Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of bridges known for strikes

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. Sandstein 09:26, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

List of bridges known for strikes

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Delete per WP:SYNTH - material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source. Bruxton (talk) 18:12, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Geography and Transportation. Bruxton (talk) 18:13, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep You made an argument for improving the article, not deleting it, since the article is for the most part a list of pages and not something that needs original research to exist. If the article lacked the intro section, it would probably have a similar level of usefulness. A good place to raise this issue would be the article's talk page. ForksForks (talk) 18:21, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I don't see any "conclusion" here. This article merely lists bridges that have received significant coverage on strikes. Not sure about worldwide but most struck bridge in the UK is certainly a notable topic, there is a large amount of coverage on it online. NemesisAT (talk) 18:22, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@NemesisAT: Thanks you for the rationale. My opinion is that there is no "List of bridges known for strikes" in any article. One needs to do original research to piece it together. Also what is the criteria to make the list? Does a bridge make the list if it is struck twice or five times? Bruxton (talk) 18:42, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Forgive me for butting in, please just tell me to leave it alone if you would rather I not contribute to the AFD due to my authorship.

The standard would be that the bridge is known specifically as a serial offender. So articles that generally mention that the bridge was struck would not be in scope. It would definitely be OR if we were trying to set a threshold for what bridges count, or trying to gather stats on how many times bridges get hit. This article[1] is a great example of what I'm talking about, where it documents the bridges notoriety and even gives examples of previous media coverage.

The point about being a composition of disparate things and not sourced from a central list is interesting, but based on articles I've reviewed this is not a common standard. See List of incidents at Walt Disney World and its companion articles. Generally its unreasonable to expect us to just copy a previous news outlets reporting to generate lists.

ForksForks (talk) 18:50, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You are certainly welcome and encouraged to participate here. I have really participated enough as a nominator and we can see what other editors think. At this point I would only be repeating myself. Bruxton (talk) 18:59, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One way of measuring it (and not entire objective, I appreciate) would be whether a bridge has been deemed notle (ie, has an article) and the sources on that article mostly focus on bridge strikes. NemesisAT (talk) 21:37, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I think this would be better if it was copied into the article about bridge strikes, not notable enough for a stand-alone article. Not really a merge, or is it? Oaktree b (talk) 23:18, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - This is about vehicles striking bridges, not labor strikes as I originally thought :) --MuZemike 12:48, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. This doesn't present much beyond what is already discussed at Structure gauge#Accidents. While there is information about the individual bridges being prone to strikes, I fail to see adequate sources that discuss strike-prone bridges as a group or set to meet WP:LISTN. Without that, the inclusion criteria become unclear; it becomes subjective as to how many strikes over a certain period of time are needed to be for a bridge to be considered appropriate for this list, as alluded to by Bruxton above. --Kinu ^t/_c 19:33, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Would like to reiterate that we cannot and should not be in the business of counting / gathering data. I would assert that multiple times certain bridges gain notoriety, in general, for their propensity for strikes. As noted in a lot of the articles cited, there are bridges which do far 'worse' but don't receive any attention. ForksForks (talk) 23:07, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That said this is a far better deletion argument than SYNTH ForksForks (talk) 23:08, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 09:14, 28 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. WP:NLIST guides us that One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources. So the question we need to answer is: are bridges being struck a notable thing? I think yes. And here's my sources to back that up:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/28626/bridgestrikesprofdrivers.pdf
https://dailygazette.com/2022/07/29/police-friday-morning-glenville-bridge-strikes-leads-to-citation-for-schenectady-driver/
Rail Human Factors: Supporting Reliability, Safety and Cost Reduction. (2013). United Kingdom: CRC Press. (has a section about bridge strikes)
https://trid.trb.org/view/653191
http://www.utrc2.org/sites/default/files/documents/Anil's%20Project%20spotlight_0113.pdf

In summary, this is a notable topic, covered in academic sources, news, and books. So it meets the criteria to have a list article on Wikipedia. CT55555 (talk) 02:20, 4 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Of the sources to which I have immediate access, #1 is literally a guide for truckers as to how they can prevent bridge strikes and does not mention any such bridges, and #2 is about one bridge and does not contain discussion of said bridge as part of a set. #5 does discuss the topic of bridge strikes and provides data, but does not indicate a set of examples, only naming one such bridge in the text. Do any of these sources contain lists of bridges that are prone to strikes? The question isn't whether bridge strikes are notable, per se; it's whether we as a community have adequate sources to curate a list of such bridges without resorting to synthesis. --Kinu ^t/_c 13:26, 4 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I see that you've been doing this longer than me, so I'll avoid making bold statements, noting I could be incorrect. But when I read at WP:NLIST The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been. Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable I understand that all that is needed here is to establish that bridge strikes in general are a notable thing. So I disagree, because I think the question is if bridge strikes are notable and I think he challenges of maintaining a list are real, valid concerns, but something to figure out on the talk pages, rather than a reason to delete.
Nonetheless, maybe these sources would help us reach agreement:
Sorry this is a bit of a scattergun list, but there are so many. I do note that this issue seems quite UK centric. CT55555 (talk) 13:42, 4 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 06:48, 5 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I'm convinced by CT55555's detailled reply. I'm not personally a fan of lists, and would rather have a more detailled "Bridge strike" article including a list of the worst offenders; but it seems a list is acceptable by policy, given the sources. --LordPeterII (talk) 20:57, 11 August 2022 (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.