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Request for comment

There appears to be consensus for this to be promoted to guideline status. Number 57 12:59, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This is a request to re-promote this page to guideline status. The page was originally promoted in 2012 after a 3 month RfC, but was then unpromoted a month later due to concerns that not enough people participated in the original RfC. The wording of the page has been stable for years and it is frequently cited in deletion discussions even though it is not technically a guideline. There is nothing controversial here. This page consists only of well-established rules of thumb that are already in practice. By promoting them to be official guidelines, we can make the AfD process a bit more efficient and help new administrators learn the ropes more easily. Kaldari (talk) 03:10, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

  • Oppose I don't see it being frequently cited in deletion discussions and, where it is, it does not seem helpful. For example, here's the one example I could find: Selale. A vague wave is made to WP:GEOLAND which is then ignored in favour of the commentator's own personal opinion. I see more reference to WP:STREET which is just some editor's opinion and not a guideline either. See Shattuck Avenue which is rapidly tossed out for this reason. Moreover, the current text of the putative guideline does not seem well drafted. For example, "Populated, legally-recognized places[1] are considered notable". The footnote explains that "The definition of 'legally recognized places' for notability purposes may vary from country to country. For example, in the United States, census tracts are defined by the government and they are typically inhabited, but they are generally not notable." This seems quite confusing and contradictory. This is useless clutter and so WP:CREEP applies. Andrew (talk) 06:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Comment  I don't see that the essay has gotten beyond the problem that it repeats WP:GNG over and over.  Two specific points, it doesn't have a key essay for streets, WP:STREET, and "The number of known sources should be considered to ensure there is verifiable content for an encyclopedic article." is either a throwback to 2007 when WP:N was a content guideline, or it is a WP:V issue.  With today's wp:notability, topics can be wp:notable without there being sources with which to write an article.  Unscintillating (talk) 07:11, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Bot needed for cleanup  There is a problem with how this essay is getting added to articles.  I looked at hundreds of links at [1], and there is not a single AfD listed.  Instead there are numerous schools, malls, and even a school faculty group linked.  This diff is where User:BattyBot changed a notability tag for a group of musicians to add this essay, listing the essay as a guideline.  Unscintillating (talk) 07:11, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Yes, people have been linking to this page as if it were already a guideline. That should be a good hint that it's worth promoting (rather than systematically unlinking by BOT). I'm not sure why you weren't able to find any AfD links. There are at least 100 AfD links in that list. Kaldari (talk) 07:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 Doing... tonight to change the malls and schools, and see which other edits by my bot need to be redone. Thank you for alerting me to this issue. GoingBatty (talk) 11:28, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 Done - Sorry for not doing this sooner. GoingBatty (talk) 05:23, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Additionally, here are results for
  • Support - per my rationale in the previous RfC and per the statistics above, particularly per the 2,211 uses of Wikipedia:Notability (geography) in AfD discussions. The page is already essentially being used as a guideline in AfD discussions and at this time has significant precedent as such. NorthAmerica1000 09:07, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - a de-facto guideline. No specific arguments are given against the particular rules of the guideline which could not be fixed during routine improvements. The argument "it repeats WP:GNG over and over" does not invalidate the fact that the page has rules beyond GNG. And repetition of GNG is actually good, to remove doubts as to whether some objects are something special (which had happened in AfD pages). Staszek Lem (talk) 17:57, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. A clear and commonsense proposal, this should be a guideline and is already used as such. --LT910001 (talk) 05:28, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
  • I'd support promoting parts of this to guideline status, but I'm not sure that it's ready. In the "Buildings and objects" section there's the sentence: "Artificial geographical features that are officially assigned the status of cultural or national heritage or of any other protected status are inherently notable." For the most important heritage sites that's probably correct, but there are lower levels of protection which don't meet notability, making this misleading. The sentence about excluding micronations also seems unnecessary (as in most cases they are populated places without legal recognition); is there a reason for it? Peter James (talk) 22:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
re: "protected status". Good catch of a WP:WEASEL; easily fixed: I added clarification "of national level". Staszek Lem (talk) 23:07, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
National level could still include Grade II Listed buildings or similar status, and most are not notable. Peter James (talk) 09:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
I see. Let's discuss it in a separate section. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
re: "micronations, reason for exclusion of": let me ask you back: why would you want to include them into this policy? There was silent consensus. I guess people had different reasons to consent on their exclusion. In my view, micronations are more from realm of fantasy, cosplay, kookery, etc., and I don't want even to start thinking about specific rules for their notability. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:07, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
I wouldn't specifically include them, but for some of them this seems to be a suitable subject-specific page. Many are a combination of geography and organisation, similar to local government districts, only not legally recognised as places. Peter James (talk) 09:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • I probably should have rounded down to fifteen months instead of rounding up to sixteen, but that doesn't change the evidence that the name of this essay has not been mentioned in an AfD since January 2013.  Is this significant?  That is for discussion, which a statement of fact is not, but your adversarial response indicates that you think that this is a significant fact.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:40, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Statements of fact do not have confusion.  It is an adversarial viewpoint that brings the concept of "confusion" to this discussion.  The statement of fact remains.  Unscintillating (talk) 22:57, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • The premise above is "wikipedians are lazy (in a good sense) and don't care to type the name of the essay. They use shortcuts..."  By implication, Wikipedia editors do not use the proper (longer) name of a Project Page when they can use shortcuts.  The implication predicts that editors use "WP:IAR", and not "Wikipedia:Ignore all rules".  Fact check:
  1. WP:IAR 1,156 cases (the predicted usage)
  2. Wikipedia:IAR 3 cases (unpredicted)
  3. WP:Ignore all rules 43 cases (unpredicted)
  4. Wikipedia:Ignore all rules 85 cases (unpredicted)
Unscintillating (talk) 22:57, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • The confusion is not your fact, but an apparent interpretation of the fact, if taken for ultimate Truth. Specifically, that the name of the essay was not mentioned does not mean that the essay was not mentioned or linked. Hence, the "fact" is misleading, if taken in isolation. You didn't even bother to consider that the page had other names. P.S. Your exercise with IAR means what? That you can conduct search correctly after all? Then why didn't you report the info about this page in the same format? Highly selective facts breed confusion and mistrust. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:47, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • If there are insufficiencies in my formatting and search selections, I'm sorry; perhaps the previous poster can do better.  Escalating by using the word "mistrust" is a reason for the previous poster to step away from this discussion.  It also seems odd that with almost no previous contact between the two of us, the previous poster has taken a recent interest in an article listed at User:Unscintillating.  The statement of fact remains.  Unscintillating (talk) 07:05, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Suggestion that @BattyBot: self-revert changes to add the WP:Notability (geographic features) notability tags. 
  1. For one, this has not been a guideline since January 2013, so I think that the changes made in December 2012 have been erroneous for over a year.
  2. BattyBot is second-guessing the original post, which may have really intended WP:GNG notability, and BattyBot doesn't change the date that the tag was added.  BattyBot doesn't have the judgement to know if a topic like a church is better listed as a building or as an organization.
  3. Editors are implying that the changes BattyBot has made show widespread interest in this essay, so the changes are confounding the level of interest in this essay.
Unscintillating (talk) 01:40, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
I have been running BattyBot to set one of the parameters of Template:Notability to link to this guideline. Before more mass reversions, let's see whether the consensus is to remove the parameter from Template:Notability (which makes reversions moot) or the page is promoted to guideline status (and a subset of the edits should be reverted), or something else. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:59, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
I have replied at User talk:GoingBatty.  Unscintillating (talk) 14:48, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Possible contradiction with existing guideline: see Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies) - although a change may be needed there, not here. Peter James (talk) 09:38, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment before this can be approved, the language should be adjusted to talk about "presumed" notability (the condition to create the stand-alone article) as to match with WP:N and other subject-specific notability guidelines. --MASEM (t) 20:26, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Please describe the problem. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:53, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
