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Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features)/Archive 13

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Latest comment: 7 months ago by FOARP in topic GEOLAND Workshop
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OK, so I have nominated a subdivision for deletion, and it has a Census Designated Place established for it. So we we're back at the "legal recognition" argument, except this time with a specific situation. We have already established that listing in GNIS doesn't constitute such recognition, and my sense of the discussion above is that CDP doesn't either, though not for the same reasons. My argument is going to be that CDP listing doesn't override the basic notability standards applied to classes of places, so that while I am inclined to keep articles on places that can be shown to be towns/villages for which a CDP is defined, I'm not so inclined for subdivisions or city neighborhoods. And I must stand on the principle that CDPs are not notable in their own right. The census bureau designated a bunch of composite CDPs early on consisting of multiple places on the ground which were lumped together into a single unit for reporting, and I must insist that these were and are not notable; eventually they decided these were a mistake and stopped doing this, but at any rate they were in effect places made up for reporting purposes which nobody else really believed in.

Anyway, after years of arguing about the wording here I think we need to settle at least this case. But I'm open to jettisoning "legally recognition" entirely. The AfD discussion in question is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Enchanted Hills, Indiana for those who care to look or participate. Mangoe (talk) 13:26, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

I dont think we will ever agree on a proper SNG here. I have tried and failed in the past. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 13:50, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
Yes, I've agreed in the past that "legally recognized" is uselessly ambiguous without some sort of definition. CDPs are not legally recognized (you cannot take a CDP to court in a lawsuit). However, I think CDPs are somewhat different from GNIS entries. They represent an effort by the Census Bureau to provide meaningful data breakdown for places that are locally recognized and as such should have some presentation within Wikipedia. However, whether every CDP needs a standalone article, perhaps not. older ≠ wiser 14:51, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
That was a bad AfD, not because of the result but because it seemed like everyone was so caught up in whether it was a CDP or not that nobody clearly searched for sources in the AfD (apart from the nominator). There is or was a theatre in Enchanted Hills, claiming it was in Syracuse. A court website claims the community association - HOA? - has a Cromwell address. Some people claim to be from there. It's mentioned in research about the lake it sits on. I think if someone went to newspapers.com there's a chance it might be notable under GNG.
The whole point of GEOLAND is to allow us to keep articles on cities, towns, and villages which might be under-sourced at AfD, since legal recognition would mean that someone somewhere has performed some sort of administrative act to authenticate it as a populated place. We shouldn't deprecate it just because the USA makes a mess of defining where people live. I'm not sure the admin bit is the case with CDPs, but even then, someone at the census bureau found a need to define a specific place where people are living or have lived. SportingFlyer T·C 16:40, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
"someone at the census bureau found a need to define a specific place where people are living or have lived." yes... But for statistical purposes, not legal purposes. It's not a legal recognition however you want to cut it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:50, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Useless as "legally recognised" is, I'd object to abandoning it without a replacement, simply because that would leave GNG as the sole criterion, thus producing in GEOLAND the same sort of endless shitshow as has engulfed sports bios. I'll repeat what I've already written further up this page, i.e., that a clear solution is to define - for each country individually, not taking US practice as the sole yardstick - a base admin unit which can be held to be notable without further case-by-case discussion, and the rest can be considered under GNG or incorporated into wider articles / lists. Ingratis (talk) 05:16, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

If you go back to the discussion before and at the last RFC, we couldn't find a solution. Trying to find legally recognised standards for every country is just impossible. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:37, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
Perhaps you should sit further discussion out, then, if you're so completely negative on the possibility of change. "Legally recognised" seems to be generally accepted as almost meaningless, but it does convey, in a dim fuzzy sort of way, that some kind of admin status confers notability, even if no-one is entirely sure what, and that is better than nothing. It could be vastly improved, but if people just give up, the danger is that it will removed with no replacement + consequences as indicated above - another uncontrolled deletionist field day. Ingratis (talk) 05:57, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
If "another uncontrolled deletionist field day" is how you genuinely feel about your fellow editors you should sit this and any related discussion out. That isn't civil, it isn't assuming good faith, and it isn't appropriate. You apparently lack the ability to contribute to this area objectively, deeply disapointing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:57, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
Let's be clear on this: the only articles we have a problem with are the articles where we lack the sourcing to develop an article anyway. They're the mass-created single-sentence perma-stubs. I don't see why these should be kept. The idea of identifying in every country a specific unit that is automatically notable, when national law varies so widely, is a total non-starter. FOARP (talk) 17:58, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Let's try sticking to the US for a minute

Since this is turning into an exercise in spinning wheels, can we just talk about the USA for now, since that's what got us this in the first place? How about this:

  • Incorporated cities/towns/villages are in the USA are presumed notable as a rule.
  • Notability of townships is determined on a state-by=state basis.
  • Settlements which are not defined in law are evaluated on a case-by-case basis and need to satisfy usual notability considerations.
  • subdivisions and neighborhoods are usually not considered notable.
  • Census Designated Places are a function of statistical reporting and are not notable in themselves. Usually the place they represent is notable because there is usually sufficient evidence for its notability, but since CDPs may represent neighborhoods or other such areas, there are exceptions.
  • GNIS does not confer notability because of the lack of clarity and numerous errors in its classification of places named.

Mangoe (talk) 19:48, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

The US is particularly problematic because different states have different standards... A town in Texas is a different beast than a town in New Hampshire for example. To break out Texas for a minute they have more legally recognized cities (~900) than they have legally recognized towns (~200) and they have more legally recognized towns than they have legally recognized villages (~20). That is completely backwards to the vast majority of the world. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:54, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't see that as a problem, at least not for Texas. If you are willing to say that many or most of the incorporated towns are not notable by GNG standards, that would be a different story; but that's really where the matter lies. The town thing in New England is really a non-issue as they are surely all notable. Mangoe (talk) 22:11, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
If only New England were that simple... A Connecticut village is a Texas neighborhood, district, or subdivision. Connecticut is also weird in not having counties to default to, although I don't think it matters much in practice because most stuff is well covered given how old the state is. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:40, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
As I've mentioned before, I agree 100% for every state except Hawai'i, where there are no cities or towns that qualify for presumption of notability through GEOLAND. I would be fine treating these on a case-by-case basis, but if we're treating townships differently per state why not have "Hawai'ian CDPs" fall under the same considerations as e.g. NJ townships? JoelleJay (talk) 20:49, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
Maybe because townships in New Jersey are local governments treated as incorporated municipalities? CDPs in Hawaii are the same as CDPs in every other state, designated by the Office of Management and Budget for statistical purposes. Donald Albury 21:41, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
If the purpose of GEOLAND is to predict which places are very likely to have encyclopedic value rather than to prescribe that value, then in situations where the definitions for GEOLAND are explicitly not employed why wouldn't we just use the local equivalent of "town"? Even if they don't have governments, the CDPs and HHLs are basically synonymous with the underlying settlements. JoelleJay (talk) 23:24, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
I'd be a bit surprised if very many CDPs in Hawai'i did not have significant coverage in reliable sources beyond census data. older ≠ wiser 21:47, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

IMO the bones of a good standard for using the SNG "way in" would be that it has to fulfill all three of these criteria:

  • Currently or previously populated place. (this would probably be handled by the heading)
  • Is or was generally recognized by the populace as a PLACE. This rules out abstract entities such as irrigation districts, electoral districts, census tracts etc.
  • If based on modern times it needs to be something higher level than a neighborhood, subdivision or development. In major populated areas, it needs to be at a level that has it's own somewhat full-spectrum government. If not(as in rural areas or historic times) having a strong (recognized by the populace) settlement or town like identity fulfills this.

I think this might work for the whole world. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:18, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

For the current US, this results in nearly the same thing as Mangoes. North8000 (talk) 20:20, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Community wide consensus since 2018 demonstrates a consensus to keep or redirect CDPDs

A review of WikiProject Deletion sorting for geography archive from 2018-2022/2023/2024?/2025? reveals the community-wide response to AfDs for CDPs:
1. There have been 10 keeps of CDPs
2. There has been 1 keep of a CDP specifically segregated in a bundled nomination
3. There have been 17 redirects/merges of neighborhoods/unincorporated communities to CDP (targeted primary article of recognized populated place)
4. There have been 3 no consensus to delete CDP
5. There has been 1 redirect of a former (hyphenated) CDP (for disambiguation)
6. There has been 1 deletion of former (hyphenated) CDP (article split)
7. There has been delete of a CDP, which is the subject of this this discussion which has not been completed since it is controversial.

Segregated CDP

Locust Mount, Virginia specifically 'rescued' from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Davis Wharf, Virginia because it is CDP.

No consensus AfDs

Result no consensus despite arguments/keep !votes; represents very 'local' outcome

Redirects to CDPs

Redirects to CDPs acknowledge community wide understanding of CDPs as primary article and legally recognised and are consistent with:

  • Wikipedia:PLACEOUTCOMES:Smaller suburbs are generally merged, being listed under the primary city article, except when they consist of legally separate municipalities or communes
  • Wikipedia:GEOLAND:If a Wikipedia article cannot be developed using known sources, information on the informal place should be included in the more general article on the legally recognized populated place or administrative subdivision that contains it.

pre 2018 (incomplete?)


