Talk:Villanubla

Possible source, and empty section

I'm moving here the url of a web page that was left by RandomCanadian in an HTML comment in the article's wiki source: [1] It was suggested that it could potentially be used as a source about the history, though I'm not sure whether it meets the requirements for reliable sources.

I removed the empty "History" section. It's generally accepted that contentless sections should not be added because they clutter the article and don't help the reader, see MOS:BODY, and also the template:expand section is not to be used for empty sections, see its documentation. --IamNotU (talk) 18:22, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@IamNotU: It's from the municipality's official website: maybe a bit on the WP:PRIMARY side, but still definitively a WP:RS. The only problem with it is that it is in Spanish, a language which I understand relatively little. As for the section being empty: there's {{Empty section}} so I don't think it's a problem, and the suggestions at the template documentation are that the header should be deleted only for a few sections which are relatively unimportant (such as ELs, galleries, etc...), not for sections such as a history section which would be an important section in a well fleshed out article (and it being on the main article instead of buried on the talk page increases the chance somebody who might be able to help will actually notice it). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:38, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

RandomCanadian, I only meant to say that I wasn't personally vouching for the source, because I didn't really look into it in depth. At the bottom it says it comes from a 1985 magazine: Artículo publicado por D. Juan Birlanga en la revista "La Voz de Villanubla", nº 60, Mayo de 1985 - and I don't have any information about their editorial or fact-checking practices. About Spanish, have you tried deepl.com translator? It's surprisingly good.

In general, empty sections should be avoided, per the MOS:BODY guideline: Very short sections and subsections clutter an article with headings and inhibit the flow of the prose. Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheading. - it follows that sections with no sentences don't warrant a subheading. In a few cases there are exceptions, hence the existence of the empty section template. Sorry, but that template's documentation does not say to delete headings only for a few sections which are relatively unimportant [but] not for sections such as a history section". Removal should be considered in all cases.

Please believe me, there is a strong consensus against adding empty sections of any type, with the intention of soliciting or guiding future editors. I found this article because I was searching for edits by a long-term disruptive user (JohnLickor372 (talk · contribs)) who has added empty "History - expand section" sections like this - for which they were blocked for example here: [2] - to literally thousands of articles. I can show you dozens of different editors and admins who reverted these; the general advice being something along the lines of "adding section headings without content is not helpful to the project, you can add this section when content is available". See also the ANI report. So, although I do understand your motivation and the logic is not unreasonable, it really is something you should avoid doing. Thanks for your understanding... --IamNotU (talk) 20:49, 26 June 2020 (UTC)