Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mammoth Springs, Illinois


 * 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 no consensus. Consensus is weak here either way, but it does lean towards retention. Any questions regarding merges/renames can be handled at the relevant talk pages. &mdash; Coffee //  have a cup  //  beans  // 02:53, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Mammoth Springs, Illinois

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Hoax. Supposed USGS cite is actually about Flowerfield, Illinois. Fits this user's pattern. Smartyllama (talk) 17:12, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Illinois-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:27, 29 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. Same pattern as Articles for deletion/Bertha, Florida. Start with real populated place (GNIS ) and build a hoax on top of it. • Gene93k (talk) 19:48, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep real page, just removed the unverified crap, which anyone could have done. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 22:52, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete instead as the lay of the land still suggests this user is making noticeably questionable articles, best deleted if there's still the factual questionability. SwisterTwister   talk  07:17, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete Even with the unverified stuff gone, this doesn't look like an unincorporated community - GNIS doesn't explicitly indicate it is, just that it was a populated place (based on a source from 1901), and the coordinates place it on top of Oakbrook Center. This source claims it was the site of a spring, but not a community or populated place, so this may just be a GNIS misclassification. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 12:37, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - Government-recognized populated place, based upon THIS. Carrite (talk) 17:13, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I concur that GNIS lists it as a populated place. However, WP:GEOLAND has two criteria in the first group; populated and legally recognized. From all available sources, this location was never a legally recognized location. The GNIS data does not, by itself, pass GEOLAND. The article, as it stands, fails WP:GNG. That the spring existed is not enough. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:03, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Merge or Redirect into Fullersburg, Illinois; otherwise, Weak Keep and maybe rename to "Mammoth Springs (Illinois)" because it's more about a spring than a settlement: Part of the Bnnnperdue mess; this looks like it might have a chance at WP:GNG but I haven't found enough significant coverage to prove it, just a paragraph or so here and there. It appears to be mainly a (former) water spring, apparently owned by a single property owner, more than an actual settlement or community; I've only found one mention of a student in 4-H supposedly living in "Mammonth Springs, Illinois".  This is a site in the area that, at that time, was called Brush Hill or Fullersburg, and is what "Spring Road" is named after.  It's mentioned in passing in a few sources:
 * in : "It was the Talmadge Family that is said to have been rudely awakened one night by the sudden eruption of a mammoth spring on their farm. The great volume of water was later harnessed and provided many homes in the Oak Brook/ Elmhurst area with running water for almost a generation before its depletion. It also contri­buted to the success of the Mammoth Spring Ice Company, established on the south bank of Salt Creek at Washington Street by the Ruchty family." The 1874 Atlas & History of DuPage County, Illinois map on the same web page shows the location, but not named: It's on the northwest side of the property marked "G.H. Talmadge" in section 23, about where the DoubleTree Hotel is now.  (The adjacent "R. Reed" property is now Oakbrook Center shopping mall, the OfficeMax/shopping center across 16th Street, and some part of Oakbrook Terrace on the other side of the Kingery Highway.)
 * Bulletin of the Illinois State Geological Survey (1939), Issue 65, Part 1, p. 34 also known as Geology of the Chicago Region: Part I. General; Part II. The Pleistocene, Issue 65, Parts 1-2, but it's only a snippet view on Google Books. The same paragraph exists in 1 or 2 other issues of the Bulletin.  The paragraph is: "The largest spring in the Chicago region is three miles south of Elmhurst and 3 1/2 miles north of Hinsdale, on Spring Road just west of Salt Creek (Hinsdale quadrangle). It is almost in the center of section 23, T. 39 N., R. 11 E. Its unusual size seems due to subdrainage from an abandoned part of the creek valley west of the present route.  The old valley contains basin-fill which is saturated to the surface.  Elmhurst secured its municipal water supply from this spring until the population of the own exceeded 5,000.  On the Chicago Folio map (1902) it is called Mammoth Springs, but the new map, though showing it, gives it no name."
