Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features)/Archive 7

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Mass-created geostubs

Two editors have been mass-creating articles on seemingly non-notable localities:

• Kheo17 (Creations) - Azerbaijani village stubs based on a government geographic directory.
• ThWiki1910 (Creations) - Russian village articles based on population charts, heavily padded with sources that are either autogenerated cruft or don't even mention the villages in question. The creations have continued even after this was pointed out to them.

I'm wondering what the best path forward is: Would it be best to get consensus for a mass deletion/redirect at Village Pump, or go straight to ANI to get this sorted out? –dlthewave ☎ 17:27, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

For the Russian Selo articles I'd wait for the AFD on Makeyevka, Kursk Oblast to finish and, if it closes with delete, then report this to the Autopatrolled talk page and see what they say. For the Azeri articles, this looks like the Turkish Mahalle case - even if people think this proves the existence/notability of these places, we really don't need to have an article for each place if there's no real information in them other than the name of the place and its population (which is really the only thing that the sources in the articles tell us), they are better simply redirected to district level. FOARP (talk) 20:48, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

For reasons unknown to me, dlthewave and FOARP first destroy the contents of my articles by throwing away everything inside, and then they report them for deletion. It is completely absurd to deny the existence of localities in the situation of credible sources, and such sources are in every article created by me. For these two users, mass creation is creating several articles a day for many months. The only thing that is massive is the thoughtless destruction of articles by them. ThWiki1910 23:16, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

To state the obvious, I have neither deleted anything from any of your articles, nor nominated any of your articles for deletion. FOARP (talk) 22:51, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

You are in violation of Wikipedia:Bot_policy#Mass_page_creation, so you must STOP creating articles without approval. These are low-quality articles of questionable notability and styles inconsistent with other articles, and you will be reported at ANI if you do not cease immediately and seek approval for such semi-automated bulk article creation. Reywas92^Talk 22:34, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the Azerbaijani village articles I created/edited, this was a 2-3-month job which required massive time and effort to investigate. Originally, Carlossuarez46 created these village articles based on the GEOnet Names Server back in 2008 which had numerous misspellings in the titles and outdated data such as old names. My creations/edits were primarily based on the official government directory published recently. I also verified this with other domestic sources, articles written by locals and used multiple online maps to verify the coordinates. In addition, my work focuses on the villages liberated or returned to Azerbaijan as a result of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. That is, these villages were announced both by the president of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Twitter and the mass media sources during and after the course of the war. These one are not random villages with non-notable localities. I am ready to cooperate if anything else is required not to mass delete them, thanks KHE'O (talk) 16:33, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps a solution would be to merge these mini-stubs into a list article keeping all the infoboxes. If the list becomes too long it could be divided alphabetically or by district. If more reliable sourced information for a village appears in the future it can be spun out to a seperate article, in my view, Atlantic306 (talk) 01:28, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

A quick review of the articles would suggest a table with all the basic facts that would otherwise be in an infobox would be a better solution, which also allows 1) searchable redirects to this table 2) blue links for actual settlements that meet NGEO guidelines alongside the non-notable ones as to be "complete" in all settlements, and 3) allows for future expansion of standalones for individual settlements if they can be proven notable. Condensing that many infoboxes into a list is a really bad idea. --Masem (t) 01:38, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

I like the table idea. When you look at the amount of actual useful information in most of these articles (including the infobox) it really comes down to coordinates and population; there's a lot of extra stuff like time zone, postal code, telephone code, etc that we don't need to retain. –dlthewave ☎ 02:10, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

I oppose the idea of the table. You have to be consistent across Wikipedia, in this case, you have to apply the same approach to all Azerbaijani, Armenian, Georgian, Russian etc. settlements where they have very little information. We have stubs for this. This will leave you with a handful of village articles from Azerbaijan out of more than 4,000 Azerbaijani village articles here. The same applies to other regional countries.KHE'O (talk) 17:00, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

And thus its likely the case those settlements should also be condensed into a table. The settlements will still be searchable and the little information we have documented, and if they eventually can be expanded, then a standalone can be made. But this applies to all those settlements in those other countries too. --Masem (t) 17:16, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

In addition, I just do not understand what you expect as a reliable source for more than 4,000 Azerbaijani villages in the future. Should CNN or BBC journalists travel each village and prepare a video report from there?! I indicated the official government data published recently as a source and even for some articles included secondary local sources.KHE'O (talk) 17:07, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, to have an actual ARTICLE (vs. just a few table-type factoids) you need material, and material needs sources. North8000 (talk) 17:16, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

RfC Notice (Turkish geostubs)

A discussion is taking place at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Turkey #RfC: Turkish village stub mass redirect. Your input is welcome there. –dlthewave ☎ 18:36, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Settlements and divisions

I've started an essay at Wikipedia:Separate articles for administrative divisions to settlements for cases where a settlement has the same name as an administrative unit (or similar). Although WP:GEOLAND and WP:NPLACE specifies that legally recognized places are generally inherently notable, usually when a low level municipality has the same name as a settlement it usually not given a separate article but 1 article deals with both such as Neuhofen im Innkreis and Woodbury, East Devon dealing with both the settlement and municipality however for higher level divisions with boundaries that are more recent and are more modern creations we usually do have separate articles such as Maldon/Maldon District and Randers/Randers Municipality. It might be a good idea to add some discussion on this to the guideline. Obviously it doesn't apply if the names are different like Nedging/Nedging-with-Naughton and Termignon/Val-Cenis though. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:13, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Discussion on improving our management of geostubs

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) regarding improving our management of geographical stubs. The thread is Future discussion on improving our management of geostubs. The discussion is about the topic Wikipedia:Permastubs. Thank you. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 11:36, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy) has an RFC

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy) has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 11:08, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Infrastructure

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies)#Airports that might affect this page. SpinningSpark 17:05, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Do heavy rail train stations whose existence can be verified have per se notability?

