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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Albina Library

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 keep. (non-admin closure) Mdann52 (talk) 16:55, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Albina Library

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Albina Library (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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One-sentence article; essentially a permastub. Unsourced. Merge proposal was stonewalled on the claim that a WLL powwow in late October would improve these articles. That date has come and gone, so it's time for this article to go as well, either to be a redirect to Multnomah County Library (where all the info is already in a handy-dandy table) or as outright deletion. It's also the fateful hour for the following other articles:

pbp 19:04, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I should note the Albina is no longer a one sentence "permastub", nor is the Belmont Library article. Other articles could easily be expanded with additional information as well. --Another Believer (Talk) 16:24, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose deletion. Please refer to previous discussion here, which I have also included below:
Previous discussion at Multnomah County Library talk page

Hey, so I noticed a few weeks ago, several articles on MCL branches were created. Most of these have little to no content...they just say "this is a branch of the MCL" with a source to the branch's website on the MCL page (Since the MCL isn't a third-party source, as of yet they don't pass GNG). Since most of the "content" in those articles is already on this page, I move that all branches save Gresham and Woodstock be redirected here, and the information from those articles be displayed in a handy-dandy table that list the name, address, neighborhood, and construction date of all branches.

This merge discussion concerns the following articles:

pbp 15:45, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose the proposed merges. Next month, MCL will host an edit-a-thon as part of Wiki Loves Libraries, one of the goals of which will be to de-stub branch articles. The Woodstock Library branch, currently awaiting Good article review, will be used as a model article for other branch libraries. Each of these articles has potential for expansion, eventually to Good article status. No need to merge given the individual articles can snowball. ---Another Believer (Talk) 15:50, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I should note that I created the articles, but would oppose the merge regardless. --Another Believer (Talk) 15:51, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose merge I do not find Another Believer's argument convincing because I think that a promise to develop the articles in the future is irrelevant - all articles on Wikipedia have to meet minimum criteria at the time they are created. However, I do believe that the articles as they are right now are good enough to justify that they remain. Libraries in such a county as this are all notable and even creating these articles is a benefit to Wikipedia. These are all legitimate stubs. I would still support the creation of a table in this article giving details about each branch. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:16, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. The MCL article should contain a list or table with an overview of the branches, but that does not mean articles should not exist for each branch. --Another Believer (Talk) 15:46, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
To both Rasberry and A.B.: Please explain how the articles as currently constructed pass WP:GNG. They do not have any reliable sources; their information is just cut-and-pasted and there's more information in the table I pasted then in all the libraries' stub articles (save Central and Woodstock) put together. Frankly, there's a case to be made for their deletion at present, but I will give A.B. and the WLL people a reasonable amount of time (until 1 November; a couple weeks after his WLL pow-wow is schedule) before I execute that option. pbp 17:16, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Articles are not judged as to whether or not they pass the general notability guideline. The topic is judged. And unless you make a good faith effort to locate sources before nominating for deletion, then the nomination is improper (see WP:BEFORE). Given that every library article I've taken on has had amble sources available, my guess is that most of these topics would pass. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:32, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, they wouldn't, and even if they did, there's not enough content to justify a whole article for most of them. And I must remind you that BEFORE isn't mandatory pbp 14:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
From WP:GNG: "If appropriate sources cannot be found after a good-faith search for them, consider merging the article's verifiable content into a broader article providing context." Have you attempted a good-faith search for additional sources? PBP, I very much appreciate your efforts and the work of others to keep our encyclopedia tidy, but in this case time is better spent improving these articles than proposing to delete them... Also, I thought this discussion was about merging... I will see if I can find some time to start collecting sources and pasting links on the article's talk pages. --Another Believer (Talk)

From WP:GNG: "If appropriate sources cannot be found after a good-faith search for them, consider merging the article's verifiable content into a broader article providing context." Have you attempted a good-faith search for additional sources? I am certain there are enough to warrant keeping the article(s). Please see the Woodstock Library for a "Good" article of another branch within the Multnomah County Library system.

