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 to delete. There is a clear absence of consensus to delete this article, but there is also a clear consensus that the list should not exist in its present form, and therefore some substantial repurposing is required. I am tempted to move the page to draft space for this purpose, but I believe that a reasonable consensus can be reached through editing and discussion on the page in mainspace to develop a reasonably acceptable solution. bd2412 T 02:31, 7 December 2018 (UTC) reply

List of moths (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)

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There are about 160,000 species of moths. I'm not sure what the purpose of this list of less than 200 serves.   SchreiberBike | ⌨  00:25, 12 November 2018 (UTC) reply

• Delete - Per nominator. Meatsgains^{( talk)} 01:11, 12 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Animal-related deletion discussions. DannyS712 ( talk) 01:19, 12 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. DannyS712 ( talk) 01:19, 12 November 2018 (UTC) reply

• Tentative keep and rename. The "Moths that are of economic significance" section is a valid list, if it can be sourced in some reasonable way. Pburka ( talk) 03:18, 12 November 2018 (UTC) reply
• Delete as unmanageable and undesireable fractional list, although I suppose that the split-off for pest species, suggested above, might have some utility. -- Elmidae ( talk · contribs) 09:45, 12 November 2018 (UTC) reply
• Keep This passes notability - moths and lists of moths has received "significant coverage" as even a brief review of the hits on Google Books shows (e.g., https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=FgWGDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=moths&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEqpnUyc7eAhUR3RoKHXCxDQcQ6AEIRjAF#v=onepage&q=moths&f=false ). The list might be unwieldy but then this is handled by sub-headings and, ultimately, if the list grows too long, by splitting the list up. The objection that this is a partial list makes no sense - the author is just listing those with some degree of prominence, something which is endorsed by the style-guide. List of snake genera is a good example of how to handle this kind of subject matter. About the only reasonable objection is that Moths already includes a list, but there is nothing wrong with expanding on it in a separate page. FOARP ( talk) 09:56, 12 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Waltzing into this discussion with "this passes notability" is a great way of demonstrating that you did not get what the problem is. Of course moths are notable, we have thousands of articles on them. Politicians are also notable, we have thousands of articles on them. Can you guess why we don't have a List of politicians? - As noted, there is an unlistable multitude of species. If you want a structured listing, Category:Moth_taxonomy is all ready for you. - Elmidae ( talk · contribs) 13:32, 12 November 2018 (UTC) reply

The list of politicians point is a WP:WAX argument. Moth Taxonomy might be a good point if you want to argue duplication (in which case the solution would be to merge, not delete) FOARP ( talk) 14:55, 12 November 2018 (UTC) reply

There is nothing worth merging here; it is just a list of moths with no justification as to why some are included and others are excluded Spiderone 20:59, 13 November 2018 (UTC) reply

• Delete - way too broad to qualify for a list; either this is a complete list of moths (which would clearly be absurd) or it is an incomplete list of moths (showing bias towards particular species depending on what the article editors prefer) Spiderone 22:36, 12 November 2018 (UTC) reply

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a list being incomplete. The style-guide even encourages you to only include significant examples in a list if including all the examples would result in an overly-long list. FOARP ( talk) 08:43, 13 November 2018 (UTC) reply

ALL species are notable, hence any selection is subjective, which we do not want. -- Elmidae ( talk · contribs) 12:12, 17 November 2018 (UTC) reply

• Repurpose as a list of lists of moths. The numerous lists of moths really need to have a top level list. Spinning Spark 22:43, 12 November 2018 (UTC) reply

The List of lists of moths is really Taxonomy of the Lepidoptera, which also includes the butterflies. A list of just moths would not make sense as even though moths are different from butterflies, they aren't really a separate thing taxonomically. Hope that helps.   SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:14, 12 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Not it isn't. All the lists are organised by location, not taxonomy. Except for this one, which should be the top level list. Spinning Spark 01:22, 13 November 2018 (UTC) reply

There's also Lists of Lepidoptera by region.   SchreiberBike | ⌨  01:56, 13 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Region =/= taxonomy FOARP ( talk) 08:41, 13 November 2018 (UTC) reply

Ok, but this page still contains lists that do not fit into that and are still worth keeping per WP:PRESERVE. That information should be preserved in some form. The largest moths, economic moths etc could be moved to separate pages, which still leaves a role for a "list of lists of moths" (or even "list of lists of lists" of moths). Spinning Spark 08:50, 13 November 2018 (UTC) reply

