Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features)

Proposed refactoring

I notice that the section and subsection headers of this guideline don't make a lot of sense --- why are "roads" and "train stations" separate from "buildings and objects"? There is a nice hierarchy in the geographic features WP article: natural vs artificial features, within artificial features there are settlements, administrative regions, and engineered constructs.

I have refactored the guideline to follow this hierarchy: you can see the proposed refactoring at Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features)/refactor. Note that this refactor does not change the wording of the guideline: it simply sorts the guideline components into more obvious sections.

Any comments or thoughts on this proposal? — hike395 (talk) 16:03, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

This would imply that roads and train stations would be under The inclusion of a man-made geographical feature on maps or in directories is insufficient to establish topic notability. which is a controversial change to make. --Rschen7754 01:06, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I thought they already were covered by that statement? Aren't roads and train stations man-made geographical features? If not, what would that statement cover? — hike395 (talk) 01:47, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

There is some ambiguity over whether that statement was intended to apply to the road and train station sections. In several recent AFDs, the (novel) argument has been made that the particular statement in question nullifies the entirety of the road section, which tells us how to apply WP:NEXIST to roads. --Rschen7754 02:00, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: That argument doesn't sound correct to me. Could you kindly give a link to an example from AfD? I'm not sure whether the argument is being apply to a major (international/national/state) highway, or a minor (county/region/local) road? — hike395 (talk) 16:35, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/State Highway 93 (Karnataka) among others as listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/All article alerts/Archive 1. --Rschen7754 19:33, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Not seeing that argument being made. I am seeing you make the argument that "typically" means "automatically" and not "typically." which is a little odd. You understand that typically means that not all articles which fall under those conditions will be notable, correct? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:10, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

To put it another way: I think that it's implicit that a section title that is more specific to the topic at hand is the applicable one rather than one that is less specific. In this case separating them removes them from under "mere including on a map" criteria. So your proposal is for a significant change. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:42, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

• Support - Please go ahead and carry out this necessary refactoring. It is completely nonsensical to treat roads and railways differently to other man-made structures. FOARP (talk) 10:46, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

  I’ll add that I also do not believe this changes the situation, since it has always been the case that simply being featured in maps, directories, indexed, geographical dictionaries etc. does not sustain notability.FOARP (talk) 06:07, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

• Support I disagree with your rationale if it were to change the individual guidelines but from a closer review of your proposal, it appears that you just organized the current requirements better without changing them. North8000 (talk) 21:44, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose No, this would be a significant change in the policy and needs wider input at a minimum. --Rschen7754 00:08, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I concur with North8000, above, and believe that it is not a significant change in policy. How do you recommend getting wider input? — hike395 (talk) 17:08, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Posts at relevant venues, or RFC. --Rschen7754 02:38, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Posted a notice at the following WikiProjects: Notability, Geography, Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, Islands, National Register of Historic Places, Cities, Countries, Bridges and Tunnels, Dams, Trains, Highways. — hike395 (talk) 03:58, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

• Support, doesn't change policy; roads and train stations are man-made geographical features. BilledMammal (talk) 17:36, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
• Comment/clarification The OP seemed to give the impression that it was arguing that, based on using set theory, that roads and train stations should be treated the same as building and objects. I disagree with that rationale, and such is not currently the case and such would be a major change. However, upon looking at the actual proposal, I think that it does not make that change or any change in the actual guidelines. It merely organizes them better. The individual items are "self contained" and do not inherit anything from their heading. And so IMO, the proposal does not make any change of substance to the guideline. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:56, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I did not mean to claim that roads and train stations should be treated the same as building and objects. They clearly currently have different guidelines (the building-relevant guidelines at WP:NBUILD are different from WP:NTRAINSTATION and from WP:GEOROAD), and I don't want to change that. I agree with North8000 that guidelines are "self contained" and should not inherit from headers. The sticking point seems to be in the interpretation of The inclusion of a man-made geographical feature on maps or in directories is insufficient to establish topic notability. I would have thought that this currently applies to all man-made geographical features, including buildings, objects, train stations, and roads. If you look at the discussion from 2012 that established WP:GEOROAD, it didn't discuss that pre-existing sentence at all. The discussion that created NTRAINSTATION specifically mentioned that sentence --- editors seemed to agree that the sentence covered train stations. I don't see any historical consensus for excluding roads or train stations from the "insufficient for notability" sentence. — hike395 (talk) 00:19, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

@Hike395: I think that you keep shooting yourself in the foot. :-) The main basis for the the supports here and for potentially bypassing a wider RFC would be that your proposal has no changes of substance. Yet your OP and last post seem imply that there are changes by providing justification for implied changes. Changes that don't appear to be in there. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:11, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, that's unfortunate. I'm trying to say that there are no changes. There's one editor who thinks that this changes the guidelines, and I'm trying to argue that it doesn't change the guidelines. Maybe I should stop arguing that it doesn't change things: maybe it's obvious. — hike395 (talk) 15:17, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

• Support No need to make the distinction. Avilich (talk) 01:02, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose without a full RFC that includes a summary of the changes and links to the discussions about how the changes were developed, what problem(s) this is trying to solve and how the changes will solve it/them. I see none of that. Thryduulf (talk) 12:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

@Thryduulf: See the first paragraph of this Talk section --- I'm just trying to organize/tidy the notability guidelines without changing them. The refactor just adds new section headers and sorts existing guidelines into the headers. No changes to the guidelines are anticipated. I proposed this because the current presentation of the guidelines doesn't make sense to me (why do we have separate top-level sections on "Buildings and Objects", "Train stations", and "Roads"?) It's purely intended to be friendlier for editors to read. — hike395 (talk) 12:22, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

• Support, as far as I can tell this is just housekeeping/organization, I don't think it changes anything but it does make our existing standards easier to understand. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:36, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support Update: support reorganization effort. Oppose without a clear explanation of what you're trying to change. I'd expect a line-by-line; instead we get nothing. ɱ (talk) 14:39, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

@Ɱ: looks like you missed Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features)/refactor (not a bug deal, I didn't understand what I was looking at initially either). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:48, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I see now. I am leaning toward support, but recommend that train stations be combined with transportation facilities, or made a sub-bullet of it. ɱ (talk) 15:02, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

@Hike395: I also recommend bolding "this refactor does not change the wording of the guideline"; I missed that part upon first read-through. Good work however. ɱ (talk) 15:04, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your bolding suggestion! I also added a little memo on top of the proposal. I see what you mean that "train stations" are actually "transportation facilities". The problem is that "train stations" are also "infrastructure", and "roads" are also "infrastructure", so there isn't a clean way to make sub-bullets (IMO). As written currently the guidelines are a bit messy, but I didn't want to change any wording. I thought it was safest to just leave them as parallel bullets. But if other editors want to make a different structure, I'm open to anything sensible. — hike395 (talk) 15:32, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

• As a note, I've tweaked the language within WP:NTRAINSTATION to reflect that it is no longer its own section. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 01:46, 28 June 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: [1], 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)

When does a place become legal and allowed an article?

Hi. I am asking the question, it seems we have a specific guidelines on notability which is generalised but woolly. Take User:Crouch, Swale questions above. When is an English parish a legal place? Take North Shoebury, a parish that did not exist at the time of the Domesday Book, that was created between the creation of the book and the 12th century. It lasted until the 1930s, when it was split up between Southend and Rochford. North Shoebury as a village kept its separate identity until the 1980s when the farmland that separated it from South Shoebury was built on. The ecclesiastical parish still exists, but its administrative side no longer exists, as it has been separated between Shoeburyness and West Shoebury Ward's. So technically where does this sit? We had a page for North Shoebury, but I merged and redirected this into the Shoeburyness page as it had little information. User:Crouch, Swale is of the opinion that as t⁷he parish existed it should have its own page, but he raised this after I had completed the merge.

So when does a parish, former or not be notable to have an article? As parishes can cover more than one legally recognised habitable place (Bowers Gifford and North Benfleet Parish for example), does WP:Notability (geographic features) really cover parishes or just the actual places? And as per User:Crouch, Swale, should we have and administrative area section to make it clearer? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 08:21, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

@Davidstewartharvey: North Shoebury was a parish in Rochford Rural District until it was abolished. It being a rural parish means it would have had a parish council or at least parish meeting so would qualify as legally recognized. In the case of Bowers Gifford and North Benfleet we rightly also have articles at Bowers Gifford and North Benfleet covering the villages as well as former parishes.

With regards to North Shoebury the settlement still exists but indeed is now part of the settlement and unparished area of Southend-on-Sea. WP:GEOLAND notes "Even abandoned places can be notable, because notability encompasses their entire history". Yes you may be correct that today North Shoebury may be less of a distinct entity than it was before the 1980s but that doesn't mean it no longer qualifies for an article. Cambridge Town is different as that was never a parish in its own right. See WP:DEFUNCT for examples of things that no longer exist.

If you look at cases where something was renamed then generally the articles should be combined like Cuckfield Rural redirecting to Ansty and Staplefield because the parish was renamed not abolished. Similarly if you look at Talk:Somerset County Council#Merger proposal the 2 articles were on the same (or almost the same) topic, see WP:MERGEREASON while "North Shoebury" and "Shoeburyness" are distinctly different topics even if there is some overlap, see WP:NOTMERGE 3. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:41, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

The problem is if you type in place in to search in Wikipedia you get Human settlement which keads as "In geography, statistics and archaeology, a settlement, locality or populated place is a community of people living in a particular place. The complexity of a settlement can range from a minuscule number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of cities with surrounding urbanized areas. Settlements may include hamlets, villages, towns and cities. A settlement may have known historical properties such as the date or era in which it was first settled, or first settled by particular people. The process of settlement envolves human migration". Parishes are not mentioned as they are an administrative area, which Wikipedia states "A parish is an administrative division used by several countries." There is no mention in this notability guideline of administrative areas. In fact the government notability guideline was rejected previous. This is why I ask the question, and as you have already put forward previous in this talk page, changes to include administrative areas, which i would support to make this guideline less woolly.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:32, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Part of why its woolly is that it has to apply to the whole world, this isn't an encyclopedia about the UK so specializing it for the UK would be inappropriate. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:41, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

But should we define what is a legal place? Administrative areas can include multiple legal recognised places. I have seen arguements that administrative area articles are just duplicates of the actual town, village or city.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:49, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Of course not, we should leave that definition up to the duly appointed legal authorities in each jurisdiction. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:52, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

You miss the point. Administrative areas are just that, not a place ie. a city, town or village as described in human settlement. In some cases Administrative areas cover several towns and cities, take Greater Manchester Combined Authority. This is not a legal place but an administrative area, as the cities Manchester and Salford, towns Oldham, Bury etc are the human settlement. In Organization and companies, there is clear guidelines and cknsiderably more comprehensive that these guidelines. Why can't we have something like User:Crouch, Swale has proposed?Davidstewartharvey (talk) 18:07, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

And you miss mine... What is a legal place will be different in every country. This attempt at drawing a bright line is Don Quixote esque because such a line doesn't exist. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:11, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

@Davidstewartharvey: Does the essay Wikipedia:Separate articles for administrative divisions to settlements (which isn't UK specific) that I wrote a few years ago help answer you're point? When it comes down to parishes (4th order divisions) that have the same name as a settlement they are normally combined into 1 article like Hatfield Peverel even though it contains other settlements like Nounsley. When it comes to districts like Rochford District they are normally separate from the settlement Rochford (which is also a parish). I think we may need better guidance on what administrative divisions are notable in the 1st place but for North Shoebury the point at WP:PLACEOUTCOMES "Smaller suburbs are generally merged, being listed under the primary city article, except when they consist of legally separate municipalities or communes (e.g., having their own governments)." likely applies since North Shoebury was once a municipality (parish) it can have an article but the municipality doesn't need a separate article from the settlement. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:15, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I used North Shoebury as an example. I think we do need real definition on administrative areas, as even in most parts of the world there is a structure to administrative areas which are comparable. This notability guideline is just over 9600 bytes, which compared to Organization & Company which is over 41k, it is very light and giving proper definition is really required.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 18:27, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Sort of unspoken is that it had/has a government and a government which is the primary government at that level. In a typical US location that might mean city, county, state, country but typically not abstract entities like irrigation districts. And the fallback is when in doubt, it needs to confirm meeting GNG at the outset. North8000 (talk) 18:46, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Exactly, "unspoken". Looking at most countries on Wikipedia we have pages confirming the administrative areas. Why can't we have a statement stating: Administrative Areas that are defined in each national Administrative divisions article pages are notable. We could create a category to link each article and add it to the guideline as a see here hatnote?Davidstewartharvey (talk) 18:52, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

• I agree with David that we probably need a guideline for administrative units as well as settlements as I suggested at #Administrative units.

The point about informal regions being under "Populated places without legal recognition" does touch on this and WP:PLACEOUTCOMES says "Legally recognized cities and villages anywhere in the world are generally kept, regardless of size or length of existence, as long as that existence and legal recognition can be verified through a reliable source. This usually also applies to any other area that has a legally recognized government, such as counties, parishes and municipalities."

As far as I'm aware with regards to notability of administrative units generally the following are presumed notable as long as legally recognized in the country they are in (as different countries may have different definitions for the same word)

• Countries like France or Scotland
• "States" namely national subdivisions which in the "US" and Germany are called "states" while in England are called "(ceremonial) counties"
• "Districts" namely the next unit which in the US is called a "county" and in Germany and England called a district
• Municipalities which often have a translation such as in Germany in German is "Gemeinden" or in England they are called "(civil) parishes"
• Formal regions (as opposed to informal ones the guideline references) such as Regions of England

Normally if the division appears in a national census (excluding census tracts) it would likely be notable.

Those that are generally not notable include:

• Census tracts
• Sewage treatment districts
• Irrigation districts

With respect to "places" in terms of the likes of settlements and other physical places the following are generally notable

• Any city, town, village or even hamlet or suburb that appears in a national census.

Exclusions are

• Places that are less than settlements like abadi that appear in national censuses. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:22, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

  I think all of the Administrative division articles list what is formal and informal. Take Administrative divisions of China and Subdivisions of Brazil which gives the formal and informal divisions. US are broken down into the individual states/counties/borough/parishes articles.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 19:36, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Just a note that not all US states have counties. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:25, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I think they do except that in Louisiana they call them parishes? North8000 (talk) 19:43, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Most of New England as well and plenty more besides. This is why for federal statistical purposes county equivalent is a thing, but there isn't always a county equivalent government... Sometimes its purely a statistical fiction. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:50, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Yep, and Alaska use Boroughs. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 19:51, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes it would the the equivalences on the relevant country. On a similar note some English counties don't have any districts and some districts and even counties don't contain any parishes such as Northumberland not containing an districts since 2009 and Watford not containing any parishes. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:18, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

And the US there are townships which have many different meanings/structures even within the US. Some clearly notable, some clearly non-notable. And that's all just within the US. Trying to more specific could get really complicated. North8000 (talk) 20:23, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

At risk of instruction creep would it be a good idea to create a geographical notability guideline/essay for specific countries while maintaining the generic one? Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:31, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I am going to create it as an RFC so we can get a bigger concensus. Bare with me first time! Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:51, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

There's more than notability to consider, per WP:PAGEDECIDE. There might be an administrative division of some kind that merits coverage, but there might be very little to say about it by itself, or little to say that doesn't duplicate another existing article or divorce its content from the context of the (presumably overlapping) area. CMD (talk) 06:12, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Rfc on Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features)

The geographic features SNG states that Settlements and administrative regions, Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low. Even abandoned places can be notable, because notability encompasses their entire history. 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. The Geographic Names Information System and the GEOnet Names Server do not satisfy the "legal recognition" requirement and are also unreliable for "populated place" designation. The question was what is a legal recognised place? If you type place into Wikipedia search, you get Human settlement which the lead reads: In geography, statistics and archaeology, a settlement, locality or populated place is a community of people living in a particular place. The complexity of a settlement can range from a minuscule number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of cities with surrounding urbanized areas. Settlements may include hamlets, villages, towns and cities. A settlement may have known historical properties such as the date or era in which it was first settled, or first settled by particular people. The process of settlement envolves human migration. This does not mention formal Administrative Districts/Areas, just cities, towns, villages and hamlets. A discussion was started on the Notability (geographical features) talk page where user:North8000 stated Administrative Districts/Areas came in under the "unspoken" rule that they count as legal places.

This seems like madness. I believe we should in some way confirm what formal Administrative Districts/Areas (also know as subdivisions) are legally recognised places. However the arguement is that there is so many different levels of these across the world that you cannot have a this in this SNG. However I have pointed out, this SNG is just over 9600 bytes, with SNG Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies), has much greater detail and is over 41,000 bytes on size, and gives greater clarification on what is notable, so size should not be an issue. Why can't we have a rule on formal Administrative Districts/Areas?

I therefore have put forward the following:

1. Status quo. Dont change anything and keep the existing unspoken rule.

2. Add in formal Administrative districts/ areas, with hatnote leading to a guideline on what is allowed and what isn't?

3. Add a section for formal Administrative districts/ areas, which lists what will be accepted as formal, with a new category set up and linked to each of the Administrative districts / areas / subdivision pages for each country (or state in terms of the US).

Thankyou for your paticipation. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:16, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

• Please see WP:RFCNEUTRAL. This opening statement is far too long and opinionated to be an appropriate opening for an RfC. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 06:28, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  I've removed the RfC tag for the moment, to give them time to refactor it. BilledMammal (talk) 06:30, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  @BilledMammal@Rosguill Apologies this is the first time I have raised an rfc. Could you please give me some advice on how to reword?Davidstewartharvey (talk) 08:14, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  It should be a simple question, without making an argument for or against the change. For example, "Should WP:GEOLAND be modified to grant presumed notability to formal administrative districts/areas?" I'm not fully clear on what is being proposed - what are these administrative districts/areas? - so that question likely isn't the correct one, but it should give you an idea of how to word it. BilledMammal (talk) 09:06, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  Additionally, once you have the neutral opening statement ready, you can immediately make your longer case for your preferred change in a discussion section below the initial (separately signed) opening statement. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 09:18, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Rfc on Wikipedia:Notability (geographical features)

Hi. Should we add a section to add Administrative division t Districts / Areas to the notability SNG for geographical features WP:GEOLAND? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 10:04, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

The geographic features SNG states that Settlements and administrative regions, Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low. Even abandoned places can be notable, because notability encompasses their entire history. 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. The Geographic Names Information System and the GEOnet Names Server do not satisfy the "legal recognition" requirement and are also unreliable for "populated place" designation. The question was what is a legal recognised place? If you type place into Wikipedia search, you get Human settlement which the lead reads: In geography, statistics and archaeology, a settlement, locality or populated place is a community of people living in a particular place. The complexity of a settlement can range from a minuscule number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of cities with surrounding urbanized areas. Settlements may include hamlets, villages, towns and cities. A settlement may have known historical properties such as the date or era in which it was first settled, or first settled by particular people. The process of settlement envolves human migration. This does not mention formal Administrative Districts/Areas, just cities, towns, villages and hamlets. A discussion was started on the Notability (geographical features) talk page where user:North8000 stated Administrative Districts/Areas came in under the "unspoken" rule that they count as legal places.

This seems like madness. I believe we should in some way confirm what formal Administrative Districts/Areas (also know as subdivisions) are legally recognised places. However the arguement is that there is so many different levels of these across the world that you cannot have a this in this SNG. However I have pointed out, this SNG is just over 9600 bytes, with SNG Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies), has much greater detail and is over 41,000 bytes on size, and gives greater clarification on what is notable, so size should not be an issue. Why can't we have a rule on formal Administrative Districts/Areas?

I therefore have put forward the following:

1. Status quo. Dont change anything and keep the existing unspoken rule.

2. Add in formal Administrative districts/ areas, with hatnote leading to a guideline on what is allowed and what isn't?

3. Add a section for formal Administrative districts/ areas, which lists what will be accepted as formal, with a new category set up and linked to each of the Administrative districts / areas / subdivision pages for each country (or state in terms of the US). Davidstewartharvey (talk) 10:04, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

@Davidstewartharvey I suggest you provide summary or synopsis of your discussion to avoid WP:TLDR. Bookku (talk) 12:16, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

As an example, I'm currently working through titles which might need a disambiguation page. These cover diverse topics, in geography and elsewhere, but many are sets of similarly named small settlements. The second item on that list is six places called Davydkovo, with populations of (unstated), 2, 4, 5, 4 and 10. Do I continue to create a dab (after possibly moving the article currently at the base name to a qualified title), or is it possible that a settlement consisting of two people is not in fact notable? Certes (talk) 11:53, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

The above description of what I said isn't really right. Sorry if I wasn't clear. Here is what I meant plus some expansions:

The defacto standard/clarification is that if an area meets all of these criteria:

• Is a legally defined area
• Has / had a government
• That that government is the primary government at that level (I.E. it's not things like a irrigation district, library district etc)

That it is presumed notable. And "Presumed notable" means that at least initially does not have to establish GNG notability.

If an area does not meet all of the above criteria it is usually not presumed to be notable. There are uncommon exceptions where the very nature of the inhabited or previously inhabited area gives it a very strong separate identity. For example, a settlement in a rural area. Again, IMO this is a defacto standard that just "fills in the blanks" where the guideline doesn't clearly provide an answer.

Sincerely North8000 (talk) 14:19, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. But that's the point it's not in the notability guideline, just the term legal place. Adding administrative division / district / area with the breakdown you have given as the defacto would make more sense to the guideline.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 14:30, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

I think that some evolution / clarification would be good. My my thought sort of fills in the blanks in a lot of areas. I'm not understanding what you specifically mean by "administrative division / district / area" in your initiative. Do you mean it to include cities, towns, states etc., or did you mean types of districts that are not any of those such things? North8000 (talk) 15:25, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Thats a good question, for example sewer and water districts are formal administrative districts/areas but are almost never notable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:32, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

I am talking about local government that provides services, I.e. cities, towns, county's , boroughs, parishes etc not like water and sewage boards, development boards. Maybe the wording needs to include that. I know on Administrative divisions of China they state that there is formal and informal districts, what is regarded as local government and what isn't. Looking at Administrative divisions of India, the lower level called Blocks is a bit woolly, either being villages or just development planning districts!. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:31, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Topical example, Districts of Israel, includes two areas as districts that are occupied territory. It is clear in this case that these are merely bureaucratic divisions (or POV). Unless there is lots of independent sourcing, such things should not be considered notable imo. Selfstudier (talk) 16:32, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Davidstewartharvey, I'm with you in spirit on your initiative, but I think that there is no way that this particular RFC is going to move that forward. It doesn't provide an answer and IMHO isn't even clear on what the question is. IMO we should analyze the current text in that area and develop proposed new text. And then either boldly try putting it in or else have an RFC to put it in. My thought is that the hard job will be coming up with good specific wording and if it just follows current practice maybe getting it in after that would be easy. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:53, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

North8000, I think you really gave what we should work with:

Administrative divisions (also known as districts or sub divisions) are notable if they meet the following:

• Is a legally defined area
• Has or has previously had a government
• and that government is/was the primary government at that level

This must be primary government at this level and not organisations like irrigation districts, library districts, development districts.

Then we give examples of what is acceptable and what isnt, much like we have in WP:SIRS in the WP:Notability (organizations and companies) policy guideline.

Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:43, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I did my best. But it still needs to be reconciled with what is already in there. I'd be happy to work on that but am buried in real life for the next few hours. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:10, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support yes we do probably need more clarify on this, what is a "populated legally recognized place"? Is it a settlement even if uninhabited like Imber[2] or Tottington, Norfolk[3] (which is also an administrative unit) or does it refer to administrative divisions like Nedging-with-Naughton or Vermont which are administrative units with their own local government but not settlements? Consider Island of Stroma being in Category:Former populated places in Scotland even though its never been a settlement and the fact GeoNames sometimes also has an entry for a supposed populated places in terms of settlement (like Gighaisland and supposed settlement probably because people live on the island[4] As I said above we may need country specific guidelines and Wikipedia:Separate articles for administrative divisions to settlements already deals with situations settlements have the same name as them. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:31, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
• Comment. I have no idea what I'm commenting on. Is a specific change to the guideline actually being proposed, and if so what is it and how does it differ from the status quo? -- Visviva (talk) 02:48, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

  It is adding a clarification to the current SNG. Administrative Divisions/districts/areas that are managed by primary government are not defined in the SNG. This means Counties/parishes/provinces/states etc which are artificial geographical areas are not covered in the SNG.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:04, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose, probably. It is not clear to me what is being proposed, but I believe that what is being proposed is to expand the scope of this SNG and in general I believe it is preferable to refer to the GNG; we need sources to write an article rather than a database entry, and until those sources are identified it is better and more policy-compliant to have a list entry rather than a database entry. BilledMammal (talk) 02:57, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

  The problem we have currently is that the SNG says Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable. Administrative divisions controlled by primary government have been so far accepted under this rule (regularly quoted by WikiProject Geography) but as per the discussions in this talk page, what actually counts as a legally recognised place? Place is identified in a search in Wikipedia as a human settlement, and Administrative Divisions can cover various settlements so are they a place (counties/parishes)? I would like to add in what counts as an administrative division, and what isn't.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:13, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

  Though if you think they should come under GNG, propose that we word that in the discussion: I.e. Administrative Divisions are not notable under this SNG and defer to the General Notability Guideline.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:49, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose the idea of explicitly declaring administrative subdivisions as inherently notable (which seems to be what's being suggested). This has been discussed here a few times in the past, but it is very likely to lead to large numbers of procedurally generated permanent stubs being created out of some database. While the conventional first level subdivisions of countries (states/counties/provinces etc) are very likely to be notable, and second level subdivisions might be depending on circumstances, below that level it's a lot less likely unless they correspond to settlements. To take a concrete example is an administrative subdivision of, say, 1000 people in Kazakhstan inherently notable? Kazakhstan has a population of about 19 million, so if they are than that's 19,000 articles, and I'm sure somebody will try to create them. And if this applies to all subdivisions used by government in some capacity we could be talking about a division of a country used for providing water supply, sewage, postal services or whatever. The "populated places" part should only refer to settlements and not administrative regions. Hut 8.5 12:17, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

@Hut 8.5: (and others with a similar concern) I'm with you in spirit but (probably due to the unclear wording of the RFC) you might be posting counter to your own goals. The potential problem that you describe already exists and this is an attempt to solve it. Right now every administrative district (including those in your example) is (arguably) a populated legally recognized place and so the current guideline (arguably) already says that those are presumed notable. The intent of the potential change is to tighten that up. North8000 (talk) 12:53, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

You beat me too it. The current issue is legally recognised place for artificial geographical features is woolly. Users like User:Crouch, Swale state administrative districts are artificial created features and are legally recognised. I raised it to try and get the discussion going to rectify this as both he and I have clashed and co-operated on several of these in the past. Unfortunately I was a bit ham fisted with my listing, though I apologies it was my first attempt at RFC!Davidstewartharvey (talk) 13:00, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I think we do need this guidance since we're not trying to get all to be treated as inherently notable but at least those like states, districts, municipalities and formal regions. We also should have greater clarity on those that aren't inherently notable like census tracts and irrigation districts. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:05, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree that the term "populated place" includes all administrative regions, and I'm not sure it includes any administrative reasons at all - the term is usually understood to mean settlements or parts of settlements. I'd be happy to change the guideline to state that more explicitly. Although I'd agree that some types of administrative regions are very likely to be notable, I don't think it's a good idea to write anything like this into the guideline as it will likely open the door to lots of new database-generated geostubs. In cases of high level regions which are clearly notable there isn't likely to be much questioning of that status anyway. Hut 8.5 17:49, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

We both have the same concerns and want the same thing but see nearly everything else about achieving it differently. North8000 (talk) 17:59, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

but if you look at WP:GEOLAND, the section is called Settlements and and administrative regions, so administrative divisions do come under this. That's why it really needs clearing up. If you look in the next chat we are trying to come up with something tgat is palatable and clearer. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 18:01, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. To begin with, there does not seem to be an actual problem to be solved here. And now that the proponents are discussing their intentions more frankly, this doesn't look like it's going anywhere good. A proposal to lower barriers to the inclusion of administrative divisions without disturbing any other aspects of the guideline would certainly be welcome, but that does not seem to be at all what is being entertained here. It is shocking that we would even be considering further restrictions of notability at the very same time that there is general agreement that our notability criteria -- whatever arguable value they may once have appeared to possess -- have walled off Wikipedia to such an extent that we have failed catastrophically at our fundamental task of being open to the contributions of all good-faith contributors. The only reasonable thing to do in this situation would be to lower the barriers to inclusion, not raise them. If we can't manage actual reform, let's at least restrain ourselves from making things even worse. -- Visviva (talk) 03:47, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

  • I know where you are coming from. I started this process to tidy up and get proper wording for this. However as the discussions are showing what is legally recognised? At this rate a chunk of villages, hamlets and administrative divisions will be sent to AFD as they don't meet GNG, and will end up a complete messy argument.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:18, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

• No - GEOLAND needs to be restricted/removed, not expanded. It has provided the basis for very large numbers of extremely low-quality, database-based, single-or-no-reference, one-sentence, written-in-seconds articles.

The Iranian "village" articles referenced to the 2006 Iranian census, thousands of which have now been deleted but thousands of which still remain to be addressed, are a classic example of this. The (now retired under a cloud) author of these articles failed to realise that the Iranian census includes petrol stations, factories, bridges, farms, pumps, springs (etc.) in the locations that it lists, and is not in fact a list of villages. The articles created in many tens of thousands by another author who failed to realise that GeoNET Names Server includes a lot of places labelled "populated place" that don't actually exist is another example of this. The thousands of articles written about "ghost towns" - places that actually may not have ever really existed - based on GNIS data are a third example. All of these tens of thousands of fake locations then spawned corresponding locations on Google Maps and other websites which mirror Wikipedia content, resulting in the trashing of the information space and actual harm being done to human knowledge.

GEOLAND should just be scrapped and replaced with the GNG. It's as simple as that. If you can't find significant coverage in a couple of sources, then just don't write the article. This is not a high bar, it's just the bare minimum needed to actually ensure the place really exists as described and that we have something to write about. I'm sorry if this leads to some red links and people having lower article-creation stats than they might otherwise have. FOARP (talk) 13:04, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

• Just an FYI: a topically-related discussion took place at Template talk:Infobox person#How narrowly to read "city" of birth/death? and subsequent sections. – .Raven  .talk 20:28, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Deriving a wording proposal

Analysis of current wording relevant to this

There was some support for what I outlined above but I noted that whatever we do need to be reconciled with what is already there. Here's an attempt at a structural review with respect to the topic at hand of the applicable section:

Most of the wording in the section is giving guidance on particular examples rather tan setting up a structural framework.

Settlements and administrative regions

• Populated, legally recognized places Says that they are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low, including abandoned ones that previously had populations. Says that 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. Note that "legal recognition" is not defined / ambiguous and might be a bad criteria. The property that my house is built on is "legally recognized". In practice "legally recognized" might sort of mean legally recognized as a governmental "unit". Emphasizes that Geographic Names Information System and the GEOnet Names Server do not satisfy the "legal recognition" requirement and are also unreliable for "populated place" designation.
• Populated places without legal recognition This basically says that they don't have any presumed notability and so GNG compliance must be established. It explicitly says that this applies to subdivisions, business parks, housing developments, informal regions of a state, unofficial neighborhoods, etc. and says that unless GNG is established those should be covered with the larger entity that contains them. Note that this is also based on the ambiguous term "legal recognition". And basically it lists entities that are excluded from the previous section.
• Disputed regions Nothing structural relating to the topic at hand.

North8000 (talk) 23:23, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

The first two sections relate to the question at hand, the third doesn't. So the first two sections need to be recognized by any work in this area and will probably need to be modified by it.

The 1st appears to talk about places in the physical sense rather than administrative units where it excludes places like Abadi that fall below settlements even though they have census data. It also talks about census tracts (an area of land like an administrative unit as opposed to a "place" like a settlement or less) and irrigation districts. The 1st points (like housing developments) appear to be about individual places but then it talks about informal regions which again are areas of land as opposed to individual places. The 3rd talks about disputed regions which clearly refers to areas of land not settlements. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:03, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Nounsley did have census data and Hare Green still does (the ref has since rotted but see here). Being a named settlement with census data for a national census surely passes "populated legally recognized places" even if only a hamlet. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:43, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Statement of intent of the current initiative

The current initiative seeks to provide more clarity / guidance regarding "areas" which have some administrative function that are defined by lines drawn on a map by the government. North8000 (talk) 23:30, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Brainstorming and analysis

The core idea of a solution is probably simpler than how to fit/reconcile it with the existing guideline, and one idea has gained support. Here it is with long awkward precise explanatory wording.

Core idea #1

One question regarding potential presumed notability is about areas defined by an applicable government. This section grants presumed notability to areas which meet all of the following criteria:

• Is legally defined by a (typically higher level) government or legal instrument with authority over that area (such as by a constitution or state or national government)
• The area has or has previously had it's own government. So things that are representatives to/from or arms of a higher level of government do not count towards this.
• That that area's government is/was the primary government at that level. So this excludes specialty governments like irrigation districts, library districts etc. from counting towards this

If an area does not meet these criteria, that merely means that this particular section does not give it presumed notability, it does not exclude it from receiving presumed notability from another section. . North8000 (talk) 12:46, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

The language is wrong... "receiving presumed notability" etc... I worry we're going to confuse the reader about what notability is, heck its convincing me that you don't what notability is! Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:48, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Nobody really knows. Or to put it a different way, what lots of people think that they "know" varies. Notability is a big fuzzy ecosystem with no simple definitive answers. For me, the most definitive answer is to summarize the main results of the ecosystem which I tried to do did at Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works North8000 (talk) 16:51, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I was aware of your wonderful essay, hence the snark! Clearly you know what notability is, the trick is how to communicate it (neither receive or achieve is in the essay after all). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:21, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

The current wording is Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable. User:North8000 has based the core idea on this.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:52, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Its not possible to "receive" presumed notability. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:46, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

The only thing is I think we should we should confirm that the area is called an Administrative division. I think we should also confirm by using examples. For example County, Civil parish, Regierungsbezirk, or articles like Administrative divisions of China?Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:50, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

You could say that the existing sections overlap with this......after all, they are the ones that currently "cover" it. So the messy question is do we modify them to incorporate this, or do we find a way to just add this in? The "just add this in" approach might be something like the above. Structurally, it merely says "here's one more way to achieve presumed notability". Since it's the one standard that most specifically addresses edge case governmental districts, it would probably become the defacto standard for those. The "bigger job" alternative would be to rewrite the "populated places" section(s) to incorporate something like this. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:43, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Again thats not how notability works, you don't achieve presumed notability. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:47, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

You are basically saying that the whole concept of presumed notability is invalid which would pretty much make all of the SNG's invalid and this whole discussion moot. That's too broad of a question to tackle here. Also see my response above. All of this discussion here presumes that the concept of presumed notability is valid. Even if in just in the limited sense that it means only that such an article doesn't immediately need to establish sourcing-GNG compliance. North8000 (talk) 16:58, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not, I'm simply saying its not something which can be achieved or received. The way you talk about notability is unique, I've never seen another editor talk about it like you do. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:02, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! Since notability is a lot more decentralized, and it doesn't have a policy nor core specific definitions, my approach is just to try to observe and summarize how the fuzzy ecosystem actually works. On the more specific question, I really didn't make such broad statement about notability in general. They were limited to presumed notability which is what this discussion (and all SNG's) is really about. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:20, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back: Do you accept the idea of "presumed notability". Because, if not, then IMO the only to accommodate your view here would be to completely end this initiative/discussion. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:26, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

That is what "I'm not" in the above sentence means. My understand of presumed notability is that it means that a topic is presumed notable until someone demonstrates otherwise (the notability version of extending the benefit of the doubt). This is different from the normal standard which presumes that a topic is not notable until someone demonstrates otherwise. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:55, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

OK, then I think the difference is a minor semantic one. North8000 (talk) 19:06, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this is the definition of a minor semantic issue... But when it comes to policy and guideline minor semantic issues matter a great deal (for example the wiki-shattering difference between there being a S on the end of sources in the GNG and there not being a S). I would not be challenging a suggested article addition in such granularity but I believe that policy and guideline must be fully interrogated (they are in a way our holy texts, we are a cult which worships the written word after all. Even our version of oral law is text based). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:10, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I took a guess at which words started your original comment. I think you took issue with words that sort of said that presumed notability is given by the SNG's. In an operative sense I would argue that this is the case and I chose words like that (is my version that I described and long, awkward but explanatory) for operational clarity. The standard SNG wording avoids this and simply says that they are presumed notable. I took your critique as being in response this difference. North8000 (talk) 19:33, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

If we did a rewrite it could be that we change legally recognised place to legally recognised human settlement and then add the section for administrative divisions.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:27, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm scratching my head on that possibility. The premise might be to preserve (or at least understand & recognize) what actually is currently defined. But overall it really doesn't structurally say anything, partially due to dependence on the undefined term "legally recognized. But it does have a lot of important and influential notes and statements about examples and give certain (influential) impressions. North8000 (talk) 14:02, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Good point! I searched thst loverly phrase and came up with zilch in google to do with cities, towns, villages, hamlets or administrative divisions! If you put in legally recognised human settlement again nothing tgat natches the policy. So tried habitation again nothing, thdn tried legally recognised town. Being in UK not much come up, just hiw a city becomes a city and how to register town or village greens! Type in USA after the phrase and we get the census bureau who open with Different States recognize a variety of entities as incorporated places. Do we need a completly different tact?Davidstewartharvey (talk) 14:45, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Looked a little further, and only the US seem to use the phrase incorporated currently. I know that in medieval times, towns were formally had to be acknowledged by the monarch in the UK, and I believe they were in France too. So legally recognised is definitely wrong. Could we use:

• Populated human settlements (cities, towns, villages and hamlets) recognised by the primary government of the state, are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low, including abandoned ones that previously had populations.
• Populated human settlements, without recognition by the primary government of the state don't have any presumed notability and therefore have to meet the General Notability Guidance. This applies to subdivisions, business parks, housing developments, informal regions of a state, unofficial neighborhoods, etc. Unless the General Notability Guideline is established, those should be covered within the larger settlement that contains them.
• Administrative Divisions of countries, designated as a localised division/district by the national government, and have an authorative body responsible for local government services are presumed notable.

Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:12, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I have been digging further and we could use ISO 3166-2, which is the International Organization for Standardization code for subdivisions of countries to acknowledge notability? This does not go down to the lower levels, but then theg could be acceptable if theg met gng? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:26, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Most of that looks good to me. Except editors should not have to look up an ISO standard to use the SNG. North8000 (talk) 16:31, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Seems backwards, are we sure that subdivisions with that ISO code can be presumed to have significant coverage in multiple independent sources? Also note that ISO 3166-2 was linked but that doesn't appear to be the appropriate code, thats for state and province level subdivisions not county or district like ones. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:38, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure how ISO 3166-2 helps. Nearly all of the more controversial elements are lower-level divisions. For example, this would exclude all US counties and townships, even though I think most would agree that all counties are notable and any civil townships with organized governments are also notable. older ≠ wiser 16:51, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

It was just an idea. There is no ISO standard below 3166-2, which is why i said anything below would then have to meet GNG. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:18, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I understand. But where we need to define some better guidance is precisely with the lower levels. I haven't looked over everything included in ISO 3166-2, but I'd be surprised if there is anything there that most editors would regard as unnotable. If we say other administrative subdivisions that are not included in ISO 3166-2 need to meet GNG, that could open a can of worms, for example there are articles for sparsely populated civil townships that have little more than census data and some general geographical information -- but I think most would agree that there should be articles for these. older ≠ wiser 17:55, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I get what you mean. May be say that any administration division that has an ISO code is notable and then Any administrative sub-division below these have to be designated as a localised division/district by the national government, and have an authorative body responsible for local government services are presumed notable. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 18:05, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm think "national" might not work. Maybe include designated by the state / provincial level government. Also we need to exclude secondary parallel districts that also provide services. E.G. library and irrigaiton districts. What do you think of starting with the above "core idea #1" and evolving from there? North8000 (talk) 18:24, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Yep. I think so. Just integrating what has been discussing above. Though cant do anything tonight.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 18:36, 29 June 2023 (UTC).

Initial draft idea?

As per discussion above, I have created a working example of reworded WP:GEOLAND. Please give feedback and what wording could be used instead, and how to expand the eligible not eligible example section. Thanks.

Settlements and administrative divisions

• Populated human settlements (cities, towns, villages and hamlets) recognised by the primary government of the state, are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low, including abandoned ones that previously had populations.
• Populated human settlements, without recognition by the primary government of the state do not have any presumed notability and therefore are required to meet the General Notability Guidance for an article to be created. This applies to subdivisions, business parks, housing developments, informal regions of a state, unofficial neighborhoods, etc. Unless the General Notability Guideline is established, those settlements should be covered within the larger settlement that contains them.
• Administrative divisions designated as a localised division by the national government, that have been given an ISO 3166-2 code for identifying the principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states) by the International Organization for Standardization, are presumed notable as they are the primary sub-division of countries.
• Administrative divisions that do not have an ISO 3166-2, can be presumed notable if they designated as a localised division/district by the national or state/provincial government, and have an authorative body responsible for primary local government services are presumed notable. If the administrative division has the same boundaries as a populated human settlement, the administrative division should be covered within the larger settlement that contains them. This does include administrative areas covered by single use government bodies, like census tracts or irrigation districts.

Examples of what is acceptable

Populated human settlements that can be accepted include

• Cities: New York City; Paris; Johannesburg
• Towns: Maldon, Accident, Maryland
• Villages: Hollókő; Steeple Bumpstead
• Hamlet: (#not sure of any examples do we include this)

Administrative divisions that can be included:

• State: New South Wales;
• County: Essex
• District: Castle Point

Examples of what is not acceptable

Populated human settlements that Geographic Names Information System and the GEOnet Names Server do not satisfy the "primary government recognition" requirement and are also unreliable for "populated place" designation. Settlements that are not covered this specific notability guideline:

• Housing developments
• Industrial park
• Abadi

Administrative divisions that are not covered by this specific notability guideline include:

• Census tracts
• Irrigation districts
• Water boards
• Religous parishes
• Development boards

Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:59, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

What does it mean to be "recognised by the primary government of the state"? Some have argued that being included as a named place in a census represents such recognition. I'd suggest the bar should be that these entities have a separate governmental organization that is recognized by the state. Thus a hamlet consisting of a handful of houses at a crossroads would not be automatically notable under these criteria (it might be notable under other criterion, but not presumed notable under this). older ≠ wiser 11:42, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

As I said working in progress! Only thing is that not all settlements have their own government, and come under an umbrella government organisation. For example, somewhere like Westcliff-on-Sea, comes under the city of Southend-on-Sea borough. That's why I replaced place with settlement, as place has too wide a connotation. Place can mean town, city etc, but it can also mean a location or an area. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 13:52, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

How is Westcliff-on-Sea "recognised by the primary government of the state"? I.e, how would it qualify under the proposed criteria? older ≠ wiser 14:21, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

That is, Westcliff-on-Sea appears to be notable for reasons other than "presumed notability" under this criterion. 14:23, 30 June 2023 (UTC) older ≠ wiser 14:23, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

How can something be notable for "presumed notability"? No amount of presumed notability = notability. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:06, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I think you know well what is meant based on prior discussions, but appear to want to make some sort of point about the terminology. I'd suggest either a) getting over it and accepting how the terminology has come to be used or b) come up with some alternative expression and try to gain some currency for that usage instead. older ≠ wiser 15:20, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The prior discussions haven't touched at all on that issue, your terminology is unique... Nobody else is using it. Nobody has suggested that "presumed notability" actually contributes to notability but you. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:38, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

This guideline itself makes use of the terminology.

• WP:GEOFEAT says "[features meeting indicated criteria] are presumed to be notable"
• WP:GEOLAND says "Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable"
• WP:NTRAINSTATION says "Train stations have no inherent notability and are not presumed notable for simply being train stations"

If you are quibbling over some imaginary distinction between "presumed to be notable" or "presumed notable" and "presumed notability", I have no response other than to roll my eyes.

As for prior discussion, you and North8000 discussed this same point or something very similar just above. older ≠ wiser 16:05, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

That is not the quibble... The quibble is that presumed notability does not contribute to notability. A subject which is presumed notable isn't actually notable until someone demonstrates that it either is or isn't... Until then its presumed notable but its true notability is unknown. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:54, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, but that is a (IMO) very insignificant quibble. older ≠ wiser 19:38, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Good point! It's just as impossible to find as legally recognized in the current guideline! Closest I can find is the Office of National statistics confirming it is part of Southend District.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 14:39, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Looks like good work. IMO there are a lot of issues with it which I don't have time to discuss at the moment but IMO using your draft as a starting point for what we develop would be a good idea. North8000 (talk) 14:41, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Couple quick thoughts:

• This whole section is about which things are presumed notable. Wording should follow that. E.G. say "not presumed notable" not "not acceptable"
• Folks should ne have to learn/use and ISO standard to use a guideline. Perhaps word it say more about the criteria and then refer to the ISO standard (only) to resolve edge cases.
• Apparently "Abadi" is ambiguous as it includes everything real settlements down to individual gas stations. If we use that to define, some clarification probably needed there

North8000 (talk) 14:47, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

• What is the purpose that GEOLAND serves in this context? Why not just get rid of it and apply GNG to everything? I don't see how that would result in any different outcomes from what is being proposed. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:09, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  But then your question should we have any sng? I have seen that been argued for and against in the past without any consensus.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:38, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  The other SNG all have an answer to that question, I'l ask again: What is the purpose that GEOLAND serves in this context? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:39, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  To specify whether or the types of areas/places covered by that section have presumed notability. North8000 (talk) 17:55, 30 June 2023 (UTC)\

  Do you mean can be presumed to be notable? We can't confer it, we can only observe it (state/acknowledge in your mostly accurate statement below). We're telling the reader in which circumstances they can presume that a topic meets GNG. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:02, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  We're getting into an area which is too big for this task of the the moment. But yes, per the wording used throughout SNG's and also general principles, presumed notability is merely a predictor of GNG compliance. But operatively, it is a wikipedia status conferred upon the topic by the SNG. SNG's also emphasize examples of topics which do not get that status. See alos my 17:47, 30 June 2023 post below....this is too big of a topic for here. North8000 (talk) 18:35, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I think that there's one thing that we need to address here. The reality is that the main thing that the SNG's do is to state/confer/acknowledge "presumed notability". This is a Wikipedia term which has the defacto meaning "doesn't (at least initially) need to establish GNG compliance in order to have an article." If one wants to debate that, that is basically a debate about the existence of SNG's and is a far bigger and broader topic than we're dealing with here. We're dealing with a much much narrower question here which is a section of this SNG which discusses presumed notability ( or lack thereof) of settlements/districts/inhabited places etc. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:47, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, precisely. "Presumed notability" (or the semantically equivalent: "presumed to be notable") is essentially a shorthand to say entities of a particular type are nearly always kept in XfD discussions. older ≠ wiser 19:43, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

And "nearly always kept in XfD discussions." is essentially a shorthand to say entities of a particular type are nearly always the subject of significant coverage in independent reliable sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:25, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, and your point is what? older ≠ wiser 20:43, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

That there are a number of ways to skin this cat and our goal should be concision. If we can say the same thing in a quarter of the words we should endeavor to do so. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:02, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't disagree with any of the above but would point out that, as with most SNGs, a GNG pass itself only establishes a presumption of Notability. Newimpartial (talk) 19:46, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I think one mistake being made is that people are focusing on English speaking countries when this guideline is primarily intended to offer guidance on how to deal with geographic features in non-English speaking countries where the ability of a purely English speaking editor to assess their notability is almost nill. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:25, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

• @Davidstewartharvey: For 4th order divisions municipalities (parishes) we could have Great and Little Wigborough as an example that would be presumed notable. For a hamlet example we could have Nounsley which was an ONS BUASD or Hare Green which still is. For an example of a parish that may not be notable we could have Maldon St Peter which isn't named after an individual settlement and was always an urban parish having no parish council or meeting. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:23, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks for examples. However you are looking at the UK. Not all countries have 4 levels of administrative districts, some have 3 some have more!. We need to find the right wording to determine if it is presumably notable.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:31, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  Hmm, I'd argue that both of the hamlets mentioned (Nounsley and Hare Green) should not be presumed to be notable. Mere existence is not notable. These could merit mention within context of a larger entity, but as they are now, these articles do not verifiablity describe anything more than a mark on a map. older ≠ wiser 20:35, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  but the current sng says Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low, including abandoned ones that previously had populations. It's a right mixed issue isn't? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 21:03, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  And if the articke was found to be nont notable where would Nounsley go? Into Braintree district or Hatfield Peverel? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 21:12, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  It could be mentioned in both. Most all of the current content is completely unreferenced, so as it is, I would not presume that it should be transferred anywhere without some supporting references. And are any of these mentioned businesse notable in any way? The article is not a business directory for the place. older ≠ wiser 21:22, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  Have you looked at each article? I would question if they actually would meet GNG - Braintree District references are mainly primary, a couple of mention of elections in BBC and the rest local or an ONS reference, which would come under the current discussion on maps? Hatfield Peverel is already tagged for adding citations, and currently would the references would not meet GNG.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:25, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

  Though having a quick look Hatfield Peverel could easily be meet GNG as there are plenty of references in google books about it's foundation and priory.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:32, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

  Nounsley would be merged with Hatfield Peverel not Braintree district as Hatfield it its parish, the lowest division as non-notable places should generally be merged to the lowest level unit where possible but it doesn't need to be merged anyway as it should be notable. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:47, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

  Again, my earlier question -- in what way are these places "legally recognized"? There is census data for developing countries where the "place" noted in the data might be nothing more than a temporary collection of tents and caravans. Is such a place notable? What is the difference? older ≠ wiser 21:19, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  ( edit conflict) We'll probably end up realizing that towns are administrative districts and cover under the same standard. On a different note, (and probably why the word "settlement" is in use) A 600 person enclave with no government located in the countryside is going to be a lot more real-world notable than a 600 person neighborhood in Chicago. I don't know what to do with that info.  :-) North8000 (talk) 21:30, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  Does size matter? Lost Springs, Wyoming has a population of 6 at the last census, but is notable under GNG.

