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. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:48, 24 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Parks Place, Mississippi[edit]

Parks Place, Mississippi (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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One of a couple dozen plantations marked on the provided map, but I can find no corroboration verifying the claim that it "is a ghost town" or was a "settlement" beyond a generic landowner's property. Reywas92^Talk 20:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Reywas92^Talk 20:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mississippi-related deletion discussions. Reywas92^Talk 20:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete not a notable place and fails WP:GEOLAND. Lightburst (talk) 02:52, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete No sign of a notable place here. –dlthewave ☎ 03:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - This AfD is tantamount to asserting that GNIS is an entirely unreliable source. In this particular instance, GNIS not only identified Parks Place as a populated place, but went one step farther to identify Parks Place as a populated place that is now abandoned (hence its listing on GNIS as "historic"). To confirm that GNIS was indeed correct, this map showing Parks Place was included as a source. Is the existence of nearby Evergreen Church also dubious? A reliable source was added to this article, supported by a map. I scratch my head at how Parks Place does not meet the criteria of WP:GEOLAND or WP:V. Magnolia677 (talk) 15:38, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  The coordinates of the church appear aligned with square plot #15 of the map, east of the north end of Stack Island, not with Parks Place further south in plot #7. Sure, people lived in this area, but I scratch my head at where you can say "Parks Place is a ghost town" when we have literally nothing more than a name on a map. The church is closer to "Bale Shed" and "Holly Ridge" in plots 2 and 4 to its north, but we do not have anything corroborating the claim any were more than single plantations. The actual town is Mayersville, Mississippi, marked further north of that in larger bold letters! But yes, the GNIS should be roundly ignored unless you want to recreate Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Susie, Washington – we need multiple significant sources! Reywas92^Talk 18:16, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The abandoned church is in the same county, and it's a very small county. It was just an example. Magnolia677 (talk) 19:33, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• KeepAs I understand it governmental geographic sites are RS for townships.Slatersteven (talk) 16:49, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Slatersteven: Appearing in a database is not sufficient; GNIS is notorious for mislabeling all sorts of things as "populated places". Per WP:GEOLAND, since there's no sign that this is a legally recognized place, it would have to meet GNG. –dlthewave ☎ 13:03, 24 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was not aware of that.Slatersteven (talk) 13:08, 24 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Parks Place had a Post Office. I realize that there are differing opinions about whether a Post Office is legal recognition which meets WP:GEOLAND #1, see Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features)#Is the presence of Post Office sufficient to fulfill legally recognized place?. However, in my opinion, having a Post Office is sufficient. Further discussion about Post Offices and notability could go to the talk page. I have not yet been able to find non-trivial references to this location, so WP:GEOLAND#2 has not yet been met. Without the Post Office, Parks Place was a plantation and not notable. GNIS has been shown to be unreliable. See my comment. Further discussion about GNIS could go to Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features)#GNIS database. Cxbrx (talk) 17:12, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. I'm changing my position to delete, Bkonrad reverted my edits stating that there is nothing that connects them with this particular Parks Place. So, WP:GEOLAND#1 does not apply. There is only trivial coverage, so this location does not meet WP:GEOLAND #2. Delete. Delete. Delete. Many thanks to Bkonrad. Cxbrx (talk) 17:30, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete unless there are some other sources for notability. GNIS is sufficient RS that a place existed. By itself it is not evidence of notability. The sources recently added (which I removed) are not clearly connected with the place in Issaquena County. The place mentioned in the court case was located in Bolivar County (and Google shows some other mentions of such a place). GNIS also mentions another Parks Place (also spelled as Parksplace) in Panola County. The reference concerning the post office does not indicate which of the three possible counties it was in. older ≠ wiser 17:24, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment 1 - knock off the B.S. about the reliability of GNIS. Though it might not be 100% perfect, overall it's reasonably accurate for what I've examined in Kansas. Over the years, I've found a small number of coordinate mistakes, but when I reported these issues to the GNIS they quickly fixed the mistakes, and it wasn't enough to make me not trust the usefulness of GNIS. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 19:45, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a better way of putting it would be that GNIS lists places that GNIS categorizes as "populated places" that are not necessarily sufficiently notable for WP:GEOLAND. An example is Pronto, Nevada, which is listed as a populated place in the GNIS. This was railroad station on the WPRR and per WP:STATION, it is not notable unless it has "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.". Don't get me wrong, I love the GNIS. I've found out a bunch of interesting information by reading some of the requests for name changes etc. I'm fascinated by it. I've too have submitted corrections. However, I don't feel that having a GNIS entry is in itself sufficient for WP:N. Neither is appearing on a map. Probably the best place for this sort of discussion is over at Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features). Cxbrx (talk) 23:49, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GNIS is a good catalog of names and locations that appear on topos, but it's been shown to use "populated place" as a catch-all for miscellaneous entries. Lately we've had to delete dozens of articles about homesteads/ranches, geographic features, river crossings, boat landings, railroad sidings and subdivisions that were erroneously labeled as "populated places" by GNIS. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Susie, Washington for a collection of articles about industrial rail sidings and junctions that were erroneously labelled as populated places. –dlthewave ☎ 01:23, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My point was ONLY about the reliability and usefulness of GNIS, not whether GNIS was notable by itself to determine if an article should be kept or deleted. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 09:47, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment 2 - recently I came across a community in Kansas that use to be next to a river in the late 1800s, but it currently doesn't exist, only because floods and water erosion had destroyed it. The Kansas community was shown on old county maps and atlases, which proves that another GNIS entry historically existed in the past, though there isn't any visual history remaining. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 19:45, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete A GNIS alone is insufficient to establish that this place is notable. Yilloslime (talk) 19:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per WP:GEOLAND, which states that low population and abandonment do not eliminate notability because notability is not temporary. Deleting articles such as these would be contrary to longstanding tradition.Jacona (talk) 22:08, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes abandoned places can be notable, but that does not mean not every abandoned place is notable. There is no longstanding tradition of keeping articles that fail notability. older ≠ wiser 22:21, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that abandoned places of which there is no longer a trace may be notable. However, per WP:GEOLAND#1, it needs to be a "Populated, legally recognized places". There is quite a bit of debate about what constitutes the legally recognized. I feel that having a Post Office is the bottom of the possibilities and that in general legally recognized means town, village etc. that has some form of government. Or, WP:GEOLAND#2, it needs to have "non-trivial coverage in multiple, independent reliable sources". If we are going to debate these very much, then doing it over at the Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features) is probably a good place. 23:49, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
• Delete The GNIS entry for this place cites a map from 1868 as evidence for its existence, and another map from 1873 marks it, but it's not entirely clear from either of those sources that this actually was a populated place. It seems at least as likely that the points on the map are plantation names, or something else that isn't a community. I've seen a fair number of cases where a GNIS listing for a "populated place" corresponded to a named plantation with no associated community; it's pretty obvious when the plantation is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the documentation for that says absolutely nothing about a community. Without any clear evidence as to the status of this place, and with little else to say about it, I don't think there's much point in keeping the article. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 03:37, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete No evidence of notability. Cheers, 1292simon (talk) 11:32, 24 March 2020 (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.