Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aerial Acres, California


 * 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 was keep‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. North America1000 12:23, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Aerial Acres, California

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Disputed PROD. Non-notable location with little information found. Satellite image of coordinates does show a cluster of small buildings surrounded by desert, suggesting this may be a populated place; however, without any legal recognition, it fails WP:GEOLAND. All mentions found have been passing, confirming that this is a place, but without further information nothing can be said. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 03:25, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Geography and California. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 03:25, 28 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Newspapers.com brings up a 1977 legal notice mentioning To that portion of the unincorporated area generally known as Aerial Acres .... Another reference to it from 1985 as a development between Mojave and Rosemond. Several passing mentions to things being located there or occurring there refer to Aerial Acres, Edwards or Aerial Acres, North Edwards, suggesting that this development is a locale within or related to Edwards, California or North Edwards, California. The book Gem Trails of Southern California by one James R. Mitchell has this as a "small group of homes and trailers". I'm struggling to find any sort of significant history for this site; the indications I am seeing are of this location as an informal housing development. Hog Farm Talk 03:49, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:GEOLAND and the legal notice above. बिनोद थारू (talk) 04:29, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment: there are 50-60 homes clumped together in some sort of old development. Aerial Acres is now a scruffy-looking place deep in the middle of nowhere. Our article says it's supposedly a "fly-in community" but I see no sign of airplanes or a runway when looking at Google Earth I don't want to hurt any residents' feelings but Aerial Acres is a bleak, unpromising place. Google Street View is even bleaker: desert, dust, dirt roads and occasional yard plantings. There's a high-power rocketry range on the edge of town. The only store is "The Mothership", a second-hand shop; the name makes sense since Aerial Acres looks like the sort of isolated place where alien abductions occur. As for "keep" or "delete", recent AfD decisions for obscure California locations have been inconsistent. !voters have kept places with no historically mapped indication of habitation and deleted other places with 500 residents. -- A. B. (talk • contribs •  global count)  05:43, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * They are only inconsistent when one applies totally wrongheaded and daft (given how the encyclopaedia would turn out if everyone applied them) standards like what your subjective opinion is of what the place looks like in Google Earth. If you keep doing it wrong, you're going to keep being the outlier that thinks that everyone else is being inconsistent, when it's actually simply you that's doing it wrong and being inconsistent with subjective measures, over and over and over.  Hog Farm has the right approach: research, not subjective personal opinions of Google Earth images.  Research would tell you, for starters, that the whole "fly-in" thing is a red herring added by, and that the source that xe cited says no such thing. Uncle G (talk) 10:48, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Old topo maps give additional information; 32 US Geological Survey maps give time slices of this place's physical history over the last 108 years. I would argue that failure to consult these and current satellite imagery is, in fact, "totally wrongheaded and daft", especially when these resources are highly reliable and readily available. As for "my subjective opinion", when I count houses, I'd say that's hardly subjective. Note that I don't say "fly-in" community is a basis for notability -- in fact I used visual evidence and old maps to debunk the assertion. As for "keep" or "delete", I have not cast a !vote -- I've simply presented information. So, @Uncle G, aside from taking potshots at me, what's your take on this place? And why? What are your sources? --  A. B. (talk • contribs •  global count)  19:07, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * A.B., the basic problem is that you're trying to judge this stuff almost entirely off of maps, which just doesn't work. Try Martensdale, California - a notable former community in this county which does not show up on maps. Same with Dubuque, Arkansas, which I wrote awhile back and have struggled to find a map showing the community on it. Meanwhile, a large number of AFDs have held that routine HOA developments/subdivisions/housing tracts without any sort of formal recognition or significant coverage in reliable sources do not warrant a separate article, and those sort of things would appear on maps or when counting houses. Count of houses does not lead to notability - what leads to notability is the history and coverage of the area in RS. Review of maps is often helpful (see Articles for deletion/Intake, Inyo County, California where map review solved a rather odd situation) but we can't just judge notability based on maps or structure counts. It is rather arbitrary to try to judge notability by how much seeming was/is there from a map perspective, and is frankly a form of original research. Hog Farm Talk 20:25, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hog Farm, I don’t know if this place is notable or not. I do think maps, photography and satellite imagery should be part of the mix in evaluating these places. My instincts tell me this place is probably not notable but I want to see what other information turns up here. Looking at old maps, this place grew up with Edwards AFB - it may have been a failed development. There are multiple unbuilt, unused roads. We’ll see. — A. B. (talk • contribs •  global count)  21:20, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * No. Giving us your subjective opinion and then even worse asking us for our subjective opinions too, and not even checking whether "fly-in" is true by simply applying the verifiability policy and seeing that the source said no such thing and that Carlossuarez46 just added that conclusion taken from thin air (which I've seen done in many Carlossuarez46 substubs, alas) are utterly the wrong approach to content.  Uncle G (talk) 05:45, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
