Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Postal village


 * 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. BusterD (talk) 01:52, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Postal village

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I started a discussion on the article talk page concerning the veracity of its content, and after pinging it to a couple of projects, what little discussion there was echoed my concerns, to wit: I cannot source the definition given. The two citations given merely use the phrase, but neither defines it, nor did any other source I could find. There is is ample reason to doubt its claims, based upon what we've found in a lengthy review of American place name articles. Given the many errors in categorization we've come across, I personally wouldn't conclude that a place labelled a "postal village" was a village at all. There's also no reason to think that a post office contributes to a town's continued survival. Even if someone can come up with a citation for a definition, I just don't think there's going to be enough substance for an article. Mangoe (talk) 04:01, 14 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete - could possibly be included as a section in Township (United States), however a standalone article results in WP:FORK issues. MrsSnoozyTurtle 06:14, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete, there's nothing in this bare WP:DICDEF to justify an article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:31, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep but improve so that it's clear what it means (or meant) in which national postal system. For example, it was clearly an official term in Australia at one stage - see here - as well as being common in the US, Britain and Ireland. The present wording is a little vague and poorly referenced. But a quick search has already revealed numerous other references - certainly enough to justify an article. It wouldn't make sense to include it as a section in Township (United States), since the term was clearly used elsewhere. Bermicourt (talk) 09:25, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 08:31, 15 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Leaning delete - this feels like a subject about which I would think there would be stuff, but I performed in-depth searching for the accuracy concerns raised on the article talk page. I could find nothing significant, and I'm not convinced that this ever had a set or formal meaning.  It's a term that appears a lot but is never discussed. Hog Farm Talk 21:37, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. I was able to expand this article with references. I didn't experience problems finding a definition, as there are several sources for that (now cited in the article). I did see User:Hog Farm's comment on the article's talk page about the article being US-centric and including content which is unreferenced; the unreferenced material has now been culled and I've added some historic examples of the term's use in about a half a dozen English-speaking countries. More can certainly be added.
 * I don't see the benefit of deleting this article, as I found over 3,000 newspaper articles using the term "post village" or "postal village" between 1818 and 2020, and Webster's Dictionary, gazetteers, and other reference works have clearly been using the term since the 1800s. Since Wikipedia is supposed to be a gazetteer, there's no reason to delete an article on a term in common use in period gazetteers and other reference works, as long as there are citations backing up the content. Firsfron of Ronchester  16:31, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * I guess I'll just give a comment here, rather than a !vote. I don't really know what to do with this.  I agree that this is a very heavily-used term, but I also am not sure that this actually has a set meaning.  From the searching I've done, I really get the impression that this was a term thrown around a lot, but not used to have a specific meaning at any point, with each of those old gazetteers using it with their own meanings.  The set meaning for India Firfson added is good, but at least from what I've seen, all that's really sayable about this is that specific places have been referred to as post villages.  This looks like a term that is used a lot, but rarely discussed, and I'm not entirely sure how to handle it.  This may be a wiktionary candidate, as all we can really provide is examples of use and a handful of brief definitions, unless there's stuff I missed when searching. Hog Farm Talk 16:41, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:20, 22 August 2021 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep Notable subject. Article has been improved by Firsfon. Seems to be a common enough term. ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 01:52, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   19:07, 30 August 2021 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: postal_village is now an entry on wiktionary. Input from others who have not already participated, on whether the improvements to the article are sufficient for retention or constitute OS, and whether or not justify it's historical notability as a concept has been established or whether it remains simply being a dictionary definition.
 * comment What I'm seeing in the revamped article is a great deal of original research into usage of the phrase, along the lines of what one might find in the OED. That isn't within our scope, and if it were stripped from the article we would be back down to a definition again. Mangoe (talk) 19:32, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Transwiki to Wiktionary - I'm still struggling with the fact that it's difficult to get more than definition and examples on this topic. Transwiking to Wiktionary preserves the content, but also allows it to remain in the definition and examples of usage state.  A soft redirect should then be retained so that users searching for this term are then directed to the Wiktionary entry. Hog Farm Talk 01:36, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Seddon talk 20:24, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per Bermicourt and Firsfron.4meter4 (talk) 03:46, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per above comments. jp×g 19:43, 16 September 2021 (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.