Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:44, 2 December 2021

Precious anniversary

Precious

Five years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:32, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Six years now! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:38, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Woah there, buckaroo!

	A Crested Wood Partridge
	Take this bird as a gift from me to you because stuff like this is surely not true! You're an insightful contributor, and we love to see you! Therefore, please do reconsider. –MJL ‐Talk‐ 21:17, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Arizona places

Hey, thanks so much for helping with the clean-up of the Arizona mess (then we've got more in at least CA, VA, and NJ afterward)! A few of us have compiled some more names at User:SportingFlyer/Arizona placenames cleanup, and I made List of places in Arizona (A) etc sortable so it may be easier to go through them that way instead of by county. I'm too busy this week to do much more one at a time, it may be easier to nominate them in bunches like ranches, sites, or subdivisions once organized. Tired of people complaining about procedure like at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Fleetwood Village, New Jersey but we do have to check these individually. Reywas92 22:36, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

I've just been going through the "populated places by county" categories and checking each. There seems to be no reason to do group noms given the likelihood of someone going procedural. Plus there is the entertainment value of writing up the really bad ones: my family thought Headquarters, Arizona was hilarious. I shall take a trip over to your list and see what I can do there. Mangoe (talk) 02:53, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

• Instead of entertaining people and effectively ridiculing a senior editor why don't you save everyone's time and propose them for deletion by WP:PROD. Your prods on this subject were deleted so there is no reason at all for AfD, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 20:21, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

On this topic, please re-do your nomination at Hecla, Arizona. You posted the AFD template, but failed to create the debate and process the nomination, near as I can tell. FYI. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 21:15, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Accck, I started on the discussion and got interrupted. Will deal with this shortly. Mangoe (talk) 21:19, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the continued work on California places. There's a few of us who will work on California places and we'd be glad to have you join. Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_California#Cleaning_up_all_those_GNIS_location_articles and Misplaced Pages:WikiProject California/GNIS cleanup task force/talk. Going through these one or a few at a time at AFD is going to be futile against this scope. Reywas92 05:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Durham Suggestion

Not sure if you saw my reply regarding Durham. I have a version covering just the Bay Area. However, I took a look on Amazon and saw that the Gold Country version was for sale at $3.99 on Kindle. I bought a copy. You might want to do the same but if not, let me know and I'll respond to your questions when I can. Glendoremus (talk) 15:31, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Junk bridge stubs

I noticed you commented at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Niangua Bridge that the bridge seems to be so nondescript it probably doesn't even have a name. I've found one even worse: Forrest L. Adair II Memorial Bridge. Doesn't even appear to be anything beyond a highway overpass. Prodded, of course. Hog Farm _Bacon 20:34, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Advice on a potentially non-notable GNIS database stub

After Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Yolo, Missouri, I'm thinking about going through some of the Missouri geostubs, because I'm thinking that some of these are based on GNIS errors. However, I don't have a whole lot of experience in this area, and I want to be going through these right. Alberta, Missouri looks like a possible GNIS error. GNIS calls it a populated place, but this county place names guide calls it "Alberta Post Office", and implies it's just an old 4th-class post office in somebody's store. A modern Google Maps search is bringing me to a pre-fabricated homes dealership in the middle of some fields, with no houses in the immediate area. Old 1953 topo shows "Alberta" marked, but with only two or three buildings there. 2017 topo doesn't list individual buildings, but it doesn't make it look like anything's there. I've found an old 1919 county history that mentions the post office closing in 1901 , although it also states that someone was born near Alberta. The remainder of Google Books hits mostly seem to be mentions of the Canadian province and the state in consecutive sentences. A Google search brings up nothing suggesting there was a community there. Where else would I need to look to see if there's a WP:GEOLAND pass before nominating for deletion? Hog Farm _Bacon 15:06, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

@Hog Farm: You've basically followed the right course. When it's a common name like this one, I will typically include the county name, which in this case isn't going to help much, I see. If you have a newspapers.com subscription that can help too, but keep in mind you are looking for hits that make clear what the place is, not just mere name-drops. After you've done a few in an area you'll get a better feel for the standard sources there and it'll go faster. Everything in this case indicates that this wasn't more than a 4th class post office in a farmhouse, so go ahead with the nomination. Mangoe (talk) 17:51, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

