Wikipedia talk:Places of local interest

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[edit] This appears to be heating up again...

...so it's worth asking - where's the consensus? I'm not sure I'm seeing it myself, and I've had this watchlisted since December, but haven't had much to add for input. What's questionable to me is why we need this to begin with, but hey. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I'm not going to join the discussion here; instead, I'll drop a note on the village pump and ask people to comment. I believe that, if it has no consensus, there are people that disagree with the page content, and if they do they can probably discuss that with the people who wrote it. The reason I put back the guideline tag is that the page was apparently stable for a month and a half, and the person who removed it did not give a reason in his edit summary. But I'm taking this off my watchlist for now. >Radiant< 17:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Not that this is a poll or anything, but Radiant's ad implies looking for opinions. The problem is that this starts with a paragraph on criteria for inclusion (if enough r & v information exists...), then says "it is not the purpose of this article ... to define additional criteria for inclusion". Pick one. The paragraph, by the way, contradicts with Wikipedia:Notability. Every other family-run restaurant has a "history of this restaurant" on the back of their menus, that is several paragraphs long, reasonably reliable (several generations of the family say so, no one contradicts them), and clearly verifiable (go to the restaurant, you'll get a menu; it may even be up on their web site). It may even be an interesting history (grandpa grew up in A, learned how to make the world's best B, married the love of his life from C, opened a small place in D, moved to E ...) According to that paragraph, every other restaurant now deserves an article? Not according to Wikipedia:Notability which requires that story be printed by multiple unrelated sources. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 17:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete this page I don't see any special case here where a notable topic would not qualify under the notability guidelines. This is a perfect example of WP:CREEP to no salient purpose. Even as an essay it contradicts the other guidelines.--Kevin Murray 21:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Overall, I think I agree most with this. It's like we're saying "yeah, we know we told you that X is 'notable', but since it may be of local interest, it really isn't." It's not "CREEP"y as much as contradictory. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:14, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Put this up for a vote discussion to ensure whether if this has consensus or not - While its a good idea in general, this needs to gain consensus, not have a few people making it and enforcing it on others that has no idea about the guideline. --Arnzy (talk • contribs) 12:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I pretty much agree that most of this is covered better (and in a less wishy-washy fashion) elsewhere. There may be a place for a "local interest topics" subheading in other notability-related pages, but the general focus should be on reliability and detail, not geography. Anything else shows up our cultural bias to ill effect. -- nae'blis 20:16, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] We seem to be developing a consensus on several points:

(1) These aren't guidelines
(2) the form and format is inconsistent with the other notability guidelines
(3) the standards hre contradict other notability guidelines

I propose that we label this page as an essay, then consider whether it can be improved or should be deleted. --Kevin Murray 01:57, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unincorporated towns, villages and settlements

After having poked around the various policy pages on notability and coming up largely empty handed, I'm turning to this page here to see if some discussion on the subject can't be revived. I realize the article was marked 'inactive' but if some more discussion and interest can be generated, I think there is still some need for consensus on this subject.

Briefly discussed above was the issue of small villages and whether they pass inclusion standards. My concern has arisen after trying to edit and improve some articles regarding unincorporated towns tagged {{importance}}. Previously I had seen people arguing that geographical places had "inherent" notability and did not need further sources to "prove importance", and whether that is some kind of consensus or not I am unsure.

Admittedly my understanding of the issue will be somewhat skewed toward how things work in the United States, particularly the western US, but it could be applicable to villages everywhere. Anyway, my concern is thus : In terms of incorporated cities, towns, and townships, I doubt there is any question as to whether or not they are notable enough for articles - finding sources of information for such entities should be simple. Unincorporated towns that lack government are another matter, and particularly those that are isolated from major population centers, may lack sources of information that are easy to get a hold of. This means that there are many small towns that may have notability of limited and local scope - but does that make them not inclusion worthy?

Further complicating the issue are other unincorporated community entities that are less distinct, such as neighborhoods of a city, subdivisions, master-planned communities, named trailer parks, and the list goes on. In all liklihood it is probably not difficult to establish the existence of these entities, but a question arises as to where to place the bar for inclusion. I find it difficult to set that bar without being arbitrary. In my opinion, an unincorporated town that nevertheless has some kind of cohesive community merits an article of its own, but a neighborhood of an existing city does not (except in the case that it has some kind of historical significance).

Do we use the simple inclusion criteria "If reliable secondary sources can be found then it is notable and warrants its own article"? Is there some other standard of what gets its own article as opposed to what should merely be mentioned under a parent region?