      • If you review the other notability guidelines, language is stated something like "A topic is presumed notable if...". The reason we state that is that there can be exceptional cases where even though the condition on this page is met, if there's no significant sourcing , that presumption can be fairly challenged via AFD or other means. These guidelines (the ones above and beyond the base WP:N) are meant to define cases that should be able to product viable encyclopdic articles given enough time (per WP:DEADLINE) to do so; the presumption concept means the initial claim that these were notable can possibly be wrong. --MASEM (t) 21:45, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
        • Well, why don't you just do it? Sounds noncontroversial, so hardly a need to hinder this RFC by something easily done. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:23, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
          • The problem is that this is presently written that they are not presented in the same format as the other subject-specific guidelines, so rewritting to set that format could affect the present discussion. --MASEM (t) 01:02, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
            • In other words, you want a yet another round of bureaucracy: proposal rejected -> criticism fixed -> proposal re-submitted, right? Well, see you next year same place here again, then :-) Staszek Lem (talk) 01:30, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
              • I'm not rejecting this on that principle just that once the ideas of what should be included have stablized by this discussion the next step is to clean up the langauge to match the consensus and what other notability guidelines present, double check that it reads fine, and then promote. I or anyone else could be bold and rewrite this now, but there's also a good amount of disagreement points being made that any rewrite should hold off until the core details that should be in here are fixed. --MASEM (t) 01:41, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
                • In this case, for the purposes of easily tracking pro/contra, why don't you modify your beginning statement of this thread to something like "***Conditionally support***, predicated on rewriting in terms of "presumed notability...."? Staszek Lem (talk) 01:24, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
  • I've been working on some more numbers for recent AfDs.  The guideline was changed to essay status on 18 January 2013.  The following results are where the reference is later than or equal to 18 January 2013, and the reference is not by someone who has already !voted here:
  1. WP:Notability (geographic features), 1 case (as reported above)
  2. WP:Notability (geography), 0 cases
  3. WP:NGEO, 36 cases
  4. WP:NGEOG, 3 cases
  5. WP:GEOLAND, 21 cases
  6. WP:GEOFEAT, 12 cases
  7. WP:GEOROAD, 0 cases
Unscintillating (talk) 07:05, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
  • support It is not surprising that a non-guideline is not often cited. The question is does the proposed guideline have valuable guidance in it, and I think it does. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:01, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support about time someone started this discussion so that we can avoid all the wasted time at AFD when people debate whether a village with 50 people or what have you is notable. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 06:35, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment I am the one editor who mentioned this former guideline at Selale; I argued for deletion despite this. This page is too broad in its criteria for inclusion, for my liking. (Even a village with a population of 4 persons would be considered notable.) We need a guideline for geographic places and I'd rather have some guideline than none at all. Chris Troutman (talk) 07:18, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
    • re: "4 persons": This is a perennial philosophical question: how many grains of sand makes it a hill. :-) Please notice an important caveat in the guideline "...with verifiable information beyond simple statistics". Yes, we would like to know even about ghost towns, if there is anything to say about them. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:37, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
      • @Staszek Lem: But that caveat is the problem, as Gigs points out. We consider Nobel prize winners notable, even if the subject has only a single reference. If enough references exist we don't need a SNG; we just use GNG. I want an SNG but this isn't written well enough. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:50, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
        • If enough refs exist we don't need SNG nowhere, not only for NGEO. The caveat is specific for geo features, because for them there are usually numerous maps, lists, navigation tables, etc. The caveat is twofold: it specifically dismisses maps and tables no matter now many of them (tables may be published annually, so you can have a hundred RSes for a river bank). On the other hand, if there is even a shred of non-trivial information, then we presume notablitity. As a final stroke, it is well-known that presumed notability is a not a 100% pass to wikipedia, so this 4-man village may still be deleted in AfD. Staszek Lem (talk) 15:55, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
          • Changing to Oppose the nom Staszek Lem has successfully argued me into opposition. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:12, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
            • Out of curiosity: which argument of Kaldari (the nom) convince you? Staszek Lem (talk) 16:34, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
              • @Staszek Lem: My mistake, I assumed this was your idea. You chased me from support with your nonsense argument above. I am willing to support a good SNG. I don't know how you think this plan makes any sense and at this point I don't care. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:07, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
                • Thank you, a very convincing counter-argument, especially coming off a keyboard of a "Wikipedia Visiting Scholar". I am OK if you do not explain why you dislike me, but for the purpose of this discussion you still did not explain what's wrong with a village with 4 dwellers, if there is nontrivial information about it. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:47, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support, essentially per comments by Northamerica1000, above. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 18:01, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Strongly Oppose This guideline serves no purpose.
    • "Populated, legally-recognized places", and "Major highways" are inherently notable, and every other heading on the page basically says "must meet the GNG". That's the entire guideline. Everything else is completely redundant with other guidelines. If there isn't already a sentence/small section in the GNG to this effect, we could just add it.
    • This isn't an SNG in the normal sense. It's only real purpose is to document a long-standing exception to all notability requirements taken from the "gazetteer" function. This is another reason it should just merit a sentence or two in GNG, not be a separate guideline.
    • In general, I oppose the entire idea of SNGs, however, even if you do support them, this should not be one, for the reasons outlined above. Gigs (talk) 19:15, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
      • This is an understandable position. Instruction creep is generally disliked. However many people consider SNGs to be time savers in AfD discussions (e.g. "oppose per WP:SNG_XXX, bullet 27"). Even if someone here considers my wiewpoint stupid, I still think that at least this SNG is a condensed wisdom of past outcomes of AfDs, rather than something crafted just for fun of bureaucracy. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:47, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
      • Comment: @Gigs: Actually, it may be a very good idea to carve out a non-controversial core of this proposal into a paragraph in the GNG. Can you make a formal suggestion in the GNG talk page? Staszek Lem (talk) 23:59, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
Oppose: Tries to carve out a notability exemption based on a place being legally recognized as opposed to it being discussed in reliable sources. That's perilously close to inherent notability, and nothing is inherently notable.—Kww(talk) 04:23, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
  • There is nothing "as opposed" in this policy. In addition, it is ridiculous to oppose "legal recognition" against "reliable sources". If it is legally recognized, there must be legal, hence reliable sources, right? Staszek Lem (talk) 23:47, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Legal recognition does not say that anyone has discussed the topic. An entry in a census or atlas is not a discussion.—Kww(talk) 00:14, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
    • @Kww : First, I am glad that we agree about census or atlas. However in fact I don't think we have a disagreement about the first item either. Please recall that the policy is stated in terms of "presumed notability". Within wikipedia this means the notability has a good chance, but still not guaranteed. In the context of this guideline we merely say that (a) legally recognized settlements have reasonable chance (but not guaranteed) to have reliable information available and (b) the guideline expressly requires information beyond stats from atlases or census tables. Please notice that the GNG clause "Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail" does not exclude tables and censuses: they indeed cover the subject in minute detail. And the latter fact is the root of my interest in this guideline: to fix this omission (and not the desire to push for nonnotable 4-dweller settlements as some concluded). Staszek Lem (talk) 18:33, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose, a subject is notable if and only if it has been substantially noted. That's perfectly well described at GNG. Subguidelines confuse this simple principle and we need less of them, not more. Like everything else we do, to determine if something is notable, we look at the references (or in this case, lack thereof). Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:27, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Sigh An apple is tasty if and only if it tastes good. Right. Great logic. Yes, references is the foremost policy in wikipedia. This guideline is intended to clarify which references are to be considered. For example, a creek is not notable no matter how many maps show it. And so on. I may agree that this guideline is not perfect. Please explain what is confusing in it, and we will try to fix it. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:47, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support as it's useful and well It's about time someone created this!. →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 00:26, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
