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(The following "prequel" discussion is, in my view, an argumentative presentation including quotes by Orlady from Talk page discussions, and sarcastic and argumentative commentary, which provides a biased view apparently intended to make me look bad somehow. It is misleading about me, in my view, for example in claiming that I deleted Orlady's comment at my Talk page, which I did do but only to copy over to the complete discussion at her talk page (encountering an edit conflict there when I did copy it over). I previously put this "prequel" discussion into a collapse box, with no commentary like this, but Orlady restored it. I because she must believe it is essential for others to follow her presentation of the previous discussion. Frankly this account of previous discussion is irrelevant and I think it is a burden for anyone considering the potential merger of the NRHP HD article "Norris District" into the "Norris, Tennessee" article to have to wade through this. To the reader, I suggest skipping ahead, now, to #Now the actual discussion. doncram ( talk) 00:23, 20 July 2009 (UTC))
Doncram changed the link destination for "Norris District" in the list article National Register of Historic Places listings in Anderson County, Tennessee from Norris, Tennessee to Norris District, created the article Norris District, and posted the following on my talk page:
Hey, I feel like a bit of an automaton for doing this, but I am going to start Norris District article now, and allow for development/discussion of whether it is the same or not as Norris, Tennessee. This is because your edit just now suggests the possibility that someone would dispute the NRHP HD is different than the town, while area figures in the town article already indicate that the NRHP HD is very different in size (besides other likely differences in history evoked by district elements vs. history of the town).
To be clear, my issue in general is that NRHP articles should be allowed. I "approve" of the general presence of redlinks in the TN NRHP list-articles, which suggest that NRHP articles will be allowed. In general I would and do defer to local editors who have specific knowledge and also awareness of the specifics of the NRHP HDs specifics, if they wish to create combo articles (as by Bms4880 with respect to Elkmont, Tennessee). Also in general i do not want to start NRHP stub articles, but where there is some indication that a separate article will be disputed, as by in some New England states by a kneejerk type of redirecting of NRHP HDs to towns/hamlets that do not show in-depth knowledge of the particulars, then I think it should be disputed (by creating an NRHP stub article) sooner rather than later or it is some kind of deathtrap for new editors. As i have said before, the NRHP HD articles can easily be wikipedia-notable articles with complementary, different foci than hamlet/town/whatever geo area articles that may overlap with their geographic areas.
So, let's go ahead and discuss the Norris District if you wish, hopefully which you would raise if you wish to do so by a merger proposal which would be the appropriate wikipedia process to consider it, by my understanding anyhow. doncram ( talk) 06:07, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Orlady replied on Doncram's talk page, but Doncram deleted the reply:
Please refrain from starting articles about topics you don't actually know anything about (and don't have sources for) just because you can (and because it's an opportunity to get under the skin of other Wikipedians who know and care about those topics and will have to divert their attention from productive activity in order to engage in arguments with you). I see your actions related to Norris, Tennessee and Norris District purely as attempts to create wikidrama.
PS - Lest you fail to recognize this fact, the historically significant aspects/elements of the community that are the basis for the HD have long been a major focus of the article Norris, Tennessee. -- Orlady ( talk) 13:30, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
To respond about Norris in particular: I did start the Norris District article for reasons explained above, directly to you, beforehand, and this is entirely legitimate and constructive so far, and I certainly hope that it will remain entirely positive, but whether it does or not depends on others as well. I also linked to it and otherwise slightly improved the Norris, Tennessee article (by fixing up a reference). There is no need for "wikidrama" or for you or any editors investing any time whatsoever, you could just let those two articles be. Whatever you say about the history of Norris, it has not been detracted from in any way, by the addition of a separate stub article on the NRHP HD. The NRHP HD now serves to advertise to anyone local that pictures and development on the topic of the NRHP HD would be welcome, and since it mentions the areas of the two it opens the "research question" of what defines the historic district vs. the town in a low-key way that can just be left open there in the NRHP HD article until someone is moved to address it. In my view, the only potential negative for readers and editors now is the merger proposal which you added, which I think is a minor detraction for readers and I agree is potentially a distraction for editors. I think it would be best to remove the merger proposal and not have any discussion there at all. But I will respond and discuss there if there is any discussion opened (so far there are just the merger proposal tags). doncram ( talk) 16:00, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Here's what I started writing earlier (before much of the above-described talk page page transpired):
The article, Norris District, newly created by a Wikipedian who does not actually have any meaningful information about the topic, needs to be redirected to this article.
