Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/E11 European long distance path

:{{la|E11 European long distance path}} – (View AfDView log{{•}} [http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/cgi-bin/votecounter.cgi?page=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/E11_European_long_distance_path Stats])

:({{Find sources|E11 European long distance path}})

WP:NOTAMANUAL Night of the Big Wind _talk 19:29, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

• Keep If the article is not written in an appropriate manner, feel free to improve it. It makes no sense to delete E11 and leave E1 to E10 as listed in European long-distance paths. Earlier versions of the article ([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=E11_European_long_distance_path&oldid=476433978 here], for example) show no signs of being written like a manual. The deletion rationale needs justification. Thincat (talk) 20:30, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
• Just a random example out of the text: The start of E11 in The Hague can easily be reached from England by taking a freight ferry from Great Yarmouth, straight to the commercial harbor of Scheveningen. It is also possible to sail on one of the ferries to Hook of Holland or Europoort near Rotterdam and follow E9 along the coast to Scheveningen.. Is this about the trail? No way. Or this example: The Netherlands is even the largest market for books in the English language outside the anglophone world!. Or The blue trail and E11 continue to the twin cities of Międzychód and Bielsko, which offer many opportunities for shopping (fashion, antiquities, arts) and staying overnight. In fact, the article is not only a manual of how to do the route (instead of describing the route), it is also promo and POV: Five hundred meters before the dangerously busy main road #5 is reached (don't put your hopes on signs indicating that meals or drinks might be served), in the long-stretched village of Moraczewo, (...). And besides that: 71 links to dab-pages. To rescue it, is the same (in my opinion) as cutting out 98% of the article. Night of the Big Wind _talk 21:18, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

::Keep A few lines about how to reach a trail and possible extensions of the trail is welcomed by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Hiking Trails and cannot be an argument to delete an article at the same time. See the guidelines of the WikiProject! User "Night of the Big Wind" is obviously not a rambler as she seems not to understand how important information about shops, food and lodgings is for people who have spent a full day in forest, advancing 5 km in the hour. Articles about hiking trails should be judged by ramblers. And finally, most of the links to disambiguation pages refer to pages where two or three Polish townships with the same name are mentioned. Interested readers will find the right village by a second click. I announce on the "talk" page of the article that these links will be improved, but that is a huge task as it involves checking of almost all links in the article, so exercise some patience. DrMennoWolters (talk) 11:21, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• Keep These trails are notable. They belong in WP. Yes, the author needs help on style and some of the content is not appropriate here, but to assert that 98% should go is quite unreasonable. The article is of value to users only if it contains a description not only of the route but type of scenery, difficulty of different sections, etc. Just listing the towns it passes through,or giving dates when it was designated, or whatever, would miss the point about what a long distance path is about. The author has explained that it is a work in progress, and it might have been better to work on it first in the sandbox, but that is not reason to delete. --AJHingston (talk) 23:14, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Netherlands-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:52, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:52, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poland-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:52, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• Keep per WP:SOFIXIT. As far as notability is concerned it is the type of subject that numerous books are written about. Ramblers are a captive market for bookwriters. Agathoclea (talk) 06:26, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
• Keep - Feel free to delete sentences or paragraphs you're unhappy with, or revert to an earlier version (I see that most of the content was added fairly recently). Or engage the author in a dialogue and explain why you disagree with the content. But keep the page, as there is useful information in here. Thrapper (talk) 13:03, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
• Keep - not the right style but loads of useful info in here that could make a good article on a notable topic. No need to delete. JMiall₰ 10:12, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
• Keep As the main author of the article, I have many reasons to plead for keeping the article in Wikipedia.

One reason is that the article is nominated for deletion without stating which guidelines/rules of Wikipedia have been violated. A link to the rules in general is not a sufficient argument; it rather looks like vandalism. The lack of arguments makes the discussion almost impossible: What do we have to discuss about? Is it possible to improve the article or is it completely worthless or out of scope or what?

A second reason to keep the article is that it is part of the WikiProject Hiking Trails. This project invites authors to write at large about hiking trails - the page of the project even mentions a lengthy description of a 5 km walk as a "Good Article". If there is any conflict between the rules of Wikipedia in general and those of the WikiProject Hiking Trails, this should be cleared at the general level and not by deleting individual articles.

A third reason to keep the article is that it is not a manual. It gives a general idea of the landscape and points of interest along E11 and refers the anglophone reader who wants to become an E11 rambler to Dutch, German and Polish publications. It makes clear how these publications can be used in spite of language barriers. As such, it is impossible to walk through these countries on E11 on the basis of this article only.

A fourth reason to keep this article is that it contains basic information about E11 that cannot be found anywhere else. It is in line with the verification requirement, as the contents can be checked at the offices of various rambling organizations, but one cannot expect individual ramblers to go there just in order to prepare for a hike. Especially the Polish sections are poorly documented (as is explained in the article itself) and there is no other easily accessible source in Internet, on cd-rom or on paper.

A fifth reason to keep the article, perhaps in a modified setting, is that Wikipedia has a special interest in hiking trails. The project in the English language has already been mentioned, but there are similar projects in French and German. The article may be relocated to, for example, an Outdoor-Wiki sub-encyclopedia, or it may be shortened according to certain guidelines, but to delete the whole article whereas many other trails are described in extenso, seems unduly harsh to me.

DrMennoWolters (talk) 11:02, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• Keep: article as it stands is over-long and needs trimming, but the topic is certainly WP:NOTABLE and we need an article on each of the European long-distance paths in the encyclopedia. And actually brief information about transport connections to the end-points of the path is probably appropriate, even if The Hague is easier to locate and reach than Edale or Kirk Yetholm. PamD 12:18, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

:Comment: a single editor has put in a huge amount of work on this trail over several months: it's a pity that no-one stopped by a little sooner to suggest that the content was perhaps becoming overly-detailed. The only Featured Article hiking trail seems to be Walden–Wallkill Rail Trail which at 5.2km is not a helpful model; we have a Good Article South West Coast Path at 1014km which might be more useful as an indication of how to write about a long trail which goes through built up as well as rural areas. With the amount of sourced content provide on E11, we ought to be able collectively to tighten it up and create a GA or even an FA. PamD 12:28, 28 April 2012 (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.