Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Luther, Indiana
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- 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 Cleveland Township, Whitley County, Indiana without prejudice against a selective merge. Owen× ☎ 13:08, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
Luther, Indiana
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Appears to be a 4th class PO and not a settlement: there's nothing there and no mention in county history. Mangoe (talk) 21:48, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Geography and Indiana. Shellwood (talk) 21:56, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
- The Baker source outright says that this was a post office, so this is yet another instance of falsely turning a post office into a community. Unfortunately, none of the gazetteers that I can get my hands on hit the necessary time window; but I did find a county history that has Luther, with Sawdust Mill in brackets in the table of contents: Kaler & Maring 1907, p. 149. There's also a Luther telephone company in the same place per Kaler & Maring 1907, p. 161. So this is in the history books, even if only for telecommunications matters. Uncle G (talk) 05:47, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
- Kaler, Samuel P.; Maring, Richard H. (1907). History of Whitley County, Indiana. County and regional histories of the "Old Northwest.": Indiana. B. F. Bowen & Company. (History of Whitley County, Indiana at the Internet Archive)
- Keep, meets WP:GEOLAND. Newspapers.com results show that people lived, holidayed and died there (not in that order), at least between 1897 and 1907 , ; there was a transport service that stopped there in 1922 ; there was a general store as well as a PO , ; and, as mentioned, the Luther telephone exchange was closed in 1907 . May I suggest that you search digitized newspapers before bringing articles to AfD? I have a subscription to Newspapers.com, but it appears that the same results can be found through the Wikipedia Library through NewspaperARCHIVE.com . RebeccaGreen (talk) 07:05, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
- The problem here is that what these news reports are all consistent with an isolated store which contained a 4th class post office, where people who lived in the area went to pick up their mail. Passing mentions of this as a place don't tell us enough about the spot to say that, yes, there was not only a store with a PO, there were houses and maybe other businesses and people living in a small town. We need sources that specifically address this by talking about it as a town (and no, passingly calling it a village or whatever is usually not good enough: too many people after the fact see a name opn a map and assume there's a town there). The telephone exchange is a bit better, but we're still in the situation where we have trouble telling the truth about the place, because we don't actually know enough. In particular, since it appears to bave gone now, when did it go away? Right now, our best accurate article would say no more than "Luther was a place where there was a phone exchange for a while." Mangoe (talk) 13:15, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- I have added some info and sources to the article. Several sources from the early 20th century call Luther a town. As for when it "went away", the general store burned down in 1925, that's all I know. RebeccaGreen (talk) 08:48, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- The problem here is that what these news reports are all consistent with an isolated store which contained a 4th class post office, where people who lived in the area went to pick up their mail. Passing mentions of this as a place don't tell us enough about the spot to say that, yes, there was not only a store with a PO, there were houses and maybe other businesses and people living in a small town. We need sources that specifically address this by talking about it as a town (and no, passingly calling it a village or whatever is usually not good enough: too many people after the fact see a name opn a map and assume there's a town there). The telephone exchange is a bit better, but we're still in the situation where we have trouble telling the truth about the place, because we don't actually know enough. In particular, since it appears to bave gone now, when did it go away? Right now, our best accurate article would say no more than "Luther was a place where there was a phone exchange for a while." Mangoe (talk) 13:15, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- Note From a quick'ish search the vast majority of links appear to be a link-back to Wikipedia as the primary source. It appears there might be a feedback loop -- Tawker (talk) 17:38, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- This is a general problem with GNIS-sourced stuff; there's a whole automated ecosystem that echoes either us or the original GNIS data and amplifies it without any sort of check that it is real, as indeed the mass-importers did with Wikipedia. Which is why RebeccaGreen. Mangoe, I and others are looking for county/state history books, newspapers, and contemporary gazetteers to address hundreds of thousands of outright lies. Uncle G (talk) 02:44, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 22:18, 4 February 2025 (UTC)Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 23:49, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Redirect to Cleveland Township, Whitley County, Indiana which is where the GNIS coordinates are. I think the sources found by RebeccaGreen are enough to support a redirect. Eluchil404 (talk) 04:49, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- Merge and redirect to Cleveland Township, Whitley County, Indiana , per Eluchil404. If the record were better documented, we would uncontroversially consider this a name change for a statically existing place. BD2412 T 01:35, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- Redirect to Cleveland Township, Whitley County, Indiana and discuss there. If records were better documented, I would have said to keep. Z. Patterson (talk) 03:02, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- 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.