Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Monksville, New Jersey

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, per consensus. Also remember that AfD noms cannot primarily advocate for any position other than delete (or else qualify for SK#1). Please see Wikipedia:Proposed mergers to start merge discussions. (non-admin closure) czar · · 14:10, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Monksville, New Jersey[edit]

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Merge and redirect this page to Monksville Reservoir. This is a one-sentence article that has been here since 2005. The fact(s) in the article never have been supported by citations to sources. The two external links on the page are about Monksville Reservoir; they do not support the statements in the article. The most meaningful information I found about the place called Monksville is an article about the relocation of a cemetery before the reservoir was filled [1]. From that article, I get the impression that Monksville was not much more than a farm where the Monks family lived. Accordingly, it appears to me that its history can be covered in the article about the reservoir. If more sourced content emerges at some point in the future, the article can be created again. Orlady (talk) 14:06, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of New Jersey-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:28, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. According to the USGS (878432), Monks (aka Monksville) was an unincorporated community flooded in 1987 to create the reservoir. This is a ghost town. The statement about Jacques Cousteau appears to be just a rumor. • Gene93k (talk) 14:38, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment There is nothing in the article that makes Monksville stand out. The article is not linked from either Ringwood, New Jersey or West Milford, New Jersey, it isn't linked from anywhere other than the reservoir article and the park that surrounds it, and the place is not listed on the template of populated places in Passaic County. On the other hand, the threshold for notability of populated places is extremely low. Couldn't the concerns raised in the nomination have been addressed by just turning the article into a redirect, which would have the benefit of retaining editing history should the article be expanded in the future? Alansohn (talk) 14:54, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - It does seem that there was a populated place that was flooded out when the reservoir was constructed, per THIS. I'm not sure that a redirect is the right answer to this question; or a merge; or a free-standing article for the populated place. This is a really tricky one. The Cousteau bit seems to me to be urban legend, and I've added appropriately hedging language to that assertion. The "small village" does seem to have existed though and the way to handle it is not all that simple. Certainly something that should be debated; so this AfD isn't at all inappropriate, in my view, whereas a speedy conversion to a redirect would be. Carrite (talk) 15:01, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I was thinking there wasn't even a populated place, just a named section of a township, but a June 9, 2000 obituary in the Orlando Sentinel names Monksville, NJ as a birthplace. There's a interesting, but barely-in-passing-mention here. Evidently the place name goes back to at least 1899. At one time there were people living in the community with a surname other than Monks. [2]. Anyway, that's all I could find not mentioned elsewhere. 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 15:29, 10 June 2013 (UTC) (modified, 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 13:56, 11 June 2013 (UTC))[reply]
Keep on the basis of the 2000 obituary mentioned by 78.26. Populated places are notable per se; whether they exist today or vanished as ghost towns or were flooded behind dams is neither here nor there. The fact is there certainly WAS a place called Monks or Monksville. I have a hunch that the former is more accurate than the latter. I will redirect the two names and let that call be made later if this closes a keep. Hopefully the New Jersey historians will go to work on this one... Carrite (talk) 05:29, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per Carrite. It is a fine stub. The page content is more extensive than another NJ ghost town, Barber, New Jersey. Gjs238 (talk) 12:49, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Carrite-thank you-RFD (talk) 10:24, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as topic is notable with independent sources to establish notoriety. Tinton5 (talk) 21:18, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep For a whole bunch of reasons; WP:NGEO, WP:NPLACE, and WP:DELREASONS. Mkdw ^talk 06:01, 17 June 2013 (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.