Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Central Place Theory

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. Sr13 06:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Central Place Theory

Central Place Theory (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

A completely unreferenced "theory" put forth by a Nazi government employee to explain "systems of cities" (from Walter Christaller, the proponent of the theory). I'm not an expert in geography, and so I can't address the validity or importance of the theory. However, this article is completely unreferenced, horribly POV-ridden, and seems to contain a lot of original research. I suggest we move it to /dev/null (unless someone knows it's valid and is willing to source (and sanitize) this article). /Blaxthos 17:55, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, and add references. A simple google search pulled references from about.com and various educational institutions. Christaller's K=4 theory is also heavily used in "hub and spoke" transit planning, as near as I can tell. The article is unreferenced, but that's no reason to delete it, it's a reason to clean it up. --Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 19:43, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. I agree-- add the references. There are already articles about Christaller (which reference his 1933 book and a 1989 one by Marc Rossler. Maybe it can draw from the de:Wikipedia article, "System der Zentralen Orte". Mandsford 23:55, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and one of the distinctive things about the Nazis was the extent to which many of the most respectable academics eagerly participated--this particular one afterwards gladly joined the Communist administration as well. But I know this theory as anthropology, and it's a permanent contribution. I can not figure out why people nominate articles in fields they admit they do not understand, (though I can see why people might do it and pretend they understand. I might be tempted to pretend I knew about, say, wrestling, but hardly to say,"I know nothing about wrestling, but this one doesn't seem important." DGG 02:00, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

As stated above, it was nominated because, when nominated, the article was completely without attribution and, as such, fell into an unreferenced stew of original research. It also has a pretty POV feel to it, which proper referencing might also fix. Thanks for the good faith.  :-P One must not be a subject matter expert to identify articles that are in violation of our most basic policies. /Blaxthos 04:27, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. I tacked on some links to academic resources on the theory, and a cursory overview of both sources and article doesn't raise any major red flags for me -- that is, I don't see any original research, and very little that is even arguably POV (aside from the theory itself, which is a point of view, but appears to be legitimately described). I suggest tagging specific parts of the article you suspect are a problem at this point. --Dhartung | Talk 05:10, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 09:35, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

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.