Talk:Index of underwater divers

Typo in "annotated link"

There is a mistake in the text of the annotated link for Victor F. Guiel Jr. I don't know how to find or fix this, so I'll note it here. The word "accident" is missing a 'c'. Also, it looks as though the name of the vessel is misspelled. It looks like it's capital W, capital L, small d-r-a-k-e - Jkgree (talk) 21:23, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Looks like it has been fixed · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 08:27, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Concerning the deletion nomination

On 19 February 2024, this article was nominated for deletion, putting this helpful navigation aid and reference work, and the extensive effort that went into its development and maintenance, at risk.

Below, is a close analysis of the nomination, and issues related to it, to help better understand the situation and to be more fully prepared in case anything similar happens in the future...

The nomination was "Don't need a comprehensive list of all notable underwater divers, this is what Category:Underwater divers and its subcategories are for. Fails WP:NOTDIRECTORY."

This is an example of a battle in the age old categories versus lists war. This conflict has been going on since the creation of the category system. The category system was introduced in 2004.[1] (Wikipedia was created near the beginning of 2001).[2]

For navigation, before categories, the encyclopedia had lists (and still does), including item lists and topics lists. Item lists present a class of things, such as in the List of dog breeds. Topics lists, which technically are a type of item list (topics are items), list the subtopics of a subject. There are two types of topics lists: alphabetical indexes and hierarchical outlines, though the terms "Outline" and "Index" weren't introduced into article titles until 15 June 2008 [3] and 28 March 2009 [4], respectively. (To find the rest that weren't renamed using those terms, search for articles with the word "topics" in their titles).

The very first list on Wikipedia was its 8th article, created on 16 Jan 2001. So, lists have been on Wikipedia since its 2nd day in existence.[5] (HomePage was the first article on Wikipedia, created on 15 Jan 2001, and is now the Main Page).

Wikipedia's first list was "CountriesOfTheWorld", which was later renamed to "Countries of the World", and is now titled List of sovereign states.

The list system was not replaced by categories, and still exists today, much larger and more developed than ever. Though, they have been under near continual attack, by editors who prefer the category system, ever since categories arrived on the scene.

Why?

Redundancy.

There is a natural tendency to want to streamline navigation to make it more efficient. Having a single navigation system would, in theory, reduce the amount of work required to have multiple navigation systems.

But, things haven't turned out that way, because the category system is flawed. Wikipedia has many list-based navigation systems: more than 30 of them.[6] They haven't been removed in favor of categories, because categories can't provide the same benefits that the other types of lists deliver.

Wikipedia's categories do some things well, but monumentally fail in other ways.[7] Here are some of the ways that categories fall short of conventional page-based lists:

• Categories don't have edit histories – Being decentralized (generated from tags spread out all over Wikipedia), categories have no edit histories, and therefore, there is no simple way to track changes to them. When an article is removed from a category, it just vanishes, with no record of its removal in the category page's history. This makes quality control extremely difficult if not impossible. List pages, on the other hand, have edit histories, and can be monitored via Wikipedia's watchlist feature.
• Categories don't support annotations – They're just bare link lists. With page-based lists, you have the option of adding descriptions and comments to the items in a list. This makes lists better for topic selection, and a more useful educational tool to speed learning of what things are.
• Categories are chopped up into subcategories – This makes them very difficult to work with. To see a whole category you may have to visit dozens or even hundreds of pages. If you need to copy a category for some other use, you have to painstakingly copy/paste the link list from all those pages! With a list article, it's all on one page, and all you have to do to browse a list is scroll down it, and you can copy and paste the whole thing in a single operation.
• ...among many others.

So then, why do deletion nominations, that proclaim "we don't need a particular list because we have categories", sometimes succeed? Here are some possibilities:

1. Disregard – some editors may feel strongly that all we need are categories, and have it in for the alternatives.
2. Ignorance – the participants in the deletion discussion may not be aware of the points presented above, or of the relevant guidelines.
3. Lack of vigilance – editors who understand the issues involved may not be available or aware that a particular list is up for deletion. And, those who are don't usually communicate these facts.
4. Lack of click-through – editors often provide links or shortcuts to policies and guidelines in deletion discussions, while many discussion participants may read their responses without clicking on the links to get the whole picture. This makes it hard for those policies and guidelines to sink in.
5. Tedium – defending lists over and over again, against the same arguments is difficult and time consuming.

