Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Index of physics articles (!$@)

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. postdlf (talk) 17:08, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Index of physics articles (!$@)

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This an all other similar articles provide nothing that Category:Physics does not while introducing another place to maintain what is essentially categorical information. WIki categories are a better solution here as they are hierarchal instead of flat like these articles. RadioFan (talk) 18:25, 8 March 2013 (UTC) I am also nominating the following related pages because reasons listed above:[reply]

Category:Index of physics articles

Delete this, and all indexes in Category:Index of physics articles. Ridiculous and un-maintainable lists which were super-ceded by categories long long ago. —gorgan_almighty (talk) 18:37, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I can see the merit of keeping these. Which is, it's good and useful to have a flat index as well as a nested-Lord-knows-how-many-deep hierarchy. Let's not declare it un-maintainable unless we've shown that nobody is maintaining them. Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 18:53, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All - While I wouldn't advocate anyone commit the massive amount of time necessary to create and maintain such an apparatus, it is clear that this is very well done and fulfills a valid navigational function, which is the key thing. Carrite (talk) 21:24, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or possibly meld into one Index of physics articles article. Indices of science-related articles on Wikipedia are numerous; Category:Indexes_of_science_articles lists 37 of them. Why pick on physics? If it is because the index is broken into separate articles, we could meld them into one. If it is not the physics index articles in particular, but indices in general that you think are useless, then this is something to bring up on a policy forum, not AfD. As a side note, there is no AfD notice on the 'A' page. --Mark viking (talk) 22:14, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note that these indexes appear to have originally existed as a single index named "Index of physics articles", but was apparently split in an attempt to make it more easily readable and maintainable. The common objection to these indexes is not related to the number of articles they take up, but to the huge maintenance overhead that they entail. If indexes like this exist and are approved by consensus, then article creators should be duty-bound to add their new article to the index, which becomes maintenance creep. Also what defines "Physics-related" as the appropriate point in the category nesting to create a flat list? Why not "Science-related"? Alternatively why not "Quantum Physics-related" and "Computational Physics-related" and..... ? A far better solution would be an addition to the MediaWiki software that allows any category to be viewed in flat-form with one button click. —gorgan_almighty (talk) 12:20, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Even if such an index is not complete, it can still be useful, just like Wikipedia as a whole. That button would be really nice to have, but that's not decided here. It would also need to be more than just a one-click button, since walking down the category tree far enough starting from Category:Physics you can easily get to completely different topics. — HHHIPPO 20:51, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Undecided. As they stand now, the lists don't do anything better than categories. There are also several problems just from a cursory examination. Physicists don't need to be included individually when there is already a List of physicists, and they definitely shouldn't be ordered by first name. Also, articles like zinc sulfide and zirconium alloy really belong in the Index of chemistry articles (which also lists scientists by first name). Clarityfiend (talk) 23:53, 8 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:08, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:08, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all Passes WP:CLN, no policy-based reason for deletion has been advanced, since "redundant to category" is both a) not a policy-based reason, and b) not true--list articles maintain past revisions of their content in history, categories do not. Jclemens (talk) 07:07, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The nomination is absurd because lists may be hierarchical and these examples form a simple hierarchy with the main Index of physics articles being the parent. Warden (talk) 12:16, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Apart from the aforementioned, the lists also help to monitor changes to physics articles using Related changes. For this purpose a single list would be even better, and there was one until October 2012, but it was split into the present pages since it had grown to nearly 400 kB. — HHHIPPO 16:49, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as the creator of the majority of these articles (I did not create Index of physics articles). The reason these lists were originally split was due to the extreme size of the list if all of these entries were on the same article; as mentioned above, the size of the articles would have been about 400kB. And since the list is not breaking any types of policies (as mentioned above), I do not see why these articles need to be deleted. Steel1943 (talk) 19:09, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note. At the present time, these articles are not in Category:Physics. However, they are currently in Category:Index of physics articles. That should be noted, regardless of the outcome. Steel1943 (talk) 19:13, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I put them there since Category:Physics requires diffusion. I don't see the connection to this AfD though. — HHHIPPO 20:51, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't either. In fact, I thought the transition was a good idea. Just needed to point it out since that category could be affected, depending on the outcome of this AFD. Steel1943 (talk) 21:28, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep – The point of the {{orphan}} template appears to be to promote Wikipedia interconnectivity. An index like this is one way to interconnect articles by subject matter; some of which may otherwise be orphans. Hence, I think this index should be retained in some form. Praemonitus (talk) 22:27, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- That is what categories are for. No need to keep redundant lists just so articles aren't orphaned. Viridae^{DON'T PANIC} 23:34, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - Categories are not counted in the link tally. Thus they are not useful for the purpose I stated. Praemonitus (talk) 02:27, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all per gorgan_almighty. This is what Categories are for. Viridae ^{DON'T PANIC} 23:34, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As explained further above, and in the already mentioned WP:CLN, categories and indices are not the same. We should keep these index pages until we have another solution providing the same functionality. — HHHIPPO 18:04, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per past precedent and Warden. —Theopolisme (talk) 04:13, 15 March 2013 (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.