Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/Archive/September 2008

This is an archive of discussions from Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals for the month of September 2008. Please move completed September discussions to this page as they are closed, add discussion headers to each proposal showing the result, and leave incomplete discussions on the Proposals page. After September, the remainder of the discussions will be moved to this page, whether stub types have been created or not.

Those who create a stub template/cat should be responsible for moving the discussion here and listing the stub type in the archive summary.

Stub proposers please note: Items tagged as "nocreate" or "no consensus" are welcome for re-proposal if and when circumstances are auspicious.

• Discussion headers:
  • {{sfp create}}
  • {{sfp nocreate}}
  • {{sfp other}} (for no consensus)
  • {{sfp top}} for customized result description (use {{sfp top|result}}).
• Discussion footer: {{sfd bottom}}

Alaska geostubs

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed creation of the stub template and/or category above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the template's or category's talk page (if any). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was create as discussed.

Subdivisions of Alaska

Proposed boundaries for geostub regions

Category:Alaska geography stubs currently includes 660 articles, and could likely do with a split similar to that which has been done to US states such as Ohio and West Virginia. Propose creation of a stub for each borough and census area under the pattern {{BristolBayAK-geo-stub}} and {{SoutheastFairbanksAK-geo-stub}}. As far as categories, let's say Category:Alaska Panhandle geography stubs for Yakutat and everything to its southeast; Category:Southwest Alaska geography stubs for Kenai Peninsula, Lake and Peninsula, Kodiak Island, Bristol Bay, and the Aleutians; Category:Metropolitan Anchorage geography stubs for Anchorage and Matanuska-S. (corresponding to the Anchorage metropolitan area); and Category:Northern Alaska geography stubs for everything else. I expect that categories along these lines would all result in 60+ localities, although I admit that it's possible that we'd have to redraw my proposed boundaries. Nyttend (talk) 03:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

We seem to have defining -- or at least hand-wavily defining -- articles for those regions, so it sounds perfectly plausible enough to me. Support. Alai (talk) 15:08, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we should follow the article Anchorage metropolitan area, thus Category:Anchorage metropolitan area geography stubs. We don't seem to have a North Alaska or Northern Alaska article, but as a catch-all it'll perhaps suffice. Alai (talk) 16:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Now that I think of this, we would do better to have the Bethel and Dillingham Census Areas in Southwest, rather than in Northern. Any problems with that idea? Nyttend (talk) 16:53, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

And if this name format for Anchorage is more standard, support that format instead of my initial proposal. Nyttend (talk) 16:59, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea, I'm just going by our own article. (Which I realize isn't the best practice as regards sourcing for mainspace, but for consistency, and for housekeeping purposes...) Do the incorporated vs. the unincorporated areas in the north help at all? Alai (talk) 19:13, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

[unindent] By "incorporated" and "unincorporated" do you mean boroughs vs. census areas? By my count, there are only 71 incorporated areas (all cities, most of which are tiny [for example, Shageluk, population 129], and none of which have very much area) in what I'm proposing for the Northern Alaska section. Assuming that's what you mean: I don't think that we need to worry about B vs. CA distinctions: the Bs are equivalent to counties in other states, and the CAs are county-equivalents that we geography people generally treat like counties (for example, they have their own templates, such as {{Nome Census Area, Alaska}}), so I think we should treat Alaska just as if the census areas were counties. Nyttend (talk) 20:32, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, wrong terminology. I mean the Unorganized Borough, Alaska. Alai (talk) 21:18, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I've added a map with my proposed boundaries: the Alaska Panhandle is green, the Anchorage metropolitan area is red, Southwest Alaska is blue, and Northern Alaska is yellow. Nyttend (talk) 20:43, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

If you have references for the usage of Northern Alaska, any chance you could write a little article for definitional purposes? Alai (talk) 21:18, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't have references for the usage of Northern Alaska; it's simply that those boroughs and CAs are the ones not included in the Anchorage area, in the SW, or in the Panhandle, and they tend to be in the north. Do you think another name would be in order? I can't imagine any, but I'm really not an Alaska geography master. Nyttend (talk) 05:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Aside from what I've said already, I think a separate section for the Unorganized Borough would be a problem simply because it changes periodically: just in the last two years, Skagway and Wrangell have been organized as boroughs out of the Unorganized Borough. Nyttend (talk) 14:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Point taken. If "Northern Alaska" isn't a commonly-accepted term, maybe it would be better to leave these in the parent, for now. (Via upmerged templates or otherwise.) I'm not hugely exercised either way, though. Alai (talk) 15:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I simply proposed this name because rather obvious that these areas are the northern part of Alaska; judging by regions linked by {{Alaska}}, I'd guess that locals generally think of several regions (such as the bush and Arctic Alaska) in this area, but which would be inconvenient or impossible to divide on a county level. You're the stubsorting person, not I, but wouldn't it seem rather odd to put only some county-level entities into their own regional stub categories? Nyttend (talk) 03:13, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

