Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features)/Archive 2

Premature guideline
I think the guideline status on this page is premature. The RfC was very small and poorly advertised, and the page itself has contradictions and clarity issues. Furthermore, it reads like a "common outcomes" essay more than an authoritative guideline. This needs much more work and a stronger community backing before becoming a guideline.  Them From  Space  23:55, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The community was invited here freaking many times by me personally in several forums and by other people. Do you want billboards om major US freeways? The way I see it, if nobody gives suggstions that can be discussed, then it is ready. Yes it is "common outcomes", but it is not a drawback: we don't invent policies. We put past experiences into policies.


 * If you see contradictions, please list them here. Yor opinon is just ..er.. opinion, duly noted, but useless for the purposes of this draft guideline. We don't need to discuss wikipedian's opinions, it is waste of time. We discuss page content. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:07, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Woah, calm down. This needs more input before it can become a guideline. In 2012 five editors is not enough of a consensus to bring in a new notability guideline. The close was handled wrongly, in that it came to a definite conclusion one way or another, especially with valid concerns about its relationship with the other notability guidelines not yet answered. That it was closed to implement the guideline is bizarre and needs a second look. I'm ready to seek a greater community consensus if the guideline status isn't removed shortly. I already asked the closing admin to clarify his close.  Them From  Space  03:01, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but I concur with Staszek here. Frankly, you had a long time in which you could have participated in the development of this guideline, and you missed the boat. The RfC was sufficiently advertised. If there were pressing reasons not to go forward with it, they would have emerged before an RfC closure had to be sought.
 * I assessed the proposed guideline before doing the close. In my opinion, having not encountered it or the surrounding debate before, this guideline is an entirely uncontroversial enshrinement of existing practice. As Staszek says, we put past experiences into policies. I take particular interest in the comments of SMcCandlish, above, whose judgment I trust as an extremely experienced and knowledgeable administrator editor.
 * If you think there are changes that need to be made, set them out. Don't just vaguely allude to the existence of unspecified problems and make threats of what will happen if you don't get your way. That is not a productive approach to take. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   09:38, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * [A quick interpolation: User:SMcCandlish is not in fact an admin, though he should be. ☺ N oetica Tea? 02:54, 16 January 2013 (UTC)]
 * Weird, I totally thought he was! Correction made. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   10:38, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The fact that a consensus was made with five users participating in an RfC does not mean that the greater community supports this guideline. I for one don't. No offense to you personally, but I see what you did as a great injustice towards our consensus-driven model.  Them From  Space  19:25, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I went ahead an started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability regarding this.  Them From  Space  19:31, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I am replying due to the above notice in Wikipedia talk:Notability. While the work done here looks good, I'm not convinced that the vote was sufficiently advertised and I can understand the call for more discussion. Given that Notability is the parent article, it makes sense that a "heads-up" on a vote should have been given in Wikipedia talk:Notability. It wasn't that long ago that SNG proposals were made a bit more prominent. (See diff.) Location (talk) 20:11, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * During past year of work on the policy I advertized it twice in three places: willage pump, WP:notability and wikiprojectGeorgaphy. And I also canvassed several former prticipants of this work. What else you want me to do? Canvass all admins? Post on Jimbo's talk page everybody watches? Work is done by people who care. Now; you say the work looks good. Thank you. So the consensus is decided by 6 people instead of 5 now. Who else? Staszek Lem (talk) 20:58, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * As I noted, a mention of an impending vote in Wikipedia talk:Notability or an edit within would have brought in more people "who care". These are certainly more reasonable alternatives than canvassing editors or posting on Jimbo's talk page, and much more in line with what has been done in the past for SNGs. Location (talk) 21:21, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Did you read the first sentence of what I've just written? Staszek Lem (talk) 00:06, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep. Location (talk) 01:43, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Then why is your advice to do what I've done twice already? And my "ad Jimbonem" was irony. The people who worked here were not trying to be closeted or cleaquish, and made reasonable efforts to attract attention. If you know "more reasonable alternatives", then you are very welcome to invoke them to continue the work on policy improvement with broader participation. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:54, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I've responded on your talk page since I think we're going in circles here. Location (talk) 07:43, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry for confusion. I checked my contribution history and indeed it seems I forgot to post at WP:N. I did post a numerous geographical wikiprojects. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:08, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Themfromspace, your concern is justified, but colleague, really, there is no way in wikipedia to drag people to vote here by their collars. Whoever was interested in the issue, they took part in the discussion. Wikipedia is not democracy. We don't need 51% (or 5.1%) poll for approval. What is even more important to remember is that policies are not cast in stone. If somebody raises a valid concern, it will be dicussed and incorporated into the policy. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:05, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * But you do need more than 5 people out of a thousand editors to agree. SNG like this can become walled gardens without appropriate input, and need better universal support to be promoted as such.  The question that is being asked now is when you were preparing the RFC to specifically promote it (not during its development), where was it advertized to assure a large number of editors saw it?  I'm pretty confident that if it was advertized in the right places you would have had more than 5 responses (I myself might have missed that but again, this is a pretty clear lack of announcement about this).  It is best to re-run the RFC with announcements posted to WT:N, WP:VPP, WP:CENT, at minimum.  --M ASEM  (t) 14:45, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You got you numbers wrong, colleague. We need agreement among people who use, read and understand this guideline. Wikipedia is not democracy. I disagree with the attitude "it is done by 5 people so there must be something wrong with it". The policy was crafted starting from some serious disagreements among the initial authors, which were gradually moved to an agreement.
