:Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2023 May 26

:{{DRV links|List of Syrian Air destinations|xfd_page=Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Syrian Air destinations|article=}}

1. Consensus was misinterpreted. No consideration was given to the now hundreds of dead links to the deleted pages. Also, these pages are more than likely to be recreated sooner rather than later by somebody who is unaware of the discussion. The information in the deleted pages can be merged back into the respective main articles, and never should have been deleted entirely. SurferSquall (talk) 22:48, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

:I meant for this to link to all pages deleted from that discussion. None of those should’ve been deleted. SurferSquall (talk) 23:12, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

::Well, you succeeded in pointing to none of them. Sorry if that wasn't what you wanted, but you can go ahead and add the rest in manually. Jclemens (talk) 18:47, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

• Endorse First off, this discussion was numerically 15 delete to 4 keep, which would require a pretty strong keep argument to not have consensus to delete. Instead we had nothing more than WP:ITSUSEFUL, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, and WP:HARDWORK running up against an explicit RfC determining consensus against having these articles, which is nowhere near sufficient. This nomination is itself a relitigation of the AfD rather than a valid DRV argument, and fails even at that. {{pb}} {{tq|No consideration was given to the now hundreds of dead links to the deleted pages}} - So? If the red links bother you, you are welcome to remove them {{pb}} {{tq|Also, these pages are more than likely to be recreated sooner rather than later by somebody who is unaware of the discussion}} - and new page patrol will see the recreation and tag it for speedy deletion per WP:G4 - the process will work as intended. {{pb}} {{tq|The information in the deleted pages can be merged back into the respective main articles}} - no it can't, because much of the concerns raised in the discussion were about the existence of the information at all, not being a separate article. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:48, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

::I'm not able to see the deleted page - but what's the issue in listing where the airline currently flies to in the article; especially for smaller scheduled airlines. It only looks to be about a dozen or so countries. I'd have thought the closing statement would have explained why merge was not an option. Nfitz (talk) 00:06, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

:::Users claimed it was support of a corporate entity and thus didn’t belong; a strange argument- see List of Braathens destinations, a featured article! SurferSquall (talk) 00:08, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

::Who said the issue was with the content itself? SurferSquall (talk) 00:11, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

:::I was pondering what we do with major airlines I'm more familiar with ... but I notice that Air Canada, British Airways, American Airways, United Airlines, Qantas, Air New Zealand, and pretty much every other "English-speaking" airline have multiple clear keeps at AFD. And I think to myself ... WTF? Nfitz (talk) 01:29, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

::::My thoughts as well! Wikipedia can have some pretty crazy and pretty obvious bias occasionally SurferSquall (talk) 01:56, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

::::? No-one is talking about deleting the airline articles. FOARP (talk) 03:07, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

• Endorse (involved) - First off, I actually agree that Explicit (the closing admin) should have provided a detailed close. AFD closers should not be providing no close rationale at all simply to avoid giving people who request review anything to argue against. It gives the (no doubt unfair) impression of just counting the votes without assessing the strengths of individual arguments. I am very sympathetic to there just not being enough people working on closing AFDs, but it is bad if this has led to drive-by closures being made as a matter of course.

:That said, there is no evidence at all that this DELREV was discussed with Explicit before it was raised, so this review fails before it even gets over the very first hurdle. If mergers were wanted, SurferSquall could have just asked Explicit to give them access to the data in the deleted articles - and can still ask Explicit for that! This review is therefore totally unnecessary and would have been avoided if the DELREV process had been followed properly.

:I agree with Pppery that the lists as such couldn’t have been merged directly into their parent articles given the concerns raised about them. However, multiple experienced editors gave advice on what would be acceptable (a brief summary of major destinations served) for SurferSquall to follow.

:However, since we are here, it would be good to establish a clear assessment of what the consensus in this AFD was so that it can be accurately recorded. For the record, it was that these articles failed WP:IINFO, WP:NOTDIRECTORY, WP:NOTTRAVEL, and WP:NCORP. In human terms that means they aren’t encyclopaedic content, and lack any references that are independent of the airlines providing the services that are the subject of the articles. FOARP (talk) 02:53, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

• Question for User:FOARP; if this is the U-Z airlines, where's United Airlines, US Airways, and Virgin; or are those notable? Nfitz (talk) 03:14, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
• :Hi Nfitz. In order to have a more focused discussion, the articles were selected from the worst, and thus easiest to assess, articles of the lists of airline destinations category. This approach (bundling in smaller groups by quality) was the approach suggested in the 2018 AN discussion I linked to in the original nomination.
  
• :Regarding the articles you mention, are you saying they should have been nominated? I have to say it is somewhat Catch-22-esque to see clean-up of these articles repeatedly blocked over the years by people saying that these articles cannot all be AFD’d in one go due to WP:TRAINWRECK, but then be told that other articles need to be included when a more focused set is proposed! FOARP (talk) 03:31, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
• ::I'm simply concerned that we are going to see huge BIAS, where we'll see such articles eliminated for some flag carriers, but not flag carriers for countries with advanced economies. I see no indication that the previous discussions were done with an equity lens. Nfitz (talk) 03:46, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
• :::Please rest assured that I’m an equal-opportunity deletionist when it comes to these non-notable, free advertising, business-service-directory, WP:LISTCRUFT articles. However, if you’re anxious to even the score against the advanced economies, you can always go and nominate those articles for deletion yourself. FOARP (talk) 04:49, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
• ::::It wasn't the motive, or nominator, that concerns me. It's the likely outcome - even with the best of intentions. Nfitz (talk) 07:52, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
• :::::I can't help what was decided under the 2018 AN discussion, and ultimately, these were the worst ones. Many others (e.g., List of British Airways destinations) are simply WP:REFBOMBS cited ultimately only to the airline and its website (as far as I can see every link for an active flight goes to the website) but its way more work to show this (you have to explore every link and source). Again, if you want to even the score, go and nominate them yourself. FOARP (talk) 09:08, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

