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Archive 1 (2003-2004) [eventually : add 2005] | Archive 2 (interregnum, Feb 2006)

This is the talk page, with complete history, which was at Talk:Place names considered unusual just before Place names considered unusual was merged with Wikipedia:List of interesting or unusual place names (formerly List of interesting or unusual place names) on Feb 24, 2006. (NB: This archiving process is one of the reasons not to fork articles under active development...)

Note on the list

Note: For inclusion in this list, a reference to a reliable source where the placename has been seen as an unusual name must be provided and this must be where the name has some content about why it is unusual not merely a list of "funny names". A comedy site which has a large list of unusual names is not a reliable source. Un-referenced names will be removed from the list regardless of how "unusual" or funny the name may seem to be.

The issue is are place names verifiable - if they have their own article the answer has to be yes. The next issue was Wikipedia:No original research - if it is outside the wikipedia - then it is not original - unless it was derived from the wikipedia - ie the many mirrors. The web site I was referencing - a reference added to the external links by another editor was quite clearly not derived from the list that this article is replacing..--A Y Arktos 00:24, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
The issue is not whether place names are verifiable. This is not a "List of place names", this is a list of place names that meet specific criteria. Whether those names meet that criteria needs to be verified. If you read Wikipedia:No original research you'll see this clearly stated: "Original research is a term used on Wikipedia to refer to material added to articles by Wikipedia editors that has not been published already by a reputable source". Someone's blog is not a reputable source. There's really no way around that. -R. fiend 19:46, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

move

I have boldly moved this to "Place names considered unusual". I don't see what the reason to objecting to that would be. These are not places that have objectively unusual names, there is no such thing. These may be widely considered unusual, and that's fine, but the title of the page needs to reflect that that is what they are. Anything else implies bias (Well, we think this place name is unusual, so it's objectively unusual!) --W.marsh 04:45, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Both names are nonstandard. If you are going to have a page about a set of things, it should be titled "List of [things]", not just "things". +sj + 04:46, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia has had an extremely hard time with this particular style guideline... Films considered the worst ever is an example of an article that only lost its "list of" prefix once it became much more than just a list. At any rate, the article could well be moved to "List of place names considered unusual" -- the 'interesting' in the title was always a bit vague -- and the existing long article should really be moved to whatever title is chosen and worked on in place... perhaps with subpages for sections that can't be / haven't yet been verified. +sj + 04:58, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Merge

This is redundant with the long-standing existing list of unusual place names... which has been edited regularly over the past many days. Please add references to and improve the set of categories on that page rather than recreating part of it (with lots of muddy qualifiers like "considered" in the title) to highlight its neutrality here, on a page with a non-standard title. +sj + 04:46, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

That list has many unreferenced examples. Individual examples can be moved here when references are found -- Astrokey44|talk 05:34, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
I completely agree. The list in the WP space is a good place to fine tune the prototype. -R. fiend 05:35, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

This recreates an article that was deleted (even if it shouldn't have had), so I suppose it should redirect to the other or be deleted as well. -- User:Docu

The whole point was that the whole article consists and has to consist necessarily of a POV attitude, as no two people could ever agree as to what is unusual. What strikes one person as unusual, another finds totally commonplace and normal. It doesn't belong into an encyclopaedia. As a laugh in Wikipedia:name-space it's perfectly alright but up front in the 'pedia, no. Dieter Simon 18:09, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  • What is going to happen that this list will become US centric as to date references on the web foussed on either US names or obscenities. I note also that the names objected to by one editor featured prominently in at least one list I found - all US - didn't include Richmond though.--A Y Arktos 18:46, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
    Your statement of this problem contains the solution. Places should be noted as 'unusual' if a) they receive notoriety in a globally notable publication for their name [criteria for global notability can be discussed; and would be useful for more articles than this one], b) they are noted within their own region (local papers and folklore) for their unusual name. Then there is c) they satisfy one of a small set of objective criteria for being 'unusual' ['1- or 2-letter' and 'numerical' names, for instance]. +sj + 07:59, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

What is a place for the purposes of this list

When working on the other list, the concensus had developed that a place had to be not only verifiable but either the subject of an article or capable of being turned into an article (ie a redlink). Roads, streams, intersections would usually not be included. See previous discussion below. On this basis I have removed the Beaver intersection from the list.--A Y Arktos 22:51, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Unusual road signs

