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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. Michig (talk) 20:08, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Kingdom of Elleore

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Kingdom of Elleore (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Submitting for AfD after a declined speedy, with an endorsement from the declining admin to submit for AfD for lack of notability. This virtually unreferenced article is about an uninhabited 400 meter island with no electricity or water supply; its only real claim to notability is that it has produced coins and stamps, which is not in and of itself an indicator of notability. Horologium (talk) 17:56, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep as there is significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject: John Ryan; George Dunford; Simon Sellars (2006). Micronations. Lonely Planet Travel Guides. Lonely Planet. pp. 42–46. ISBN 1741047307. As an additional claim to notability, it is also the oldest of the current micronations. Cusop Dingle (talk) 18:17, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment One source (independent of subject)≠significant coverage. Almost all of the ghits I found were either blogs or personal websites, or groups whose reliability or expertise was of dubious provenance. That book is the only independent source in the article (and is in just about every micronation article on Wikipedia), and does not do much to establish notability. FWIW, the Lonely Planet series comprises travel guides, and any of their other publications would be deprecated as a source for real locations; I fail to see how this one differs in its reliability. Horologium (talk) 18:59, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Denmark-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:47, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:47, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Travel guides are usually pretty reliable about the things they claim to be reliable about. I see no evidence that "their other publications would be deprecated as a source for real locations": quite the opposite, I would have thought. Incidentally, Elleore is a real location, there's even a film about lion-hunting on the island. Cusop Dingle (talk) 19:19, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Travel Guides are generally not considered to be reliable sources on the whole; there has been one substantial debate on the WP:RSN about travel guides as a whole (Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 100#Travel guides as sources) and one on Lonely Planet in particular (Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 102#Lonely Planet) in which the consensus seems to be that guidebooks such as these should be considered only "provisional" sources at best. As for the film on the island, it predates the establishment of the "nation" by about 37 years, and does not in any way establish notability for the article in question. I am not arguing for the deletion of an article about the island (which doesn't have an article of its own, not even an entry in List of Danish islands); I am arguing for the deletion of the article on the micronation Kingdom of Elleore, which doesn't meet our notability guidelines. Horologium (talk) 19:56, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It seemed that you were disputing that this was a "real location". Cusop Dingle (talk) 21:48, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
—Northamerica1000(talk) 03:42, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The reference from The Australian is a review of the book which is being discussed above, and the single sentence discussing the "Kingdom of Elleore" does not qualify as substantial independent coverage. The blurb from Business Insider looks like it was pulled from Wikipedia (almost all of the images are from Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons), and seems to me to be a case of Wikipedia creating notability where none previously existed. Horologium (talk) 05:22, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I expanded the article with information from the Business Insider article (rewritten, of course, to eliminate plagiarism), which is likely why it may appear that information from the Business Insider "was pulled from Wikipedia", when actually it's likely vice-versa. Regarding the images used in the article sourced from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons: that's Business Insiders right, per the licensing of the respective images. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:51, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The book Micro Nations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations by Lonely Planet mentions them, and this book gets reviewed by Digital Journal [1] which briefly mentions them as well. They are mentioned also in the book Micronations By John Ryan, Simon Sellars and George Dunford Lonely Planet Publications which is reviewed by The Australian [2] and mentions them being in it. Dream Focus 14:49, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You do understand that both reviews are of the same book, don't you? You seem to be treating them as separate sources, when they are not. Since the book reviews simply mention The KoE, they are not about the country, they are about the book. They go a long way towards establishing the notability of the book (so an article about the book is supportable under policy), but they don't work as separate references to establish notability for the KoE. Horologium (talk) 15:13, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Sufficient documentation, especially the book cited above, and the travel guides, satisfy me that this "Kingdom" has existed for many years and carries out a gentle spoof of Danish government in a typically Danish fun-loving way. The Danes were found to be the happiest nation, and this is just one more example of their wonderful national spirit. --DThomsen8 (talk) 01:18, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The book is the travel guide. A search of Amazon books for "Elleore" returns only one hit—Micro Nations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations by Lonely Planet. A Google Books search for "Kingdom of Elleore" finds five hits--the above book, a compilation book from the same publisher (Lonely Planet) which mentions it on a single page, two Wikipedia-scrape "books", and one book which mentions the "kingdom" in a footnote (the author's wife was a cousin of the first "king"). Horologium (talk) 15:27, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"More than a travel book, Micro Nations prefers to glorify these self-governments rather than mock them, describing in detail everything from land mass to cultural pursuits to visitor info. Intriguing photos and fascinating sidebars complement the snappy text."

Here's another quote from a book review in The Australian:

"Ostensibly a travel book, it turns out on closer inspection to be an exploration of the idea of nationhood. In our post-colonial, globalised times, some people see the nation as a myth, a mass delusion, a coercive dream. To others, a nation is the main source of identity, denoting a common history, culture and territory. Whatever the case, there is something arbitrary about national borders and the very idea of a nation.


Micronations celebrates an eclectic group of people who, for various reasons, have decided to start their own countries. The entries range from earnest attempts at creating new societies to humorous stunts to prove a point. What these countries have in common is that they began as acts of rebellion, expressions of dissatisfaction with the state of affairs on the "mainland". Their founders have used their own twist on nationhood as a form of protest, in many cases having to defend their territories against attempts at re-appropriation."

Per these reviews, which are very likely factual, the content of the book is much, much more than merely being a travel guide. Northamerica1000(talk) 05:37, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The sources provided are sufficient for the information present, and the topic is of significant interest in the ongoing provision of information concerning micronations, secession and the legal status thereof. In short, I see no reason why this article remains on discussion for deletion. Benjitheijneb (talk) 01:24, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment The article has been expanded and additional "sources" (and I use the term loosely) have been added. The problem is that almost every source is based on a single book—Micro Nations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations. There is the book itself, a review of the book in The Australian, and a page on the personal website of one of the authors of the book. The review of the book only has a single sentence relating to Elleore, which is nowhere near enough to qualify as "significant coverage". (Another review of the same book, cited above but not in the article, is equally vague as it relates to Elleore, and it's a review from a self-described "citizen-journalist and social media" site.) That leaves one other source, which is a one paragraph mention in a list of European micronations. WP:N requires "significant coverage", and we only have a single source with in-depth coverage of the article, the book. Multiple sources are expected (as per WP:N), and footnote 3 from the notability guideline is particularly relevant here: "Lack of multiple sources suggests that the topic may be more suitable for inclusion in an article on a broader topic. It is common for multiple newspapers or journals to publish the same story, sometimes with minor alterations or different headlines, but one story does not constitute multiple works. Several journals simultaneously publishing different articles does not always constitute multiple works, especially when the authors are relying on the same sources, and merely restating the same information. Similarly, a series of publications by the same author or in the same periodical is normally counted as one source." Heavy reliance on a single book does not make for a strong argument to retain this article. Horologium (talk) 03:20, 7 January 2012 (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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