Talk:North Sea

Archived VfD

 * Redirect (but where?). The current article is spam and I was going to speedy delete it per Project:Bodies of water, but there are five articles that link to it, so I suspect a redirect would be more useful since some editors seem to think it is a valid article.  I'm stuck on where to redirect to, however - Europe?  Scandinavia?  British Isles? -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 11:09, 31 January 2009 (EST)
 * My personal opinion is that bodies of water should be disambiguation pages listing major destinations surrounding them. In some cases, such as Great Lakes, we can almost treat it like a region.  (WT-en) LtPowers 16:49, 31 January 2009 (EST)
 * The current disambiguation page seems like a good compromise. I wouldn't recommend that all bodies of water get disambiguation pages, but the fact that this one is frequently wiki-linked seems to indicate that some sort of page is called for. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 08:29, 11 March 2009 (EDT)
 * Strong Delete. Keeping bodies of water is a slippery slope.  There is no consensus on how to redirect them.  No clear way to disambiguate them.  Do we redirect to places that offer cruises, or to islands in them, We should only consider keeping this after a serious rework of our bodies of water policy, so we know where we are going and what we want these articles for.  Great Lakes is not an exception to the existing rule, as it is a name of the region surrouding the bodies of water already. Redirecting the North Sea to the a high level or region doesn't help the traveler. --(WT-en) Inas 18:15, 1 February 2009 (EST)
 * It's not really a region in our hierarchy; it overlaps the actual regions Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and Ontario. (WT-en) LtPowers 08:37, 2 February 2009 (EST)
 * Delete. What (WT-en) Inas said. Current policy doesn't allow anything else. (WT-en) Texugo 21:10, 1 February 2009 (EST)
 * Project:Deletion policy: "The rule of thumb is, if it is a real place, redirect rather than delete. Major attractions and geographical areas can and should be redirected, but articles about restaurants, bars, hotels, and other such commercial establishments should be deleted rather than redirected, in order to curb touting.". -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 21:15, 1 February 2009 (EST)
 * I think the point here is "where would you even redirect it?" The North Sea borders four top-level European regions. Is it really even useful to redirect this to Europe as whole? (WT-en) Texugo 21:52, 1 February 2009 (EST)


 * Redirect to Europe. Perhaps that will one day help some confused person. And perhaps it might dissuade that confused person from creating the article again. It's a geographical location, so redirecting should be fine. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 01:14, 2 February 2009 (EST)
 * Keep as a disambiguation page. It should state that our policy is to not write articles about bodies of water but about the land instead and they could be looking for any of the countries in Europe that border onto the North Sea. This should discourage people writing about the North Sea itself. If people do then the page could be protected. - (WT-en) Huttite 03:57, 2 February 2009 (EST)
 * OK - I have added a disamiguation style page - rough first cut just see how it might fly - I think it has potential, even if it is just lots of links. It could tell someone if you can get into a country via a North Sea port, for example. This is something you would not know unless you knew which article to read. The North Sea article now tells you what are the likely candidates for information. Perhaps this is a standard to adopt for all major bodies of water (Oceans and Seas) that do not currently exist. - (WT-en) Huttite 09:13, 2 February 2009 (EST)
 * IMO. It is of no value to the traveller. It hinders them. They can go to each of those countries, and find nothing about the North Sea.  They would be much better off with the normal wiki search function, which would at least find articles that reference the north sea, rather than this disambig which points them multiple high level articles which don't.  --(WT-en) Inas 17:53, 2 February 2009 (EST)


 * Keep per Huttite. (WT-en) LtPowers 08:37, 2 February 2009 (EST)


 * I think this is a good solution, and would work for other oceans for which a redirect simply would not work. I would, however, recommend disambiguating by continental section, rather than country (e.g., Scandinavia, Beneluxe, British & Irish Isles, etc.), because someone searching for a region as broad as the North Sea is looking for something broader than an individual country. Moreover, if we were to use this as a precedent for other oceans, it would be silly to have a Pacific Ocean disambiguation for every nation and territory that touches it. To Ian's point about the search function&mdash;travelers can still use the search function, rather than the "go" function if they choose to, so I think that shouldn't be too much of a concern. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 18:09, 2 February 2009 (EST)
 * My point was if a disambig adds more value than the standard search, then lets do it. Lets point people at what they are looking for.  But if the disambig detracts value from the search, and points them away from any reference to what they are looking for, we have to wonder why we are doing it.   We are just wasting the travelers time.  Lets face it, a person doing a search for the north sea, isn't going to be very far advanced once redirected to Europe or similar are they?  They still have to search for what they are looking for. Unless all they were looking for was a geography lesson, and that isn't really what we are here for. --(WT-en) Inas 18:39, 2 February 2009 (EST)


 * I suggest we put this on hold and hold a discussion about creating new policy at Project:Bodies of water. If we were to start allowing disambiguation pages for bodies of water, I would really want to work out a system first-- criteria for when to disambiguate a body of water (versus when to redirect it, etc), criteria for what types of articles should be pointed to, how to deal with each type: rivers, bays, etc. I also think that if we were to start doing this, it would have some potential implications for other region-spanning features such as mountain ranges, deserts, and forests. That said, maybe even Project:Bodies of water is not an adequate place for this discussion, but the point is: This is a precedent-setting matter, and the Votes for deletion page is not really the place to pave new policies. (WT-en) Texugo 19:43, 2 February 2009 (EST)


 * Can we close this now that we have a sort of consensus? &mdash;(WT-en) Ravikiran 23:14, 20 July 2009 (EDT)


 * I'd say so. (WT-en) Gorilla Jones 18:16, 25 July 2009 (EDT)


 * As soon as someone who actually understands that new consensus fixes it up? It would be nice to close this month. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 00:12, 29 July 2009 (EDT)


 * I have no idea if the new consensus is a firm one, but I do believe that the page is compliance with the policies on bodies of water and disambiguation pages as it is written now. &mdash; (WT-en) Ravikiran 04:35, 31 July 2009 (EDT)


 * Result: Keep, at least for now. (WT-en) LtPowers 20:57, 5 August 2009 (EDT)

Redirect to Europe
Why don't we just redirect this to Europe? I don't see how something like this became such a heated discussion. --(WT-en) globe-trotter 18:39, 28 August 2011 (EDT)


 * Per the VFD discussion above I think the current approach of having a disambiguation page makes the most sense - it was pointed out that a redirect to Europe is sub-optimal since the North Sea isn't a part of Europe and doesn't have anything to do with a significant portion of the continent. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 19:56, 28 August 2011 (EDT)