[unindent] A few things... Firstly, I suggest you change Southern Fairbanks to Fairbanks Metro and extend it to include Fbks North Star Borough and Denali borough. Secondly, add Valdez-Cordova borough either to Anchorage Metro or Southeast Alaska, but don't leave it in Northern/Arctic Alaska, since the region is usually considered to be South-Central or sometimes Southeast, but never northern. L'Aquatique[parlez] 18:24, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm responding to Alai's request for comments at WikiProject Alaska. I'm not aware of any formal definition of Alaska's regions, but there are five or six regions which are conventionally identified. Nyttend's proposal misses Interior Alaska, but covers the others:

• Southeast Alaska (a.k.a. the "Panhandle" or the "Inside Passage")
• Southcentral Alaska (including the Kenai Peninsula)
• Interior Alaska
• Southwest Alaska (a.k.a "Western Alaska," including the Aleutian Islands)
• Arctic Alaska (a.k.a. "Northern Alaska" or the "Far North")

Sometimes Southwest Alaska and Western Alaska are distinguished by assigning the Aleutian Islands to the former. And it's true that the name for the northern region is the least stable of the lot. I think a lot of people use "North Slope" to refer to the whole region, although strictly that only applies to the coastal segment. The Alaska Office of Economic Development uses "Far North"[1], as does TravelAlaska.com[2], the state's official tourism site. (By way of contrast, Alaska.com, run by the Anchorage Daily News, uses "Northern Alaska"[3] and The Alaska Almanac (Nancy Gates, 2005, p.189) uses "Northern/Arctic".) My preference would be to follow the state government sources, and call it the "Far North".

As far as the boundaries of the regions on Nyttend's map go, Southcentral Alaska should include the Kenai Peninsula and extend east to meet the border of Southeast Alaska. Southwest (or Western Alaska, if it's distinguished) should be extended up to the border of the Nome borough. And Interior Alaska needs to be distinguished from the Far North.

I support the proposal to get these stubs grouped by region. There are judgment calls to be made along the way, but the vast majority of cases will not be ambiguous. I'd be glad to join in on the sorting itself. -- Shunpiker (talk) 18:25, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the input and encouragement. You've helped restore my faith in the value of talking to other WPJs. :) If there turns out to be a 'critical mass' with those slightly finer regions, perhaps we could lump them back together, but instead call them Category:Arctic and Interior Alaska geography stubs, say. If there's 60 of each, though, let's go with each separately. Alai (talk) 19:00, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

[unindent] How about these? These are the terms we generally use in Alaska, as well as their basic definitions.

Let me know if these are acceptable, and I'll make the templates and necessary categories. L'Aquatique[parlez] 02:11, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I would support L'Aquatique's proposal with the minor quibble that there are better sources for calling the northern region "Far North" or "Northern Alaska" rather than "North Slope". Although I'm more familiar with the colloquial term "North Slope," it's something of a misnomer, and it doesn't seem to appear in formal contexts as naming one of the major regions of Alaska. (Please jump in if you can find an example to the contrary!) -- Shunpiker (talk) 05:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

I'm somewhat nervous about these boundaries: not because I don't trust the Alaska people, but because I'm not sure that they'll get up to 60 stubs. On the stub ideas, I see no reason not to make individual borough and census area stubs, as that's the way we've split states; the way we've done it previously is to create individual county (i.e. B. and C.A.) stubs and upmerge them to regional categories, with regional stubs tags reserved for articles in multiple counties/county equivalents. In connexion with this is the Southwest Fairbanks area: this would be a stub for places in Southeast Fairbanks Census Area, not simply for an area near Fairbanks. Also, there's a problem with two maps: Kodiak Island Borough is split between Southcentral Alaska (by the way, wouldn't it be more natural to call it South Central Alaska?) and Southwest Alaska; we need to put all of the borough into S-C Alaska or S-W Alaska. I know it seems odd, but that's where the borough boundaries are (of course, you could always ask the legislature to change the boundaries!), and we always put individual county equivalents into just one category: it would be far more complicated otherwise. Nyttend (talk) 04:19, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

