Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features)

Several unincorporated places in the US

Perhaps within Wikipedia's home country, can be found several places that fail WP:GEOLAND? For example, Dott, Pennsylvania article contains only a single paragraph consisting of a single sentence and an infobox. Yet having only one source that does not back it up (statistical listing). This should be merged with Bethel Township, Fulton County, Pennsylvania, and all other uninc. places with no meaningful content be merged with the article of the township; the article of the township better be expanded. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 04:39, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, there's still an endless amount of WP:GNIS junk out there. PA is a bad one on this, with lots of names on the map that were nothing more than a handful of homes. Yes, you should absolutely merge these empty pages to the township article, which is the actual recognized place. Reywas92^Talk 15:25, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

As to the endless amount of WP:GNIS junk, Ébresztőföl appears to be creating numerous stubs based solely on GNIS references. As previous discussed, something identified as a "populated place" in GNIS does not automatically confer notability, as many of these are no more than a road crossing with a store or a church nearby at the time the data was collected and might not even exist at present. older ≠ wiser 14:57, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any articles created by Ébresztőföl. Deleted? --Altenmann >talk 15:49, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Oops, seems Ébresztőföl wasn't the creator, only adding them to disambiguation pages. A few of them do have some other references, but many don't. For example, Water Valley, New York, Pontiac, New York, Pinehurst, New York, Dellwood, New York, and Carnegie, New York. Williston, New York, Sand Hill, New York have nondescript photographs that could be anywhere but have only a GNIS reference. older ≠ wiser 16:09, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Inferring legal recognition from schools/post-offices

I occasionally see it argued that legal recognition under GEOLAND can be assumed just from there being a post-office or a school at the location. Typically this argument fails but it would be good to say something specific about it in the guide. FOARP (talk) 15:25, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Although "legal recognition" is a vague criterion, I would say "has a post office or school" clearly fails it. FOARP: can you give an example where the argument is made at AfD? — hike395 (talk) 16:07, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Hike395 - Here's an AFD I participated in where it succeeded in making the discussion no consensus. Here's another. Of course there were other arguments made in those discussions as well. Haven't seen any lately but then I haven't been so active at AFD. FOARP (talk) 18:17, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, we should. I know that just in the county I live in, there were post offices established at isolated country stores and at farms. There were other post offices at locations for which the name may appear on an old map, but I haven't found any information on what was there. There is even one post office for which the only information I have found places it on the mail route between two towns that were about 30 miles apart. Schools, churches, and even courthouses were often established at otherwise uninhabited places, although settlements might eventually grow up around them. So I think we should say that the presence of post offices, schools, churches, and other non-residential buildings do not in and of themselves demonstate that they were in a populated place. What we need are reliable sources that indicate that there was a population at the location that was more than the store keeper, farmer, teacher, or minister and their family and dependents. Donald Albury 16:08, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

A straight forward additional sentence in GEOLAND would read: "Legal recognition requires substantiation in reliable sources and should not be inferred simply from the presence or absence of non-residential buildings such as post-offices, schools, and churches at the location". FOARP (talk) 09:14, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

This may well be true of the US, which AFAIK is in any case the only place where the term "legal recognition" has any precise meaning. It's not true of (for example) the UK and Europe, where a church standing in isolation mostly indicates a now-depopulated ancient settlement (and thus notable, since notability is not temporary). So remove churches, or limit the comment to the US? Ingratis (talk) 13:34, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

"Mostly" is not always, and I would still argue that a church building, no matter how old it is, does not, in the absence of other evidence, establish the notability of any associated current or historical populated place, i.e. it is sources about the populated place that are needed to establish notability, not the mere presence of a building. Donald Albury 18:05, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, we definitely have churches standing in the middle of nowhere that were never associated with a particular community in the UK. Rame Head chapel at Rame Head is an example of this (obviously potentially notable on GNG grounds though). FOARP (talk) 19:19, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I think it should be amended to requiring at least one secondary source that describes the area in some level of detail.

The problem is articles where you cannot verify (with a secondary source) the basic details, Monroe is a good example because it is synthy/OR based on primary sources from the 19th century, which can lead to issues if those sources are incorrect. Traumnovelle (talk) 18:21, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree, though this is a topic we talked to death last year (though I suppose it's been long enough that we could revive it). FOARP (talk) 19:22, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I would support changing this, but don't have high hopes for it passing. JoelleJay (talk) 20:05, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that just there being a post office or school should not be enough to green light it. And I think that "legal recognition" (especially for current times)) is a mostly good criteria but sometimes problematic. But there no harm is clarifying that such a/any building alone does not itself satisfy the"legally recognized" criteria. But the proposed wording goes a lot farther than that and IMO too far. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:26, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

The problem is 'legal definition' is never defined. To some it is inclusion on a census/database, some people take any mention in any sort of government document to count, to others it is having legal powers such as a local council - for the latter there are many cases where a historic town with plenty of history for an article gets merged into a new authority. Traumnovelle (talk) 18:18, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

True, but that's a different question. North8000 (talk) 18:20, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

