Talk:Apa Neagră

Non-existent rivers?

@Markussep: You redirected the page to Rivers of Romania with the edit summary "no such rivers". I have undone that. If these rivers really do not exist then that is not a good solution, especially as the target page does not even mention them. You should instead nominate the page for deletion. But I note that both disambiguation target pages (before they also were redirected) contained references so you will need to say why those sources should not be trusted. You have also redirected Apa Neagră River (Tocila) and Apa Neagră River (Zeletin) to the rivers they are supposed to be tributaries of; Lăpuș (river) and Zeletin (Berheci) respectively. Both these pages still list Apa Neagră as a tributary. Again, this is not a good solution. If they really do not exist then the redirects should be deleted and the river removed from the text of the target. SpinningSpark 10:54, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

I guess you're right that my redirecting this page to Rivers of Romania was a mistake. I think it would be better to make this a general disambiguation page Apa Neagră with mentions of the village in Gorj County and the tributary of the Zeletin. I don't see an Apa Neagră mentioned in the Lăpuș article. About the references in the former articles Apa Neagră River (Tocila) and Apa Neagră River (Zeletin), these were added by their creator Afil to all river articles he/she created. These references are very general (no page numbers indicated, for instance), and I have serious doubts that these rivers are actually mentioned in the references. Markussep ^Talk 18:30, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't think changing the page name solves any kind of problem. We need to establish whether those sources actually support the information. Acting blindly is likely to end up either deleting good information or reinforcing bad information. Both the sources are surveys of Romanian rivers so it is not surprising that they can be used to support multiple pages. Do you have any evidence that user:Afil has been creating bogus pages? If not, I think we should accept it on good faith. SpinningSpark 22:08, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

I believe Afil acted good faith, but he/she has a different view of notability (see this AfD) and made quite some mistakes (see this RfD). I think that especially for the minor streams he/she simply copied other articles without checking whether they were actually mentioned in the quoted references. These two sources are difficult to find if you don't work at the Romanian Ministry of Environment or have access to a Romanian university library. I think the first one ("Administrația Națională Apelor Române - Cadastrul Apelor - București") refers to this source: Atlasul cadastrului apelor din România. Partea 1 (in Romanian). Bucharest: Ministerul Mediului. 1992. OCLC 895459847.. The second one ("Institutul de Meteorologie și Hidrologie - Rîurile României - București 1971") is probably this one: OCLC 25141267. I don't have access to it.

Now to the two rivers Apa Neagră:

• Apa Neagră River (Tocila) should be a tributary of the Tocila. In "Atlasul cadastrului apelor din România" the Tocila is mentioned on page 83, no tributaries are given. I have found the Tocila on this map (it flows into the Lăpuș in Băiuț), no sign of an Apa Neagră. So if it exists, it is very small and not notable (see WP:GEOLAND for notability criteria)
• Apa Neagră River (Zeletin) should be a tributary of the Zeletin. There was some information about its location in the infobox, which doesn't show anymore because {{Geobox}} has been deleted. In "Atlasul cadastrului apelor din România" it is mentioned on page 422, it's 12 km long. It's on this map, it flows into the Zeletin near Glăvănești. Its notability is not clear, I haven't been able to find references about it apart from wikipedia clones, lists of rivers and statistical information like in Atlasul cadastrului apelor.

I hope this helps. Markussep ^Talk 09:16, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

For sources that are difficult to find, you can always try asking at WP:RX. They are pretty good at finding information, even when it is offline or behind a paywall. SpinningSpark 10:47, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion! I didn't know this exists. Markussep ^Talk 08:27, 28 November 2019 (UTC)