Talk:Răchitoasa

Merge tag: Hăghiac, Răchitoasa to here

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to merge. Biruitorul ^Talk 19:04, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

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Biruitorul, this is where the link to the merge discussion goes to, can you please put your reasons here so people can vote support or merge. You can copy and paste all if started elsewhere. Boleyn (talk) 07:26, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Boleyn, here's a thought: stop making me jump through pointless bureaucratic hoops before you deign to answer the rather forthright arguments I've already set out, and (let's be realistic) stop pretending that other "people [who] can vote support or merge" exist. (This is, after all, a rather obscure topic.) I'm going to humor you and repost my earlier comment - but really, try to focus on substance for once. I'm not here to play "let's see who's perfectly following every procedure to the letter, even when we can perfectly dispense with most of that procedure, given that a discussion between two people genuinely doesn't require much procedure".

And no, I'm not going to take up your whimsical invitation to repeat the exact same discussion a third time at Talk:Dofteana: consider this one as applying to both. If you wish, post a link to this one on that page, just so you can't claim that "no one can support or oppose" (as though a flood of users were to rush in in the event of my reposting this over there). - Biruitorul ^Talk 14:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

1) You keep bringing up AfD for no reason. I have no reason to take this to AfD; it's a valid redirect target. So let's drop that.

2) Of course I've looked at notability guidelines: I mean, I've been on Wikipedia for almost a decade and made well over 100,000 edits, so yeah, I've bothered to inform myself along the years about what constitutes standalone notability. And let's take a look at those guidelines, shall we?

WP:GEOLAND says as follows: "Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable". Correct. No contest there. Every single place in Romania with legal recognition - city, town, commune - has its own article here.

Moving on: "Populated places without legal recognition are considered on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the GNG…. [these] could be considered notable on a case-by-case basis, given non-trivial coverage in multiple, independent reliable sources. If a Wikipedia article cannot be developed using known sources, information on the informal place should be included in the more general article on the legally recognized populated place or administrative subdivision that contains it." Precisely. And this is just how we treat every single village in Romania (well, except two, at the moment): with a redirect to the parent commune article, or to the disambiguation page if more than one village has the same name. Interested readers type in the village's name, and find it after either one click or, at most, two.

Simply put, this is a logical, workable and defensible way of arranging information: there is nothing in the guidelines saying it is objectionable to have 2700 stubs on the communes (some no longer stubs, many at least in theory expandable) rather than in having 13000 of them on the villages - and most of those permanently stubs. Plus, the reader's task is measurably eased: rather than flitting about between village articles attempting to make sense of the big picture, all relevant information (names of villages, population, descriptions where available) is presented as one coherent whole. Also (have you thought this one through?) how do you distinguish between Commune A and Village A? Ro.wiki adopted the rather whimsical solution of "Commune A, County" for the commune and "A, County" for the village - but really, I hope even you can see how this is overkill.

