Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Downtown Hartford


 * 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   speedy keep and speedy close - clearly notable by long-standing consensus per WP:SNOW; "unfinished" is not a reason for deletion. Bearian (talk) 00:04, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Downtown Hartford
AfDs for this article: 
 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Article lacks assertion of notability and any substantial sources. It appears that the creator of the article intended to construct an article based on patching together information on 8 historic districts in Hartford, but has not completed that thought and is not likely to do so. The historic districts are wikipedia-notable and can and will be covered in separate articles; they do not need this as a vehicle to cover them. It is not established that "Downtown Hartford" has any legal or other specific meaning or is in actual common usage, much less that the phrase has more common usage than other possible constructions such as "Central Hartford" or "Central Business District/Downtown" as it is referred to in Neighborhoods of Hartford, Connecticut. Google search turns up hits on the phrase "Downtown Hartford" of course, but those that i reviewed speak of a "downtown area of Hartford" and otherwise do not establish that "Downtown Hartford" has important meaning and definition on its own. I would suggest merger to Hartford, Connecticut article but see no useful content to merge. Per the essay wp:LOCAL: "If some source material is available, but is insufficient for a comprehensive article, it is better to mention the subject under the article for its parent locality." So if some useful material can be found, I suggest it be added at Hartford, Connecticut or at Neighborhoods of Hartford, Connecticut, instead. Per wp:SPLIT there is no need for this to be split out from the neighborhoods article, which is about 17k in size (for articles < 30 KB, "Length alone does not justify division").doncram (talk) 06:55, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - no encyclopaedic value in this verbal description of a map. New seeker (talk) 11:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. B.Rossow talk contr 18:14, 22 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Connecticut-related deletion discussions.  —Orlady (talk) 00:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC) --Orlady (talk) 00:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. The AfD nomination is disingenuous and totally lacking in merit. The topic is notable and extensive well-sourced information exists to build the article. The nominator's statement of the reasons for deletion boils down to "I don't like the person who split this article off from Neighborhoods of Hartford, Connecticut," which is not a valid reason for deletion. Contrary to the nominator's assertion that "Downtown Hartford" lacks "legal or other special meaning" and is not "in actual common usage", this section of the city is defined and described on an official city website and a search restricted to the phrase "downtown Hartford" returns "about 113,000" ghits, of which at least the first 100 are about Downtown Hartford, Connecticut (the topic of this article). Moreover, the nominator is disingenuous in suggesting that the subject does not have sufficient coverage for an article, as the nominator apparently intends to replace this one article with at least 8 much narrower articles on subtopics, beginning with Downtown North Historic District (Hartford, Connecticut), which he split off from this article (see diff1 and diff2) after encountering opposition to his proposal to delete the redirect of that article name. --Orlady (talk) 01:35, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * If by disingenuous you mean the dictionary meaning "lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous; insincere", I resent that remark and your repetition of it. What specifically do you mean I am insincere about.  My starting this AFD has to do with a larger context of seeking to remove inappropriate redirects and inaccurate coverage of CT NRHPs (a large topic which others could get into by seeing Talk:List of RHPs in CT and its archives).  The immediate prompt for me was indeed your opposition to the simple deletion of an inappropriate-in -my view redirect at Redirects_for_discussion.  I explicitly gave notice to you and others there that I had started this AFD and I explained why I was proceeding to start the Downtown North HD article.


 * Orlady you have been specifically asked by me and others not to make remarks that are personal about me. I have repeatedly asked you not to characterise my motivations.  Others have objected when I characterized some of your previous  characterisations of me as being outright lies.  Here, I think you dance around a little bit, but it is verging on the same.  About what you specifically suggest:
 * That i nominated this for AFD because I dislike the person who created it, that is a false statement. I have never said that, and it is not true.  Why assert that?
 * You say I make an "assertion that "Downtown Hartford" lacks "legal or other special meaning" and is not "in actual common usage"'. That is simply true.  Read what I wrote:  I said that in the article "It is not established that "Downtown Hartford" has any legal or other specific meaning or is in actual common usage" and that is or was true based on the article as written.  Why mischaracterise me?