What part goes too far? FOARP (talk) 19:21, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I was concerned about deltionists requiring wp:ver grade explicit "statements of recognition" when it is pretty clear that they are recognized. North8000 (talk) 22:34, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not FOARP but I presumed a statement of recognition would be as minimal as this: 'Mauku Historical Cemetery is located 4 km north of the rural South Auckland settlement of Mauku' [1] which verifies that a settlement named Mauku exists in the area given in the WP article. Traumnovelle (talk) 22:53, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I don’t see how this wording changes the requirement that there be some kind of substantiation and what that substantiation is is otherwise left open. This wording is just saying “don’t infer it simply from stuff that ultimately doesn’t require there to be a legally recognised settlement at the location”. We have *a lot* of articles that discuss post offices and similar (mostly as a result of C46) so this tends to come up fairly regularly. FOARP (talk) 04:07, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Post offices in the US definitely fail this, especially prior to RFD. 4th class POs had arbitrary names which often changed with the postmaster and which were located wherever convenient in houses, stores, and especially train stations. It had nothing to with whether there was a settlement around the place. Schools also were placed where convenient: near here there is a Pindell School Rd. but there is no "Pindell, MD" and for that matter it isn't pbvopis where the school lay on this entirely rural road.

In the US, as far as I am concerned, "legally recognized" means "incorporated". CDPs are something of a moot point because they almost invariably draw lines around unincorporated towns or the like which everyone recognizes as such without the Census's help, so they tend to be uncontroversially notable. The issue with these is the reverse: early on they made combo CDPs which lumped two adjacent areas together. I don't see these as meriting articles because they are completely artificial statistical constructs. and apparently someone at the census agreed because this practice seems to have ended.

Since I generate a lot of the deletion discussions which prompt these question, I just want to add that when looking at candidates I give a pass to any place which looks like a town in the maps and aerials. Particularly in midwest and plains states one sees a characteristic grid pattern consistent with "platting", and histories often give a date for that. Probably these don't really pass GNG but there's only so many arguments I have time for. Mangoe (talk) 20:05, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Clarifying the definition of legal recognition per RfCs might be best because some people do consider census boundaries/tracts as legally recognised places. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:10, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Geoland already says that census tracts are not presumed to be notable. Donald Albury 21:46, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I forgot that given that in practice it gets ignored often. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:49, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Most of our policies and guidelines get ignored sooner or later. :) Donald Albury 22:33, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Census boundaries/tracts per se are not considered to legally recognized places for wp:notability purposes. I think that with the "irrigation district" note it points our that abstract sets of lines on a map, even if legally recognized (e.g. irrigation districts, census tracts, library districts, sewer districts, water districts that nobody really considers to be a recognizable "place" ) does not green light them under this SNG. North8000 (talk) 22:40, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

The census thing requires some nuance. American CDPs are simply not notable in their own right; hardly anyone is even aware of them. They are solely useful as a key to statistical data, and articles which begin "X is a Census Designated Place" need to have that phrase removed. In other countries the census is a useful point of identification of villages and the like. The problem with the Iranian articles is that the people who did them apparently didn't know and Farsi and therefore didn't catch on that they were too far down the data breakout and were elevating arbitrarily named census tracts to being towns when the names in Farsi made clear they were no such thing. Probably this ought to be spelled out better. Mangoe (talk) 12:50, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Isn't there something weird about CDPs in Hawai'i that would exempt them from this? JoelleJay (talk) 20:03, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

There are no incorporated municipalities in Hawaii. I don't see how that would exempt CDPs in Hawaii from meeting the SNG/GNG. There is a long list of articles about CDPs in Hawaii, but I don't see that as being different from other states. Obviously, many populated places in Hawaii will meet the GNG, and CDP data will provide statistical data for them. The main difference is that most states have incorporated municipalities that are smaller that most CDPs, and municipalities have official status while CDPs don't. But then, that is part of what we are discussing here. Donald Albury 21:21, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I didn't mean "exempt from geoland/GNG", only exempt from Mangoe's characterization of CDPs and his instruction on articles beginning "X is...". JoelleJay (talk) 22:17, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Inclusion in the enclosing division

The sentence "If a Wikipedia article cannot be developed using known sources, information on the informal place should be included in the more general article on the legally recognized populated place or administrative subdivision that contains it" has proven problematic and generates inconsistent results. Generally when place articles show up at AfD, it's not because they are not notable enough: it's because the place is being claimed to be "a community" (the preferred euphemism for unincorporated town/village) when research tends to show that this isn't true. This leads to spurious information being kept sometimes because some closers take AtD as sacred and the enclosing article has a list of "unincorporated communities" which includes the incorrect entry; but if the list is corrected, then there's no reason for the resulting redirect.

Personally, I'm inclined to strike the sentence entirely, but if not, it needs clarification/rewording. Mangoe (talk) 13:15, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Good luck with that! Last years RFC couldnt get a concensus on changing GEOLAND when it is totally inaccurate, as legally recognised place is actually impossible to fulfill outside of the US. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:23, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

CCC so maybe something early next year might finally get through. I agree that GEOLAND is basically US-centric. FOARP (talk) 18:56, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the issue is things like housing subdivisions, post offices, geographical features etc. being incorrectly passed off as being settlements/communities Changing the wording to say 'can' instead of should may be better, but I don't see an issue with merging articles that say 'X is a hamlet in Y county' to the Y county article Traumnovelle (talk) 20:07, 28 November 2024 (UTC)