 * And you're still getting it wrong. "My take" from looking at Google Earth or aerial photographs isn't how to construct an article.  The only use of looking at maps is to tell us what to look for when the article doesn't even say, or when we know that Carlossuarez46 just pulled things out of a hat when dumping GNIS data, and sometimes to check that a source found is talking about the same place and not another place by the same name. Uncle G (talk) 05:45, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm with Hog Farm, except that a Rand McNally commercial atlas puts this under the umbrella of California City, California, and other things just give this as a prose list of minor residential places that are "rural and low-population density" in the Antelope Valley. Rand McNally says ("RMC Place") that this is simply an entry in the California Rivers and Mountains Conservancy database and points to California City ("incl. with California City (Inc. Place)") for details.  I think that we should follow the Rand McNally lead and redirect to California City, California. Uncle G (talk) 10:48, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * @Uncle G, I’m confused. You criticized me above for using decades worth of USGS topo maps plus satellite imagery with strong language like ”totally wrongheaded and daft”. Now you’re using a Rand McNally atlas? What’s up with that? — A. B. (talk • contribs •  global count)  21:27, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Actually, I'm using its gazetteer, which has Rand McNally's description, in words, which I even quoted outright right in front of your nose there, not a subjective analysis of "scruffy-looking place deep in the middle of nowhere" or "I see no sign of airplanes or a runway". Do you really not understand the difference between your own subjective guesswork and consulting an authoritative source?  Asking me for my subjective guesswork instead of what I read in a source shows that you are still utterly wrongheaded here.  We don't do this.  It's daft.  Think about what would happen if everyone evaluated subjects this way. We don't know what the thing is.  We know from long experience that Carlossuarez46 just made up things, perhaps helpfully intended (in the knowledge that "unincorporated community" is meaningless when you are saying it in hundreds of thousands of data-dump articles) but still outright made up from whole cloth.  So the obvious approach is not to squint at photographs and guess and tell us how something is "bleak" and "scruffy", but to consult a gazetteer.  They tell us what things on maps are. Uncle G (talk) 05:45, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Relisting. The discussion here is very interesting but I see fewer editors have weighed in with an opinion on what should happen with this article. We have two rather weak Keeps, a Delete and a Redirect suggestion. I'm not counting "votes", just stating where consensus stands right now. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 03:26, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
 *  Weak Keep. I'm inclined to keep unless there's a better argument to fold it into something else.  I'm not sure if this lies within the North Edwards, California CDP, but there are definitely references to "Aerial Acres" as its own community.  There was a local newspaper, not online, called the Boron Enterprise, that i see a reference to being the only paper that cared about Aerial Acres and other local communities.  Total aside, i must also give props to A. B., for his color commentary "I don't want to hurt any residents' feelings but Aerial Acres is a bleak, unpromising place....the name makes sense since Aerial Acres looks like the sort of isolated place where alien abductions occur."--Milowent • hasspoken  13:10, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Uncle G, so why is one Rand McNally gazetteer more reliable than decades worth of USGS maps? That's repeated aerial photogrammetry and goundtruthing by an American federal agency. Is all this not from "an authoritative source" as you put it?
 * Is it just because the United States Geological Survey presents data graphically and Rand McNally uses prose?
 * As I wrote previously: "I do think maps, photography and satellite imagery should be part of the mix in evaluating these places.". Each AfD is a puzzle to solve and we all bring different pieces.
 * And as for my language like "scruffy" which you still make such a big deal of, what Milowent already observed as "color commentary", I put that stuff in for fun. A sanctionable violation of some obscure WP:PG?
 * I continue to think this is just a very old subdivision.
 * -- A. B. (talk • contribs •  global count)  15:31, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
 * 3 more comments:
 * I’m not finding much official guidance specifically about using maps as sources. There is WP:GOOGLEMAPS with which I agree. Nothing much from WP:RSN either, at least not for high quality maps (I’m using a mobile device so I may be missing something on WP:RSN).
 * WP:MAPCITE is very good however it is an essay. I think my usage of maps is in line with the essayist’s views on maps.
 * I will note that Google Earth images are reliable however all the labels they associate with the image are very unreliable and should never be used. Perhaps they use GNIS?
 * — A. B. (talk • contribs •  global count)  17:23, 5 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Redirect . Not notable. I am agnostic as to which target to use -- three reasonable possibilities have been presented (Edwards, California, North Edwards, California California City, California) and I'll support what others here decide.
 * Notability (geographic features)#Settlements and administrative regions says one of these can make a populated place notable:
 * "Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low."
 * This is not a legally recognized place.
 * "Populated places without legal recognition are considered on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the GNG. Examples may include subdivisions, business parks, housing developments, informal regions of a state, unofficial neighborhoods, etc. – any of which could be considered notable on a case-by-case basis, given non-trivial coverage by their name in multiple, independent reliable sources."
 * I'm not seeing anything that meets GNG. Not even alien abductions.
 * If something comes up to establish notability, ping me -- I may be traveling this week. -- A. B. (talk • contribs •  global count)  15:50, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Relisting again. After User:Milowent's latest comment, I think Redirection might be a suitable outcome but closures are based on consensus, not the closer's opinion. Milowent, are you still standing by your Keep opinion? Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 03:16, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment:  I made a comment on the "Boron History" page on facebook asking about news coverage of Aerial Acres and got this response:  "Not much is written about Aerial Acres from what I found in old clippings it was known as "Poor Man's Paradise" Aerial Acres was made up of homesteads established somewhere between 1916 to 1918, (this was before North Edwards was developed. It did have a small airstrip at one time. Aerial Acres was part of California City and annexed in the late 1980's/ early 1990's and it went back to Kern County and California City got Wonder Acres."--Milowent • hasspoken  13:47, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * ●Keep-  per WP:GEOLAND 😎😎PaulGamerBoy360😎😎 (talk) 15:35, 12 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes, I am going to stick with my keep !vote. I have found coverage of the community in the archives of The Bakersfield Californian and added some to the article. (ping:Liz and A. B.) --Milowent • hasspoken  14:41, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:GEOLAND. killer  bee    05:13, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep per Milowent. — A. B. (talk • contribs •  global count)  15:23, 12 December 2023 (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.