Template talk:Dubai landmarks

How were these landmarks chosen?

I'm not sure how these particular "landmarks" were chosen. Given the fact that an overwhelming majority of the people living in Dubai live in subcommunities of Deira and Bur Dubai that border the creek, I would submit that landmarks in these areas are probably more pertinant than say, The World, which is a land reclaimation archipelago off the coast of Dubai (I'm not quite sure how this would qualify as a "landmark"). Added to which, most of the landmarks in this template (Burj Dubai, Dubailand, Dubai Marina, Dubai Waterfront, Palm Islands, The World) are still in the process of being developed, so I'm not sure how they qualify as "landmarks". Can someone shed some light on how these particular buildings/locations were chosen (I do realize that this is not a complete list at the moment). Thanks AreJay (talk) 03:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I created this template in order to create an easy linkage between many of Dubai's famous buildings/places/etc.. I chose the ones that I knew are known worldwide and attract the most attention. In mid-February 2008, I added "attractions" to the title of the template after realizing that certain places listed in the template are not considered landmarks. After thinking about it, I think that Dubailand, Dubai Marina, and Dubai Waterfront do not deserve to be in the template. I will remove those three, but will leave everything else for further discussion.

You mentioned landmarks in Deira or Bur Dubai: do you have any suggestions for landmarks we could add that have an article (or that can be created). Would the Dubai Clocktower be notable enough to include in Wikipedia? Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 22:00, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I think the term "landmark" is fairly subjective. Given the fact that Dubai's addressing system is, for all intents and purposes, landmark based, there's far too many landmarks to potentially consider. For example, if I lived on 8B Street in Al Muraqqabat and was trying to give directions to my apartment/house, I would say something like [Name of apartment/building], behind Hamarain Centre, as opposed to, say, [Name of apartment/building], 354 8B Street, Al Muraqqabat. So here, Hamarian Centre, a more-or-less obscure entity in the grand scheme of things in Dubai's recent growth, becomes a "landmark", and given the number of people that live in that particular area of Dubai, becomes one that could easily qualify as a "notable landmark". I would therefore not favor using that term. I personally think that the entries in this template can be incorporated into the various subsections of the Dubai topics template, without us having to make a judgement call on what constitutes a landmark.

With regards to your question, certainly, the Clocktower is an important landmark in Deira. The others that I can think of off the top of my head would be the old downtown along the creek in Deira (Etisalat, Department of Trade and Commerce, Dubai Municipality, Rolex Towers [Twin Towers]), the shopping malls (City Centre, Lamcy, Wafi, Burjuman, Mercato, Al Ghurair, etc), Dubai Creek Golf Club, the many foreign consulates, Baniyas Square, Bank Street, Electronics Street, etc. AreJay (talk) 02:53, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the debate here is whether we should view the landmarks of Dubai from an international/global viewpoint, or from a local viewpoint. I personally think we should continue to use the word "landmark." But we should only use the places/buildings/etc. that are known all over the world. These are ones that form the image of Dubai for the world (Burj Al Arab, Burj Dubai, The Palm, etc.). We should not go with the local usage of "landmark" for obvious reasons. First of all, local supermarkets or apartment buildings are not widely known or important for the world to know about. Also, every single city or community in the world has their own local landmarks. A school, a store, a roundabout, or even a house can all be landmarks for individual communities; but they are not landmarks from an international perspective (which is the viewpoint that Wikipedia uses). We should therefore leave out the consulates and the roads.

You said that the shopping malls are considered landmarks. When I created the template, I included shopping malls in the template because I knew that tourists always go to there. I later removed them after a co-found of WikiProject Dubai commented about how "odd" it is for malls to be landmarks. I created a seperate template for them: Template:Dubai malls. --Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 20:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I do not agree with the first part of your assessment. To focus on only those that are known well internationally and to ignore the local viewpoint I think is a bit unfair and if anything, probably a undue as well. Wikipedia's policies around WP:UNDUE dictate that all majority and sizeable minority views be incorporated. Skyscrapers and new real estate development projects in Dubai have been widely publicized internationally at the expense (or so I feel) of some of the existing landmarks in the city. Clearly, this is nobody's fault; the marketing departments of Nakheel and Tatweer have worked overtime to present this new image of Dubai...therefore disproportional coverage to such developments has been given all over the electronic and print media. However, a more balanced approach is required on an encyclopedia such as Wikipedia.

To your point, I not only think that it is necessary to incorporate local viewpoints on "landmarks", I think it is imperative that we do so. Certainly, as I had mentioned earlier, the importance of landmarks is amplified by the lack of acceptance/recognition of street, road and community names and numbers by the local population. It is therefore hard to underemphasize the importance of malls and shopping centers in this regard.