And it looks like that AFD is gonna go to "No consensus"/multiple relist purgatory. At this rate, I'm not sure that any of these Missouri ones will get deleted, except for maybe Rock, Missouri, which is probably the obscurest of them all. Hog Farm _Bacon 21:19, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

We'll see. If the closer is on the ball I don't think many of the "keep" rationales are going to stand. Mangoe (talk) 04:14, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

How do you think my accuracy on these have been? I seem to have possibly missed on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Ketterman, Missouri and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Cornwall, Missouri, and I don't like the idea of possibly deleting non-notable stuff. You try to clean some bad articles up, and all of a sudden the word "deletionist" starts getting slung at you. Hog Farm _Bacon 16:37, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Panama, Missouri

This one's a bit of a weird one. State Historical Society calls Panama a rename of the "town" of Handley, Vernon County, Missouri. However, the same source has two entries for Handley: One calls it a town named after Joe Handley, the other a railroad shipping station named after J. W. Handley. Old railroad guide gives it a Rich Hill address and says there was a telegraph office there. County history doesn't mention Panama. Old court material suggests it's a railroad station. An old 1922 source calls it a "post-village" on the railway. Old reference to a "Rich Hill-Panama" coal district. Older topos show a railroad siding and then later a spur off the railroad, with a loose cluster of buildings to the northeast. Older topos seem to have the place-name associated with the siding/spur, but recent topos have the place name associated with where the cluster of buildings once was. It's unclear if the buildings were associated with Panama or a nearby coal mine, but the mine appears to be inactive, and the buildings are largely gone on Google Maps. This AFD also applies to Handley, Vernon County, Missouri, as apparently the same place.

Is what I planned on saying, but I'm rather bewildered by this whole thing. Nothing I'm finding is unambiguous as to whether this was a coal mining town or a railroad shipping station. Hog Farm _Bacon 17:58, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@Hog Farm: They are definitely two different places. The MKT Handley is the Handley, Vernon County, Missouri place, and it is clearly nothing more than a station. Panama, Missouri was a spot on the still extant MoPac line, but whatever Panama there was most definitely is gone now: the interstate crosses the railroad there in the middle of this weird S-bend maneuver, and the yard that was there before is gone. As to whether it ever was there, I'm doubtful it was a town, but I can't go back very far in the aerials on this one and if the state site says it was a town, people will probably take that as authoritative. My advice would be to ignore the Handley name and search only on Panama. BTW the other Handley, Handley, Dallas County, Missouri, does appear on the topos to have been a tiny town of a few houses, though it certainly isn't there now.

Thanks. I'll probably not do anything about Panama at the moment; if it's treated as a town in old sources, then that'll be what voters go off of, since there's nothing clear to the contrary. Gonna AFD Handley though. I'm going about this a bit conservatively to avoid the "GEOLAND is inclusive" counterargument. Thanks for taking the time to look into this one. I just AFD'd about 10 in one county over the last couple days that were clearly post offices. I'm keeping a log for organizational purposes at User:Hog Farm/GNIS Cleanup/Missouri and classifying ones that old sources generally calls "towns" as probably notable. With the way things are at the moment, an argument based mainly on the no legal recognition part of GEOLAND probably won't win much support, but I'm at least trying to get the blatant ones culled. Hog Farm _Bacon 18:35, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

I have a couple of other suggestions. First, check the GNIS source; if it's not from the 1:24k or 1:25k topo maps, it's likely to be bogus. Second, very occasionally you'll find a case where the name is legitimate, but the thing is a notable not-a-town. I've had at least one case where the "town" was actually an NRHP property. In that case, just redirect to the actual name of the place (, even if the article on it doesn't exist yet.

