Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Turner Falls Road Bridge


 * 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. No actual argument was put forth establishing the notability of these bridges within the current Wikipedia notability guideline. There is no sub-guideline for bridges, so statments that they are notable because they are old has no merit. Notification of Wikiprojects is by no means a requirement, rather a courtesy, and therefore has no bearing here. WP:USEFUL covers the other baseless support comments. seresin ( ¡? ) 02:37, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Deletion overturned at deletion review here. lifebaka (talk - contribs) 19:08, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Turners Falls Road Bridge

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Completely, totally, utterly non-notable bridge. It isn't even the main bridge across this particular river to this small town (that'd be the Gill - Montague Bridge, a bit under a half-mile away). The bridge is not a link to a highway, principal or otherwise, nor are there any sources, reliable or otherwise; even the article admits the bridge is "nondescript." Only 17 Google hits, all of them this article and various Wiki mirrors. As far as I can figure, the sole purpose of this article is that someone's been creating them for bridges across the Connecticut River, no matter how insignificant ... and not always accurately: the name of the town is, in fact, "Turners Falls." A redirect to Turners Falls, Massachusetts was reverted with the comment "this is a bridge, not a place." Fails WP:V, WP:N.  RGTraynor  15:07, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I am also nominating the following related pages, all of which completely fail as to sourcing and notability:

There are numerous other such articles, although a number of the crossing articles have better claims to notability, but that will do for now.  RGTraynor  15:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Massachusetts-related deletion discussions.   --  Beloved  Freak  15:29, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - it might be worth searching for it under its official name of "White Bridge" as well as "Turner Falls Road Bridge". -- Beloved Freak  15:34, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment - Actually, you'll find, if you did the research, that Turners Falls, Massachusetts is a section of Montague, Massachusetts. It's not a town of its own.  Even the article for Turners Falls says this.
 * Reply: The legal municipality is named "Montague," yes, in the same way that the legal name of Rhode Island is "Rhode Island and Providence Plantations," but claiming that anything short isn't the real name would be pedantry at its worst. Turners Falls has over half the population of the five villages that comprise Montague (a political amalgamation unique to Massachusetts, but that's another story), the police station's there, the fire station's there, the local high school is Turners Falls High School, the town offices are there, and so on.    RGTraynor  16:20, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Take it up with the state of Massachusetts, or with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but that's the situation. - Denimadept (talk) 17:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Regarding the bridges you mention, well, that's an opinion. We'll see what consensus is.  You'll notice that there is a reference for this bridge.  The main bridge, as you call it, for this area is about to be shut down for long overdue replacement.  How, while that bridge is out, will the people cross the river in this area?  This bridge could be considered the backup.


 * I gave up on documenting all the Connecticut River bridges because of this kind of attitude. While I continue, it's for my own purposes, external to the Wikipedia project. - Denimadept (talk) 15:45, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Object to a mass nomination. Each of these bridges has different histories and qualities. It would be more worthwhile to work with WP:BRIDGE to come up with guidelines for which bridges should get an article and which should be treated within another (non-bridge) article rather than doing mass deletion nominations. --Polaron | Talk 16:06, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Afd's are fine, it never hurts to talk about stuff if anyone has a question.  And bulk nominated Afd's are fine in many cases--I just don't think this is one of them.  I would rather have each of these bridges addressed individually.  The bridges are real, and there are plenty of bridge articles on Wikipedia.  It is likely that some will be notable and others not, some will be stubs, others may be more robust artciles... but to have a clear discussion each should be handled seperately.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Turners Falls bridge. The bridges between the town of Montague and Greenfield as a whole are noteworthy mainly because this is the area where most roads from the east cross into the former Franklin County seat. There have been several bridges in the area since the late 18th century that have been washed out or destroyed and new ones built to replace them at various sites between the two towns. This apparently is still true today as mentioned above. The road used by Route 2 originally went across the Connecticut River in the area but was relocated north to bypass the area partly because bridges in the area seem to need relatively constant replacement. --Polaron | Talk 16:06, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: Allow me to quote from WP:V: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question. Editors should cite sources fully, providing as much publication information as possible, including page numbers when citing books.  If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."  The general notability guideline holds: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable.
