Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lists of postal and ZIP codes of the world

This page is an archive of the discussion surrounding the proposed deletion of a page entitled Lists of postal and zip codes of the world and related lists of postcodes, including the .

Further comments should be made on the relevant articles' talk pages rather than here as this page is kept as an historic record.

Angela asserted that: The result of the debate was to move the articles to Wikisource. and proceeded to effectively delete, by moving to Wikisource, the two lists which were discussed on VfD and the related lists which were never on VfD, after 7 delete votes, 10 keep votes, 1 undecided and 1 I can't categorize for the lists of zip codes of the world. Jamesday 08:33, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Erm, no, that was Patrick. I did not move or delete this page. I just added the boilerplate "this is an archive" text, and summarised the outcome by noting that the page had moved to Wikisource.


 * Fonzy made the suggestion below to move to Wikisource and no-one objected, until you did today, nearly two months later. That would appear to me to be a strong sign of consensus. Yes, people had voted previously, then a better idea was suggested and they all accepted that. There was not a single opposition to moving Lists of postal and zip codes of the world so Patrick was absolutely right to action that suggestion. I have reverted all the pages to their pre-move status for one week. I suggest that if you wish to bring this up, you start a new vote on the issue, bearing in mind that Wikisource is now a real project, not just a temporary storage facility on ps.wikipedia, and that these articles exist there. There is no point duplicating these here and on sources, so I suggest that if you want them here, you also discuss the deletion of them at Wikisource. Angela 19:33, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * Replied with new comments below.Jamesday 07:34, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I'm setting up a "New comments" header just below the old ones. &#9774; Eclecticology 00:49, 2003 Nov 27 (UTC)


