Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dorp (town)


 * 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 redirect to Town. Barkeep49 (talk) 02:07, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Dorp (town)

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WP:DICTDEF failing WP:GNG. Unreferenced, so potential WP:OR issues. Lack of interwiki suggests this is not a term of administrative or historical significance. My BEFORE failed to locate any in-depth discussion of this term in English, but of course I am open to anyone who wants to rescue this and can find good sources (maybe in Dutch or Afrikaans?). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 15:32, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of South Africa-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  15:32, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Netherlands-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  15:32, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Belgium-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 15:56, 29 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete this is not a dictionary.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:51, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment - Dorp was the name for Richmondtown, New York, prior to 1664. Bearian (talk) 22:11, 3 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but you are looking for English-language sources for a Dutch/South African term? That is not a real WP:BEFORE but more a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Banner  talk 23:29, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Merge with Village. The Banner  talk 09:18, 4 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Redirect I think it is useful for the term to be defined, but that can be done in the disambiguation page Dorp, which I have just edited to do so (in this version (permalink), changed from this previous version which showed a link to "Dorp (town)").  It is common and fine and good for a disambiguation page to start off with a brief definition of a general term, then link to specific instances.  "Dorp (town)" should redirect to the disambiguation page now.
 * User:Bearian is correct about usage of term in Staten Island, though I am not sure exact relationship between Richmondtown, Staten Island vs. New Dorp, Staten Island and "Oude Dorp" (Old Town, Staten Island). The disambiguation page now mentions these (I don't care if they are given as regular entries or should be included in a "See also" section because they are not exact matches for the term. --Doncram (talk) 11:00, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Update: Editor Bkonrad (Older ne Wiser) dropped the definition I had put into the Dorp disambiguation page, and added a Wiktionary link instead. Thanks for that, I like the Wiktionary link, which goes to a definition of "Dorp".  However I think it is unnecessarily harsh to entirely drop the explanation I had put into "Dorp", so I have now partially restored it, so that the immediately current version of Dorp starts off: "Dorp means "village" in Dutch and Afrikaans. It may refer to:".  I dunno, perhaps an edit war is going to go on or something.  I think this short explanation is fine, but I dunno, perhaps Bkonrad is going to delete it again and we can have an edit war going on.  If others support a good resolution of this AFD, please join into the edit war on the side of keeping some definition there! --Doncram (talk) 02:36, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Doncram, thanks for assuming good faith in my editing according to actual guidelines rather than idiosyncratic preferences. Your call to arms in a presumptive edit war is grave cause for concern. older ≠ wiser 03:47, 6 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Merge and redirect to Thorp. older ≠ wiser 11:44, 4 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Umm, the etymology given in the Wikipedia article Thorp states it is from Old Norse, and does not suggest that this is in any way related to the Dutch word "Dorp". The current article does not mention the term "dorp". So, unless some valid connection is established by new information that I am not aware of, redirecting to "Thorp" would be a really bad, false/fake, encyclopedia-undermining kind of thing to do.  Bkonrad (Older /= Wiser), do you actually know something not apparent here that supports your recommendation? --Doncram (talk) 01:55, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * From the article Thorp . older ≠ wiser 01:59, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Hmm, okay, I guess i was a bit wrong, but I am still not happy with the idea of redirecting to Thorp. The mention of "dorp" within the thorp article is unbolded and very tiny, and I think readers arriving there would be poorly served.
