Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of proposed national monuments of the United States

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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 no consensus to delete. After much-extended time for discussion, there is a clear absence of consensus for deletion, and a reasonable basis in policy for keeping a list of proposals where the proposals themselves are or can potentially be sourced. I would further suggest moving everything that is in fact unsourced or self-sourced to the talk page for individual examination and discussion. BD2412 T 05:41, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List of proposed national monuments of the United States[edit]

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List of proposed national monuments of the United States (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Most proposals don't end up going anywhere and can be transient. Several of the external links in that column are already dead and the page isn't even that old! Obviously there's been so many more proposals over the years with varying extents of progress and support and it's not really objective to list them this way indefinitely. Plus more than half the list is just places named as potential candidates in an internal draft report from the Obama admin but which don't necessarily have advocacy or further proposals behind them. I just don't think being "proposed" or "potential" is certain, discriminate, and long-term important enough for this to be a list topic here. Reywas92Talk 22:25, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The list-article was previously much longer, but has been reduced by edits by the deletion nominator and perhaps others. One big reduction edit in the history has an edit summary suggesting it was eliminating items that were once proposals which were eventually accepted. Which could be reasonable, but actually I don't see why some/many proposals might not have been "partially" accepted and partially not, so still be outstanding in effect. And also actually it is very appropriate to cover proposals that were notable by dint of years of protests, petitions, actions etc. The history of all that activity is notable on its own, and is relevant in considering ongoing proposals. "Once notable, always notable" applies to proposals too. I would agree that if there is no significant coverage of a given monument's proposal as such, and the monument is created, that its proposal itself may not be notable, and need not be listed (consistent with some standard for "list-item notability", to be discussed by editors at the Talk page).
The big reduction edit (with edit summary "this doesn't make sense, by definition all of those that have been created were formerly proposed") removed an entire section "Formerly proposed national monuments" which covered substantial proposals. Including the Big Ears case which was subject of contention and where much less than originally proposed was eventually made into a monument by President Trump. The reduction deletes mentions of Big Ears Collective, Save the Front, and other organizations/movements involved in various proposals. That section also included an introductory statement of reasons for keeping proposals in the list, too. I think the removal of all that was a Bold edit which should be Reverted and Discussed. It is fine for the deletion nominator to disagree with the previous standard for notability of list-items, but that is a matter for Talk page discussion. In past AFDs, sometimes a deletionist cuts down an article and then proposes it for deletion with justification "look how little there is", which is a tactic for "winning" and not right; that is not what happened here (note the big reduction edit was in Sept 2021, more than a year ago). However it still is a bit confusing that a large amount of material was already deleted (and to me it makes sense to have a section on formerly proposed cases). Now, I think that the big deletion should be Reverted and Discussed at the Talk page (I suppose after this AFD is closed).
Also, I don't quite understand the deletion nominator's next deletion, also in Sept 2021. This all needs more attention, and I will post notices of this AFD at wt:NRHP, wt:HSITES, and perhaps elsewhere. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 22:36, 28 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, of course practically everything in List of national monuments of the United States had been previously proposed. So why would you list previous proposals here as well? Honestly I think that section was so bad that it makes a stronger argument for deletion. Sure, those were conservation efforts that were succesful in Obama's second term, but there are 130 national monuments altogether, plus many more that have been protected in other ways! I mean, a "national monument" is not necessarily the end goal, it just can be easier to get a presidential proclamation than a bill through Congress to get a site protected. If there are "years of protests, petitions, actions" (very few national monument proposals actually even reach that), obviously that can be covered in their respective articles, but such a vague list like this doesn't fit that. Similarly "Big Ears Collective, Save the Front, and other organizations/movements involved in various proposals" should all be in the Bears Ears article, but there's no need to list that here – it's a list of ideas, not an article about issue advocacy groups and conservation.