Hoping to get some feedback here! Arkyan 17:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Unincorporated has different legal meanings in different U.S. States, as well as in different countries. Unincorporated places can be quite large and quite significant. For example, Huntington (CDP), New York has a population of over 18,000. The guideline at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes is that "Cities and villages are notable, regardless of size." So the problem you bring up is better handled by merging than deletion. If a place exists, but there is not enough content for a stand alone article, it should be merged into a parent article. But if it is a CDP in the US, it should be left as a stand alone article for consistency. Dhaluza 02:20, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the Common outcomes page, I had been looking for something just like that! I guess that it at least helps to clarify but I suppose there is still the issue of subjective definitions - for example, what constitutes the line between a village and just a "named place". For some real-world examples, Wittmann, Arizona is an unincorporated community that is fairly obvious - it has its own post office and I doubt anyone would argue against it being a town/village. One might argue Circle City, Arizona is just a trailer park, as it lacks its own post office or any services, however the department of transportation identifies it with a sign on the highway stating "Circle City". Does this constitute a village/town? Finally there is Nothing, Arizona (which is a bad article to begin with) is claimed to be a "town" by some but in reality appears to be little more than a service station. Is this something best left up to the discretion of the editors, and if someone doesn't believe that it fits the definition of a town and is not otherwise notable, take appropriate action? Arkyan 16:25, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
The reason all human habitations are considered notable is to maintain WP:NPOV. The type of housing is irrelevant. Whether the residents live in mobile homes or huts or caves should not come into play. The issue with the Circle City, Arizona article is a lack of WP:ATT information, not the physical characteristics of the place itself.
Nothing, Arizona is actually a good example of why arbitrary prescriptive guidelines do not work. A little web research turned up lots of information about this town, which is notable for its small size. I was able to find two sources with editorial supervision, so this article would meet even the disputed WP:N guideline. Dhaluza 12:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
You bring up good points there, and I don't disagree with you. Perhaps my bringing up Nothing, Arizona is a bad example as it is notable for other reasons, I was just trying to find an example of a "town" whose designation as such might be questionable.
The more I consider the issue the more I am coming to the conclusion that creating any arbitrary set of inclusion criteria for human settlements is going to be flawed and should probably be left to the judgement of the editors on a case-by-case basis. Thank you for the input! Arkyan 17:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I've been struggling over the problem of which villages & hamlets from the non-Western world should be included in Wikipedia for some time now, in part due to a passionate debate I had about one such place. (I've put off writing this down because I've struggled with a simple & clear way to express these guidelines.) Many villages & hamlets are transient landmarks: due to famine, epidemics, war -- or just because the community thinks its a good idea -- they can change their name, move or vanish. (I know of at least one documented example of this happening in Ethiopia.) As a result, for this category I've been meaning to propose the following guideline for inclusion to Wikipedia. For a village, hamlet (or what in the US might be called an "unincorporated community") to be included, it must be mentioned in at least one of two types of reliable sources:
  • An official publication, like a government census, or an NGO report or publication; and/or
  • An eyewitness report that the place does exist.
This would exclude certain sources of online information (such as failingrain.com), which do not explicitly guarrantee the existence of a place, while allowing sources like travellers' accounts or guidebooks -- which can be reasonably expected not to be making facts up. While this is probably restating Wikipedia:Verification in slightly different words, I honestly can't see how someone could argue a village is notable if no one has been there. (Villages from fiction or legend are an entirely separate issue.) -- llywrch 17:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Naturally, the content must still be WP:V. This is an example of where a single reference might be sufficient. There is a related ongoing debate at the disputed WT:N guideline page over the issue of number and nature of sources needed for an article. Dhaluza 00:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I like your proposed guideline and I think this issue should be taken further because I know in North Carolina, we're having the same problem with keeping/deleting articles about unincorporated communities... the policy isn't consistent and there is no guideline that I can find to help. As far as deserving of articles... how small do we go? I mean, if you look at a map you may see in really small text a community called "Enterprise" and you live in it, but you've never heard of it... it's just a collection of housing developments someone somewhere decided to name. So, as a result, I say that there needs to be at least one source that focuses on the community whether its a newspaper article or county history website... something. I don't trust maps as far as knowing about unincorporated areas... they don't even have road names correct a lot of times. I do not believe that just because you see it on a map makes it automatically exist, so I think that needs to be addressed. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a directory or a travel guide. Also, as far as the USA is concerned, if you can't find the place in the USGS Geographic Names Information System, I doubt that the area has any name of importance. (I have similar conversation going on at WT:NCAR#Unincorporated communities in North Carolina) --Triadian 22:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
One more thing: as far as merging in the United States, where would we merge them into? Should we create articles that encompass many unincorporated areas like Unincorporated communities in Stanly County, North Carolina or merge them into the county article or the township article? --Triadian 22:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I find this a really interesting one. In the United Kingdom, there are many very small hamlets. Despite this, I can usually find a few sources for the ones that I created articles on.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 06:37, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Finding reliable sources for even the tiniest hamlet in the UK is extremely simple. The local council is the obvious starting point, given that the entire territory of the UK is subject to the juridiction of a local authority; somewhere in the Local Plan, for example, there is bound to be a (no matter how short) commentary on the character and town planning considerations relating to the village. To expand the article into more than a permastub, village libraries commonly have a section on 'Local Interest', usually with a variety of books by local historians. For a broader coverage, by now Pevsner's Buildings of England has articles on almost the entire country, for example. DWaterson (talk) 22:52, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AFDs which relate to this proposed guideline

Many editors argued for merging them with the articles for the governmental unit (county, city) in which they are located, expressing sentiments similar to those in this proposed guideline. (noted by Edison 17:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC))

  • LOCAL is a sensible guideline, so I'm not sure why this was changed to "inactive" seeing that so many active editors are actively citing it in good faith. Silensor 01:01, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Because there was actually no consensus to making this a guideline. Only a few editors decided to make this a 'guideline' without outside consultation. --Arnzy (talk • contribs) 02:00, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh really, and exactly who were these "few" editors supposed to consult again? Silensor 08:04, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
[1], and read the first topic up top of this page. --Arnzy (talk · contribs) 12:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
It was a rhetorical question, the point being that this guideline is in such broad useage that no one need consultation, nor is there an official body that approves such guidelines. Wikipedia works by consensus, and I do believe that the consensus amongst those with common sense agreed this was a sound guideline to reduce strife within the community. Silensor 17:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This needs to be reworked in a way so that it can become a notability guideline

Just saying. Any suggestions for improvement?--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 14:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Amen to that. Silensor 05:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)