Talk:49th meridian east

Proposed deletion

User:Stifle added a Proposed Deletion template to this article (citing "Bad precedent/original research magnet"). I have removed this template as I can see no justification for it. My reasoning is as follows:

• A precedent to retain latitude and longitude articles has already been set. Similar articles have previously been taken to AfD and their notability discussed. Whilst these have attracted some negative comments, they have all led to a Keep decision - it would seem that plenty of people feel that this sort of information is sufficiently notable and worthwhile. (See 104°E, 19°S, 19°N, 18°S, 18°N, 17°S, 15°S, 14°S, 14°N, 12°S, 12°N, 11°S and 11°N.)
• As a geographic/cartographic subject, the source for these articles are maps. Whilst it may appear that no source is cited here, in fact the Geohack co-ordinates at the top of the page are a link to that source. Previously, in similar articles, I have used a direct link to the MSN Maps website (e.g. [1]). However it was pointed out to me that this did not meet WP:EL criteria and qualified as spam (though I disagree somewhat with that latter point); I was recommeded to use Geohack as an alternative. I feel as though I am between a rock and a hard place with this - I can either use an inappropriately formatted source, or a source that doesn't look like a source. I would welcome suggestions as to how this can be improved, but I must stress that this is not a sourceless article.
• This is not Original Research. All of the information is verifiable from commonly available reference material, i.e. atlases or on-line mapping sites. I have simply been tranferring the information from one format (cartographic) to another (textual). This is certainly not original thought, analysis or synthesis.

Bazonka (talk) 00:22, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Stifle is a super-experienced guy, and his observation makes sense. Btw, he isn't suggesting you're the one doing the OR; he merely notes that these pages could attract OR (his word is "magnet").

With respect to formatting sources... I had had suggested that you use a template. That way you can have your cake and eat it too, and it would also allow you to maintain these links from a central location. If you like, I can cobble together such a thing for you. -- Fullstop (talk) 00:42, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Fullstop. I have already created a template (Latlongmap) which incorporates the Geohack coords with an overview map. I've started to put this into a number of articles (such as this one). I'd be happy if you could suggest any ways of improving it though. Bazonka (talk) 00:58, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll yield to previous consensus on this one. Indeed, I'm not accusing anyone of original research, but there's a lot of stuff that could get dumped in here without citation. Stifle (talk) 13:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)