Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Akçakent District

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 . Consensus appears to be that WP:GEOLAND applies to this article's subject, which it meets. Aoidh (talk) 03:53, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Akçakent District[edit]

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TL;DR: fails WP:GNG due to lack of WP:SIGCOV in reliable sources; WP:GEOLAND doesn't apply as this is an administrative unit only.

Brief background: until 2022, all Turkish districts were handled in the same article as the town that was the seat of the district. Since then, despite my raising objections that Turkish districts in general don't meet the notability criteria separately, there has been a massive drive towards creating separate district articles. As such, I'm nominating this article for deletion as a "proof of concept" before we can discuss about undoing this recent drive with a mass deletion/mass redirect.

Looking specifically at this article: there is absolutely no significant coverage of the district as a distinct entity from the town centre here in reliable, independent sources. Sure, there are fleeting mentions of the district in sources, but Turkish sources and encyclopaedias don't intellectually distinguish between district centres and districts at large, making it very difficult - and possibly original research - to create separate articles about the two. This is simply not a good way of presenting this information, and given the general scarcity of sources, would likely leave one of the articles as a permastub. As such, this article simply fails WP:GNG and there is no reason that the information about the district-at-large cannot be given in the context of the town centre; WP:GEOLAND isn't applicable as this article isn't about a populated place per se, it's merely about an administrative unit.

There isn't any content to be merged here, simply because the different content here (the list of the villages, the district population) was just moved from the district article as a WP:CFORK. If the discussion is closed as delete, it would be as simple as reverting the last two changes on the parent article of Akçakent. I would also disagree that "Akçakent District" is even a bona fide plausible search term, so would think that a redirect isn't warranted. GGT (talk) 20:27, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Turkey-related deletion discussions. GGT (talk) 20:27, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. GGT (talk) 20:39, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The idea to separate town articles from district articles has been discussed last December and January at User talk:Semsûrî#Separate Turkish district articles and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Turkey#Infobox and districts. The districts, including Akçakent District, are described in reliable sources (Turkish Statistical Institute, Turkish Ministry of Interior), which are used as references in the articles. Since Akçakent District is in a non-metropolitan province, the district has a different, wider extent from the municipality of Akçakent. I think that WP:GEOLAND applies here, because the articles are not just about the administration, but also about the location, composition and population. All of which have some overlap with the municipalities, but they are not the same. But it's good to have a discussion about this, again. BTW there was no list of villages at the Akçakent article. Markussep ^Talk 07:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I thought districts are generally kept separate from the settlement though if there is a consensus for Turkey and it only contains 1 municipality then it may make sense to combine. See Stroud (town/municipality) and Stroud District and Braunau am Inn/Braunau am Inn District and Wikipedia:Separate articles for administrative divisions to settlements. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:18, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: the district contains one municipality and 20 villages that are directly subordinated to the district, not part of the municipality. And indeed they have different populations: Akçakent municipality has 755 inhabitants, Akçakent district 3,519. Markussep ^Talk 18:59, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK then keep as it appears to pass WP:GEOLAND/WP:PLACEOUTCOMES and as noted its standard to have separate articles on districts unless there's a clear consenes against that for Turkey. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:11, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In the twenty or so years of our coverage on Turkey, we did not have separate articles; but over a few months these articles were mass created without seeking consensus (the few conversations that were had were because I raised concerns and mass creation went on regardless). The main issue is that it will be impossible to have viable articles for the district and the town centre separately for most places in Turkey, because this is just not how Turkish sources conceptualise things. I still don’t see how that concern has been addressed for this district, there just isn’t any coverage for the district as a separate entity in sources. My concern is that a mass creation of such articles will invariably result in a huge quantity of low-quality permastubs. GGT (talk) 22:42, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If that is the consensus then I'd go along with that as I can see you're Turkish and if that is done on both tr and de and most other Wikipedias then we should probably follow suit, only it and nl (see d:Q13428856) have separate articles. That said as I mentioned while it is normal for low level municipalities that have the same name as a settlement to have 1 combined article it is normal for districts that cover other settlements or rural land outside the namesake settlement/municipality to have separate articles. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:18, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think practices of other Wikipedias should be considered, they may have different policies and guidelines. What's important IMO, and I think that's also what Aintabli means, is that separating district and municipality articles makes it much clearer what the information given in the articles (e.g. population, area, notable places, administration) refers to. Clearly, for this type of districts (and there are 454 of them), there is a big difference between the district and its capital. The situation is different for the districts of metropolitan provinces, where the districts coincide with the (second level) municipalities. Markussep ^Talk 08:07, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merge this article into Akçakent. Turkish Wikipedia currently has an article on the district titled "Akçakent" (that includes a bit about the town). German Wikipedia also covers the district and town in one article. Neither have "District" in the page title and both articles are brief. I think it sensible for English Wikipedia to follow suit and develop one comprehensive article rather than two stubs. WP:GEOLAND should be applied with common sense. I agree with almost all the nominator's well thought through reasoning. However, deleting and merely reverting to the revision of the Akçakent page would omit some of the detail on the "District" page. I didn't see this article's list of villages appearing in the Akçakent article when checking its history. Rupples (talk) 02:04, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Other language Wikipedias are not relevant. Turkish Wikipedia doesn't even distinguish provinces and the towns/cities that are the administrative seats of the provinces, which is simply nuts. Not distinguishing settlements and administrative divisions is a great problem for a future addition of content. Aintabli (talk) 21:23, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But the district and villages are distinguished and listed in a merged article. I don't see how it's a great problem for a future addition of content? Please explain. Rupples (talk) 22:23, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Aren't we talking about the district centers/towns? They are also merged in Turkish Wikipedia. Essentially, not distinguishing an administrative division and a settlement complicates everything from geography, demographics, culture, etc. If we were to add content regarding these, we would always need to be careful about what we're describing, the administrative division or the settlement. Aintabli (talk) 04:05, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Get your point. I've taken a look at some other towns where the district info. has been removed. With some there is a bit more narrative left than just the population, elevation etc, unlike this one. I'm unsure whether there should be 'automatic' district articles or whether it should be decided on a case-by-case basis. For consistency, maybe the former is preferable. I'm changing my opinion from merge to neutral for this specific case. Rupples (talk) 17:31, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Rupples: See WP:UKDISTRICTS for England for example. Most districts like Maldon/Maldon District have separate articles even though the municipality (parish) is combined with the settlement unless the boundaries are similar or smaller than the settlement like Hastings and Reading, Berkshire. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:13, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep. New articles for districts and recognized villages and towns of Turkey were being created for quite some time. This AfD isn't just about one page but hundreds of other pages. A deletion/merge will revert days of work. Moreover, district centers and districts are distinct both officially and conceptually. Censuses do distinguish these entities. Aintabli (talk) 21:12, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Notable as per WP:GEOLAND. Klausness (talk) 13:00, 21 April 2023 (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.