Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Emmanuel Mission, Arizona

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
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The result was delete. Star Mississippi 03:26, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Emmanuel Mission, Arizona

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The correct name is Immanuel Mission, and it is indeed a mission, started by Plymouth Brethren back in the 1920s. I could find a little about it, though I think it comes about to the parish church level of notability. At any rate, that's a different article, seeing as how the only data from the current article that's correct and useful are the coordinates. Mangoe (talk) 20:43, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Geography and Arizona. Shellwood (talk) 21:35, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete sources I can find describe this as a private school, not a community. Maybe there are some houses around it but it’s hard to tell from what little photos there are of it. In any case the fact that no-one has caught the obvious misspelling in the title in six years is pretty good evidence this is yet another mass produced junk article about a name in a database padded out using generic information from another database. Dronebogus (talk) 13:53, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not so obvious, and there is no misspelling at all. The populated places database includes both "Emmanuel Mission" and "Immanuel Mission" as variant names, and always has. The existence of variant names is actually a mild positive indicator of importance and age of a rural place like this, IMHO based on my observing historic sites. St. Michael's Mission (Window Rock, Arizona) is one of three other mission schools in Apache County which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places having local significance. This one is definitely old enough to be listed, and there will be some history available about it ... from satellite view it is another isolated complex with water (in a couple ponds or tanks), chapel, school building(s), and dwellings like others I have visited in person. I can't immediately tell if there is an original building from 1924 founding date or thereabouts, and in condition justifying listing as a historic artifact evoking the long history there. In 2015 there were 74 native American, 1 white, and 1 asian children, in grades K on up to perhaps high school(?). Just a tad more info and this should be kept as a combo about a continuously populated place (people live there), a historic school, and any historic building(s). --Doncram (talk,contribs) 22:17, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The misspelling is obvious if you step away from GNIS and look at sources discussing it as a mission, or for that matter, if you look at the sign out front. GNIS doesn't name things; it recognizes the names that are already there and tries to eliminate those that are incorrect. By now, you and I have both had plenty of experience with GNIS fallibility, and in this case it isn't clear at all where "Emmanuel" comes from, because contrary to the the source citation in GNIS, I can find no topo map which labels it "Emmanuel" until the 2014 edition, by which point they had started modifying the maps to fit GNIS. Now the oldest map I've seen is from the mid-1950s, and it's possible that older maps might have had the wrong name. But if they did, the label was wrong then, and the later "Immanuel" label represented a (possibly intended) correction. So at this point I would say, yes, it is obvious even from GNIS's own supposed source.

As far as the possibility of NRHP listing, well, it is not listed. And if it were ever listed, well, yes, and article would be in order, but the only usable component of the present article would be the coordinates, as would be the case if the mission/school were held notable through appeal to the GNG. I looked, and I did find some info on the mission, but I just could not find enough outside interest. If you can do better, do so, and write an article on it. In these latter days, though, I have to think you are aware that "surely there are sources" doesn't cut it as an argument. Mangoe (talk) 02:07, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 01:10, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I cannot find any SIGCOV describing this location as either a school or a community. There are passing references to both in several sources. (As far as spelling goes, the school seems to be spelled with an "I" and the location with an "E").
Talkback) 15:28, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Comment. About the spelling, the editor User:Onel5969 created the article and corresponding redirect Immanuel Mission, Arizona at the same time in 2016. There has always been recognition in this way of two spelling variants. There are assertions above that "Emmanuel" is obviously a misspelling, but only based on nonsensical-in-my-view reasoning. Sure, the existence of photo of relatively recent sign using "Immanuel" and the usage in the Immanuel Mission school's website support the idea that "Immanuel" is the current name, and that would support a move/rename of this article. However the only "evidence" that "Emmanuel" is a misspelling is the existence of that spelling variant in GNIS... you have to assume bad faith and incompetence and ascribe evil to all things governmental, or something, to assume that the government entirely made up the variant spelling. It is not as if we have plethora of historical coverage of the place in newspapers, school-related funding documents, advertisements seeking contract work, etc. which only used "Immanuel" and never used "Emmanuel". No, instead we have a dearth of available information and it is unreasonable to assume a misspelling based on nothing. And User:Presidentman perhaps came across some usage of "Emmanuel", beyond info derivative of GNIS's presentation as a variant, in their searching... Presidentman, can you add? --Doncram (talk,contribs) 20:03, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are a couple of hits on Google Books for "E" in older works (assuming they refer to the same place). See, e.g., [1], [2], [3].
Talkback) 21:41, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Thanks! For the record,

the first has a citation of a water report in 1950 about potential irrigation water from Poc Tinlin Wash near Emmanuel Mission on the Navajo Indian Reservation, which is this place;
the second, in "Journal of the 27th Convocation of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Missionary Diocese of Arizona" from 1919, reports on progress of an Emmanuel Mission in or near Wickenburg, Arizona (which is in Maricopa and Yavapai counties) which is >300 miles away and before this one was created, so is a different place;
the third shows Emmanuel Mission on a map of Land Management Districts within the Navajo Reservation in "The Navajo Yearbook of Planning in Action" for calendar year 1954, which is this place.

--Doncram (talk,contribs) 06:23, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I am working on getting some more info for the article. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 19:59, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete This locale is notable, at most, on a regional level, not a worldwide one. TH1980 (talk) 01:07, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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.