  • I have proposed merging a concise version of the relevant parts of this proposal into WP:N at Wikipedia_talk:Notability#Adding_a_small_sentence_about_geography Gigs (talk) 17:12, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
  • support as with all notability guidelines, it complements, rather than supersedes WP:GNG. it simply suggests how to properly apply the existing primary guidelines. it does not establish any special requirements for notability. pertsonally, i find that geographic feature notability is confusing as-is. -- Aunva6talk - contribs 23:50, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
  • tentative support in the interests of promoting clarity and nonambiguity. Is commonsense. GNG is only grudgingly consented to by editors of either extreme in inclusionism or deletionism. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:20, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - This seems like a well-written SNG. Carrite (talk) 17:35, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. This seems well thought out. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:15, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. Very clear and helpful. A model example of how a SNG should be written. SilkTork ✔Tea time 08:28, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. I was about to say more or less what SilkTork just did. — Scott • talk 09:33, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong support because Wikipedia is a gazetteer too. Also, a well-thought-out SNG per SilkTork. --Jakob (talk) 11:54, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose Serves no purpose per User:Gigs. Me5000 (talk) 23:12, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - as with all such SNGs, the proof will be in the pudding. This has the potential to become a useful shorthand for consensus that generally exists already. I understand those who suggest this serves no real purpose - it doesn't really say anything that isn't already said elsewhere but it does bring it together nicely. It's nicely written and well thought out. If it is consistently misused or misinterpreted it can always be demoted. St★lwart111 11:16, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Support as nominator Considering how frequently geographic features are discussed at AfD, I think having a set of guidelines will be very useful for Wikipedia. At this point the wording has been well-tuned over several years of discussion, and I think that it accurately reflects the general consensus of those discussions. The fact that it often reiterates the GNG is a feature, not a bug. In many cases referring people to the GNG is the best course of action. Kaldari (talk) 17:34, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Support per above. Enough of people trying to override community consensus by saying "It's just an essay". Ansh666 02:01, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Support, broad enough for my taste but still reasonable, understands that WP also includes gazeteer-like information, it is used already in AfD, it also recognizes some embryonic degree of intrinsic notability, which is a good thing in my book (I know some people disagree). Good.--cyclopiaspeak! 15:18, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Support, since it already seems to be used as a guideline and would make a good supplemental notability guideline. APerson (talk!) 20:17, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Support about time. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 06:23, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Support A well considered and indubitably useful proposal.  Philg88 ♦talk 04:18, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Support as above. I am adding this so that the PTB (Powers That Be) will know that one more person read through all this and was not persuaded that there was a significant problem with this being a guideline. --Bejnar (talk) 09:03, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. The proposed guideline basically boils down to "Populated, legally recognised places and major highways are inherently notable". But this is too vague. What's the dividing line between a highway and a major highway? "Legally recognised" is left undefined. On the one hand, it might apply to any parcel of land (if a building has been sold in modern times, this entails it being "legally recognised"). On the other, it might be taken to mean places on some sort of official list of places. Which would be fine if all countries in the world kept such a list, but many don't. So there's an issue of systematic bias. Individual dwellings in one country might be inherently notable, whereas a town of 20,000 people in another might need to meet GNG. Why would this make sense? If I can produce a court document referring to a large quantity of banknotes having been found "at the back of Formerip's garage", does this make the back of my garage a legally recognised place for the purposes of the guideline?
Overall, the proposed guideline is not sufficiently clear to helpful in a dispute, which is the acid-test for whether it would be worth having. Formerip (talk) 14:39, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
@FormerIP: These are guidelines, not binding legislation. They are meant to be used with a grain of common sense. As to systemic bias, you claim that "many" countries do not have lists of populated places. As the author of several "List of municipalities in..." articles, I find this hard to believe. Even small developing countries normally have censuses. Institutions like the IMF and World Bank require such data. Do you have any examples of such countries? Kaldari (talk) 18:00, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
"A grain of common sense" is one thing, but what we have here is proposed guidance which is just completely vague. It doesn't provide any actual guidance, because it is hard to imagine any geographical place that has not been "legally recognised" in some sense. I suspect the example of the census illustrates the systematic bias problem. I'm only guessing, so apologies if I have this wrong. Is it that the US census provides data on individual settlements and neighbourhoods, and you are assuming everywhere else in the world does things the same way? They don't. In the UK, for example, they just divide the country up semi-arbitrarily, using Local Authority boundaries as a guide, and giving geographic areas at a "zoomed in" level alphanumeric codes, which may but in most cases don't conform to "real" geography. Some fairly large towns like Brighton and Huddersfield don't officially exist as far as the census is concerned. Formerip (talk) 18:40, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
@FormerIP:re: hard to imagine any geographical place that has not been "legally recognised" first, only populated places are about being "legally recognized". Second, it is not so hard to imagine ones (I mean pop places, not geo places), and even so, it is even the better: this is precisely the intention: wikipedian community decided they want to know all places where people live. Census is but one example of references of legal recognition. Third, how notability of Huddersfield is prevented by this guideline? Staszek Lem (talk) 19:02, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
By the way, of course, you may call "Formerip's garage" and even "Formerip's couch" a populated place, but this is not what is usually thought. And if you start an article Formerip's couch arguing it was legally recognized, because you can provide legal documents you received it as a divorce settlement, you will be a laughing stock. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:02, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
re: is just completely vague. Please provide a real-world example where the guideline will not work, and we will try to improve it. Otherwise your objection is just as well vague. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:02, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
Here's a real world example of how this guideline does work. In the country of Belize there are hundreds of villages. Some of these villages have thousands of people, some of them are just tiny informal farming communities. Without this guideline it is very hard to determine which are notable enough to have articles and which aren't (without scouring through obscure sources, many of which aren't online and aren't in English). There are, however, two official government lists of municipalities in Belize, one for village election results (compiled every 4 years), and one for the census (every 10 years). By combining those two lists we have a simple litmus test for which villages should probably have articles and which ones shouldn't. I would also like to hear an example of a real-world case where this guideline doesn't work. Kaldari (talk) 19:53, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
What you've described isn't a real world example of the proposal working, because there are too many ifs and supposes involved. Firstly, you've introduced a definition of "legally recognised" which is specific to Belize and isn't set out in the guideline. So, we need to make an assumption that there is no competing definition in the case of Belize. Because your way might seem tidy to you, but the guideline itself doesn't prevent me from saying "OK, my village may not feature in the census, but it received an official visit from the agriculture minister last year, so that constitutes legal recognition". Then there's the question of how well the lists reflect real geography. Is the electoral list actually a list of settlements, or is it a list of electoral districts which may take the name of a settlement? Do they reliably take the name of the most significant settlement within them, or might we be inadvertently promoting hamlets at the expense of towns? Do we have reason to suppose that appearing on one of the lists is a strong indication of the notability of a settlement, or is it little more than a blind guess, an arbitrary way of deciding because we don't have anything better to go off? I notice that we don't appear to have articles for any of the electoral divisions of Davenport, Iowa, for example, but we do have articles for various neighbourhoods not recognised for the purposes of elections. Given that it is the electoral divisions that should have inherent notability, are we doing this wrongly?
Even if there are good answers to all of these questions, all it means is that the proposed guidance is sort of, maybe helpful in the case of Belize. But that is not enough. As I've already indicated, the same approach would take us nowhere in the case of the UK, for instance, because areas recognised for the purposes of censuses and elections do not map well to what is and isn't a significant geographic entity. Formerip (talk) 21:40, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Added section" Sources"

