Talk:Washington, Virginia

Virginia Mid‑importance

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National Register of Historic Places Low‑importance

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Merger proposal

I propose that Washington Historic District (Washington, Virginia) (created in 2013 by User:Pubdog) should be merged into Washington, Virginia (created 2002 by User:Ram-Man). I recently made an edit at one or both, asserting the historic district has 140 acres (57 ha) while the town/village has 182 acres (74 ha), but was just informed by Harriswoodville that

This is not correct. The entire town is considered to be the historic district. The figure of 140 acres comes from the 1975 application for the town to become a historic district; the acreage was only an estimate. A survey of the town boundaries was conducted in 1985 which found that the town contains 182 acres (Rappahannock County Plat Book 4, page 68)

Okay, I believe Harriswoodville, and then it is clear to me that there should be just one article. (And it would have been arguable that they should be merged if they were just substantially the same, as has been done for many NRHP historic districts and villages.) Unless someone announces different info, merger should not be controversial, and I would just go ahead with it but it looks like it would take more editing effort than I'd like to do, myself. Harriswoodville or other, please do go ahead. Be sure to include the NRHP infobox with it showing the listing name of the district, i.e. "Washington Historic District". --Doncram (talk) 21:01, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I do not agree that the two wikipedia pages should be merged. They are two distinct subjects, one dealing with the history and description of the town of Washington and the other with the details of designation as a historic district by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and the National Register of Historic Places. As such, they appeal to two very different audiences. It would be inadvisable to force these two different subjects into one wikipedia article.Harriswoodville (talk) 17:59, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There are many, many historic districts in the US that encompass a large part of a town. This does not seem to be a justifiable reason for deletion of the Washington (Virginia) Historic District. This District should remain as a separate listing from the Washington, Virginia listing. The content and focus of the two articles is quite different.204.111.16.6 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 20:29, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wherever an X historic district is substantially the same as a town X, it is merged, almost always. Here they are exactly the same. There are zero cases United States-wide where such are given two separate articles! (I am quite sure, but if you want to question that, please feel free to post at wt:NRHP, say, to reach other NRHP editors besides myself who could possibly know of an exception if one exists.) In the process of trying a merge, by the way, I discover there was a huge amount of repetition within and between the two articles, which I reduced a lot. --Doncram (talk) 00:18, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Doncram appears to not understand how the town of Washington, Virginia, is configured. I live in the town and can provide information in this regard. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources included the entire town in the historic district in 1975, and the National Register of Historic Places adopted this definition also. However, the vast majority of the town's current acreage of 182 acres is pastureland. The historic structures in the town are clustered primarily along eight small streets of the town in a 30-acre parcel of land. It would have been more appropriate for VDHR to have designated only this 30 acres as the historic district. Perhaps VDHR believed that the pastureland complemented the 30-acre core of the town. No one in town considers the patureland, which contains gardens, a vinyard, and cattle grazing land, to be historic. Washington is the county seat of Rappahannock County; as such, it deserves its own Wikipedia entry. The eminent historian, Calder Loth, has stated that the town is the best preserved of County seat towns in the Piedmont of Virginia; as such, it deserves its own Wikipedia entry as a National Historic District. It would diminish the importance of the town and the importance of the historic district were Doncram to pursue his campaign to combine the two Wikipedia pages.96.94.213.153 (talk) 18:39, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: But, User:Harriswoodville, they are one and the same! They are exactly the same places. I don't understand what you mean that I "don't understand the configuration"; the relationship of the two is that they are one! What seems not justifiable is that there are two articles, and readers don't receive the simple message that this is a town which has wholly been listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district. I don't understand your opposition to merger; I wonder if you have some unreasonable idea of what a merged article would look like. To allay that, I hope, I am going to try out a merged article, i.e. I will merge the historic district info mainly into one section in the town article. This is reversible, it is not me saying that the merger discussion is concluded. Look at the result, and please comment here.

To settle this, if we are not able to come to agreement ourselves (and I think it is just you and me commenting so far, right? I mean the two comments by non-logged-in users are you, too, aren't they?), then the merger proposal could be closed by a non-involved person. For example we could post at wp:AN to request an administrator to close the discussion (which I think would be to follow the strong argument that it is one just one place). Anyhow, take a look after I make a few edits here, trying out a merger. --Doncram (talk) 22:57, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How about this version current as of 3/11/2021, 3:07 pm eastern time? It's not perfect, but I think it is pretty much okay. It merged all of the separate Washington Historic District article in, and then removed a lot of redundancy. More development about specific historic buildings could/should be added to what is now a section titled "Washington Historic District" (which could alternatively just be labelled "Historic district"). Please consider how this can work, is working. --Doncram (talk) 23:33, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And by the way I added the Rappahannock County Courthouse to the List of courthouses in Virginia list-article, and set Rappahannock County Courthouse to redirect to the paragraph here which starts about the courthouse. It probably would be justifiable to split out a separate article about the courthouse, if someone is interested in developing that. --Doncram (talk) 00:22, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Noting that the article was merged in March, without objections since then; I've therefore added the redirect to avoid duplication. Klbrain (talk) 16:01, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved