Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Melbourne, Nova Scotia

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. Consensus herein is for the article to be retained. While a common axiom is that "AfD is not cleanup", the article remains unsourced as of this close. It would be nice for proper verification to be added to the article. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 06:01, 4 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Melbourne, Nova Scotia

Melbourne, Nova Scotia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Article is only one sentence long, I don't think it establishes notability. – numbermaniac 13:25, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. – numbermaniac 13:25, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. – numbermaniac 13:25, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Nova Scotia-related deletion discussions. – numbermaniac 13:25, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. We have a Lower Melbourne, Nova Scotia.... As for Melbourne proper, while that are better known Melbournes, this Melbourne passes WP:GEOLAND - and even has an adjacent lake named after itself - [1] (which is a game sanctuary for waterfowl). Icewhiz (talk) 14:00, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • But do we need that Lower Melbourne article? Even that is only a few sentences long, and it doesn't establish notability either. – numbermaniac 04:28, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd posit that Lower Melbourne is less notable than Melbourne, however both are villages/towns that have been populated for a few hundred years - and should pass WP:GEOLAND fulfilling our role - WP:5P1 as a gazetteer. Icewhiz (talk) 07:10, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per WP:GEOLAND. Recognised settlement. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:55, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to Municipality of the District of Yarmouth. WP:GEOLAND does not confer an automatic inclusion freebie on every named settlement that exists — that attaches to the level of incorporated municipalities, not necessarily to individual neighbourhoods within them. At that smaller level, the notability test is the ability to write and reliably source some actual substance about the community, not just the ability to see it on a map, and communities which don't have the sources just get redirected to their parent municipality rather than standing alone as permanently unsourced one-line stubs which just state that the place exists, the end. The municipality is inherently notable per GEOLAND; the individual neighbourhoods within it get their own separate articles only if they can be substanced and sourced well enough to demonstrate a reason why they need a separate article from the parent municipality. Bearcat (talk) 16:41, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, there's no mention of incorporated municipalities within WP:GEOLAND. Any separate settlement that is recognised is notable, even if it comes under another administrative unit. Areas of towns that are merely unofficial divisions within a contiguous built-up area are a different matter, but this is a separate, named village well outside the town itself. We have always held these to be notable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:20, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • No, we never have done any such thing. GEOLAND does not provide that if a community happens to have observable geographic boundaries and a name, then it's exempted from actually having to have any reliable sources at all — the question of whether an unincorporated community qualifies for its own article, or just for redirection to its parent municipality, always still hinges on how much content we can or can't substance and source about the community in its own right. Note that GEOLAND explicitly distinguishes legally recognized places (i.e. municipalities) as inherently notable, while downgrading places without legal recognition (i.e. communities within municipalities) as "considered on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the GNG". Having a name is not the difference between "legal recognition" or lack thereof; having a municipal government is the difference. Bearcat (talk) 21:11, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • A settlement does not have to be a municipality to be "legally recognised". We have, for instance, always regarded every village or hamlet in the UK that has a name sign at either end of it (which are set up by the council, which is de facto legal recognition) to meet the requirements of GEOLAND, although many of them are not parishes (i.e. municipalities) in their own right, but are part of other parishes. There is a big difference between such a settlement and a small group of houses which may have a name that is used locally but is not otherwise recognised; the latter would not satisfy GEOLAND. However, it seems clear that Melbourne falls into the former category. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:30, 22 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. The Geographical Names Board of Canada lists Melbourne as an official place name[2], which constitutes legal recognition and qualifies for notability under WP:GEOLAND. As examples of places without legal recognition, GEOLAND lists subdivisions, business parks, housing developments, informal regions of a state, unofficial neighborhoods, which usually wouldn't show up in a government place name database. Highway 89 (talk) 20:17, 21 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Geographical Names Board is just a directory of place names that exist, not a conferrer of legal recognition upon them. They certainly have the power to forbid the use of names that might be offensive, like "Fucktown" or "N-Word Park", but their primary role is to descriptively list the names that geographical features have rather than to prescriptively bestow legal status on them. Bearcat (talk) 16:02, 23 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, per discussion above. --Doncram (talk) 09:09, 30 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Wikipedia is an almanac as well as an encyclopedia. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 19:03, 31 July 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.