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 - keep. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 20:22, 23 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of environment topics[edit]

This is the root page to a series of "environmental lists". According to WP:NOT#LINK WP is not a "mere collections of internal links". Also the pages are redundant since there is a categorisation system and a search function. The pages do not add any extra functionality to WP since they cover vast numbers of topics over a broad range making it difficult to arrive at a particular article of interest. Alan Liefting 09:27, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am also nominating the following related pages because they all have the same problems:

Alan Liefting 09:59, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding added functionality, maybe some people are still using these lists as topic specific watchlists (like this). --Van helsing 09:49, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Surely releated changes for Category:Environment at [1] does fairly much the same thing? Alan Liefting 04:35, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah... it does... sort of slightly didn’t know that... useful.--Van helsing 10:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all per nom; categories are better than unwieldy lists. Groupthink 10:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, much better served by categories. Arkyan  ^(talk) 15:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all or merge back to List of environment topics. This is not "a mere collection of internal links." The lists have substantial annotation, allowing users to find or avoid articles in a way that category pages do not. The lists also include articles that have an environmental connection in only one section, which might make them unsuitable for environmental categories.--Hjal 16:12, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If these articles were merged into List of environment topics the resulting article would be so large as to be unwieldy. A combination of the search function, the categorisation system and internal links from environmental articles is a more efficient method of using WP rather than using these lists. Alan Liefting 20:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Delete per above + my comment at the related AfD nomination.--Svetovid 23:42, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all per above and same reasons as on this related AfD. MarkBA ^t/c/@ 23:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To anyone who supposes that I have been demonstrating cognitive slippage in expanding the list of environment topics, I wish to point out that my sense of inclusiveness was guided, in part, by the main entries in the book Dictionary of the Environment (ISBN 0-8442-0931-7), although Wikipedia may have different standards for including topics.

In the view of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming, global warming might seem not to belong in the list. Likewise, people differ in their knowledge and beliefs about other topics on the list.

To anyone who has an "all-or-none" view of Wikipedia lists in general, I wish to point out that Wikipedia does have many useful lists and a guideline for them.

To anyone who has an "all-or-nothing" view of the list of environment topics, I wish to point out that the list was started by 142.177.108.62 on 28 August 2003 with 4 topics; that the list had 49 topics listed before I made my first registered contribution to it on 4 June 2005; and that deletion of the article would delete the work of others prior to me. Incidentally, I found most of the added topics by searching from Z to A and from 1000 to 2099 in Wikipedia:Quick index from mid-2005 to mid-2006, and during that time the number of articles in Wikipedia doubled from about 500,000 to about 1,000,000.

The following external non-mirror pages link to the list_of_environment_topics:

http://www.ourquads.com/coal.htm

http://www.khake.com/page46

http://www.huge-entity.com/2005/07/is-g8-too-late.html

http://www.juliantrubin.com/encyclopedia/environment/bioremediation.html

http://www.juliantrubin.com/encyclopedia/biotechnology/biotechnology.html

http://www.utenvironment.org/sustainabilitycourse/

http://educate-yourself.org/lte/wilipediachemtraildisinfo18feb07.shtml

http://cosco.hiit.fi/search/wikipedia400-1205/show_topic_id_54.html

http://cosco.hiit.fi/search/wikipedia400-1205/show_topic_id_385.html

http://cosco.hiit.fi/search/wikipedia400-1205/show_topic_id_136.html

http://cosco.hiit.fi/search/wikipedia400-1205/show_topic_id_304.html

http://cosco.hiit.fi/search/wikipedia400-1205/show_topic_id_132.html

http://www.planetfriendly.net/active.html

http://www.directopedia.org/directory/Science-Environment/Biodiversity.shtml

http://protectionsquare.info/Topics.aspx

http://tpu.bluemountains.net/keyword.php?w=contaminants

Therefore, I propose, as an alternative to deletion, a drastic reduction of the list, a return to a one-page format, and possibly a revision or replacement of the introduction. Afterward, measures can be put in place to prevent or control any expansion of the list.

