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I have protected this article from editing. Please discuss the issue here. Thanks/wangi 23:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dieter Simon has destroyed this page. Jooler 23:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is highly inappropriate to delete the list of place names from this article. People researching the subject will expect to find just such a list present, and its removal significantly degrades the comprehensiveness of Wikipedia - which, as we all know, is designed to be a repository of all human knowledge - not just the bits that some people think are important. Geographical place names are easily verifiable. Unreferenced inclusions on the list can and should be properly referenced. Those who consider the lack of references a problem should take it upon themselves to make a positive contribution to Wikipedia by adding them - rather than simply dismissively blanking the valuable contributions of hundreds of other editors. --Gene_poole 23:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well said. Jooler 00:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Listen, there are pages and pages of debate on this subject and it all boils down to one thing: there are no reliable sources indicating that any of these places are considered unusual (with about 2 or 3 exceptions). You may think that they are unusual or interesing, but what you think, if it cannot be backed up with indpenedent reliable sources, is utterly irrelevent. Wikipedia does not allow original research. We've been down this road so many times that I have no interest in rehashing old debates for the sake of a few misguided users. If you can find the name of a place that has reliable sources indicating that it is genuinely unusual, then feel free to add them with he source. Throwing a list of hundreds of random names onto the page and then telling other people to go find references isn't going to wash. Read the old debates. I'll try to find the ones that weren't archived and provide links. -R. fiend 00:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For further reading check out this page, near the bottom, as well as the old AFDs and DRVs linked at the top of this page. -R. fiend 00:41, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for highlighting "[Swastika, Ontario]]: for one, a book by Alan Rayburn (a prior executive secretary of the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names) called Naming Canada: stories about Canadian place names, 2nd ed. (ISBN 0-8020-8293-9)." - Culled along with so many others. Jooler 01:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Listen yourself. A 3-second Amazon search on "unusual place names" reveals a wealth of independent, reliable, published sources. Your argument is spurious, your tone uncivil, and your mischaracterisation of other editors as "misguided" for failing to share your POV is provocative, disrespectful and wrong. I suggest that you reassess your position, and adjust your attitude accordingly. --Gene_poole 01:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In reply to Jooler saying I "destroyed this page", I am repeating the section I composed on 17 June to give the reason why I thought then and still think it most inadvisable to bring back into the main name space the full list:

Quote: Well, if you went through the confusion, convulsions and convolutions of the article's last weeks in the main name space you must also have seen that there were great numbers of people iunvolved. It certainly wasn't just one person. The article had its name changed umpteen times, was moved hither and thither, was vandalised, no-one could make up their minds as to what should happen to it during the time when it was opened up for discussion , prompts and templates were entered and removed, POV was created, some wanted street names others didn't, field names were put in then removed, etc. What ever makes you think this would ever be any different if it were brought back into the main name space? It is the type of list that lays itself wide open to the most atrocious POV and differences of opinions, as again you must have seen. You see, there were too many contrary opinions about this article, and people weren't reasonable. As for Adam's arming yourself with a Merriam-Webster is all very fine, but it's the one's which weren't in the M.-W. that caused the bother. Your taking them out of the list immediately afterwards wouldn't pacify tempers, in fact, they used to put them straight back in again. You can argue till the cows come home, as lots of reasonable people did, bring in perfectly sensible guidelines, and then someone will argue and you will find yourself on the defensive trying to reason with them. Anyway, good luck if ever you try to reintroduce it. Dieter Simon 01:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC) Unquote

Nothing has changed, the period involved is January to February, 2006, and it may be perused in the history. Read this first, it's not "fun", it's pathetic how people carried on. Then see if you still want it back. Dieter Simon 01:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jooler & Gene Poole, I sympathise with your viewpoint, but this is one of those debates where positions have ended up becoming so entrenched that you're not going to get very far by simply adding a list of names back into the article. I was a strong advocate of keeping the list in the previous debates, but the arguments for keeping it out carried the day, and so any admin is just going to side with that point of view. If you want to include a list in Wikipedia, then you're going to have to try a different approach. You either have to accept that you have to find a reliable source for the unusualness of each name you want to include, or you have to find a way of not doing that which gets community buy-in. SP-KP 18:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Any such list is going to be challenged as "point of view". I suppose some think that a city name of "Springfield" is funny-sounding, but it's certainly not unusual. However, anyone who argues that cities with names like Truth or Consequences, NM, or Intercourse, PA, are not unusual is a few fries short of a happy meal. Wahkeenah 19:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This list survived a deletion poll. But deletion has been circumvented by removing the actual list. How does that work? Jooler 21:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• That's the "dog in the manger" approach to editing. Someone doesn't like it, so they keep deleting until the other editors get tired of trying... or turn the editor in for vandalism. Wahkeenah 21:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason or other I seem to have destroyed this article, according to Jooler. Can you actually point me to the spot where I have done this? All I have done was, to revert the article to what had already been done. All you need to do is to do "Find" against my name in the History section of the article and you will see all my actions.

