Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hertford County, West New Jersey

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. Yunshui ^雲 _水 09:22, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hertford County, West New Jersey

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This is an article on a county that may not even have existed. The only source that even mentions it is a map. With only one source, there is a good chance that it was an error. The author of this article uses WP:OR and WP:SYNTH to try to explain how the county may have existed even though there are no records. The article must be deleted as a violation of WP:V Rusf10 (talk) 02:35, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New Jersey-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:00, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:00, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. I don't know what the creator was thinking... Enigma^msg 16:32, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. Random stating that the missing records are notable without indicating why. Only if some interesting reason that made them missing related to this potential county would that act as justification. We don't even have sufficient primary evidence to demonstrate existence - so there isn't enough to make for reliable secondary sources. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:07, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This seems like kind of obscure, quirky stuff about a place / placename that Wikipedia is good at handling. And the article seems encyclopedic. I believe it; I don't think anyone is contending that the information provided is false. Offhand, it seems it should be moved to "Hertford County, New Jersey", because surely it was understood to be part of New Jersey, presumably in the western part. It seems to me that it would be going backwards to delete this arcane info.

I recognize that I am not necessarily putting this not-a-vote in 100% proper terms. Please spare me all the accusations about wp:NOT / wp:ILIKEIT / wp:ITDOESNOHARM etc. All of those are true, that I do like it, it does no harm, and so on. Those may not be super-strongest reasons to keep it, but they are not reasons to delete it. --Doncram (talk) 23:43, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'll spare you the usual criticism as you requested since you already admitted your reasoning or lack thereof. It is my contention that the information provided is the article is false. The only fact in the article is that the county appeared on a map (which most likely could have been just an error). Everything after that is just speculation by the author to attempt to explain how the county could have existed despite the fact that there are no records of it. It actually is harmful to keep this article since it violates WP:V and WP:OR and is not all encyclopedic. If the article was kept, the rename you suggested would not be appropriate because at the time the county allegedly existed, New Jersey did not exist, there was an East Jersey and a West Jersey.--Rusf10 (talk) 00:30, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Okay about not renaming; i had not followed the included link about West Jersey.

The information in the article is true. Nothing is disputed. For example, everyone believes the assertion that "A note on the Thornton map states, 'The R: Derwin or Asumpinck is the bounds between the County's of Burlington and Hertford on the Wt side of the line of Partition'."

Since the nominator's argument is "that the information is provided in the article is false", this should be closed, perhaps Speedy Keep, as the nomination is obviously invalid.

And, it is irritating that this nominator, in this AFD also as in other AFDs, is apparently bent on commenting about every comment that does not agree with them. I assume it will be continuing to be irritating, because that is what they will do next. --Doncram (talk) 20:14, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Damn right, I'm going to comment again. What's really irritating is someone who continually participates in AfDs, but has absolutely no idea what he is talking about. Half the time you don't even bother reading the articles that are nominated (you even admitted to it [1]). The existence of the county on a single map does not prove it exists. If it really existed, don't you think some other mapmaker would have picked up on it? The rest of the article is a made-up explanation of how this county may have existed. We shouldn't be writing articles on things that may or may not be true. The article is a clear violation of WP:V, one of the core content polices. I challenge you to find one, just one, other source that says this county existed. It seems highly unlikely to me.--Rusf10 (talk) 22:50, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Breathe people - keep it calm. Doncram - AfD is a discussion, not a pot of (reasoned or otherwise) viewpoints. Rusf10 is more than entitled to try and convince people, so long as he isn't hectoring, which his activity is well off.

I would call Rusf10s comment hectoring, actually.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:57, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And what shall we call your usual contributions to AfD?--Rusf10 (talk) 21:15, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

~~Keep~~ withdraw. Puzzling nomination since we have entire categories filled with proposed things that never happened (Category:Failed museum proposals in the United States; Category:Proposed buildings and structures by country, not to mention Category:Proposed administrative territorial entities). Obviously, we only keep proposed things that can be reliably sourced, and this proposed county is sourced to what to be reliable sources. E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:55, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is not having an article about something that was proposed. The issue is we can't even verify that it was proposed. The only source is a single map. I'm going to guess that the map was an error and nothing more. The article starts off by telling us it "was either a proposed or a former county," meaning that basically nothing is known about it. How does that pass WP:V?--Rusf10 (talk) 21:15, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - particularly as the reliable sources aren't actually sourcing the relevant bit of the article - they are there almost to prove a negative, rather than the primary point of the article. The reliable bit has to be relevant to the core of the article Nosebagbear (talk) 21:51, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Nosebagbear:I'm confused, did you vote twice?--Rusf10 (talk) 21:58, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Rusf10: - sugar I did. In fact in doing so I actually gave the opposite to my POV. Which would make me the worst AfD cheat ever :S . Thanks for pointing it out! Nosebagbear (talk) 22:08, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete if an article existed about the Thornton map, this might be a plausible redirect target. As it is, even reliable sources aren't sure if it ever existed or was simply a drafting error on a single map. The coverage in comprehensive histories of boundaries of New Jersey isn't sufficient to meet GNG here. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:43, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as there are not enough sources to verify the information. Geographical divisions, (even if they are only proposed), could be notable. However, I would at least expect some sources which describe the entity. In this case it seems that there is only a single map which mentions this. This is not enough to claim that "it was a proposed county". That would be original research. Maps often contain spelling errors and older maps may not always be very reliable. What I would be looking for is secondary sources such as a contemporary academic work which examines these maps and reaches some conclusion.--DreamLinker (talk) 05:40, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete Having articles on a porposed place is one thing. However we have no evidence that this place was ever proposed by anyone with any power to bring it into existence. There are no sources verrifying it was a concrete and clear thing that existed.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:49, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
comment Digging a little deeper, I can see that this was a highly probable naming proposal, given that a group of Quaker families from Hertfordshire had just arrived in this part of West New Jersey when that map was created, and, of course, that fact taht we have lots of old American counties were named for English shires (including Hertford County). While I would not be surprised if additional sourcing exists, I have not found it.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:40, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

~~I would agree, if you were not such a fucking twit.50.201.95.250 (talk) 21:33, 11 June 2018 (UTC)~~[reply]

My talk page is being attacked by foul-mouthed IPs. I am sorry that this is now appearing on an AfD page.E.M.Gregory (talk) 02:31, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

E.M.Gregory I struck the attack. I would have just blanked it, but then your comment above would not make much sense to those who are not looking at th AFD's editing history.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 02:58, 12 June 2018 (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.