@Djflem: is this comment some sort of oblique response to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Enchanted Hills, Indiana? This reads as some sort of attempt to indirectly refute the close there which was "The result was delete. The only "keep" argument makes the case that there is community consensus CDPs are inherently notable. But WP:NPLACE, where any such consensus would be documented, does not say that. It says that "In the United States, Census Designated Places usually represent notable places but it is the underlying place which is the article subject" - which means that any argument about notability must focus on the place, not the CDP. For that reason, I must assign little weight to the "keep" argument, and given that we do not have consensus on where to redirect or merge this, deletion remains the only option." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:02, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back:It is a survey that establish that clearly establishes that the community has since 2018 consistently kept or redirected AfDs about CDPs. You will also note that that that part of PLACE was was added by the nominated who has not provded a foot note which leads to a justification for adding the that statement. What does "In the United States, Census Designated Places usually represent notable places but it is the underlying place which is the article subject" it mean anyway? It's an incomplete phrase without real context/content conveniently interpreted by the closer say something it DOES NOT say. Djflem (talk) 07:58, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
If thats what its supposed to be then why didn't you include Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Enchanted Hills, Indiana? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:28, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Because as the introduction said it was a review from 2018-2024, and since the RECENT and since the opening of this section cites it very clearly.Djflem (talk) 16:00, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Either its a review of 2018-2024 or its "a survey that establish that clearly establishes that the community has since 2018 consistently kept or redirected AfDs about CDPs."/"Community wide consensus since 2018 demonstrates a consensus to keep or redirect CDPD" because 2025 is since 2018. Do you see how it makes the claim false though? Since 2018 the community has not consistently kept or redirected AfDs about CDPs. You appear to have massaged the data to arrive at the conclusion you did. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:10, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
You are more than welcome to check the data before you make accusations.Djflem (talk) 16:34, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I'm saying what I'm saying because I checked the data and found both it and your analysis wanting... What data did you check before making this accusation against me? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:37, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Keeping a CDP does not mean that CDP is a basis for keeping. A CDP can also be a populated place which is kept for other (community accepted) reasons. North8000 (talk) 16:19, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
On the contrary, as the above survey demonstrates the keeps and/or redirects for CDPs, and the rationales within them describes, that in many cases it has been kept because it is indeed a CDP, establishing a community wide consensus that has lead to outcomes for all if not most is NOT delete. Djflem (talk) 05:51, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
@North8000:} The community has chosen NOT delete specifically because it is a CDP or do you see something different?Djflem (talk) 06:14, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
If I read you right, you are asserting that in those cases, the kept ones and the ones redirected to a city/etc that also happens to be a CVP establishes that being as CVP is a basis for keeping. Respectfully, IMO it is clearly incorrect to draw that conclusion. I looked at about 10 of them, and in each case either the basis for keeping or the basis for the redirect target existing was for reasons other than being a CVP. In other words, they establish that being a CVP was not the basis for keeping. So, respectfully, they refuted your assertion rather than supporting it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:11, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I suggest you look further and look at the comments. If one looks at them, one will note there are many which establish the CDP as the reason for keeping, whether or or not that is found in the closer's decision.Djflem (talk) 14:50, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't have time to look at all of these but the sampling I've checked so far shows them to be mostly irrelevant. Redirecting to a place that has a CDP signifies nothing, and CDPs for settlements which would be kept anyway if there were no CDP are uncontroversial. The only ones that matter are those where the CDP represents a neighborhood or subdivision which we ordinarily would delete articles on. So far I only have seen one of those here, and it was kept on the basis of "CDPs are legal recognition", which recent discussion has mostly rejected. I'm also going to say that older AfDs from before the mass cleanup effort are not relevant either because the nature and scope of the problem wasn't well understood then. Mangoe (talk) 02:27, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I suggest you take time to look further into the rationales the Wikipedia community has has chosen NOT to delete CPDs since 2018. Older AfDs establish precedence and consensus. Consensus through editing by 100s of participants over an extended period is very much relevant, even more so than localised small discussions with limited participation such as here. Or should previous outcomes be ignored and NEVER be used as a basis for new nominations as you seem to be suggesting? Djflem (talk) 06:12, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I would suggest that there is no problem other than POV pushing.Djflem (talk) 06:31, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Since you refuse to engage, I will have to assert that the rejection of "legally recognized" which has characterized every discussion of the passage is the new and current consensus. Going all the way back to 2020 in the archives to the first mention of CDPs, their notability has always been questioned; the first reference to "legally recognized" is someone asking what it actually means, and every time it appears in a discussion, there is invariably criticism of it. The one wide-ranging RfC I would describe as a strong "no consensus". Given over five years of criticism, claims of a consensus just do not hold up. Mangoe (talk) 11:14, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
As you have asserted yourself: There is no consensus anymore that the phrase "legally-recognized place" means something definite; we have argued this out over and over. one cannot conveniently call it irrelevant in one place, but change the goal post in another. To which current consensus do you refer? What was the old one, since you suggest there's a new one?Please provide links where and when was it established where the supposed new one was established.Djflem (talk) 12:26, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
The consensus you cite was to delete, your argument is that there is never consensus to delete. It is you who is making an argument that lacks internal consistency. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:31, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
The argument I'm making is that the historical OUTCOMES (which represent a consensus) of AFDs for CDPS has NEVER been to delete because the Wikipedia community for many years has found that they should not be deleted. You will note that in the recent most recent one the closer is using a rationale from an UNVETTED addition to NP:PLACE and and adding things to it which are not explicity stated it to suit their logic, which is a form of a supervote. Djflem (talk) 15:56, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
But you're only able to do that by excluding some historical outcomes (such as Enchanted Hills, Indiana). Doesn't that seem dishonest? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:12, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I'll add it to put and end to that silly argument and make you happy. I will also add Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sacate Village, Arizona which was keep in January 2023 (please see rationales, which cite CDP being a reason to keep). The survey is as comprehensive and certainly complete to 2022. You are more than welcome to review the archives and when YOU find ANY OTHER deletes (I cannot, despite rigorous review) please point that out. Djflem (talk) 16:25, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't personally make a distinction between a delete without redirect and a delete with redirect or merge. Both are a finding that a stand alone page is not due. What I do notice from the linked discussions is that there is not a community consenus here... Its consistantly the same dozen editors (many of whom are active in this discussion) making the same keep arguments with a much wider segment of the community saying delete/merge/redirect. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:29, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
There is a distinction between whether an article is deleted or redirected or merged, as those are options available in AfD discussions, which determines whether a PAGE which contains the information is KEPT. And yes, you might say that there are a dozen active editors who make the same arguments on both sides. But your claim that the wider community prefers clearly prefers to keep, merge, or redirect, thus keep the page and NOT deleting it.Djflem (talk) 16:40, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
What distinction is there in terms of stand alone notability? I genuinely do not see the same monolith on any side other than keep. The page does not get kept as a stand alone article in a merge/redirect. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:45, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
See the SNG which clearly states (bold mine): If a Wikipedia article cannot be developed using known sources, information on the informal place should be included in the more general article on the legally recognized populated place or administrative subdivision that contains it. Djflem (talk) 16:52, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
And you're trying to use that as a back door to assert that CDPs are legally recognized even though they aren't actually? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:03, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
No, that's you're misreading and mistake.Djflem (talk) 17:52, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Are you conflating due for inclusion somewhere and due for inclusion as a stand alone page? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:11, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Can you please add a link the the discussion which precipitated this change to NP:Place that you made so that members of the community can properly vet it? It is convoluted and unclear and as such has little meaning. Djflem (talk) 08:04, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I missed that, I've removed it for now. SportingFlyer T·C 08:29, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Editor has been asked to provide links that would support the unvetted change. Djflem (talk) 12:27, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
A few notes about that change. One is in response to some saying that was unclear. IMO it is is solidly a logical statement but if it is unclear to folks it would probably need rewording. I agree that being a CDP should not be a reason to green light it. CDP is (arguably) already excluded as a basis for green lighting it. I'm not so sure that we should start creating entire writeups listing this that specifically don't count. North8000 (talk) 13:45, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
The editor has been asked to back up the the unvetted addition. Or are you able to provide the basis and background for it?Djflem (talk) 14:42, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Personally, I don't think it's proper to include country-specific information in a general guideline. SportingFlyer T·C 06:35, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
  • As per the statement to the Federal register, CDPs started initially in 1950s as "unincorporated places", where they had to have a population of 1000 or more. This then changed several times during 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s until 2000 when the current no threshold was put in place. So there is no consistency on how these places are recorded. This is further backed up by the statement "In addition, the Census Bureau reserves the right to modify the boundaries and attributes of CDPs as needed to maintain geographic relationships before the final tabulation geography is set for the 2020 Census." So basically it can be changed by the Bureau, meaning that again a CDP is not consistent. And then at another federal register document it states "A CDP is a statistical geographic entity encompassing a

concentration of population, housing, and commercial structures that is clearly identifiable by a single name, but is not within an incorporated place. CDPs are the statistical geography counterparts of incorporated places." So basically they are statistical counterparts of incorporated places, and it's incorporated places that are legally recognised as per the same document "Incorporated Place: A type of governmental unit, incorporated under state law as a city, town (except in New England, New York, and Wisconsin), borough (except in Alaska and New York), village, or other legally recognized description that provides a wide range governmental services for a concentration of people within legally prescribed boundaries." No where does the Census Bureau registered documents state that CDPs are legally recognised (a point that is made in several if the Keep arguments in AFDs). So as they are not reliable because a) goal posts move on size and b) boundaries can be moved by the Bureau without a point of law, and that they are not legally recognised (a weak argument in GEOLAND I know) they should have to meet WP:GNG and have SIGCOV, which many of the examples deleted don't. Your argument that there is consensus is moot, as the number of editors involved in the AFDs is small compared to the large RFC that took place a couple of years ago to change GEOLAND, and at no point was CDPs discussed from my memory. In fact, please raise an RFC if yiu think there is a consensus to add CDPs to the SNG.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:30, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

