Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of districts in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets


 * 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. Consensus here is that the article is suitable for inclusion to Wikipedia, and name/content/structure issues can be discussed at the talk page.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:41, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

List of districts in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets

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The article is completely unreferenced. There are no "districts" in Tower Hamlets. There are so-called "polling districts" but these are just administrative divisions of "wards" (see . This article is inaccurate, unsourced and confusing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheSLEEVEmonkey (talk • contribs) 2019-08-29 15:41:14 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. TheSLEEVEmonkey (talk) 15:44, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 15:48, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 15:48, 29 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep Tower Hamlets is so-called after the numerous hamlets in the vicinity of the Tower of London. These date back centuries and are the basis of many of the districts listed here, such as Spitalfields.  We now have some modern creations too such as Canary Wharf and that's fine.  None of this seems controversial and there are plenty of sources detailing the history and topography of the area such as this.  Note that there are lists of this sort for all London boroughs and more besides – see Areas of London for many details and links. Applicable policies include WP:ATD, WP:IMPERFECT and WP:PRESERVE. Andrew D. (talk) 18:56, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The book you're referencing mentions the word "district" only twice in relation to Tower Hamlets, and both times it is in relation to an industrial district, which is not what we are discussing here. So I'm confused as to what you think this article is actually about? It is not, as you are trying to suggest, about the history of Tower Hamlets, which is also covered in the East End of London, nor is it a list of the historical hamlets of Tower Hamlets. There is no such thing as a "district" in Tower Hamlets, there is no reference to support this article and it serves only to confuse. As it stands, the only place which refers to "districts" of Tower Hamlets is Wikipedia and this is mostly the work of disruptive sockpuppets (see here and here). Not only that, but this article also directly contradicts the Districts of England article, which is actually referenced. Indeed, Tower Hamlets itself is a "local authority district" - it cannot also have "districts" (see here)
 * It's the same as if I created an article called List of freeways in Tower Hamlets with a completely arbitrary and unreferenced list of roads in the area. There is no reason whatsoever for that article to exist in the first place and there is no external reference to support my selection, so WP:ATD, WP:IMPERFECT and WP:PRESERVE do not apply. TheSLEEVEmonkey (talk) 09:23, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The term freeway is an Americanism and so would not be appropriate. The word district is used here in the sense which the OED gives as "Any tract of country, usually of vaguely defined limits, having some common characteristics; a region, locality, ‘quarter’."  Like it or not, London contains numerous districts which do not now have precise boundaries or legal definitions.  An example which I have worked on is Covent Garden.  Its boundaries are debatable but the page is a featured article regardless. My !vote stands. Andrew D. (talk) 12:52, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * So how would you suggest referencing what is or is not a "district" in Tower Hamlets, when no external sources use the term? It is not our place to decide whether something should be considered a "district" simply because it seems to match the description in a dictionary - see WP:ORIGINAL. We must use only reliable sources. "District" is obviously not the correct term and this list is obviously pulled out of someone's imagination. TheSLEEVEmonkey (talk) 13:09, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep for completeness with the 31 other "List of districts in..." articles in Category:Lists of places in London, assuming that other boroughs are no different to Tower Hamlets. (Either that or delete them all, if the "list of areas within this area" article concept seems unnecessary.) Some other list articles avoid using the term "districts" in the article text and say "places" or "areas" instead, and perhaps it's worth a unified discussion about renaming them all to "List of areas in" to avoid any confusion with local authority districts. (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London/Archive 9 has some inconclusive past thoughts on this.) --Lord Belbury (talk) 11:02, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * There is no cohesion to the Category:Lists of places in London pages so I'm not sure it's a good idea to use them as a reason for keeping articles. Some of them list "postcode districts", some list "postcode areas", some list "electoral wards", some list "areas", some list "places". One of them lists London Monopoly locations... Virtually none of them are referenced whatsoever. Also, you will note that one of the items on that list is called Wards of the City of London, rather than districts - so why not just swap out the List of districts in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for Wards of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets? That would make more sense than the way it currently stands TheSLEEVEmonkey (talk) 11:29, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * This article was originally titled list of places in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets back in 2007, and that's what it started out as in terms of content. It was not originally intended as a list of districts, and our definition of "district" is woolly at best.  In the 12 years since, the rest of Wikipedia has overtaken it and it has seen no real development at all, save by the sockpuppeteer discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London. The list of old civil parishes in the old Parliamentary constituency, some of which were in the original "places" list is today in Tower Hamlets (UK Parliament constituency).  The list of wards in the borough is in London Borough of Tower Hamlets with several other in-article lists in other sections, and a navigation template at Template:London Borough of Tower Hamlets that has street markets, parks, and other places; all things that this list of places never gained.  The whole thing seems superfluous, and I suspect that it is time to revisit these "list of districts" articles to see whether as a navigation system the development over the past decade and a half of in-article lists for the boroughs and Parliamentary constituences, and of navigation templates, has simply rendered them superfluous. It seems a little pointless to copy the in-article lists and navigation templates here, just to bring this article up to par with the 12 years of development, of the navigation system that editors decided to maintain instead of this, that it has simply missed out on.  I do not see how even as a list of places (rather than "districts") this could improve upon the cohesive lists in the borough/constituency articles and the classified layout of the navigation template.  The few remaining woolly "localities" can be incorporated into the navigation template or the borough article, properly classified.  The list is comparatively substandard now, and would be a duplicate of what we already have if developed. Note that one of those "localities", Globe Town is a redirect to a non-existent section, and there is currently some debate about Globe Town, London. Uncle G (talk) 01:43, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge Looking through the "List of districts in the London Borough of..." articles and their respective borough articles, I have no idea why any of these are separate lists. List of districts in the London Borough of Islington can just be redirected to London Borough of Islington (and many others of these) because it already exists there! While London_Borough_of_Tower_Hamlets is not the same as the contents of this list, this can certainly be merged there as necessary. The naming issue certainly needs to be fixed otherwise. Reywas92Talk 05:42, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:BACKINTHEDAY. ——  SerialNumber  54129  13:11, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep All these places have articles, are in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and can reasonably be called "districts", so the nom's assertion that "There are no "districts" in Tower Hamlets" is not true. Johnbod (talk) 15:09, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep, but it shouldn't be split into two sections and should be renamed to "List of places in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets". Peter James (talk) 17:48, 2 September 2019 (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.