Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Various "Mills"

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep all. - Mailer Diablo 15:09, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Various Mills

This is a group deletion I'm proposing for all the individual Mills owned malls and shopping centers. An article about the chain as a whole is probably appropriate, but none of these individual malls are notable, so their individual inclusion and detailing strikes me as advertising. An individual mall does not merit inclusion unless it's particularly famous, like the Mall of America. Articles to be deleted here include: Arizona Mills - Arundel Mills - Cincinnati Mills - Concord Mills - Del Amo Fashion Center - Dover Mall - Franklin Mills - Pittsburgh Mills - Galleria at White Plains - Great Mall of the Bay Area - Gurnee Mills - Katy Mills - Lakeforest Mall - Marley Station - Ontario Mills - Opry Mills - Potomac Mills Southdale Center - St. Louis Mills - The Block at Orange - Vaughan Mills.

--Blackcats 19:24, 23 October 2005 (UTC)


  • Keep if the user above would have done some research, which by this nomination it only shows that either they didn;t or they decided to ingnore anything that they have seen, they would have found out they the majortiy of facilites are major enocomic factors in the areas that they are located, some even more so then the over-hyped mall of america. The also serve as major congerating ponints as well, with several placning in the top 5 if not the top tourist destination in the state in which they are located. Also many new builds have served as anchors for substantinal development , where the rebulds have served in major as the core of major redevelopment projects. If these articles are deleted then i will afd ever skyscraper, ever other mall and related srtucture for the reason that these are pening deleted. But this is just another reson why the VFD is the same broken process with a different name. The ingnorance of people doing the sligest amount of research is amazing. --Boothy443 | comhrá 20:10, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment: A lot of small American towns have individual Wal-Mart stores that "are major enocomic factors in the areas that they are located," "serve as major congerating ponints," and "have served as anchors for substantinal development." So by your logic, each of these individual Walmart stores would merit their own article. But these facts can all be noted in the main Mills Corp and Wal-Mart articles, so there's no need to have individual articles about individual malls. Just like McDonalds, or any other chain, the chain itself may be notable, but individual franchises (or company-owned stores) usually aren't. Also, if you follow -up on your threat to propose the deletion of those other articles then you'll be violating WP:Point. Blackcats 20:28, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Comment:Have you even looked at the articles that you nominated? Vaughan Mills is one of the largest shopping centers in Canada. Sounds notable enough to me for a keep. I don't think any Walmart can claim that. --Holderca1 20:34, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
        • Yes, I've looked at all the articles and have seen a lot of repetition and nothing that struck me as noteworthy about any of them. As for the Vaughan Mills, I would be willing to excluded it from this AFD in the interest of focusing just on the malls with no obvious notability. But I am very dubious about Vaughan Mills' claim to notability as "one of the largest shopping centers in Canada." One out of how many??? And where's the substantiation of this? Also, its Google test doesn't show much notability - it gets under 62,000 google hits [1], compared with 196,000 for Wal-Mart and Green Bay [2](should the Green Bay, WI Wal-Marts get their own article too?) and over one million for "Mall of America." [3] Blackcats 20:59, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
          • Comment. That's a bit of flawed reasoning. For any given metropolis, there's only going to be one Mills location tops. But for the same area, there could be a dozen Wal-Marts. For example, Vaughan Mills serves the Greater Toronto Area; the same area contains 21 local Walmart stores. [4]
            • It may not be a perfect analogy, but there's no flaw in the reasoning. You can also look at towns which only have one Wal-Mart store, like Markham, ON [5], whose Wal-Marts still get more Google hits [6] than the supposedly noteworthy Vaughan Mills. Blackcats 21:24, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
              • Comment. If you're going to be specific, the Wal-Mart is located at Markville Shopping Centre, I go there semi-regularly. So when you do a combined Google search for "Markville Shopping Centre" and "Wal-Mart", it only yields 1,360 hits [7]. I looked at the combined hits for "Markham" and "Wal-Mart" and lot of them contain references to other Wal-Marts in the GTA or Ontario in general, not the specific store at Markvile Shopping Centre, Markham. Some of the results in the same search yielded links to Robert Markham or to stores in Arkansas, lol. --Madchester 21:32, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
      • I added "Ontario" to the search, and still got almost as many hits as the supposedly famous Vaughn Mills [8], even though this was certainly excluding a good number of websites which mentioned this wal-mart without bothering to spell out the name of the provence. Names of the shopping centers are often little-used, in favor of the center's location or the name of it's most well-known store, so the number of hits for "Markville Shopping Centre" isn't really relevant. The point still stands that Walmarts in many cities have a level of notability on a par with, or even surpassing, that of the idividual Mills chain mall in the area. Blackcats 22:06, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. I'm looking at your search results, and many of them still don't direct to the actual Markville Wal-Mart location. For example:
    ServiceOntario Kiosks - Locations - the Walmart highlighted indicates a store in Kitchener, Ontario and another in Dufferin Mall, Toronto.
