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. There has been substantial discussion but no consensus has been reached. Perhaps a rename or move as suggested by some keep participants will help find consensus about how to deal with this content area. If not, this can always be renominated at some point in the future to see if consensus can be found then.
Barkeep49 (
talk)
02:05, 13 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Unsourced and subjective list: fails
WP:LISTVERIFY and no explanation is given as to what "heritage" means or how we could list it in a NPOV way without original research. buidhe22:05, 28 April 2020 (UTC)reply
Criteria for inclusion added. If you think the topic does not belong in Wikipedia, why haven't you proposed
List of destroyed heritage for deletion? As for verification, the articles for the buildings provide referenced information on the details, but I will change this if that is the consensus. I'm also perplexed as to why this couldn't all be handled with some suggestions, as I believe the review process is supposed to work? Instead of just throwing the article to deletion (which the reviewer above first tried to do without discussion, even).
Keepcalmandchill (
talk)
22:31, 28 April 2020 (UTC)reply
Delete. This is just a list of buildings of some cultural significance that were demolished. Buildings get torn down all the time, a too-common fate that is too broad a criterion for a list.
Clarityfiend (
talk)
22:37, 28 April 2020 (UTC)reply
Fine, then it fails
WP:LISTN. Find a source or two that lists demolished American buildings. Being demolished is not a listworthy criterion. "heritage" is rather hazy too.
Clarityfiend (
talk)
06:44, 29 April 2020 (UTC)reply
There are plenty such sources. A narrow definition of destroyed U.S. heritage could be, say, places listed as
National Historic Landmarks (a high level of historic designation) that have been destroyed and hence delisted. For example, it is a bummer that the
Edwin H. Armstrong House was destroyed in 1983. Seems like some should be interested in participating in Talk page discussion about intentions for this list. Not for AFD, though. --
Doncram (
talk)
01:18, 4 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Delete Being someone who lives in Detroit an sees the crime and fear caused by abaondoned buildings used as bases for crime and hide outs to rape school girls on their way to or from school, the inclusion of a building that sat as an abaondoned eyesore for over 15 years on this list is a set of situations showing some people care more about outward historical appeal than the safety of school girls, at least when those school girls are African-Americans. Lists like this are one sided and advance a narrative that causes real hurt and pain.
John Pack Lambert (
talk)
17:29, 29 April 2020 (UTC)reply
What???? Is there some specific incident being alluded to here, about bias or racism or whatever? Of one or more Wikipedia editors??? Whatever this comment is about might possibly be relevant for addressing elsewhere, like if there are BLP attacks or other gross conduct going on somewhere, but I see no relevance to this AFD. --
Doncram (
talk)
01:14, 4 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Keep. Deletion nomination apparently has concerns which might be relevant for editing, or tagging; they should probably participate at the article's Talk page. I see no valid reason for deletion; clearly, destroyed heritage, like endangered heritage and like preserved heritage, is a huge, valid topic, is covered hugely, and there can be a list of examples. --
Doncram (
talk)
01:14, 4 May 2020 (UTC)reply
An obvious way that this list is important is in reminding readers/America/the world of what has been lost, with precautionary implications about what else may be lost due to war, religious strife (
Buddhas of Bamyan come to mind, carelessness with respect to fire safety, unhindered commercial development, etc. This idea is obvious and has been pointed out repeatedly to the world, and IMHO doesn't require very specific sourcing to justify having this as a list. However there surely do exist published lists of this type, which would usefully be referenced. For example there have existed numerous published lists of
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World type, which are directly relevant on the world-level scale (published widely in the 1800s?), and I rather imagine there must be a similar history of United States-specific lists (though even if not, it is still obviously fine to have a U.S. section split out of the world-wide list-article). --
Doncram (
talk)
20:00, 4 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Comment. Offhand, I think the list should be developed with explanation of the _importance_ of listed items. However it does appropriately include some very important items, including
Pennsylvania Station (1910–1963). That was an important building, and its destruction was controversial and arguably spawned the historic preservation movement in the United States. It contributed to the formalization and great growth of the
National Historic Landmarks designation program in 1960 and following years, growth of the
National Trust for Historic Preservation, the 1966 passage of the
National Historic Preservation Act, and arguably directly led to the creation of the
National Register of Historic Places in 1968.