I think this section is necessary, because I recall several cases when an article had no references other than an image of a map where a certain geographic location was marked, with subsequent long original research, kinda "the XXX in on the bank of ZZZ creek, 50mi west of TTT and 15mi north of Sss, just off Highway 3057". Staszek Lem (talk) 16:18, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

It also clarifies the phrase "information beyond simple statistics" from the 'nutshell' note. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:29, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Except, the section contradicts other portions of the page in a few places. Ansh666 08:24, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Whoa, whoa, Staszek, slow down. The way I read it, you've fundamentally changed the meaning here - by what you've added, many legally-recognized populated places (or once-populated places) are now non-notable because the sole reliable sources are census tables and such (see, for example, Nancy, Washington). Ansh666 03:06, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
Nope. The whole point is that legally recognized places are presumed notable regardless sources. Reliable sources are necessary for the fundamental policy of WP:VERIFY/WP:RS: no sources - no article regardless notability. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:35, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
@Staszek Lem: This isn't the way I'm seeing it. I see it the way Ansh666 does. The section should be removed or you should edit it to clarify this. --Jakob (talk) 08:51, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Please explain how they become non-notable, since this guideline specifically declares them notable whenever verifiable. Please explain your reasoning, so that I can address your concern properly. While explaining, please keep in mind that WP:GNG will exclude these sources as well, since they do not provide "significant coverage". Staszek Lem (talk) 16:21, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Hence why I said it contradicts other parts of the page. What the guideline says is that verifiablity == presumed notability. What you've added states the opposite - certain sources can be used to establish verifiability, but not notability, which implies that notability is no longer presumed. And, WP:GNG doesn't apply when there is a more specific notability guideline (used in the general sense, in this case) to follow. For a shining example, see WP:PORNBIO, which has been hotly debated many times - its standards for notability are far lower than WP:GNG in most cases. Ansh666 17:14, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

