Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/27–29 Fountain Alley

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. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 22:43, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

27–29 Fountain Alley[edit]

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I'm nominating this in the hopes of getting some more experienced eyes on questions a handful of editors have about a large number of similar articles. On my read of WP:NBUILDING, being considered of historic significance does not in and of itself make a building notable, but rather it also requires signifcant coverage in third party sources. I do not believe that is met here (see below for brief source analysis). I would also note that the building is marked on the historic register as of local significance only, not state, national or international significance, as I wonder if those other categories might make a difference to the discussion. Melcous (talk) 21:37, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: My brief source analysis is as follows:

nomination form for entry on the register
entry on a list
entry on a list
newspaper clipping saying the place will be built
one sentence in a book
list of tenant in the building in a directory of places to eat
news article with a short mention of the redevelopment of area, but no mention of this specific building
primary document about redevelopment project
entry on a list

I'm not seeing how any of these meet WP:SIGCOV. Melcous (talk) 21:39, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Satisfies the WP:NBUILDING guidelines as a result of its historic, social, economic, or architectural importance.
27–29 Fountain Alley is already listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Santa Clara County, California and is notable based third-party peer review by the National Park Service.
Clicking on the NRHP number in the infobox, will bring up the historical study that was done for the building. Long and rather extensive.
The nomination form for the building has both an in-depth history and a list of references at the end. The reason buildings on the NRHP are considered notable is that the National Park Service requires that information in order to list a property, and their standards are higher than WP:GNG.
The National Register of Historic Places is a part of Wikipedia's projects. This includes listings on the state-county-city levels. What matters with NRHP is that we get a sourced article on them, which anyone can improve. Why would want to delete all this work?

Greg Henderson (talk) 21:57, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I did find a mention of this specific building in the Encyclopedia of California. I'd be very surprised if an article on a building on the NRHP is deleted, but I'll do some more digging for supporting documents before weighing in. Seasider53 (talk) 23:14, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Seasider53: for your comment. I agree with you! BTW, there are other buildings in this same area that are on the National Registry, which include the Hotel De Anza, Hotel Montgomery, and the The Westin San Jose. Greg Henderson (talk) 23:37, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Architecture and California. Shellwood (talk) 22:52, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It's on the NRHP, so the nomination form will have a complete architectural analysis of the building. Give me half a second and I'll go pull it up for us. Oaktree b (talk) 00:14, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
and GregHenderson beat me too it. Oaktree b (talk) 00:15, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Oaktree b, this is really the heart of my question - does being on the NRHP in and of itself suffice to meet wikipedia's notability standards (and if so it'd be great if you can point me to where that is covered as WP:NBUILDING seems to suggest otherwise). My understanding is that there are 95,000 buildings on the US NPHR, some of local significance, some of state, national or international significance. And of course most other countries have their own similar systems for recognising historic buildings. Are we saying that being designated at any of these levels automatically means notability is met here? (For a comparison from my own part of the world, there are 30,000 listings on the state heritage inventory for the Australian state of NSW alone, and I'd be quite surprised if me creating 30,000 individual articles here on each one of them would be seen as acceptable). Melcous (talk) 01:31, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It makes it notable, but you still need sourcing for the article. Usually (at least in my experience), any listed/protected/designated building will have some sort of a study done as to why it is "special" and they prepare a report about it. I've done articles for listed buildings in Canada, the US, Sweden and the Czech Republic, they all have some sourcing behind the nomination and listing. That's generally what I've used to create the article, but as time goes on, it's gotten (I don't want to say fussier here) more strict, so you need more than that. I've had some of my recent historical building articles challenged for notability and honestly you have to pull out all the stops to find the gold-star, top notch sources. You can usually do so with some digging, but it feels more trouble than it's worth... I mean, they don't designate things just because, there's some sort of historic reason for them, backed up by evidence. Oaktree b (talk) 02:15, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: and the NRHP listing document also has bibliography with 9 sources. Oaktree b (talk) 00:19, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Oaktree b: Thanks! I just added the Bibliography to the article. Greg Henderson (talk) 00:36, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I mean, this isn't a one line stub. We have confirmation of the historical and architectural significance of the building, construction history and usage of the building to present times. They aren't all Eiffel Towers known around the world, but they're all documented. And for all that NBUILDING says: "Buildings, including private residences, transportation facilities and commercial developments, may be notable as a result of their historic, social, economic, or architectural importance, but they require significant in-depth coverage by reliable, third-party sources to establish notability." Well this has historic/social/architectural importance as shown in the NRHP nomination. I suppose "significant" coverage is up for debate, but the article now is longer than a few lines and actually gives a decent context as to the what and the why of this place. Oaktree b (talk) 02:18, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oaktree b I realise I am being pedantic, but this is the key question here: WP:NBUILDING says Buildings may be notable as a result of their historic importance, not that they are (and then adds the requirement for WP:SIGCOV). In your comment above, you say "It makes it notable." Is that your opinion, or am I missing somewhere else where this has been determined by the wikipedia community? Thanks Melcous (talk) 02:34, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's my personal opinion only; I've had some of my articles (that I've created on similar buildings) come up at AfD and it's my ego being bruised. To be blunt, I've been doing this for 20 years and I should know better; I take it personally when I should be up to snuff and I'm not. (I've always tried to use the best sourcing and create quality articles, ungh, why is it being nominated!)... It's too personal sometimes, argh! No hard feelings at all towards anyone, but I hold myself to a high standard here and feel like I've failed if it doesn't work. Oaktree b (talk) 02:47, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Melcous: The problem is that you're looking at the wrong section. The correct section for heritage-listed buildings and structures is not WP:NBUILDING but the wider WP:GEOFEAT, which says Artificial geographical features that are officially assigned the status of cultural heritage or national heritage, or of any other protected status on a national level and for which verifiable information beyond simple statistics is available, are presumed to be notable. I appreciate that this is not entirely clear; the order of the section has been rather messed around with recently and it hasn't been great for clarity. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:09, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Necrothesp, it is confusing and the two sections do seem to somewhat sit in tension. I now see WP:GEOFEAT as well, but would still ask whether the intention of that is that every building designated as of local significance should therefore automatically be presumed to be notable for a stand-alone article ... because as I noted above, that is an awful lot of articles worldwide that (unless WP:SIGCOV is also required), but I guess more significantly, it hinges on the interpretation of "on a national level". Personally, I'd argue that those are not the same thing, (i.e. local significance and national level - similar to the discussion on the talk page about UK Grades I, II* and II hence why I tagged you) but if the consensus is to read it otherwise, that's up to the community. Melcous (talk) 12:00, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The difference is between local listing (i.e. heritage-listed by a local council) and national listing (i.e. heritage-listed by a national government, or sometimes a lower-level government if heritage listing is devolved, as it is to the German states for instance). All the latter fall under WP:GEOFEAT. There is no actual conflict. WP:NBUILDING simply applies if WP:GEOFEAT does not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:10, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I've been looking through some of the talk archives on WP:NGEO to try to get my head around how this notability guideline has been understood, and there was some recent discussion around UK v US listings for heritage buildings that seemed to touch on the same questions, so am tagging the editors involved in that discussion in case they would like to participate here: James500; Espresso Addict; Reywas92; BilledMammal; Horse Eye's Back; Necrothesp; Dlthewave; Davidstewartharvey; Crouch, Swale; FOARP. Melcous (talk) 03:07, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep seems to pass GNG anyway as it seems to have coverage in other sources but anyway per WP:GEOFEAT as its a national heritage in terms of being on the National Register of Historic Places. Crouch, Swale (talk) 06:40, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Clearly does meet WP:GEOFEAT (Artificial geographical features that are officially assigned the status of cultural heritage or national heritage, or of any other protected status on a national level and for which verifiable information beyond simple statistics is available, are presumed to be notable.), and WP:GNG as well. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:05, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Perhaps GEOFEAT would be more relevant to Foutain Alley but since this is about a specific building, NBUILD is probably the more appropriate guidelines.