::::::PS, Nfitz - of these 14 nominations:

::::::*2 were for lists of services offered by American companies

::::::*2 were for lists of services offered by Belgian companies

::::::*2 were for lists of services offered by British companies

::::::*1 was for a list of services offered by a Chinese company

::::::*1 was for a list of services offered by a Danish company

::::::*1 was for a list of services offered by a Dutch company

::::::*1 was for a list of services offered by a German company

::::::*1 was for a list of services offered by a Philippines company

::::::*1 was for a list of services offered by a Portuguese company

::::::*1 was for a list of the services offered by a Syrian company

::::::*1 was for a list of the services offered by a Yemeni company

::::::For anyone counting that's 10 out of the 14 from Western Europe/North America. I'm honestly not seeing any basis for your equity concerns here. Perhaps you can explain? FOARP (talk) 10:13, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

:::::::None of the airlines most commonly known to the public (American, British, Air Canada, Virgin, etc) are ever deleted- because why? their lists are hardly better than the one deleted. SurferSquall (talk) 14:51, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

:::::::Yes, I don't think there was BIAS in this nomination. I can see why you went for the low-hanging (low-flying?) fruit. The British/American ones seem to be for minor airlines - I wasn't aware Cook was still around. But I'm concerned that there's BIAS. Really (at least for flag carriers rather than chartered unknowns) this needs to be all or nothing. But that's not the process we are now in. Nfitz (talk) 17:56, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

• Endorse. Unlike the DRV starter who says that consensus was misinterpreted, but doesn't say how or why, I find it implausible that it could have been misinterpreted and can't identify any such reason. Clearly, {{tq|No consideration was given to the now hundreds of dead links to the deleted pages.}} is not an argument for how consensus was misinterpreted. There was consensus to delete the pages based around policy reasons for how this content is not suitable.—Alalch E. 17:44, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
• :The closer misinterpreted it by simply reading the number of delete v. keep and hardly reading the arguments for or against. The closer is an admin known for similar occurrences. SurferSquall (talk) 17:55, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
• ::Whether or not there's a history - what's the policy-based justification to Keep? Nfitz (talk) 20:13, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
• :::{{Reply to|SurferSquall}} {{xt|The closer is an admin known for similar occurrences.}} Excuse me? Please provide evidence of this claim. ✗plicit 23:28, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
• ::::there are six separate topics on your talk page regarding the issue. SurferSquall (talk) 00:08, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
• :::::{{Reply to|SurferSquall}} And you've manged to completely ignore the context of every single one of them. Considering the endorsements of my closure above, I'd comfortably say I'm doing alright. ✗plicit 00:44, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
• ::::::The discussion has nothing to do with personal matters SurferSquall (talk) 03:05, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
• :::::::Let's keep it constructive. {{tq|The closer is an admin known for similar occurrences}}, even if hypothetically true, is not an argument for how consensus was misinterpreted either.—Alalch E. 16:22, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
• Endorse - The appellant doesn't explain how consensus was misinterpreted, and it appears to have been interpreted correctly. Insulting the closer is not useful. Either discuss any issue about their closes at WP:AN, or ... don't discuss them. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:58, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
• Endorse - "I didn't agree with the outcome" is not a valid DRV rationale. Axem Titanium (talk) 16:59, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
• I think this was a terrible decision by the AFD, as this information is not available in anything approaching a similarly well-structured way anywhere else, and is highly suitable for an encyclopedia as a collection of knowledge. But the AFD consensus was clear and with the highest reluctance I must endorse it. Stifle (talk) 07:58, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• :Maybe you could consider a RFC on this topic because tbh I don't understand your position and I don't really see a reason why we should consider the consensus has changed since the discussion in 2018 referred to above. JMWt (talk) 19:37, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• ::Stifle is referring to the fact that the pages deleted were the best-organized form of that information anywhere on the Internet. SurferSquall (talk) 22:33, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

::::The same was true of all the plot-summaries we used to host before they got moved off-wiki. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not expedia.com or Skyscanner. FOARP (talk) 06:53, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

• Sometimes we should accept that having things that are useful to people, like potentially hugely useful, we should host even if it doesn't meet our general inclusion criteria. I think this is such a case. That said, everything about this met our rules and we are no where near an IAR keep. So endorse. But yeah, what Stifle said. Hobit (talk) 22:26, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
• :Why should we accept articles that are simply lists of company services created entirely from company publications? FOARP (talk) 05:51, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
• ::Because, as WP:IAR says, when a rule prevents you from improving Wikipedia, ignore it. Stifle (talk) 08:26, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

::::I disagree that we are improving Wikipedia by including lists of company services on a random date at some point in the past sourced entirely to company publications. Stripped of the "wow, aeroplanes!" factor, this is the equivalent of maintaining a list of Blockbuster Video outlets accurate as of 24 October 1997 (including, for some inexplicable reason, the ones that were already closed on that date) sourced to a Blockbuster company prospectus.

::::IAR is out of place here, since your proposal is not a specific exception to a general rule. Instead you are simply saying that a specific policy just shouldn't be applied to the things it specifically applies to. If you believe this position to be correct, then go and start a discussion at VPP to overturn the 2018 RFC. FOARP (talk) 08:37, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

:::::Again, I endorse this, I just think the underlying arguments get us to a less useful-and-good encyclopedia. If I were King of Wikipedia, things would be different. But I'm not and this outcome is consistent with where we are. Hobit (talk) 12:39, 2 June 2023 (UTC)