 * We have plenty of ways to ensure it will not become walled garden, starting with WP:CONSENSUS. If you cannot point a finger drawbacks of WP:GNG which pose threat to wikipedia works, then there is no reason to keep it in limbo simply because that someone might dislike something in it. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * P.S. I did advertise the work on the policy at WP:VPP, at several geographical wikiprojects, and somewhere else. And again, I apologize, I did forget about WT:N. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:34, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * This seems to be a useful collection of guidelines to me, and we've certainly been refining it for a while. FWIW, people have been citing it since well before it was declared "official". Per WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY, I'd rather see us move forward on improving it, rather than go through another RfC. Kaldari (talk) 03:06, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying the guideline is "wrong", just that getting just 5 people to agree to it is not enough. Because this is an inclusion guideline and affects what articles are present, it involves all editors as it shapes the entire work, even if only 5 editors actually work on the articles directly affected by the guidelines. (This is the problem we're having with MMA-related articles as there's a core group of editors that want to give this topic area "special" privileges over others.)  Thus we do need more input to assure that the wide community agrees these are fine. --M ASEM  (t) 17:00, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I saw the MMA page and voted there. Here the story is totally different. All efforts were put in nailing down the existing consensus; no traces of "page ownership"; only cooperation of people with different backgrounds and ideas (and there were more than 5 of them over time). So no need to panic without actual reason.   Staszek Lem (talk) 03:08, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * No, that still is of concern. I would expect that the primary editors that build up the guideline woudl be the ones most involved with the editing, but all that work must meet the larger global consensus for inclusion. --M ASEM (t) 03:36, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

To get back to the original subject, I've seen significant concern raised both at WT:N and here, and five people are just not enough to put something in place that could affect millions of articles. I agree with re-running the RfC with much wider advertisement, and I'm certainly one who would have opposed. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:16, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If it has to meet the General notability guideline anyway, then its pointless. If it met the GNG, then it wouldn't need to meet anything else.  Despite what some misread at times, WP:Notability is quite clear, something is notable if it meets the GNG or one of the subject specific guidelines, it not having to meet both.   D r e a m Focus  16:31, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree, the claim of any (significant) consensus is due small participation at the RfC and objections raised elsewhere definitely premature. In addition the guideline seems to contradict current practice and has the potential of triggering a large number of (unwanted?) AfDs (see Wikipedia_talk:Notability for details).--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:38, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Note : Please be sure to also view and read the archived page Initial development of guideline, where significant input from additional editors occurred. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm taking the liberty of copying Kmhkmh's comment from WT:N here as it's directly relevant. — Hex   (❝  ?!  ❞)   11:37, 6 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm unfortunately a bit late to the discussion, but I have to say from my perspective the guideline is highly problematic and possibly in contradiction to current practice/consensus. The problem is the (new) rather different treatment of populated places (basically always notable) and geographical features (may only be notable if more than statistical data exists). While this much stricter treatment of geographical features may make sense for some of them it does however even contradict conventional (print) encyclopedias with regard to some of the most important geographical features such as rivers and mountain ranges. For many of the world's rivers or mountain ranges (aside from the best known ones) traditional encyclopedias often just offer statistical information (location, length or max elevation, etc.). Such entries would not to be notable anymore under the suggested guideline, which in my experience contradicts the current practice in WP and is imho an unjustified restriction. It makes little sense to me, why we should consider a small town of a few hundred people notable for its own sake, but not a river with a length of a few hundred kilometers or a mountain range for which we just have some statistical data available (at the moment).--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:30, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Travel guides as acceptable sources