I removed the link to Metropolitan Parkway (Detroit area) which was where Beaver intersection, road whatever redirected. It is not a place for the purposes of this list.--A Y Arktos 08:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
We have an article on Big Beaver Road. Exactly how does this not fit the guidelines? --Sertraline 10:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC
We don't have an article on Big Beaver Road, we have a redirect from Big Beaver Road to Metropolitan Parkway (Detroit area) - no article, or potential article, no listing--A Y Arktos 20:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Metropolitan Parkway is an article that includes Big Beaver Road, thus Big Beaver has an article. Otherwise you can say we have no article about New York County, New York because it's a redirect to Manhattan. --Sertraline 23:21, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
While streets are "places" in the most general sense of the word, I think this article is looking at real geographical locations, the sort of stuff you'd find in an atlas. There are literally hundreds of millions of streets in the world. If we want to define "place" in the msot general terms, then buildings, or even rooms, would also count, and I don't think we want to go there. -R. fiend 00:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually the main way people would know about these places is through passing signs for them. There are several big overhead signs on I-75 saying "exit 69 - Big Beaver Road". --Sertraline 04:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Okay, so there's a sign. I never doubted that; there are all sorts of signs in the world. Nevertheless, I don't think we want to start including streets in such a list. They're practically infinite. -R. fiend 04:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Not when it's not just a street, but the combination of a street and an exit number announced on a big overhead sign. --Sertraline 05:58, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Seems ok to me to include any verifiable place. To avoid the red link, just dont link the place name. -- User:Docu
No - my point and the point raised in the discussion on the other list and copied below, is that places must be verifiable and sufficiently notable to have an article - a red link for potential article, blue link for real article. I think piped links are a cheat and I would not include them unless there is good reason. There are road intersections that have an article, they are sufficiently notable - for example, Broxden Junction - not an exciting or titillating name though. A sign, even a big one over a real life intersection, does not mean notable. --A Y Arktos 07:42, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
So what you're saying is that if the District of Columbia was the "District of Fucking" or something, it wouldn't be listed here because it redirects to Washington, D.C.? (or in this case, Washington, D.F.) You're just drawing an arbitrary line, one which depends on the status of other articles. These places are known for being unusual because of the signs. People take pictures of the signs and pass them around, and these places become well-known. If there was a place named "Fucking Shit Penis, Texas", but there were no signs for it, it wouldn't be known as an unusual place name. The Big Beaver Road exit has two Google News links (both of which specifically mention it as an unusual place), as opposed to none for Fucking, Austria, but the latter isn't in question. The cutoff should not be some arbitrary value of has_own_article, but how well-known it is. The Big Beaver Road exit is well-known enough. --Sertraline 08:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps the Beaver Rd info would fit in an article called Unusual road signs. Road signs are not the same as Toponymy, of which this article is a subset.--A Y Arktos 11:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Everything in an encyclopedia needs to be verifiable, but that doesn't mean that everything verifiable belongs in an encyclopedia. I think this is a case in point. We have an article created for a single example, and that's just because some online guide happened to mention that the sign gets a chuckle. This is the sort of thin gthat belongs in one of those National Lampoon books. -R. fiend 20:50, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Unusual road signs has the potential to grow into something other than a single example of sexual innuendo; see the external references. I remember from my childhood a great warning sign that "Falling stones" "Do not stop" - two signs together on Clyde Mountain on the Kings Highway to the coast. Sadly it is now gone. See the external links for a clue as to where the article might go. Fot the moment - I would like to build up this article of place names and I hope the road signs will content the orally administered antidepressant user.--A Y Arktos 21:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
  • And I recall seeing a Stop sign and a No Stopping sign right next to each other. Yeah, it was sort of amusing, and if this were Jay Leno's "Headlines" I'd think of submitting a picture. But this is an encyclopedia. such an example is exactly the sort of thing I meant with my National Lampoon comment. -R. fiend 21:08, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Red links and other things - discussion copied from Wikipedia talk:List of interesting or unusual place names

I added the following instruction in the article:
"Any new place names must link to an existing article on that place."

