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Standards for County navboxes (CDPs)

I'd like some other opinions about whether it makes sense for the boxes in Category:Michigan county navigational boxes (or any others for that matter) to use obscure Census Bureau jargon like CDP to organize what should be a user-friendly navigational aid. See comments here.

First, has there been some discussion somewhere to decide that CDPs are de rigeur in county navboxes? Is there in fact a standard "nationwide style", wherein every county with a CDP that has a USCounty Navbox-formatted county template breaks out CDPs for that county as a separate class of entity? If so, this seems silly to me, in that CDP are a purely arbitrary inventions of the Census Bureau. I have yet to see a single place defined as a CDP by the Census Bureau self-identify itself as a CDP. Many of these places have dedicated web sites and even periodicals and other resources -- but I have yet to see any that identifies itself as a CDP. Further, for most people there is no tangible differences whatsover that distinguish a community that is a CDP from one that is not. The only actual difference is that for one community the Census Bureau publishes a set of demographic data. I fail to see how it helps a reader in any way to use such Census Bureau jargon as labels in the navigation boxes. older ≠ wiser 01:37, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

One such discussion took place here about a month ago: User_talk:VerruckteDan#CDPs. I agree with you; in some contexts it may be useful to make the distinction, but it's probably not useful in a navigation template. Since CDPs are unincorporated communities, I see no reason why they should separated out in the template rather than being listed with the others. Omnedon (talk) 02:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

These county navboxes started gaining in popularity several months ago and most were indeed created in the last few months. As far as I know, there has been no real discussion about whether or not CDPs should be made distinct from other incorporated communities. The templates were apparently modeled to follow the preferences of the handful of editors creating them. I do not think CDPs should be separated from other unincorporated communities. These communities are what they are regardless of how they get treated by the Census Bureau. They do not lose their status as an unincorporated community because they've been listed as a CDP. I have also seen some edits where an article about an unincorporated area that begins as "X is a village and CDP in State Y" is changed to "X is a CDP in State Y" as if being a CDP is fundamentally different from being a non-CDP unincorporated area. --Polaron | Talk 03:05, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

(after ec)Omnedon, thanks for that link. In general, it's hard from me to see that a separate listing for CDPs is ever really useful in a county navbox-- although there could be some exceptions. In fact, some CDPs probably should not be included on the navbox at all. For example there are currently some CDPs that do not really correspond to distinct communities at all -- such as Greater Galesburg, Michigan -- this is nothing more than the urbanized penumbra surrounding the city of Galesburg -- no one who lives there would recognize themselves as being from "Greater Galesburg" -- there is no post office for "Greater Galesburg" -- there is no "Greater Galesburg School District". Anyone living there either identifies with the city itself or with the respective township. In essence, Greater Galesburg is nothing more than a statistical abstraction -- it has no existence other than as an arbitrary construct of the Census Bureau to facilitate the aggregation of data. I don't see much benefit for readers to identifying artificial entities like Greater Galesburg in the county navbox. For those CDPs that do correspond to actual communities, I don't see any benefit to readers in labeling them with obscure technical jargon like "CDP" rather than a more generally understandable term like community. older ≠ wiser 03:11, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, for the reasons above. Also, as I've mentioned elsewhere, listing CDPs separately from incorporated communities and unincorporated communities suggests that CDPs are entirely distinct from these. In fact they're not — CDPs are a subset of unincorporated community. Presenting them otherwise is misleading and draws a false distinction. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 14:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm unenthused about CDPs as well. For the record, some town articles include subsections on "greater Midville", deliberately including the CDP. A bit worse (maybe should be under another WikiProject discussion), zips are often used for small incorporated communities. The postal zip, however, is well beyond the boundaries of the incorporated area. Ah, well. Student7 (talk) 15:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

