Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/17 km, Sakhalin Oblast

17 km, Sakhalin Oblast

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

As the peculiar name suggests, what evidence there is indicates this is/was a rail stop and not a settlement. Looking at the Russian version, I see that it was designated a село, but even given the vague nature of the term, there's no evidence that there was or is a village/whatever there; indeed, I cannot find a feature on GMaps or anything similar which I can identify as this place. Mangoe (talk) 21:22, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Russia-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 22:22, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I'm functionally illiterate in Russian, so I can't read the sources for myself, but all the article says is "This is a place in the middle of nowhere" and basically nothing else. If something important goes on there or we get more information, we can resurrect it. ❤History Theorist❤ 02:02, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Population of 2, which is non-zero, according to Results of the 2020 All-Russian Population Census for the Sakhalin Region, and which was probably rather more at the time the settlement was founded. Did nobody bother to look at the corresponding article in Russian (with 9 references) at ru:17-й км (Сахалинская область)? Being named after a railway kilometre-post is not a reason for deletion. Consider 100 Mile House in British Columbia, several place names at Mile End (disambiguation) and Two Mile. We have enough evidence to keep the article. Dismissing it as only a railway point is unjustified and the dreaded "original research". Google Translate's version of the Russian article. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 04:10, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 11:44, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Needs a brutal cleanup, a copyedit, and a couple factual corrections, but I can confirm this is a place that's categorized as an inhabited locality and previously had people living there, which is all that's needed to keep a geostub according to our geonotability criteria. Keep.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 4, 2023; 21:42 (UTC) 21:42, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - The “population” of 2 people are discussing above is entirely consistent with the staff of the railway station! If the GEOLAND standard (a guideline) is literally leading us to keep articles about non-notable railway stations in the middle of nowhere that nothing notable can be written about against WP:IINFO (a policy) then that’s a reason to doubt that GEOLAND is guiding us correctly. GEOLAND anyway only creates a presumption of notability, a presumption that is decisively rebutted by a simple reference to common sense: this is a railway station with a staff of two people. No evidence at all is presented above of it having ever been anything but this.

None of the references in the Russian language article help with this - indeed they highlight the true nature of what is being discussed: the locality had no population when it was designated a “village” in 2004, it had no population at the next census either. In 2021 the locality was recorded with a population of 2 people. “Village” status in Russia can therefore be given to locations with an official population of zero. This is therefore not a “legally recognised populated place” since it does not need to have a population to receive or keep the status. FOARP (talk) 03:16, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It is very much a "legally recognized populated place" because a) it is listed as such in all official lists of populated places (whereas generic railway stations are not); and b) the staff of railway stations is counted at the official place of residence of the said staff (which must be at an officially recognized inhabited locality, not at a place of work like a railway station). Inhabited locality status is also never given to (yet or already) unpopulated areas (although a previously populated place with an inhabited locality status may still retain said status despite later becoming depopulated); but even then (and even after officially having been removed from record) such places would continue to meet our criteria for keeping. The 2004 law which granted this place the status of a selo was simply one that unified the types of smaller inhabited localities across the whole of Sakhalin Oblast; it was not one transforming a random railway station into a brand new populated place; "17 km" already had populated place status before that (since at least 1948, as a matter of fact). It was one of seven rural localities (5 "settlements" and 2 "stations") under jurisdiction of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk which got reclassified as selos (both "settlement" and "station" had already been legally recognized types of rural localities before; along with "village" and "selo"). Furthermore, the Law on the Administrative-Territorial division of 2011 (and the Law this one replaced) specifically clarified that supporting structures are not on their own considered to be proper inhabited localities; inhabited locality status would specifically have to be granted for that to stop being the case:
Населённые местности, имеющие временное значение и непостоянный состав населения и (или) являющиеся объектами служебного назначения (вахтовые и дачные посёлки, железнодорожные будки, дома лесников, заимки, полевые станы, метеостанции, животноводческие стоянки, прииски, лесоучастки и другие объекты), а также одиночные дома не являются самостоятельными населёнными пунктами и числятся за теми населёнными пунктами, с которыми находятся в административных, производственно-коммерческих и социально-бытовых отношениях. (Populated territories with temporary significance and non-permanent population and (or) service objects (shift and dacha settlements, railroad cabins, foresters' houses, camps, field camps, meteorological stations, livestock camps, mines, timber plots, and other objects), as well as stand-alone houses are not considered to be inhabited localities and are registered with those inhabited localities with which they are in administrative, industrial-commercial, and social-residential relations--Article 8.4).