 * This is going a bit technical. And IANAL (I Am Not A Linguisticianist).  Apparently a cognate is one thing I don't really understand, but according to Wiktionary, "dorp" and "thorp" are doublets, instead or also or whatever.  According to Wiktionary a doublet is "One of two (or more) words in a language that have the same etymological root, but have come to the modern language through different routes. Doublets can come about e.g. as loanwords from two different but related languages, as loanwords acquired from the same language at two different stages, as one loanword from a related language plus its native cognate, or as derivatives formed at two different stages in the history of a language." (emphasis added)  I have some familiarity with the term "Dorp" from having lived in the Netherlands for a period and perhaps otherwise, while I have no familiarity with the term "thorp", so maybe I am a bit biased.  But it seems to me offhand that a "doublet" is not the same thing, it comes from a different language, and that merging/redirecting is not proper.  If the Thorp article was revised to give the term "Dorp" in bold up front and otherwise made more prominent, perhaps I could be moved, but currently I don't like the idea of redirecting to there.  Also, if there is really a close relationship between the terms, then the disambiguation page Dorp should include more prominent linking to Thorp than listing Thorp (disambiguation) as a second "see also" item. --Doncram (talk) 02:36, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The doublet line of thought is a red herring of sorts. If dorp were fully  borrowed into English, then maybe. But dorp is not an English word. It is a cognate. Regardless, a result of merge and retarget would mean Thorp may need to be edited to appropriately reflect the merge. FWIW, if there is no support to merge and retarget to thorp, then my second choice would be to retarget to Dorp, Netherlands with a hatnote to Dorp (band) . (emended second choice as I forgot this is about the stub at Dorp (town) rather than the disambiguation page. -- the disambiguation page is also rather weak mix of unambiguous partial title matches. older ≠ wiser 03:40, 6 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment. To anyone wishing to merge content, there is still no referenced content to merge. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:03, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * An AfD is not for improvement of the article. The Banner  talk 09:02, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Merge into village. This article should never have been prodded or AfDd. Nevertheless, it was part of a massive prod then AfD spree of articles that typically get kept or merged. All this is unnecessarily straining community resources (time that could have been spent more productively!) and in strong violation of our WP:PRD policy. There is a merge procedure that is "merge to". Please use it to start the appropriate discussions! gidonb (talk) 13:14, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Per WP:V there is nothing to merge. Your dispruptive 'merge OR/unreferenced content' are not helping to improve this project, I am afraid. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  03:30, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Per WP:PRD this article should NEVER have been prodded. PRD says explicitly: "PROD must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected. " Must is a strong word that reflects an important principle. gidonb (talk) 04:42, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Per the recent thread on WT:PROD you are wrong. Please stop badgering other editors who use PROD correctly with your improper views on it. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 05:28, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Seeing how often you use a faulty WP:BEFORE as excuse for PRODding an article, you better tone down a bit, Piotrus. The Banner  <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 16:01, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

<div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Merge or redirect where to?

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   10:38, 8 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep or redirect to Town as preferred WP:ATD. ~Kvng (talk) 14:08, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The word "dorp" isn't particular to towns (or villages) in South Africa. Any small town or village anywhere in the world would be referred to as "dorp" by a Dutch or, I guess, Afrikaans speaker. WP:RFFL applies. Largoplazo (talk) 01:31, 11 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete. WP:DICDEF coupled with WP:RFFL, hence no redirect as an alternative. (The term doesn't refer only to towns in South Africa, it refers to any small town or village in the world, if one is speaking Dutch or Afrikaans.) Largoplazo (talk) 01:33, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep The dorps of South Africa had a distinctive character and I had no difficulty finding sources such as an entire book about them. The generic page of village is not so good because it's a compendium of the various countries of the world and the sections for relevant countries such as the Netherlands and South Africa are stubs with no sources.  