 * Lists of postal and zip codes of the world. I just found this page. It links to many long or extremely incomplete zip code listings. I have nothing against lists, but this is just too much. LDan 22:16, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Just lists of zip codes hurt nothing. No? What's wrong with them? -- Taku
 * And looks like could be a pretty useful list to me. I cannot imagine why you would think it "too much" except it will be a lot of work by someone to make it useful. - Marshman
 * There is precedent. Someone posted an almost but not quite full listing of Finnish postal codes. It went through VFD and was duly deleted. I would just list the pages on votes for deletion and see what happens. I for one am against lists of numbers. We could have list of postal codes, area codes and memory addresses on the foobar-32 computer, but I don't think we should. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 23:01, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)***Originally listed at the Village pump, moved here by Angela (not a vote either way, just a move).
 * That page and it's sub-lists are rediculous. They don't even link to articles on any of the postal codes they list (who would write an article on a postal code?). Delete.Vancouverguy 23:13, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Funny you should say that. The National Geographic writes an article on a postal code every month. - Marshman
 * Do not delete. I think the British postal codes are very useful, and certainly seem complete Dieter Simon 23:24, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * They are, I created that page and have made sure they are as complete a list as possible. Graham  :) 08:24, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * The current status of the article migth be awful but it doesn't mean it needs to be gone but means it needs to be improved. -- Taku
 * I can see having a policy that says "no lists whatsoever" unless part of an article, but even there I think this list is (or could be) part of an article on postal codes. It is funny how different lists drive different people crazy. This one I see as useful. - Marshman 23:29, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * How is this at all useful for us to have or encyclopedic? What not have a list of telephone numbers as well? Delete. --mav
 * The British one is OK, the others are horrible. Especially the Canadian one.Vancouverguy 23:32, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * I would take that as a vote to keep, as the British one shows the potential that any of the others could (theoretically) reach) - Marshman
 * It will probably never be complete (at least for U.S.) would be hard to check for accuracy, could quickly go out of date, and it's easy enough to link to any of the numerous external sites that provide zip/postal code lookup. Delete. -- Minesweeper 23:35, Oct 3, 2003 (UTC)
 * Now that all of cities of Japan have their article, I am planning to make a list of zip codes in Japan as well, which links corresponding cities. Such list is very useful to look up cities from a mere zip number. I know there are a number of trival lists and don't see they are more useful. -- Taku
 * I, too, would say 'keep'. James F. 00:38, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Keep. Anything reasonably current is quickly out of date. That's not a reason not to have it here. It's a useful tool for an encyclopedia. Like everything else here, time will take care of filling in the details. JamesDay 01:09, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * This is not a slippery slope argument. Well, maybe it is, but even if it is, I would like to know, what part of the slope is it where we slam on the brakes? Say we let in postal codes. Do we have the heart to deny someone who takes the trouble to list all the streetnames within a certain postcode. What about someone who takes a street within a certain postcode, and goes door to door and collects all the names on the doors/postboxes. If someone takes the trouble to add that information, who are we to say it should not be here. What if someone goes to all the houses on a street for which we have an article for, and knocks on the door, and asks the owner of each house, if they would like an inventory of their whole possessions included in a free and open opensource dictionary, with all the lists fit to print store on hard-disk. I don't have an answer as to where the line should be drawn, but it has to be drawn somewhere. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 14:32, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Get rid of. USPS Walk-Sequence Mail Delivery File is not on the list of what Wikipedia is not. But perhaps it should be.  This is also not a static list.  The place I work gets a ZIP Code update file with new and deleted ZIP codes regularly.Ark30inf 15:01, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Keep it. Having those lists would/will be useful - I'm not sure where you would look up postal codes for Belgium otherwise, for example. Updates would lend themselves well to being done by a bot, and the current "in need of attention" state of the articles is not a reason for deletion. -- Schnee 15:09, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia articles are not mere collections of public domain or other source material. I would say it more explicitly: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so its articles are not data, they are... well, articles. That means that they are human-written and are mostly prose. If you wanted to find a Zip code, would you go to your encyclopedia or your almanac? These types of data lists are or should be available on dedicated sites that are more data-oriented, because: (1) A site that is more tailored to structured data rather than unstructured prose will be able to provide better and more appropriate searching, data transfers to your database or spreadsheet application, data-oriented editing tools (instead of the prose-oriented Wiki), etc. (2) A dedicated site will be more diligent about keeping its data up-to-date. Whenever there's a change (yes postal codes do change), Wikipedia be out of date until someone notices the change. Other types of data change (or are added to) more frequently (e.g. RFCs, ISO standards, geographic data such as population, etc). (3) The original source site is inherently better than a copy here. Aside from being more up-to-date, it should be more accurate. How do we know that there wasn't a transcription error (or bot bug) when copying the data to Wikipedia? Many countries' postal codes are available online from their primary source; why not link there, instead of copying the information here? The choice is to look up the information on the original source site, which is guaranteed to have the most accurate information, or to look it up on our copy here, which may be old or inaccurate. Why then would you want to look it up here?  (A programmer strives to eliminate duplicate code as much as possible - this is the identical situation.) Axlrosen 16:41, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Still not sure whether they should stay or go, but the theory that they will in the fullness of time be filled up, and maybe, fifteen years from now, when that actually happens, we can automatically update them with a bot... It boggles the mind, it really does. I mean the same sort of argument was used for keeping all the Request for comment (RFC) articles separately. That in the fullness of time they would all balloon into such huge behemoths that they would again have to be separated into their own articles, thus wasting energy by reversing the process of merging them. But they hadn't been touched for two years!!! If you really think that filling in postal codes is a catching fad on wikipedia, then probably they should stay. But if the idea is to leave them, and hope that in some indefinite future some people who have nothing more relevant to add to wikipedia, will fill all that in, I would like to have a guess as to how likely that is going to be, who are those people, and what makes their mind work that way. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 16:56, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Keep it on Wikipedia, some hard-to-find articles can take minutes, but Wikipedia will take seconds. In around five years, Wikipedia and other Wikis wikk have a billion articles or entries.  There is one website I know  which some contents may not be appropriate for children and new-erans, Make a poll to delete kabalarians.com instead.  Keep it on Wikipedia.  Wikipedia one day will be more technological than anyone else.  So many articles, for their brilliatn minds, higher I.Q. levels, and a higher standard of knowledge.  There are gonn abe higher-speed cheaper computers in the future to overcome this problem. Pumpie 17:14, 4 Oct. 2003 (UTC)
 * Somebody did the "US zipcodes" list on Wikipedia. User Pumpie:Pumpie 17:17, 4 Oct. 2003 (UTC)
 * On the duplicate codes business. The argument (a good one IMO) for duplicating frex the info about films which could be as easily got from IMDB; was that it might not be free info for ever, or IMDB might just fold overnight (well, maybe it could happen; no opinion here), and we would just have a gaping hole where there was nothing to replace it. Well, by the very nature of it, no-one is going to make postal codes copyright, or make them hard or impossible to find on the net. It just isn't going to happen... -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 17:28, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Am I right or wrong? ZIP is an acronym for "Zone Improvement Plan" and is also a trademark of the USPS.  Shouldn't this acronym be capitalized in all these indexes?Ark30inf 17:33, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Keep it on this wikipedia because there is a French Wikipedia article that has an index of all the postal codes in the country (or state), and that article will always be forzen forever to that Wikipedia. Pumpie, 18:33, 4 Oct. 2003 (UTC)


