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 keep all. ansh 666 07:03, 26 December 2017 (UTC) reply

List of Mayors of Wildwood, New Jersey

List of Mayors of Wildwood, New Jersey (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)

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consistent with my other recent nominations, I believe these quality as WP:Listcruft, no need for list of mayors from small/medium sized towns. I am bundling these since they are all lists. Rusf10 ( talk) 22:23, 9 December 2017 (UTC) reply

I am also nominating the following related pages for the same reason:

List of Mayors of Bergenfield, New Jersey (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

List of Mayors of Bloomfield, New Jersey (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

List of Mayors of Cranford, New Jersey (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

List of Mayors of Moorestown Township, New Jersey (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

List of mayors of Rumson, New Jersey (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Strong delete all of these, for the reason cited. We cannot list every obscure mayor of every minor municipality in the Garden State or any other polity. -- Orange Mike | Talk 22:31, 9 December 2017 (UTC) reply

WP:Listcruft isn't actually a valid reason for deletion. It is someone's personal essay on things they hate in Wikipedia. You should stick to canonical WP:Notability arguments which try and determine whether lists should be broken out from main articles or folded back into main articles. -- RAN ( talk) 16:20, 17 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Delete -- The citizens of Wildwood, NJ do not elect a mayor. In a Walsh Act municipality, the citizens elect three commissioners, who decide amongst themselves who shall be mayor. All of the content of this article may be found in Wildwood, New Jersey already. Neither does Cranford under the [[Township (New Jersey)}township form for government]]. Or Moorestown. Rhadow ( talk) 15:03, 15 December 2017 (UTC) reply

An interesting fact but not a reason for deletion. Please try and frame your argument based on WP:Notability. -- RAN ( talk) 16:25, 17 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Since you're not disputing that there are mayors, it is unclear how the method of them being chosen is relevant to whether or not there should be a list article for them. Egsan Bacon ( talk) 23:03, 17 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Delete Non-notable lists. Hrodvarsson ( talk) 22:41, 9 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Keep the big lists, expand the small lists, or merge them into the articles on the location Listcruft isn't actually a thing. It is a personal essay about things someone does not like. The smaller ones can be readded to the township articles. Someone wrote: "We cannot list every obscure mayor of every minor municipality." Sure we can, no rule says that we cannot. It is really a question of listing the mayors of towns in the articles on the towns, or in a separate list. Wikipedia is an almanac, and this is the type of information found in almanacs. If we have room for over 5,000 images of cats and kittens, we have space for this. We also have space for over 50,000 movies and over 10,000 television episodes. I stopped counting at these numbers, it gets boring. -- RAN ( talk) 22:48, 9 December 2017 (UTC) reply

The listcruft essay/article comes from wikipedia is not a directory ( WP:DIRECTORY). Your argument is basically we can create a list of anything. In this related discusion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mayors of Teaneck, New Jersey (2nd nomination) you argued that WP:GNG does not apply to lists. I strongly disagree. Regardless of whether you want to throw listcruft out the window, a list still needs to have notability like any other article.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 23:34, 9 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Which of the seven rules listed at WP:DIRECTORY is violated? -- RAN ( talk) 23:38, 9 December 2017 (UTC) reply

It basically falls under #4. Regardless, the first line of GNG states "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." (emphasis mine)-- Rusf10 ( talk) 23:47, 9 December 2017 (UTC) reply

That says: "For example, an article on a broadcaster should not list upcoming events, current promotions, current schedules, format clocks, etc., although mention of major events, promotions or historically significant program lists and schedules may be acceptable. Likewise an article on a business should not contain a list of all the company's patent filings." What does that have to do with mayors? -- RAN ( talk) 02:12, 10 December 2017 (UTC) reply

That's just an example. Replace the broadcaster with a town and you would not list all the town's mayors unless they were otherwise notable. But you're still ignoring the more important GNG guideline and have failed to explain how a list is exempt from being notable.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 02:53, 10 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Just replace each of the concepts in the guide with other concepts and we have an exact match! Replace the word "broadcaster" with "popes" and "presidents of the United States" and it clearly demands we delete those lists. The most important Wikipedia pillar is that Wikipedia "combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers" and almanacs as well as gazetteers need to be complete. -- RAN ( talk) 03:11, 10 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU ^(T) 23:02, 9 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU ^(T) 23:02, 9 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of New Jersey-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU ^(T) 23:02, 9 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Comment and what about. Rhadow ( talk) 23:04, 9 December 2017 (UTC) reply
  • List of mayors of Littleton, Colorado
  • List of mayors of Strathfield
  • List of mayors of Palm Springs, California
  • List of mayors of Beverly Hills, California
  • List of mayors of Radoviš
  • List of mayors of Chimichagua
  • List of mayors of Biloxi, Mississippi
  • List of mayors of Peachtree City, Georgia
  • List of mayors of Jeffersonville, Indiana
  • List of mayors of New Albany, Indiana

