Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features)

Clarification

Could someone involved with project please clarify the sentence, "Reliable sources that document and verify governmental recognition of a place, such as a national census, are usually adequate to establish notability?" I'm assuming this means that a reliable secondary source is needed to document or verify the census (a public record, and therefore a primary source), but I'm not entirely sure. Is the "national census" in the sentence the reliable source or the government recognition? Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:04, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

In that sentence, "a national census" is an example of a reliable source that documents and verifies governmental recognition of a place. No other source is necessary to prove governmental recognition. If you have any suggestion for how to reword it to make it more clear, let me know. Kaldari (talk) 20:49, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment

This is a request to re-promote this page to guideline status. The page was originally promoted in 2012 after a 3 month RfC, but was then unpromoted a month later due to concerns that not enough people participated in the original RfC. The wording of the page has been stable for years and it is frequently cited in deletion discussions even though it is not technically a guideline. There is nothing controversial here. This page consists only of well-established rules of thumb that are already in practice. By promoting them to be official guidelines, we can make the AfD process a bit more efficient and help new administrators learn the ropes more easily. Kaldari (talk) 03:10, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose I don't see it being frequently cited in deletion discussions and, where it is, it does not seem helpful. For example, here's the one example I could find: Selale. A vague wave is made to WP:GEOLAND which is then ignored in favour of the commentator's own personal opinion. I see more reference to WP:STREET which is just some editor's opinion and not a guideline either. See Shattuck Avenue which is rapidly tossed out for this reason. Moreover, the current text of the putative guideline does not seem well drafted. For example, "Populated, legally-recognized places[1] are considered notable". The footnote explains that "The definition of 'legally recognized places' for notability purposes may vary from country to country. For example, in the United States, census tracts are defined by the government and they are typically inhabited, but they are generally not notable." This seems quite confusing and contradictory. This is useless clutter and so WP:CREEP applies. Andrew (talk) 06:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • From looking at Special:WhatLinksHere, I see at least 100 links to AfD discussions. Regarding the confusing wording, I've fixed it so that it no longer sounds contradictory. Kaldari (talk) 08:05, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Please see below for a summary of the page's use in various AfD discussions. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:14, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Comment  I don't see that the essay has gotten beyond the problem that it repeats WP:GNG over and over.  Two specific points, it doesn't have a key essay for streets, WP:STREET, and "The number of known sources should be considered to ensure there is verifiable content for an encyclopedic article." is either a throwback to 2007 when WP:N was a content guideline, or it is a WP:V issue.  With today's wp:notability, topics can be wp:notable without there being sources with which to write an article.  Unscintillating (talk) 07:11, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Bot needed for cleanup  There is a problem with how this essay is getting added to articles.  I looked at hundreds of links at [1], and there is not a single AfD listed.  Instead there are numerous schools, malls, and even a school faculty group linked.  This diff is where User:BattyBot changed a notability tag for a group of musicians to add this essay, listing the essay as a guideline.  Unscintillating (talk) 07:11, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, people have been linking to this page as if it were already a guideline. That should be a good hint that it's worth promoting (rather than systematically unlinking by BOT). I'm not sure why you weren't able to find any AfD links. There are at least 100 AfD links in that list. Kaldari (talk) 07:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Please see below for a summary of the page's use in various AfD discussions. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:15, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

 Doing... tonight to change the malls and schools, and see which other edits by my bot need to be redone. Thank you for alerting me to this issue. GoingBatty (talk) 11:28, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

 Done - Sorry for not doing this sooner. GoingBatty (talk) 05:23, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• Comment  Here is where Grutness himself added WP:STREET, in the second edit ever to this Project Page.  Unscintillating (talk) 07:28, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Comment - below is a summary of this proposed guideline and shortcuts to it that have been used in AfD discussions. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:03, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Notability (geography) – [2], 2,211 results
• WP:NGEO – [3], 61 results
• WP:GEOLAND – [4], 39 results
• WP:GEOFEAT – [5], 15 results
• WP:GEOROAD – [6], 1 result

Additionally, here are results for

• WP:NPLACE – [7], 66 results
• WP:STREET – [8], 3,755 results

• Support - per my rationale in the previous RfC and per the statistics above, particularly per the 2,211 uses of Wikipedia:Notability (geography) in AfD discussions. The page is already essentially being used as a guideline in AfD discussions and at this time has significant precedent as such. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:07, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support - a de-facto guideline. No specific arguments are given against the particular rules of the guideline which could not be fixed during routine improvements. The argument "it repeats WP:GNG over and over" does not invalidate the fact that the page has rules beyond GNG. And repetition of GNG is actually good, to remove doubts as to whether some objects are something special (which had happened in AfD pages). Staszek Lem (talk) 17:57, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• Support. A clear and commonsense proposal, this should be a guideline and is already used as such. --LT910001 (talk) 05:28, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
• I'd support promoting parts of this to guideline status, but I'm not sure that it's ready. In the "Buildings and objects" section there's the sentence: "Artificial geographical features that are officially assigned the status of cultural or national heritage or of any other protected status are inherently notable." For the most important heritage sites that's probably correct, but there are lower levels of protection which don't meet notability, making this misleading. The sentence about excluding micronations also seems unnecessary (as in most cases they are populated places without legal recognition); is there a reason for it? Peter James (talk) 22:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

re: "protected status". Good catch of a WP:WEASEL; easily fixed: I added clarification "of national level". Staszek Lem (talk) 23:07, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