 * As far as the mass nomination goes, three of the articles listed above have no text whatsoever; they just have photos of the bridges, an infobox and a crossing template. The other two have three bare lines of text between them, saying nothing more than "This bridge crosses the Connecticut between X and Y."  The most recently created of these articles is almost a year old, and only the first one listed has seen work since last October.  I see no reason to presume further improvement possible, and challenge anyone wishing to save the articles to show evidence to the contrary.   RGTraynor  16:25, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions.   —• Gene93k (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete all per nom. and his comment immediately above. Notability has not been demonstrated; Wikipedia is not a directory or a guidebook. I see no point going through a separate AfD for each bridge. JohnCD (talk) 17:16, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * STRONG KEEP and DO NOT DELETE = My Vote. First of all, someone needs to establish an objective and not subjective criteria.  Second, the (3) "railroad" bridges were tagged under WikiProject Bridges, but not also under WikiProject Trains (probably also not under where they are located - Connecticut and Massachusetts).  I went ahead and added the TWP tag to the (2) railroad ones which were not, so If I had not caught a mention on the WP Bridges page that there was more than one bridge deletion proposal ... it was WRONG to propose "Turner Falls Bridge" for deletion and then "sneak" in several others, especially when they were not tagged properly and the appropriate WikiProjects notified.  Properly done the AfD notice should have been "Several crossings of the Connecticut River" and notices should have been posted on:  WP Bridges, WP Trains, WP (highways? or ...), WP Connecticut, and WP Massachusetts.  Personally, I find the "List of Crossings of ..." articles valuable, and it is beneficial when contributors have the time to dig up the appropriate reference materials from the organizations who either built, inspect or maintain those bridges to properly complete an article. That someone took the time and got pictures and filled in some of the basic details - there are more "notable" articles for which "noone" seems to be able to get a picture?  More details can be posted for those bridges if someone takes the time.  I also find it interesting that the people proposing deletion do not seem to be members of WP bridges, WP trains, ... ? not sure which WP they are a member of ?  LeheckaG (talk) 18:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment - the nominator is local to the Connecticut River, which gives him some interest, but is apparently not interested in bridges as such. That's okay, it's good to have a bit of perspective contributed by someone with no interest, to some degree.  I'm interested in bridges enough to have taken pictures of all the Connecticut River bridges personally, and to have acquired images of some of them which are gone, but in some cases wasn't able to easily find much (or any) information on them.  I started some articles just so there'd be a starting point either for me later or for others.  But previous AfD proposals have stopped me from creating more such articles, regardless.  That's why there are a number of redlinks in the List of crossings of the Connecticut River.  I got the images, started thinking about articles, and was stopped cold by an AfD.  Instead, any such research will go into a book proposal of my own, maybe.  Anyway, the image for the Route 10 bridge, Northfield, Massachusetts is kinda neat. - Denimadept (talk) 18:25, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: (coughs) No "sneaking" was done; in point of fact, the span of time between the first nomination and the final one is all of 17 minutes, which time I spent looking over the 47 articles on the list and picked out six that were egregious violators.  Notification of Wikiprojects is a courtesy only (and I can imagine about a dozen Wikiprojects that could be construed to have an interest), and plainly the message is getting out to yours.  That being said, Wikipedia policy and guideline applies Wikipedia-wide, and individual projects don't get to set aside the requirements of  WP:V or WP:N; certainly the projects to which I belong do not.  Were such considerations valid, which they are not, I figure that having seen each and every one of these bridges with my own eyes and having driven over three of them matters at least as much to assess their notability than belonging to WP:BRIDGE.    RGTraynor  18:40, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and also tagged to (2) other railroad bridges with WikiProject Massachusetts. An objective criteria would be to have the relevant WikiProjects at least assess the corresponding bridges and determine whether or not they will "make the cut-off" of bridge articles which one or more of the relevant WikiProjects would take ownership of.  Has anyone taken the time to inventory which Wikipedia articles link to them?  Deleting them would red-line the articles which link to them as well as break the stream of navigation boxes at the bottom of related articles.  Also for instance Connecticut Historic Bridge Inventory, Historic Bridge List Historic Metal Truss Bridges in Massachusetts I believe has the (Massachusetts) railroad truss bridges on it as Historic bridges, I did not check the National Registry of Historic Places, Historic American Building Survey or Historic American Engineering Record, but I would not be surprised if at least one or more were.  Writing about them is a bit lower on my list (after Alaska, Pacific Northwest in general, and Ohio, but I have a personal interest in New England - my sister's family) and I can provide you with quick searches or more reference links i.e. tell me what you need and I can provide you with the reference links you will need to fill in the details.  I believe a better long-term answer might be to move certain articles or content to a different Wiki rather than deleting them "forever" from Wikipedia.  To me, that the railroad bridges are "notable" and "historic" is a "no-brainer".  The road ones I am less sure about (someone should check the inventories above - as well as NRHP, HABS, HAER, HALS) LeheckaG (talk) 18:53, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: None of the bridges appear to be listed on the NRHP, as far as I can tell. HABS/HAER documents the 11th Street Bridge over the Turner Falls Canal, as well as a covered bridge that was destroyed in 1936, and the French King Bridge east of town, but apparently none of the bridges listed in this nomination.  Regardless, if there's a question about notability, it would be useful to have some sort of guideline so those of us at WP:BRIDGE know which bridges are notable enough to have articles.  --Elkman (Elkspeak) 20:45, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment. Though I will abstain from voting at this point, I want to point out the somewhat related Articles for deletion/General Pierce Bridge. --Blanchardb- Me • MyEars • MyMouth -timed 00:32, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * STRONG KEEP ! This article says that it is the second bridge at this site. The first bridge was a suspension bridge built in 1871. This in itself makes the article notable by the criteria of WikiProject Bridges. More material needs to be researched and added about the original bridge and that will take time and more users. - PennySpender1983 (talk) 02:38, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: First off, I am not finding your project's defined criteria; would you mind providing a link?  