Again: one has to stop somewhere in regards to separate articles on very small places. And "smallest administrative unit" is not a bad place to do it. (No one's ever complained, as far as I know.) This is how we treat several countries (Hungary, Moldova, even France, for the most part). I hope you now understand why Romania too will continue to be handled the same way. - Biruitorul ^Talk 14:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose I'll comment on the notability of the article only. Villages are generally accepted as notable, not overkill, see WP:NPLACE and the large number of village articles on WP. Hăghiac, Răchitoasa has articles in 4 languages. You have written about stubs, but WP has no problem with stubs. Boleyn (talk) 17:49, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
  • 1) WP:NPLACE a) is an essay - it is neither a policy nor a guideline and b) refers to AfD outcomes, which are irrelevant to this discussion, since no one is proposing anything for deletion. The relevant guideline in this case is WP:GEOLAND, and that is perfectly clear that places smaller than those legally recognized are not automatically considered to have standalone notability, but are to be "considered on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the GNG". (Incidentally, I note you've made no attempt to show how GNG validates an article on this topic.)
  • 2) The "large number of village articles on WP" is also irrelevant to this discussion, simply because administrative systems vary widely among countries, and what is logical for one may not be so for another. For instance, neighboring Serbia is divided into just 150 municipalities, each covering dozens of settlements, and it may actually make sense to have articles on those. In Romania, the 2700 communes average six villages apiece - a size we can perfectly manage within a single article.
  • 3) In similar fashion, what exists on other projects is also irrelevant: for one, we set our own policies here; for another, you may note those articles don't actually say anything other than "this village exists", something the parent commune article is fully able to accommodate.
  • 4) Of course stubs are not problematic in principle, but the fact that one can exist does not mean it must do so. This very article, Răchitoasa, is a stub, has been one for seven years - but a) the topic is clearly notable per WP:GEOLAND and b) the topic is at least in theory expandable, starting from the town hall site and moving on from there. Neither of those conditions is true for its village of Hăghiac, which neither has legal recognition nor readily available sources covering the topic.
  • 5) So I take it your position is that we should keep two articles about Romanian villages, simply because you happened to create them after a clueless editor started an AfD about their disambiguation page, but not worry about the other ca. 12,998? Pardon me if I don't find that a terribly coherent stance. - Biruitorul ^Talk 18:23, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment NPLACE is indeed an essay, based on the results of when a topic is judged on its notability at AfD - nearly all are kept, even though merge is always an option. GNG seems to be proved in the Serbo-Croatian and Ukrainian articles, but is hard for a monolinguist such as myself to translate accurately. The articles seem to say much more than 'this village exists.' The topic is clearly expandable, because it is expanded in articles in Serbo-Croatian and Ukranian. The other 12,998 are not my concern - the vast majority of early English MPs did't have articles three years ago either, it doesn't mean those that exist aren't useful or notable. And slowly, over time, they are being developed. Boleyn (talk) 18:39, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
  • I took a good look at the Serbo-Croatian and Ukrainian articles, and quite literally the only cited information they include is data on population and ethnicity. (They also mention elevation and distances to major cities, but these a) are uncited and b) can probably be covered under the commune.) Personally, I think breaking down the data at that level veers into the trivial, but I don't really object: take a look. So now, we a) have the only additional data from other projects in our own article and b) have it all in one place, where readers can see it at once, rather than sending them to fifteen or sixteen different stubs that pretty much say the same thing. It's a win-win situation, if you ask me.
  • And no, the topic isn't expandable, at least with what's online, much beyond these one or two data points, which, as you see, are now present here on en.wiki.
  • You're entitled not to care about the remaining 12,998 villages, but I do care, and I do very much care about having a single, coherent standard. And I hope I've addressed any remaining issues with the table I created.
  • As for the MPs: well, you know what WP:POLITICIAN point 1 says, and you know what WP:GEOLAND says: the two are not quite comparable. - Biruitorul ^Talk 19:21, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Boleyn, as I've said earlier, I don't see the point of multiple discussions on the same theme, so if you don't mind, I'll continue writing about this topic here. And to address your point (yet again):

It is simply untrue that "villages are generally considered notable on WP"; see the explicit words of WP:GEOLAND for that. "Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable…. Populated places without legal recognition are considered on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the GNG."

As I've also said earlier (WP:ICANTHEARYOU comes to mind), we do apply a standard of generally stopping at the smallest administrative unit for several countries, France (more or less) included. The point is not to "treat Romanian villages any differently" - it is to have a logical, coherent and uniform manner of presenting information. The fact that either Hăghiac exists is fully attested at Dofteana and at Răchitoasa; nothing but a little incoherency is added by repeating the very same information in separate "articles".

Now, to sum up the situation:

The only citable information that exists on either Hăghiac is now present in both parent commune articles, in one place, together with those communes' other villages, as opposed to being randomly separated for Hăghiac alone. In addition, there is, at present, no meaningful possibility for expanding either "article".

