Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of rivers that flow north

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. W.marsh 14:06, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of rivers that flow north (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Listcruft. There are no corresponding lists for south, west and east, and the criterion is fairly silly. This list is a) unmaintainable b) has a potential of growing indefinitely c) sourced from a defunct geocities site. Duja^► 15:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as nominator. Duja^► 15:41, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - Per nom. Chris Kreider 16:20, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and cleanup or Categorize - There are very few rivers in the world that flow Northward. A list or category for them is useful as a river flowing North is a notable detail. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 16:33, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • With due respect, "rarity of northward rivers" sounds like an urban myth to me. Might be true for U.S. due to configuration of the relief, but certainly not true worldwide. Duja^► 16:44, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • It probably springs from things like this. See also this article, this article, and this article. One can find a lot of repetitions on the World Wide Web of the idea that "most rivers flow south". Uncle G 19:01, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - I disagree with the major points of the nomination. The same arguments can be made for every entry under the Lists of Rivers category. Just as there is no list of S, E, or W rivers there are no lists of rivers in Italy or a list of places without rivers. Honestly, in my opinion, it is more interesting to see a list of north-bound rivers than it is to see a list of rivers in Guam. I do, however, agree that there needs to be some sources cited here. -- wtfunkymonkey 16:37, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Unmaintainable, arbitrary list. Most rivers flow north in some occasions during their path. Rhine for instance is included in this list, although it flows in all directions and has its mouth westwards. This list seems like a bad idea.--Húsönd 18:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Rivers and geography are important topics and something like this could appear in an almanac or encyclopedia. --172.148.158.110 18:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note This was 172.148.158.110's first edit on Wikipedia.--Húsönd 18:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Additional Note Anon user also has a predilection of placing nonsense votes. Danny Lilithborne 19:17, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• KeepThis is a topic discussed in college sciences classes. The listing may be beneficial to that end. CraigMonroe 19:33, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. I can walk out my back door and see two small creeks that flow in all four directions as they twist. Totally useless in current form. --humblefool® 20:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge with Devil's river and trim considerably to allow only rivers for which the general course is away from the equator, and to only include rivers of substantial size (note that the Devil's river article mentions that it is generally only larger rivers that conform to this phenomenon). Note that south-flowing rivers are the odd ones in the Southern Hemisphere, for the reasons outlines in the Devil's river article. Grutness...wha? 23:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • reply north flowing northern hemisphere rivers are not that rare. Many major rivers in Europe and Asia flow mostly north (Rhine, Elbe, Oder, Volga, Ob, etc. etc.). Rivers flow downhill, not in any one cardinal direction.
    • But the misconception that they are rare is common. I strongly suspect that the motivation behind this article is the very same question that you can find asked in the sources that I cited above: "Please name 3 rivers that flow north.". So one issue to address is: How can Wikipedia best help encyclopaedia readers to combat this particular misconception about the direction of flow of rivers? Obviously one idea that editors had was to construct a raw list of rivers that flow north so that they could say to those people (North Americans and otherwise) who assert that it's rare for a river to flow north: "Look at this lengthy list of rivers that flow north. That clearly demonstrates that your assertion is wrong." Incorporating the point that rivers flow downhill (which one can source from what I cited above) into an overall discussion that doesn't just present a raw list of rivers but that includes analysis and explanation as well, as per Grutness, is good idea. Uncle G 10:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. North flowing rivers are not that rare. The length of the article testifies to that. The list however could be even longer and is in fact unlikely ever to be complete. For example, it has hardly started with Australia and yet more water flows into Australia's northern waters than anywhere else to the south. How do you define a "river" as opposed to a stream, a creek, etc. --Bduke 01:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as unmaintainable meshach 04:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as a non-notable list of rivers. The primary cardinal direction of a river's flow is neither notable by itself, nor as part of a listing. I am certain that if we extended this down to a full study of all rivers in the world, we would find that 25% (or an insiginificant statistical difference from 25%) of all rivers flow any one of the 4 cardinal directions. A restatement of a predictable stastistic is hardly something worth building lists on. --Jayron32 05:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Not particularily useful, rivers flow in all sorts of directions. I agree with Jayron. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per Sjakkalle; any river that meanders could be included if one of its twists and turns heads North(ish). Carlossuarez46 19:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as indiscriminate, uninformative, and way too large, and I've put a disputed tag on the Devil's river article, since that presents this myth as fact. Fram 10:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, rivers that flow to the north are clearly the work of evil and should not be discussed. Everyone can see that the South is on the bottom of a map and is thus downhill --Robdurbar 09:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Non notable subject, why not rivers that have a Q in their title, or rivers that twist around alot. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 19:09, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - maybe a list of rivers that flow away from the equator would be notable, but I'd want sourcing in Devil's river first. -- nae'blis 01:35, 12 November 2006 (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.