Feel free to move it or improve the wording. I just believe that since this is a page in the wikipedia namespace, the existence of the place names should also be able to be verified using wikipedia. Also, I don't believe that we should have links from main namespace articles to this page. It violates wikipedia:Avoid self-references, and makes mirroring and forking more difficult. I had to use a wikipedia mirror before coming here, so I try to enforce the guideline. Graham/pianoman87 talk 11:17, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


[..]
  • I support the use of redlinks.Certainly the places must be verifiable. For Australian places this means they should be able to be found on www.ga.gov.au - the Australian Government gazeteer. The links should also be formatted according to any place naming conventions, which for Australia means automatic disambiguation with the state - eg not Woolloomooloo but Woolloomooloo, New South Wales.--A Y Arktos 22:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
the red links on this page brought me to write some articles, I would not have otherwise considered - I learnt something along the way and hopefully contributed usefully to the Wikipedia also--A Y Arktos 23:54, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I can see your points. I still think the entries should eventually warrant a wikipedia article if they are redlinked. For example, I don't think we should link an entry on Kelly's Knob as it is just a lookout (see [1].) Graham/pianoman87 talk 12:18, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree, every red link should be capable of being turned into an article. Places are verifiable and should be able to create an article. A lookout seems to me to be unlikely to create an article. There are actually two Kellys Knobs in Australia [2] :-) I doubt whether anybody is going to write the article on either of them. Perhaps one challenge is, if the lister is not prepared to write the article (or at least a stub) themselves, and no-one else thinks it should be there, then it goes. So whoever wants to list Kellys Knob or such places will eventually have to put up or shut up. (We could say that, when queried, a red link needs to be turned into a stub within 7 days or it is delisted. If the lister isn't prepared to do the work and no-one else is prepared to jump in, it goes. Perhaps to leave a record of it going, the entry might get commented out with a note to the effect that while verifiable, as no article or stub ahs been written it doesn't appear on this list. This would save relisting by another humorist.--A Y Arktos 20:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. I've put a note there saying that the place should be able to have a wikipedia article, (i.e. a town or suburb is acceptable, but minor streets, streams, ETC) are not. If any entry gets added frequently enough without justifying a wikipedia article, I agree it should be commented out. However, it might be difficult to track the original lister of a place down, because many ppl who edit this list are anons. However, I think we can keep this list manageable. Graham/pianoman87 talk 11:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Oscar and Juliana

I'm glad we're getting some sources here, but I have to wonder about at least one of them. "Oscar and Juliana"? Who are they? I looked at the site a bit and couldn't tell if it was basically just two random people's blogs. If so, I'd be a bit concerned about using it as a source. I could start a blog and say "here are some interesting place names" and then upload the index to my Times Atlas of the World. A few of those I don't think would even have made it on the old page. Van, Crum, Mutt, Bobo, all seem pretty boring to me. Some place names are interesting enough that they are the subject of legitimate journalism. Some random website doesn't gve us any more than the opinions of two people, which we have on our own. -R. fiend 23:44, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

