Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New Hampshire communities by household income


 * 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. — Black Falcon (Talk) 21:59, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

New Hampshire communities by household income

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

The article appears to contravene Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, item 4 "statistics".


 * Delete per above (Transwiki to Wikisource) TableManners 02:53, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. I prodded the article, but it was removed. Giggy  Talk 03:51, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Transwiki to Wikisource - a rank-ordering of geographic entities (be they country city etc) bu income is not an indiscriminate list of facts; however, this list needs some work. It must be made clear that this captures the ranking for a single year and that year must be specified. That's not a major re-work so I'm not comfortable arguing for deleting it. Bigdaddy1981 04:49, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * "is not an indiscriminate list of facts" (quoted from Bigdaddy1981) - How is it not? Do you have a rationale for the statement? Giggy  Talk 04:51, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yep - its a rank ordering which by definition makes the facts not indiscriminate. Furthermore, its a rank ordering by a non-trivial statistic of great interest - income. Its no less an indiscriminate collection of facts than, say, a ranking of the countries of the world by GNP per capita. I'm sorry chaps but this nomination is policy wonkery gone wild. Bigdaddy1981 05:45, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Just to comment on the comments, the "indiscriminate" comes from the section heading of the policy that was wikilinked. The statistics item 4 was specifically cited in this afd, and is the relevent point.  The article is just a table.  It can have an introductory sentence or paragraph added, but these additions will not make it an article.  TableManners 06:06, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Its not an indiscriminate list (as I argue above) but I stand corrected on the consensus. However; this shouldnt be deleted but rather Transwikied to Wikisource Bigdaddy1981 06:31, 8 August 2007 (UTC) And given Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )'s edits, it is no longer in my opinion in violation of the consensus you note. Bigdaddy1981 18:00, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * isn't exactly a major change - it still doesn't provide necessary context, and should still be deleted/transwikied. [[User:Giggy| Giggy] Talk 23:10, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

