Talk:List of wedding chapels in Las Vegas

Additions with links to chapel websites

 * Discussion related to comments in Articles for deletion/List of wedding chapels in Las Vegas (2nd nomination)

In a previous revision of this list I removed entries that didn't comply with WP:LISTCOMPANY/WP:LISTORG. Those entries have been added back and some of those entries include links to websites that are selling services which should absolutely not happen. I'm not interested in edit warring but I propose that the entries that don't comply with the aforementioned guideline be removed. Additionally I propose that the entries that are links to sites selling services / products be removed. Philipnelson99 (talk) 05:29, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Philipnelson99, for starting this discussion here. I am the editor who restored many entries that were previously external links, and I also added more entries for other wedding chapels in Las Vegas that I found listed by TripAdvisor or found separately in quick web searching.  Note that all entries in the article are currently separate table rows in one big table.  And I have edited it so that all references are now inline citations, many of which do in fact link to commercial websites but are set up as inline citations (i.e. with "title=", "publisher=", "access-date=" fields, etc., so there's nothing which could be termed "pure external links" in the references.  And there are no "pure external links" in the "Name" column and there is no "External links" section at all currently.
 * I expect we agree partially, at least that pure external links such as Sci-Fi Wedding Chapel do not belong as separate items within an "External links" section at the bottom of the page (in part because that would seem spam-like), and also that table-row items should not include those. If a "Sci-Fi Wedding Chapel" is to be included as a table-row, the first column ("Name") should include a wikilink to a separate article about it, or a redlink suggesting that an article is needed, or simply the unlinked name, e.g. "Sci-Fi Wedding Chapel".  Philipnelson99, besides the possibility that you might not like redlinks or unlinked entries (do let's discuss those in sections below), can you agree with me this far, that you and I both don't want "pure external links" for wedding chapels in this article? --Doncram (talk,contribs) 19:52, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * About using commercial websites as sources, are you meaning to suggest that wikipedia does not allow such? Commercial websites where services are being advertised are often perfectly acceptable sources for information such as what is the town or city that a business is located in, etc., and I am not aware of any policy or guideline that citing them "should absolutely not happen".  WP:LISTCOMPANY (or WP:LISTORG which is the same thing) does not address this point at all; it is about whether a list-article can include a business as an item in its list. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 19:52, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * About whether any commercial wedding chapels can be included in this list-article, well, the point is this is a list consisting of such things! WP:LISTCOMPANY states: "A company or organization may be included in a list of companies or organizations whether or not it meets the Wikipedia notability requirement, unless a given list specifically requires this."  I suggest that what items are to be included in this list be discussed in next discussion section which I have just opened, while we limit this one to addressing whether and how commercial websites can be linked.  Note, it is up to editors participating at a Talk page to determine what items can be included in a list-article.  But, there is no way that editors here will agree that the list should not include any commercial wedding chapels, don't you agree? --Doncram (talk,contribs) 19:52, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I do not agree. From WP:LISTCOMPANY: "If the company or organization does not have an existing article in Wikipedia, a citation to an independent, reliable source should be provided to establish its membership in the list's group."
 * Entries that link to a site that they are associated fail this criteria and are often blatant advertisments. These entries do not warrant inclusion on this list. Philipnelson99 (talk) 16:30, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Which chapels to include

 * Discussion started to follow up from Articles for deletion/List of wedding chapels in Las Vegas (2nd nomination)

Note this list-article currently starts with "This is a List of free-standing wedding chapels located in the Las Vegas Valley." What should be said, if different, and which chapels should be included?

About geographical locations

 * In my opinion, it is definitely best to include chapels in the Las Vegas Valley, a continuous area including part or all of Paradise, Nevada as well as the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. Although the title of article should include simply "Las Vegas" meaning it broadly, not "Las Vegas Valley" because that is not a widely-understood term. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 19:52, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

About standalone or not

 * In my opinion, I do think that regular churches which occasionally have weddings, but which are not commercial in nature, should not be included. Restricting membership here to "standalone wedding chapels" only would seem to eliminate those.  However, what to do about commercial wedding chapels such as the Sci-Fi Wedding Chapel, which is a commercial, cheesy thing like other wedding chapels in Las Vegas, but which is located within Bally's Casino complex?  It seems to me that this should be included, although it is not "standalone". --Doncram (talk,contribs) 19:52, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

