Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sørbindalen


 * 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. Renaming or redirecting are editorial decisions that can be discussed further at the article's talk page. Cirt (talk) 20:18, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Sørbindalen, Nordbindalen

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Seems to fail the policy Verifiability. I can't find any reliable sources-i.e. statistics from Statistics Norway or another credible institution-which shows that Bindal was once two separate municipalities "Sørbindalen" and "Nordbindalen".

For instance, this page from the University of Tromsø (the university of Northern Norway, of which Bindal is a part) with census data does not speak about two different municipalities. Bindal is listed as one municipality in Nordland, and there is no mention in Nord-Trøndelag (where "Sørbindalen" supposedly was located). In 1858 there was supposedly a merger between the two, transferring "Sørbindalen" from one county to another, but the Nordland page does not show the population spike you would expect in Bindal between 1855 and 1865.

Lastly, the supposed split/merger is not mentioned in this paper, which indeed contains every single split and merger in Norway between 1838 and 1999. At best, the two entities were two separate parishes within the Church of Norway. That's not notable, however, and either way we'd need an WP:RS to confirm that. Geschichte (talk) 21:02, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. Google Earth has both names as redirects to "Bindal kommune," located at, in the heart of the town of Terråk. --  Blanchardb - Me•MyEars•MyMouth - timed 21:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Hard to find a better of something that should be a redirect. walk victor falktalk 12:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

