Talk:Oxford (Pennsylvania)

Proposal to redirect

There are no listings, nothing to see, and no substantive edits since 2010. Any objections? Ground Zero (talk) 22:17, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm a big proponent of cleaning up stub articles that could be better merged elsewhere, but in all honesty Wikipedia makes w:Oxford,_Pennsylvania look like quite a viable destination with a population of 5,000.

Take a look at the What is an article? policy for guidance around this. Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:42, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Oxford may be a destination, but this isn't a travel article, and in seven years, no-one has stepped forward to write a travel article about this place. Ground Zero (talk) 02:00, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

That statement may be true, but nothing in wiaa policy says an article can be deleted just because it hasn't been touched for a long period of time. Actually hundreds if not thousands of other articles can probably claim the same situation. Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:43, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

My point though is that with no travel listings, and a demonstrated long-term unwillingness of anyone to add travel information, this is just a pale imitation of Wikipedia, without sources. Other articles give info about how to get there, a hotel or two, and a museum, which gives the traveller somewhere to start. This one? Bupkus. Just some history which may or may not be true. Ground Zero (talk) 23:22, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

In the time you spent on this thread, you probably could have done something to improve the article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:26, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

As could you, and you seem to think this could be an article. I don't. Ground Zero (talk) 11:44, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

What is your basis for thinking it couldn't be a viable article? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:28, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Even though I would regard Ground Zero's observations as generally correct, it doesn't really change the policy that an article must meet an extremely low bar to get deleted. Unless we change policy then qualitative judgements on this article are irrelevant. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:49, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough. I think it highlights a problem with the policy: we have an article on a suburb of 4300 people that no-one is interested enough to write about and that has no useful information in it. I think it diminishes the project, but I don't feel like taking on a policy change argument, so I guess it will just sit here growing even mustier. Ground Zero (talk) 11:51, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Agree with Ground Zero. It took me a very long time for me to understand that consensus here prefers more lower content articles over fewer high content articles. Of course exceptions can be made, but that's unusual. Looks like Traveler100 has a similar question at Talk:Hanover_Region? It feels like this is an unresolved issue at the core of WV, but I guess that's just the way it is. --ButteBag (talk) 15:46, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I personally do support fewer quality articles than many stub articles that people create and then can't be bothered with. Where it can be justified I do merge articles up (for example a group of articles for small villages into one quality article to cover them all). In instances such as this where I have argued to delete an article, I usually get someone who is ideologically driven to then go put content in just to filibuster the discussion. Any case although I agree it is not a great experience for readers, the existence of such an article is not that detrimental to the overall quality of this site. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:55, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Actually, if someone does add relevant travel content to an article to prevent it from being merged up, I'd say that's a win for Wikivoyage. We don't have that in this case. Can it be an article? If no-one is willing to add travel content, then no, it can't. Ground Zero (talk) 22:17, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Improvements

After a unilateral attempt to redirect this article to the article for the county, I've decided to do some work that can be done solely based on web research to improve this article. But let it be clear: There is no consensus to redirect this article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:07, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Eat and Drink

It's not hard for me to get results on Yelp, but I'm not sure I trust the quality of any of the eateries (maybe the sub store). As for bars, there's a brewbup that's probably fine to list. The problem is, I just don't know whether to trust anything without having actually tried it. I've found that sometimes, places that are 4 stars on Yelp actually suck, including a bar/restaurant I went to in Waterford, NY, that I guess may have been rated more for drinks and bar scene than food, whereas a 3.5-star rated diner down the road was actually excellent. I looked at the Facebook page of the apparently top-rated American restaurant in Oxford, and it showed some sad-looking taco they were making for Cinco de Mayo. What would you do? It's really too bad User:(WT-en) Nicole89, who started this article and must have some local knowledge even though she didn't provide much detail on anything except history, never made the jump to Wikivoyage. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:29, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

• I don't think we should trust people on Yelp any less than people who contribute to WV, or, for that matter, people who contributed a listing to that other site ten years ago. Reviews can be written by someone who had a random bad experience at a usually good place, or by some who somehow had a good experience at a place that is usually awful. That is why online reviews are usually only trustworthy if there are lots of them. We don't have the luxury of having lots of reviewers to go out and check places out in odd little places like Oxford, so I would say it is better to list some places to help the reader find them, even if we can't vouch for them ourselves. Ground Zero (talk) 23:35, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

You're probably right. I'm not terribly happy about the situation, though. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:02, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to redirect revisited

Has the point been made, with the improvements in this article, that anyone wanting to spend some time doing Internet research can create at least a practically somewhat usable article (this one is probably actually Usable now) on a town that has a sufficient amount of things of interest in it? I think I'm done adopting this town, but one of you could adopt any number of the towns that could have viable articles and make them viable. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:54, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

• I agree that towns such as these can have articles, but we have limited volunteer power. Regular editors can and do expand articles from stubs to usable articles every week. But where our limited resources mean that an article sits for seven years with only history, and demographic information that is (a) out of date, and (b) inappropriate for a travel article, I argue that such an article diminished WV. A traveller looking for information who comes across this article will be disappointed and think less of our project because of it. I am glad that you were willing to invest the time to bring this up to a travel article, but we can't assume that our relatively small band of contributors will be willing to save all articles in such a way. We might be better off devoted our limited resources to places that travellers are more interested in. Ground Zero (talk) 10:15, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

I guess my feeling is that in cases in which a redirect is regrettable, maybe one of us can volunteer to do the kind of internet research I did (with a little help after I got started) to make an article decent for one place every few months. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:49, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

There are two perspectives on what will happen now that Oxford has a real article. The glass-half-full view would be that now there is an article, people will use it, add to it, and update it. The glass-half-empty view would be that there is nothing in Oxford to draw tourists, and it is so small that it attracts so little business/family travel that no-one will actually use this article. If the latter is true, then we will have spent time digging up information that will be of use to no-one -- time that would have been better spent working on articles that people will use. Whenever anyone contributes constructively to WV articles, I see it as a win, but I wouldn't want to make saving articles of rarely-visited places a priority. Ground Zero (talk) 12:57, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

What do you suppose the ratio of lurkers to editors is? I think that's the part you're not considering: That people may use the article without adding anything to it. We serve the traveller by providing information, whether or not the users edit it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:17, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

By the way, I would have to say that a place with such a big Historic District is worth a detour. I'll give you a name of a place with a couple of Historic Districts whose article deserves more love: Cohoes. My girlfriend and I spent a great afternoon there. But there was only so much I could add based on that afternoon. And Oxford is a place that I'm probably never likely to visit, though who knows? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:17, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with either town, but I am drawing conclusions about Oxford based on the lack of contributions. I guess we don't know the number of lurkers on our articles, so we can only speculate the extent to which the information is being used. As for me, I'm unlikely to be visiting the US in the next 3¾-7¾ years, but I hope to spend some time there in the future. Ground Zero (talk) 00:20, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Best to wait for a better political situation. Cohoes is in the Hudson Valley, which is a lovely part of the country to visit. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:25, 17 May 2017 (UTC)