Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a gazetteer

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 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was:  keep. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 13:21, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a gazetteer

 * – (View MfD) &#8203;

An essay created yesterday as part of a content dispute that appears to exist solely to provide a WP:XYZ shortcut for a set of people in that dispute. Essays may be inherently subjective op-eds, but there's a difference between writing your op-ed and apparently wanting to use a flashy shortcut to lend credence to an argument. In addition, the statements of the essay itself are unclear and uncertain, and mostly trying to stake a certain position on the borders of an SNG. Vaticidalprophet 09:48, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment: The "Arguments to avoid" section says that a bad keep argument is Keep - This place appears to have been listed as an ābādī in the Iranian 2006 census. However according to WP:GEOLAND, Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low. While Iranian settlements must have at least 100 people and 20 families to be considered notable. The term "ābādī" simply concerns a rural place. If the article is included in the Iranian 2006 census, then it is considered a populated, legally recognised place, and passes WP:GEOLAND. — Berrely  • Talk∕Contribs 10:02, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Berrely No, appearance in the census records does not guarantee that a place is populated or legally recognised. This is related to the recent discussion on the administrators noticeboard where ~ 5,500 hoax/highly inaccurate pages were bulk deleted. Someone had mis-translated ābādī to mean "village", but in the census records in rural areas in Iran simply refers to a named place where the census was taken, so things like water pumps, petrol stations and random farms all had articles made claiming they were actually a village with 0 population. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 16:48, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * This essay is partly a response to that particular AN discussion (and the much larger issues surrounding it). I think that we're even having this discussion about ābādī here shows the potential use of this essay. FOARP (talk) 17:53, 24 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep - The nominator has not provided any argument for why the essay needs deleting. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:20, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * To expand a bit, then: it's a simplistic and disputed essay that appears to exist to allow shortcuts to be thrown around in one discussion on WP:AN. Essay-as-excuse-for-shortcut is poor practice and shouldn't be encouraged. A disputed essay by itself can be userfied, but as shortcuts don't make it clear what namespace an essay is in, this might just continue to allow the veneer of legitimacy/"there's a shortcut, your argument is invalid" thought process. Also, for clarity purposes, I'm not a participant in the content dispute this surrounds and really couldn't care how it ends -- I just think this is a terrible practice. Vaticidalprophet 17:24, 24 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep - This is an essay summarising various arguments from the following AFDs/AN/Talk page discussions:
 * AFD discussion regarding the deletion of Mazraeh-ye Dariush Baharvand Ahmadi, a place listed as an Iranian ābādī in the 2006 Iranian census (this is in fact one of many hundreds of such AFDs processed over the past year regarding geostubs sourced either to the 2006 Iranian census or GNIS. As discussed in the essay, simply being an ābādī does not give a WP:GEOLAND pass)
 * AN discussion regarding the deletion of thousands of articles whose notability was demonstrated solely by their being listed as ābādī in the 2006 Iranian census.
 * An AN discussion on the deletion of thousands of Azerbaijani geostubs sourced only to GEOnet names server, essentially a gazetteer.
 * Talk page discussion at Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features) regarding an amendment to clarify that Wikipedia does not "function as" a gazetteer but instead has "features of" one
 * Various discussions by the California GNIS clear-up team on the team talk page, whose task is made much more difficult by the idea that GNIS, a gazetteer, is suitable sourcing for articles
 * As you can see from the above, this is far from an essay related to a single content dispute and created solely for that purpose. Instead it discusses a wide-ranging problem for Wikipedia in the field of notability and is intended to reduce the work needed in discussion regarding Geostubs sourced solely to the Iranian census, GNIS, GEOnet Names Server, and similar sourcing where presently we have to rehearse the same arguments over and over as to why bare mentions in these sources is not sufficient to save an article.
 * Obviously I don't want to get into a discussion about the merits of the arguments put forward in the essay (an essay arguing the opposite contention, Gazetteer, already exists) but please rest assured that this essay is not single-purpose or of limited use, or a flashy or WP:POINTy. Instead it advocates reasons to find better sourcing for a class of article that is very common on Wiki. Obviously the actual trigger for its creation was Serial Number 54129's comment in the AN discussion the nom mentions, but this was not its sole purpose and not the only thing it will be used for. I'll accept userfication if it is required. FOARP (talk) 17:33, 24 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep Valid opinion essay, it's fine to stake a position, this has wide applicability and doesn't appear to be tailored to a specific discussion. There's no urgency to delete a recently-created work in progress, and moving to userspace or draft space would be preferable to outright deletion. –dlthewave ☎ 20:18, 24 April 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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.