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Revision as of 19:27, 3 November 2011 editResolute (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users53,508 edits What WP:NOTCENSORED is not: utopian← Previous edit Latest revision as of 13:30, 10 January 2025 edit undoPenguino35 (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users1,038 edits RfC on WP:NOT and British Airways destinations: These examples violate WP:NOT. 
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*Topic: ] (Nov 2005 – Jan 2006) *Topic: ] (November 2005–January 2006)
*Topic: ] (May - July 2007) *Topic: ] (May–July 2007)
*Topic: ] (2003) *Topic: ] (2003)
*Topic: ] (July 2007 - ongoing; partially archived) *Topic: ] (July–October 2007)
|}<!-- Topic archive box ends --> |}<!-- Topic archive box ends -->


== Can we remove the "And finally" section? ==
== Changelogs ==


it has no place in wikipedia and it shouldn't even exist in the first place ] (]) 12:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
{{user|KelleyCook}} removed earlier today, about three hours after ]. Personally, I think this is a no-brainer, as the spirit would violate NOT's ideas about cataloguing and indiscriminate information anyway, but there are a worrying amount of glorified changelog articles (see, the AfDed articles)... ''']''' <sup>(])</sup> 20:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
: Without commenting directly on the AFDs, this was something that was spun out of the guidelines that have been used by the gaming wikiproject for a while now. In some instances it might be reason to remove an article. You might also consider reducing the coverage of the versions down to something more like a summary than a complete changelog. ] (]) 16:46, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
: To describe the history of a piece of software you have to have some description of how it has changed over time. For commercial reasons the release dates of software and the introduction of features have become quite significant, and such milestones in the software's history can be notable and are worth documenting. Major, complex pieces of software like operating systems usually have thousands of changes between versions, and obviously listing every single change is inappropriate, but a condensed list selected by editors is worthwhile and provides a valuable reference by showing a condensed history that is (ideally) free from marketing gloss and hype.


:makes no sense to remove. It's a catchall that NOT cannot enumerate everything WP is not. ] (]) 13:00, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
: The only past discussion I could find about changelogs is , and I agree with the editor who said "A brief summary of versions is appropriate. Listing individual bugfixes as they appeared in v2.08 build 1037 is obviously over the top." I suggest a tighter definition of "changelog" along these lines.
::its just unfunny jokes if you checked it out, humorous essays shouldn't be part of main policies ] (]) 16:45, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Not sure about removing the whole "And finally" section, since it has been on this page for at least a decade now (though I don't think anything of value will be lost if the section does get removed). But I agree that policy pages shouldn't link to "humorous" essays or essays that haven't been thoroughly vetted by the community, so I've removed the links from that section. ] (]) 00:22, 5 December 2024 (UTC)


== Notice of a requested redirect from ] to here ==
: I think the , "avoid a complete step-by-step record of every release or update", was too broad. The , which was incorrectly tagged as an Undo, is slightly better, but should be more explicit about the suggested level of detail, giving examples. The wording "violates other precepts of this policy" is too vague, if it is indiscriminate say so. ] (]) 00:04, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
::It's actually still pretty indiscriminate to include bulk text of changelogs even if you are selectively pulling only the biggest changes. I would almost argue that the better way to look at these articles is that they should be changelogs as viewed from the standpoint of third-party/secondary sources. A new feature introduced to an OS update that is caught on by sources is appropriate to include. A significant bug fix that can only be sourced by pointing to the change log is not. We're an encyclopedia, and we should be summarizing the changelogs over time, examining it as a history/timeline, than a routine "version number and here's what changed" role. --] (]) 00:17, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
:::For example, looking at the ] article, for example, 4.1, the important changes, such as Game Center and HDR for the iPhone 4, it's lost in all stuff about iPhone 3G bugfixes. Same for iOS 5: there's a lot of stuff no-one really uses given equal prominence to the Notification Center and Siri; indeed, background changes to Safari get more bullet points than the introduction of a groundbreaking voice control app. Hence, the proposed text:
::::{{quote|'''Release notes and changelogs''': An article about a product should only discuss changes that have likewise been discussed in reliable secondary sources. New features and functionality should be discussed in the abstract rather than the specifics, and bug fixes, unless notable in themselves for fixing a major software flaw, should not be discussed.}} ''']''' <sup>(])</sup> 01:47, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
::::::I agree with this approach--the excessive detail has concerned me, and without a rule, it's been difficult to get rid of it consistently. ''']''' (]) 01:18, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
:::::: Also strongly agree with this approach. This also reflects best practices on good/featured articles. ] (]) 01:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
:::::::Okay, but there should not be a need to differentiate between features and bug fixes in the guide: ] weight applies in both cases. ] (]) 05:12, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
:I'll put in two cents: I really like being able to see changelogs on wikipedia in the well known, easy to read wikipedia format. The deletion note on the iOS page is what brought me here. I agree that the level of detail might be inappropriate, but deletion would be a shame and, I think, against the principle of the site. To me the contents on that page is relevant information. ] (]) 10:55, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
::What is "well known easy to read wikipedia format"? By default, Misplaced Pages generally formats into prose, not tables. And like on that iOS page (which you note people are not saying should be deleted but should be radically rewritten) there's a lot of people arguing usefulness and the like, but "usefulness" or "utility" are not reasons to break the nature of WP as a tertiary, summarizing source. --] (]) 12:36, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
:"New features and functionality should be discussed in the abstract rather than the specifics": this seems too vague and could be interpreted in any number of ways. If I say that a new feature was added am I being abstract or specific? I suggest something like "Briefly summarize notable new features rather than describing every detail of their implementation". Also I don't think the requirement for secondary sources will help much for major packages like iOS as there are reliable sources that will happily list all the changes in great detail, e.g. . I think a determined editor could source almost everything on the current list, so this policy would entrench the current version rather than shortening it. ] (]) 19:15, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
::The intention is that we say something like "Siri is a ] for the iPhone 4S which replaces the Voice Control app in previous versions and is integrated into most of the device's stock software", instead of going all the way down the feature list (it can text people, make appointments... and ). ''']''' <sup>(])</sup> 08:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
:::I'm not sure that is the best example. As a major feature in a major OS, it probably would warrant more detail, but not everything. (I was about to say we could probably justify an article on it, but there ] already, though I think it could use more detail. ) ''']''' (]) 01:53, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
:I am still not happy with the wording, but is a specific policy for changelogs even necessary? Since we seem to have established that a blanket ban on changelogs per se is not desirable, isn't everything else already covered by ], ], ], etc? I don't think the policy as written would "fix" the iOS version history article, so perhaps we should leave that up to editors. ] (]) 22:38, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
::Also not happy with the wording (e.g. "the abstract" also means "the lead"). You're right inasmuch that if folk take on board the policy, this entire guideline is not necessary. However, a list of specific "don'ts" is often more accessible to newcomers than a list of general "dos". ] (]) 05:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Here's a stab at some wording:
*Product '''release-notes and ‘changelogs’''' are ] of information, so their content is not in general suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages articles. An article on a product (or, if it has been ], a sub-article) ''may'' discuss the product's (version) history, but such information should be obtained from discussion by ''secondary sources'' and be ] to their treatment of the overall topic. Alternatively, a stand-alone article on the version history of the product might be created, providing that the topic of the product's ''version history'' (distinct from that of the ''product'', or ''individual'' product versions) meets Misplaced Pages's ] (and the content is sourced accordingly).
] (]) 07:42, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
** Dismissing primary sources is not going to fly well, they actually may be suitable for specific information. The point that Spectre's change is is to address the fact that we summarize info, not flatout repeat it, and thus should distill the key change features from what secondary sources say are important. --] (]) 13:07, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
:::They're not dismissed: the text says "in general", but if we're not trying to steer people away from including wads of primary sourced info, then maybe we don't need the guideline. ] (]) 13:38, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
::::The simpler way to say this, in not so many words is "Discussion of the history of a software production should not include text from changelogs or patches verbatim, but should be summarized and filtered based on coverage from secondary sources." That's pretty much it. --] (]) 13:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
I support the opinion that while primary sources are not to be dismissed altogether, the secondary sources must be the basis for decision what is included and what is not, and how the feature description must be summarized and further evaluated. I.e., the secondary sources must decide which information is '''encyclopedic'''. There is no reason to turn wikipedia into a product billboard. After all, everything must be easily found in the product website (if not, then the product support sucks). ] (]) 16:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


The redirect request can be found on ]. ] (]) 03:45, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
While Sceptre's proposal is reasonable, the phrase "features and functionality should be discussed in the abstract rather than the specifics" is a way too abstract guideline. What is "abstract"? Have you had a change to read patent specs where definitions are as abstract as possible, to increase patent coverage? I would suggest a more direct advice: "Descriptions of functionality <small>("features" is functionality, right?)</small> must be reasonably summarized, omitting technical details not essential to the understanding of the feature". ] (]) 16:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
:Except that, at times, specific technical details may be the core part of why something's notable. I don't know of a specific example, but lets say on change in a changelog increases allowed memory use from 256 mg to 1 gb. By itself that's a technical detail with no relevance to a non-user of the product. If, on the other hand, third-party or secondary sources comment that the increase of memory to 1 gb drastically improves performance in a manner that can be related in an abstract way that the non-user can understand, that may be a detail to keep. More often than not, however, I think the results of summarizing such articles would be the new features added, as opposed to changes on old features. --] (]) 16:14, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
::OK, a possible correction: "...not essential to the understanding of the feature or of its importance". On the second thought, no correction is needed: if an independent party assers an importance of a fact, then this fact deserves incorporation regardless this policy. ] (]) 18:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

===Changelogs vs version or release history===

An important distinction needs to be made between a '']'' and a ''version history'' (or ''release history''). I've seen many people confuse these two and attempt to use parts of ]'s ''Changelogs or release notes'' as justification for removing encyclopedic content, but while the two concepts are related, they serve very different purposes.<p>A changelog usually contains detail of each change made between each version. A version history usually just contains version numbers and release dates (and sometimes a summary or notes of major or important changes). It is a normal convention here on Misplaced Pages to summarise or include a version history for larger software programs with a significant history. A few such examples include ] and ] (also ]).<p>To give another real-world example with which I'm very familiar, the detailed '''' files in ]'s software repository are changelogs, while the '''' file is a version/release history. I'm familiar with these because a number of years ago I "volunteered" months of my time to comb through email and software/patch archives for this project in order to compile this information. While I had to build the version history from scratch using the various archives, many of the changelogs existed in various parts in past releases and patches, but still had to be brought together and unified in a common format.<p>The motivation for this work was two-fold. One, without it, the history of the project was buried and mostly inaccessible to most people because it was not readily available online. Two, without the changelogs, proper attribution was not being given to those whom had contributed their time and knowledge to the project.<p>As hard as it might be for many of us on Misplaced Pages to imagine, I caught some flack for "volunteering" ''my'' time on this. A number of others who sometimes contributed to that project thought I was "wasting my time" on something unimportant and would have preferred I work exclusively on bugfixes (which I've contributed in the past as well). I was also attacked here on Misplaced Pages by ] and a couple of his friends after he tried to track down projects I had contributed to outside of Misplaced Pages, and tried to use that to attack me here on Misplaced Pages. <small>(For those curious, most of it has since been documented at the top of my ].)</small><p>To get fully back on the original topic though, version histories are encyclopedic and usually worth noting in an article, but there would be little value for most readers to include complete changelogs. Due to editor confusion, the ''Changelogs or release notes'' ] entry which was added on 24 February 2011 in revision either needs to be removed or clarified so that well meaning editors don't end up trying to remove encyclopedic content because they think the inclusion of a version or release history conflicts with Misplaced Pages policy. If this can't be clarified soon, in the interest of preventing edit wars and avoiding the ], I'll remove this newer addition myself per ] until we can figure out how to keep such an addition to ] from conflicting with longstanding practice. --] (]) 15:43, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

== Self-promotion of academics on Misplaced Pages ==

Greetings. I received an interesting email at the end of the summer from Sage Publishing, who produce many top-tier journals (at least in my area of Communication and Media). On their "10 Ways to Increase Usage and Citations of Your Article", the first suggestion is to "Contribute to Misplaced Pages". They write:

:"We recognize that many students are increasingly using Misplaced Pages as the starting point for their research. If there are pages that relate to themes, subjects or research that your article covers, add your article as a reference, with a link to it on SAGE Journals Online. If there isn’t a page in existence, why not create one? You can find out how here."

This seems a little dicey to me. Sure, published journal articles make good citations for Misplaced Pages articles and add credibility to content, but it just seems to me a bit too close to home for academics to be, in essence, using Misplaced Pages for professional self-promotion. I'm interested in hearing what others think? ] (]) 18:04, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
:I like it, and am always glad to see academic interest in editing Misplaced Pages. Since the articles should be reliable(being published in Academic journals) and since no particular point of view is being expressed I think this has more potential to bring in new editors, activity, and sources the encyclopedia than it does harm. If someone is self promoting in a harmful way then we have current methods for handling that.] (]) 19:59, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
:Im good with it as well- so long as the new editors are up to date on policy and Coin. Id certaintly like to see more enduring science articles than all the video game related ones that flood wiki. ] (]) 20:48, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
:I'm okay with it too if they follow the policies in a fairly reasonable way. ] (]) 21:44, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
:It is OK, as long as everybody will be made aware that nothing is cast in stone, that everything must be judged by notability criteria, that publication in a peer-reviewed journal is not an ultimate truth. It will be good to have more contributors, but when academics and their students will flock here, some articles may turn into chaotic collections of scentific trivia, which must be periodically refactored. But this may happen with every topic, see eg, the ] discussion. Possibly, new wikiepdia guidelines will be due. ] (]) 16:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

== What What Misplaced Pages is not is not ==

The guideline contains a wise phrase ''"Misplaced Pages is not any of a very long list of terrible ideas."'' Unfortunately it is at the very end, in the "And finally..." section. That is probably why there are so many failed suggestions to expand this policy. Therefore first of all, I would suggest to move this caveat to the preamble of the page.

