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Previous discussion

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This was drafted as part of this discussion at the Village pump. Please read it before adding comments here or making changes.

Moved out of RfC discussion.

Instead of bolding words as if we would miss them in plain text why don't you "read" that Village Pump discussion again and tell how how you come to the conclusion that there was anything remotely like a consensus in favour of creating a new guideline? Phil Bridger (talk) 18:23, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I drafted this proposal to try and capture the "Chekpoint" section, to which no-one opposed. I have now listed it as a proposal, so it can be extended and polished under greater community scrutiny. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 20:02, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But the you summary in the checkpoint section was a complete misrepresentation of the previous discussion. Consensus was already against a new guideline before you made that checkpoint. Editors in general have limited time, so shouldn't be expected to repeat their statements just because you decided on a checkpoint. Taking all opinions into account there was a clear consensus in favour of the status quo and getting on with writing an encyclopedia rather than creating and discussing a proposed guideline that was bound to fail. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to sink to the level of giving a blow-by-blow commentary of the previous discussion, but if you feel it's necessary then I will.
RE the AfD. If you read the comments, rather than counting votes, I don't think my merge is in any way subversive. The AfD got snowed by people citing this strange "all places are inherently notable" dogma without any reasoning, before any real discussion could get underway. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 23:27, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you think that an AfD was closed incorrectly then the thing to do is to discuss it with the closing administrator and then, if you are still not satisfied, take it to deletion review, not to unilaterally overturn it. I wish people wouldn't close AfDs early, but this one had been running for nearly four days and had an obvious consensus for keeping. You seem to to be very keen on making rules, but not on following them. You didn't even do a merge: you put one out-of-context fact into another article that leaves any reader looking for information on Astley Cross totally unilluminated. And even after today's edit-warring reversion you made it far more difficult for any reader to actually get any information. Phil Bridger (talk) 00:00, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think a deletion review is appropriate as I have been convinced that the page should not be deleted and Merge is not currently an available outcome for an AfD. There was only one fact on the original page. No other content. What more is possible from a merge? A search for Astley Cross would now take you to the Astley page, providing far more information (the Astley Cross article didn't even mention that it was in the parish of Astley[citation needed]), including all that was on the original Astley Cross page. Please stop making accusations of bad faith on my part. OrangeDog (talk • edits)