 * Sounds like this is exactly a debate between deletionists and inclusionists. Firstly, the question of usefulness: it is true that some people might find such a list is useful. Imagine you just know a postal code and want to find out where it is. The idea is the same as bots generated cities articles. They are not encyclopediac and 99.9% times useless but someday someone might need it. Secondly, about the argument regardless if such a list is useful or not, it should not be included to encyclopedias. The goal of Wikipedia is an encyclopedia but its ability is beyond that of any traditional encyclopedias. Wikipedia will cover every single episode of the Simpsons, the X-files, data of elections, climates and so on. It is an encyclopedia but it will eventually is more of knowledge bank. Right, I am an inclusionist and you deletionists probably do not agree with this. -- Taku
 * "They are not encyclopediac and 99.9% times useless but someday someone might need it." Wait - this is supposed to be an argument for keeping it??
 * "It is an encyclopedia but it will eventually is more of knowledge bank." Well if you think we should change what Wikipedia is or will be, then you should lobby for that, but right now Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not anything else. So anything that doesn't belong in an encyclopedia doesn't belong in Wikipedia. Axlrosen
 * I'll repeat down here what I started to write further up. I created the List of British postal codes because the information, as far as I know, is not available anywhere else in the public domain and it is interesting.  I think it has every right to appear in an encyclopedia, as long as it has an explanatory description at the top, as the one I wrote does.  I really have no opinion on the lists of other countries' postal codes but I agree that the list I created provides an example of what they could be eventually.  That they are not yet is no reason to delete them though.  So even if you do delete the other lists, please keep the British one, I'd hate to see all that work go to waste.  Graham  :) 08:35, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Simple soloution: move to wikisource: http://ps.wikipedia.org as this sitable for that. -fonzy


 * For now not moved but copied, but the links are now to non-existing articles on cities on Wikisource. Either the links can be made interwiki, or cities may get articles on Wikisource, with other pure data. - Patrick 10:56, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * However (copied from Village pump):


 * Any reason there's no link to Wikisource under the "Sister Projects" section of the main page? Axlrosen 17:56, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Because Wikisource is not a Wikimedia project yet (and may never be due to the fact that Wikibooks does pretty much the same thing already - although I did reserve the http://wikisource.org domain name just in case). All "Wikisource" is right now is a collection of text files squating on the Pashtu Wikipedia. --mav 06:10, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

That sounds perfect. I think we should move them all. What do we think about making this the standard policy for raw data? It's source, so it goes in Wikisource (http://ps.wikipedia.org). Axlrosen 15:03, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

List of zip codes in the US
A similar debate


 * List of zip codes in the United States. Do we really want to produce a huge manual published by the post office? RickK 06:19, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * See above (Oct. 3) - Marshman
 * No, that's a different page. The one above is postal codes of the world. This is just US ones. That might have different issues. Angela 19:45, Oct 4, 2003 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I do not see how that can be. The issues are identical. Some of the world pages are better done than others, but either such lists are to be left alone and expanded, or deleted from Wikippedia. The controversy is much bigger than just this page of US codes. - Marshman 02:09, 5 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * I don't see why not. It is convinient way to look up zip codes. -- Taku
 * A zip code list does not look encyclopedic to me. A link to such a list (perhaps from ZIP code) would be great, but I would no look into an encyclopedia to find out a zip code. And I hereby propose a test of encyclopedicness: IF an average user has a question and would FIRST think of looking into an (traditional or other) encyclopedia for an answer (and not into a telephone directory, Google, textbook, dictionary, etc.), THEN the matter belongs into an encyclopedia. See also Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_policy Kosebamse 22:25, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * It is not an encyclopedic article but a mean of indexing. Unlike traditional dictionaries or encyclopedias, indexing is vital to wikipedia. -- Taku
 * I agree with that; however, the WWW is full of useful lists. Why should wikipedia carry source material (with its updating and accuracy problems) if we could simply index/link/point to such places? Kosebamse 22:48, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Simple, those lists do not link to our internal articles. -- Taku
 * Keep Lirath Q. Pynnor 22:50, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Rewrite so it is about zip codes in the US and then link to the source. Don't duplicate the source. Angela 23:07, Oct 4, 2003 (UTC)
 * Although I'm a big fan of lists as a way to find, manage, and look up articles in our 1/3-mega-pile, I can't think of a plausible scenario where one needs to look up a town given only a postal code. After all, real-life addresses include the postal code in addition to a town or area name, since the codes exist only to help speed sorting at the post office, so it seems unlikely that a reader would somehow have only a zip code but no town. So unless somebody can come up with some actual reason for our readers to use these lists, I'd say to delete.  Stan 23:20, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Keep. Many non US residents find it confusing to understand US zip codes (not to mention infuriating when credit card web payments often demand the inclusion of zip codes even though their country doesn't use them and so has nothing to add in, constantly producing an error - you have not filling in all the details message!) So articles explaining and detailing styles of zip codes worldwide is interesting, informative and encyclopædic. Plus also, people outside the US don't have access to "a huge manual published by the (US) post office" to learn how US zip codes work. FearÉIREANN 23:30, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * We have postal code and ZIP code for explanatory material already. The list in question is sorted by numerical value, and does not differentiate among the dozen zip codes for the Bronx etc. Zip codes also don't follow city boundaries exactly (almost got my power cut off once, due to confusion over the bounds of 95008), so the list is potentially misleading too. Stan 06:10, 5 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Delete. If this were a explanation of ZIP codes (as JT explains it to be), it would belong. Otherwise, it's unenclyclopedic. This could prove a challenge to update. --Jiang 23:51, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Delete. There is already an article about Zip codes -- BCorr ¤ &#1041;&#1088;&#1072;&#1081;&#1077;&#1085; 01:21, 5 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Delete. Same argument as before: it will probably never be complete, would be hard to check for accuracy, could quickly go out of date, and it's easy enough to link to any of the numerous external sites that provide zip code lookup. -- Minesweeper 03:48, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

