Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Railway switching networks

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 delete. Most people seem to agree that this articles redundant to existing ones and/or that the content is confused as to its subject matter. I would suggest that the title might be a useful redirect or disambiguation page and that a more precise title (see comments by Signalhead) be found and created (whether as an article, dad, or redirect) if necessary. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:42, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Railway switching networks

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This article is a very badly translated concatenation of several extant articles. The translation is very confusing, & the focus wanders badly off-topic from e.g. interlocking & track layout to area control. I propose it's deletion for these reasons. Archolman User talk:Archolman 22:08, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 00:58, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:34, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Shows promise and is an interesting topic, needs cleanup not deletion seeing as no other articles are related. Jab843 (talk) 03:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
~~Keep~~ Delete. , yes it does look promising. I looked around a bit and there are articles on the components of railway switching networks, but this article could address how they are laid out and organized. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 06:58, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Changed to delete given Signalhead's arguments below. If this is duplicating articles already on Wikipedia then we don't need it. Of course any useful portion should be merged in to the appropriate article. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 03:22, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, this has the potential to become a good high-level article about railway switching networks in general and the various methods used. As Richard above notes, we have articles on individual aspects and various components but nothing that brings them together and introduces the topic. Needing cleanup (and compared to some articles it's not in that bad a shape) is not a reason for deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 11:35, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The subject seems capable of supporting an article, and the rest is a matter of editing. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 15:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. First of all, Wikipedia already has a carefully structured suite of articles on railway signalling topics and it's difficult to see where this one fits in. Its intended scope and purpose are unclear and seem to have been lost in the course of being translated from Russian by someone unfamiliar with English terminology. It doesn't help that the title is somewhat ambiguous; what on earth is "railway switching networks" actually supposed to mean? "Railway" is clear enough in meaning but in a railway context, "switching" can mean shunting but it's also a telecommunications term. "Switches" can mean points too and I suspect the author was struggling to find the proper word for "signalling" or "interlocking". So where do "networks" come into it? Perhaps "systems" is what the author really meant. So it seems that this could either be an article about "railway signalling systems" or "interlocking systems", both subjects that already have their own articles. Now to examine the article's content: It seems to start off with a general history of signalling development worldwide, then becomes more detailed and country-specific, without actually specifying which country. I'm a UK-based railway signalling engineer and I don't have a clue what this article is about and I would challenge anyone saying "keep" to explain it to me and which parts of its scope aren't already covered by other articles. It is very telling that, other than those made by its original author, nearly all the edits made to this article have been copy edits etc. as opposed to changing or adding technical content. If there is anything to be salvaged from this article then maybe, just maybe, some parts of it might form the basis of a "Russian railway signalling" article, but my recommendation is for deletion. –Signalhead ^< T > 22:56, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merge tiny amount of unique content to a paragraph in Centralized traffic control on russian systems and then redirect there. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:18, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I can see the logic behind a merge there (I don't agree it's the best solution though), but I think redirecting this broad to a specific country's implementation of one possible meaning would be a poor redirect. Far better than a redirect would be a dab page per Signalhead's comments above. Thryduulf (talk) 11:46, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or redirect per Signalhead's comments. I am inclined to trust the assessment of an established editor who is a subject matter expert. Sandstein 08:12, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect or delete. I came here expecting to support retaining this, but Signalhead convinced me that this is probably better off gone. Alzarian16 (talk) 18:33, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and rename to Russian railway signalling. Signalhead's arguments are persuasively written, but "bad english" articles not fitting into an existing suite of articles aren't automatic reasons for deletion. Keep, rename and improve. --Joopercoopers (talk) 01:21, 22 November 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.