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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of interesting or unusual place names

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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 of the debate was delete. The arguments presented here show a consensus that the article is a trivial categorizaton, and that the article is inheirtly in violation of WP:NPOV.--Sean Black (talk) 00:27, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of interesting or unusual place names

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A list of geographical places that Wikipedia editors (or rather the editor that adds an entry) find funny or amusing. This is inherently not WP:NPOV (with no WP:CITEing of sources so someone can WP:Verify entries) and is not encyclopedic content. Thanks/wangi 15:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Lots of things are interesting enough to save to a hard drive. They don't all belong on Wikipedia. Take, for example, a list of lightbulb jokes. Powers 15:53, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That one I did vote to delete after saving it to my harddrive. Ruby 16:09, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep this is not as subjective as you are making it out to be. Hell Michigan is a strange city name, Lincoln Park is not. Right? Sinatra3d
Boring, Oregon is interesting too, ironically. Ruby 16:10, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And Lincoln Park is interesting if it's where you park your Lincoln. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 18:14, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nominator as subjective and non-encyclopedic. Any list "provided chiefly for its entertainment value" (per the article) is not suitable for an encyclopedia, so even though I enjoyed reading it, it really doesn't belong here. --keepsleeping slack off! 16:16, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, good list. This is still not too bad compared to some other lists. --Terence Ong (恭喜发财) 16:29, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete inherently POV and subjective and non-encyclopedic. The closer should ignore all votes which say 'keep, interesting'. If this article is inherently POV it must be deleted regardless of conensus. NPOV is not negotiable. Any legitimate argument for keep here, would have to refute the charge of inherent POV (how, I don't know), if it does not do that it is irrelevant to this debate. --Doc ask? 16:46, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're misunderstanding POV, I think. An opinion is POV, but the existence of an opinion by an individual is a verifiable fact, and hence NPOV. The same holds for the possession of a belief by a body of people. As long as inclusions on this page are circumscribed by this criterion that "a significane proportion of English speakers will find the name of interest" we have a NPOV page. SP-KP 17:02, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm not misunderstanding NPOV. What is 'interesting' is ultimately POV. Of course the existence of a opinion as to what is interesting could be a verifiable fact - but that isn't possible here. As to 'a significant body of English speakers will find thisof interest', how do you propose to verify that? If would become an opinion on what a 'significant body' would find intersting - and that again is POV. You could arrive at a consensus - but that is effectively a survey of wikipedians, and would violate WP:NOR. So, yes, it is inherently POV. --Doc ask? 18:10, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reading the above, I can't understand why you aren't suggesting that virtually everything in Wikipedia is ultimately opinion and should be deleted — we could always find somebody somewhere to disagree with much of what Wikipedia says. To achieve a sensible balance, we have to accept that the Wikipedia editor community will make collective judgments based on their opinions (e.g. it is clearly possible for a collective judgment to be made on the questions you pose above) and that these judgments, whilst POV, result in our best efforts at producing content that is NPOV. I think few editors would agree with you that the Wikipedia editing process is inherently a breach of WP:NOR, which is in effect what you are saying, if I've understood correctly. In an ideal world, we'd make it clear everywhere that this is they way Wikipedia is edited, but in the real world we have to make compromises (otherwise we'd have article titles like "[[A view arrived at by some volunteer editors who may or may not have been following the proscribed editing process on what material is relevant for a Wikipedia article on the subject of the Battle of Hastings, at this point in time, subject to the possibility that vandalism may have taken place on this article]]") SP-KP 20:07, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep I am of the opinion that arriving at an objective set of criteria isn't impossible, it's merely difficult, hence, we shouldn't be attempting to delete this article, but rationalise it once we have an agreed set of criteria in place. Some criteria are so obvious that we'll all agree on them (places with the same name as a "naughty bit", for example), others not so obvious - let's discuss and agree an approach to this latter group, and then we have the basis for rationalisation. SP-KP 16:56, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See 2nd reply to Doc above. SP-KP 20:07, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It has been suggested that this artilce is inherently POV. If it is so, it must be deleted. If you are voting keep, please explain why it is not inherently POV, or your 'vote' is irrelevant. --Doc ask? 19:33, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I voted Delete, but I don't think the article is inherently POV, any moreso than List of songs in English labeled the worst ever is. In its current form, it's listcruft, but