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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abdulići

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

The result was keep. The consensus is clear that populated places are inherently notable, and the remaining issues brought up by the nominator are cause for improvement, not deletion. (non-admin closure) jcgoble3 (talk) 06:05, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Abdulići (and possibly 26,000 others)

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Abdulići (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Lacks notability, verifiable sources, and size. This is something of a test case, as the same arguments apply to several hundred, and possibly up to 26,000, similar pages. Moonraker12 (talk) 14:44, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Abdulici is a village in Bosnia; this article contains one sentence (saying, basically that the place is a village in Bosnia), and an infobox with no information in it. There is one source, being the 1991 census for the country; as this predates the civil war there, it is hardly reliable; Abdulići is said to have a population of 400, according to nearly all Muslim, yet it now lies in the heart of the Serbian canton, so there is no evidence the place even I exists, now. There are several hundred similar articles on places in Bosnia; some have as many as 800 people living there, or as few as 40. There are also some 26,000 articles of the same standard created by the same editor. I wish to know if any of them are worth keeping.

These articles generally don’t give any population, or co-ordinates (though this one does, they don’t show any place by this name (or anywhere much at all) and generally don’t have a corresponding page in the Bosnian WP (though this one has a mirror on the Serbian WP) Most don’t even give the place’s name, merely using the PLACENAME template.
There is nothing in this article which could not, with more economy, be described in a list of populated places table (and in fact are already listed there).

The page was created a couple of years ago, by an editor no longer with us; it was generally suspected of being part of a mass bot creation, and when challenged over the lack of content the editor airily declared that it could be expanded, though he showed no intention of doing so himself.
I suggest if he is (or was) not prepared to do it, I cannot se why anybody else should be expected to; assuming there is anything here worth saving.

