Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Largest village in England (2nd nomination)

:{{la|Largest village in England}} – (View AfD)(View log)

:({{findsources|Largest village in England}})

In my opinion, this topic isn't encyclopedic. It's trivial. The article itself is horrible and lacks needed references, and is effectively impossible to reference due to varying definitions of 'village', 'town' and 'largest'. The article can't realistically be repaired, and it's trivial, so it should be deleted. Computerjoe's talk 21:50, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Im strongly leaning toward delete, but i want to point out: in List of villages in Northern Ireland, theres an external link defining village for N. ire., [http://www.nisra.gov.uk/]. this would help. if village is defined only as a population range, and not some other criteria, then the claim would be automatically spurious (a tie for the score or so that have the exact maximum population at any given time), and just a method of self promotion, which is of course not a valid reason for creating encyclopedia articles here. (are you ready for a list of "best cups of coffee in the world"? or "largest small bookshop"?) Most of the refs in this article simply mention the claim. i didnt see any official village websites that make the claim, which would help. for all the people involved in this article, why not find a UK govt definition of village, and make a list of them, or take the names from the various subcategories in "Category:Villages in England", and rank them by size. i know thats a lot of work, but it would be much more encyclopedic than this marginal article. you could have in that list a comment column which says whether a particular village has made this claim, either currently or historically.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 22:21, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
• comment The page consistently receives between 40 and 60 visits a day, so there is an interest in the subject; the problem is that the article doesn't provide any definitive answers, just a list of contenders. I understand the point that different villages have a claim to the title, depending on how 'largest' is defined, but what's needed is some kind of list stating (with citations) which village IS the largest in any given context. Obscurasky (talk) 22:42, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete for now. The opening sentence says it is "meaningless." Northwestgnome (talk) 23:02, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
• Keep This is a popular and well-used page that apparently contains information that people are interested in. The page is been regularly edited for six years. These in themselves do not make it encyclopaedic, but the discussion of the main topic and the detailed information in it probably does. If nothing else the page demonstrates the difficulty in verifying such a claim, and the list of unsourced items merely emphasises the point, admittedly in a slightly ironic way. As was suggested in previous afd discussion it might be more accurate to describe the page differently; but I would not advocate this. The current title reflects something that people are searching for, albeit when they arrive at the article they would be able to discover why the object of their search is unlikely ever to be found. Naturenet | Talk 07:54, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete as per the article saying "This title is essentially a meaningless one". DitzyNizzy (aka Jess)|(talk to me)|(What I've done) 10:16, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
• Keep but rework As there are lots of villages that claim to be the largest in England, and this article has been consistently viewed and edited for several years, I think it is important that this title is not a redlink as the topic clearly has notability. We should have some coverage, somewhere, about it. This will probably be best as an article that lists verifiable claims (and the grounds for the claim) to be the largest village in England along with an explanation of why it is difficult or impossible to verify the claims and therefore difficult/impossible to say which village actually is the largest in England. Thryduulf (talk) 10:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 10:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
• Strong keep - here in the UK there have been lots of discussions about which is the largest village in the UK. Believe it or not, as it sounds like the most ridiculous argument and one that is meaningless as it cannot be exactly proven. However, it's something that people talk about and compete over. The reason why the article says it's "essentially a meaningless one" doesn't mean that it's therefore irrelevant. The concept of which is the largest village is in popular discussion and media for centuries. It's just a quirk of the British culture, and therefore should stay. Although to a non-Brit (or indeed to someone who doesn't live in the UK) it sounds as though this is a made-up term, in fact it's something that is discussed a lot. Different villages argue that they are the larger village. It's very silly and very British. And hence the page has been edited and referred to a lot over the years. Tris2000 (talk) 10:47, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

:Comment: This introduces a fair point - others have referred above the the self-professed meaninglessness of the claim and equated this to the meaninglessness of the article. However it is wrong to equate the status of 'largest village' with this article in this context. The page itself is not meaningless but it describes a debate, notable in itself, that can nonetheless only have a meaningless outcome. Naturenet | Talk 13:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