...In addition to other sections of this policy, current consensus is that Wikipedia articles are not simply:... 4. Statistics. Long and sprawling lists of statistics may be confusing to readers and reduce the readibility and neatness of our articles. In addition, articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader. Articles which are primarily comprised of statistical data may be better suited for inclusion in Wikisource as freely available reference material for the construction of related encyclopedic articles on that topic. Infoboxes or tables should also be considered to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists.
 * Keep and expand for every state and consider a name change to harmonize with the articles on other states. If anyone bothered to read what was cited as: "Statistics. Long and sprawling lists of statistics may be confusing to readers and reduce the readibility [sic] and neatness of our articles. In addition, articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader. Articles which are primarily comprised of statistical data may be better suited for inclusion in Wikisource as freely available reference material for the construction of related encyclopedic articles on that topic. Infoboxes or tables should also be considered to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists. (MY emphasis added) This is not raw statistics, but a formated table, and every state should have a table just like this. "Consider moving to "New Hampshire locations by household income" and source better, and add some more explanatory text, as I just did. Note that there is an entire category of statistical data for each state: Category:Economy of the United States by state, and it would be remiss to delete one state's entry. This type of decision should be made at the portal level, not on a case by case basis. See: Florida locations by per capita income and California locations by per capita income --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 16:29, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Other crap exists - so what? - I personally think the pages you mentioned should all be deleted for the same reason. Giggy  Talk 23:07, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * "In addition, articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader. Articles which are primarily comprised of statistical data may be better suited for inclusion in Wikisource" (My emphasis) - This article contains no explanatory text, just names and numbers. It contains no proper context.  It is purely statistical data.  Interwiki it to Wikisource!  Giggy  Talk 23:08, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Does need work, as stated by Bigdaddy, but this is a nonjudgmental listing of the wealthiest and poorest communities in a particular state, which only has ten counties. For larger states, ranking of the counties is the most widely used method. Mandsford 02:00, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm aware of what it is, but existence isn't a valid criteria for keeping the article. Do you have a reason for it to be kept?  Giggy  Talk 02:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The reason it should be kept is that it's an article about the geographical distribution of wealth in an American state where county by county listing would be less useful. It is more than simply a "list of names and numbers".  For the same reason, we rely upon lists of the poorest and richest counties, zip codes, etc.  One must concede that this is almost as worthwhile as the list of Scooby Doo episodes in season 2 of that series.  As Manners says below, the list is the article.  Mandsford 12:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The article in question contains a very well formatted list, that obviously took some time to compile and generate. It is well done.  This Afd is not a reflection of the hard work put into the article.  But policy suggests that it should be moved to wikisource.
 * description of article as "nonjudgmental": The list in and largely comprising the article was apparently compiled from a web based database.  This database contains a variety of fields.  The fields selected from the database to compile this list were chosen by one or more contributors, and as such, the ranking is in fact a judgment.  I would also argue that it is original research.  Another contributor might use the database to write an article titled New Hampshire communities ranked by number of children under the age of five.  But in doing so, I would be making a judgment call on which fields were important in a ranking, and probably performing original research.  The official policy is clear on this.
 * "Infoboxes and tables": The selectively emphasized "Infoboxes or tables should also be considered to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists" clearly refers to articles that contain lists that help make the article better.  In our case, the list is effectively the article.  Without the list, there is no article.  If an article existed and there were a dispute about adding a list to the article, the selectively emphasized quote would be pertinent.  TableManners 03:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment the OR claim is rather a stretch in my opinion, I have examined the database in question, one simply selects a given town and clicks, a html table listing various statistics (or pdf of same) is generated. One of the statistics is per capita income - which is reported here. There is no OR involved whatsoever - the article's creator, I expect, compiled a list of these per capita statistics for the specific list of New Hampshire communities. I further note that the data in question are hosted on an official state of New Hampshire website and are originally due to the US Census Bureau. Rather a good source I think. Bigdaddy1981 21:28, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I think you are confusing OR with RS. I am not questioning the reliability of the data.  The OR is with regard to selecting the field (the html generates various statistics, of which, the original contributor or contributors decided that household income was the one to use for rank ordering a list).  Again, using the same database, I could create an article titled New Hampshire communities ranked by number of children under the age of five.  It would be created using reliable sources.  The OR comes in in me deciding that such a ranking is noteworthy, and in the compilation.  TableManners 04:43, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * To clarify; it is indeed a reliable source, but not necessarily a notable use of the source - not sure OR is the best call, because it is verifiable - it now verges back on to WP:NOT and notability of the topic chosen (as noted, you could use it to generate a list of anything). Giggy  Talk 05:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: In general, OR can be verified.  In this context, I should note that by OR I specifically mean "synthesis of published material."  In any event, the website/database is effectively a primary source ("tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires").

Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely on primary sources. An article or section of an article that relies on a primary source should (1) only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. Contributors drawing on primary sources should be careful to comply with both conditions.
 * Granted, this is complex, but it is my view that the verifiability and reliability are not in dispute. Compiling the data (synthesis) and selecting which fields (interpretive and evaluative claims) are part of what we're discussing.  Consequently, I do think the official policy, No original research, is pertinent to this discussion.

Wikipedia itself is a tertiary source.
 * The web based database is the primary source, wikipedia is a tertiary source, and this makes the contributor the secondary source. Hence, original research.  TableManners 05:25, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I just want to add that I understand that my interpretation may not be the same as others, so I have asked another person who was involved in an OR discussion on the official page to chime in. Hopefully he/she will, and can articulate for our consideration the error in my or others thinking.  02:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep and expand. I think this is useful info, but it needs text to place it in context and help explain why certain cities appear near the top or the bottom. It might be a good idea, especially for larger political regions, to not include a complete list but just the top/bottom rankings, as these are the more interesting parts that we can write stuff about. I don't believe there is an OR issue here - this synthesis is trivial and informational, not intended to advance a point. Dcoetzee 23:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
 * COMMENT: Move to close, appears to be no unanimity.  TableManners 03:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:NOT, and per nom. GreenJoe 21:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete as per Greenjoe Harlowraman 16:51, 15 August 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.