New Comments
(from November 26 onward) Until this just appeared at wikisource I had no idea that this list even existed on either program or on "ps". That's probably typical for those of us who don't make a habit of reading VfD. I find it difficult to understand how a vote of 7 for deleting and 10 for keeping can be interpreted as a mandate to delete. Is there something about democracy that I am not understanding? The suggestion to transfer appeared late in the process, so it's not surprising that people didn't return to cast votes on the new idea, or to proclaim new objections.

If I now add my vote, which was not previously cast, it will now be 11 keep and 7 delete. Is that enough to keep it? Maybe those who had the brilliant idea to move the article thought that they were both keeping and deleting at the same time - a compromise geared to pleasing everybody.

My position is that it should be kept, and that its proper place is here and not on wikisource. When completed it will be a wikied list with all of its linkages to cities, towns, hamlets and crossroads that have articles here on wikipedia. Those articles will not be on wikisource. The incompleteness is no argument for its deletion. Everything starts small, and I have absolute confidence that in due course enough obsessive-compulsives will appear to complete the lists.

As a footnote I would also make similar arguments about the List(s) of Saints. &#9774; Eclecticology 00:49, 2003 Nov 27 (UTC)

Angela, Thanks for reverting them. I came here after reading Wikipedia-L objections by Ec on Nov 24. Fonzi Patrick copied them to WikiSource.


 * No, Patrick copied them to WikiSource, not Fonzy. It was just Fonzy's suggestion.

Nobody had a reason to object to making a copy, since they are useful in both places.


 * I object to making a copy. The information should not be duplicated. This is a complete waste of effort. They are either appropriate for an encyclopedia, or they are source text. They can not be both.


 * They are appropriate in both places, IMO. In WikiSource, they may just be source data, if they aren't used there to categorise things. In the Wikipedia, they are also a way to organise and categorise and that reasoning is why I generally support the presence of lists in the Wikipedia. Jamesday 08:31, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The edits which removed the lists from here and pointed to WikiSource, were yours. The only support for deleting from here after the copying came from people who wanted the material deleted and it gives the impression that a move to WikiSource is being used as a way to circumvent the VfD process and remove useful items from the Wikipedia.


 * I will state again that I did not delete anything and you do not need to be a sysop to revert a page. If you had issues with my edits, you could have reverted it or brought it up on the talk page.


 * You didn't remove the article in the sense described by Deletion log. You did delete the content. I asked you to restore it because that was, IMO, a more courteous thing to do than reverting - it opened communication about it earlier in the process of discussing something where it appears that &#9774; Eclecticology  and I disagree signiifcantly with your views about the purpose and value of lists in the Wikipedia. Jamesday 08:31, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Lists usually aren't usually simply source material - they are usually a way to categorise and organise related information in the lists and elsewhere in the Wikipedia. As such, copying them to WikiSource may be useful but deleting them from Wikipedia isn't because it deletes the relationship linking between articles.


 * If you want these lists as "a way to categorise and organise related information" in Wikipedia, they should be in the Wikipedia namespace. The main namespace is not a place for creating navigational aids. It is supposed to be for encyclopedia articles. On the other hand, if you feel the lists contain useful information, for reasons that they are informative, then they will still be as useful if they are at Wikisource than if they are here.


