Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:23, 10 September 2009

Notes

Poquetanuck Cove is a Nature Conservancy site: http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/connecticut/preserves/art5371.html

According to this state tourism webpage, Poquetanuck Cove is "down the street" from Captain Grant's.

The town website says "Preston consisted of 3 populated areas, and scattered farms. Each area, Preston City, Poquetanuck, and Long Society, were typical small New England villages, with services such as a blacksmith shop, a grist mill, and a store... Small industries existed, such as shipbuilding in Poquetanuck..." --Orlady (talk) 01:42, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Turns out that the cove is in the Town of Ledyard: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/19/nyregion/nature-preserved-by-the-gifts-of-2-women.html . But the state tourism site is still relevant, as it confirms that Captain Grant's is on the Register. --Orlady (talk) 01:45, 1 September 2009 (UTC) The town line between Preston and Ledyard runs along the middle of Poquetanuck Cove so the shoreline of the cove is located in both towns. --Polaron | Talk 02:20, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Move discussion

This article represents a page move of the Poquetanuck Village Historic District, now a redirect to this article. Please comment in the discussion section below, concerning the desirability of the move and whether the matter should be closed. Comments should address issues relating to the move/merge or split of the articles and are not meant to be a debate at this phase. If direct discussion is required, it will follow in a separate section. Acroterion _(talk) 14:02, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Was this a page move from an HD article? I don't see that in the history of this or any of the articles that redirect to it. It looks to me like hte earliest version that had actual content was the sentence "Poquetanuck is an unincorporated community in New London County, Connecticut in the Town of Preston." --Orlady (talk) 14:59, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The Poquetanuck article in its present form was created by Polaron in this edit on June 21, replacing a redirect to Preston. Within the same minute that Polaron redirected Poquetanuck Village Historic District to this article. The result was just as if a stub article using Elkman generator was created at a NRHP HD name, then moved to a different name. Subsequently an external link to a B&B was added. Consider this discussion to be about my suggestion at Talk:List of RHPs in CT#Poquetanuck Village Historic District to move this to the NRHP HD name. I would have moved it myself but both pages had previously been redirected to different places, so only an administrator can perform the move. doncram (talk) 21:25, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Comments

The article is currently an NRHP HD article with just the Elkman infobox and source footnote and an assertion that Poquetanuck is a village and historic district. What is immediately supportable is that "Poquetanuck Village Historic District" is a historic district. I currently support moving the page to Poquetanuck Village Historic District so that fully sourced information about the historic district can be developed, growing the wikipedia. doncram (talk) 16:04, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose renaming, but do reword. The current wording of this one-sentence article is unfortunate. It is not accurate to say that "Poquetanuck is a village and historic district." As near as I can determine, Poquetanuck is a village in the town of Preston and the site of the Poquetanuck Village Historic District. The sources that I collected rather quickly a few days ago and listed above indicate that Poquetanuck is a settlement, formerly a center for shipbuilding, with a long history (during most or all of which it was known primarily as "Poquetanuck", not "Poquetanuck Village Historic District"). It's clear that some portion of the old village is still extant (but probably not all of it) and is listed on the National Register as an historic district, and that some or all of the historic buildings in the HD are now used for a B&B. Also, there's a place called Poquetanuck Cove that is close to the village but apparently is in the town of Ledyard. Given the current level of information, it seems to me that the article should remain in its current name, but the sentence should be reworded. Also, add the information about the HD that is in Preston, Connecticut. --Orlady (talk) 14:53, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I grant that there was a village named Poquetanuck. I tend towards inclusionism, but I don't know whether or not it meets Misplaced Pages notability standards. What is clear in wp:LOCAL and related place notability discussions is that a former incorporated, legal village would be deemed notable. Neighborhoods and hamlets are not necessarily notable. Offhand, this currently seems like it was or is a "village" of the hamlet type. Perhaps "Poquetanuck" is best left as a mention in the Preston article, and not yet split out until someone wants to develop more than a minimal stub. Or, as I have sometimes done for settlements in western and southern states, a minimal stub could be created stating "Poquetanuck is a village in Preston, Connecticut. It is associated with Poquetanuck Village Historic District." And include a Connecticut-Geo-Stub template. That is following Acroterion's suggestion for wording to avoid potentially false assertions about any relationship.