There are zillions of travel guides around, both on web and in print. They have 1-2- sentences for every visible feature on the trail from Apopka to Winnebaga. The question is whether they qualify as reliable sources of significant coverage to satisfy WP:GNG. While some of them do come from serious publishers, what amount of coverage for a travel guide is "significant? Staszek Lem (talk) 00:24, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I would say that having a section (i.e. not a stub) in any big, long-established guide operation - Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Frommer's, etc. - is certainly enough to confer notability. That is to say, multiple facets of the feature being discussed in a modicum of detail. Anything less than a section would open us up to having to cover virtually everything ever. Web-only travel sources would have to be WP:RS as well. (Which certainly rules out our own Wikivoyage!) — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   10:14, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem with travel guides is the same as with "popular science" publications: information there is difficult to verify. If a travel guide is for a specific narrow geographic region, then I can believe the authors were thorough and dedicated. But I have little faith that "USA Travel Guide For Dummies in RV" is anything more than a random cut-and-paste collection with little fact check. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:42, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I frequently use travel guides as sources for articles on Central American villages. It's virtually impossible to find English language sources to use for them otherwise. I won't create an article on a place, however, unless it is shown on a physical map and gets at least a few paragraphs in a well-known travel guide. But of course those are my personal criteria, not Wikipedia's :) Kaldari (talk) 02:47, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Legal recognition
re: "legally recognized, populated places" being inherently notable.

I came here from Articles for deletion/Lupton City, Chattanooga, where some of the voters wrote: "See WP:GEOLAND and having a post office puts it as being legally recognized". Isn't it a bit overstretched? Anyway, since people are using this argument, IMO the guideline must clarify what amounts to legal recognition and how it can be verified. - Altenmann >t 19:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Having a post office certainly doesn't qualify as making something "legally recognized". There may be a post office on Yonder Hill, but that doesn't mean that Yonder Hill is a legally recognized hill. Kaldari (talk) 20:27, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It would if the United States Postal Service had an official post office for the named community of "Yonder Hill". -- Jayron  32  04:41, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * What if "Yonder Hill" is claimed to be a village in India? The USPS's opinion would be irrelevant. What are WP's minimum standards for what constitutes "legal recognition"? I'd suggest that any of the following would be acceptable: a named dot on an official map, a post office, a government school or clinic, evidence of a municipal structure or elections, listing as a place in a census report. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:24, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
 * "Legally recognized" means there is a law that recognizes it. Post offices, maps, etc. have nothing to do with it. Kaldari (talk) 02:49, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Archiving talk for usability
I've archived all the discussion that took place during the initial development of this guideline, including the RFC for guideline status, in order to keep this talk page usable. If you're arriving here freshly in light of the new guideline status, please consult the archive if you want to see how it was put together. Thank you. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   10:35, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Addressing concerns
Some concerns were brought up during the recent un-RfC. I would like to us to discuss them:
 * 1) This guideline changes our treatment of populated places, effectively making them all notable.
 * This objection seems to be incorrect on two counts: 1. The guideline only says that legally recognized populated places are notable. 2. There has always been strong consensus on Wikipedia that this is the case. In my opinion this should be the least controversial statement in the guidelines, as it is merely stating what has always been the consensus at AfD. Kaldari (talk) 23:35, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) The requirement that geographical features are only notable if more than statistical information is available is too stringent and will result in numerous articles being deleted.