*Note: This debate has been included in the list of Norway-related deletion discussions. — walk victor falktalk 14:53, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,   S warm  ( Talk ) 06:33, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep former municipalities are notable see WP:PILLARS & WP:DEFACTO. The split/merger is mentioned on the commune's website here. The split/merger is included in the article on Bindal (and articles on the two former municipalities) on numerous other Wikipedias, including the Norwegian one. Just because sources aren't in English, doesn't mean they are unreliable. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 21:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The source does not present the two entities as municipalities. It presents them as two districts. One of the districts was in Nord-Trøndelag, but it doesn't say if it was a municipality. It could have been a part of another municipality. Show a reliable source that actually tell us that these two entities were municipalities. Also other Wikipedias can not be used for face value. Also nobody said that non-English references are unreliable (I cited multiple Norwegian-language references; they just aren't there!); wyh such strawman argumentation? Geschichte (talk) 21:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If you read about Norwegian municipal history, you wouldn't have asked such a non-sequitur. You also no doubt realize that the religious parishes were mirrored with secular entities corresponding to the boundaries of the parishes. However termed, these were recognized as official (Norway being ruled by Sweden complicating matters). As laid out in the current town's own website, which seems to be a reliable source, because the parish crossed the county lines, the civil entity had to be divided and was so divided until the county border was changed and the two entities were merged. My argument is not a straw man, yours is. Without going into all the details, let's start with your point that absence of evidence is evidence of absence - a logical fallacy as everyone knows: you state: "the supposed split/merger is not mentioned in this paper, which indeed contains every single split and merger in Norway between 1838 and 1999." First, what reliable source tells us that the cited paper is actually complete?  In any event, in your version of Bindal's history, the people in one part of the place had no local government until the county border re-enveloped them. That is a rather extraordinary claim, that requires extraordinary verification and you have provided none other than something you say is complete but may not be. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 21:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * "My version"? An impudent claim, which I beg you to retract. What I am saying is that Sørbindalen might have been a part of another municipality, because none of the reliable sources cited by me mention it. Why would a paper by Statistics Norway on this specific subject be incomplete - farfetched notion. No, I'd rather question the reliability of a municipal website which lacks a list of references - and which doesn't even use the term formannskapsdistrikt or kommune about the entities. Geschichte (talk) 22:07, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Your claim is without references. Your claim of that "Sørbindalen might have been a part of another municipality" is WP:OR or conjecture. You said these places could not be WP:Verified. They have been, now you're just haggling over their status. Real verified inhabited places are kept. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 23:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The places have been verified, but not their status as municipalities. This page says that the two were merged to form a municipality, but that does not mean that they were municipalities before that. Note that they give a different year for when this happened. Unfortunately, their supposed life span falls between two censuses. No source that I have found mentions that Sørbindalen was transferred from one county to another, just between two districts, who's borders might be different. I am not sure what is best, to delete the articles, mark them as unsourced and possibly untrue, or reduce them to articles about something less than a municipality. Ters (talk) 10:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Is this 1908 account any help? I see it talking there about the parish vs secular boundaries but am not sure whether it says they were municipalities.Yngvadottir (talk) 06:05, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you able to view it? I can't view it, but there is a chapter (pp.45-87) devoted to what we now know as Bindal. Geschichte (talk) 06:26, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I can see it and a ton of other stuff on GoogleBooks. The key is to put in a hyphen: Sør-bindalen. Most of the pages are saying Sør-bindalen was part of Namdalen until 1852.  But my Norwegian isn't good enough to find out whether they were municipalities. Yngvadottir (talk) 06:41, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * OK look: "Mellem Nordre Trondhjems amt og Nordland var tidligere Bindalsfjorden grænsen. Det som laa paa søndre side af fjorden, kaldtes Sør-Bindalen og hørte til Namdalen, medens nordsiden kaldtes Nord-Bindalen og udgjorde en del af Nordland. Da Bindalen i 1815 i geistlig henseende blev skilt fra Brønnø som eget sognekald, blev det nye præstegjeld regnet til Tromsø stift; i civil henseende vedblev distriktet at være delt, indtil det i 1852 lagdes helt til Nordland." p.45. There's also this 1895 thing by Gustav Storm, p. 179, where the second to last footnote repeats about the ecclesiastical reorganization and the last footnote ends with: "I civile Sager hørte Sør-Bindalen til Namdalen indtil 1852." - no mention of Nord-Bindalen. Seems to me these support the 2 articles adequately, unless the reference to "distriktet" in the singular rules out their having been separate municipalities? That's what I don't know enough to interpret. Yngvadottir (talk) 07:10, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. What this actually does is to contradict the article as it currently stands. Quote: "The parish of Bindal had to be divided in two municipalities January 1, 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt), because the parish was split between the counties of Nordland and Nord-Trøndelag". And the source you quoted says that the parish was divided in 1815. When it comes to a reference to municipality status I can't see it. "civile Sager" (civic issues) is a too vague wording to deduce anything. Geschichte (talk) 07:35, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, I am unable to determine whether they were legally distinct municipalities. But the first source does state very clearly that they were within different counties; perhaps that made it go without saying that they were administered separately? The first source (and the bit I didn't quote from the second) say that in 1815 they were made into a separate parish from Brønnø (not from each other), so that fits what the article says about the parish being divided between 2 jurisdictions - what it doesn't support is the statement in the article about 1838. (And it only implies that they were administered separately.) Perhaps the key point is where Namdalen was classed as being? If I understand correctly, currently Bindal is the only part of it that is in a different county. Perhaps there was more than one change in boundary involving Namdalen, one in 1838? The first source is certainly saying very clearly that they moved the boundary between counties. But I really don't know what word(s) would have been used in these older texts for "settlement" or "commune" to satisfy our need to know whether they were legally distinct places, and using the county boundary could presumably be OR. Yngvadottir (talk) 08:11, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, maybe I misunderstood the part about 1815. One term which could be used at this time is "herred", cf your link to the 1908 account. Geschichte (talk) 08:29, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Inconclusive. The 1908 source - which is where I transcribed that first chunk from - is speaking in present tense of Bindalen herred, but never actually says whether during the period when its antecedents were in different counties, they were each a herred. As you can see from the transcription. It's clear that it was an agricultural area - several of the sources are actually about the names of the large farms. I think I am going to go ahead and rewrite both articles with references, especially if I can either back up 1838 or find something plausible that it may have been based on a misreading of. The worst that can happen is the articles get deleted and I lose the 2 edits, but I have already lost 15 edits trying to improve doomed articles, so what the heck. At this point I am for keeping both but moving to Sør-Bindalen and Nord-Bindalen, the names they evidently went by when they were separate.Yngvadottir (talk) 19:30, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.

Keep but move to Sør-Bindalen and Nord-Bindalen, reflecting sources. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:32, 9 February 2010 (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.