:"here in the UK there have been lots of discussions about which is the largest village in the UK." Really? I've never heard this discussed. More to the point, what people chat about in the pub or over a cup of tea is not suitable for an encyclopedia article. I have looked for reliable sources, and I cannot find any that actually discuss this issue beyond an aside to a particular claimant. Fences&Windows 21:34, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

• Keep - It is not trivial. It contains details of various claims to be the largest village. And it is well referenced. New seeker (talk) 11:25, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
• Keep interesting and neutral. DJ Clayworth (talk) 13:37, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
• Comment. If there are a number of villages with claims to being a large village in what would normally be considered reliable sources, I don't mind this article being kept. However, even after the pruning last time round, the majority of references supporting these claims are either self-published sites or don't actually report the claim. The remaining villages should be either properly referenced or deleted. After that, we can decide whether a keep, merge or delete is appropriate. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 17:25, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
• Delete. This isn't a topic, it's a stitched together piece of improper synthesis. We don't make articles solely out of asides in mostly primary sources. This is a notable dispute only in the minds of the article creators. Fences&Windows 21:26, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
• p.s. You could always create a category, :Category:Claimants to largest village in England. Fences&Windows 21:30, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
• Keep -- This is a serious discussion of a topic where there are a number of claimants. If the arricle came donw on the side of any of them that would be POV and lead to deletion. It might better be called Claims for the largest vilalge in England (or such like). If there is a need for verification that the claim is being made, then tag for verification. No adequate grounds exist for deletion. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
• Keep - Even though the opening sentence says it is a "meaningless" title that doesn't mean the existance and use of the title is non-notable. The article is well referenced and establishes the importance of the term. Narthring (talk • contribs) 05:09, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
• :Well referenced? Most are self-published sources. Computerjoe's talk 16:48, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
• Keep There are numerous sources which report the claims of the various contenders and so the matter is notable. Superlatives such as world heavyweight boxing champion are often disputed but so it goes. We're dealing with the real world here and it is often messy. This is not a reason to delete. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:18, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

:Nice rhetoric, but a poor comparison. Whole books have been written about the world heavyweight boxing championships; no books or even articles have been written about the claims to largest village in England. Fences&Windows 23:57, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

::Actually one article has certainly been written about it. It's a bit circular to argue that an article should be deleted because no such articles exist.Naturenet | Talk 10:38, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

:::You're surely not trying to use the existence of this article as an argument to support its own existence? That's circular reasoning epitomised! It's not at all circular to ask for secondary sources that have discussed a topic: that's the core of WP:NOTABILITY. Fences&Windows 17:18, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

::::Indeed not. You said no articles had been written about the topic. I said one had. Nothing circular there. Move along. Naturenet | Talk 22:43, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

• Keep - as others have argued, a title can be notable even if it is disputed or essentially meaningless, provided the claims to it are sufficiently notable. It isn't a problem that it can be defined in various ways - an article has plenty of space to discuss that (which is why categorisation would be a poor idea). A [http://books.google.co.uk/books?q=%22largest%20village%20in%20England%22 Google Books search] turns up some additional reliable sources which could easily be incorporated, and the related term "largest village in Britain" turns up a few more. Metaphorical use of the term, well attested by those searches, could also well be covered. Warofdreams talk 20:58, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

:Please don't just point to a Google search. Show the sources that discuss this topic and use them to improve the article and to demonstrate actual notability. I think your assertion that these sources exist is wishful thinking, because I didn't find any such sources when I looked. A whole lot of "x is the largest village in England" claims in passing does not add up to significant coverage. Fences&Windows 23:57, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

::* These references are ample for our purpose. They demonstrate that numerous places are referred to by this accolade. We cannot redirect to any one of these places because there is no single holder. A disambiguating article of this sort is thus needed for navigational purposes. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:55, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

• Keep The Guardian and other reliable sources refer to the different location as the largest village in England. Dream Focus 04:04, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

• Keep Article has reliable sources, which makes it meet general notability guidelines, and describes a topic that is covered. Richard (talk) 04:56, 5 October 2009 (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.