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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. KaisaL (talk) 00:05, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Harris Creek Sitka Spruce[edit]

Harris Creek Sitka Spruce (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Non-notable. It's an article about one singular tree that does not assert any distinct notability. Amccann421 (talk) 18:11, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. North America1000 22:54, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of British Columbia-related deletion discussions. North America1000 22:54, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. North America1000 22:55, 12 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Merge (changed !vote, see below). Found two barely reliable sources here and here and a free image here, but no nature books or other secondary sources that could be cited in the article to show independent notability. —Prhartcom♥ 12:44, 14 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 04:28, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge probably to List of trees#Living 4. It's a named, known tree, that is what the list is for. And the list does not yet have a sitka spruce. It should be covered in the list first, and there's not yet enough about it to require it to be split out. --doncram 17:56, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Best idea. The article would still be deleted. I have changed my !vote accordingly. —Prhartcom♥ 13:35, 21 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You mean that the article would be gone, colloquially, right, not that it would technically be Wikipedia-deleted? A merge would naturally leave a redirect, which is appropriate IMO: to help anyone searching for it, and to enable a past version of article to be restored if the tree becomes very notable, like if a politician crashes into it. :) Maybe not everyone knows this: technically, there should be an anchor put into the target article, e.g. {{anchor|HarrisCreekSitkaSpruce}} and the redirect should link to [[List of trees#HarrisCreekSitkaSpruce]]. (To the closer: Hmm, actually the coverage would be a row in a table, and anchors like that don't work properly. What's needed is an "id=" label in the separator between table rows, like |- id="HarrisCreekSitkaSpruce", and the redirect would be the same. And, there is no usage at all of either type of anchor in the List of trees article.) Thanks for looking into it further and coming up with sources that can be used in a table row. --doncram 02:12, 23 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Forgive my error in wording. doncram, you've got it exactly. I hope you can watch carefully when this is closed and ensure it gets done that way. Best, —Prhartcom♥ 01:54, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep a quick search turned up many mentions in books: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], and many more online in various travel/tourism/hiking/nature related websites. Granted, this is not very "deep" coverage but it is pretty good for an individual tree. Furthermore, almost of the entries in the list of notable trees (List of trees) have blue or red links, so it's hard to argue this tree should be included in there and NOT have an article. MB (talk) 03:48, 25 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Nakon 00:28, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per MB's arguments and sources. Add to the list of trees with a blue link while we're at it. Then cleanup can happen for the article. Fieari (talk) 02:42, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per MB. There appears to be more information than can reasonably be covered in a list entry. Vanamonde93 (talk) 06:55, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - A quick search on google turned up quite a few hits and several mentions in books, there's enough there to warrant a separate article and a mention on the list page. Mr rnddude (talk) 16:34, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment What new information supposedly requires being split out? From the book links found by MB, the only piece of info besides location that I see is that the tree is 4 metres (13 ft) in diameter. It's nice that the tree is mentioned in each guidebook, but it is only mentioned as "see the Harris Creek Sitka Spruce here", with no additional info at all. In one of the links I was not able to see the next page, denied to me perhaps randomly, so I am open to being informed of other specific facts that can be used as material. However, the table row has no space limit and several facts could be accommodated there. Please draft out a passage that is perhaps too long if you can. But here is my version of a table row from what's in the article + fact it is 4 meters thick, after two other examples:
Name Species Location Age Notes
Iluvatar Coast Redwood Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, near Orick, California, US
An arborist resting next to the coast redwood Iluvatar in the spring of 2008. The third largest known coast redwood. It is located in Atlas Grove (a grove of redwood trees) in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.
Duffie Oak Mobile, Alabama, US 300 It is estimated to be at least 300 years old and has a circumference of 30 feet 11 inches (9.42 m), a height of 48 feet (15 m) and a spread of 126 feet (38 m). Scholars consider it to be the oldest living landmark in the city.[1][2]
Harris Creek Sitka Spruce Sitka spruce Near the creek bed of Harris Creek, which runs alongside the Pacific Marine Road between Port Renfrew, BC and Honeymoon Bay, BC on Vancouver Island
At 4 metres (13 ft) in diameter,[3] it is not the largest sitka spruce on Vancouver Island, but is easily accessible due to the paving of a former logging road,[4] and has become well-known: hikers going by on Harris Creek Main trail and other trails are recommended by trail guide books to make a short detour to visit it. Logging in this area was permanently restricted by a 2012 vote.[3]

