Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Virginia State Route 665

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:56, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Virginia State Route 665

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This article is an indiscriminate list of information that likely lacks any sources other than the provided transportation department sources. None of the listed routes are likely notable individually, and the set of all Virginia state secondary highways can be summarized in an article about the state's secondary highway system. V C 02:37, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There are over a hundred similar pages... so, nominate them all, don't cherry pick. Famartin (talk) 06:51, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Bundling multiple articles usually leads to a WP:TRAINWRECK. It's fine to AfD this one to see what the consensus is. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 06:52, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK I guess. To be honest, I think ALL articles on Virginia secondary highways should be permanently deleted as non-notable. Secondary routes in Virginia are county-level roads, and that level highway is generally considered non-notable in Wikipedia. Someone not familiar with the Virginia system might see the SR's and think they are important, but generally none of them are and none of them deserve articles. So, if we favor deleting this one, I strongly favor deleting every last one, including the individual ones some individuals have made for county-specific roads, like Virginia State Route 609 (Fairfax County). That having been said, if articles like this List of county routes in Monmouth County, New Jersey are ok, then I see nothing wrong with the article debated here. Famartin (talk) 06:58, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This type of Virginia secondary route list has a different scope than a list of county routes. Rather than a list of 95 county routes in one county, this article is a list of 95 routes in 95 counties, one per county. If we eventually delete all of these Virginia secondary route lists, the precedent will not apply to the lists of county routes; those lists will need to go through a separate AfD. This precedent would also not apply to articles about individual secondary routes like the SR 609 in Fairfax County. Some of the individual routes might actually be notable and have independent sources, so they need to be evaluated case by case. V C 20:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree. Virginia SR’s are just as notable (or non-notable) as, say, 600 series county routes in NJ. They are signed, and in Virginia, many date to the 1930s (which is longer than many CR’s have existed). The general public likely uses (or ignores) them just as much as CR’s in NJ. They are shown on many maps. The reason I decided to list them by number instead of individually by county is because of VA’s odd system and the way it is signed… internally, they are by county, but externally to the public, Sr 600 is signed exactly the same in every county. Also, the only reason some SR’s got individual pages is because they are in urban areas where some have more traffic. But traffic has never been used to denote notability on state routes… they all get mention, like in MD. Famartin (talk) 22:58, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Transportation and Virginia. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 06:51, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete (all). No indication of notability with sinificant sources or otherwise for secondary route. When one state has 200-some such Category:Secondary state highways in Virginia, there is no basis for a presumption of notability. It's not Wikipedia's place to use primary source maps to merely list the short segments that are shown on them without further substantive discussion or coverage. Moreover, all the pages in the category are essentially set lists of non-notable short segments that happen to share a number rather a potentially more notable long continuous road. Reywas92^Talk 15:39, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Road articles have got away with this sort of thing for far too long. They just get churned out in their thousands. Most of them are no more interesting to read than a map index. SpinningSpark 23:36, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I didn’t realize the purpose of Wikipedia was to be interesting, thought it was educational. My mistake Famartin (talk) 01:12, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Easy mistake to make. I share the same misapprehension. Acad Ronin (talk) 12:11, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTDIRECTORY exists because directories are not interesting. A table of road segments is just that (both a directory and not interesting). Wikipedia articles are meant to tell the reader something encyclopaedic (ie, interesting). The reason for that is, duh, Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia – it says so right there in the first pillar of Wikipedia. SpinningSpark 16:08, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But then a few sentences later it says that it contains aspects of a gazetteer. --Rs chen 7754 01:09, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, some aspects. It does not say those aspects selected for their overwhelming dullness. Or those aspects that lend themselves to lazy mass production of non-articles. SpinningSpark 16:00, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
These are bordering as attacks on the entire roads subject area and rather than derail the AFD further I would refer you to User:Rschen7754/FAQ. --Rs chen 7754 02:25, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As an additional note, I will point out that OpenStreetMap is using these articles to further their own project. --Rs chen 7754 05:21, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~Parking as Neutral for now~~. I think that Wikipedia should say something about Virginia State Route 665. I do not think that the lengthy table that doesn't really tell me much is the way to go about it. --Rs chen 7754 01:14, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- As far as possible options, maybe 1) a paragraph that gets merged to an article on the system, or 2) all these similar routes get condensed to one lengthy table rather than several different articles with similar tables. They do have pros and cons however. --Rs chen 7754 01:47, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  - Procedurally I will say Keep, however I would prefer to see a list set up similar to List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile (900–999) and have the articles merged there. --Rs chen 7754 17:43, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral - Per WP:GEOROAD, state highways are notable. However, secondary state highways like SR 665 in Virginia are better suited to be covered in lists rather than have separate articles as they function more like county highways despite being maintained by the state, and GEOROAD says notability may vary for those types of roads. This list isn’t the best way to present the information about SR 665 as it lumps together routes with the same number in separate counties. If we were to have these lists, I would prefer them to be by county similar to the county route lists in New Jersey. However, it may just be a better idea to discuss the secondary road system in a capstone article titled Virginia Secondary Roads System that describes the signage and numbering patterns, incorporating information from the Byrd Road Act article that created the system. I should note that currently we have these list articles for secondary state routes in the 600s and 700s, however, these secondary state routes go into the 800s and beyond in many counties. In some of the more populated counties in Northern Virginia like Fairfax County, there are secondary state highways that are four and five digits and they consist of nearly every road in the county down to neighborhood streets in residential subdivisions. Based on that, having a complete listing of EVERY secondary state highway in Virginia would be overkill as it would include many roads that are definitely not notable for coverage in an article or even a list. With that being said, it may be best to either limit which secondary state highways get list coverage or to just have a capstone article describing the system. Dough4872 01:38, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is not an indiscriminate list. It is, in fact, very discriminate—it is all highways maintained by a particular government that have been assigned the number 665 by that government. A list such as this is a useful geographic reference tool, should one come across a reference to SR 665 in another document and desire additional context as to where the location being discussed is. I would agree that these roads are too minor to justify a standalone article on each of them, but that's not what's being done here. Having a table giving the location and length of each is sufficient, and that's what this page does. —Scott5114 ↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 01:52, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:39, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep You could simply change the name to reflect a list of routes. It looks like it is talking about a single road, but its a list of roads using the same name. Change the name, save the list! Jonchache (talk) 21:19, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete seems to fail Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Notability — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chidgk1 (talk • contribs)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting as I don't see a consensus right now. There is a lot of discussion about whether or not Wikipedia should have articles on secondary highways but few comments on the merits of this particular article and whether or not it should be kept. Of course, another closer is always free to come along and close this discussion if they see a consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:15, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Per WP:GEOROAD: International road networks (such as the International E-road network), Interstate, national, state and provincial highways are typically notable. This state highway is no exception. The premise of the nomination, however, was that the list is indiscriminate. As Scott5114 points out, the opposite is true. The conclusion is that there is no case for this AfD. gidonb (talk) 17:18, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per above. Libcub (talk) 05:40, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.