Graywalls (talk) 23:22, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, not the case. WP:GEOFEAT applies to heritage-listed buildings as I have pointed out above. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:43, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - What we have here is the classic product of just writing an article about something because it's on a list. The history section of this article is almost entirely about the street it is on. It is not clear to me why we have both this article and Fountain Alley. FOARP (talk) 14:57, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep There's clearly enough there for an article even though none of the sources are amazing. Agree there's a couple sentences dedicated to the alley and not the building which should be merged into the other article and removed from this one as inappropriate, but there's also enough on the building that a merge is clearly improper. SportingFlyer T·C 13:14, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@SportingFlyer - Are we looking at the same article? The history section I'm looking at has six paragraphs, of which four are explicitly about the street, not the building. The two that aren't are the first paragraph which is really about the structure/style of the building, and the fifth which is about the businesses that have occupied parts of the building. The second and third paragraphs are about the naming of the street. The fourth paragraph is about other buildings on the same street. The sixth paragraph is about redevelopment of the street. Obviously a building can easily be covered within an article about a street. A merge here would be easy - it would be 2/3 paragraphs within a longer article. FOARP (talk) 11:05, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree the article has been beefed up with information on the street, but there's still been enough written directly on the building that it's eligible for an article. SportingFlyer T·C 14:13, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep it's clear that NRHP and the persons who've done the research work know much more about why the building is significant and notable than amateurs and passersby on Planet Wikipedia, which should take the lead from them, the people in the real world make such determinations. Clearly satisfies Wikipedia policies & guidelines mentioned above. Djflem (talk) 00:01, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Being on the NRHP, this passes WP:GEOFEAT; there is also quite a bit of info about the site in its NRHP nomination form. I do not think it is relevant whether the building is of local significance, rather than of state or national significance, as locally significant buildings can still be notable in the contexts of their communities. – Epicgenius (talk) 21:54, 15 January 2024 (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.