Talk:DeBerry, Texas

As has previously been discussed, it's not appropriate to keep a running list of crimes in this barely-notable town. Murders happen wherever there are people, and almost all of them fall under WP:NOTNEWS. Geogene (talk) 00:21, 11 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

[At his behest, I'm moving this over from Johnuniq's talk page ]

• It has been my observation, that the topic of 'notable' in terms of towns'/cities' histories is a very squishy issue, open to grossly varied interpretation. Arson of a community center, in Chicago (of itself) might not be notable, but an arson involving the only community center of a small town....and the only one it's ever had, I think, is a notable part of that town's history (and was properly sourced, I might add). Below, please see the short discussion I initiated at his talk page. --Bddmagic (talk) 15:21, 22 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

You brought up an engaging point on my recent contribution to the article on DeBerry, Texas (about one of my contributions being a 'coatrack' type submission.....I was previously unfamiliar with the term, in terms of encyclopedic articles). Please spend a bit of time looking at the article on Jasper, Texas (I've never contributed to that article). What is the difference? A horrible kidnapping/murder took place there. It got much more national coverage than the abduction/murder which occurred in DeBerry---(Jasper is a slightly larger town, mind you....but only just). I've seen that, in term of towns (and their histories).....almost any contribution here can be deleted as a trifling contribution, depending on the mood of any given editor (God knows, that applies to nearly anything here.) But, honestly.....I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter. What is a noteworthy contribution for ANY town, honestly? --Bddmagic (talk) 21:00, 21 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

This issue should be discussed at Talk:DeBerry, Texas so other editors can easily find it.

Re Jasper, Texas, the general rule is WP:OSE (the fact that other stuff exists does not influence what should occur at DeBerry, Texas). However, the difference is easily seen in "catapulted Jasper into national news and led to the creation of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act."—that has national significance.

As a matter of interest, this diff shows the article is essentially unchanged since 6 December 2010, apart from some minor adjustments and text about climate. That is despite numerous attempts for various crimes to be reported. I don't think much more need be said than what I had in my edit summary (diff): "if the incidents are notable (they are not) write an article about them; an article about a location is not the place to record someone's badness". The problem is that articles would be overrun with crime reports if they were not routinely removed. Any serious assault is horrific but unfortunately the world is awash with such events and only notable events are recorded at Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 02:09, 22 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

As a general observation, the idea behind notability is not necessarily what's interesting to a local readership but what's interesting to the Wikipedia audience, the global community of English speakers. The residents of a town with a population of 2,000 or so people might consider a murder in that town to be notable. The residents of a village of 15 people might consider their neighbor Joe's new tattoo to be notable. But notability doesn't scale like that, and many articles like this are destined to remain small.

Last time this article got widespread attention, some editors gave opinions that the arson of the community center, unlike the murder, might be relevant because it destroyed a permanent building that was to some extent integral to the town itself. I don't agree with that, but it could be argued. Geogene (talk) 15:54, 22 June 2017 (UTC)Reply