The collective number of editors who have participated in AfDs is larger than this in local discussions, and OUTCOMES with with participants represent consensus is to NOT delete. There does not appear ro be any RFCs where there was consensus to add CDPS to the SNG.Djflem (talk) 16:49, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
The RFC went on for about a month a half, was advertised at wikiprojects and at village pump and had a very large participation. How many editors have actually taken place at AFD? Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Davis Wharf, Virginia had 6 editors, who mostly voted delete, but Locust Mount was kept on the basis it was the only one that had keep arguments, but as per User:FOARP they were not valid or not enough. Then Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Skyland Estates, Virginia which was no consensus had a total of 4 editors, one who provided evidence but two failed WP:MILL and the other two showed that it was a subdivision, so therefore not meeting GEOLAND. The other argument was that it was presumed notable as it was a CDP, but as per my breakdown above, there is no legal recognition of CDPs so it should meet GNG, which it doesn't. There is not many editors involved in just two AFDs, and arguments that don't meet GEOLAND. So as I said before please bring an RFC to make the change to add CDPs and let the community decide. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:30, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Where is link to the RFC you are referring to and what does it say about CDPs? Anyone can cherry pick up a couple of AfDs to support their point, but a sampling of two mentioned is not comprehensive. The list is much longer.Djflem (talk) 17:51, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I just took two of your sample. Another was put as no consensus as the question of CDPs was raised here, which if you look at Eddy's post came to nothing. Put up all of the AFDs which yiu state show the consensus and we can then evaluate.
I can't find the RFC, which was about legal recognition, and as u stated had no one mention CDPs. @North8000, @FOARP @Horse Eye's Back can you find the RFC as I know you were all involved. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 18:06, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Comment - "Legal recognition" was always a bad standard. The law is not even nearly the same between different jurisdictions. There are plenty of countries where individual buildings are listed in census data (e.g., the UK). There are plenty of other countries which have manay different over-lapping forms of ""legal recognition". Whatever standard is used, this one has reached the end of the road. FOARP (talk) 17:43, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
    I completely and wholeheartedly disagree. It is the simplest one size fits all for the entire world. SportingFlyer T·C 18:40, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
    OK, so it's time to get writing that article about my house because this standard totally works, right? I mean I can tell you exactly how many people lived in it at each published census. And if you think that I'm just trolling when I say this, please remember that those Iranian "village" articles Carlossuarez46 created were basically this.FOARP (talk) 18:54, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
    @SportingFlyer, the fire hydrant across the street from me is legally recognized by your standards -- shall we have an article about it? I can even provide photographs. older ≠ wiser 20:46, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
    For example, I live in about 10 legally recognized districts...many of them just abstract sets of lines on a map most don't even know that exist. One of those places /sets of lines on the map is a sanitarium district, even though we haven't had a sanitarium for many decades. It's a legally recognized place. North8000 (talk) 21:26, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
    Oh, please. I know you all know these are all distortions of what we use "legally recognized" for in practice. It even says other areas not commonly recognized as a place (such as the area in an irrigation district) are not presumed to be notable. A fire hydrant is not a place, most of those legally recognised districts aren't what we would call places... it's clear that this means a city, town, village, or hamlet has been designated as such by the powers that be in a jurisdiction. Now, a house in England might be. SportingFlyer T·C 22:24, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
    Yes, and the point is that a CDP is not in any meaningful sense legally recognized. older ≠ wiser 22:43, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
    I've never specifically said it is. I just think deprecating our standard to solve a very specific USA-only problem is quite problematic, especially since there are underdeveloped articles on towns and even cities in places like Africa and India that this wording protects. SportingFlyer T·C 06:34, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
    The problem of legal-recognition giving notability to entities that clearly aren't notable is not just US specific. The Iranian example is one of the biggest ones we have. Poland is also an issue. The GNS articles are a world-wide example. We've been tacking on individual examples of non-notable entities as a kludge for this broken mechanism, and this just was a further kludge. FOARP (talk) 08:43, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
    The question is whether (mere) legal recognition confers or should confer notability. My post was showing that it doesn't /shouldn't. And my "doesn't/shouldn't" example was a case where it was a district defined by legally defined lines on a map, It wasn't about the other parts of the guideline that you noted. And in fact, IMHO, the part you quoted weighs against greenlighting for being a census district. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:04, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

the irrelevancy of the listing above

So I see that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/San Martin, California was added to the list above. This one was a supervote which skipped any discussion. In any case there's clearly a town there so it wouldn't have been a controversial keep, CDP or not. This is emblematic of the problem with this evidence: mostly it's irrelevant because most cases don't involve the point of contention. The only ones that matter are where the place in question was not a town and people wanted to keep it anyway because of the CDP. Nobody cares whether some article without a CDP associated is redirected to one that is; nobody contests keeping places where there is an underlying town which would make the place notable. It is really too much to ask for us to have to sift through all the irrelevancy to get at the relative few which are now contentious. Mangoe (talk) 18:18, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Also, anything before about 2020 is too old to matter. By that point the issues with mass article creation had become apparent and attitudes concerning GEOLAND began to shift considerably. Before that date, people where using GNIS as a source of "legal recognition", and concesus on that is now firm in the other direction. Mangoe (talk) 18:22, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
That's very rich coming from someone who is making up things up and changing SNG guidelines and providing any backing for the NON-vetted addition when asked to do so. When will you provided the link to the discussion which precipitated that inclusion of your POV, which you are repeating above? Anyone can cherry pick examples, as you just have, to make your point, and in disregard to the facts, pooh-pooh HISTORICAL OUTCOMES that don't suit it, and call others irrelevant. Red herrings and other distractions from the topic of this discussion, CDPS, are not useful or helpful. Your claim about legal recognition clearly has not gotten enough traction to make or warrant a change in the SNG, so again more POV stated as a 'sort of fact'. What is relevant is that across the board for many years (up until 2024) is that ALL CDPs have been keep, merged, or redirected, and NOT deleted. If you do not wish to spend the time to review the record and the reasoning behind them, then don't opine on it, because as you note yourself, CPDs have NOT been deleted because the community has decided that they should be included in the encyclopaedia as a matter of record specifically because they are CPDs, which is not contentious but consensus. Djflem (talk) 19:29, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
You are violating all sorts of WP principles here. Consensus can change; I remember the days when we automatically kept all articles on secondary schools, and now we don't. Views on GEONAMES and on the merits of sources have changed, not even really that recently, and every discussion of "legally recognized" immediately elicits the remarks that it's Americentric and that even then it's really a bad standard because we cannot agree on what actually represents legal recognition. The only reason it hasn't been changed is that we can't even begin to agree what to replace it with.
And as for your persistent personal attacks in place of an argument, I was as surprised as anyone that Sandstein closed the discussion as he did, because I had forgotten I had made the change. Honestly I've been waiting for a deletion review. The change may not have been discussed, but nobody objected either; and now that you have, I at least am following procedures and haven't done anything towards restoring it. Meanwhile you have pretty much brought discussion to an end with this dump of irrelevancy. Do you really expect us to do a point-by-point analysis of this huge dump you've piled here?
From what I can see, relevant AfD discussions are few, because (as I've explained several times now, and you keep WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT ignoring) there aren't a lot of cases where someone asks the census for a CDP for a place that isn't a city or town. That's the case for all the CDPs I know of in this area, and there are quite a few because Maryland is mostly unincorporated and there's little rhyme or reason as to which cities and towns are and which aren't. But occasionally we come across a CDP for a neighborhood within a city, or a subdivision that someone wants a population for; but contrary to what you claim, there is no consensus now that a CDP represents legal recognition. And looking at old discussions, once GNIS's problems became apparent, people began to reject "legal recognition" in the US as meaning anything beyond incorporation. In the case of CDPs I looked back through archived discussions to discover that I was the one who argued that CDP designation evinced notability; but I no longer think that. And I'm not alone in this. No guideline is inarguable; no decision here is immutable. I'm willing to accept overturning the most recent result to "no consensus", but you saying "the community has decided" is just not how things work here. Mangoe (talk) 22:28, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Relevancy of the historical record above

  • Do you mean Indiana or what is that about Maryland? (just more fluff anyway)
  • If "the community has decided" is just not how things work here, pray tell, how do they work outside of collboration and consensus, which are core principles of building this encyclopedia
  • You do not decide what is relevant, so stop representing that you do. Your explanations are not ignored, they are rejected as not being the last word on the matter (surprise!) so skip the superiority.
  • Your insinuations (more distractions/fluff) about violating principles and making personal attacks are nothing more than that.
  • You are the one who violated a major principle by deceptively manipulating the SNG to add something to it to promote your POV without proposing it to the community and having it vetted.
  • Despite unwillingness to go thru individual examples (provided as you correctly call it, as evidence) the synopsis of the list is quite clear: the community has consistently decided CDPs should NOT be deleted, in some cases specifically because they are CDPs whether or not 'legal recognition' invoked. (an argument I have not made anywhere in this discussion despite your assertion that I have).