We maintain separate pages for the villages of other cultures including barangay, clachan, kampong, muban, pueblo, &c. and this seems sensible for a significant type of settlement. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:35, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Can you provide a quotation from inside the book that is more than a DICTDEF? The fact that a foreign word is used in a title doesn't mean it is notable. I can imagine a book about Polish or French villages using Polish or French word for 'village' in the title, and it wouldn't mean that we need to have a separate article about them.--<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:40, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Question Possibly reconsidering my earlier !vote: Is the word "dorp" used in English by English speakers, and to refer only to a particular sort of town or village in South Africa, where those same speakers would never use the word to refer to places of the same scale elsewhere in the world?? Largoplazo (talk) 21:57, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Excellent question. A finding to this end could show notability of this concept. Such a finding has not been presented here, AFAIK. Please ping me if it is. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:41, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I had been on the verge posting the same argument as you, with the examples that we don't have a redirect from Κουζίνα, the Greek word that means "cuisine", to Greek cuisine, nor one from Kahve, the Turkish word that means "coffee", to Turkish coffee. Before I hit "Publish changes", it occurred to me to check whether even if, for Dutch and Afrikaans speakers, "dorp" just means "village" in general", it didn't have a specialized use among English speakers. Largoplazo (talk) 09:20, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, dorp is used in English. It appears as a full entry in the OED with numerous examples of usage going back to the 16th century. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:32, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Can you provide a quotation? I don't have the OED subscription to access this and I am not seeing any OED or other mirror. There is a bit out there but it's pretty much suggests dorp is a Dutch word for village and it is not used in English outside of a few obscure historical text. I am still not seeing a single source that would suggest that dorps are different from a village. See also wiktionary:dorp. And village on Dutch wikipedia is nl:Dorp. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 11:55, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The most recent example given by OED is from 1954: "Uncle Robert and Aunt Kate..had left Mydorp..to settle themselves in a dorp down the river." Others include:
 * 1934: "The radios of God have always spoken out of dorps like Medina and Nazareth." Attributed to South African poet Roy Campbell&mdash;clearly using the word to refer to two centers of religious devotion in the Middle East.
 * 1650: "Perizzites. By interpretation Villagers, as dwelling in dorps and Hamlets, not walled towns." T. Fuller, Pisgah-Sight of Palestine. From the year and title, clearly not about a village in South Africa.
 * Other quotes from the 19th century and later are clearly from people in South Africa and refer to places in South Africa, but there's no indication that the word is being used to connote anything different about such places, that the same people wouldn't use the same word to refer to a village in Poland or China. Unless the word is used only to refer to a particular kind of place peculiar to South Africa, then, even if there's an appropriate redirect, one leading to Town isn't it. Largoplazo (talk) 16:01, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The dorps of South Africa clearly have a special character as a result of their special history. Most of the modern English language sources seem to focus on this.  Developing this notable aspect would be more sensible and appropriate than deletion.  For comparison, consider the word village.  We don't just have a single page for this but also have numerous other pages for the villages of particular countries and types, including:
 * village (United States)
 * village (Taiwan)
 * villages of Brunei
 * village (New Jersey)
 * urban village
 * bioenergy village
 * ecovillage
 * The idea that everything needs to be compressed and combined into a single page is not our policy (see WP:NOTPAPER) and is not appropriate when there's a distinct and notable topic. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:49, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Your comment under mine seems to have nothing to do with the point that you appear to be responding to. The proposal I'm addressing isn't about whether it makes sense to have either a section or an article on the villages/towns/dorps of South Africa. The proposal I'm addressing was to redirect the title "Dorp (town)" to Town.
