This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 |
I've added a coordinates property to {{ Infobox U.S. County}}; see Westchester County, New York for an implementation. Any objections to getting a bot to add coordinates to all US county articles? Meanwhile, if doing so manually, please use {{ coord}}, but don't be overly precise - two decimal places (or equivalent) should suffice. Andy Mabbett 10:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
There seem to be two separate and competing major issues here:
Neither of the current proposals seem to fulfil all of these requirements.
Here's my proposal:
Thus,
would become
Now, although this is slightly longer than the previous version, it is also much clearer to read and write, and far more extensible. It now also permits the same ideas to be used in infoboxes, such as, for example:
{{US County infobox| county = Uinta County| state = Wyoming | seal = | map = Map of Wyoming highlighting Uinta County.png | map size = 250| founded = 1869| seat = Evanston | area = 5,407 km² (2,088 mi²) | area water = 15 km² (6 mi²) | area percentage = 0.28% | census yr = 2000| pop = 19,742 | density = 4| latitude=41.29| longitude=-110.55| geosource=UScensus1990| georegion=US-WY| web = www.uintacounty.com | |}}
In practice, the actual implementation of the {{ US County infobox}} template would involve the use of common lower-level geotag subtemplates for handling the details of rendering the coordinate data and microformats, in much the same way as in Andy's current proposal, but this time without the overhead of extra syntax.
If this can be made to work and agreed upon, although there are over 100,000 templates that use {{ coor}}, {{ coord}} and their variants that would need replacing, this is a task ideally suited to automation: the whole task could be completed in about a month, using a single bot. During the transition period, we can keep both the old and new implementations working, and then first deprecate, then later retire, the old implementations once that is done.
-- The Anome 17:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Hello. Having just completed some locator maps of boroughs and townships in Delaware County, Pennsylvania that were asked for at Wikiproject maps, I was wondering if there were any similar maps around, and whether locator maps should be created for all municipalities within counties? -- Astrokey 44 09:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Since there is no mention of "Notable Natives" (famous residents) in the model county article description, I assume the consensus is that such information belongs in the city / village / township etc. articles, and not in the county (or US state) articles. (I think they belong in the city etc articles as a Notable Natives section is shown in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities city article guideline).
However, many county articles have Notable Natives sections (see Delaware County, Pennsylvania for an example). So here is my question: in those US County articles that have a Notable Natives section, what should be done with that section? My preference is to eliminate it, after making sure that each native is listed in the corresponding city or twp article, but I would like some sort of consensus before doing this in at least Ohio and Pennsylvania county articles.
Also, assuming it is consensus not to have such sections, should that be included in the project guideline (perhaps "what not to include")?
Thanks, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 12:58, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Since I seem to have brought up the question, let me reiterate my position that "Notable Natives" should be eliminated from the county and state articles and confined to the municipal level. Otherwise, a county with a large population will be overloaded with duplicated info from each city or town within its borders. As I mentioned earlier, Dan Marino and Andy Warhol are notable as being from Pittsburgh, and not Allegheny County. As such, they'd be included in the Pittsburgh article (and/or whatever small town they might be from), but not in the Allegheny County article.
The exception would be any rural county where a notable native may have been born on a farm that's unattached to any particular town or village. Even then, it could be included as a factoid in the county article, and not under a separate NN category (ditto for a case such as Buchanon being the only president from Pennsylvania, which would be a factoid in the state article rather than a separate category). -- NameThatWorks 17:44, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
The standard shows "major highways" under geography which is fine. I think the topic is a bit constricted for many counties. Even in my rural counties, "Transportation" supercategory under geography seems more appropriate. Urban counties often have rail service and buses, airports. In my coastal community, bridges are a prominent and important geographic feature. I presume you discuss these things before changing a suggested standard? Student7 12:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I have a book on Iowa counties which I'll be using to complete List of counties in Iowa. However, it gives the date a county was established and when it was organized. A county is established before it is organized apparently. In my list it says the year it was created (used a different source than the book). That is the date it was established I guess. What does it mean when a county is established and when it is organized? Also, should they both be included in the list (I'll have exact dates for each)? Psych less 23:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I had read in more than one place that Cottle County was created from Fannin County [1]. At first I had assumed Fannin County no longer existed, only to find that it is in East Texas. If this is true, how is it that Cottle County could be created from Fannin county? Brian Pearson 01:39, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
It seems Wikipedia contributors could add value if they went beyond simply the political history of when counties were established, plus a few events, and dealt with the social history of settlement, migrations of populations, and those kinds of changes. Perhaps there could be agreement to show census data from 1800, 1860, 1900, 1920, for instance, as those would be snapshots of change. (or come to agreement on other year intervals.)