That is the historical record/precedence of 7 years and remains the fact:

1. There have been 10 keeps of CDPs
2. There has been 1 keep of a CDP specifically segregated in a bundled nomination
3. There have been 17 redirects/merges of neighborhoods/unincorporated communities to CDP (targeted primary article of recognized populated place)
4. There have been 3 no consensus to delete CDP
5. There has been 1 redirect of a former (hyphenated) CDP (for disambiguation)
6. There has been 1 deletion of former (hyphenated) CDP (article split)
7. There has been 1 deletion of a CDP, which is the subject of this this discussion which and is controversial.


Djflem (talk) 17:47, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Since you insist on belaboring this, behold, the point-by-point reply:
0. As I've now said at least three times, there's every reason to disregard older discussions. I've explained why before, and see no reason to repeat myself a third time.
1. I count about ten keeps as well, but they are all over the map, as it were. All but one are from 2020 or earlier; two are older still. Only five or six are about subdivisions Three of them represent odd situations: one of them, Sacate Village, Arizona, represents a division of tribal lands about which we really didn't have a precedent; I wouldn't call this uncontroversial. The other two oddballs represent cases where the census tried to work out how many people actually lived in town in a New England "town". I think it really makes more sense to merge these into the parent town article, since the the statistics are the only meaningful content, but be that as it may.... Harmon, North Dakota is a special train wreck of a discussion because the article ended up being about the old town which evaporated in the depression; this would now be kept in any case, but for whatever reason the census applied it to a pair of unrelated subdivisions to draw up a CDP. And keeping it on that basis was not uncontroversial. This discussion was over three years ago, and that's by far the most recent.
2. Locust Mount, Virginia shows up as a town even in the oldest topos, so possibly decent sourcing would be possible without the help of the census. And the reference to it as a CDP was rejected as a reason in the only reply, so it's hardly uncontroversial.
3. As I've also said twice already, these are irrelevant, as there is no discussion of the CDPs involved.
4. "No consensus" outcomes are plainly a sign of no consensus, so here you are arguing against yourself.
5. This was not uncontroversial, but closers generally will prefer a redirect over deletion so it got kept.
6. This is actually an argument that CDPs are NOT innately notable, and it is in line with the argument I made years back that these combination CDPs are not notable.
7. And so here we are, but people at the DRV are either mostly arguing "endorse" or are criticizing me for re-raising the question.
And while we're at it:
8. Discussion below on restoring a version of my addition is running in favor of doing so, which is a better indication of current consensus than old AfD outcomes.
And that's the issue: even ignoring my disagreements with your analysis, consensus can change. Mangoe (talk) 20:56, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
And as to your bullets: first, I don't know why you are claiming that whatever difference there is between Maryland and Indiana matters, or for that matter even what it is. I'm familiar with CDPs as a class because they are common here, that's all; I happen to be sitting in one right now because the town where I live is unincorporated, though it is obviously a small town centered around a grocery store and a set of strip malls, with its own elementary school which backs up to my yard. But be that as it may: Second, it's the principle you keep implying that once something is decided, it becomes immutable. That's not how things are here, and policy says as much. That is one of the two main issues here, the other being that the notability of CDPs has been contested for quite some time, and that dispute shows up in almost all of the discussions you cite. But Third, yes, I will decide what is irrelevant, because I am an autonomous thinking person, and if you want to assert they are relevant, it is behooves you to come up with counterarguments to my reasons for my position rather than just blowing it off. Fourth, you've constantly effectively denied that "consensus can change", which is a direct quotation of policy. As for personal attacks, I suppose I can retract that, with my apologies. But moving on to Fifth, there is WP:BEBOLD, and I made the change and nobody objected to it for seven months. Now you are objecting, and now we are discussing it. Really, it is on you to watch the guideline if you care what it says. And finally, dumping a long list of assorted cases on us I regard as a kind of filibuster, but in any case you cannot complain any longer that I did not check them. And you are eliding that the reason given in almost every 'keep' vote is that CDPs are notable because they are thus legally recognized, so that your protestation that you didn't say that is irrelevant. You're arguing that their views ought to prevail, and that was their view.
I am spending far too much time on this, and in any case the discussion below appears about to render the whole thing moot. Explain why the redirects are relevant; explain why we should have to yield to five year old discussions; explain how CDPs are notable in your own words. But you need to convince the people who are endorsing the change below, and it doesn't seem to me that you are succeeding. Mangoe (talk) 23:06, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
What am i looking at there with San Martin? Does @Dronebogus: vote keep , repeatedly modify their vote , delete their vote , and then close it as a speedy keep all in less than ten minutes a few hours after it had been opened and without any other editors participating? I don't think thats kosher... Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:35, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I’m XfD banned and this happened two years ago. In any case I think a town of 7000 people is clearly notable and that’s all I have to say. Dronebogus (talk) 21:43, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Of course it's not kosher, but apparently a bad close of a non-discussion of a place that would have been kept anyway without having to invoke some rule about CDPs is somehow evidence. Mangoe (talk) 21:58, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I can't exactly say I'm surprised about your ban, thats some of the worst conduct at AfD I've ever seen. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:15, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
@Djflem: what does "which has not been completed since it is controversial." mean? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:10, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
See below. Djflem (talk) 17:07, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
The deletion review? The deletion has been completed, the review process comes *after* its competition. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:26, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Deletion review