For simplicity's sake for those who aren't often at this page, here's my full proposed list of stubs:

• {{AleutiansEastAK-geo-stub}}, Aleutians East Borough
• {{AnchorageAK-geo-stub}}, Anchorage
• {{BristolBayAK-geo-stub}}, Bristol Bay Borough
• {{DenaliAK-geo-stub}}, Denali Borough
• {{FairbanksNorthStarAK-geo-stub}}, Fairbanks North Star Borough
• {{HainesAK-geo-stub}}, Haines
• {{JuneauAK-geo-stub}}, Juneau
• {{KenaiPeninsulaAK-geo-stub}}, Kenai Peninsula Borough
• {{KetchikanGatewayAK-geo-stub}}, Ketchikan Gateway Borough
• {{KodiakIslandAK-geo-stub}}, Kodiak Island Borough
• {{LakeAndPeninsulaAK-geo-stub}}, Lake and Peninsula Borough
• {{MatanuskaSusitnaAK-geo-stub}}, Matanuska-Susitna Borough
• {{NorthSlopeAK-geo-stub}}, North Slope Borough
• {{NorthwestArcticAK-geo-stub}}, Northwest Arctic Borough
• {{SitkaAK-geo-stub}}, Sitka
• {{SkagwayAK-geo-stub}}, Skagway
• {{WrangellAK-geo-stub}}, Wrangell
• {{YakutatAK-geo-stub}}, Yakutat
• {{AleutiansWestAK-geo-stub}}, Aleutians West Census Area
• {{BethelAK-geo-stub}}, Bethel Census Area
• {{DillinghamAK-geo-stub}}, Dillingham Census Area
• {{HoonahAngoonAK-geo-stub}}, Hoonah-Angoon Census Area
• {{NomeAK-geo-stub}}, Nome Census Area
• {{POWOKAK-geo-stub}}, Prince of Wales-Outer Ketchikan Census Area
• {{SoutheastFairbanksAK-geo-stub}}, Southeast Fairbanks Census Area
• {{ValdezCordovaAK-geo-stub}}, Valdez-Cordova Census Area
• {{WadeHamptonAK-geo-stub}}, Wade Hampton Census Area
• {{WrangellPetersburgAK-geo-stub}}, Wrangell-Petersburg Census Area (this is still the official name, despite the separation of Wrangell)
• {{YukonKoyukukAK-geo-stub}}, Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area

Nyttend (talk) 04:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the logic of creating more finely-grained stub categories if the objection to the regional stub categories is that they won't have enough articles -- borough/census-defined categories are guaranteed to have fewer articles. As somebody that works on WikiProject Alaska, having stubs grouped by regions would much more useful to me than having them grouped by census area or borough, some of them being quite obscure. A couple of fine points:

• The Alaska Office of Economic Tourism places Kodiak in Southwest Alaska, as does the Anchorage Daily News' Alaska.com. The Wikipedia article on Southcentral Alaska claims Kodiak, but I would question its authority.
• Google shows more than twice as many hits for "Southcentral Alaska" than "South Central Alaska." "Southcentral" is also the form used by the State of Alaska sites and the Anchorage Daily News.

Lest it be lost in the details: I really appreciate that Nyttend raised the issue of stub sorting for Alaska geo stubs! -- Shunpiker (talk) 05:08, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

• Commewnt - I'm a little surprised about some of the proposed names. AFAIK there's nowhere other than Alaska where there is somewhere called Yukon-Koyukuk, in which case the stub template name should simply be YukonKoyukuk-geo-stub (it doesn't need the AK disambiguator). The same is true for many of the other names. And I certainly am not in favour of a POWOKAK-geo-stub by that name! To answer Shunpiker's point though, as far as I can tell no-one is p[roposing fine-grained stub categories - only templates. The normal procedure when a state or similar region is split is to create all the required templates for the next administrative unit down 9i.e., county), but to upmerge those templates into regionalstub categories. Thus we'd have all the templates Nyttend suggests 9though hopefully with better names, as pointed out), but only four r five regional categories. Grutness...wha? 05:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I also don't quite understand how you can logically say that the categories are too detailed... then suggest a solution that would be more detailed!