Second, I think that "And finally..." gives a somewhat wrong, if indirect, advice: ''"Almost everything on this page made it here because somebody managed to come up with some new bad idea that had not previously been anticipated"''. If some smart-ass managed to do something stupid here, I don't think that this would be the reason to immediately document a ban on this new kind of stupidity. Therefore the preamble must include a phrase to the end that this policy documents '''common misconceptions''' about what and how wikipedia must be written.

In other words ,

{{ tmbox
| image = ]
| text = "What wikipedia is not" is not
*a list of all pranks done to wikipedia
*a list of all text and data formats other than encyclopedic format
*a list of all human behaviors other than writing encyclopedia
and finally, it is not a crystall ball on how people may screw up writing wikipedia.

| imageright = {{#if: | {{Ombox/Shortcut||||| }} }}
}}


== Request for comments: in cases of a large numbers of religious celebrations in a religious calendar (e.g., feast day of saints), can they all be listed in a non-list WP article? ==


<!-- ] 19:01, 7 February 2025 (UTC) -->{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1738954866}}
{{rfc|reli|policy|rfcid=7AD77A3}}


This RfC concerns the ] and ] policies.
I would also suggest to put a note to this end on top of this talk page as well. ] (]) 18:13, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


Presently, there are numerous WP articles of religious calendars that list the full list of celebrations, feast day of saints, etc., without those articles being ].
== RfC on "verifiability, not truth" ==


The pages concerned, from what I have found, are: ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] (and ).
There is an ''']''' on whether to remove from the lead of ] that "the threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is '''verifiability, not truth'''—whether readers can check that material in Misplaced Pages has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true."
:<small></small>
::Note: the link above should read that the RfC can be found at ]&nbsp; ] (]) 19:38, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
:<small></small>
The RfC is likely to close in a few days so if you want to comment, please do so soonish. Many thanks, <font color="black">]</font> <small><sup><font color="gold">]</font><font color="lime">]</font></sup></small> 01:15, 29 October 2011 (UTC)


::The proposal is a lot more complex than just removing the line ... but you can read it and the rational for it at the RfC... in any case, I echo SV's call for you to come and comment. ] (]) 02:34, 29 October 2011 (UTC) My question for which I request comments is: is putting these long lists of religious feasts in those articles a violation of ] or ], and if it so happens that they are a violation then what should be done with these lists? ] (]) 18:25, 3 January 2025 (UTC)


*'''Comment'''. In my opinion, this isn't a significant problem. It looks to me (I haven't checked every page listed) like the pages are about encyclopedic topics that are reliably sourced. They are not unreasonable when viewed as ], as opposed to standalone list pages. As long as there is also paragraph-based text that is sufficiently sourced to establish notability, and to provide a context for the information that is listed, that takes those pages out of the realm of stuff that is simply an indiscriminate list of information of unclear encyclopedic relevance. I see that some of them have only a very brief lead section, and are tagged for needing improvements; these are the most problematic, but they can likely be fixed by further editing. (Those should either be revised into actual list pages, or be revised with more context in the form of paragraph text.) --] (]) 23:18, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
== What Misplaced Pages Is ==
*Can't really see a problem. They are certainly list-like, and could be converted to lists, but what's the gain? I don't see either policy being breached. ] (]) 04:35, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
*They are functionally lists based on their current content. They don't have to have "List" in the title. ] (]) 07:51, 4 January 2025 (UTC)


==Addition to WP:NOTDICTIONARY==
Would it be correct to say, based on the information I have found on this page and on others, this:
I propose to add the following bullet (4) to the ] entry:
* Misplaced Pages is not a multilingual dictionary. Articles should not include lists of translations of the topic into multiple languages, whether the topic is an object (apple = French pomme), a concept (wisdom = French sagesse), a culinary dish, or a proverb (You can't have your cake and eat it = French Vouloir le beurre et l'argent du beurre). If there is something encyclopedic to say about the different versions, such as etymology, then of course the name in other languages is relevant. Variants of the ''meaning'' should not be grouped by language, but by meaning. If a culinary preparation has no common name in English (e.g. ]), then it is reasonable to include the variant names in the lead.
Discussion? --] (]) 19:55, 5 January 2025 (UTC)


:To some extent this seems to stand in contradiction to ], which would suggest that we should list the names for places in languages significant to that place as a gazetteer would be expected to do. —] (]) 20:23, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages is an organized compendium of knowledge. The knowledge contained in this compendium is fairly notable.
::I've never met a gazetteer, and I guess I should be glad I don't, right? There's also ], but both are essays anyway. ] (]) 02:49, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:::I think maybe you're thinking of a ]? —] (]) 03:06, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
::I don't see a contradiction with ], which is about what ''places'' to mention. But ] is relevant for place''names''. It says that we should include "significant alternative names", although that isn't elaborated on there (I think it is somewhere else, though). The significant names certainly include the name of a place in its own language (Deutschland), the name of the place under significant previous rulers (the Ottoman Turkish names for most places in Greece and the Balkans), and the name of the place in the languages of large populations which have lived there in the past (e.g. the South Slavic and Judeo-Spanish names of ]). On the other hand, we don't include the German names for Poland (Polen) or Greece (Griechenland) despite Germany's occupation (and partial annexation in the case of Poland) of those countries during WWII.
::In any case, those policies are about ''placenames''. For other topics, other approaches make more sense. For example, the ] section mentions local names ''along with'' the local variants in Brazil etc. In the ], article, we say (I admit that I wrote this): "The image of the last drop is also found in many other languages", leaving the exact words to the sources in the several footnotes. This contrasts with ], where ] -- correctly in my view -- a long list of translations or equivalents of the expression (many without sources). --] (]) 21:02, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Are there any examples showing how this change would have a practical effect? I presume the aim is to limit text appearing in an article? Or is to limit what articles should exist? There can't be a policy that lists every bad idea. ] (]) 01:22, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:::I'd agree the removal on You can't have your cake..., but I disagree with the Beef Stroganoff example. Discussion the various national varities of a dish - as long as its sourced - seems completely appropriate, and in line of talking about those, the local name that the dish goes back makes sense. It would be a problem if we just has a list of translated names without any discussion of the unique aspects of the national variety, as was the case with the You can't have your cake... article. ] (]) 01:37, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Yeah, I think the content in Beef Stroganoff makes more sense, even if poorly sourced. An obvious difference is of course that Beef Stroganoff deals with an actual physical topic and Cake deals with words--precisely the thing a dictionary should treat, which is why I directed the latest disruptor (who I suspect of being a sock of an earlier SPA in that article) to Wiktionary. I think I agree with the proposal, mostly--though I think that if we didn't have ] already, a section in the ] article makes sense. But then, as {{U|Masem}} indicated for Beef Stroganoff, there's much more there than just a translation of a word. ] (]) 02:49, 6 January 2025 (UTC)


== Should ] be more specific about phone numbers, etc.? ==
]'']''</span> 21:48, 30 October 2011 (UTC)


I came across an {{tl|Infobox school}} recently that was misusing free text parameters to list the school's phone number. "As we all know", {{tq|contact information such as phone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail addresses is not encyclopedic}}, so I removed it "per ]". This prompted me to look if there were more cases of such misuse, and indeed there were dozens. I was going to remove them with the same explanation, but unfortunately I took time to read through ] before doing that... and I don't think I can use it as my basis, because I don't see anything in the text explicitly forbidding this. There used to be an unambiguous statement (the green one), but it was removed almost exactly three years ago (]], ]]). Right now, anyone could argue "''None of this applies to me. I'm not replicating any listings, it's just one phone number. Nor am I conducting business, we're talking about a school here.''" and I haven't been able to find anything in current policy wordings to definitively counter this (the BLP ban obviously doesn't apply to institutions). Am I missing something obvious (entirely possible :) ), or should the wording be changed (back) to remedy this? I'm tempted to be bold and just add it back, but it's probably better to double-check the consensus on this first. ] (]) 13:40, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:Good idea to start on the main missing policy "What Misplaced Pages is". But while the article subjects are notable, the individual pieces of information in the articles are not necessarily notable. <font color ="#0000cc">''North8000''</font> (]) 10:34, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
::Engaging articles on notable topics. ] (]) 11:20, 31 October 2011 (UTC) :It still states contact information is to be avoided under #6. ] <small>(])</small> 04:42, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
::Yes, but the way that's framed, it seems to be limited to the context of "conducting business", which arguably wouldn't apply to something like a school. And even if we say it does apply, It would still be helpful to spell this out more explicitly, as "phone or fax number and e-mail" would be clearer for non-native speakers than "contact information", and a more obvious search term. ] (]) 05:02, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
:::That makes sense, and the search term angle is compelling. ] (]) 23:34, 9 January 2025 (UTC)


==RfC on WP:NOT and British Airways destinations==
:See also: ]. ] (]) 17:15, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
<!-- ] 01:01, 12 February 2025 (UTC) -->{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1739322068}}
{{rfc|econ|rfcid=4A58B81}}
Do the following violate ]? A) ], and B) ].
*'''Option 1''': Only A violates WP:NOT
*'''Option 2''': Only B
*'''Option 3''': Both A and B
*'''Option 4''': Neither A nor B
] (]) 00:26, 8 January 2025 (UTC)


===Context===
== What ] is not ==
*A-type lists: In ] some people proposed a new RfC.
**I chose to do an RfC here at WT:NOT to focus on whether this policy applies. This is not meant to serve as a ].
*B-type lists: ] closed as no consensus, and some argued to relist the RfC with a different question.
*No prior discussion has jointly addressed the two types of lists.
*RfC planning done ]. I acknowledge that I've begun many discussions on this topic, but I hope this one clarifies the main dispute about NOT which has arisen in debates going back to ].
] (]) 00:28, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
:This description of the context in itself is not quite undisputed; see the '''Discussion''' subsection ''infra''. I think that the list of five older partly contradictory RfA's given by {{ping|Liz|prefix=|p=}} in her (later endorsed) closure of the original AfD also is a highly relevant part of the context; as is that AfD itself. ] (]) 00:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC)