All the published materials I have ever seen regarding the Norris historic district (for example, this university page about the district and its significance) while living in the local area over multiple decades have identified the district as encompassing the planned residential-commercial community of Norris, as described in Norris, Tennessee. Doncram has found that the NRIS database entry for the historic district that was listed 34 years ago (in 1975) actually covers a much larger area than the city of Norris (whose boundaries are shown on this map). The NRIS database entry also mentions A.E. Morgan as the person associated with HD; Arthur E. Morgan is universally identified (for example, here) as the TVA head who (strongly influenced by his wife, who I recall was named Lucy) directed the community plan for Norris. Thus, the inclusion of his name strongly associates the Norris HD with the town of Norris. Doncram has, however, elected to use a large part of the stub article's text to speculate on the detail of the land areas, pointing out the difference and saying the district "includes part or all of the 6.9 square miles (17.8 km²) area of the city of Norris, Tennessee."
I can also speculate. Considering the massive acreage listed in the NRIS database, one possible speculation is that the acreage includes the city of Norris, Norris Dam, Norris Dam State Park, the entire area inundated by the reservoir impounded by Norris Dam (not all of which is in Anderson County, which is the only county named in the NRIS listing), and possibly other areas (not all of them in Anderson County). However, this TVA environmental assessment of a proposed transfer of some TVA land between the city and the dam does not mention the Norris District historic district, and indicates that the dam, the Norris Freeway, parts of the state park, and other areas have been found to be either eligible or potentially eligible for listing on the National Register (among other things, this indicates that these areas are not already listed). Another possible speculation is that somebody made a mistake. Comparison of this NRIS entry with the adjacent entry for the Oak Ridge Historic District makes me wonder whether the acreages listed by the Tennessee Historical Commission can be trusted. The Oak Ridge Historic District is described in NRIS as having an area of 35,000 acres. That number is less than the total area of Oak Ridge, but it exceeds the entire area of nonfederal land in the city and is far larger than the actual HD. I estimate that the actual land area of the Oak Ridge historic district (as shown on a map in the nom form) is less than 3000 acres, and the nom form gave it as "3500 acres." As near as I can tell, the 3500 acres included some areas that are described in the nom but were not included in the HD, and anyway it appears that somebody made a factor of 10 error in transcribing the acreage from the nom form to the NRIS.
The main point of the above is that Norris District is based solely on a database entry providing cryptic details of a bureaucratic action that was taken 34 years ago, augmented by speculation regarding the possible meaning of those cryptic details. This speculation is original research that does not belong in a Wikipedia article.
Furthermore, the notability of this or any other historic district is not derived from the fact that it is listed on the National Register (that is merely an indicator), but rather is based on the significance that caused it to be recognized on the National Register. The article Norris, Tennessee describes an historic community whose historical significance is recognized by a National Register listing. The article Norris District merely describes and speculates upon the details of the National Register paperwork that was filed 34 years ago.
