Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shkolny, Vladimir Oblast


 * 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 merge‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__ to Yesiplevo. (though apparently this Merge has already been done so this closure is a formality). Liz Read! Talk! 23:16, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Shkolny, Vladimir Oblast

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

This article Only Has 2 Sentences & an infobox, only has 3 sources. PaulGamerBoy360 (talk) 18:02, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Geography, Europe,  and Russia. PaulGamerBoy360 (talk) 18:02, 25 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Delete fails WP:NGEO and I do not speak Russian, but one link is an external map, another is broken, and third I am blocked from. The claim is 4 people living there makes me doubtful more sources exist, absent anything else extraordinary about this place. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 18:07, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The link you were blocked from is just a distange mesurment from Shkolny to Kolchugin. PaulGamerBoy360 (talk) 18:10, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep it seems to be a census settlement.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:09, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * census settlements are not inherently notable PaulGamerBoy360 (talk) 00:04, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Generally if a settlement has census data its legally recognized per WP:GEOLAND. Though per some of the comments below it might not be so I'm not sure.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 17:20, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
 * leaning delete Not having dealt with Russian census numbers, and given the inaccessibility of the source, what I see on GMaps makes me highly suspicious that we're seeing some of the same issues we saw with the Iranian census, not to mention that the phrase "rural locality" sounds to me like "not a town". Also, both the Russian and Ukrainian articles describe it as being part of Esiplevo, which actually does look something like a small town. Mangoe (talk) 04:52, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete - Basically per Mangoe. It is not at all clear that a "rural locality" (Selo) should be interpreted as a "legally recognised populated place". There is no evidence of any form of government or administration at this level of the kind you would expect to see for a legally-recognised settlement. Four people is literally just a house or two. The location given in the article is an empty field. Школьный literally just means "school" and it's entirely possible that this is simply the location (or former location) of a local school that has been used as a reference point in the Russian census. This is indeed very reminiscent of the mass-created Iranian abadi articles.
 * Really we've seen too much mass-creation of articles about locations in CEE and elsewhere based simply on single entries in electronic databases and problematic articles like this one are the result of that. FOARP (talk) 15:03, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * PS - looking in just the same district I also see Polyany, Kolchuginsky District, Vladimir Oblast (literally, just "fields", the location is empty forest, and it appears to be a neighbourhood of Kozlyat'yevo), Metallist, Vladimir Oblast (appears to be a metal-works), Litvinovo and Litvinovo (settlement), Vladimir Oblast (two selo that are obviously the same thing and possibly are both just neighbourhoods of Kolchugino), Kliny (selo), Kolchuginsky District, Vladimir Oblast and Kliny (settlement), Kolchuginsky District, Vladimir Oblast (again, obviously the same thing). Yes, this looks exactly like the situation with Iranian abadi. FOARP (talk) 15:37, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete per Mangoe and FOARP. Looks like another pointless statistical designation, no reason it should be a standalone.
 * JoelleJay (talk) 05:09, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Relisting. Is there any more support for a Merge with another location? Also, the brevity of an article is not a good rationale for deletion, PaulGamerBoy360, so I wouldn't mention that fact in future deletion nomination statements. We have plenty of stub articles that are two sentences long. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 19:14, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is a legally-recognised, populated place. The editors above might not like WP:GEOLAND, but it is a policy, and a local consensus here can't wave it away. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 05:33, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Otherwise, as an WP:ATD it should be merged with the nearby village of Yesiplevo. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 05:40, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
 * "This is a legally-recognised, populated place" - What is supposed to be the legal recognition here? That it is a selo? But selo are not administrative units, and can have zero population (~20,000 Selo in 2012 were unpopulated according to the USDA) so how are they "legally recognised populated places"?
 * Selo are essentially census tracts which are excluded under GEOLAND. Even if you believe GEOLAND applies, GEOLAND only creates a presumption of notability, and any presumption can be rebutted, as it has been decisively here.
 * We are looking at a street in Esiplevo with a school on it (as can be seen from the address on that street, all given as "Esiplevo" in GMaps), not an independent village, and as with any street, there is nothing here to merge and no need to redirect the Russian word for "school" to a random town in central Russia. FOARP (talk) 10:02, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * WP:GEOLAND is not a policy; it is a notability guideline, and the section on settlements has proven to be a source of consistent controversy. Note that GNIS and GNS are specifically excluded, because we found so many issues (including outright mistakes) when we were doing this review in the US. Mangoe (talk) 23:33, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
 * GNIS and GNS are, not-uncoincidentally, the gazetteer/census-type sources that we have analysed in the greatest depth and had the best opportunity to assess against other sources. And they were found to be deeply problematic when used in a way they were never designed to be used in - as a list of places notable enough to be covered in an encyclopaedia - rather than for their intended purpose as a list of names featured on maps.