@ Rhadow: I'd support deletion of those too. Not sure, but I think you may have to make a new nomination for those.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 23:08, 9 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Strong delete This article lacks any sources. This might be a gripe against say List of state leaders in 1759, which is mainly work I have done. However in the case of that list, it links to a lot of articles on notable people, and is a way to arrange things. It might be good to put more sources directly into the article. In the case of this list, only one of the 4 people listed has an article. Most of the time frame that exists lacks listing of the mayor (although a similar problem could be pointed out for List of state leaders in 1767, much shorter than the 1759 list, mainly because it has not been developed much). However, the one person on the list who has an article is not notable for having been mayor of Wildwood, but for having been a member of congress. Even at that, I think it would be nice if we had a few more quality references on that person, but that would probably take looking for printed sources that might be hard to find. At a minimum, I actually think most of these lists should be merged with the articles on the places in question. The article on Wildwood, New Jersey could incorporate information from this list, but to do that we would need to actually source it. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 03:47, 10 December 2017 (UTC) reply

This is a group nomination for 16 articles. You wrote "This article" meaning "List of Mayors of Wildwood, New Jersey". Does your vote apply to the 15 others as well? -- RAN ( talk) 04:14, 10 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Note to closer: He/she appears to be voting for List of Mayors of Wildwood, New Jersey only, not the full slate of deletions.

@ Johnpacklambert:, please confirm you position on the other articles.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 00:33, 12 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Keep all (Merges can be acceptable as well because of the value of the information). While it is not up to us to determine the usefulness of an article, but whether (in this case) the list contains notable and verifiable information (however, I think the information is valuable). From WP:LISTBIO "On the other hand, a list within an article of past school presidents, headmasters or headmistresses can contain the names of all the people who held this post, not just those who are independently notable." If a headmaster of a university can be contained in a list, a list of elected officials should be treated similarly, if nothing else, "for the sake of completeness." -- Enos733 ( talk) 17:44, 10 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Comment At least Bloomfield and Cranford should both go. They have no links to articles on notable people. Cranford exemplifies why such lists are maybe not worth having on the articles on cities, but there is no reason for stand alone lists. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 02:30, 13 December 2017 (UTC) reply

I disagree that the other lists should stay, how does a few notable people justify the entire list? Wouldn't it make more sense to just list the few notable mayors under the notable people section of the article on the town?

• Edward Kent Gill -- RAN ( talk) 02:37, 13 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Comment It is worth remembering that a list is not required to have any Wikinotable members to, itself, be encyclopedic. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:40, 13 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Completely agree, although sourcing is still required for any page. -- Enos733 ( talk) 06:29, 13 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Great point! The list must be judged independently of the names on it.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 06:34, 13 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Comment  Is this one article being considered or 16?  Some have AfD tags, some don't.  WP:Deletion guidelines for administrators states, "If the major stakeholders have not been notified of the proposed deletion or given time to respond, reliable consensus determinations will rarely be possible."  Unscintillating ( talk) 23:46, 13 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Merge to Mayors of Wildwood, New Jersey or Local government of Wildwood, New Jersey.  The essay WP:Listcruft has the opinion that we should have WP:SPINOUT articles on "x" before we spinout articles on "List of x".  To this end, I have created Mayors of Wildwood, New Jersey.  In the Wildwood, NJ article, there is one sentence and three mayoral recalls that could be merged to the new article.  I found several mayors in Google books on the first page of a search on [Mayors of Wildwood, New Jersey -"north wildwood"].  These mayors include a 2nd George W. Krogman, who was mayor in 1945 and a state senator, so meets NPOL.  Unscintillating ( talk) 23:46, 13 December 2017 (UTC) reply

You're not proposing a merge, you proposing a rename. You can't merge an article with another one that doesn't exist (or in this case didn't exist, but now is a redirect). If George Krogman was a state senator then by all means write an article on him (I can't find the sources for it though). Assuming he actually was senator, that still doesn't change the notability of this list. Also, do you realize that Wildwood and North Wildwood are separate towns?-- Rusf10 ( talk) 00:04, 14 December 2017 (UTC) reply

First of all, if you think this list shouldn't be standalone, your remedy is to unspin it back to the parent article, as AfD is not to break the back of editors working to improve the encyclopedia by preventing them from reorganizing a large topic.

Regarding the "north wildwood" comment...I've provided a tested search that excludes North Wildwood mentions...perhaps you need to know that the hyphen in front of the search term removes the GHits with that term.

No, I'm not proposing a rename, and there is not really such a thing as a rename, as a move leaves behind a redirect, just as does a merge.

To repeat and add to what I previously said, I proposed a 100% merge of material from the article you nominated as WP:Listcruft, with material from Wildwood, New Jersey.  I've also identified several mayors including one already known to be notable to the list.  As a non-list article, it can be expanded, as has been shown at Mayors of Teaneck, New Jersey, to discuss the office of mayor.

Your claim that we can't merge to a redirect is erroneous.  Unscintillating ( talk) 03:17, 14 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Remove AfD template without a decision List of Mayors of Bergenfield, New Jersey.  Unscintillating ( talk) 07:04, 17 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Remove AfD template without a decision List of Mayors of Bloomfield, New Jersey.  Unscintillating ( talk) 07:04, 17 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Remove AfD template without a decision List of Mayors of Cranford, New Jersey.  Unscintillating ( talk) 07:04, 17 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Remove AfD template without a decision List of Mayors of Moorestown Township, New Jersey.  Unscintillating ( talk) 07:04, 17 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Merge to Local government of Rumson, New Jersey List of mayors of Rumson, New Jersey.  Unscintillating ( talk) 07:04, 17 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Comment Breaking the lists out from the articles on the locations allows the list, once completed, to be formatted into a sortable table without overwhelming the parent article with its size. See for example: List of mayors of Rumson, New Jersey for a fully formatted, and sortable table. -- RAN ( talk) 15:44, 17 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• The same would remain true after the list is merged to [1].  Unscintillating ( talk) 16:21, 17 December 2017 (UTC) reply

I do not have a problem with "Mayors of X", or "Local government of X" which would include the entire city councils for each year. One of the lists has a column for the other city council members. Since it will involve thousands of articles we should have an RFC to decide what to harmonize on. -- RAN ( talk) 17:13, 17 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Keep. The reason given in the proposal is that we have "no need" for the lists. I can't help but feel that the Listcruft essay, giving as it does examples like "List of dog names", "List of songs containing the sound of a woodpecker", and "List of groups of eight people", is speaking about truly fannish lists like List of Best Picture milestones, List of Welsh video games (wasn't actually a list of Welsh video games), Street Names of Los Santos in Grand Theft Auto V, and FIFA World Cup milestone goals/FIFA Women's World Cup milestone goals, not lists of mayors. Lists of mayors seem like a perfectly reasonable thing to appear in an encyclopedia, as opposed to List of Tru Calling characters, for example. Egsan Bacon ( talk) 23:03, 17 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Keep. DO NOT DELETE it is quite arbitrary to use the size of the municipality by population for deletion - if all lists like this must be merged independent of size then I will be happy to make that change for Rumson, however since it took a lot of time to accumulate this data deletion from Wikipedia just forces readers to poke around in multiple non-Wikipedia sources to create a list that already exists to no one's detriment nor in violation of Wikipedia standards.

Dalcrow ( talk) 23:11, 17 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Hello Dalcrow -- I voted to delete, but at this point I don't care. In most of these municipalities the mayor is not elected .. and they have populations under 40,000. Your argument is makes no sense to me. "The list of mayors of any town, no matter the size, should be kept because creating the list was a lot of work." If that is the new plan for WP, then lots of hard workers will create lots of trivia and once created, defend it from deletion. Of course the cutoff is arbitrary. We have 565 municipalities in New Jersey, one as small as five citizens. With no arbitrary cutoff all will be created and many will be wrong. Is that a positive contribution to the encyclopedia? Rhadow ( talk) 00:08, 18 December 2017 (UTC) reply

But we do have a cutoff, that limit being the information available from reliable sources, or WP:V along with WP:DUE.  What can deletion forums contribute to enforcing this cutoff?  I think that enforcement has to come at the point of WP:V and WP:DUE, not WP:N.  Unscintillating ( talk) 02:01, 18 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Keep Deletionism is not healthy for Wikipedia. It's the reason that Wikipedia editorship is declining. Wikipedia would benefit from getting more inclusive (as the new strategy document suggests) and not getting more exclusive. In case there's a decision to delete the lists, I would recommend to delete the text and create redirect to the major of the given city (redirects are great). Wikidata can store this kind of information and leaving the history of the item intact can allow someone to later transfer the information to Wikidata. ChristianKl ( talk) 13:42, 19 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Comment -- Hello ChristianKl -- You are making an assumption that the editor experience is more important than the reader experience. In the Rumson article, there is no reference for any mayor since 1989. On its face, it fails WP:V. When we lose sight of the quality of the product, the happiness of the staff becomes irrelevant. I'm all for stashing our work away where it can be used one day. I'm not in favor of putting potentially flawed work in the front window. That includes the list of mayors from two-horse towns. When the GNG guidelines were written, I am quite sure the vision was of multiple articles from major outlets. Today, editors argue that a single mention in the Two Horse Herald counts as substantial reliable independent coverage. We have active newspapers in my town (12,000). Do you encourage an list article from here? Rhadow ( talk) 15:35, 19 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Deleting articles is not in the interests of readers either. Any reader who would read the article likely reads it because they think reading them is useful for the reader. You patronise the reader when you want to forbid him from reading the article by deleting it.