If the list is going to be deleted, I wish to thank Wikipedia for allowing me to contribute in some measure to public awareness about environment topics. Also, I apologize for any negative effect my contributions have had. -- Wavelength 13:04, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are no accusations of cognitive slippage being made. I put the articles up for deletion for the reasons mentioned in the original nomination. There will alway be a line drawn as to whether an article should be included in a list or category and that varies depending on the editor. Some of the articles in the list have only a small part that is relevant to Category:Environment. It should also be noted that the word environment in the context of the category is the effect of human activity on the biosphere. The lists up for deletion contain entries which are simply natural science related articles, e.g. 1887 Atlantic hurricane season in the List of environment topics:0-9. It is irrelevant that external websites link to specific WP articles. It is up to the individual webmasters to keep their pages updated with changes made to WP articles just like it is up to WP editors to check for dead links from WP articles. Alan Liefting 03:04, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The introduction which I wrote for each page of the multi-page list of environment topics refers to a "definite or significantly possible connection" between human activity and the natural environment. The article 1887 Atlantic hurricane season is relevant for investigating the history of connections between industrialization and climate change. Links from external websites are an indication of interest on the part of their webmasters, and therefore a suggestion of interest on the part of Wikipedia readers. -- Wavelength 21:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep A well-maintained list. the category system is not the only valid way to organize, and lists such as this supplement it nicely. It is useful to have a convenient way of seeing missing or deleted articles, especially since so many articles do get accidentally or unfairly deleted. Excellent for browsing, and shows the range of our coverage. DGG 08:37, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For another example of multiple ways to organize information, please see list of countries by population and list of countries by population (graphical). -- Wavelength 21:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions. -- ⇒ bsnowball 11:20, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all per nom.--Tone 16:38, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep This list is well-maintained and has been around for four years, watched, organized and maintained. If changed to categories someone will simply nominate them for deletion, and suggest they be changed to a list. Did you ask the list maintainers if they serve any functionality, or just assume they didn't without discusion? KP Botany 18:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Longevity is not necessarily a reason to keep an article. Whether they are organised is debatable. The are organised as any topic remotely connected to the Earth. With the word environment in the article title I feel that the articles sould be related to List of environmental issues. The list maintainers were notified via the AfD box at the top of all the articles up for deletion. Also, if they were bing watched the change would have been noticed. There was a discussion about functionality some time ago. It seems that the extra functionality given to WP is fairly minimal. Alan Liefting 23:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per KP. There is something odd going on where categories are deleted cause lists exist and lists are deleted cause categoriess exist. Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:23, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. While I agree that WP policy needs to be clarified regarding whether lists or cats are preferred, as far as this AfD goes, that's neither here nor there. Groupthink 08:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Question If a list does indeed duplicate a category, or should be replaced by a category, why not redirect the list to the category (and thus keep the edit history of the list which could be used to maintain the category) instead of deleting the list and all its history? DHowell 05:50, 23 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. List is well annotated, and categories are not. No harm in having both. —Pengo 10:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The annotation is sometimes simply an abbreviation for an article name (in which case a redirect should exist for it), sometimes it is a rewording of the article name. The WP search function should be able to catch most queries. Wading through a large number of lists is tedious - searchin is fast. Searching through databases is what computers are for. Alan Liefting 22:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per other Lists of topics, or Move to project space so that people who found it useful can still use it. --Quiddity 20:06, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the main page and maybe merge at least some of the rest into a more manageable number of pages. Some letters (e.g. X, Y, Z) only have a few entries, and each page unnecessarily duplicates a large opening section. Other than that it serves as a "structured list to assist with the organisation of articles", which WP:NOT#LINK explicitly allows. See also WP:LIST. DHowell 05:04, 23 June 2007 (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.