I've sort of now tried to open some discussion at the Talk page of the AFD subject list-article about list criteria. This AFD should never have been opened, IMHO, without discussion there, which no one attempted. Further discussion about list criteria and other matters of development should go on there. --
Doncram (
talk)
19:43, 4 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Merge with
List of destroyed heritage. It's a useful list, but I fail to see why this
WP:REDUNDANTFORK is required at this point. That article is not too long that some more entries cannot be added to it successfully, which is where the current content of this article should go. Also need to be mindful of the
WP:BIAS that WP focuses too much on the United States as it is.
StonyBrook (
talk)
15:55, 6 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Comment. "Destroyed heritage" is a made-up designation that nobody uses for lists, because it is so vague and wide-ranging, so this fails
WP:LISTN and
WP:OR. Heritage sites, yes. Buildings, yes. Sculptures, I suppose. More tightly focused lists are fine, but this (and the other destroyed heritage lists) are poorly thought out and indiscriminate.
Clarityfiend (
talk)
07:10, 7 May 2020 (UTC)reply
The term cultural heritage encompasses several main categories of heritage:
Cultural heritage
Tangible cultural heritage:
movable cultural heritage (paintings, sculptures, coins, manuscripts)
immovable cultural heritage (monuments, archaeological sites, and so on)
underwater cultural heritage (shipwrecks, underwater ruins and cities)
I have left out intangible heritage because determining when or how that is destroyed is impossible. We have no trouble with determining if tangible international cultural heritage, say, the
Buddhas of Bamyan, were destroyed (March, 2001, for clarity's sake). Applying that to heritage in the United States should be no harder than international heritage.
Eggishorn(talk)(contrib)16:38, 7 May 2020 (UTC)reply
No, Wikipedia lists in general don't use "made-up designations"; that goes against LISTN. There are numerous
lists of films considered the best, for example. I have been unable to find any lists of "destroyed heritage" or even "destroyed cultural heritage". Are you seriously saying we should have one gigantic list of all those things you listed above? How many culturally significant buildings alone were lost in say the
Great Chicago Fire or the
1906 San Francisco earthquake? Multiply that by a couple of centuries of natural (and unnatural) disasters in all the cities, towns, villages, plantations, etc., and it is clear that the scope of this list is unmanageable.
Clarityfiend (
talk)
22:17, 7 May 2020 (UTC)reply
See below but again, pure red herring. There is no need to pretend that every building anyone liked is "cultural heritage." We use RS. If RS describe a destroyed building as significant, there's no reason we can't have a list that includes them. And BTW, we do have
a "gigantic list of all the things [I] listed". The project doesn't seem to have collapsed under its burden. As even
WP:OTHER recognizes: ...the encyclopedia should be consistent in the content that it provides or excludes. There is no way to honestly frame a consistent rationale why a list of international cultural heritage that has been destroyed is acceptable but one for such things in the United States is not.
Eggishorn(talk)(contrib)23:35, 7 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Talk about your red herrings. I specified "culturally significant buildings", not "every building anyone liked". Dozens, if not hundreds, must have been lost in the two disasters I cited. I also said that IMO those other "destroyed heritage" lists deserve to go too. Besides,
WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a valid argument. Finally, as I have repeatedly asked, when has anyone on the "outside" grouped "destroyed heritage"?