RFC: Guideline proposal

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I think this could become a useful guideline that could help clear up a number of disputes. Thoughts? OrangeDog (talk • edits) 12:29, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose The correct guideline is the present one, that all verifiable populated places with a jurisdictional or distinct geographic identity are notable, or whatever word you want to use a word to mean appropriate for inclusion in an encyclopedia. They serve as the skeleton of future articles, because they're ideal for new-comers. As for the objections
giving the population of a place is not indiscriminate information. Saying "among the inhabitants of X, is John Smith", that's indiscriminate information.
WP is not a directory has a logical exception here. Encyclopedias have always contained detailed atlases and gazeteers.
Stub is inapplicable, because these articles always do meet the present inclusion guideline for them. And if one believes in the sacred nature of the GNG, it does turn out there is always secondary information; its just a matter of finding it.
Of course they could be included in another article, but the general merging of minor articles, tho desirable, would be such a major change in the encyclopedia that it would require very general consensus. I'll probably support it, if it looks like it has a chance.
There is a real very general issue: just because one does not like this class of articles, that does not mean they hurt the encyclopedia. If you never look at them, they won't bother you. They don't even slow down the system. There are lots of things I'd rather weren't here at all, and lots of things I would rather not have separate articles for. But if they do, why should it bother me? What does bother me, and I think bothers people who use Wikipedia , is not the out-of-the-way information it contains, but the poor writing, inaccuracy, and out-of-date nature of most of the important articles, and the extremely sloppy sourcing and pervasive spam. Let's work on that, and leave alone what doesn't matter. Thee are tens of thousands of articles on small cities that need work. There are tens of thousands of articles on historic monuments that have not yet been written. There's enough to do in this area without having to remove things. Unlike paper, there is no virtue in getting minor material out of the way. DGG (talk) 22:43, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The proposer says above that this would "help clear up a number of disputes". What disputes? Afds for articles on verified settlements are amongst the least disputed - in general they are almost unanimously kept with most comments being that they are suitable for inclusion purely by the fact that they are populated places, not by matching them against some long bureaucratic list of criteria. Some recent examples are [1][2][3]. Guidelines are supposed to reflect practice, not change it, so if we are to have any guideline at all it should simply say "verified populated places are notable". The whole idea of this proposal is unnecessary instruction creep. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:03, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - ahistorical and recentist. The quest for information on forgotten hamlets and villages is never-ending. I, too, feel that we're better off fighting the excess of spam, fancruft and illiterate writing, rather than opposing the recording of places that long precede our arrivals on this crowded planet. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:29, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Clarification: This proposal does not aim to prevent the inclusion of places or to prevent people looking up information about anywhere that exists - this information should always be included in Wikipedia. It is simply trying to prevent the creation of separate articles about places that do not meet notability guidelines. Articles which can never be expanded beyond simple location and population data because their subjects are not covered in secondary sources. If you feel that it does not make this clear then please re-write it. Please also read this discussion; this proposal is based on the consensus that was reached there.
Specific replies:
There is no present accepted guideline on these articles. A simple listing in an atlas or population data is not significant coverage. Not every television programme is notable just because it appeared in the channel listings in a load of TV guides.
Yes, encyclopaedias often contain atlases or gazetteers, they do not however, contain an article about every populated place as part of their main content.
The guideline specifically says that AfDs should not be pursued, rather merges and redirects should be applied whenever appropriate.
The received wisdom that "every populated place is notable" goes completely against the ideas of notability. No consensus has ever been reached that just because something exists it is automatically notable (see previously referenced discussion).
Why should we stop attempting to improve things just because worse things exist? If you banned anyone from improving an article until all Start-class were raised to C-class then Wikipedia would grind to a halt.
OrangeDog (talk • edits) 18:06, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose A population centre who's existence can be verified in reliable sources should be included in Wikipedia in some form only if it is notable. We can't give an exemption from WP:N just because a topic exists or is recorded in a reliable tertiary source, any more than I can claim notability just because I am an editor of Wikipedia, and my argumements are recorded on this talk page. In any case, what use is it to include a topic if there is no commentary, context, criticism or analysis from reliable secondary sources with which to write an encyclopedic article? None. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 21:56, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry? That's the whole point of this guideline. Why do you oppose? OrangeDog (talk • edits) 21:59, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the approach in the section "Criteria for judging small population centres", which provides exemptions from WP:GNG for places if notability can be infered from another topic. In my view, just because a place is connected to a notable person or event, it does not make it notable per se - see Notability cannot be inherited. No matter how notable a related topic might be, it is of no value to writing an article if there is no commentary, context, criticism or analysis from reliable secondary sources with which covers the place itself. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:14, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, my intent was that the criteria act as an indicator that sufficient coverage exists to warrant a separate article, not that notability be inherited from them. I'll see if I can make that clearer. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 16:03, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. We had extensive discussion on this at Wikipedia:Notability (Geographic locations), and numerous AFDs come to the same conclusion: Real and verifiable settlements invariably get kept by overwhelming consensus. Settlements are the types of topics which traditionally are included in encyclopedias, and trying to tread a GNG over what people generally will expect an encyclopedia to contain is not helpful. I can see a case being made for a neighborhood of a city being non-notable, but I see no way a village can be "non-notable". From a practical perspective, a guideline of this sort will seriously undermine our coverage of settlements in non-anglophone developing countries for which sources are rarer, while shielding coverage of the settlements of the UK and the USA, giving the fake impression that settlements in English-speaking, developed countries are more significant. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:05, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Again, this is not a proposal for widespread deletion. Not even widespread merging, as by definition there is minimal content to merge. You'll probably find that most villages get accepted under this guideline, while most smaller places, with no significant coverage, fail. As for less-developed countries, the proposal is quite generous, aiming to identify indicators of notability without demanding examples of significant coverage. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 19:50, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Within this 'Guideline Proposal' section comments are being made on whether the suggested change is appropriate, but where is the wording proposed listed?Eldumpo (talk) 11:07, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. I maintain that any recognised community, whether a hamlet or a city, is inherently notable and will continue to do so. We don't need any further notability guidelines. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:15, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The guideline of verifiable historic place, etc. will work quite well for rural England. I'm concerned about cities (honest to god 30,000 populations centers) in places like Republic of the Congo that don't have Wikipedia articles, and where it is next to impossible to find American or European references that go far beyond gazetteers. How I would find verifiable third party sources on historic buildings that would survive an AfD is beyond me. And there are already folks lining up to delete such articles: in my limited geographic focus I see about one a month. If this guideline is approved there will be a bloodbath. And then we can wait until there's reliable widely used DSL connections in rural Burkina Faso before there are adequate online sources. Did you know that the government of Niger lost it's entire set of websites in 2007? They let the domain name http://www.niger-gouv.ne/ and server contracts expire and lost every government website, including their census office site. Even print sources are spotty, let alone those in English, and very hard to get your hands on. Gazetteers and maps provide some of the few verifiable sources for towns in that part of the world. These towns are in fact just as large and notable as places like Columbia, Missouri that has its own Wikipedia Project! That maps are sometimes wrong is why we use multiple maps and gazetteers. But to demand the level of sourcing for the developed world that we have for rural England will only result in Wikipedia lurching even farther toward western biased minutia. T L Miles (talk) 20:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the input from a non-UK perspective. Please feel free to edit the proposal to incorporate your experience. In response to your comments:
  • All cities pass the criteria, by virtue of being called cities / having a population >1000 / having local government.
  • Failing these criteria is not carte blanche for deletion, as repeatedly stated everywhere.
  • The guideline demands no higher level of sourcing than WP:N, in fact, it is more lenient, not demanding any actual sources discussing the subject in question. Sources being online is not necessary.
  • If there is no significant coverage of places in secondary sources (in any language) then there shouldn't be a Wikipedia article about it. If you know of other indicators of the existence of these sources applicable to Africa, please add them to the lists in the proposal.
OrangeDog (talk • edits) 21:52, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per DGG, Sjakkalle, etc. If we have verifiable information about a populated place, then why not write about it? This guideline actually makes a case toward deleting a Kenyan village of 3,000 with only the basic infrastructure, as opposed to keeping a Scottish hamlet of 2 which contains one house and some locally known church, deepening the issue of the coverage bias. —Admiral Norton (talk) 20:48, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, this would keep the Kenyan village (above population limit), but remove the Scottish hamlet (one church is not enough). This probably translates into the village having significant coverage in reliable secondary sources and the hamlet not.
If you have significant information from secondary sources about a place then write an article about it. This guideline would never try and stop you. If however, all that can be found is it's name, population and location, then it isn't notable enough to warrant its own separate article. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 20:55, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Oppose as not being strong enough. I like what it's getting at, but not all articles should be merged and redirected if they aren't notable. In addition, nothing is mentioned in the guideline about our policies on original research and verifiability. If we can't prove that a place exists, it shouldn't be mentioned here at all. If nobody can find any sources about a rural hamlet in Kyrgyzstan; it should be deleted, not pushed somewhere else. ThemFromSpace 02:59, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I took that unverifiable material should be removed was assumed (WP:V). As for strength, this wouldn't stop articles that should be deleted from being deleted, but I think that enforcing or even recommending deletion in this case is a bad idea. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 04:33, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