Are train stations for heavy rail networks notable simply because we can verify that they exist? The closest thing we have in this guideline is guidance around "artificial features related to infrastructure", the examples for which are bridges and dams. Since railroads are a form of physical infrastructure, my reading is that train stations would fall under this guidance, which specifies WP:GNG for purposes of notability. I've seen others point to WP:RAILOUTCOMES as reason to presume particular train stations are notable at AfD, though this feels akin to citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES as a reason to keep an article on a particular high school. I'm wondering what others think. — Mhawk10 (talk) 16:35, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

That's been a frequent outcome for extant stations with regular use, though nothing has automatic notability. Stations that no longer exist or are not regularly used are not considered as notable, and per WP:NOPAGE, it can be a better idea to cover stations with the line they serve. No one should ever be bulk-producing articles they have no intention to expand. Reywas92^Talk 18:19, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. Do you think it would be wise to explicitly mention railway stations in NGEO's examples of "artificial features related to infrastructure"? — Mhawk10 (talk) 05:51, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

From NPP work I can say that it is a problem. Several times I've seen somebody take a train line with say 10 smallish stations on it and create 10 geostub articles on the 10 smallish stations. The outcomes page makes these hard to AFD. North8000 (talk) 14:16, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

• I don't think they do. They're a bit like airports - they're very very likely notable, but not enough to assume an automatic presumption. SportingFlyer T·C 14:44, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

A simple fix would be to say that train stations must meet GNG. North8000 (talk) 18:04, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

An even simpler fix would be to say that ALL articles must meet GNG. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:56, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

You are basicaly saying that it would be "simple" to eliminate all SNG's. North8000 (talk) 18:54, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Inhabited legally recognized places

Generally this is taken to mean the main names commonly used to identify the location. For example, the name of the town that I live in and the name of the state that I live in. But I live in about 12 other legally recognized districts on the map, all with different boundaries. A library district, a pipeline/ water district, a now-irrelevant but still extant tuberculosis/ sanitarium district, a fire protection district, park district, a school district plus others. Except in some highly specialized conversation, I'd never use any of these to communicate where I live. I'm not worried about the articles that we have; I'm worried that the world has (a good guess) 10's of millions of these abstract entities and nothing stopping mass creations of these sourced only to a database. Also trying to get / offer some guidance when running across geostubs at NPP whether or not these get an automatic SNG pass because they are legally recognized and inhabited. This is not to say that such an article should not exist if it has contents and sources. I might try boldly adding a tweak on this. North8000 (talk) 18:52, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps "Populated, legally recognized places" could be renamed "Legally recognized communities", since that would include cities/towns/villages but not such districts or census tracts. Reywas92^Talk 19:39, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Excellent idea.North8000 (talk) 19:43, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

I think generally GEOLAND#1 is either settlements that have census data (generally) or municipalities/districts or electoral divisions but not things like school districts though I would construed "legally recognized" quite broadly. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:24, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Oppose - as someone who has generally lived in domiciles represented by at least five levels of geography that directly elect representatives according to unique boundaries, in addition to historical and special-purpose units, I wouldn't expect for any of them to lose the presumption of Notability because they are not cities/towns/villages or because some wikilawyer doesn't consider them to be "communities". Where there is a layer of administrative geography that doesn't generate significant coverage for each constituent unit, that makes a great candidate for merging to the overall level of organization (and redirecting the components), but losing GEOLAND coverage for the units doesn't help to produce that outcome; instead it just encourages discussions to be held at AfD when they would be better handled in a proposed Merge format, IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 22:27, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Just clarifying, this is about "legally recognized communities". The minor tweaks that I already did are consistent with your thought process. In essence, still grant presumed notability to all of those five levels of geography that you describe. North8000 (talk) 00:05, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) has an RFC

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you.— Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 19:28, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Nomination of Nilaji for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Nilaji is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nilaji until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

The subject is a village in Karnataka where there is a dispute to the applicability of WP:NGEO versus WP:GNG. There are at least four other villages in India with the same name, one of which was the subject before it was discovered that it had beeen hijacked. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 19:19, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

129 Iranian "village" articles nominated for deletion

This is already flagged on the Iran and Geo delsorts, but see here if you're interested: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abadi Zavarzmand Shomareh Mowtowr 55 FOARP (talk) 12:05, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability § RFC on notability of rural localities (e.g., Iranian ābādī)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability § RFC on notability of rural localities (e.g., Iranian ābādī). –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:54, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

AFD regarding a Pakistani town with a population of more than 100,000 people

Please see here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nagail Sohal. FOARP (talk) 16:44, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

216 Iranian "village" articles nominated for deletion

This has already been highlighted on the Iran and Geography Delsorts, but interested parties who may have missed those notices can see the discussion here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Agro-Industry Complex. FOARP (talk) 18:46, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

130 Iranian "villages" nominated for deletion

See here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mazraeh-ye Tahqiqati Tutun FOARP (talk) 17:42, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

District or council

There is a discussion and afd regarding district versus council at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/County Borough of Southend on Sea and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 19:05, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Legally recognized places

As far as I understand administrative units and electoral divisions are presumed to be notable and census tracts are generally not notable. What about settlements and similar that have census data? As far as I'm aware if the place is a settlement such as a city, town village or even hamlet or suburb it would generally be notable. Recently it seems places like abadi that may be things like mills, pumps, wells or factories etc may not qualify.

