Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Birlik, Kazakhstan


 * 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. No arguments for deletion aside from the nominator. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:19, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Birlik, Kazakhstan

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Fails WP:NRVE. There is no verifiable objective evidence that the subject has "received significant attention to support a claim of notability." Claritas (talk) 18:03, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you a Kazakh speaker? Do you read Cyrillic script?  Were you able to confirm while doing a search of this topic name in Kazakh, Бiрлiк, that none of these 1.1 million hits contain significant coverage?--Oakshade (talk) 05:17, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Speedy closure per Articles for deletion/Abay, Almaty just days ago. It was decided that all of these met guidelines but needed improving/sourcing. Extremely pathetic that it is the same nominator who obviously loves to waste his life when he was told during the last nomination that we don't delete articles on populated settlements. Dr. Blofeld      White cat 18:12, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If you do indeed close this debate, I will make a report on Administrators'_noticeboard. I've realised since that debate that there is no policy on "inherent" notability of settlements, and that it should be decided on a case by case basis, which I'm doing now. You're welcome to contribute to the discussion, but you just make yourself look unpleasant by insulting me. Claritas (talk) 18:30, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

No, it is just pointless when we all have work to do Claritas and this doesn't stand a snowball in hells chance of being deleted. Zoom in here, the terrain and landscape would look very similar to this.. Its not even as if it is a tiny hamlet in the middle of nowhere. Its a small industrial town with factories and is attracting an Indian firm to produce beer. When are you going to get into your head that verifiable places are notable? Very disappointed in you Claritas that you didn't learn last time. Dr. Blofeld       White cat 18:32, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I find it even more pathetic when someone goes through the alphabet to create stubs like this one, which essentially has nothing to say about Birlik.  Interestingly enough, there seem to be lots of places in Kazakhstan with that name, according to FallingRain.com.   However, our policy says that population centers, for lack of a better word, are inherently notable, so I must give a Reluctant Keep.   I favor the policy in that it allows any Wikipedia contributor, no matter where in the world they may hail from, to write about a city or village in which they live or have lived, so that we may learn whatever they wish to tell us about the geography, history and culture of their corner of the world, without fear of deletion because a place isn't "notable enough".  There is no value in an article that says little more than "______ is a town in ________".   Mandsford 18:54, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Not as pathetic as somebody who thinks wikipedia is a monotonous almanac for reeling off college football results from 100 years ago like 1912 college football season....  Dr. Blofeld       White cat 19:10, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Mandsford, there is no policy which says that population centres are inherently notable, and there never has been. Claritas (talk) 18:59, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You make a good point, Claritas. Notability (geography) is what is usually referred to, although it is essentially an essay that describes the common outcome in debates, rather than a notability guideline.  So, I'll strike through the nonsense about "our policy says".  I'd note that common outcome is usually followed, for better or for worse, and deletions are (generally) limited to a place turning out to not actually being considered its own town, village, etc.  I appreciate that you've nominated the article, regardless of how the debate turns out, because we should always be ready to discuss whether the status quo should be changed.  Common outcome, of course, is shaped by what people say in the deletion debates, and the outcomes have changed over the years.  Overall, I like the idea that someone from, say, a little village in Nigeria can tell us more about the place, without having to wade through the shallow pool of notability to defend it, and I hope that that continues.  In this case, to have a different view based on the circumstances of the article's creation would be, for me WP:IDONTLIKEIT, though it's true, I don't like it.   Mandsford 20:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If the individual from the little village in Nigeria added content, it would most likely breach WP:OR. Sorry to be pedantic. Claritas (talk) 20:14, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah that's true. Check out the editing history of Sangla Hill and other Pakistani towns and villages for proof of that. Things often degrade!! When a proficient editor from a country though gets on the case this is much better, such as a few Albanian wikipedians dramatically improving content of late.. Dr. Blofeld       White cat 20:23, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Basically, all you're [Blofeld] saying is it exists, and it's existence can be verified. That's not a great argument for notability. Can we please be civil about this ? I haven't really wasted more than about half an hour of my time on this - I might want to suggest per WP:100K that it would be better if editors spent more time improving existing articles as opposed to creating stubs on non-notable or borderline-notable topics. Claritas (talk) 18:38, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