References

  1. ^ "Alabama's Famous & Historic Tree Program" (PDF). Alabama Forestry Commission. State of Alabama. Retrieved November 13, 2012.
  2. ^ "Live Oak Project, Mobile, AL". Native Tree Society. Eastern Native Tree Society. Retrieved November 13, 2012.
  3. ^ a b Phil Lee; Sarah Hull; Stephen Keeling; AnneLise Sorensen; Steven Horak (2013). The Rough Guide to Canada. Penguin.
  4. ^ Liz Bryan (2011). Country Roads of Western BC: From the Fraser Valley to the Islands. Heritage House Publishing Co. p. 136.
One can quibble with what should be said in the row (and maybe this is too much or is not adequately supported by sources) but even this much (all we know about it) does not require a separate article. I welcome edits to this draft. Offhand, I would like to see coordinates added for this tree and others in the list (to be added into the location column). And it could be mentioned if there is a parking area at some mile number on some road where you could pull over and walk X meters to see it, if you can. But there exists no age estimate and it apparently has not even been measured in spread, circumference, height. --doncr am 01:33, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

*Comment 1. If it subject is notable, then it can have an article, even if it is just a stub. Why force it into a list? Doesn't an article make it more likely editors will expand the coverage.

2. I spent about one minute and found this site [6] which adds:

  • tree is not officially protected
  • it grows in a semi-wilderness area
  • the surrounding forest was harvested in 1893 yet the tree survived
  • a sign asks visitors to not walk on the root system
  • it is 82 meters tall
  • it has a fat flared trunk
  • it is draped in hanging moss
  • a fence has been built around it
  • there is a wheelchair accessible trail
  • its age has not been dated but must be hundreds of years old

Assuming this site is acceptable, there is much more to say. (I would think we don't have to be quite as stringent as with BLPs.) Maybe with some more digging the info Doncram mentioned can be dug up also. This [7] is a google map with the tree pinpointed, but I don't know how to derive the coordinates. MB (talk) 04:04, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well it would be nice if you admitted the previous sources were so thin as to be nearly useless, but Greg Koep (and Linda H.?)'s Vancouver Island Big Trees blogspot's blog on the tree is indeed a pretty good source to come out with now, for info on a big tree on Vancouver Island. I would accept them as an expert.
Usually you can just right-click on any point in a Google map and select "What's here?" to see its coordinates, but not in that one. By opening another Google map side-by-side and zooming in, I could find pretty much the exact same spot. It's at 48°40′45″N 124°12′51″W / 48.67921°N 124.21418°W / 48.67921; -124.21418 (Harris Creek Sitka Spruce). --doncram 05:31, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the previous sources were useless at all. I was trying to establish notability. Since we don't have a formal notability guideline for trees as we do for say, athletes, I was trying to suggest that any tree that has a widely known name or is written about individually in just about any way, or is a tourist attraction, would be notable. Since there are over three trillion trees ([[8]); this is a very selective subset. There are about 100 living trees on the list, out of 3,000,000,000,000, a very small percentage. MB (talk) 20:57, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the trees on the list which have separate list-articles (with an exception or two where AFD might be approprate) are generally far more extraordinary that this one, which is not even the biggest Sitka spruce on its island. I don't agree the standard for tree notability is "any tree...written about individually in just about any way". That is not how Wikipedia works!!!
I'm inclined still to say the tree should just be mentioned in the list, i.e. the decision here should still be Merge. What we have is one nice blog website which can be linked. Maybe just a link to that is all that is appropriate, even though I kind of like the blogsite and the blogger. We don't need to copy the blog to a list-article or to a separate article, and I am not sure how an article would look to be sourced just to a blog, and I am not sure about quality of material like ""a fence has been built around it". Does that need to be said, given that the article and the list-article row both have the same photo that shows that already? It may be a stretch to include this tree on the list at all, and it is not necessary to have an article for it. IMHO. --doncram 05:03, 3 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree about any Speedy Keep, beyond the fact that this has been open several days and Speedy does not apply. Per my reply to "Comment" just above. And the only material written out so far is what I drafted to fit in a row in the list-article. If someone wants to show a legitimate article can be created, well go ahead and show it. Or it is best to redirect the article to the row, and leave it to some future editors to actually develop it, if they can. Like if there is substantially more to say than "its age has not been dated but must be hundreds of years old". --doncram 05:03, 3 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As is evident, there was no compliance with WP:Before. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:37, 3 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep MB has provided more than enough sources to show that this clearly passes GNG. There's no need to merge this into the list, as a few mentions in books is enough to show this tree's notability on it's own. Omni Flames (talk) 10:16, 4 July 2016 (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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