It is absurd to have one approach - an approach that's worked very well - for 12,998 of Romania's villages (covering them under the parent commune article, with redirects pointing there in cases where multiple ones have the same name), but to make an exception for two of them, simply because you have decided so, and are impervious to my explanations.

At this point, your actions approach gaming the system. While I normally let many things slide, I do care enough about this matter that I will be forced to escalate. I'll first wait to see if this discussion turns things around. Then, even though I dread the waste of time and energy involved, I'll start along the WP:3O - WP:DRN - WP:RFM path. Your choice. - Biruitorul ^Talk 14:55, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment Biruitorul, it is OK that we disagree. Your arguments don't convince me, I'm afraid and I'm entitled to my opinion as are you. This is a merge discussion which as it stands has no consensus, despite me contacting relevant Wikiprojects to encourage people of any opinions to participate. Disagreeing with you, and reverting you when you performed a merge without consensus, is in no way gaming the system. Boleyn (talk) 16:49, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support merge. Please notice that WP:GEOLAND is inapplicable here: since it is part of WP:NOTABLITY policy, which is primarily about AfD. The phrasing "presumed to be notable" prevents the article from outright deletion. On the other hand, merging of minute geofeatures into the larger features is the advice found in WP:GEOLAND. There are multiple benefits of merging small items into larger ones. On the other hand, there is no advantage to keep the one-liners separate, it even an inconvenience, because for such small mundane items more important information is how they fit into larger areas, how they compare with neighbors, etc. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:30, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support merge: I agree with Biruitorul, there's no real reason to have tiny articles on informal units when they can easily be covered (and are covered, in almost every case) within articles on units that actually are notable (the communes). It's explicitly permitted by WP:GEOLAND and simply makes more sense. If there were significant cited content about a particular village, I might reconsider, but that isn't even the case here. I did notice however that interestingly enough, the Hăghiac article has two longer, corresponding articles in Serbo-Croatioan and Ukrainian. The English article has two tags inviting for translations from those languages. At least those tags should be carried over to the commune article to not lose this contextual information. --Codrin.B (talk) 23:06, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support merge: It is indeed debatable whether Romanian villages should count as "legally recognized places" as specified in WP:GEOLAND. They do have their own postal code, census results are published right down to village level, and they are all established in Law no. 2/1968. In ro.wp, we decided to create articles for each village. The result is a plethora of stubs with next to no content (until recently, even Wikidata had more info on them than the Wikipedia article). Very few actually grew into decent articles. I think the ro.wp experience should caution us against establishing a pattern of creating this kind of stubs. Sure, if enough information is available, we could do a summary style article, and if enough such articles exist, maybe we can consider creating stubs for all of them. But this is not the case at the moment, and the content of this stub speaks for itself.- Andrei (talk) 09:46, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

We could maybe go on and create articles for former communes, if needed, and Romanian administrative division was more fine-grained in the past, thus many current Romanian communes usually cover an area where more than one commune was organized in the past. Previously, the current teritory of Răchitoasa commune was split between three communes: Răchitoasa, Buda and Burdusaci (see ro:Comuna Răchitoasa, Bacău). So, if any parts of Răchitoasa commune could be subjects of standalone articles, those are probably Buda and Burdusaci, but not Hăghiac.- Andrei (talk) 09:54, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support merge. The content of these stubs speaks for itself. At this point, it is unnecessary to create a tiny stub for each village in Romania, and I don't think the guidelines necessitate this in any way given the legal situation. I wouldn't mind separate articles for individual villages where the notability of the village itself is undoubted and there's so much content that, for example, the village's section dominates the commune article and is shaping up like a separate article. This is not the case here. — Toдor Boжinov — 18:37, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Third Opinion

A third opinion has been requested. It is not clear what the question is. If the question is whether to merge two articles, a Third Opinion is not a substitute for a Merge Request, and I see no indication that a formal merge request has been made. See the merge policy. I will be removing the third opinion request. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:29, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, the merge request is at Hăghiac, Răchitoasa and at Hăghiac, Dofteana - I am requesting that these be merged back into, respectively, Răchitoasa and Dofteana. I'm trying to keep the discussion in one place rather than diffusing it over several pages, since the same arguments apply to all the articles involved.

