- 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. If folks are concerned about "bad faith" nominations they should take it to WP:ANI.
Regardless, I am not convinced this subject necessarily meets WP:NGEO but I'm also not convinced that it "doesn't." Just more rehashes of prior AfD discussions with not as much discussion specifically about the nominated place.
I suggest folks do their best to expand and improve the existing article. If someone wishes to renominate this article again with a policy-based rationale for deletion, after improvements are made, you are welcome to do so.
Thanks for assuming good faith in this decision and happy new year. Missvain ( talk) 00:30, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!
- Tasharvat ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log | edits since nomination)
- (Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)
Only source is an entry in a travel guide; I did not find anything that would establish notability in my WP:BEFORE search. – dlthewave ☎ 03:23, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. – dlthewave ☎ 03:23, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Turkmenistan-related deletion discussions. – dlthewave ☎ 03:23, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Strong keep Nomination in bad faith. As I detailed at
another similar AfD, the nominator is ignorant about accessing sources concerning Turkmenistan.A
travel-site notes,
The first mentions of the Tasharvat fortification were found in 1871 - 1872. Archaeological research has shown that at the end of the XIXth century, the building was inhabited.
Has the nominator bothered to access this[a]rchaeological research
? Or, has he bothered to consult the cited source:"Religious and spiritual monuments to Central Asia". Author M. Hashimov. Saga publishing house, 2001
? Or has he enquired about why the name features at p. 695 of "U.S.S.R.: Official Standard Names Approved by the United States, Volume VI"? TrangaBellam ( talk) 06:48, 5 December 2021 (UTC) - Comment as for Makhtumkala consider draftifying if current sources are inadequate, and TrangaBellam ( talk · contribs) is still working on improving the sources. If there is evidence that this nomination is made in bad faith, it should be dealt with in an appropriate venue such as ANI, not here. If there isn't, the comment about bad faith should be struck. Aspersions are bad. Elemimele ( talk) 10:53, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks for your advice which is neither here nor there. The editor has been nominating tens of articles from different geographical regions in the belief that they violate GEOLAND - it is impossible that someone will be competent enough to ascertain legal status of territories in so many countries and such a bull-in-the-chinashop approach is only indicative of hubris. TrangaBellam ( talk) 11:04, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, competence is required, and part of competence is ensuring that the subjects of articles are notable, and that the articles are sourced. At the point that Dlthewave ( talk · contribs) nominated this article, the article stated that it was a small grove adjacent to a spring, where travellers would rest. Since there was no indication that anyone actually lived there, it doesn't qualify for automatic notability as a populated place. The article was (is!) referenced to a single source, a travel guide. Generally one would hope for a couple, even three independent, in-depth sources (that's the advice people regularly get at the Tea House), and the draft guidelines on transport (obviously not binding), Wikipedia:Notability_(transportation) specifically state that notability cannot be determined by a travel guide. Of course notability depends on whether sources could be found, not on whether they currently exist in the article. But it is a matter of common sense that it is impossible to prove a negative (no one, no matter how thorough their BEFORE, can be certain there is no source out there, somewhere) - so the BEFORE checks must be on a best-effort basis. If you write an article, and you don't want it to land up at AfD, it makes sense to source it thoroughly before putting it in article-space, especially if you know that the sources are hard to find. The argument that you are a better expert than the nominator is unhelpful; ultimately the decision must be taken based on the article and its subject, not on who we consider the more expert. I'm not actually stating delete on this, yet, because you've said there are better sources. But I'm using an element of trust here; if the sources don't appear, this article is going to land up at AfD again in a year, with the classic "kept last time because X said sources exist, no sources subsequently added, remains a stub about a place that isn't significant", and that doesn't help anyone. Draft space would give you 6 months to work on this without having to fend off AfD nominations. Elemimele ( talk) 17:06, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- It takes one Google search and about 5 seconds of attention-span to reach at
this website. Which mentions about a historically important caravan-serai and points to
"Religious and spiritual monuments to Central Asia". Author M. Hashimov. Saga publishing house, 2001.
This is bare-minimum WP:BEFORE - I am not demanding that he visit Türkmenistanyň döwlet kitaphanasy to hunt for sources.People, self-declaring to be from the West, need to be aware of how their seemingly innocuous actions (cough, cough) perpetuate systematic bias. WP:NTRAN was never a guideline/policy:Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump.