    Supply Chain Systems Magazine Features - Markham simply refers to the location of the company; the Wal-Mart highlighted is only a generic reference to the company.
    Business Solutions - Put RFID In Your Network's Line Of Sight - the company is based in Markham; Wal-Mart is only one of its clients.
    CNW Group - The Wal-Mart being referred to is in Mississauga, not Markham.
    The fact is Wal-Marts are rather ubiquitous where I live; as I mentioned before there's some 21 within the Greater Toronto Area. Everyone calls that particular store "the Walmart at Markville", not Markham. There's only one Vaughan Mills in the GTA, let alone all of Canada. --Madchester 23:59, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep per Boothy443. --Holderca1 20:26, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep. Each Mills mall has its own distinct identity; they're regional shopping centres so they have to cater to the tastes of their particular regions. They're also magnets for (tourist) shoppers because of their size, something that can't be said for Wal-Mart, which has hundreds of locations with a homogenized selection of products. Unlike Wal-Mart, each mall has its own distinct set of stores, attractions (skate parks, go kart tracks, bowling alleys, etc.) and architecture.
    • I think you miss the point that Mills Corp is both a brand and a retail developer. A lot of malls were built by a single developer. For example, Cadillac Fairview owns a portfolio of shopping centres throughout Canada including the Toronto Eaton Centre, Fairview Mall, Les Galeries d'Anjou, and Toronto-Dominion Centre, yet I don't see anyone making a fuss of removing those articles because they're all part of the same chain. --Madchester 21:02, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm very dubious about how much "distinct identity" any of these malls have. Wal-Marts will cater their selection to their location as well. For example, the Wal-Marts in North Dakota have a much larger selection of winter coats than the Wal-Marts in Florida, which have a much larger selection of swimming suits. Also, none of the malls you listed there are noteworthy either, and just becuase someone hasn't gotten around to proposing them for deletion yet doesn't mean they're deserving of inclusion. Blackcats 21:37, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep all. SchuminWeb (Talk) 21:03, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Gurnee Mills is one of the widest-known malls in the Chicago area and surrounding states. Gurnee Mills is definitely a tourist spot, it's located right next to Six Flags Great America. --Interiot 21:17, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
    • And yet this supposed tourist hot-spot barely gets four times the hits of Gurnee, I'llinois's Wal-Mart! [9] [10]

Blackcats 22:15, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Keep. Frankly, the nomination is absurd.--Nicodemus75 21:56, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
    • The real absurdity is thinking that there's anything ecyclopedic about all of these individual malls. Blackcats 22:08, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Sir, Concord Mills is the largest tourist destination in the state of North Carolina. What's absurd is you think that it's not notable. --Golbez 22:22, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
        • I think it's very misleading (not to mention un-sourced) to call it "the largest tourist destination in the state of North Carolina." The Concord Mills article is at least honest enough to admit that "no distinction made between visitors to the mall who are locals and those who travel over larger distances to get to the mall." If I go shopping at a local mall in my area, I don't think most people would call me a "tourist." Concord Mills gets barely more Google hits than Concord, NC's Wal-Mart [11] [12], and far fewer than notable tourist destinations like Kitty Hawk [13]. Blackcats 22:44, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
          • Dishonest, perhaps, but still true. As for the source, I suppose I could find the issue of the Independent Tribune or Charlotte Observer which mentioned it, but all things in time. And PS - Concord has two Wal-Marts now, so that's ever so slightly unfair. Yes, I know Kitty Hawk and the speedway are more notable, but they get fewer visitors. Sad, but true. --Golbez 23:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep all. --Golbez 22:22, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Gurnee Mills one of the most notable malls in the U.S Concord Mills and Potomac Mills Delete the rest --JAranda | watz sup 22:32, 23 October 2005 (UTC)* Del Amo Fashion Center Keep also --JAranda | watz sup 22:33, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep all except, Marley Station, Franklin Mills, Dover