About "Poquetanuck Village Historic District", there is currently no source available commenting about its geographical and historical overlap with Poquetanuck. If the NRIS location information described the HD as being Poquetanuck or substantially the same as Poquetanuck, I would accept that as such a source, but it does not describe it that way. NRIS apparently describes it as "Roughly, along Main St. between CT 117 and Middle Rd. and along School House and Cider Mill Rd., Preston, Connecticut." It is quite possible that Poquetanuck historically included parts not in the NRHP HD: there may be portions later absorbed into different town/villages, there may be gas stations and strip malls not acceptable for HD inclusion, what is currently meant by the name Poquetanuck could differ even since the 1996 NRHP listing of the HD. It is quite likely that the NRHP HD was created to preserve a certain set of buildings that evoke a certain period of history, and that it serves like a museum about that period. A museum about one period of Poquetanuck's history would be generally deemed wikipedia notable and to be deemed as a different topic than Poquetanuck itself. I wish to allow for editors to develop about the museum, the HD, in an article at the HD name. Or i would defer if others want to start a stub article on Poquetanuck now, too, and just have the HD started by replacing the redirect from the HD name. (Actually, further, I would prefer that Poquetanuck not be a redirect to the NRHP HD name, for reason of not wanting to burden the NRHP HD article's editors with need to explain the redirect and/or to define the current village. doncram (talk) 21:25, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The historic district would not have been defined were it not for events that occured in this place. The primary source of notability is the historical events associated with the place. The fact that town historians decided it was worth of inclusion in the National Register is secondary. --Polaron | Talk 01:37, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Move to NRHP HD name Assertions about the reason for NRHP nomination are entirely speculation based on coincidence in that name. There are many NRHP HDs which have been declared which pick up the name of something nearby. There is no evidence, no source that the NRHP HD is intrinsically tied up in the identity of Poquetanuck as a village or place. It could be that this is about some architecturally significant whatever, that happens to be in or near a place of that name. There is no basis to block a stub NRHP HD article being created, and for that to serve to encourage wikipedia editors to collect photos and develop it further. Since there is no other information in the article currently, it would be best to move it to the NRHP HD name and leave no lingering article about Poquetanuck, whose notability is not established. doncram (talk) 01:23, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I beg to differ regarding the notability of Poquetanuck. Apparently, the village has existed under that name for 322 years. The town website names Poquetanuck and describes it as a "typical small New England village." The state tourism agency website describes one NRHP building as being "located in the historic village of Poquetanuck which was named in 1687." It lists the property's address as being in Poquetanuck, CT, specifically "109 Rte. 2A, Poquetanuck, CT 06365." The village name is listed in the postal service's database as a nonacceptable address, but the fact that it's listed in the database at all indicates that it was formerly in wide use (likely as an official post office name). The historic B&B's website gives the street address as Preston, CT, but it says the property is located in "Historic Poquetanuck Village." There is a Poquetanuck Fire Department, the local historical society offers a postcard sketch of "Poquetanuck Village", and there are numerous references to Poquetanuck and its institutions in the index to the historical society's book of local history. This is a populated place that has existed under the name "Poquetanuck" for 322 years -- that's more than enough to make it notable as a place. Accordingly, I oppose the proposed move of this one-sentence article. --Orlady (talk) 14:44, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for finding and sharing that information. If this were an AFD discussion on Poquetanuck, your information would likely be enough to carry the day to keep an article on Poquetanuck. I did grant, above, that there was a village of this name, and suggest that a minimal CT-geo-stub article could be created stating "Poquetanuck is a village in Preston, Connecticut. It is associated with Poquetanuck Village Historic District." Given Orlady's information, let's agree that at least that much should be done towards having an article on Poquetanuck. So instead of redirecting the current article to the NRHP name, either (a) move the current article to the NRHP HD name, and start a new Poquetanuck article. Or, equivalently, (b) change the current article to the two sentences i've proposed, and create the NRHP HD article with just the NRIS information. Option (b) appears to me to comply technically with Orlady's stated preference not to move the Poquetanuck article, so I am for that.

