Talk:Moss Park

First Paragraph

What on Earth does it mean? AAK 18:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Article Problem

This article is not properly integrated into Wikipedia's coverage of Toronto neighbourhoods. Most surrounding areas do not link to it but link to the Garden District while others pass that neighbourhood over (such as this page). I only realised how disorganised this is after I wrote a short history in the Garden District article. These two areas largely overlap with Moss Park as the older name for the residential area and Garden District as a new new based on names given to downtown commercial 'Districts'. This should really be discussed although the City of Toronto is notorious for naming and renaming neighbourhoods and then using any number of other names for any given area with complete inconsistency! JosephIWMolto (talk) 08:52, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Boundaries

I question using the city demographic map boundaries in this article. My general policy in making maps and articles has been to require two of the map source to include an area before I include it on a map. In this case the city communities map, the Toronto Star, and Toronto Neighbourhood Guide, all agree on the smaller boundaries. Toronto Public Library and TOBuilt do not list a separate Moss Park neighbourhood, including it in a general downtown east area. Thus, of neighbourhood maps available to us only the demographic map has such large borders for Moss Park. That map is also the least accurate in the set in reflecting common usage. That is true in this case, as I don't think anyone considers King and Jarvis, much less Front and Jarvis, to be a part of Moss Park. - SimonP (talk) 17:16, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

My intent was to show everything relevant. Since Moss Park is a former estate, an armoury, public park, a housing project, a neighbourhood (defined in multiple ways) the old illustration was incomplete. I wanted to be as informative as possible. Is the style inappropriate? ʘ alaney2k ^talkʘ 17:25, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

My problem is that in common parlance I don't think anyone actually uses the neighbourhood definition used in this article. The armoury, park, and housing complex are all indisputably part of the neighbourhood, but the rest I'm not so sure about. The area the city refers to as Moss Park is very close to the region that I've usually heard called Downtown East, or Downtown Eastside (though that also often includes Regent Park). Moss Park, the Garden District, Corktown, are all sub-neighbourhoods of that area. If we could find some sources, maybe we could have a separate article on the two areas? Similar to how we have one both on North Toronto and the various neighbourhoods that are located there. Looking at East Downtown as a group is useful as the area has many things in common. - SimonP (talk) 14:50, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

You are a difficult person. It's not about being 'right'. ʘ alaney2k ^talkʘ 15:25, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Simon has raised a number of valid points. Simply because he has a different take on the issue than yours does not make him "difficult". And I am not sure what you mean by "it's not about being 'right'". We are, in fact, trying to be as accurate in the article as possible (to the extent that we can, given that there are no authoritative neighbourhood boundaries in Toronto). Maybe you could elaborate a bit. Thanks. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:02, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it's more that it is a difficult, and sometimes frustrating, process. Neighbourhoods are inherently arbitrary, and different people have different borders. We thus can't depend on just one source, but need to make an educated amalgamation of all the information we have available. To the right is a one of the maps I make to try to puzzle out more complicated neighbourhoods, in this case Maple Leaf. Four of the six maps we have include this neighbourhood, but each of them gives a different definition. Relying on any one single source would give a skewed view, but by combining them we can give a pretty close guess as to what is considered part of the neighbourhood. - SimonP (talk) 17:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it is important, when a set of boundaries, such as the city's one, which gives it some status, is mentioned in the article, but ignored in the illustration. When you simply remove an illustration that has that detail, that's an arbitrary move. As I said, it is not about being right, it's about reliable sources. If there is more than one definition from reliable sources, than we should not choose one for the illustration. That's not what Wikipedia is about. If you took the boundaries of the Moss Park estate, then Moss Park housing projects would not be within that boundary. The process that SimonP is following is deciding which is right according to his criteria. I don't see this as being a "we" process when my concerns are ignored. ʘ alaney2k ^talkʘ 17:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll try to explain my logic in only showing the smaller borders. Currently we have three different maps produced by various city agencies, Demographics, Communities, and TPL Historicity. None are official. Two of the three contain Moss Park, but with very different boundaries with the Demographics one being much larger than the Communities. In addition to these three we have Toronto Neighbourhoods Guide, the Star, TOBuilt, BlogTO, and Canada Post. That gives us eight sources in total. Four of the eight have a Moss Park neighbourhood, and three of them pretty much agree on a definition. The outlier being the demographics map. We can then look at the rules used to make that map, and find out why it is so different. The demographics map followed these three policies:

• no neighbourhood be comprised of a single census tract;
• minimum neighbourhood population of at least 7,000 to 10,000;
• where census tracts were combined to meet criteria 2 or 3 above, they were joined with the most similar adjacent area according to the percentage of the population living in low income households;

Thus we can see why Moss Park is so large. It has fewer than 7,000 people and was thus amalgamated with "the most similar adjacent area." Other areas on that map are "similar adjacent areas" not part of the community itself. We can thus reasonably discard those outlying portions as not really part of the neighbourhood and use the smaller map agreed upon by the other three sources. - SimonP (talk) 18:02, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I basically have two concerns.

One, as I've said, it's not about being "right". It's about using the reliable sources and being inclusive. If there is dissension, well that's the way it is. And that certainly applies here. I am not certain that there is a Moss Park neighbourhood, only an "area" defined by proximity. I don't believe you can define something when sources disagree except only in a general sense. Showing only the one definition in the illustration would not be encyclopedic when there is imprecision in government, literature and the media.

I was thinking, well, why not discard the City demographics/planning boundaries in the article. Leave them out. Then boundaries could just match the article definition. But when the article mentions the City boundaries, I believe we should include them on the map. Maybe in a secondary map aligned to any discussion of demographics, it could be used, because we want to be clear. (Toronto Life, also mentioned in the article, also uses the larger boundaries. Does the quote from them count?)

My other concern is the overlap with the other neighbourhoods.

The Garden District, (former Downtown East) which was 'blessed' by the City includes the area west of Sherbourne (the Moss Park 'estate'). The area east of Sherbourne is often considered Cabbagetown South except for south of Shuter. That also is not covered in the illustration, but I did add that. So, if we leave out the mention of the City boundaries in the article, but show the Garden District and Cabbagetown south overlap, that would satisfy my concerns. I showed the names of the other areas within the City envelope, of Old Town and Corktown, so I felt that that was the best NPOV illustration while being inclusive.

If you look at the streetscape north of Shuter, it definitely looks different from the area to the south, including both sides of Queen. And I mean in that the homes have been renovated or gentrified, however you want to put it, not just the urban renewal aspect. So that leaves that Moss Park is more or less an area, and not a 'neighbourhood' other than immediately around the project. That would be to me, why it is poorly defined, and also that most persons would not want to self-identify as being from Moss Park. ʘ alaney2k ^talkʘ 19:50, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I do agree that the definition in the lead and the map should not conflict. I don't think we need to remove the city demographic description. Perhaps lower down we can mention that a second definition exists and list the boundaries. We also should definitely mention that Moss Park is included in the Garden District borders, and perhaps the East Downtown region.

In terms of neighbourhoods overlapping, I'm not too concerned. Neighbourhoods don't have hard borders, and they do often overlap. A single building can easily be considered to be part of Davisville Village, North Toronto, Yonge and Eglinton, and Midtown Toronto. It is all a bit messy, but it also reflects how neighbourhoods are actually perceived. - SimonP (talk) 20:55, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

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