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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. v/r - TP 15:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Smithfield, Hong Kong

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Smithfield, Hong Kong (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Lack of notability. The street is a typical Hong Kong street, mostly residential with a few shops. There's little to write about it so the article is padded out with unsourced material and OR about the street name and the district. The references are all government reports concerning it, i.e. primary sources, + some OR by an editor. No reliable secondary sources, certainly nothing that establishes notability. JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 03:35, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. I have reworked the article. Please have a look at it and you might reassess your opinion about it. It still can be improved, with the removal of original research. Besides, it would be quite a stretch to consider the documents titled "Official Report of Hong Kong Legislative Council Proceedings", used to document historical facts, as unreliable or biased in this context. olivier (talk) 11:48, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I did not say they are unreliable but they are not reliable secondary sources. Government documents are primary sources. They do not establish notability, and are used to so much together with observations 'in situ' by an editor they make almost all the article original research. Your reworking has done little to address this.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 12:05, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • My reworking did probably more for the good of Wikipedia than your 2 seconds AfD'ing of the article. The street is one of the main streets of Kennedy Town and its history gives a valuable insight into the history of the area. I have added a list of features in the street and the history section is now readable. I have also added external references, including one from a scholarly source. The original research is now segregated into separate paragraphs, and not mixed with the information extracted from the government archives (1901 to 1986). The article still needs improvement and digging a bit more should yield more secondary source references (the search is made more difficult because of the London namesake). Still, I believe that it would not justify a deletion. olivier (talk) 12:35, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oliver, I don't think you understand. The core question is wheterh or not the article has established that the SUBJECT meets the criteria set in WP:notability And, the main requirement there is showing secondary sources which have given the subject in-depth coverage. North8000 (talk) 14:06, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I do very much understand and I would even say that you can tag 80% of the Wikipedia articles by following this rule strictly. Now I am also saying that it is not because these references are not there yet, that they do not exist, especially in Chinese language literature.olivier (talk) 14:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Hong Kong-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 15:58, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 15:59, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - There are certainly plenty of secondary sources to write an very full article and that is what has been done (great work, Oliver). Government sources are considered usable sources per WP:NOTABILITY. They would only be "primary" if the article topic was the Hong Kong government. --Oakshade (talk) 23:49, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The topic is the Hong Kong Government in that the bulk of the references are some branch of government writing about its activities. Three other references are observations by 'the author', i.e. an editor. Maybe four are secondary sources. Two don't mention the street at all, the other two mention it incidentally or only mention its name. --JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 00:33, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article is about a street, not a government. If the street published the Smithfield, Hong Kong, the Autobiography, that would be the primary source. Anyways, you're missing the point, Government sources are considered reliable sources per WP:NOTABILITY.--Oakshade (talk) 00:48, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • where does it indicate that government proceedings are reliable secondary sources? I don't know that Hong Kong government proceedings have ever been discussed, but a discussion on Hansard here indicates that it a primary source. The problem with such sources are twofold. First such proceedings are not checked, leading to problems like we see in the first paragraph where two contradictory measurements are used as sources for the length of the street. Second it would be surprising if a street was not mentioned a score times in 110 years of government proceedings, but such mentions do not establish notability. Where is the Significant coverage of the street required by the GNG?--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 17:05, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here. And it appears that Hansard reports are indeed extremely reliable sources, in that case more so than secondary sources. For the purposes of notability, secondary sources are preferred so we don't rely on self-aggrandizing or advertisement publications by the topic like press-releases, rather than coverage by secondary sources to demonstrate notability. As for this topic, the source has made no publications. The Hong Kong government is not the street. --Oakshade (talk) 19:29, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • that says 'reports by government agencies', not everything written by government, and some things written by government are very unreliable. But it is not reliability that is the problem; it's that as records of proceedings like Hansard they are primary sources. The general notability guideline (to which that is the footnote) says ' "Sources",[2] for notability purposes, should be secondary sources'. But coverage in secondary sources here is minimal: two don't even mention the street.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 20:47, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • You're hung up on this strange notion that this article should be deleted because many of the sources are from the Hong Kong government and those sources are primary sources. If this article was the Government of Hong Kong, then yes, sources by the Government of Hong Kong would be primary sources. But this article is not about the Government of Hong Kong. It's about a street. The Government of Hong Kong sources are secondary to the street. This isn't rocket science. --Oakshade (talk) 20:04, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • To quote from WP:PSTS: "Primary sources are very close to an event, often accounts written by people who are directly involved, offering an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on.". And these are political decisions, to e.g. rename the street, move the slaughterhouse, in the words of those who made the decisions.
  • But that is not my main concern. My main concern is the lack of notability of the street, independent of e.g. the district. Where is the significant coverage of the street, required for notability?