  Maybe if we ever do change this we use the word permanent settlement? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:03, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

  As i have previously said Legally recognised is virtually impossible to find. Even if it was, the evidence would be Primary, as it would bd from the government bidy that controls it. How the hell do we resolve this mess? Forgot it happened and leave as the status quo, or try and come up with a compromise that works? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 09:19, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Davidstewartharvey - "Legal recognition", at least in the way it has been very expansively interpreted to mean "mentioned in any government document whatsoever", just isn't a good predictor of notability, which is not a surprise because no government bothers about how notable a location actually is when doing something like this - their focus is on completeness, which is the opposite of notability.

It has led us to having articles after every single location in a country because the government issued a document standardising the names of each place. It has led us to having articles about places - including places that were patently not "villages" - simply because they were mentioned in a census.

The solution is just to ditch the lot of this for the bad, spam-enabling guideline it always was. Wikipedia is not a directory/dictionary. FOARP (talk) 13:33, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I am starting to think the same way, but my concern is how much of the Settlements and Administrative Areas covered under WP:GEOLAND will actually meet GNG? Could lead to a huge amount if articles being deleted. The other question is are Administrative ares actually notable, or is the council/government l/commune etc body that run notable?Davidstewartharvey (talk) 14:49, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

"how much of the Settlements and Administrative Areas covered under WP:GEOLAND will actually meet GNG?" - All the ones for which an actual article exists will meet it. The ones where it's just a copy-pasted sentence and an infobox, not so much.

Personally I'm not concerned. The Olympians clean-up hasn't resulted in mass-deletions of the whole field, just - in a highly limited fashion with much checking and double-checking before it was carried out - that part of it which was indiscriminately mass-created. See WP:LUGSTUBS for an example of how part of that clean-up was done. FOARP (talk) 16:13, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

But this is very different from olympians. The large chunk of these issues were mass created by database entry. A lot of these settlements were created many years ago by well meaning editors before wikipedia notability started being defined.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:23, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

@Davidstewartharvey - Those well-meaning editors (and let's be clear that many Sports bios were written by people who meant well) also leaned heavily on databases. GNIS and GeoNET Names Server most of all, but also Geonames. Antarctica locations are mostly written based entirely on GNIS. The Indian subcontinent overwhelmingly from GeoNET Names Server (articles bot-created by Dr. Blofeld). Iran is based almost entirely on the 2006 Iranian census (which lists many non-village/town locations...). Plenty of places in Central Asia are covered entirely from statistical databases. FOARP (talk) 16:00, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

• @Davidstewartharvey: Although Westcliff-on-Sea doesn't appear to be or have been an administrative unit it is an OS settlement[[5]] and does seem to have widespread usage and many sources and it does have an area profile. WP:PLACEOUTCOMES does say "Larger neighborhoods are usually kept if they meet GNG." which appears to be satisfied. Compare Westcliff, Dumbarton for example that isn't an OS settlement and appears to have little sources. I redirected it to the town after it was proded. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:51, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
• FOARP Comments:

• "recognised by the primary government of the state" - what does "state" mean here? Is it in the US sense, or in the sense that it is used in the UK (i.e., the country)? What does "recognised" mean here? Listed in a document of any kind? Given a postal address? Or something more substantial?
• "This applies to subdivisions, business parks, housing developments, informal regions of a state, unofficial neighborhoods, etc." - add unincorporated communities here.
• "given an ISO 3166-2 code" - I think it would be unwise to rely entirely on the UN to decide what these are. This is particularly the case for countries lacking UN recognition.
• "This does include administrative areas covered by single use government bodies, like census tracts or irrigation districts." - Yeah, no. These definitely should not be included without a GNG pass.

Sorry, can't support this. Not going to agree to something that appears to be carte blanche to spam Wikipedia with articles about library or school districts just because of eg some quirk of national/provincial law meaning they're listed in national legislation. FOARP (talk) 13:20, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Spamming is a real concern: FOARP and other editors have spent a lot of time cleaning up after ill-considered article creation. I wonder if the SNG for settlements (or administrative areas) is actually helpful for the encyclopedia, or whether we should just default to GNG. — hike395 (talk) 13:47, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not convinced such a proposal will find consensus; perhaps a better idea would be the equivalent of WP:SPORTSCRIT #5? I think there is a good chance such a proposal would find consensus. BilledMammal (talk) 14:13, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

If people need something that's "Let's have GNG without calling it that", I'm OK with that. I'd be happy with something akin to your proposal ("at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database sources"). FOARP (talk) 16:08, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree that such would be "GNG without calling it that" which would be (for better or for worse) a gigantic change....basically eliminating the current SNG presumend notability. Perhaps you two might like to help develop this "tighten it up a little bit" proposal, particularly if you agree that the result is such? North8000 (talk) 16:19, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

"Presumed notability" was always a mistake, driven by the misunderstanding that Wikipedia is a geographical dictionary, when it is not a dictionary. It was admittedly a less-harmful mistake in the early years when there were fewer sources online and it was less likely that locations for which there were no source online probably had no coverage anywhere. FOARP (talk) 21:20, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't consider this proposal "GNG without calling it that"; I would consider it weaker than GNG, but still prevent spamming by forcing people to find at least one source containing SIGCOV before creating the article. BilledMammal (talk) 03:11, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

As the conversation above shows I don't think there any legal or recognised by the primary government of the state that can cover this. The only thing is the ISO standard which is the closest thing for sub divisions, and that only goes one level down.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 14:51, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

@FOARP: @Hike395: I think that this effort is with you 200%. The problem that you describe is already happening and this is an attempt to solve it. In essence, an effort to tighten it a bit, not loosen it. Perhaps you could help draft it? You have the same goals as this initiative does. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:42, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I would prefer the elimination of GEOLAND as an SNG, and just require GNG as the standard for determining notability of populated places. Populated places that do not meet GNG can always be merged into articles about the larger political/geographical entity in which they are located. (As an example of what might be done, I offer Historic communities of Alachua County.) - Donald Albury 19:42, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

While I understand that some editors would prefer the elimination of GEOLAND - either de jure or de facto, I wanted to articulate why some other editors (myself included) disagree. The problem with what I would call "GNG fundamentalism" is that this approach is frequently in tension with, or outright opposed to, some of the purposes of an encyclopaedia.

There are many subjects on which an encyclopaedia benefits from "horizontal coverage", that is, a set of freestanding articles at a particular level of a hierarchy of knowledge. So it would (arguably) benefit from a full set of articles about biological species, and a full set of articles about Nobel prize winners, and a full set of articles about cities within each national territory. Insisting on GNG criteria, without nuance, prevents the creation or retention of some of the articles required to meet these encyclopaedic goals (which I can describe as "thickly" as desired, but for now I am stating my position without elaborating on why this treatment is, as I would say, more encyclopaedic than other alternative treatments).

Now some of the purposes I have in mind can be accommodated by "up-merging", say, smaller cities and leaving categorized redirects. But not all of them can, and the main effect I have seen of applying GNG criteria in a "fundamentalist" way is to promote ethnocentrism - communities of a certain size, with a certain depth of history, will be retained in article space if they were settled by wealthy anglophones but may be deleted if they were not. The situation really is that stark, and so I regard GEOLAND as one or the few gestures towards the "globalize" content priority at enwiki that actually has a meaningful effect.

I get that some editors have a severe dislike of stub articles where the sources needed to expand them are not forthcoming. I get even more that mass-creation of articles and bot-like article creation rankle many editors, myself included. But this really is a case where the preference for a rigidly uniform sourcing standard, if further accomodated by changes to enwiki P&Gs, contributes quite directly to making English wikipedia both more parochial and less encyclopaedic. Newimpartial (talk) 23:15, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I think that one key question inherent in the above discussions is that if we draft a change to long widely accepted presumed notability then we are talking about a massive change vs the minor "tightening up" which was the intention of this initiative, and which would have a much lower chance of passing. As a way to sort this out, if I may posit an emblematic edge case/ test case: A town out in the desert in Africa of 500 people with it's own government. It's distinct because it is a separate town, not a 500 person neighborhood in Chicago. People have supplied solid sourcing that it actually exists and is such. Nobody has supplied any GNG sources. Currently, this town gets presumed notability under the SNG and bolstered by 5P. I submit that our proposed change must continue to say that it is presumed notable, otherwise we are talking about a change that is so massive that is has a near-zero chance of passing. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:31, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I disagree.

Without significant coverage, we have no real article to write. We don’t really know that the place exists as a “town”, we don’t know if it really has that name, we don’t have any real content to add. The whole thing could be written by algorithm.

We have far too many articles that are “census list + GNS”, and when you look at GNS you see it has several different names for whatever the “town” at that location is supposed to be and the author picked one of them and matched it to something on the census, with no evidence that they are the same. Carlossuarez46 did this a lot.

I also have to add: our "confirmation" of the existence of these places is almost always looking at satellite photographs of the place and saying "yup, that looks like a town", as if we were CIA satellite reconnaissance experts rather than people just looking at a photo someone took. FOARP (talk) 06:20, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

@FOARP: The bottom line is that this current effort is to slightly tighten the SNG and IMO you are advocating either converting this into GNG or eliminating the SNG. Myself, I think that a good 5 year plan is to give GNG some topic-specific calibration and then eliminate all SNGs. But I don't think that converting this SNG or eliminating it is going to happen from this effort, and I'd be in opposition to it without GNG calibration. So I think we need to be realistic about what we can have some hope of accomplishing here which is (merely) a tightening up and clarification of the SNG. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:38, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

To be mildly provocative, I don't think the concept of a real article is helpful to the encyclopaedia when it comes to topics that are part of a systematic set of ordered topics of encyclopaedic interest, and where each of the specific topics can be documented through independent sourcing. In such domains, the kind of articles typically identified for deletion are simply ones where anglophone editors from wealty countries have difficulty understanding the topic (e.g., the several different names problem) and may have a dismissive attitude towards the available sources. You do not need paragraph after paragraph of coverage from a national newspaper of record to establish that a settlement exists, has an elected government that interacts with national and regional authorities and has a population measured in a national census. Any effort to deny articles to places of the kind I have just described, and therefore also to exclude them from the lists and categories that apply to them, seems to me to be implicitly hostile to the work traditionally assigned to encyclopaedias and to the potential of a digital compendium of knowledge. Newimpartial (talk) 18:54, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: I am sympathetic to your desire for balance and completeness, since I tend towards WP:INCLUSIONISM. To be clear, I think all of the information in these articles with disputed notability should either be upmerged or kept in lists. The redirects can be geographically categorized. I'm not sure what we lose by doing this --- what loss are you perceiving?

To be concrete, after the comment from North8000, I found an example of a 500-person (possible) settlement in Burkina Faso: Bisraaga. It's been a one-line article for 15 years. All we know is that it has an entry in the 2005 BF census. We don't even know where it is. If we go back to the core Wikipedia definition of notability, the article doesn't fulfill it. I think such an article could easily be folded into Bingo Department or Boulkiemdé Province, or become an entry in a list article for settlements in Burkina Faso. Information should be WP:PRESERVED, but this article is an excellent example of why we have notability guidelines in the first place. — hike395 (talk) 21:34, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

@Newimpartial - I will also state the fact that we have had cases where thousands of articles about places that resolutely did not exist were written by well-meaning “anglophone editors”. The idea that we are assisting developing countries or marginalised societies by fabricating content about them, or at best writing articles about “villages” that aren’t actually villages, simply doesn’t pass muster. Encyclopaedias do not anyway typically include one-line articles about locations, but instead articles contain details beyond merely statistical ones - that is the preserve of geographical dictionaries, and Wikipedia is not a dictionary.FOARP (talk) 22:54, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi, hike395 and FOARP. I just want to make clear that, as I understand it, WP:V is a requirement that already applies under GEOLAND, properly understood. There is a substantial gap between WP:V and GNG requirements, and I believe that GEOLAND ought to offer guidance within that gap, and that an effort to align it "up" to GNG produces un-encyclopaedic consequences.

First of all, FOARP, my understanding of "the mists of time" is that enwiki did define itself as incorporating most of the functions of a gazetter and geographical dictionary, and given the affordances of an online encyclopaedia I see no reason for it not to do so. You are absolutely right that enwiki does no favors to anyone by including things that don't (or didn't previously) exist, and that is what WP:V needs to ensure. (That same reason is one ground for my hostility to bot-like article creation, since such practices typically do not build in the necessary quality assurance steps to ensure WP:V and independent sourcing.) But the idea that articles about places should be deleted (or not exist) because we can't currently source a second sentence about them (the sources for which may not be readily found through search engines, and may not be in English) - I find that argument to be fairly hostile to the potential of a global encyclopaedia.

And hike395, I'm not sure what "core nation of Notability" you are referring to here. As far as I am aware, the "core notion of Notability", in as much as there is one at all, amounts to "is the sourcing on the topic sufficient to support an article", and so it depends on what is considered sufficient for an article in a particular domain. As far as Bisraaga goes, I don't know whether it should count as "legally recognized", because census districts are not typically understood as counting as legal recognition for purposes of GEOLAND and I don't know if Bisraaga exists for purposes other than census enumeration. But places that do exist for other purposes and that fill out systematic hierarchies ought to have articles, and I would point out that GNG fundamentalism could easily provide grounds for the deletion of Bingo Department and even Boulkiemdé Province. This, and not edge cases like Bisraaga, is why I maintain as strenuously as I do the position that a "GNG fits all" approach is un-encyclopaedic when applied to domains like organized human settlements. It might indeed be possible to up-merge Bisraaga without encyclopaedic harm (there might not be notable people whose birth there would benefit from a blue link, for example) but without the two levels of geographical hierarchy above that, damage certainly would be done, and it is cases like *that* (inter alia) where GEOLAND does important work, IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 01:39, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Alternative wording

• Human settlements are presumed notable, if they are a permanent settlement within an municipality or an incorporated area and have received multiple independent references that are not trivial.
• Administrative divisions (also known as sub-divisions, districts, states, provinces etc) are presumed notable, if they have received multiple independent references that are not trivial.

Then we have a list of what is not permissible under this guideline, and falls under GNG.

Also give example of what is good references, like the system in WP:Notability (organizations and companies)?

Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:15, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I think you're on the right track. I also like BilledMammal's idea of using WP:SPORTSCRIT as a template. How about the following for WP:GEOLAND? — hike395 (talk) 18:02, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Looking at it is acceptable to me, though I think we need to clarify that Settlements in unincorporated areas don't fall under this sng and must meet GNG. I think we should also put a list in what administrative areas aren't acceptable. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 18:25, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

That's a nice feature of this proposal (IMO) --- this is just WP:GNG, where databases and maps are excluded. It can cover any sort of settlement (incorporated or not), or administrative region. There's no need to look for governmental recognition, etc., or try to make definitions about which administrative regions are acceptable. It all boils down to significant coverage: yes or no. — hike395 (talk) 18:34, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Well i think I will let others to decide, as you can see this conversation it has been a mute point.@User:North8000, @User:FOARP, @User:BilledMammal, @User:Horse Eye's Back, @User:Visviva, @User:Bkonrad Davidstewartharvey (talk) 18:49, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I think we need to include a point that some settlements and administrative units are presumed notable regardless. Census data as long as it is for the settlement/unit generally should point to presumed notability unless its something like a census tract or abadi. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:38, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Why?

Without significant coverage, it is not even possible to write a meaningful article. You get the copy-paste single-sentence articles, themselves just statistical database bric-a-brac, that we have clearly identified as being undesirable and a violation of WP:NOTDATABASE/WP:NOTDIRECTORY. FOARP (talk) 21:16, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Because some local government units (or even some settlements) may not have a significant of prose to satisfy but still clearly be notable under the specific guidance. Would you suggest units like Nedging-with-Naughton or Nuneaton and Bedworth shouldn't exist even though there may not be a significant amount of prose. I agree things like census tracts and abadi shouldn't exist but most local government units should. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:24, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

We are talking about changing the “specific guidance” here, though I suspect both of those articles have significant coverage somewhere.FOARP (talk) 06:13, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

But we don't want to end up with large number of such articles at AFD because people don't think there is enough prose to satisfy GNG. A presumption for states, districts and municipalities as well as formal regions would remove those problems. In terms of settlements if the place is a named settlement like a city, town, village or even a hamlet or suburb and it has data in a national census it should generally also be presumed notable like Nounsley or Hare Green even if there isn't a significant amount of prose. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:20, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

---

• A settlement or an administrative region is presumed to be notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage, that is, multiple published non-trivial secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject.
  • Trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may be used to support content in an article, but it is not sufficient to establish notability. This includes listings in database or map sources with low, wide-sweeping generic standards of inclusion, such as GNIS or GEOnet Names Server.
  • Fan sites and blogs are generally not regarded as reliable sources.
  • Although census databases may be reliable sources, they are not sufficient by themselves to establish notability.
  • Primary sources may be used to support content in an article, but they do not contribute toward proving the notability of a subject.
  • Some sources must be used with particular care when establishing notability, and should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Local sources must be independent of the subject, and must provide reports beyond routine coverage.
  • Articles on settlements or administrative regions must include at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database or map sources. Meeting this requirement alone does not indicate notability, but it does indicate that there are likely sufficient sources to merit a stand-alone article.
  • If a Wikipedia article about a settlement or administrative region cannot be developed using known sources, information should be included in the more general article on the administrative subdivision that contains it.
• Disputed regions are generally considered case-by-case. Their notability for Wikipedia is independent of the validity of their claims. Sometimes it may be more appropriate to merge these articles into ones on a broader conflict or political movement, or to merge articles on multiple disputed names for the same region into one article.

Notes

---

• Happy to support this. If we're implementing this change it would make sense to have a note advising people not to flood AFD with articles and to give a long consideration to alternatives to deletion. FOARP (talk) 21:22, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
  • I would support this as well. BilledMammal (talk) 03:10, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
  • I will support this as an improvement over the current standard. I also will support guidance to use prudence in applying such standard to existing articles. Donald Albury 13:04, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

    I'll add that this happened in the past after the WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES change in 2017, and the result was not the content-apocalypse that opponents imagined it would be. Same thing after the WP:SPORTSBIO changes in 2022 also. All the same it made sense to have advisory information on not going on a deletion-spree. FOARP (talk) 14:19, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm thinking that the harsh language about deletion should be removed from note #4, and instead ask editors to either upmerge the information into a higher administrative region, or create list articles that contain multiple settlements or regions, per WP:CSC#2. — hike395 (talk) 21:08, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with hike395 about removing the harsh language about deletion. I also support stronger language for asking editors to merge information into a higher administrative region. If the information can be sourced but perhaps not to the level to support a standalone article, step 1 should be to try to merge the information into another article, not delete it. VC 17:18, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not happy to support this unless we include a provision about states, districts and municipalities as well as formal regions and settlements with census data being presumed and yes I'd agree about removing the harsh language about deletion. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:55, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Why should anything have "presumed notability" simply for existing according to a single statistical-database source. My house is on the census - why not that? FOARP (talk) 21:02, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think a blanket global policy on census-defined demographic units would be particularly durable. Reality and common sense would seem to demand a more nuanced approach that differs from one country to the next.

Not every country's census defines equivalent statistical units. But even for the one census program I'm familiar with, for the U.S., there are a number of different kinds of statistical units intended to roughly parallel official administrative units. Demographically speaking, a census-designated place is designed to be equivalent to some sort of settlement that we probably would deem notable even by the strict standards above. A census county division is intended to be a workaround for the lack of townships in some states.

Meanwhile, in Connecticut, the Census Bureau used to primarily divide the state according to its (largely ceremonial) counties, but they recently ditched the counties in favor of councils of governments. This is a bit of an oddity, considering that COGs in other states are merely membership-based organizations – the kind of thing that an earlier wording proposal would've categorically rejected.

 – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 04:38, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not too familiar with many parts of the world but I'd at least try to include a general presumed notability for states, districts and municipalities as well as formal regions and settlements with census data. I don't think even you (FOARP) are suggesting that we should suddenly start AFDing thousands of legally recognized units just because there isn't that much prose. I agree with you that houses shouldn't be presumed notable just because they happen to appear in censuses but I'm talking about settlements that population figures etc are provided for such as this for a settlement and this for a division as opposed to buildings etc that happen to appear in censuses. In England for example Woodbury Salterton (settlement), Nedging-with-Naughton (municipality), Uttlesford (district), Essex (state) and East of England (formal region). Similarly if you look at Sankt Marienkirchen am Hausruck you can see that the municipality has census settlements and is in Ried im Innkreis District (district) and Upper Austria (state). People may claim for some of these that there isn't sufficient prose but at least the administrative units like these should be notable.

I'd be prepared to compromise in terms of the fact some country's subdivisions may not be notable or some census settlements may not be notable but I think at least we need a normal rule of generally being notable. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:54, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Can we set a course in general terms?

This initiative was to tighten it up a bit and to tidy it up / clarify it a bit. We need to acknowledge that the 1/3 of the folks at the most inclusionist end of the spectrum would consider such (and the current guideline) too stringent, and the folks at the 1/3 exclusionist end of the spectrum are going to consider such (and the current guideline) too lenient. It's impossible to come up with something that everyone would consider to be ideal. .