Сельские населённые пункты делятся на следующие виды: 1) село; 2) посёлок; 3) станция; 4) разъезд; 5) хутор; 6) иные населённые пункты, не отнесенные к городским населённым пунктам. (Rural locality types include: 1) selo; 2) settlement; 3) station; 4) junction; 5) khutor; 6) other inhabited localities not classified as urban--Article 8.3).

I also would like to note that assuming that just the population is 2 it means it must be "staff" is pure original research and a conjecture. The very WP:NGEO you're quoting states that [p]opulated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low. Even abandoned places can be notable, because notability encompasses their entire history, and there is plenty of evidence that 17 km is indeed a legally recognized place, which was populated in the past, even if it not now.

Note also that 10 km, 14 km, 16 km, and 19 km are all bona fide "railway stations" in the immediate vicinity. None of them have or, to the best of my knowledge, ever had an official inhabited locality status or had their population recorded separately. If any of those were to be created based on the NGEO guideline alone, they would have to be immediately deleted. But 17 km is not the same at all.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 5, 2023; 04:39 (UTC) 04:39, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Inhabited locality status is also never given to (yet or already) unpopulated areas" - sorry, but here we have an example of exactly that occurring. The population was recorded as zero in 2002 and zero in 2010 according to RU Wiki, yet it became a selo in 2004?Saying it previously had another status at another time is neither here nor there unless it is demonstrated that there was ever a real settlement at this location - 2004 is when it became a selo, which is the status you're arguing gives it legal recognition.

If you're going to claim the place was a legally-recognised populated place in 1948, this requires evidence that you aren't producing. Instead we can see from the RU Wiki article that it was given a station-name according to a local declaration in 1947 on railway station names in the area, that it was made a "territorial unit", and then designated a crossing - none of these shows it to be populated.

That the people who live there are railway staff is a simple logical conclusion drawn from the fact that the only buildings in the tiny area specified in the RU wiki article (0.028 km²) are railway buildings.

Citing example of places that don't have articles is pure WP:WAX, particularly when you are arguing on the keep side - I could just as easily state that this place has no real difference to those other places other than being a zero-population line-item on the Russian census and so equally does not warrant an article.

Finally, is anyone really surprised if Russia does not always follow its own laws? Particularly in a state where there is every benefit in exaggerating population? FOARP (talk) 08:31, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It didn't "become" a selo in 2004, at least not in the sense you're implying. It was simply a change of terminology. Sakhalin Oblast recognizes a variety of terms used to refer to rural localities, but there is no difference in status between them; the terms are mostly customary or historical, and pretty much interchangeable. From NGEO's point of view, whether a place is Sakhalin Oblast is a village, a selo, a station, a junction, or a settlement does not matter; what matters that they are all officially recognized rural localities of identical status, are listed as such, and track their own population (something that's not done for, say, a railway station which does not have a rural locality status—and there are dozens of those in Sakhalin Oblast, none of which would survive an AfD based on NGEO alone).

Whether such places currently have a population or not does not matter either; nor does their size. Per NGEO, even abandoned inhabited localities which had at some point been officially recognized warrant an article. 17 km meets every requirement for inclusion and will continue to do so forever, until the community agrees to change the NGEO guideline in a way that it no longer does. You of course already know that, so I'm not sure why you keep bringing the lack of population up.

The 1948 establishment claim I got from the Russian Wikipedia article, yes. It lists this document as a source (which I looked at and can confirm that it says exactly that). The "territorial unit" in the 1948 context means the same as the "inhabited locality" classification in modern context; "inhabited localities" are, and always have been, a subclass of "administrative-territorial divisions" (all of which automatically meet NGEO). The "crossing"/"junction" is another term that's been historically used (and is still used) in Sakhalin Oblast to refer to one of the types of rural localities (a subclass of "inhabited localities", a subclass of "territorial units", a subclass of "administrative-territorial divisions"--it's all in the same 2011 Law I cited above). Just like with the "stations", it does not mean that every single station/junction is automatically classified as an inhabited locality; only those specifically and explicitly conferred this status are (and in reality, it's not the station building where people work that gets this status, but the delineated territory on which that building and people's actual places of residence are located; one their own, station and service buildings would not even qualify, as the law citation I provided above would confirm).

And also, I'm sorry, but your last sentence makes it really difficult to take any of your arguments seriously and strongly suggests a bias. It also makes no sense in this context (how does one "exaggerate population" by reporting population of zero year after year?).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 5, 2023; 18:00 (UTC) 18:00, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]