===Survey===
I'm starting this discussion in response to a dispute on ] over the use of images on the ] article. This discussion is ''not'' about that particular dispute (although you can read it ] if you want the grisly details). It's about what I see as a growing misuse of ]. I think it's time we agreed on exactly what that policy means.
*'''Option 3'''. The lists of current destinations and routes from Heathrow have lots of references, which is fine, though you could just as well cite BA's website for each city. It's a reliable source for this info, and indeed has already been cited for most of the current destinations in list A. Sites like and organize the data more conveniently and could be used as well. So there is no problem with verifiability here, but just because info is verifiable, doesn't mean it should be on Misplaced Pages. We aren't supposed to host a ], or a ] reorganized from flight databases.<p>In regard to past destinations, I agree with discussing the development of BA's route network over time. For example, in ], people have written about the impact of a 1970s government policy, and the Heathrow-New York route on Concorde. On the other hand, recording every place that BA no longer flies to, from its maiden flight 50 years ago up to today, strikes me as ]. ] (]) 00:28, 8 January 2025 (UTC)</p>
*'''Option 3'''. Basically, listcruft is listcruft is listcruft. We want notable information, not indiscriminate information. - ] ] 01:13, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
**The destinations currently flown is a narrowly-defined, discriminate list. Most destinations are covered in reliable sources so it's notable, though notability applies to articles, not specific facts. ]<sup>]</sup> 05:08, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*:'''Option 4''' None of them violates ], these are not indescriminate information, they are related to the topic of the article and shouldn't be removed, in my opinion I would support merging them into the airline article rather than be kept as a whole separate article ] (]) 06:41, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''3'''. We just had a lengthy but conclusive RfC about this, with a ] conclusion. There is no reason to make an exception for a particular airline or airport. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 01:27, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Neither''' Neither of these violate ]. This is an absolutely ridiculous evergreen proposal. ] ''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:top;">]</span>''·''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:bottom;">]</span>'' 01:55, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*:I'm actually livid right now. Putting this at ] is just another tactic to try to ensure that completely valid encyclopedic information cannot be included anywhere on the site. ] ''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:top;">]</span>''·''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:bottom;">]</span>'' 01:57, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*::In order to violate ], the information must not be encyclopedic. This is the flaw in the argument of those who are trying to rid our encyclopedia of this encyclopedic information.
*::In terms of the airline destination lists, there is no need to specifically exclude them under ]. Analysis under ] should be just fine, as it is for all other lists. Some airlines do have long histories with well documented historically flown routes or destinations. Looking at the British Airways list shows a well sourced article, and some air routes have been the subject of discussion as early as .
*::The airports table especially is one of the things I use most on the site. There are many wiki gnomes who keep them up to date. Almost all routes are be announced in the press, are easily verified, and do not need to rise to the level of notability to be included. They also do not violate ] per all of my arguments at other RfCs. The thing I specifically use them for the most is to determine how an airport or region is linked to the rest of the world, similar to how you can see which passenger routes operate from a given train station. I've seen the argument that yes, but rail infrastructure is fixed - it does not matter, the air routes can also be properly sourced. The information is also encyclopedic - for instance, one of the most important things in the history of a commercial airport is which routes were served first. Other airports have routes which are subject to academic analysis such as .
*::This entire attempt to rid the website of this information is based on a complete misunderstanding. NOTDB? It's not a database, it's a list! NOTDIR? It's not a directory, these aren't simple listings without encyclopedic merit - otherwise we wouldn't have list articles at all! NOTTRAVEL? It's not a travel guide! If this passes, it will make Misplaced Pages worse, and there likely won't be any going back. And I'm exhausted from trying to defend this over and over again, year after year... ] ''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:top;">]</span>''·''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:bottom;">]</span>'' 02:26, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*:Same here, these list of destinations do not violate <nowiki>]</nowiki> ] (]) 06:35, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 3''' Same for others, we want to have information from both past destinations and the present destinations, '''but''' if only provides a reliable reference if that route is existed in the past, or else removed it automatically. ] (]) 02:02, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
**This comment does not address the two different things asked about here and further indicates that reliable sources would justify inclusion, not that the content is inherently a violation. ]<sup>]</sup> 05:08, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*:<s>'''Option 3''' Same for others, we want to have information from both past destinations and the present destinations, but if only provides a reliable reference if that route is existed in the past, or else removed it automatically</s>
*:<br>
*:Changing to '''Option 4''' plus '''Neither''' vote, my comment is ridiculous but, I must say, both of them are not violates ], both of the pages do have reliable reference given to it (some of them have not). For some users always keep the page up-to-date with reliable reference that it given, for example: AeroRoutes, as it's the most (idk if that is reliable) used reference for starting/ending dates.
*:<br>
*:As for the airport pages, it can say but for some airline (with separate destinations lists), we can merge to the main airline page. ] (]) 12:20, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Neither'''. These tables have been around for a long time and should remain as they are. However, I believe we can discuss the criteria for including or excluding a destination in the table, specifically '''airport articles''', as this is the part that often causes confusion among editors. ] (]) 02:25, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4'''. These lists provide a way for readers to understand the connectivity of an airline or airport in a way that a vague summary does not. They could certainly be improved to add more context, e.g. by adding maps, more sourcing, or more discussion, but they can be very informative and are not inherently listcruft. ] ~ <small>]</small> 02:29, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 3'''. NOTDIR failures do not belong on the site, regardless of what the airline is. Locations merely being verified in primary sources do not constitute BALASP coverage. ] (]) 02:34, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
**BALASP refers to balancing viewpoints in order to maintain a neutral point of view. In no way are destinations reached from an airport minor aspects of an airport nor do they represent an imbalance in views or content weight. ]<sup>]</sup> 05:08, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
* '''Neither''' of these are inherently policy violations. This is not a case of {{xt|a directory of everything in the universe that exists or has existed}}. It's not a case of {{xt|Simple listings without contextual information}} or {{xt|loosely associated topics}} or anything else. It's not a case of {{xt|an indiscriminate collection of information}} or {{xt|Excessive listings of unexplained statistics}}. There is no policy violation here, and I suspect that if people had to quote the exact sentence that supported their claims, instead of waving at a potentially misleading ] shortcut, they would be hard pressed to justify claims of a policy violation. ] (]) 02:40, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 3''' I will simply repost what I said in the 2023 RfC with edits to be more generally applicable:
:{{tq|], ] ... ] exists ... there is no reason cannot be created and maintained there with a cross-wiki link in the enWiki article (i.e. <nowiki>]</nowiki>). I presume the purpose of Wikivoyage is to serve as the very travel guide enWiki is not supposed to be.}}
:—&nbsp;]&nbsp;&#x2693;&nbsp;] 02:46, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
**This is not a feasible argument because no lists like this exist on Wikivoyage and there is no indication the community there seeks to maintain them, certainly not as well as the community here does. ]<sup>]</sup> 05:08, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
**:The English Wikivoyage talked about this a few years ago, and said that they did not feel that they had enough editors to maintain such lists, and were glad that the English Misplaced Pages did. (Also, they would only track current routes, not historical ones.) ] (]) 18:10, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4 (Neither)'''. I can somewhat understand how airport destinations may be problematic under ] but I've never understood why airline destinations fall under the same criteria. Firstly, as Whatamidoing pointed out, none of the ] criterias are able to cover the airline destinations. Secondly, if I want to go somewhere, I will already have that somewhere in mind. I don't need to figure out that somewhere on Misplaced Pages before buying the ticket (even though that is entirely possible through the airport article, which is why I can put a weak support for option 2, but that’s very unlikely). Thirdly, even travel guides like Lonely Planet don’t list the airlines that fly to and from a city (usually they do have the airport, but even that’s covered under the #Transport/Transportation sections of almost every major city in the world). So this isn’t even a travel guide because travel guides don’t do that. Fourthly, when I look at the airline destinations article, I know where they fly to, but from where? China Eastern, for example, has flights from Wuhan (focus city) to Singapore, but not from Ningbo (also a focus city) to Singapore. The airline destination pages do not tell me that. There’s no way this can be used as a travel guide without knowing the exact flights from where to where, so why are we worried about this becoming a travel guide? ]<sup>]</sup> 03:06, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4 (Neither)'''. This area has been discussed ad nauseam and I share the same frustration as {{u|SportingFlyer}}. It is the second large scale discussion initiated by Sunnya343 on the same page in 9 months and a thinly disguised ]. "AfD discussion didn't go the way I wanted? Let's try Deletion Review. Oh no the community endorsed the closure? Off we go RFC!" By my count, we have discussed this area 8 times (in various venues) since 2016, most of which were initiated by the same individual. We really need to put these discussions onto ] and stop wasting community members' time. After this RfC finishes, I intend to start a TBAN discussion on Sunnya343's forumshopping behaviour. ]] 03:37, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4''' and '''suggest withdrawal''' per below discussion. Discussing two types of lists simultaneously without a strong rationale for doing so is not conducive to a productive discussion. In my view, the destinations tables for airports are exceedingly notable due to their coverage as both a group ''and'' individually when routes are announced/launched/dropped/delayed. The major newspaper of a given metropolitan area will have dozens of articles about these route changes. To fulfill Misplaced Pages's goal of being comprehensive, one cannot remove a critical element from an airport article, lest readers believe that planes simply stop at an airport and fly off into the void. ''']]''' 05:12, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4''' Neither. I see people have raised a few points about NOTDB, NOTDIR, or NOTTRAVEL. But I think those policies are pretty clear. NOTTRAVEL pertains specifically to travel guides with some explanation of what that means, and these very much are not such a beast. Also, these lists are not indiscriminate collections of information, and in fact are very specific in what they cover; these lists also have context to explain what the information means. Train stations and lines are vital to rail travel. Highways to automotive. Similarly routes and destinations are vital to air travel. There is no commercial air travel without routes and destinations, so it would be a mistake for us to exclude it simply because it's presented as a list. &mdash;]]] 05:30, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 3 (both).''' Both lists appear (to me) to fall under the category of {{tq|an indiscriminate collection of information}}. I think maybe the telltale sign here is that the information (data) is taken from primary sources, instead of from secondary sources that should {{tq|discriminate}} for us and summarize the essence and what's important in the data (e.g. hypothetically "British airways has 850 destinations, the most out of any airline, spanning all 7 continents" and then a reference to that source). There is infinite data on most of anything, and it is the secondary source's job to determine what in the data is of essence, and it is our job as a tertiary source to summarize what extracted essence is so emphasized by secondary sources that it becomes notable enough to write about here. Adding these lists here bypasses this filtering structure and just feels arbitrary (hence {{tq|indiscriminate}}). ] (]) 05:32, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
**Every airport ''has'' these lists, which are clearly a finite and managable amount of data, without any arbitrary determinations made. Countless users have already determined it is of essense and included it in an organized manner. Moreover, besides the fact that independent sources do regularly cover airline routes, there is no reason to exlude primary or non-independent sources (which were regularly incorrectly conflated in the last discussion); while primary sources must be used with care to ensure NPOV and that there is not original research, interpretation, or synthesis of the source, that is not a concern for straightforward noncontroversial facts such as an airline flying a particular route. I would support continued work to add sources to these lists, but not removal on flimsy grounds. Saying so little that a major airline flies to 5 continents is an insult to readers who use this (though, again, A and B are very different). ]<sup>]</sup> 05:48, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
**:Replying to these in order: 1. {{tq|every airport has these lists}} Just because something similar was done before doesn't make it an argument to continue doing it. The purpose of this RFC is to explicitly assess in a centralized fashion if the above lists violate NOT or not, and that's what we should address. 2. {{tq|Countless users have already determined it is of essence}} My argument is exactly that it is not for them to decide, but for reliable secondary sources to do so. Regardless, a centralized community consensus here would override a distributed, more local consensus in separate articles. 3. {{tq|not a concern for straightforward noncontroversial facts}} I can find you terabytes of database information containing various straightforward noncontroversial facts on British airlines. Why is this bit of data more important than the other bit of data? My point is that secondary sources should answer this, and not us. 4. {{tq| Saying so little that a major airline flies to 5 continents is an insult to readers}} well (a) I just gave that as an example. We should just say what reliable secondary sources decide is notable/important about this data. (b) Maybe it would be insulting for the reader to get giant tables of indiscriminate data when they deserve encyclopedic content that summarizes knowledge. Either way, they shouldn't feel insulted, we're just volunteers. ] (]) 06:16, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
**::1. Every airport having these lists does show that that information is not "infinite data" or "arbitrary" but rather something well-curated and overseen to ensure that it is not indiscriminate. It's not one person creating a mass of pages for their own narrow interest without oversight. 2. I don't believe this talk page is truly a centralized community consensus that should override the edits made on thousands of pages by thousands of users who find this valuable and encyclopedic. 3. There are plenty of independent sources that do in fact answer the question that airline/airport destinations are important and of interest. I just added from today's paper to the relevant article. 4. Sure, we can provide summaries, but that's no reason to delete this consistent information. More sources should be added but they do in fact find airline routes notable and important. ]<sup>]</sup> 16:49, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
**:::Being useful is not a reason to keep information. Having been edited by many editors is not a reason to keep information
**:::WP is meant to be a summary work of what reliable sources give, and an exhaustive list of destinations for an airline (which can be changed frequently) seems exactly the type of info that is not a summary. It does make sense to say which major cites BA serves, or which major destination cities Heathrow Li KS to, which I am sure can be documented in secondary coverage of both topics, but not a complete and exhaustive listing. ] (]) 17:01, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
**::::Well... according to this policy, which says {{xt|the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice}}, "Having been edited by many editors" is probably a reason to assume that the result is "accepted practice". When accepted practice and the written rules diverge, it's the written rules that we're supposed to change. ] (]) 18:16, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
**:::::Even if we assume that this is "accepted practice", in the context of this RFC this practice is a series of editorial decisions in a very specific topic area, and isn't evidence at all that a global English Misplaced Pages policy like NOT should be changed. If policy written based on global consensus (NOT) and accepted practice in a narrow topic area diverge, the latter is supposed to change. ] (]) 00:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
**::::::Why do you say this? This policy literally says that the written rules, including NOT, do not set the accepted practice, and the accepted practice is supposed to win.
**::::::Have you actually read the policy? Here's a relevant part:
**::::::"Although ], the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice. Rather, they document already-existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected.
**::::::While Misplaced Pages's written ] should be taken seriously, they can be misused. Do not follow an overly strict interpretation of the ] of policies without considering their ''principles''. If the rules truly prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ]. Disagreements are resolved through ] discussion, not by tightly sticking to rules and procedures. Furthermore, policies and guidelines themselves ] to reflect ]."
**::::::] says "Technically, the policy and guideline ''pages'' are not the policy and guidelines in and of themselves. The actual policies and guidelines are behaviors practiced by most editors."
**::::::In other words, if a policy page (e.g., NOT) and accepted practice diverge, the policy page is the one that needs to change. ] (]) 18:31, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
**:::::::I have indeed read the policy. I'm of the opinion that the tables above are not part of a practice that is accepted at a wide enough level to warrant ignoring the policy when this practice and NOT diverge. Obviously I understand that it is not exactly clear how to determine that, and it's basically for the community to decide where the line is drawn here (whether IGNORE applies). Based on the votes in this RFC, it looks like some in the community may agree with this idea (e.g. "ignore because it's a common practice and useful to the project"). I'll leave it to the closer to figure out what to do in this situation (genuinely curious to see how the arguments will be weighted here). ] (]) 03:50, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
**:::::Just because there exists articles that may be from long standing practice doesn't mean that they are still within policy. There are ''lots'' of walled gardens of content on WP that we sometimes need to tear down the walls to bring the content more in line with what an encyclopedia covers (particularly as there is a sister project, Wikivoyage, far better suited for this information). We had to do that recently with sports athletes, for example, and its still taking a way to work through the walled garden of barely-notable athletes. ] (]) 01:05, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Neither – Option 4''' It's poor faith to suggest that "This is not meant to serve as a deletion venue" when – after having initiated numerous counterproductive RFCs – the nominator clearly seeks to subsequently delete content from thousands of articles. I share the concerns of {{u|SportingFlyer}} and {{u|OhanaUnited}} that this attempt to conflate and delete two different types of articles/sections is unnecessary. It's clear that the innumerable users and readers who contribute and read this content find it to be encyclopedic. Even if third-party websites also present the information in convenient ways, it's an important part of these articles for navigation and understanding. No part of this information is indiscrimate – they are narrowly defined lists that provide context to how an airport and its tenants operate. The airport destinations show to what extent an airport is a hub that serves its city's residents and those who travel through, and they show how it is connected to the region or world, with links to such connections that define the very purpose of the airport. Major newspapers and other reliable sources regularly include content about flights and what the airlines do at airports. This content isn't a directory like "the white or yellow pages", "loosely associated topics", or "A resource for conducting business". This content isn't "Summary-only descriptions of works", "Lyrics databases", "unexplained statistics", or "Exhaustive logs of software updates". This content isn't an instruction manual or travel guide that instructs people how to book a flight or includes overly specific descriptions of how or when each flight is flown. It does not violate NOT and is welcome to continue to be included in the encyclopedia without detriment to writers and readers. ]<sup>]</sup> 05:48, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*:This is a very strict reading of NOT's examples, but it skips the opening line under "Encyclopedic content": {{tq|Information should not be included solely because it is true or useful. An article should not be a complete presentation of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject.}} This is why we don't blast the reader with all information about everything, and instead just summarize secondary sources on the matter. The argument that people find it useful and major newspapers regularly include this content are not at all relevant the question of whether the information should be included here, in an encyclopedia. This is exactly what NOT attempts to convey. Frankly (as a reader), I'd argue that a lot of the information in these tables '''is''' useless, but maybe I'm missing something important hidden in the data. If the goal is to give the reader important ''impressions'' about the data found in these tables, then cite reliable secondary sources that make these impressions instead of pasting the entire table here and leaving it to the reader to figure it out for themselves. ] (]) 13:23, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*::Sure, and this summarizes sources by only naming the destinations, rather than including the flights' frequency or schedules, aircraft used, service history, or other details. These tables are by no means "everything" or only included because it's true, but because it's a key aspect of the subject covered by a variety of sources. While this information has not always been the best-referenced (such as including a source for a start or end date but removing it when the route actually begins), it's something that is being improved upon with both specific and general sources. ]<sup>]</sup> 16:37, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Neither - Option 4''' per ] and ]. –] ] ] 06:54, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 3 (Both)''' (NOTE: I was alerted to this RfC by an announcement on my talk page.) I don't see the usefulness of these two articles; providing this detailed of information is getting into the weeds. IMHO, it would be far more useful if the information in these two articles were presented in a gif file, which would present the ebb & flow of BA routes in a manner far more useful to the casual reader. If a user consulting this article wanted more detailed information, then they can consult the sources cited to create these two gif files. -- ] (]) 07:04, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*:So this ''is'' useful, valid, encyclopedic content, you'd just rather see it as a map or image that still provides the details rather than a list. Of course, there have been several discussions about whether to include maps, which often take up more space, are harder to keep up to date (a gif would be much harder), and don't include navigational links or an easy way to provide sources. ]<sup>]</sup> 14:35, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
* ] violates ] and ], because it is an indiscriminate collection of information, primarily collected from research on the website of British Airways and other primary sources. Indeed, it is practically impossible to source this kind of information from anyone ''but'' the airline, either directly or indirectly. It should also be said that this type of list typically does not survive AFD. ] (]) 07:16, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*:@], for clarity, can you elaborate on why you think ] is "haphazard, random", made "without care or making distinctions, thoughtless"? That's the dictionary definition, but I wonder if that's really what you mean. ] (]) 18:22, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*::If you'd prefer a more concrete question, then maybe explain why ] can qualify for ] but a list of places where an airplane goes can't even qualify to exist. ] (]) 18:25, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*:::Easy answer is that rail stations and tracks are effective permanent fixture (though specific train routes may not be), while airlines can readily change flight offerings on a dime. As such, the infrastructure of raillines tends to get more detailed coverage in secondary sources that airlines routes. ] (]) 18:30, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*::::Basically this. A listing of airline services necessarily means an exhaustive listing of ephemera that changes week-to-week. They are not comparable to listings of fixed infrastructure. ] (]) 16:57, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
*:::::Do you honestly think that airlines add and remove destinations week to week? That's not consistent with my experience. The individual flight schedules may change, but the part about "Does this airline fly to New York at all?" is pretty stable. ] (]) 20:04, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
*::::::As shown by the sourcing on the BA list article, new routes are introduced or removed near daily, not for any one airline but as a whole. It's very mutable.
*::::::But you second point is actually something that we should document, what airlines serve a specific airport; for major airports, that is pretty immutable (in that, it is rare when an airline completely removes themselves or adds themselves to an airport because of the infrastructure costs to set up offices and support services) and that is usually documented in non routine news. But that's far different as a list of all connecting cities since those can change on a whim. ] (]) 20:17, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Neither - Option 4''' per ] and ]. No need to reiterate again.] (]) 07:35, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 3'''. For both airlines and airports, an extensive list, generally compiled from primary sources only, provides no encyclopedic value. Whether the lists are presented in standalone articles (as is the case for some airlines) or as a section within an overall article (as is the case for other airlines and most airports) is irrelevant to the question at hand. ] (]) 07:50, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*:One thing I'll note is that it's historically been common for announced routes to be added with a start date and source (e.g. ) then after that date for both the date and source to be removed to limit footnote clutter (e.g. ) as the airline's cited timetable continues to verify the content – timetables were endorsed as an acceptable source for verification in an WP:AIRPORTS RFC. I believe this practice should be changed and the individual sources, often independent, be kept, but that's why they appear to be compiled that way. ]<sup>]</sup> 16:58, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Neither (option 4)'''. Airports and airlines are important nodes and connections of a major part of transportation infrastructure. What destinations an airport connects to is just as relevant as to what destinations a railway station connects to, event though the lack of roads or rails makes the list more dynamic and in greater need of constant update. Likewise, where an airline flies is a major part of understanding an airline's scope, outreach and market impact. ] ] 07:52, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4'''. The current list of British Airways destinations does have most cities listed with references. The deleted ones can inform the reader of where BA use to fly to. On the Air NZ list it has even more details of what year when a former destination started by the airline.


