Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Porch collapse

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. Nishkid64 01:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Porch collapse

Porch collapse (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Tagged for AfD by 82.152.127.69 (talk • contribs), but nomination was never completed. No opinion from me. Chick Bowen 03:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, notable phenomenon especially as noted in Chicago (for various reasons). Deck collapses happen everywhere. There are engineering issues such as weight-per-area and how well they are anchored to the building. They tend to happen only when there are a lot of people on the porch/deck, leading to many injuries in individual incidents. --Dhartung | Talk 05:44, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Dhartung above. --Candy-Panda 07:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per above. Madmedea 08:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment what the article needs is references that this is a common notable phenomenon. At the moment it has one link to a collapse that makes no mention of whether it has happened before. --Steve _(Slf67) ^talk 09:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Which is what {{unreferenced}} is for. --Dhartung | Talk 10:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Provided source is enough to prove phenomenon exists. While other sources are indeed needed, lack of them is not a good enough reason for immediate deletion. Send to the Cleanup taskforce if need be. Mgm|^(talk) 11:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Appears to happen often enough that some politicians use it as an electoral issue [1]. Average Earthman 11:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Eh? Do we also need articles on burst pipes, slates falling from roof, broken windows, ??? If this phenomenon is common, is it also notable? Why the 'phenomenon' should be particularly associated with Chicago is beyond me; the description of Chicago's building stock could be just about any city worldwide. This article has been previously categorised as a possible hoax - I inline to that view. Delete Emeraude 12:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • "Possible hoax" on what possible basis? Please explain this inexplicable comment. 18 current Google News results for the 2003 incident alone (wire stories reprinted nationally). 332 Google News Archive results about porch collapses generally. 176 more for deck collapses. 100+ hurt, 52 hurt, the Chicago collapse which killed 13 was the deadliest in US history.[2] --Dhartung | Talk 17:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per Emeraude. Shit happens, guys. If there is a specific porch/balcony collapse that is notable then have an article on that. Recury 15:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per Emeraude. While an over-arching article on component failure (with solid interwiki links to articles such as mechanical stress, force, weight, torque, torsion, etc etc you get the idea...) is probably meritable and can be academically presented, we don't need specific articles on things like burst pipes. My other concern is notability. Is there a so-named thing as a porch collapse? That porches collapse is true, but does it translate into an actual phenomenon? "Sign-spotting" (or something close) was recently deleted because it could not be shown anywhere (despite being a popular search term) that the thing was a so-named phenomenon in and of itself. Zunaid©® 15:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not paper. Why shouldn't we have an article on specific engineering failure types? --Dhartung | Talk 17:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per the other delete votes above. Neutral: article has improved. →EdGl 00:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. A porch collapse is an event that happens to a porch, and thus should be included as a minor section (if proven to be notable at all per WP:N) of Porch or Balcony. It is not sourced (WP:RS) and thus can be deemed not notable. → JARED ^(t)  18:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep provided published references available about the problem If there are verifiable, published articles specifically about this problem, then keep and make sure they're included in the article. If the article's references don't check out, then delete. All that is required for Wiki inclusion here is that it is a problem which is discussed in multiple (more than one) publications. Dugwiki 19:10, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Dhartung: how many reliable, verifiable, independent sources with this as the primary subject does it take for a real world hazard to get an article, when most Wikipedia articles have no sources beside a dependent website? Meets WP:RS, WP:N and {{WP:V]]. The delete votes appeaar to be a case of "WP:IGNORETHERULES." and "WP:IDONTLIKEIT."Edison 22:03, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Any structure subject to a sufficient amount of pressure will collapse. Porches are no different. This topic isnt worthy of a specific article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Caper13 (talk • contribs) 22:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC).
• Delete per Emeraude —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ozzykhan (talk • contribs).
• Delete for reasons described by Emeraude and Zunaid. There have been notable cases of people spilling coffee, and coffee really does spill quite frequently, but does that mean we should have an article on coffee spills? PubliusFL 23:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment The phrase "Porch collapse" shows up 16 times in the New York Times alone, and many times in the Chicago Tribune, as well as USATODAY and an Indianapolis paper. The phrase gets 11,600 Google hits. I added references, so now there are 12 references to stories from major newspapers where the peculiarities of porch construction, or the circumstances which have led them to deteriorate, or the circumstances which have led people to collapse them by overloading were the primary subject. These are accounts of different incidents. I left out more than are in the article where it just noted that people were killed or injured by a porch collapse without further discussion of the root causes, or how they could be prevented. Any Delete votes made before the addition of the references and the revision of the text does not really apply to the revised article, and those calling for deletion should take another look. As for strawman arguments for deletion, not too many people have been killed by coffee spills. And as for "any structure will collapse" porches are more prone to collapse and kill or injure people than, say floor of houses, for reaasons outlined in the article. If "deck collapse" were added to the article, there would be a great manmy more sources discussing the problem in depth, beside merely reporting the occurrences. Edison 00:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  • You were apparently in the process of adding a number of sources while I was reading through the AfD comments and adding my own. For my part, I'm now willing to give the article the benefit of the doubt that incidents are considered to be part of a broader phenomenon outside of Wikipedia. By all means, incorporate deck collapse if you have sources -- porch/deck/balcony are close enough, and including is as part of the same article now (with one term redirecting to the other or both terms redirecting to a combined title) will avoid a merger in the future. PubliusFL 00:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Dhartung. schi ^talk 17:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  • OK, so I've looked at the article again as suggested by Edison and I still say delete. My original objection stands; citing 12 news articles on the topic is easy (I'm sure I could find more) but equally it does not make this "phenomonen" out of the ordinary. Do it for "burst pipes", which incidentally gets 92,100 Google hits and, no doubt, hundreds of news stories. So what? Emeraude 17:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
    • The key difference is that a porch collapse is a potentially tragic occurrence in and of itself. A burst pipe merely precedes a flood. —David Levy 18:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. In its current state, the article documents a notable phenomenon in an encyclopedic manner. —David Levy 18:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep porch collapses in Chicago attain wide coverage in the American media, believe it or not. - Gilliam 18:13, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

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.