Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mattes, California
- 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. Geschichte (talk) 08:40, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
Mattes, California[edit]
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Not on topos, no GNIS entry, not in Gudde. Google books didn't bring up anything definitive for me, newspapers.com has a number of passing mentions of a Mattes Ranch in Modoc California re horse sales. No evidence this was a legally recognized community, probably fails WP:GEOLAND and WP:GNG is not met. I'm really doubting anything only sourced to Durham that didn't have a post office at this point. Hog Farm Bacon 05:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Hog Farm Bacon 05:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. Hog Farm Bacon 05:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Delete - I, too, find no evidence that this location was ever inhabited. Durham is looking like a bad source at the moment (but: I don't have access to it so this may actually be on the person who created the article, some of the sourcing elsewhere seems to mistate what the actual sources quoted in the article say). FOARP (talk) 14:52, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- FOARP - At various points when I first started this, I contacted a user with Durham to see what Durham says about a place. From the minimal instances I've seen, Durham calls something a "locality" or "point on the railroad", and this single user (who is an admin!) created all of these, apparently under the presumptions that localities and points on the railroad met GEOLAND. There are probably hundreds more of these that need AFD or PROD. I've been prodding the most blatant ones (mainly river crossings, ranches, and railroad sidings). See User:Hog Farm/PROD log for the list of stuff I've prodded. I'd prefer to send these to AFD, especially if there is any doubt, but there's just so many I have to PROD the worst so as not to overwhelm the system. Hog Farm Bacon 15:36, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Hog Farm - Really if all this had been created to day I would support a trip to WP:ANI. I've just checked the article creation log of this guy and there's just hundreds and hundreds of these things. Nowadays the location articles they're creating nowadays appear better sourced (but not very well sourced TBF). FOARP (talk) 15:45, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- I agree that if these articles were created today, it might be going to WP:ANI. Due to the immense volume of articles created in the distant past, I'd like to see the creator sanctioned with something like for every article he creates, he needs to consider an AfD for one of his older articles. Or that he needs to actively participate in the AfD for three of his articles before he gets to create another one. Or something. I was shocked to see that the creator is an admin, perhaps this should be reconsidered? Would he become an admin today? Cxbrx (talk) 17:07, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- There have been a couple direct appeals to the editor's talk page for help in cleaning this up. No response, but they're not trying to save these, either. My mindset at this point is to just clear out the blatantly bad ones, although this will take a long time, and the time it takes to research one of these is about the time it takes to make 6 or 7 of them. There's been mass-creation of dubious geographic stubs in almost every US state, by different users, although this user's California efforts are by far the most prodiguous and most error prone. Most of these are less spectactular errors than, say Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fish Pond, Kentucky, but there's just so many. I honestly just think the best way to go forward with this is to PROD ones that are obvious, and then AFD the more borderline ones, to reduce the burden on AFD. Quick checks on the PRODs should be enough to confirm if most of them are problematic or not. Most of the ones with post offices are probably fine, with a few exceptions that turn up through heavy research, such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Point Reyes (former settlement), California. There's 1,741 articles in Category:Unincorporated communities in California and a further 1,177 in Category:Former populated places in California. Obviously, a number of those nearly 3,000 are going to be legitimate, but many are not. Hog Farm Bacon 17:19, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- I'm with you on trying a PROD on some of these. Maybe choose 5 or 10 in one county as a test case and then try 25? Can we recall an admin? That might get them to participate. Cxbrx (talk) 17:33, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- I posted to his user page and got a non-commital response. I'm going to leave it at that. I have a policy of avoiding conflict on WP - life is short. I've said my piece, time to move on etc. Cxbrx (talk) 02:42, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- There have been a couple direct appeals to the editor's talk page for help in cleaning this up. No response, but they're not trying to save these, either. My mindset at this point is to just clear out the blatantly bad ones, although this will take a long time, and the time it takes to research one of these is about the time it takes to make 6 or 7 of them. There's been mass-creation of dubious geographic stubs in almost every US state, by different users, although this user's California efforts are by far the most prodiguous and most error prone. Most of these are less spectactular errors than, say Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fish Pond, Kentucky, but there's just so many. I honestly just think the best way to go forward with this is to PROD ones that are obvious, and then AFD the more borderline ones, to reduce the burden on AFD. Quick checks on the PRODs should be enough to confirm if most of them are problematic or not. Most of the ones with post offices are probably fine, with a few exceptions that turn up through heavy research, such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Point Reyes (former settlement), California. There's 1,741 articles in Category:Unincorporated communities in California and a further 1,177 in Category:Former populated places in California. Obviously, a number of those nearly 3,000 are going to be legitimate, but many are not. Hog Farm Bacon 17:19, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- I agree that if these articles were created today, it might be going to WP:ANI. Due to the immense volume of articles created in the distant past, I'd like to see the creator sanctioned with something like for every article he creates, he needs to consider an AfD for one of his older articles. Or that he needs to actively participate in the AfD for three of his articles before he gets to create another one. Or something. I was shocked to see that the creator is an admin, perhaps this should be reconsidered? Would he become an admin today? Cxbrx (talk) 17:07, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Hog Farm - Really if all this had been created to day I would support a trip to WP:ANI. I've just checked the article creation log of this guy and there's just hundreds and hundreds of these things. Nowadays the location articles they're creating nowadays appear better sourced (but not very well sourced TBF). FOARP (talk) 15:45, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- FOARP - At various points when I first started this, I contacted a user with Durham to see what Durham says about a place. From the minimal instances I've seen, Durham calls something a "locality" or "point on the railroad", and this single user (who is an admin!) created all of these, apparently under the presumptions that localities and points on the railroad met GEOLAND. There are probably hundreds more of these that need AFD or PROD. I've been prodding the most blatant ones (mainly river crossings, ranches, and railroad sidings). See User:Hog Farm/PROD log for the list of stuff I've prodded. I'd prefer to send these to AFD, especially if there is any doubt, but there's just so many I have to PROD the worst so as not to overwhelm the system. Hog Farm Bacon 15:36, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Speedy delete Mass-producer negligently misrepresented the source: Durham says under the entry for Adin, California on p351: "California Division of Highways' (1951) map shows a place called Mattes located 2 miles northeast of Alturas along Nevada-California-Oregon Railroad." not that it is a community or notable settlement. Reywas92Talk 23:58, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- Delete - per nom; fails WP:GEOLAND and WP:GNG Spiderone 14:59, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
- Delete: per nom, fails GNG and NGEO. // Timothy :: talk 07:28, 14 December 2020 (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.