Actually, you are quite wrong, I used to be quite keen on taking part editing it, as you would also see if you only tried. I was against street names, and field names as those did not conform to the remit of the title of the article, yes, but the point of friction I incurred was the name Fucking in Austria, which in German has no etymological connection with its English connotations. At the time I pointed out that it may be a great laugh to English speakers assembling outside the village at the village sign and having their photos taken, but to say the least, it would be a source of great puzzlement and embarrassment (once they had been told) to the old farmers' wives passing by. Of course, it was part of the joke. The thing was that we weren't really on a level playing field, were we? Imagine Germans having a laugh at the village signs of Fickleshole or Vickerstown (real British placenames) which could almost certainly be interpreted in German in the same way. But those names never found their way into our precious list, did they?.

No, but they should have, and you could have added them. What you have inadvertently done is to help define a criterion for inclusion in the list: A word that means something innocuous in one language and is a vulgarity or otherwise funny-sounding in another language. Intercourse, PA, is English either way, yet it's funny now because the connotation of the word has changed; it's modern English vs. "old" English. FYI, I have known plenty of Germans who were fully aware of what the "F-word" means in English. But because a foreign vulgarity doesn't have the same connotation or impact as a "native" vulgarity does, it's simply amusing, not shocking. Wahkeenah 02:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fucking, Austria - was included on the very first edit of this page- [1] - it is almost the page's raison d'etre Jooler 12:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The main point, however, that should never have been neglected if one really thought about it, was whether such a list was encyclopaedic at all. It was a great laugh, I give you that, but correct me if I am wrong, an encyclopaedia isn't a comic production, is it? Yes, by all means, give a number of samples to give the reader a flavour of the thing, but hang on, a never-ending list of (often disputed) names? The trouble was people could never make up their minds, whether the names were unusual, strange, or comical. The problems were forever going on, what to call the list, what to include and what not to include, the waste of efforts and time can only be appreciated if you now take the time and take a look at the history of around that time. But I suppose, it is time to learn the hard way, once again. So, bring it back and see! I for one reject it. Dieter Simon 01:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have now unprotected the article as there seems to be consensus below for a list of referenced entries to be included. That's explicitly not a revert to the full list from way-back-when. Thanks/wangi 09:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Google book search is a place to start to find references.. there are several maps here which were published in All Over the Map Again: Extraordinary Atlas of the United States By David Jouris. It could be used as a cite at least for the welcomes. Also From Red Hot to Monkey's Eyebrow: Unusual Kentucky Place Names By Robert M. Rennick [2] gives a cite for Monkeys Eyebrow, I also see Rabbit Hash listed. It would be easy to make this article a half decent list if someone had one of these books, perhaps fork out the twelve cents and buy A Place Called Peculiar: Stories About Unusual American Place-Names from amazon --Astrokey44 11:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here's something that's apparently been around since the very first incarnation of the intro (over four years ago) but which I've removed because it doesn't make any sense. The intro said "Many place names that appear odd to English-speakers are from other languages. Often they are either meaningless or innocuous in their own tongue." The subject of the second sentence ("they") is obviously the place names. I took out the "meaningless" bit because names practically always mean *something* in the language that the names come from ("their own tongue"). Even if that language is no longer the common tongue of the people who now live in that place (e.g. Old English place names). PubliusFL 22:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the list once again as has been discussed time and time again. You really will have to look at what has been said before, as this was for ever a bone of contention. I am afraid, you should have talked about it first. See history and talk page. Dieter Simon 23:37, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Which poll are you referring to? -- User:Docu

I am not referring to any poll as such because there wasn't one, but to previous discussions in which I mentioned the history of the list and article from around the period of January/February 2006, when all the problems occurred. you really will have to refer to that in order to get an insight into the kind of things that went on. Do I really have to repeat this for the third and fourth time just to point to the article's woes at the time? Dieter Simon 23:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If List of unusual personal names is okay then why's there such a big fuss over this page? Haplolology ^Talk/_{Contributions} 11:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a copy of what I said in the talk page of "Toponymy".