An example

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A few miles from where I live is the village of Sarratt, which would fail your notability test. Can you really say that it shouldn't have a separate article? If it is to be merged then where to? It comes under the Three Rivers local council, but that is an artificial construct of several towns and villages created for administrative purposes. Nobody uses the name Three Rivers unless they are particularly referring to local government, and anybody wanting to find information about Sarratt shouldn't have to read through information about Chorleywood and Abbots Langley to find what they want. Sarratt is in the Rickmansworth postal district, but it is not in the town of Rickmansworth - again that is simply an administrative convenience. We should be presenting the specific information that people request when they type in the name of a place. If they want information about the wider area then the beauty of hyperlinks means that it is only one click away. I would also point out that the existence of the article prompted me to improve it by adding a population figure. I wouldn't have bothered if the article hadn't existed. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:24, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can see, Sarrat passes, having a historic church, and connections to both a series of book and a film. What's the problem? If you think other criteria should be added, then add them. Plus, it features in a historical commentary[4]. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 19:59, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The church may be historic, but I don't believe that it's listed - certainly not grade 1. I see no evidence that the church itself is notable, so I don't see how the village could possibly inherit notability from it, even if such inheritance was allowed. And are you saying that mentions in recent fiction count for more than mentions in historical factual records? I don't see how any of that conforms with the text of this proposed guideline, so you would have to change it to let Sarratt in. You would then find that the next obviously notable village would come along that doesn't pass this Byzantine guideline and have to change it again, and again and again. This village's suitability to have an encyclopedia article stems from the fact that generations of people have lived out their lives there, not from whether it has a particular builing that was used as a film set or that it was mentioned in a work of fiction. I would advise you to do a bit of triage here by re-reading Articles for deletion/Astley Cross (whose near-unanimous outcome, I note, you have subverted), the AfDs that I linked above, and the Village Pump discussion that you linked above (whose outcome you have grossly misinterpreted). This proposal is a patient that you should put out of its misery by withdrawing treatment now rather than investing any more effort into keeping it alive. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I believe you will find that every church that was built before 1900 is listed to at least grade II in the UK. Is gaining notability by having some aspect given significant coverage in reliable secondary sources (at least a film in this case) less ridiculous than gaining notability by having some random people live there?
  • Hmmm. I have several people I'd like to comment at. I'm not sure exactly how to quote them, please forgive me if I break formatting guidelines and grant me direction.