TrangaBellam ( talk) 17:13, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Okay, I've added it. Keep Googling, everyone! A few more decent references and the article will be much improved. Elemimele ( talk) 17:21, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- My comments are not based on a one-off deletion event. To go an a tangent, Amustard (former ambassador of USA to Turkmenistan) had created an article about the Chairman of the National Oil Agency (equivalent of Darren Woods for ExxonMobil). Days later, some editor chose to send it to draft and then, another admin (!) redirected it to the Oil Agency.We (including me) need to do better wrt avoiding perpetuation of systematic bias. TrangaBellam ( talk) 17:30, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Do you actually have the book you've just quoted? The reason I ask is that you've added a page-number for the entry, but a Google search for that book gives me only three hits: this WP article, and two entries from the Silk Road Adventures website. I'd strongly suggest including the ISBN in the reference. Otherwise someone's going to ask whether it actually exists. Saga publishing house doesn't help much either; Saga Press specialises in fantasy and science fiction. Fighting systematic bias doesn't mean giving up on sourcing. Elemimele ( talk) 17:35, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- It takes one Google search and about 5 seconds of attention-span to reach at
this website. Which mentions about a historically important caravan-serai and points to
How can I provide a page number without having the book? There was some
important fortress in the place, about 150 years ago.
Some
more info. A
sad end. Do
you still need more sources to deem the area as historically significant (on multiple grounds: the caravanserai, the fortress, and the installation) and !vote keep? All of my sources came from Gbooks and I haven't even bothered to go into vernacular sources like at
this AfD; as I said, this nomination was a poor case of
WP:BEFORE.
TrangaBellam (
talk)
18:03, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Two of the google books hits you've found are definitely useful, and in agreement: an army contingent turned up there by mistake and built a small fort, before realising they were in the wrong place and there wasn't as much water as they'd hoped, and going away again. That may be enough to make the place notable, and those two books should be used as references if it is. I am still not happy with the Hashimov book: since you have it, please could you update the reference so it's possible for another reader to find it? It doesn't have to be readily available, but it does have to be cited in such a way that someone could find it, if they had sufficient time, energy and funding. An ISBN would help. Armed only with Google, I have failed miserably.
Elemimele (
talk)
18:13, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- The book is in Russian Language and only a few hundred copies were published from
Samarkand. Local Uzbek libraries have it and atleast one in Ashgabat. I can probably have the pages scanned for you.
TrangaBellam (
talk)
06:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- Okay, my personal view is that the two best sources so far are two of the Google-books that you found above, giving evidence of a fort there, and significant military relevance. It would be nice to know more about the place merely as a resting-place on the silk route too. I'm not sure how useful it is to cite the Russian book because, although its scholarship may be excellent, being printed in such small numbers it doesn't do much for the location's notability. I do feel that if we're going to cite the book, it might be worth stretching the point to include a link to the silk-road adventures website. I know it's not the greatest of sources, but it's accessible, and it does indicate that someone actually read the book, enough to want to quote from it. But based on the information you've found, I'm going for a weak keep; not the most pivotal location in the world, but still interesting and worth a mention.
Elemimele (
talk)
13:07, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- Elemimele, thanks and I understand your point. I will be adding more sources in the following week. I am away from the PC which has scans of books on Turkmen art and architecture. TrangaBellam ( talk) 14:43, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- Okay, my personal view is that the two best sources so far are two of the Google-books that you found above, giving evidence of a fort there, and significant military relevance. It would be nice to know more about the place merely as a resting-place on the silk route too. I'm not sure how useful it is to cite the Russian book because, although its scholarship may be excellent, being printed in such small numbers it doesn't do much for the location's notability. I do feel that if we're going to cite the book, it might be worth stretching the point to include a link to the silk-road adventures website. I know it's not the greatest of sources, but it's accessible, and it does indicate that someone actually read the book, enough to want to quote from it. But based on the information you've found, I'm going for a weak keep; not the most pivotal location in the world, but still interesting and worth a mention.
Elemimele (
talk)
13:07, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- The book is in Russian Language and only a few hundred copies were published from
Samarkand. Local Uzbek libraries have it and atleast one in Ashgabat. I can probably have the pages scanned for you.
TrangaBellam (
talk)
06:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,
Sandstein
08:41, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,
Missvain (
talk)
16:36, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
- 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.