When I created the county navboxes for California three years ago back in 2005, there were no standards. iirc, I basically copied and pasted the cities and communities lists from each respective county article, which were at the time organized by city, CDP, and so forth. Then AFIAK, the navboxes for New York and Pennsylvania were created a few months later, independently from the California ones, that had both CDPs and unincorporated communities combined in one row. So that is why some county templates have the CDPs separated (modeled after the CA navboxes) while others have them combined (modeled after the NY and PA navboxes). But now that we have some sort of standard like Template:US county navigation box, I do not really care one way or the other how to organize the CDPs. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 04:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Begin the defence of CDPs

Let me note, before anything else, that the Census Bureau tends to be our basis for our US geography articles. Virtually all municipality articles and many others were created with that data, and I'm not aware that there's been consensus to put any other source in its place. The consensus guidelines for US place articles still place US Census figures in a prominent place, as statistical figures in any article following these guidelines are US Census figures only. No doubt that the Census is a preferable reliable source. Now let's go to the description of a CDP: you'll note that this delineates the ways in which CDPs are generally defined — they're not arbitrary, and the boundaries are generally established along some sort of visible feature. In short: the Census Bureau finds something to be different about these places. None of us are reliable sources, so our opinions are to be less important than the sources' opinions. Why should we say that there's no difference between CDPs and other unincorporated communities when the Census seems to think that there is? Moreover, there's historically a basis for listing CDPs as CDPs: you can see with edits such as this that listing certain places as CDPs in their articles was done by a bot, surely with approval, so the idea of having CDPs (listed as CDPs) on Wikipedia is by consensus. If we begin to say that these are arbitrary, we're in spirit going against the very existence of CDPs as CDPs on Wikipedia — one of our longer-standing standards.
Now let me ask: what's the reason of listing these separately on templates? Of course they're unincorporated, but by that token, we need make only two types of listing: incorporated and unincorporated. CDPs are a type of unincorporated communities, ones that (unlike all others) have specific boundaries and demographic data. Even if we believe that they're just like undesignated places, these factors make them more useful — and with navigational templates, usefulness is the primary purpose. Admittedly, the concept of the CDP is relatively little known. However, it's a simple one to understand, and splitting them highlights that there is somewhat of a difference — useful especially for those looking for statistical data. By the way, addressing the first little bit of Polaron's comment: although some other editors and I have been adding these all over the place in the last several months, generally listing CDPs separately, neither these templates nor their separate listing of CDPs is new. You can find the California templates this way, listing CDPs months before the end of 2006: Mendocino and San Bernardino Counties. Nyttend (talk) 18:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

CDPs are delineated based on certain criteria. For the 1990 Census, there was a minimum population requirement (and usually a density requirement). There are many examples of CDPs that correspond to multiple named communities (because they are in a single urban area) and many communities that do not meet the population distribution criteria so fail to become CDPs. Many of the fundamental requirements for CDPs will also be changed in the 2010 Census such that old CDPs are no longer necessarily the same object as new CDPs. But in the end, most such places will always be communities regardless of how they are labeled (or not) by the Census Bureau and local usage should dictate how these are called. Categorizing only as incorporated and unincorporated places might actually be better for certain states where there is no legal distinction or hierarchy between cities, towns, and villages. --Polaron | Talk 19:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say none existed. I said they started gaining in popularity about a year ago. --Polaron | Talk 19:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

• CDPs should be recognized, but it would be inappropriate to treat them the same way in every state -- or even in every county within a given state. Some CDPs, such as Blountville, Tennessee, and Battlement Mesa, Colorado, are distinct communities that are not incorporated. The nomenclature for these CDPs varies from place to place; some are called "towns" or "villages," but many are just "unincorporated communities." Local usage should prevail. (Additionally, there are many similar unincorporated communities, such as Tellico Village, Tennessee and Briceville, Tennessee, that are not CDPs but also deserve to be recognized as subcounty communities.) Some CDPs, particularly in New England, are unofficial enclaves within legally recognized sub-county civil divisions (for example, the CDP of North Conway, New Hampshire is a village within the legal town of Conway, New Hampshire); these should be handled according to local usage (a rule that works in Texas will not work in New Hampshire). Then there are some CDPs, such as Nashville-Davidson (balance), Tennessee and Indianapolis (balance), Indiana, that exist purely for statistical/administrative purposes; Wikipedia would look pretty silly if it treated those as anything more than "statistical entities." --Orlady (talk) 19:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, Nyttend. It does seem like there's some misunderstanding as to what's being proposed, so let me begin by addressing a few of your points:

• The census bureau finds something different about these places. That's perfectly true, and so far as I know is not in dispute. Instead the question is with whether this difference is both significant enough and also clear enough to average users to merit listing CDPs separately in the nav box.
• Why should we say that there's no difference between CDPs and other unincorporated communities when the Census seems to think that there is? I don't think anyone's saying this. Clearly there is a difference, at least in the eyes of the Census, but it's just unclear if that difference is meaningful for anyone other than experts.
• There's historically a basis for listing CDPs as CDPs. For my own part, I think describing a CDP as a CDP in an article is just fine and completely appropriate. Again, though, it's just the utility of doing so in a nav box that's uncertain.

I'm not personally opposed to using Census terminology where appropriate, and have nothing against CDPs, but it just seems too esoteric to be useful to an average user who's browsing using the nav box. Also, as I've mentioned earlier, it's not logical to list it at the same level as incorporated or unincorporated communities because it's a subset of unincorporated community. (Imagine a nav box for pets that listed "Cats", "Dogs" and "Dobermans" -- it wouldn't make sense.)

Finally, I should mention that consensus can change over time (see WP:CCC) and that the existence of other articles doing something isn't in and of itself a sufficient rationale to do it again. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 19:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm well aware of what's being proposed: it has been proposed that official Federal data, which has generally been deemed of primary reliability, is less important than local usage on the areas. This is not the place to debate that; this is the place to apply what's been determined elsewhere. Such an issue should be raised at WP:CITY or some other place. In short: if the Census Bureau finds there to be a significant enough difference between areas that they pay attention to one but don't pay attention to another, I'd take it that there's a major difference — if it's worthy of recognition in the article, it's worthy of recognition in the template. Of course I don't know what the reasons are for considering some areas and not others, but that's not for us to worry about; we write about verifiable data instead of doing original research. How is it not helpful to classify articles in the template more specifically? By splitting the unincorporated communities between CDPs and nonCDPs, we enable the reader to understand the differences between the communities; and the reader unfamiliar with the concept of the CDP may read the article, easily appreciate the difference, and be more enlightened upon working through the template or a similar one. Anyway, if the label is the problem, we can consider a new title for the label for the nonCDPs; this would be quite helpful, as there's a broad range of labels used for them nationwide. And one more thing: "There's historically a basis for listing CDPs as CDPs" was meant to refer to listing them in articles. Nyttend (talk) 20:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

No, that's incorrect — we're not debating the importance of official Federal data. It's important data and it's suitable to include it in any article. The purpose of this discussion is limited to the nav box. I don't believe there's any WP policy that says every fine distinction made in an article must also be made in a nav box. If that were so, nav boxes would become unhelpful and unwieldy (which it seems is what some people are afraid of). Huwmanbeing ☀★ 20:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that each state should be treated dfferently - for example, in Pennsylvania, all land is incorporated. Almost all of it is classified as cities, boroughs, or townships, with two exceptions: one town (= borough essentially), and one "road district" (= township essentially). (So as an aside, in Pennsylvania "town" has a specific legal meeting, so we try to avoid "town" in articles on boroughs or cities (as there is only one town, Bloomsburg, although to confuse the issue, the township of McCandless changed its name to "Town of McCandless").)