Mall, Katy Mills, Lakeforest Mall, The Block at Orange, St. Louis Mills, and Cincinnati Mills. All of those and that should be a clear delete by itself and a Delete vote for me --JAranda | watz sup 22:55, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Opry Mills It is 100 miles away from my city, but is a popular destination day trip for shopping and entertainment. Also a theme park, Opryland USA, was replaced with this very notable mall. Wendell 23:02, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete them all with one single unified page instead. Hats off to Blackcats for going to the effort of making this multiple nomination. The comparisons between Walmart and these malls are almost entirely irrelevant. It seems like people have found one tiny argument made (that the malls are no more notable than walmarts) that they feel confident in rebutting, and pounced on it, with disregard for all the good, simple reasons for deletion. These are not notable malls. None, even the "famous" ones, merit an article on it's own. Tourist hot-spot? Is any place where a tourist goes considered a tourist attraction? These places are not akin to Rodeo Drive; people do not choose a holiday destination for the privelage of going to malls like these. The strong support for keeping this stuff baffles me. --Qirex 23:03, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment If nothing else, one way to determine notability is by having people who live near the malls vote on it, based on their perception of how significant the mall is to their region. Only the vote can determine that. Also, I don't think that articles about corporations should go out of their way to tout how notable they are (square feet of space, number of visitors, tax revenue, percentile rankings, etc), as that makes the article start to read like a corporate advertisement. --Interiot 23:32, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: Qirex makes some important points. Too much attention was paid to the Walmart analogy, which though useful was not the best one. A more apt comparison would be to other chains that usually just have one store per metropolitain area and can draw customers from the surrounding region - stores like Cabela's or tourist hangouts like the Hard Rock Cafe. While these chains are both notable, none of their individual stores are, in spite of some regional variation between them. As Qirex also noted, in order for a mall to be considered a bonified tourist draw, it has to be a primary motivating factor that induces people to travel to the area, not just a place they might happen to stop at while they're there or on the way there. Additionally, if the claim of siginficant uniqueness of any of the stores is to hold water, they have to also be a primary motivating factor for significant numbers of people who live in close proximity to one Mills Mall to travel significant distance to visit another. Many thousands of people who live in the Boston area travel to San Fransisco each year to experience its unique culture and attractions (and vice versa), but I highly doubt that hardly anyone who lives in Cincinnati Ohio (near the Cincinnati Mills) would travel to Toronto or Charlotte areas (with a primary motivation being) to visit the Vaughan Mills or the Concord Mills. So therefore there's no unique notability. Blackcats 01:13, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • That's a ridiculous comparison. Libraries don't need to qualify as tourist attractions to be included (though Chicago's, with its unique history, probably would qualify). Chicago is famous for it's "L" system. Also, commercial businesses are held to higher standards of notability than public landmarks in order to avoid advertising. And individual stores within a chain must be held to especially high standards. Metro-Chicago may be known to some people in Rockford or Bloomington as a big city where they can go to shop at big malls, but someone from St. Louis or Cincinati (with their own Mills stores) isn't likely to travel to the Chicago area to shop at the Gurnee Mills. If it were a unique tourist attraction then they would. Blackcats 02:11, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Users who write articles about companies are held to a higher standard, the articles themselves aren't. With the keep votes we have here, it shouldn't be hard to find editors in good standing who are willing to re-write anything written by the Mills Corporation themselves. --Interiot 02:27, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Comment. That's the point of a Mills store. It isn't suppose to draw in everyone across the continent. It's suppose to be a regional shopping destination. They're suppose to draw in people for day trips and coach tours. It's just the same way that the Six Flags theme parks are suppose to draw in visitors from the local region.
