Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Graham, Indiana

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 delete‎. ✗plicit 03:46, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Graham, Indiana

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Baker doesn't cite his entries so I have no idea why he stated that this was a village. On the topos it looks like a rail spot, but there is just nothing there. If there ever was a village, it disappeared long ago. We need more than this. Mangoe (talk) 01:40, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - no evidence of notability. Could ultimately end up as a redirect. estar8806 (talk) ★ 01:43, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I don't think there is a good reason to doubt Baker that this was once a populated place. Passes WP:GEOLAND.4meter4 (talk) 02:39, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there is reason for doubt. We've been doing this for some years now, and we've gotten quite a bit of experience dealing with the various kinds of sources involved and reading the maps for verification. And what we found with GNIS also applies here: that some of these sources are being abused to some extent, because we are at cross-purposes with the authors. In the case of GNIS (and you need to read WP:GNIS if you haven't already) the issue was compounded by the mistakes the GNIS compilers made in looking at literally very label on every map in the country (plus other, far more dubious sources), but the issue in making articles here was that people made the default assumption that a name was a town, even though the purpose of GNIS was to standardize the names. Placenames origin books have the same issue: they are also about the names first of all and only secondarily about what they are attached to. And the rigor of these books varies. Durham out in California was meticulous about citing his sources, and the problems with him as a source were usually traced to misrepresentation of what he wrote. Baker, not as much. The general rule for the placename books is that if they say it was something other than a village, that generally fits with what we find on the maps and elsewhere; but if they say it was a village, that may or may not be borne out. If they or some other source says it was platted, that usually is borne out in the maps, because they will show a street grid; but we've had a couple of cases where a turn-of-the-century county history says "yeah, it was platted, but nothing ever came of it." These histories also have the tremendous advantage of being much closer in time to the origins of these places; in many cases the events are within living memory, whereas Baker was writing some sixty years later. So I'm disinclined to take Baker's villages at face value; we need something more. Unfortunately I have not found a county history in this case. Mangoe (talk) 13:22, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Geography and Indiana. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 05:24, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, problems with WP:V. Geschichte (talk) 07:02, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Rural post offices and rail points were often named after the local landowner; that doesn't make them a "community", let along a recognized populated place. Given the many articles sourced only to Baker with no other information found anywhere, I don't think that book alone should count for verifiability or notability. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 11:36, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Facts supporting this community as being a notable one are too thin on the ground to establish it beyond a local level (if even that).TH1980 (talk) 02:26, 24 November 2024 (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.