:The current list of BA cities served at Heathrow has an immediate impact for the reader to visualize what is happening at that airport and is kept up to date. ] (]) 08:27, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
Here's how I see it: ] simply means that Misplaced Pages is not subject to any formal censorship. There is no 'censor body', such as the ], the ] or the ], controlling what appears on Misplaced Pages; there is no equivalent of the ] restricting what content we can include. The only restrictions we are formally subject to are the law in the state of Florida, and ] actions. Beyond that, in principle, anything goes. (There are additional restrictions we've imposed on ourselves, such as the requirements of ], but not because any outside body has forced us to do so.)
*'''Option 1'''. The first page is a page solely for the destinations served by British Airways, which is not a notable topic by itself and does not strike me as a particularly encyclopedic list. But the second page is, in fact, ''']'''; the British Airways stuff is one fact in one row of a table on that article -- which is, again, the article for Heathrow Airport, and not a list. Like... am I missing something here? Or is everyone else? Because Option 1 is clearly not going to be consensus, my second choice is '''Option 4''', mainly because the presentation of the two pages is misleading -- they are both styled to appear like lists, despite only one article actually being one -- and because "this is not meant to serve as a deletion venue" is the least believable thing I have read all year. ] (]) 08:37, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4''' neither, as these kind of lists are also published elsewhere, and so are not original research. However I will say that a current destination list is more useful. But for a major airline, the Misplaced Pages lists are not so useful as they could be very big and changing all the time. For small airlines, their destinations will be more constant, and be more stable, and could be included in the airline article. ] (]) 08:58, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4''', or maybe 1. Per OhanaUnited. This feels like another attempt to relitigate the same thing. ] (]) 09:37, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 3 (Both violate ND)''' per {{u|SMcCandlish}}. No need to flog each horse when the whole herd is dead. &mdash; Cheers, ] (]) 10:18, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Neither (option 4)''' Neither, as Misplaced Pages is cited accross several (non)-aviation plattforms exactly because it inherits a consistently reliable list of airlines and destinations for actually almost every airport. In my opinion these are very comparable to railway station articles that also cite the exact railway connections of a station, and here in most cases even without any source. ] (]) 10:42, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4 (neither)'''. Multiple people have said why above better than I can, but in short these are notable topics presented in encyclopaedic context. ] (]) 11:36, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 3 (both violate)''' The bulk of sourcing on both articles are questionable; the first uses mostly BA's own pages about itself, making it primary coverage, while the second uses an independent blog that doesn't give any indication of wider notability to the route changes. If these lists were dominated by proper third party reliable sources like newspaper coverage, that would be different, but as they stand, these violate the nature of the the prior RFC on airline routes. --] (]) 13:00, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*:So this is a sourcing question, not a general NOT question, applied specifically to this airline/article, not the concept as whole. There are certainly more newspaper sources that can be added. ]<sup>]</sup> 14:38, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*::Using a bunch of routine business news to announce roylutes would still be a problem, as you now start getting into synthesis in the complication of these lists. If this is not stuff covered in secondary sources discussing the bulk of these routes, it's still a sign it fails WP:NOT. This basically feels like a form of trainspotting, which we don't document on WP. ] (]) 17:04, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*:::Of course there is also ], which tracks specific aircraft. We are not doing that, just stating the general routes operated without complication or hobbyist details. How is there possibly synthesis here? I can't conceive of how original research can be involved in identification of a route. ]<sup>]</sup> 19:17, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*::::It's not a single route, it's effectively the entire network for one airline or in the case of the airport, all the spokes that airport connects to. Have reliable sources discussed that aspect as a whole, not just piece parts? If not, then we are getting into synthesis territory. ] (]) 19:26, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*:::::WP:SYNTH implies {{tq|Do not combine material from multiple sources to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources.}} I have absolutely no clue how listing destinations would possibly violate ], as we are presenting facts, not conclusions. ] ''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:top;">]</span>''·''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:bottom;">]</span>'' 20:20, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4''' Concerns about primary sourcing are misapplied. Primary sourcing is fine for supporting basic statements of objective fact so long as it's not interpretive. They don't speak to notability, but then again, notability in this case is about the suitability of the articles existing, not inclusion criteria. As for the idea that the existence of such charts on dozens of article for a great many years now is somehow not a true consensus, I just laugh. Clearly there's consensus for their existence, else they wouldn't exist for so long in so many places, edited by dozens if not hundreds of editors. The idea that a handful of commenter who have never even contributed to these articles on an obscure project talk page (and spare trying to say it's not obscure) can dictate they shouldn't exist in obvious contravention to the clear long-standing consensus is just back door ]. Claiming this isn't intended as a deletion discussion is disingenuous. ] (]) 13:28, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*:Primary sources are fine to use as the mortar to fill in the information gaps left by secondary and third-party sources, but when the bulk of the information is coming from primary sources, that's a problem per WP:NOT, WP:V and WP:N. And the remaining arguments are variations of WP:ATA (been around a long time, edited by lots). ] (]) 13:39, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*::If that's the case that we can't have things coming from primary sources, we'd have to get rid of a lot of geography infoboxes, sports statistics, most academics... ] ''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:top;">]</span>''·''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:bottom;">]</span>'' 17:02, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Delete''' I know that's not an explicit option but it is implicit, and I support the deletion (or prevention of addition) under consistency and rationalizing coverage across articles. I might support a more nuanced or rational class carve-out from the general prohibition, but not one airline, or one airport (treating either of those 2 things in issue here as ''sui generis'' leads to only confusion, not encyclopedic coverage). ] (]) 14:50, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4 (neither)''' As all the reasons other people have stated above. Removing this information collected over years would be detrimental to the aims of an encyclopedia.] (]) 16:13, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Neither'''. Perhaps the most important information in understanding an airline or airport is where they fly, which these lists provide. --] <sup>(])</sup> 18:22, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4, neither''' per SportingFlyer. The places to which airlines fly from an airport are paramount to the importance of said airport and therefore paramount to our coverage of that airport. ''']]''' ‡ <sup>]</sup> 04:16, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4''' Neither as they represent long established practice per ]. But this poll seems vexatious and contrary to other sections of ] ... ]🐉(]) 17:28, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
* '''Option 4''' — My straightforward reading of this portion of WP:NOT seems decisive: "there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are relevant because they are associated with or significantly contribute to the list topic." Knowing where an airline has flown is a straightforward element of understanding it. Knowing where an airport is connected to is a significantly contributes to understanding its current utility. These are standard elements of rail station pages on Misplaced Pages and rightly so.--] (]) 17:31, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
*:There's nothing wrong to identify the major hubs that a airline uses (to not mention Heathrow with respect to British Airways, or Atlanta with Delta, would clearly be missing key info), but what becomes a problem is when are the small regional airports that a airline might serve one year and drop the next, which pretty much is only going to be documented in primary sources. Similarly, it makes sense to say what destinations the majority of flights out of Heathrow reach (eg that it serves as a major international hub for Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asian nations) but listing all the smaller airports, which can change rapidly based on how the airlines change their routes, is a problem. We should be looking to see how RSes summarize an air line's reach or the connectivity of an airport, not trying to be exhaustive about it. ] (]) 18:38, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
*::The opposite may actually be true - if a smaller airport loses flights, that is typically of note in that community. ] ''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:top;">]</span>''·''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:bottom;">]</span>'' 20:21, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
* '''Option 4''' - I disagree that these ''inherently'' violate WP:NOT (of course, individual cases can be argued), and I supported keeping them back in the 2023 RfC. But I think it's also important to consider that while the 2023 RfC leaned towards "remove these unless clearly WP:DUE", these sections have mostly stayed in articles without significant pruning or alteration, suggesting ''de facto'' consensus is a bit broader than the RfC suggested. In that situation, it seems strange to have another RfC to try and tighten restrictions further? ] (]) 18:40, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 4 (neither)'''; but mainly as a 'vote' in the "hidden underlying" discussion. This RfC was actually more or less motivated by a fairly broad encouragement to reopen ] from January, 2018; so my 'vote' is for formally revoking that decision (taken by a fairly limited consensus). (Actually, it is already at least partially contradicted by several later RfC's; although it also could be considered as being more or less upheld in some older AfD's. See the discussion section.) ] (]) 00:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
*'''Option 3''' There is a place in WP articles to include some places an airline flies, but to include an exhaustive list gives ] weight to locations that are merely represented on the airline's reference website, as opposed to locations that were actually met with ] by the media when announced. We have to remember that just because something can be verified does not mean it is notable. Let's review the policy on notability: {{tq|"Misplaced Pages's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics. Article and list topics must be notable, or 'worthy of notice'."}}
:All of that being said, we're not having this conversation on the airline's talk page, we're having it on the policy page. So where else does this issue come into play? Surely there are hundreds of lists currently on WP that could be considered exhaustive and not notable if debated individually. Where do we cross the line? I'm curious, editors who have voted Option 3, generally, how would you respond to this question? When is a list merited and when is it extraneous? ] (]) 13:30, 10 January 2025 (UTC)