Similarly, take a look at the wealth of localized television, radio, and newspaper station articles on Wikipedia. Do people in (as in your example) Chicago care that St. Louis's CBS affiliate is KMOV or that the local daily is the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch'? You need to cater to all audiences, as I mentioned elsewhere, according to WP:Importance, if there are multiple contributors to an article, it is already indicative of its significance.--Madchester 02:28, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. I disagree with the Hard Rock Cafe mention. Every one of the individual restaurants are unique and most if not all are definitely notable. Also, I know a lot of women that plan trips out of town just to go shopping and particular malls are the draw for them. --Holderca1 01:43, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. The problem with that analogy is that Hard Rock Cafes are still more commonplace than Mills locations. There's only 25 or so Mills locations globally; there's 143 Hard Rock Cafes worldwide. A better example would be comparing them to the Six Flags franchise; which have a comprable number of locations. Each park is part of the main brand, but they still have individually distinct rides and themed areas. Likewise in the article, "Shopping in a native land, it indicates that "a unique hallmark of Mills centres, aside from their collection of discount stores, is the attempt to draw on local geographical or cultural motifs and iconography in the design of the shopping centres."
Looking at Wikipedia:Importance, one of the criteria states that if "There is clear proof that a reasonable number of people are or were concurrently interested in the subject (eg. it is at least well-known in a community)." then it is worthy of inclusion. If you look at the edit history of these articles, many of them were written by multiple contributors. Just because you're not familiar with the impact and significance of the mall, doesn't mean that other people do not. Likewise, I just realized that Kompeito is a type of sweet Japanese candy and that San Fran had an XFL team called the San Francisco Demons. Just because I'm not familiar with that aspect of local culture or history, doesn't mean that it's insignificant. --Madchester 02:00, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete them all rolling them into the Mills Corporation unified page instead. I haven't seen anything notable in the sub articles. I've been to both Ontario Mills and Potomac Mills and I can't remember the difference other than location, and it's not like the two pages tell me much. Potomac Mills may be the #10 destination in Virginia, but the #7 destination is Williamsburg Pottery, and that's not in Wikipedia, either. -- FRCP11 23:37, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. That's no different than the articles for subway systems and having a separate article for each and every indivdual station within its network. --Madchester 23:54, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete all (though I also would be okay with redirecting them all to the main article). Individual malls do not pass any of the traditional senses of "encyclopedic". As economic entities, none of them meet our generally accepted criteria for inclusion. These articles are more like advertising copy than real articles. They include directory listings of stores, directions to the mall, etc. These are the contents of the marketing brochure, not an encyclopedia. We make exceptions for truly notable malls - entities which have an impact well outside their immediate area. I could find no evidence supporting such an exception in any of these cases. Drawing in customers from a multi-state area does not, in my mind, meet the necessary level. Furthermore, I find the arguments about "consistency" and "precedent" unpersuasive. Just because we haven't yet deleted other equally non-encyclopedic articles does not mean that we should perpetuate the mistake here. Rossami (talk) 00:12, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, per User:Rossami Pilatus 00:25, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep all. Wikipedia:Make articles useful for readers says that you should 'consider the audience in your writing.' Just because some of the information is regionally specific doesn't mean its irrevelant. --Winning-Eleven 00:28, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Reply: While it's true that articles should strive to be useful, many useful things are not encyclopedic and do not rightfuly have a place in Wikipedia. Check out WP:NOT for a list of things that Wikipedia is not. Many of these are quite useful things, but just not part of Wikipedia's mission. And Wikipedia is certainly not the yellow pages or any sort of business directory, though those sort of things are certainly useful to many people. Blackcats 02:21, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. Each of these malls also has its own unique history. For instance, Cincinnati Mills started its days as Forest Fair Mall, which struggled for a long time and underwent numerous alterations and such, and also weathered a fire at some point in its history [14]. So the way I see it, we're not only thinking about these mall pages as far as describing present offerings, but also thinking about retail history buffs, for instance, whose interest is on how these malls came to be in their current situations. So I think there's definitely reason for all of the individual pages to exist, and also plenty of room to expand these articles, too. SchuminWeb (Talk) 01:00, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. And the results of the Google test is:
Store Google Groups
Arizona Mills 126k 280
Arundel Mills 124k 189
Cincinnati Mills 50k 20
Concord Mills 129k 128
Del Amo Fashion Center 21k 194