Albina:

I realize some of these sources might seem less-than-ideal for this discussion, but these are the types of sources used to construct the Woodstock Library article. Time would be better spent expanding these articles rather than fretting about unnecessary deletions. In full disclosure, I created these articles; yes, I could have done a better job expanding them, but that does not mean the articles should be deleted. --Another Believer (Talk) 19:23, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Another Believer was the articles' creator pbp 19:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I acknowledged this already myself. --Another Believer (Talk) 19:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I must remind you once more, AB, that BEFORE isn't mandatory. Also, I must remind you that you're lucky I didn't nominate these articles for deletion two months ago. You said you'd fix 'em. You didn't. All the information contained in these articles is in the main article already. So there's no reason we need a dozen or more permastubs floating around pbp 19:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore, AB, you mention merger as an option, yet you opposed merger two months ago. You can't have it both ways...we have guidelines that say you don't leave one-sentence articles indefinetely pbp 20:02, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Policies are at play here, not "luck". My original understanding of the edit-athon's purpose was to expand MCL-related stubs, not Multnomah County-related stubs. This misunderstanding on my part does not take away from the fact that these are legitimate stubs. They are not permastubs... each of them could snowball into a full article. I am sorry I did not have time the past 2 months to expand each of them to your standards. Please note on the Multnomah County Library talk page that other contributors weighed in on the merge/deletion proposal, advocating for the articles' inclusion in the encyclopedia. (I have notified those contributors of this discussion on their talk page, requesting them to comment if they felt so inclined. My messages were simply notifications, not attempts to canvas.) --Another Believer (Talk) 19:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Their arguments ignored WP:PERMASTUB and other relevant policies, so they really don't need to be noted, sorry pbp 20:02, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am not advocating for merging, nor do I consider these articles permastubs. The Woodstock Library article illustrates this very clearly. --Another Believer (Talk) 20:06, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Um, that's an irrelevant other-stuff-exists argument. Just because Woodstock is a GA doesn't mean that this get to be kept in perpetua on the off chance that they could make GA pbp 20:08, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That wouldn't be an other stuff exists argument, it is refuting the idea that these articles cannot be expanded. Ryan Vesey 20:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Ok, time for me to step away. I have made my opinion known. These are clearly articles that could be (and should be) expanded. If you would take time to conduct research and collect sources, I believe you would come to the same conclusion. I will let other contributors weigh in. Again, I am not advocating for merging, but at the very least this should be a merge discussion and not a deletion discussion. --Another Believer (Talk) 20:20, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(Thank you, Ryan, for articulating my point better than I can.) --Another Believer (Talk) 20:21, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I am not advocating for a merge, but it would be more appropriate to put information about branches on the already-existing MCL article than it would be to create another MCL-related article. The MCL article should contain information about the history of the entire branch system as well as a list of branches within the system, linking to articles about each of the branches. There should probably also be a "Multnomah County Library" category, which would contain the MCL article as well as the 18 or so branch articles. This is how the library is categorized on Commons. (See here.) --Another Believer (Talk) 20:34, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Commons categorization is a poor argument for keeping something. There is no need for MCL to link to the 18 branch libraries' articles, because there is no need for those articles in the first place; Woodstock is the only one with more than a few sentences of content pbp 20:43, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am not using Commons to validate my argument. I am simply providing an example of structure (re: the MCL category on Wikipedia). --Another Believer (Talk) 20:47, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Update: Created Category:Multnomah County Library. --Another Believer (Talk) 17:49, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My argument