The University of Virginia (UVA) has its Historical Census Browser available for free access, which enables looking at and analyzing available census data. Then readers/people would at least know who was there in particular counties and states. In the years before the Civil War, especially in the South, you would need county data to have an idea of what was going on in an area, as it was largely agricultural. I've come across a number of counties in VA or GA, for instance, that were majority enslaved African American in 1860, but the only demographics shown are current ones, in which the African American population is much smaller because of later migration away for work in cities. So readers would have no idea of the earlier economy of a county, nor of African American contributions to building the wealth and culture of that county.
Also lacking is a sense of different European immigrants to areas. Looking back, people now say they were all WASP, but as these different groups were settling, even those from the British Isles, they had more differences in culture. They came for different reasons, the early immigrants had different characteristics, and they had different settlement pattersn. For instance, Scots-Irish were the largest group of immigrants from the British Isles before the Revolution, and they tended to settle mostly in the backcountry of the South, down the Appalachian Trail and in the Piedmont.
David Hackett Fischer's "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America" (1989) synthesized much research in that area. Historians didn't agree with all of his conclusions, but the point is there was much complexity in early as well as late immigrations. Another example is the Palatine Germans. They settled (by invitation of the British, who needed labor for ships stores in the Hudson Valley) in the Mohawk Valley of New York in the 1720's and 1730's. They were relatively isolated for a while and spoke German in their communities and churches for nearly 100 years, even as they had trade with English immigrants and descendants in the valley.
Political scientists were able to see broad traditions of voting and politics among groups into the 1960's, from the westward movement of different cultural groups: Greater New England in the northern tier, the Mid-Atlantic, and Southern tiers.
I think this issue of how to treat history has to be discussed at a high level. In looking at the history of a major city such as Atlanta, for instance, I found a lack of connection between city and county history in earlier years. That disconnect distorts understanding of what was going on. Even if Atlanta was built mostly on railroads and trade, it didn't exist independently. Part of its growth was fueled by freedpeople moving to Atlanta and Fulton County after the Civil War. AFrican Americans comprised 46% of the county's population (and probably much of the city's) in 1870. (Of course some African Americans were there before the war, but their proportion in the county more than doubled by 1870.) Without basic census data, you would never know that from the current narrative history.
I've been looking at (and doing some work on) history sections in GA, NY, VA, KY and TN, places where I'm familiar with the some of the early histories. The weakness or blanks of history sections on wikipedia leave you with little sense of African American or other ethnic contributions. For instance it's not enough to say "there was slavery", "there were immigrants". So much of American history is made up of huge waves of immigration, both from "pull" and "push" forces. The origins of the groups have changed, but immigration and internal migration have been constants.
Wikipedia contributors use links to early (late 19th c.) county histories which have been transcribed for online publication. This gives some sense of how people used to look at the history of an area. An overreliance on these sources, however, simply repeats late 19th or early 20th c. biases. It leaves out much of the last three decades' emphasis on broader social history which reveals the agency and contributions of all groups. It leaves out major changes in the late 19th and early 20th c. as well.
Internal migrations were often the way new groups rose to power, at least temporarily. The migrations also reveal religious history and battles for religious freedom. For instance, hundreds of Baptists migrated from colonial VA to KY before the Revolution, to get away from the established Anglican Church. Their numbers were large for the times and they created a new culture north of the Kentucky River.
Basically, I think the history sections need a different and broader approach. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Parkwells ( talk • contribs) 14:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
The template indicates that the "Cities and towns" information should have its own section, as opposed to being within the "Geography" section (and I feel that this makes sense, though I can see the logic either way). I would suggest that, in the template, "Townships" should follow "Cities and towns", partly because townships (like towns) seem to go beyond geography. Any thoughts? Omnedon 14:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
List of municipalities in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania is nominated at WP:FLC here. Any feedback or comments are very welcome, thanks, Dincher and Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:14, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 |
I've added a coordinates property to {{ Infobox U.S. County}}; see Westchester County, New York for an implementation. Any objections to getting a bot to add coordinates to all US county articles? Meanwhile, if doing so manually, please use {{ coord}}, but don't be overly precise - two decimal places (or equivalent) should suffice. Andy Mabbett 10:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
There seem to be two separate and competing major issues here:
Neither of the current proposals seem to fulfil all of these requirements.