I'm still confused why the status column I removed was there. If a monument was in fact created, it would go on the primary list and removed from this one. One can add some sort of summary of what the groups are working on I suppose, but there's not an objective progress bar or boxes to check for that, and moreover, most on this list would now have a status of "website dead" and questionable encyclopedic value and need to be grouped. I mentioned this to Cielquiparle at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deanna Lynn Wulff, where an advocate of a proposed monument here had written an autobiography, and I moved relevant info about that proposal to Sierra_National_Forest#National_monument_proposal. But to be clear very few proposals get much media attention (+my reply below). Reywas92Talk 17:14, 29 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I don't have strong feelings one way or the other. However, I note that the National monument (United States) article itself does not have a link to this list. Also, if a portion of a proposed monument does become recognized, wouldn't that article be the logical place to detail all the history of the proposal rather than retaining it in this list? Of course, if no part of a proposed monument has been recognized, then it may be proper to retain it in this list. The sticking point seems to be determining which proposals are "serious". Is there some official process for proposing a monument, or can any group just take it upon themselves to advocate for one? Indyguy (talk) 23:01, 28 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Indyguy:, Precisely, there is no process, which makes this article so subjective and of limited use – all it takes is a few people with an idea and a website. A serious advocacy campaign would build support among local stakeholders and governments, get themselves in the media, and work with members of Congress to even write a bill. If they don't gain traction (like any other issue advocacy might and as most here have), the website/social media could eventually go dark, and it's hard to say what the encyclopedic significance is. But the key thing is that national monument is a broad concept of both historic and natural places united only by the fact that the president can create one by himself. That can make the process easier to convince the president than all of Congress. That's why most of the list is also taken from one unreleased document a White House staffer made of preliminary sites Obama's team could have looked into protecting, but it's not clear why we need all of those listed here (this was originally titled "potential"). Some proposed national monuments might be better off (and some are in fact later converted) as national historical parks or national preserves or even national parks ("formerly proposed" Pullman National Monument was just renamed a National Historical Park). The Owyhee Canyonlands row links this, but they're advocating for protection in general, not national monument in particular because it doesn't really matter! While all those on this list are natural, here's advocacy for a "national park site", which could include being a national monument, at least at first if made by Biden – should it be here? Grouping those with this particular proposed designation isn't particularly meaningful. And yes, histories of proposals can be interesting, but that should go in the respective place's article rather than in a table. Reywas92Talk 17:14, 29 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 00:05, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. The deletion starts with comment "Most proposals don't end up going anywhere ..." which is a statement you can make based upon what? Upon the knowledge provided by existence of this list, I think, or at least I myself would not where to start in coming to a generalization like that (and if I did undertake a research study on my own, say to inform a given new proposal, I would certainly create a Wikipedia list-article about previous proposals if one didn't exist already). I believe that the collection together of information about multiple proposals is clearly useful. And other statements above are informed by the existence of this list (in current or larger previous version).
Also, it is pointed out that detailed history of a given proposal that achieves monument status can be included in the article about a new monument, rather than in this list. Sure, yes, but this list can and should include a summary pointing to that detailed discussion. Or, if editors at the monument article don't like so much being included about the proposal, that material can and should be covered here. Clearly IMHO some proposals are noteworthy. And then it is obvious IMHO that a list-article of the individually notable ones and other significant ones meeting a lower threshold of "list-item notability" is useful and valid. Very often, including IMHO here, having a list-article is useful for covering multiple items rather than having separate articles about them....and the list-article provides a sensible target for merging articles about less-than-individually-notable cases. It is simply good to have a list-article.
