Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/El Camino, California

El Camino, California

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El Camino, California (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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DePRODded because of 2 references, but one of these is just GNIS and the other a document of place name origins. All I can find is that this was once a ranch, not an "unincorporated community". Fails WP:GEOLAND and is confusing clutter because there are lots of places and roads in California named El Camino. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 18:55, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Geography and California. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 18:55, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
• Keep From 1935 there is El Camino Community Church. More research is probably needed because there is also this article from 1936. Lightburst (talk) 22:18, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
• Delete the sources mentioned above are ROUTINE at best. Based on Google Maps it is a community with about 30 people within a square mile. It's not even mentioned in the list of unincorporated communities on Tehama County, California. There is nothing I can find on this tiny community. Finally El Camino, California will always route me to "El Camino Real." Conyo14 (talk) 23:31, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
  • @Conyo14: Follow the RS and please do a WP:BEFORE: they have a fire Station 9 – El Camino formed in 1958. And there is more to be found. El Camino residents voice Tehama County General Plan concerns. Other news: Vegetation fire in El Camino contained at ¼ acre, El Camino stabbing sends one to hospital, one to jail, Forward progress of 2-acre fire in El Camino stopped. Apparently 7,500 acres. Lightburst (talk) 23:45, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
    • My !vote is based on notability, GNG, and finally a BEFORE search. Even so, I see nothing but ROUTINE here. It seems there's more on the El Camino Irrigation District than about the community. I'll give you one for the "Tehama County General Plan concerns". Otherwise, maybe there is more on newspapers.com (a site I don't have access to). Conyo14 (talk) 00:00, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
• There's definitely enough in the sources here for an article. Because you didn't read the history already cited in the article at the time of nomination, you've all missed the ranch. Uncle G (talk) 23:13, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
• Keep as improved. TY Uncle G jengod (talk) 04:38, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
• Uncle G - I don't have time to review the newer sources, but Tehama County Place Names is a self-published work put together by two authors with no obvious expertise as historians with the help of local school-students. I don't wish to be unkind to the great kids at Red Bluff Union High School and their teach Mr. Osbourne who I'm sure did a great job at their class-project for US history, but we need better sourcing than that for an article - at the very least it needs to be published by an established publishing-house with a record of fact-checking and ideally authored by professional historians. FOARP (talk) 11:24, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
  • I have bad news for you: that's how much such history is done. Even the Wikipedia:Reliability of GNIS data/Ramsay Place-Name Card Collection is based upon master's students doing first-hand interviews and collecting anecdotes. But again, whilst you might have read the first page at least, and missed the other acknowledgements to focus excessively on one, reaching a quite distorted conclusion, again the issue is not reading the source. The reason to credit these people as reliable is that, in the entries and in a big appendix at the end, they cite their sources. There are 9 pages of source citations, and lots of little cross-references in many of the entries. Read the actual source, not going no further than the title, not solely only one of the acknowledgements on the acknowledgements page, but the actual thing. The "Finnell" entry cites the 3 sources that it is based upon, and there's not a class project nor a high school student amongst them. Uncle G (talk) 14:07, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
    • Why not cite the sources in the source then? Conyo14 (talk) 14:29, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
      • Because they are the sources that the people who did the historical research consulted. Ironically, it's the very thing that we are not really in the business of doing, reading maps and scouring old records. That's actually the worst way to make articles about places, and why I always look for history books and toponymic research that is done and published. I consulted what they then wrote, and my source is what they published, not my own interpretations of primary source documents. They did the research with the primary sources, we make a tertiary source based off their secondary source, the histories written by the people who have done the historical research, which is the case here. Uncle G (talk) 14:42, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
        • Yeah, but if it was done by high school students as FOARP pounted out, then it's not technically reliable. Conyo14 (talk) 14:49, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
          • It wasn't done by high school students, and Osbourne isn't the author. FOARP read one part of the acknowledgements page and missed everything else, starting with (at minimum) the other acknowledgements, and including all of the referencing and sourcing that the authors gave. You really should do everyone the courtesy of fully reading the source that was in the article to start with. If anyone other than me had, we probably wouldn't be here at all. Someone would have seen the Finnell Ranch, realized that there was history here, and that it isn't obtained by either your method of looking at Google Maps or by just searching for "El Camino". Find the history books! My usual procedure is to look for an Arcadia Publishing one. Ironically, I haven't even touched one yet, because there was a source that had collected the history right there. (Once again, we had shamefully just sourced things to GNIS and left a it at yet more "unincorporated community" rubbish for 5 years.) Uncle G (talk) 15:01, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

            @Uncle G - I did read the source. Please dial down the personal attacks.

            I note you haven't addressed the substance of the issue here: this is a self-published source by people who are not professional historians which was put together with the help of high school students. It doesn't matter that they cite sources - this book is not those sources, and without proper fact checking we cannot simply take their word for it that what is written in this book (which, again, is self published). We cannot rely on self-published local histories to sustain notability. FOARP (talk) 18:31, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

• The history book readers will discover that we haven't even plumbed the depths of this place yet. Before it was the Finnell Ranch, it was the Rancho de Los Saucos, and there's scope for expansion on that. Putting "El Camino" into Google, Maps or otherwise, is not the way to check out this subject. Uncle G (talk) 15:17, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
  • @Uncle G - we have articles on all Spanish-Mexican land grants in CA - Rancho de Los Saucos is probably Rancho Saucos, y? I'll see if I can find the diseño or a plat map from after it was patented. jengod (talk) 15:37, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
    • I'd be open to a merge target there. Conyo14 (talk) 16:12, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
    • This is what I get for looking for the name that's in the books: Rancho de Los Saucos. That's what the Stanford University Press book by Hoover, Rensch, and Rensch calls it. Thomes is right, per them, and they from that link right through El Camino Colony to (as of, presumably, 1932) Elder Creek Ranch. If its "of the" in English, Wikipedia editors, it's "de los"! Uncle G (talk) 16:45, 3 November 2023 (UTC)