Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ghost train (folklore)

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. After a rewrite by Uncle G, who did the right thing (improving the article themselves) after first doing the wrong thing (being incivil to others). Sandstein 06:57, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ghost train (folklore) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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I can't find evidence that this goes beyond fictional cliche and into an actual aspect of folklore worth mentioning. The sources used to cite it to "folklore" are shaky at best. The rest is just a pop-culture list full of cruft and WP:OR. Wikipedia is not TVTropes, there is already a page for that. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 20:05, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 20:05, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 20:05, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 20:05, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Leaning keep. I found, at least, Ron Brown, Rails Across the Prairies: The Railway Heritage of Canada’s Prairie Provinces (2012), p. 142: "The strange story of a ghost train has been told many times. The site where it occurs is a former railway crossing along a side road around eight kilometres north of the town". That one is from Saskatchewan. Folkloric accounts like these are buried deeply under pop culture references, but I think there is enough to support the contention that this is a notable concept in folklore. BD2412 T 20:37, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - for lack of substantial coverage in multiple sources. Springnuts (talk) 22:01, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Springnuts Take a look at the article again, totally rewritten. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:24, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - certainly improved, with one excellent source for WP:GNG. We need multiple sources however: so which is the second source you would say shows substantial coverage? Springnuts (talk) 11:10, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • It seems from this request to be spoon fed the sources that you have not looked for yourself. The tanuki/fox versus the steam train tale is very well documented, even to being in an entry in another encyclopaedia. Try looking for sources yourself on that and other phantom train folklore. Tell us what you come up with and where you looked, like BD2412 did. Only then will you be able to legitimately say whether or not sources exist. AFD is not for one person to do all the work and everyone else to expect to be spoon fed. The process requires multiple people because it requires multiple people to double check. If you are not bothering to check for yourself before making assertions about what sources exist, as you just did twice, you aren't putting the process and deletion policy into action. Policy is clear that the criterion is whether sources exist to build an article, and that attempts to find them have been made. Show that you are putting some effort in. The encyclopaedia is easy to find, for starters. Uncle G (talk) 21:45, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Uncle G, be polite and AGF. I was inviting you to clarify the case you believe exists for ”keep”. Personal attacks aren’t the way to do that. Springnuts (talk) 06:34, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nonsense. You were asking for sources without putting one single whit of effort into looking for them, per policy, and reporting what you found, yourself. AFD isn't helped by people who just don't do that, and that's not a personal attack, it's a statement of what you should be doing and clearly are not. Put the effort in. If there's no sources, show that you looked. If there's one source and you want others, lift a finger to see whether there are. We are not here to do this work for you, and AFD, which relies on multiple people cross-checking, is not served by what you are doing. Uncle G (talk) 06:44, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Uncle G: may I invite you to strike through or delete your incivility. Springnuts (talk) 06:51, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Per BD2412.★Trekker (talk) 12:41, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete due to this being a poorly referenced listcruft BUT this totally has the potential to be a proper, prose-based article. I would be very surprised if sources didn't exist. So this can be rescued, but such a rescue would necessitate rewriting this from scratch (hence, my delete vote, per WP:TNT). Do ping me if this is going to be rewritten and I'll reconsider my vote. Unfortunately, my quick BEFORE failed to find anything substantial outside some discussion here that looks reliable but is gutted by Google Books partial view (and I do acknowledge a good start by BD2412 above). PS. I used the query for "phantom train" to look for more sources. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:32, 25 March 2022 (UTC) Ps. Changing to keep, totally rewritten by Uncle G (thank you). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:23, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• This grew in exactly the way described at User:Uncle G/Cargo cult encyclopaedia article writing. It was split from ghost train in 2006 (Special:Diff/79143568 and Special:Diff/79143602), and editors piled on the mentions on television and in films in the hopes that an article about the folklore of ghost trains would magically arise. Both BD2412 and Piotrus are right, it seems. Uncle G (talk) 17:24, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Uncle G Another example that ironically, collaborative article writing is hard and can often produce a total mess that one person has to clean up, eh? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:41, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Article writing is sometimes hard, full stop. ☺ In this case, it is sorting the wheat from the chaff when it comes to sources on American folklore. Uncle G (talk) 21:45, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Per BD2412. Dimadick (talk) 21:33, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment On reflection I think the weakness here is in the breadth of the article topic. Tanuki versus steam trains seems to lack the multiple sources to keep as a standalone article. But Ghost train (folklore) as a topic seems to be a piece of WP:OR - a synthesis of the various individual ghost trains referenced. I could not find this broad topic on Google scholar - but isn’t easy to look up in as the term is used of real trains run empty, of abandoned railway lines, and within Mathematics and computing. So I’d still go for a merge of noteworthy material into Tanuki and possibly some others Springnuts (talk) 07:10, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  At this point I agree that it is a WP:SYNTH of somewhat unrelated topics linked together by the writers of the article itself. Anything that talks about "ghost trains" as a whole is a different story, but as far as I can tell it is not a "scholarly" concept and just a trope recognized by fans. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 14:24, 28 March 2022 (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.