"The correct guideline is the present one, that all verifiable populated places with a jurisdictional or distinct geographic identity are notable" DGG

[citation needed] I can find no reference to said guidelines, and never have been able to. Whether there is even a consensus is debatable - if there was a consensus, then this article would never have been written in the first place. I can say for myself that I don't agree that locations with population are notable.

"Encyclopedias have always contained detailed atlases and gazeteers." DGG

While I would agree that encyclopedias often include a map of the world and sometimes maps of specific regions, I have never seen an atlas that had a separate page for every single city in its pages. While Wikipedia is not paper, it is also not an atlas - atlases are, by definition, a collection of maps, and more suited for Wikimedia. A gazetteer is a geographic directory - a collection of facts and statistics, which is more what these stubs resemble. Which returns to the first argument - Wikipedia is not a directory. Gazetteers, atlases, and encyclopedias are three very different styles of books, and I feel we should keep Wikipedia firmly in the area of encyclopedias.

"People might want to look up information about quite minor places: why should we decree that they can't?" JamesBWatson

Well, if there's no information about them other than a name and geo coordinates, then what are they looking up? How does having the stub improve Wikipedia's ability to get them whatever information they're looking for? If there was extra information available for the location, then the location's page would have that information, and independent references.

If a location is notable, then I have no objection to its inclusion - but we already have guidelines for what makes anything notable, and first among them is a substantial amount of coverage in secondary sources. Just because a location is notable to the people that live there does not make it notable to the people of the world at large. Crickel (talk) 20:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The consensus that being a gazetteer is part of Wikipedia's mission is in the very first sentence of the document that defines what it is. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:23, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I still personally feel that Wikipedia should be more of an encylopedia than a gazetteer, but I'll withdraw that portion of my argument. However, I would also note that in the very next line, it states that all articles must strive for verifiable accuracy. Something I strongly object to - geographic stubs with no references, whatsoever. I've run across quite a lot them while browsing Wikipedia at random. Claiming that these articles are notable simply because they discuss a location which claims to have a certain population strikes me as quite a bad idea.
And if Wikipedia absolutely must also be a gazetteer in addition to an Encyclopedia, can't we at least do that in a sensible way, with one page covering many, many entries over a geographic area, instead of having a separate page for each entry? Crickel (talk) 21:37, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What is more sensible about that? As I said above, if a reader types in the name of a small village then the best way that we can provide the requested information is to present the specific information that we have about that village, even if it's just one or two facts, and link to articles about the surrounding area so that the reader can choose whether or not to look further. How is it better to immediately present an article on a larger area and make the reader search for the requested information within a large article? We exist to provide the information that readers are looking for, not to make the place look tidy. Of course information must be verifiable - I don't see anyone arguing against that. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:47, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that Sarratt is a highly notable place if the link to British History Online cited in the article is anything to go by. However, it is debateable whether towns like Loudwater, Hertfordshire should be included if there is nothing to write about them. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:15, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that if a place has a well-established enough name to be marked on maps there will always be something to write about them. For Loudwater something already has been written - its location, geographical feature, parish, post town, local authority etc. I bet there's more that could be written about this and any other place on the map if someone takes the trouble to look up the information. I'll take your comment as a challenge and see what I can do with the Loudwater article over the next couple of hours. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OK. I've been working on the Loudwater article for just over an hour now (which included a cigarette break), and I think that it would now be difficult for anyone say that there's nothing to write about the place. Note that I didn't cherry-pick this as an example that I knew could be easily improved - it was offered as an example of a place about which there was nothing to be written. The same could be done for any population centre with an established name. It's just that it can't all be done immediately, especially when constructive editors have to spend so much of their time arguing against people who would rather hide information from readers in long articles rather than show them what they ask for. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:53, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent work. However, it doesn't prove that every place with a name has the same coverage. No finding of examples will prove this, unless you exhaustively work through every place on the planet. If you feel like doing some more of this wonderful work, have a go at Astley Cross or Singleborough (theoretically should be the least challenging, being in England rather than Mongolia or Argentina). OrangeDog (talk • edits) 22:05, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad that you emphasised the "IF". I don't have the time to do this sort sort of thing to more than one or two articles a week, but I would point out that, as Wikipedia aspires to be a gazetteer, we should at least include entries for places that appear in paper gazetteers. Astley Cross has an entry in The Gazetteer of England[5] and Singleborough has an entry in the mother of all gazetteers[6]. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:06, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, that emphasis was unintentional. All the gazetteer contains is its location (and what might be a population). The Domesday Book is a census. I don't think noting that the fief held 230 cows and a housecarl of King Edward owned a barn or whatever it says counts as significant coverage, suitable for an article. Please try and see the difference between proof of existence and proof of significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 23:24, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gazetteer??

