Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Las Vegas Valley (landform)

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 keep. It is clear more discussion of this article is needed, and it may be advisable to consider merging it, but those issues can be discussed on the talk page. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:28, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Las Vegas Valley (landform)

Las Vegas Valley (landform) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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The content is unintelligible and there are no sources available online with which to improve the article. Dianna (talk) 01:11, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Nevada-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:36, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This is an article from an editor who had problems with creating readable non technical articles. Also the allegation that there are no online sources to improve the article is blatantly false. A quick search provides many sources and additional material. Clearly this land form exists and adding this material to the populated place know as Las Vegas (which includes more then the city) and is currently named Las Vegas Valley is already a broad article with many issues. Adding this material to that article would create more problems there and add nothing to improving the material here and likely make it more difficult. Given that most valley articles are likely stubs, I find it interesting that this one is nominated here. This one has information and more sources. I do agree that the section on the Great Basin Divide could be removed or just mentioned in passing. But I'm reluctant to do so since I'm not sure how to decipher the technical material in that section. Finally, AfD is not article cleanup. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:43, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Vegaswikian. I do think we need an article on this topic, but the current one is unintelligible, and I was unable to find any online sources. If you could provide links to some, I would be happy to clean up the article. Alternatively, if you can extract any meaning from passages such as "The valley in the northwest section, is a northwest-by-southeast trending area, and trending parallel to Las Vegas Wash, lays at the northeast of the Spring Mountains massif" and "The northwest section, thus describes the entire landform as a central, and large valley with an attached feeder valley northwest, and in this case the northwest source, and actual course of the Las Vegas Wash", perhaps you could enlighten me? I can't figure out what the meaning is. Thanks. --Dianna (talk) 22:58, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I did some cleanup and added references. Those should help you a bit. As I said, the article creator had issues is writing non technical articles that most readers could understand. As to the sections you asked about, I think the "northwest-by-southeast trending area" refers to the direction that the basin runs in. The "Spring Mountains massif" is a geologic description of some feature of that range, which is the western edge of the valley. The references to the Wash are confusing to me since the wash is not straight and changes directions over it's course, but the Wash is the basins only outlet. But as I said, AfD is not article cleanup. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:04, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Vegaswikian, the issue you describe of the information being too technical to understand is exactly the problem outlined in WP:TECHNICAL. It doesn't even seem clear to me reading Las Vegas Valley and Las Vegas Valley (landform) what differentiates the two. It seems to me like the latter is just giving the physical geography of the former. Plus, in the article being discussed, it apparently refers to both the valley and the valley (landform) by the same name, further creating confusion. For example: "Las Vegas Valley is actually a basin drained by the Las Vegas Wash." versus "The Las Vegas Valley is an area about 1,600 square miles (4,100 km2)." Anyways, I'm not familiar with the area and the key sources are inaccessible, so I can't vouch for the validity of any of the information either way. —JmaJeremy talk contribs 02:53, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Just an afterthought, perhaps the article should be kept, but the contributer(s) would do well to take heed of some of the advice mentioned in WP:MTAA#Rules of Thumb. Speaking as a person who has some undergraduate geography education, I still find the lead section almost unintelligible due to its reliance on highly technical terms and concepts. See also MOS:JARGON. Maybe keep the article, put a {{Technical}} tag on it and start a discussion for improvement in its talk page. —JmaJeremy talk contribs 03:00, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 00:40, 15 March 2012 (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.