Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Top of The World, Tennessee

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. Mark Arsten (talk) 03:39, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Top of The World, Tennessee[edit]

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Not a notable place. Contrary to the article's description of it as an "unincorporated community", this seems to be a landowner's promotional name for a resort real estate property. "Top of the World Estates" is the only relevant listing in GNIS. It is described in GNIS as a "locale", which is defined to mean "Place at which there is or was human activity; it does not include populated places, mines, and dams (battlefield, crossroad, camp, farm, ghost town, landing, railroad siding, ranch, ruins, site, station, windmill)." (See U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Articles for deletion/Top of The World, Tennessee.) The name also appears on a detailed county road map[1], but that hardly indicates notability.

The reference cited in the article (www.topoftheworldtn.com) is a landowner association website, which suggests that the existence of multiple homes or vacation homes. Other online sources include this page, which looks like a real estate promotion (and cites the Wikipedia article as its source) and a FoxNews piece about school bus service being blocked when the US federal government shut down in October. The closest thing I can find to notability is a list entry in a Tennessee place names book (published 2001) from a reputable publisher (but full of what appears to be original research).[2]

Delete this, because Wikipedia does not exist to help promote real estate sales.

NOTE: A Google search for "Top of the World Tennessee" turns up a number of hits for other places, including a "Top of the World Farm" in another part of the state and one or two vacation rental cabins in a different place in the Smoky Mountains locations with the name "Top of the World." Orlady (talk) 21:04, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Tennessee-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:57, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Inhabited verified community, which are always kept. The mention in the 2001 Tennessee place names book and the county road map seems sufficient. Its not simply some marketing-created not-built subdivision of log cabins inside some larger CDP or town. Not sure whether "Top O' The World" is better name.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 05:17, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The trouble is that is is not an inhabited verified community. Inhabited verified communities in the United States are listed in GNIS as "populated places". GNIS generously treats many trailer parks and residential subdivisions (entities that most Wikipedians do not consider to be worthy of articles) as "populated places". The county in which Top of the World is located has 209 "populated places" listed in GNIS (of which just 7 are incorporated municipalities and 4 are CDPs), but Top of the World is not one of them. Top of the World is not listed in GNIS as a populated place, but only as a "locale." Locales are expressly indicated not to be populated places; the other entities in the same county that are listed as GNIS "locales" include country clubs, campgrounds, industrial parks, named farms, named houses, and the former (historic) sites of mills. --Orlady (talk) 19:56, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If Bitch Creek Cow Camp, Idaho is good (and it is), I don't see how this is not. And this is a populated place.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 03:10, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's an other stuff exists argument. That kind of reasoning is not an admissible basis for determining whether a particular article should be retained. --Orlady (talk) 05:17, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Otherstuffexists is an actually an argument for keeping, when you've items get challenged and kept on a regular basis. I randomly picked that one because it was one of Coal Town Guy's stubs I fixed up awhile back.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 04:16, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: It is not a promotion to real estate sales it is a real community, and it deserves article just a like historic house deserves one. --ACase0000 (talk) 06:42, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Weak delete: I was a bit puzzled when this was created. It is essentially a resort property as Orlady describes it. If we opt to keep, the lede should be reworded to reflect what it actually is. Calling it an "unincorporated community" along the lines of nearby Walland or Happy Valley is misleading. Bms4880 (talk) 19:18, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

On what basis are you concluding its a resort? The websites are crappy looking, and the occasional references to it in local press don't make it sound swanky, just a community which is distinct geographically from other communities.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 03:10, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In the mountains of Tennessee, the word "resort" does not necessarily connote "swanky."

Note that those same "crappy looking" websites you refer to are the sources for the content in this article. Are you saying that crappy looking websites indicate a notable topic, but slick websites do not? Where in the Wikipedia notability guidelines does that criterion appear? --Orlady (talk) 05:17, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The crappy websites don't indicate notability at all in my opinion. The map and news references do, proving its treated as an inhabited community, and won't be a precedent for resort-spam.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 04:15, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here [3] is the website for Chestnut Tops, a gated community that's part of (and typical of) the Top of the World development. In its history section, it states the area was purchased in the 1960s by Jourleman and Headrick. I couldn't find anything on Jourleman, but I determined the "Headrick" refers to a developer named Charles Headrick. On Headrick, I found this site (a library finding aid) which contains the following entry, dated June 27, 1965: "Roy and Charles Headrick are developing the Top of the World Estates and nearby commercial and other buildings between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Foothills Parkway." Bms4880 (talk) 16:34, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That is consistent with the TN place name book, which says Charles Headrick gave the community its name. There was likely no zoning in a remote area like that in the 1960s, so they had free rein to sell lots.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 16:42, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No need to speculate on zoning. There was no zoning in unincorporated portions (nor in some incorporated municipalities) of Blount County until circa 2000. I am not aware, however, that the absence of zoning somehow imparts notability (per WP:Notability) upon every rural tract of land that gets subdivided (nor converted to a church retreat center, trailer park, horseback riding stable, airplane landing strip, or other common uses of rural land). --Orlady (talk) 05:00, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: I just started Lake in the Sky (Tennessee), the lake that the community encircles, and Bms4880 added to it. The lake article gives some information about the community that could be copied to this article. The big news is that a fire station was opened last year, there was a controlled forest burn this spring and the main road was closed a couple of months ago, cutting off the school buses. A small community around a small lake, not a place where much happens, but notable enough. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:55, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Per Aymatth. A verifiable community with sources.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:54, 20 December 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.