here is that the Multnomah County Library article already has an effective list that contains the information of all of the libraries. As the articles on the libraries currently stand, most of them are sub-stubs that contain little to no information beyond what is in the list. If no changes were made, the best solution would probably be to redirect all of the sub-stubs to the library system. The problem then becomes, how does the process of expanding the articles about the individual libraries work. It would be overwhelming to create a section for each of the libraries in Multnomah County Library. Instead, under the section heading for branches in Multnomah County Library, there should be {{Main|Libraries in the Multnomah County Library system}} (or Branches of the Multnomah County Library system). In that new article, each library could be given a section and information about the libraries can be expanded there. Once the sections become large enough for their own article, summary style takes in. Until that point, there is no reason to keep these each as separate articles. Ryan Vesey 20:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So rather than keeping articles about notable subjects, we would merge them to the MCL article, then create a new MCL-related article with sections about individual branches within the system? Why not simplify the process and just keep the articles so they can be expanded? --Another Believer (Talk) 20:52, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Because the articles are worthless right now. A centralized article would be much more valuable. And I don't support merging them to MCL first. Ryan Vesey 21:15, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you go to Multnomah County Library and look at the table of branches, you get more information about Belmont Library than the article gives. Ryan Vesey 21:17, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
True, at this moment, but that could very easily be changed with just a few sentences for any given branch stub. --Another Believer (Talk) 21:51, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
a) If present trends continue, no indication that will ever happen, b) at that level, Ryan's "one-article-for-all-the-branches" makes sense. Once we get three paragraphs and an image for each one, then it'd make sense to have articles for each pbp 22:24, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I just spent a few minutes adding several sentences (from 10 sources) to the Belmont Library article. This could very easily be done to the other branches as well... --Another Believer (Talk) 22:37, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - On procedural grounds until the nominator has shown they made a good-faith effort to search out RS for each nominated article. While BEFORE is not a mandatory thing, BEFORE is a description of a policy, see WP:DEL-REASON, specifically the seventh bullet point. As in, it describes how to meet the criteria. So yes, the searching is in fact mandatory, and has been for the roughly six years I've been around here (in one form or another). We do no exactly delete articles for a lack of notability, we delete articles on topics that are not notable. I detest stubs, but that is a personal opinion and not a policy/guideline based argument. Aboutmovies (talk) 03:16, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Invalid procedural grounds Searching isn't manadatory either, and please address the issue of their notability or their deservingness of an entire article rather than rehashing your (inaccurate) opinion that searches are manadatory pbp 15:17, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Again, yes, searching is mandatory. See the policy WP:DEL-REASON. Again, that's a policy. As demonstrated in this very instance, there is a reason for this being mandatory, and that is to prevent wasted time such as this AfD discussion on topics that a quick search would identify that most, if not all, of these topics are notable. Further, as AfD itself does require the search (as covered in WP:BEFORE) it is in fact required for this process. Mush as at DYK one is required to complete a quid pro quo review if you have so many DYKs under your belt. Failure to do so at DYK will in fact cause the nomination to fail for that reason despite the lack of a policy, much as failure to seek out sources will cause AfD nominations to fail.
Otherwise, it has been clearly demonstrated that the topics are notable. Please consider withdrawal of the nominations as to those that clearly meet the GNG. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The answer to, "would you withdraw the nominations?" is no. There's only two days left in the AfD; and a number of people did vote merge or delete (the former of which remains a valid vote even with GNG passed). Also, had they not been nominated for deletion, it's quite likely they wouldn't have been sourced for months or years. You're welcome. pbp 6:34 am, Today (UTC−8)
