of lists seems logical. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 14:15, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I think 2014 in Ireland is a terrible article.  Lots of things happened in in Ireland in 2014.   Who decided which events were important enough to get onto that list?  What are the inclusion criteria?  -- RoySmith (talk) 14:23, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. But that's not nominated here. "fell the whole tree" was mentioned above, but there are no deletion notices on these various pages and nobody has been notified. If those are deleted, then of course this one should be, but while those exist, it shouldn't matter if they're great articles or trash for the purpose of a navigational list. They're extant Wikipedia lists on a theme. Perhaps a speedy renomination along with the rest? &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 14:35, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, I wasn't suggesting we slip 2014 in Ireland into this AfD. But, I do agree that if there's a constellation of lists (i.e. the year lists we're talking about here) which make up logical structure, it's silly to pick at them one by one.  Maybe the best thing to do would be to put this AfD on ice and start a more broad-themed RFC on the whole hierarchy.  Then we could come to a coherent decision.  Maybe that's keep them all.  Maybe that's delete them all.  Maybe that's keep some and delete others.  But, if we're not going to do the RFC thing, then, taken as an isolated decision, I think deleting this particular list makes sense.  -- RoySmith (talk) 17:08, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 18:06, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete as the article essentially contains no other actual information therefore this is best confined to a category, which is what commonly happens with such information. SwisterTwister   talk  02:42, 19 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep and rename to Lists of years by country. This qualifies per WP:NOTDUP, is a functional navigational aid per WP:LISTPURP, and functions as a set index article. Some key points:
 * People actually use the List of years by country article: 1,620 page views in the last 90 days
 * Conversely, Category:Years by country only received 493 pages views in the last 90 days.
 * Deletion will not improve the encyclopedia in this case; instead it will just make the encyclopedia more difficult to navigate for readers interested in these topics.
 * – North America1000 05:37, 19 September 2016 (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.