Here's my proposal:
Thus,
would become
Now, although this is slightly longer than the previous version, it is also much clearer to read and write, and far more extensible. It now also permits the same ideas to be used in infoboxes, such as, for example:
{{US County infobox| county = Uinta County| state = Wyoming | seal = | map = Map of Wyoming highlighting Uinta County.png | map size = 250| founded = 1869| seat = Evanston | area = 5,407 km² (2,088 mi²) | area water = 15 km² (6 mi²) | area percentage = 0.28% | census yr = 2000| pop = 19,742 | density = 4| latitude=41.29| longitude=-110.55| geosource=UScensus1990| georegion=US-WY| web = www.uintacounty.com | |}}
In practice, the actual implementation of the {{ US County infobox}} template would involve the use of common lower-level geotag subtemplates for handling the details of rendering the coordinate data and microformats, in much the same way as in Andy's current proposal, but this time without the overhead of extra syntax.
If this can be made to work and agreed upon, although there are over 100,000 templates that use {{ coor}}, {{ coord}} and their variants that would need replacing, this is a task ideally suited to automation: the whole task could be completed in about a month, using a single bot. During the transition period, we can keep both the old and new implementations working, and then first deprecate, then later retire, the old implementations once that is done.
-- The Anome 17:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Hello. Having just completed some locator maps of boroughs and townships in Delaware County, Pennsylvania that were asked for at Wikiproject maps, I was wondering if there were any similar maps around, and whether locator maps should be created for all municipalities within counties? -- Astrokey 44 09:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Since there is no mention of "Notable Natives" (famous residents) in the model county article description, I assume the consensus is that such information belongs in the city / village / township etc. articles, and not in the county (or US state) articles. (I think they belong in the city etc articles as a Notable Natives section is shown in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities city article guideline).
However, many county articles have Notable Natives sections (see Delaware County, Pennsylvania for an example). So here is my question: in those US County articles that have a Notable Natives section, what should be done with that section? My preference is to eliminate it, after making sure that each native is listed in the corresponding city or twp article, but I would like some sort of consensus before doing this in at least Ohio and Pennsylvania county articles.
Also, assuming it is consensus not to have such sections, should that be included in the project guideline (perhaps "what not to include")?
Thanks, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 12:58, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Since I seem to have brought up the question, let me reiterate my position that "Notable Natives" should be eliminated from the county and state articles and confined to the municipal level. Otherwise, a county with a large population will be overloaded with duplicated info from each city or town within its borders. As I mentioned earlier, Dan Marino and Andy Warhol are notable as being from Pittsburgh, and not Allegheny County. As such, they'd be included in the Pittsburgh article (and/or whatever small town they might be from), but not in the Allegheny County article.
The exception would be any rural county where a notable native may have been born on a farm that's unattached to any particular town or village. Even then, it could be included as a factoid in the county article, and not under a separate NN category (ditto for a case such as Buchanon being the only president from Pennsylvania, which would be a factoid in the state article rather than a separate category). -- NameThatWorks 17:44, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
The standard shows "major highways" under geography which is fine. I think the topic is a bit constricted for many counties. Even in my rural counties, "Transportation" supercategory under geography seems more appropriate. Urban counties often have rail service and buses, airports. In my coastal community, bridges are a prominent and important geographic feature. I presume you discuss these things before changing a suggested standard? Student7 12:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I have a book on Iowa counties which I'll be using to complete List of counties in Iowa. However, it gives the date a county was established and when it was organized. A county is established before it is organized apparently. In my list it says the year it was created (used a different source than the book). That is the date it was established I guess. What does it mean when a county is established and when it is organized? Also, should they both be included in the list (I'll have exact dates for each)? Psych less 23:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I had read in more than one place that Cottle County was created from Fannin County [1]. At first I had assumed Fannin County no longer existed, only to find that it is in East Texas. If this is true, how is it that Cottle County could be created from Fannin county? Brian Pearson 01:39, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
It seems Wikipedia contributors could add value if they went beyond simply the political history of when counties were established, plus a few events, and dealt with the social history of settlement, migrations of populations, and those kinds of changes. Perhaps there could be agreement to show census data from 1800, 1860, 1900, 1920, for instance, as those would be snapshots of change. (or come to agreement on other year intervals.)