I don't quite understand the reasoning behind the merger. Are all toponyms equivalent to "place names considered unusual"? I don't think so, in fact, I am certain they are not. In fact, most of them are a pretty humdrum lot of names. Why would I be looking for unusual place names under "toponymy", especially if I as an uninitiated looker-up of Wikipedia facts, don't even know what the word toponymy might mean. You really will have to convince me of this one. Until such time I will have to respond with a resounding No to this one. Definitely not. Voting Against. Dieter Simon (talk) 23:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Place name already redirects there. By the way, since there doesnt seem to be any chance of restoring the old list of names, I'm gonna make a webpage called "Funny Place Names" and put it there. Or I'll ask a friend who hosts a Wiki if he'll take it. Haplolology ^Talk/_{Contributions} 08:03, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Against, although both articles talk about place names, this one has nothing to do with an academic research on the matter, and viceversa. --Adriano (talk) 00:43, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a completely worthless article without a list. If there's consensus not to have a list, then this article should be merged somewhere or just disposed of. Right now it's somewhere between a dictionary definition and a joke... -Elmer Clark (talk) 19:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Against, especially if it means losing the article history. Kestenbaum (talk) 12:57, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Against, for the very same reasons I quoted my own words back in September 2006: "I am not referring to any poll as such because there wasn't one, but to previous discussions in which I mentioned the history of the list and article from around the period of January/February 2006, when all the problems occurred. you really will have to refer to that in order to get an insight into the kind of things that went on. Do I really have to repeat this for the third and fourth time just to point to the article's woes at the time?"

If you read this you would see how the heading was changed several times, how individual keywords and entries were removed and re-entered, how no-one could agree as to what actually should be included or not, and that this was going on for number of weeks until it was changed to the present format to stop this huge controversy. Please acquaint yourselves with the archives, it would help you to understand. Dieter Simon (talk) 01:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, my first reversion was ill-conceived, have now reverted to what looks a lot better. Well done, last anon editor. Dieter Simon (talk) 22:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here we go again, after all that has been said in the past about creating a list of unusual names, someone is creating it again, and with it all the friction which was the characteristics of the old list. After so many changes, not only of what was or was not unusual about individual place names but also the actual changes of the article title at times it created so much aggravation.

Can you not be bothered to read the old talk pages, granted now archived but nevertheless still available to be read. But of course we can't be bothered, can we? Wait for the avalanche of claim and counter claim, that this is wrong and that ought eo be changed. The time waisted over this list was unbelievable. Just look at the old history when the list was up and running. You can see it all. See the period of January and February 2006, among others. Dieter Simon (talk) 22:13, 25 April 2009 (UTC) Dieter Simon (talk)[reply]

Read even above talk pages, if you you want to see what went on. Dieter Simon (talk) 22:16, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The best way is to look at the history of this article of the period January and February 2006. You will get an impression of what was going on during that time. Dieter Simon (talk) 23:44, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of extraordinary diseases and conditions has been tagged for deletion (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of extraordinary diseases and conditions). Feel welcome to give comments and suggestions, because the main reason is basically the same as what was the case for this article: Lack of proper definition of what really is unusual, and therefore what to include or not, as well as making inclusions verifiable and without original research. Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:49, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It survived the AfD, but is still in need for improvement, so further suggestions are very appreciated. Mikael Häggström (talk) 05:34, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer deletion, but it is also likely that certain place names will have solid references indication that they are considered unusual. the problem is that this article has no references. the previous references, which i deleted or moved, were to external links, most of which were unreliable sources. This article cant be just a link farm for every goofy list of names. Really, we would need an article going into why there are so many names which seem unusual to so many people (not just cross language puns, which cant be helped). I would actually support a sourced list of places, but ONLY if they had articles on WP, and ONLY if the articles had clear sources saying that many people thought the names were "unusual". Unusual is such an undefinable term, i cant believe people like using it in article names. This is my best attempt to fix this article up. Please note, i am NOT trying to gut it so it can be deleted. i accept that its staying, but it just needs to BE...AN...ARTICLE.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:11, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ive added some references, by finding articles referring to offensive names. those are uncontroversially unusual. i apologize for not formatting the references. this article is also an orphan, though its heavily linked to user pages, etc.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 06:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are you really proposing opening another list? I hope you don't. Do take a look at the history of around February 2006, talking about opening a can of worms. If this is recreated as a list it will become an open list, whether we like it or not and a whatever we do about it. Most enlightening period, Mercurywoodrose, 2006, when the list ultimately succumbed. Dieter Simon (talk) 00:19, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry but I really disagree that the current overhaul is an improvement. No offense Mercurywoodrose, but the article was in a much better state before your changes. I'd really like to revert back to the way it was but would rather not get into an edit war over this, so I'm here on the talk page to get consensus.

