Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Southern Border (California)


 * 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. I would however suggest that Amerique's idea may be the best way forward here. Black Kite (t) (c) 23:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Southern Border (California)

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Fails the general notability guideline, no significant coverage found. Only one source provided in the article actually mentions the name "Southern Border". TorriTorri(Talk to me!) 03:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - Per WP:N. The area of land in question certainly has an almost infinite amount of significant coverage in reliable independent sources, and a Google search for Southern Border, California reveals that Southern Border is certainly a term in use for describing the relevant area.  The alternate name, San Diego-Imperial (or San Diego/Imperial) also seems to be widely used as a distinct term.  The nomination isn't actually suggesting the content is non-notable, it's suggesting it's misnamed, so let's can the AfD and discuss a rename at the article's talk page. - DustFormsWords (talk) 03:54, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions.  —Optigan13 (talk) 05:22, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep This is a somewhat ridiculous article. The subject is clearly notable and is suitably referenced. This shouldn't be here. Silver  seren C 06:37, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - obviously notable topic. Change the article title if needed.  Blueboar (talk) 13:27, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep as WP:SNOW. Places are inherently notable. Is this up for deletion to prove some sort of point, because the nominator is up to no good, or because they want someone else to reference the article? Arsenikk (talk)  14:11, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Why put the articles on two counties together? It seems like a duplication of information.  The expression "Southern Border" could be mentioned in both county articles and articles on the state. Steve Dufour (talk) 15:10, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * For instance I live in the East Bay, which consists of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties and is part of the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California. Should the same detailed information from the articles on each county be duplicated in the other three articles on larger areas? Steve Dufour (talk) 15:16, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * And in the case of Southern California why not divide them the other way with San Diego and Orange Counties being the Southern Coast? Steve Dufour (talk) 15:20, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment The article is mostly a copy-paste of material from the constituent primary articles. The single original source that the whole pastiche hangs on acknowledges that "Imperial County is vastly different from San Diego County, except that the two counties border Mexico. However, that similarity is important for state strategic planning and therefore, necessitates putting both counties in the same region." As no other media links the two counties outside of this limited utilitarian sense, and as the article itself does nothing to inform us as to what these planning purposes are, I would say that this "region" only exists as an administrative abstraction and not as a "region" that residents of either area identify with. Therefore, as per this essay: WikiProject Cities/Conurbation guidelines, I would move that the article be reduced to stub length with just bulleted links to the constituent county articles until more references can be brought to bear that discuss how these two counties function as a single economic unit. Amerique dialectics  18:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete A Google Book search shows that "Southern Border is rarely used as a collective name for these two counties, and the information is better presented in the individual county areas. In the references in this article "Southern Border" is only used as a section heading in two California state government publications listed as references one and two, and does not appear in any of the other references, so far as I could find. It is not a well defined political or geographical entity besides the two counties it comprises, so the name should not be promoted to a defined geopolitical entity like the "Bay Area," which is universally understood to refer to the San Francisco area, and shows up as an understood geopolitical entity in Google Book Search: .Since it is not a common name for the subject of the article, the universal inclusion of geographic entities does not apply. Edison (talk) 19:20, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete Like Amerique said, mainly copy & paste. OR Do what Amerique says, that sounds like a good plan. House1090 (talk) 23:28, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete/Merge - as per nom and as Amerique's observation. The PDF used as the first reference to introduce and/or cite the article's name fails WP:NNC. While there might be significant coverage alluding to this southern border, it is a convenient manner of referring to two counties. --Morenooso (talk) 05:32, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete We have had this discussion before; see Talk:Southern Border (California). We mostly concluded that there was no need for this article, since the name is not a recognized term and all of the content is duplicated elsewhere. Bottom line: this is simply not a term that is commonly used to mean the counties of San Diego and Imperial, either in popular usage or by the government. (Someone in the previous discussion mocked the idea by claiming facetiously that San Diegans often refer to themselves as "Southern Borderers".) The only citation for the term in the sense used here is in a 2006 state economic report document, which divided the state into regions for purposes of discussion; one of the regions was "southern border". The term finds no other use. To claim, as this article does, that "Southern Border, also known as San Diego-Imperial, is defined by the State of California as the region that consists of California's border counties with the country of Mexico, San Diego County and Imperial County" is way overstating the case; the fact is that the state of California does NOT use the term that way in any consistent or notable fashion. --MelanieN (talk) 19:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete/Merge The "keep" votes above all contain a logical fallacy. For instance, let's look at the statement, "The area of land in question certainly has an almost infinite amount of significant coverage in reliable independent sources". To draw a parallel, Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippin are clearly notable sports figures. Does that mean we should have an article on the two of them together? Maybe we could call it "Jordanzo the Piptasticus"! (I'm pretty sure I once heard a sportscaster refer to the two of them that way... check Google!) Now, do we need the article on Jordanzo the Piptasticus? The arguments used above (in favor of the "Southern Border" article) would say "yes"; however, to me, the obvious common sense answer is "no". So let it be for Caesar. There is nothing I can find in the combined "Southern Border" article about the two counties together that isn't already covered on the seperate articles about them individually. If there is some unique content I overlooked, it should be merged into the relevant individual article about the appropriate county. The combined article adds nothing, even if the term were notable, which it isn't. Rnickel (talk) 16:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S. The Boy Scouts have a "San Diego/Imperial Council". Worth noting that even though it does refer to the area described by this article, it does NOT use the non-notable term claimed by this article. And again, as noted above by Amerique, even in this case of an actual reference, the so-called "region" is nothing but an administrative abstraction. If we want a stub article like the one Amerique proposes, it should be called "San Diego/Imperial, California", and the bogus-name "Southern Border, California" article should still be deleted. Rnickel (talk) 17:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Another thought: an alternate name that IS in actual use is the conurbation known as the "California-Mexico border region", "California Border Region" or simply "Border region", being a conurbation of San Diego and Tijuana, together with their associated inland areas (Imperial County in the case of San Diego). For instance, see San Francisco Chronicle, L.A. Times and AP articles on the recent earthquake affecting the region. Here is a use of the term by the San Diego Historical Society. I would feel much more comfortable with a "Border region, California" article, because:
 * 1) The term is in real use
 * 2) The two municipalities do have a real collective identity
 * 3) There are real area-wide economic and social forces
 * However, even in that case, I would imagine an article very different from the existing "Southern Border" article. Rnickel (talk) 17:56, 14 April 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.