About redlinks or not

 * Many list-articles such as the huge system of lists of the 90,000 plus National Register of Historic Places in the U.S. include redlink items, suggesting that an article is wanted/needed. Usual practice in list-articles is to include a redlink item where editors agree that an article is wanted/needed, and where there are supporting inline citations establishing that the item is the type of thing that should be included in the list and also that it appears to be Wikipedia-notable as a standalone article topic.  In this case, I think that redlinks should be allowed on that basis. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 20:04, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

About unlinked items or not

 * I think these should be allowed, partly for completeness' sake, i.e. so that we are not selectively endorsing, in effect, just some of the wedding chapels in Las Vegas. And partly to head off creation of separate articles about marginal places, which can be covered well enough merely as list-items here. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 20:04, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Only notable items should be included
To avoid becoming a directory, and to actually provide an encyclopedic overview per WP:LISTCRIT (i.e., criteria for inclusion should factor in encyclopedic and topical relevance, not just verifiable existence), each entry needs significant coverage. Simply existing and adding a link to their website is not enough. Why? I Ask (talk) 04:56, 8 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for actually posting here. I was just here to post and invite you.  Your repeated edits removing items and sources, in response to my arriving and beginning editing, is not entirely helpful.  Starting with something small, sources from actual businesses are valid to establish existence and locations of businesses.  If you want to dispute that, I suppose that a proper process is to go to the noticeboard on reliable sources, but I would hope we could work it out here.  It was repeated in the AFD, perhaps sometimes by you, that TripAdvisor and business place sources are not reliable for establishing notability of the topic of "List of wedding chapels in Las Vegas", but that is besides the point.  Do you seriously dispute that a business's webpage cannot provide an address?  --Doncram (talk,contribs) 05:54, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, they can provide an address and basic information about themselves. They cannot be used to establish notability nor should we ever list the price points for their packages. That latter is the very anti-thesis of WP:NOTDIRECTORY where it is specifically forbidden. Self-published reviews from Tripadvisor should also never be used for anything on the site (for example, read Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 322 where it has already been discussed and deprecated). I also question why you continue to add non-notable wedding venues. If you have professional reviews in the news or books about them, I would love for them to be added.
 * Pinging @Philipnelson99 for their thoughts. (I have no clue if they have the page watchlisted, but they commented earlier in this talk.) Why? I Ask (talk) 06:28, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Why? I Ask thanks for the ping. @Doncram I am surprised that you continue to add content that is inappropriate to this article. It reads like an advertisement and there's not really any way to dispute that. This list, or any list on wikipedia, is not supposed to serve as a directory for people interested in purchasing a service. Please stop adding non-notable wedding venues, if you do have wedding venues with multiple professional reviews from magazines or books, then they can likely be added but only in a way that indicates notability and doesn't read like advertising.
 * @Why? I Ask has provided justification for not including Tripadvisor as a source on this page and I agree with them! Additionally, linking to a chapel's website causes the spam problem to persist. Extending your logic, if any chapel has a website, they could be included in this list? Surely this is not a good strategy for establishing notability and in fact that's exactly why WP:LISTCOMPANY exists.
 * I hope that you'll revert your edits, if not I'll do it myself later today, but as a gesture of goodwill, I'll wait for you to do that. Philipnelson99 (talk) 12:15, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Why? I Ask I cleaned up the page, feel free to change anything back that you think needed to stay. Philipnelson99 (talk) 02:17, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

In these edits you two have stripped down the article to be pretty crummy, IMHO. I don't think that brutal reduction, without consensus here on this Talk page, is justified. There is room for discussion, I have already granted numerous times in the AFD, about how the list-article should present the wedding chapels that do not have separate Wikipedia articles.

In particular, the previous version's linked mapping of the locations of numerous wedding chapels had merit, which you two have not acknowledged in the least. That could be retained by some approach giving lesser salience to the "lesser" wedding chapels which were included. Of course, I suppose, your edits entirely remove the template:GeoGroup, because, I suppose, you're just being obtuse? Or just bullying, or what, I don't know how to express it politely and politically correctly.