I think the newspapers in a town are unlikely to be unrealiable when it comes to statements about who the major of the town happens to be. If you think they aren't a reliable source for getting information about who the major happens to be, could you explain your reasoning? ChristianKl ( talk) 17:44, 19 December 2017 (UTC) reply

The issues is not so much whether the local sources are reliable but whether they are notable. Although, it would be difficult to establish reliability for a small town newspaper, let's assume that it is reliable, then the question is if its reporting is of interest outside of its circulation area. A local source could be used to supplement coverage, but I don't see it as establishing notability. The problem with your philosophy of including these type of article because they may be useful is that almost every potential article is considered useful by at least one person somewhere. This pretty much green lights us to create any article without the fear of deletion. This particular article was barely looked at before I proposed deletion, it got less than 10 hits most days, so I don't think a lot of people found it useful. Not to mention usefulness is a poor argument to make to begin with, WP:USEFUL-- Rusf10 ( talk) 18:06, 19 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Do I understand you right that you agree with me that the issues brought forward by Rhadow (failing WP:V) against which I argued are warrentless? ChristianKl ( talk) 18:20, 19 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Not completely, the issue of WP:V raised by Rhadow isn't warrentless, what I'm saying it is not as important as the other issues of notability.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 18:28, 19 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Thanks for mansplaining it to me. I am patronizing? Few would make that claim if they saw me. If I understand your position, you believe a reader would prefer to read an article likely to be true than none at all. Okay, I get that. Only a few are wrong. Losing a couple of points of accuracy is like selling a Big Mac with just a couple less sesame seeds. Rhadow ( talk) 20:19, 19 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Keep All Useful and notable lists, plus, WP:HEY pages have been sourced during AfD. E.M.Gregory ( talk) 21:36, 19 December 2017 (UTC) reply

I'm sorry, but I don't believe WP:HEY applies here. Yes, the lists were made complete. Also, an opening paragraph was added with information that is already contained in the main article for each town. Neither of these changes address the issue of whether lists such as these are notable enough to warrant an article.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 23:17, 19 December 2017 (UTC) reply

the lists are useful and notable. The legitimate objections are to lists that are ill-defined, or that sources entries do not exist. Un-sourced lists are problematic, but WP:HEY: these lists are sourced. Your pretext for deletion, LISTCRUF, is not a policy. I advise you, as other editors have advised you, to learn a little more about notability and about Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists BEFORE rushing articles to AfD. Also WP:BLUDGEON. E.M.Gregory ( talk) 23:36, 19 December 2017 (UTC) reply

As Per Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists, "A person is typically included in a list of people only if all the following requirements are met: 1.The person meets the Wikipedia notability requirement. 2.The person's membership in the list's group is established by reliable sources." (emphasis mine) All of the mayors in this list are not notable. Therefore you have two options, either have the list with only the notable mayors (doesn't make must sense) or have no list at all.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 23:56, 19 December 2017 (UTC) reply

That is immediately contradicted by the next paragraph which reads: "However, if a complete list would include hundreds or thousands of entries, then you should use the notability standard to provide focus to the list." The list of mayors is in the dozens not "hundreds or thousands of [redlinked] entries" like Norwegian musicians used in the example. The wording also uses "Wikipedia notability requirement" but does not specify "Wikipedia notability requirement [for a standalone entry]" or "Wikipedia notability requirement [for inclusion on a list]" which are two different standards. A list that only contains bluelinks is called a disambiguation page. That is the beauty of any Wikipedia guide written by hundreds of people. -- RAN ( talk) 04:15, 20 December 2017 (UTC) reply

What are you talking about? There aren't two separate notability requirements. When you click on "notability requirement", it bring you directly to WP:Notability (people). And nobody said anything about redlinks/bluelinks, the members of a list need to meet the notability requirement, they don't necessarily need to have an article.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 15:36, 20 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Keep All Thoroughly documented and well-sourced lists of mayors for many municipalities in New Jersey are exactly what is described by Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists, the relevant Wikipedia guideline on this subject. Again, the nominator has made no apparent effort to address WP:BEFORE and to consider either improving these article or retaining sourced content via merge, preferring to resort to WP:LISTCRUFT, a mere essay, as the primary justification for deletion. Alansohn ( talk) 22:24, 19 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Keep All per many of the above arguments. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:40, 22 December 2017 (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.