- 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. If folks are concerned about "bad faith" nominations they should take it to WP:ANI.
Regardless, I am not convinced this subject necessarily meets WP:NGEO but I'm also not convinced that it "doesn't." Just more rehashes of prior AfD discussions with not as much discussion specifically about the nominated place.
I suggest folks do their best to expand and improve the existing article. If someone wishes to renominate this article again with a policy-based rationale for deletion, after improvements are made, you are welcome to do so.
Thanks for assuming good faith in this decision and happy new year. Missvain ( talk) 00:30, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!
- Tasharvat ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log | edits since nomination)
- (Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)
Only source is an entry in a travel guide; I did not find anything that would establish notability in my WP:BEFORE search. – dlthewave ☎ 03:23, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. – dlthewave ☎ 03:23, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Turkmenistan-related deletion discussions. – dlthewave ☎ 03:23, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Strong keep Nomination in bad faith. As I detailed at
another similar AfD, the nominator is ignorant about accessing sources concerning Turkmenistan.A
travel-site notes,
The first mentions of the Tasharvat fortification were found in 1871 - 1872. Archaeological research has shown that at the end of the XIXth century, the building was inhabited.
Has the nominator bothered to access this[a]rchaeological research
? Or, has he bothered to consult the cited source:"Religious and spiritual monuments to Central Asia". Author M. Hashimov. Saga publishing house, 2001
? Or has he enquired about why the name features at p. 695 of "U.S.S.R.: Official Standard Names Approved by the United States, Volume VI"? TrangaBellam ( talk) 06:48, 5 December 2021 (UTC) - Comment as for Makhtumkala consider draftifying if current sources are inadequate, and TrangaBellam ( talk · contribs) is still working on improving the sources. If there is evidence that this nomination is made in bad faith, it should be dealt with in an appropriate venue such as ANI, not here. If there isn't, the comment about bad faith should be struck. Aspersions are bad. Elemimele ( talk) 10:53, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks for your advice which is neither here nor there. The editor has been nominating tens of articles from different geographical regions in the belief that they violate GEOLAND - it is impossible that someone will be competent enough to ascertain legal status of territories in so many countries and such a bull-in-the-chinashop approach is only indicative of hubris. TrangaBellam ( talk) 11:04, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, competence is required, and part of competence is ensuring that the subjects of articles are notable, and that the articles are sourced. At the point that Dlthewave ( talk · contribs) nominated this article, the article stated that it was a small grove adjacent to a spring, where travellers would rest. Since there was no indication that anyone actually lived there, it doesn't qualify for automatic notability as a populated place. The article was (is!) referenced to a single source, a travel guide. Generally one would hope for a couple, even three independent, in-depth sources (that's the advice people regularly get at the Tea House), and the draft guidelines on transport (obviously not binding), Wikipedia:Notability_(transportation) specifically state that notability cannot be determined by a travel guide. Of course notability depends on whether sources could be found, not on whether they currently exist in the article. But it is a matter of common sense that it is impossible to prove a negative (no one, no matter how thorough their BEFORE, can be certain there is no source out there, somewhere) - so the BEFORE checks must be on a best-effort basis. If you write an article, and you don't want it to land up at AfD, it makes sense to source it thoroughly before putting it in article-space, especially if you know that the sources are hard to find. The argument that you are a better expert than the nominator is unhelpful; ultimately the decision must be taken based on the article and its subject, not on who we consider the more expert. I'm not actually stating delete on this, yet, because you've said there are better sources. But I'm using an element of trust here; if the sources don't appear, this article is going to land up at AfD again in a year, with the classic "kept last time because X said sources exist, no sources subsequently added, remains a stub about a place that isn't significant", and that doesn't help anyone. Draft space would give you 6 months to work on this without having to fend off AfD nominations. Elemimele ( talk) 17:06, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- It takes one Google search and about 5 seconds of attention-span to reach at
this website. Which mentions about a historically important caravan-serai and points to
"Religious and spiritual monuments to Central Asia". Author M. Hashimov. Saga publishing house, 2001.
This is bare-minimum WP:BEFORE - I am not demanding that he visit Türkmenistanyň döwlet kitaphanasy to hunt for sources.People, self-declaring to be from the West, need to be aware of how their seemingly innocuous actions (cough, cough) perpetuate systematic bias. WP:NTRAN was never a guideline/policy:Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump.
