Talk:Back garden

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 30 March 2008. The result of the discussion was keep.

An editor whose name I don't seem to be able to access says: NO notability and makes other insults.

This is exactly the sort of article an encyclopedia should have. Because of the extraordinarly narrow defintion of what constitutes an enc. entry, EDITOR deems it unsuitable.

Firstly, there is the number of gardens. Unless EDITOR lives in a flat, it is almost certain s/he has a back garden. There are over 10m in the UK, and if there is the same ratio worldwide, some 500 million.

When I read the generally trivial and un-noteworthy entries on ancient battles, minor celebrities and the charcacters in yet another trivial version of dungeons and dragons, my blood begins to boil.

The information is not speculative. It defines the sorts of things that are in a back garden, how it is a social and practical space set apart from a house or dwelling.

I partly put it there because there is no decent entry in encycs. on a back garden. It written, of course, as yet too much from my own narrow perspective of gardens in the UK, but I know no other. But I can generalise from what I know.

It is a new article, and needs to be developed. How on earth do we expand the wiki; it would be like arguing that we could have an article on a 18 spot ladybird because we have one on a 17 spot, but not on an ladybird 1000 times the size, because no-one has ever written an article on one 1000 times the size, and therefore EDITOR thinks it non encyclopedic.

Go back to the original definition of ENCYCLOPEDIA by Chambers. It is to create a knowledge of the whole world in a structured way starting from no particular pre-existing sub-division of the world.

I had expected EDITOR to have had a deeper and more profound understanding of what an encyclopedia is, and s/he at the moment does not understand the encyclopedia-ising process.

If in the end it's wiped I'll move my attention other areas of work, and I do an awful lot of properly unsung amendments to help make what is currently a sow's ear of a production into a purse.


I expect, for exaple, a US editor will want to point out that socialising does happen in back gardens, with people sitting out on the stoop, etc.

There are 215 references to the phrase back garden in Wikipedia. And EDITOR has the gall to say that the phrase is so unnotable, it should not be defined!

Back gardens should stay!!! Chasnor15 (talk) 20:48, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

  • I agree with what you say. What we need to do is to improve the article further so that its merits are clear to those will be pontificating in the AFD discussion. Since the main claim is that back gardens are not notable and this is preposterous, we shouldn't have much trouble. The main means of establishing notability is to cite sources which discuss the topic in detail. I will add a couple such sources in the usual format to help matters along. I may make other changes as they occur to me since I have good experience of back gardens too. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:27, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Perhaps I should have tried to improve this article rather than nominating for deletion, and my apologies if I've offended anyone. My issue is not necessarily with the inclusion of 'back garden' per se, but the content - such as the list of what can be done in a back garden - personally, I see such a list as pointless and (more to the point) unencyclopedic - you might as well add 'having a barbeque', 'potting up indoor plants' and 'reading a newspaper' - the list is endless and (in my opinion) unnecessary. If, as it would seem, that the articles creator wants an encyclopedic entry on it, then I'd first like them to show me another respected encyclopedia that has such information in an article. Or, have a look at the other articles related to gardens and houses and use them as a guideline.

Oh, and please stop saying I've been making 'insults' - I've done no such thing ! My views have been expressed about the article and ONLY the article. These views may differ from other peoples - but that doesn't make them insults. CultureDrone (talk) 23:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Please be a little more civil and try not to assume that other peoples opinions are an insult when it is expressed civilly. Thanks. In the mean time, I think that it should be explored to have this article as part of Garden which seems to be a well made article as this one is and they are both part of eachother.... hmmm? --Pmedema (talk) 16:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The major reason why this can't be included in garden, is that garden is already quite long. Secondly, there are, I believe, separate entries for entities such as 'rose garden'. While rose, flower, spring, summer and autumn gardens are ways of classifying gardens, and valid ones, so are rock, alpine, and so on, and so are 'front' and 'back'. They describe ways in which gardens are used.

One critic holds that he can barbecue in a back garden or a front, and so what. But does he put his compost heap on his front lawn, have his post delivered to his front door by the back garden, or welcome his guests to the house there. If he usually does, we should know. At which door are legal processes properly delivered? We should know. And where do carol-singers gather on winter night to sing of the arrival of (possibly) his saviour. 80.189.139.20 (talk) 17:49, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I should like to acknowledge and thank all those people who have had a input into the keeping of this particular article, dear as it is to my heart. Chasnor15 (talk) 08:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)