Clarityfiend (
talk)
22:33, 8 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Yes, but what exactly fits these definitions? Very much a matter of opinion and OR, especially when it comes to many buildings that are just buildings to some people but important heritage to others. buidhe16:57, 7 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Comment It seems like some editors in this AfD are most concerned with the word "heritage" in the title. If it was called
List of destroyed historical sites of the United States or
List of destroyed cultural landmarks of the United States, would that clear up the issue with the list? Sites, buildings, landmarks — any of these words can be added to clarify what the list is about, since it's mainly about historic buildings. The meaning of the word "heritage" is a bit less recognizable in comparison. I personally think the content of the article and subject is notable enough for a separate list, no matter what it is called. And I don't think the name being up for debate should be the reason for the deletion of an article. But it seems like the word "heritage" in the title is what people are most bothered by, so I thought I would point this out as a potential solution. -
Whisperjanes (
talk)
02:47, 8 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Delete How the hell are you supposed to define "heritage?" It's a subjective definition and as such this fails
WP:LISTVERIFY. In terms of moving this to a different title, how do you define "historical sites" or "cultural landmarks?" Even these open up a
WP:NOTEVERYTHING problem, as they are also subjective (history happens everywhere, one person's cultural landmark is another person's
Veterans Stadium.
SportingFlyerT·C20:58, 10 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Delete Could be partially merged to
List of destroyed heritage which has the same problems but I agree with buidhe and SportingFlyer that there are no inclusion criteria here. It seems to merely be a list of old buildings that no longer exist, without anything establishing them as "heritage". They were early skyscrapers? They had subjectively interesting architecture? Per Clarityfiend, stuff not lasting forever is just how things work, and what makes
this department store any more "heritage" than the malls being abandoned today? A president lived at
Ulysses S. Grant Cottage; is the original of
Lincoln's reconstructed log cabin destroyed heritage? I'd think
Hotel Seattle would fit here but what about the
Kingdome? "Having blue links" is not and never has been criteria for keeping an article.
Reywas92Talk21:28, 10 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Keep A perfectly valid navigational list of blue links. The critera are simply that a building satisfies
WP:NBUILD and has an article, and that it has been destroyed. The "heritage" word in the title can easily be removed or changed to reflect the specifics of NBUILD. The critera could alternately also be tightened to include only those buildings that third-party sources refer to as e.g.
demolished landmarks. Whichever way the article is developed, there are no grounds for deletion. ----
Pontificalibus13:21, 11 May 2020 (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.
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. There has been substantial discussion but no consensus has been reached. Perhaps a rename or move as suggested by some keep participants will help find consensus about how to deal with this content area. If not, this can always be renominated at some point in the future to see if consensus can be found then.
Barkeep49 (
talk)
02:05, 13 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Unsourced and subjective list: fails
WP:LISTVERIFY and no explanation is given as to what "heritage" means or how we could list it in a NPOV way without original research. buidhe22:05, 28 April 2020 (UTC)reply
Criteria for inclusion added. If you think the topic does not belong in Wikipedia, why haven't you proposed
List of destroyed heritage for deletion? As for verification, the articles for the buildings provide referenced information on the details, but I will change this if that is the consensus. I'm also perplexed as to why this couldn't all be handled with some suggestions, as I believe the review process is supposed to work? Instead of just throwing the article to deletion (which the reviewer above first tried to do without discussion, even).
Keepcalmandchill (
talk)
22:31, 28 April 2020 (UTC)reply
Delete. This is just a list of buildings of some cultural significance that were demolished. Buildings get torn down all the time, a too-common fate that is too broad a criterion for a list.
Clarityfiend (
talk)
22:37, 28 April 2020 (UTC)reply
Fine, then it fails
WP:LISTN. Find a source or two that lists demolished American buildings. Being demolished is not a listworthy criterion. "heritage" is rather hazy too.
Clarityfiend (
talk)
06:44, 29 April 2020 (UTC)reply
There are plenty such sources. A narrow definition of destroyed U.S. heritage could be, say, places listed as
National Historic Landmarks (a high level of historic designation) that have been destroyed and hence delisted. For example, it is a bummer that the
Edwin H. Armstrong House was destroyed in 1983. Seems like some should be interested in participating in Talk page discussion about intentions for this list. Not for AFD, though. --
Doncram (
talk)
01:18, 4 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Delete Being someone who lives in Detroit an sees the crime and fear caused by abaondoned buildings used as bases for crime and hide outs to rape school girls on their way to or from school, the inclusion of a building that sat as an abaondoned eyesore for over 15 years on this list is a set of situations showing some people care more about outward historical appeal than the safety of school girls, at least when those school girls are African-Americans. Lists like this are one sided and advance a narrative that causes real hurt and pain.
