Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/District of Columbia (until 1871)

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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 no consensus. Randykitty (talk) 21:16, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

District of Columbia (until 1871)

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The subject article wholly duplicates existing material in the History of Washington, D.C., Washington, D.C. and District of Columbia retrocession, adding nothing of substance or detail. The City of Washington and Port of Georgetown were separately incorporated entities within the District of Columbia until 1871, when they were absorbed into the District. The subject article, entitled "District of Columbia (until 1871)”, is intended to cover the purportedly distinct history of the District during the pre-1871 period. But the story of today’s Washington, D.C. – as set forth in existing articles – necessarily and already comprehends the complete history of the District of Columbia, from its conception and founding in the 1780s and 1790s to the present day.

To the extent that the de jure unification of the “City of Washington” and the “District of Columbia” in 1871 was a watershed event or had other practical significance, or may have resulted in important material being omitted from existing articles, Talk page discussion has been unproductive in teasing any of that out; and in the end no meaningful reason has been provided why a separate article devoted solely to the District, qua District, prior to 1871 is warranted. I am proposing “Delete”, but “Redirect” or “Merge” may also be appropriate if discussion here identifies unique or heretofore un-covered issues that can be accommodated in existing articles. JohnInDC (talk) 16:33, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. MT TrainTalk 18:34, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Washington, D.C.-related deletion discussions. MT TrainTalk 18:34, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia should have an article on the District of Columbia. This seems so obvious to me, as I said before, I don’t understand the opposition. Here are things about the District of Columbia that exist right now:

To say that the District of Columbia does not need a page, that a forward to the Washington, D.C., page is sufficient, seems to me really off base. deisenbe (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