Per Webster, the definition of landmark is as follows:

1. an object (as a stone or tree) that marks the boundary of land

2. a conspicuous object on land that marks a locality (b) an anatomical structure used as a point of orientation in locating other structures

3.an event or development that marks a turning point or a stage

4. a structure (as a building) of unusual historical and usually aesthetic interest; especially : one that is officially designated and set aside for preservation

Some entries on the current template (The Palms, The World, Dubai Creek) do not qualify as landmarks per the definition(s) above. They may very well qualify as attractions though, and it is for this reason that I think there needs to be a de-link between a landmarks template vs. an attractions template.

I feel that if we are going to use the landmarks template, we should incorporate important buildings and centers and subcategorize the template based on the type of landmark. Please click on the template below to get an idea for what I had in mind (this isn't a comprehensive list at the moment...just a WIP). Thanks AreJay (talk) 19:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I think we should do this differently. Instead of discussing the meaning of "landmark," why don't we discuss each landmark/attraction/place/building/etc. by itself. After we agree on which places to include, then we can discuss the format of the template.

By looking at your draft above, I can tell you that I agree with:

Burj Al Arab Emirates Towers Jumeirah Beach Hotel Etisalat Tower 1 Dubai Chamber of Trade and Commerce

National Bank of Dubai Dubai World Trade Centre Twin Towers Deira (Listed as Rolex Towers above) Al Fahidi Fort Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum House (Listed as Saeed Al Maktoum Palace above)

If we need to, we can discuss which names to use later. But first, let me know if you agree to this system of choosing which landmarks to include. Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 07:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this approach is fine by me. But like I said, I'm sure I'm missing out on other landmarks in the city. How should we proceed with narrowing down our list of notable landmarks? Thanks AreJay (talk) 20:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking that we could include all landmarks to which we agree. If there is no article for it, then we could either create it, or just leave it as a red link. Now, I was thinking that we should each switch off on ladmarks we want to include in the template. You should go first since you brought up the issue. After we achieve consensus, I will propose another landmark. Then back to you, and so on. Once we have exhausted our lists, the we can move on to how we will organize the template.

Thinking ahead, I can see that this might take a long time. If you can think of an easier way, please let me know. Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 03:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

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Ok, I've listed out the landmarks that I think are important. In some instances, I've also indicated why I think they are important (notability). I haven't included shopping malls in this list, since we are in disagreement on this issue; I still maintain however that they qualify as landmarks, per 2(a) of Webster's definition included above. Obviously while I don't think that all shopping malls need to be included in the template, I do feel that the largest 4 or 5 malls (City Centre, Ibn Batuta, Mall of the Emirates, BurJuman, Wafi) need to be included, per WP:NOTABILITY.

As you can see, most of the landmarks in Deira are red-links at this point. I'm going to be working on turning them into actual articles — this is going to be a fairly laborious process given the general lack of encyclopedic information around "old" Dubai on the internet and the lack of images on Flickr and other websites. I might be able to dig around to see if I've taken photographs of any of these places. BTW, here's another website that we could use as reference - http://www.dubaihistoric.ae. Thanks AreJay (talk) 17:15, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no need to discuss the above landmarks because I agree to their landmark status. The only exception is the Dubai International Financial Centre. The financial centre itself is not a landmark. What is the landmark is The Gate. No other building (as of now), attracts as many photographs as The Gate does. It is also the symbol of the DIFC. I should add that since the DIFC is mostly a construction site, I do not think it can act as a landmark any time soon. Maybe we can add it once the centre is up and running to full capacity. Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 00:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. Did you have buildings/landmarks that you wanted to include in the template apart from the ones that we've discussed? Thanks AreJay (talk) 20:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes I did. I still believe the Burj Dubai, Dubai Creek, the Palm Jumeirah, Ski Dubai and Sheikh Zayed Road are all Dubai landmarks. Most of these are symbols of the city and are always on the "must see" list for tourists. If you need me to explain my reasoning for these, just let me know. Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 03:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I have a few concerns about some of the proposed entries. Having said that, any reasoning you can provide around these entries I think would be helpful to our discussion. Personally, I don't think the Dubai Creek or SZR qualify as landmarks, per Webster's definition. The creek runs through much of Dubai, so I don't think it could qualify as a landmark. When I think of landmarks, I think of a specific object, or building or structure (this is consistent with Webster's definition). Similarly, SZR runs through most of western DXB, so again, I don't think it qualifies as a landmark. Burj Dubai will undoubtedly be a landmark once construction is complete, but in while it is still WIP, I think we should hold off on including it in the template. I have reservations over Palm Jumeirah (as well as the other Palms) based on my explanation above of what I consider "landmarks". I have no problems with accommodating Sky Dubai though. Thanks AreJay (talk) 06:10, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I will explain my reasoning one by one. Once we come to a consensus about a landmark, we can move on to the next one.

Although the Burj Dubai is still under construction and is not yet habitable (or even approachable), it is a landmark for Dubai. It dominates the skyline and is already receiving a lot of attention. When tourists go to Dubai, they take pictures of it and stand in pictures with it. It is already a symbol of Dubai, its growth and worldwide prominence. It is clearly one of Dubai's most well-known buildings and deserves landmark status, even at this stage of construction. Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 21:58, 12 April 2008 (UTC)