===Discussion===
Some people seem to take NOTCENSORED much further than that, to mean something along the lines of 'content must not be removed solely for the reasons of being offensive to someone', or even 'offensiveness is never a legitimate reason to remove content'. I don't think the policy says anything of the kind. All that NOTCENSORED means is that there are no rules ''requiring'' that offensive content must be automatically removed, as copyright infringements and libellous material about living people must be. But it doesn't mean that content can't ''ever'' be removed for being offensive, ''providing'' there is a consensus to do so.
Jointly discussing these two types of lists is ridiculous, by the way. They are two separate pieces of information. The first focuses on airlines - many airlines will not be eligible for stand-alone articles, but especially historical airline routes have been the subject of study and discussion: or books such as Mapping the Airways. If the list or article passes ], there is absolutely no reason we cannot have that on Misplaced Pages as it's encyclopedic information. The second focuses on current routes served at airports, which almost always will have some sort of article when new service is announced or dropped. These are two completely separate topics, both are encyclopedic, and both require their own RfCs. ] ''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:top;">]</span>''·''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:bottom;">]</span>'' 02:14, 8 January 2025 (UTC)


:The Wikivoyage argument is also completely wrong, considering travel guides do not normally include lists of destinations. ] ''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:top;">]</span>''·''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:bottom;">]</span>'' 02:50, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
The policy page currently states '"being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds in itself for removal of content.'; but in reality, on several occasions images and text have been removed from various articles for being offensive or objectionable, where there was a local consensus to remove them, and that will continue to happen in future. (The only specific example I can think of at the moment is ], but I'm sure it has happened on other articles as well.) Perhaps what the policy means is that offensiveness on its own is not enough, and content should only be removed where it is both offensive ''and'' of no educational value. But even if so, the offensiveness of the content is still a relevant factor to its removal.
:I tend to agree with Sportingflyer that it is silly to discuss these two lists together. They are different types of list. ] (]) 07:02, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
:They're not even "two types of lists"! One is a list, and one is an individual row on a table of the ''''']''''' article. People are actually out here trying to apply GNG to ''individual facts within an article'' when the first sentence of GNG explicitly states it is about "'''stand-alone''' articles or lists." If it weren't for the apparently deep lore of this discussion, I would honestly believe that the reasoning for including #2 in this RfC was simply "row big." ] (]) 16:36, 8 January 2025 (UTC)


Object to Malformed RFC. In one case we have standalone articles, in the other case we have sections of articles, and the information is presented, maintained, organized, and sourced differently. We already have comments that seem to address one or the other, making it harder to respond specifically or to determine a useful consensus. Following previous discussions, there was also an understanding that yet another RFC would be discussed first. The proposer needs to make productive edits besides proposing to delete this informative content from Misplaced Pages over and over and over at various venues – it's poor faith to indicate this has "arisen in debates" when he is the one constantly trying to get rid of it. Hundreds of users contribute this content for hundreds of thousands to read, who are interested in this encyclopedic content. ]<sup>]</sup> 04:54, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
Here's the ] version: that an image, or any other content, is offensive to many is ''not necessarily'' grounds for its removal from an article. But in some cases, it ''can'' be; and ''if'' a consensus of users agree that certain content is so offensive it should be removed, then it should be removed, and NOTCENSORED would not prevent that removal.


:{{ping|Reywas92}} Malformed or not; I think that this RfC is strange in several ways. <small>(I should add that I haven't edited any airport or airline destination articles, and am new to ''this'' particular discussion; whence I may have misunderstood things. I ''do'' edit a few railway line and station articles, and consider those issues fairly parallel to these, though.)</small> The proposal to which {{ping|Sunnya343|prefix=|p=}} refers above actually was to reconsider a RfC from January 2018 (item 2. below), in order either to revoke or to confirm it, before proceeding to further AfD's or alternatively restorations of deleted lists. It seems a bit hard to get a consensus on these matters; and I think that is one reason for an advice to Sunnya343 to list a specific case for RfC instead of inviting to a general discussion. I'm not criticising Sunnya343 for first asking about formulations for an RfC, and then more or less following the outcome of the resulting discussion; but, IHMO, the outcome of this attempt shows that that advice was not quite optimal.
Please add your comments below. And remember, this is ''not'' about the specific Muhammad images (which I actually support including, for what it's worth), but the general principles here. ] (]) 17:59, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


:In fact, the article A was up to an AfD yielding no consensus, according to a summary by ]. Sunnya343 didn't like the outcome, and 'appealed' in favour of deletion (mainly arguing by decision 2., I'd say). However, apart from the weak majority for '''keep''', Liz noted that there were a number of relevant RfC's, and that in fact taken together they did not support deletion.
:(Or, the even shorter, pithier version: '] is not the ]'.) ] (]) 18:08, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
:The following are the five RfA's listed by Liz, but reordered in chronological order. (Liz presented them as ''a selection'' of the RfA's over, more or less, this subject.)
:*Regarding ''religious'' "offense" (for violating a religious edict, as the case you point to is about), it does indeed exactly say that. Last paragraph. With no waffle words like "should not". Best, <small>] </small>&#124;<small><small> <sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub></small></small> 18:10, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
:1. ] (December, 2016);
:**Nonsense. If you have a warranty on your reading comprehension, send it back and ask for a new one. ] ] 18:59, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
:2. ] (January, 2018);
:*One cannot simply disconnect the various factors. They are, in order of causality, (1) a religious edict forbids those of certain sects of the Islamic faith from making or viewing such representations, (2) some from those sects believe such an edict applies to everyone, (3) their offense is over the fact that we are violating their understanding of their religious edict. They are all interconnected, and cannot stand alone when trying to make an unbiased point or argument on this matter. Best, <small>] </small>&#124;<small><small> <sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub></small></small> 18:13, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
:3. ] (end of January, 2018);
:Completely agree that we do not censor images unless legally bound by law or by the Foundation (eg child porn). But also agree that a consensus of editors can consider that an image may be inappropriate for an article despite the fact that it would otherwise be uncensored from the previous state. It would also behoove editors to consider appropriate community standards and chose images of least shock value if there are choices. --] (]) 18:22, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
:4. ] (March, 2018); and
:*One final note: people seem to forget that WP:CENSOR does not magically invalidate other policies and guidelines that must be applied, such as bias, undue, relevance, rs, etc. This is why I see nothing wrong with wp:censor as it is. Whether image or text or quote, all of those (and others) must be applied in conjunction with wp:censor - not separately. That raises (in my mind) only one question... for those who do not realize that this is already addressed in numerous other policies that work '''in conjunction with each other''', is it an issue where we need to clarify that which they should already know, or an issue of competence in respect to them not understanding the most basic policies that "control" Misplaced Pages? If people deem that the policies are so overwhelming that it is reasonable to not understand that they must be applied together, then yes, we need clarification. Otherwise... in ''my'' '''opinion''' it's a competence issue. Best, <small>] </small>&#124;<small><small> <sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub></small></small> 18:26, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
:5. ] (November, 2023).
:To this I think we should add the very AfD Liz closed; as Liz seems to have guessed, it was getting a markedly broader participation than any of the aforementioned RfC's:
:6. ] (April, 2024).


:My preliminary conclusions are
:''"Perhaps what the policy means is that offensiveness on its own is not enough"'' - that is precisely the argument that has been made in this specific case. What ends up happening is advocates of censorship in this case engage in circular arguments, basically making the claim that "these images have no value because Muslims are offended". And no matter how many people opine that there is value, such arguments are inevitably ignored as if they were never made or the goalposts get moved in a bid to place an unreasonably strict burden of proof on one article that does not exist on others. The end result is always the same, however: requests for removal are predicated on offensiveness alone, with no legitimate additional argument. So in that sense, the argument that "your being offended is irrelevant" is accurate, because that is not sufficient to justify a special exception. After all: ] (emphasis, Misplaced Pages's own) ]] 18:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
::'''that''' the decision 2. in practice already has been overturned or at least superceeded;
::And ironically, though numerous other articles with similar "false" representations have been pointed out, and a Community-Wide RfC to address the claimed issue has been suggested, such is ignored or swatted aside, leaving these effortssingularly motivated towards "special case exception for this article" to avoid applying policies uniformly to it (as is done with other bios). Ironically, the page already has a bunch of special case exceptions, such as (on the talk pages) the massive disclaimers, the FAQ, the instructions on how not to view the images, the removal of all images of Muhammad in the top 1/3 of the article, the explanations of policy on the talk page and so on. It is time we ''stop'' adding more special case exceptions to this topic - '''or''' we pass a policy that treats '''all''' other such topics equally (which will of course destroy Misplaced Pages). Best, <small>] </small>&#124;<small><small> <sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub></small></small> 19:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
::'''that''' the present RfC in practice also involves trying to overturn the (clear and endorsed) '''non consensus''' summary of 6. one more time; and
::'''that''' both counted by argument strengs or by numbers there is no good hope of achieving a consensus about these kinds of lists in the forseeable future <small>(exept possibly by the detestable means of 'sneaking' a decisions by a rather limited number of participants all already being ''pro'' or ''contra''; I'm happy that Sunnya343 seems to guard against such abuse.)</small>. ] (]) 00:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
::There's also the ], that is missing on your list, which endorsed the closure of the AfD in the same month. ]] 03:03, 10 January 2025 (UTC)


===Notifications===
We should probably also make ] part of the policy, since it's currently just in the editing guideline. Nothing should be retained out of fear that removal might be considered censorship. Honestly, I'd prefer rephrasing ] into something like "Misplaced Pages allows controversial and offensive content where useful" instead of making it about "censorship", since the c-word is very ] to the American ear. Offensive content is a bit like fair use content: it has a place in the encyclopedia because sometimes there is no adequate substitute, but it should be used reluctantly and replaced when not needed. ] (]) 19:11, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
*A-type lists: Participants in the ], ]
:That is all very utopian, but who are you to tell me what is offensive? Who am I to tell you the same? How many people have to agree that something is offensive before it is considered so? More to the point, I don't consider these images offensive in the least. That opinion does not contradict the fact others feel differently, but why should their POV overrule mine? ]] 19:27, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
*B-type: Participants in the ]
*], ]
] (]) 01:33, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

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Can we remove the "And finally" section?

it has no place in wikipedia and it shouldn't even exist in the first place 37.210.71.142 (talk) 12:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

makes no sense to remove. It's a catchall that NOT cannot enumerate everything WP is not. Masem (t) 13:00, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
its just unfunny jokes if you checked it out, humorous essays shouldn't be part of main policies 37.210.71.142 (talk) 16:45, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Not sure about removing the whole "And finally" section, since it has been on this page for at least a decade now (though I don't think anything of value will be lost if the section does get removed). But I agree that policy pages shouldn't link to "humorous" essays or essays that haven't been thoroughly vetted by the community, so I've removed the links from that section. Some1 (talk) 00:22, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Notice of a requested redirect from Misplaced Pages:Misuse of Misplaced Pages to here

The redirect request can be found on Misplaced Pages:Articles for creation/Redirects#Redirect request: Misplaced Pages:Misuse of Misplaced Pages. 67.209.128.136 (talk) 03:45, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Request for comments: in cases of a large numbers of religious celebrations in a religious calendar (e.g., feast day of saints), can they all be listed in a non-list WP article?

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This RfC concerns the WP:NOTDIRECTORY and WP:NOTGUIDE policies.

Presently, there are numerous WP articles of religious calendars that list the full list of celebrations, feast day of saints, etc., without those articles being WP:Stand-alone lists.

The pages concerned, from what I have found, are: Tridentine calendar, General Roman Calendar, General Roman Calendar of 1954, General Roman Calendar of 1960, Institutional and societal calendars of the Roman Rite, National calendars of the Roman Rite, Personal jurisdiction calendars of the Roman Rite, Calendar of saints (Lutheran), Calendar of saints (Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil), Calendar of saints (Anglican Church of Australia), Calendar of saints (Anglican Church of Canada), Calendar of saints (Church in Wales), Calendar of saints (Scottish Episcopal Church), Calendar of saints (Armenian Apostolic Church), Calendar of saints (Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui) (and previously Mysterii Paschalis).

