Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. counties/Archive 4

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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)

Andy's cc'd me on this: I'd be happy to do this using my geodata bot. What location would people here prefer for these -- the location of the county seat (if available), or some kind of central measure of the set of populated places within the county? Please let me know on my talk page. -- The Anome 11:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I've now generated a list of roughly 1800 county location points, out of roughly 2400 possibles, using the county seat (or largest city, if no county seat exists) as reference point. I'm entering them with {{coord}} for now, and leaving infobox merging as a task for the future. I'll re-examine the data for the missed counties after this run is complete. -- The Anome 17:47, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, that's the first run done, and some of the special cases sorted, allowing me to tag another 177 counties. There are still several hundred remaining counties which have not been matched by my rather cautious algorithm; I'll look at these another time. -- The Anome 11:57, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I've now found the U.S. Census county data that gives me direct coordinates for counties without any need for pattern matching multiple datasets, and using this data for the remaining counties, census areas, etc. -- The Anome 13:57, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Splendid! Are they're many differences for the pages you'd already done, and would it be worth revisiting them?

I've now done so -- The Anome 12:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you again. Andy Mabbett 12:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, another user has decided that coordinates belong outside the infobox, and has moved them thus :-( Andy Mabbett

The change is very perplexing. In many county articles, the coordinates now appear in a very small font at the top of the page with the generic Wikipedia links to Main Page | Recent changes | Edit this page | Page history | Printable version | Disclaimers | Privacy policy . I don't understand why the user decided that coordinates don't belong in the infobox, but I certainly don't agree with locating them with generic Wikipedia navigation links.--orlady 22:15, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Because several US County articles already have COORD placed on the page manually (always with the TITLE argument), it is more consistent to keep the template placed on the title. Also, the Template:Infobox U.S. County template now makes it easier for a user to apply COORD by simply adding the four variables:

• lat deg
• lat min
• long deg
• long min

This way, a user doesn't have to understand COORD syntax. Just put the degrees and minutes into these variables and COORD shows automatically. If it is decided — and I don't see why — that COORD must be "inline", I still think we should leave these four variables so the average user can just enter them and have the COORD template appear automatically.Timneu22 00:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Variation on this topic. If you need the "coord" template placed on US County articles, why should it be a variable within the US County template? It could just be dropped directly on the page (Allegany County, MD is an example). I just don't see why there's a variable that equals a template if the COORD template can just be put right on the page. Timneu22 00:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The only reason the coordinates were placed in the body text, with "title" for the display, and not in the infobox, with "inline,title" display, was because of your recent and apparently ongoing changes to the infobox. It will be relatively trivial for a bot to move them all into the infobox, once a consensus is reached. That can be done using coord as a parameter, or individual values. I have already, twice, pointed out to you the reasons for including coord' in the infobox: it was that the coordinates will be part of the generated hcard microformat; and that the generated geo microformat will be labelled with the name of the county, rather than being presented as a pair of comma-delineated stings of digits. Almost every other infobox for a place now has the coordinates within it. Andy Mabbett 07:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

You keep talking about geo microformat yada yada — I just want two questions answered:

1. What is the difference between Baltimore County, MD (infobox params) vs. Allegany County, MD (direct usage of COORD) ?
2. Why can't you just add COORD to US County Articles without adding to the infobox ??? It's unnecessary to add COORD inside the infobox.

That's it. Just two questions. Timneu22 01:01, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