Secondly, whatever those may be, no Wikiproject can override WP:V's fundamental requirement of reliable sources about the subject.    RGTraynor  22:21, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The argument that "This bridge is notable because it follows one built in 1871" would mean that "My house is notable if it follows a house built on the site in 1871" which would be clearly a losing argument in an AFD. The argument seems to also say that a bridge in a location is somehow the same "bridge" as one which previously existed near the location. Is it the structure or the site which the article covers, and how far away can the previous one be for them to be the "same bridge?" Edison (talk) 12:42, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * In this particular case, the current bridge was built specifically to replace the damaged former bridge. --Polaron | Talk 13:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * KEEP for all articles. (I did not realize this was the discussion for all of the articles.) All six articles are still relatively new. It generally takes more time for a bridge article to be fleshed out. Because the originator has limited information to begin a bridge article, it should not be published? Bridges don't get built overnight and nor do their Wikipedia articles. - PennySpender1983 (talk) 03:02, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete all the articles, since there is no inherent notability for bridges and none apparently have multiple independent and reliable sources with significant coverage about them. Wikipedia does not have articles about things just because they exist. If I am mistaken in this belief, then perhaps there should be an article for each of the mailboxes in Muncie Indiana, each of which is verifiable with its own 9 digit zip code, address, box type and and pickup times reliably sourced . Edison (talk) 21:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:ALLORNOTHING is not a good argument. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:42, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep (Rail bridges) I don't have an opinion on the road bridges at the moment, but the railroad bridges appear to have been built a rather long time ago and most likely have some history. Murjax (talk) 03:43, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Being "built a long time ago" or "having some history" would also apply to many churches and elementary schools, whose articles have been deleted overwhelmingly in AFDs. Some satisfaction of WP:N is needed, besides handwaving and saying "notable enough." Edison (talk) 20:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep all per PennySpender. Cacophony (talk) 04:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - As an Englishman, I have little direct knowledge of the subject. I suspect the problem arises out of the existence of succession boxes and the list of crossings.  Succession boxes work best of one can follow the succession from one article to the next, but that is impossible of there is a red link.  Other series of succession boxes exists for British members of Parliament and British Peers.  These have a rather more satisfacotry layout (in my view anyway) than those for these bridges.  Furthermore the box heading should link to the list, which is a means of bypassing missing articles.  There must be a limit to what bridges can have articles, but I think it could be argied that all those over major rivers are notable enough for a short article.  At present some of the articles are very poor stubs, but they are tagged as such.  My view is probably to keep all, but my lack of knowledge means my vote is a weak one.  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:50, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I added a few more details to the road bridges infoboxes, and provided Denimadept with a few possible places to look for more details. Both Connecticut and Massachusetts appear to have a State interest in historic bridges.  I have not gotten around to researching and updating the railroad bridges, but just glancing at them (the railroad ones) - they are probably on one or more historic lists.  If someone knows of a good "authoritative" source for researching railroad bridges, it would be a good thing to post here and and WP bridges and WP trains. LeheckaG (talk) 21:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep I find AFDs like this to be a waste of community effort.  What is the harm in having a stub about a bridge crossing a major river? The only people who will ever see these articles are people who are looking for them.  There is no question of the verifiability of the information in them, so there is no misrepresentation, self-promotion or fraud involved.  Really, what is the problem? -- &#x2611; Sam uelWantman 06:42, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply: The problem is that Wikipedia requires, per WP:V, articles to have sources. Several of these articles had none at all, and two still have none.  Obviously I can't help it if the Keep proponents ignore this fundamental requirement - a lost cause is a lost cause - but I resent the suggestion that there's some problem in taking clear policy violations to AfD.    RGTraynor  02:17, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Question: are you denying the existence of certain bridges? - Denimadept (talk) 04:19, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: I do not read that WP:V requires sources be entered into the article (in-line or otherwise) for every fact presented, or for the article in general. No, it requires that information entered in an article be verifiable. If a new article is written that says John Doe is the author of a new book titled Doe, A Deer, the average reader should be able to use Amazon.com to verify such a book exists (if/when they question the article). Just as the average reader should be able to verify the existence of the bridge by clicking on the lat/long link and looking at any of the commercial map sources that come up.
 * WP:V does say that sources must be provided for imformation challenged (or likely to be challenged). So are you saying that the AfD nomination is a challenge to all information in the article? I still haven't got the whole system down, so help me out here. Isn't the lack of references a reason to tag the article as Unreferenced, not a reason to put it up for deletion.
 * I acknowledge that there was/is information in these articles that could have had a reference given. I have added some in this weekend. I also see now that WikiProject Bridges could use some better guidelines for WP:Notability. A lot of this could have been avoided if the stub articles had started together under something like Connecticut River Crossings in Franklin County, Massachusetts (possibly with redirects from individual bridge titles) and developed there until they were worth standing on their own. - PennySpender1983 (talk) 06:05, 21 July 2008 (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.