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We are told that we should not include "articles which can never be expanded beyond simple location and population data because their subjects are not covered in secondary sources". Why? Why should not someone be able to look up a minor place and read basic information about its location and population? We are asked "Well, if there's no information about them other than a name and geo coordinates, then what are they looking up?" Answer: they are looking up where the place is, which may be helpful to them, and if it isn't then they have lost no more time by looking and finding that is all Wikipedia can tell them than they would have lost by looking up the place and finding Wikipedia had no article about the place.

In the Village pump discussion referred to there occurs the following comment: "Short stubs can be useful, if sources are cited and the location of the place is clear enough, and a place that is officially recognised (e.g. if it appears both in censuses and on maps) is likely to have enough coverage for more than a stub. Geographical articles are less likely to have problems than articles about companies and living people". Here is someone who uses "can be useful" as a criterion, and recognises that the reasons for disliking stubs in some situations do not necessarily apply in this case.

On the other hand as far as I can out make the people who are in favour of restricting inclusion of places use as their criterion the notion that this is not what an encyclopedia is: the argument is "Wikipedia is not a gazetteer, and should only do things which real encyclopedias do". However, there are several objections to this line. Firstly, many published encyclopedias do include some information of this sort. OrangeDog says "Yes, encyclopaedias often contain atlases or gazetteers, they do not however, contain an article about every populated place as part of their main content". The fact that paper encyclopedias don't include more of this kind of material is largely due to the impossible amount of space which would be taken up by thousands of entries for thousands of tiny places; however, Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, and does not have to suffer from the same constraints. I believe that the great strength of Wikipedia is that it can do many things which paper encyclopedias can't, and being more inclusive is one of them. The line that we should hold back this open online encyclopedia to the level which would be attainable if we were using an earlier, more limited technology is unconstructive. (Essentially this argument was put forward by JulesH in the village pump discussion referred to. The notion that that discussion produced consensus for this kind of restriction puzzles me considerably. There is a heated debate, with very different opinions expressed. In fact, without doing any statistical analysis, I am inclined to think the balance of opinion was probably against the proposed change.)

Finally, you will search in vain for a Wikipedia is not a gazetteer policy: that is just an opinion of some editors. In fact on the contrary, as Phil Bridger has pointed out, the very first of the Five pillars of Wikipedia states "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers". So the argument repeatedly put forward that Wikipedia should not act as a gazetteer is contrary to the fundamental pillars of Wikipedia policy. The Wikipedia is not a directory policy has been referred to, but I have read that policy several times over, and although there is a point of contact none of the categories listed covers this case. There is, however, a Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia policy. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:26, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A gazetteer is a geographical dictionary or directory, an important reference for information about places and place names (see: toponomy), used in conjunction with a map or a full atlas. It typically contains information concerning the geographical makeup of a country, region, or continent as well as the social statistics and physical features, such as mountains, waterways, or roads. Examples of information you would find include the location of places, dimensions of physical features, population, GDP, literacy rate, etc. This information is generally divided into overhead topics with entries listed in alphabetical order.
A gazetteer is not a series of pages with one sentence on each. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 16:17, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Although it is often argued that Wikipedia incorporates some aspects of alamanac and gazetteers, it does so only to the extent that the topic in question is notable. Alamanacs might have infomration on high tides, full moons but these topics are not always covered unless they are notable, e.g. Spring tide, Full moon. In terms of locations, only those that are the subject of reliable secondary sources get a standalone article because these sources are what is needed to write an encyclopedic article. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:06, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... it does so only to the extent that the topic in question is notable": Yes, of course, as far as I am aware nobody disputes that. What is debated is what constitutes sufficient notability.
  • "... it is often argued that Wikipedia incorporates some aspects of alamanac and gazetteers": I think "it is often argued" considerably understates what is a Wikipedia policy, and indeed incorporated in the five pillars.
  • I have seen publications describing themselves as "gazetteers" which contain less than a sentence on each place. For example for many years the Ordnance Survey used to publish a "gazetteer" which listed only the names of places and their grid references.
However, more important than any of that is the fact that the ground has shifted here. The word "gazetteer" was introduced in arguments that Wikipedia should exclude entries for minor places, as an example of what Wikipedia is not. For example, Crickel wrote: A gazetteer is a geographic directory - a collection of facts and statistics, which is more what these stubs resemble... Gazetteers, atlases, and encyclopedias are three very different styles of books, and I feel we should keep Wikipedia firmly in the area of encyclopedias. When it is pointed out that Wikipedia policy is that we should include gazetteer information, we get those who wish to exclude articles on minor places now arguing that on the contrary a gazetteer is not "what these stubs resemble".
As far as I can see the question "what is a gazetteer?" is irrelevant: the question was only raised in claims that "we should exclude articles on minor places because Wikipedia is not a gazetteer", and since Wikipedia policy says otherwise I see no further point in discussing it.JamesBWatson (talk) 17:55, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another example