You already have your answers, but have - for reasons we can only imagine - dismissed them as "yada yada". Andy Mabbett 10:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Dude, you can call me stupid if you want but I do not understand. I have asked you two simple questions so that you can clarify. My GOSH! I just want the answers so I understand what you're talking about. 1 - what's the difference between those articles. 2 - Why does there have to be a "coordinates" variable that links to COORD? These are my questions. I don't understand but you refuse to answer. You just say "hCard Microformat." That's great — I don't get it. I've told you that those two articles referenced are the same in every way that I can see. Please tell me what I don't understand. It seems that it would be easiest for a BOT to simply place COORD on every page with the infobox, without doing anything to the infobox itself (including removing my lat/long variables). Timneu22 00:18, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Using a bot to put the coordinates in the infobox, using coord was what was proposed, but was rendered impossible by your recent edits. I have answered your questions already, and provided links should you require further clarification. Andy Mabbett 14:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be a pain, but no, you haven't answered my questions. I truly don't understand. I have asked direct questions but I get no answers from you. The only course of action, therefore, is for me to remove the lat/long variables and you (or your bot) to drop the template right on the page, essentially leaving the infobox unchanged from before this situation started. I'm sorry you cannot explain how this works. I really just wanted two answers. You cannot explain why/how those two pages are different — this leads me to believe that they aren't. Timneu22 22:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

(reverse indent) Do we use lat/long or not? I don't see how coordinates = {{coord}} helps anything. I see lat/long but I see this discussion. What should be used? The lat/long seems to make sense. ClintonKu 09:58, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Templates and geodata: a proposal

There seem to be two separate and competing major issues here:

• the first concerns flexibility in generating the content of the rendered page, so that the rendered HTML is both formatted nicely for human readers, and machine readable for microformat-crawling data reusers who spider the rendered HTML.
• The second concerns flexibility for editors of pages and template authors, and machine readability for data reusers who want to analyze the Wikipedia source text, for example, by analyzing Wikipedia dumps.

Neither of the current proposals seem to fulfil all of these requirements.

Here's my proposal:

• treat templates as "frames" of data in the AI sense, and use the idea of "duck typing": if it looks like a geotag, in that it has geotag-like data fields, it can be regarded as a geotag
• thus, we allow any template that contains both a "latitude" and a "longitude" parameter to be regarded as being a geodata template from the point of view of source parsing, and implementation in terms of lower-level templates
• make all parameters keyword parameters, rather then positional
• allow the arguments for "latitude" and "longitude" parameters to take up any of the obvious formats, such as "-42.25" or "42.25 S", "42 15 S", "42 12 00 S", etc.
• allow extra optional parameters that are currently part of the extension of the current geotags to be explicit parameters, using the prefix "geo" to avoid name-clashes with other parameters: for example, "geotype", "georegion", "geosource". We can even use "geoglobe" to define which planet the geotag is on.
• furthermore, if we want to, we can add other fields such as "geoheight" etc. to capture other relevant metadata that is not currently used by the existing system

Thus,

{{coord|41.29|-110.55|display=title|type:adm2_region:US-WY_source:UScensus1990}}

would become

{{geotag|latitude=41.29|longitude=-110.55|display=title| geotype=adm2|georegion=US-WY|geosource=UScensus1990}}

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)

That's an interesting idea, but:

1. This isn't the place to discuss it
2. {{tl|coord} is not fully implemented, yet
3. External parsers are only now catching up with the change to coord.

Andy Mabbett 21:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

County subdivision locator maps

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? --Astrokey44 09:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a very good idea to have locator maps for all county subdivisions. A variety of such maps already exist, though obviously not for all counties. Here are four examples: 1) In Pennsylvania, Bradford County is one of several with maps from User:Ram-Man based on the US Census maps (see Albany Township, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, for example). 2) I have made different census based maps for Lycoming and Sullivan counties in Pennsylvania (see Dushore, Pennsylvania, for example). 3) User:Skeetidot has made some very nice maps for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania (see Aspinwall, Pennsylvania, for example). 4) Further west, Ogle County, Illinois has maps by User:Kranar drogin (see Brookville Township, Ogle County, Illinois, for example). I prefer the third example. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 12:58, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Just so you know, we are slowly going to be changing ours over to option three here in Illinois, but I am not doing those.--Kranar drogin 03:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Somehow I missed this discussion at the time. However, I have created township locator maps for all of the Indiana townships, and have been creating them for Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri as well. Example: Blount Township, Vermilion County, Illinois Omnedon (talk) 17:37, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Notable natives question

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)

My Opinion

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)

You are definitely talking about urban counties here. In the rural counties I am maintaining there is no question of "overload." Also, the towns are so small and obscure that a reader would be hard pressed to find these notables at that level. Identity is important. County identity is important to rural dwellers even though they live in an organized town. Most counties in the US are rural. You might want to take that into consideration in your discussions.