Anyway, the Pennsylvania county nav boxes distinguish between the incorporated areas for cities, boroughs, and townships (and towns in Columbia County and districts in Potter County). If we bother to distinguish among incorporated areas, why not also distinguish among unincorporated areas? Within Pennsylvania's townships there are villages (not separately incorporated). These are often quite poorly defined geographically and there are generally no reliable statistics for their population, etc. If they correspond to CDPs though, then we know the boundaries, have areas and population figures, etc. I have no trouble listing CDPs separately from other unincorporated areas - to me it is a quality issue. I know what to expect for a CDP such as Garden View, but other unincorporated area articles are usually no better than State Line's (shudders). Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Not only is the "CDP" a unit unknown to most people (outside of Wikipedia), but in most U.S. places with which I am familiar, the difference between CDPs and other unofficial places is mostly irrelevant for purposes of a navigation box. It's just one of several indications of the significance of an unincorporated place. My understanding of the Census definition is that the Census defines a CDP when (1) there is an official data customer (meaning a federal agency or a state or county government) that wants aggregated data for the place and (2) the place meets the minimum Census Bureau criteria for a CDP. I assume that the main reason why Battlement Mesa, Colorado is a CDP, but Tellico Village, Tennessee (a similarly constituted community, but with a much larger population) is not, is that someone in Colorado requested (and may have paid for) data about Battlement Mesa but no one in Tennessee requested data about Tellico Village. That distinction may be important to the Census, but it's irrelevant to information users. Some unincorporated communities are more significant than others, but status as a CDP is only one of several determinants of their relative significance. Other things I would look for include presence of a named post office (there are many postal places that are neither incorporated communities nor CDPs: for example, Walland, Tennessee is neither an incorporated community nor a CDP, but it is a post office name covering not only the community but also a large area around it), presence of a concentrated area of settlement that can be identified as such on maps and satellite images, and presence of local public institutions such as public schools. --Orlady (talk) 22:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

BTW, guidelines regarding navigational templates can be found here: WP:NAV. It states that "navigational templates provide navigation" (emphasis is Wikipedia's), and that "compactness" and "reduction of clutter" are important. Making the user more enlightened is not its intended purpose — that's something that hopefully the article itself will accomplish. Huwmanbeing ☀★ —Preceding comment was added at 23:32, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I think Huwmanbeing and others have already expressed many of my opinions, so I'll try to avoid too much repetition. I'll start by responding to some of Nyttend's comments at the top of this thread:

• Virtually all municipality articles and many others were created with that data, and I'm not aware that there's been consensus to put any other source in its place. No one is suggesting replacing Census data with something else.
• [CDPs are] not arbitrary, and the boundaries are generally established along some sort of visible feature. CDPs are almost by definition arbitrary -- the criteria is determined by the Census Bureau and the criteria is subject to change -- beyond the control of any particular community involved. While the Bureau makes some attempts to work with local authorities in defining boundaries, the boundaries for a CDP are at best only a general approximation of the corresponding community. In many cases, the boundaries of the CDP have only a vague correlation with what residents of the area identify as the place with the same name as the CDP. Unlike incorporated places and minor civil divisions, where the boundaries of the entity are intrinsic to the organization of that entity, CDPs, like other unincorporated communities, have no intrinsic boundaries.
• Appealing to Rambot's creation of the CDP articles as somehow justifying their inclusion in navboxes is almost laughable. There were considerable objections to Rambots actions at the time and many aspects of that (such as the peculiar naming conventions it established) continue to cause both confusion and arguments. (For example, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Archive 3 or any of the periodic eruptions at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements).) Now, in gegneral I think it was great that Ram-Man added pages for so many places using Census data. I don't want to speak for Ram-Man, but based on past discussions I seen, he did not intend for the articles to be the final word on how the pages were organized. I think he (and others) saw the Rambot articles as being seed stubs for persons with more familiarity with how various states and localities saw them to work with. For example, see his comments here Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Archive 3#Proposal for reorganization of US municipalities -- I had attempting to work with a relatively new user at the time over his edits to Spring Arbor, Michigan, Spring Arbor Township, Michigan and Spring Arbor, Michigan (CDP). Ram-Man's comment was I took a look at the case you mentioned, and that is an example of locals fixing the unknowns caused by weird census bureau CDPs.. I suggest that reading the earlier archives of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Archive 2 and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Archive 1 are also quite enlightening about the evolution of the Rambot-generated articles. There are a couple of other forums from that period with more interesting discussions, but I don't recall them at the moment.
• If we begin to say that these are arbitrary, we're in spirit going against the very existence of CDPs as CDPs on Wikipedia — one of our longer-standing standards. -- This seems like a Non sequitur. CDPs are arbitrary. So what difference does it make? I don't think anyone is suggesting that CDP articles should be deleted or that the demographic data associated with the CDPs be removed. Or the various CDP categories. All I'm suggesting here is that CDP is an obscure bit of census jargon that is really not a very sound basis for thrusting into users' faces as a primary organizational schema for the navboxes. I mean seriously. Ram-Man didn't even know what CDPs were when he started adding the articles. Why should we assume that using such unfamiliar and unintuitive jargon will be helpful for readers?
• CDPs are a type of unincorporated communities -- actually, strictly speaking they are not that at all. According to the Census Bureau a CDP is a "statistical entity defined for each decennial census according to Census Bureau guidelines, comprising a densely settled concentration of population that is not within an incorporated place, but is locally identified by a name." There is usually some correlation between a community and a CDP, but many CDPs are nothing more than statistical entities. We get confused because in many cases the Census Bureau uses the same name for a CDP as for an existing community.
• if it's worthy of recognition in the article, it's worthy of recognition in the template -- Why? There are lot's of things recognized in the articles that are not represented in the template. Why not include major employers in a county? Or the school districts? Or public parks? Why is an obscure designation by the Census Bureau worthy of singling out as more important that these other details that are commonly recognized in county articles?

Winding down for the evening, I need to reach a conclusion. I've no problem with CDPs being handled differently for the various states and localities. I think that is the spirit both of Wikipedia in general and in particular behind Ram-Man using Rambot to add all the census-based articles to begin with. Having order imposed simply for the sake of consistency is not, especially when it involves foregrounding obscure jargon as if it were something of special significance. older ≠ wiser 03:08, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

One last point to consider is that the government uses seven or eight discrete designations for unincorporated places (U1 through U9), which includes several kinds of CDP and other unincorporated areas delineated by a range of factors (see section 5.3.1 in FIPS 55-3). The same is also true for incorporated places, designated C1 through C9. The fact that existing nav boxes don't break unincorporated communities into U1, U2, U3, U4, etc. shows that simplifying Census designations is a practice that we all accept. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 18:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

So we agree that CDPs are different - some (myself included) like them because there is a wealth of reliably sourced geographic and statistical information available about them that is just not there for many unincorporated places. Others dislike them because they are relatively unknown (so readers are not familiar with them) and they are determined by the Census and may not match local thought. My point is that perhaps all of these differences warrant listing CDPs separately in nav boxes (as we already list cities, boroughs and townships separately in Pennsylvania, or cities, villages and townships in Ohio). I will go with the consensus, which seems to be leaning against separation in nav boxes, but if it were up to me, I would (in the words of The Offspring) "keep 'em separated".