Could we just agree that our agenda of the moment is to come up with something which just tightens it up a bit and tidies it up / clarifies it a bit? And leave the big questions for later? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:47, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I think that breakdown is too simplistic, this doesn't map onto deletionist/inclusionist because passing NGEO isn't the same thing as being notable. No matter what we put in there a deletionist would still have a path to deletion, none of these options close that off. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:52, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I think it boils down to what constitutes "legal recognition" of a settlement. The current practice appears to be "if it's in a census with a population, and it doesn't appear to be an arbitrary district, then it's legally recognized". That's clearly too lenient. But it's difficult to come up with a clear criterion that applies worldwide, while still being supported by accessible, reliable sources. I'm stymied, which is why I suggested deciding based on significant coverage (which is the essence of WP:N). — hike395 (talk) 00:59, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Later -- it's difficult, even in the United States, see [6]. The State of Hawaii has no incorporated places. If we stick with Census Designated Places (in the US) or rough equivalents (elsewhere), we have to rely on a census to determine notability. As FOARP points out, that gets problematic. — hike395 (talk) 01:09, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

The problem with using census is that it is primary. If you go back into Wikipedia past you will find this was actually in text Wikipedia:Use of primary sources in Wikipedia. I have looked in France, Germany, US, UK and there isn't really a "legal recognised" status. The best I can find is classification document in the UK [7] and that reads This classification isn’t intended to resolve long-standing disputes about which settlements deserve to be called ‘cities’, ‘towns’, or ‘villages’. In fact, it takes no account of the ceremonial definition of ‘city’, using the term only as a way to identify larger settlements. For instance, St Albans is identified as a ‘large town’ here because its population is 86,000 – even though it has city status. Luton, on the other hand, doesn’t have city status, but is classified here as an ‘Other City’ because its population is 225,000. The precise division between ‘large’, ‘medium’ and ‘small’ towns is, to a large extent, subjective. The distinctions used here aim to provide a useful distribution of settlements across six categories for the purposes of analysis at constituency and local authority level. I am not sure where to go? I am worried as per others about mass of AFD from deletionists, and thinking about the wording based on WP:SPORTSCRIT it is very harsh. The wording Substantial is already subjective at AFD, and we have deletion instead of redirect/merger. We should use SNG for WP:Notability (organizations and companies) as a better example, as this says what evidence we should be using to define notability, and what isn't. The other point that i have come to since starting this process do administrative areas have notability beyond second levels (counties/provinces/states), and in fact the notability stands with the governing body - anyone else thinks that way? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:34, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure an analysis by "level" is helpful. What other sources have written about in detail (i.e., SIGCOV) is the real determiner of what is or is-not notable. The moment we went down the road of "these things are notable to general-interest readers regardless of whether anyone else in the world really thinks they are" is the moment we made a wrong turn. FOARP (talk) 09:41, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Devising the Grand Unified Theory of Human Geography is a major topic of research, the stuff of major intergovernmental demography programs. These programs exist because official statuses are not only incomplete but also grossly inconsistent – a fundamental problem for demographers. As of 2020, there are nine officially incorporated places in the U.S. with a population of zero. If any of these places had been in another state, it would've been automatically disqualified from any official status. Yet there's probably more to be written about each of these cities than plenty of unincorporated communities with infinitely more inhabitants, just by virtue of being more than a back-office convenience to demographers. This is a very hard problem to get right. It raises the question of whether the spate of microstubs that motivated this effort would justify following all the way through on this effort. Minh Nguyễn ^💬 04:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

@Mxn - Entirely agree. We should not be saying "here are some microstubs which our standards do not explicitly permit, therefore we should change our standards to make them even worse because these microstubs are no worse than our other geographical microstubs".

Throwing the problem of what places to cover to national legislation was always a mistake as it leads to completely different levels of coverage depending on what country we are talking about. Particularly, the our present NGEO standard was decided from a primarily North America-centric POV (as can be seen from its focus on "state", "provincial" etc.) and fails completely when faced with countries which have legislation literally standardising the name of every geographical feature (e.g., some in central Asia) or census tables including myriad different potentially-populated entities (particuarly Iran). FOARP (talk) 07:43, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I think the operative word is “indiscriminate”: editors are rightly flustered about seeing stubs created indiscriminately about every minute place, based on sources that by their nature cover places indiscriminately. No one wants this to become the Cebuano Wikipedia.

Many gazetteers apply editorial rules for inclusion – for instance, only places with their own post offices – so it isn’t entirely unreasonable for us to apply our own. However, I’d caution that we would save ourselves a lot of effort and wind up with more useful coverage if we approach the problem systematically rather than evaluating every article case by case.

If an article is created based on a place’s inclusion in an indiscriminate database/gazetteer and it is of a type that (for that country, in that time period) typically would not have coverage otherwise, that place could be presumed to be non-notable. Otherwise, I don’t know that there needs to be strict standards for inclusion; the world is a messy place that defies any attempt at harmonization.

 – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 14:54, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

• A little experiment - I clicked on "random article" 30 times and these are the populated-place Geostubs that came up during that:

• Karczyn, Lubusz Voivodeship - sourced solely to Polish statistical database.
• Wyganki - sourced solely to Polish statistical database.
• Babinac, Ivanska - sourced solely to Croatian statistical database.
• Nersu - Sourced to Iranian 2006 census and GeoNET Names Server (sigh...)

Notably, far from being the kind of "articles created to promote inclusion" that apparently only ignorant "anglophone editors" could possibly ever object to, these are all the result of mass-creation done by simply going mindlessly through a statistical database and creating an article for every entry. These are articles that owe their existence entirely to the GEOLAND standard, which no-one would have thought to have created if that standard did not exist. Two of them were created by the same bot (Kotbot)! On the same day that Babinac, Ivanska was created (a day in May this year, not in the distant past) the same article creator created 59 other essentially-identical, single-sentence, content-less articles.

Nersu is an Iranian Abadi created by C46, of course. And how did they know that the village of Nersou at the location given on GNS is the same as the one in the Iranian census...? They didn't.

But sure, let's leave GEOLAND the way it is for another five years, there's no way this could simply result in an ever-increasing number of these articles being made compounding the problem of ever sorting out what was actually notable (or even existed as a populated place) amongst all the "X is a village in Y county, Z province, COUNTRY" articles. FOARP (talk) 07:59, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

But changing the policy to GNG will see an end to this mass creation? No, it won't. We are still seeing unincorporated former crossroads in the US being created that don't meet AFD. You have even pointed out Nersu which already doesn't meet GEOLAND as it is. How much stuff is picked up at AFD? We see plenty of academics who dont meet WP:Academic, which is more stringent than GNG. We have creations of duplicate articles on regular basis (Department stores against Department Stores by Country - perfect example of the same info been regurgitated). I know that contradicts what I started but, going down a solely GNG route is destructive. We need to set what a settlement is out, what evidence is required (ie. Not census or a map). The same for administrative areas. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 10:00, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

The first step is at least setting a standard that allows intervention, not one that facilitates the creation of the articles above. AFD is always going to be its own creature.

At present if I went to the creator of the article on Babinac, Ivanska (the location for which given in the article is an empty field) and said "hey, that isn't cool", they would simply point to GEOLAND's supposed explicit approval of what they were doing.

I'm probably closest to Billedmammals's "at least one instance of SIGCOV". Even just excluding databases with wide, sweeping criteria for inclusion would be a step forward.

Mostly the above experiment is simply to counter the idea that if you want our articles about villages to be required to have actual content, then you must basically be racist (or at least an "anglophone editor from [a] wealt[h]y countr[y]" with "difficulty understanding the topic" and "a dismissive attitude towards the available sources") because you are proposing a standard that could lead to the deletion of a theoretically-existing article about a village somewhere in the Sahara. The reality of Geostubs is very different - they are mass-created based on online statistical data that the poorest countries do not typically have, but which are instead much more common in countries with higher levels of development, including particularly (as can be seen above) those in CEE. No-one in Poland (where I lived for a number of years) is or was crying out for such bot-created articles nor is creating them giving Poland meaningful "representation" or "inclusion". FOARP (talk) 11:12, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

IMO you're probably right. But so you want to convert our little effort here into trying to push through a new standard that would call for deletion of hundreds of thousands of geostub articles? My point of this section is asking folks to set those bigger plans aside for a bit and allow progress on this much smaller effort. North8000 (talk) 12:51, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

To my mind what was originally proposed here was a green light to make this problem even worse. The scale of the problem also cannot logically be cited as a reason not to do anything about it allowing it to become even worse. FOARP (talk) 13:02, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

But that's it. A proposal that we could work on to get to a tighter sng than it currently is. By trying to define what is required, much like WP:Notability (organizations and companies) does already we can do that. But we need editors to help define that.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 13:10, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm happy for administrative regions to be put under WP:ORG or WP:ORG-like requirements, since they are ultimately just organisations. FOARP (talk) 15:58, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• How about a different tack? Could we state that settlements have to be permanent, have historical significance or contain property of historical significance and come under a governmental sub division ie. Incorporated). They must have multiple secondary references to prove notability (I believe we have an essay that says 3 at least means multiple. We state that Census are primary references and so cannot be used to ascertain notability, but can be used to provide reference to factual statistics. Also maps, mapping reference services, Geonet etc are not acceptable to prove notability.

We then either scrap administrative areas under GEOLAND, stating that administrative areas must meet GNG or come up an alternative? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:03, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Fine with GNG for administrative areas (which are anyway just WP:ORGs, come on). If something less than that is required, they should have at least one instance of SIGCOV in a non-statistical database/map source. FOARP (talk) 21:00, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Solve the problem directly?

I think FOARP identified the real problem, which is that we have thousands of articles of the form "X is a village in Y county, Z province, COUNTRY, with population P." Preventing sort of perma-micro-stub is exactly why there is a notability guideline to begin with.

How about attacking this problem directly? WP:GEONATURAL directly addresses this:

Named natural features are often notable, provided information beyond statistics and coordinates is known to exist. This includes mountains, lakes, streams, islands, etc. The number of known sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable content for an encyclopedic article. If a Wikipedia article cannot be developed using known sources, information on the feature can instead be included in a more general article on local geography.

How about, analogously:

Settlements and administrative regions are often notable, provided information beyond statistics, region, and coordinates is known to exist. This criterion includes municipalities, districts, provinces, and states; but excludes census tracts and abadi. The number of known sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable non-database content for an encyclopedic article. If a Wikipedia article on such a feature cannot be developed using known sources, information on the feature should instead be included in a more general article on a higher-level administrative region, or in a list article collecting information on similar settlements or regions (per WP:CSC#2 and WP:LISTN).

— hike395 (talk) 22:28, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

This is a good proposal and something I would wholeheartedly support. Of course there would be the normal transitional notice about not flooding AFD.

I really have to emphasise that whilst this might seem like a big change, we have already done something very similar a number of times before on Wikipedia. The fiction clean-up is one example. The 2010 astronomical bodies clean-up another. The 2017 SCHOOLOUTCOMES discussion a third. The SPORTSBIO changes last year are a fourth.

Far from being some kind of crazy radicalism, implementing this change is the bare minimum to prevent an even worse problem resulting from delay. It is “big” to NOT do something in this situation. FOARP (talk) 07:16, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

(I should have included parishes, counties, also, as positive examples of often-notable administrative regions) — hike395 (talk) 09:28, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I would also word it is as The number of known sources must be secondary , not primary just to make sure editors get the drift. Other than that I am happy.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 10:14, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

How about The number of known secondary sources should be considered to ensure... ? — hike395 (talk) 10:19, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Looks good. Happy to support this proposal. FOARP (talk) 12:12, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Yep agree totally. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 12:35, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

This is a good start, far more durable, I think, than the other attempts above. I’d suggest either adding some weasel words to the “This includes” sentence or moving it into a separate section that can be expanded to give more nuanced guidance country by country. Otherwise, overloaded words like “district” and “municipality” will probably cause problems in the long run. (A district is a very notable thing in some regions of the world, but in California, I’m not inclined to support an article about every mosquito control district.)

As I pointed out in the previous section, we can address concerns about preserving horizontal coverage by evaluating whether the type of settlement/area, as qualified by region and time period, would typically merit coverage by a source that isn’t indiscriminate in its inclusion criteria. It matters less whether an article currently sticks to demographic or climactic figures than whether any of its kind could be expected to say something more interesting. Then we can provide more nuanced, less formal guidance to editors about which kinds of places do or do not tend to get that coverage, which is an interesting exercise in itself.

 – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 15:14, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

While I tend to agree with Minh Nguyen's proposed adjustments, I can't support the proposal to "solve the problem directly" as articulated above. In the vast majority of the world's countries, we should have levels of geography below the nation-state level, whether or not the "known sources" for some of them are limited to tombstone information such as what a region is composed of, what it belongs to, its administrative centre and/or its population over time. Otherwise we will be sending perfectly WP:V instances of sub-national regions and municipalities to AfD because the best sources are not in English or are paywalled, so editors "don't know what they contain", and the readily available, independent sources mostly contain "tombstone" information.

As a Canadian, the idea that Ontario (with its present-day 15 million people) might be notable and Prince Edward Island (with one one-hundredth of that) might not (and therefore, what, should he rolled up into Canada?) seems manifestly absurd - these places exist at the same level of geography, have the same constitutional status, and by the principles of any encyclopaedia worthy of the name are deserving of parallel treatment (though the articles will differ in length and in contents).

While I can't imagine anyone sending small Canadian provinces to AfD, I can absolutely guarantee that The number of known sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable non-database content for an encyclopedic article will be used as saying, in effect, must meet GNG, and that significance requirements will be ratcheted up (as already proposed by those invoking NORG in this discussion) to promote the deletion of clearly verifiable and documented places. In areas where NORG applies, AUD is used to mean that RS situated in and covering a place don't contribute notability to businesses in that place, and the argument is already made that such sources do not contribute to the notability of politicians in that place. I imagine that many of the editors concerned would be equally happy extending that principle to the place itself - if PEI institutions are only of interest to PEI media outlets, then surely they are not Notable?

I know the community is presently divided on this, but the predominant view about geography, historically, has been that encyclopaedic interest in a place does not presuppose at least one instance of SIGCOV (which for those proposing it is, what, a paragraph of flowing prose content in an independent RS? Or more?). Sure, any status quo can be changed by an appropriately formulated and publicized RfC. But I for one, as a Wikipedia user, would much rather have a systematic treatment of inhabited geographies based on verifiable information, rather than an inconsistent treatment of parallel geographies in which a paragraph of independently sourced travelog can make the difference between retention and deletion of an article.

When articles have been added based on bot-like generation from databases, the problem for encyclopaedia as I see it isn't the fact that stubs exist, but rather the bad process and the ensuing uncertainty of quality of the resulting stubs. Those are real problems, but they aren't Notability problems. Meanwhile, language like that proposed seems to imply that a place may not be notable "because it doesn't receive prominent coverage from other places" - people may write about it in some other language, even! The implication seems to be that only *exceptional* places, like only *exceptional* professional athletes and *exceptional* academics, should be written about in Wikipedia articles. But for geography, this isn't what Wikipedia has historically decided to be - verifiability and official recognition have been the basis for Notability for inhabited places, not GNG. So any attempt to worm in GNG and SIGCOV, as this proposal does, seem from here to represent a rather fundamental change - not one I think is merited by the situation, and in any case one that would require a really clear demonstration of community support through a highly visible process. Newimpartial (talk) 16:28, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Where is the SIGCOV in this? It says The number of known secondary sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable non-database content for an encyclopedic article. This is not the same as SIGCOV. I am not against stubs, but as pointed out, settlement articles that are based on census data is against PRIMARY. I think this is the best compromise, as the current wording of GEOLAND is found wanting. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:44, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

No, I admit, it isn't the same as SIGCOV. But if enough verifiable non-database content isn't intended as a dog-whistle invocation of GNG, then I think the supporters of this proposal may not be reading it as intended. Up to now, inhabited places that are part of legally-defined, state-recognized hierarchical structures of space have been presumed notable based on verifiability alone. Any requirement that they must also receive enough secondary treatment outside of databases strikes me as a seismic change to a consensus that seemed pretty clearly recognized the last time I saw this discussed, a couple of years ago.

And I still think certain editors are blaming GEOLAND for the problems of bot-like editing, which is better handled through WP:MEATBOT et al. Newimpartial (talk) 16:58, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:MEATBOT doesn't handle it; just a few days ago Iespecu created 203 GEOLAND sub-stubs in a single day. This change would be an effective and practical method to prevent such actions in a way that MEATBOT isn't. BilledMammal (talk) 17:07, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Second BM here, @Newimpartial, MEATBOT isn't stopping this. MEATBOT doubly isn't going to do anything about the articles that have already been created. This problem is getting so bad that just clicking on Random a few times surfaces examples of recently created sub-stub articles.

We don't have this problem in BLP or similar areas. We have it in GEOLAND because the standard is like a flash sign saying "go ahead, spam me". FOARP (talk) 17:58, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

enough verifiable non-database content means that there is something more than a) somewhere exists here, and has b) a population and has independent references to back that up. There is nothing about SIGCOV there! Up to now, inhabited places that are part of legally-defined, state-recognized hierarchical structures of space have been presumed notable based on verifiability alone What is a place? Already pointed out in this conversation a Place has many meanings. Legally-defined? Also woolly as proved in this discussion. I have seen plenty of AFDs in the last five years about places that are no more than a crossroads and are not a settlement. Take Braintree District, yes it exists, but the refs are mainly Primary or routine, and is the District actually notable, or is that the Braintree District Council? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:27, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Re: What is a place? - historically, by and large, Wikipedia has left it to reliable sources to define what counts as a place. For myself, I am much more strongly attached to municipalities, sub-national electoral units, and components of federal systems than I am to the point-defined "places" that exist in the official geographies of some (authoritative) components of state. I am, after all, a reasonable editor. But the proposal here would expose all subnational spaces, including federal units, historical regions (like ceremonial counties), municipalities and electoral districts to having enough verifiable non-database content or face deletion. And this would have a practical impact primarily on less wealthy, non-anglophone and non-European jurisdictions no matter how editors might want to equivocate on the matter.

To be clear, I am not objecting in any way to a maximal standard of verifiability for the places we include - they must exist and they must meet the relevant criteria (on which I will suggest, as I often do, that they need to have a "credible claim to significance" which ought to do some of the work with which editors repeatedly try to overburden WP:N). But don't kid yourself: the next step along the road, if this proposal passes as is, will be editors ratcheting up the threshold for geo articles by insisting that "passing mentions" of places and "routine" coverage don't contribute to having enough verifiable non-database information. What is I am saying is that once it is verified that an inhabited place exists (or existed) and that it meets the relevant geographical criteria, we do not need a paragraph in an RS travelog to make the resulting article helpful for our readers. Every non-fictitious place a person has been born ought to be a bluelink, and while redirects based on name changes and annexation are fine, it should not be the case that many of those redirects take our readers to article sections listing "villages in Country X". Stub articles are obviously more helpful than this for our readers, IMO - easier to read, clearer in their meaning, and easier to populate with additional WP:V information that may or may not be enough in terms of the AfD buzzwords proposed here. Newimpartial (talk) 17:51, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

"Every non-fictitious place a person has been born ought to be a bluelink" - why? There are still people even in developed countries who are born in farm houses and other locations outside of any community or settlement.

Most people in developed countries (not me though, nor one of my kids) are born in hospitals. Why not an article for every hospital with a neonatal ward if "people are born there" is the standard? Sadly perhaps, human birth is not a notable thing except to the people directly involved in it. FOARP (talk) 18:05, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

why? Perhaps I was not clear, but place of birth (when known) is a standard piece of information in all biographies, right down to the most bare-bones of biographical dictionary entries. If Wikipedia has an entry on a person, our article should follow the sources and say where they were born - in most cases, the sources will give some kind of locality, where known (in your "farm house" example, biographies will generally give the relevant municipal jurisdiction or local region, or possibly the nearest village).

So editors clearly differ in what they expect of an online encyclopaedia, but what I expect in a biographical entry is that the central qualities of a person's life, including the localities where they were born, where they lived, and where they worked (when these are prominent enough in RS biographies to be included) to be linked so I can either cursor-over or follow the link and learn where these places are. That is why. Newimpartial (talk) 18:15, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

But that's basically arguing for inherited notability? FOARP (talk) 20:25, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand the question. The status quo for some time has been that populated places have a strong presumption of Notability under GEOLAND (especially what might be called the "primary hierarchy" of places on which government and administration are based). This has allowed biographies, for the most part, to be linked to places at a level of detail comparable to what the sources themselves use - this is an encyclopaedic consideration, nothing less and nothing more. I don't see anything touching on WP:INHERIT troubling this status quo (which you seem to feel such urgency about disrupting...). Newimpartial (talk) 20:44, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

"I don't understand the question." - You're saying that anywhere where someone we have an article about was born should also have an article. That is the essence of inherited notability ("this place is notable because a notable person was born there"). The rest is just arguing that we should keep GEOLAND because we have GEOLAND.

I have already explained at great length what I believe to be the urgency here: the continuous production of articles about locations that no real article can be written about, and which very possibly do not actually exist. A problem that has got to the point where simply clicking on "Random" a few times brings up examples. Now, it would be good if you would engage with this issue, but that's up to you. FOARP (talk) 21:31, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm probably dating myself here, but I was under the impression that Special:Random was primarily a tool to find places to contribute, a way to rile up more readers to convert them into editors (or article reviewers). It was always a crude tool. If we're embarrassed about the lacking impression it gives readers, then maybe it doesn't belong in MediaWiki:Sidebar anymore. Minh Nguyễn ^💬 00:58, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

FOARP, it seems to me that I am concerned with saving the proverbial "baby", and you are directing my attention to the urgency of disposing with the bathwater. I have said that the problem with bot-like article creation isn't something Notability can solve, which is an engagement with the issue (and reflects a conclusion that previous discussions on eneiki have reached) - that represents one way to deal with the "bathwater". I have also offered support for Minh Nguyen's suggestion that the context be emphasized, such as whether the type of settlement/area typically merits coverage in its region and time period. That would be another way to preserve geographical structure rather than the many lacunae GNG-ish paths would produce and would be an approach that mirrors in part the best practices documented in reducing article detail for biological species.

Indeed, I have suggested that GEOLAND could work between WP:V and the GNG, for example by giving better guidance about what should count as being "recognized" or (as I suggest below) by investing a main, general-purpose, state-recognized hierarchy of inhabited places with a stronger presumption of Notability. If the "baby" is protected, I am quite open to other suggestions for bathwater guidance - but only as long as they do not encourage outcomes equivalent to Prince Edward Island being up-merged while Ontario remains, or the creation of merged articles to deal with the topic of "cities in country X".

And I know these aren't likely problems for Canadian topics, because wealthy Western country, but even with existing GEOLAND I have seen - in other parts of the world - directly comparable, perfectly verifiable pieces of state-recognized human geography (within the main hierarchy recognized by a given state) selectively up-merged because the main coverage of some of them was in databases, while long-form English language material existed for others. Given that this already happens in spite of GEOLAND, pardon me if I see the baby as a more pressing issue than the bathwater.

