Project:WikiProject California/GNIS cleanup task force

Plan

Per this discussion, there are many stubby Wikipedia articles on California locales that have been created sourced to a GNIS entries. GNIS has errors and may contain locales that are not notable, per WP:NGEO.

The plan for the cleanup is the following. For each county in California:

  1. Create a work page as a subpage of this one, using this template
  2. Fill in the work page by sorting articles by notability
  3. When finished sorting, create a list article (e.g., List of unincorporated communities in Modoc County, California), with formatting described here
  4. Modify the county navboxes (e.g., {{tl|Modoc County, California}}) to refer to the new list article and remove non-notable entries.
  5. PROD or merge the non-notable articles.

Members

  1. CJK09 (talk) 23:32, 17 April 2020 (UTC) - Gold Country, Sierra Nevada, Bay Area
  2. TitanAndromeda 03:03, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
  3. hike395 (talk) 01:24, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
  4. dlthewave 03:12, 20 April 2020 (UTC) I have access to [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DSE8P8E/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 urham’s Place-Names of California’s Gold Country].
  5. Reywas92Talk 05:36, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
  6. Mangoe (talk) 11:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC) I am working on the Nn Place articles first but will switch to by-county once those are done.
  7. Glendoremus (talk) 03:45, 31 May 2020 (UTC) Contra Costa
  8. Hog Farm Bacon 18:57, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Progress by county

TODO: make county progress map

class="wikitable"
County PageEditor(s)Status
AlamedaGlendoremuspage created
AlpineMangoeSorted
AmadorMangoestarted
ButteMangoeSorted
CalaverasMangoestarted
Contra CostaGlendoremusSorted
El DoradoCJK09Sorted
InyoHike395started
LassenMangoestarted
MarinGlendoremusSorted
MonoHike395{{strong|Finished!}}
ModocCactusJackstarted
OrangeTitanAndromedaSorted
San DiegoTitanAndromedaSorted
Santa BarbaraReywas92Sorted
SierraCJK09Sorted

Resources

  • Wikipedia:WikiProject California/GNIS cleanup task force/Template - Template for starting a county page
  • [https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2019/RISC-WP-19-007.pdf USPS Report on the evolution of mail delivery]: it explains what a fourth-class post office was. At the height of pre-RFD service there were 76,000 of these, and yes, often enough they were just a spot in someone's house.

= Books to check against =

  • Any Arcadia Publishing book for the locality such as (to take Lake County, California as an example):
  • {{cite book|title=Lake County, 1871–1960|author=Lake County Historical Society|publisher=Arcadia Publishing|year=2009|isbn=9780738560175}}
  • {{cite book|title=Resorts of Lake County|author1-first=Donna|author1-last=Hoberg|publisher=Arcadia Publishing|year=2007|isbn=9780738547985}}
  • Arcadia books are not the be-all-and-end-all, but they do point the way. Arcadia (and other local history) books helped sort out {{On AFD|Robert, California}} and Escalle, Larkspur, California; helped identify what {{On AFD|Salminas Resort, California}} actually was; and conversely made the cases stronger against the likes of {{On AFD|Ettawa Springs, California}}. All of these were two-sentence GNIS-only stubs at the time of deletion nomination, all claiming "unincorporated community".