 * Such lists normally reside in the main namespace, not the Wikipedia namespace. The main namespace is where they belong because that's the distributed Wikipedia product - they aren't simply to help us build the Wikipedia. List of countries is the same type of lists as these, covering broader geographic units. Like the vast majority of other lists here, it isn't in the Wikipedia namespace. Maybe they all should be, and the meta/Wikipedia/w split suggests that at one point there was that intent, but it's not how we're currently using the Wikipedia namespace. Perhaps there should be a namespace for tables of contents and lists of various sorts. Jamesday 08:31, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

As to why it took a while to object, I doubt that many who thought the lists belonged here expected a deletion after a clear majority for not deleting. I certainly didn't and was unpleasantly surprised when I found out that they had been deleted anyway.


 * Well, you may see it as a clear majority for not deleting. I saw it as a clear consensus for moving the information to Wikisource, as there were no objections made to that.


 * No support for it was given by anyone who had expressed the view that they should be kept in the Wikipedia. It's probably more prudent to assume that where only those with one view are suggesting removing something, that suggestion is not supported by those with the opposing view. Jamesday 08:31, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've no interest in seeing them deleted from the WikiSource project either because they are also useful in that independent work. I'll add the master list with a reference to the US sublist to Lists for deletion to see if WikiSource has changed any views about the usefulness of these lists here. Didn't make any difference at all to mine - an index isn't just bulk source material. Jamesday 07:34, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Whether it is source material or not, such a list is neither encyclopedic not informative. Angela 08:13, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Like the other lists in the Wikipedia, it's a way to organise information and is encyclopedic. The organising and description of relationships between information is part of the job of an encyclopedia and consumes a significant portion of the total size of both the EB and the Wikipedia. Jamesday 08:31, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Keep as a list or redirect?
Lists of postal and zip codes of the world, List of zip codes in the United States and List of British postal codes - Keep in the Wikipedia, including if it is used in another project. Useful basis for an index and linking by geographic location, using well known geographic coding schemes. Jamesday 07:55, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the more recent constructive comments on this. I'm glad to see that these lists are now accepted as a part of Wikipedia.  I do agree with Angela to the extent that I see no useful purpose to duplicating the lists in two projects; however, I would be more partial to deleting them from Wikisource than from here.  Their most valuable property here is their linking capability to the various places listed.  I find it difficult to imagine articles for these places on Wikisource.  Even in the use for which they were intended they are a kind of indexing scheme deriving from the mechanization of postal distribution.  It is more efficient to direct a letter to a postal code than trying to manually determine the location of a small village, or a street in a big city. and then working out the routing for getting that letter where it belongs.  That's why I don't see the postal codes as being properly included in source material.  &#9774; Eclecticology 23:16, 2003 Dec 7 (UTC)

Agreed on their primary role here in the Wikipedia. On the duplication side of things, I'm happy to see duplication in other projects if they are of use in that project. That's a question for each distinct project to decide, IMO. I agree that I'd rather see these gone from WikiSource than Wikipedia. I don't actually consider it to be duplication in the Wikipedia/WikiSource situation, because the roles are largely different. This "Is it an organising tool or simply a list" question is the main factor I use in deciding whether I think any moderately large list is of interest in the Wikipedia. Of course, there's still a lot to be done, since we don't yet have standards set out for geocoding of articles... lots still to do on the metadata front. But we'll get there, eventually. Same issues apply to the ISO country and region codes - another widely used geocoding standard, though one most people are less familiar with if they aren't in the shipping business. And of course there are GPS coordinates as well, and the question of how we eventually implement "what's within five miles of this and what's near this?" functionality in the Wikipedia. At that point we really start to go where conventional encyclopedias just don't go... Jamesday 17:46, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * I still don't think it is encyclopedic, but then I think that about most lists and this certainly isn't the worst of them so I shan't revert to the redirect version but I also wouldn't oppose if someone else did. Angela. 18:50, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I agree with you that lists often aren't encyclopedia articles - these mostly aren't. It's the organising, grouping and linking aspects which tend to cause me to favor keeping lists. Jamesday 19:12, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

---

I find it mind-boggling that there even needs to be a debate on what to do about a page like List_of_A_Postal_Codes. It is not an encyclopedia article, and it is not even a useful list. Please somebody delete this and its siblings. -- Tarquin


 * Have listed it and its siblings on vfd. -- Graham :) | Talk 15:17, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I thought that this was settled in Octoer! See above where a majority voted to keep. Nothing is gained by re-opening the debate. I am intending to merge the material from Wikisource with the material here. We currently have the worst of both worlds with some articles being developed here while others are being developed at Wikisource. Eclecticology 08:49, 2004 Mar 20 (UTC)