 * You state "the nominator apparently intends to replace this one article with at least 8 much narrower articles on subtopics". That is also a false statement, and this one I think it amounts to a lie, because you actually know differently.  For me to prove to others that you know differently takes more effort than others may want us to go into here, but for a start others could see Redirects_for_discussion and the 6 previous batches of CT NRHP redirects linked from there which I sought to delete, rather than create CT NRHP stub articles.  Why would you lie about this?  (To others, I do support any local editor who wants to take photos, get sources, and develop articles about any of the 8 historic districts mentioned, which are wikipedia-notable topics.  That is different than what Orlady is asserting.)
 * Depending on how you define what lying is, those characterisations are either lies or very close to lies, and I think your commenting this way is inappropriate for an administrator or for any other editor. I could easily make counter-accusations about your motives, disingenuity, etc., but will refrain.  (If anyone else objects to the tone of my response here, I will be willing to discuss it at my Talk page or elsewhere, and hopefully not continue in this vein here.  I have at least once previously asked Orlady whether she would participate in a mediation process, and she declined.  For the record I would be happy to participate in some sensible process elsewhere.  However, from my previous many interactions with Orlady, I believe I have learned that I do need to respond promptly and directly to insinuations she makes, or else the discussion of content is poisoned irretrievably.  Sorry about this.)  About the article, I am not impressed by the development so far, and think that it remains best to leave development of information about the central business district of Hartford to a section in the Hartford neighborhoods article.  doncram (talk) 02:34, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - In spite of the need to avoid negative interaction with Doncram, I responded to this AfD in this manner (after mulling the situation over for several hours) because I was aghast to see it, and I could not see a way to effectively explain my concerns about it without commenting about the circumstances that surrounded it. The fact that I had expanded the article (the first time I had edited it) just ~4 hours before the AfD was started (and a couple of hours after Doncram had "invited" me to engage in a one-to-one discussion elsewhere) did lead me to think that the purpose of the AfD might be to provoke me, but I could not sit by silently and ignore the AfD for that reason.
 * Regarding my assertion that Doncram nominated this because of dislike for the person who split it out, I based this on the wording of the nomination focused on the "creator of the article," not the notability of the article topic. (It says: "It appears that the creator of the article intended to construct an article based on patching together information on 8 historic districts in Hartford, but has not completed that thought and is not likely to do so.") Furthermore, I know that there is a history of negative interactions between Doncram and Polaron. I am very glad to hear that this AfD was not motivated by interpersonal issues.
 * Doncram correctly points out that his statement was "it is not established", not "it isn't true". However, for purposes of discussing the AfD, my concern was not to parse the nominator's words but to address the substance of the statement made. In this instance, the term "Downtown Hartford" has a well-defined meaning and is in common usage, which was my sole point in quoting these words.
 * Regarding my statement on Doncram's intent to replace this article with 8 much narrower articles, he is correct that I don't actually know what he was going to do, but I do know that he started the first of those 8 articles (using content removed from this article) when he started this AfD, and I also know that he has said he wanted that redirect (and others like it) to be deleted because he wants redlinks to exist in list articles like National Register of Historic Places listings in Hartford, Connecticut to order to encourage someone to create individual articles. This indicates that he wants those 8 individual articles to exist, although he may not personally intend to create all of them.
 * My comment about disingenousness related to matters such as (1) the nom's failure to mention the goal of replacing this one article about an allegedly nonnotable topic with 8 or more individual subarticles in place of this one article and (2) the "wiki venue-shopping" involved with first trying to delete the redirect at WP:RFD, then abandoning that initiative after opposition was expressed and instead trying to delete the article that the redirect pointed to. --Orlady (talk) 03:27, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep or merge - Any notability concerns are resolved with this source and the many others. The region is also clearly defined by the city; if you actually go to the Hartford website and select the neighborhood map of downtown, you'll get the official map. I agree with the nominator that there is no need to split from Neighborhoods of Hartford, Connecticut, but if we merge it back we should leave the page history and a redirect per Merge and delete. -- Explodicle (T/C) 14:47, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually I don't have access to it now, but I noticed before that the NYT article cited refers to "downtown Hartford", not a proper nown "Downtown Hartford". The city neighborhood seems to be locally named "Downtown".  I see no official or other proper noun-type mention of the place as "Downtown Hartford" in any of the references or external links which have been added now.  