Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/St. Paul's Reformed Church

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Snowball keep. Dabs are still articles in the mainspace, and should be filed at AfD in the future. Synergy 23:14, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

St. Paul's Reformed Church

Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Disambiguation pages with only two entries, disambiguation pages with only two entires are not recommended. In this case, we don't even have an article on either of the linked topics. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:37, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is this in the right place? Surely it should be Articles for deletion? how do you turn this on 00:41, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't know...a disambiguation page isn't really an article. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:47, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, but it is in the mainspace... I dunno... it's not really a big deal, right? how do you turn this on 00:49, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dab are always dealt with at AfD. MFD is only for items "...outside of the main namespace (also called the "article namespace") which aren't covered by other specialized deletion discussion areas". Grutness...wha? 23:07, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent)The disambiguation page provides assertion (accurate) that the two churches listed are National Register of Historic Places sites. They are individually wikipedia-notable. And, there are likely more churches of that generic name. It is fine to have this as a disambiguation page. It should not be deleted.

About the fact that neither of the two NRHP articles has yet been created: Please allow me to paste in the following passage from a recent discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Red links on disambiguation pages:

Allow me to explain how having the disambiguation helps. You have to understand (and I believe that you do) that there are multiple cases of many NRHPs having the same name, and that each individual NRHP is wikipedia notable (because there is plenty of documentation available about each one, from their nominations, and they wouldn't have been accepted if they weren't of some national importance in the U.S.). There are also NRHP county lists for pretty much every U.S. county which list all or almost all of them. Here's the problem: say there are 3 or 5 or 15 such lists pointing to, say "Lewis House", each in a different state and county, and say that Lewis House is a red-link on each list. Then, when a local editor chooses to create the first one, he/she has no way of knowing there are other Lewis Houses, so he/she expects it is a unique name and creates it in the name "Lewis House", rather than as "Lewis House (Smithville, Pennsylvania)" or whatever. And the editor and others may add multiple links in county articles and elsewhere, meaning this particular Lewis House. Problem #1: This immediately creates erroneous blue-links to the Smithville one in the other 2 or 4 or 14 lists. Later, as editors in other localities check on the Lewis House on other lists, they have to evaluate the existing Lewis House article and consider whether it is the same place as theirs. Finding it not to be the same place, they have to evaluate whether to move the first-created one to a new name or not, and to set up a proper disambiguation page, or whether to set up "for" links at the tops of the two articles. Problem #2: the evaluation of what to do is not obvious and takes time and effort. Problem #3: Figuring out the proper name to use in renaming the first-created one is not obvious and takes unneccessary time. Problem #4: Moving the first-created one then causes all the related articles to be pointing to the new disambiguation page, rather than to the Smithville article, detracting from the readability of the related pages, and causing more work to clear up. All four of those problems, and perhaps more, would be avoided if wp:NRHP editors would create disambiguation pages up front including redlinks for all of them. That way, all 3 or 5 or 15 lists show blue-links, but those point to clear disambiguation pages. (It does seem appropriate also to create at least one of the Lewis House articles right away, so there is at least one blue-link in the disambiguation page.) --doncram (talk) 01:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Please stop the madness, please stop messing with the disambiguation of NRHP places, which is rather well organized as it is. You are not helping. doncram (talk) 06:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. I dunno. It's probably fine here. nothing links to it and it doesn't link to anything. The two potential targets might be notable, but that isn't an issue for this page. My guess is that this has just as much of a chance being rejected at AfD and sent here as it does being rejected here and sent there. In that case, it is probably better just to spend 5 days here. My take is a weak keep, leaning toward neutral. Protonk (talk) 06:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Presumably nothing links to it because it has been useful in fixing links. --NE2 10:19, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - *embarrased* I'm going to slink away now. Protonk (talk) 15:48, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I further created a stub article so that one of the two links is now a blue-link. And, I assure you there have been numerous similar instances of AfD or other nominations for deletion of disambiguation pages involving NRHP places, which all get rejected. It has been repeatedly been determined that NRHP places are individually notable, and that disambiguation pages covering them are helpful. The disambig allow readers to find the one among many similarly-named ones is their local ones, and it helps editors creating articles to avoid using a name thinking it is the one unique place. So my vote, and what I predict will be the final judgment here, is STRONG KEEP. doncram (talk) 06:51, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Per Doncram. Rebecca (talk) 08:24, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. for reasons outlined by doncram Lvklock (talk) 09:38, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I create these all the time when there's a definite need to disambiguate; it means that whoever makes the other article doesn't need to fix all the links. --NE2 10:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for reasons articulated by doncram. I've seen the messes that can develop in the absence of pages like this one, and I don't enjoy repairing them. Further, note that the guideline on not creating dab pages for terms with only two meanings is specific to situations where one of those is the primary meaning. There is no primary meaning for St. Paul's Reformed Church. --Orlady (talk) 12:57, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. In addition to the reasons given above, note that "St. Paul's Reformed Church" is a very common name; the present two entries in the article should be a temporary situation. -- Mwanner | Talk 13:31, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Neither is the primary topic and there is near certainty that an article for the other will be created and as such, pages like this help readers and editors alike to distinguish between relatively obscure topics. older ≠ wiser 14:31, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep As previously stated. Also, please note that specific stubs/articles are usually created by people in the state where the site is. So the existence of an article isn't an indication of the relative importance of one listing over another. --Ebyabe (talk) 15:58, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per all the above. There's a (holy) host of St Paul's Reformed Churches listed by Google... it's very likely that at least one other one will be article-worthy. BTW, in future, note that dab pages should be taken to AfD, since they exist in article-space. Grutness...wha? 23:05, 21 September 2008 (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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.