Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/O'Donnell, Ontario

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. (non-admin closure) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:28, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

O'Donnell, Ontario[edit]

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Poorly sourced article about a shortlived purported (but not fully verifiable) ghost town, with no strong evidence that it would get past WP:GEOLAND as a standalone topic. There's a lot of completely unsourced original research here, and even the few things that are footnoted are mostly citing unreliable primary sources, like a ghost towns blog and a mining industry blog — literally the only reliable source in the article discusses it solely in the context of having been a roast bed rather than in the context of ever having been a place where people lived, the industry blog does the same, and the only other new source I could add also just namechecks it a single time on one page as a roast bed. But whatever it was or wasn't, it was definitely never "legally recognized" in the sense of having a municipal government — so even if it was populated at all, its notability test would fall under the "populated places without legal recognition are considered on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the GNG" clause, but it isn't being shown to pass GNG.
A redirect to Walden, Ontario (the borough of Sudbury in which the remains of whatever this was are geographically located) would be a potential option here, but the quality and depth of sourcing on offer do not rise to the level of earning it a standalone article as an independent topic in its own right. Bearcat (talk) 20:23, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ontario-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 20:23, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 21:43, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Commment What does GNG look like here? Looking at 1920s Ontario newspapers, there's certainly articles mentioning someone is from "O'Donnell, Ontario". Nfitz (talk) 23:03, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Articles mentioning someone is from O'Donnell, Ontario" is not how you get a place over GNG. GNG is not about counting up how many articles you can find which happen to briefly mention O'Donnell in the process of being fundamentally about something or someone else — GNG is about finding articles in which O'Donnell is itself the primary subject of the piece. Bearcat (talk) 02:04, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I thought the primary concern here was concern that the very existence was purported. I'd think that the number of articles for current small Ontario towns that meet GNG are the exception, not the rule. But the information below points to a scholarly article and a book reference to meet GNG. How is that not enough? Nfitz (talk) 21:07, 23 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The book isn't a GNG-assisting source at all, as it doesn't contain any content about O'Donnell except a brief glancing acknowledgement of its existence on a single page. And the scholarly article is a start, but not a finish all by itself if it's the only substantive source that can be found, because GNG requires a lot more than just one substantive source. Bearcat (talk) 22:02, 23 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep There's at least one scholarly article directly on the yards as a townsite and over 30 on their environmental impact, and several books mention them. I'm not sure this is notable as a townsite, but I think it's clearly sourceable and notable as the O'Donnell Roast Yards and would consider moving there. SportingFlyer T·C 23:06, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep There are certainly additional sources I was able to find from some brief searching referring to it as a distinct and named populated place, e.g. this monograph on environmental pollution which talks about residents or this history of the area which I suspect is the source for some of the information on the websites directly cited in the article. The standard of having a municipal government would invalidate a lot of mining and CPR towns that existed on company property early in the 20th century, and I'm concerned that not having coverage of them on Wikipedia would lead to coverage that doesn't properly capture the human geography of these areas, where industries like mining and forestry drove town development rather than the other way around. However given that it's within the former boundaries of Walden (itself a former township, and one rather arbitrarily created and with a legal lifespan not much longer than O'Donnell itself), a place within the Walden article might be a suitable alternative to a full article, alongside similar former mining towns like Creighton, High Falls, Worthington, Victoria Mines, etc., none of which had municipal governance either to my knowledge. I find the idea of re-framing the subject as being about the roast yards and their environmental impact to be compelling as well though it was not my focus while editing the article. If other editors were willing to broaden/shift the scope with a focus on those I would appreciate it as I don't have access to most scholarly journals. Julius177 (talk) 03:00, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody said that places aren't allowed to have Wikipedia articles if they didn't have municipal governments — but a place in that boat has to be able to show that it can clear WP:GNG on its sourceability, because a place does have to have had some form of objective legal recognition before it's handed an automatic notability freebie that would exempt it from having to have better sources than this. But brief mentions on one page of a book, attesting that a place exists but not containing any substantive or non-trivial information about it beyond just the fact that it exists, aren't notability-making sources: a source has to support substantive content about the subject, not just offer technical verification of its existence, to count as a notability-assisting source. Bearcat (talk) 04:12, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep for now - I'd rather have the edit history world-visible while the UNESCO application is underway. There's lots of content that doesn't currently have reliable sources: this should be pruned, but we have one very good RS and no pressing concerns with respect to problematic editing: we can be patient. If it fails in the UNESCO bid and no more good RSs emerge, then the well-sourced content should be merged to Greater Sudbury. — Charles Stewart (talk) 07:24, 25 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I'm surprised there's any RS in the last few decades. I'm not troubled that there's only one, given a lack of contemporary newspapers and publications available digitally. The sources I've checked, don't have much coverage from that area, though I do keep coming across incidental mentions of the community from papers that are further afield - so it was certainly called this in the day. Nfitz (talk) 20:45, 27 June 2020 (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.