As I said on the other guy's page, I'm going to switch to MO for a while after I get done with the one county in CA, which has a couple of big headaches (one place where all the sources disagree, another which definitely a real former town for which GNIS has a different name from everyone else). Mangoe (talk) 18:46, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm also gonna apply for newspapers.com access with the Misplaced Pages Library. I think that'll be more helpful for sorting through borderline ones than the garbled Google books hits and trying to puzzle out what GNIS was thinking. Hog Farm _Bacon 19:53, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

California

Hiya. Just a suggestion - maybe try grouping some of those California AfD's? There's an awful lot of 'em. I had a similar problem a few years back with 150-odd 'non-places' in the UAE banged into WP by an admin with a 1956 gazetteer!!! Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 10:54, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

When I've tried that, the group nom has usually failed. From my end the issue is that each of them has to be checked out individually, and if I miss something the whole group tends to go down in flames. There's a proposal to delete almost all the former pop places in Cal. on higher level considerations, but I;m dubious we could clear out the supposedly currently populated places on the same basis. Mangoe (talk) 16:21, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I do sympathise! When I did the UAE clearout, people bitched me out for the mass single noms, so I started to group them in fives and that generally worked out well. You pick the easiest fives and save the individual noms for anything possibly borderline. Just in case that helps! Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 03:22, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Hey, don't know if you have planned on what county to take a look at after Imperial, but would you be able to take a look at Kern at some point? I've been trying to clear out Kern (so many in there), and have made some decent progress (especially in the former settlements), but I've been having trouble with rural internet speed not being enough to load the topographic maps consistently, so I'm not really able to keep working on that right now. Kern Co. definitely needs some attention. Hog Farm _Bacon 06:18, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		Awarded for scrutinising useless California stubs. Geschichte (talk) 12:32, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Seconded... Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 15:16, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Virginia

You think any of those VA one-liners whose GNIS entries are sourced to ADC maps are anything significant? The ones I've looked at are all subdivisions or small housing developments. Hog Farm _Bacon 21:02, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Probably not. GNIS entries sourced to commercial maps almost never pan out. I can go over the No. Va. ones, as I live in the area and am likely to recognize names. Mangoe (talk) 03:20, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm starting to get a little tired of the California mess, so I thought I'd switch to another state for awhile. Plenty of NN stubs to go around. Hog Farm _Bacon 03:36, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Someone seems to have already cleaned up Arlington Co.; I'm looking at Loudoun Co. now. There seems to be a lot less GNIS-generated stuff so far. Mangoe (talk) 03:39, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

@Hog Farm: We're going to need to look at these quite carefully. I'm seeing some cases where the ADC map apparently notes what used to be a historic black community, and I'm also finding that a lot of these do not cite GNIS. Mangoe (talk) 04:13, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for telling me that. I've so far been going through two groups: ones in Albemarle County that seem to be subdivisions, and ones across the state with "Mill" or "Landing" in the title that the topos show to be literal mills or landings. I've got newspapers.com through WP:LIBRARY, so if you ever need some clarity on something, ping me and I'm willing to see what the newspapers turn up. Hog Farm _Bacon 04:15, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

The two corners you just nominated were part of Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Allen Shop Corner, Virginia, where enough people complained about there being too many articles at once that it was procedurally closed. Virginia may not have as big of a problem of entirely fake "communities" on railroad lines, but there are a massive number of neighborhoods and vague areas with a name on the map. The mills and landings tend to be plainly incorrect, and for the ~100 "corners", it was someone's home at an intersection that was indicated as belonging to them and came to represent a navigational landmark as a general location, but not a distinct or notable community under that name. Just as was endorsed on my talk page for the CA articles, we should just redirect the questionable Virginia ones too: an edit summary along the lines of "Verification and notability of name on map not established per WP:GEOLAND, reversion is welcome with significant sources." It really isn't worth anyone's time to discuss these one-by-one when the issue is so widespread. But I'll note the issue lies primarily with the more numerous pages created by Ser Amantio di Nicolao, which are entirely GNIS; the Loudoun County ones you note were by West Virginian and theirs are fewer and generally better. Reywas92 03:57, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I have to say that I hate the idea of doing mass redirections simply to appease the inclusionists and wikilawyers. It's just going to have me going around after the fact to get the redirects deleted too, since the target doesn't say anything about them. Mangoe (talk) 05:27, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Meh, it's not perfect but still better than doing this so piecemeal, we've only hit like a quarter of the counties in California. The inclusionists win by making us reseach and fight for every one. As long as we remove the links to them in the navboxes as well it's functionally the same and no one will use them (WP:CHEAP). For the List of places in California targets most of them are mentioned with the county still. Reywas92 06:04, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

