Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Backstones


 * 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   delete. I always loved Julian Cope...but....his music more than his writing. :-) Thanks everyone for their comments and thoughts, and please assume good faith with each other and with this closure. SarahStierch (talk) 00:14, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Backstones

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Article created by a sock puppet, sources all fail WP:RS as self-published, even they aren't certain about this. Can't find any reliable sources. If nothing else this is clearly not notable enough for its own article. Dougweller (talk) 09:43, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 11:32, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Architecture-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 11:32, 25 March 2014 (UTC)


 * delete The only definite hits are aficionado sites whose testimony is contradictory and plainly based on a lot of supposition. The only book reference mentioned positively does not call any site by this name. The coordinates in the article match none of those given by external sites, nor do any of them agree with each other. One of the on-line sources suggests that the site may be a fake. I'm not inclined to endorse even the possible existence of this site by giving it an article, not without something scholarly. Mangoe (talk) 12:12, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete. This page was created by a sock-puppet of a blocked user who created a whole bunch of UK archaeology stubs in April 2013. Many of his contributions were subsequently deleted. I tried my best to clean-up (or move/merge/redirect) the remainder of his stubs (some of which were notable sites) but this one stumped me. The source originally used was a book by the neo-pagan "antiquarian" Julian Cope. I could find no proper archaeological sources, so I agree it should be deleted. Pasicles (talk) 14:30, 25 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment. As stated on the talk page, the fan sites refer to a 19th-century report on an almost obscured stone circle near Backstone Beck. I can't find this online, including in JSTOR, but it is cited in at least two books on the archaeology of the area; can anyone check it? Collyer, R. and Turner, J.H., "Letter upon some early remains discovered in Yorkshire", Archaeologia 31 (1885). Yngvadottir (talk) 15:59, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment. Okay I've taken a look. There is in fact an 1846 "Letter upon upon some early remains discovered in Yorkshire" by J. M. N. Colls, and an 1885 book "Ilkley: ancient and modern" by R. Collyer and J. H. Turner.


 * The 1846 letter vaguely talks about "numerous vestiges of earth-works" which "intersect Baildon Common" and at one point mentions "circles of stones" but says nothing else about them.


 * The relevant page in the 1885 book seems to be page 18, where the authors discuss prehistoric Ilkley, which the authors seem to think might have been called "Llecan" in pre-Roman days. They state that "there was still a rude circle of rocks on the reach behind the old White Wells fifty years ago, tumbled into such confusion that you had to look once, and again before you saw what lay under your eyes; the stones were very large, and there was no trace of lime about them, and this may have been a rude outpost of the tribe for the defence of the great living spring, perhaps, also of Llecan, lying far below. Be that as it may, here was the very choicest spot on the river for such a stronghold as the Brigantes would build."


 * The "White Wells" is an old spa about 1km to the northwest. But it is not clear that the writers are referring to these "Backstones" (there are several other stone circles and cairns on Ilkley Moor.) Without any archaeological investigation, even just a field survey, it seems hard to justify this page being on Wikipedia. Pasicles (talk) 18:58, 25 March 2014 (UTC)


 * If you really want to know, you can get a copy of the letter direct from Cambridge for $30. Personally I do not think that a letter/article in an 1846 journal and a vague statement in an 1885 book are enough to go on; as Pasicles says, there are consistent problems throughout as to whether anyone beyond the fan sites is talking about the same thing. Mangoe (talk) 19:04, 25 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Weak keep (at most) -- The photo on the linked ref clearly shows an archaeological site of some kind. The question is what, which is debateable.  My larger question is whether WP should have an article on every site that may be in the Local Historical Environment Record, particularly when it is unclear what it is.  Peterkingiron (talk) 17:47, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The photograph on the one site plainly shows a couple of dry-laid walls among the individual stones, and comparison with aerial views suggests a more accurate location but also shows that the two walls encompass most if not all of the site. I cannot see even hinting that this might be a megalithic site without some qualified authority to endorse that view. As it is, the same site recounts some local knowledge claiming that it is nothing of the kind. Mangoe (talk) 19:07, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The question is really whether we should have an article on a site whose nature is so unclear. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:06, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
 * AFAIK this site is not listed in any official archaeological record. The two primary databases, Pastscape and The National Heritage List, have nothing on this "stone circle", but they have entries for the other stone circles, cairns, rubble walls, and standing stones in the area. There is a history of sites being messed around with on Ilkley Moor (read the pages on the Twelve Apostles and the Grubstones). I doubt we can justify having a page on a stone circle which might just be a few large boulders someone has moved around. Pasicles (talk) 19:13, 29 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete. Gotta love sock puppets. Oh hang on, I meant shoot them. Szzuk (talk) 20:50, 31 March 2014 (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.