It is pointed out that a national monument designation is just one way that a given area can be protected, and that some proposals end up being resolved by other designations/protections being put in place. That is an argument for broadening the scope of the list-article to cover a broader set of protection possibilities, not at all for deleting it, IMHO. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 18:47, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This is too indiscriminate to list any place, natural or historic, that is or was proposed to be protected, either as a national monument or as other designations. Whether proposals are likely to reach success or not, I think it's too speculative and irregular to list things that by definition do not exist together this way. There are many more conservation and heritage protection proposals for the current administration and Congress (once Biden moves forward with Draft:Avi Kwa Ame National Monument, I'll add a section to Environmental policy of the Joe Biden administration) and I've found many more historically as well (not to mention expansion proposals). Combining places that were just mentioned as potentials in a list not intended for public release and places that have – or had – advocacy behind them to varying extents that may or may not care about the particular type of designation is not the way to go. Write something in National monument (United States) about these procedures, but I don't think this page works and I don't intend to keep it updated as I do List of national monuments of the United States. Less-than-individually-notable cases will typically have a national forest or national conservation lands article that can cover them, or one for the place or topic (e.g. there's a proposed national historical park I added something about here – like this one, the park service has done many of these studies for proposed national park sites, but even with Congressional directives to do such research and outreach I don't think we should have a list specifically for proposals!). Reywas92Talk 02:17, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I hear your anguish about having a not-well-maintained list with not-extremely-good-or-obvious-standards-for-list-item-inclusion, and that it is in the topic area of national monuments where you have been taking responsibility. Thank you for your updating/maintaining the list of national monuments and the general National Monument (United States) article.
I agree the list is not great or very useful for readers now in its current state. For example, I see there is no explicit information about any national monument proposal at the article, Bodie Hills, linked from the first item. So the only info given by Wikipedia is that it was on a 2010 Department of the Interior "internal-type" list (which is something, not nothing). Browsing "Bodie Hills" on internet, I find my way quickly to this Bodie Hills organization with some statement of concern about endangerment. But I myself am not right now going to do the research and writing to develop a real world tangible proposal, nor to ferret out more about any proposals that have been made. However, there is an idea there.
The list is much less helpful, I think, for not continuing to show the past items like Bears Ears in table that was deleted (and should be restored IMO). It is a big strategy or tactic, to seek national monument designation, possibly available to local organizations like the Bodie Hills one, or to state- or national-level organizations. A related strategy or tactic is to get National Register listing for selected places like ruins in the Bodie Hills area, perhaps. In an advocacy type way, I'm interested in Wikipedia providing info on the general process of how the public can get places protected, by this tactic or others, and keeping a list of examples where this tactic was pursued, and succeeded or failed, seems highly relevant. This encyclopedia is not here to support advocacy, per se, but honestly I think you and I and most NRHP editors are somewhat motivated towards protecting places....writing articles nominally about somewhat protected registered places is partly to ensure the public knows about them, to further protect them....and I don't think it is bad for Wikipedia coverage to be heavier on advocacy-related things and lighter on possibly encyclopedic and objective topics like, i dunno, characters in online games, or maybe tables of properties of engineeered materials.
We both also might not like List of threatened historic sites in the United States, which is not well-maintained. OTOH, related list America's Most Endangered Places, is easy to maintain, as it objectively states what the National Trust for Historic Preservation's top 10 lists are for each year, and helpfully for the reader links to Wikipedia articles about those places.
Bottom-line, i also don't have very strong feelings here, but I do think the list-article topic is valid as something that could be a good, continuingly relevant Wikipedia list-article. It sure would be better if some editors were interested and maintaining it. But I don't recall AFD decisions of "delete" where the problem is just bad current status of an article, or vagueness of list-item notability determination. Those seem to be editing issues, to be addressed by tagging of articles and by jawboning at the Talk page and perhaps at related WikiProjects. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 03:34, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Lists like this are speculative and don't belong in an encyclopedia. Farragutful (talk) 17:41, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. First of all, thank you very much for the extensive discussion during the holidays. I originally created the list after I read about the Interior Department memorandum to track the progress of these proposals. When writing the list it turned out that there are also other proposals, not listed in the memorandum, with even more active campaigns (e.g. compared to some vague memorandum entries). Thus, the list expanded and much fewer national monuments were proclaimed compared to what I initially had anticipated / hoped. Although I am no longer sure about whether to maintain the entries for proposals which are meanwhile proclaimed as national monuments, I am strongly in favor of keeping the list of proposals. All web links worked when I created them and usually I create a web archive snapshot for links which I am adding, so there should be a good chance to repair meanwhile broken links. Chstdu (talk) 14:12, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • Respectfully, the issue with the dead links is that proposals and advocacy tend to be fleeting, not that the links don't work. Reywas92Talk 03:26, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: There appear to be 2 for deleting, 2 for keeping, and 1 neutral comment that's skeptical/lean delete. In lieu of a no consensus close, let's relist once more.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment I think it could use a better explanation if we do keep it, past proposed monuments that never got protected or pending future designations that may or may not get designated. The first option is probably more useful as it would present historical info. The future can and will change. Oaktree b (talk) 23:10, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, good, that makes sense, and I agree with you that keeping it and improving explanation and extent of proposals....
