Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yanceys

:{{la|Yanceys}} ([{{fullurl:Yanceys|wpReason={{urlencode: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yanceys}}&action=delete}} delete]) – (View AfD)(View log)

I am sending this to AFD for some consensus. This location does exist, and it even has had its moments in the sun in the years prior to the creation of Yellowstone National Park. Nobody lives there now - its just a minor historical curiosity in a park filled with much more interesting curiosities. The problem is that this "town" has a {{gnis|1597553|Yanceys}} entry and so it has the usual collection of Google links for real estate, dating and jobs in "Yanceys Wyoming". To make matters worse, the original author added a link to a [http://www.fallingrain.com/world/US/56/Yanceys.html website] listing an effective population of 36 people within a 7km radius, which is deceptive because there are ranger and tourist facilities at Tower Junction, just a few km to the southeast, and I'm sure that none of them think they live in Yancey's, Wyoming. I updated the article with the best known information about the name from a reliable source, but I still don't think that this location is nearly notable enough for Wikipedia, despite what WP:OUTCOMES says. CosmicPenguin (Talk) 04:07, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• Keep If people ever lived there in the past its notable just as much as now. it is probably also notable as an pioneering tourist site. Things which have had their moments in the sun remain notable for an encyclopedia--preserving this information is one of the key purposes there have always been for encyclopedias.DGG (talk) 05:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. The location is not merely a location of a lodge, but the area has also been the subject of non-trivial academic journal articles which have made detailed studies of the wildlife in the Yancey's area. For example, E.R. Warren in 1926 wrote the paper A study of beaver in the Yancey region of Yellowstone National Park, and if you take a look at [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Yancey's%20Yellowstone&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=ws Google Scholar] you will find several more. The place has therefore been the subject of multiple non-trivial coverage, and passes WP:N. The article is a stub, and ought to have some content on flora and fauna, but that is a problem which cannot be solved by deleting the article. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Wyoming-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 11:48, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
• Keep As noted above, ghost towns are notable because they were communities, and notability isn't temporary. While sites such as fallingrain really don't appear to be reliable, the GNIS listing is highly reliable and in some ways definitive, making the community plainly notable. In accord with the US community naming conventions, I've moved this to Yanceys, Wyoming. Nyttend (talk) 13:14, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

:* To be honest, I think that the term ghost town is pushing it. This was never a community - as far as I can tell, this was just a single lodge / ranch / hotel out in the middle of the wilderness. I think that the GNIS entry as a populated place is more of a historical oddity carried over from older maps. Wyoming is filled with unremarkable swales and valleys named after homesteaders and a single rancher does not a community make. However, I agree that the geography of the general area is notable, and for some strange reason, we do not yet have an article on Tower Junction which is an important location in Yellowstone. There is enough history as to Yancey's that if this article is kept, it could be nicely merged into a larger Tower Junction article. CosmicPenguin (Talk) 19:00, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

::If it was a populated place in the past (enough to be included on official maps), either it's yet a community today, or it was and now isn't a community — thus making it a ghost town. If you can convince the GNIS (there is a way to contact them if you believe you can prove that it wasn't and isn't a populated place) that it's not a populated place, the strongest argument to keep this place falls; but as the GNIS, a highly reliable source that's part of the USGS, sees this as a populated place, I don't see why we should tell the USA's central mapping authority that it's wrong. Nyttend (talk) 14:54, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

::* Hmm, I'm not convinced. I went looking for some examples of similar locations that might also be labeled as "populated place" by GNIS, and I found one. Pahaska Tepee was William "Buffalo Bill" Cody's hunting lodge near the eastern entrance of Yellowstone Park. It is, and has always been, just the lodge - there might be a few caretakers or staff that live nearby these days, but it would be difficult to argue that it was a "community" by any standards. Yet, the GNIS calls it a [http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=gnispq:3:::NO::P3_FID:1603517 populated place]. I think the most telling part is the citation for both Yancey's and Pahaska Tepee, if I may quote from the GNIS: Collected during Phase I data compilation (1976-1981), primarily from U.S. Geological Survey 1:24,000-scale topographic maps (or 1:25K, Puerto Rico 1:20K), various edition dates, and from U.S. Board on Geographic Names files.. I think this is how we got to where we are - the name existed in some prominence in the past, and the name was absorbed when the GNIS got organized. So the question is - in Wikipedia's eyes, what makes a populated place a community, and what makes a community notable enough? Does a ranch count as a populated place? How about a homesteader's cabin? I don't think they are notable, just for existing, but I would be happy to be told I'm wrong. CosmicPenguin (Talk) 15:37, 2 December 2008 (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.