Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Directions

To Northeast, To Southwest, To Northwest, To Southeast, To East, To West, To North and To South was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was DELETE. Rossami 22:51, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not articles, no longer needed as nothing links to them. - SimonP 17:51, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

Eligible for speedy deletion, I'd say. - 18:12, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC) Lee (talk)

I concur. --Golbez 21:18, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Delete. Bot-crud. — Gwalla | Talk 22:30, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Comment: waiting for a day or two until I see whether I get an answer to the query I left at User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough. I would have said these were eligible for speedy deletes, but at this point I'm very curious to know what their intended purpose was. He's been on WIkipedia for a few months at least and a couple of random edits I've checked look good. He fixed a typo in something I'd written, for example. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 23:16, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Comment: I know I've seem at least one article on an Australian town that linked to articles similar, if not identical, to these. - RedWordSmith 03:10, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For the original uses of these, see this edit as an example. [1] The articles were never meant to be created, they were just place holders. See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Melbourne/Suburbs -- Chuq 06:16, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

And this one! Talk:To North -- Chuq 06:19, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It would seem, then, that

the ones which have no links to them should be deleted
the ones which do have links, where it's obvious how to remove or replace the links, the links should be removed or replaced
For the ones that remain: the wording of the article should be improved as it's utterly baffling now--it's too general, and should refer to the specific articles that have the problem. And quite possibly the article and the links to it should be moved, either out of the main namespace or to some very obscure portion of the namespace? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 11:10, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There is a major project (with which I am not associated) to build articles on all significant suburbs of either Melbourne or all Australian towns (as mentioned by Chuq). The first pass results in the type of article Chuq refers to above. This is obviously a transient effect, however http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Wantedpages shows these as "most wanted pages" and anyone navigating from one of these part built pages by clicking on a "To Northwest" link would be confuse if they expected to navigate to the page of the location to the NW as would not be unreasonable. By building these pages I hoped to firstly remove them from the most wanted pages list, and secondly provide an explanation for any naif who was navigating from a work-in-progress page. Further, it appears that there have been several (possibly many) tranches of such geographical pages created, so it seems likely that more will be created in the future (in the last few days there were about 170 articles linking to them). Fourthly it seems unlikely that the 8 articles (To North, etc.) would be navigated to by mistake, so they should do little harm.

If the wording is as bad as the comments on this VfD pages imply, then I would suggest that a master page be created with a better wording on it, and the others be turned into redirects. Thanks to Dpbsmith for notifying me of the VfD. Rich Farmbrough 21:00, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It would be possible to have them link to a page maintained by the Melbourne project, but this presumes that other similar projects won't occur in the future. Rich Farmbrough 22:25, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Comment I'm not at all sure I understand who or what is creating the links, or, in particular, why they need to be created. If it's a bot, it seems to me that it would be better if the bot didn't create the links at all... or created them to some much more obscure place, such as [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Melbourne/Suburbs/Placeholder_For_Suburb_To_West|To West]] or [[Wikipedia:Zzzz_Temp_Citybot_Junkpages_Placeholder_For_Suburb_To_West|To West]]. But never mind that. I guess I am going to vote...

Keep and reword, because if I understand the situation, it seems to me that the intention is that the people participating in the project will eventually clean up after themselves, and that the articles need to be kept because deleting will do no good and might create further confusion. The wording of the pages does need improvement. I am not sure it is worthwhile to try to tell people who land on the pages how to fix the links. Either they can figure it out for themselves, or they should be directed to some project page that explains more and invites their participation. Maybe something like this?

::This is a temporary page associated with Wikipedia:WikiProject Melbourne/Suburbs. It will be removed when the project is complete, which is expected to be no later than December 31, 2004. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Melbourne/Suburbs/About Placeholder Links for a further explanation. If you'd like to help with the project, please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Melbourne/Suburbs/SomeAppropriatePage

~~:My reason for having an implied expiration date is so that if someone from the project forgets to remove the pages, there will be clear evidence (come 2005) that they have been abandoned.~~

:Please tell me we're only talking about eight pages here. There isn't going to be a To North-northeast or a To Northwest by North and... well you get the drift. I think' I'm joking. I hope I'm joking. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 23:05, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Delete based on new comments by Chuq, Rich Farmbrough and others below. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 14:58, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Delete. Maintenance-type pages do not belong in the article namespace. -- Cyrius|✎ 23:27, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Also, check the discussion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Melbourne/Suburbs. It is planned to change all the suburbs over to an Infobox format, which doesn't include the links. -- Chuq 23:29, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Delete. There *once* existed almost 200 links that led to these but now they've all been removed, and I heavily contributed in the effort of that removal also -- which took digging in dozens and dozens of pages and was tiresome. Now these leftover pages only represent a stupidity that should have never existed. Aris Katsaris 17:29, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Delete. As it seems the Melbourne project now has the cause under control, and presumably any future project copying them will copy the best practice. Rich Farmbrough 13:34, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.