Restore the CDP text removed by Sportingflyer to the guide

  • Support. It's been stable since December until it was removed. There's a good rationale for having it (numerous CDPs are purely statistical entities). This is an appropriate venue for discussing it as it is the talk-page of the guide it resides in. FOARP (talk) 08:46, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Support As per my argument above CDPs are not legally recognised, so should not be NPLACE, and have to pass GNG, as per other census tracts.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 11:11, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Support, but suggest to simplify along the lines of In the United States, census-designated places (CDPs) are not inherently notable simply because of the census designation. CDPs should have sources that establish notability for the place. older ≠ wiser 11:26, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
    I agree with the wording put forward Davidstewartharvey (talk) 12:03, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
    Looking at all the examples provided above, those Keep were based upon its "legally recognised". As per above, its not, so i think we should have wording that includes that - Census Designated Places (CDP) in the United States are areas created by the Census Bureau for statistical purposes. The Census Bureau states they are not legally recognised, so must meet the General Notability Guideline Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:25, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Support, in the general sense... Specific wording can still be worked out. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:15, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Support whilst CDPs (and all census tracts) may correspond to a notable settlement they do not always correspond to one. The guideline already states census tracts are not 'legally recognised settlements' for the purpose of the guideline and a CDP is just that — a census tract. Traumnovelle (talk) 20:01, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
    Minor quibble, but CDPs are not the same as census tracts. Tracts are purely arbitrary divisions of an area with no regards to settlements, neighborhoods, natural boundaries, etc. CDPs represent a locally recognized settlement of some sort. The issue with CDPs is that such designations do not automatically indicate notability. older ≠ wiser 20:19, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Support Wording may need a few tweaks later. North8000 (talk) 20:51, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
    I think that a common feeling is "support but the wording might need tweaking". Instead of letting that prevent moving this first step forward, lets just assume that if it gets in, the wording will then get a review for potential further tweaking / improvement. North8000 (talk) 15:35, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Support I noticed in 2020 there were several new CDPs in New Jersey and elsewhere that clearly did not meet the Census Bureau's description of what a CDP is. Although they are intended to "Constitute a single, named, contiguous geographic area containing a mix of residential, nonresidential, and commercial uses" that are "equivalents of incorporated places," places like Monroe Manor, New Jersey (Google Maps), the adjacent Renaissance at Monroe, New Jersey (maps), and others are nothing but new housing developments, boring suburban subdivisions without anything else to them. I don't know why the state delinated these as CDPs or why the Census accepted them when there are thousands like them across the country inside and outside of incorporated places, but we don't need to recognize these as notable places just because they wanted statistics to be available. CDPs are not automatically notable, and I'd support an AFD for these, perhaps for a redirect to the county or township article. Reywas92Talk 21:41, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
  • support' obviously. Initially I viewed CDPs as a sign of notability but I changed my mind on that some time back. And I've always opposed articles on CDPs themselves. They are simply a means that the census uses to report numbers on regions that have to be (somewhat arbitrarily) defined because they have no legal or physical boundaries. They do not legally define the boundaries of the places they represent. They are inconsistently created for reasons that are far from clear but seem unsystematic. As far as wording is concerned, I'm fine with the revised version. Mangoe (talk) 23:16, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Support There was a time when I thought CDPs met the criteria of "legally recognized", but I now belief the whole concept of "legally recognized" is flawed, and the notability of populated places needs to be based on the GNG. CDPs often happen to correspond to places for which reliable sources can be found that have significant discussion about the place, but being designated a CDP does not in and of itself confer notability to a place. Donald Albury 00:47, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Comment I think the phrasing of the CDP guideline as written in December is too ambiguous. Looking back at the the discussion, I think it would have been clearer to summarize it as
In the United States, Census Designated Places usually represent notable places, but the existence of a CDP is not enough, by itself, to establish notability.
I think we're going to buy trouble down the road if we restore the ambiguous wording back into the guideline. — hike395 (talk) 03:44, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
As i have written above, i think we need to state its not "legally recognised" as per the body who creates them. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:26, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't oppose some post-restoration word-smithing pointing out that CDPs often correspond to notable places, but also aren't a form of legal recognition. This can be done by ordinary editing. FOARP (talk) 07:47, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
I also support Bkonrad's wording (which I missed when I wrote my comment). — hike395 (talk) 10:09, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
  • comment This is rapidly heading towards foundering on disagreement as to how to change it, so we will be stuck with wording that nobody likes (which is to say, the current nothing). Can we settle on something imperfect and then do our wordsmithing? Mangoe (talk) 12:29, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
I think there is very strong support above for restoring the deleted material (almost at a WP:SNOW level). I am the only editor who abstained (I don't oppose). I would have done a non-admin close, but I wanted to register my strong preference for wordsmithing. — hike395 (talk) 13:45, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
I think it would be prudent to leave this open for a little longer. I'm really surprised that there have not been any opposes, yet. Although I support the question, one day is a very short time, and a snow close now might well be challenged as "too soon". Donald Albury 14:53, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
It's been a week now with only the original person who removed it opposing so it's restored. Restoring the text doesn't mean it can't be wordsmithed a bit. FOARP (talk) 17:00, 1 August 2025 (UTC)
  • Oppose we should not have country-specific text in a site-specific guideline. I have no problem with the overall rule, but we need a better way of presenting it. SportingFlyer T·C 23:22, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
    You say that but we already have Abadi in the wirding which is very specific to the iranian village fudge up. Should we just change the wording to Census tracts, Census designated places (CDPs), abadi, and other areas not commonly recognized as legally recognised place (such as the area in an irrigation district or a local government division).Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:20, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
    Maybe something like "Legal recognition varies by country. If a place appears in a country's census, this is usually proof of legal recognition, except where the country's census bureau has created the place specifically for statistical purposes, such as census tracts or census designated places." ? SportingFlyer T·C 09:53, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
    Census isn't legal recognition. When the RFC took place a few years ago a quick poll showed that. Its a popular misconception. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 11:14, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
    @SportingFlyer absolutely not. The unsubstantiated census nonsense is the very basis for much of the controversy. Being part of a census in no way shape or manner signifies notability. older ≠ wiser 12:30, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
    @Bkonrad: did you even read the whole sentence? SportingFlyer T·C 13:46, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
    Replace "notability" with "legal recognition" and the point stands... "Being part of a census in no way shape or manner signifies legal recognition." is objectively true. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:01, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
    Yes, and I meant to write Being part of a census in no way shape or manner signifies legal recognition. older ≠ wiser older ≠ wiser 16:44, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
    I don't think that's correct, though. We often look to see if a village has been included in a census at AfD, and I know in at least parts of Europe the census lists every legally established settlement. SportingFlyer T·C 17:25, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
    Yes, I'd imagine most censuses would attempt to include all legally established settlements, but the converse is not necessarily true. Mere inclusion in a census doesn't necessarily equate to legal recognition. older ≠ wiser 17:33, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
    Well please provide evidence where it says a census location is a legally recognised place. You won't, except for the US, as was found at the last RFC. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:34, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
    We are clearly not on the same page here. I know from AfDs and personal experience many countries have a census which are lists of official settlements. If it is a recognised settlement, it is in the census, if it is not it is not in the census. That is not the case in the United States, where the census has to "create" places in order to measure population correctly, including subdivisions and mobile home parks which are not settlements in the traditional sense. That is what I am basing that proposal on. SportingFlyer T·C 19:37, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
    The wording in the US census states that incorporated places are legally recognised, CDPs are not. In the UK, the Census Act 1920, states it covers local authority area, not legally recognised places. In Germany, the census law states it is to record data from all households. It does not state these are legally recognised. It states that residents have to register with the local municipalities, for population purposes, and all buildings and dwellings have to be registed, including those that are not lived in. There is no mention of "legally recognised place". Thats just three examples. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:09, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
    That's because "legally recognised place" is a Wikipedia construct, not a census construct, but even then most censuses report information at levels of "legally recognised" places. The USA does not. SportingFlyer T·C 09:53, 27 July 2025 (UTC)
    "Legally recognised" is not a Wikipedia construct. It a town is incorporated there is an a law passed by a monarch or government which constitutes it. If a market was granted by a monarch or a government it is legally recognised in law. There are governing local authorities passed by Central government - that is legally recognised. Most census are reporting on population detail. There is no legal recognition of place in the census or the laws that they operate under. Except in the US which states in law constituted by federal government that incorporated places are legally recognised under census. Which was the argument at the last RFC, but no one could agree on an alternative. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 12:28, 27 July 2025 (UTC)
    As mentioned by others, we have seen other censuses besides the US such as Iran and Poland and Russia where somewhat arbitrarily assigned descriptive names are used that are most assuredly not "official" settlements in any meaningful sense. In fact, I'd think it is rather common practice in countries with sparsely populated areas or with transient/migrant populations. That silly things have been stated in previous AfDs means very little (it is unfortunately rather common occurrence). older ≠ wiser 20:10, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
    I'd need more evidence this is the case outside the United States. The only one I'm familiar with for Poland was a rural place at the smallest possible hierarchical level. SportingFlyer T·C 09:54, 27 July 2025 (UTC)
    ” I know from AfDs and personal experience many countries have a census which are lists of official settlements.” - they don’t. It’s as simple as that. The fact that Wikipedia has in the past chosen to treat censuses and gazetteers as such is a different question: we were clearly wrong to treat the Iranian census as such, for example, since many of the locations for the census gathers data aren’t cities/towns/villages, but are instead shops/factories/farms:bridges/pumps etc. FOARP (talk) 20:33, 27 July 2025 (UTC)
    We keep arguing in circles, but that's wrong. Not every census is the same, but most do list officially recognised settlements. The fact the USA and Iran don't doesn't change the fact that a census should be the first place we look in a WP:GEOLAND related AfD. SportingFlyer T·C 10:12, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
    @SportingFlyer, you appear to be making a claim that most censuses 'exclusively' list officially recognized settlements. What evidence is there for that claim? It is not that the US census (or the others mentioned) do not use officially recognized places, the issue arises because these censuses also include arbitrarily assigned places and editors have made mistaken assumptions about the censuses' data. older ≠ wiser 11:12, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
    Well, it's very country dependent, but let's say there's a settlement we're not sure about - the first place we'd look is a country's census. If the country's census is inclusive of other types of places, say the US, it's not dispositive, but for instance in certain European countries the census contains information about settlement status and even previous official names for that place. If a settlement with notability concerns is not in a country's census, it's very likely not to pass WP:GEOLAND. SportingFlyer T·C 15:31, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
    You're not making much sense. Among all of the world's censuses, the US is extensively well-documented and easily accessible. And yet there is confusion among editors about what a CDP represents, despite crystal clear statements by the census itself. How do you expect editors to make correct interpretations of other nations censuses, where in many cases the documentation may be less accessible and less transparently written? older ≠ wiser 15:51, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
    "Well, it's very country dependent" versus "we should not have country-specific text" - pick one. Either this is a standard that can be applied easily across countries so no country-specific language is needed, or it requires guidance for individual countries because application is in fact not straight-forward. FOARP (talk) 16:59, 1 August 2025 (UTC)
    If I started adding in how to interpret census for different countries, we'd have an unwieldy guideline. SportingFlyer T·C 21:53, 1 August 2025 (UTC)
    If we needed to address variations in interpreting the census, which we already did, then we would deal with them as they become apparent. Thus far I am only aware of three: the Iranian issues, which are already included in the guideline; the barangays in the Philippines, which has never seemed to be controversial enough to spell out, and the CDPs in the United States. I suspect we will eventually have to deal with the selo problem in Russia. If it ever becomes unwieldy, then we deal with that; but the need to spell out the resolution of these issues when they arise is what guidelines are for, after all. The alternative isn't ignoring these problem cases; it is doing without the guideline and going back to WP:GNG. This guideline creates exceptions, and if you aren't willing to spell out exceptions to the exceptions, you're just arguing that we need to keep a bad guideline. Mangoe (talk) 03:27, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
    The other one we've come across a lot in the Kotbot mass-creations is Polish "villages" that are in fact just rural localities (e.g., forester's lodges, state farms, railway stations etc.) or are just parts of villages. I would assume something must have been the source of all those mass-created Sri Lankan "village" articles but it isn't clear what - they appear to have been copied over from Geonet Names Server, but what GNS was using as their source wasn't clear. There was also the Turkish Mahalle (neighbourhood) articles. And yes, the selo in Russia that were actually just railway stations with a recorded population of 2 people (evidently the station-master and one other person) were somewhat problematic. To be honest I think we've only just scratched the surface of this issue. FOARP (talk) 21:03, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
    Reliability of the US census (for the data that is in it) doesn't address the issue at hand. Which in essence is saying that (merely) being a CDP is not a reason to presume Wikipedia:Notability.North8000 (talk) 19:14, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
  • Support. 99% of the time, a CDP is neither meaningfully distinct from whichever settlements it encompasses nor the sole administrative representation of a settlement. I think there is potential for nuance when considering CDPs in the latter group, but the vast majority are in the former and can be governed directly by GNG. JoelleJay (talk) 23:34, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

What does place mean in NPLACE?