Dover Mall 49k 36
Franklin Mills 109k 903
Pittsburgh Mills 54k 14
Galleria at White Plains 143k 328
Great Mall of the Bay Area 35k 138
Gurnee Mills 100k 54
Katy Mills 82k 154
Lakeforest Mall 43k 369
Marley Station 47k 228
Ontario Mills 134k 558
Opry Mills 157k 357
Southdale Center 85k 43
St. Louis Mills 76k 32
The Block at Orange 81k 158
Vaughan Mills 61k 18

--Interiot 02:46, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Keep. It is very strange to say that Vaughan Mills is not notable. Its opening was reported on TV as a worthy news item. And it is bigger than Fairview Mall and the Toronto Eaton Centre. If this is deleted you have to delete all the malls in Toronto. Makes absolutely no sense.—Wing 03:04, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep All. According to this site, each of these malls are drawing 10-25 million visitors annually. Even allowing for repeat visits, this figure more than meets the criterion from Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information/Notability and inclusion guidelines which states a company should be included if "the company has more than one million customers." Logically the criterion should apply equally to subsidiaries of a single company like the individual Mills malls. These are not ordinary malls; they do a huge amount of business and are dominant in local retail. They dwarf most downtown commercial districts in both economic scope and square feet. Are they largely similar to each other? Sure, but so are lots of things that have articles in Wikipedia. --D Monack 03:31, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep all As per D Monack, Wing, et al.: the prevalence and importance of the category (and constituents) requires its retention. Speaking of which: what of historic Todmorden Mills in TO? :) E Pluribus Anthony 03:51, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Or, perhaps merge 'em into one article. E Pluribus Anthony 06:47, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge all into some nice central article. Renata3 04:05, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Weak Keep. We're never going to reach concensus, but we might as well keep them since we've already created them. They should have been described individually in a central article at first and the notable ones would have grown into separate articles. If someone wants to go to the trouble, perhaps they could be merged. --TantalumTelluride 05:14, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Strong Keep in light of new comments. I personally had never heard of these "mills," but apparently they are each unique, verifiable, important locally, and worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. --TantalumTelluride 04:37, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. I wonder if a tweek in Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information/Notability and inclusion guidelines could help address this? Maybe some should not be kept, but without a benchmark it is hard to say. Vegaswikian 05:37, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep for now, without prejudice against a later renomination once some reasonable standards of notability are established, because the current ones are broken. There are probably hundreds, possibly thousands of Wal-Marts and McDonalds that fit the criteria (X number of cutomers) that these largely interchangable malls are being held to, and that indicates to me that the current rules are broken. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 08:34, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep shite malls. --SPUI (talk) 08:59, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep, as per Boothy443 as well. ErikNY 12:45, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep All--WAHooker 14:41, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep All Mills is on the leading edge of retail and the projects associated with them have a huge impact on communities, economics, and trends in retail. The articles need to be developed further and it looks like there are many people here who have information about the articles that can be used to strengthen them. An article should not be deleted because it appears weak and someone therefore thinks it is not notable. Most articles start off small and need time to grow. These articles have been growing due to the contributions of many users. They need more time to develop. Information should be added to them about when they were first opened, the retail concepts used, and what makes them unique. For those that want to delete these, please instead focus your energy on making articles in Wikipedia better, rather than trying to rip away the work of others. 24.240.204.226 19:23, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep notable, not vanity ColumbusCrew29 23:02, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment As someone who has lived by two of the Mills malls as well in a small town where WalMart was the economic powerhouse for the area, the comparison is a severely mistaken one. However, I feel that many of you miss the point here. I don't see any point in deleting them. Are we running out of space? I mean, I frankly don't care whether they're one page or many, as long as the search gets the information. But since they're already there, is there a point in merging them? I mean, it is very mistaken to say that Potomac Mills, for example, isn't a notable landmark for Virginia, Maryland, DC, and West Virginia. Lakeforest Mall isn't nearly as important, but it's a fairly major landmark for the DC Metro Area. From what I've read, a number of the other malls serve as economic and social epicenters throughout multiple states, as well. And while I've lived near the largest WalMart on the east coast, and I've known people to cross state lines to come to said WalMart, they come because they don't have a WalMart. And the state line is mere miles away. It's hardly analogous, unless you're ignoring scale entirely. Moreover, I hardly think the information on the articles is advertising. It served as merely informative, for me. I hope I'm not giving other people too much credit when I say I think that they'll see it the same way. So as long as there are no plans to delete relevant information about the individual malls (location, notable features, etc), I don't care whether it's one article or twenty, though I don't really see the point of consolidation. SchrodingersRoot 15:49, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Note: This is SchrodingersRoot's first and only contribution to wikipedia (link) --Qirex 10:38, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
