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 redirect‎ to Moxee, Washington with the history preserved should anyone want to merge. Star Mississippi 01:26, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Artesian, Washington[edit]

Artesian, Washington (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Contested PROD, with the reason being that Reference 4 describes this place as a town. While that is true, Reference 4 is also a two-sentence entry in a table, dated 1923, sourced to a letter that I don't have the means to track down. References 1 and 2 are GNIS, references 3 and 5 are dead links. Other than reference 4, I cannot find a single mention of a "community" or "town" of Artesian; several news articles from the early 1900s do mention artesian springs in the Moxee area, but not one mentions a "town" of Artesian (or even any person "from" or "of" Artesian), which is suspicious considering this place supposedly had a post office in 1900. So most likely this was just a rural post office, which by precedent is wholly insufficient for passing WP:GEOLAND or WP:GNG. Another useless stub on a nonexistent location based on sloppy misreading of GNIS. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 01:20, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Geography and Washington. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 01:20, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Mr James H. Gano who ran the Artesian post office in Yakima until 1901 when rural free delivery, that he himself promoted, supplanted it,^{(IPC 1904a, p. 641)} would be astonished to learn that thanks to Edmond Stephen Meany in 1916 misreading Marian McShane's handwriting in a letter and one or the other of them promoting a defunct 1901 post office into a 1904 town, here we are a century and a quarter later. Not to be conflated with the George A. Gano who had an artesian well and later went into the hotel business with I. B. Turnell, of course.^{(IPC 1904b, p. 565)} Uncle G (talk) 02:43, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• delete GNIS is in fact not sourced to any map, but to another place names book, published in 1985 and therefore fairly likely dependent on 1923 book as its source. This makes the location extremely suspect. I'm sorry, but reference to it as a town in a listing is just not good enough. Unsurprisingly the maps show nothing at the location, even as far back as 1936. Mangoe (talk) 03:53, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The 1923 book is just a condensed version of what Meany wrote as a series of articles across several issues of his Washington Historical Quarterly starting in 1917. And Meany 1917, p. 274 attributes it to "(Marian McShane, in Names MSS., Letter 347.)". As explained on Meany 1917, p. 265 this is a handwritten letter received from one Marian McShane, who I suspect wrote an "o" that Meany mistook for a cursive "s". Uncle G (talk) 05:33, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge with Moxee, Washington, which is a mile away. As noted, the springs are generally described as a feature of Moxee, not an independent place. Jbt89 (talk) 07:10, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Except that: (a) this is the 21st century, not the 19th; (b) artesian wells are not springs; (c) this article isn't about wells nor springs but goes on about a bogus "community" and its 1-year post office; (d) none of its 3 sentences are in fact accurate and mergeable; (e) the human-made modifications of the 19th century were in the Moxee Valley not in the small area of the city; (f) they were in fact along an 80-mile (130 km) valley that was more than the Moxee Valley even back in 1893;^{(Russell 1893, p. 54)} and (g) the far more extensive 21st century truth, because of sizeable changes in the 1940s and 1960s, is dealt with, albeit somewhat glibly, in Yakima River#River modifications. Uncle G (talk) 10:11, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Agreed. For a merge to make sense there must a) be accurate content to merge, and b) if a redirect is left, some probability that someone searching for Artesian would find what they need at Moxee. Neither is the case here. Apart from the Meany book and this WP entry (and WP mirrors), there is no mention of a community of Artesian anywhere on the internet; nobody would search for it unless they came across this article first. I lived in the area for several years and never once heard of Artesian until I stumbled on this article the other day. We are creating misinformation by keeping any trace of this article. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 14:35, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Re: the current year, WP:Notability does not degrade over time.

    If there was a town of Artesian - and I'm not convinced there was - it's notable, regardless of in what century that town existed. Jbt89 (talk) 06:01, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete or merge to moxee There is no mention of a town called Artesian in the local papers. There are frequent mentions of the "Moxee Artesian District" that might be what got on the map as a town.James.folsom (talk) 23:03, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Should add there was no mention of the post office either. James.folsom (talk) 23:03, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete concur with "post office out of a house" description. SportingFlyer T·C 16:48, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: More discussion on the proposed alternative to deletion would help in attaining a consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 01:37, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete and Redirect. Per the nomination most of the article seems to be poorly sourced and possibly inaccurate, Due to this I don't believe it would be wise to merge information from this into moxee. I looked at the satellite images available and based on that plus the prior discussions (ie: James.folsom and Jbt89's comments) I think that as of the 21st century, this is now just a part of moxee. Seeing as this doesn't pass WP:GNG I think it should be deleted and turned into a redirect to moxee. Thanks! ZombiUwU ♥ ^{(🌸~♥~ 📝)} 23:18, 22 February 2024 (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.