This is really a rather minor and sensible request, for which I've patiently supplied the reasons above, but is being stonewalled by one determined user. If 3O isn't the right venue for helping to end this rather sterile debate, what is? I suppose I could wait for other participants, but no one else has showed up for this three-week-old discussion. Perhaps you would like to weigh in? Or should I head to WP:DRN? - Biruitorul ^Talk 05:10, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

If the merge discussion isn't going anywhere, I would suggest that a Request for Comments to get community consensus is in order. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:34, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

• Robert McClenon, sorry, but I don't understand why there has to be some formal step taken for this to be handled by the folks at 3O--from what I can tell, it's not busy there right now. The question, it seems to me, is clear: should there be separate articles for villages or should these one-liners be merged back into the communes? The advantage is that one 3O discussion can help answer the general question, whereas an individual merge discussion probably draws no interest at all. We're not a bureaucracy--you can help settle this. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 05:14, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

It wasn't initially clear to me what the question was, because often a third opinion request follows lengthy, often convoluted, often uncivil discussion, and that was the case here. However, at this point, my concern was that the third opinion is an extremely light-weight process. It is, in my opinion, not really suitable for establishing consensus, only for taking the first next step in a content dispute, and merging of articles is a consensus process. I was suggesting the use of a more formal process in place of third opinion, not that some formal step be taken in order to take this to third opinion. Third opinion isn't available when there is any other dispute resolution process pending. There does appear to be a merge request that hasn't been closed as no consensus. If you think that I should have accepted the Third Opinion request rather than declining, I am willing to discuss with other Third Opinion volunteers at third opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:22, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Although, in my opinion, this isn't a proper third opinion request, I will offer an opinion as requested by a respected administrator, User:Drmies. I disagree with merging the villages into the commune. The same principles that apply to AFD also apply to merge. Populated, legally recognized places are usually considered notable, and the guideline mentions "villages" in particular. I don't know Romanian law or Romanian, but usually types of places whose names are translated into "village" have some sort of legal recognition. (In the United States, in states that have a concept of "villages", a village is usually the smallest type of incorporated municipality.) I would suggest that the villages be retained, and should link to the communes that they are in. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:44, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, I appreciate your expressing an opinion, but I must make a very important correction. To wit: villages in Romania do not have legal recognition: they are informal districts of communes. Communes, on the other hand, do have legal recognition: they are created by law, have an elected mayor, an elected council, a coat of arms, the power to raise and spend revenue, and so forth - none of which holds true for villages. Thus, under WP:GEOLAND, while communes should undoubtedly have articles, there is no particular requirement for such in the case of villages.

Logistically, it makes far more sense to have all the information on a commune in one place rather than send readers around to multiple articles that will almost invariably be one-line stubs that reproduce information already found at the commune page. It even makes sense when there's some decent content: see for instance Bazna and Coronini. Sure, we could have separate pages on Bazna Commune, Bazna, Sibiu, Boian, Sibiu and Velţ; or on Coronini Commune, Coronini, Caraş-Severin and Sfânta Elena - but what, precisely, would be the point of that, other than to confuse the reader by dispersing information neatly presented on one page into three or four of them?

It also makes absolutely no sense to use redirects and disambiguation pages for pointing readers to 99.98% of Romanian villages, as is the current status quo, but making a whimsical exception for 0.02% of them.

I hope my explanations have been informative, and that you reconsider your opinion. - Biruitorul ^Talk 00:20, 6 January 2016 (UTC)