Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Central German Metropolitan Region


 * 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. I could also justify this on numbers but there's more than that. In particular, I found Takeaway's argument, which was based on NGEO, a bit stronger in view of the signficant deference we give to geographic places not only in WP:NGEO, but also based on the the mention of "gazetteer' in our Five Pillars. While the Pillars' formal status might appear to be that of an essay, their actual support extends beyond the usual meaning of "essay", our measured consensus describes them as something else, not an essay, guideline nor policy.  --j⚛e  deckertalk 04:10, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Central German Metropolitan Region

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Fails WP:N, the policy of notability. The region is neither an administrative unit, nor a useful geographical description. There is no well-defined metropolitan area and there seems to be some confusion about which cities are in it and which are not. There is a website http://www.region-mitteldeutschland.com/en/member-cities/ which seems to be a marketing page, presumably sponsored by the participating cities, who get to decide which cities are in it and which not. The website says there are 11 cities and includes Dresden whereas this page says there are 7 and excludes Dresden (yet includes a picture of Dresden). A search in Google Books returns two results. I am aware this page was originally Saxon Triangle so I checked for that on Google Books - that returned 30+ results but most of them referred to a Saxon Triangle in Romania or the Anglo-Saxon Triangle. At least the Saxon Triangle, even if it wasn't a metropolitan area, was a well-defined area as Leipzig-Dresden-Chemnitz whereas the CGMR seems to be remarkably ill-defined - check out the differences between the maps on this page and its German equivalent. If there was a page about Leipzig Larger Urban Zone, then I would be in favour of a merge as that is what this page seems to be describing, but in the absence of such a page I would suggest deletion instead of ill-informed un-encyclopedic content. Mtmoore321 (talk) 17:16, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. &mdash;  Ascii002 Talk Contribs GuestBook 00:26, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Chandler321 (talk) 15:32, 15 September 2014 (UTC) 
 * Keep and improve Reading the nominator's rationale, it is fairly clear that their WP:BEFORE did not include reading the German Wikipedia article or looking for German sources - a distinct omission when considering a German topic. My German is fairly rudimentary, but even so I can understand the Geschichte (History) section of the German article well enough to understand that the nominator's complaints about contradictions and the topic not being well-defined instead represent a situation where a nationally-supported regional development initiative has partly collapsed, with four of the eleven participating cities pulling out and the remaining seven recently relaunching it in a slightly different form - and the article here has only been roughly and incompletely updated. I would, in fact, strongly recommend, at least as a temporary expedient, the insertion in the article here of a translation of the History section of the German Wikipedia article (complete with references) - unfortunately, an attempt to do so myself quickly convinced me that the task is beyond my linguistic abilities. However, what I hope I can do is to replace the current out of date map here with the currently accurate one in the German article. So far as sources go, searching under the German name for the region - - produces far more sources that the two GBooks found in the nominator's search, some of which certainly seem reliable, to the extent that my German allows me to judge them. PWilkinson (talk) 13:29, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I did read the German article and it illustrates why the Central German Metropolitan Region is a nonsense. The Ruhr is a metropolitan region, it's an agglomeration of urban areas that make a geographical feature. See Metropolitan_area. Duisburg cannot decide not to be in the Ruhr anymore than Potsdam can pull out of the Berlin metropolitan region. A metropolitan region made up of cities that flit in and out like butterflies is not a metropolitan region. I also checked out some of the German results for the Metropolregion Mitteldeutschland - there were some books published by Metropolregion Mitteldeutschland and some references from Universities in e.g. Halle which also happens to be in the same region. So this loose affiliation of regional towns and cities that is not really a metropolitan region is of local interest only and thereby fails notability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(local_interests)/failed I also think it should be deleted in the German Wikipedia but the bar for notability is lower there and every little Rundling of ten houses gets its own Wikipedia page so I know I'd be wasting my time.Mtmoore321 (talk) 20:29, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete Munich metropolitan region has a better case to be called a metropolitan region but it also lacks notability and the page was deleted - see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Munich_Metropolitan_Region&action=edit&redlink=1
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 12:27, 19 September 2014 (UTC)




 * Keep - this region is an officially recognized region, see de:Metropolregion. OK, it's not very successful or popular, compared to other regions. But that's irrelevant - it's mentioned in news (see here [] for a lengthy German article about its problems) and official documents and is certainly notable enough. GermanJoe (talk) 08:22, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * That newspaper article is from a Leipzig newspaper therefore it fails by WP:LOCAL. Most of the books I found about the so-called Metropolregion are either published by the self-styled Metropolregion or else of local interest only. As I understand it, some government department came up with a list of metropolitan regions in 2006, but even the government website doesn't have any mention of the Metropolregion Mitteldeutschland since 2010 http://www.bbr.bund.de/BBR/DE/BBR/Anschriften/anschriften_node.html Mtmoore321 (talk) 23:17, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 15:15, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep I've edited the page. I still don't think it's notable but at least now it's a bit more accurate. Mtmoore321 (talk) 17:12, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Weak keep - During the "Conference of Ministers for Spatial Planning" in 1997, this region seems to have been designated as a "European metropolitan area" which apparently is not a governmental entity but a regional cooperation between the constituent parts for spatial management and economic development, legally organised as a Eingetragener Verein (which any neighbourhood brass band probably would also be) constituting of the local governments involved. So it's "officially" recognised and endorsed by the German government but not a governmental subdivision. - Takeaway (talk) 17:17, 4 October 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.