Until such time as there is solid information about the NRHP listing, the page Norris District does not belong in article space. Furthermore, even when such information becomes available, I expect to see no basis for asserting that the fact of the NRHP listing possesses notability separate from the community itself. Therefore, Norris District should be redirected to Norris, Tennessee (or perhaps deleted). -- Orlady ( talk) 17:16, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
[outdent] Doncram says "Please understand, Orlady and I have both been having multiple disagreements in other NRHP HD vs. settlement articles elsewhere, and it suits her views elsewhere right now to find these two are the same." To the contrary, it would appear that the only reason Doncram got involved with Norris is that I have been involved with the article in the past and it is an historic district where he could create the same kind of stub article that he has created in place of redirects for numerous New England historic districts (and that I have objected to). He may have perceived it as an opportunity to "get under my skin" in hopes that I would take the bait and engage in an edit war (or other unseemly behavior). I can't imagine any other reason why he would suddenly take an interest in East Tennessee and alert me to his new interest by posting a message on my talk page. If anything good has come out of this, it's the identification of order-of-magnitude errors in the NRIS acreages for the three historic districts in Anderson County. (I've confirmed that the Oak Ridge Historic District nom form listed it as 3500 acres and the NRIS gives the area as 35,000 acres. Similarly the nom form for the Woodland-Scarboro HD gives its area as 700 acres and NRIS erroneously says it's 7,000 acres. Dollars to donuts the same error was made on the Norris District. I don't have the Norris District nom form, but it do know that the 40,000 acre number isn't credible.) Thanks are due to Doncram for helping bring these errors to light. (I wonder how many other NRIS errors there are in acreages for Tennessee National Register sites.) -- Orlady ( talk) 01:26, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the theory that the historic district listed on the National Register is "wiki-notable", I am not disputing the fact that Norris is a historic place, notable for its history and notable in the history of community planning. This notable history is reflected in the Norris, Tennessee article, and I have access to print sources that I could use to expand that article if I ever get around to doing so. The fact that Norris is a historically notable place does not, however, mean that the Norris historic district as listed on the National Register is a separate and independently notable topic. (That district is, by the way, known to be geographically equivalent to Norris, more or less, in spite of the bizarrely large acreage value in NRIS.) For one thing, although I've looked today at a bunch of publications that post-date the NRHP listing (both online and offline publications) about Norris's history and historic significance, I've not found anything (other than Wikipedia, the NRIS database, and sources that mirror either of these) that mentions the National Register listing. This includes books that discuss the National Register listings of other properties in the area. If the Norris District as listed on the National Register has been the subject of multiple third-party publications (as is required for WP:N), those publications sure aren't easy to find. The place is what's notable, not the National Register listing. -- Orlady ( talk) 03:33, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
My apologies if this has already been mentioned, but isn't this question decided by the boundary as given in the "Location" column? It's described as "City of Norris on U.S. Route 441". No references to "Bounded by" or "Roughly along" or specific street names or addresses. It seems to me that this proves that the HD boundaries and the city limits are identical. Nyttend ( talk) 17:21, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
The NRHP nomination form for Norris District has finally arrived, and it gives the district's size as 3000 acres. There is no discussion of anything beyond the town's boundaries. The merger should now proceed. Bms4880 ( talk) 17:45, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Bms4880, could you please share a copy of the NRHP application document? Do you have it in electronic form, or if not could you scan it? doncram ( talk) 22:52, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
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(The following "prequel" discussion is, in my view, an argumentative presentation including quotes by Orlady from Talk page discussions, and sarcastic and argumentative commentary, which provides a biased view apparently intended to make me look bad somehow. It is misleading about me, in my view, for example in claiming that I deleted Orlady's comment at my Talk page, which I did do but only to copy over to the complete discussion at her talk page (encountering an edit conflict there when I did copy it over). I previously put this "prequel" discussion into a collapse box, with no commentary like this, but Orlady restored it. I because she must believe it is essential for others to follow her presentation of the previous discussion. Frankly this account of previous discussion is irrelevant and I think it is a burden for anyone considering the potential merger of the NRHP HD article "Norris District" into the "Norris, Tennessee" article to have to wade through this. To the reader, I suggest skipping ahead, now, to #Now the actual discussion. doncram ( talk) 00:23, 20 July 2009 (UTC))
Doncram changed the link destination for "Norris District" in the list article National Register of Historic Places listings in Anderson County, Tennessee from Norris, Tennessee to Norris District, created the article Norris District, and posted the following on my talk page:
Hey, I feel like a bit of an automaton for doing this, but I am going to start Norris District article now, and allow for development/discussion of whether it is the same or not as Norris, Tennessee. This is because your edit just now suggests the possibility that someone would dispute the NRHP HD is different than the town, while area figures in the town article already indicate that the NRHP HD is very different in size (besides other likely differences in history evoked by district elements vs. history of the town).
To be clear, my issue in general is that NRHP articles should be allowed. I "approve" of the general presence of redlinks in the TN NRHP list-articles, which suggest that NRHP articles will be allowed. In general I would and do defer to local editors who have specific knowledge and also awareness of the specifics of the NRHP HDs specifics, if they wish to create combo articles (as by Bms4880 with respect to Elkmont, Tennessee). Also in general i do not want to start NRHP stub articles, but where there is some indication that a separate article will be disputed, as by in some New England states by a kneejerk type of redirecting of NRHP HDs to towns/hamlets that do not show in-depth knowledge of the particulars, then I think it should be disputed (by creating an NRHP stub article) sooner rather than later or it is some kind of deathtrap for new editors. As i have said before, the NRHP HD articles can easily be wikipedia-notable articles with complementary, different foci than hamlet/town/whatever geo area articles that may overlap with their geographic areas.