National level could still include Grade II Listed buildings or similar status, and most are not notable. Peter James (talk) 09:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I see. Let's discuss it in a separate section. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

re: "micronations, reason for exclusion of": let me ask you back: why would you want to include them into this policy? There was silent consensus. I guess people had different reasons to consent on their exclusion. In my view, micronations are more from realm of fantasy, cosplay, kookery, etc., and I don't want even to start thinking about specific rules for their notability. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:07, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't specifically include them, but for some of them this seems to be a suitable subject-specific page. Many are a combination of geography and organisation, similar to local government districts, only not legally recognised as places. Peter James (talk) 09:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• fact check  Using the prefix tool suggested above, I ran the search on the name of the Project Page, "Notability (geographic features)".  This search returns seven hits, only one of which postdates the decision to restore this Project Page with essay status on 2013-01-18.  This one remaining case was on 2013-01-22, so it has been sixteen months since the name of this essay was mentioned in an AfD.  Unscintillating (talk) 22:48, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
  • check of fact check - A clueless suggestion and no wonder a totally wrong result. Try "What links here" link and be surprized. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• I probably should have rounded down to fifteen months instead of rounding up to sixteen, but that doesn't change the evidence that the name of this essay has not been mentioned in an AfD since January 2013.  Is this significant?  That is for discussion, which a statement of fact is not, but your adversarial response indicates that you think that this is a significant fact.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:40, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • This you first confusion: wikipedians are lazy (in a good sense) and don't care to type the name of the essay. They use shortcuts (surprize! ( [sic])). Staszek Lem (talk) 20:21, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
• You thought I would have been "surprized" [sic] to look at the "What Links Here", but if you check out the above discussion, you will see that I initiated a discussion about the "What Links Here" marked "Bot needed for cleanup" that led to the removal of hundreds of erroneous links.  Depending on how much work you put into studying the What Links Here, you'd know why Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2005_March_25 is listed, when the essay wasn't created until 2008-04-20T20:10:24.  Regarding other entries in the What Link Here, what guidance does this essay have for Dominion-Chalmers United Church, Calvin Presbyterian Church (Toronto), and Saint Sylvesters Church?  And what about Operation Atlantis, which has a "Micronations portal" icon.  Isn't that one of those micronations that you say is not covered by this essay, and that you don't want to think about?  User:BattyBot thinks, as per this edit of 2014-05-04T23:06:34, that micronations are part of this essay.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:40, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't care how much work you spend studying erroneous bots and other irrelevant crap. What I see is hundreds of backlinks to pages of kind Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thon (river) or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Waltlou Mobile Home Park. I clicked at random 10 of them, and every single one did link to this essay and refer to it in an explicit, meaningful way a bot cannot possibly do. If you have an opposit experiernce with pages of this kind, please report. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:21, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• Suggestion that @BattyBot: self-revert changes to add the WP:Notability (geographic features) notability tags. 

1. For one, this has not been a guideline since January 2013, so I think that the changes made in December 2012 have been erroneous for over a year.
2. BattyBot is second-guessing the original post, which may have really intended WP:GNG notability, and BattyBot doesn't change the date that the tag was added.  BattyBot doesn't have the judgement to know if a topic like a church is better listed as a building or as an organization.
3. Editors are implying that the changes BattyBot has made show widespread interest in this essay, so the changes are confounding the level of interest in this essay.

Unscintillating (talk) 01:40, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I have been running BattyBot to set one of the parameters of Template:Notability to link to this guideline. Before more mass reversions, let's see whether the consensus is to remove the parameter from Template:Notability (which makes reversions moot) or the page is promoted to guideline status (and a subset of the edits should be reverted), or something else. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:59, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I have replied at User talk:GoingBatty.  Unscintillating (talk) 14:48, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• Possible contradiction with existing guideline: see Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies) - although a change may be needed there, not here. Peter James (talk) 09:38, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • It is a well-established consensus that e.g, organizations and buildings they occupy have independent notability status. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
• Comment before this can be approved, the language should be adjusted to talk about "presumed" notability (the condition to create the stand-alone article) as to match with WP:N and other subject-specific notability guidelines. --MASEM (t) 20:26, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Please describe the problem. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:53, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
    • If you review the other notability guidelines, language is stated something like "A topic is presumed notable if...". The reason we state that is that there can be exceptional cases where even though the condition on this page is met, if there's no significant sourcing , that presumption can be fairly challenged via AFD or other means. These guidelines (the ones above and beyond the base WP:N) are meant to define cases that should be able to product viable encyclopdic articles given enough time (per WP:DEADLINE) to do so; the presumption concept means the initial claim that these were notable can possibly be wrong. --MASEM (t) 21:45, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Inherent notability of protected objects

Singled out of the RFC section. Here is the start of the discussion, copied for convenience:

• I'd support promoting parts of this to guideline status, but I'm not sure that it's ready. In the "Buildings and objects" section there's the sentence: "Artificial geographical features that are officially assigned the status of cultural or national heritage or of any other protected status are inherently notable." For the most important heritage sites that's probably correct, but there are lower levels of protection which don't meet notability, making this misleading. The sentence about excluding micronations also seems unnecessary (as in most cases they are populated places without legal recognition); is there a reason for it? Peter James (talk) 22:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

re: "protected status". Good catch of a WP:WEASEL; easily fixed: I added clarification "of national level". Staszek Lem (talk) 23:07, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

National level could still include Grade II Listed buildings or similar status, and most are not notable. Peter James (talk) 09:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I see at least the following options:

• Remove the phrasing "or of any other..."
• Clarify the level of protected status that decides inherent notability,
  • Likely, on a per-country basis
  • Possibly mention that this list of protections is subject to expansion basing on consensus (or not; since it is actually how wikipedia works)
• Clarify that an item protection was based on its individual merits, rather than because of simply being a representative of historical panorama or "age or rarity", etc.

Staszek Lem (talk) 21:22, 11 May 2014 (UTC)