I note that Orlady's web research reported here, unlike in some other CT NRHP - village cases Orlady has researched, has so far not turned up any source specifically describing the association between the NRHP HD and the village/hamlet. We don't know if they are the same or different: they may overlap; either one could include the other; they could be entirely different. In my view, no one has done their homework to make a positive case for enforcing a merger. And there are numerous reasons I and others have stated in similar discussions, why an enforced merger is detrimental (for just one: it dissuades me and potential other editors from developing the NRHP HD article). So, I don't think there is any case for banning development of an NRHP HD article at the NRHP HD name. doncram (talk) 17:47, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Much of my "web research" was already documented at the top of this page, under "Notes," on 1 September 2009. This was not an extensive research project. Typing up my findings took more time than finding the websites. If you click on the links I have posted, you will find additional information about Poquetanuck, particularly about individual buildings in the village that are described as being listed on the National Register. Considering that there are only 4 National Register listings in the town of Preston -- three of which are historic districts, and only one of which is located anywhere near Poquetanuck -- it's pretty safe to assume that these are properties included in the Poquetanuck Village historic district.

As stated many times before (although not necessarily in this context), I do not see any purpose in splitting this one-sentence stub article into two separate stub articles. --Orlady (talk) 18:39, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay we disagree. I won't restate all the purposes I have previously stated. But in my view, having two articles would allow each wikipedia-notable topic to exist as an article, and allow development of sourced information by NRHP editors who don't want to contend with challenges of unsourced information and other problems in a town/village article, and avoid the necessity of describing a relationship between the two. An enforced merger requires some statement of association, which in many other cases has proven difficult to word. I think this can be resolved by a third-party judgment that there is no specific sourced information that the NRHP HD is the same as the town/village, and therefore no ban on a separate NRHP HD is supportable. Orlady, I have asked Polaron to make a specific positive proposal describing under what circumstances NRHP HD articles should not be created. Likewise, could you make a specific positive proposal? If it is objective and limited in scope, perhaps what you could provide would be the basis for a solution here and in other cases. doncram (talk) 19:08, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Doncram, can you name a single instance in Connecticut where the name of the historic district is not directly related to the historical significance of the village/neighborhood/town center? You might have a point in cases where the "area of siginificance" is only architecture. In almost all cases, historical event is also listed. --Polaron | Talk 15:01, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Polaron, I don't know what you are driving at with that question. If you have some way to infer from available NRIS fields, which NRHP HD cases are more likely than others to be situations where you think merger of NRHP HD with a town/village/hamlet/neighborhood article is suitable, I would very much welcome your explaining your reasoning, and your using that to make a positive proposal along those lines. Perhaps using available NRIS fields, you could run a query and isolate a list of 10 or 20 or however many NRHP HD situations where objective criteria suggest to you that a merger is appropriate. And you could propose that for some period of time that no separate NRHP HD articles should be created out of that list, and explain why you think that would be good to have as a consensus decision. I think that if you made an explicit, objective proposal along those lines, that you would get some support, and some help in modifying your proposal to make it workable and not too much in conflict with wikipedia policies. As Acroterion suggested at Talk:Noank, we can ourselves form any consensus we want. I don't want to do all of your work for you. But if you would begin to define some positive proposal, and include some scope limitations, then I would be willing to give comments and help you make the proposal. By limitations to include, I mean clearly stating yours is a proposal to address only an explicitly stated list, and that the proposal to ban NRHP HD articles is limited to some period like 6 months, after which time any new NRHP HD article having more info about the HD than appears in the town/village article would be welcomed. If the result is well-defined and narrowly enough limited in scope, I myself would very much want to agree, in order to end this.