My question for which I request comments is: is putting these long lists of religious feasts in those articles a violation of WP:NOTDIRECTORY or WP:NOTGUIDE, and if it so happens that they are a violation then what should be done with these lists? Veverve (talk) 18:25, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

  • Comment. In my opinion, this isn't a significant problem. It looks to me (I haven't checked every page listed) like the pages are about encyclopedic topics that are reliably sourced. They are not unreasonable when viewed as embedded lists, as opposed to standalone list pages. As long as there is also paragraph-based text that is sufficiently sourced to establish notability, and to provide a context for the information that is listed, that takes those pages out of the realm of stuff that is simply an indiscriminate list of information of unclear encyclopedic relevance. I see that some of them have only a very brief lead section, and are tagged for needing improvements; these are the most problematic, but they can likely be fixed by further editing. (Those should either be revised into actual list pages, or be revised with more context in the form of paragraph text.) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:18, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Can't really see a problem. They are certainly list-like, and could be converted to lists, but what's the gain? I don't see either policy being breached. Johnbod (talk) 04:35, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
  • They are functionally lists based on their current content. They don't have to have "List" in the title. Adumbrativus (talk) 07:51, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Addition to WP:NOTDICTIONARY

I propose to add the following bullet (4) to the WP:NOTDICTIONARY entry:

  • Misplaced Pages is not a multilingual dictionary. Articles should not include lists of translations of the topic into multiple languages, whether the topic is an object (apple = French pomme), a concept (wisdom = French sagesse), a culinary dish, or a proverb (You can't have your cake and eat it = French Vouloir le beurre et l'argent du beurre). If there is something encyclopedic to say about the different versions, such as etymology, then of course the name in other languages is relevant. Variants of the meaning should not be grouped by language, but by meaning. If a culinary preparation has no common name in English (e.g. kashk), then it is reasonable to include the variant names in the lead.

Discussion? --Macrakis (talk) 19:55, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

To some extent this seems to stand in contradiction to Misplaced Pages:Gazetteer, which would suggest that we should list the names for places in languages significant to that place as a gazetteer would be expected to do. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:23, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
I've never met a gazetteer, and I guess I should be glad I don't, right? There's also Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages is not a gazetteer, but both are essays anyway. Drmies (talk) 02:49, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
I think maybe you're thinking of a gazebo? —David Eppstein (talk) 03:06, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
I don't see a contradiction with WP:Gazetteer, which is about what places to mention. But MOS:ALTNAME is relevant for placenames. It says that we should include "significant alternative names", although that isn't elaborated on there (I think it is somewhere else, though). The significant names certainly include the name of a place in its own language (Deutschland), the name of the place under significant previous rulers (the Ottoman Turkish names for most places in Greece and the Balkans), and the name of the place in the languages of large populations which have lived there in the past (e.g. the South Slavic and Judeo-Spanish names of Thessaloniki). On the other hand, we don't include the German names for Poland (Polen) or Greece (Griechenland) despite Germany's occupation (and partial annexation in the case of Poland) of those countries during WWII.
In any case, those policies are about placenames. For other topics, other approaches make more sense. For example, the Beef_Stroganoff#Around_the_world section mentions local names along with the local variants in Brazil etc. In the Straw that broke the camel's back, article, we say (I admit that I wrote this): "The image of the last drop is also found in many other languages", leaving the exact words to the sources in the several footnotes. This contrasts with You can't have your cake and eat it, where User:Drmies removed -- correctly in my view -- a long list of translations or equivalents of the expression (many without sources). --Macrakis (talk) 21:02, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
Are there any examples showing how this change would have a practical effect? I presume the aim is to limit text appearing in an article? Or is to limit what articles should exist? There can't be a policy that lists every bad idea. Johnuniq (talk) 01:22, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
I'd agree the removal on You can't have your cake..., but I disagree with the Beef Stroganoff example. Discussion the various national varities of a dish - as long as its sourced - seems completely appropriate, and in line of talking about those, the local name that the dish goes back makes sense. It would be a problem if we just has a list of translated names without any discussion of the unique aspects of the national variety, as was the case with the You can't have your cake... article. Masem (t) 01:37, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, I think the content in Beef Stroganoff makes more sense, even if poorly sourced. An obvious difference is of course that Beef Stroganoff deals with an actual physical topic and Cake deals with words--precisely the thing a dictionary should treat, which is why I directed the latest disruptor (who I suspect of being a sock of an earlier SPA in that article) to Wiktionary. I think I agree with the proposal, mostly--though I think that if we didn't have Oliebol already, a section in the Doughnut article makes sense. But then, as Masem indicated for Beef Stroganoff, there's much more there than just a translation of a word. Drmies (talk) 02:49, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Should WP:NOTDIRECTORY be more specific about phone numbers, etc.?

I came across an {{Infobox school}} recently that was misusing free text parameters to list the school's phone number. "As we all know", contact information such as phone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail addresses is not encyclopedic, so I removed it "per WP:NOTDIRECTORY". This prompted me to look if there were more cases of such misuse, and indeed there were dozens. I was going to remove them with the same explanation, but unfortunately I took time to read through WP:NOTDIRECTORY before doing that... and I don't think I can use it as my basis, because I don't see anything in the text explicitly forbidding this. There used to be an unambiguous statement (the green one), but it was removed almost exactly three years ago (, ). Right now, anyone could argue "None of this applies to me. I'm not replicating any listings, it's just one phone number. Nor am I conducting business, we're talking about a school here." and I haven't been able to find anything in current policy wordings to definitively counter this (the BLP ban obviously doesn't apply to institutions). Am I missing something obvious (entirely possible :) ), or should the wording be changed (back) to remedy this? I'm tempted to be bold and just add it back, but it's probably better to double-check the consensus on this first. Gamapamani (talk) 13:40, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

It still states contact information is to be avoided under #6. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:42, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
Yes, but the way that's framed, it seems to be limited to the context of "conducting business", which arguably wouldn't apply to something like a school. And even if we say it does apply, It would still be helpful to spell this out more explicitly, as "phone or fax number and e-mail" would be clearer for non-native speakers than "contact information", and a more obvious search term. Gamapamani (talk) 05:02, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
That makes sense, and the search term angle is compelling. JoelleJay (talk) 23:34, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

RfC on WP:NOT and British Airways destinations

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Do the following violate WP:NOT? A) List of everywhere British Airways has flown over its history, and B) list of everywhere it flies from Heathrow Airport as of today.

  • Option 1: Only A violates WP:NOT
  • Option 2: Only B
  • Option 3: Both A and B
  • Option 4: Neither A nor B

Sunnya343 (talk) 00:26, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Context

  • A-type lists: In this deletion review some people proposed a new RfC.
    • I chose to do an RfC here at WT:NOT to focus on whether this policy applies. This is not meant to serve as a deletion venue.
  • B-type lists: This RfC closure review closed as no consensus, and some argued to relist the RfC with a different question.
  • No prior discussion has jointly addressed the two types of lists.
  • RfC planning done here. I acknowledge that I've begun many discussions on this topic, but I hope this one clarifies the main dispute about NOT which has arisen in debates going back to 2007.

Sunnya343 (talk) 00:28, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

This description of the context in itself is not quite undisputed; see the Discussion subsection infra. I think that the list of five older partly contradictory RfA's given by Liz in her (later endorsed) closure here of the original AfD also is a highly relevant part of the context; as is that AfD itself. JoergenB (talk) 00:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Survey

  • Option 3. The lists of current destinations and routes from Heathrow have lots of references, which is fine, though you could just as well cite BA's website for each city. It's a reliable source for this info, and indeed has already been cited for most of the current destinations in list A. Sites like Flightradar24 and FlightsFrom.com organize the data more conveniently and could be used as well. So there is no problem with verifiability here, but just because info is verifiable, doesn't mean it should be on Misplaced Pages. We aren't supposed to host a directory of airline routes, or a repository for data reorganized from flight databases.

    In regard to past destinations, I agree with discussing the development of BA's route network over time. For example, in History of British Airways, people have written about the impact of a 1970s government policy, and the Heathrow-New York route on Concorde. On the other hand, recording every place that BA no longer flies to, from its maiden flight 50 years ago up to today, strikes me as airline trivia. Sunnya343 (talk) 00:28, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

  • Option 3. Basically, listcruft is listcruft is listcruft. We want notable information, not indiscriminate information. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:13, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    • The destinations currently flown is a narrowly-defined, discriminate list. Most destinations are covered in reliable sources so it's notable, though notability applies to articles, not specific facts. Reywas92 05:08, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    Option 4 None of them violates WP:NOT, these are not indescriminate information, they are related to the topic of the article and shouldn't be removed, in my opinion I would support merging them into the airline article rather than be kept as a whole separate article Metrosfan (talk) 06:41, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • 3. We just had a lengthy but conclusive RfC about this, with a WP:NOT#DB conclusion. There is no reason to make an exception for a particular airline or airport.  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  01:27, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Neither Neither of these violate WP:NOT. This is an absolutely ridiculous evergreen proposal. SportingFlyer T·C 01:55, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    I'm actually livid right now. Putting this at WP:NOT is just another tactic to try to ensure that completely valid encyclopedic information cannot be included anywhere on the site. SportingFlyer T·C 01:57, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    In order to violate WP:NOT, the information must not be encyclopedic. This is the flaw in the argument of those who are trying to rid our encyclopedia of this encyclopedic information.
    In terms of the airline destination lists, there is no need to specifically exclude them under WP:NOT. Analysis under WP:NLIST should be just fine, as it is for all other lists. Some airlines do have long histories with well documented historically flown routes or destinations. Looking at the British Airways list shows a well sourced article, and some air routes have been the subject of discussion as early as 1933.
    The airports table especially is one of the things I use most on the site. There are many wiki gnomes who keep them up to date. Almost all routes are be announced in the press, are easily verified, and do not need to rise to the level of notability to be included. They also do not violate WP:NOT per all of my arguments at other RfCs. The thing I specifically use them for the most is to determine how an airport or region is linked to the rest of the world, similar to how you can see which passenger routes operate from a given train station. I've seen the argument that yes, but rail infrastructure is fixed - it does not matter, the air routes can also be properly sourced. The information is also encyclopedic - for instance, one of the most important things in the history of a commercial airport is which routes were served first. Other airports have routes which are subject to academic analysis such as .
    This entire attempt to rid the website of this information is based on a complete misunderstanding. NOTDB? It's not a database, it's a list! NOTDIR? It's not a directory, these aren't simple listings without encyclopedic merit - otherwise we wouldn't have list articles at all! NOTTRAVEL? It's not a travel guide! If this passes, it will make Misplaced Pages worse, and there likely won't be any going back. And I'm exhausted from trying to defend this over and over again, year after year... SportingFlyer T·C 02:26, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    Same here, these list of destinations do not violate ] Metrosfan (talk) 06:35, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 3 Same for others, we want to have information from both past destinations and the present destinations, but if only provides a reliable reference if that route is existed in the past, or else removed it automatically. Drcarrot.phd (talk) 02:02, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    • This comment does not address the two different things asked about here and further indicates that reliable sources would justify inclusion, not that the content is inherently a violation. Reywas92 05:08, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    Option 3 Same for others, we want to have information from both past destinations and the present destinations, but if only provides a reliable reference if that route is existed in the past, or else removed it automatically

    Changing to Option 4 plus Neither vote, my comment is ridiculous but, I must say, both of them are not violates WP:NOT, both of the pages do have reliable reference given to it (some of them have not). For some users always keep the page up-to-date with reliable reference that it given, for example: AeroRoutes, as it's the most (idk if that is reliable) used reference for starting/ending dates.