Also, FOARP, in this discussion your statements and silences give the impression that Notability is the only factor you take into account in assessing the suitability of a topic to have an article. As far as I know, enwiki's P&G framework does not support this singular emphasis. Newimpartial (talk) 19:11, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Your travelogue point is well-taken, based on my experience editing articles about localities in Vietnam. If we start down the road of "AfD buzzwords", as you put it, a requirement of secondary sources just to avoid summary deletion would be pretty severe in a country where media and geography are both tightly controlled by the government. The travelogue written by a foreigner who can't spell a third of the place names is all we'll get from a cursory Google/Google Books search. (Actually it's worse than that. I've cleaned up after ostensibly rigorous archaeological sources that can't even spell and have no awareness that some places still exist, like Trà Kiệu.) Minh Nguyễn ^💬 18:16, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes we certainly don't want places like Ontario etc merged with Canada. Or even Nedging-with-Naughton to Babergh District, I still think we need the presumed notability or generally presumed notable for some divisions and census settlements otherwise we could see many articles at AFD just because of lack of prose. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:36, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

"Lack of prose" can be fixed by finding more sourcing and editing it in. It's the articles for which no more sourcing exists anywhere that are the problem. FOARP (talk) 17:50, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: Broadly, I agree with you, and I would very happily err on the side of inclusion for geographic features, though erring is not the same as opening the floodgates (see WP:BEANS). I also get the impression that what's really firing up some editors is the specter of an Lsjbot flooding the site with formulaic, perfunctory articles as has happened at some other Wikipedias. (This also creates a lot of gruntwork for the Wikidata and OpenStreetMap projects, so I have a triple motivation here.) To me, @Hike395 has the right idea in tightly scoping the changes to address the stated problem head-on. I would be concerned if the policy ends up repeating the well-worn vocabulary around secondary significant coverage that would be unnecessary and something of a non-sequitur here. Minh Nguyễn ^💬 17:03, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think that the above is pretty good. One areas to address is to not give presumed notability to secondary "parallel" type administrative districts such as irrigation districts, library districts etc. The concept I tried was "has it's own government which is the main government at that level. North8000 (talk) 15:26, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

@North8000@Mxn I think you are saying the same thing, which I agree with. Trouble is the wording. Do we go for a table with examples as per WP:ORG? Or do we go for something like This criterion includes municipalities, districts, parishes, counties, provinces, and states that operate as the local government body providing numerous services; but excludes census tracts, abadi, irrigation districts, library districts etc Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:51, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Maybe with two tweaks....the first encompass non-US types, the second to say what those are: This criterion includes municipalities, districts, counties, states and their equivalent that include their own main government body at that level, but excludes specialty districts and tracts such as census tracts, irrigation districts, library districts etc North8000 (talk) 16:31, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

@Davidstewartharvey @North8000: I used the example of a California mosquito abatement district not because anyone has ever written an article about one, but rather to demonstrate the inherent ambiguity of a term like "district" in a policy that otherwise tries to be precise. As far as I know, there isn't a pressing problem related to special districts (which are a particularly North American phenomenon, by the way), so a solution doesn't have to go searching for it.

I get the desire to bucket administrative area terms into notable and non-notable per se or to try to articulate what we like about some and dislike about others, but having seen how much ink has been spilled in OpenStreetMap about a a similar distinction over the years, I'm not confident that it would lead to a resolution any sooner. Probably the best we can do is to say that certain countries' districts are in a safe harbor and others are in an unsafe harbor, and leave it to other discussions to sort out the rest.

 – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 17:20, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Districts are a term used as local government areas. However there are development districts on parts of the world, which are just Quangos with no real government power. Thames Gateway us a historical one in the UK, which was an expensive talking shop (though that would meet GNG). The UK use to have Poor Law districts in the 19th century which are not really notable, as they were normally connected to the actual civil parishes who were the local government. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:33, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware that there are other kinds of districts elsewhere in the world. I was referring to how overlapping single-purpose special districts are particularly common in the Western U.S. and Canada to a degree not found in many countries. (I live under as many as 50 of them in California.) Anyways, it was just a side note. Minh Nguyễn ^💬 17:53, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Regarding "current problem" this is the kind of thing that has been prone to happen elsewhere. We find out that someone with autopatrol as a hobby has created 200 articles on mailboxes (I avoided naming the real world cases) Also if we more specifically address administrative districts in a way that doesn't exclude those we could be creating the problem. North8000 (talk) 18:27, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

If a notability guideline isn't the best mechanism to defend against unwanted behavior, maybe we can find a better one. Has there been any thought about setting stricter standards for bulk edits versus for more "organic" article creation? I vaguely recall that the hubbub over Rambot's Census Bureau–based articles led to more scrutiny of bots rather than a push to narrow the depth of our geographical coverage, and we're better off for that across all subject areas. Minh Nguyễn ^💬 00:52, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Such standards already exist, but we find they don't work. I note that the goal here isn't to narrow the depth of our geographical coverage; if these places are genuinely notable the sources will exist. BilledMammal (talk) 01:25, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Exactly this. The goal here is to actually increase the depth of coverage. FOARP (talk) 05:03, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

---

Given the feedback above, here's an edited version of the proposal:

Settlements and administrative regions are often notable, provided information beyond statistics, region, and coordinates is known to exist. The number of known secondary sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable non-database content for an encyclopedic article. If a Wikipedia article on such a feature cannot be developed using known sources, information on the feature should instead be included in a more general article on a higher-level administrative region, or in a list article collecting information on similar settlements or regions (per the list notability criteria and common list selection criteria #2). Editors should avoid mass-posting articles that fail this criterion to Articles for Deletion: instead, articles should be merged.

This criterion applies to municipalities, districts, parishes, counties, states and their equivalent that include the main governmental body at their level, but does not apply to specialty districts such as census tracts, irrigation districts, library districts, abadi, etc.

I'm about to go on Wikibreak. I don't have ownership over this proposal -- I hope other editors can take this forward over the next couple of weeks. — hike395 (talk) 05:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Agree with the above. I think it covers all bases and is far better than existing policy, which doesn't work as previously pointed out. I am about to go on a break for a week too, so if someone could take this forward please. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:54, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

This looks good to me. I would be OK to start an RFC at VPP on this myself but RFCs also require input and discussion from proposers, so - unless anyone has further comments/observations - I'd be happy to let it sit for a week or two first then ping you when the RFC begins. Realistically it needs to be notified to CENT as well FOARP (talk) 10:20, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Agree with Hike395's proposal as well. –dlthewave ☎ 12:34, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I like it. We should noodle on this to develop the "core concept" a little longer, and then we should new develop a precise change/proposal from it (exactly what is being replaced/added/subbed where). My thoughts on the core concept:take out "abadi" because it's too broad of a term and also because that tpe of an entity is not relevant to that sentence. Also make the "Editors should avoid mass-posting articles that fail....." a part of the change/rfc but not a part of the guideline. That is a wiki-process issue rather than guideline material. North8000 (talk) 13:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

As my preferred solution of defaulting to GNG appears to be too radical for many of the commenters, I would support this version or anything substantially similar if and when it is presented in an RfC. Donald Albury 14:14, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

One more thought before Wikibreak --- perhaps the last paragraph should start This criterion applies to settlements and former settlements. It also applies to municipalities, district, parishes, ... As written (above), it isn't clear whether it applies to settlements: it could be interpreted to mean that full GNG applies to settlements (which I think is not the consensus from the discussion). — hike395 (talk) 14:59, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I think that is a good amendment.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:33, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

From an (encyclopaedic) harm reduction perspective, I see three immediate problems this proposal. The first is essentially a woedsmithing issue: I find the use of "feature" in the third sentence to be jarring and potentially misleading - it seems to me that "an inhabited place" probably covers the intended meaning.

Second, I think "the number of known secondary sources should be considered", whether intentionally or not, carries some connotations that are actually more restrictive than SIGCOV (the key sentence of which is, There is no fixed number of sources required since sources vary in quality and depth of coverage, but multiple sources are generally expected. It seems to me that more appropriate language might be, "the extent of coverage in secondary sources should be considered..."

Finally, the aspect of this proposal that bothers me the most in this version is that it isn't clear what counts as "settlements and administrative regions". From the history of the proposal in this discussion, my understanding is that this paragraph is intended to replace in toto the provisions for "populated, legally recognized places", which is not limited to "municipalities, districts, parishes," but also to provinces, states, cities, counties, departments, electoral districts, and all kinds of (usually notable) geographies that are currently covered by GEOLAND as "legally recognized places". At a bare minimum, I think it needs to be clear in the RfC that the proposal is intended to weaken the presumption of notability for all of these geographies, and ideally the proposed policy language should itself be clear on this point.

But beyond just clarifying the proposal, among my complicated feelings on the topic, it seems to me that there is a main hierarchy of geographies used for governance and administration (consisting sometimes of two main "levels" - cities and other municipalities at a lower level, and federal units or large administrative geographies in non-federal systems at a higher level, though there may be additional levels as well). It seems to me that this main hierarchy, given the way it is used in the Reliable Sources on which the vast majority of our articles about people and social phenomena are organized, ought to have a stronger presumption to Notability (not readily subject to the "enough content" restriction) when compared to geographies that are not legally recognized or ones that serve esoteric purposes like the frequently-discussed California "districts". I get that the large-scale use of these geographies by sources is fundamentally different from significant coverage of them, but it seems to me that one thing an encyclopaedia offers its readers is a package providing these (verifiable and official) geographies systematically along with the entries that make reference to them. Up to now, GEOLAND has offered to do this, and it seems like a large virtue to abandon.

Also, I haven't actually seen anything from the enwiki community suggesting a broad desire (even within this discussion) to treat these main hierarchies of places in similar ways to non-recognized places (which is basically what this proposal does). The main "issues" given as precipitating this discussion could, IMO, be more helpfully dealt with by distinguishing between the main, general purpose hierarchy of places that is recognized by each national government, and special-purpose geographies (including geographies used only for census dissemination) to which tighter requirements apply. I really don't understand the presuppositions that have led certain editors in this discussion away from such, more moderate approaches. Newimpartial (talk) 18:57, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I think your first and second concerns can be accommodated.

For your final one, my first issue is that it essentially creates a highly complex notability guide requiring detailed understanding of national law, across 200+ countries (and more if differing jurisdictions of federal states and other unions are included). A second issue is it also makes our coverage highly dependent on national law meaning it will vary disproportionately from country to country.

We can see the effect of both issues in the geostubs linked in my “experiment” above: Carlossuarez46 did not understand Iranian law (perhaps excusably, at least up until the point Persian Wikipedia editors were begging him to stop?) and so ended up creating many thousands of articles about places that didn’t exist because he thought that an Abadi was the same as a village. Polish and Croatian law confers at least a degree of recognition on glorified farms/cross-roads by listing them as localities in their statistical databases - but other countries do not have such a system and so will receive less coverage than us. FOARP (talk) 10:54, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Re: it essentially creates a highly complex notability guide requiring detailed understanding of national law - I really don't think this is the case. It is not at all unreasonable to expect editors creating an article (or nominating it for deletion) to know whether a place is part of the main, general-purpose hierarchy of places recognized within a national state (using the examples of municipalities and federal units as the key examples, e.g. if we were to make this distinction in the guideline). This sort of assertion is very easy to give reliable sourcing for, compared to other issues that must already be dealt with in deletion discussions (such as the scope of a scholarly discipline under NPROF, or what counts as independent secondary sources under NBASIC - the latter being stricter than GNG, but how much stricter?). The biggest problem is that some RS may not be conveniently available in English, but that is a widespread problem at AfD that should become less and less important over time as editors learn to access sources in those pesky other languages.

So to show what a robust, transferable bar for the main hierarchy of places would look like: I have already, repeatedly noted that census geography in itself is not typically seen to grant Notability. In Canada, whose census practices I know best, the concept of "settlements" applies most clearly at a level of geography that distinguishes between "municipalities", "populated places" and "designated places". Basically, the first of these have municipal functions, the second are dense settlements that aren't municipalities, and the third geography is used to designate everything else. Of those three, only municipalities would reflect what I have been calling the "main, general-purpose" geography of the state, and the other two would not - these latter kinds of places, along with your Polish and Croatian hamlets and the U.S. census designated places, would not have the stronger presumption of Notability that I think federal units, large administrative units in non-federal states, and municipalities ought to have in places where states recognize them (which, let's face it, is almost everywhere, and isn't difficult to know about).

Honestly, I don't know how much more accommodating I can be, particularly in responding to a proposal that doesn't protect any subnational level of geography as Notable, even on Talk page where many (most?) editors have noted that federal units, municipalities, and other general-purpose officially recognized human geographies are, in fact, generally Notable. Newimpartial (talk) 22:46, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I think you’re trying to force a definition of “municipalities” that perhaps you understand restrictively, but other people are going to interpret to include every location under the sun. Accusations of being parochial/not understanding other languages have been made above, so forgive me for pointing out that there are countries still have the concept of the “head-man” whose administration is general and may cover but a few houses.

For large units such as Canadian provinces, these are going to pass whatever notability standard is applied. FOARP (talk) 05:37, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

@Newimpartial you are basing this on a small area of the globe. I thought the same as you, but after completing research, it is very difficult to ascertain "legal recognised" status for many sub divisions. I put forward the ISO standard, as it was an independent coding set out by the International Standards Org. However this is only covers secondary levels of government in states recognised by the UN, which are probably notable under GNG. Below that it can become difficult. We already had articles on sub division but when I started looking into these, some parts of the world have sub-divisions that don't make sense. India is a perfect example. We have the Union - the primary central government; followed by the state, but then some have divisions. Then we have districts, which some are are subdivided into tehsils or talukas, but some states have Blocks, which in other states are further sub-division of tehsils or tabular just for development! How can one rule cover that lot! The issue I find now is that in some parts of the world the administrative district isn't notable, but the body that runs it is. In the UK, it is the council that runs that sub-division, and that can be independently sourced as notable. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:09, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

FOARP, first of all, concerning large units, what you say isn't necessarily the case: I have seen instances already under GEOLAND where, in substantial non-anglophone atates with non-federal systems, the top level of general-purpose administrative geography has been "selecticely" (inconsistently) merged based in a misapplication of GNG. I don't think this is the way GEOLAND was supposed to work, up to now, but more importantly I don't think it serves our readers to do this in the case of verifiable units clearly recignized by the relevant national state.

As far as "headman" systems are concerned, it seems to me that we have a baby/bathwater problem again. I would put forward that any state that regulates, e.g., villages, provides a general-purpose framework for their governance, generates official statistics for them and so on - that is clear, "legal" recognition in the sense of status quo GEOLAND and shouid generate a strong presunption of notability even in a future revision. If RS (in whatever language) document a status something like this for the place, then it carries the presumption (in my thought balloon here). If such a status cannot be documented, then the place would not be presumed Notable. So I'm not basing the concept or threshold on the label "municipality", rather I am using municipality (which includes legally-recognized cities, towns and villages) as a kind of example of the units national states recognize and incorporate. If you believe that some states recognize general purpose geographies that are too small for appropriate encyclopaedia articles, that is an interesting claim, but I haven't seen it made before and can't think of any examples.

Davidstewartharvey, for the Indian case the level I see as "municipal" is what I believe is still the Mahanagar Nigam (Municipal Corporation), Nagar Palika (Municipality) and Nagar Panchayat (Notified Area Council or Town Panchayat) level. I recognize that this constitutionally-protected set of municipalities does not cover all of India, and while I would prefer to have more coverage within places that are presumed notable, I have been trying to accommodate the concerns of people who feel the "legally-recognized" standard is too lax. It seems obvious to me that the municipalities whose status is enshrined in the constitution of India ought to be presumed Notable, but the districts or blocks that you talk about would be much more difficult to defend, I suspect, at least in some cases.l Newimpartial (talk) 11:48, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

" I would put forward that any state that regulates, e.g., villages, provides a general-purpose framework for their governance, generates official statistics for them and so on - that is clear, "legal" recognition in the sense of status quo and shouid generate a strong presunption of notability" - Which brings us back to mass-created articles based simply on a single line in a database for which no other source exists or will likely ever exist. These units can often simply be established and disestablished with the wave of a pen, but if they ever received this designation then they have to have a single-line article reading "X is/was a village in Y province, Z country, with population P". Our bizarre coverage of the "villages" in the area disputed between Azerbaijan and Armenia has loads of stuff like this (e.g., Yuxarı Qılıncbağ the location for which given in the article and taken from GNS is clearly wrong leaving the existence of it in some doubt).

Trying to adduce a one-size-fits-all legal framework for our coverage of the entire world is a fool's errand. Moreover, at heart it is original research since rather than letting secondary sources advise us on what to write about, it is an invitation to dig through the records to find primary material from e.g., statistics, maps, and photographs.

I really wish people would focus, rather than on the high-sounding principals the standards are supposed to represent, on the actual articles that result from these standards, such as Meadowood Estates, California, an article that until it was demonstrated (at great laborious length) that GNIS was unreliable, many would have argued met the GEOLAND standard and which if anyone tried to AFD would still likely attract keep !votes based on an understanding of GEOLAND that can be summarised as "everywhere is notable". FOARP (talk) 08:19, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

FOARP, you are writing in reply to my comment yet you appear to be addressing a straw being. I don’t see anyone in this entire discussion - least of all myself - promoting the position that "everywhere is notable". What is more, I don’t see anyone Trying to adduce a one-size-fits-all legal framework for our coverage of the entire world. That isn't what I am doing. What I am saying is, that an encyclopaedia worth its salt follows its sources what one might call semantically, and treats the information consistently based on structures inherent in it. So, for example, Prince Edward Island receives consistent treatment as a (small) Canadian province, even though it has 1/100 the population of the province of Ontario. This standard of treating like things alike is based on Relaible Sources, and nothing else.

On the other hand, what might be called an algorithmic (or perhaps mechanical) approach to following sources, in which a discussion of a hamlet in a travelogue triggers an article on that hamlet while the actual municipal geography is ignored (e.g. because editors don't read the language or don't understand the government sources) - that is a great example of a way of "following" sources to the detriment of an encyclopaedia, of importing features of content that have nothing to do with encyclopaedic principles and saying that because of those (often irrelevant) attributes, an encyclopaedia article should or should not be written.

And in apparent defense of such a position, FOARP, you offer the straw man example of mass-created articles based simply on a single line in a database for which no other source exists or will likely ever exist. I do not support the creation or retention of such articles. I do not believe the suggestions I'm making here could lead to support for such articles. The case I describe for states that recognize villages does not describe the situation where only a database then exists, and I feel as though you are simply generating a caricature of my proposal so you can then say, "it doesn't deal with the problem", when actually I have made suggestions that could help deal with the real problem.

Foe something like 15 years, we have had a presumption of Notability for legally-recognized, populated places. I am saying that it would be fine to add clarification or restrictions as to what enwiki is willing to recognize as such a place. But you, FOARP, seem determined to subject those places to a sourcing requirement (something like GNG) that was never designed for inhabited places and which produces results, when applied in the way you propose, that are detrimental to the goals of an online encyclopaedia (namely, systematic coverage of a domain of knowledge, and ease of navigation). If the community decides at RfC to endorse sownthing like what you propose, then so be it, but it would be a major departure from the results of discussions of this issue over the last decade - and I have seen, if anything, a decline in "GNG-only" approaches to Notability in general after a high water mark perhaps 5 years ago, so I don’t really anticipate a rising tide to lift your proposal. Newimpartial (talk) 10:05, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

You repeatedly say that you don't support it, but the effect of the standard is these articles. The effect of presuming the notability of any entity for which there a government provides "a general-purpose framework for their governance, generates official statistics for them and so on" is these articles.

In contrast, we're rather missing examples of the travelogue issue here. Particularly, the solution to the issue you raise is just editing the content of an article for which notability has already been established to contain the relevant information, rather than establishing a standard for notability based on a local legal standard that could change from year-to-year. I honestly don't see a problem with the concept that a hamlet might be notable because it has been written about a lot by reliable sources, but that some over-arching structure it is located in is less notable. FOARP (talk) 10:39, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Of course I'm not giving examples of the travelogue issue at this point, because we haven't been applying GNG to populated places: the issue has not yet had reason to arise. And the idea that a couple of travelogue passages might make a hamlet notable, but that it isn't helpful for readers to be able to follow bluelinks for the place of birth in biographical articles, strikes me as a profound misunderstanding of what an encyclopaedia is for. If the purpose of an online encyclopaedia were simply to regurgitate more briefly what a certain set of sources had to say about everything - without a human assignment of significance or an understanding of the requirements and expectations of a human audience - then the current generation of learning algorithms would do a better job of Wikipedia than wikipedians. But in fact, the value added by wikipedia editors has always consisted in human assessments of significance and understandings of the needs of readers, which is why our articles are governed by the complex interplay of WP:N, NOT, BLP and NPOV, rather than mechanical aggregation and then reduction of sourced content.

FOARP, your statement about the effect of the standard seems to imply that (1) the existing version of GEOLAND is clear that only general-purpose geographies grant presumptive notability, while single-purpose ones such as census geographies do not, and (2) that the current "standard of articles" reflects a correct interpretation of this restrictive reading of GEOLAND. However, I haven't seen any evidence in favor of either of these claims, while I have read many, many editors on this page stating that GEOLAND is either correctly or incorrectly understood as presuming the notability of places that are only recognized by states for a single purpose (such as census dissemination units or the complex and multifarious Districts of California). If one of the latter statements accurately describes the situation, it should be possible to dispose of the "bathwater" by clarifying GEOLAND, without jetisonning the "baby" as you propose. Newimpartial (talk) 12:39, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Sidebar note, your "not just a regurgitation" makes important points which I've seen few say or understand. And if one looks at the actual policies (rather than common metaphors of them) is policy compliant. On the main topic, I think that you (and others) misread the intent of this initiative. Admittedly it's like trying to read the intent of a herd of cats, but the initial intent and I think the "middle of the road" of the herd of cats is to:

• Tighten it up a tiny bit with regard to "entities" which are/have nothing (relevant here) except being lines on a map
• Try to tidy it up a bit

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:34, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

• Remove the "Editors should avoid mass-posting articles" part, as the preceding sentence already conveys the same idea, and there seems no reason to talk about editor behavior on a notability guideline. Avilich (talk) 23:05, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

RFC question proposal

So, taking in sum all the proposed edits above, we get this -

Should the present WP:GEOLAND notability guideline be replaced with the following:

Settlements and administrative regions are often notable, provided information about them beyond statistics, region, and coordinates is known to exist. The extent of coverage in secondary sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable non-database content for an encyclopedic article. If a Wikipedia article on a settlement or administrative region cannot be developed using known sources, information on it should instead be included in a more general article on a higher-level administrative region, or in a list article collecting information on similar settlements or regions (per the list notability criteria and common list selection criteria #2).

This criterion applies to settlements and administrative regions including municipalities, districts, parishes, counties, states, provinces, cities, villages, towns, departments, and their equivalents, that provide general-purpose administration for their region, regardless of whether they presently exist or are abandoned, even if their population is low. It does not apply to special-purpose districts such as census tracts, irrigation districts, library districts, etc. which should instead be assessed on a case-by-case basis according to the general notability guideline.

I've done my best to accommodate all of the requested amendments from the above. Specifically:

• This is of course basically the (in my view) good proposal from hike395 that they deserve credit for.
• This include the "word-smithing" points raised by Newimpartial.
• This also includes the deletion requested by Avilich.
• I have attempted to reflect the ""has it's own government which is the main government at that level" point raised by North8000 though I have not used that exact wording as I thought it might raise an issue of what "main government" could actually mean (the "main government" in nearly every country is the national one, so how could any regional government qualify?). Also, since we are already using the term "administrative" it makes more sense to speak of administration rather than governance. I hope this reflects the intended meaning but, if not, let me know.
• I have added the wording about settlements requested by hike395. I have also added wording about size of population and historical nature of the settlement/administrative region being irrelevant.
  

Pinging @Hike395, Davidstewartharvey, Mxn, Newimpartial, Crouch, Swale, BilledMammal, Dlthewave, Avilich, and North8000: (anyone I've missed?) from the above discussion: before taking this to VPP I'd like a little straw-poll to confirm that you're OK with this finalised version and RFC question as a reflection of the above discussion. FOARP (talk) 14:04, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm fine with the proposed update, though personally I'd have preferred to see a somewhat higher bar, but this is an improvement. When presenting this to anyone that has not been following this discussion (or to those who have only a passing familiarity with WP:GEOLAND), it might make sense to explicitly state what text this will be replacing. Will this replace all three of the current bullet points? In particular, I can see this proposal replaces the first two bullets, what happens with the third one about disputed regions? older ≠ wiser 15:57, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I think we don't need special notability guidance for disputed regions. I am unaware of any dispute that has turned on the word of this section, and I have worked on the Nagorno-Karabakh and Taiwanese articles. FOARP (talk) 08:56, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

OK, I have no specific concerns about the bullet point -- only suggesting that the proposal should be clear about what text it is replacing and what would be removed as result. older ≠ wiser 11:09, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

This is better, but I have difficulty seeing why - since the range of application of the new language is now limited to "regions... that provide general-purpose administration for their region" - we don't go beyond "often notable" and instead maintain continuity with current language by saying that they are "typically presumed to be notable"? The rest of the paragraph does a fine job of defining the factors that might lead to an instance not being notable in a specific case.