The part you probably interpreted as "verifiability == presumed notability" was my last sloppy (and reverted) edit of the guideline. Verifiability is an independent, fundamental policy without which article cannot exist. It should not be conflated with the issue of notability. I can verifiablty prove, from multiple sources, that my house exists, but it does not become notable. However this guideline makes an exception for legal populated places. Their notability is presumed on the basis of this guideline (based on the past community practice), so I don't see any contradiction. I agree with your remarks about WP:GNG and WP:PORNBIO. What I said is that unlike WP:PORNBIO, WP:NGEO does not decrease the sourcing standards compared to GNG, except for some cases. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:32, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Actually, you're right. The guideline doesn't even mention that legally recognized, populated places have to be verifiable anymore, after you removed that bit. Regardless, I'm not following your argument - what you've added seems to say that they are not presumed notable. This is from the last stable version (before February of this year): "Reliable sources that document and verify governmental recognition of a place, such as a national census, are usually adequate to establish notability." So, you removed this, added something which states the contrary, and say that there's no difference? Also, it's those cases where the guideline decreases the GNG standards that I'm specifically talking about here. Ansh666 17:02, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
@Ansh666:re: "...does not mention... have to be verifiable..." Neither it mentions other core wikipedia content policies, and rightly so. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:45, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
The removed phrase is redundant and in fact blurry. Once again: the common consensus, based on AfD outcomes is that legally recognized places are presumed notable without any extra conditions. The "reliable sources that..." are meant to establish legal recognition, per WP:V. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:45, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
re: "something which states the contrary": it states the contrary only if taken out of context. For legal pop places the "something" is irrelevant for notability, as I explained, and for the rest this "something" is exactly the intention from the very beginning (as seen in phrases of kind "beyond simple statistics", etc.). Staszek Lem (talk) 18:45, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
I am suggesting to add the following phrase, modifying the missing one you mention, to clarify the role of the sources here: The legal recognition of the populated place must be confirmed by reliable references to governmental sources, such as census data. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:45, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
re: " where the guideline decreases the GNG standards"" Yes, it was a consensus that, as a single (NB!) exception, we always would like to know about where Nancy, Washington is, even if it did not hit tabloids or travel guides. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:45, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
You're assuming that everyone who reads the guideline will read and understand everything, know all about the history of the entire issue, and/or instantly realize that one thing is completely different than the others when it's not mentioned at all in an eye-catching section? Because, I can tell you, people can and will cherrypick things from pages like this to use in arguments, and refuse to admit that their narrow reading is wrong. The less ambiguity, the better. Ansh666 01:23, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
Well, this one thing is spelled in the "Nutshell": "Legally recognized, populated places are presumed to be notable.". I also suggested a clarification about the role of the sources in this item. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:49, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I oppose the addition of this section in its current form and support its removal per Ansh and the rest of the guideline. Can we remove it while we talk about it, in accordance with the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle? --Bejnar (talk) 17:58, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Once again, please explain your reasoning. I am sure you have something in mind beyond WP:IDONTLIKEIT. As for removing, it is a bit too late for WP:BRD: the section is here for a month and edited (i.e.) reviewed by several persons. However if you provide a significant, difficult to contest, drawback, I will agree with its removal here, for discussion. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:15, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
      • I also find the Sources section to be somewhat confusing. If you just want to say that being shown on a map doesn't establish notability, why not just say that? The rest of that section doesn't really add anything useful, IMO, and much of it overlaps with other guidelines and policies. Kaldari (talk) 04:20, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Notability template linking to this guideline