Examples of things that GEOLAND#1 would likely apply to

• 1st order divisions namely countries such as France or United States
• 2nd order divisions namely "states" such as New Hampshire or Suffolk
• 3rd order divisions namely "districts" such as Babergh District or Norfolk County, Massachusetts
• 4th order divisions namely "municipalities" such as Aure sur Mer and Stanwix Rural
• Formal regions such as Canterbury Region or East of England
• Electoral divisions such as Westgate Ward, Ipswich or Waveney (UK Parliament constituency)
• Any other smaller unit such as Brunstock

These aren't "populated places" in the sense of settlements (apart from Brunstock) but they are administrative divisions, these places are quite obviously inherently notable even if they aren't settlements.

Examples of things I think would qualify in the sense of being a settlement with census data would likely pass GEOLAND are:

• Lunderskov (Urban areas in the Nordic countries)
• Blofield Heath (BUA)
• Arinagour (seems to have 1961 census data?) but the approximately 50 statement from the Visit Coll website wouldn't qualify

An example of a census tract that wouldn't qualify is Basildon 010A.

This came from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aliabad-e Qotb ol Din, thoughts @FOARP and Hut 8.5: do you agree with my examples? Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:58, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

• If it is to mean anything, “legal recognition” must mean recognition through a process of law, typically by conferring a level of self-governance. It cannot just be a purely statistical unit or division.

I disagree strongly that pure census data should be enough to qualify anything as sufficiently notable for an article. Wikipedia is not a database - that’s a very basic rule that predates Geoland and has a higher ConLevel.FOARP (talk) 21:32, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

"Legally recognized, populated places are presumed to be notable" - census data is sufficient for villages, towns and larger providing the census is considered accurate in my view. More coverage is better of course Atlantic306 (talk) 10:21, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes I think if the place can be shown to be a city, town, village or even hamlet or suburb as opposed to something like an abadi its reasonable to count is as being notable. Most such places will tend to have other coverage anyway. Keep in mind that a settlement generally won't have any administrative function but an administrative unit with the same name may do so. Look at Kersey, Suffolk for example its a village and parish (municipality) and the village is an OS settlement[1]. The parish has administrative function in that it has its own council (Kersey Parish Council) and the parish includes 3 other settlements namely Kersey Tye, Kersey Upland, Wicker Street Green and William's Green. If you look at Eastbourne its a non-metropolitan district and has a council (Eastbourne Borough Council) but the town its self doesn't have any administrative function. With the likes of Lunderskov, Blofield Heath and Arinagour these places don't have and administrative function but there is census data provided for these places and unlike Basildon 010A which is a census tract that doesn't match anything on the ground the 1st 3 examples do. So I agree with FOARP in that if the census unit exists purely for statistical purposes (like a census tract) or is for something that would not likely qualify as a settlement such as an abadi we may not presume they are notable but if the place is something that is a settlement it should qualify and the 3 examples do have other sources and its highly likely for most such places there would be other coverage. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:43, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

While the existence of census data for a place doesn't imply notability, administrative divisions that are officially recognized should be covered by GEOLAND whether or not they have self-governance institutions. Newimpartial (talk) 18:23, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

The idea that self-governance is required for GEOLAND Notability would be absurdly ethnocentric - there are whole national units that lack meaningful self-governance at any level. Officially recognized administrative units are equally covered (e.g. the Arrondissements of Paris, the first four of which no longer have separate self-governance institutions). Newimpartial (talk) 18:20, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't agree that administrative units and electoral divisions are presumed to be notable. This section only applies to "populated places", and it makes it clear that anything which isn't normally thought of as a place doesn't count. So while cities, towns, villages etc with some form of legal recognition count, and common subdivisions such as states, counties, provinces etc likely would as well, that doesn't extend to electoral divisions or other kinds of administrative units. Someone from Brooklyn might consider themselves to be from Brooklyn, New York City or New York State, but not New York's 9th congressional district, for example, so that's not a "place". The problem with that AfD is that there is no evidence that those places exist apart from the census, and merely appearing as designations in a census isn't enough to make them presumed to be notable - they might not be populated places. Hut 8.5 18:07, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Cities, towns and villages do not generally hold legal recognition but rather the unit named after them may like Kersey, Suffolk the parish of the same name holds it (and is governed by Kersey Parish Council). I don't think we would suggest Alston Moor doesn't qualify simply because its an administrative division and not a settlement or that Alston, Cumbria doesn't qualify because its a settlement and not administrative division. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:53, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

@Hut 8.5: What would in you're books be an example of a "populated, legally recognized place"? given at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2022 April 17 you apparently said that settlement was a census tract. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:25, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