It is much easier to destroy than it is to build and maintain. Lists are subject to deletion in the face of category favoritism, and because of this, lists have become plagued by the two-steps-forward-one-step-back phenomenon.

What are some solutions?

1. Head them off at the pass – In order to nominate a list for deletion, the nominator must post a notice at the top of the article itself. In order to do that, they have to click the edit button. If there is a <!--comment--> at the top of the edit page, explaining the purpose of the page and citing the guidelines for that page type, they'll see it, and it may help prevent knee-jerk deletion attempts. All the outlines have such a notice on their edit pages, for example, right at the top.
2. Quote the rules – In deletion debates, instead providing policy or guideline links and shortcuts, quote the relevant passages right there in the deletion discussion. Presence is a powerful factor, and that applies to guidelines just as it applies to people. When the reasons are right there in one's face, they are much harder to ignore. And, it's a matter of convenience for participants: clicking on a link disrupts the flow of reading, and so many users simply read on past links; having the reasons right there allows them to just keep reading in a continuous smooth flow. And, it saves them from having to read the entire guideline. So, don't hide the reasons behind links. It also helps keep the deletion discussion historically accurate: guidelines change over time, which may change the context of its link, or make it no longer apply at all. Quoting the relevant passages, locks them into the debate for when people refer to the deletion discussion page years later.
3. Templates – Have stock answers ready as boilerplate (templates) stored as subpages of your user page. Then post them in your deletion debate responses using {{subst|(pagename goes here)}}, and then edit as needed. Be sure to include the full name of the page, including namespace. This can save you loads of time.
4. Reach the nom – Often, a nominator will simply post a deletion nomination and disappear, and not even participate in the deletion discussion that they started. In such cases, after you've made the case for keeping the list, to the best of your ability, you can ask the nominator to withdraw the nomination at the end of your post, and ping them. Or, you can post a message on their talk page alerting them to responses they may wish to consider at the deletion discussion they started. Sometimes, especially with relatively new editors, and editors not fully familiar with the purposes of lists, will change their minds and withdraw the nomination.
5. Take it to Deletion Review – Deletion review is one of Wikipedia's appellate courts. There, they're all about the rules and proper procedure. If the folks at Articles for Deletion disregarded the rules (policies and guidelines), and deleted an article anyways, they didn't follow proper procedure. The editors at Deletion Review will probably reverse the deletion. But, Deletion Review is not a place for simply rehashing a deletion discussion: you have to keep your request within the bounds of procedure and explain how the deletion process got screwed up, such as:
   • "deleted an accepted page type on the grounds it was that type of page".
   • "no valid grounds whatsoever". Such as predominantly all "I don't like it" votes.
   • "all the closer did was count votes, rather than take actual policy into consideration."
   • "a deletion discussion about an individual page is not the proper venue for arguing against the existence of an entire class of article."

To sum up, the main gist of the above is "don't take it lying down." Push back against category favoritism.

I hope the above observations and comments help you in thinking about this recurrent problem. Please feel free to ask questions, point out anything I missed, and to continue this discussion...

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   20:55, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

P.S.: @Pbsouthwood: ping.

"Fails WP:NOTDIRECTORY"

Above, I countered the "all we need is categories" argument, and forgot to address this one.

The policy Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a directory, does not apply to topics lists (outlines and indexes) because those are accepted navigation aids, with their own guidelines, their own wikiprojects, and in the case of outlines, a how to support page.

If one topics list doesn't meet NOTDIRECTORY, for being an article list, then none of them pass. Which means you'd have to delete them all.

A deletion discussion about an individual page is not the proper venue for arguing against the existence of an entire class of article. Nominations to delete on these grounds should include all of the pages in the class, and a deletion notice placed at the top of every single page of that type...

Such a nomination will not succeed, since NOTDIRECTORY does not apply, because...

They are lists of Wikipedia articles. Categories are also lists of Wikipedia articles. If topics lists fail NOTDIRECTORY, then so do categories.

Cheers,    — The Transhumanist   21:19, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, any nomination for deletion of a list where NOTDIRECTORY is claimed as the reason to delete, where the list is not in fact a directory, should be speedily closed as keep by a non-involved admin editor once the error has been pointed out. If there are actual valid reasons to delete, a new nomination can be opened for discussion with valid reasons listed. In this specific case my hands were tied as I was involved. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 10:31, 18 March 2024 (UTC)