As for the orphan tag, it's really unnecessary for lists such as this which aren't really meant to be linked from other pages, it's highly unlikely that one will find a subject that could usefully integrate this article's title in its text, unless you want to be spamming this link into the see also sections of the unusual place name articles themselves. And I have no idea why someone removed the selfref link to Wikipedia:Unusual place names, it's the most useful and relevant link to have on this page, and would draw away those users wanting to make this into a laundry list. And it being a cross-namespace link isn't even an issue, as that's what the {{selfref}} template is for. -- œ^™ 06:44, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that a revert, and reattempt at improvement, would be a good thing. There are some good ideas in the overhaul, but too much of value was lost.

Regarding source quality: 1) The Arkansas tourist dept, and books published by University of Calgary Press and University Press of Kentucky, and a few of the others, seem like perfectly acceptable references. 2) The corollary of "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources" is that simple claims only require simple sources. 3) It's often better to move links (to the EL section, or talkpage), than to delete them - so that people can use them to find further information. eg, that BBC quiz page links to an actual article: Dorset's quirky place names.

HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:24, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We're not really discussing bringing back the old list, are we? Really, the list is a great idea, just not for an encyclopedia. There's really nothing encyclopedic about it, and it has verifiability issues up the wazoo. Even if we tried to keep a high level of verifiability on this (which is very difficult to do, but entirely essential), is it really worth the vast effort it wold take just for a "yeah, that's a funny name...heh heh..."? Perhaps there is a scholarly work that could be written on the subject of weird-ass place names, but a list of things that make certain people chuckle is not it. We need to give it a rest. Even the link at the top seems problematical to me, as it's not a useful tool for finding important elements of Wikipedia, but a circuitous redirect to a page questionably kept in the WP namespace as a playground for things that were deleted for unencyclopedic content. It's a mess, and it really doesn't belong in this project in any namespace. -R. fiend (talk) 03:37, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anyone is suggesting replacing the list in this article. I suspect Mercurywoodrose was just trying to alleviate concern that the article was being primed for deletion. -- Quiddity (talk) 05:11, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia:Unusual place names list was a split off from Wikipedia:Unusual articles, is complementary to it, and should definitely be kept. That said, I suggest the best solution would be to just merge whatever encyclopedic content from this article into that list and delete or possibly redirect this there. That way, we don't have nonsense in the mainspace, and we get to keep the main list WITH a referenced introductory paragraph. We get the best of both worlds. Anyway, I don't see why we should have the same topic in both Project and Main spaces. In fact the original List of unusual topics was in mainspace for a long time until it was finally moved to project space. -- œ^™ 07:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I'm not sure how you concluded that Wikipedia:Unusual place names is "a playground for things that were deleted for unencyclopedic content." considering they're all blue links. -- œ^™ 07:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure Wikipedia:Unusual place names was not formed from Wikipedia:Unusual articles but was pretty much cut and pasted from an earlier form of this article, moved to the WP space as a compromise because some people wanted to still be able to access the list. Unusual Articles seems irrelevant to what we're discussing.

The places themselves were not deleted, clearly, what I meant is that the arbitrary list was removed from the mainspace for unencyclopedic and unverified content, so I don't think this article should act as any sort of soft redirect to its current residence. I really don't see why it's kept in the WP space, but as my concern is about articles I'm willing to let sleeping dogs lie.

My real question is what exactly are we discussing here? I don't see evidence that this article is being primed for deletion, though there's little enough content here it would hardly be a great loss if it were. Now, you should feel free to merge as much of this article as you like into Wikipedia:Unusual place names, however, we generally don't do cross-space redirects so this article isn't going to redirect to it. That would be tantamount to merging the other article into this one, and it was removed for a reason. So can someone succinctly state what they'd like to see this article look like? Right now I don't have a clear idea. -R. fiend (talk) 12:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, yes I misunderstood your statement about it being a playground for deleted content. What I think should be done is a complete merge of this article (as it existed in its state before Mercurywoodrose's recent overhaul) into Wikipedia:Unusual place names. Whether we have the cross-namespace redirect to there is another matter, but one that I'm not overly concerned about. -- œ^™ 22:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have no strong feelings about what goes into the Wikipedia:Unusual place names page. Unless it's policy, I don't really care much about the Wikipedia space much at all. My concern is, following a merge or whatever, what is left behind in this article? If it's nothing, then I guess that means a delete without redirect; if it's the article's current state, then I don't think it needs discussion here at all (although the soft redirect header should be addressed by more editors). But if it's going to be something else, then I would like to know what the proposal entails. -R. fiend (talk) 01:35, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]