P.S. U1 through U9 seems like it would be 9 different designations, but knowing how government works, I am sure 7 or 8 is right (i.e. Pennsylvania lists 21 parks on its "Twenty Must See State Parks" list count them on the map) ;-)

P.P.S. Is it too early to start worrying about how to update the 2010 Cenus results? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Though the census defines U1 through U9, a couple of the designations are seldom used in practice, and one is officially retired. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 19:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

To Ruhrfisch, It's not that I dislike the CDP articles. Not at all. I'm very happy they are there, although they are problematic in that too often the articles simply assume that the CDP as defined by the Census Bureau is synonymous with the community of the same name. The articles should make it clear that the CDP appellation is only reliably applicable to the aggregate of data collected under that name by the Census Bureau. My primary objection here is that breaking out CDPs as being a somehow distinctive type of community is misleading. older ≠ wiser 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Ruhrfisch's reasoning for keeping CDPs as a separate listing. That said, I also agree that the emerging consensus seems to be that different states should have the option of selecting one method or the other, and I can work with that. VerruckteDan (talk) 00:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

To Bkonrad, sorry to misconstrue your feelings about CDPs. It does seem that everyone points out how CDPs are different - we just disagree whether or not this should be reflected in their nav box listings. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:12, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Required?

It's quite obvious that consensus is against mandatory separation of CDPs: of ten people in this discussion, six oppose, three support, and one is neutral — a decently strong consensus for sure. Are we now requiring merger of CDPs with other unincorporated communities, in all states? Or are we simply permitting such merger? This whole question has, to my knowledge, affected only Michigan and New England, but today Omnedon has merged them in {{Franklin County, Missouri}} (but not in other counties), citing this page as justification. To me it seems that we have, of our ten people, five have either said that it wouldn't be a problem to have them listed in some states or that they shouldn't be merged at all — surely if half of a discussion doesn't mind doing "A", citing the discussion to the effect that consensus requires "B" instead is incorrect? I reverted the change once, but I'm not reverting again without more discussion here. Nyttend (talk) 19:40, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I thought we had pretty much hashed this out in the discussion above. To summarize, CDPs are unincorporated communities, and there is no need to separate the CDPs from other unincorporated communities in county navigational boxes. I came across Franklin County, Missouri as I was working on Missouri articles and made the change, believing this to have been resolved. As to whether or not the discussion was about more than just Michigan and New England, I think the opening sentence by bkonrad makes this pretty clear:

"I'd like some other opinions about whether it makes sense for the boxes in Category:Michigan county navigational boxes (or any others for that matter) to use obscure Census Bureau jargon like CDP to organize what should be a user-friendly navigational aid."

Certainly I was expressing an opinion generally, not just about certain states, and I don't believe I was alone. How are Missouri CDPs different than Michigan CDPs? Omnedon (talk) 22:17, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's the position you've maintained, and I've maintained rather the same, except to opposite results. I think that Bkonrad is rather in the middle on this, so I've asked him to clarify his opinion on this specific point; after all, remember that the original question was whether CDP separate listing were required. Frankly, it's going to be quite disruptive in my opinion if this past discussion is taken as a reason to convert all CDP-including templates of the 2000+ county templates; AFAIK, probably only Michigan and Connecticut do not have this distinction made in every US County Navbox template that has a CDP, and there are 32 states using the USCN. Nyttend (talk) 13:30, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Nyttend, please see the original question at the beginning of the thread, stated by Bkonrad and quoted above by Omnedon: "...whether it makes sense for the boxes...to use obscure Census Bureau jargon like CDP." The general opinion was that it did not, for a variety of reasons that were advanced and given consideration. I notice you didn't respond or provide answers to a few of these points; if you disagree with the conclusions, please first provide further reasons why you consider them invalid and we can address them. As for disruptiveness, I doubt the proposed adjustment would have any significant negative impact on people's ability to navigate; quite the reverse, in fact, since making the navigation boxes clearer and simpler for the average user was ultimately the goal. (Also, as you point out, only a fraction of county templates show CDPs, so most counties won't change at all). Huwmanbeing ☀★ 14:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

You, Omnedon, and I don't have anything to explain: we have all been obvious in our positions (you and Omnedon that they shouldn't be separated anywhere, and I that they should be separated everywhere), and I'm submitting to the obvious conclusion that CDPs are not required to be separated. The problem is that we disagree with our interpretations of certain phrases, especially Bkonrad's statements — and for that reason, I've requested him to explain his position: does he think it's okay to separate them anywhere? Nyttend (talk) 15:25, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I simply point out that the stated purpose of this discussion was to determine if CDPs should be separated in U.S. county nav boxes. However, further clarification is certainly welcome.