You know nothing Claritas. Try reading User:Dr. Blofeld/DYK and consider that actually people are doing their best to improve what they can with the time they have on here, but wikipedia is a collaborative effort. Tengboche a much small village than Birlik was expanded fully the other day. That doesn't mean it is a settlement way more notable but it happens to be well covered because it is a stopping point for treks. Birlik being in Kazakhstan unfortuantely lacks the web sources in abundance which can be used to do the same., over time I expect this to change it is gradually changing in some parts of Arica as info being available on the Internet. Dr. Blofeld      White cat 18:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Much of your work on Wikipedia has been excellent, and I commend you for it. However, if there are no sources available to establish notability, the article should be deleted. Tengboche is a completely different matter, because it contains the Tengboche Monastery, and there is significant coverage in reliable sources on it. And stop insulting me, it's rude. It's pretty clear I know Wikipedia policy well enough. Claritas (talk) 18:56, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

How do you know that Birlik is not mentioned in many reports and documents within Kazakhstan? Have you been to Almaty and researched the information and looked through Kazakh government papers and engineering projects and not found anything on Birlik which undoubtedly exists but hasn't been put onto the internet yet? Might you not be fully understanding the differences in development in different parts of the world and that a town of several thousand in central Asia or Africa might have very few sources available online but a British village of 100 people might have several thousand? You have a very biased way of looking at the world. "Significant coverage" in your view implies that it must have many sources in English. Well, Kazakhstan is off the Anglo radar in terms of "significant coverage". In fact many cities in Kazakhsstan like Taldykorgan have very little coverage either in what we would consider solid english publications and has 118,000. Dr. Blofeld      White cat 19:02, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. Blofeld, if you're sceptical of my ability as a constructive editor, look at my contributions or what I've done recently to William H. Prescott. Claritas (talk) 19:00, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Prove it. You can't keep an article because you speculate that there might be sources somewhere. If nothing significant turns up on the internet at all, it's unlikely that there are non-trivial mentions even in Kazakhstani sources. There's no sense of "fairness" here - we include notable topics, which have received significant coverage in third party reliable sources. Claritas (talk) 19:07, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment - I searched for sources in Russian as well. Claritas (talk) 19:13, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose per, as cliché as it sounds, common outcomes. If I were in Kazakhstan, I'd visit a local museum and a library and dig a book or two about the local history of the district, which would undoubtedly have a page or two about Birlik as well.  Such books were printed in in every corner of the former USSR, albeit in limited quantities.  Understandingly, it is not very easy for Western editors to lay hands on them.  So, why jump to uneducated conclusions when no attempt was even made to contact someone who might have access to such information?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 19, 2010; 20:51 (UTC)
 * Keep per 1) the google maps view shows it is a town of some size - surely there are newspapers and such discussing this place, somewhere; and 2) google searching turns up a huge number of potential sources in kazakh (not google-translatable, sadly) and russian. Try searches for  (almaty.kz is the provincial website - 841 hits),   (with russian name of province - 12,400 hits), or   (with kazakh name of province - 376 hits). It seems that somewhere among these thousands of hits, there must be good info. I don't speak russian or kazakh so I can't comment, but unless someone is willing to do a thorough search I think we should give the article the benefit of the doubt. Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:04, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Those results also only consider the Russian spelling of the town name. A search for Бiрлiк (the Kazakh name) as well will turn up even more. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep per Calliopejen's rationale. I can't speak Russian or Kazakh, either, so I'm of scant help, but I'm sure it can be expanded. -- Ser Amantio di Nicolao Che dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 02:55, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per Calliopejen1. The town definitely exists, and there are surely some sources out there about it.  