In any case, here's my take on this: the point of stub sorting is to make things easier for people. Even if we don't have at least 60 in each, that seems like a pretty arbitrary rule, why not 45, 100, 3.1415... etc? What I'm trying to say is, the sheer size of Alaska and the diversity of the regions, it makes sense to use broad terms that describe location in terms of east, west, south, north. Think of it this way: stretched end to end, Alaska reaches from about California to Florida. We are legally a state but in area are about twice the size of Germany- the largest European country excluding Russia. However, we have a minuscule population that is highly rural and spread out, which has led to a rather complex system of census areas, boroughs, and unnamed divisions. I'm a native Alaskan, and given a blank map I probably couldn't place half the boroughs or census areas, there's so many of them and they're relatively arbitrary.- so how is someone who's never been to Alaska supposed to know where Wade Hampton Borough is? The region descriptors are more user friendly! L'Aquatique[parlez] 07:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

How is having five categories more detailed than having a large number of categories plus a load of stubs still feeding into the main category since they are below threshold? (For the reasons behind the threshold, BTW, read user:Grutness/Stub rationales - it explains the reasons fairly well, even if I do say so myself). If you don't know where Wade Hampton Borough is, you add the WadeHampton-geo-stub tag and it automatically gets put into the right regional category. And thoise categories are there to help editors find things to expand, so if you don't know where Wade Hampton Borough is it's unlikely you'd be looking to expand any stubs in that area anyway. Think of it this way. Permanent categories aid people looking for information. Stub categories aid people looking to add information. People who are looking to add information will know well-enough what area they are looking for and therefore what part of the category tree> Also look at it this way - sure, Alaska is big and stretches a long way, but the number of stubs on Alaska is relatively small - overly fragmenting it with masses of categories would make working on the subject harder, not easier. if there were as many stubs on Alaska as there are on , say, Germany, then it would make more sense to split the categories up more, given that eqach iof them would still be large enough to be useful and practical. There aren't that many - though there are enough that the main category needs some form of split. As such, you have two general choices - 40-odd upmerged templates feeding into a handful of regional categories, or the same number of upmerged templates feeding either into individual categories or into the main Alaska category, depending entirely on a case-by-case basis on whether they have reached threshold. The former case is definitely NOT a more detailed solution, and is the solution generally used where possible by WP:WSS (I suggest you have a look at other cases where this is done, like the state-level US school-stubs, country-level struct-stubs, or - most tellingly7 - otherUS county-level geo-stubs. Grutness...wha? 23:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not proposing more finely-grained stub categories: I'm proposing a few categories, with several stubs in each. Look at Category:Ohio geography stubs, in which there are eighty-eight different stub templates, but just seven stub categories. Each Ohio county has its own template, but they're merged into regions, as marked on this image. I'm proposing to do the same with Alaska.

As far as the borough and census areas: with a geography article, it's easy to find where a place is: use the GNIS, or a map, or something like that; articles can remain in the statewide category if necessary. Look at the map at the top of this proposal, above my four-color map: there are only eleven census areas, and only nineteen boroughs; most Ohioans or West Virginians couldn't likely name all their counties either, but we've split both of those states by counties. I don't really see how this is different.

As far as Grutness' idea: what name would you rather see for the Prince of Wales-Outer Ketchikan Census Area? I just thought that {{PrinceOfWalesOuterKetchikanAK-geo-stub}} was rather awkward. As far as the AK, see the Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia geography stubs, and the slightly differently named California geography stubs: all of them include the state name, even though there's not likely to be anywhere else with an {{Ashtabula-geo-stub}} or a {{Tuolumne-geo-stub}}.

Finally, as far as the size: the stub sorting Wikiproject says that 60 is the minimum. That's not my idea. Please, everyone, seek to familiarise yourselves with Alaska geography and with stub sorting procedures: I think that everyone here who is confused is somewhat unfamiliar with one or the other, as both use specialised terminology. You can find stub sorting procedure elsewhere on this project page, and I've added links to all the borough and census area articles up above, so you can read somewhat about them. Nyttend (talk) 12:02, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