BTW, it should be noted that the census in the U.S. is a federal effort. Given that CDPs are a federal census designation, determining the question at hand on a national level seems appropriate (though debating this is fine). The alternative is to revisit this same discussion in as many as 50 state-level forums. Do-able, certainly, but not at all pleasant. :-) Huwmanbeing ☀★ 15:48, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I understand and agree with your top comment; the reason is that Omnedon cited it as the reason to change a Missouri template, in which CDPs had never previously been a point of contention. And, frankly, if all of you will give me a few days, I'm planning on proposing something wider-reaching, since frankly if we're going to say "these templates should do soandso" we should have it noted somewhere. Since we've decided against a national standard (unlike the state templates), we'd do better to list this standard somewhere (likely on the template page documentation page), and I'd like to see what we've decided listed in a more organised manner. Nyttend (talk) 16:46, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Again I'm afraid you mischaracterize the discussion when you say "we've decided against a national standard". That wasn't the subject or the result of the debate — quite the opposite, in fact. Our purpose here was simply to determine if CDPs should be separated out in U.S. county navboxes; the result, to quote Ruhrfisch, was that "the consensus...seems to be leaning against separation in nav boxes." So no CDPs in nav boxes. If you're unsatisfied that this is the consensus, or just disagree with it, then discussing it further would be fine and I'd be happy to participate, but let's stay focused on that. (BTW, WP:Practical has some good info concerning debates and consensus building.)

This being the case, I'm not sure how much wider-reaching we need to get. After all, this debate concerns all U.S. county navboxes, which covers every area that the U.S. Census does. Once we're satisfied and are clear on what's been agreed, then you're right, it should certainly be noted. The most reasonable place would probably be this project page. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 18:35, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, well let's see...My initial question was primarily motivated by edits to the Michigan county navboxes. I don't tend to follow county and municipality articles in other states very closely. But honestly I don't really see any benefit to breaking out CDPs in any county navboxes. I mean, a CDP is essentially nothing more than a statistical abstraction representing a subset of Census Data that sometimes corresponds to actual places with the same name. If reliable sources that were not merely cloning Census data also used CDP terminology to describe these places, then there might be some value to making the distinction more prominent. But as it is, I think an worthwhile task for editors interested in these articles is to place the CDP information in proper context within the articles. In particular, the CDP appellation is strictly speaking only accurately applied to the body of statistics drawn from Census data. Any other information about the community is not reliably applicable to the CDP. I don't exactly support requiring that CDPs be merged on the various county navboxes, but at the same time I don't see a very strong basis for opposing such changes. I suppose intrastate consistency is worth something, so I wouldn't want to see the navboxes get all out of kilter in that regards. But if an editor or a group of editors is interested in maintaining a state's templates, then they should have some latitude for doing as may be appropriate for localities that state. If there are disagreements at the state level, I would tend be to expect those wanting to keep the CDP designations separate in the navboxes to present some evidence as to how the CDP label represents a significant distinction for that state. older ≠ wiser 00:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I suppose I should explain my bit about a national standard. Before this discussion began, VDan and I reverted Bkonrad's merging of CDPs because it wasn't the way things were done nationwide. In short: we argued that CDPs should always be separated. Since consensus clearly says that it's okay to separate some, the idea of a national standard requiring CDPs is false. I'm not trying to say that we've established a national standard that they must not be included; it's just that our idea of a standard has been rejected by an established counterexample.