Also, two additional wordsmithing points:

• states, provinces and departments don't belong in the middle of a list of essentially municipal-type settlements, so I would group those three at the beginning or at the end of the list.
• I can live with settlements and administrative regions in the subsequent mentions, but I think the current bold framing of the lead sentence understates the intended scope of the deadline. For that first mention, could we instead say "settlements, municipalities, federal units and administrative regions"? If we did that, we could then drop municipalities from the subsequent list (as already mentioned) while retain the examples of kinds of municipalities (and the kinds of federal units) that are already in the draft list of examples.

So those latter two points are wordsmithing-type suggestions, but I would also ask editors to consider whether retaining "typically presumed notable" for this more restricted set of inhabited places (and with these new provisions for identifying non-notable ones) would achieve the intended effect while maintaining better continuity with the enwiki consensus embodied in GEOLAND over the years. Newimpartial (talk) 15:58, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@Newimpartial - I would be OK with "are typically presumed notable provided information about them beyond statistics, region, and coordinates is known to exist", with WP:BURDEN linked. FOARP (talk) 08:06, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I would be happy to support this language, specifically including the link to WP:BURDEN. This seems like an appropriate compromise that would recognize various editors' perceptions of geographical notability. Newimpartial (talk) 18:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Nice work, I was hoping somebody would put something together. For better or for worse, there is a medium sized change in there. Replacing "typically presumed notable" with "are often notable ...provided...." in essence converting it to "meets certain SNG conditions plus meets a sort of "1/2 GNG" standard" which I think is an excellent idea for case by case considerations, . To sort this out, let me play devil's advocate: "This would subject a zillion geostubs where no such sourcing has been supplied to mass deletion". Maybe a part of the RFC wording should say that there are to be no mass deletions that are based mainly on not meeting the promulgated sourcing standard. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:58, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Seems like a massive can of worms to include language banning mass deletions, not even sure that a notability guideline has the power to do that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:11, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I recognize that plus the fact that it's doesn't define it and probably practically can't. But I think that it would certainly influence any relevant mass deletion discussions. I'm not pushing the idea, just brainstorming. North8000 (talk) 16:11, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Maybe just make an admonishment not to flood AFD as an additional point of the RFC question, rather than as part of the proposed guideline-change? FOARP (talk) 07:20, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• I think we need to loosen a bit to generally presume such places as notable even if there isn't a significant amount of prose. Generally as long as such a division or settlement is in a census should presume notability. As I mentioned some divisions or even settlements may not have a significant amount of prose but still have their own local government. As I said we don't want to risk sending thousands of articles to AFD or users claiming such places aren't notable. Also generally as the guideline already mentions if a settlement isn't notable it should generally be merged with the lowest division and if we start deleting the divisions we would have less places to merge to. So yes I generally support the wording but I would like to see some loosening on the presumed notability. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:18, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  I disagree. Mere existence in a census is a large part of what is causing such an issue. Mere existence, even in some quasi-official record does not make a place notable in an encyclopedic sense. Of course, such places can be mentioned within other articles and there can be redirects to refer readers to the relevant article. But in terms of notability for a stand-alone article there needs to be something more substantive than a bare mention in a census (or other database). older ≠ wiser 16:24, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Existence in a census in the sense of being mentioned in one yes I agree doesn't necessarily make a place notable but if the place is a place that a census provides data for then it should generally be presumed notable. Like Nuneaton and Bedworth[8] and Nedging-with-Naughton[9] mentioned above there often isn't a significant of prose about some administrative units but for such units that have their own local government it would be laughable for us to claim they aren't notable. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:24, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  I don't see any issue with the Nuneaton and Bedworth article. The Nedging-with-Naughton article is an edge case. I suspect better/additional references could be found if effort was expended. I think that is a large part of the issue for many of these. I'd be happy with some sort of self-governance criterion. It had been suggested above, but no universally agreeable phrasing resulted due to the complexity and diversity in how self-governance is determined around the world. older ≠ wiser 18:02, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Crouch, Swale @Bkonrad: Just to state the obvious, not every country's census shares the same methodology. And not every statistical unit named by a particular statistical agency has the same level of importance, even to that agency. You won't find any support for comprehensive coverage of urban areas in the U.S., even among those who believe we should have comprehensive coverage of MSAs and CDPs. On the flip side, any paper township would probably satisfy every criterion proposed so far, even though common sense would dictate its exclusion from this guideline.

  @Newimpartial @FOARP: We could make the guideline more sustainable by tweaking it to require an "extent of coverage in secondary sources" beyond routine figures about a class of settlements (in a given region, in a given time) rather than about an individual settlement. Yes, this means we would have to cover a boring township in flyover country that only a regional newspaper has bothered to write about. I would prefer that outcome to one in which the unlucky Wikipedian from there needs to prove that a national newspaper out of New York City has written about them, whereas the equally boring township next door in New Jersey gets a free pass because of its proximity to New York City.

   – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 03:03, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Mxn: Yes I'd be happy to have some flexibility to prevent pass AFDs or users claiming many articles on divisions shouldn't exist. I'm mainly looking at countries I know like England, Wales, Scotland, Germany, Austria and France that often have 2nd, 3rd and 4th order divisions. In England for example there is civil parishes which are a form of municipality and although they have fairly limited powers and some of them may not have a significant amount of prose they should exist. An exception may be urban parishes which existed prior to 1974 and didn't have their own council or meeting instead the district preforming such functions. See Special:Diff/1118390657 from User:Stortford. Per Special:Diff/1109682841 from User:Hut 8.5 I'd agree some such units may not qualify as being notable but I don't know countries like Uzbekistan well enough to say so yes to address concerns about this I'd be happy for a general rule. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:35, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  Just a technical note that if a user claims that a place isn't notable (and has reasonable grounds to do so) its notability can no longer be presumed it would actually have to be demonstrated. Presumed notability isn't a free pass when significant coverage in multiple independent sources doesn't actually exist. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:27, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, good point. I think part of the perceived need for an update to this guidance is where presumably well-meaning editors excrete numerous permanent micro-stubs based on the presumed notability of a place but leave it to others actually improve the articles. I think the proposal improves the expectations for such article creation. older ≠ wiser 18:17, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  My disagreement with the assumptions underlying this technical note goes back to the prior discussion, under two headings:

  • for populated places, there are user-oriented and navigational reasons (i.e., considerations of encyclopaedicity) to retain articles for places that meet WP:V and the criteria for presumptive notability, even if the coverage in each prose source wouldn't typically be deemed "significant" (say, a paragraph of prose) and
  • editors have a pretty poor track record of considering non-English language or difficult to accesss sources in AfD discussions in situations where notability...would actually have to be demonstrated, which makes me skeptical about any easily-rebutted presumption.

  No, presumed notability can't be a free pass, but I firmly believe that this is one of the cases (like WP:CREATIVE)) where a very weak presumption of notability - essentially, only a presumption that GNG sourcing exists, but fully rebuttable if such sourcing isn't produced at AfD - would run fully contrary to the goals of English Wikipedia as a project. We should maintain a strong requirement that the places in question verifiably and fully meet the GEOLAND criteria, but I don't think an attack on stubs for which travelogue-style material does not exist would serve the interests of an online encyclopaedia. Newimpartial (talk) 18:19, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  What about it would run contrary to the goals of English Wikipedia as a project? Doesn't WP:NOT lay out goals which are completely compatible with this longstanding understanding of notability? I'm also curious as to how something can meet the GEOLAND criteria without significant coverage in multiple independent sources existing, that doesn't appear to be possible. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:38, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Me personally (and I'll bet a majority of respondents) don't want either mass creations or mass deletions in this area. My concern is that the current guideline might make it vulnerable to mass creations. For example, 1,000,000 new microstubs on hamlets in India or China. North8000 (talk) 18:42, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  I would note that in general the community's opinion has been trending against mass edits, especially mass deletions, which don't have explicit prior consensus. I'm not really convinced that the risk is significant even if one day long ago it would have been. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:44, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  My position is stronger than North's - we ALREADY have a large volume of mass-created articles and more are being added all the time, and this is why things need to change. CEE is the area where this happens most at present. FOARP (talk) 07:25, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

  If independent, reliable sourcing shows that a place is recognized by the relevant national state as part of "general-purpose administration" (e.g., as a Nagar Panchayat in India, a status recognized in the country's constitution), then editors shouldn't have to produce a paragraph of long-form RS travelogue coverage to protect the relevant article from AfD. Given that many editors interptet WP:SIGCOV as requiring a paragraph or more of long-form coverage per source (and, often, requiring that it be available in English for free on the internet), I imagine that there are many, many large, general purpose geographical units that for which these editors would recommend deletion.

  As I have argued above, it serves our readers better for, e.g., the places linked from BLP articles (such as birthplaces) and the places linked from other articles (where notable things exist or existed, or where events happened) to be bluelinks and for those bluelinks not to be articles of the form, "List of Nagar Panchayat in Uttar Pradesh". Those kind of considerations, about what readers reasonably expect from an online encyclopaedia, are completely compatible with how WP:NOT has been understood within the enwiki community, as represented by the essay WP:GAZETTEER which, as far as I know, was never seen as conflicting with WP:NOT.

  Also, although GEOLAND came after the GNG, I believe it was created and then given guideline status to document a status quo about the presumed notability of inhabited places that actually predates the GNG - though I am open to being corrected about this. Newimpartial (talk) 19:04, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Is there a reason you've repeatedly denigrated significant coverage as "travelogue"? You are correctly describing the community consensus around SIGCOV, given that they represent the vast majority if "those editors" wanted those articles deleted wouldn't they already be deleted? It seems that there is a bit more nuance here than your strawmaning of your fellow editors would suggest. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:11, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  A clarification, then a reply to your question.

clarification - extended content

Just to be clear, the point of my objection to your "technical note" is to back up a point I made earlier in this section: for the subset of inhabited places to which the proposed revision of GEOLAND would apply, the status quo language of "typically presumed notable" would be better than the proposed change, "often notable". I say this because a meaningful presumption of Notability (not a free pass, but just a meaningful presumption like the one in WP:CREATIVE) would be more likely to facilitate the creation and maintenance of the set of articles that best serves the needs of the encyclopaedia's readers. Also, I think you are misreading the status quo for inhabited places at AfD since 2012. While there isn't any "free pass" for inhabited places - and there has been a lot of disagreement and confusion about what is meant by "legally recognized" - what I haven't seen in geography AfDs is the kind of SIGCOV nitpicking we often find in article types where the SNG offers only a weak and easily reputable presumption. For example, in sportsperson AfDs it is often claimed that this source offers only ROUTINE coverage, and that mention is too short, and this other source is primary; I haven't seen that for inhabited places. I suppose there are many different potential reasons why this might be the case, but I suspect that an important part of it is the simple fact that GEOLAND has, up to now, offered a stronger presumption than NSPORTS does, and that this reflects an underlying belief within the community that "official", general-purpose inhabited places are of more encyclopedic interest as a class of topics than professional athletes are. Because I see the situation this way, I believe the proposed change would, in fact, have the effect of sending verifiable, "official" geography to AfD that wouldn't otherwise have been nominated, and of having some of it deleted.

• So, to answer your actual question about travelogue coverage, the reason I keep mentioning it is that RS travelogue offers the clearest example I can think of, of coverage of a place that could ensure a GNG pass without contributing in any meaningful way to the purposes of an encyclopaedia as I see them. To me, having articles on inhabited places that reflect their location in official geographies, that compile verifiable information on them (including, but not limited to, official statistics), that populate cursor-over functionality in bluelinks and allow navigational lists and category systems to function as intended - this is a more important part of an encyclopaedia's role than mirroring the universe of English-language prose in which some smaller places are the topics of English-language RS travel writing and others are not. So the idea that some places would survive AfD because of travelogue mentions - while other, larger and more humanly important places are deleted because they don't appear in such sources - exemplifies what I think is wrong with exposing inhabited places to the onus towards deletion that follows from a drastic weakening of the current presumption of notability.

  Remember that places that pass GNG, like ones that do not, may still not merit an article - no topic has (or deserves) a free pass, but official, inhabited places, like authors of notable works, deserve in my view a path to Notability that is more direct than a presumption of a presumption. Newimpartial (talk) 19:38, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Why doesn't travel coverage in reliable sources contribute in a meaningful way to the purpose of the encyclopaedia? That seems a bit snobby and presumptuous, should we also dismiss coverage of history as not entirely meaningful? I understand that you think that inhabited places deserve a path to Notability that is more direct than a presumption of a presumption... But such a path does not currently exist and the proposed change would not create one. You'd need to change WP:N itself to do that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:44, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'm afraid you may have misunderstood my previous comments. I am content with the current language "typically presumed to be notable", which can not accurately be parsed as "typically presumed to pass GNG". In my perception, there is a very important difference between a strong presumption (like the ones in ANYBIO or CREATIVE) and a weak presumption (like the one for athletes in NSPORTS). The current version of GEOLAND is closer to the former than to the latter, and while I accept that GEOLAND needs to be clarified and the sense of "legally-recognized, inhabited places" should be further restricted, I do not agree that the presumption of Notability for the places still covered ought to be weakened in the direction of NSPORTS, or beyond.

  Also, I am not at all dismissing the importance of history or other qualitative data that can be reliably sourced (and yes, some of that qualitative data may be found in travelogue sources). Nor am I saying that travelogue information, where available, should be left out of the encyclopaedia. But what I am saying is that, for example, a set of articles for all Townships in Ontario (or at least the currently existing ones, potentially with historical ones up-merged) makes a better encyclopaedia than a smaller set of articles that only cover townships where online travelogue write-ups are available, with a residual article for the List of Townships in Ontario. And this is a case where what I believe is helpful for readers of Ontario topics is also true for readers of other topics where reliable information documenting official, general-purpose geographies is also available. Newimpartial (talk) 19:59, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Why would we have "a smaller set of articles that only cover townships where online travelogue write-ups are available"? In order for that to happen we would have to exclude all significant coverage which are not online travelogue write-ups which I don't see anyone proposing. The vast vast majority of significant coverage of places is not in the form of online travelogue write-ups. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:19, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  I am talking about the situation where WP:V verifiable information exists for units at a certain level of official geography, where no paragraph-scope references exist for any of them except for travelogue discussion, and where travelogue passages only exist for a few of them. This of course isn't the case for Ontario Townships, but it is the case for some comparable geographical units elsewhere (such as some in Vietnam, as other editors have discussed above). Newimpartial (talk) 20:27, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  What would the claim to notability of such a topic be? We aren't a collection of all the information that exists, we only cover that which gets significant coverage in independent RS. That is the whole point of notability. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:34, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Wikipedia does not define notability as "what gets significant coverage in independent RS" - that works better as a paraphrase of GNG, which is only one path to establish Notability (whether a topic merits its own article).

quoted passage from WP:N

Wikipedia's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics. Article and list topics must be notable, or "worthy of notice". Determining notability does not necessarily depend on things such as fame, importance, or popularity—although those may enhance the acceptability of a subject that meets the guidelines explained below. A topic is presumed to merit an article if: It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG) listed in the box on the right.

• In other words, other considerations embodied in SNGs can also affect whether a topic merits its own article besides SIGCOV (which applies to GNG, not to WP:N in general). Up to now, a presumption that legally-recognized, inhabited places are Notable has been one of those considerations. Newimpartial (talk) 20:43, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  You didn't answer the question... What would the claim to notability of such a topic be? Note that thousands and thousands of legally-recognized inhabited places have been deleted or merged over the years, a presumption is not the same thing as actually being notable and many of them simply aren't. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  The specific claim would be that units that are at a level of geography that are typically deemed notable (e.g., municipalites) have a credible claim to significance, and therefore Notability, so long as their status meets WP:V - even if SIGCOV sources have not yet been produced.

  And concerning your note, I am fine with legally-recognized inhabited places being deleted or merged when either (i) they aren't "general-purpose" units of governance and administration, (ii) their status is not unambiguously verifiable, or (iii) they are "rolled up" to a level of geographical detail that better meets Notability expectations and that is still detailed enough to be useable (e.g., as a birthplace entry).

  I hope most of the deleted places fit in one of those three categories, or were produced by bot-like mass article generation. To the extent that articles were deleted or merged without falling into the categories I have described, I believe those deletions run contrary to the purposes of this encyclopaedia and its core values (as documented, e.g., in GEOLAND). Newimpartial (talk) 20:59, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  GEOLAND is a subsection of a section of a notability guideline. You will find our core values at Wikipedia:Five pillars. I believe almost all of them would fall into that third category. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:08, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  The inclusion of gazetteer's (AKA geographical dictionaries, which are something Wikipedia is not according to WP:NOT) in 5P (which is an essay) was a one-off, undiscussed addition in 2008, not anything with a high level of acceptance or consensus. It anyway only says we should include elements of gazetteers, which we can do without being a gazetteer per se. FOARP (talk) 07:29, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

  As FOARP indicates here, 5P states up front that Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. Therefore, I would suggest that any amendment to this guideline premised on a muscular assumption that "Wikipedia is not a Gazeteer" ought to be discussed, or perhaps the RfC held, at WP:5P. Newimpartial (talk) 16:33, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

  I don't get that argument, if we only have some of the features of a gazetteer we are not a gazetteer. Something which has some of the features of an elephant but also other features from other animals is explicitly not an elephant. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:43, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

  If the only "features of an elephant" something has are the features elephants have in common with all other mammals - which is what I get if I translate, say, FOARP's advocacy for this proposal into elephant-speak - then I don't think it makes sense any more to say that it has "features of an elephant". Which is why I think it would make sense to propose the change to 5P first before proceeding to weaken the presumption of notability here, since that would essentially remove the only elephant-specific feature. Newimpartial (talk) 18:23, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

  They aren't otherwise "features of an elephant" or "features of gazetteers" would be enough, you wouldn't have to say that it also has the features of things which are not elephants and gazetteers. A presumption of notability is not a gazette like feature unless I'm missing something. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:28, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

  5P is "a non-binding description of some ... fundamental principles". It therefore is not determining of anything, it summarises what other pages say, it does not govern them. If the community decides what the coverage-level is for geographical entities in an RFC then that is what is decisive.

  I also have to say that no-one would ever argue that Wikipedia is an almanac (literally a random collection of often non-notable information like the times of the tides and the correct seasons for planting, including predictions) based on it also being mentioned at 5P. This despite almanacs being included in 5P from the beginning, not randomly edited in without discussion as gazetteers were. The reason why is that Wikipedia is not an almanac, it is an encyclopedia (Source: this, and the logo in the top-left hand corner of the screen I am reading this on), and nothing said in what is basically an essay could make it otherwise.

  Of course, if anyone want to open a discussion setting out that the position that Wikipedia IS a gazetteer they are free to do so. Until any such motion passes, I'm happy to continue along the very high-consensus lines that Wikipedia is instead an encyclopedia. FOARP (talk) 15:00, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  Horse Eye's back: the specific gazetteer-like feature I had in mind is something like: "has an entry on geographical features that are reliably known to exist and to meet certain requirements for inclusion, even if the amount to be said about them is less than would merit an article for a non-geographical topic". I believe this is the main "feature of a gazetteer" that the 5P have been referring to all along, and the one that certain editors here have been decrying as a NOT violation (even though this aspect of the 5P has not been found to violate NOT on any of the many previous occasions when it has been discussed). At the very least, in response to your statement You will find our core values at Wikipedia:Five pillars, it seems that something Gazetteer-like (whether reflecting my specification or no) has been a "core value" at least for the last 15 years.

  And FOARP, I most certainly would argue that enwiki is an Almanac - but I would be making an empirical claim, not a normative one. And I think I can support your latest suggested language - I will write something about that, as soon as I am able.

  Also, concerning Choess's comment, while I am somewhat sympathetic to the provided illustration in general, I would not want to try to use enwiki to open a wine bottle (nor any other language wiki, for that matter). ;) Newimpartial (talk) 16:46, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  Isn't the primary gazette like feature that we have entries for non-major geographic features at all? Encyclopedias and almanacs don't have those, they cover at most states/provinces and the largest cities. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:57, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

  I think you are underestimating the ambition of even print encyclopaedias. The 11th edition Britannica, for example, has entries for largely unremarkable Canadian towns with less than 10,000 people - though not for all of them, which just might represent the difference between a trad encyclopaedia and a gazetteer. Newimpartial (talk) 17:03, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

  Fascinating! It has been years since I opened up a paper Britannica. Does that level of coverage extend worldwide? Also any idea on a ballpark percentage of towns with less than 10,000 people covered? 10%? 50%? 90%? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:14, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

  I believe the answer to that is no: the 11th edition Britannica is a document of the anglosphere, whether its editors wanted to admit it or not. But you can navigate it (and evaluate it) for yourself, e.g., here. Newimpartial (talk) 17:58, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

  If "Wikipedia combines many features of...gazetteers" proves that Wikipedia is not a gazetteer, we have also proven that Wikipedia is not a general encyclopedia, and not a specialist encyclopedia. I don't think that really affects the question of whether certain geographic features should be articles or list items, but this is a tendentious reading. (I have always taken that passage to mean that Wikipedia is a sort of Swiss army knife that combines the features and functions of those types of publications, but perhaps not quite as well or conveniently as any of them would do as a standalone work of reference.) Choess (talk) 16:32, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  I don't see any conflict there, that Wikipedia is a sort of Swiss army knife that combines the features and functions of those types of publications is exactly what I am saying. Something can not be a combination of the features and functions of things and also wholly those things unless one gets into really woolly theological concepts like Perichoresis. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:21, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Horse Eye's Back - "In the beginning was the word, and the word was WP:NOT..." FOARP (talk) 07:47, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Sidestepping structural questions, I would observe/argue that 5P has the effect of putting an at least tiny finger on the scale towards inclusion on geographic topics. I think that our proposal/ your wording is consistent with this albeit tightening it up just a bit. North8000 (talk) 15:10, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

• WP:GAZETTEER is not an essay with a high-level of acceptance. The essay WP:NOTGAZETTEER (which I began) is equally valid. FOARP (talk) 07:27, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) I think that it's important to understand the defacto status quo and potential new one regarding this. General principles aside, the defacto status quo is that if it clearly meets the SNG criteria it gets to stay without having to establish GNG compliance. Under the proposal the SNG requirements now include meeting a sort of "1/2 GNG" which I think is a good middle of the road idea. I think that if an individual article is AFD'd it's not unreasonable to have to establish the "1/2 GNG" sourcing. But a likely fear and objection is mass AFD's and a statement of intent with the RFC of "no mass deletions that are based mainly on not meeting the new SNG sourcing requirement" would be influential on such discussions and also assuage fears/objections. North8000 (talk) 18:34, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  The defacto status quo appears to be "Therefore, topics which pass an SNG are presumed to merit an article, though articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted or merged into another article, especially if adequate sourcing or significant coverage cannot be found, or if the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia." which differed significantly from what you just claimed. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:38, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not sure that it matters much, but I think that what you are describing is the ideal rather then the defacto reality. Let's take a hypothetical example. A 1 or two sentence article on a hamlet that meets the current SNG with with solid "it exists" sourcing but nothing else. is taken to AFD. IMO folks can and will argue that it meets the SNG and on that basis it most likely will be kept. North8000 (talk) 18:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  How can a good faith argument be made that it meets the SNG without significant coverage being presented? I've never seen someone do that, invariably people at least attempt to find coverage. The only time I've seen something kept in a situation like that based on the SNG was when the topic was in Indonesia and nobody could be found who spoke Indonesian to search local sources so the presumption was made that the presumption stood because we couldn't determine with any reasonable accuracy that coverage didn't exist. You can't make that argument for something in an English speaking country on ewiki. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'm assuming that your point is based on SNG's being mere predictors of GNG.....by focusing on what actually happens at AFD I'm sidestepping that to just say: Which is IMO that if it clearly meets SNG criteria it generally ends up getting kept. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:39, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Horse Eye's Back ”How can a good faith argument be made that it meets the SNG without significant coverage being presented?” - I’ve seen people argue that an Geostub article should kept at AFD simply because it was about a place for which a postal address existed, or that a post-office or school was briefly located there. Photos, maps and databases are very typically presented as sustaining a notability pass. GEOLAND, as it stands, is basically a pass on the SIGCOV requirement - that’s a big part of why it needs to change, and the proposed change is a (big) step in the right direction. FOARP (talk) 13:24, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

  I guess incompetence is another possibility, but it seems like that behavioral issue should be addressed at the individual level with blocks or bans (a change to the policy or guideline which isn't being followed isn't going to change anything). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:55, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

  GEOLAND, as it stands (or as it has been interpreted), does literally confer notability on “legally recognised” populated places simply for existing. The “legally recognised” but was always far too nebulous to act as a block on creating articles about places simply for existing.

