Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/USS Wistaria (SP-259)


 * 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. The keep opinions are weakly argued, most not addressing notability but being of the "per X" or "it looks good" variety.  Sandstein  06:46, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

USS Wistaria (SP-259)

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Lacks notability. Iazyges  Consermonor   Opus meum  02:16, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 11:08, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 11:08, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 11:08, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 11:08, 6 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete per nomination. This was small boat that was never commissioned into the USN: the title of the article seems misleading. As such, there's no reason to think that it's notable. Nick-D (talk) 07:10, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Trivia, lacks notability. Kierzek (talk) 05:18, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete -- It never actually sailed under that name. Even if it did, it would be a NN vessel.  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:37, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep -- A few years ago, to improve Wikipedia′s rather sparse coverage of the U.S. Navy in World War I, I embarked on a solo effort to develop an entire series of articles on the vast section patrol program of incorporating civilian ships and craft into the Navy. (Wikipedia's coverage of the U.S. Navy is very biased toward the American Civil War, World War II, and very recent naval operations.) I wrote hundreds of articles covering the various boats and ships, and Wikipedia's coverage now is more or less complete, subject to new sources of information arising. A few of the ships and craft appear in Navy and other records under the name and SP numbers they would have had if they had been commissioned, but they never were. For the sake of completeness and to eliminate all confusion, I included these in my project when I could find out enough about them to do so. Their notability derives from the association with the section patrol program, not from their individual histories. It always disappoints me to see the nomination of real history articles for deletion when Wikipedia retains so many trivial articles on science fiction characters and video games and whatnot, but if this really is taking up too much room on a server and needs to be deleted, then please ensure you retain the knowledge imparted in the deleted article by including all relevant information on a shipindex or other page elsewhere in Wikipedia so that knowledge of the vessel is not lost. If you are not going to do that, then please leave the article alone. Mdnavman (talk) 13:41, 9 January 2017 (UTC)mdnavman
 * Keep It's obvious the article isn't very notable but deletion is unwarranted. The article is very neatly put together and presentable with all appropriate sourcing and article layout. The above comments by mdnavman are further applicable reasons for keep. Brad (talk) 15:48, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep Entry in the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships seems to establish a fair claim to notability. Also, I agree with Brad101, the article seems useful to the encyclopedia, as what would be the point of removing or redlinking the ship at List of United States Navy ships: W–Z and elsewhere. Smmurphy(Talk) 18:32, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * But that is a dictionary, and Wikipedia is definitely not a dictionary. Thus a few sentences describing it does not establish notability. Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  00:23, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It is called dictionary, but it goes quite in depth on many of its entries. For instance, the next boat is the witek and has a much longer entry. Also, for biographies, an individual with an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography is generally considered suitable for inclusion in wikipedia. I'm not sure if the same sort of thing should be true for ships, but I don't immediately see why not. Smmurphy(Talk) 15:45, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep - I have to agree with and .  Class 455  ( talk |stand clear of the doors!)  19:40, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 20:11, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. The ship, quite simply, does not have the sources necessary to establish notability.  The only reliable source that seems to exist is the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships entry, and that merely is a couple sentence description that does nothing but proves existence.  The above arguments for Keep seem to largely be based around WP:NOHARM and WP:OTHERSTUFF, and don't really address the central problem with the article, in that it simply does not meet the GNG. 64.183.45.226 (talk) 21:32, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * There are in fact, more sources than DANFS, and the article cites them; the Naval History and Heritage Command includes photographic coverage of the vessel on a separate page devited to it (the link to it was broken along with the links to all the DANFS articles when the NHHC changed its Web page structure a number of years ago, but the page is still out there), and navsource.org also has a page as part of its coverage of the section patrol program. Again, the significance arises out of the vessel′s association with a major United States Navy program of 1917-1918, not out of its particular history. If there is some storage problem on Wikipedia servers that precludes individual articles for all the vessels in the program, then I could understand deletion, but I doubt that there is a storage problem. Complete deletion is in any event inappropriate, because deletion actually removes supporting information for the broader coverage of the section patrol program. If having a separate article offends, then instead of deletion, moving of all the information contained in the article to a shipindex artcle or perhaps a list article of some type ("List of Section patrol craft," or something like that), would be more appropriate, with links to extant lists of U.S. Navy patrol craft and so on. Given the amount of work involved in all that, it's easier – and probably better serves Wikipedia users – to just leave it alone. Besides, it's doubtful that the tiny sample size of this discussion can give us a useful gauge of worldwide Wikipedia editors and users and, given that, I think the opinion of those more interested in the details of U.S. Navy history ought to prevail over bureaucratic interpretations of blanket Wikipedia guidelines that are open to - and intended to be open to - interpretation. Absent overwhelming evidence to the contrary - and this small a discussion size does not give us the sample size with which to generate such evidence - it would seem that WP:NOHARM should apply. Mdnavman (talk) 16:24, 14 January 2017 (UTC)mdnavman
 * (*Edit: Just for clarity, I am the same individual as the IP above. I just remembered that I'm posting on a different computer, and I want to make clear that I'm not attempted to vote twice or anything)
 * Again, the sources you are bringing up do nothing but prove that the ship existed, not that it was notable or significant in any way. Your argument that it should be kept because it was part of the section patrol is also invalid, as notability is WP:NOTINHERITED.  The program may have been notable, but that does not automatically confer notability to every element, and every minor ship, that was ever associated with it.  If you want to argue that the information should be merged or that a separate list should be created to index them all, that is certainly a possibility, but so far, there has been no valid arguments that this particular ship comes even remotely close to meeting the WP:GNG needed to be kept as its own article.  Saying that it is of interest to those with interest in U.S. Naval history is a WP:ILIKEIT argument, which, like the rest of the argument here are not addressing why this article was brought before AFD, which is because it simply is not notable and does not have any sources that come even remotely close to showing anything other than the fact that it existed.  75.82.28.71 (talk) 19:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep per and . DarjeelingTea (talk) 22:34, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * If the article is kept, can we all agree to move the article so that USS is no longer in the title? As it was never commissioned it doesn't get the title, which is only given to commissioned ships. Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  16:36, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Weak delete because I do not consider the entry in the Dictionary constitues significant coverage ("directly and in detail"). Further, that is also only one source, and the WP:GNG requires coverage in sources, plural, even going on to clarify: Multiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability. The 'keep' arguments all seem to be along the lines of WP:INTERESTING, WP:LOOKSGOOD etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amisom (talk • contribs) 13:58, 19 January 2017 (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.