Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ad Arisc

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 delete. -- Cirt (talk) 03:46, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Ad Arisc

Ad Arisc (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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Not notable Short version: Geonames is not reliable alone to prove a given place exists, as shown in Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Gnaa, Nigeria (3rd nomination). Further research leads me to conclude this will never be more than a single sentence on a dubious locale.

Long version: Not enough information provided to prove it is a village, let alone what it is clearly. Per my assertion above, I looked for confirmation that there was, indeed a village named "Ad Arisc" or some version thereof; Ethiopian names for people & places are not transcribed in any standardized fashion. The authorities I use for confirmation fall into one of three groupings: (1) Central Statistical Agency publications; (2) The Local History in Ethiopia database at the Nordic Africa Institute (it used to have far more detailed entries in the past, but it is still useful for verification purposes); & (3) verifiable sources like traveller's reports or memoirs, published articles, & histories. Out of the three, I found "Ad Arisc" (listed as an alternative version of "Adi Arish") only in a single line entry at the Local History in Ethiopia database. None of the reports of the 1994 nor the 2007 national censuses mention it. At this point I concluded this article was borderline until I had a look at the Google map image at the provided latitude & longitude: nothing there. All I could find for 5 miles -- or even 10 kilometers -- in any direction was the typical barren scrubland of northern Tigray, & some dry water courses; no sign of a village or other human habitation. GeoNames is full of ghost & erroneous duplicate entries; I believe this is one more example.

Note: I have provided this much detail as a help to other editors who may need to verify future placenames concerning Ethiopia. llywrch (talk) 16:42, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

• Delete. Google Earth shows no sign of any human activity at the given coordinates (14°39′N 38°10′E) despite being able to display at a high resolution there. The closest settlement is Rubayta, at 14°39′N 38°13′E, which is itself nothing more than a few scattered huts. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 18:55, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
• Delete. If we can't confirm the existence of the place as a place, then it ceases to be notable. A single source later on that shows this village, even at another location, might change that, but delete for now. Is the title a useful redirect to anything? From the nominator's excellent research, I'm thinking not - but usually we redirect the name of a place to the region in which it is found, if the article is deleted and the title may be a useful search term. No need for that here, I think. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:36, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
• Delete Per nom, Another "populated place" which turns out to be a mound of earth in the middle of the desert. Nothing new there.. Dr. Blofeld 15:38, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ethiopia-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:37, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

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.