And Reywas92 as well - one thing we might want to keep in mind is cleaning up the dab pages broken when all but one of the articles for a place name dab page are deleted. If you need something moved to the base title (such as moving Warren (near Mojave), California to Warren, California after the other Warren, CA was deleted), ping me or leave a message on my user talk page. I'm a page mover now, so I can perform round robin moves as need be. Hog Farm _Bacon 05:48, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, will keep that in mind for dabbed pages. Not sure if the moved Warren page is notable either though ;). Reywas92 06:32, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Page Nominations & Editor notifications

Hello, Mangoe,

When you nominate a page for deletion (CSD, PROD, AFD/CFD/TFD, etc.) could you please place a notice on the page creator's talk page informing of this? It's considered appropriate in case they want to address any problems that exist. The good news is that if you use Twinkle, the program automatically notifies the page creator whenever you tag a page, once you set up your preferences. It makes it very easy. Thanks. Liz 04:20, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Seven years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:39, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Happy New Year

Box Springs, California AfD

Hello Mangoe and happy 2021 to you. I am wondering if you could have a look at some of the improvements I've made to the article, Box Springs, California, which you had nominated for deletion. I've been able to expand it a bit and add more citations. I just hate to lose articles on springs of any sort, since springs were often the reason why indigenous people and later settlers spent time there, and developed them into "places." I haven't yet had the time to include the archaeological history of the springs, but am hoping that my improvements as they stand might be enough for you to consider withdrawing the nomination. Thanks and best, Netherzone (talk) 21:29, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Help with WP:GEOLAND

I've happened upon Carbury, North Dakota, and my intuitive sense is this isn't notable, but it's not really my field. The lack of a post office seems to match with what I've seen in deleted unincorporated-community stubs, and satellite view is a couple houses by the side of the road. I know that even the tiniest locales count as notable in most cases, though, so I don't want to PROD/AfD this without running it by someone who knows a lot more than me. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 08:22, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

@Vaticidalprophet:, This is an interesting case because the searching and topos show what a real small, isolated unincorporated town ought to turn up. The maps and photos show that there used to be more of a grid of town buildings, with a station/elevator on the now abandoned rail line to the southwest. Meanwhile I get hits for businesses and for the townspeople petitioning for various services. It's rather surprising that no post office is mentioned, but that's not unheard of. Also, from my perspective this one has the distinct advantage of having something of a story, which most of the places we've been deleting did not. So I'd say this one is a keeper, by the standards generally applied. And thanks for bringing this one to my attention, because it is an interesting case in the other direction. Mangoe (talk) 16:28, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I am sensing that you're going after all the trees of California, now that the wacky Californian naming system has finally been cracked by archaeologists. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 07:02, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Enjoy Boharo (AfD discussion) by the way. Uncle G (talk) 16:21, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Also now enjoy Misplaced Pages:Reliability of GNIS data/Ramsay Place-Name Card Collection. Uncle G (talk) 15:28, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Very hard challenge

• Ogle, Kentucky

Uncle G (talk) 16:53, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for July 26

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited List of bastion forts, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Fort Frederick.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:00, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Jimtown, Delaware

Jimtown, Delaware

I found one passing reference to this in a congressional hearing as a black town, and going through it on Streetview, it looks like the sort of place blacks were relegated to in these parts. Other than a bunch of goings on about running sewer in the area courtesy of a nearby development, though, I'm not finding anything. You have a better knack for this sort of thing than I do, so I'd appreciate it if you could try to dig some history up on it. Mangoe (talk) 02:26, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Hey Mangoe,