I also notice the article editors have perhaps implicitly acknowledged that "Downtown Hartford" appears to be a wikipedia construction, having changed the bolded name in the article to just "Downtown".  I think we are agreeing that this article should be merged away, but if the edit history must be preserved, I would suggest first moving the current article to "Downtown (Hartford, Connecticut)" before merging any usable content to the neighborhoods article. doncram (talk) 15:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * appears to be a wikipedia construction Wikipedi articles are about notable topics, not proper nouns, so if the phrase "Downtown Hartford" wasn't itself a well-understood and often used pair of words with, say 26,000 hits in Google News Archives, the thing itself would merit an article based on whether there was enough sourcing about it under whatever name or capitalization. Ahem: The news comes on the heels of a report issued by the city of Hartford, which said 40 percent of downtown’s half-million square feet of retail space is vacant. Somebody inform the city government that "Downtown Hartford" is only a Wikipedia construction. Then they wouldn't be wasting government dollars writing reports about it. Tell the New York Times, too, because they wouldn't have to write so many articles focusing -- entirely -- on what's going on in Downtown Hartford: Scroll down the archives search I linked to for NY Times articles on Jan 5, 1976 (A Big Shopping Mall and Lots of People Mark Downtown Hartford's Resurgence); (Keeping Downtown Hartford Alive) on Aug 15, 1993; (Downtown Hartford's Future May Be in New Hotel Rooms) Jun 16, 2004; (Downtown Hartford Sturs from Slumber [...]) on Jan 4, 2006; (Reviving Ailing Retail In Downtown Hartford) on June 9, 1993; or the Hartford Courant (8OO Luncheon Guests Get View Of Downtown Hartford In 1980) on Jan 29, 1959. I'd go on, but didn't I already pass notability for this subject already? JohnWBarber (talk) 18:11, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep, of course Notability refers to the notability of the topic (see WP:N, first sentence -- how elementary does it get?), not the extent to which that notability is reflected in the wording and references of the actual article, so when we discuss a "lack of an assertion of notability" it's with the assumption that an assertion can't actually be made. The idea that Downtown Hartford (or even "downtown Hartford") is not notable defies common sense, sourcing and our notability guidelines. Sourcing: Easily available (Google Books -- plenty of in-depth treatments, Google News Archives -- also plenty of in-depth treatment and details galore in many, many articles ); Common Sense: When walking to work from his home just outside the downtown , the major American poet Wallace Stevens walked through part of Downtown Hartford every working day to one of the many large companies that are still headquartered there (getting ideas for his poems as he walked), and when they call Hartford the "Insurance Capital of America", they aren't referring to its suburbs but to the downtown itself. It is where Connecticut was founded, where much of Connecticut's history took place and where America's oldest museum, its oldest public park and the Hartford area's most prestigious music and theater venues are located. Any downtown is a concentration of a city's important economic and cultural institutions, and if there are enough of either, you'll get plenty of sourcing and therefore notability and information for a Wikipedia article that couldn't fit into an article about the city itself. How much more notable does a subject need to be before we no longer have any doubt that the topic is worth an article? And as for the assertion of notability, the article as I read it now indicates very clearly why the topic is important. Just read the lead. It needs an improvement tag, not deletion. The subject could even contain its own good-sized category, except for the fact that every article in it would be important enough to be worth keeping in Category:Hartford, Connecticut. And another thing: Google search turns up hits on the phrase "Downtown Hartford" of course, but those that i reviewed speak of a "downtown area of Hartford" and otherwise do not establish that "Downtown Hartford" has important meaning and definition on its own. Doncram, the names that sources use for this topic is irrelevant. What's relevant is that many sources address this topic in detail. The evidence is overwhelming. And if this is deleted, isn't it obvious that someone will just start it again (so shouldn't we save them the trouble of adding back the categories and pictures and links?). Please withdraw the nomination and stop draining the time of editors who have better things to work on. For one thing, we could work on improving this article, but the subject is so large and complex, with so much information to digest and incorporate, that I'm sure more than one editor has found the idea daunting. JohnWBarber (talk) 17:37, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep the article and speedy close this nomination as being a bad-faith nomination. There has been a long-standing conflict between  and  in regard to the names of historic districts and whether the articles about the historic districts should be separate articles versus made redirects to the articles about the towns they're in.  This AFD nomination is just another manifestation of that dispute.  There's also a long-standing conflict between  and  on a number of topics.  All this bickering and sniping between parties is taking away from the actual work of writing articles.  It's highly disruptive, and it gives the project (WikiProject National Register of Historic Places) a black eye.  These conflicts need to stop NOW.  --Elkman (Elkspeak) 19:08, 23 September 2009 (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.