This might seem a bit tangential, but I'm trying to figure out how to improve the wording on the text and I'm curious - what exactly is covered by the word "place" in NPLACE? I'm wondering since the first obvious change would be from place to settlement, but I'm wondering if this is so generic as to include countries, provinces, states, second or third level administrative divisions... SportingFlyer T·C 23:34, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

I prefer the word Settlement over Place, which I pointed out at the last RFC. Place can mean for example "pizza place". Britannica uses the word settlement, and so does our own pages on villages, towns and cities, so should we not use the common language?Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:30, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
Well, I'm trying to figure out if NPLACE includes things such as provinces, counties, states... SportingFlyer T·C 09:50, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
In the pre-work before the RFC we looked at local authorities, but that became a pickle. In China and India there are bodies that just deal with developments and have no other powers. It was again another issue with RFC failing. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:12, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
Even the "is a level of government" idea falls down ultimately. A housing association is arguably "a level of government", and I don't think many people would say these are particularly notable. FOARP (talk) 14:23, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
That depends on the country. In the UK they are registered charities. I do think we should have a discussion about government divisions, and relating stuff like elections, as we have editors who believe we should have pages for every division, including the local divisions or wards that are really not notable, unless they meet GNG, stating they are legally recognised! Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:25, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
Housing associations in the UK are statutory non-profit social land-lords. The reason why they would arguably be a level of government is they are statutory bodies that receive state funds and which manage communities. Some *are* local governments (eg Adur District council is a registered housing association).
Yeah, it’s not obvious why, say, Marine Ward in Worthing wouldn’t be considered a “legally recognised populated place” if we just blindly applied the guide. We should just apply the GNG. FOARP (talk) 20:53, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Well the generic meaning (leaving out places where there is nothing there, like a mere set of co-ordinates) is anything that is at a particular fixed location. In this particular section of the SNG, it's one that has a bunch of people presently or previously living there. And it seeks to define criteria for a SNG "way in" for some of those. North8000 (talk) 20:37, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Bhalu Khaira - Is this Notable?

Latest comment: 8 months ago49 comments11 people in discussion

I was reading through Bhalu Khaira and comparing with the SNG in WP:NTOWN, it doesn't seem notable, but rather WP:INDISCRIMINATE. The references are also government data, no real stories. Wanted to have an expert editor's opinion before nominating it for deletion. Kingsacrificer (talk) 17:48, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

A town with a population over 10,000 is all but guaranteed to be kept. Mangoe (talk) 18:21, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
But it's Indian! Every place in India is overly populated. That can't be a robust criterion, surely? Kingsacrificer (talk) 18:28, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
While I did find a site that puts the population at over 10,000, other sites repeat the 1,833 population figure from the 2011 Indian census. Bihar Khaira appears to be part of Rafiganj, Bihar. A description I see at more than one site is that Bhalu Khaira is a village in Rafiganj block of Aurangabad district, Bihar. I think we need someone who is more familiar with the administrative structure of Bihar to sort out if Bhalu Khaira is equivalent to a municipality, an administrative district, or a neighborhood, before we can decide what to do with the article. Donald Albury 20:07, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
One source mentions it as a village under Rafiganj assembly constituency, but it is a blacklisted domain: onefinenine(dot)com
No government source seems to mention Bhalu Khaira. Kingsacrificer (talk) 20:34, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
@Donald Albury:, could you link the sites mentioning the population? Right now we have nothing verifiable in the article and I'm having trouble locating a working search function for the Indian census. –dlthewave ☎ 23:07, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
Did we reach any conclusion/consensus on this? Kingsacrificer (talk) 09:01, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

About those references:

Google Maps points to a district with a sizeable village three miles West of Rafiganj, so I'm thinking this is likely a real place that would pass AfD but needs to be TNT'd to make a viable article. –dlthewave ☎ 20:06, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for checking the sources. My concern is, even if it get's TNT'd, what information are we going to add? There's nothing particularly notable about the place apart from its existence. Kingsacrificer (talk) 20:15, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
Every populated place is allowed an article because people live there - the fact people live there is what makes it notable, even if it's nothing more than a stub. Otherwise we would be getting into arguments over what sort of place is notable, and our goal is to catalogue information in a similar manner to a gazetteer. If we can't verify people live there, or if it's not "legally recognised" (which means different things in different places) it can get deleted.
I will say you have stumbled upon an odd place, though, because there really isn't much about it online, and the population counts differ. That being said I would vote keep if you sent to AfD because it's verifiable. SportingFlyer T·C 20:21, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
Okay, noted. Thanks for the clarification. I think the guidelines could reflect this more clearly, perhaps an edit is needed. Kingsacrificer (talk) 20:35, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features)#Settlements and administrative regions is the relevant guideline. The question is, does Bhalu Khaira have any kind of official standing beyond being a census enumeration district that reasonably meets the "legally recognized place" criteria? If not, then GNG rules. As it stands, the village may not meet the GNG, in which case it would be appropriate to merge the article into Rafiganj. Donald Albury 20:54, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
Apparently it is a notified area which appears to be a form of municipality. Traumnovelle (talk) 23:16, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
Is there a source that identifies it as a notified area? –dlthewave ☎ 23:21, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
The article is entirely unsourced bar census information. I guess WP:V can be a valid deletion reason even if it is technically notable. Traumnovelle (talk) 23:29, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
Is this what you are looking for? Donald Albury 01:34, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
This website is just a Bootstrap template ripoff, with no mention to actual government institutions.
It could be hallucinated data, no way to know. Kingsacrificer (talk) 07:50, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
I'm usually pretty skeptical of those aggregators and they certainly don't contribute to notability, but they do generally repeat the official census numbers with few errors in that regard. I did find the onefinenine(dot)com site mentioned above and a few other aggregators that all agree on the 1833 number. With the Indian census site being down, a good pragmatic approach might be to accept that figure as the best available for now. I do think that every single statement in that article needs to be verified. I removed a bunch of stuff which wasn't related to this village, and the article was originally written by a local resident's single-purpose account with a lot of unsourced information based on their personal knowledge and family tree. –dlthewave ☎ 15:22, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
Would an image from Google Maps / Street View be considered CC BY-SA licensed? If yes, we can even add a picture in that case. Kingsacrificer (talk) 18:46, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
No, unless Google has released it under such a licence. Traumnovelle (talk) 19:43, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
"our goal is to catalogue information in a similar manner to a gazetteer" - It absolutely is not. A gazetteer is primarily a list of feature-names with locations. Wikipedia is not a gazetteer, it is an encyclopaedia, which is a summary of what reliable, secondary sources say about something. FOARP (talk) 09:53, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Looking at the 1971 and 1981 census it is described as a Development block. In India, a development block, or Community Development Block, is a rural administrative unit for planning and implementing development programs, distinct from land revenue administration. So therefore is it a legally recognised place? Questionable. Does it pass GNG - probably not.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:52, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Eh, it's clearly a village. If you search for "Bhallu Khaira" the local schools come up. Indian census website isn't working, but I remember the census2011 website has been reliable in the past. SportingFlyer T·C 09:31, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
Development blocks are just government run areas, that manage developing areas for housing or industry. Bhallu Kaira was registered as that in 71 and 81. Based on that it does not meet Geoland. However, looking at the last census it is down as s village. However, as per discussions, Census data is not enough, and if there is no other references we should redirect to the nearest legally recognised place or local government area and record it there. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 18:32, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

IMO if it has some abstract legal status which isn't generally recognized as "place",(e.g. irrigation districts) the guideline specifically excludes using that legal status to meet the SNG. (and IMO rightly so) IMO "development block" is one of those types of situations. North8000 (talk) 15:42, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

What a mess. I don't see anything that is RS. I even found an entry for the village at Bharatpedia that cites an archived copy of a table from the 2011 Indian census, which, unfortunately, does not have an entry for the village. - Donald Albury 17:50, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

It is a mess indeed. But how do we gather consensus on this matter when everybody has a different opinion? Kingsacrificer (talk) 18:44, 14 September 2025 (UTC)
This is just how it works when GEOLAND comes up, lots of process arguments about what is a place and what is a legally recognized place because actual sources are lacking. You'll struggle to find a firm consensus. Doing my WP:OR on google maps this does look like its own village, so at least it's not like the hundred of Polish "villages" we apparently have which are actually suburbs. CMD (talk) 08:06, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Per this site, Bhalu Khaira is a village in the gram panchayat of Kotbara, electing one or two representatives to the gram panchayat. I found no mention of civicatlas.in in the WP:RS/N archives, so do not know if it is RS. As a gram panchayat is the lowest level of government in India, Bhalu Khaira is equivalent to a ward or local electoral district. So, I think it does not meet the criteria of GEOLAND nor of the GNG. If there were an article for Kotbara, any information that can be verified from reliable sources would go there, but... There might be useful sources in Magahi, Hindi, or Urdu, but my two quarters of Sanskrit 50 years ago won't help with that. - Donald Albury 20:17, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

