Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Railways Africa

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. – Joe (talk) 08:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Railways Africa

Railways Africa (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Cannot find anything to substantiate WP:GNG here (having an ISSN number is not "significant coverage" nor is it proof that this is notable). The publisher of this doesn't appear to be notable either (and doesn't have an article either), so there's no where logical to redirect to; and owing to the absence of sources it wouldn't make sense to keep it on the relevant list article (in the article see also section). So there's not much else to be done but to delete this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:07, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep The continent of Africa is weakly served in many respects and so it would be systemic bias to delete this. It is generally hard to find detailed coverage of journals but we accommodate them because it is helpful to our purpose to maintain brief entries for sources of detailed information such as this. See here for a discussion of the matter. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:36, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  So again the same person compulsively voting keep on every of my nominations. WP:GNG is not optional; while WP:BIAS is just an essay and certainly doesn't override that. Something being a reliable source does not mean it's notable. And what you have found doesn't seem to be enough to meet GNG (being a two sentence mention without any kind of detail to write an article from), less so when the source of this information is "After a quick search on the Internet" (presumably, the same thing I did). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:11, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  The WP:GNG is certainly optional – it's not a policy and it plainly says so ("occasional exceptions may apply"). It was not created until 2006 and so Wikipedia got along fine without it for over 5 years. It is part of the creeping bureaucracy which is the reverse of policy per WP:IAR and WP:NOTLAW. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:55, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Comment: I'm halfway between @RandomCanadian and @Andrew on this. Andrew's argument seems to be that we should allow articles on journals/magazines/other-sources to have a dispensation from the requirements of GNG as they are the sources we use to support other articles, and WP readers should be offered further information about our sources within WP. I believe that (1) this might be sensible, but ought to be decided at a bigger forum than AfD on a single article, and (2) if so, it should only apply to journals etc. that genuinely are sources, not to everything that might conceivably be a source. I do not know whether statistics exist on how often a particular journal has been cited in WP, or whether such a thing is technically possible. In effect, Andrew's argument comes down to "This magazine is not the subject of secondary sources, but it is used in tertiary sources (WP!), so it is notable to WP readers"; this requires proof that the magazine is used in tertiary sources, proof analogous to the normal requirement for secondary sources. I think??? Not sure if any of that makes sense??? Elemimele (talk) 12:34, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  My understanding that we are more relaxed about sourcing for such topics arises from hearing editors like DGG talk in this vein. He was a professional librarian and so tends to look at things like impact factors and library holdings. Me, I just take a more commonsense view that we're better off having a stub about this periodical than not. Then, if we cite it we can link to it and so help readers understand its nature and standing. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:55, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as fails WP:GNG and as it stands sounds promotional. Can find no secondary sources discussing the publication. It is listed by neither SCImago Journal Rank nor Scopus - so no impact factor etc. A look here does not reveal any usage on WP either. The source provided by Andrew is not worth anything (someone in an unreliable source saying they once googled the magazine is not much of an endorsement). Not that it means much but my institution’s library doesn’t hold this in hard or soft copy and we have a large transport research area. Even with the most generous of reviews this doesn’t cut it. Vladimir.copic (talk) 13:59, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, this is a trade publication, not an academic publication perse and is cited in the examples below. That and pragmatic common sense (WP:DEFUNCTNEWS), a publication that has existed for over 50 years and is cited in various peer reviewed academic journals, suggest it is more likely than not – notable. Though written sources are still required to be able to write an article. I enclosed some examples where Railways Africa articles are referenced in other articles.

• 2003 Railways Africa article mentioned in Transit conference
• Thomas, David P. (2013-01-01). "The Gautrain project in South Africa: a cautionary tale". Journal of Contemporary African Studies. 31 (1): 77–94. doi:10.1080/02589001.2013.747292. ISSN 0258-9001.
• Amadi, Henry (2016), Nyeck, S.N. (ed.), "The Governance of Concessionary Assets: A Review of the Partnership Between Kenya and the Rift Valley Railways Consortium", Public Procurement Reform and Governance in Africa, Contemporary African Political Economy, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 313–333, doi:10.1057/978-1-137-52137-8_14, ISBN 978-1-137-52137-8, retrieved 2021-09-10