So what? It's not even a vote for heaven's sake.--Nicodemus75 10:40, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
According to WP:AFD, Unregistered and new users are welcome to contribute to the discussion, but their recommendations may be discounted, especially if they seem to be made in bad faith (for example, if they misrepresent their reasons). The user has explained his/her points clearly with andectdotal evidence; it should still be considered. --Madchester 19:21, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
I didn't intend to imply that SchrodingersRoot's comment should be discounted entirely, and I meant no harm by it. I think it is important for users to recognise which comments are made by established users and which are made by anon IPs / very new users, and weigh the arguments as they see fit. Fundamentally, the reason I wrote that is that I'm wary of who says what in discussions like these – it's common for companies to attempt to have a hand in the zeitgeist of the internet through popular community spaces like wikipedia. --Qirex 20:43, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep per Boothy443. Those Google numbers are also pretty impressive. However, I do agree that Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information/Notability and inclusion guidelines is slightly broken. --Jacquelyn Marie 03:52, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep all. Although I hate shopping malls of all sorts, they're factual, verifiable, and local notability is very clear. Unfocused 04:06, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Tentative keep, with the proviso that I'm in favour of a policy discussion on the notability or lack thereof of local shopping facilities, not of simply upholding the status quo as a permanent consensus. Bearcat 23:27, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Potomac Mills, for example, is among the top tourist attractions in the State of Virginia. ---Aude 00:25, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep. I strongly disagree with the broad statement that individual malls do not merit their own articles unless they are "famous". First, I have real problems with someone outside of Canada determining what is "famous" or "distinct" in Canada. Case in point: someone above mentioned that (s)he didn't think that the Toronto Eaton Centre has a "distinct identity" worthy of an article, which is downright wrong given the centre's history and status in both Toronto and Canada. Someone in Texas might never have heard of it, but since when is that the test for inclusion?
Vaughan Mills, as the first Canadian Mills mall, has had significant land use and retail implications for this country, and although these impacts have not yet been fully explored in the Vaughan Mills article (the mall just opened recently), I think it's just plain incorrect to suggest that these issues could be properly addressed in a general Mills article that deals primarily with U.S. issues.
In this day and age, malls and retail centres often function as community and local landmarks. While such malls might not, upon a quick glance, seem "distinct" to someone who is not from that area, those centres are often of great importance to that local and broader areas. For that reason, I can't say whether some of the other Mills malls are worthy of individual articles or not, because I'm from Ontario, and frankly I can't speak to the importance of say, a Mills mall in Florida, to the people in that state. I think these determinations should be left to the people who actually know these places. Skeezix1000 20:30, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Just to add - I do agree with some of the comments made about these articles being "advertising" for the malls and or mall owners. I've seen a few of these articles that come across as promotional copy (even though they might not have actually been written by the mall's marketing people). Although I don't agree that the articles should all be deleted, this particular problem does merit attention. Skeezix1000 20:47, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

KEEP! Southdale Mall was the first fully enclosed shopping center in the United States. It set the standard for the common malls that we see all over the world today. I think that at least the Southdale Center Article should be kept.--Gephart 07:29, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

KEEP! Maybe a single entry for the rest of the Mills malls would be appropriate, but the Southdale shopping center is a landmark event for the social and cultural study of mall history (and people really do study this--see James Farrell's book One Nation Under Goods: Malls and the Seductions of American Shopping, Smithsonian, 2003). Subsuming this entry into an article about the Mills mall chain or whatever it is would be a patently bad idea.--TheChickens 08:13, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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