You must not hang out around AfD much. If you did, you would see the common refrain or "AfD is not for clean-up". As in we do not nominate articles to force clean-up. Again, if you reviewed BEFORE, you would see a common theme of basically fix the article if you can, only delete if an article on a topic cannot be fixed due to issues such as NOT or notability. Also if you hung out at them, you will routinely see good closing admins that review the debate, and will note it is not a vote (ergo there are no valid votes, period) but instead will review the debate and will discount early comments, where the comments no longer match the reality of the state of the articles (in general, review the admin guide). No one is thanking you, and no one will until you participate in this process in good faith and search for the sources and add them to the articles. Those who deserve thanks are those who decided to contribute to building Wikipedia. Aboutmovies (talk) 05:17, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose deletion per Aboutmovies, who makes the most compelling argument above. Since it has been alleged that "WP:BEFORE is not mandatory," it seems relevant to also point out that WP:GNG is merely a guideline, not a policy. The policy that govern inclusion are WP:V and WP:NPOV. If I were to put on my guessing hat, I would guess that some of these library branches pass the notability threshold, while others don't. How do we get to a better approach than a guess? Through a good faith search for independent reliable sources.
Ideally, by the nominator, and before this whole collection is even brought up for AfD the first time -- much less the second. -Pete (talk) 06:40, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's only been brought to AfD once... Also, how is NPOV relevant? pbp 15:17, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I was mistaken about the nomination's history -- relevant text struck in my comment above. NPOV is a policy that bears on some deletion discussions, but not this one; I was just making the general point that WP:GNG is not policy. -Pete (talk) 19:21, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A side point about this nomination: I don't think the neologism "permastub," in the first sentence of the nomination, accurately reflects the state of things. Another Believer, who wrote these stubs, brought the similar article Woodstock Library to good article status through peer review. He has a string of GA's under his belt. I don't know where the idea that these would be "perma"nently at stub status came from, but it seems like a strange assumption to me. -Pete (talk) 06:49, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there was no activity in expanding the articles for two months, so what's to say there would be activity in expanding them for the next two months? Four months? Any length of time pbp 15:17, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
PBP, your term was "perma"-stub, which implies that the articles will never amount to anything more than a stub. You did not rest your nomination on the idea that the articles would be stubs for two months, or ten years -- but permanently. That claim reflects a view of Another Believer's edit history that is not accurate. There are also many other editors who may improve the stubs. The "permastub" claim is highly dubious, and in my view insulting, considering the 40+ good articles promoted by the author in question. -Pete (talk) 19:21, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The same argument could be made for any stub on Wikipedia, but that does not mean we should delete or merge those stubs as well. --Another Believer (Talk) 16:03, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Which is why arguments concerning article size are generally considered to be avoided at AfD. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Oregon-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:21, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Museums and libraries-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:21, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I allowed two months... pbp 17:44, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Stubs are allowed to exist on Wikipedia. Their presence allows contributors the opportunity to expand articles. Did I expand all of the stubs within the past two months? No. Could I expand all of them within the course of this AfD discussion? Not likely, especially given the time spent participating in discussions like this one. Could, and should, these articles be expanded? Yes. We all have limited time and resources--can we spend them improving the encyclopedia by adding information about notable subjects? This invitation might be seen as sarcastic, which is not my intent, and perhaps I will have no takers, but I invite contributors to expand these stubs if they are willing and able. I will continue working on them as well. --Another Believer (Talk) 18:07, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, each branch has a History page on the MCL website which provides enough detail to get started:

... etc. These are primary sources, but they provide a great starting point and certainly illustrate the need for individual branch articles. --Another Believer (Talk) 21:06, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Other good sources include the Portland Business Journal and the Daily Journal of Commerce. Most archived items at both are free via their websites. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect those with no additional content to Multnomah County Library, and Keep the others. Doesn't this solve the issue for everybody? This leaves the article titles intact, if and when they're sufficiently expanded. I'm astonished at the mountain of bad-faith bullying on this page over this molehill of a problem. --Lockley (talk) 21:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • For starters, Keep and improve:
 – Per WP:HEY and WP:GNG. Both of these articles have been significantly expanded compared to their states at the time of nomination for deletion, and both appear to pass Wikipedia's General notability guideline per the sources in them.
 – These both appear to pass WP:GNG per the sources in the respective articles.
 – Meets WP:GNG per [1], [2], [3].
 – The above pass GNG per the sources now present in the articles. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:13, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
—Northamerica1000(talk) 23:18, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Since the above comment was added, I have worked on four others, and User:Finetooth has done an especially nice job on a fourth:
It may be desirable to add more to a couple of them (especially Holgate) but the sources certainly exist. Must we predicate a decision here on doing the actual expansion to all the articles, or has the point that these branches tend to have sufficient sourcing been made? -Pete (talk) 01:58, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, thank you so much for the additional support, Pete and FT. I could not have expanded all of these articles this quickly on my own. --Another Believer (Talk) 02:00, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This looks like an interesting project. I'm pretty sure there will be Oregonian articles on all of these branches that can be accessed online by anyone with a Multnomah County Library card. (I'm a card-carrying member.) Oregonian archives are available from 1861 onwards. I can take photos as needed as I'm sure AB and others can too. I think we can expand all of these stubs to at least start class by the end of November. If it stops raining now and again, we can probably illustrate them all by then as well. Finetooth (talk) 02:18, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: per WP:NRVE, topic notability on Wikipedia is not contingent upon whether or not sources are actually present in articles. The significant coverage in reliable sources simply needs to be existent. See also WP:IMPERFECT. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:08, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep At least one article meets the GNG. I am not a fan of multi-nominations, and while I accept some laxity in nominating a *single* article for deletion, I really expect much better WP:BEFORE if you want to nominate sixteen at a time. I have been here for over ten years, and spent years improving some articles. Waiting a mere two months for an editor who a) has proven he can improve the articles to good status and b) has volunteered to improve these as well, does not impress upon me the immediate need to delete them.  The Steve  08:36, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep without merge on the basis that the articles can be improved. Each library represents a huge tax investment and there must be existing documentation describing each one. I agree that some articles in the set are complete and that sources are not identified to complete them. Also, as a practical matter, this navigational box
is much less useful with only some libraries represented in it. Some of the libraries in this box are definitely notable and it would seem strange to include some but not all libraries in a box like this. This navigational box needs to exist, and although I do not like say that notability should be WP:INHERITED by individual members in a notable group, in this case since the stubs are legitimate and since several individuals in the group definitely should not be merged, I think all individuals should have distinct articles. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:33, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You've made too many leaps of faith here. Why does the navigational box need to exist? And using WP:INHERITED is frowned upon pbp 17:09, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: A great deal of the information and images that have been added to this articles have been ripped from the MCL website and other non-reliable or non-independent sources pbp 18:08, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
With more than 15 articles nominated at once, we are working to expand many articles within a short period of time. It makes sense to start with the most obvious source. Clearly you have no interest in collecting references or working to expand articles you have nominated for deletion, which (may or may not be required but) is unfortunate. Are there really no articles here you believe should be removed from the nomination? Some clearly pass the threshold for standalone articles. Also, which images were taken from the MCL website? I only see ones taken by local Wikipedians, including several within the past couple days. Much thanks to those contributors who have assisted with the expansion, categorization and improvement of these stubs. --Another Believer (Talk) 18:33, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As far as the text goes, "abstracted" is more fair than "ripped". While the MCL is not independent of itself, its claims are generally verifiable via newspaper articles. The stubs are rapidly becoming start-class articles with lead illustrations by Wikipedia photographers. This seems to be a good thing rather than a bad thing. Finetooth (talk) 19:11, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Favor keeping all as separate articles: As of November 8, most have at least three paragraphs of text carefully abstracted from multiple sources. All but three of these articles have images taken by Wikipedia photographers and uploaded to the Commons with appropriate licenses. Good faith efforts to improve the articles are continuing; several editors are contributing to the improvements. Finetooth (talk) 23:07, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Finetooth; Rockwood Library is now of at least fair quality.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 23:31, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Public funds are used to build these libraries and they serve as a center of the community - yea, reliable sources are going to write about them in detail. The assumption that none of these library topics would meet WP:GNG is not reasonable. The deletion proposal to delete these articles and have their information listed in one article seems to be based on the state of the articles themselves, not whether each topic meets WP:GNG or fails WP:NOT. The state of any article can be improved by improving the article, not deleting it. If this AfD is closed as no consensus, feel free to individually list any of the libraries at AfD. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 15:12, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.