    As for the airport pages, it can say but for some airline (with separate destinations lists), we can merge to the main airline page. Drcarrot.phd (talk) 12:20, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Neither. These tables have been around for a long time and should remain as they are. However, I believe we can discuss the criteria for including or excluding a destination in the table, specifically airport articles, as this is the part that often causes confusion among editors. Cal1407 (talk) 02:25, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4. These lists provide a way for readers to understand the connectivity of an airline or airport in a way that a vague summary does not. They could certainly be improved to add more context, e.g. by adding maps, more sourcing, or more discussion, but they can be very informative and are not inherently listcruft. CapitalSasha ~ talk 02:29, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 3. NOTDIR failures do not belong on the site, regardless of what the airline is. Locations merely being verified in primary sources do not constitute BALASP coverage. JoelleJay (talk) 02:34, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    • BALASP refers to balancing viewpoints in order to maintain a neutral point of view. In no way are destinations reached from an airport minor aspects of an airport nor do they represent an imbalance in views or content weight. Reywas92 05:08, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Neither of these are inherently policy violations. This is not a case of a directory of everything in the universe that exists or has existed. It's not a case of Simple listings without contextual information or loosely associated topics or anything else. It's not a case of an indiscriminate collection of information or Excessive listings of unexplained statistics. There is no policy violation here, and I suspect that if people had to quote the exact sentence that supported their claims, instead of waving at a potentially misleading WP:UPPERCASE shortcut, they would be hard pressed to justify claims of a policy violation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:40, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 3 I will simply repost what I said in the 2023 RfC with edits to be more generally applicable:
WP:NOTDATABASE, WP:NOTTRAVEL ... Wikivoyage exists ... there is no reason cannot be created and maintained there with a cross-wiki link in the enWiki article (i.e. ]). I presume the purpose of Wikivoyage is to serve as the very travel guide enWiki is not supposed to be.
— Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 02:46, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    • This is not a feasible argument because no lists like this exist on Wikivoyage and there is no indication the community there seeks to maintain them, certainly not as well as the community here does. Reywas92 05:08, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
      The English Wikivoyage talked about this a few years ago, and said that they did not feel that they had enough editors to maintain such lists, and were glad that the English Misplaced Pages did. (Also, they would only track current routes, not historical ones.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:10, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4 (Neither). I can somewhat understand how airport destinations may be problematic under WP:NOTTRAVEL but I've never understood why airline destinations fall under the same criteria. Firstly, as Whatamidoing pointed out, none of the WP:NOT criterias are able to cover the airline destinations. Secondly, if I want to go somewhere, I will already have that somewhere in mind. I don't need to figure out that somewhere on Misplaced Pages before buying the ticket (even though that is entirely possible through the airport article, which is why I can put a weak support for option 2, but that’s very unlikely). Thirdly, even travel guides like Lonely Planet don’t list the airlines that fly to and from a city (usually they do have the airport, but even that’s covered under the #Transport/Transportation sections of almost every major city in the world). So this isn’t even a travel guide because travel guides don’t do that. Fourthly, when I look at the airline destinations article, I know where they fly to, but from where? China Eastern, for example, has flights from Wuhan (focus city) to Singapore, but not from Ningbo (also a focus city) to Singapore. The airline destination pages do not tell me that. There’s no way this can be used as a travel guide without knowing the exact flights from where to where, so why are we worried about this becoming a travel guide? S5A-0043🚎 03:06, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4 (Neither). This area has been discussed ad nauseam and I share the same frustration as SportingFlyer. It is the second large scale discussion initiated by Sunnya343 on the same page in 9 months and a thinly disguised forum shopping. "AfD discussion didn't go the way I wanted? Let's try Deletion Review. Oh no the community endorsed the closure? Off we go RFC!" By my count, we have discussed this area 8 times (in various venues) since 2016, most of which were initiated by the same individual. We really need to put these discussions onto Perennial proposals page and stop wasting community members' time. After this RfC finishes, I intend to start a TBAN discussion on Sunnya343's forumshopping behaviour. OhanaUnited 03:37, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4 and suggest withdrawal per below discussion. Discussing two types of lists simultaneously without a strong rationale for doing so is not conducive to a productive discussion. In my view, the destinations tables for airports are exceedingly notable due to their coverage as both a group and individually when routes are announced/launched/dropped/delayed. The major newspaper of a given metropolitan area will have dozens of articles about these route changes. To fulfill Misplaced Pages's goal of being comprehensive, one cannot remove a critical element from an airport article, lest readers believe that planes simply stop at an airport and fly off into the void. SounderBruce 05:12, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4 Neither. I see people have raised a few points about NOTDB, NOTDIR, or NOTTRAVEL. But I think those policies are pretty clear. NOTTRAVEL pertains specifically to travel guides with some explanation of what that means, and these very much are not such a beast. Also, these lists are not indiscriminate collections of information, and in fact are very specific in what they cover; these lists also have context to explain what the information means. Train stations and lines are vital to rail travel. Highways to automotive. Similarly routes and destinations are vital to air travel. There is no commercial air travel without routes and destinations, so it would be a mistake for us to exclude it simply because it's presented as a list. —siroχo 05:30, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 3 (both). Both lists appear (to me) to fall under the category of an indiscriminate collection of information. I think maybe the telltale sign here is that the information (data) is taken from primary sources, instead of from secondary sources that should discriminate for us and summarize the essence and what's important in the data (e.g. hypothetically "British airways has 850 destinations, the most out of any airline, spanning all 7 continents" and then a reference to that source). There is infinite data on most of anything, and it is the secondary source's job to determine what in the data is of essence, and it is our job as a tertiary source to summarize what extracted essence is so emphasized by secondary sources that it becomes notable enough to write about here. Adding these lists here bypasses this filtering structure and just feels arbitrary (hence indiscriminate). spintheer (talk) 05:32, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    • Every airport has these lists, which are clearly a finite and managable amount of data, without any arbitrary determinations made. Countless users have already determined it is of essense and included it in an organized manner. Moreover, besides the fact that independent sources do regularly cover airline routes, there is no reason to exlude primary or non-independent sources (which were regularly incorrectly conflated in the last discussion); while primary sources must be used with care to ensure NPOV and that there is not original research, interpretation, or synthesis of the source, that is not a concern for straightforward noncontroversial facts such as an airline flying a particular route. I would support continued work to add sources to these lists, but not removal on flimsy grounds. Saying so little that a major airline flies to 5 continents is an insult to readers who use this (though, again, A and B are very different). Reywas92 05:48, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
      Replying to these in order: 1. every airport has these lists Just because something similar was done before doesn't make it an argument to continue doing it. The purpose of this RFC is to explicitly assess in a centralized fashion if the above lists violate NOT or not, and that's what we should address. 2. Countless users have already determined it is of essence My argument is exactly that it is not for them to decide, but for reliable secondary sources to do so. Regardless, a centralized community consensus here would override a distributed, more local consensus in separate articles. 3. not a concern for straightforward noncontroversial facts I can find you terabytes of database information containing various straightforward noncontroversial facts on British airlines. Why is this bit of data more important than the other bit of data? My point is that secondary sources should answer this, and not us. 4. Saying so little that a major airline flies to 5 continents is an insult to readers well (a) I just gave that as an example. We should just say what reliable secondary sources decide is notable/important about this data. (b) Maybe it would be insulting for the reader to get giant tables of indiscriminate data when they deserve encyclopedic content that summarizes knowledge. Either way, they shouldn't feel insulted, we're just volunteers. spintheer (talk) 06:16, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
      1. Every airport having these lists does show that that information is not "infinite data" or "arbitrary" but rather something well-curated and overseen to ensure that it is not indiscriminate. It's not one person creating a mass of pages for their own narrow interest without oversight. 2. I don't believe this talk page is truly a centralized community consensus that should override the edits made on thousands of pages by thousands of users who find this valuable and encyclopedic. 3. There are plenty of independent sources that do in fact answer the question that airline/airport destinations are important and of interest. I just added from today's paper to the relevant article. 4. Sure, we can provide summaries, but that's no reason to delete this consistent information. More sources should be added but they do in fact find airline routes notable and important. Reywas92 16:49, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
      Being useful is not a reason to keep information. Having been edited by many editors is not a reason to keep information
      WP is meant to be a summary work of what reliable sources give, and an exhaustive list of destinations for an airline (which can be changed frequently) seems exactly the type of info that is not a summary. It does make sense to say which major cites BA serves, or which major destination cities Heathrow Li KS to, which I am sure can be documented in secondary coverage of both topics, but not a complete and exhaustive listing. Masem (t) 17:01, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
      Well... according to this policy, which says the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice, "Having been edited by many editors" is probably a reason to assume that the result is "accepted practice". When accepted practice and the written rules diverge, it's the written rules that we're supposed to change. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:16, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
      Even if we assume that this is "accepted practice", in the context of this RFC this practice is a series of editorial decisions in a very specific topic area, and isn't evidence at all that a global English Misplaced Pages policy like NOT should be changed. If policy written based on global consensus (NOT) and accepted practice in a narrow topic area diverge, the latter is supposed to change. spintheer (talk) 00:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
      Why do you say this? This policy literally says that the written rules, including NOT, do not set the accepted practice, and the accepted practice is supposed to win.
      Have you actually read the policy? Here's a relevant part:
      "Although some rules may be enforced, the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice. Rather, they document already-existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected.
      While Misplaced Pages's written policies and guidelines should be taken seriously, they can be misused. Do not follow an overly strict interpretation of the letter of policies without considering their principles. If the rules truly prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore them. Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussion, not by tightly sticking to rules and procedures. Furthermore, policies and guidelines themselves may be changed to reflect evolving consensus."
      Misplaced Pages:Policies and guidelines says "Technically, the policy and guideline pages are not the policy and guidelines in and of themselves. The actual policies and guidelines are behaviors practiced by most editors."
      In other words, if a policy page (e.g., NOT) and accepted practice diverge, the policy page is the one that needs to change. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
      I have indeed read the policy. I'm of the opinion that the tables above are not part of a practice that is accepted at a wide enough level to warrant ignoring the policy when this practice and NOT diverge. Obviously I understand that it is not exactly clear how to determine that, and it's basically for the community to decide where the line is drawn here (whether IGNORE applies). Based on the votes in this RFC, it looks like some in the community may agree with this idea (e.g. "ignore because it's a common practice and useful to the project"). I'll leave it to the closer to figure out what to do in this situation (genuinely curious to see how the arguments will be weighted here). spintheer (talk) 03:50, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
      Just because there exists articles that may be from long standing practice doesn't mean that they are still within policy. There are lots of walled gardens of content on WP that we sometimes need to tear down the walls to bring the content more in line with what an encyclopedia covers (particularly as there is a sister project, Wikivoyage, far better suited for this information). We had to do that recently with sports athletes, for example, and its still taking a way to work through the walled garden of barely-notable athletes. Masem (t) 01:05, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Neither – Option 4 It's poor faith to suggest that "This is not meant to serve as a deletion venue" when – after having initiated numerous counterproductive RFCs – the nominator clearly seeks to subsequently delete content from thousands of articles. I share the concerns of SportingFlyer and OhanaUnited that this attempt to conflate and delete two different types of articles/sections is unnecessary. It's clear that the innumerable users and readers who contribute and read this content find it to be encyclopedic. Even if third-party websites also present the information in convenient ways, it's an important part of these articles for navigation and understanding. No part of this information is indiscrimate – they are narrowly defined lists that provide context to how an airport and its tenants operate. The airport destinations show to what extent an airport is a hub that serves its city's residents and those who travel through, and they show how it is connected to the region or world, with links to such connections that define the very purpose of the airport. Major newspapers and other reliable sources regularly include content about flights and what the airlines do at airports. This content isn't a directory like "the white or yellow pages", "loosely associated topics", or "A resource for conducting business". This content isn't "Summary-only descriptions of works", "Lyrics databases", "unexplained statistics", or "Exhaustive logs of software updates". This content isn't an instruction manual or travel guide that instructs people how to book a flight or includes overly specific descriptions of how or when each flight is flown. It does not violate NOT and is welcome to continue to be included in the encyclopedia without detriment to writers and readers. Reywas92 05:48, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    This is a very strict reading of NOT's examples, but it skips the opening line under "Encyclopedic content": Information should not be included solely because it is true or useful. An article should not be a complete presentation of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject. This is why we don't blast the reader with all information about everything, and instead just summarize secondary sources on the matter. The argument that people find it useful and major newspapers regularly include this content are not at all relevant the question of whether the information should be included here, in an encyclopedia. This is exactly what NOT attempts to convey. Frankly (as a reader), I'd argue that a lot of the information in these tables is useless, but maybe I'm missing something important hidden in the data. If the goal is to give the reader important impressions about the data found in these tables, then cite reliable secondary sources that make these impressions instead of pasting the entire table here and leaving it to the reader to figure it out for themselves. spintheer (talk) 13:23, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    Sure, and this summarizes sources by only naming the destinations, rather than including the flights' frequency or schedules, aircraft used, service history, or other details. These tables are by no means "everything" or only included because it's true, but because it's a key aspect of the subject covered by a variety of sources. While this information has not always been the best-referenced (such as including a source for a start or end date but removing it when the route actually begins), it's something that is being improved upon with both specific and general sources. Reywas92 16:37, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Neither - Option 4 per User:S5A-0043 and User:Reywas92. –Aaronw1109 06:54, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 3 (Both) (NOTE: I was alerted to this RfC by an announcement on my talk page.) I don't see the usefulness of these two articles; providing this detailed of information is getting into the weeds. IMHO, it would be far more useful if the information in these two articles were presented in a gif file, which would present the ebb & flow of BA routes in a manner far more useful to the casual reader. If a user consulting this article wanted more detailed information, then they can consult the sources cited to create these two gif files. -- llywrch (talk) 07:04, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    So this is useful, valid, encyclopedic content, you'd just rather see it as a map or image that still provides the details rather than a list. Of course, there have been several discussions about whether to include maps, which often take up more space, are harder to keep up to date (a gif would be much harder), and don't include navigational links or an easy way to provide sources. Reywas92 14:35, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • List of British Airways destinations violates WP:NOTDB and WP:NOT, because it is an indiscriminate collection of information, primarily collected from research on the website of British Airways and other primary sources. Indeed, it is practically impossible to source this kind of information from anyone but the airline, either directly or indirectly. It should also be said that this type of list typically does not survive AFD. FOARP (talk) 07:16, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    @FOARP, for clarity, can you elaborate on why you think List of British Airways destinations is "haphazard, random", made "without care or making distinctions, thoughtless"? That's the dictionary definition, but I wonder if that's really what you mean. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:22, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    If you'd prefer a more concrete question, then maybe explain why a list of places where a train goes can qualify for Misplaced Pages:Featured lists but a list of places where an airplane goes can't even qualify to exist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    Easy answer is that rail stations and tracks are effective permanent fixture (though specific train routes may not be), while airlines can readily change flight offerings on a dime. As such, the infrastructure of raillines tends to get more detailed coverage in secondary sources that airlines routes. Masem (t) 18:30, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    Basically this. A listing of airline services necessarily means an exhaustive listing of ephemera that changes week-to-week. They are not comparable to listings of fixed infrastructure. FOARP (talk) 16:57, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
    Do you honestly think that airlines add and remove destinations week to week? That's not consistent with my experience. The individual flight schedules may change, but the part about "Does this airline fly to New York at all?" is pretty stable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
    As shown by the sourcing on the BA list article, new routes are introduced or removed near daily, not for any one airline but as a whole. It's very mutable.
    But you second point is actually something that we should document, what airlines serve a specific airport; for major airports, that is pretty immutable (in that, it is rare when an airline completely removes themselves or adds themselves to an airport because of the infrastructure costs to set up offices and support services) and that is usually documented in non routine news. But that's far different as a list of all connecting cities since those can change on a whim. Masem (t) 20:17, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Neither - Option 4 per User:S5A-0043 and User:Reywas92. No need to reiterate again.Axisstroke (talk) 07:35, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 3. For both airlines and airports, an extensive list, generally compiled from primary sources only, provides no encyclopedic value. Whether the lists are presented in standalone articles (as is the case for some airlines) or as a section within an overall article (as is the case for other airlines and most airports) is irrelevant to the question at hand. Rosbif73 (talk) 07:50, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    One thing I'll note is that it's historically been common for announced routes to be added with a start date and source (e.g. ) then after that date for both the date and source to be removed to limit footnote clutter (e.g. ) as the airline's cited timetable continues to verify the content – timetables were endorsed as an acceptable source for verification in an WP:AIRPORTS RFC. I believe this practice should be changed and the individual sources, often independent, be kept, but that's why they appear to be compiled that way. Reywas92 16:58, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Neither (option 4). Airports and airlines are important nodes and connections of a major part of transportation infrastructure. What destinations an airport connects to is just as relevant as to what destinations a railway station connects to, event though the lack of roads or rails makes the list more dynamic and in greater need of constant update. Likewise, where an airline flies is a major part of understanding an airline's scope, outreach and market impact. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:52, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4. The current list of British Airways destinations does have most cities listed with references. The deleted ones can inform the reader of where BA use to fly to. On the Air NZ list it has even more details of what year when a former destination started by the airline.
The current list of BA cities served at Heathrow has an immediate impact for the reader to visualize what is happening at that airport and is kept up to date. CHCBOY (talk) 08:27, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 1. The first page is a page solely for the destinations served by British Airways, which is not a notable topic by itself and does not strike me as a particularly encyclopedic list. But the second page is, in fact, Heathrow Airport; the British Airways stuff is one fact in one row of a table on that article -- which is, again, the article for Heathrow Airport, and not a list. Like... am I missing something here? Or is everyone else? Because Option 1 is clearly not going to be consensus, my second choice is Option 4, mainly because the presentation of the two pages is misleading -- they are both styled to appear like lists, despite only one article actually being one -- and because "this is not meant to serve as a deletion venue" is the least believable thing I have read all year. Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:37, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4 neither, as these kind of lists are also published elsewhere, and so are not original research. However I will say that a current destination list is more useful. But for a major airline, the Misplaced Pages lists are not so useful as they could be very big and changing all the time. For small airlines, their destinations will be more constant, and be more stable, and could be included in the airline article. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:58, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4, or maybe 1. Per OhanaUnited. This feels like another attempt to relitigate the same thing. Stifle (talk) 09:37, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 3 (Both violate ND) per SMcCandlish. No need to flog each horse when the whole herd is dead. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:18, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Neither (option 4) Neither, as Misplaced Pages is cited accross several (non)-aviation plattforms exactly because it inherits a consistently reliable list of airlines and destinations for actually almost every airport. In my opinion these are very comparable to railway station articles that also cite the exact railway connections of a station, and here in most cases even without any source. Der HON (talk) 10:42, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4 (neither). Multiple people have said why above better than I can, but in short these are notable topics presented in encyclopaedic context. Thryduulf (talk) 11:36, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 3 (both violate) The bulk of sourcing on both articles are questionable; the first uses mostly BA's own pages about itself, making it primary coverage, while the second uses an independent blog that doesn't give any indication of wider notability to the route changes. If these lists were dominated by proper third party reliable sources like newspaper coverage, that would be different, but as they stand, these violate the nature of the the prior RFC on airline routes. --Masem (t) 13:00, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    So this is a sourcing question, not a general NOT question, applied specifically to this airline/article, not the concept as whole. There are certainly more newspaper sources that can be added. Reywas92 14:38, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    Using a bunch of routine business news to announce roylutes would still be a problem, as you now start getting into synthesis in the complication of these lists. If this is not stuff covered in secondary sources discussing the bulk of these routes, it's still a sign it fails WP:NOT. This basically feels like a form of trainspotting, which we don't document on WP. Masem (t) 17:04, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    Of course there is also planespotting, which tracks specific aircraft. We are not doing that, just stating the general routes operated without complication or hobbyist details. How is there possibly synthesis here? I can't conceive of how original research can be involved in identification of a route. Reywas92 19:17, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    It's not a single route, it's effectively the entire network for one airline or in the case of the airport, all the spokes that airport connects to. Have reliable sources discussed that aspect as a whole, not just piece parts? If not, then we are getting into synthesis territory. Masem (t) 19:26, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    WP:SYNTH implies Do not combine material from multiple sources to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. I have absolutely no clue how listing destinations would possibly violate WP:SYNTH, as we are presenting facts, not conclusions. SportingFlyer T·C 20:20, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4 Concerns about primary sourcing are misapplied. Primary sourcing is fine for supporting basic statements of objective fact so long as it's not interpretive. They don't speak to notability, but then again, notability in this case is about the suitability of the articles existing, not inclusion criteria. As for the idea that the existence of such charts on dozens of article for a great many years now is somehow not a true consensus, I just laugh. Clearly there's consensus for their existence, else they wouldn't exist for so long in so many places, edited by dozens if not hundreds of editors. The idea that a handful of commenter who have never even contributed to these articles on an obscure project talk page (and spare trying to say it's not obscure) can dictate they shouldn't exist in obvious contravention to the clear long-standing consensus is just back door WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Claiming this isn't intended as a deletion discussion is disingenuous. oknazevad (talk) 13:28, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    Primary sources are fine to use as the mortar to fill in the information gaps left by secondary and third-party sources, but when the bulk of the information is coming from primary sources, that's a problem per WP:NOT, WP:V and WP:N. And the remaining arguments are variations of WP:ATA (been around a long time, edited by lots). Masem (t) 13:39, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    If that's the case that we can't have things coming from primary sources, we'd have to get rid of a lot of geography infoboxes, sports statistics, most academics... SportingFlyer T·C 17:02, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Delete I know that's not an explicit option but it is implicit, and I support the deletion (or prevention of addition) under consistency and rationalizing coverage across articles. I might support a more nuanced or rational class carve-out from the general prohibition, but not one airline, or one airport (treating either of those 2 things in issue here as sui generis leads to only confusion, not encyclopedic coverage). Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:50, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4 (neither) As all the reasons other people have stated above. Removing this information collected over years would be detrimental to the aims of an encyclopedia.FlyingScotsman72 (talk) 16:13, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Neither. Perhaps the most important information in understanding an airline or airport is where they fly, which these lists provide. -- Tavix 18:22, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4, neither per SportingFlyer. The places to which airlines fly from an airport are paramount to the importance of said airport and therefore paramount to our coverage of that airport. J94704:16, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4 Neither as they represent long established practice per WP:NOTLAW. But this poll seems vexatious and contrary to other sections of WP:NOT ... Andrew🐉(talk) 17:28, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4 — My straightforward reading of this portion of WP:NOT seems decisive: "there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are relevant because they are associated with or significantly contribute to the list topic." Knowing where an airline has flown is a straightforward element of understanding it. Knowing where an airport is connected to is a significantly contributes to understanding its current utility. These are standard elements of rail station pages on Misplaced Pages and rightly so.--Carwil (talk) 17:31, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
    There's nothing wrong to identify the major hubs that a airline uses (to not mention Heathrow with respect to British Airways, or Atlanta with Delta, would clearly be missing key info), but what becomes a problem is when are the small regional airports that a airline might serve one year and drop the next, which pretty much is only going to be documented in primary sources. Similarly, it makes sense to say what destinations the majority of flights out of Heathrow reach (eg that it serves as a major international hub for Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asian nations) but listing all the smaller airports, which can change rapidly based on how the airlines change their routes, is a problem. We should be looking to see how RSes summarize an air line's reach or the connectivity of an airport, not trying to be exhaustive about it. Masem (t) 18:38, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
    The opposite may actually be true - if a smaller airport loses flights, that is typically of note in that community. SportingFlyer T·C 20:21, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4 - I disagree that these inherently violate WP:NOT (of course, individual cases can be argued), and I supported keeping them back in the 2023 RfC. But I think it's also important to consider that while the 2023 RfC leaned towards "remove these unless clearly WP:DUE", these sections have mostly stayed in articles without significant pruning or alteration, suggesting de facto consensus is a bit broader than the RfC suggested. In that situation, it seems strange to have another RfC to try and tighten restrictions further? Andrew Gray (talk) 18:40, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 4 (neither); but mainly as a 'vote' in the "hidden underlying" discussion. This RfC was actually more or less motivated by a fairly broad encouragement to reopen this old RfC from January, 2018; so my 'vote' is for formally revoking that decision (taken by a fairly limited consensus). (Actually, it is already at least partially contradicted by several later RfC's; although it also could be considered as being more or less upheld in some older AfD's. See the discussion section.) JoergenB (talk) 00:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Option 3 There is a place in WP articles to include some places an airline flies, but to include an exhaustive list gives undue weight to locations that are merely represented on the airline's reference website, as opposed to locations that were actually met with notability by the media when announced. We have to remember that just because something can be verified does not mean it is notable. Let's review the policy on notability: "Misplaced Pages's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics. Article and list topics must be notable, or 'worthy of notice'."
All of that being said, we're not having this conversation on the airline's talk page, we're having it on the policy page. So where else does this issue come into play? Surely there are hundreds of lists currently on WP that could be considered exhaustive and not notable if debated individually. Where do we cross the line? I'm curious, editors who have voted Option 3, generally, how would you respond to this question? When is a list merited and when is it extraneous? Penguino35 (talk) 13:30, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