  Also, worth noting that NGEO is supposedly independent of GNG. That is, it is not supposed to be a predictor of whether an article passes GNG. FOARP (talk) 14:28, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

  It appears to confer the presumption of notability not notability itself. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:33, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

  Right, but it’s been read as practically a pass on notability all together as there is no GNG back-stop to fall back on if notability is challenged. FOARP (talk) 07:09, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I view 5P as a sort of "constitution" with in general having a higher level of review and acceptance than even policies. But it's too vague and general to be applied (=unilaterally interpreted) directly but which has influenced policies and guidelines. And until we get a template for such things it's parked in the catchall "essays". I believe that it's gazetteer note has put a bit of a finger on the scale towards inclusion of geographic items including influencing the SNG. Also, as I posit/observe at Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works in practice the wp:notability ecosystem also takes into account "degree of encyclopedic-ness" with geographic being considered to be very encyclopedic. Also real world importance is considered, which would tend to say that for geographic units, the larger, more widely recognized, and government-containing it is and the more that it is widely recognized as an entity it is the higher it rates there and vice versa. I think that this current initiative came from feeling that the SNG is a bit too loose and confusing in this area and has the goal of tightening it up a BIT particularly to guard against creation of articles on areas that are basically only lines on a map. In this exchange, we seem to be tackling all of the giant questions regarding geographic notability. I think we have folks involved who are in the stronger-feeling inclusionist and exclusionist areas and I don't think that any small-change initiative (and one that could pass) would leave the SNG in a state that neither of them would consider ideal. If this initiative is not to die, I think that we need to recognize this and decide on a small-change and clarification plan. I think that the recent draft is close to that (including trying to absorb the points from this already-substantial discussion) and suggest that we maybe make a few changes to it and finalize it and then get behind it's passage even for those folks who feel that larger scale changes are still needed. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:05, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• The proposed wording looks fine to me, I have nothing else to add. Avilich (talk) 14:27, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Just worth noting that 5P has always eschewed the "constitution" interpretation of what it is. It also does not (and was never intended to) trump WP:NOT, which preceded it. See particularly this from the FAQ on the 5P talk page:

"Is this page a policy or guideline, or the source for all policies and guidelines?

It is none of those. It is a non-binding description of some of the fundamental principles, begun by User:Neutrality in 2005 as a simple introduction for new users. For comparison, WP:NPOV, WP:NOT and WP:IAR were first written down on Wikipedia in 2001, and WP:NOR and WP:V were written in 2003."

FOARP (talk) 15:51, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree, although I don't think that it conflicts directly with what I said/ specifically how I worded it. North8000 (talk) 18:04, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• This looks good to me, definitely an improvement! –dlthewave ☎ 02:15, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

The last thing to decide for the proposal is on what we are replacing. I think that we're certainly talking about the first two sections: "Populated, legally recognized places" and "Populated places without legal recognition". I think we should also include "disputed regions" which doesn't say much and which would force us to create a new subtitle for the new material. So the proposal would be to "replace the entire contents of the current "Settlements and administrative regions" section with FOARP's 14:40 12 July proposal." North8000 (talk) 12:21, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Back from holiday and thanks to all of the input. I am happy with the latest proposal, and agree with North8000 on what it should replace in GEOLAND. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 18:04, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Finalize proposed change

Regarding the section "Settlements and administrative regions" which of the following should we do?:

1. Status quo. Leave it as it is
2. Make the following change:

Replace the entire contents of the "Settlements and administrative regions" section with:

Settlements and administrative regions are typically presumed notable, provided information about them beyond statistics, region, and coordinates is known to exist. The extent of coverage in secondary sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable non-database content for an encyclopedic article. If a Wikipedia article on a settlement or administrative region cannot be developed using known sources, information on it should instead be included in a more general article on a higher-level administrative region, or in a list article collecting information on similar settlements or regions (per the list notability criteria and common list selection criteria #2).

This criterion applies to settlements and administrative regions including states, provinces, municipalities, districts, parishes, counties, cities, villages, towns, and their equivalents, that provide general-purpose administration for their region, regardless of whether they presently exist or are abandoned, even if their population is low. It does not apply to special-purpose districts such as census tracts, irrigation districts, library districts, etc. which should instead be assessed on a case-by-case basis according to the general notability guideline.

North8000 (talk) 18:26, 16 July 2023 (UTC) North8000 (talk) 12:07, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Your proposed text does incorporate some very recently discussed changed (thank you!), but it does not include (i) the wikilink to WP:BURDEN under "known to exist" or (ii) the two "wordsmithing" changes I proposed in the first part of this edit, which FOARP (at least) seemed to believe to be friendly and helpful. Is there some objection to any of those changes (neither of which has been subject to dispute here)? If not, could they be incorporated? Newimpartial (talk) 19:36, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: Sorry, I missed that. I'm thinking that if there are minor changes which at least two of us agree on we should just edit it in place instead of re-writing. I'll take a closer look. North8000 (talk) 11:38, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: So of the three additional areas I implemented the "re-sequencing" one and also took out departments because they are not geo. The "burden" one I think would need more discussion and in that discussion I'd be opposed. IMO adding adding a the word burden would probably (by the word alone) be considered to be raising the bar higher which I think would make this less likely to fly. Also the actual text at burden is about including/excluding contested material which IMHO is not relevant to this. I was not able to understand what exactly your third change would be......could you write the exact changes here:? North8000 (talk) 12:18, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello, North8000. Thanks for the re-sequencing. Concerning "departments", I had understood the reference to be, e.g., Departments of France which (i) are unambiguously GEO and (ii) would be the only example in the list of a strictly administrative unit, which I thought important to include. If "departments" are not included (with an appropriate link or specification), then IMO we should include at least one other unambiguous administrative unit ("districts" being highly ambigious), given the prominent place of administrative regions in the proposed text.

For my other, perhaps confusing, proposal, I am suggesting that the opening phrase be changed from Settlements and administrative regions are ... to Settlements, municipalities, federal units and administrative regions are .... The reason I am proposing this is that I believe that readers need to know that the proposal applies to municipalities and units of federations, and it is not at all clear (at least to this editor, who has worked professionally in the domain of geography) that "settlements and administrative regions" includes either municipalities or federal units. The concept of "Populated, legally recognized places" in status quo GEOLAND clearly includes both, so I think that as potentially the most prominent entities this guideline will address they should be presented prominently in the lead sentence rather than being merely examples in a list. (Federal units are not necessarily or typically administrative regions, and municipalities may or may not be so depending on context, while neither are generally understood to be "settlements" - so I would be unhappy to introduce that kind of ambiguity unless new ambiguity is intended.)

Finally, my support for the proposal is conditional on the link to WP:BURDEN or some other link to WP:V. One key aspect of the compromise, for me, is that the new GEOLAND does require verifiable, non-database information but does not demand GNG SIGCOV. To me, having a link to WP:V in the relevant text makes this clear, while leaving out the link would empower editors to ratchet up the sourcing required to retain an article. The way I was parsing the specific reference to BURDEN, by the way, is that the article must contain (or rather, to nitpick at myself, must be able to contain) at least one statement that cannot be mechanically derived from a database entry and that this requirement is understood to be rebuttable, potentially contentious, and therefore demanding of WP:V sourcing. That struck me as a valid context to invoke WP:BURDEN, though I am willing to entertain other ways of linking to WP:V to express a similar requirement. Newimpartial (talk) 13:26, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we need to add federal units and municipalities to the subject. Administrative regions covers these as an overarching phrase (if anything we could change to Administrative divisions to match the actual article) and the statement below it says what it covers.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:21, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I am fine with "Administrative divisions", if it is bluelinked to the article - I don't find that article's elision between strictly administrative units (like departments) and federal units (like cantons) to be helpful, but I don't find "administrative divisions" to he actively misleading the way "administive units" is, IMO. ("Administrative divisions" is a weak umbrella article reflecting a weak concept and a weak literature, IMO, and I would still prefer the revision I peoposed above, but at least a bluelink to "administrative divisions" would say what is meant.)Newimpartial (talk) 09:55, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I am astonished to discover that I have no objections to this. Not a single one. How can this be? It seems to me that this rewrite manages to thread a very difficult needle in increasing the clarity of the existing guideline while leaving the inclusion/exclusion balance substantially untouched. Great job all, it's nice to see that the fine art of PAG-crafting still has some very skilled practitioners here. -- Visviva (talk) 04:50, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

BTW, considering the extensive discussion and work and it being a relatively minor change if there were no objection here (?) I'd be willing to try just boldly putting it in. If if that doesn't fly we'd go to a RFC North8000 (talk) 18:33, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

North8000 - I'd be happy with a change by acclamation as well. We've work-shopped the whole thing for getting on a month and this edited version had the support of nearly all participants in the discussion. This discussion was advertised at the village pump so it's not like we're doing this below everyone's radar. Whilst it does seem to have become quite popular particularly recently, not everything needs to go through the supremely high-drama process of 1) Contentious pre-RFC -> 2) RFC at VPP advertised to CENT -> 3) Disputed close -> 4) Appeal to admin's notice board (and optionally -> 5) ANI/Arb's discussion with block and bans for people who won't drop the stick) before we can accept that it is a consensus. Even if we wanted to go that way, that pipeline seems pretty jammed at the moment with Hong Kong, GENDERID, LUGSTUBS and other issues (I count 7 RFCs presently on CENT which is surely enough already) - I was thinking we'd have to delay bringing an RFC until at least some of those issues had cleared. FOARP (talk) 07:32, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

A relatively minor change? You guys are proposing to entirely rewrite WP:GEOLAND, one of our longest-standing notability guidelines, changing the current recognition-based requirements to a coverage-based one (essentially a restatement of the GNG, as far as I can tell). That is potentially going to affect tens (hundreds?) of thousands of articles. I'm no fan of the RfCs-for-everything approach, but usually lengthy prior discussions on a topic are a sign that you shouldn't be making :bold changes, not the opposite. And scanning the discussion above, it is definitely lengthy, but I'm seeing a limited number of participants, and several people commenting on the understanding that this is a pre-RfC discussion. – Joe (talk) 08:18, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

@Joe Roe - OK we can go the RFC route. Would have been great to have skipped the drama to be frank, but we're just not that kind of community. FOARP (talk) 08:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

@Joe Roe It's not GNG, the sourcing part is (practically speaking) like 1/10th of GNG. North8000 (talk) 11:42, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I concur with Joe here. In particular, the "non-database" language is at best opaque and at worst a step in the wrong direction; taken literally, it rules out nearly every modern website, and even read more figuratively, it forbids the use of databases that have in-depth material. If the quality and depth of coverage are the issue, then quality and depth of coverage are what the guideline should be talking about, not the type of software out of which the content happens to be hosted. (The current language calls out specific databases as unreliable, which is more useful than what the proposed replacement says when it actually comes to making decisions.) I'd also say that eliminating the notability encompasses their entire history phrasing and trusting to a link is a (small) step away from clarity. Whether this is better or worse than the status quo, it's a change that is more than significant enough to require more than a voice vote. XOR'easter (talk) 15:36, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

"Non-database" could be replaced by "non-statistical". It's trying to refer to information beyond "statistics, region, and coordinates". We're trying to prevent very short mechanically-produced articles. — hike395 (talk) 05:21, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

"Non-statistical" would be an improvement. XOR'easter (talk) 19:04, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Very short mechanically produced articles, when done right, are not the problem. The problem is people who create oodles of them very quickly without bothering to check the quality of the sources or to properly incorporate them into the existing structures, and then refuse to clean up their own mess.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 27, 2023; 17:03 (UTC) 17:03, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

No objection from me, although I would be surprised if it stuck. -- Visviva (talk) 04:50, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I preferred the version proposed by FOARP immediately above this one, but I prefer this version to the current version; I have no objection to implementing it by acclimation. BilledMammal (talk) 05:21, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Happy to go with this. It brings the improvement to the existing SNG that I started all those days ago! Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:23, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

@BilledMammal: To respond and also give due credit, this is basically the one written by FOARP with a couple changes.North8000 (talk) 13:47, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

• I would certainly object to what is a sneaky way to undermine the notability of thousands of articles. Why no RFC? Are you afraid that if more scrutiny is brought, that your proposal won't pass? --Rschen7754 18:19, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Rschen7754: Please be civil, and assume good faith. I would ask that you reword this comment to focus on the proposal, rather than on the editors. BilledMammal (talk) 18:31, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

  Regarding the motivation, not only is that failure to AGF, but it's a pretty insulting inventing bad faith and and also failing to read the relevant part of this discussion. North8000 (talk) 22:07, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

• There is a difference in the depth of coverage in databases and statistics sources so they should not all be ruled out but considered individually. For example some census entries are dubious and brief but other census are extensive and have enough information for significant coverage. Also considering that the proposal to remove wikipedia is a gazeteer was defeated at a discussion at Village Pump an RFC will be needed there as this change contradicts that decision to some extent, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 20:57, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Atlantic306 - That "defeat" was primarily driven by the idea that its removal (after a discussion on the WP:5P talk page very much like this one) was out-of-process, not agreement with it being there. WP:5P is an essay, one that explicitly does not trump WP:NOT, which rules out Wikipedia being a database or dictionary (a class that includes geographical dictionaries, AKA gazetteers). The idea that Wikipedia is a gazetteer, or has ever had a "gazetteer function" has never been supported by any consensus. It is also not one endorsed by the NGEO guide that WP:5P is supposed to summarise. FOARP (talk) 13:00, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

IMO, I made the point that the wiki system including the gazeteer note in 5P and unofficial incorporation of "degree of enclyclopedicness" by the wp:notability ecosystem that Wikipedia wants to and does put a finger on the scale towards inclusion on geographic topics. IMO, long story short, this proposal respects that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:16, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand that discussion, we have nothing which says that wikipedia is a gazeteer... The language under discussion makes a completely different assertion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:14, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

If you are interpreting other editors as having said "Wikipedia is a gazetteer" (which I didn't notice anyone actually saying) and then counterposing, "no, actually, Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers" - well, I'm not sure you aren't the one who has misunderstood the preceding discussion. Newimpartial (talk) 16:33, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is a gazetteer" is a direct quote from Atlantic306's comment. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:28, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

That isn't what they said, though. They said the proposal to remove wikipedia is a gazeteer was defeated at a discussion at Village Pump which, while not well-worded, is pretty clear in its meaning and based on fact. No editor in this discussion asserted, or based an argument on the assertion, that "Wikipedia is a gazetter". Newimpartial (talk) 15:30, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes its meaning is clear, they are asserting that a proposal to remove "wikipedia is a gazeteer" was defeated at a discussion at Village Pump, therefore they are asserting that "wikipedia is a gazeteer" is currently in force somewhere. That is clearly false... Both in terms of their exact wording and in terms of its meaning. The bit you left out "... an RFC will be needed there as this change contradicts that decision to some extent, imv" doesn't make sense otherwise, they are clearly arguing that the statement "wikipedia is a gazeteer" is currently consensus and would need a RFC to change. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:16, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

It seems clear to me that the comment in question is referring to what WP:5P actually says, namely that Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. This is the language you would need to propose changing, if you don't want to retain the features of gazetteers that Wikipedia has traditionally fulfilled (or, would prefer, as I suggested above, to make changed premised on a muscular assumption that "Wikipedia is not a Gazeteer". If you want to clarify that the enwiki community wants what you want, I suggest that you propose a change to the current text of 5P, because it "makes a completely different assertion" than what you have maintained here. Newimpartial (talk) 16:33, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

"Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers" is an entirely different assertion from "wikipedia is a gazeteer." You will notice that they are mutually exclusive, only one can be true. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:39, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

It seems evidently more plausible to me that Atlantic306 was making a malformed reference to the text that actually exists in 5P, than that they were making a claim about what the policy is, expecting that it would be taken with dogged literalness (a claim about what the policy is, which neither Atlantic306 nor anyone else has defended in this discussion). But clearly nobody here is able to move anyone else's epistemological blinders. Newimpartial (talk) 16:47, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Please stop bludgeoning and responding to direct comments which don't involve you. Atlantic306 is perfectly capable of speaking for themselves. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:53, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• While I think this is generally good, like XOR'easter, I strongly object to the "non-database" language. It was clear in the mass article creation RfC that there is no real consensus on what "database" means in the context of notability. Using this phrase opens the door to obnoxious wiki-lawyering where material on a topic that would, in isolation, be SIGCOV is deemed not to be because it's presented as part of a comprehensive listing of topics (i.e., a database). I think replacing "non-database" with "non-statistical" might get a little closer to the mot juste. (Essentially, we would like to ensure that we can say enough about the places we write about that they are distinctive, but then some equally fatuous wiki-lawyer will argue that two different coordinates are very distinct from one another, etc.) Choess (talk) 05:26, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
• I'm fine with this. Perhaps "non-database" could be clarified as "non-prose database content". So a bunch of parameters that are not accompanied by human contextualization (i.e. prose) would not suffice, but databases that do provide subject-specific (not autogenerated for every entry) commentary would count. JoelleJay (talk) 06:20, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

  I think your or User:Choess word changing is acceptable. Working in IT previously people get confused what is and isn't a database. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 07:31, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

  Acceptable for me as well. Of course this is something we've dealt with for years because we literally have a policy that states that Wikipedia is not a database, so I doubt that in reality it would occur, but this improvement covers it and does no harm. FOARP (talk) 13:06, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

After the suggested wordsmithing, the proposal now reads:

Settlements and administrative regions are typically presumed notable, provided information about them beyond statistics, region, and coordinates is known to exist. The extent of coverage in secondary sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable non-statistical content for an encyclopedic article. If a Wikipedia article on a settlement or administrative region cannot be developed using known sources, information on it should instead be included in a more general article on a higher-level administrative region, or in a list article collecting information on similar settlements or regions (per the list notability criteria and common list selection criteria #2).

This criterion applies to settlements and administrative regions including states, provinces, municipalities, districts, parishes, counties, cities, villages, towns, and their equivalents, that provide general-purpose administration for their region, regardless of whether they presently exist or are abandoned, even if their population is low. It does not apply to special-purpose districts such as census tracts, irrigation districts, library districts, etc. which should instead be assessed on a case-by-case basis according to the general notability guideline.

— hike395 (talk) 13:30, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

FOARP had proposed a link to WP:BURDEN under "known to exist", and Davidstewartharvey had proposed a link to Administrative regions - perhaps the latter link should be located at the mention in the second paragraph (the second mention works just as well) to preserve the bold appearance of the term in the first. I support both of those links, and I believe both were valued by those who initially proposed them. Otherwise, the resulting text looks good. Newimpartial (talk) 13:44, 20 July 2023 (UTC) edited by Newimpartial (talk) 13:56, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Apologies for overlooking those. The newly wordsmithed version is:

Settlements and administrative regions are typically presumed notable, provided information about them beyond statistics, region, and coordinates is known to exist. The extent of coverage in secondary sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable non-statistical content for an encyclopedic article. If a Wikipedia article on a settlement or administrative region cannot be developed using known sources, information on it should instead be included in a more general article on a higher-level administrative region, or in a list article collecting information on similar settlements or regions (per the list notability criteria and common list selection criteria #2).

This criterion applies to settlements and administrative regions including states, provinces, municipalities, districts, parishes, counties, cities, villages, towns, and their equivalents, that provide general-purpose administration for their region, regardless of whether they presently exist or are abandoned, even if their population is low. It does not apply to special-purpose districts such as census tracts, irrigation districts, library districts, etc. which should instead be assessed on a case-by-case basis according to the general notability guideline.

— hike395 (talk) 13:52, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

So I think the changes are just the links to burden and administrative regions? IMO we should decide separately on the burden-link question. I would argue against the burden link for these reasons:

1. The actual material at that link is not relevant to this topic. It's about inclusion/exclusion of material within an article.
2. Presumably it was chosen for the general vague idea of placing a "burden to prove" (compliance with that section) on those arguing to keep an article. I don't know if this is a good or bad idea, but considering that this proposal is a slight tightening of the standard, the most likely way for it to fail is from folks concerned about tightening. Adding the burden link is a adding extra "tightening to the tightening" making it more likely for folks who are on the fence to oppose it.

North8000 (talk) 14:50, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

And I still disagree with both of these points, for reasons I provided in the last paragraph of this comment. Concerning point 2, I believe the BURDEN link clarifies the intent of the proposed language without further tightening (and in clarifying, it preempts more extreme interpretations that would be "tighter" than this proposal intends). Concerning point 1, the BURDEN link concerns "information about them beyond statistics", which is absolutely about the inclusion of material within an article - there is a burden to demonstrate that such information exists. This is literally the compromise FOARP and I reached above, and without the gently rebuttable presumptions that such information exists, I don't see the point in changing the existing language concerning inhabited places, at all.

North8000, if you read the "provided information about them ... is known to exist" as placing a "burden to prove" anywhere besides the existence of reliably sourced article content of a certain kind, then I would suggest that you may not be reading the proposed text accurately or acutely. This is a burden related to article content, not one directly related to Notability. Newimpartial (talk) 16:00, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry that I missed (until now) that previous paragraph that you linked. Not sure what the "main spirit" of your thoughts is, but I have a hunch that I agree with it. But possibly disagreeing on the details how to get there. My first point was a technical one...I don't see how any of the text at that link is relevant. But as you noted perhaps your main concern (which I don't understand what it is) could be addressed in another way. One my second point, IMO the common meaning of "burden" is "If it's undecided (for ANY reason) the material stays out". If you lean towards inclusionist (yes, even if the term is an invalid overgeneralization) as I seem to sense, this would seem to work opposite to your goal. Could you clarify what your main goal / concern on this question is? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:14, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

My concern relates to provided information about them beyond statistics, region, and coordinates is known to exist. The extent of coverage in secondary sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable non-statistical content for an encyclopedic article. Some editors will (some editors already have) see this as invoking something like GNG, especially if no mention is made of WP:V. I want it to be completely transparent that the relevant factor here is verifiablity. I suppose some other link to WP:V could be used, but what I like about BURDEN is its bolded text The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, which establishes clearly the threshold that must be met to demonstrate that the relevant information ... is known to exist. Newimpartial (talk) 17:38, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

OK, I'm with you 100%. But IMO wp:burden with it's common meaning of "when in doubt, leave it out" would tend to generally work against that goal. Maybe simply a link to WP:Ver? North8000 (talk) 17:53, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm fine with that if others agree. But this could be a proverbial can of Nemertea. Newimpartial (talk) 18:07, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I could also go along with wp:burden, I'm just trying to come up with the best that we can and which is most likely to fly. North8000 (talk) 18:15, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

"Non-statistical" is an improvement, IMO. Another possibility would be to remove the adjective there and insert one later, e.g., enough verifiable content for a prose encyclopedic article. If the goal of the guideline is to avoid a billion one-line permastubs, the guideline should be clear that the point is that we don't want one-line permastubs. I'm still concerned that removing the warning about specific sources makes for a much less useful guideline (there's not much point in harmonizing a guideline with the grand principles by which we imagine Wikipedia operates if the guideline can't be used in practice). Providing in the text an example of a settlement that fails (or an invented settlement that would fail) might be clarifying. XOR'easter (talk) 19:24, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

XOR'easter has a good point --- the adjective may be less effective than simply stating what we don't want, i.e. something like

Settlements and administrative regions are typically presumed notable, provided information about them beyond statistics, region, and coordinates is known to exist. The extent of coverage in secondary sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable content for an encyclopedic article. Editors should avoid creating very short articles on these topics, e.g., "Village X is in Region Y of Country Z, at coordinates C, with a population of P." is not enough content for a stand-alone article.