So, let's go ahead and discuss the Norris District if you wish, hopefully which you would raise if you wish to do so by a merger proposal which would be the appropriate wikipedia process to consider it, by my understanding anyhow. doncram ( talk) 06:07, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Orlady replied on Doncram's talk page, but Doncram deleted the reply:
Please refrain from starting articles about topics you don't actually know anything about (and don't have sources for) just because you can (and because it's an opportunity to get under the skin of other Wikipedians who know and care about those topics and will have to divert their attention from productive activity in order to engage in arguments with you). I see your actions related to Norris, Tennessee and Norris District purely as attempts to create wikidrama.
PS - Lest you fail to recognize this fact, the historically significant aspects/elements of the community that are the basis for the HD have long been a major focus of the article Norris, Tennessee. -- Orlady ( talk) 13:30, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
To respond about Norris in particular: I did start the Norris District article for reasons explained above, directly to you, beforehand, and this is entirely legitimate and constructive so far, and I certainly hope that it will remain entirely positive, but whether it does or not depends on others as well. I also linked to it and otherwise slightly improved the Norris, Tennessee article (by fixing up a reference). There is no need for "wikidrama" or for you or any editors investing any time whatsoever, you could just let those two articles be. Whatever you say about the history of Norris, it has not been detracted from in any way, by the addition of a separate stub article on the NRHP HD. The NRHP HD now serves to advertise to anyone local that pictures and development on the topic of the NRHP HD would be welcome, and since it mentions the areas of the two it opens the "research question" of what defines the historic district vs. the town in a low-key way that can just be left open there in the NRHP HD article until someone is moved to address it. In my view, the only potential negative for readers and editors now is the merger proposal which you added, which I think is a minor detraction for readers and I agree is potentially a distraction for editors. I think it would be best to remove the merger proposal and not have any discussion there at all. But I will respond and discuss there if there is any discussion opened (so far there are just the merger proposal tags). doncram ( talk) 16:00, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Here's what I started writing earlier (before much of the above-described talk page page transpired):
The article, Norris District, newly created by a Wikipedian who does not actually have any meaningful information about the topic, needs to be redirected to this article.
All the published materials I have ever seen regarding the Norris historic district (for example, this university page about the district and its significance) while living in the local area over multiple decades have identified the district as encompassing the planned residential-commercial community of Norris, as described in Norris, Tennessee. Doncram has found that the NRIS database entry for the historic district that was listed 34 years ago (in 1975) actually covers a much larger area than the city of Norris (whose boundaries are shown on this map). The NRIS database entry also mentions A.E. Morgan as the person associated with HD; Arthur E. Morgan is universally identified (for example, here) as the TVA head who (strongly influenced by his wife, who I recall was named Lucy) directed the community plan for Norris. Thus, the inclusion of his name strongly associates the Norris HD with the town of Norris. Doncram has, however, elected to use a large part of the stub article's text to speculate on the detail of the land areas, pointing out the difference and saying the district "includes part or all of the 6.9 square miles (17.8 km²) area of the city of Norris, Tennessee."
I can also speculate. Considering the massive acreage listed in the NRIS database, one possible speculation is that the acreage includes the city of Norris, Norris Dam, Norris Dam State Park, the entire area inundated by the reservoir impounded by Norris Dam (not all of which is in Anderson County, which is the only county named in the NRIS listing), and possibly other areas (not all of them in Anderson County). However, this TVA environmental assessment of a proposed transfer of some TVA land between the city and the dam does not mention the Norris District historic district, and indicates that the dam, the Norris Freeway, parts of the state park, and other areas have been found to be either eligible or potentially eligible for listing on the National Register (among other things, this indicates that these areas are not already listed). Another possible speculation is that somebody made a mistake. Comparison of this NRIS entry with the adjacent entry for the Oak Ridge Historic District makes me wonder whether the acreages listed by the Tennessee Historical Commission can be trusted. The Oak Ridge Historic District is described in NRIS as having an area of 35,000 acres. That number is less than the total area of Oak Ridge, but it exceeds the entire area of nonfederal land in the city and is far larger than the actual HD. I estimate that the actual land area of the Oak Ridge historic district (as shown on a map in the nom form) is less than 3000 acres, and the nom form gave it as "3500 acres." As near as I can tell, the 3500 acres included some areas that are described in the nom but were not included in the HD, and anyway it appears that somebody made a factor of 10 error in transcribing the acreage from the nom form to the NRIS.