Jointly discussing these two types of lists is ridiculous, by the way. They are two separate pieces of information. The first focuses on airlines - many airlines will not be eligible for stand-alone articles, but especially historical airline routes have been the subject of study and discussion: or books such as Mapping the Airways. If the list or article passes WP:GNG, there is absolutely no reason we cannot have that on Misplaced Pages as it's encyclopedic information. The second focuses on current routes served at airports, which almost always will have some sort of article when new service is announced or dropped. These are two completely separate topics, both are encyclopedic, and both require their own RfCs. SportingFlyer T·C 02:14, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

The Wikivoyage argument is also completely wrong, considering travel guides do not normally include lists of destinations. SportingFlyer T·C 02:50, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Sportingflyer that it is silly to discuss these two lists together. They are different types of list. FOARP (talk) 07:02, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
They're not even "two types of lists"! One is a list, and one is an individual row on a table of the Heathrow Airport article. People are actually out here trying to apply GNG to individual facts within an article when the first sentence of GNG explicitly states it is about "stand-alone articles or lists." If it weren't for the apparently deep lore of this discussion, I would honestly believe that the reasoning for including #2 in this RfC was simply "row big." Gnomingstuff (talk) 16:36, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Object to Malformed RFC. In one case we have standalone articles, in the other case we have sections of articles, and the information is presented, maintained, organized, and sourced differently. We already have comments that seem to address one or the other, making it harder to respond specifically or to determine a useful consensus. Following previous discussions, there was also an understanding that yet another RFC would be discussed first. The proposer needs to make productive edits besides proposing to delete this informative content from Misplaced Pages over and over and over at various venues – it's poor faith to indicate this has "arisen in debates" when he is the one constantly trying to get rid of it. Hundreds of users contribute this content for hundreds of thousands to read, who are interested in this encyclopedic content. Reywas92 04:54, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

@Reywas92: Malformed or not; I think that this RfC is strange in several ways. (I should add that I haven't edited any airport or airline destination articles, and am new to this particular discussion; whence I may have misunderstood things. I do edit a few railway line and station articles, and consider those issues fairly parallel to these, though.) The proposal to which Sunnya343 refers above actually was to reconsider a RfC from January 2018 (item 2. below), in order either to revoke or to confirm it, before proceeding to further AfD's or alternatively restorations of deleted lists. It seems a bit hard to get a consensus on these matters; and I think that is one reason for an advice to Sunnya343 to list a specific case for RfC instead of inviting to a general discussion. I'm not criticising Sunnya343 for first asking about formulations for an RfC, and then more or less following the outcome of the resulting discussion; but, IHMO, the outcome of this attempt shows that that advice was not quite optimal.
In fact, the article A was up to an AfD yielding no consensus, according to a summary by Liz. Sunnya343 didn't like the outcome, and 'appealed' in favour of deletion (mainly arguing by decision 2., I'd say). However, apart from the weak majority for keep, Liz noted that there were a number of relevant RfC's, and that in fact taken together they did not support deletion.
The following are the five RfA's listed by Liz, but reordered in chronological order. (Liz presented them as a selection of the RfA's over, more or less, this subject.)
1. Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 15#Request for comments on the Airlines and destinations tables (December, 2016);
2. Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)/Archive 140#Should Misplaced Pages have and maintain complete lists of airline destinations? (January, 2018);
3. Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive296#Mass deletion of pages - question of protocol (end of January, 2018);
4. Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)/Archive 141#RFC: Should Misplaced Pages have lists of transportation service destinations? (March, 2018); and
5. Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)/Archive 187#RfC on the "Airlines and destinations" tables in airport articles (November, 2023).
To this I think we should add the very AfD Liz closed; as Liz seems to have guessed, it was getting a markedly broader participation than any of the aforementioned RfC's:
6. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of British Airways destinations (April, 2024).
My preliminary conclusions are
that the decision 2. in practice already has been overturned or at least superceeded;
that the present RfC in practice also involves trying to overturn the (clear and endorsed) non consensus summary of 6. one more time; and
that both counted by argument strengs or by numbers there is no good hope of achieving a consensus about these kinds of lists in the forseeable future (exept possibly by the detestable means of 'sneaking' a decisions by a rather limited number of participants all already being pro or contra; I'm happy that Sunnya343 seems to guard against such abuse.). JoergenB (talk) 00:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
There's also the Deletion review in April 2024, that is missing on your list, which endorsed the closure of the AfD in the same month. OhanaUnited 03:03, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Notifications

Sunnya343 (talk) 01:33, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

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