Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/London Buses route 183


 * 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, and thus] kept There's not quite a consensus to keep - but clearly none to delete. Scott Mac (Doc) 21:30, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Rationale - the article is verifiable and capable of neutral presentation, therefore there are no overriding policy reasons to delete. The nomination therefore requires a consensus in support. The GNG are guidelines, and whilst they may influence and guide those participating, they don't mandate deletion, absent such a consensus, even if the article were thought to fail them.


 * Looking at the votes. There are 6 valid delete votes. (I'm disregarding that of Radman as "we don't need this" isn't a reason to delete it.) There are 5 solid keep votes (DGG Alzarian, DewKane, Dreamfocus, and Editor). That alone would give no consensus. There are additionally three more dubious keep votes, arguing for keep on grounds of procedure or lack of nominator's diligence, I attach less weight to these because they don't address the article's merits at all - but they tip things towards keeping at this time. Added together we've clearly got nothing like a consensus to delete - so the article is kept.

London Buses route 183

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

There are adequate references to demonstrate that this bus route exists, and the information in the article is well-sourced in places (though with much unreferenced material), but there is no evidence that it meets the notability test of WP:GNG: "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

Some of the material in the article could be incorporated in an expanded List of bus routes in London, so a merger may be appropriate. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:17, 29 March 2010 (UTC) What relevance does that have to this discussion? Jeni ( talk ) 00:09, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions.  --  Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:18, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions.  --  Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:18, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete or merge. Bus routes ought to be held to the test of "significant coverage in reliable sources". Otherwise they cannot be the subject of reliable encyclopaedic articles. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:17, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Procedural keep for now, there is already ongoing discussion on this elsewhere, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London Transport. These AfD's certianly don't help the process users are currently going through to determine which articles are notable and which aren't. Jeni  ( talk ) 22:15, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The assessments there seem pretty shoddy. For example, this comment praises London Buses route 187, but I see no evidence there of notability. Meanwhile, Jeni contested a series of PRODs for West Midlands bus routes for which there was no evidence of notability. If WikiProjects don't follow accepted standards of notability, then editors really do not have valid grounds for complaint that community-wide forums are used to remove non-notable material. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:08, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Then why are you choosing to ignore the discussion and mass AfD articles? You have noted in a comment somewhere that the discussion has been ongoing for a week, what you have failed to notice is that there is currently a couple of editors already going through each bus route article, assessing them for notability, adding references where needed and redirecting where notability isn't there. I see this as a pointy nomination more than anything. Jeni  ( talk ) 23:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I only AFDed 6; I PRODded 13, which you disrupted by removing the PROD without offering any reason to keep the articles. If you persist in disrupting lightweight mechanisms for removing non-notable material, don't accuse anyone else of pointiness when the articles then get taken to AFD. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:49, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * My reasons for removing the prods were very very clear, if you took the time to read the edit summaries (where it is generally accepted that reasons for PROD removal are located). Jeni  ( talk ) 23:51, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Your reasons for removing the West Midlands PRODs were that you asserted notability for those bus routes, even tho there was no evidence of notability and no claim of notability. Those reasons were indeed clear: clearly nonsense. If you think that this is  a notable bus route, it's little wonder that you don't want the wider community to scrutinise the notability of any such articles, and prefer to keep these things away from AFD. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:06, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's highly relevant. You object on procedural grounds to AFD, when you have repeatedly disrupted lightweight procedures for removing non-notable material. You can't have it both ways: if you contest PROds on bogus grounds, article will be taken to AFD. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:14, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You are bringing up a completely different article which was objected to on different grounds. Tell me again how this is relevant? Jeni  ( talk ) 00:16, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's relevant because it is evidence that all your procedural ruses are just a form of disruption, and that your actual purpose is trying to keep non-notable material. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:18, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Procedural keep – since there is an on-going discussion elsewhere, please withdraw discussion to that location. The article can be renominated, if necessary, after the conclusion of the current discussion. Imzadi1979 (talk) 00:27, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The entire purpose of using PROD is to remove articles to whose removal nobody will object. If anyone objects for any reason at all, the deletion is not uncontroversial, and they can and should remove the prod. To object to their doing so is entirely besides the point--the point is that they do object, and that therefore whoever placed the prod cannot assume that their view is the consensus without a discussion. To remove it was the right and fair procedure--to object to it is being argumentative to no purpose, since the thing for the prodder to do, is argue the issue, and see if people will agree.  To say that a contested matter is uncontestable is a self-contradiction, unless of course someone thinks when they are sure they are right, they are infallible.      DGG ( talk ) 03:04, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course anyone can contest a PROD, and I would deplore any suggest of them being uncontestable; the point is that unless there is agreement, there should then be discussion at AFD. Unfortunately, in this case the editor who contested the PROD has also been opposing the existence of the AFD discussions which are supposed to allow consideration of the arguments, and has steadfastly refused to offer any reasons to keep the articles whose PRD she opposed.
 * What's the point of having AFD and PROD as separate processes if an editor who contests a PROD don't offer any reasons to keep the article, and denounces the AFD? It's like a Congressman demanding that time be set aside for a debate on a topic and then refusing to speak on the substance and denouncing the existence of the debate. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:29, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment on procedural keeps. These should be disregarded. Any editor is entitled to bring an AfD, regardless of whatever discussions are taking place within a Wikiproject. The community at large decides notability. --Mkativerata (talk) 00:29, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep on its own merits. All established bus routes are major features of the local geography, and if an article can be written, it should be; whether they are better merged is a question of style. The information is encyclopedic. . If people look at these articles and decide that they want to keep them, that makes a practical policy of exception to the GNG.There are other ways of showing notability, and it is in fact contrary to the current WP:N guideline to say the the GNG is the only way.  Personally, I think trying to remove establish borderline articles is a very poor use of time here, when there are so many important things like unsourced BLPs to attend to,   DGG ( talk ) 03:04, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Notability offers another way only where there are agreed separate guidelines.
 * There is a very good practical reason for GNG: that it is an inevitable consequence of the core policy WP:V. Without it, an article can exist only as either original research or as repetition of primary source material.
 * In the case of these articles, most of the material is simply unsourced, a situation which is all too common with topics which fail GNG. This article is a good example of that: it has no footnotes, and there is no indication of whether the content is from primary sources, or some unreliable source, or is just something made up. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:29, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep The article is now sourced, although not always to reliable sources. But it did receive coverage in the BBC News, which is reliable, so can probably justify retention per WP:GNG. Alzarian16 (talk) 10:20, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I don't think that's right. The BBC News report 'Worst bus route' named and shamed gives significant coverage to route 322 (which ironically does not have an article), but route 183 is not even mentioned in the body of the article, just listed in a cut-out box. A one-line mention is not significant coverage. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:33, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep Disruptive deletion spree made without due diligence per Articles for deletion/London Buses route 74. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:22, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:AGF, please. I did indeed follow WP:BEFORE, and if you look above your comment you will see that even the editor who has worked on trying to improve many of these articles can find nothing which meets WP:GNG. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:38, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Projects don't own articles. No user is required to avoid nominating an article or working on it because projects are talking about it.--Crossmr (talk) 00:41, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * delete sources do not seem to give significant coverage from reliable third party sources. Name drops and trivial mentions are not significant.--Crossmr (talk) 00:41, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:MILL. We don't need articles on every bus route in existence. RadManCF &#x2622; open frequency 17:40, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:MILL is an essay with no standing. We are not discussing every bus route in the world, just this one.