It will vary depending on where you are, but I think it has to be a "place" in the usual sense of the term (somewhere people would use as a geographic indicator), people have to live there, and it has to have some kind of recognition from some government agency as an administrative subdivision or something that's more than just a statistical designation. I made that comment in the DRV because you'd suggested it was notable because the OS had designated it as a place, I don't think that constitutes legal recognition. Hut 8.5 18:55, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with any statement that merely being a "administrative units and electoral divisions" means presumed notability under the SNG. My place is a city in a county in a state in a country. I'm also in dozens of abstract government recognized geographic divisions. For example, a sewage treatment district (run by elected officials) a sanitarium district that nobody even knows exists, a park district run by elected officials, a legally defined 3 digit zip code area, a precinct which get's redrawn every few years, electoral districts that only exist for 1 gerrymandering cycle, plus dozens more. And then dozens more that aren't set up by the government (e.g. telephone area code areas) Those aren't really places and don't and shouldn't get presumed notability under an SNG. North8000 (talk) 21:44, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

North8000 - I could go with insisting that the “place” at least has to exhibit some level of self-governance. The issue is that this too does not really clarify things that much (does a railway district govern itself? A television area?). Better just to say that all of them must eventually pass GNG to be frank. FOARP (talk) 09:36, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

FOARP Sometimes if you can put into words what people already know by common sense it is helpful. In essence, no presumed notability for the more abstract areas. Beside meeting SNG criteria and suitable RS sourcing that they exist, they would need to be how somebody describes "this is where I live" to somebody who is not local. They might say that they live in the hamlet of Hooterville in Lake county, but they are never going to say "I live in the "Precinct #43 of Wentworth twonship" or "The Hooterville US Census tract". North8000 (talk) 16:51, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Agree with North8000 in that the examples like sewage treatment districts wouldn't qualify but 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th order administrative units as well as formal regions would surely qualify. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:43, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Based on your initial post (specifically the first 4 bullets in it) I think that you mean per the primary geographic division system of the country. North8000 (talk) 18:25, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes I hadn't thought about other divisions, might something like "1st order divisions (countries) such as France and United States), 2nd order administrative units (states) such as States of Austria and Ceremonial counties of England), 3rd order divisions (districts) such as Districts of Austria and County (United States), 4th order divisions (municipalities) such as Comune and Civil parishes in Scotland are generally presumed notable as are formal regions such as East of England and Canterbury Region, other divisions are subject to the "populated places without legal recognition". Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:53, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

WP:NTRAINSTATION

@Mhawk10: Regarding the new guideline you made, I feel this would be better as added to the "Artificial features related to infrastructure" with a footnote noting the lack of inherit notability? Something like * Artificial features related to infrastructure (for example, bridges, dams, and train stations) can be notable under Wikipedia's GNG. Where their notability is unclear, they generally redirect to more general articles or to a named natural feature that prompted their creation, e.g., to an article about the notable road it carries or the notable obstacle it spans. Avoids having to repeat ourselves here, as I don't believe we have any SNG less strict than GNG that railway stations can fit into. Thoughts? Jumpytoo Talk 06:08, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

• I can’t think of any SNG that would be lighter than GNG and apply to a train station except possibly the “cultural heritage” and “national heritage” parts of NGEO (the RfC didn’t really touch on these sorts of edge cases). Upmerging/redirecting non-notable articles makes sense to me as a standard ATD when a train station is non-notable, provided that a suitable target exists. But also things like flag stops aren’t always “features” in the way that a boulder or bridge might be (there frankly might not be anything substantial there to signify it), so I’m not 100% sure that all train stations can get lumped in there. Your proposal would certainly make things more concise, but I do think that the “no inherent notability” phrase should be explicit in the text of the article guideline rather than reduced to a footnote. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 06:23, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

  Regarding flag stops, assuming we only look at active ones they would still be advertised as "the train can stop at this position", so I'd argue they are still artificial features. There are cases where it's advertised that a train can stop anywhere along a given area, but these cases generally don't have articles created due to the lack of a station name so I don't think it would be an issue.

  Regarding explicitly noting the lack of inherent notability, I don't think this is necessary as The inclusion of a man-made geographical feature on maps or in directories is insufficient to establish topic notability should be enough, and the footnote just makes it extra clear. It seems people are also respecting the consensus from the recent train station AfD's and PROD's. Jumpytoo Talk 19:19, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

  I agree that people generally seem to be respecting the consensus, but I think the best way to prevent future disruption is to keep the phrasing as explicit as possible. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

References

We should add Iranian Abadi as an example of a place not considered to be a legally-recognised populated place

Given the large number of AFDs that have now closed with Iranian abadi being deleted as not notable, I think we should add these alongside US census tracts. GEOLAND#1 would therefore read:

"Census tracts, abadi, and other areas not commonly recognized as a place"

What do you think? FOARP (talk) 09:24, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

@FOARP: Agree but we should also specify that things like country subdivisions (states, districts and municipalities) and formal regions are notable but other things like sewage treatment district etc aren't generally notable. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:23, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

We could certainly use specific guidance on the Iranian census, which does not always locate places to communities. Abadi would have to be linked, however. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 16:19, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Administrative units

I propose adding "Administrative units" to GEOLAND

"1st order divisions (countries) such as France and Scotland), 2nd order administrative units (states and equivalences) such as states of Austria and ceremonial counties of England), 3rd order divisions (districts and equivalences) such as districts of Austria and county (United States), 4th order divisions (municipalities and equivalences) such as comune and civil parishes in Scotland are presumed to be notable. Formal regions such as East of England and Canterbury Region are also presumed to be notable, other divisions are subject to the "populated places without legal recognition". For guidance on if administrative units should have separate articles from the places with the same name they are named after, see Wikipedia:Separate articles for administrative divisions to settlements.