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Another village with which I'm familar is Batchworth (pop. 206). This contains no church or school and I know of no references to it in popular culture, but because it is in a western anglophone country and just outside the capital (so close that a few of the houses are actually within the London Borough of Hillingdon, but that's my original research from my knowledge obtained from a pub owner that the county boundary goes along the back of his garden) you can find hundreds of reliable sources online - see [7] and [8]. Why should it be considered more notable than similar villages in other countries that don't have such good online coverage? Should we merge this somewhere so that readers will have to read loads of information about other places before getting to the information they ask for? And where do we merge it to anyway? And what if someone wants to add information to the infobox (as I just did with the population) and there is no infobox to add it to? The whole idea of this guideline is antipathetic to the writing of an encyclopedia for the benefit of its readers, which is what we are supposed to be doing. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:49, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Again, just by the links you provide, this place passes. It should be included because it does have reliable coverage in secondary sources. Featured in an historical and social commentarys: Numismatic Chronical, The Story of Arthur Evans and his forbears, History of Parliament, etc. Plus apparently the film Flashbacks Of A Fool and having a golf course that has hosted notable competitions. Whether this coverage is online is irrelevant. Smaller, non-notable hamlets in England and elsewhere should be considered non-notable because they do not feature this coverage in secondary sources. If you believe that there is a quantifiable indicator of notability that this guideline does not include, then feel free to add it. So far, your presentation of examples seems to show a misunderstanding of what this guideline says. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 23:12, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The point that I am making is that any named populated place will have had substantial coverage in reliable sources. Sometimes, as with Batchworth, it will be easy to find these sources with online searches, but in many cases it will be more difficult, but it is perfectly reasonable to assume that sources will always exist. Once again, I am not advocating any relaxation of verifiabilty policy, but am saying that once that has been passed then it is perfectly valid to assume that enough coverage exists in reliable sources (whether online or offline) to show notability for any settlement whether it is in Hertfordshire or Ekiti. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:36, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why is it perfectly reasonable to assume that such sources exist? Why is it legitimate to extend this to an all-encompassing blanket judgement without reasoning or allowance for specific cases? Why is it acceptable to create articles if no proof for the existence of significant coverage in reliable secondary sources can be found? What is wrong with a guideline that attempts to aid in the decision about whether these sources are going to exist? OrangeDog (talk • edits) 23:57, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The fact is that if any place name is well-established enough to get on a map published by a reliable source, further reliable sources will almost certainly exist. Where do you think map-makers get their information from? They don't just make names up. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:44, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Typically a team of cartographers will manually traverse the country and record every place that they find. The same for collecting an initial census. In more developed countries these days all buildings, development work, births and deaths must be registered with the local government, so places get logged there. People who make maps or censuses don't go looking for secondary sources to establish notability before they put it on a map, they deal purely with what exists, and check it directly. If no name exists for a place, either they ask the people there or, indeed, make it up (ooh, here's a new place with lots of interesting plants; let's call it Botany Bay). OrangeDog (talk • edits) 21:53, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Need to check for hoaxes