I can’t see that there is much point in keeping these pages, as they are currently taking up a lot of server space to not say very much; I could not even see the point of merging them, as we would still have a sea of almost empty pages to hold the redirects.
If they are to be kept, can I suggest setting a minimum content threshold (correct name, population, coordinates, a verifiable source, some content in the infobox; something more than could be accommodated in table form on a list page) and a deadline set for completion. Moonraker12 (talk) 14:49, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose - This is article about inherently notable populated place which has one reference. I think that this discussion can bring more light to this issue "The cities, towns, and other populated places are considered inherently notable." "I don't object to mass-creating stubs on geographic locations, but I'd like if the people doing it have at least one source, if only to make our job on NPP a little easier." "Non-English language references are acceptable. All the referenced articles Starzynka created were valid stubs. I agree that the unreferenced ones should have had references, but don't see why it is an AN matter.". Unless someone proves that this place does not exist I think that it should not be deleted. Same goes for other 26,000 articles.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 16:32, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I refer users to this 2008 discussion on the merits of creating up to two million stub articles "for most or all of the documented villages and towns in the world." The discussion on the talk page was closed as "no consensus", but the project page says that there was a consensus for going forward with the proposal. I don't know how these 26,000 stubs missed being created at that time, though. Scolaire (talk) 16:56, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: Back in 2008, I believed enwiki's stable of active editors would keep growing indefinitely, but that is no longer the case. In my opinion, the human effort required to clean up and maintain hundreds of thousand of stubs for populated places is far more problematic than the space they take up on the server. (Recently I've spent most of my time updating outdated information in stubs.) Still, the whole rationale for a stub is to provide a platform for further improvement, and Abdulići serves that purpose. As village stubs go, Abdulići is a relatively good article, with counterparts on four other wikis. I've run into similar articles (in places like Spain) without so much as an infobox, a map, or a single useful source cited. Despite the inherent notability of populated places, I wouldn't object to deleting a village stub that was doing more harm than good. I'm not yet convinced this one meets that criterion. —Stepheng3 (talk) 17:52, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hold comment: I was asked by Moonraker to comment here because I made mention at the current Bosnian geo names RM of there being 50,000 populated places in the former Yugoslavia (1972 figure), but I am mainly a bio editor and not fully familiar with notability for geo stubs. I take my lead in that area from User:Dr Blofeld and would prefer to hear his opinion first. As regards this particular one it evidently isn't AfDable because of mention in Naser Orić Srebrenica witness and accused (my title translation) 1995 Page 155. I have no idea how typical that is, but I'm guessing if we took 10 former Yugoslav villages we'd find 5 mentioned in print sources, which then leaves the 26,000 being selectively whittled down to 13,000 - on a tiresome and timeconsuming print check on every one. Plus of course the original arguments for giving local coverage. This is the international wp after all, it's for citizens of every country to contribute to, so there is no preference for British/Australian/American villages. And I suspect most British/Australian/American villages would demand stubs. In ictu oculi (talk) 19:56, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I;m not going to vote here as this shouldn't even be considered, verifiable populated places don't get deleted, it's time an admin was given a right to speedy close any nomination on a verifiable populated settlement as it wastes time. They never get deleted..♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 13:40, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, then Strong oppose per Dr. Blofeld, and second Dr. B's proposal that admins are given above power on verified populated settlements. Anyone feel free to copy/link my seconding to appropriate place. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:52, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, one and all, for the comments.
The 2008 discussion is interesting; I notice the reliability issue was raised then, too. (And I don't know that these 26,000 were missed; they were created over a six month period in 2010, so within the time frame for 2 million maybe about right)
But, “verifiable”, or “inherently notable”, populated places? Isn’t that kind of the issue? It is entirely debatable whether these places are verifiable. All the Bosnian pages use a source that is seriously out-of-date; there is nothing at Google maps (for this place at least) and a Google search for the name throws up a load of (what look like) WP mirrors. And a mention in a book on the Srebrenica tragedy is no evidence that the place exists now (rather the reverse, I’d have thought) Nor am I convinced we should simply assume the information is correct because checking would be “tiresome and time-consuming” (a staggering reversal of the burden of proof; as is keeping it "unless someone proves this place does not exist"). If in fact they no longer exist an article on “Abandoned/former populated places in Bosnia”, with a list, would be far more informative than a bunch of out-of-date Geo stubs.
As for “inherently notable”, I do understand WP serves as a gazeteer as well as an encyclopaedia, but maybe that’s part of the problem. The threshold of notability for a gazeteer is somewhat different to that of an encyclopaedia, so there’s always going to be a conflict between GNG and WP:GEOG. And no, censorship (in the form of the right to speedily close these AfD’s) isn’t the answer; maybe we need a Wiki-Gazeteer project, to sit alongside Commons and Wiktionary. Nor does “inherently notable” have to mean every tiny settlement should have it’s own article. WP:SHIPS holds all ships to be inherently notable, yet in the case of smaller vessels such as submarine-chasers a decision was made (here) to list them rather than produce a host of near identical stubs; and the same happened with steam locomotives; extant/preserved engines have articles; defunct/scrapped engines are listed by class.
But if we are going to keep them (as I feel I'm crying in the wilderness on this one) can we at least have some kind of plan/commitment for improvements, with an option to review if they are no better? Moonraker12 (talk) 22:26, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That would go against what has just been said above. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:52, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What would? Moonraker12 (talk) 20:36, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - These are not valid reasons to delete articles. All towns and villages, former or current, can be verified even if the sources aren't in English. It's impossible for a settlement to exist without historic sources existing. This afd seems to be some kind of WP:POINT "test case". An AfD is not the proper place to instigate an inherent change in Wikipedia. Even if the article simply read "Abdulići sucks" I'd still vote "keep" (and obviously improve) as there is always room for improvement and this is a never ending project. In an encyclopedia a valid stub is much preferable to nothing.--Oakshade (talk) 03:28, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I did raise this as a test case, though hopefully not a POINTY one; I thought they were reasonable questions to ask. If this is the wrong forum,can you (or anyone) suggest where it should be discussed? Moonraker12 (talk) 08:39, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further comment: I notice that the article has acquired some improvements since I opened this; I’m probably the only one who thinks they don’t help much. Despite two links to the official BiH gazeteer (which are diifficult to read!), the only information is still nearly 20 years out of date.
And I’m still having trouble reconciling the sources quoted with the fact that there’s nothing on the map, at any scale. The co-ordinates have been changed (though I don't know the justification for that change), but while the previous ones were a blank on the map,and the satellite showed a wooded hillside, the current ones have a picture of fields and houses, and the map says "Strmovo".
And if it helps this article, it does nothing for the next page on the list (Adže), or the next one in Starzynka's oeuvre (take your pick!). Moonraker12 (talk) 09:06, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, indeed it is dated and hopefully a new census will publish data online. But that doesn't make it non notable! Verifiable settlements are always considered notable on here.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 11:58, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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