Congratulations on your recently completed RfC! Since this is now a notability guideline, it makes sense that the {{notability}} template should continue to be used with the "Geo", "Geographic", "Geography", "Place", or "Places" parameter, which will provide a link to this guideline instead of the general notability guideline, where appropriate.
During the RfC, some editors correctly pointed out that the guidelines I was using to have my bot add the "Geography" parameter were not appropriate. I made many revisions during the RfC, but eventually tabled the discussion of my bot so that the RfC could focus on its primary objective. Now that the RfC is done, I would be happy to resume the discussion about the bot. The bot adds a parameter to existing {{notability}} templates based on the infobox on the page, so that the template links to the appropriate guideline. The rules I use are posted at User:BattyBot/Notability. I welcome any suggestions to improving this bot task. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:00, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Roads notability

I am uncertain whether the criteria for roads differs so significantly from other topics. Any state road qualifies. In contrast, the threshold for a professor is much more strict.

Perhaps, the presumption of road notability should be abandoned. Instead, there should be multiple sources attesting to the notability of the route (which isn't common but may be common for a controversial tunnel), famous folklore (such as Route 66 in the U.S.), etc. Eating Glass Is Bad (talk) 23:20, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

As a first piece of commentary, thank you for notifying WikiProjects like WP:HWY or WP:USRD that might be interested in your opinions challenging the notability of their topic area.
There are some other considerations than pure notability at work to consider. WP:5P says that "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia: It combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers." Gazetteers include information on roads, whether it is confined to mere lists or richer explanations in text format.
No one should think Michigan State Trunkline Highway System is not notable. However, that is a very broad topic. To adequately cover the topic, we need to spin content out to separate articles. With hundreds of current and former highways in the state, we end up with List of Interstate Highways in Michigan, List of U.S. Highways in Michigan, List of state trunklines in Michigan and Michigan Heritage Route. Even these can't cover the various historical details of the highways without running afoul of WP:SIZE, so we get a third level of the hierarchy for articles like Interstate 69 in Michigan, U.S. Route 2 in Michigan, and M-6 (Michigan highway), We end up with separate articles, or article subsections, for most state highways to avoid SIZE-related issues. It would look especially inappropriate to have separate articles on a majority of a state's highways, and then delete articles written in a similar fashion because the sources don't match your expectations, thus creating a huge hole in our coverage of a topic that directly or indirectly impacts millions of people each day.
Another consideration is that to be a state highway is usually a special thing for a road. In Michigan, there are only 9,716 miles (15,636 km) of state highways compared to 89,755 miles (144,447 km) of county roads and 20,785 miles (33,450 km) of city/village streets. Most county roads in Michigan lack separate articles, but the few like H-58 (Michigan county highway), Brockway Mountain Drive or County Road 595 (Marquette County, Michigan) that do exceed WP:GNG by a long shot. Imzadi 1979 → 00:46, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