The current discussion about Poquetanuck Village Historic District, though, is the result of a too-broad campaign, which does not have a consensus supporting it. In June 2008 and June and July of 2009, you went through most or all of the CT NRHP list-articles and redirected several hundred NRHP HD articles to town/village/hamlet/neighborhood articles. You might then have been hypothesizing that some coincidence in name was enough to suggest that a merger was appropriate and that NRHP HD articles should not be allowed. That was too broad a hypothesis. It has been disproven by more than a hundred cases within 6 batches of RFDs so far, where further investigation led me and you and other wikipedia editors to consensus that merger should not be enforced and that the NRHP HD article should be allowed.

And, to more directly respond to your question, yes, I do know of cases "in Connecticut where the name of the historic district is not directly related to the historical significance of the village/neighborhood/town center". Pomfret Street Historic District is one, where my reading of its document is that it is specifically not about any village centers, rather it is about a pattern of development of country estates without there being any important centers. Glastonbury-Rocky Hill Ferry Historic District is another. Also, out of the list of New London County NRHPs I do not know for sure, but I strongly expect that American Thermos Bottle Company Laurel Hill Plant, Bean Hill Historic District, Burnett's Corner Historic District, Chelsea Parade Historic District, Civic Institutions Historic District, and many other listed HDs are not listed as NRHP HDs due to the significance of a town center.

In this Poquetanuck case, started by your redirecting the NRHP HD article on 19 June 2008, I have little information to go on. Why should I suppose it is not like all of the other cases where your initial opinion has since been overturned? You need to make a positive case, or I cannot possibly agree. And, in the absence of consensus not to allow the NRHP HD article, the default solution goes back to general wikipedia policies and guidelines. Misplaced Pages policy or guidelines support creating new articles, including NRHP HD ones, on wikipedia-notable topics. doncram (talk) 18:46, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I already listed the criteria I would use in one of these discussions somewhere. To repeat: (1) The historic district name (excluding the words "historic district") should be the same as the locality name and the locality must be a village/neighborhood/section of town; (2) The historic district must have an area of significance that includes NPS Criterion A (historical event); (3) The historic district must be coincident with the village core (the original settlement). I would also add a fourth that the historic district information must be "stubby" (based primarily only on NRIS database information). This would enable someone who wants to put in the work to develop a full-fledged article to not be constrained. --Polaron | Talk 00:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Additional responses: (1) "It has been disproven by more than a hundred cases within 6 batches of RFDs so far" -- the main reason why I redirected them is that no article existed and that these could be mentioned in the town article in the absence of a full-fledged article. Redirecting to a larger topic is quite common practice in cases where there is very little information on wiki about a smaller topic. My opinion has not been overturned but it is that in these cases (redirects to towns), I have always agreed with you that in the end a separate article would be made unlike the case with villages but that a redirect is better then a red link. I acceded to your demands that the redirects to towns (but not villages) be deleted as it is not something worth arguing about (temporary redirects vs red links). (2) "in Connecticut where the name of the historic district is not directly related to the historical significance of the village/neighborhood/town center" -- that didn't come out quite right. What I had meant was specific historic district articles where I have insisted on a merge with a village/neighborhood/town center articles. Of the things you listed, many are red links meaning I never claimed these should be merged somewhere. Burnett's Corner is actually going to be a merged article (the village known as Burnett's Corner is essentially the historic district). I have never insisted that the Rocky Hill-Glastonbury Ferry Historic District be merged with the ferry. I redirected it per my philosophy that a redirect to a related or larger topic is better than a red link. I have not ever undone your removal of that redirect. The case of Pomfret Street is the only one where I have somewhat insisted. The history of Pomfret is a bit weird in that the principal village of Pomfret became part of another town and the area of Pomfret Street is what later (20th century) became the de facto town center of sorts. You will note that I said early on in all these debates that if you were going to make an article, then the redirect should be removed. --Polaron | Talk 02:32, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I have some questions about what is your proposal. I appreciate that it is limited, and focused on objective-like measures 1, 2, 3, and that that your fourth point is making an important-to-me allowance. About your (1) above, is there a list somewhere of locality names in Connecticut that might be viewed as wikipedia-notable? In some cases it has seemed that the legitimacy of localities has been asserted based primarily on the NRHP HD name. I would be more comfortable if the proposal is limited to only cases where, off some central list, there is verification of the locality and in effect its importance in some way. About (2), how do you know which ones have NPS Criterion A? If that is in NRIS, it doesn't show in Elkman output or in NRHP.COM webpages. About (3), how do you propose to identify whether the historic district is coincident with the village core or original settlement? Towards clarifying, could you identify which are the cases meeting these three criteria in New London County? Further, could you spell out what do you then propose be done in those cases. It's your proposal, but do you propose if there is no current coverage as of now that then an article at the NRHP HD name should be created with place redirected to it, or vice versa, or split half and half, or what? Vs. if there is minimal NRIS-only type information under either NRHP HD name or under place name? And then I take it to be your request that the opposite article not be created, until what? About your fourth point, how is it to be determined if a NRHP HD article to be split off is substantial enough? To make it objective, perhaps it could hinge on whether an "split" new article is of DYK-eligible length or not. And, for how long are you requesting for an agreement to run. It can't be forever. Perhaps something based on this could work between you and me though, and then it would probably also be possible to get wider agreement. doncram (talk) 05:33, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