I'm traveling out of state right now after the death of a relative, and without most of my paper references. However, I was able to start work on Jimtown. Given more time, I think it could become a decent article. Right now, I'm hampered by having only Internet access, and no paper references. This one is also more challenging because there are at least three places named Jimtown picked up in Delaware newspaper articles: one in New Castle County , one in Sussex County, and one in Pennsylvania. I've taken great care in making certain the article contains information on the correct (Sussex) Jimtown. More might come in the next few days, although I'm on the road and don't have my physical books around me. So far, I haven't even found the congressional hearing reference you mentioned. Ah, well. It's a start. Firsfron of Ronchester 08:26, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Geography Barnstar
		Your nomination here was both funny and well-crafted. I appreciate your effort in systematically reviewing and nominating (where appropriate) these GEO-stubs. And appreciate your consistent commitment to WP:BEFORE. Keep it up. Thanks! St★lwart 04:51, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

AfD?

Hey, this one doesn't seem to have worked... There's no discussion in the log. St★lwart 01:22, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

@Stalwart111: oops, it does help to click the publish button. Mangoe (talk) 01:46, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Indeed! All good! St★lwart 01:47, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Double templates for New Castle Co.

So there's apparently Template:New Castle County, Delaware and Template:Brandywine Hundred, Delaware. But Brandywine Hundred is part of Newcastle County. So I'm struggling to figure out why there's two templates for communities in the same county. My guess is maybe length, but that might not be an issue once the NN subdivisions are culled out. A lot of the names in the Brandywine Hundred sound like subdivisions - I'll be amazed if Claymont Addition isn't a subdivision/housing development of some sort. Hog Farm _Talk 04:26, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

@Hog Farm: I've put it up for deletion. There is way too much on hundreds in Delaware when the reality is that people stopped caring about them sometime in the 1800s. Mangoe (talk) 12:57, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

GNIS being down

So GNIS has had this notice up on their website for close to a week, and I'm frankly not entirely for sure what it's saying. Direct quote from the text is Data Content: Since GNIS staff has been unable to maintain Domestic administrative names for quite some time (since October 1, 2014), these records will be archived from GNIS database and will no longer be available through the GNIS application. The data will be archived into separate files that can be downloaded from ScienceBase. We will no longer update the file once records are archived. All the information pertaining to the records will be available for download in the same format we use for the other text files. We will create a main names file, in the same format as the National file and an AllNames file (includes official and variant names). The following feature classes will be archived: Airport, Bridge, Building, Cemetery, Church, Dam, Forest, Harbor, Hospital, Mine, Oilfield, Park, Post Office, Reserve, School, Tower, Trail, Tunnel, and Well. The removal and archival of administrative names will also take place within the next three months.

It looks like the overall application is down for a rework and will eventually be back up in a somewhat familiar form. But what exactly does the part above about archiving files for administrative names mean? I can't tell if it means that they're removing those features from GNIS, putting them in a separate application, or just removing them from the giant .txt files you can download directly from GNIS. Hog Farm _Talk 00:11, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I dropped a note about this on the talk page of WP:GNIS. I have to say the statement that "We will provide a date for the implementation of the new GNIS as soon as we know it" does not warm the cockles of this software developer's heart. With a sensible project to don't announce that the old system is coming down until you know the day you're going to put up the replacement, especially on a static retrieval system like this. Mangoe (talk) 03:28, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Nomination of Chaldean Catholic Territory Dependent on the Patriarch of Jerusalem for deletion

The article will be discussed at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Chaldean Catholic Territory Dependent on the Patriarch of Jerusalem until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

I am having a hard time finding other people to vote on this DR. This DR has already been relisted twice and you voted on a very similar DR, so I decided to make you aware of this other DR. Veverve (talk) 06:38, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

GNIS lives again

Search link is here. It's a very different new interface, which allows filtering by feature type, among other things (although I can't fathom being able to search by date entered into GNIS would ever be useful, because who knows that rather meaningless date). Hog Farm _Talk 02:55, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Me.

Hey man I am not a super active editor. If I am doing something you think is wrong why not just speak to me?Super (talk) 19:44, 2 December 2021 (UTC)