  • To also quote from WP:PSTS: "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." Let's not cherry pick sentences from policies to invent a meaning that doesn't fit the policy. That quote, even if it was relevant, refers to an "event." This street is not an "event." It's a street. Again, this isn't rocket science. An for notability, there is no banning of coverage that is "political." --Oakshade (talk) 19:30, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do not think I am cherry picking: even if I were to copy and paste the whole paragraph the words "significant coverage" are highlighted as the first thing in the paragraph, itself the first of five that make up the general notability guideline. Nor am I wikilawyering: these are the same concerns I had when I proposed this article for deletion and they still haven't been addressed. Where is the significant coverage of the street? All I can see in the references is trivial mentions or no mention at all of the street.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 19:52, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you were to copy and paste all of WP:PSTS, which is what you were copying and pasting from, then the true meaning of it instead if your invented meaning would been shown. In your last response you seem to be referring to WP:GNG, not WP:PSTS. You're under the false impression that "significant coverage" needs to be a huge amount of content from one source. It doesn't. You can have a rather small amount of coverage from multiple sources and cumulatively that is significant coverage. WP:GNG even states: "The number and nature of reliable sources needed varies depending on the depth of coverage and quality of the sources." In this case the number of sources giving coverage to this topic, most beyond the scope of "passing mention," is huge.--Oakshade (talk) 20:44, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The underlying principle is notability. A topic is notable if it has "gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time". For a road that definitely does not include the proceedings of the bureaucrats whose job it is to take care of the road. Again, where is the significant secondary coverage required for notability?--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 10:19, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • You stated in the AfD: "The street is a typical Hong Kong street, mostly residential with a few shops. There's little to write about it." This statement that was based on your personal opinion, at a time when the article was in need of improvement, is obviously inaccurate and we haven't even tapped into the Chinese sources yet. The article is now an obvious Keep. Could be improved but Keep. Remember that there is no deadline, and once it is clear that enough can be found in the future to make this a great article, this is enough to stop arguing about the viability of the article. Contrarily to you, I have done a substantial effort to dig into sources and even considered alternatives, like merging the content. By looking for sources, I have found a massive amount of them that can be added in the future. So if you want to keep arguing until this article makes it to GA, you can, but you that should be done in the framework of a constructive GA process, not disruptively in this AfD. olivier (talk) 08:10, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep It seems to me that the only issue is whether it is encyclopaedic. Upon reading the article, I am enlightened by the facts about this little quarter of Hong Kong; the information is further backed up by reliable sources, so it passes muster, IMHO. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 08:33, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Will you also find a discussion from 2010, where people were insulting and threatening each other inconclusively (as was the case in the Hansard discussion you mentioned to support your point), to justify that only the main street of an area (which in your opinion is Belcher's Street in the case of Kennedy town) should be in Wikipedia? olivier (talk) 21:09, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sorry, I'm not clear what your point is [Oliver]. My point was that there is already an article about the district. This street should be included if it is notable in its own right. And population does not establish notability, otherwise all streets in Hong Kong should have an article – this street isn't that densely populated as it is uninhabited for much of its length.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 21:48, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let me clarify the point I made, and to which you just responded:
    • Kennedy Town as an area, has its own article. That's not a reason for its streets not to have their own article, as you implied. One way to deal with minor streets is to merge the limited content of their article into the article of the area. You did not point in that direction, rather only requesting the article to be deleted. ie. the content to be erased. Such a situation was dealt with in the case of Mong Kok, where several streets are described by a paragraph and don't have their own article. The material contained in the Smithfield article is too large to fit in a paragraph or two, and simply erasing it would be a loss of valuable information.
    • You stated that Belcher's Street is "the" main street of Kennedy Town. That's your opinion. The street's article only states that it is "a" main street in Kennedy Town. Arguably, Catchick Street or Kennedy Town New Praya could bear the title. Even Smithfield is a reasonable candidate for being "the" main street of Kennedy Town, since it contains the Smithfield Municipal Services Building and will be the site of Kennedy Town Station.
    • You pointed to the discussion here, which took place last year, about the British Hansard to justify that the Hong Kong government archives are primary sources. There was no consensus in this discussion, and it was sufficiently heated for users to resort to "uncivil accusations". So again, drawing conclusions from this discussion is based on your point of view. Besides, the sources given in the Smithfield articles are essentially matter-of-fact archives, only remotely comparable to the Hansard.
    • If your goal is to make a point about the reliability of government archives, and whether they should be viewed as primary or secondary sources, that's not the appropriate place to debate it. You should bring the topic to the discussion pages about sources. The Hansard discussion that you pointed to clearly indicates that there is no consensus. olivier (talk) 10:31, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: The article has too much detailed information to merge into Kennedy Town because I feel it will give a biased weight towards this street where as others within the area are equally important. Looking at the content and multiple sources (and yes ... I do think the refs are reliable too) listed I am satisfied that this should be kept.--Michaela den (talk) 13:28, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - There's secondary source relating to Smithfield area: The Making of Hong Kong: From Vertical to Volumetric by Barrie Shelton, Justyna Karakiewicz, Thomas Kvan, p142. STSC (talk) 02:32, 18 September 2011 (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.
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