But even at a rural level, a "ramp" is needed to screen out people not notable above the town level. State legislators, for example.Student7 12:26, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

These kind of screen themselves, I've found. At each level, "notable" has to mean notable outside that level. One small town in Vermont had a Governor and a Major General. They were notable at the school (!) level and at the town and county level. Not at the state level. All states have governors! The cut off for Major General at the state level was arbitrary I admit. I do have a problem with major league sports and everyone claiming that if they have an article they need to be in at the state level. I think they need to be more famous than just "working for" the majors at the state level. Most states and larger cities have avoided the problem by forking the list. The article is about the county (or whatever) not about people.

The "outside" the area is the screener, regardless of entity. They are not collective (additive). Student7 (talk) 02:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Transportation

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 suppose either way would work. I tend not to put any subheading under Geography because often the section is not very big for county articles, and I can fit a description of all the major highways, railroads, and airports into just one or two paragraphs. —Mike 22:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Confusion between established and organized

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)? Psychless 23:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

For many midwestern states, counties were often established long before there were enough people (well, white settlers anyhow) to warrant a county-level government. Such counties were established, or laid off, but were attached other counties for administrative purposes. County organization occurred when a county government was organized. Both the laying off of counties and organization were typically accomplished with acts of the legislature. Although prior to statehood, in certain stages of territorial government, a territorial governor could establish counties by issuing a proclamation. older ≠ wiser 00:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I believe I understand the distinction between established and organized know. However, should the list I'm working on, and the other county lists, include the organized date as well? Psychless 23:00, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I would include both - I know it is an article and not a list, but see Clearfield County, Pennsylvania for how similar information was incorporated briefly into an article. Many lists have a comment section, perhaps the organized info could be there? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:20, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh it will be simple to figure out a way to include the information into the list. I just wanted to know if I should. Thanks, Psychless 21:47, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Another county question

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)

In the early history of states, it was not uncommon for counties to cover vast areas by contemporary standards. For example, at one time Wayne County encompassed the entire state of Michigan. As settlers moved into areas and needed more responsive local government, new counties were created (or sometimes, new counties were created in anticipation of increasing settlement). older ≠ wiser 01:53, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, looking further I see this Wikipedia site[2], where I suspect the source is from The Handbook of Texas Online, where it says:

"On November 28, 1839, another act was passed by Congress to define the boundaries of Fannin County, which at the time included land that later became Grayson, Collin, Cooke, Denton, Montague, Wise, Clay, Jack, Wichita, Archer, Young, Wilbarger, Baylor, Throckmorton, Hardeman, Foard, Knox, Haskell, Stonewall, King, Cottle, and Childress counties, as well as parts of Hunt and Collingsworth counties. The present-day boundaries were established and approved on March 14, 1846." But at the same time, I found a historical marker saying Cottle came from Bexar: "Formed From Young and Bexar territories created August 21, 1876, organized January 11, 1892. Named in honor of George Washington Cottle a private who died at the Alamo. Paducah, the County Seat."[3] Can these be reconciled? Brian Pearson 02:13, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

County histories and state histories

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)

• While I agree with your ideas, there are some practical difficulties with your suggestions. First, many counties do not have modern histories (and if they do, they may often be written by amateurs and not professional historians). Second, if there are no modern or at least professional histories, then many of the trends you cite may be original research, which is not allowed here. Be that as it may, these are good ideas and thanks for suggesting them. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:45, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

If you see Adair, Iowa, a city, you can see there is a template (Template:USCensusPop) that can show census data for different years. If you would like to add census data for counties, by all means please do so. Social history is important, and should be added if you can find information on it. Psychless 23:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Townships

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)

Not all states have townships. Timneu22 14:43, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

In states with townships, would it be possible to add the townships near the end of the article? 3 November 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.87.212.248 (talk) 03:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Featured list candidate

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)