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One reason for looking for secondary sources is to avoid contaminating Wikipedia with disinformation. We had for over two years a plausible-looking entry about an absolutely non-existent village in Shropshire - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Monvilla. A quick search even found references to it, which I guess must have been created by automatic systems from our article. JohnCD (talk) 10:40, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anyone is suggesting that we abandon the requirement for verifiability. A hoax village could just as easily be put into a larger merged article as in a standalone article. In fact it's more likely to be spotted in a standalone article. Would anyone have noticed the Monvilla hoax if it had been added as a line in an article about a nearby town rather than created as a separate article? Phil Bridger (talk) 15:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is much easier to find verifiable evidence for the existence of a place than for most other subjects: the appearance on an official map, for example, should be sufficient proof in itself. What is debated is how much and what kind of notability is required to justify a separate article on the place, which is a completely different question.JamesBWatson (talk) 17:20, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
the argument has been that if it exists, there inevitably will be sources to satisfy the GNG, but in the case of areas outside the major English speaking countries, they may be somewhat difficult for us to find. In the meantime we will have the skeleton of an article to which people will add information--obscure places are a good type of article for beginners.. Although true, that is not how I would justify it. I would justify it by saying that we can have the contents we want to have, and that if we want to use a separate guideline for places, we can do so. The GNG is not a basic principle, but a convenient rule, to use -- when we think it appropriate. DGG (talk) 15:47, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merging is original research

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Another problem with merging articles on communities is that the decision on where to merge them to is often original research. The proposer of this guideline seems to have a bee in the bonnet about Astley Cross, and tried to merge it to Astley, but where is the evidence that this is the appropriate merge target? Astley Cross appears to be divided between three parishes, with, for example, a church being in the parish of Astley [9] and a pub being in the parish of Stourport [10], and a house being in the parish of Areley Kings [11]. This book confirms that Astley Cross is at a parish boundary. Human communities don't fall in to some neat heirarchical structure where one can always be said to be part of another, and we shouldn't be trying to impose such a structure on them by presenting our articles in a way that implies that it exists. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:33, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Heritage Sites? Graded buildings?

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What use would this be in deciding whether a community outside the UK would be notable? Is Left Nosebleed, Shropshire more notable than Calgary because its oldest pile of bricks is from 1330 and not 1886?