 * From my experience, even large hills and tiny streams generally have non-statistical information available in local sources. I think this requirement is effectively just a clarification of WP:GNG as it relates to geographical features. Can anyone provide an example of a currently existing article that would fail this test? Kaldari (talk) 23:35, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

It depends a bit on what exactly is concerned statistical data here. If that includes a rough geographic/location description, which you could do for any mountain anyhow, then indeed I'd suspect that many mountains may become subject to deletion. Also note that while in theory for most mountains additional information is available, it might be hard to access in practice, so articles with statistical information only might not get easily expanded to avoid a possible deletion. For some concrete examples of "statistical information only" mountan or mountain range entries see: Großer Nickus, Shah_Dhar, Mount Sikaram,Aktaş Dağı, Saipal, Mount Ashibetsu,Pirika Nupuri, Mount Pisshiri, Mount Midori, Shiceng Dashan, Phu Xai Lai Leng, Gudenberg. If you traverse the categories for mountains you are likely to find plenty of these and quite a number of them seems even bot generated.-Kmhkmh (talk) 00:08, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Both of the examples from Germany would be better classified as hills (judging by the topological maps), and yet they both appear to have non-statistical information available. I can only read German through Google Translate, but it looks like Gudenberg includes the ruins of an old castle and Großer Nickus is part of a nature park. So both of those would pass our criteria. However, I'm not sure they would pass the WP:GNG, as neither seems to have significant coverage in reliable sources (just brief mentions). I actually think that it would be easier for most mountain articles to survive AfD with these guidelines in place. Kaldari (talk) 04:14, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Clarification
Could someone involved with project please clarify the sentence, "Reliable sources that document and verify governmental recognition of a place, such as a national census, are usually adequate to establish notability?" I'm assuming this means that a reliable secondary source is needed to document or verify the census (a public record, and therefore a primary source), but I'm not entirely sure. Is the "national census" in the sentence the reliable source or the government recognition? Best regards, Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  09:04, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * In that sentence, "a national census" is an example of a reliable source that documents and verifies governmental recognition of a place. No other source is necessary to prove governmental recognition. If you have any suggestion for how to reword it to make it more clear, let me know. Kaldari (talk) 20:49, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Inherent notability of protected objects
Singled out of the RFC section. Here is the start of the discussion, copied for convenience:


 * I'd support promoting parts of this to guideline status, but I'm not sure that it's ready. In the "Buildings and objects" section there's the sentence: "Artificial geographical features that are officially assigned the status of cultural or national heritage or of any other protected status are inherently notable." For the most important heritage sites that's probably correct, but there are lower levels of protection which don't meet notability, making this misleading. The sentence about excluding micronations also seems unnecessary (as in most cases they are populated places without legal recognition); is there a reason for it? Peter James (talk) 22:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * re: "protected status". Good catch of a WP:WEASEL; easily fixed: I added clarification "of national level". Staszek Lem (talk) 23:07, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * National level could still include Grade II Listed buildings or similar status, and most are not notable. Peter James (talk) 09:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I see at least the following options:
 * Remove the phrasing "or of any other..."
 * Clarify the level of protected status that decides inherent notability,
 * Likely, on a per-country basis
 * Possibly mention that this list of protections is subject to expansion basing on consensus (or not; since it is actually how wikipedia works)
 * Clarify that an item protection was based on its individual merits, rather than because of simply being a representative of historical panorama or "age or rarity", etc.

