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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Animal transportation

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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. There's a rough consensus here that this article is doing more good than harm at this point. It has a particularly convoluted history, and started out as a distinctly unhelpful and unencyclopedic article - but the majority of the later comments acknowledge at least a modicum of useful and encyclopedic content. I can certainly understand the viewpoint of those that feel its origins, and initial content, are so tainted that it would be better to start over - but the majority viewpoint seems to be that it's a usable start for a useful article that can be expanded and cleaned up into a decent overview of what is quite a broad topic. ~ mazca talk 09:33, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Animal transportation

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Animal transportation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Delete and possibly block the creator.

A rather convoluted WP:HOAX running over some months. See User talk:Seal Boxer for some obvious links, also the user contrib histories.

This began as a series of bizarre hoax articles, such as Box of seals, Seal Transportation (see also Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Anthony Seldon/Box of seals) and Goat Transportation. These articles were both sourced, yet trivial nonsense. This joke has now gone on long enough.

There are boxes. There are seals. At times, seals have been placed within boxes. An encyclopedia article is more than the conjunction of two random nouns and a concordance. There is no encyclopedic value to any of these. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:18, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 20:25, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - firstly, I would like to say that it would have been courteous to notify myself, the creator of the article, that you intended to nominate it for deletion. Secondly, I find it quite bizarre that you would want to remove what is, essentially, a sourced and informative article about animal transportation. It could be (and this is probably because I am still relatively new to Wikipedia) that some aspects of the article were not written in the ideal style suitable for this encyclopedia - I am always welcome for advice regarding this subject.
I remain surprised that anyone would consider the practice of animal transportation to be a) a hoax, b) the same thing as livestock transportation, and c) not worthy of an entry on this encyclopedia.
Whilst I welcome User: Colonel Warden's attempts to tidy up the page, I am disappointed that a number of useful pieces of information have been lost in the process. The section on transporting tapirs, for example, [visible here] has been entirely removed, and previously contained a wealth of informative and referenced information on how tapirs are transported. Why this is not suitable for the article has yet to be explained to me.
I resent the implication that this is some kind of hoax or elaborate joke - and the fact that the article contained references on the boxes used to transport seals more than rebuts the nominators claim. Seal Boxer (talk) 09:24, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. That animal transportation is a notable topic with ample reliable sources is beyond all doubt. Any problems with the existing article (such as an overreliance on details or trivia) should be fixed through editing rather than deletion. Likewise any concerns with the original author's behaviour should be raised at the appropriate venues; we don't delete articles solely on the basis that they were created by sockpuppets or for disruptive purposes. —Psychonaut (talk) 11:58, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keiko being transported on a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III.
Transporting giraffes in 1874.
  • Keep but greatly expand. The article covers 3 animals. That's woefully short of the probably dozens that could be covered in detail. Off the top of my head I would think we could cover giraffes in some detail, especially given the experience in Melbourne, Australia, where they need to temporarily cut down tram lines to allow tall transportation crates to be moved about. There are whole documentaries covering the movement of sharks and rays to aquariums in other countries as there are films dedicated to the transport of killer whales. The transportation of kangaroos (also Australia) has been a matter of ongoing media attention given it presents an alternative to culling them. I've also seen documentaries about the transportation of polar bears away from residential areas in Alaska to prevent interaction with humans which I'm sure have been backed up with newspaper coverage and probably some academic study to boot. Obviously the transportation of specific animals shouldn't be split off to create individual articles but a single article with many examples and short summaries should be fine. The trick will be to keep each section about the same length so as not to create WP:WEIGHT issues. Stalwart111 12:42, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep but greatly expand. I agree with Stalwart111, but livestock is as important as exotic animals.--DThomsen8 (talk) 12:53, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Stalwart111 and Dthomsen8 - there is clearly a need for more species. I was fortunate enough to be able to research methods to transport seals, tapirs and goats during some earlier articles I was working on, but rather than creating an individual article for each, there is a clear need for an article on non-livestock animal transportation, and I would welcome any contributions relating to other species. I would love to see pictures/video of the giraffes being transported! Thanks for your comments - Seal Boxer (talk) 12:57, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Transport of animals.
