Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/London Buses route E9


 * 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. Fram (talk) 09:31, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

London Buses route E9

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

It does not assert the notability of the subject; I really don't think that bus routes are particularly notable. Ne ra n e i  (talk)  23:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. Notability is not a criteria for deletion; notability is asserted as part of a larger whole, in this case the bus network operated by Transport for London. This article, along with hundreds of others, constitutes an effective descriptive sub-article of List of bus routes in London, which would otherwise be overlarge and require splitting to be of use to the reader. Furthermore, the article links to adequate references for its purposes; broader sourcing exists in the primary articles concerning both TfL and the operator, in this case First London. Mackensen (talk) 23:56, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete; in this case, all of them, even if that takes more AfDs. There's a dozen bus routes in Greater Lowell, each and every one of them just as notable, and every single metropolitan area is just the same.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:05, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:Notability is not a criteria for deletion; although it may suggest a merge. It also strains credulity that the bus network of the Greater Lowell conurbation equates to that of Greater London, whose population exceeds seven million. It is also not common practice to use a single article, not necessarily representative, as a standard for deleting several hundred articles. The suggestion is not serious. Mackensen (talk) 03:20, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * How about WP:NOT? We're not talking about the bus network, we're talking about a bus route. Greater London has hundreds of bus routes serving seven million; Greater Lowell has 18 serving a quarter million, so each Lowell route serves more people than each London route. In any case, Greater Lowell is just one example; according to List of cities by population, London is the 16th largest city, and according to List of urban areas by population, it's the 25th. Assuming that for some reason London is the lower cut off point, and that the larger cities only have as many bus routes as London does (347 articles), do we really need five to eight thousand articles that consist of the list of times and places of bus stops?
 * (As a side note, Greater Lowell is included in Wikipedia statistics with Boston, and Greater Boston's population is nearly 4.5 million. Why shouldn't Greater Boston's bus routes be included?)
 * I will agree that this AfD is probably not justification for deleting the rest of the articles; but it should be the first, and the rest should follow in further AfDs or prods. All of this non-encyclopedic material should be swept into the Thames.--Prosfilaes (talk) 12:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not clear to me how this material is non-encyclopedic; I'd appreciate clarification on this point. That Greater Boston's bus routes do or do not exist has no bearing on whether these articles exist; they must be considered on their own merits. I've given several justifications above as to why individual sub-articles better serve the reader then one or several massive omnibus articles. You ask whether we "need" these articles. We don't "need" anything; need has never been a criteria for anything. Our editors write according to their interests, in consideration of what our readers might like to read and governed by our own policies on content. This article in no way serves as a timetable; it does not correlate the overall journey time with individual stops, it merely notes the route taken (in one part of the article) and the service level maintained (in another part of the article). This is necessary and proper for article concerning a service; the use of templates suggests a standard approach taken in this and other articles. Mackensen (talk) 13:41, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not encyclopedic because it's not the type of thing encyclopedias do. These are ephemeral things that aren't written about in books or anything besides purely pragmatic guides for bus-riders. It's not encyclopedic because, as I point out above, to cover bus routes of large cities would take thousands of articles--if we included urban areas with merely a million people, we'd be in the tens of thousands of articles--which is an amount of space completely out of proportion to the general importance of the subject. I've been in research libraries with a million books, and they didn't have tens of thousands of books on bus routes. They're ephemeral; the articles provide no historical context, and state everything in the present, talking about things that could change on the whim of the bus company.
 * No, I don't think it's necessary and proper for an article concerning a service. We do not mention every exit on every US Interstate. We don't cover ever-changing things in exhaustive detail.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. These questions of proportionality don't apply there. You're also wrong to state that these articles don't discuss historical context; I've seen several that detail a history going back to the 1960s. On the matter of this article, the lack of historical context is an individual failing, correctable and not systemic. It's also true that we don't mention every exit on a US interstate, but I question the relevance of that comparison. We do discuss every interstate itself, even though these are more routings than physical things, a road can be re-signed at any time. Mackensen (talk) 01:29, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * And WP:PAPER isn't a reason for keeping anything, there aren't any sources to indicate why this bus route is notable, thus Delete, I also agree with NE2 This is a Secret account 19:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm arguing for a merge, not a delete. --NE2 19:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yea I agree with for a merge of all these bus routes as well This is a Secret account 19:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, do you favor a merge or a delete? You've indicated a preference for both, and lack of notability (if it applies in this case) implies a merge, not a delete. Mackensen (talk) 21:49, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, with only a few exceptions that haven't been done yet, we do list every exit on every Interstate. As for this article, it really needs history. If there's almost no history it might be better in a list like list of bus routes in Manhattan. --NE2 08:14, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete. Wikipedia may not be a paper encyclopedia, as has been pointed out above, but it still is, or should be, an encyclopedia. And no useful definition of an encyclopedia stretches to include information such as routes and timetables for public transport. Before anyone says "but this could be useful for some people", let me remind you guys that these days such information is easily, and much more reliably, available on the public transport companies' websites (in this case http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk). If we start duplicating their information we may as well start copying phone directories into articles next. After all, some may find it useful, and this ain't paper... Jimmy Fleischer (talk) 10:21, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The article, of course, contains no timetable (though it does like to said reliable timetable). Ab reductio absurdam is no reason delete, and it's not enough to state that "no useful definition of an encyclopedia" includes this, because you haven't stated what that definition is! Incidentally, welcome to Wikipedia. Mackensen (talk) 11:54, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, so it doesn't contain a timetable, just a list of stops without times. Does that make it a more useful or legitimate in an encyclopedia? And of course I haven't stated what definitions of an encyclopedia don't allow for stuff like this, because none do. That's got nothing at all to do with a "reductio ad absurdum". Information of this type belongs in a travel wiki or a London wiki, but not in an encyclopedia, wiki or no wiki. As for your welcome message - thank you. I just hope it's not to imply that new users aren't entitled to an opinion. Jimmy Fleischer (talk) 12:43, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No, no evil intent, just a friendly welcome. Mackensen (talk) 15:40, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete - wiki is not a guide. Absent other information, individual bus routes are not notable even if the transport system in which they operate is notable. -- Whpq (talk) 14:32, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. This article doesn't assert notability. In looking into this I noticed, as Mackensen points out, that we have many, many articles on bus routes. I also noticed that there have been previous AfD discussions on individual routes, as well as multiple routes. While it is clear that some individual articles - such as this one - are trivial, and not worth keeping, others do have potential (though could do with a bit of adequate sourcing to support what appears to be a lot of OR). Some routes might go in WikiTravel, though this one is too minor for even that. Considering the case before us, this article is trivial, unsourced, and has no potential for meaningful growth. This essay: Places of local interest is worth reading.  SilkTork  * SilkyTalk 15:15, 29 November 2007 (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.