This is useful because it clarifies that such administrative units like municipalities are presumed notable as WP:NPLACE notes but we have the more vague "Populated, legally recognized places" which seems to mainly deal with settlements.

This also clarifies that terms can differ in different parts of the world for example the term "county" (in the ceremonial counties sense) is similar to what would in the US be a "state" while the term "county" in the US is what Austria and England would describe as a "district" and what Denmark would describe as a "municipality" even though a "municipality" is the lowest level unit in many countries such as Austria.

It also clarifies that some divisions may have greater functions that others like comune having greater functions than (at least today) civil parishes in Scotland does but both are presumed to be notable.

The 2nd to last point also clarifies that things like sewage treatment districts would not be presumed to be notable.

We probably need to further clarify what settlements etc are presumed notable, generally I've understood this to be cities, towns and villages even without census data as long as there is a source to support that it is a settlement of that classification or if its a hamlet or suburb census data for it would also make it presumed to be notable. @Atlantic306, FOARP, Hut 8.5, Newimpartial, and North8000: Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:51, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I see two problems with this proposal:

(1) not all jurisdictions have strictly rectangular systems producing "orders" of units; for example, cities in Ontario, Canada may be third-order or fourth-order divisions depending on whether or not they also participate in a regional municipality.

(2) the idea that sub-municipal units, such as boroughs or wards, are presumed not to be notable (which seems to be the intent of the proposal) appears to be a major departure from GEOLAND without any real justification. The Arondissements of Montreal, for example, are clearly notable, even though they could be interpreted as fifth-order divisions in the sense of the proposal. Newimpartial (talk) 17:07, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't able to see "The 2nd to last point also clarifies that things like sewage treatment districts would not be presumed to be notable." Could you point out and explain? North8000 (talk) 02:00, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

This seems like a very large-scale change TBH. FOARP (talk) 03:40, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't agree with the proposal. I find the presumption that any level below the municipality "is subject to the populated places without legal recognition" by default to be poorly thought. I read in a thread above that @Crouch, Swale: wedges a line between "country subdivisions (states, districts and municipalities) and formal regions" and "other things like sewage treatment districts". That consideration is clearly a very limited perspective, not conductive to having a holistic view on the matter. That cannot be the basis of any proposed change putatively global.--Asqueladd (talk) 06:47, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

@Asqueladd: What would be better than? At North8000 noted at Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features)/Archive 7#Inhabited legally recognized places and here about not all administrative units satisfying GEOLAND. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:35, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I think that you are mixing the concept of settlements below the municipal level with the idea that a random "administrative" delimitation (such as a "pipeline/ water district, "tuberculosis/ sanitarium district, a fire protection district, park district, a school district" in which of course people happen to live, overlapping with other random administrative delimitations) may not necessarily warrant an article, the latter of which, I may lean to agree with. For that matter, that kind of examples arguably also spans to random "administrative" delimitations above the municipal level. Setting the 4th level as the threshold (which is, please confirm if I am wrong, what is intended to be codified here) is capricious, and does not properly address the question of how to differentiate small settlements with "legal recognition" [sic] from the the casuistry of those ad-hoc administrative divisions for the provision of services mentioned above.--Asqueladd (talk) 17:12, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

@Asqueladd: Well settlements below the municipal level may be notable or may not be for example Mawnan Smith has a separate article to Mawnan its municipality. In other cases like Aingers Green there isn't. The settlements within the 4th order unit are generally subject to the "Populated places" notability criteria. For countries that have lower level units still these may well be notable for example in England there was once townships many of which like Brunstock had the same name as a settlement but some like Melthwaite[2] didn't. These for example would probably be notable. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:23, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I think that the current guideline works pretty well in this area. A part of it is the emphasis on identified places and the following the common meaning of that term. While they are often defined by legal stuff and lines on a map, I think that those administrative aspects are secondary to the criteria. IMO opening up a whole new area (administrative units) for presumed notability would be at best very complicated (given the large amount of non-notable, abstract, transient and obscure administration units e.g. sewage treatment districts). And at worst, problematic by removing the emphasis on it needing to be a recognized place in order to have presumed notability. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:21, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, I think the guideline works really badly and should be abandoned. The reason is the mass proliferation of geostubs based on pure statistical databases. The Abadi and GNIS cases show this in stark relief.
I just think this proposal will simply increase complexity without solving any of the major problems we have. FOARP (talk) 07:54, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to having something about administrative units, at least the higher level ones, but this suggestion is rather generous and the parts designed to avoid including sewage treatment districts and the like come across as rather convoluted. Civil parishes in Scotland, for example, haven't had any administrative function since 1975, and they have a typical population of about 1,000. If we divided the whole world into subdivisions at this level and said they are all inherently notable then we'd have more articles on administrative subdivisions than everything else combined, most of them auto-generated geostubs. First-level conventional subdivisions of countries, like counties in the UK, are very likely to be notable, but I don't think we should go down to this level. Hut 8.5 09:06, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

