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Perhaps within Wikipedia's home country, can be found several places that fail WP:GEOLAND? For example, Dott, Pennsylvania article contains only a single paragraph consisting of a single sentence and an infobox. Yet having only one source that does not back it up (statistical listing). This should be merged with Bethel Township, Fulton County, Pennsylvania, and all other uninc. places with no meaningful content be merged with the article of the township; the article of the township better be expanded. JWilz12345(Talk|Contrib's.)04:39, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there's still an endless amount of WP:GNIS junk out there. PA is a bad one on this, with lots of names on the map that were nothing more than a handful of homes. Yes, you should absolutely merge these empty pages to the township article, which is the actual recognized place. Reywas92Talk15:25, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As to the endless amount of WP:GNIS junk, Ébresztőföl appears to be creating numerous stubs based solely on GNIS references. As previous discussed, something identified as a "populated place" in GNIS does not automatically confer notability, as many of these are no more than a road crossing with a store or a church nearby at the time the data was collected and might not even exist at present. older ≠ wiser14:57, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I occasionally see it argued that legal recognition under GEOLAND can be assumed just from there being a post-office or a school at the location. Typically this argument fails but it would be good to say something specific about it in the guide. FOARP (talk) 15:25, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Although "legal recognition" is a vague criterion, I would say "has a post office or school" clearly fails it. FOARP: can you give an example where the argument is made at AfD? — hike395 (talk) 16:07, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Hike395 - Here's an AFD I participated in where it succeeded in making the discussion no consensus. Here's another. Of course there were other arguments made in those discussions as well. Haven't seen any lately but then I haven't been so active at AFD. FOARP (talk) 18:17, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, we should. I know that just in the county I live in, there were post offices established at isolated country stores and at farms. There were other post offices at locations for which the name may appear on an old map, but I haven't found any information on what was there. There is even one post office for which the only information I have found places it on the mail route between two towns that were about 30 miles apart. Schools, churches, and even courthouses were often established at otherwise uninhabited places, although settlements might eventually grow up around them. So I think we should say that the presence of post offices, schools, churches, and other non-residential buildings do not in and of themselves demonstate that they were in a populated place. What we need are reliable sources that indicate that there was a population at the location that was more than the store keeper, farmer, teacher, or minister and their family and dependents. Donald Albury16:08, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A straight forward additional sentence in GEOLAND would read: "Legal recognition requires substantiation in reliable sources and should not be inferred simply from the presence or absence of non-residential buildings such as post-offices, schools, and churches at the location". FOARP (talk) 09:14, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This may well be true of the US, which AFAIK is in any case the only place where the term "legal recognition" has any precise meaning. It's not true of (for example) the UK and Europe, where a church standing in isolation mostly indicates a now-depopulated ancient settlement (and thus notable, since notability is not temporary). So remove churches, or limit the comment to the US? Ingratis (talk) 13:34, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that just there being a post office or school should not be enough to green light it. And I think that "legal recognition" (especially for current times)) is a mostly good criteria but sometimes problematic. But there no harm is clarifying that such a/any building alone does not itself satisfy the"legally recognized" criteria. But the proposed wording goes a lot farther than that and IMO too far. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:26, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