  • My work this morning has been reverted by Astrokey44 - even that which used sources which are more than lists. Since we don't like lists - and I actually think a source is a source is a source - I have taken out the external links which just seemed to be mainly referencing lists - that is where I got Oscar and Juliana. I have reverted back to work that referenced an article - pre the O and J. --A Y Arktos 00:07, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
sorry about getting the wrong revision but I still think that lists shouldnt be used as sources, I was about to do the same thing when I was looking for refs, but then realised that if you allow comedy lists of unusual place names as references than the list would become the same size as the one in the wikipedia name space as most of the lists on the web that list funny place names are hundreds of examples long. [3] [4] [5] Theyre not really a reliable source, it should be something like a newspaper article or book where it is mentioned as an unusual name. -- Astrokey44|talk 00:29, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
    • If all our criteria for what a source is becomes "someone said it somewhere online" then it is basically the same as using the old wikipedia list. "It's mentioned in a random blog" is tantamount to "a friend of mine said it was funny", which is tantamount to "I find it amusing", and we're back where we started. S "a friend said so" is a source, but only if that friend isn't a wikipedia contributor? No. Wikipedia has guidelines on what is and isn't a reliable source. The Fucking Austria article has a real source; I don't think two random people named Oscar and Juliana qualify. -R. fiend 05:56, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Published books have permanence and selectivity. Anyone can start a blog and throw whatever they want up on it. JimGeorge and JoeBob can start a Blogspot with 1,000,000 different randomly selected place names and call them "unusual." Does that mean we list all those 1,000,000 names on this list? Because a book costs a nontrivial amount of money to publish and involves a certain amount of risk to publish, we can assume that the subject was vetted by editors and publishers, and the content of the book reviewed. We can assume that its author took time, effort and expense to research what he believed are the 501 most unusual town names. FCYTravis 06:33, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  • No problem - I give in - we have an abuse of process on the deletion of the previous article - we have an unworkable to my mind solution on this one - I have better things to write about.--A Y Arktos 07:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  • There are many topics in Wikipedia one is unlikely to find in Britannica, so one can't quote the usual {{1911}} as reference. References for such topics are also likely to be different from those in articles on Science. We would probably need to delete most articles if we only accepted academic journals in articles about Star Wars.
    For this type of list, if we can quote two or several web-based sources, a wikipedia article explaining the name, one or several articles on the name, this should largely be sufficient. As we need to rebuild this list, a good start would be to take entries from the former list and find at least one source that can go with it. -- User:Docu
What you have described is more or less what I was trying to do. Verifiability of the place is covered by the blue link. If a red link, confirmation of the existence of a place would need to be checked. The AfD argument was that it was not NPOV for an editor to add a name to the list, even if it clearly met some criteria, eg the place name was a number which was defined as an unusual place name type. We now have a constraint about what source we are allowed to use for "unusual". We are talking about whether people view names as unusual - even blogs can represent people's views. However, somehow publication in a newspaper or book is deemed more authoratative. It is agreed that the principle of verifiability applies to place names (and did in the former list), but to exclude self-published sources in determining whether a name is unusual or otherwise, minimises our ability to add names to this list to the point of a farce - presumably the desired result - given the inappropriate processes around the AfDs and DRVs to date.A Y Arktos 10:27, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, "even blogs can represent people's views", but a blog represents the view of a single person (or, I suppose, in the case of Oscar and Juliana, two people). Anyone can say anything once; that doesn't make it a worthy source for an encyclopedia. Or else all we would need is someone's blog to say so and the assertment that Seigenthaler "was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations" could be considered worthy of inclusion ("look! Someone's blog said so, so 'someone' thought it was true. It's a fact!"). It doesn't work that way. Or, for a more plausable example, we have a list of films considered the worst ever. They take into account widely held opnions by notable critics, as well as things that measure the feelings of many people, like rankings on IMDb. What it does not do is assert that Cookieman34 said on his myspace blog that Chicken Run is the worst movie ever. That is not a valid source. If you can find multiple independent referecnes on such things for unusual place names, we might be getting somewhere, but some random person's blog post is not satisfactory. -R. fiend 18:03, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Old history

The history of Place names considered unusual just before its history was merged with the original article, which had been moved to Wikipedia:List of interesting or unusual place names: 

