User:Cornellier/sandbox/Wikipedia:Reliability of NRC data

Wikipedia has hundreds of "populated place" stubs which were mass-created from the Canadian government's Geographical Names data. Unfortunately, many are labelled as "communities" as a locale or another more accurate category.

Propagation of errors
Errors quickly propagate to other online sources. Obscure and uninhabited places show up in Google searches as Facebook pages, FedEx locations, Tripadvisor information, etc. Although this type of coverage is sometimes presented as evidence of notability, they don't meet our "significant coverage" requirement since they're simply copied from another source by an automated program. Wikipedia also forms a link in this chain of errors: When we describe a place as an "unincorporated community", a label that is often completely unsourced, Google Maps copies it as a description of the place.

Official standards
Although GNIS provides the official name of a place, the "Generic Term" labels do not carry the same official standing. Our research and editorial discretion is what distinguishes Wikipedia from machine-generated gazeteers such as Hometown Locator.

The mere presence in a name database does not qualify an article for notability per WP:GEOLAND. Wikipedia doesn't have a specific definition of what qualifies as a "legally recognized populated place", but repeated discussions have concluded that simply being listed in a government database or appearing on a map does not meet the requirement.