All those items are described at Government of the District of Columbia, and in more condensed fashion at Washington,_D.C.#Government_and_politics and throughout. The former includes outbound wikilinks to more than a score of articles on specific DC Government agencies, including the libraries, schools, courts, mayor's office, police, corrections, and parks. JohnInDC (talk) 22:19, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Has it never occurred to you that the solution to duplication in, say, the History of Washington, D.C., is to take material _out_ of the Washington article? And how can you have an article on the Government of the District of Columbia, without an article on the District? deisenbe (talk) 23:38, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Well, no. Washington, D.C. is the COMMONNAME for the District of Columbia. "Washington, D.C." is the "District of Columbia" article. (COMMONNAME is why District of Columbia redirects to Washington, D.C. and not vice-versa.) It wouldn't make much sense to take material out of the articles that are, in fact, about the District of Columbia in order to put them into some other article about the District of Columbia. JohnInDC (talk) 00:25, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - per nomination. - BilCat (talk) 04:51, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. No content worth keeping not already at History of Washington, D.C.. Holy shit, "The capitol of the U.S. in Virginia? The New England states would have none of that." is embarrassing. Reywas92Talk 22:03, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm wasting my time, and yours I suppose, but I stand on WP should have an article on the District of Columbia. The original district, as in Boundary Markers of the Original District of Columbia. It sticks out like a sore thumb that there isn't one. Articles on Washington D.C. are not a replacement. Until 1871 Washington was not the COMMONNAME. My point is not that the information isn't there, it's that it's in the wrong place, not correctly organized. Like saying there's no need for an article on Manhattan, because it can be dealt with under New York City. But I'm dropping the matter. And I'm not embarrassed. deisenbe (talk) 13:38, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I understand the point made by trying to split the articles, but there's only ever been one District of Columbia - it's not as if there was a new entity which was created upon the municipal merger in 1871. The only thing which changed was the COMMONNAME. It would be a good point to split a history article if that were necessary but that doesn't seem to be the case. SportingFlyer talk 21:39, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. There's a valid distinction between "Washington" and "District of Columbia", as well as the formerly independent "Georgetown" for that matter. It's clear from the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 article that the city(s) and the district were politically merged at that time. So any distinction is purely a historical matter. But I take User:Deisenbe's point that a separate article covering the history of DC up to 1871 would be a good thing, if only to clarify these very issues about the proper name and political organization of the District prior to consolidation. Yes, Deisenbe created the article and wrote all of it, which he or she might have disclosed here in this discussion. Yes, the article needs some work. But structurally, I think he or she is correct. --Lockley (talk) 19:33, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I just found and put in a neat animated map showing the evolution of the District of Columbia. deisenbe (talk) 21:47, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
NB this map is already featured at District of Columbia retrocession. JohnInDC (talk) 21:56, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - As noted above, there is an abundance of well-developed articles already in the encyclopedia about the District of Columbia, as well as about the important formative and transformative events in its history. The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 covers its creation; District of Columbia retrocession covers the 1846 events that changed its original boundaries; and the District_of_Columbia_Organic_Act_of_1871 covers the abolition of the separate entities of the City of Washington and the Port of Georgetown. Also again, Washington, D.C. is but the COMMONNAME for the legal entity, the "District of Columbia", the existing history of which naturally and inextricably includes all events back to its formation in 1801, through 1846 and 1871 and up to the present. (And which is laid out in pretty fine detail at History of Washington, D.C..) The District of Columbia and its complete history is amply covered in existing articles and we don't need another to cover an essentially arbitrary subset of its history in no greater detail than what is present. Now - what may be lacking is an article about the separate "City of Washington", which existed as a separate political entity within the District from 1801-1871. We have an article on Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), which covers its period as a separate entity within the District; likewise there is one for Alexandria, Virginia, which likewise discusses its brief history as part of the District - but City of Washington redirects to Washington, D.C.. Which isn't, in fact, the "City of Washington". There is no separate article for that entity, which - for 70 years, had its own history, and, no longer exists today. I haven't looked in all the possible places for material that bears on that entity (there may be some) but whatever may be already here pales in comparison to what is already present on the District of Columbia, and, to the extent that the information is scattered here and there, it may be profitably pulled into a single article, and expanded. If something is missing here, it's material on the City of Washington, not the District. Making yet another article about the District is fixing the wrong problem. JohnInDC (talk) 22:16, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
JohnInDC, I agree with you that there's plenty of articles around this topic. I can't agree that they amount to good coverage in separate places. For instance the History of Washington, D.C. is never exactly clear (that I see) about the distinction between the federal district and the federal city, or their relative sizes. Many times it seems to treat those two entities as interchangeable names. Another example, the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871, has only a sidelong reference to the city boss Alexander Robey Shepherd, who dreamed it up and pushed it through, and nothing to say about why consolidation was a hot issue to begin with. To me these are additional reasons why the historical entity District of Columbia (1801-1871) deserves its own article. --Lockley (talk) 23:31, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That requires clarification in the existing District of Columbia articles, not creation of a new one which virtually by definition cannot be anything but a redundant subset of the existing ones. Washington, D.C. is, legally and literally, the "District of Columbia". And it's the "original" District, established in 1801 (as shrunken in 1846), not some newly-minted 1871 entity. The history of "Washington, DC" is the history of the "District of Columbia" all the way from 1801 through to the present day. The article, History of Washington, D.C. is detailed and comprehensive. If it is vague around the edges, then we need to tighten it up. We do not need yet another article, about an arbitrary period in the history of the District. Indeed what would we add to that new article that we 1) don't already have and 2) can't easily incorporate into what we've got? Now - by contrast, there is "City of Washington", which was formed in 1802, and abolished in 1871, and which was within, but separate from, the District of Columbia; yet there is (so far as I know) no separate article about that erstwhile entity. If there is more to be said about these entities during their period of separate incorporation (a point on which I'm not yet persuaded), I can't for the life of me see why we'd create a seventh or ninth article about the District, and let the City continue to languish as an afterthought. JohnInDC (talk) 00:11, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment FWIW, the article is now expanded and copyedited since its listing here on Jan 4, which I hope has addressed some of the concerns expressed above. --Lockley (talk) 19:03, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - Lockley did a very good job of cleaning up the article, particularly in copyediting and imparting the proper tone. The essential concerns remain, however. The article is redundant, with its substance entirely and more thoroughly covered by existing articles; and its purpose as a standalone article is as inarticulable as it was before. JohnInDC (talk) 19:53, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, JohnInDC, but with respect, there's a bit more to it than that. Interested editors are invited to see for themselves. --Lockley (talk) 21:13, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Randykitty (talk) 10:31, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP per WP:GEOLAND (which I cannot believe has not been invoked yet). This is a confirmed name for a former inhabited polity (i.e., the District of Columbia as it was before 1871). FOARP (talk) 18:43, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Uhhhh because we're not talking about notability here? The District of Columbia has always been the District of Columbia – it's the City of Washington that changed from being downtown only to being a merged entity with District of Columbia, and the History of Washington, District of Columbia, naturally includes the history of the coterminous District of Columbia. This is just redundant. Reywas92Talk 21:09, 14 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment. The District of Columbia not a "former inhabited polity". It is a current inhabited polity. The "former" was the City of Washington, which passed from formal existence in 1871 and - almost inexplicably - has no article anywhere in the encyclopedia. I think it'd be great if someone wrote that one. JohnInDC (talk) 20:47, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep there are lots of historical issues worth considering and covering here. Especially since Alexandria, Virginia was for a time part of this entity.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:21, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Of course such historical issues are worth considering, but this does not explain why these issues need to be duplicated in a separate article. Alexandria is certainly not left out of History of Washington, D.C.! Reywas92Talk 21:09, 14 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jovanmilic97 (talk) 20:35, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]


Summary This disussion has died down. I'm going to try to move things along by putting down what seems to have emerged from it. This is not any one person's position.

According to the discussions here and on the talk page, we need:

  • A new article on the District.
  • A new article on History of the District.
  • A new article on the city of Washington, until 1871.
  • Move material from the existing Washington, DC and History of Washington DC articles into these.

Once this is done,

  • Deletion of the District --> Washington DC redirect.
  • Deletion of the History of the District --> History of Washington DC redirect.
  • Deletion of the present article on District until 1871.

Comments? deisenbe (talk) 13:07, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Well this is certainly a strange AfD. Normally AfD discussions come down to a rough yes or no question, does this article belong in wikipedia?. The central question here is more like do the names and contents of a bunch of District of Columbia & Washington DC articles accurately reflect their co-mingled histories, and what about this one, relative to all of those?, which is a more time-consuming judgment about the structure and contents of maybe a dozen articles. It's a homework assignment... no wonder the discussion has died down. In my opinion deisenbe's suggestions about re-structuring this set of articles makes good sense, because it clearly differentiates between the "District of Columbia" and "Washington", and provides a basis for systematically untangling those separate entities, which was the whole point. --Lockley (talk) 01:07, 25 January 2019 (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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