    • So Delete this list, or at least BLAR it. Oaktree b (talk) 23:11, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
...WHAt?!?!? The "So" does not follow at all. I just had to look up what you mean by "BLAR", and I see at wp:BLAR that it is "blank and redirect". Technically, we blank a page and redirect all the time, e.g. when a merger happens, but you seem to be advocating blanking to eradicate Wikipedia's mainspace coverage, rather than say tagging and calling for improvement. Which looks exactly like essay "wp:TNT", an exhortation to delete everything and start over (this is exactly the same except that to get the past history of a page, an editor who is not an admin has to request it, rather than have it available in the redirect's history... either way is wiping out anything the public can see and wiping out what many/most editors can reasonably know about). In the past I saw wp:TNT being invoked way too often, and i saw it was pretty awful, and I and others were energized to create counter-essay wp:TNTTNT to point out it is basically just wrong. If "BLAR" is being used as an argument(? not sure it is one ?) or being cited more widely than just here, I am inclined to review that and probably engage in wide-ranging battle against it.
For probably all the reasons expressed in wp:TNTTNT, the call for "BLAR" here is illogical and should be opposed. Starting with the fact that its invocation is acknowledging the validity of the article topic (which Oaktree b explicitly acknowledges). So I say: STOP. WE ARE DONE. The topic is valid, then the resolution is "KEEP". Almost anytime anyone invokes TNT to call for deletion (with the exceptions including cases of copyvio and plagiarism), they are acknowledging the validity of the topic and the result should be KEEP. (If you want, please consider other logical paths of reasoning in wp:TNTTNT which also bring one back to "KEEP").
To the future closer, I request that you consider Oaktree b's !vote to be one for "KEEP". Not just neutral, or to be dismissed, but actually please consider this as a positive !vote KEEP, per their reasoning as far as it goes. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 05:13, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete My main argument here was initially going to be that this (and similar) articles support the national bias of Wikipedia, because similar lists for other countries would likely get deleted very quickly. But it turns out that there are several list-articles of all sorts of proposals, for example of proposed railway stations and power stations. Regardless, I don't think articles like that have any place in an encyclopedia, being mostly trivia. The proposals could (and probably should) be mentioned on the individual monuments' pages, but it does not warrant a separate list. Kaffe42 (talk) 20:00, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, this does not make sense to me either. "Being mostly trivia"? If any of the proposals covered is not a serious, reasonable initiative to seek national monument protection for an eligible area, then yes it should not be included. You mean like, if there are "joke" proposals, or ridiculous proposals where some group of crazed fans of a celebrity who once walked thru the area want it consecrated, or what? On the other hand, if there are "false"-type proposals where for political or strategy reasons some proposal is made to further something entirely else, well actually that should be covered. Anyhow, this is to be addressed by sensible editing, and is not for AFD. About bias, that is to be addressed by bringing more attention to comparable proposals in other countries. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 05:13, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep per WP:BEFORE. Anyone who knows anything about the current ecology movement in the United States knows that this is a top issue. I am a science teacher who teaches this material, and a 20-year member of the Sierra Club, so perhaps not everyone is knowledgeable. A list is the best way to present this information from various organizations and other sources. And with all due respect, anyone who is information literate can find sources online and in textbooks. With two clicks, I was able to find two more relevant links online and add them. There is significant coverage in both reliable sources and by advocacy groups. Almost every book or news article about national monuments includes a "wish list" of potential new national monuments. The nomination does not present any arguments other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Bearian (talk) 20:48, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Meets LISTN and provides useful information and is a Navigation tool. Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Lists  // Timothy :: talk  21:02, 15 January 2023 (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.
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