a similar article called something like "List of place names that have attracted attention" might be ok. Powers 20:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, I've used those red links to start new articles. SchmuckyTheCat 22:23, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I agree with those who have said that the criteria for the list are subjective and arbitrary. Interesting to whom? Unusual by what measure? There are no bounds for this list. --Thunk 22:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Perhaps it should be renamed to "List of unusual place names", as what is unusual seems more objective than what is interesting. However, I do think that lists like these serve as a tool for navigating wikipedia. I know that I've personally used this list to find interesting articles. Maybe we could consider turning it into a category? Personally I think that the status quo is fine. NoIdeaNick 22:46, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Unusual can be determined better. Rarity is able to be determined in other things so place names shouldn't be too much of an exception. So I'd vote keep if limited to that.--T. Anthony 00:34, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: It is not encyclopaedic, yet self-indulgent, subjective (what is funny to some, is totally unfunny to others), a hell of job to maintain (they are not necessarily places where people live at all, but may be fields, woods, etc.), and the whole thing keeps lots of people occupied who could use their time much more fruitfully in this great endeavour, Wikipedia. Dieter Simon 23:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I liked your closing comment, as I was thinking exactly the same thing about people who spend their time nominating useful material like this for deletion SP-KP 23:25, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This is way more deserving of a spot than yet another stupid, devoid-of-info-yet-a-guaranteed-keep school article. Denni ☯ 02:04, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I have gone through the list, and it is an almost random collection of school-boy humour, Carry On style jokes and barely amusing cultural observations. It is a list which is POV from the very start, and barely worth reading through to the very end. It assumes everyone who reads the article would understand "the joke", but omits the basic fact that is reads like a padding piece from a trashy tabloid mag. Delete because it is POV, barely encyclopeadic and almost impossible to improve. doktorb | words 02:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or categorize per NoIdeaNick. Wisco 05:40, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: as DrBob said in this edit summary, "Wikipedia: All human knowledge is here, especially the immature bits"! I'm not really sure how to vote on this one, because I contributed 23 edits to it, adding place names like Woy Woy, New South Wales and Ulladulla, New South Wales, and just doing general cleanup. My first few edits were to that article, so if it was deleted, those edits would be permanently erased from the contribution history, which I wouldn't be happy about. Having said all that, I agree that the list is silly and unencyclopedic, and requires some major cleanup and reorganisation. So ... weak delete, but I'll be saving it in my hard drive if it does get deleted. Graham/pianoman87 talk 06:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, and definitely do not categorise. A category is much more difficult to keep patrol of and navigate than an article, and we might end up with people adding place names that are dreadfully boring just because noone had those place names on their watchlist. Graham/pianoman87 talk 06:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If I'm not mistaken, the WP: namespace has different inclusion guidelines than the main namespace. Powers 03:42, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Then maybe the list of place names should be moved to the Wikipedia namespace, perhaps at Wikipedia:Unusual articles/Places with unusual names. After all, part of the WP:UA page is devoted to articles on people that have unusual names. If we can have a list of people with unusual names, why not places? -- Mwalcoff 05:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not a bad idea. --kingboyk 06:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd support this too (although I'd be happy to see it stay in this namespace, as per above argument) SP-KP 11:32, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good to me. Dbinder 13:08, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THAT EITHER. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 13:32, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've been bold and moved it, and have changed my vote to keeping the list within the wikipedia namespace and deleting the redirect. --kingboyk 21:31, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as listcruft. This is only useful in the English language, translating to other languages would be pointless. Atrian 06:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep dangit This is infact encyclopedic. thsi is listing nto what seems funny but unusual names of place. there is a good trivia entry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.14.178.51 (talk • contribs)
  • Keep This isn't POV, what a ridiculous misunderstanding of POV. 80% of the list doesn't need a reference, and those that do can easily be provided. I also object to it being moved in the middle of a debate. SchmuckyTheCat 22:09, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • What I meant was verifying that it actually exists. I never said anything about "interesting". :) But anyways, do also count my vote as a move to Wikipedia namespace as per the above discussion. Think that's great as well. --Andylkl [ talk! | c ] 11:50, 1 February 2006 (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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