This category is a good place to start. Stalwart111 13:05, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again, because the present content of the article amounts to "how to transport this animal" and "how to transport that animal". If we were to expand it according to this model, we'd have a how-to manual with every known species of animal listed. Useful? Perhaps. The intended purpose of Wikipedia. No. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 15:13, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course, yeah, I don't think anyone is suggesting it doesn't need a lot of work, I just wonder whether deleting it and starting again is counter-productive. But I agree entirely with your point about WP:NOTHOWTO. I might spend some time tomorrow trying to address those concerns and re-focus some of the content. Stalwart111 15:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree the article currently reads too much like a how-to guide. But this can be solved by rewording such that published regulations and best practices are described rather than prescribed. This is in line with WP:NOTHOW: "Describing to the reader how other people… do something is encyclopedic; instructing the reader in the imperative mood about how to… do something is not." —Psychonaut (talk) 15:27, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The nomination statement by Andy Dingley says that animal transportation is a "hoax". Either those tapir found their own way to the many zoos scattered across the world or a greater hoax is being perpetrated on innocent schoolchildren - the hoax of passing off animatronic robot tapir for the real thing! Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:42, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The topic is unquestionably notable. The article needs work, but could be expanded to featured status by the right editor, covering everything from guinea pigs, cattle, and zoo animals to seals, orcas and aquarium fishes of all sizes. Andreas JN466 16:33, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep because the topic is notable, although the article body ridiculously focuses on 3 animals. The lead section now provides an overview that suggests notability, but the body doesn't expand on the lead appropriately. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:36, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WikiDan61 who makes a good summary of the problem here — that the entry is unencyclopedic. It's possible to invent juxtaposed topics (e.g. gourmet dogs, brick density, palace circumferences, Spanish diseases) that no-one has ever heard of — never before been included in a reference work — and then find plausible references for them. This kind of thing makes Wikipedia look ridiculous. Kleinzach 06:31, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, this isn't really a "juxtaposed topic" that someone "invented". The transportation of animals has been a subject of learned discussion for centuries. There are stories of Don Quixote transporting lions, and the image above regarding giraffes is from the 19th century. Even today debate and discussion continues and even those discussions have received significant coverage, let alone the act itself of transporting animals. I won't get silly and cite Noah's Ark in detail, but it should probably be in the article. Stalwart111 11:14, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. There has been an Animal Transportation Association since 1976 which runs regular conferences. There is massive book coverage. The article needs a lot of work, and probably a restructure into (1) livestock [already covered in what will be a daughter article], (2) zoo animals, (3) aquarium animals (4) research animals [a subtopic with many many sources]. -- 202.124.74.19 (talk) 07:15, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've implemented that restructure and begun addressing some of the quality concerns expressed here. -- 202.124.72.13 (talk) 09:43, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The article is no longer a "how to" guide, so that argument doesn't apply (and if it did, WP:NOTCLEANUP). It certainly still needs a lot of work, but the topic is clearly notable. And destroying the start that's been made is not the way to get a good article on history of animal transportation. -- 202.124.73.31 (talk) 06:26, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Fine, I'll cede that it is now a how-to guide combined with completely random bits of animal transportation trivia, including a full paragraph on the transport of a giraffe named Nakaru, a second paragraph about a giraffe named Tonda, a discussion of killer whale transport in the film Free Willy, and finally a how-to on transporting seals. Oh, and also the article explains what a Tapir is and lets us know that the USDOA considers them pachyderms. I personally think the only usable pieces of content in the entire article are the second and third paragraphs in the lede, except they shouldn't be in the lede. I don't mean to diminish your work in improving the article (I really don't -- I love it when people try to save an article at AfD by actually improving it!), but throwing a bunch of bits of trivia at the problem is not a solution. AfD is not cleanup, but this article requires far more than cleanup. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 12:16, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'll concede it's in poor shape, and I share the concerns several people have expressed here about the somewhat random inclusion criteria for facts, and the species-by-species approach the article takes. -- 202.124.89.5 (talk) 02:01, 9 July 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.
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