@Hut 8.5: Yes civil parishes in Scotland haven't function administratively but their boundaries are generally based on "natural" boundaries and even if you assumed that if they were created in 1975 with no functions they weren't notable they did exist before 1975 with functions. With respect to England in addition to ceremonial counties like Devon and Suffolk districts like Nuneaton and Bedworth or Hastings would also surely pass, parishes like Hatfield Peverel and Nedging-with-Naughton as well as formal regions like East of England. @North8000: The reason for this is as well as clarifying things like districts are notable but also you're points about things like sewage districts not being notable otherwise people may well think they are. Aside from WP:NPLACE saying municipalities and parishes are notable (and my essay on separate articles for administrative units to settlements) there is no guidance on other types of units. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:23, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't think we should be recognising very low-level divisions like that as inherently notable. It's one thing to say that for the UK, where we have plenty of documentation available, but this would apply to every country in the world. Are low level units like that in, say, Uzbekistan inherently notable? I'm sure if we say they are then somebody will try to create articles on them, even if it's only by copying some database of the kind that have caused so many problems in the past. Hut 8.5 07:53, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

You can see this with "Rural districts" in Iran - the sourcing is typically every bit as bad as the abadi articles and there is typically no better sourcing available. FOARP (talk) 15:01, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

My thoughts above are based on Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works. Specifically the fact that recognized places are highly enclyclopedic and also the gazetteer function being mentioned in WP:Five Pillars that the otherwise-bar gets lowered a bit for recognized places but that abstract administrative entities does not get this special treatment.North8000 (talk) 16:48, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

@Hut 8.5: Well in England was have around 96.4% of municipalities while most other countries in the world appear to have 100% though this may be partly due to the English ones having relatively little function compared to many other countries. Looking on GeoNames (see Oqtosh for example) and List of administrative divisions by country it seems like they have regions (Samarqand) and districts (Narpay) but it doesn't appear anything lower than that exists. So unless like Scotland that formerly functioned (and are still used for statistical purposes) or at least are notable in some other way such units might not satisfy this but again they probably wouldn't qualify as municipalities or equivalences. @FOARP: When I am talking about districts I'm referring to local government districts (or equivalences like American counties) not every unit that happens to be called a "district". Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:10, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

@North8000: - WP:5P is a poorly thought-out essay that directly clashes with WP:NOTDICTIONARY and WP:NOTDIRECTORY as far as I am concerned, but that is an old discussion. Anyway, it is only supposed to summarise guidelines/policies, not predetermine them. The amendments to NSPORTS basically have negated the "Almanac" part of it in as much as they applied to sports almanacs and the community can do the same to the "gazetteer" part of it if we so choose. FOARP (talk) 07:43, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

@FOARP: I'm not arguing for the gazetteer function (or anything in 5P) specifically, but IMO what is currently structurally lacking is that Wikipedia needs some highly consensused pages that set the direction for policies and guidelines to implement, not the other way around. IMO 5P is defacto one of those, probably the only one. North8000 (talk) 13:48, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I can't speak for other countries as much but for English settlements generally the consensus seems to be. Cities, towns and villages are generally presumed notable as long as it can be shown that they are that class which seems to be supported by WP:NPLACE. Most anyway were civil parishes so would be presumed notable anyway. Some have have been Chapelries which may well also qualify as legally-recognized. A village in England is generally distinguished from a hamlet as having a church. Most villages that weren't at least at some point an administrative unit (not many) would probably have coverage on the settlement or at least church. Hamlets and suburbs that are OS settlements (those that show up as "Other Settlement"[3][4] such as Whiteash Green and Greenwich, Ipswich are more controversial, sometimes they have standalone articles, sometimes they are redirected to their parish or (for suburbs) the town they are in. For those that aren't OS settlements they are generally merged like previous or deleted, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/White City, Colchester unless there is coverage like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Horeston Grange, Warwickshire. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:10, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

I appreciate efforts such as this to further define what should be presumed notable or non-notable and thus shrink the gray area in between where disputes inevitably o arise; however, I don't support this particular proposal. Presuming notability of "4th order divisions" would be problematic for smaller, sparsely populated, and/or under developed countries. For example, what's a 4th order division of the Gambia, and does it make sense that we'd have articles for each of them? Yilloslime (talk) 19:53, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

The short version of my posts with respect to the proposal is that I don't support the proposal. But thanks for the thought and work. North8000 (talk) 20:32, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I think a lot of the concerns raised here point to this guidance being needed its just that the precise wording etc may need to be more detailed namely explaining which types are not notable and which types may be NN as well as those that are presumed notable. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:10, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

re enclosing regions

The phraseology concerning merging non-notable features to some enclosing feature's article lacks consensus, in my observation. From what I see (and this is certainly my PoV) articles on classes of features held non-notable by default (such a subdivisions) have been deleted unless they pass GNG on their own, which is to say, they enjoy some fame/notoriety beyond simply being documentable. Mangoe (talk) 05:07, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

GNG affects whether a topic deserves its own article. It has no concern over the content of articles, which may or may not fall under WP:UNDUE. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 05:12, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

'See talk'?