 * Therefore, the point is not whether the localities in South Africa that may be called "dorp" or "town" or "village" have a special character. The point is whether the word "dorp", when used in English by English speakers, means only those localities, and no other locality on the planet, in which case a redirect to Town makes sense; or whether it refers just as well to towns in Poland or China or Paraguay or Australia or Mexico, in which case it doesn't make sense to redirect that term to Town, because the term's meaning isn't limited to those special-character localities in South Africa, and redirecting it to Town or Town or Town would be equally valid. Largoplazo (talk) 19:38, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The examples you show (Taiwan, etc.) show that it is a term for administrative division. Those are of course notable. But nobody has suggested that dorps are a level of administrative division in any country. Per nl:dorp and af:dorp, both the Dutch and the South African wikis use the word dorp to mean nothing more and nothing less than a village. What do you want to do with the article on dorp but a fork of a village with a DICTDEF note? You have failed to show what differentiates the usage of the term dorp from the usage of the term village in English, or in fact, in any other language. Dorp just means village in Dutch and Aafrikans and is an old and rare synonym of that word in English, that's it. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:33, 14 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment. I urge people to consider that dorp (town) has no interwiki links to any other wikis, while Dutch and South Afrikans wiki entries for village are called "dorp". There is currently zero evidence that the term is used in any shape or form that is different from a regular DICTDEF of the world village. A proper place for this article is wiktionary, not Wikipedia. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:14, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Redirect to either village or thorp. Andrew Davidson's obvious careless Googling has struck again, as he calls a collection of photographs a "book about" the "distinctive character" of the villages of South Africa -- either he knows this is a lie, or he didn't even bother to read the blurb on the page he himself linked, and I don't know which is worse. Either way, such behaviour shouldn't be rewarded by letting him steamroll an AFD that was filed in good faith and that many editors more familiar with this topic than he is have already weighed in on. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 08:42, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Thorp or Delete -> I think Wikipedia should not transform into a dictionary, indeed. GizzyCatBella  🍁  09:19, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment. As an English speaking South African, I would expect the term, when used in casual conversation by English speaking South Africans, to refer to a rural town or village, somewhere in South Africa. When used by an Afrikaans speaking South African, it would just mean a town or village, anywhere, as opposed to a city. As a suffix in a place name it simply means -town. I don't think a redirect to thorp is particularly appropriate. The words may have the same distant etymology, but probably via different routes. Dorp in SA being derived from Dutch, not old or middle English. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 11:45, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * PS: The content of Town is a good match for my understanding of the usage. I am not a linguist, and have no reliable references to point at, but I would support a redirect to it in preference to village, and while rural South African towns may have their own character, the only special character I would expect to associate with "dorp" is that it was probably (but not necessarily) founded or mostly inhabited by Dutch or Afrikaans speaking people in an originally farming region, and has retained some of that character. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 05:48, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * PPS: I have no strong opinion as to whether the article should be deleted for failing notability, as I have no opinion as to whether notability can be established. The article claims usage beyond the South African context, which is almost certainly valid, but whether this Dutch and Flemish usage is relevant to English Wikipedia is another question. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 06:07, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Town. I'm replacing my !vote above after asking questions that have received at least once answer, from User:Pbsouthwood, and after I finally made my own investigation just now. I Googled, , , , and so on, through Russia, Canada, France, and England. I got a fair number of legitimate hits for South Africa. There was one hit for Namibia (which used to be controlled by South Africa and also has a population of Afrikaners). For the other countries, I got either nothing, or only pages (such as from newspaper archive sites) that were obviously scanned from print material and contained numerous errors. So I'm satisfied (a) that this term is used in English, albeit the English specifically of South Africans, and (b) it's referring specifically to towns of South Africa, whatever it is that may distinguish them. Largoplazo (talk) 10:43, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Did you check for Dorp+Nethelrands usage? If it is not significant I'd be fine with redirect to T#SA as well.--<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:21, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Did you that research, as nominator? The Banner  <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 12:36, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't see any special reason to check the Netherlands because I didn't expect that, in addition to the possibilities that English speakers use "dorp" to refer only to towns in South Africa and that they use it to refer to towns generally, a third possibility was that they use it to refer to towns in any country where Dutch or Afrikaans is the language but not anywhere else. Still, returns one result, from a Pinterest user, and  returned only a couple in which "dorp" was used intentionally for the purpose of using the Dutch word. So, no dice, and I agree with The Banner, if it came to your mind to wonder, why didn't you check it yourself? Largoplazo (talk) 13:27, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I did and my results were likewise not impressive. I just wanted someone else to say clearly that there are no  hits, since me saying this before did not seem to prevent people saying that 'oh, maybe it's notable in that context'. Sigh. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  03:05, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

<div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, xinbenlv  Talk, Remember to "ping" me 02:54, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Redirect Appears to merely be a translation of village and relative of thorp. While every language and country may have their own analogues or connotations for certain words relative to others (e.g. the varying local legal definitions of city, town, village, etc), this is not a distinct enough concept to warrant its own article. Reywas92Talk 03:54, 22 March 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.