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 AfD failed. In a mass nomination like this, every article involved must be tagged with the ((afd)) template, so that everyone involved in the article has the chance to have their say. This is not my opinion, in fact it's almost contrary to my own opinion - but deletion review overturned a similar mass deletion here for exactly that reason, resulting in a lot of wasted time - List of United States musicians, which encompassed about a hundred sub-articles (two for each state). I argued against that result, but that doesn't change the fact that consensus on this issue of process is against me here.

In this AfD, only the root List of hospitals was tagged. Consensus exists to delete that, but deleting that alone would be absurd, and any consensus on the rest is null.

I'm sorry that I have to be the one to say this when everyone has wasted their time discussing, but I'm disappointed that none of the participants in this AfD noticed earlier before it became too late. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 19:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of hospitals[edit]

Important: I am also nominating every article linked to from this page.
I am not entirely sure whose bad idea this was. We do not need a list of every non notable hosptial in the entire world. Wikipedia is not a directory, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Just to give a small sample of the 150+ articles I'm nominating:

• List of hospitals in Africa
• List of hospitals in Egypt
• List of hospitals in Liechtenstein.
  -- Steel 11:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Laughing Delete - worthless list per WP:NOT. Moreschi 12:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Teaching hospitals (those affiliated with a medical school) are generally notable, and so are many community hospitals. Lists of hospitals are valuable because many notable hospitals (particularly those in countries where the dominant language is not English) do not have articles, and the redlinks in the lists serve as a useful reminder of where articles need to be created. --TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 13:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I'm sorry, but I fail to see how something this List of hospitals in Egypt is anything but a directory, prohibited by WP:NOT. It even gives telephone numbers!! Surely WP:PROD is appropriate for this list: it's a flagrant violation of policy. Moreschi 13:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If a hospital is notable, you create an article on it. What you don't do is create 150 articles listing every hospital in existence when only a tiny fraction are worth talking about. -- Steel 13:16, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong delete - there is no "YP" in Wikipedia, please help us keep it this way. Michael K. Edwards 13:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom. *drew 14:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep You are nominating 150 articles? That's a tad excessive, and hospitals are hardly less inherently notable than high schools, and there are swarms of lists about them. If you want to adjust the list to only cover notable hospitals, that'd be something worth discussing, but I'm not aware of any explicit policies on hospitals. I think it would be better to discuss that first, then tackle the list. FrozenPurpleCube 15:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment That sounds like a good reason to delete the school lists per WP:NOT.--Isotope23 21:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Well said. I see nothing notable about the lists of high schools either. =Axlq 04:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that's a position which you could successfully develop as a consensus, but you're welcome to try if you want to stick your hands into that beartrap. FrozenPurpleCube 21:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What, no consensus on School Articles??? Where is your sense of optimism? I'd do it, but I'm mostly retired from the school debate.--Isotope23 00:02, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong keep Many hospitals are very important and lists can be organised and annotated in ways that categories cannot. Merchbow 15:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • If a hospital is notable, it would have its own article, and any annotations and other facts can then be in the article. The listings in the category pages is sufficient. =Axlq 03:51, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oh, I see. Everything that's notable already has an article on Wikipedia. Why are we bothering to be here at all then? Once again, lists are a useful way of seeing what does and does not have an article. They ARE NOT superseded by categories. -- Necrothesp 09:32, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, everything that's notable should have an article, or at least a stub. And in this case, the list is better served by a category listing. The list in question is nothing more than a "yellow pages" directory, and that's not what Wikipedia is for. =Axlq 16:00, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete: Wikipedia is not the Yellow Pages. DCEdwards1966 16:12, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete sorry to those voting Keep, but this is thoroughly ridiculous. Danny Lilithborne 16:29, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Many hospitals are notable, and have articles, but even the best-known ones are mostly stubs. But categorizing a hospital as a hospital adds nothing, and listing hospitals as hospitals adds little. If I were looking for a hospital in a new city, I would Google to find hospitals and their ratings, so I can't see what purpose the state listings serves.Edison 17:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep lists by country, but not this particular list or lists by continent (it's better to use categorisation than superlists). As usual, lists perform a useful function by indicating what does and does not have an article. Only major hospitals should be listed though. -- Necrothesp 17:43, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete all per WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a directory Individual articles on notable hospitals is one thing, but many of these are directory style lists, or when you drill down they are lists by state/city just naming the hospital or redlinks. Even where they are bluelinks, something like Category:Hospitals in Maryland is infinitely more useful. It looks like alot of work went into this, but there just isn't much value here.--Isotope23 21:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - my fingers walked, and said - WP:NOT applies. QuiteUnusual 22:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete all ~150 of them per WP:NOT (an indiscriminate collection of information, a phone directory, etc.). ergot 19:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy Delete. This vote applies to the subject article and all articles linked therein. =Axlq 04:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom. Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo 03:41, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delte List of hospitals and Keep all others. The lists serve to list identify notable institutions that need articles. If the vote is to delete, then there are a lot of similar lists that can be nominated for the same reason. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vegaswikian (talk • contribs)
• Keep all 150 of them. Too many blue links in the collection to justify wholesale deletion. Lists are never redundant with categories. AndyJones 10:50, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, wikipedia needs to list every notable hospital in the world. Until we have separate, unmerged articles for all of them, lists will have to serve that function. After that point, annotated and organized lists will still be more useful than the plain lists generated by the category software. Kappa 07:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Aside from notability concerns (which aren't that relevant) these can be better handled by categories and Wikipedia is not a directory. I see no major benefit by having so many red links especially when many of these are not notable enough to justify having their own articles anyways. JoshuaZ 15:05, 26 October 2006 (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.