If a Wikipedia article on a settlement or administrative region cannot be developed using known sources, information on it should instead be included in a more general article on a higher-level administrative region, or in a list article collecting information on similar settlements or regions (per the list notability criteria and common list selection criteria #2).

This criterion applies to settlements and administrative regions including states, provinces, municipalities, districts, parishes, counties, cities, villages, towns, and their equivalents, that provide general-purpose administration for their region, regardless of whether they presently exist or are abandoned, even if their population is low. It does not apply to special-purpose districts such as census tracts, irrigation districts, library districts, etc. which should instead be assessed on a case-by-case basis according to the general notability guideline.

— hike395 (talk) 05:05, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

This is a good possibility to ponder; thanks. From your example, it seems that "region" is meant as "the region in which the settlement is located" (e.g., the province). Without that example, a reader might alternatively take it to mean "the region occupied by the settlement itself", i.e., a description of its boundaries. The latter seems like the kind of information that would tip in the direction of having an article, say if a source gave a prose description of how the northern boundary was chosen to be the such-and-such parallel and the western border is the such-and-such river. XOR'easter (talk) 15:39, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

It clarifies it in the 3rd paragraph This criterion applies to settlements and administrative regions including states, provinces, municipalities, districts, parishes, counties, cities, villages, towns, and their equivalents, Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:08, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Fair point. How about "Village X is in County Y, Province Z of Country A, at coordinates C, with a population of P." ? — hike395 (talk) 18:10, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Just a thought, but what if we put the example first? Just inventing some phrasing off the top of my head: Settlements and administrative regions are typically presumed notable, provided sufficient information about them is known to exist. A single sentence of the form "Village X is in Region Y of Country Z, at coordinates C, with a population of P" is not enough content for a stand-alone article. Editors should avoid creating very short articles of this type if there is insufficient coverage in secondary sources to expand them with encyclopedic prose. I think using the word region in two different senses ("administrative region" and also "larger area in which a settlement exists") is a little more confusing than it has to be. XOR'easter (talk) 18:16, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Why just not remove regions so reads Settlements and administrative regions are typically presumed notable, provided information about them beyond statistics and coordinates is known to exist. GEOLAND is to cover both settlements and administrative divisions. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:01, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

My latest proposed wordsmithing does what David is saying --- region only takes one meaning in this (fully written out):

Settlements and administrative regions are typically presumed notable, provided information about them beyond statistics, region, and coordinates is known to exist. The extent of coverage in secondary sources should be considered to ensure there is enough verifiable content for an encyclopedic article. Editors should avoid creating very short articles on these topics, e.g., "Village X is in County Y, Province Z of Country A, at coordinates C, with a population of P." is not enough content for a stand-alone article.

If a Wikipedia article on a settlement or administrative region cannot be developed using known sources, information on it should instead be included in a more general article on a higher-level administrative region, or in a list article collecting information on similar settlements or regions (per the list notability criteria and common list selection criteria #2).

This criterion applies to settlements and administrative regions including states, provinces, municipalities, districts, parishes, counties, cities, villages, towns, and their equivalents, that provide general-purpose administration for their region, regardless of whether they presently exist or are abandoned, even if their population is low. It does not apply to special-purpose districts such as census tracts, irrigation districts, library districts, etc. which should instead be assessed on a case-by-case basis according to the general notability guideline.

@XOR'easter: Was there a reason why "County Y, Province Z" is not a good idea? I'm trying to respect the long workshopping efforts (above) and not make too many changes. — hike395 (talk) 15:36, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

This is too sweeping of a change to make without an RfC. If the discussion here is just to finalize what to propose to the community in an RfC, that is one thing. However it reads like implementing a change in the methodology of a long-standing guideline without getting consultation from a wide audience. Beyond that, there are issues with the wording, so at this time, if this were an RfC, I'd oppose this change. Imzadi 1979 → 21:18, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Care too clarify what issues you see with the wording? Still plenty of scope to make suggestions. FOARP (talk) 05:15, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979: I think the "try it first without an RFC" idea isn't going to happen. So, on to the potential change itself. What do you think should be changed? North8000 (talk) 12:43, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

It looks like everyone has gone quiet. Holiday season? Should we put the proposal forward for RFC now? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 14:46, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I think so. Need to get the formatting and details precise/explicit and number the 2 choices. Suggest we start with:

Regarding the section "Settlements and administrative regions" which of the following should we do?:

1. Status quo. Leave it as it is
2. Make the following change:

Replace the entire contents of the "Settlements and administrative regions" section with:

North8000 (talk) 15:04, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with that Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:12, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Taking stock of where we're at IMO some recent questions make "looking back" a good thing to do as a part of the process. IMO, trying to "read the crowd" here I think that two motivations that nearly all share are to tidy up that logically messy section and to prevent future mass-creationsof stubs. I think that nearly all also do not want any changes to cause mass deletions. While acknowledging that these terms are over generalizations, I thinks inclusionist-leaning and exclusionist leaning folks have participated. Besides tidying up, probably the biggest changes has been to include a sourcing requirement in the SNG, albeit much weaker than GNG. I've been calling that "1/3 of GNG". If I were to guess at what would happen at an RFC, I think most folks would share the sentiment of not wanting futuremass creations of mass deletions. Under what seems like the latest proposal I think that many folks would share a concern about it triggering mass deletions. IMO a "statement of intent" that any change not do so as a part of the RFC would be impactful, even though it would not end up in the guideline. My guess is that we'd either need to ad this or take out the "1/3 of GNG" in order to have a good chance of passing. North8000 (talk) 17:53, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Sorry i have been busy outside of wikiworld and in it i have been working on my big project of Cavenham Foods. I think we seem to have lost impetus from others which is a shame. @Atlantic306@BilledMammal@Atlantic306@FOARP@Hike395@Horse Eye's Back Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:12, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

I’m on holiday but am OK with simply adding the already-discussed admonishment not to flood AFD with deletions to the RFC question. FOARP (talk) 06:07, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

How about "An expressed intent of this proposed change is to avoid mass creations and mass deletions." ? North8000 (talk) 12:57, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. To be honest whatever is put will probably be ignored Davidstewartharvey (talk) 13:25, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Townships

Are townships (abolished in 1866) in England notable?, see Township (England). For example Chapel Sucken[10]. Some like Brunstock are also settlements and have other coverage and thus would probably be considered notable anyway and some like Hugill became parishes and would be notable. Are those like Chapel Sucken that aren't settlements and never became parishes notable? See a list in Cumbria here. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:23, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Townships in the US vary widely regarding this. All the way from being what is widely recognized as a distinct area with a government that provides a "medium scope" range of services down to ones that are just an abstract set of lines on a map where none of the above is the case. North8000 (talk) 15:08, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

This speaks to my concern about such an authoritative-sounding whitelist of terms that even in English are so ambiguous, let alone in translation to other languages. I'm just glad that the two or three Wikipedians who grok paper townships would probably be disinclined to mass-create stubs about them based on U.S. Census Bureau data. Minh Nguyễn ^💬 03:08, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Requesting feedback re. GEOROAD

Following confusion at this AfD, I originally planned to clarify whether or not GEOROAD applies to roads that were planned, but never built, and would normally be within its scope. In looking for an answer, I investigated the origins of GEOROAD. The discussion that led to the addition of GEOROAD was, at best, unclear. That raises the question of whether or not GEOROAD accurately reflects community consensus at all.

For additional context: this became a guideline here following this small RfC, and the version at the time included a version of GEOROAD that is substantially identical to today's.

Accordingly, I'm looking for some feedback on GEOROAD in its current form, and if yes, to define its scope more clearly. My thoughts on that below.

• Option 1 – GEOROAD reflects current community consensus and does not need to be fundamentally rewritten.
  • Option 1a – GEOROAD includes roads that were planned, but never built.
  • Option 1b – GEOROAD is limited to roads that were actually built, or for which construction is ongoing.
• Option 2 – GEOROAD does not reflect current community consensus; a rewrite is needed.

My thoughts: It is a bit unclear to me why roads of any kind are "typically notable", but the inclusion of "provincial highways" stands out in particular. A lot of interstate highways in the US are notable by the standards of GNG, and it's reasonable to presume that the same applies for highways of similar importance in most other countries. But beyond that, I'm not sure that all highways are notable in the way the guideline currently assumes. What is the basis for this presumption of notability? While roads, especially highways, will be included in dozens (if not hundreds) of maps from plenty of different sources, that is simply trivial coverage.

Thanks for your time, everyone! Happy editing :) Actualcpscm ^{scrutinize, talk} 18:12, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Generally, we're a gazetteer, roads serve a built geographical function, and may not have been significantly discussed by secondary sources. But it also doesn't look like any notability should necessarily be assumed except in obvious cases - for instance, we'd want a complete set of motorways. Other roads would need to meet WP:GNG. But WP:GEOROAD appears irrelevant - it tells me all roads need to meet GNG in my reading... SportingFlyer T·C 18:59, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Not exactly, combined with WP:NEXIST one should presume that for the classes of roads given, there are sources. And there generally are, just in newspaper archives and not easily searchable on the Internet. Unless we have arbitrarily determined that "local news", whatever that is, no longer contributes to GNG. Rschen7754 00:06, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

The state of affairs, based on many VfDs and AfDs over the preceding years to that RfC is that articles on state-maintained highways in the United States had been routinely kept. (Note: Interstate and US Highways are maintained by the state departments of transportation; they only differ from other state highways on the basis of signage/numbering and construction standards and are actually all state highways. Many states have freeways built to Interstate standards that do not have Interstate numbers.) Now the equivalent to a US state in Canada is a province, and non-federal countries have national highway networks, which is why national and provincial highways are listed there as well so that the guideline has international applicability in a concise statement.

The guideline has a prioritization function, recognizing that primary classifications of highway have been judged as more important by their appropriate agencies than secondary or even tertiary highways. This also recognizes that a roadway maintained and numbered by a county, as a lower level of government, has a lower importance to the overall transportation network. If that road was more important, it would be transferred to state/provincial maintenance and integrated into the higher priority network. In my home state of Michigan alone, there are 122,040 miles (196,400 km) of public roads, but only 9,649 miles (15,529 km) are state highways, according to MDOT. Thus 8% of our roads are state highways and carried 52% of our traffic volume in 2022 to the tune of 44.5 billion vehicle-miles. Based on this real-world prioritization, we prioritized the roads we covered for inclusion and wrote a full set of articles on the state's highways. This is the obvious case based on the statistics: these roads are designed and designated to carry proportionally some 6.5 times more traffic than the rest of the state's roads. Imzadi 1979 → 20:17, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

These statistics are genuinely quite interesting, but I'm not sure how to read this comment in terms of what to do with GEOROAD. It's plausible that state highways are generally notable, but how about the other categories of road listed by GEOROAD? Actualcpscm ^{scrutinize, talk} 20:19, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Actualcpscm: I discussed that briefly in my first paragraph. We can do a lot of analogizing just by comparing roads from country to country. E-roads in Europe have a similar function to the United States Numbered Highway System in the US in that they carry a common designation across member jurisdictional borders. That's why GEOROAD references international road networks. For other countries, a national highway network is the equivalent of a state highway network in the US, so GEOROAD already handles this by equating international, national, interstate and state or provincial highways together. This simplifies the equation and helps to minimize systemic bias concerns exacerbated by availability issues for equivalent sources. Imzadi 1979 → 20:52, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

The opposite happens in sparsely populated states and provinces though, for example in Wyoming many state highways would be country or local level roads in other states but due to a lack of local tax base have to be state. Not all states and provinces are created equal, some are smaller than cities. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:35, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, in particular, how many proposed and unbuilt state highways have articles? I'm sure there are some, but by no means all. For example, there was a planned interstate through the city I grew up in and for many years, this interstate appeared on maps for the city (probably due to developers promoting the hope for easy access). But there is no article for it. older ≠ wiser 20:56, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

More to the point, what are the chances that an unbuilt highway would be covered in reliable sources the way any comparable finished highway is? In my opinion probably quite low. Actualcpscm ^{scrutinize, talk} 20:59, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Actualcpscm: my comments here primarily address "option 1" vs. "option 2" from your query. In terms of the remainder, "option 1a" vs. "option 1b", any article requires sources to avoid WP:OR concerns. It is possible to find sourcing on planned and unbuilt highways, see Interstate 335 (Minnesota) or County Road 595 (Marquette County, Michigan). (Yes, that second one is a cancelled county road.) At least for the US, once we get to actual concrete planning by FHWA/state DOT/etc. (not "it would be nice if..." statements from a local chamber of commerce), we will have enough documentation to start an article.

@Bkonrad: which city/Interstate is this? Now I'm curious. Imzadi 1979 → 21:10, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Parma, Ohio. I forget the numerical designation, but there were plans to build a short, mostly north-south connector freeway between I-71 to the N and I-80 to the south. older ≠ wiser 10:34, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with the way GEOROAD is written. For as long as I have been on Wikipedia (over 16 years) and going back even before that to the early days of the site, the consensus has been that international, national, and subnational (state/provincial) roads are generally notable enough for individual articles while lower classes of roads (such as county or local roads) are only notable if they meet the GNG. The notability standard for state highways and above is based on the premise that the system meets the GNG, being covered in multiple secondary sources, and we have individual articles to cover the component highways that make up the system, ranging from long roads with a lot to say about them to short roads that may have little information. In addition, the roads in these systems typically meet the GNG as they are often covered in multiple secondary sources, including newspapers/media sources and books, some of which are not easily accessible to editors. Lower classes of roads typically have little to no coverage in multiple secondary sources, hence why they should only have articles if they meet the GNG. The higher classes of roads (state highways and above) make up less mileage but carry way more traffic than the lower classes of roads, so in reality Wikipedia is only covering the most important roads to society. In regards to highways that were planned but not built, they can typically have articles provided there are sources to verify that there were official plans for such a road to be built and not just a pipe dream by someone. Dough4872 00:04, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

• Unbuilt highways run the gamut from Unconstructed state routes in Arizona (numerous proposals that were cancelled without fanfair or SIGCOV) to Bay Freeway (Seattle) which has 60+ sources along with detailed coverage of proposals, controversies and related legal action. GNG serves us well for these cases; otherwise we're looking at a great many roads that were never anything more than a line on a map with no potential for a well-developed article. –dlthewave ☎ 01:43, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I would like it explained to me why having fewer articles covering fewer subjects is seen as better than having articles covering a wider range of subjects, when the sources exist, the articles are already written, and BLP does not apply. There is apparently something fundamental about Wikipedia I have utterly failed to grasp after eighteen years of editing here. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 01:47, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

WP:NOT goes a long way towards trying to explain this Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:56, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm not finding anything in there that seems relevant. Could you elucidate for the morons like me that don't get it? —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 03:54, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

If none of that seems relevant to your concern I'm not sure I can help besides suggesting a closer reading. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:53, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

What you are describing/ advocating already exists, it's called the internet. :-) . A part of Wikipedia's value comes from being more selective than that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 11:48, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Can you explain how "a part of Wikipedia's value comes from being selective"? Because to me "increasing the value of Wikipedia by deleting shit" feels a lot like an attempt to increase the value of one's home with arson. Incredulously, —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 01:37, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Notability is a guideline that supports some of the most important policies, particularly WP:V and WP:OR. If there are no good sources about something, what is an article supposed to say to comply with those? Again, nobody is saying „we should delete all articles about roads.“ For example, I think it would be good to require roads to have significant coverage in at least one reliable source (not necessarily independent), because Wikipedia articles that say „Highway XY123 is a highway that connects CityA and CityB“ are not particularly helpful, and if that‘s sourced to a map, the second part is probably WP:SYNTH. This is the kind of threshold we‘re looking at, not „roads are never notable and we should delete all those Featured Articles about important infrastructure.“

To address your point more directly; yes, it does make Wikipedia better to delete articles that cannot comply with its core content policies. The community almost universally agrees on those (principles, not necessarily wording of the policies), and if an article can never contain content in compliance with those principles, deletion is the only logical course of action. Actualcpscm ^{scrutinize, talk} 08:19, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

IMO Dough4872 summarized it very well. Including my opinion on the "never built" question. North8000 (talk) 11:43, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 The concept of automatic notability – sources not required! – is not acceptable. With respect to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/European route E404, something that does not exist cannot be notable on the basis of being a road when it is not in fact a road. This must pass GNG for an article. Reywas92^Talk 17:16, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 2, per Reywas92. Roads can easily be covered in other articles, they don't necessarily need standalone pages, and especially not when they were never even built in the first place. The drive to have an (overly-detailed) article for every road of X designation regardless of secondary independent significant coverage is incompatible with NOTDIRECTORY. JoelleJay (talk) 18:39, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
    • Option 2, per Reywas92 and JoelleJay. BilledMammal (talk) 11:54, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I've been watching this slow-moving trainwreck from the sidelines for several months but I can stay silent no longer upon seeing this discussion. I just feel I have to get something off my chest before this whole thing ends with roads editors being driven off Wikipedia entirely, which appears to be the end goal of those on the more stringent side of this debate.

When I started editing Wikipedia in 2012, I was a bright-eyed high-schooler who truly believed in the Wikimedia vision. I did everything from content creation to anti-vandalism, even dipped my toes into a few other WMF sites. For a few years, this place was my life. I honestly believed I was meaningfully contributing to something much bigger than myself, and I cherished every moment of it, from the articles I wrote to the friends I made along the way—friends I still keep in touch with today and whose pursuits I have of my own accord kept tabs on throughout; I was not canvassed to this discussion and I actually imagine some of my friends may be upset with me for spouting this out.

What eventually drove me away was everything else: the labyrinth of bureaucracy, the needless red tape, the unending drama (ironic, I know). People whose main purpose seemed to be to tell other people what they couldn't do. People for whom positively contributing to the encyclopedia was secondary and preventing what they perceived as negative contributions was primary. I do not for the life of me understand these people. For some of them, I don't even think it's an inclusionist vs. deletionist thing; it's just people waking up and dedicating their free time to "Wiki-lawyering" subject matters on which they seem to have limited interest or knowledge, making the wide majority of their edits outside mainspace. They operate as if their actions are unimpeachable, casually stating their opinions as if they're facts backed up by the highest laws of the land. If other people in your circle show up to the discussion, they immediately accuse you of canvassing despite the base behavioral assumption on this website ostensibly being good faith. When you try to defend yourself against these obvious bad-faith accusations, you get told to assume good faith yourself. It's a joke, and avoiding this carnival is why I've stuck almost entirely to minor copyedits for the past half-decade.

So I ask these people: what exactly is your purpose? You can say you're just interpreting WP:NOT or any other policy, guideline, or even essay, but in the case of GEOROAD, it's been clear that different interpretations of these bylaws have been the consensus for eons, and the result has been a whole bunch of excellent content from highly skilled writers and researchers. What makes you now so intent on trying to change that consensus? On axing a veritably phenomenal resource on the history of North American transportation that's still getting better and growing each day, as it has been for the past 18 years? You really want to throw almost two decades of hard work (and the thriving community responsible for it) in the trash on some arbitrary technicality, the merits of which are dubious at best? For whom? For what?

On a site that was originally conceived of to be "the sum of all human knowledge", this nonsensical mindset boggles me to no end. More than that, the manner in which this metaphorical burning of the Alexandria Library is being carried out is shameful. It's just people roleplaying as politicians, redlining the USRD community with questionable authority and for utterly unknown reasons. If (and probably when) Option 2 earns the consensus in this discussion, I hope these people find what they're looking for. TCN7JM 21:04, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

In this topic area we also have a lot of low quality content from unskilled writers and researchers. Nobody is proposing that we throw the baby out with the bathwater unless I'm missing something. I don't see a rational basis for this hyperbolic rant. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:53, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

The basis is that you and a few other editors have been playing every card in your deck for months to try to make the community consensus that roads content does not belong on Wikipedia.

It's not just random stubs from outside the USA; it's well established articles from well established editors (even Featured Articles have become the subject of seemingly undue scrutiny), as well as other articles in the same secondary highway systems that people simply haven't gotten around to yet (this is allowed per NEXIST).

After several pointed XfDs, an RfC in which people tried to disqualify maps on the bogus basis of being primary sources, and this attempt to fundamentally rewrite the notability guideline at the core of the project, I don't think it's that far a leap to the conclusion that roads being cut from Wikipedia is the objective, especially given your insistence that subjects can be undeserving of articles despite passing all relevant notability guidelines.

To call me irrational and hyperbolic shows an astonishing lack of self-awareness. TCN7JM 20:15, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I don‘t think anybody here has the intention to remove all road articles from Wikipedia, and I cannot imagine how any change to this notability guideline would affect featured articles with their incredibly high sourcing standards. To the best of my knowledge, the coordination you are seeing behind this doesn‘t exist; this supposed feud significantly predates my activity on Wikipedia, for example. I‘m going to respond to the original comment later, but this reply does seem to be primarily hyperbole and unsubstantiated accusations of bad faith or ulterior motives. On the other hand, I understand that this is a highly sensitive topic, and I assume that your worries are not without basis. As I said, I‘ll address the top-level comment in due time. Thanks for your work and input. Actualcpscm ^{scrutinize, talk} 22:41, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back Would you like to explain why you spent 45 minutes targeting articles specifically created by me to be tagged for notability immediately following this comment despite no consensus yet having been formed in this discussion? TCN7JM 17:23, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1, and I strongly object to not taking this question to RFC and changing the policy in a closed door manner. --Rschen7754 23:52, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

  WP:RFCBEFORE requires that editors at least attempt to resolve issues / find consensus without an RfC. I don‘t think anyone had the intention of rewriting without RfC; that‘s precisely why I kept Option 2 so unspecific and unactionable. Actualcpscm ^{scrutinize, talk} 07:33, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

  WP:RFCBEFORE is a section on an information page; it is not a policy or guideline, and so cannot be said to require anything. Many Wikipedians may consider it to be good advice, but it is not a requirement. Donald Albury 14:26, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

  You‘re right, I should have said that differently. But it is the source of information that I used, and I don‘t appreciate that Rschen7754 assumed that my intention was to change a guideline without the due transparency. Actualcpscm ^{scrutinize, talk} 14:50, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1a - Being assigned into a system of national or sub-national routes usually does come with coverage if one looks in the right areas (and doesn't disregard maps, which are a valid source as determined in a lengthy RfC). Whether it was built or not doesn't matter; in many cases, the unbuilt road will have garnered far more press coverage because of protracted disputes. The wave of deletions and redirects that seem to outright ignore WP:NEXIST is deeply concerning. I fear that many "undesirable" subjects will continue to be culled until Wikipedia is nothing more than a collection of pop culture and news articles on top of a woefully undersized copy of Britannica. SounderBruce 07:43, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Passing a SNG or the GNG doesn't mean that a topic is automatically notable, consensus may still be that it should be deleted, merged, and/or redirected... That is a feature of wikipedia, not a bug. See WP:N "articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted or merged into another article, especially if adequate sourcing or significant coverage cannot be found, or if the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia." Also note that per that consensus while maps can be used as sources they in general don't count towards notability which is what you appear to be implying. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:43, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

The goalposts keep moving. Rschen7754 20:48, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

No, that's always been the case. An article which passes WP:GNG may yet fail WP:NOT. SportingFlyer T·C 11:48, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to add that part of the reason notability is exclusively in guidelines is to allow for some additional flexibility in making deletion decisions based on notability. WP:DELREASON states that content "not suitable for an encyclopedia" can be deleted on those grounds alone, even if it is appropriate in other respects (like notability or BLP). Actualcpscm ^{scrutinize, talk} 11:55, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Haven't moved anything. Those have been the goalposts my entire time on wikipedia, more likely you just never knew where the goalposts were. Ignorance on your part, not malice on my part. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:29, 20 August 2023 (UTC)