So basically. Bhalu Khaira is not even a Gram Panchayat? I think that establishes that it is not Notable. I will try to look for sources in other languages to corroborate this claim. Kingsacrificer (talk) 07:31, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
Here's a gov.in webpage listing all Gram Panchayats in Bihar. Bhalu Khaira, from Rafiganj, Aurangabad, is not present. Kingsacrificer (talk) 07:40, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
Google Books has hits in both the 1971 and 1981 Indian censuses for Bhalu Khaira, but I can't access the actual page. That would potentially indicate greater notability than has been found so far, if villages are listed and not tracts. SportingFlyer T·C 21:22, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
I would say that just because a village is also a census tract does not make the village notable. And there are 11 other villages in the Kotbara gram panchayat, which are at an equal level with Bhalu Khaira. Moreover, I think it would be more important to have an article about Kotbara, where at least we could list its constituent villages. Unfortunately, as is evident above, we have not yet found any available reliable source that could be used in the article. It is clear that there is a place (a village) that is called Bhalu Khaira, but, as of our current efforts, it does not meet the GNG, and I will argue that it does not meet GEOLAND. Donald Albury 01:32, 16 September 2025 (UTC)


An example on why we should work on this SNG. My is (just a description and context info, not the actual wording which would need to be developed):

To use the NGEO "way in" (vs. meeting GNG which is also available) based on it being a populated place, beside currently or previously being a populated place, it needs to fulfill BOTH of these criteria:

  1. Is generally recognized by the populace as a PLACE. This rules out abstract entities such as irrigation districts, electoral districts, census tracts etc.
  2. If based on modern times it needs to be something higher level than a neighborhood, subdivision or development. In major populated areas, it needs to be at a level that has it's own somewhat full-spectrum government. If not in a major populated area (as in rural areas or historic times) having a strong (recognized by the populace) settlement or town-like identity fulfills this.

SincerelyNorth8000 (talk) 20:11, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't actually think anything is wrong with the SNG. I think the question at hand here is what qualifies an Indian settlement for an article. SportingFlyer T·C 21:16, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
Well, that's the main question for that one article (and one could argue that this is not the place to decide individual articles). But even on that the question of the ambiguity of the "legally recognized" criteria came up. North8000 (talk) 21:40, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
  • Kingsacrificer - You've basically stumbled on to one of Wikipedia's dirty little secrets: because some editors have in the past taken the stance that "every place where people live is notable", and went through databases creating articles for every entry, without properly understanding what the databases were even about or what they said, this means we have many articles about towns and villages that basically don't exist.
In the most extreme example of this, one editor went through the entire Iranian census creating an article for every entry. The problem is that the entries in the Iranian census don't correspond one-for-one with villages/towns/cities, and many entries are just for a particular counting-place (e.g., a shop, a bridge, a farm, a factory, a pump, in some cases just a random place in the desert or mountains) that isn't a village or town of any kind. Contrary to the claims made by some, yes, the existence of tens of thousands of such essentially-fake articles does clearly demonstrate that the guide is bad, has always been bad, and needs to change.
FWIW, Wikipedia is not a gazetteer, even if we have some of the features of one. We do not have articles about places that are simply a name and nothing else. In this case, there's a strong question-mark about what this place even is or where it is supposed to be. FOARP (talk) 10:24, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
There is some clarity through multiple people's WP:Original Research on Google Maps, that the place exists. Its co-ordinates can be confirmed. The big question mark is on its notability.
I really think we should clean up articles such as this, and merge with larger, more notable geographical divisions. Kingsacrificer (talk) 16:18, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
The next higher division is the gram panchayat of Kotbara (please excuse the misspellings above, which I have now corrected). The only source for Kotbara that I think possibly meets WP:RS that I have found so far is civicatlas.in. The site villageinfo.org has much more info about Kotbara, but it solicits contributions from users. Again, I doubt we can write much about Kotbara without finding reliable sources in Magahi, Hindi, or Urdu, which is going to require help from speakers of those languages. I have created Draft:Kotbara, Aurangabad. What are your opinions? - Donald Albury 18:13, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
I wonder whether you mean Kotwara ? Ingratis (talk) 18:23, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
Kotwara is a village in Kotbara. See the list of villages in Draft:Kotbara, Aurangabad. Donald Albury 19:17, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
It is potentially the same name spelled differently.
Kinda like New York City in New York (except in India, we don't use anything to indicate 'City' particularly) Kingsacrificer (talk) 20:02, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
I suspected that the gram panchayat was named for the village, but I don't know why there was a change in the spelling. So, will Kotbara do for a redirect from Bhalu Khaira, or do we need something better? Donald Albury 21:53, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
Yes, but your draft needs more references, which are more likely, it seems, to be found under the spelling Kotwara. It is not a question of a "change in the spelling" but of alternative transloterations. Ingratis (talk) 03:57, 20 September 2025 (UTC)
This document from the Bihar State Level Bankers Committee shows the spelling of Kotbara, and the relevant hierarchy that relates to the village. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:15, 20 September 2025 (UTC)
Perhaps you could add it to the draft, where it will doubtless be welcomed. The point is not to insist on one spelling or the other, but to recognise that there are (at least two) equally valid variant spellings, and that if searching is only carried out under one it is likely to miss useful references under the other. Ingratis (talk) 08:17, 20 September 2025 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that link doesn't work for me, and when I try to link to the Bihar State Level Bankers Committee page, it is in what I assume is Hindi, which I cannot read. Donald Albury 14:44, 20 September 2025 (UTC)
I found it in Google by putting in "kotbara" gram panchayat it was the 5th result and is an excel spreadsheet. I wonder if creating a page is wise. There is very little other information. Maybe it is wise to add to Aurangabad district, Bihar. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:15, 20 September 2025 (UTC)
The problem is that I am not seeing sources that I am comfortable using without more information about their reliability. I have no feel for judging the reliability of most of the sources turning up in searches for Kotbara/Kotwara. It has been many years since I have been willing to create an article as short on references as that draft.
As for the spelling, a search for just "Kotwara" is flooded by sites about the "House of Kotwara", a fashion house. Limiting the search to "Kotwara Aurangabad" (to eliminate places elsewhere, such as Kotbara, Nepal) gets a lot of hits about the village of Kotwara, many of which state it is in the Kotbara gram panchayat. I found one site that says the village of Kotwara is in the "Kotwara" gram panchayat, and one site that states that the name can be spelled Kotbara or Kotwara, but the rest of the sites that mention both village and gram panchayat use Kotbara/Kotwara, so I think we should also. Donald Albury 14:36, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

Questionable Notability

Latest comment: 7 months ago18 comments7 people in discussion

We really need to improve the notability standards. Look at this list of articles created by a user. I stumbled upon the geography section here, and they are mostly 1-2 lines of content about places.

List of geographic articles by a user

Should this really be acceptable? Kingsacrificer (talk) 09:00, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