The main point of the above is that Norris District is based solely on a database entry providing cryptic details of a bureaucratic action that was taken 34 years ago, augmented by speculation regarding the possible meaning of those cryptic details. This speculation is original research that does not belong in a Wikipedia article.
Furthermore, the notability of this or any other historic district is not derived from the fact that it is listed on the National Register (that is merely an indicator), but rather is based on the significance that caused it to be recognized on the National Register. The article Norris, Tennessee describes an historic community whose historical significance is recognized by a National Register listing. The article Norris District merely describes and speculates upon the details of the National Register paperwork that was filed 34 years ago.
Until such time as there is solid information about the NRHP listing, the page Norris District does not belong in article space. Furthermore, even when such information becomes available, I expect to see no basis for asserting that the fact of the NRHP listing possesses notability separate from the community itself. Therefore, Norris District should be redirected to Norris, Tennessee (or perhaps deleted). -- Orlady ( talk) 17:16, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
[outdent] Doncram says "Please understand, Orlady and I have both been having multiple disagreements in other NRHP HD vs. settlement articles elsewhere, and it suits her views elsewhere right now to find these two are the same." To the contrary, it would appear that the only reason Doncram got involved with Norris is that I have been involved with the article in the past and it is an historic district where he could create the same kind of stub article that he has created in place of redirects for numerous New England historic districts (and that I have objected to). He may have perceived it as an opportunity to "get under my skin" in hopes that I would take the bait and engage in an edit war (or other unseemly behavior). I can't imagine any other reason why he would suddenly take an interest in East Tennessee and alert me to his new interest by posting a message on my talk page. If anything good has come out of this, it's the identification of order-of-magnitude errors in the NRIS acreages for the three historic districts in Anderson County. (I've confirmed that the Oak Ridge Historic District nom form listed it as 3500 acres and the NRIS gives the area as 35,000 acres. Similarly the nom form for the Woodland-Scarboro HD gives its area as 700 acres and NRIS erroneously says it's 7,000 acres. Dollars to donuts the same error was made on the Norris District. I don't have the Norris District nom form, but it do know that the 40,000 acre number isn't credible.) Thanks are due to Doncram for helping bring these errors to light. (I wonder how many other NRIS errors there are in acreages for Tennessee National Register sites.) -- Orlady ( talk) 01:26, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the theory that the historic district listed on the National Register is "wiki-notable", I am not disputing the fact that Norris is a historic place, notable for its history and notable in the history of community planning. This notable history is reflected in the Norris, Tennessee article, and I have access to print sources that I could use to expand that article if I ever get around to doing so. The fact that Norris is a historically notable place does not, however, mean that the Norris historic district as listed on the National Register is a separate and independently notable topic. (That district is, by the way, known to be geographically equivalent to Norris, more or less, in spite of the bizarrely large acreage value in NRIS.) For one thing, although I've looked today at a bunch of publications that post-date the NRHP listing (both online and offline publications) about Norris's history and historic significance, I've not found anything (other than Wikipedia, the NRIS database, and sources that mirror either of these) that mentions the National Register listing. This includes books that discuss the National Register listings of other properties in the area. If the Norris District as listed on the National Register has been the subject of multiple third-party publications (as is required for WP:N), those publications sure aren't easy to find. The place is what's notable, not the National Register listing. -- Orlady ( talk) 03:33, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
My apologies if this has already been mentioned, but isn't this question decided by the boundary as given in the "Location" column? It's described as "City of Norris on U.S. Route 441". No references to "Bounded by" or "Roughly along" or specific street names or addresses. It seems to me that this proves that the HD boundaries and the city limits are identical. Nyttend ( talk) 17:21, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
The NRHP nomination form for Norris District has finally arrived, and it gives the district's size as 3000 acres. There is no discussion of anything beyond the town's boundaries. The merger should now proceed. Bms4880 ( talk) 17:45, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Bms4880, could you please share a copy of the NRHP application document? Do you have it in electronic form, or if not could you scan it? doncram ( talk) 22:52, 24 August 2009 (UTC)