And by the way, it would make more sense I think to place Kodiak Island Borough in Southwest, especially as we have Stan Shunpike's state source for such a classification. As far as Southcentral: I was just questioning that because I've not seen that usage; as you've proven that it's more common in Alaska, no reason that Alaska should do otherwise. Nyttend (talk) 12:39, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Interesting about the county names in the templates. I'm sure they didn't have the extra letters designating state when they were proposed, and I'm very surprised that those letters are there. As to Prince of Wales-Outer Ketchikan, I'm not sure, but the POWOKAK suggestion doesn't seen a natural one. Perhaps a redirect of one to the other (there's nothing wrong with PrinceofWalesOuterKetchikanAK-geo-stub - it's a bit long, but easy enough to remember if you know the name of the place. Grutness...wha? 23:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

My big objection with the length of PrinceOfWalesetc.-geo-stub was that I expected that this project wouldn't like such a long name. I'm fine with it myself. Actually, as you can see on this archive page, the state name has been in county-level stubs from the beginning: California's stubs (which were the first to receive county-level splitting) had the state included, and Ohio (see this archive page) had the OH included in later stages of the proposal. I wasn't involved in splitting Indiana's stubs, and my proposal for West Virginia didn't include the WV in its stubs, but that's because I proposed doing them like Ohio and California and received no objections. I agree that we're not likely to run into any other PrinceOfWalesOuterKetchikans in the world, unlike (say) a Madison or a Franklin (see how many there are of Madison County and Franklin County nationwide), but I think it makes sense for consistency: after all, the article is entitled Prince of Wales-Outer Ketchikan Census Area, Alaska, and Prince of Wales-Outer Ketchikan Census Area is a redirect to that. Not a big deal, to tell the truth, but I think it's better to include the state abbreviation. Nyttend (talk) 00:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

New proposal

What about this proposal? I've based it on this map from the Alaska Office of Economic Development, conforming it as well as possible to county-equivalent boundaries. With this, I'd propose that the regions be Southeast Alaska (green), Southcentral Alaska (red), Southwest Alaska (blue), Interior Alaska (yellow), and Far North Alaska (purple). This is similar to what we did with West Virginia geography stubs, in which our agreed-upon regional divisions were taken directly from a state transportation department website: this map is the source for our map. I think we could reasonably link the Far North Alaska stub to Arctic Alaska, with text such as "This article about a location in Far North Alaska is a stub..." Nyttend (talk) 12:50, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I second Nyttend's latest proposal. Nice work integrating the AOED map with the borough map. -- Shunpiker (talk) 14:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC) (No relation to Stan Shunpike!)

Sure, that looks almost exactly the same as my classification. I still stand by my usage of the term North Slope, but I do understand why North Alaska would be more appealing. L'Aquatique[parlez] 17:08, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Would you be willing to rework your regional maps along my proposed borders, if this proposal passes? Nyttend (talk) 17:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. It should only take a few minutes, there are only a few differences. In fact, I'm on a high speed internet connection right now so... hold on a moment. L'Aquatique[parlez] 18:23, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, you may need to purge your cache to see the differences. Take a look and make sure I got them all. Also, note the shading I added on the southeast map so you can see it better. L'Aquatique[parlez] 18:39, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. When can we start sorting? --Shunpiker (talk) 22:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Another arbitrary break

[unindent] Thanks for the update, L'Aquatique, and for the good idea of shading around the Panhandle: they all look good. Sorting won't be done until the proposal time passes: it's five days, like AFD except shorter and in reverse :-) Once that time passes, I'll create (or you, or anyone else) the individual borough and census area stub templates, and the regional categories and stub templates, and we can start applying them in place of the {{Alaska-geo-stub}}. We need the time to make sure that other issues are sorted out: for example, Grutness' concerns about the names of the individual borough and census area stubs needs to be satisfied, either by his agreeing to what has been proposed or by the proposals being changed. Nyttend (talk) 23:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with the proposal as stands, though I am surprised about the AKs - as I said above, I'm pretty sure that the county-level types for other states were originally proposed without the digraphs. My one suggestion, though, would be to have POWOKAK-geo-stub as a redirect to {{PrinceofWalesOuterKetchikanAK-geo-stub}} (with lower case o in "of", as per the placename) rather than as the only template. It is shorter, but the others are in full, so this one should be too. I must admit to knowing too little of Alaska's geography to make any comment on the actual by-region split - I'll leave that sort of thing to those who know the area. Grutness...wha? 23:46, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so I'm still unclear on one thing: are we going to have stub templates for every borough, census area, etc and categories for all the regions (which sounds great with me, btw, as long as they are sorted by region somehow). Shunpiker, if you're interested in sorting now, we can still get started on that since I'm pretty sure this will pass. I'm going to list out the boroughs/census areas by region on this page, just add articles in a list under the correct heading and then the actual sorting can be done by bot! L'Aquatique[parlez] 23:58, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I expect that we should have one for each borough and census area, but in regional categories, so Waterfall, Alaska will be in the Southeast Alaska regional category. It will also be good to have a stub for each region, for the sake of articles that cover places or features in multiple boroughs/census areas in a single region; the standard practice with places that are in multiple regions is to leave them with the state stub (for example, Isaban, West Virginia, a community split between two regions of WV), although given the size of Alaska, we're not likely to see a ton of use for such templates. Don't start the creation yet, however, since we must give this five days — wait until 11 September — although listing them on your subpage is a great idea. Nyttend (talk) 00:10, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

