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 delete. The people arguing to keep failed to provide any policy-based arguments. In particular, I can find no policy which says that Wikipedia is a gazetteer. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:33, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Matakana War Memorial (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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NN. One of thousands of war memorials across New Zealand, and far from being a notable one - its main claims to fame listed here are that it is significant in its (relatively small) district, has been vandalised a few times, and has its own facebook page. Its sculptor is not notable enough to have his own article; neither are any of the names inscribed on it. A smaller article on the same subject by the same editor was recently merged into the Matakana article, which is where it properly belongs. Grutness...wha? 23:10, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Thousands" of war memorials in New Zealand? What's your source on that? According to the New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage, there are only 453. [1]--Oakshade (talk) 19:47, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Read that again. According to the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, the original register contained 453 First World War memorials. Since then, "many more memorials have been added". What's more, "At this stage it mainly includes civic First World War memorials and memorials from the New Zealand Wars and South African War" and "There are gaps in the records. We invite you to check your local memorials to see if they are on the register." So a list that initially included 453 items from one, albeit major, conflict, which has been significantly added to, is still incomplete, and does not yet include much from the years post WWI. As it stands, this massively incomplete register "over 900 memorials throughout the country" [2]. "Thousands" may be an exaggeration, but over 1000 is more likely than not - especially since a quick glance at the map for my local area shows several missing. Grutness...wha? 23:30, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So it's not "thousands" as in over 2,000 but maybe just over 1,000.--Oakshade (talk) 23:53, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, "thousands" may have been an exaggeration on my part, but given what information is there, and what information is missing, I'd say that the total figure could well be somewhere around 1500. FWIW, I've done a more detailed check on the memorials listed for the city I live in - it lists 20 memorials close to the city, but I spotted at least nine missing. If that is consistent across the country, then there would be 45% more than the 900 currently listed - and that's assuming I haven't missed any, which is unlikely. Grutness...wha? 07:13, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Make that 11 missing locally. Grutness...wha? 07:24, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't even think 'thousands' is that much of an exaggeration. War memorials take many forms: most schools, churches, clubs etc. which were in existence during the first few decades of the last century would have plaques or honour boards for those who served; some public buildings are themselves war memorials; one famous war memorial is even a bottle of beer. Daveosaurus (talk) 04:55, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep on the basis that Wikipedia is a gazetteer. I believe it passes WP:GEOFEAT, bullet 1 Fiddle Faddle 23:20, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, it doesn't. It's not on the NZHPT register of historic places, which would be the criterion for bullet 1 of GEOFEAT. As to being a gazetteer, as it says in WP:NGEO's lede - "[...] geographical features meeting Wikipedia's General notability guideline (GNG) are presumed, but not guaranteed, to be notable. Therefore, the notability of some geographical features (places, roadways, objects, etc.) may be called into question." Grutness...wha? 23:30, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Seriously, marking this page for deletion on Remembrance Day?! This page is new and needs further work. It was absorbed into the Matakana page and then created as a stand alone page. There are several people throughout New Zealand who wish to contribute to its development. It is intended that this page will be part of a series of pages about significant monuments, war memorials, and their sculptors. It would be appreciated that, instead of deleting the page, that referencing and formatting continue to improve the page. Regarding the NZHPT, the classification of the monument is pending.--TheBlackandSilver (talk) 05:20, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The day has little relevance to whether an article is notable or not. And I have no objection to articles about significant monuments. This one, though, is utterly non-significant. Is there one single thing about it which makes it notable? Certainly nothing which I've been able to find brings it close to passing WP:GEOFEAT. I'm an inclusionist, but there are limits to what should be included. If the monument passes NZHPT classification, then it can always be re-created, but a large number of structures get nominated, with only a relatively small proportion of them being accepted. Look at it this way - at the moment, there are articles for New Zealand war memorials in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Matakana. That is, the country's three biggest centres, and one which would not fall in the country's largest 500. The Matakana monument has nothing which makes it any more significant than those in any of those other 500 centres, and indeed it is far less notable than many - possibly most - of them. A lot of these monuments are perfectly acceptably covered as sections of articles relating to their locations. As is this monument, adequately covered in the Matakana article. The subject simply doesn't meet WP's notability criteria enough to have a stand-alone article.

I realise that you have put some work into the article (indeed six of your 14 Wikipedia edits are related to it in some way - including re-creating the page after it had been declined at AfC... which should have been a hint about whether it should be here), but even so, sadly it seems unlikely to meet WP's notablity standards. It doesn't matter how much extra tidying and formatting is done to an article if it doesn't reach those standards. I would suggest that, in the interests of improving articles on New Zealand war memorials, work be done on some that are clearly notable - there are a substantial number of them which would be useful here (like the one for Dunedin Cenotaph, which I just created). Grutness...wha? 08:30, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Nick-D (talk) 06:02, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of New Zealand-related deletion discussions. Nick-D (talk) 06:02, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete This seems to be a run of the mill community war memorial, and no more significant than the thousands of similar memorials in Australian and NZ towns and suburbs. The article's sourcing rests heavily on minor local news sources which I don't think are sufficient to establish notability. The article can be recreated if the memorial is listed as a historically significant place in the future and/or high quality sources become available. Nick-D (talk) 21:47, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Architecture-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 14:55, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect and Merge to Matakana, teh small section there is truly all that the sourcing can support. And to User:TheBlackandSilver, thank you for doing all of this work. It can take time to find you sea-legs, to figure out what makes a good article, find topics that we need your help to improve. Welcome; I do hope that you will stick around and help. There is lots of work to do. Perhaps you could offer to use the material you have brought to this page to improve the War Memorial seciton on the Matakana page. Cheers.17:39, 18 November 2015 (UTC)E.M.Gregory (talk)

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.