The University of Virginia (UVA) has its Historical Census Browser available for free access, which enables looking at and analyzing available census data. Then readers/people would at least know who was there in particular counties and states. In the years before the Civil War, especially in the South, you would need county data to have an idea of what was going on in an area, as it was largely agricultural. I've come across a number of counties in VA or GA, for instance, that were majority enslaved African American in 1860, but the only demographics shown are current ones, in which the African American population is much smaller because of later migration away for work in cities. So readers would have no idea of the earlier economy of a county, nor of African American contributions to building the wealth and culture of that county.
Also lacking is a sense of different European immigrants to areas. Looking back, people now say they were all WASP, but as these different groups were settling, even those from the British Isles, they had more differences in culture. They came for different reasons, the early immigrants had different characteristics, and they had different settlement pattersn. For instance, Scots-Irish were the largest group of immigrants from the British Isles before the Revolution, and they tended to settle mostly in the backcountry of the South, down the Appalachian Trail and in the Piedmont.
David Hackett Fischer's "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America" (1989) synthesized much research in that area. Historians didn't agree with all of his conclusions, but the point is there was much complexity in early as well as late immigrations. Another example is the Palatine Germans. They settled (by invitation of the British, who needed labor for ships stores in the Hudson Valley) in the Mohawk Valley of New York in the 1720's and 1730's. They were relatively isolated for a while and spoke German in their communities and churches for nearly 100 years, even as they had trade with English immigrants and descendants in the valley.
Political scientists were able to see broad traditions of voting and politics among groups into the 1960's, from the westward movement of different cultural groups: Greater New England in the northern tier, the Mid-Atlantic, and Southern tiers.
I think this issue of how to treat history has to be discussed at a high level. In looking at the history of a major city such as Atlanta, for instance, I found a lack of connection between city and county history in earlier years. That disconnect distorts understanding of what was going on. Even if Atlanta was built mostly on railroads and trade, it didn't exist independently. Part of its growth was fueled by freedpeople moving to Atlanta and Fulton County after the Civil War. AFrican Americans comprised 46% of the county's population (and probably much of the city's) in 1870. (Of course some African Americans were there before the war, but their proportion in the county more than doubled by 1870.) Without basic census data, you would never know that from the current narrative history.
I've been looking at (and doing some work on) history sections in GA, NY, VA, KY and TN, places where I'm familiar with the some of the early histories. The weakness or blanks of history sections on wikipedia leave you with little sense of African American or other ethnic contributions. For instance it's not enough to say "there was slavery", "there were immigrants". So much of American history is made up of huge waves of immigration, both from "pull" and "push" forces. The origins of the groups have changed, but immigration and internal migration have been constants.
Wikipedia contributors use links to early (late 19th c.) county histories which have been transcribed for online publication. This gives some sense of how people used to look at the history of an area. An overreliance on these sources, however, simply repeats late 19th or early 20th c. biases. It leaves out much of the last three decades' emphasis on broader social history which reveals the agency and contributions of all groups. It leaves out major changes in the late 19th and early 20th c. as well.
Internal migrations were often the way new groups rose to power, at least temporarily. The migrations also reveal religious history and battles for religious freedom. For instance, hundreds of Baptists migrated from colonial VA to KY before the Revolution, to get away from the established Anglican Church. Their numbers were large for the times and they created a new culture north of the Kentucky River.
Basically, I think the history sections need a different and broader approach. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Parkwells ( talk • contribs) 14:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
The template indicates that the "Cities and towns" information should have its own section, as opposed to being within the "Geography" section (and I feel that this makes sense, though I can see the logic either way). I would suggest that, in the template, "Townships" should follow "Cities and towns", partly because townships (like towns) seem to go beyond geography. Any thoughts? Omnedon 14:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
List of municipalities in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania is nominated at WP:FLC here. Any feedback or comments are very welcome, thanks, Dincher and Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:14, 29 October 2007 (UTC)