After much discussion in the past few years, about all we have been able to decide is that GNIS is not reliable, and there is no definition of "legally recognized" that works in all countries. I am all for raising the standards for this notability guideline, but that will require an RfC that reaches consensus to do so, for which I am not holding my breath. Donald Albury 13:51, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
We also decided the same thing about GEOnet Names Server, and the Iranian census.
The problem is some people are real extremists on the idea that every single populated location deserves an article, without any real justification. The assertion that Wikipedia - an encyclopaedia - is not an encyclopaedia but instead a gazeteer (a list of names and location) has a lot to answer for. FOARP (talk) 09:51, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
Why is 'legally recognised' enough for notability anyways. Just like BLP has notability thresholds, places should, too. I really wish we can get this sorted. Kingsacrificer (talk) 15:33, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
I agree 100%. It's a nonsensical standard that clearly doesn't work. FOARP (talk) 09:51, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
I always understood "legally recognized" in the USA to mean "incorporated", which is not a bad standard there because such places are are nearly without exception real towns/cities with enough recorded history to justify a decent if short article. If we changed to say "incorporated" for US places I don't think there would be any problem except by the people who object to having varying standards for different areas, which in my opinion is magical thinking: we already have this issue dealing with US townships and hundreds. At any rate, my suspicion is that it was set up to mean "listed in something like GNIS", and these listings are almost inevitably problematic in one way or another.
I think the only way forward is to WP:BOLDly state that there isn't a consensus anymore, because we argue over this endlessly and and it's always the two same positions, and say that therefore the guidelines all must go away— including the "include in enclosing area" AtD escape clause— and we revert to WP:GNG. If people have to have a subject guideline here, we need to start from a blank slate without the current guideline as the default if we fail to reach a consensus. Mangoe (talk) 11:53, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
I agree with this 100% and think it is inevitably where we're going to end up. FOARP (talk) 08:52, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
@Kingsacrificer for some reason, discussions of notability in this area seem especially prone to baby vs. bathwater problems. Editors have difficulty deciding what counts as officially recognized in Iran, so they want to throw out the SNG for places and adopt GNG instead.
Now, the predictable consequence of adopting GNG/SIGCOV would be that any inhabited location written about at some length in two or more RS travelogues becomes notable, while actually significant places with population statistics and local government would become non-notable if editors can't find them discussed at length in prose (on the internet, and preferably in English).
That treatment, whatever one thinks of it, does not follow the principles of a conventional encyclopaedia, most of which aim to treat like things alike in each domain. What is more, basic functions of an online encyclopaedia - like list pages, categories, and hypertext links for places of birth - don't work well when the relevant articles don't exist.
I know some editors are irritated because it can be challenging to remove articles for places that fail to establish (through WP:V) that the place has been legally recognized. These editors may feel that it would be easier to delete based on GNG. They may be right: it might be easier, but it would require so many valuable infant articles to be thrown out that it would be a clear move away from core functions of a human-made encyclopaedia.
If what editors actually want is a digest or paraphrase of all prose text that's ever been published online, there are other tools for that, now. Wikipedia organizes content according to principles, and WP:SPECIES and populated places are perhaps the best examples of where systematic treatment competes with the "digest principle" that sometimes lurks behind GNG. Newimpartial (talk) 13:44, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
I think you misunderstand SNG/GNG... This for example "so they want to throw out the SNG for places and adopt GNG instead" is nonsensical... That isn't how SNG/GNG works and nobody is arguing that... Remember that "though articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted or merged into another article, especially if adequate sourcing or significant coverage cannot be found, or if the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:50, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
@Horse Eye's Back Hi, HEB. I don't think I'm misunderstanding the relationship between WP:N, GNG and the SNGs. My digest version of that relationship is that:
  • WP:N is the overall framework within which the GNG and SNGs operate;
  • a presumption of notability can be achieved through the GNG and/or the SNGs depending on the domain;
  • different SNGs offer stronger claims to notability than others, and some are more restrictive than the GNG while others are more inclusive;
  • neither the GNG nor any SNG offers a guarantee of a standalone article; the community may determine that a topic is WP:NOT of encyclopaedic interest or is best handled as part of an article with wider scope.
I believe this summary reflects both the WP:N guidelines and the community discussions that have created and modified them - such as the promotion of WP:NSPECIES to a notability guideline last year. To give a parallel to what I was saying in this discussion, 2017 RfC that demoted NSPORT to being only a predictor of GNG notability was in essence (though not quite) "throwing out the SNG and adopting GNG instead". (This was even worded in an awkward way so as to bypass the notability guideline for people, NBIO, although athletes are, by and large, human beings to which NBIO would otherwise apply.)
By the way, there is currently also a discussion taking place on WT:NBIO that addresses SNG/GNG relationships. Newimpartial (talk) 15:15, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
Hmmm ok that is more or less on track (it leaves out lack of sourcing/sigcov as a reason for deletion post GNG/SNG pass, but probably just an oversight)... I guess I must be the one who misunderstood what you were saying or didn't understand the contextual references being made. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:22, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
Well, as a rule people take lack of sigcov as a lack of notability, so I don't think there's anything missing there. But behind this is the way that SNGs are understood, because of that phrase "others are more inclusive", as WP:GEOLAND is definitely in that group. A common enough situation in US discussions is that the "unincorporated community" is actually some sort of facility (e.g. a resort or an inn or restaurant). Well, if this identification is agreed upon, that usually ends up in a delete close because the standards for these are considerably higher. And my usual position as the chief nominator of US geostubs these days is to throw down the gauntlet for people to show that there is any documentation at all of the place as a settlement, versus its identification as a 4th class post office or as a named railroad location (the two most common alternatives), and thus save the article.
A lot of times they do get saved, but note the quality of the material. Far and away the two most common kinds of documentation in Indiana (which I'm going through now) are late-1800s/early-1900s county histories, which do typically document towns to some small degree, and passing references in newspapers to people being "from" said town. I personally don't think the latter is good enough, for reasons I've explained over and over, but the point is that it doesn't provide anything in the way of usable information to flesh out an article. The other two sources are maps, specifically US topo maps and plat maps. The latter are also a problem in that there are cases where a place gets platted and then they fail to sell enough lots to get things going, but the most important function of the topo maps is that I do a filtering on them and skip over any place that looks like a town (typically a street grid with buildings, but just a dense enough cluster of buildings will do). This is a matter of time spent: a place that looks like a town is more likely to have enough documentation to establish that, and as I have already submitted something like 250 Indiana nominations, I've probably looked at at least twice that many articles for the state. And that means these articles don't get improved. But even those that do, don't get better by much. Usually the only sources still are GNIS (for the location and name), Baker's book of placenames (which has its own reliability issues), and the county history, Forte's list of post offices (for dates thereof) and the occasional "where we live" story in a local newspaper. IF there is an NRHP site in it or nearby that will get mentioned. Few of these places have any documentation past about 1920 except for post office closures. There is a persistent problem that the only documentation of the demise of many of these places is that the name ceases to appear on maps, which really isn't good enough sourcing. I have to question whether we need individual articles on these, and third world sourcing is definitely worse and sometimes abominable. When I was doing Somalia my primary source was GMaps, because I was reduced to looking at aerial photography to see whether there was actually any trace of a village at the location given. Mangoe (talk) 12:24, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
'while actually significant places with population statistics and local government would become non-notable if editors can't find them discussed at length in prose'
Please point out an example of a significant place that lacks significant coverage. This is purely hypothetical. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:05, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
"actually significant places with population statistics and local government" - The only way to understand this is "places with population statistics and local government are all significant". The issue here is that "local government" can include a headman, local cadre (for example, the housing development I lived in in China had one), neighbourhood watch or similar, and population statistics are recorded for very low-level entities including individual houses in some countries (e.g., the UK census records the population of individual houses).
The reason we don't have articles about every house in the UK is that UK-based editors are numerous on WP and are familiar with the UK census and know that doing so would be ridiculous. The problem comes when editors based in one country write about another that they are unfamiliar with (the classic example is Carlossuarez46's articles about Iranian "villages" - he refused to back down even when Iranian editors came to his talk page and explained to him just what it was he had been doing). As an editor in the Philippines project said when they finally nuked Barangays - "I'd prefer doing this than explaining to a white man what a barangay is".
Here's where I really have to take exception to the idea that these "village" articles improve representation on WP BTW. The Poland project did not welcome Kotbot's "village" article spam. The Myanmar/Sri Lanka projects did not welcome Dr. Blofeld's "village" articles based on GNS. The Iranian project did not welcome Carlossuarez46's "village" spam. The Philippines project patently did not enjoy having non-Filipinos arguing with them that Barangays were notable or welcome this "help". FOARP (talk) 08:49, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
@Traumnovelle no, it isn't hypothetical. Two examples (ones that I found quickly through AfD archives) of places that have not been shown to have WP:SIGCOV but which have been !kept at AfD based on the current GEOLAND definition are:
In one case, the only source sited is verification that the place exists/is recognized; the other article has some prose sources, but not ones that are secondary so as to count towards WP:GNG notability. I'm sure that many, many verifiable places currently have articles without offering what the median wikipedian would consider SIGCOV for GNG notability. But, as I say, such articles serve many encyclopaedic purposes in their present state (as species stubs do), as well as offering a straightforward path to add additional prose sources, including prose sources, when they are found.
As far as FOARP 's intervention is concerned - look, if a well-informed project decides that a certain level of geography in a certain jurisdiction is not well-served by a set of articles, I'd always be inclined to accept that judgement. NGEO doesn't require that each populated place have its own article any more than SPECIES requires one for each species. Sometimes there are good reasons to do something else, and often a systematic set of articles one level of geography "up" will be of more use to readers than an unsystematic set of articles at a more granular level. But again, babies and bathwater - the idea that we shouldn't have a systematic set of articles about inhabited places because some of them haven't had paragraphs written about them in sources we like is just not encyclopaedic, and is no more plausible for places than it is for species IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 19:02, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
The first one doesn't have local government. I agree that not all villages/settlements will have SIGCOV, but you said has a form of local government.
The second has a lot of sources in Vietnamese, which I cannot evaluate but I will presume they provide non-basic coverage given the length of the Vietnamese Wikipedia article. Traumnovelle (talk) 00:22, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
@Traumnovelle I believe it was FOARP who was talking about local government. As far as the second article goes, I didn't look at the vn.wiki article, but from Google translate I didn't see sources for the en.wiki article that would most editors' ideas of WP:SIGCOV. Newimpartial (talk) 19:48, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
Clarification I think I see what happened here. I was giving examples of significant places (i.e., real places that qualify as notable under NGEO and have been kept at AfD on the basis of the current guideline), which would not be kept based on typical readings of GNG SIGCOV. I was trying to show that this was not a null set.
What I did not do was restrict my selection to places with local government institutions - I therefore haven't shown that some inhabited places with local government fail GNG. I believe that some of the places that meet WP:V as "legally recognized" also have local governments (or have had them, in the past), but that assertion is difficult to prove. In any case, I hadn't meant to define significant places as having governments - only a subset of them do. Newimpartial (talk) 20:48, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

GEOLAND Workshop

Latest comment: 7 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Did post this above but just so people can see it a bit more easily: Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features)/workshop. FOARP (talk) 12:03, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

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