#  03:50, 23 February 2006 . . Mailer diablo (Wikipedia:Articles for 
deletion/Place names considered unusual)
# 18:43, 19 February 2006 . . Astrokey44
# 18:29, 19 February 2006 . . Astrokey44
# 18:28, 19 February 2006 . . Astrokey44
# 11:00, 19 February 2006 . . Astrokey44 (External links)
# 10:15, 19 February 2006 . . Astrokey44
# 10:10, 19 February 2006 . . Astrokey44 (List of unusual place names)
# 10:05, 19 February 2006 . . Astrokey44 (List of unusual place names)
# 10:02, 19 February 2006 . . Astrokey44
# 19:04, 18 February 2006 . . Sertraline (Why was this removed?)
# 03:25, 18 February 2006 . . Docu (fmt selfref)
# 18:16, 17 February 2006 . . JzG (nomination for deletion)
# 05:38, 17 February 2006 . . Sjorford (List of unusual place names - 
+state/country, cleanup refs)
# 14:08, 16 February 2006 . . R. fiend
# 02:37, 16 February 2006 . . AYArktos (revert waste of time)
# 19:15, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (decided to fully revert - this 
represents quite a loit of work. The issue was need references - 
reference has been provided; refer policy that sources discriminated against;)
# 19:02, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (External links - remove - many of 
them are just lists anyway - just have a refs section)
# 19:01, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (I beg your pardon - watch the 
reversion please - you removed legitimate content - this revesion takes 
it back before O and J)
# 18:51, 15 February 2006 . . Astrokey44 (rv - no content in those 
references - just a list)
# 18:42, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (List of unusual place names - 
Fertile, Minnesota, Flippin, Arkansas, Friendly, West Virginia, Gas, 
Kansas, Gnaw Bone, Indiana)
# 18:32, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (List of unusual place names - 
Eclectic, Alabama, Egg Harbor, New Jersey, Eek, Alaska., Eighty Eight, 
Kentucky, Eighty Four, Pennsylvania,, Embarrass Township, Minnesota, 
Embarrass, Wisconsin)
# 18:25, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (List of unusual place names - 
Chicken, Alaska, Christmas, Michigan. Coffeeville, Mississippi, Cut and 
Shoot, Texas, Cut Off, Louisiana, Earth, Texas)
# 18:13, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (List of unusual place names - Bad 
Axe, Michigan, Belcher, Louisiana, Belchertown, Massachusetts)
# 17:46, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (List of unusual place names - fix ref)
# 17:45, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (accident maryland; ext link -> 
ref; advance indiana)
# 16:25, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (External links - remove ext link 
that is now a ref)
# 16:24, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (List of unusual place names - 
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu)
# 16:13, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (List of unusual place names - Whynot)
# 16:11, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (External links - remove link now a ref)
# 16:10, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (List of unusual place names - fix ref)
# 16:09, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (List of unusual place names - 
+truth or consequences)
# 15:16, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (See also - Unusual road signs)
# 06:06, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (List of unusual place names - 
combine refs, instead of 3 footnotes, 1 per place)
# 06:02, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (List of unusual place names - refs)
# 06:00, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (List of unusual place names - fix ref tags)
# 05:54, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (annotate refs)
# 05:47, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (refs - explanation)
# 05:40, 15 February 2006 . . Zondor (External links - ==See also==)
# 05:38, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (rvrt - not a place, a road sign 
above an intersection)
# 03:34, 15 February 2006 . . Sertraline (Restore Big Beaver Road. See talk page.)
# 02:45, 15 February 2006 . . AYArktos (List of unusual place names - 
Bifg Beave Road is a sign not a place)
# 01:04, 15 February 2006 . . Sertraline (Add Hell, Michigan,)
# 00:58, 15 February 2006 . . Sertraline (I still fail to see what is 
wrong with Big Beaver Road.)
# 23:17, 14 February 2006 . . R. fiend (Reverted edits by Sertraline 
(talk) to last version by AYArktos)
# 23:11, 14 February 2006 . . Sertraline (Restore Big Beaver Road again.)
# 19:53, 14 February 2006 . . AYArktos (revert Big Beaver Road - see talk 
page, you are not acting in line with concensus - although this is my 3rd 
reversion - not within 24 hours)
# 18:22, 14 February 2006 . . Sertraline (Restore Big Beaver Road. See 
discussion on talk page.)
# 03:38, 14 February 2006 . . AYArktos (remove ref to Metropolitan 
Parkway (Detroit area) - see talk page about what constitutes a place)
# 00:03, 14 February 2006 . . R. fiend (List of unusual place names)
# 00:03, 14 February 2006 . . R. fiend (List of unusual place names)
# 21:21, 13 February 2006 . . HenryLi
# 18:53, 13 February 2006 . . Sertraline (then link it - it's part of 16 mile)
# 17:26, 13 February 2006 . . 61.69.3.3 (List of unusual place names - 
remove extra refs from Fucking, Austria - one ref adequate, lack of 
formatting for other links - if we are going ot reference, lets do so properly)
# 17:24, 13 February 2006 . . 61.69.3.3 (remove Big Beaver Road, as per 
discussion on previous iteration of list, place names must have a link or 
potential link (ie redlink) to be included)
# 17:22, 13 February 2006 . . 61.69.3.3 (refs fix & 1770 with ref; first 
9 items need to be properly annotated pref using web reference template)
# 03:24, 13 February 2006 . . Sertraline (I fail to see what is so 
pointless about that. I provided a source.)
# 03:23, 13 February 2006 . . Sertraline (I fail to see what is so 
pointless about that. I provided a source.)
# 03:04, 13 February 2006 . . Docu ({{selfref}})
# 01:53, 13 February 2006 . . R. fiend (rm pointless entry)
# 00:51, 13 February 2006 . . Sertraline
# 00:36, 13 February 2006 . . Astrokey44 (should not be merged; those 
examples should be moved here when and if references are found which is 
different from merging)
# 23:43, 12 February 2006 . . Sj (mege)
# 23:37, 12 February 2006 . . W.marsh (moved Unusual place names to Place 
names considered unusual: Since this is a list of place names 
_considered_ unusual (by whoever), I am moving it to a name which reflects that)
# 23:08, 12 February 2006 . . R. fiend (inclusion instructions shoudl not 
be in the article itself. keep in mind the article exists for the 
readers, not the editors)
# 22:45, 12 February 2006 . . Utcursch (+cat)
# 22:34, 12 February 2006 . . Astrokey44 (List of unusual place names)
# 22:33, 12 February 2006 . . Astrokey44
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