Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1929 Ottawa sewer explosion

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. The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:19, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1929 Ottawa sewer explosion

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

does not meet the general notability guideline SunKing2 (talk) 02:07, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Seems to be a notable event in Ottawa history. It's discussed at some length in this book, and elsewhere. The New York Times covered it, so it wasn't just a local story, either. Zagalejo^^^ 03:06, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep because of the excellent research done by Zagalejo. Great sources - well done! Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:50, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the book source was already used in the article. Zagalejo^^^ 04:41, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I can't find that many sources on it, nor can I see why this is notable. Seems like a very small event. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 18:00, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read the two sources mentioned, Harizotoh9, which make it clear that it was not a "very small event"? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:49, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the

list of Ontario-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 18:42, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply

]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 18:42, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have added some more refs. But i am neutral on the deletion - just not sure so should error on the side of keep. Moxy (talk) 15:23, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Per Cullen328's agreement. It is a well done article but must be improved. Mohamed Aden Ighe (talk) 00:02, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)Keep Interesting topic, meets WP:N "worthy of notice" because people like to read about disasters, meets WP:GNG, with multiple significant sources. I don't see any newspaper articles yet, which would suggest that a long series of articles about the explosion and responses to the explosion are available. The book states that the Ottawa Gas Company argued "in the press and in advertisements", so it is not just likely that more sources exist, we have a reliable source that says they exist. Going on, the book mentions a running series of events that connect the 29 May 1929 explosion to the 31 March 1931 burning of the Ottawa City Hall, which is not surprising to think that a disaster of this magnitude would take more than a year to resolve. Nominator argues on the talk page that "it was not demonstrated that it had any effects other than those of the event itself", but wp:notability exists independently of the existence of an article on WP or the content of any such article. Further arguments on the talk page make the same error by arguing to the content of the existing article, yet the sources that had already been supplied for the article answered some of the concerns stated. As for the issue that the nominator found history books that did not mention the event, this would argue against the WP:N requirement that a topic be "worthy of notice", and yet by other reasoning as already explained and as shown by the variety of the three references, the topic is encyclopedic. Here is a puzzling claim,
Duration of coverage (WP:CONTINUEDCOVERAGE): there is no evidence presented to show that this event's coverage was beyond its occurrence in time.

Just how is a 1969 journal article and two-three pages in a book written in 2001 for an event in 1929 not continued coverage? Claim is made to

WP:GEOSCOPE

, but we do not have a case where the event was only reported by local media, the argument doesn't make sense given that no local media had been cited. Here is a related statement,

Diversity of sources (WP:DIVERSE): there is no showing that the event was covered beyond the local newspapers.

It makes no sense to argue against coverage in local newspapers when no local newspapers had been provided for the article. As for those local newspapers, I've found them, they exist in Google News archive. This link Google news archive shows many articles from the Ottawa Citizen. Shown is that John Campbell, an engineer from Boston, investigated the explosions and released a report in about 1931. The same year, there was another sewer explosion, and as reported in The Toronto Star, the city lost a lawsuit in 1936 due to liability that links the 1931 explosion back to the 1929 explosion. Another search in the Google news archive is "Campbell report". And I've added two of these newspaper articles as Bibliography entries. Unscintillating (talk) 02:04, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Zagalejo. Carrite (talk) 05:52, 9 October 2011 (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.