Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of computer books

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 no consensus. Ron Ritzman (talk) 15:20, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of computer books

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A list of all books that deal with computers in some way. Will never be complete as there are hundreds of thousands of such books and hundreds if not thousands are published every day. Travelbird (talk) 10:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Way too general to be of any use. We already have Category:Computer books. Yoenit (talk) 10:38, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Might has well have a List of books. This is way too generic and of little value, per the concerns noted in WP:SALAT. Tarc (talk) 13:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll note that "list of books" does surprisingly exist, but it is a generic meta-list of specific book lists. Tarc (talk) 13:36, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Without an inclusion criteria it is just an indiscriminate list. Armbrust ^Talk _Contribs 20:06, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep WP:CLS states very clearly that we do not delete lists to favour categories. The potential size of the list is not a problem because it is our policy that Wikipedia is not paper. Where lists grow large then they may be restructured to form a tree structure as the List of books demonstrates. Note that some computer books have great notability and value such as The Art of Computer Programming. The suggestion that we should not have a list of such seminal works is absurd and contrary to our editing policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:20, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is the type of argument that could be used to justify a List of things article. "Computer books" is just too generic to be of any real value as a list. Tarc (talk) 17:49, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: The article under discussion here has been flagged for {{rescue}} by the Article Rescue Squadron. SnottyWong ^gab 21:11, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Inclusion criteria are far too general. This would have to be split into dozens of sublists to have any use (i.e. List of computer programming books, List of computer books about Windows, List of computer books about Macs, List of computer books about encryption, etc. etc. etc.) SnottyWong ^comment 23:29, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, there seem to be only about 200 computer book articles and this is quite manageable within a single list page. There is not a problem here - just hyperbole. Colonel Warden (talk) 05:34, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just because there are only 200 computer book articles right now (which I haven't confirmed) doesn't mean that only 200 notable computer books exist which would satisfy the inclusion criteria of this list. That is ridiculous. SnottyWong ^confer 14:06, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete A list of computer books is far to broad. There are betters ways to organize such books in subcategories. AniMate 02:58, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Aids in navigation, perfect for a list article, it only showing entries with articles on Wikipedia of course(I trimmed the rest already since otherwise we'd have thousands of books published each year added here, instead of those already proven worthy of note by having a Wikipedia article for them or their writer). If the list ever grows too large, then you can easily do a content fork for the various types. Dream Focus 09:24, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:31, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:31, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 15:31, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep If the list becomes too large to be manageable, we can break it down into subordinate lists. Lists of lists articles are perfectly OK, as Tarc appears to have found out to his surprise. Inclusion criteria (has its own Wikipedia article) are clear, topic is clear, it's is not indiscriminate. Jclemens (talk) 16:13, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The list discriminates by the implied criterion for any list that doesn't contain any different inclusion criterion, i.e. that it lists only books that pass our notability guidelines. There is no requirement that such a navigational list should be superior to a category, as we can have both, but in this case the list is pretty obviously superior in that it includes the authors of the books. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:24, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It is very odd to see an argument for deletion on the basis that we need to have additional similar lists (or broader coverage in the existing one. As usual, if there is a category for objects of a particular sort, there should be a list also--their advantages are complementary. And not being paper, we can handle lists of any size, just like we can handle any number of articles. DGG ( talk ) 19:18, 28 October 2010 (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.