 * The issues with GNIS and GNS are found in every other gazetteer/census-type source. They simply don't map one-to-one onto notable settlements in the way some editors would like them to. Instead they include places that aren't populated or are without a substantial or permanent population, or are parts of another settlement. The regular refrain that "of course there are secondary sources, how dare you suggest otherwise!" runs out of steam with an article like this: Shkolny never had a newspaper. Shkolny never had a church. Shkolny never had a post-office. Shkolny never had a council. Shkolny is literally just a street in the town of Esiplevo (or Yesiplevo in the romanisation used in our article) that is treated a separate thing strictly for the purposes of counting people on the Russian census. If you disagree with with this characterisation and want to say that Shkolny was something more than this - prove it.
 * Regarding merging, I cannot think what is worth merging from here. Covering an individual street, a street with nothing about it sourceable in secondary sources, within our article about the town of Yesiplevo is just massively undue. What are we going to say anyway? FOARP (talk) 12:05, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed with FOARP. Nothing to merge, either. JoelleJay (talk) 18:56, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
 * More bludgeoning from the usual suspects. GNIS and GNS have nothing to do with this article which, if you haven't noticed, is not in the US, and doesn't use them as sources. FOARP declares that selo are essentially census tracts but this is pulled from nowhere, with no evidence, contra the dictionary definition of selo (village), how ruwiki defines the concept (a type of populated place in Russia [and other Slavic-speaking countries], my translation), and what experienced Russian-speaking editors have patiently tried to explain to him. As a selo (again, literally defined as a populated place by ruwiki), Shkolny patently meets the notability guideline for populated places. No specific argument has been advanced against this, only general gripes about census sources and GEOLAND from a group that is trying to get it rewritten as we speak. This really doesn't feel like a good faith way to engage in an AfD to me. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 08:35, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
 * "a type of populated place in Russia" - yet example after example of places that weren't populated when they received the status of selo, have been cited (e.g., 17 km, Sakhalin Oblast, 8-y km etc.). We can indeed ask if Russian government reads their own dictionaries?
 * And again, as you yourself emphasise, GEOLAND is a guideline, that gives a presumption of notability, and any presumption can be rebutted. In this case, it is rebutted by a simple reference to the map and the RU Wiki article, both of which make it part of Yesiplevo. GEOLAND can never trump WP:NOT, which specifically admonishes us not to turn Wikipedia into a directory/dictionary. FOARP (talk) 08:54, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Now we're talking about places that are literally on the other side of the world from Shkolny? Do you ever drop the stick? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 09:35, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
 * "Russia is a large country" is not a reason to keep articles about non-notable locations within it. FOARP (talk) 10:45, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I took it for granted that Shkolny is a selo when FOARP said it above, but it actually isn't. Both the article and the three sources it describe it as a posyolok (settlement), another type of populated place in the Russian system. So much of the above discussion, on the notability of sela as a group, is irrelevant. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 06:55, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * So, not even a selo but even a lower grade of settlement? I'm not sure how this is supposed to be a keep argument. FOARP (talk) 13:43, 6 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Merge to Yesiplevo. There is not enough for a stand-alone article, but the gazetteer-type information is worth preserving, Nominator could have just boldly merged. Also merge Novosyolka (Yesiplevskoye Rural Settlement), Kolchuginsky District, Vladimir Oblast and Barykino (Yesiplevskoye Rural Settlement), Kolchuginsky District, Vladimir Oblast Aymatth2 (talk) 15:34, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Can you verify it's a locality? FOARP claims it is just a street. If that's the case he might be right about not bothering to merge. He has a habit of ignoring me for whatever reason so I'll ask you instead.♦ Dr. Blofeld  16:00, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
 * The three sources cited in the article call it a posyolok (settlement). FOARP, as far as I can see, hasn't provided any references for his various assertions to the contrary. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 04:34, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Firstly it clearly has only one street on the map (which you referred to earlier?) and secondly there's our Wiki article which states the Shkolny is (in machine translation) "part of the Yesiplevsky rural settlement". FOARP (talk) 13:42, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Isn't "rural settlement" a formal subdivision too, like a municipality? Could it be more like a hamlet just to the southwest of the main settlement? ♦ Dr. Blofeld  21:13, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * It’s a one-street rural settlement that’s part of another larger rural settlement (Yesiplevsky). These Russian micro-units (particularly the rural settlements with zero population, of which there are 20,000 in Russia according to USDA) simply don’t map easily on to a hamlet/village division. FOARP (talk) 06:31, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, I can think of several one street micro hamlets we have articles for with 3 or 4 people in the UK which have decent length articles. There doesn't appear to be information available for this currently, but does at least have some people living there, so a redirect and very brief mention in the larger settlement article makes sense, though it wouldn't be much of a loss to delete it. If you have a concern about the notability of Russian micro units with zero people living there it might be worth starting a new discussion. ♦ Dr. Blofeld  17:06, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge Per Aymatth into the nearby notable selo of Yesiplevo. Merge is already done. ♦ Dr. Blofeld  15:55, 5 October 2023 (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.