John Pack Lambert (
talk)
17:29, 29 April 2020 (UTC)reply
What???? Is there some specific incident being alluded to here, about bias or racism or whatever? Of one or more Wikipedia editors??? Whatever this comment is about might possibly be relevant for addressing elsewhere, like if there are BLP attacks or other gross conduct going on somewhere, but I see no relevance to this AFD. --
Doncram (
talk)
01:14, 4 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Keep. Deletion nomination apparently has concerns which might be relevant for editing, or tagging; they should probably participate at the article's Talk page. I see no valid reason for deletion; clearly, destroyed heritage, like endangered heritage and like preserved heritage, is a huge, valid topic, is covered hugely, and there can be a list of examples. --
Doncram (
talk)
01:14, 4 May 2020 (UTC)reply
An obvious way that this list is important is in reminding readers/America/the world of what has been lost, with precautionary implications about what else may be lost due to war, religious strife (
Buddhas of Bamyan come to mind, carelessness with respect to fire safety, unhindered commercial development, etc. This idea is obvious and has been pointed out repeatedly to the world, and IMHO doesn't require very specific sourcing to justify having this as a list. However there surely do exist published lists of this type, which would usefully be referenced. For example there have existed numerous published lists of
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World type, which are directly relevant on the world-level scale (published widely in the 1800s?), and I rather imagine there must be a similar history of United States-specific lists (though even if not, it is still obviously fine to have a U.S. section split out of the world-wide list-article). --
Doncram (
talk)
20:00, 4 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Comment. Offhand, I think the list should be developed with explanation of the _importance_ of listed items. However it does appropriately include some very important items, including
Pennsylvania Station (1910–1963). That was an important building, and its destruction was controversial and arguably spawned the historic preservation movement in the United States. It contributed to the formalization and great growth of the
National Historic Landmarks designation program in 1960 and following years, growth of the
National Trust for Historic Preservation, the 1966 passage of the
National Historic Preservation Act, and arguably directly led to the creation of the
National Register of Historic Places in 1968.
I've sort of now tried to open some discussion at the Talk page of the AFD subject list-article about list criteria. This AFD should never have been opened, IMHO, without discussion there, which no one attempted. Further discussion about list criteria and other matters of development should go on there. --
Doncram (
talk)
19:43, 4 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Merge with
List of destroyed heritage. It's a useful list, but I fail to see why this
WP:REDUNDANTFORK is required at this point. That article is not too long that some more entries cannot be added to it successfully, which is where the current content of this article should go. Also need to be mindful of the
WP:BIAS that WP focuses too much on the United States as it is.
StonyBrook (
talk)
15:55, 6 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Comment. "Destroyed heritage" is a made-up designation that nobody uses for lists, because it is so vague and wide-ranging, so this fails
WP:LISTN and
WP:OR. Heritage sites, yes. Buildings, yes. Sculptures, I suppose. More tightly focused lists are fine, but this (and the other destroyed heritage lists) are poorly thought out and indiscriminate.
Clarityfiend (
talk)
07:10, 7 May 2020 (UTC)reply
The term cultural heritage encompasses several main categories of heritage:
Cultural heritage
Tangible cultural heritage:
movable cultural heritage (paintings, sculptures, coins, manuscripts)
immovable cultural heritage (monuments, archaeological sites, and so on)
underwater cultural heritage (shipwrecks, underwater ruins and cities)
I have left out intangible heritage because determining when or how that is destroyed is impossible. We have no trouble with determining if tangible international cultural heritage, say, the
Buddhas of Bamyan, were destroyed (March, 2001, for clarity's sake). Applying that to heritage in the United States should be no harder than international heritage.