 * There's a photograph of the Mammoth Springs Ice Company's operation in Hinsdale by Sandra Bennett Williams (2013), p. 19), but no other mention of it as a location; it's unclear from the photo whether the ice is actually taken at Mammoth Springs or they just used the nearby name for their company further south.
 * A reminder that a GNIS entry is not an indication of legal status, therefore not WP:GEOLAND on its own, and this is not even a census-designated place, and maybe not even be what someone would call a settlement. --Closeapple (talk) 21:51, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Note for closing admin: If this ends in merge/redirect, since I rewrote the article as a two-sentence summary stub, I can just copy-paste my own sentences into Fullersburg, Illinois (or whatever other target) under my own username so I show as the author in the page history and we don't have to "preserve attribution" from this article page. --Closeapple (talk) 17:52, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 03:00, 7 July 2016 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Merge but I'm ok with deletion too. I concur with Closeapple that a GNIS entry is insufficient to pass WP:GEOLAND. This place isn't a place by any terms of WP:GNG or WP:GEOLAND. Ok, there was a spring. We can verify that, and that it had an impact on the local population. But, there's nothing that supports the idea, in any official way, that this was any sort of town, village, settlement, what have you. Information about the spring can be verified and merged. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:26, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, &mdash; Music1201  talk  03:17, 15 July 2016 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: final relist &mdash; Music1201  talk  00:27, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, &mdash; Music1201  talk  00:27, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge per Hammersoft. Doesn't seem like a real place. Prevan (talk) 00:13, 24 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep and rename (which is really a talk page issue). Even Accuweather recognizes it, so it isn't a hoax, it is a geological feature.  As such, it needs to be treated like one and not a town.  Generally speaking, we keep articles on geological features that have any official notice at all, that is the goal of an encyclopedia after all.  This qualifies.  It is broken, not non-notable. Farmer Brown (talk) 23:42, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Accuweather is redundant: that, and millions of spam sites, autogenerate robo-pages for anything that shows up in GNIS, whether its real, a typo, or what. Those are all just a shortcut for geographic coordinates.  I don't know why people keep over-emphasizing mere entries in a government list as conferring some kind of legal existence.  Some strip malls and most churches and schools, going back 100+ years, back to one-room wooden schoolhouses, are also in GNIS.   There is no Wikipedia guideline that says that a feature is inherently notable just because it showed up on an old map &mdash; particularly when the subject comes up for discussion, like it has here, and can be shown to meet or not meet WP:GNG based on evidence of significant coverage (not robolistings) in multiple independent sources (not database dumps of the same list), rather than presumption. --Closeapple (talk) 04:03, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * And most schools and churches going back 100 years are notable, btw, so not sure your example is as powerful as you might think. As for guidelines, prior consensus has been that geological features that receive ANY coverage are considered noteworthy.  Consensus trumps guidelines, as guidelines are written based on consensus, not the other way around.  This isn't a rising pop star or new dot com start-up, it is a geological feature that is found on many maps, and that is precisely what an encyclopedia is expected to cover.  Again, rename as described above and keep.  Farmer Brown (talk) 09:32, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Would you please point to this prior consensus that trumps GNG and GEOLAND? Thanks, --Hammersoft (talk) 19:08, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
 * How about you simply not WP:BLUDGEON the discussion by replying to every single keep vote? Farmer Brown (talk) 21:46, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
 * This is a discussion. Note a vote. I'm attempting to discuss. Sorry you don't like it. Could you please point to the prior consensus you mentioned? --Hammersoft (talk) 21:56, 3 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep This article, as cleaned up, meets the standards for populated places specified by WP:GEOLAND. Alansohn (talk) 04:09, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Really? How? GEOLAND stipulates "Populated, legally recognized places" (emphasis mine) . I grant GNIS categorizes it as a populated place. That doesn't make it a legally recognized place, which must go hand in hand with populated. You can't pass GEOLAND with just one of those two criteria being met. That is, unless the place pass WP:GNG...which it clearly does not. Did the spring exist? Yeah. That doesn't mean it deserves an article. We can prove a tree in my front yard exists. That's why this is a clear candidate for merging. Please reconsider. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:08, 3 August 2016 (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.