Major wording change to guideline cites "see talk" in edit summary without elaboration or link to disucssion. It has been reverted. Djflem (talk) 08:00, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

SeeWikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance. Djflem (talk) 08:11, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Turkey

There is an editor going through Turkish districts like Çelikhan, redirecting villages with hundreds of people and adding big tables with Kurds repeated in every column. Doesn't seem right to me, why shouldn't settlements with hundreds of people have their own articles, is he aware of our general guidelines on populated places? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:56, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Looks like a valid redirection to me, since the articles being redirected are basically content-less articles about Turkish mahalle (i.e., neighbourhoods) like this one. Saying "Kurdish people live there" in a country with a substantial Kurdish population, repeatedly across multiple articles, is not obviously better than simply saying it in one article. You yourself have said you are OK with this kind of redirection. FOARP (talk) 10:21, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

school districts

To editor Eviolite: Poorly-attended AfDs with an eye to the circular reasoning of OUTCOMES is the sort of inclusionist foolishness that caused me to turn away from that ideology. This notability guideline is already overbroad. I do not care to opine why we seek to keep articles which do not pass GNG. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:13, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for initiating discussion. I hate blind inclusionism as much as the next guy, but I was informed of this on my talk page and it seemed odd but correct, at least in the United States, where they essentially act as their own governments (even having the ability to levy taxes). The main argument I saw for "inherently" keeping these articles in the AfD discussions I reviewed was that they provided a location for local schools with minimal coverage to be merged to. (For the record, I do agree that it's a bit weird to give geographic places a "free pass" when other topics don't, but I felt that if "place" is taken to include "school district" anyway, it should be clarified.) eviolite (talk) 00:11, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Your point that "they provided a location for local schools with minimal coverage to be merged to" is exactly the sort of nonsense inclusionism I oppose. Some folks think Wikipedia needs a carve-out for schools because it attracts student editors (to vandalize). The problem with writing an encyclopedia is that you need sources to support content and anything short of GNG is an obvious appeal of ILIKEIT by a certain subset most of whom registered an account a long time ago and no longer represent consensus. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:53, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

School districts ought to fall under Wikipedia:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)#Schools rather than geographic features, I'd think. They are often notable because they are government entities that oversee education and individual schools, not because they are populated places. There is not consensus to call districts automatically notable: there are over 16,000 in the US alone but far fewer have articles. Reywas92^Talk 00:15, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Adding school districts (or anything else actually) into this guide as something that ends up being interpreted as automatically notable is not something that should be done full-stop. If anything the scope of this guide should be reduced due to its tendency to function as an excuse to copy statistical information off databases to create thousands of content-less articles like the GNIS and Iranian census stubs that we have now spent years trying to clean up. Simply because it is some kind of district in which people live does not make it a "populated place", any more than, say, the North Lancashire Football League is a "populated place", or the ITV Granada television region is a "populated place" - as Reywas92's says these are clearly WP:ORGs and so subject to a much higher notability standard to avoid self-advertising.

On the point of whether AFDs can function as a precedent, really they would have to be a lot more well-attended and have to be much more explicit as to whether the subject is notable per this guide than what is seen here. FOARP (talk) 15:05, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

RfC on mass creation and deletion (now with added focus on WP:GEOLAND)

Please be aware (1) that a moderated RfC on how to control mass creation of articles, particularly stubs, is now in progress at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale (already announced at WT:N), to be followed shortly by another on mass deletion; and (2) (a new development) that articles created under GEOLAND have been singled out for special attention by the editor FOARP (inter alia, see above), who has been asked to present to the RfC his proposals for changes to GEOLAND as regards mass creation (and doubtless also mass deletion a bit later). This warrants close attention, I would think. Ingratis (talk) 06:25, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Ingratis - I hope you will not mind if I state simply for full clarity that I have not singled GEOLAND out for special attention, not am I proposing any special rules or changes for GEOLAND. Instead, I have said that GEOLAND should not been exempted from general proposals since it was the main area for the problematic mass-creation highlighted in the Carlossuarez46 and Lugnuts ARBCOM cases which ultimately led to the present RFC. FOARP (talk) 09:17, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

@FOARP: - I don't mind at all! That is how it read to me when User:Valeree specifically asked you to propose a "GEOLAND fix", which is what I had in mind when I referred to it being "singled out for special attention". I'm sorry if I'm continuing to get hold of the wrong end of the stick, but you are surely saying that although GEOLAND is one of the few SNGs which operates on alternative notability criteria to those of the GNG it ought not to, and proposing that GEOLAND should instead be made to conform to GNG. If so, that would be a huge change, regardless of the background. Ingratis (talk) 09:51, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

@Ingratis: - I think it uncontroversial that mass-created articles like Agro-Industry Complex (a non-existent "village") and Harry Oppenheim (a player who was apparently not known by that name) are both problematic for similar reasons, and as such there is no good reason to address one but not the other. To be honest I don't think there is any "fix" I can offer Valereee beyond that simple value-statement. FOARP (talk) 10:21, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Grouped parish council areas