Eggishorn(talk)(contrib)16:38, 7 May 2020 (UTC)reply
No, Wikipedia lists in general don't use "made-up designations"; that goes against LISTN. There are numerous
lists of films considered the best, for example. I have been unable to find any lists of "destroyed heritage" or even "destroyed cultural heritage". Are you seriously saying we should have one gigantic list of all those things you listed above? How many culturally significant buildings alone were lost in say the
Great Chicago Fire or the
1906 San Francisco earthquake? Multiply that by a couple of centuries of natural (and unnatural) disasters in all the cities, towns, villages, plantations, etc., and it is clear that the scope of this list is unmanageable.
Clarityfiend (
talk)
22:17, 7 May 2020 (UTC)reply
See below but again, pure red herring. There is no need to pretend that every building anyone liked is "cultural heritage." We use RS. If RS describe a destroyed building as significant, there's no reason we can't have a list that includes them. And BTW, we do have
a "gigantic list of all the things [I] listed". The project doesn't seem to have collapsed under its burden. As even
WP:OTHER recognizes: ...the encyclopedia should be consistent in the content that it provides or excludes. There is no way to honestly frame a consistent rationale why a list of international cultural heritage that has been destroyed is acceptable but one for such things in the United States is not.
Eggishorn(talk)(contrib)23:35, 7 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Talk about your red herrings. I specified "culturally significant buildings", not "every building anyone liked". Dozens, if not hundreds, must have been lost in the two disasters I cited. I also said that IMO those other "destroyed heritage" lists deserve to go too. Besides,
WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a valid argument. Finally, as I have repeatedly asked, when has anyone on the "outside" grouped "destroyed heritage"?
Clarityfiend (
talk)
22:33, 8 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Yes, but what exactly fits these definitions? Very much a matter of opinion and OR, especially when it comes to many buildings that are just buildings to some people but important heritage to others. buidhe16:57, 7 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Comment It seems like some editors in this AfD are most concerned with the word "heritage" in the title. If it was called
List of destroyed historical sites of the United States or
List of destroyed cultural landmarks of the United States, would that clear up the issue with the list? Sites, buildings, landmarks — any of these words can be added to clarify what the list is about, since it's mainly about historic buildings. The meaning of the word "heritage" is a bit less recognizable in comparison. I personally think the content of the article and subject is notable enough for a separate list, no matter what it is called. And I don't think the name being up for debate should be the reason for the deletion of an article. But it seems like the word "heritage" in the title is what people are most bothered by, so I thought I would point this out as a potential solution. -
Whisperjanes (
talk)
02:47, 8 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Delete How the hell are you supposed to define "heritage?" It's a subjective definition and as such this fails
WP:LISTVERIFY. In terms of moving this to a different title, how do you define "historical sites" or "cultural landmarks?" Even these open up a
WP:NOTEVERYTHING problem, as they are also subjective (history happens everywhere, one person's cultural landmark is another person's
Veterans Stadium.
SportingFlyerT·C20:58, 10 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Delete Could be partially merged to
List of destroyed heritage which has the same problems but I agree with buidhe and SportingFlyer that there are no inclusion criteria here. It seems to merely be a list of old buildings that no longer exist, without anything establishing them as "heritage". They were early skyscrapers? They had subjectively interesting architecture? Per Clarityfiend, stuff not lasting forever is just how things work, and what makes
this department store any more "heritage" than the malls being abandoned today? A president lived at
Ulysses S. Grant Cottage; is the original of
Lincoln's reconstructed log cabin destroyed heritage? I'd think
Hotel Seattle would fit here but what about the
Kingdome? "Having blue links" is not and never has been criteria for keeping an article.
Reywas92Talk21:28, 10 May 2020 (UTC)reply
Keep A perfectly valid navigational list of blue links. The critera are simply that a building satisfies
WP:NBUILD and has an article, and that it has been destroyed. The "heritage" word in the title can easily be removed or changed to reflect the specifics of NBUILD. The critera could alternately also be tightened to include only those buildings that third-party sources refer to as e.g.
demolished landmarks. Whichever way the article is developed, there are no grounds for deletion. ----
Pontificalibus13:21, 11 May 2020 (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.