The proper thing now, per wp:BRD, is to Restore the list-article and to Discuss. Yes, I have views about this different than yours, but I think I am not obtuse and my views deserve serious consideration before a "consensus" is determined. And there is room for compromise which includes some interesting discussion of the phenomenon and its scope. Or, are you intending only to get your way by edit warring? --Doncram (talk,contribs) 08:57, 9 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure Dream Focus also removed the non-notable entries judging by the page history. That's three editors against one; that looks more like decent consensus to me. Either way, I don't mind if you include a wedding venue that doesn't have a page as long as it is reliably sourced and has some notion of notability (even if that notability may not be able to support a full page). Since you haven't done that, I will be reverting back per WP:BURDEN. I don't mind the Template:GeoGroup, either. Why? I Ask (talk) 11:52, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

How many
How many wedding chapels exist, or have existed, is relevant, but what can be accurately stated? Included in all recent versions of the list-article (edit-warring or not) conveys a claim of there being 50+, which I currently think is dubious.

"According to a travel magazine source in 2023, these chapels have "iconic appeal" and there are about 50 on or near the Las Vegas strip alone. "

The statement as written is accurate, that this Conde Nast Traveller article says what it says. I put that in originally, and I think it's the only mention of "how many" I have seen. But the claim of 50+ shouldn't stay in, if it is actually inflated and wrong. My effort towards actually identifying all actual wedding chapels and putting in addresses and coordinates, etc., revealed to me that many sources are confusing and are in fact giving multiple alternative names (which could have given Shannon McMahon an inflated perception, and it is just a fluff piece anyhow). It has been seeming to me that there are only 20 or 30 or so, and figuring it out is part of the contribution of a decent Wikipedia list-article.

The scope of the industry can also be conveyed by the government statistics that there are around 80,000 marriage licenses, and slightly fewer marriages, per year. Which I added to the article recently, but some have seen fit to remove, I don't know why. Anyhow, how many? --Doncram (talk,contribs) 10:19, 9 March 2023 (UTC)


 * It has been seeming to me that there are only 20 or 30 or so... Remember no WP:OR and that we say things based on Verifiability, not truth. Why? I Ask (talk) 11:56, 9 March 2023 (UTC)


 * No offense intended, but that is not helpful. I didn't say I intended to put into the article that "there are X number of wedding chapels".  And, I think it is obvious we should not report information we know, or strongly believe, is false, i.e. we should not parrot inaccurate information just because it has been published.  And, a blog-like fluff piece in Condé Nast Traveller should not regarded as a reliable source for the number of wedding chapels in Las Vegas.  Or, are you not simply not selective about your use of sources, with respect to the information asserted from them? --Doncram (talk,contribs) 12:14, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Doncram please stop. Neither I nor @Why? I Ask are here to be disruptive or destructive. We're just trying to make sure the lists follows the existing policies. Accusing us of edit warring or bad faith isn't helping you. Plenty of editors at the AfD agreed only notable chapels should be included. You haven't provided anything other than unreliable sources or non-independent links for the entries you care so much about. There has been plenty of discussion and throwing around WP:BRD is not an argument. If it happens again, I'm inclined to seek dispute resolution somewhere. Philipnelson99 (talk) 12:19, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Umm, Philipnelson99, your comment is entirely off-base in a discussion section about a specific source. Do you want to strike it here, and post whatever you want to assert about disruption and destructiveness or whatever, in a different section (and I will respond).  You didn't read what is written in this discussion section, it appears, as I rather assume you don't really want to take up a cudgel for use of a pretty obviously bad source.  Please don't be knee-jerky, please do honestly discuss things on this Talk page.  --Doncram (talk,contribs) 12:23, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not being knee-jerky:
 * "Or, are you not simply not selective about your use of sources, with respect to the information asserted from them?"
 * I'll point out that Condé Nast Traveller is a well respected travel magazine, unlike TripAdvisor it does not generate user content and has an editing process. I'm very tired of throwing around accusations of bad faith editing and destructive editing at editors who mean well. And that's why I said that earlier, I'm not going to remove it. Philipnelson99 (talk) 12:41, 9 March 2023 (UTC)