Are grouped parish council areas in England such as Broad Hinton and Winterbourne Bassett inherently notable? All civil parishes in England have a parish meeting such as Chickney even if they don't have a separate parish council such as Swilland sharing a parish council with Witnesham called "Swilland and Witnesham Grouped Parish Council". Generally speaking per WP:GEOLAND and WP:PLACEOUTCOMES municipalities are generally inherently notable like Nedging-with-Naughton and show up on maps and census data etc[5][6] but in such cases of grouped civil parishes there is no such division as "Swilland and Witnesham" only a council covering the 2 separate parishes called "Swilland and Witnesham Grouped Parish Council". Similarly in Scotland there are civil parishes that are now largely defunct but are still used for statistical purposes and did previously have administrative roles and do still show up on some maps so would likely also be inherently notable on the other hand there are community council areas which do not appear to show up in any maps or census data etc which again may not be notable. All or almost all of the civil parish groups articles in England appear to have been created in the mistaken belief there was a CP with that name and I've previusly argued they aren't notable but on 2nd thoughts I'm unsure as having its own council may well make an area notable even if there isn't actually an area but that name, thoughts? Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:56, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Urban parishes

In England prior to 1974 there were rural parishes and urban parishes. Rural parishes had their own parish meeting and normally a parish council and thus would generally be presumed to be notable though a few such as St Michael Rural it may not be worth having separate article due to the current parish St Michael having similar boundaries. Rural parish generally had stable boundaries and corresponded to natural boundaries of places. Urban parishes on the other did not have their own councils and instead relied on the district council. The did however until 1930 have electoral roles and there did seem to be a consensus at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom/Archive 10#Proposed deletion of all articles on local government subdivisions wards, divisions etc. that wards are notable. Some of them like Walsworth had the same name as a settlement and would probably be presumed notable and Bullers Green was formerly a township but many were the name of like Leicester the Castle View just had the name of the urban district plus another name like the name of a saint and were often more arbitrary and some like Sandridge Urban were small tracts of an ancient parish that ended up in the urban district and thus the parish being split. Often such parishes were later merged into 1 parish with the same name as the urban district such as the parish of the Municipal Borough of St Albans being merged in 1894. In 1974 the rural and urban distinction disappeared with most urban parishes being abolished and becoming unparished area but a few had successor parishes. Though the term "urban parish" no longer really has a legal meaning it does still kind of exist in that parishes that exist in former urban districts such as Sudbury could be described as being urban parishes and such parishes are sometimes controversial, see Letchworth#Letchworth Garden City Council (2005–2013) for example. In some cases like Offerton Park a parish is formed within an unparished area but only covering a small part of it and such parishes can be though of as being urban though they have their own council so will be notable. In terms of pre-1974 parishes that didn't have a settlement of the same name and were never rural parishes and the notability:

• WP:GEOLAND says "Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable" but then says "Census tracts, Abadi, and other areas not commonly recognized as a place (such as the area in an irrigation district) are not presumed to be notable".

  I don't think those exclusions would likely apply as census tracts are simply random areas for census which don't have any administrative function and don't have any physical existence. Similarly for abadi which are often small areas like farms etc rather than towns or villages but have census data but aren't notable. This doesn't apply. Irrigation districts, unlikely but possible since the lack of function may put them in a similar category.

• WP:PLACEOUTCOMES says "This usually also applies to any other area that has a legally recognized government, such as counties, parishes and municipalities."

  The key problem may be their lack of a "legally recognized government".

I'm unsure but I'm wandering, perhaps we should see if there is a non-binding consensus here on this. If they aren't notable they could be covered in the urban district's town. See discussion at User talk:Stortford#Parish types @Stortford:. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:42, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Scope for guideline update

Happened to participate in discussion @ WP:Articles for deletion/Pullman Flatiron Building as uninvolved user. There I referred guidelines mentioned @ WP:NBUILDING . I had a feeling Pullman Flatiron Building may be significant to local neighborhood, may be of curiosity to city level or at the most regional level audience so I felt may be good for local guide or regional encyclopedia. For WP as encyclopedic catering to international audience, IMO WP:NGEO need to add a criteria some thing like ".. Catering objective of fulfillment of encyclopedic curiosity of international audience and just not limited to local audience.."

This reminds me another similar article List of burial places of justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Idk premise of it's notability.

I am not expecting any one to vote there or here. I am posting this just as referrence point for any future discussion @ this talk page in due course. Bookku (talk) 08:57, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Using maps as sources

This RFC now has questions related to notability. Rschen7754 06:09, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Does GNS just basically not work now?

Hi all, I've been trying for days to access the GNS system to check the existence or otherwise of some Iranian "villages" referenced to it. Every time I go to this link: [7], click on "Geographic Names Search Application", and then the page never loads properly. Am I the only one with this problem? I guess Geonames.com still works but the data there isn't the same as on GNS and the article-references are to GNS.

As an example of what I'm trying to do, look Abgarmak-e Sofla, Besharat. This includes multiple names for the same village all cited to GNS. I think this may well have been an example of the article creator simply assuming that the place in the Iranian census (which does not only list villages but instead simply counts people around a named feature that may not be a community in any real sense) was the same as the place named on GNS without there being any real reason to believe that because the GNS feature has multiple names and there are multiple other, different locations with the same name. But, without being able to load GNS at all I cannot check this.

Since I also have to use other US government websites as part of my work (especially the USPTO website), US government websites basically not working for extended periods of time is something I am used to, but this is unusual even by that low standard. FOARP (talk) 08:56, 25 May 2023 (UTC)