 * Delete. Article does not demonstrate significant coverage in reliable third party sources - name drops only. Karanacs (talk) 13:18, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Redirect rather than delete no real opinion if we should have the article as stand alone or not, but we shouldn't delete given a list article exists. Hobit (talk) 21:40, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep all information contained in this article is verifiable. The majority of London bus routes are notable, and the system is notable. Dew Kane (talk) 04:20, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Some believe all bus routes are notable, some believe none of them are. I believe this one clearly is, there a lot to write about it.  We really need to have a clear guideline made on fair standards to determine which routes are notable and which are not.   D r e a m Focus  19:01, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Dream Focus, everyone can believe whatever they want, but if we just stated our beliefs we'd never reach consensus on anything. This is supposed to be a reasoned discussion, in which editors offer reasons why they take a particular view. So what are the reasons for your assertion that this one is notable?
 * BTW, if someone wants to propose a new guideline and try to gain consensus support for it, then go head. But in the meantime we already have a long-standing and stable guideline: WP:GNG. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:44, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The BBC listed it as one of the five worse bus routes in an article called Worst bus route' named and shamed. This is linked to in the article.  That counts towards it notability.   D r e a m Focus  10:50, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * What we've got is "3rd word bus in London in summer 2002, though even then there's no evidence that anybody wrote anything about the route". Fine to mention this sort of thing in an article, but previous editors of the article have been right not to give it undue prominence, and leave it buried in the history section.
 * 183 in the list, but it is not mentioned in the text of the article, so WP:GNG is not satisfied (no significant coverage). An assertion of notability often points towards the existence of more coverage of that aspect of a topic, but I can't find any, and after a little burrowing I can see why. That list is not of all-time-ever worst buses, or anything like that; it's a report of 3 months worth of statistics. So the 183 was the 3rd worst London bus route in the summer of 2002. Last month's story is that the latest list of worst buses seems to be clustered in Brent, according to a Lib Dem councillor. A lone name-check like that does not establish notability. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:57, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete/Redirect Appears to contain solely trivia and is largely unreferenced; no evidence of notability. Orderinchaos 10:26, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment I have added some more sources. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:23, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The latest of which is a link to map-selling site's sale of reprints of the old bus maps. The link which Col W has used doesn't even verify the assertion which it is used to reference, viz. that "this route was still much the same in 1952". I'll assume in good faith that Col W actually has a copy of the map and just posted an un-needed commercial link, but the existence of a bus map is a primary source which does not in any way denote notability.
 * There is more initial promise in his other ref, a local newspaper story about bus thieves on the route. But like many local newspaper stories, the substance is less dramatic than the headline: one man reports his mum's bag being slashed, and some of her friends being robbed, and alleges that crime is rife on the route. That's all: the police only confirm the one incident, and the story doesn't even support its own lead claim that "Vulnerable pensioners are being preyed upon by gangs of thieves on the 183 bus which travels through Harrow and Pinner". Reliable source? No. ... and a quick google search confirms my personal experience that crime on buses has at times been a big problem across many routes in London: "bus crime" london -wikipedia returns 4,750 hits including a BBC report showing 30,000 to 40,000 crimes a year on London buses in that period. So there I have a big undue weight concern about even mentioning the incidents on the 183 out of context, particularly since a search for bus thieves london now returns the 183 as the top result.
 * So, analysing the local newspaper story, we have evidence that one bus crime out of about 35,000 that year happened on the route 183, and an unconfirmed 3rd-hand report from the (man's mum's friends) of two others. Col W didn't claim that this establishes notability, which is just as well because that's an abysmal claim to notability. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:06, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The bus map document is not a primary source. The information it contains has been reformatted and reprinted in a modern style and is sold as a historical reference as it is obviously little practical use for routes of 58 years ago.  As this and other similar historical references are still in print and being actively promoted and sold, this is clear evidence that this information is notable rather than mundane ephemera.  As we are constantly told, Wikipedia prefers a historical perspective in its articles and such sources are therefore excellent for our purpose.  Editors who doubt the accuracy of the citations may purchase their own copies - we have no requirement to provide access to online copies of such work as this would be a breach of commercial copyright. The link is provided to facilitate this and to forestall the complaints of any Doubting Thomas who might otherwise allege that we had invented the source. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:35, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I hadn't noticed the reformatting, so thanks for the correction. But is a revision of an old map a primary source? Interesting question, and I'm not sure there's an quick answer.
 * However, even if we assume that it is a secondary source, it's still a map of all the bus and trolleybus routes in London, not just the 183. The fact that there is a market for these historical maps demonstrates once again the notability of the London Bus system as a whole ... but that's not at issue. It would be quite a stretch to suggest that inclusion in a map of ~200 routes amounts to "significant coverage", and I note that Col W is wisely not claiming that.  So we still have no evidence of notability per WP:GNG. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:49, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I most definitely claim that it is significant. The document is, of course a compendium, showing all the routes severally and together, both in text and visually.  As it mainly contains routing information, it is obviously this information that its editors, purchasers and readers find significant.  It is not our job to second-guess and sneer at their judgement.  If there are readers for such stuff then we have our work cut out for us in summarising this material and presenting it in a convenient and accessible fashion.  Bus route numbers are the obvious index to use for this purpose and so form the natural basis of our presentation. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:05, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Once again, this is simply making a mockery of common sense. First you insist that a reformatted primary source is not a primary source; and now you insist that being one of several hundred routes marked on a map is "significant". If that's how "significant" is to be defined for notability purposes, then have abandoned the notability guidelines and are just keeping any article on a topic that gets a brief mention anywhere. If that's what you want, then propose the deletion of WP:N ... but in the meantime, WP:N stands. You started off with a gratuitous assumption of bad faith, and now you want to rewrite the English dictionary for the purposes of this discussion. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:15, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The OED provides 11 different definitions for the word significant. We need not dwell on this though because the guideline WP:N conveniently provides its own definition for our purposes, "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content".  Addressing the topic directly and in detail is what we have in the sources provided and so that's that.  It seems to be yourself that is reinterpreting this guideline in a novel way - demanding word counts and other ad hoc concepts which the guideline does not require.  Commonsense indicates that sources which specifically address the topic of this and other bus routes are appropriate for our purpose.  The existence of numerous sources of this kind is significant in every relevant way. Q.E.D. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep More sources appear to have been added from when I first took a look through. Content in the article is verifiable and the number of reliable references proves notability. Editor5807speak 00:31, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Nom has it exactly right and nothing has been done (the "sources" adduced notwithstanding) to redress the basic concerns: WP:RS and WP:GNG. This is better of as a list. Eusebeus (talk) 09:35, 5 April 2010 (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.