U through Z sorted...! L'Aquatique[parlez] 00:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

M sorted. --Shunpiker (talk) 05:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd be against the idea of having region templates - if a place is in more than one census area the usual procedure is simply to multi-stub it, up to a maximum of about four templates. The general trend at WP:WSS has been away from templates for what are, to be honest, fairly arbitrary regions. Isaban, West Virginia hadn't been fully stub-sorted (it is now). Grutness...wha? 04:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. There's perhaps no prospect of it happening anytime soon for Alaska, but for some of the states county-level stub templates are already quite "full", and the regions may progressively become redundant, or only "containers" if they're kept. The counties (or in this case, boroughs) are also much more unambiguously defined, and are after all the actual primary subdivisions, so tagging on that basis seems highly preferable. Alai (talk) 16:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

[unindent] I have made all the designs for the stub templates, when it's time to create, whoever wants to do that can find them here: User:L'Aquatique/AK. L'Aquatique[parlez] 18:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Name of northern area

One thing left to decide: what are we going to call the region composed of the North Slope and Northwest Arctic Boroughs and the Nome Census Area? All I've seen are North Slope Alaska and Far North Alaska — in case you don't remember, I support Far North Alaska, because that's the name on the state-produced website that we're using as our source for regional divisions. We need to get this decided before the five days are up, so that we can create the category under an approved name as soon as the approval period is done. Nyttend (talk) 19:33, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

As I've said, please don't create regional templates: they're more trouble than they're worth in the long run. I also strongly recommend avoiding double-link "stub" and "help" in the scoping text: the end up resolving to the same place, WP:STUB. As for the name, at first sight it looks to me that North Slope has the wrong scope, and Far North Alaska is a redlink. Can we integrate this source (or some other suitable one) into the text of one or other of the articles in such a way as to make the naming and scoping perfectly clear? Alai (talk) 16:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Whatever; if that's the tendency, I don't think we should go against WP:WSS standards. As the idea of Arctic Alaska and Far North Alaska seem to be rather similar, I've created a redirect from Far North to Arctic, and added bits relative to Far North at the Arctic article. Does this help at all? Nyttend (talk) 17:51, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

By the way, in relation to your don't-double-link statement: is it more standard to link "stub" or to link "help"? Nyttend (talk) 17:54, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I just followed the way other stubs I've seen were setup. I would think you would link the one that came first, but I could be wrong.

As I said, I prefer North Slope, because that's what I and everyone else in Alaska uses. I would also support North Alaska and Arctic Alaska, preferably arctic. Far North sounds too much like a travel brochure, imho. L'Aquatique[parlez] 18:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Is Nome generally considered to be in the North Slope region? Nyttend (talk) 20:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Nyttend, that seems to cover that quite nicely. It's normal to link on "stub", though admittedly there's many around that are double-linked dating back in one way or the other to when there were two different target pages.

Perhaps we should use Category:Arctic Alaska geography stubs, since it appears to me that the other terms either imply a different scope, or there's some opposition to that as a name. Personally, I'm happy with anything there's a well-scoped scoping article for. Alai (talk) 21:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Nome is north slope. North slope is everything on the northern side [or slope] of the Brooks range and above, hence "North Slope". Sounds like Arctic Alaska is more popular, though. L'Aquatique[parlez] 22:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The Alaska North Slope article is far from clear on that, mentioning only the North Slope Borough directly. The Arctic Alaska article is much more explicit, hence my preference and suggestion. (If the current state of these articles isn't indicative of common usage and reliable sources you might consider tweaking them, not to say merging them if there's no actual difference.) Alai (talk) 04:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