• Keep and rename to "List of notable moths," organized by reason for notability (as it is now). That has encyclopedic value. Especially where there are so many moths, it would help to have a distillation of at least some of the most "important" or "famous" moths, however you want to describe it. Properly sourced, of course. Levivich ( talk) 23:28, 16 November 2018 (UTC) reply
• Keep and Rename to List of noteworthy moths. I had started out by believing this page should be deleted as it is purely a random list of names chosen from circa 160,000 moth species worldwide and can never fulfil the title of the article, so is utterly pointless in that regard, and goes against WP:LISTDD. That said, in the keystone article, Moth, there is a brief selection of 'Noteworthy moths' so, if renamed, this page could serve as a 'main article' of such selected species. As every moth species is itself notable, its title should be 'noteworthy moths' not 'notable moths' (or possibly List of moths of note?), and each entry that isn't placed in a specific sub-section should have a few words to explain its inclusion. Thus List of moths#Other moths would be redundant unless a reason for noteworthiness were included - there are simply too many pretty or interesting moths (Noctuidae, Sphingidae) for this to be allowed to become a random list of what someone happens to like, and which will forever be misleading if its name is not changed as a result of this discussion process. I'd add that there is value in having a separate Lists of moths page to help users find pages in Category:Lists of moths by location and other topics - but that seems a different issue. Nick Moyes ( talk) 11:55, 17 November 2018 (UTC) reply
• Repurpose per SpinningSpark. The current list is indiscriminate. I'm not getting what basis we'd have for separately listing "noteworthy" or "notable" moths, which for one thing would seem to violate our MOS guidelines against self-references in titles, but also all moth species are notable...so again that would be too broad and arbitrary. So it makes sense to me to have only a top level List of lists of moths to index the targeted taxonomic and regional lists, and focused topical lists (those important economically/to agriculture, important to scientific research, etc.) only if there is manageable inclusion criteria. postdlf ( talk) 19:07, 17 November 2018 (UTC) reply

If we had a List of lists of moths, would it include genus articles like Eupterote. There are thousands of such articles, some with just a few species and some with hundreds. Then there are family articles like Eupterotidae and there are over a hundred of those. I'm just trying to get a handle on this.   SchreiberBike | ⌨  19:29, 17 November 2018 (UTC) reply

I would say no. It need only include the top level taxonomic list, Taxonomy of the Lepidoptera, or perhaps the first level down as well. Doing more would just be duplication. Spinning Spark 19:54, 17 November 2018 (UTC) reply

• Delete as the topic is already covered at Taxonomy of the Lepidoptera. Reppurposing the list to only include notable moths ordered by reason of their notability wouldn't work. For example here in the UK the Elephant hawk-moth (Deilephila elpenor) is a "large and dramatic species" but by global standards perhaps not. Also what happens when a "large and dramatic" moth is deemed to be of "economic significance", do we list it twice? These categaroies are subjective. Such a list would be based on is editorialsiing/OR and is not workable.-- Pontificalibus 14:27, 20 November 2018 (UTC) reply

• Keep Obviously passes WP:LISTN. The fact that there are lots of moths is no big deal because Wikipedia is not paper. The rest is then a matter of ordinary editing and AfD is not cleanup. Andrew D. ( talk) 14:01, 28 November 2018 (UTC) reply

I think I'm going to make a template for your AfD comments, Andrew. "{Opposite of nomination} I don't actually know anything about the topic area. Leave it sit and it will fix itself. AfDIsNotCleanup. Out." - This is getting old. -- Elmidae ( talk · contribs) 14:16, 28 November 2018 (UTC) reply

We already have a template which tells us how to behave in these discussions. It states that "valid arguments citing relevant guidelines will be given more weight ... commenting on other users rather than the article is also considered disruptive." Andrew D. ( talk) 11:55, 6 December 2018 (UTC) reply

• Delete There may be some merit to more tightly focused lists (moths of economic significance, "noteworthy" moths (whatever that is supposed to mean)), but the present title "List of moths" should not be preserved as a redirect to a more focused list (especially so if multiple such lists are developed). Plantdrew ( talk) 20:54, 28 November 2018 (UTC) reply
• Question for those who want to rename to "List of notable moths", what does that mean? Every scientifically documented species has been presumed notable by practice. Therefore how would the list be reduced to a manageable level? 78.26 _{( spin me / revolutions)} 22:52, 5 December 2018 (UTC) reply
  • We should never have "notable" in an article title for the very reason that all articles are supposed to be notable topics. Spinning Spark 23:59, 5 December 2018 (UTC) reply

• I agree "notable" is not the right choice of word. I don't think it's a good idea to try and create a new category of moths, as in, "these are the 'important' moths, or the 'Big Time Moths.'" More like an index to moths. As Spinningspark said, "list of lists of moths." A navigational aid. I'm not sure what to call it or how to organize it. The long title in my mind would be: A List of Some of the Better-Known Moths, Organized According to What They Are Known For. And then you'd have sections like "Very large moths," "Very small moths," "Moths used in commerce," "Moths used in medicine," "Edible moths," or whatever. A distillation of the total list. Levivich ( talk) 01:57, 6 December 2018 (UTC) reply

In which section would you place a very large edible moth used in commerce and medicine? -- Pontificalibus 09:32, 6 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Organising information of this sort can be done in a variety of ways. Lists are better for this than categories because they are more open and flexible. For example, moths might be listed in sortable table, in which there are columns for attributes such as size, usage, genus, &c. Or it might be a list of lists in which there are sub-lists for each of these types. Exploring these alternatives is best done by ordinary editing and experimentation. Deletion would disrupt such activity, contrary to WP:BITE, and so is not helpful or appropriate. Andrew D. ( talk) 11:55, 6 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Please don't invent problems that don't exist. It's not helpful. I assume that if you actually had an example of such a moth, then you would have linked to its article. In any case, there is not proscription against an item being in more than one list. Spinning Spark 14:01, 6 December 2018 (UTC) reply

• Delete. Scope far too broad to be workable. Interesting, short sublists (large, important, etc. moths) belong into Moth. Sandstein 20:12, 6 December 2018 (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.