Ping user:Peter James. - Staszek Lem (talk) 21:22, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * By country may be the only option, apart from removing this entirely, unless AFD outcomes no longer reflect consensus. Natural features with protected status may need mentioning somewhere, as they are in the nutshell but not in the text of the page. Peter James (talk) 23:07, 11 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Object to the term "inherently" notable - While things may be practically inherently notable, this is not a phrase we want to use as a notability criteria. I've boldly edited the page to say that some things are almost always considered notable if their existence can be verified, leaving room for the rare counter-example.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  21:12, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, reverted. The "inherently" stayed during years of discussion. To tilt the consensus you will need arguments stronger than "not a phrase we want". Every wikipedia policy has "rare counter-examples", and there is nothing wrong with this. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:08, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * We do not have the concept of inherited notability, anywhere; this is where "presumed notable" would be used instead. --M ASEM (t) 00:14, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * You mean "inherent notability". Well, I don't see why this guideline is not allowed to have something special. Please see my next comment and please provide a convincing argument why the concept of "inherent notability" is bad. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:26, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Notability (organizations and companies), Notability (web), and Notability (astronomical objects) are 3 existing notability guidelines that explicitly point out that there is not inherent notability within those topics. As Masem pointed out, "presumed notable" is a better term for classes of things that are so rarely non-notable that the burden of proof is on the person that claims it is not notable to say "I tried to find significant coverage of this thing, and couldn't."  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  00:20, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, only 3 guidelines explicitly forbid inherent notability. This argumernt is kinda WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Why 1 or more policies cannnot explicitly allow? Staszek Lem (talk) 00:29, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * There are a few classes of things which even poorly-sourced entries will be considered "notable" if taken to AFD. Conventional/comprehensive/general-purpose diploma-granting secondary schools, astronomical bodies with generally-recognized names, species whose existence is generally accepted, and the geographic features listed on this proposed guideline.  While some Wikipedia essays use the term "inherent notability" to describe such categories, there is a long-standing practice of using the term "presumed notable" or some similar phrase rather than "inherent notability," at least in guidelines.  The danger of using a term like "inherent notability" in a guideline like this, where it might actually fit, is that it opens the door to WP:CREEP and in a few years, things like "bands that played multi-national tours" will be considered "inherently notable" even if the "tour" consisted of all-sub-100-person venues and neither the tour nor the band has ever received any non-routine, non-promotional coverage (but it has received routine/mere-mention-level coverage from reliable, independent sources, meeting WP:VERIFY).  We can use a term like "presumed notable" to avoid this CREEP.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  00:46, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Now I understand your point better, thank you. If I understand you correctly, I will agree that the term "inherently notable" may be safely replaced with "presumed notable". Now I see that the only difference being is that the class of "inherently notable" topics in this guideline is the topics which are "presumed notable" per se, without any further conditions (other than satisfaction of the WP content policies). Staszek Lem (talk) 01:16, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for understanding. Just to provide further clarification as to why I am against the use of the term "inherent notability" in Wikipedia: The English-language term "inherently" means "xxxxx is true and it always will be."  The English-language term "presumed" means "we can presume/assume that xxxxx is true until proven otherwise."  It clearly leaves open the theoretical (or actual) possibility of an exception as part of the guideline itself. Using the term "inherently" would force those who wanted to call out an exception to point to the fact that "a guideline is just a guideline, not a policy."  It's far better to explicitly allow for such exceptions such we know that sooner or later one will almost certainly crop up.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  17:14, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Further clarification for newly arrived people: Most "notability" guidelines are basically shortcuts to arguments commonly used in AfD discussions, rather than something invented on the fly. A time-saver, I would say. All "notability" guidelines are trumped by major policies, in particular, by WP:VERIFIABILITY. Now, when we say here that something is "inherently notable", it basically means we strongly want a wikipedia article on the subject, even it is poorly referenced at a given moment, however scarce information is available. Nevertheless if someone convincingly proves that e.g., there are no reliable sources on the subject, then of course the article will be deleted regardless guidelines. @davidwr: I think this consideration fairly covers your expected "rare counter-examples". If not, please explain what other situations you have in mind. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:26, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * That's pretty much a very wrongly skewed version of notability guidelines. They may bore out from AFD discussions, but they are generally created predicated on discussion on whether a class of articles are worthy for inclusion, not because AFDs closed a certain way. --M ASEM (t) 00:34, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * That's pretty much very wrongly skewed interpretation of what I wrote. Let me rephrase: A specific notability guideline is not being born by a troika who decided let's have a notability guideline for pizza nuts. In majority of cases it is based on a preexisting consensus of arguments for a particular category of articles. Of course I have no intention to argue that the final guideline is "predicated on discussion"; that's how wikipedia works, right? And yes precisely because AFDs usually closed a certain way. Statistics of thousands of AfD discussions trumps any consensus of a Committee of Seven, who happen to frequent a particular essay, unless someone has a solid argument to argue that previous AfD closures were all wrong. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:08, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * In light of the discussion above, I have made a 2nd edit, this time replacing the term "inherently notable" with "presumed notable" or something equivalent.  In the context of the overall document, the phrase "considered notable," when used without any qualification like "usually" means the same thing as "presumed notable."  I would have no objection to a purely clerical harmonizing of the document, replacing unqualified used of "considered notable" with "presumed notable" or vice-versa.  Any replacement of a qualified use of either term should be done with care, so the meanings aren't changed.  Please wait 24 hours before making such changes to see if anyone has any objections or any better suggestions.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  17:30, 13 May 2014 (UTC)