The point of these UK designations is that the place in question is of significant importance to the cultural history of the area. Typically this comes with restrictions on whether you can modify or build over whatever is there. I'm sure the U.S. has something similar, as do other countries. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 19:42, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If a habitation is on the map - any map - it should be in Wikipedia. If it isn't on the map and never has been it shouldn't. --NellieBly (talk) 03:44, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also add that I strongly disagree with one of the primary tenets of this proposal: the idea that there is no such thing as a class of items where every item is notable. Every populated place IS notable, not because somebody famous once took a pee there or because it was in some obscure manga comic but because it exists or existed. Populated places should be in all and every case by definition notable. No exceptions. --NellieBly (talk) 06:10, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agree 100%. There are instances where classes of things are inherently notable, and this is one of them. If it has an independent existence as a community (generally, that means it has a sign when you enter it to tell you you are entering it!) then it is worthy of an article. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:00, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
How is this compatible with WP:N? The definition of notability is significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. Existence does not imply this, and no argument has been presented that it does other than "people live there". OrangeDog (talk • edits) 19:42, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Contrary to what many seem to believe, WP:N is a guideline, not a policy. It doesn't have to be followed. That means that WP:IAR applies if ignoring the guideline means improving the encyclopaedia. Is it an improvement to the encyclopaedia to delete articles on genuine populated places just for the sake of dogma? I think not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:37, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously not. Have you reads the proposal? It clearly states, repeatedly, as does this discussion, that it is no way a guideline for deletion. I don't believe that ignoring WP:N it in this case does improve Wikipedia. By the same token, you are free to ignore this if it stops you from making actual improvements. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 18:01, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Semantics. Whether a guideline for deletion or a guideline for non-inclusion, it still amounts to exactly the same thing - not having articles about things we should have articles about. -- Necrothesp (talk) 19:56, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a guideline for non-inclusion either. Precise language is very important as these terms have different and subtle meanings in the context of Wikipedia. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 20:09, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, Nellie, mapmakers have a history of salting their maps with a handful of fake towns to catch copyright violators. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:27, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have a reference to confirm that? JamesBWatson (talk) 14:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See trap street and fictitious entry, James. --Orange Mike| Talk 15:26, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've never heard of fake towns being put on maps, but including fake streets is a well known practice [12][13][14]. I don't think that this is really relevant to this discussion because it's an issue of verifiability, which applies just as much whether small communities have separate articles or are described in articles about larger areas. If anything fakes would more likely be spotted if they are separate articles, as I said in the discussion about hoaxes in general above. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:37, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WP:N is a guideline Guideline are called guidelines because they have exceptions, sometimes very significant ones. that populated places are always notable is an accepted one. We can make whatever rules we want. The community can carve out whatever we want as an exception in a positive or negative way, if the community has some degree of consensus on it on it. Even if you don';t like the idea--and I didn't really like it at first: consider the alternative. Every small populated place will be challenged individually on AfD. We need to save AfD fro the articles really worth the trouble of disputing. It does no harm to Wikipedia having articles of relatively insignificant things. What does harm to Wikipedia are inconsistency, inaccuracy and spam. DGG (talk) 22:33, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, no, no. There's no need to AfD everything. It should be avoided at all costs for exactly those reasons. AfDs of places always result in keep because deletion is not the answer. This is explicitly stated in the proposal. Merging and redirects are the best way to better organise the information on places for which there is nothing to say. I have not seen any consensus that all populated places are inherently notable. Consensus has been reached that we shouldn't create articles for things about which there is nothing to write except bare statistics. That is the point of notability. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 23:11, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have never found a populated place on which there is nothing to say. There are merely places on which little has been said on Wikipedia as yet. You need to understand the difference. You also need to understand that easily available secondary resources (i.e. those on the internet) are more difficult to find for places which are not in the developed world. That does not make these places less notable. Neither does it make it impossible to find sources - it just makes it more difficult. And more likely that the sources aren't in English and aren't easily available in the English-speaking world. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:37, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is a difference between not being able to find an example and proving something - Converse accident. I have mentioned a couple of examples before which I think might end up being non-notable. It is, by definition, difficult to find examples of non-notable things. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 18:01, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In my view, articles which are created by robots, have no references, and provide little or no useful information about a location, are the equivalent of spam and should be removed. Useless articles make Wikipedia as a whole less useful. Articles should be written by people and contain significant coverage on a location. Also, things that might be notable in the Spanish version of Wikipedia might not be notable in the English version. Different cultures have different values, and that includes judgment on what is and isn't notable. If there aren't any English references on a location, then it might well not be notable to an English-speaking person.Crickel (talk) 22:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That statement leaves me flabbergasted. The whole point of an encyclopedia is to expand people's knowledge, not to restrict it to the culture with which they are familiar. And robots don't create anything by themselves - they are programmed by real people to take information from sources that have previously been agreed to be reliable, so are more reliable than the average "anyone" who can edit Wikipedia. If the only sources available about a subject are not in English then is more important that we should cover it, because it is harder for our target audience (i.e. everyone that can read English) to find it elsewhere. We are supposed to be providing a service for our readers, not just documenting the insular interests of our editors. Phil Bridger (talk) 01:17, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think that was meant to mean all 3 of bot, no ref and no info, in which case I agree. An article that contain no references and no information (even stubs should have something) is useless, regardless of who created it. As for differing notability in different countries, I don't think it should apply to population centres. Fiction, people, products by all means, but not places. The inaccessibility of English-language sources increases the usefulness of a guideline that aims to identify notability based on other criteria. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 01:43, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just to make it clear - I am not, and as far I can see nobody else is, advocating any relaxation of verifiability policy. I think that everyone involved in this discussion, whatever their point of view about whether articles on small settlements that are verified to exist should have separate articles or be covered in other articles, is agreed that any information should be verifiable from reliable sources. Phil Bridger (talk) 01:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One of my chief complaints, in fact, is of the erosion of verifiability policy. Time and time again I run across these bot-created stubs with geo coordinates and no references. And then when people bring up the article and say, 'This shouldn't exist, it has no references', they get shot down with, 'Denied, it's a location, of course there are references, just look for them, maybe they're not in English you lazy editor, go learn a second language'. We can't delete these articles because they're not just assumed notable, they're assumed verifiable until proven otherwise. And that's something that simply can't be proven. And call me culture-centrist, but I don't feel like I should have to learn multiple languages to say that a location doesn't have enough coverage to exist.Crickel (talk) 15:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If it's on a reliable map its existence is verifiable. What's the problem? No issues of verifiability there. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

here's the basic reason not to do this

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It's easier to keep them all than to sort them out. We can then have more time and energy for building content for articles. and it's even less work for the computer. DGG (talk) 00:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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