~ Shushugah (he/him • talk) 16:06, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Great WP:BEFORE work here - unfortunately this small smattering of references to individual articles in the publication is too weak to persuade me. There is still a huge WP:V issue with using such weak sources justifying WP:GNG. Currently the article is two sentences neither of which can be verified with a secondary source. The phrase " the leading if not only publication" does not really give confidence in the reliability of this page and just sounds promotional. Without secondary sources talking about the publication we cannot even verify any of the information other editors are using to justify a keep vote. Vladimir.copic (talk) 06:16, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per Andrew Davidson and Shushugah. If the claim of being "the leading if not only publication covering railways in Africa and the Middle East" is correct, it is important to keep this for our coverage of African topics. NemesisAT (talk) 17:02, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Africa-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 19:13, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Middle East-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 19:13, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 19:13, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep The present article is barebones and needs cleanup, but I believe the publication meets notability guidelines. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:16, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. The actual policy is NOT INDISCRIMINATE, and we are not being indiscriminate if we keep the major publication in a important field of human affairs. the GNG is a guideline interpreting NOTINDISRIMINATE. The reason guidelines are called guidelines is because they are just guides to fulfilling policy. They have exceptions that do not require invoking via IAR. As it says at the top of the guideline box at the top of the GNG page, "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." Making sure we have an article on the leading publication of a subject is not the usual case which we discuss here. (even policy is of course subject to IAR, of course, but we properly are very reluctant to use it, and there is no need to use it here). Consensus to keep is a sufficient reason. Incidentally, if we did want to find sources to meet gng, I would suggest looking in textbooks about operating or constructing railroads in Africa, some of which will discuss important publications. No Worldcat library has such a book. I did a thorough enough search to find 3 textbooks about railroads in India--but not Africa. DGG ( talk ) 00:16, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• @DGG - Just revisiting this discussion. I am not sure what you believe justifies this article circumventing guidelines. No one can provide any reliable sources saying this is a major publication in an important field. I could create a website and associated social media profiles for a publication called "African Railways" saying it started publication in 1953, publishes 7 times a year and is the leading publication in its field. It would be just as notable and only slightly less verifiable than this article. Vladimir.copic (talk) 04:42, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

you could create one, but WorlCat would not include it [1]. nor would it show up in the catalogs of the libraries that hold it, and confirm the publication dates. Nor would i d GoogleScholar link to three articles in it [2]. You;re confusing WP:V, which is policy with the guidelines for when we make an article in it, we our practice has always been enormously wider than GNG., or we would have almost no articles ontrade magazines or small newspapers. WP is an encyclopedia , and an encyclopedia , among other things, is a guide to resources. GNG is a guideline, and we followguidelines onl hwen they're appropriate.

• So to understand - the arguments for keep so far are:

1. WorldCat shows golbally 11 universities (at some point) hold/held this publication from 1992 onwards (from this we cannot verify the 1954 date)
2. Google Scholar shows that articles within the publication have been referenced 3 times.
3. That this is "the major publication in a important field of human affairs" despite no sources making this claim (not even the magazine's website!) so we should ignore WP:GNG.
4. It would be biased to not have this article

I bring up WP:V because without having sources to verify the article contents all we have it an ISSN and a title to which I say: WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Or, we believed the promotional copy on the publication's website and do a bit of free advertising for them. To write the article with only verifiable information it would be: "Railways Africa is a publication with the ISSN 1029-2756. According to WorldCat it has been or is held by at least 11 institutions and has been references in at least 3 academic papers." Vladimir.copic (talk) 07:27, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academic journals-related deletion discussions. Vladimir.copic (talk) 06:21, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of News media-related deletion discussions. Vladimir.copic (talk) 06:21, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. African or not, covering an important subject or not, what we need are independent sources on which to base an article (WP:V). As for systemic bias, that is a term often used loosely and, I think, incorrectly. Systemic bias is if we would apply different criteria to magazines from Africa (or articles about women, or minorities, etc) to make it more different for them than for European or American magazines to meet our criteria. Here the case is actually the reverse, if this were a magazine about US railways, most people !voting "keep" above would without hesitation !vote "delete". Systemic bias can be avoided if we apply the same criteria regardless origin. Unless sources can be found to verify what we write about this magazine, this should be deleted. --Randykitty (talk) 08:35, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Randykitty You and I geerally, agree, but we cannot avoid systemic bias in covering publications if we make no allowance for the lack of availability in practice for most sources that might exist; that's one of the direct meaning of systemic bias: our geographically limited knowledge. DGG ( talk ) 06:41, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per Andrew Davidson, DDG, and Shushugah. At some point we have to step back and ask, which wikipedia is better? The wikipedia that allows content on reliable publications/media that we use as sources, but which may lack enough multiple RS on the publication/media itself to pass WP:N, or the wikipedia which deletes such content by maintaining rigorous adherence to our notability policies when it comes to covering this topic area? I would argue that inclusion of information about the sources we use creates better transparency for our readers in evaluating the content of the articles they are consuming. It is therefore a better service to our readers to include this content. As such, this is one of the few times at an AFD where I think the policy Wikipedia:Ignore all rules and WP:5P5 should be routinely invoked.4meter4 (talk) 19:47, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But Railways Africa has never been used as a source on WP? See my above comment. In which case, this line of reasoning makes no sense. Vladimir.copic (talk) 22:22, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Now that it as been called to our attention, maybe we should. This is an area where we need more coverage. The print is not easy to find, but most of recent material is online. DGG ( talk ) 23:49, 18 September 2021 (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.