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. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:04, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Birch Island, Illinois (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Non notable island mislabeled as a community, fails WP:GEOLAND and WP:GNG. Successfully prodded for this reason in 2021 and re-created in 2022; original deletion rationale still stands. –dlthewave ☎ 04:52, 8 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Geography and Illinois. –dlthewave ☎ 04:52, 8 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• flipping obvious delete and we need to stop allowing this sort of stub at all. Mangoe (talk) 20:33, 8 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per WP:V and WP:GEOLAND. There are no reliable sources to verify the subject's existence - the GNIS is not a reliable source for these purposes. The coordinates given point to part of a wildlife refuge next to the Mississippi river on the Illinois/Missouri border with no settlement in sight. Even if it does exist (or did exist), GEOLAND only gives near-automatic notability to legally recognised populated places and we have no evidence this is legally recognised. Hut 8.5 17:38, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Hut 8.5: While the GNIS claim of it being a populated place is, indeed, unreliable (likely a data entry glitch) and consensus agrees with this, GNIS is definitely a reliable source for the fact that an island was surveyed to exist at this location. jp×g 12:18, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but we would need much more substantial coverage of it for it to be notable as an island than as a populated place, and we're struggling to find anything at all. Hut 8.5 17:00, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, although I must say that previously made arguments are rather bad. GNIS is, whatever. There should be other sources, yes -- and an attempt should be made to find them. I hate to say the same thing over and over, but there have been tons of geostub AfDs where "no sources" turned out to be "lots of sources" when someone gave it a detailed look. So I will do that here... Here we see a Birch Island in St. Ignace, here we see one in Wisconsin, Wisconsin again, Massachusetts, Lake Huron again. This one actually talks about a Birch's Island in the Mississippi between Illinois and Missouri, so it seems promising, but the map inset clearly shows some different place (Kaskaskia) quite a few miles south. I don't see any SIGCOV for this. Stick a fork in it. jp×g 12:16, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, JPxG, that's basically what I found when I prodded last year. I didn't explain my entire process in this nomination but when I find an apparent GNIS error, I do search for sources and check historical topos to ensure that it isn't likely to meet GNG or other notability criteria as a geographic feature. –dlthewave ☎ 16:26, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Dlthewave: All right, I'll strike some of my cantankerousness then :^) jp×g 16:46, 12 August 2022 (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.