Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jardin botanique alpin "Daniella"

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. This garden either doesn't exist or is a private garden. I read through the very interesting comments from editors trying to track down the facts about this place but I don't see anyone advocating keeping this article. Great detective work though. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:51, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Jardin botanique alpin "Daniella"[edit]

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Article is a stub covering an apparently non-existent or at least non-public and non-notable botanical garden. The address given appears to be a small, private residence with a 175m² garden behind it. The one source provided in the article is an entry in a database of botanic gardens which itself contains conflicting information regarding the location of the garden. See 2017 discussion on article's talkpage for more info and views: Talk:Jardin_botanique_alpin_"Daniella". Eric ^talk 17:13, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of France-related deletion discussions. Eric ^talk 17:13, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

More info: Google Maps link of address given in the cited BGCI entry; should open in satellite view centered on property. Note that the coordinates given in the article (and on the BGCI entry) point to a site approximately 2.5 km to the east, also a residential street. Eric ^talk 17:22, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The French wiki article says it's a private botanical garden. I see no sources in French either. It appears to be a plot of land someone owns and just calls it a botanical garden. I get some mention on an EU website in a pdf, but it's in passing. Non-notable. Oaktree b (talk) 19:06, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete BGCI appears to be a self-published source; or at least, when I clicked the link they offered to take my info to register me as a garden conservator. I'm tempted to add some random address near a patch of green in someone's backyard and see if I could add my "garden" but I didn't take it further. (If anyone decides to try this, please ping me with a link to your "garden".) I wonder if there are other "gardens" sourced to BGCI, and whether we should cross-post this to WP:RSN or to WP:Spam blacklist? (Courtesy link for the record, in case the article is deleted: BGCI.) Mathglot (talk) 20:21, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – linked with French Afd discussion, here. Mathglot (talk) 21:01, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Well done, Mathglot. Didn't occur to me to do a parallel AfD on fr.wp. I note their article has the same coords as here. Eric ^talk 21:08, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Added Spanish here. Mathglot (talk) 22:01, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As mentioned on the article talk page, the book checks out, and has the garden listed, address simply "87000 Limoges" however and the telephone number that of the mayor of Limoges. The 1 sentence in the book says that it was founded in 1983 and has ~1800 species. The 1990 International Directory of Botanical Gardens lists the only botanical garden in Limoges as the Jardin botanique de l'Evêché in the Place de la Cathédrale in 87100 Limoges, as does ISBN 9780898310412. Those two 1990s books would have had a 1983–2004 botanical garden with ~1800 species if it really existed. The French article post-dates both this one and the Spanish one. Are you enjoying that the Spanish article's picture is actually of somewhere in Austria? ☺ I suspect a copyright trap by Racine. Uncle G (talk) 01:01, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I took another approach, and searched for jardins botaniques alpins en France, and got this this map mash-up as the top result. With one exception, all the alpine botanical gardens shown are in the southeast, near the borders of Switzerland and Italy, where—surprise!—you find the foothills of the Alps, from which alpine gardens take their name, and are likely to thrive. (The one exception is the Jardin botanique de Lyon.) No map pins in Limoges, or nearby.
So then I tried again, showing the top 100 web search results for jardins botaniques a Limoges, and you get a few dozen "Jardin de l'Évêché" results, and the "Daniella" garden shows up twice: once on the BGCI site, and once at this page, which is a mirror of the fr-wiki article. The odds that an actual botanical garden exists in a major French city, and appears on no website in the world, other than a questionable WP:SPS database, and a Wikipedia mirror, is vanishingly small. Admittedly, this is not a proof, as a single, reliable source would be enough to take apart this argument. But, we don't have a single reliable source. Mathglot (talk) 03:08, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- I suspect that the Racine book's entry is a copyright trap. If it's fictitious, it's not harmful enough to be a problem when people call the telephone number and find the mayor of Limoges explaining that there's not really a "Daniella" botanical garden, but there's a nice one by the cathedral. But absent such a suspicion, which you haven't mentioned in 3 years, why do you discount Michel Racine as an expert? Because by your own assertion xyr book, which was pointed out on the article talk page in 2017, and which supplies address and telephone number, is exactly the source that takes apart your argument. Uncle G (talk) 05:25, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – in response to a request at fr-wiki, there are now four replies from French users who live in Limoges and have never seen nor heard of this garden. One has gone further and has contacted the French Botanical Garden Association and is waiting for a response, and is also planning to swing by the indicated address this weekend and investigate further. See fr:Discussion:Limoges#Question sur un jardin botanique limougeaud. Mathglot (talk) 17:42, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – The BGCI entry has been added to the article by User:Oldhedge who has been blocked indefinitely from editing for persistently adding hoax references. --Cyfal (talk) 18:21, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Whoa; good catch. Adding link to this discussion (ongoing; current perma) which lists a bunch of fake references by Oldhedge, and also includes this comment of yours:
I've also checked Oldhedge's contributions which were already modified by someone else, and tried to revert them, too. With very few exceptions (like this one), all of them seem fake references and links.

Looks like this is possibly just one of many that Oldhedge has added fake references for. Mathglot (talk) 03:31, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The BCGI link says they aren't even a member of the BCGI. It's a private garden with an unknown nunber of staff and all other info is blank. Very suspect. Oaktree b (talk) 23:45, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – French user fr:Hymass (talk · contribs) has been responding at this French discussion, and has spoken to the resident at #16 where the Google map points. If I'm interpreting their response correctly (fr:diff; fr:perma), it sounds like the owner used to have a backyard garden, but ceased maintaining it in 2005. (Even were it maintained, I would still vote "delete" as a non-notable, private backyard garden.) Mathglot (talk) 03:58, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete As Mathglot already said, according to the response of French user Hymass this is a private garden. My translation of what he wrote: "So, contrary to what I said above, I did not visit the person living at this address but I phoned him. Good news: the coordinates are correct, it is the private garden that can be seen behind the house; unfortunately the owner of the garden has stopped tending it since 2005." --Cyfal (talk) 10:24, 30 April 2022 (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.