Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Moonax, Washington

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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 delete. Consensus is that it does not have the sourcing or recognition required for GEOLAND. Star Mississippi 15:45, 11 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Moonax, Washington[edit]

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Moonax, Washington (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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So here things get weird. This is another place along the Columbia that got "moved" because the original rail line was inundated by damming, but the searching produced some real surprises. Unfortunately, there are no aerials that show the area before the dam, and there's only a single such topo, which shows a couple of buildings between the rails and the river. The modern "location" is an otherwise anonymous spot on the rails, which are sandwiched between the road and the river on the usual carved-out ledge; there's no siding or anything else, and it's quite clear there was never a "settlement" in the fifty years since. So then we turn to the Ghits. The web hits are down in the bottom-of-the-basement clickbait level, but the book hits are both bizarre and illuminating. First up is a passage from Sinclair Lewis's novel Free Air, where the "town" appears in a list/poem of town names from east Washington state. More potentially useful is a passage from Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon, which describes looking for gas while running on empty, but I have say that an anonymous woman hanging out in a gas station does not constitute a reliable source. Last, in the illuminating department, this environmental impact statement from 2002 describes Moonax as "a small community", when at the time it was nothing more than a name on a map and an entry in a database. Finally, we have the name origin story, which is a perfect bit of "just-so" fabricated from Lewis and Clark's journals. The entry in question is definitely Clark's work, and does nothing to pin down a spot to such exactitude. So in all of this the most notability is mention in a couple of books, which isn't enough. Mangoe (talk) 02:17, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete. Very little mention outside of books chronicling Lewis and Clark journals, and a few geological surveys which do not indicate nobility. Additionally, this geological survey claims it was a station. Jobie James (talk) 02:45, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment. The user who created the page has a long history of creating articles similar to these, most undergoing AfD as well. [1] Jobie James (talk) 04:04, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - WP:GEOLAND#1 requires legal recognition, and there is no evidence of that here. There is also no significant coverage of the location in independent, multiple, reliable sources that would allow a WP:GNG pass for this. The Lewis & Clark coverage is not coverage of the location, but instead just what the native word for Woodchuck was.
The keep !vote above, as often in these issues, is a collection of Wikipedia:ITSUSEFUL, WP:NOHARM, and WP:ITEXISTS, except we don't even really know it ever really existed as a community. Even if it did, Wikipedia is not a gazetteer, we do not have articles about every single location, inhabited or not, recognised or not. Instead we have articles about subjects that are notable enough that we can write an encyclopaedic article about them. FOARP (talk) 14:26, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is a gazeteer. Pleast don't cite essays as if they are policy or guideline. Smartyllama (talk) 01:42, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
WP:GAZETTEER is also an essay. It also states It is therefore important to clarify that Wikipedia is not a comprehensive gazetteer of all places, but one with defined criteria for inclusion, so notability would still need to be demonstrated. eviolite (talk) 02:01, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's why I wasn't citing it as if it meant anything. You'll notice I didn't !vote, I just rebutted your !vote. I have no opinion on whether it should be kept at present, but would disagree with your rationale for deleting based on a random essay. If it was indeed a town, it should be kept, despite your assertions to the contrary, but that seems to be in some dispute and I don't have time to research at the moment. Smartyllama (talk) 14:58, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't !vote either (you are confusing me with FOARP). I just saw your comment when scrolling through the geography deletion sorting page. eviolite (talk) 20:18, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Smartyllama - I also cited a bunch of examples of why the sole keep argument here was based on common fallacies, cited GEOLAND and GNG, but you seem not to have responded to any of that. It is perfectly reasonable to cite essays as an explanation of your position, particularly because it avoids having to explain yourself repeatedly at length.
However, if you have a problem with the idea that Wikipedia is not a gazetteer, let me explain: Wikipedia is not a gazetteer, there is no consensus expressed anywhere ever on this project that ever said it was one per se. To the contrary, there is a very strong, long-standing, repeated consensus on here that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, which is something quite different to a gazetteer, which is ultimately just a directory/dictionary (i.e., things that Wikipedia is explicitly not, again, according to very long-standing policy). Therefore, even if this place ever had been a "town", it should still not be kept without either a GNG pass or a GEOLAND#1 pass, because we shouldn't host single-line articles that say "XXXX was a town in YYYY" and literally nothing else. People who wish to write such content should be directed to Geonames, Wikivoyage, or other such open-source, non-encyclopaedic gazetteer or gazetteer-like projects. FOARP (talk) 09:53, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A town is a "populated, legally recognized place" and as such it would pass GEOLAND #1 if true. My apologies to you, Eviolite for the mixup. Smartyllama (talk) 13:36, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A “town” is simply a human settlement. It is not automatically a legally-recognised place. Simply being a “town” does not mean it has an automatic pass. FOARP (talk) 14:53, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would add that we've deleted many places listed as towns in Washington Place Names that turned out to just be rail sidings, stations or grain elevators. I'm not impressed by any of the sourcing here. –dlthewave ☎ 15:46, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In order for a place in Washington state to be classified as a "town", they need some sort of legal recognition from the state. See Town#Washington and List of municipalities in Washington. That being said, I'm not seeing any evidence that actually happened here. As for Dlthewave's comment, the fact that some places that are purported to be towns are not in fact towns does not change the fact that actual towns are notable. But all that is irrelevant to this discussion as I am seeing no evidence this place is or ever was a town. Hence my !vote below. Smartyllama (talk) 16:51, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely 100% agree that if a place can be shown to have been incorporated then it has been legally recognised, but simply being called a town is a different thing, since the terms is commonly used for a wide range of settlements. FOARP (talk) 18:38, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - These few passing mentions (even the Lewis and Clark one) are insufficient to meet GNG. I also note that the place names list in the EIS is compiled from Washington Place Names, likely without fact checking, and should not be considered a separate source. –dlthewave ☎ 13:44, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete As I explained above, contrary to the assertion of some editors, if it were actually a town it would be a clear pass of WP:GEOLAND as towns are legally recognized, populated places under Washington state law. However, I'm not seeing any evidence that the State of Washington ever recognized this place as a town, and it's not listed at List of municipalities in Washington so unless evidence can be provided to the contrary, it fails the criteria. Smartyllama (talk) 16:56, 10 December 2021 (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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