An AfD about this topic

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bellevue, Mississippi largely is centering around whether an official government listing for a place is mandatory to be notable, or just recommended. The community is not listed by the US Census or on geographic databases, but at the same time, the community is trying to incorporate as a city and has a good amount of news coverage for that. There is also some weak evidence that locals have recognized it for decades. Have a look at the AfD and see if it might be justified to clarify the guidelines here. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:50, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

As the result was "keep", and the closer was clear about what the guideline says, I am not sure what additional clarification is required. @Oiyarbepsy: Do you have a specific suggestion as to language? --Bejnar (talk) 00:39, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
  • At the time I posted, the discussion was ongoing, but I think the AfD answers the question. Basically, absence from a particular database doesn't mean it isn't notable. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 01:28, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Notability of defunct townships

I recently found the article List of Oklahoma townships, and I'm not sure if the entries are notable enough to warrant a list. The list has sat completely unsourced for 12 years and doesn't link to a single township article (and none exist). Being a native of Oklahoma, I can say with confidence that townships don't exist there, and they aren't recognized by the Census Bureau. Perhaps the list was compiled from this website, but that doesn't seem reliable as a source. The townships can be found at GNIS (here, for example), but it lists their status as "Inactive or Nonfunctioning Primary County Divisions". These are probably the historical names for survey townships, but never represented any kind of actual community, formally organized or otherwise. kennethaw88 • talk 22:28, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Note: just in the time that it took me to post this, the GNIS website went down for weekend maintenance. kennethaw88 • talk 22:30, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
Some things to keep in mind are WP:NTEMP – things don't have to currently exist to be notable; and WP:NLIST – individual list items do not need to be notable, only the grouping or the set. - Evad37 [talk] 01:20, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Notability of city streets

Does the GEOROAD section covers city streets? If so, I think it would be good to add that term to the section. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:57, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

GEOROAD already covers "local roads", but perhaps it might be better to change that to "local roads and streets", as this isn't the first time this issue has come up (see § Streets above) - Evad37 [talk] 08:09, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Nordic Estonia

Didn't know where to ask this, but this should be the right place. Does Nordic Estonia article have any notability value? This theory is fringe and is only accepted by some people in Estonia. This article containts original research and there aren't many sources that could verify this concept. Any thoughts about this would be appreciated. – Sabbatino (talk) 13:07, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Streets

Currently there is no explicit mention of streets in the Roadways section. As a guideline, would it not be useful to add there a sentence such as: Generally individual streets in a city or town, while locally important, are not independently notable, and are best discussed in the individual town, city or borough article. Exceptions that meet the general notability guidelines are few, but include such streets as Unter den Linden, Wukang Road, and Hollywood Boulevard. --Bejnar (talk) 00:34, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

@Bejnar: The guideline currently does include "Topic notability for ... local roads ... may vary, and are presumed to be notable if they have been the subject of multiple published secondary sources which are reliable and independent of the subject" – which would seem to me to include streets, but perhaps it might be better to explicitly specify streets in that sentence. Also, I don't think we really want every non-notable street to be "discussed in the individual town, city or borough article" as the proposed text would suggest. - Evad37 [talk] 07:50, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
I agree that we don't want every non-notable street to be mentioned in town, city or borough articles. However, as I look at most existing street articles, they do not meet WP:GNG. What guidance should we give the authors of those articles? --Bejnar (talk) 18:49, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
The same guidance as always for articles not satisfying the notability guidelines - verifiable information should be merged into the broader article, as appropriate and with due weight. If there's nothing particularly significant about a certain street, then it's indiscriminant information and should not be included at all.
A street seems to be already covered here under "local road". It has no special recommendation, so all the usual notability guidelines apply. It wouldn't be appropriate to give such specific instructions and examples about what that might entail, such as implying that a street must match the level of notability of Hollywood Boulevard etc., before a dedicated article can be written for it.
I do think it would be a good idea to have some general guidance about places or buildings that are exclusively of local interest, which may have been covered in local community media, such as strip malls, minor streets, local restaurants, neighborhood parks, and so on. The "sources" section could include something similar to WP:AUD. There is a reasonable basis for this in WP:LOCAL, which is linked in the "see also" section, in WP:MILL, and possibly WP:GEOSCOPE. On the other hand, WP:TOWN, which failed to get consensus as a guideline, would have formally made buildings and places of purely local interest and coverage acceptable for inclusion. You can see in the talk page there some of the different opinions. -- IamNotU (talk) 19:26, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
Just a few thoughts: I like the idea of specifically mentioning streets rather than presuming that editors will know that "local roads" includes streets— we do not want to have Wikipedia filled with ten thousand articles on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd streets of every small town in the world just because they exist on maps, and not mentioning "streets" in the guidelines looks like a kind of loophole to me. I do hate loopholes. Also, the text of the section on roads currently reads thus: "Topic notability for county roads, regional roads (such as Ireland's regional roads), local roads, streets and motorway service areas may vary, and are presumed to be notable if they have been the subject of multiple published secondary sources which are reliable and independent of the subject." Doesn't that seem somewhat redundant and unnecessary? "Presumed notable" becomes irrelevant if the road has the necessary coverage, which makes it just "notable". Could we rephrase this as, "...only qualify as notable if they have been the subject of..."? Because that seems to be what the paragraph is saying, and it takes out the redundancy. Thoughts? KDS4444 (talk) 09:03, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
I think that "presumed" is meant to be interpreted in the same way as it is in WP:GNG – that it is an assumption, rather than a guarantee, of worthiness for a stand-alone article. - Evad37 [talk] 10:19, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Notability of transport routes