[unindent] Aside from the question of the Alaska North Slope article (which confused me, too; I didn't realise that "North Slope" meant as wide as you say it does), I'm wary about calling the region this because it might sound as if the region were coëxtensive with the North Slope Borough. I still prefer Far North because that's what our source uses, but I'm quite open to Arctic. Nyttend (talk) 04:45, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

If that really is our only/best source for such regions, perhaps the scoping article should indeed be renamed. The same rationale would presumbly apply (either way) for the category name. It does look to be touch-and-go whether this is numerically viable, so perhaps we should skip it for now. Alai (talk) 15:29, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Your point being that perhaps Interior and [disputed name northern region] should be just one region? We approved West Virginia regions that weren't big enough, so they weren't created until there were enough stubs; I expect that we could follow this procedure here too: the three stubs could be upmerged to the state template until we had enough of them. Nyttend (talk) 17:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

L'Aquatique has completed sorting the stubs on her page. The results by region are:

• Southeast: 139
• Southcentral: 108
• Southwest: 203
• Interior: 40
• Northern region (whatever we call it): 74

As I said, we could do like with West Virginia: simply leave the Interior region without its own category (with its stubs being upmerged to the state category) until there are enough stubs to satisfy the minimum. Since we're seemingly going at least somewhat with the state-produced map boundaries, I think this would be better than merging Interior and the northern region. Nyttend (talk) 02:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with that idea also. (At first wink it looked as if Northern/Far North/North Slope/Alaska might be undersized also, not that that would really have made it especially urgent, either.) Alai (talk) 03:05, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to tell me I'm really thick here, but I haven't been paying a great deal of attention and it sounds like I might be the one creating the templates. Are we still planning on having cats for regions and doing individual stub templates for separate boroughs/census areas? Also, I'm not sure I understand why we can't create the one for interior- it's under 60 or whatever arbitrary number is required but we will eventually have enough- part of the problem is this is literally the least unexplored part of the state and so there's less information available- but as more and more people start to hike it and our satellite imaging technology gets better, we're going to start having more information, thus more articles.

Oh one more thing- while sorting, I noticed that some but not all articles are in categories based on their borough/census area. If I added some syntax into the stub template that would automatically add an article into their given [pre-existing] borough category, would articles already in that category be added twice? If not, it seems like a good idea, to help categorization. L'Aquatique[parlez] 04:45, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Apparently we're not doing the regional stubs. Since there aren't many stubs in any of the regional categories on your stub listing page, you could probably just leave them there, and we can sort them later manually. You don't have to create the stubs or the categories; I had simply interpreted your words to mean that you wanted to do that. I'd be willing to, and anyone else who wants to do it will be permitted.

As far as Interior Alaska: no, we will not create this category right now. To create the category now would be somewhat crystalballish, stating that there will be enough articles at some point so we should have a category now. The stub sorting project rules state that there must be at least 60 stubs that are in a category, unless it's the primary stub for a project, which need only have 30 — and it looks like the Alaska project is the only non-stub-sorting project involved here, not an Interior Alaska project. There's nothing wrong with saying that the creation is approved for whenever enough articles are created: that means that you or I or anyone else may create that category and move its stubs there without coming back here to get permission. One way to solve this problem would simply be to go out and create viable stubs on places in this region, so we could create the category rather soon :-) As far as the categories in the stubs, this is not a common feature; the stub-sorting project people can tell you whether that's okay from their end. My concern with that idea is that it might put the article in too broad of a category: for example, Pioneer Park belongs in the Fairbanks category, so if we made the geostub place it in the Fairbanks North Star Borough category as well, we'd be getting into overcategorization: and because the problem category is due to the stub, there'd be no easy way to fix it. Nyttend (talk) 13:28, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Nyttend on all counts. To amplify the point about the permcats: it's definitely not standard WPSS practice, and could well saving work in the short term, but making more in the longer run, for the reasons Nyttend mentions. However, I'd be willing to try to bot-add both at the same time, if people feel that would be reasonably accurate. (An if it's not 100% accurate, then at least it's then easily fixable after the fact.) Alai (talk) 16:08, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

[unindent] Okay, great, thanks for the clarification. I'd be happy to create the categories and templates, just let me know when we're ready for that. L'Aquatique[parlez] 18:17, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the template's or category's talk page (if any). No further edits should be made to this section.