TrangaBellam ( talk) 17:13, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Okay, I've added it. Keep Googling, everyone! A few more decent references and the article will be much improved. Elemimele ( talk) 17:21, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- My comments are not based on a one-off deletion event. To go an a tangent, Amustard (former ambassador of USA to Turkmenistan) had created an article about the Chairman of the National Oil Agency (equivalent of Darren Woods for ExxonMobil). Days later, some editor chose to send it to draft and then, another admin (!) redirected it to the Oil Agency.We (including me) need to do better wrt avoiding perpetuation of systematic bias. TrangaBellam ( talk) 17:30, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Do you actually have the book you've just quoted? The reason I ask is that you've added a page-number for the entry, but a Google search for that book gives me only three hits: this WP article, and two entries from the Silk Road Adventures website. I'd strongly suggest including the ISBN in the reference. Otherwise someone's going to ask whether it actually exists. Saga publishing house doesn't help much either; Saga Press specialises in fantasy and science fiction. Fighting systematic bias doesn't mean giving up on sourcing. Elemimele ( talk) 17:35, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- It takes one Google search and about 5 seconds of attention-span to reach at
this website. Which mentions about a historically important caravan-serai and points to
How can I provide a page number without having the book? There was some
important fortress in the place, about 150 years ago.
Some
more info. A
sad end. Do
you still need more sources to deem the area as historically significant (on multiple grounds: the caravanserai, the fortress, and the installation) and !vote keep? All of my sources came from Gbooks and I haven't even bothered to go into vernacular sources like at
this AfD; as I said, this nomination was a poor case of
WP:BEFORE.
TrangaBellam (
talk)
18:03, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- Two of the google books hits you've found are definitely useful, and in agreement: an army contingent turned up there by mistake and built a small fort, before realising they were in the wrong place and there wasn't as much water as they'd hoped, and going away again. That may be enough to make the place notable, and those two books should be used as references if it is. I am still not happy with the Hashimov book: since you have it, please could you update the reference so it's possible for another reader to find it? It doesn't have to be readily available, but it does have to be cited in such a way that someone could find it, if they had sufficient time, energy and funding. An ISBN would help. Armed only with Google, I have failed miserably.
Elemimele (
talk)
18:13, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
- The book is in Russian Language and only a few hundred copies were published from
Samarkand. Local Uzbek libraries have it and atleast one in Ashgabat. I can probably have the pages scanned for you.
TrangaBellam (
talk)
06:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- Okay, my personal view is that the two best sources so far are two of the Google-books that you found above, giving evidence of a fort there, and significant military relevance. It would be nice to know more about the place merely as a resting-place on the silk route too. I'm not sure how useful it is to cite the Russian book because, although its scholarship may be excellent, being printed in such small numbers it doesn't do much for the location's notability. I do feel that if we're going to cite the book, it might be worth stretching the point to include a link to the silk-road adventures website. I know it's not the greatest of sources, but it's accessible, and it does indicate that someone actually read the book, enough to want to quote from it. But based on the information you've found, I'm going for a weak keep; not the most pivotal location in the world, but still interesting and worth a mention.
Elemimele (
talk)
13:07, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- Elemimele, thanks and I understand your point. I will be adding more sources in the following week. I am away from the PC which has scans of books on Turkmen art and architecture. TrangaBellam ( talk) 14:43, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- Okay, my personal view is that the two best sources so far are two of the Google-books that you found above, giving evidence of a fort there, and significant military relevance. It would be nice to know more about the place merely as a resting-place on the silk route too. I'm not sure how useful it is to cite the Russian book because, although its scholarship may be excellent, being printed in such small numbers it doesn't do much for the location's notability. I do feel that if we're going to cite the book, it might be worth stretching the point to include a link to the silk-road adventures website. I know it's not the greatest of sources, but it's accessible, and it does indicate that someone actually read the book, enough to want to quote from it. But based on the information you've found, I'm going for a weak keep; not the most pivotal location in the world, but still interesting and worth a mention.
Elemimele (
talk)
13:07, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- The book is in Russian Language and only a few hundred copies were published from
Samarkand. Local Uzbek libraries have it and atleast one in Ashgabat. I can probably have the pages scanned for you.
TrangaBellam (
talk)
06:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,
Sandstein
08:41, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,
Missvain (
talk)
16:36, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
- 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.