Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gabaa, Somalia


 * 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. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 17:29, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Gabaa, Somalia

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Somali "town". The one source describes it as a "hypsographic point", which implies nobody lives there. The coordinates given are in the sea and I can't see any trace of settlement on the adjacent coastline. Can't find other sources to satisfy WP:NGEO.  Hut 8.5  21:15, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions.  MT Train Talk 10:23, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Somalia-related deletion discussions.  MT Train Talk 10:23, 10 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete Non existent town, fails GNG L3X1 ◊distænt write◊  12:21, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Weak delete, at least in this form. First and foremost, this is not--and has never been--a populated place. So whatever else is true, the article text declaring this a town is very much in error. As for the place itself... The first challenge is that the orthography of Somali place names is, to say the least, not standardized. Gabaa is Ras Gaba is a half-dozen other spelling variants. In 1987, the Defense Mapping Agency published the Gazetteer of Somalia: Names Approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names, which, as far as I can tell, still constitutes the best efforts to standardize English-language orthography of Somali place names. According to the DMA, Gabaa and friends are all junior synonyms for Raas Gabbac. In Somalia, Raas (or Ras) anything is the equivalent of a cape in English; the best known by far is Ras Hafun (which the DMA suggests we should really be calling Raas Xaafuun, but I digress...). Raas Gabbac is a far less distinguished promontory. However, it's substantial enough to have been included as one of a relatively small number of Somali geographic landmarks on the 2011 UN Cartographic Section, Map 3690, Revision 8 (which you can see in a nice full-color version on page 16 of this pdf. Which at least explains what it is (the low-resolution coordinates which put the marker in the ocean are the fault of excessive rounding by either the DMA or the Board on Geographic Names itself). But doesn't really speak to notability under WP:NGEO. The controlling guideline is that "[n]amed natural features are often notable, provided information beyond statistics and coordinates is known to exist." So, the question is... do they? Local sources likely do exist, from places such as Ely (the nearest populated place) or elsewhere in Puntland. But they are almost certainly in Somali or Arabic and are even more certainly not easily accessible online. I suspect that under at least some definitions, Raas Gabbac may mark the northern edge of the Nugaal Valley, but I haven't had much luck finding sources willing to define the valley region explicitly (much less name the cape at its northeasternmost limit). Regardless, if you're read this far: not a town, not ideally under this name, and... would require an assumption of "unknown sources exist" to meet notability guidelines at this time. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 19:48, 12 April 2018 (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.