This nom smells of policy wonkery. -- Lord  Pistachio  talk 06:35, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - WP:ITEXISTS is not a valid reason to keep an article. Furthermore, the burden to find evidence is on those who add or propose to keep content - if no-one here can find sources, then it should be deleted. If there's no objective evidence of significant coverage, the article should be deleted. Claritas (talk) 06:43, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I realize there is no written policy that says populated places are inherently notable, but it is the generally accepted practice to treat them as such. Wikipedia policy is determined by practice, not the other way around. -- Lord  Pistachio  talk 06:55, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It's also the generally accepted practise to delete articles which fail WP:N. I don't really understand this. Claritas (talk) 07:02, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * What I meant is this: While you are correct a strict application of WP:N would result in this article being deleted, that would also represent of reversal of a long-established practice of treating cities and towns as notable, and I don't think there is consensus for such a reversal. I was referring to WP:BURO. -- Lord Pistachio  talk 07:18, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think this could be kept even under WP:N. My searches have shown that there is almost surely significant coverage out there. Yes, it's possible that all 20,000 or whatever sources are trivial or irrelevant, but that's highly unlikely. If similar searches on an American town came up with this many hits, constructing an article would be a piece of cake. (And if there's this much info online, think about how much there is offline!) We just need a motivated native speaker to make sense of all the potential sources. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Kazakhstan-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 22:57, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep There's a very strong consensus that all such towns are notable, policy or not; there's tons of these AfDs that closed as Keep for towns worldwide, but try finding an AfD of one of these that closed as Delete. Besides, there's already several sources to support the notability of this place, especially for a settlement in a country like Kazakhstan where online resources are hard to come by. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 23:59, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Dr. Blofeld has done an excellent job of adding sourced content to the article, so I hope this will close soon as a WP:SNOW. Mandsford 00:50, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - I've never seen seen a town of this size in an English speaking country go up for AfD. However occasionally somebody puts foreign towns in a country with a language that doesn't have a strong internet presence, therefore much harder to find sources on the net for.  I'm a pretty good researcher, but right now I wouldnt' even know where to look for sources on this town in Kazakh.  Is this a case of systemic bias?--Oakshade (talk) 02:52, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It isn't. Before you start suggesting bias in the nomination, it's not a bad idea to look at the state of the article at the time that it was nominated  rather than how it looks after information has been added, including information about such things as population.   It's easy, afterwards, to say "why would anybody try to delete an article about a town of this size?" but it's kind of like walking past a freshly painted wall and wondering why anyone thought it needed painting.  Regarding the bias card, I've seen the same concerns raised about articles regarding locations in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.    The concern over whether an article about a place is entitled to inherent notability usually turns upon whether it's been established as a populated place of its own, rather than as a part of another municipality.  Mandsford 13:02, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * But the purpose of AFD is not to clean up bad articles. To be deleted, a nominator must show that the subject isn't notable, not that the current article isn't up to our standards.  Maybe occasionally there's truly a case where someone comes up with a source that shows notability when the nominator could have reasonably thought that no such source existed.  In this case, it's self evident that sources sufficient to establish notability are going to exist (a town this size not having reliable, independent coverage isn't going to happen). Buddy431 (talk) 21:37, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't understand it... You were saying the other day settlements like this are not notable but you started Mulla, Afghanistan! Dr. Blofeld       White cat 12:18, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I've got observations on that subject too. Everyone has their opinions about how Articles for Deletion "ought to" work, and-- luckily-- nobody pays attention to those opinions, they just particpate.  No doubt it was written somewhere that "AfD is not for cleanup" and the collective response has been "Yeah, whatever, but here we are, we'll talk about it anyway", and things actually get accomplished here.  Likewise, I'm sure that someone has written a beautiful essay about whose burden of proof it is to establish notability, but the reality is that a deletion comes down to whether the nominator has persuaded others that the article should be deleted.  In many cases, however, people who might have initially agreed with the nominator (sometimes even the original nominator) turn from opposing the article to supporting the changes to the article.  In this case, I have a great deal of respect for how  Dr. Blofeld handled this, and this is why-- the article would probably have been kept, based on the common outcome for places, but he made it a better article anyway.  Mandsford 17:06, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Interestingly I came across Novoalekseyevka. It was started by a young lad living in Almaty. He obviously knows of the place and thought it was notable...He probably lacks good english though to write a fuller article.  Dr. Blofeld       White cat 13:04, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep By long-standing consensus, real places are inherently notable. Article is well sourced and more sources clealry exits. Edward321 (talk) 16:01, 23 May 2010 (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.