"Wiki-notable" is not something that is defined by official lists. Nevertheless, here are some official lists of places in Connecticut:

• Listing of Cities, Towns, Villages, and Boroughs - Note that Canaan is erroneously indicated as being in the town of Canaan; it's actually in the town of North Canaan.
• Towns, cities and boroughs (all named places that have local governments)
• post offices - Canaan is correctly indicated to be in the town of North Canaan.
• towns, villages, and districts without post offices

--Orlady (talk) 19:30, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

If we're going by what is "wiki-notable", anything that gets listed as a "populated place" in the USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is sufficient to have a Misplaced Pages article. Nyttend can probably confirm that this is current standard practice. In the case of Connecticut, there are 1,303 places on the list. --Polaron | Talk 19:38, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, this helps. I see that the first suggested link gives "Principal communities" of Connecticut in some official sense, and see that it includes Poquetanuck, Noank, Quaker Hill, and Norwichtown. About populated places listed in GNIS, I don't know whether or not that suffices on its own to establish wikipedia notability. I see that it includes the same four, with boilerplate describing each as "Populated Place - Place or area with clustered or scattered buildings and a permanent human population (city, settlement, town, village). A Populated Place is not incorporated and has no legal boundaries." I accept that listing by CT as a "principal community" in the first link is okay for defining (1). It would seem to me useful to state in many of these articles something like "Podunk is identified as one of Connecticut's "principal communities" by the state's department of economic development" with reference to that list. Perhaps this one list will suffice for all cases. Thanks. What about (2), etc.? doncram (talk) 20:02, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Please don't add that sentence to articles. I would attach zero significance to the label "principal communities." For all I can tell the title "Principal Communities in Connecticut" was invented by the summer intern who coded the web page; the subtitle "Listing of Cities, Towns, Villages, and Boroughs" is a more accurate description. If it makes it easier for you to accept that these are real places, you could footnote that page as a reference citation for the sentence that says "Podunk is a village in the town of Smalltown". --Orlady (talk) 20:23, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I further note that the principal communities list names "Burnett Corners" but not Bean Hill. Polaron, given you've spoken up about Burnett's Corner Historic District but not about Bean Hill HD i had also mentioned, does that suggest use of the principal communities list will serve adequately for you too? doncram (talk) 20:22, 10 September 2009 (UTC)