I propose that transport routes may have presumed notability like roadways:

  • All named trains
  • Named cruise ships
  • International car and train ferries with regular service
  • All official rapid transit routes as a rapid transit route implies presence of a notable passenger flow in that corridor
  • City bus routes having a notable passenger flow
  • City bus routes determining the growth of the city (this needs to be proven according to WP:RELIABLE)
  • Rail replacement services, where they have pre-determined schedules and operated actually (not just decided to done in a scenario)
  • Direct competitors of said above

Erkinalp9035 (talk) 09:19, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm skeptical of city bus routes having presumed notability. In most cases there will not be enough verifiable information to make an encyclopedic article on a bus route, even a heavily used one. Such information would probably be better suited for Wikivoyage. Kaldari (talk) 09:27, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
Wikivoyage and Wikitravel consider touristic importance as their notability criterion, passenger flow does not imply touristic importance. I also referenced WP:RELIABLE. Erkinalp9035 (talk) 12:58, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

GEOLAND ambiguity re: official neighbourhoods

GEOLAND states "Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low..." [emphasis added] while also stating "Populated places without legal recognition are considered on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the GNG. Examples may include unofficial neighborhoods, etc." [emphasis added].

What about official neighbourhoods as defined by cities themselves? Major cities often divide themselves into official neighbourhoods. Should they be construed as "populated, legally recognized places" by virtue of them being officially defined by their cities with names and boundaries? Surely officially defined neighbourhoods cannot be construed as "unofficial neighbourhoods". That would be counterintuitive. I look forward to comment regarding my interpretation. Whether or not my interpretation is incorrect, I think the wording in GEOLAND needs to be improved to eliminate the current ambiguity. Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 06:07, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

The city in which I live has 51 neighborhoods; a mixture of official and unofficial. The difference here seems to be that official neighborhoods have associations that hold community meetings and such. Only ten of the 51 have articles: one is the CBD and seven are registered historical neighborhoods, which leaves two. These two neighborhoods are some of the most famous areas in the city: one is the hipster CBD and the other has a distinctive style of architecture. Do I think the other 41 neighborhoods should have articles? Probably not, but I'd have to see what somebody wrote first.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that I think the bar for neighborhoods is set a little higher than it is for cities and that notability is not inherited from the city. Just prove that the area is notable in its own right and you're fine. –Fredddie™ 11:41, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (highways)

I linked this from the roads section, but the talk page suggest it was rejected? Should it be marked as historical just like Wikipedia:Notability (streets, roads, and highways) and Wikipedia:Notability (Transportation)? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:21, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Request for comment of Israeli neighborhoods

I have opened an RFC for several of the Israeli cities that I think are un-encyclopedic. Therefore, I appreciate input from editors at that RFC. Thank you. --Tyw7 (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 14:08, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Are there any rules?

Many pages aren't sourced and the notability of their subjects is controversial, the other pages are moved to the Draftspace. Either the rules are obligatory or not. There is a long list of steps to improve a page milder than expelling it to the Draftspace, where noone will contribute. Pages quoted below were edited by many contributors, instaed to be moved to Draft.

Xx236 (talk) 09:20, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Rue de Richelieu doesn't quote any source since ages. Why is it accepted?Xx236 (talk) 11:26, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Rue Vaneau unsourced since 2007, Rue de Solférino since 2006. Rue de PresbourgXx236 (talk) 13:30, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
As the person who draftified the unsourced article you created I have already explained why on my talk page here User_talk:Domdeparis#Draft:Świdnicka_Street,_Wrocław. All articles have to meet notability criteria, new pages that are not up to scratch can be moved to draft space by a new pages reviewer, this is not normally an option for older pages. --Dom from Paris (talk) 16:39, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
@Xx236: I agree, none of the roads you mentioned look notable to me. Some of those have sister-articles in fr-wiki which are more developed, indicating there might be some notability from other sources. A cursory Google search shows that these roads are places where things are, but the roads themselves are not the subject of content. That said, it looks like you need to read WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. If you find articles that make no claim of notability, you can nominate them for deletion. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:49, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

"Legally recognized places"

Can we please clarify what a legally recognized place is? Is it when:

  • a Census attributes to that place a number of inhabitance?
  • the inhabidans of that place forms a local governing body?

I am asking because it is very difficult to verify the legal status of a collection of buildings near a village but has a distinct name.Τζερόνυμο (talk) 07:05, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi Τζερόνυμο, does the municipal authority recognise/use the distinct name in official documents/reports or do they include it under the village? Does the name appear on official maps? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:21, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

RfC notability rivers

There is a request for comments at WT:RIVERS, about a proposed notability guideline for rivers. See the proposal and the RfC. Markussep Talk 16:00, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

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