As far as the intrastate bits: I make and maintain these templates nationwide; all county templates that I'm aware of are on my watchlist, and I maintain all state templates; that's the reason that I was involved in the Berrien County template issue in the first place. Therefore, anything I do will depend on the state. Most states have no standards, so it's exclusively what we template-makers decide to put on in the first place. I'd like to ask one thing at this point: of the 21 CDPs in Missouri, 19 are listed as CDPs, and two as unincorporated. Let's not leave it that way; could I, at least for now, list the two others as CDPs? Nyttend (talk) 14:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Bkonrad: I agree there's no real benefit to separating CDPs in any county navbox — that squares with the consensus that's emerged. If, as you say, a compelling case can be made for showing them in a particular state (with a rationale beyond the general arguments of census usage, past practice, bot activity, etc. that have been advanced here) then discussing it at the state level is cool; otherwise, we'll adopt this as the standard.

Nyttend: Just to clarify, consensus is that CDPs should not be included, so unless there's further debate (which is welcome) we can take this as the standard going forward. They're not forbidden, certainly, but their use in the county navboxes is contingent on a strong state-specific rationale that can overcome the concerns that users have raised here. (So in other words, the standard will not be "exclusively what we template-makers decided to put on in the first place".)

BTW, it should be noted that Omnedon has created, and continues to create, a number of U.S. county nav boxes, and many users monitor and edit them. No single user can or should take ownership — collaboration & cooperation is always best! Thanks Huwmanbeing ☀★ 22:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Wrap up

Nyttend suggested posting an organized summary of what's emerged from this admittedly rather lengthy debate, which is a good idea. The first thing is to make sure we're all on the same page with what was being discussed. (Correct me, Bkonrad or anyone else, if I misstate anything!) The basic question was:

Should CDPs be separated out in U.S. county nav boxes? (See as an example Bartholomew County, Indiana.)

Points in favor include:

• If a distinction is made in an article, it should also be represented in the nav box. Since articles note the status of certain communities as CDPs, the nav boxes should too.
• The Census is a primary source for WP's geography articles and its categorizations should be followed in the nav boxes.
• The practice of separating CDPs in nav boxes is well established.
• Some CDP articles were created by RamBot, indicating that the use of the term is accepted.
• Changing the nav boxes could be disruptive.

Points against include:

• Most users are unlikely to understand what constitutes a CDP, or are unlikely to care. Using census terminology isn't necessary or constructive in all cases.
• WP:NAV calls for nav boxes to be compact and focus strictly on navigation rather than detail. Not everything in an article should be recapitulated in the template.
• Actual census designations for populated places (U1, U2, U3, C5, etc.) are already being simplified and combined — both in articles and nav boxes — into fewer, simpler categories.
• Communities do not "self-identify" as CDPs; instead the term is applied only by the census.
• The practice of separating CDPs, though applied in many places in WP, was not based on consensus. Actions by bots do not connote consensus.
• Presenting CDPs separately from the general lists of unincorporated communities makes a false distinction by suggesting they're not unincorporated.
• Changing the nav boxes will cause little to no disruption.

This obviously is a simplification and doesn't capture all the points or their nuances, but I think it hits the highlights. (Also, some arguments veered off a little into the merits of CDPs themselves, which isn't strictly relevant to the central point.) After discussion, consensus seems to lean toward not separating out CDPs in U.S. county nav boxes. If this seems an unfair or premature judgment, we can certainly discuss further. Thanks everyone! Huwmanbeing ☀★ 20:51, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

If I get a chance (I had a huge test yesterday), I'll put up a proposal related to this question; in the mean time, thanks for putting together the summary. Nyttend (talk) 14:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

No trouble. I'll probably also post links to this page on some of the state-level navbox discussions, in case other users come along who are curious. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 23:02, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

After all this discussion, I was surprised to see brand-new county templates being created (and added to articles) that list "CDPs" as a particular type of community. Did I miss a continuation of this discussion in some other venue? --Orlady (talk) 17:17, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay; I'm only now able to finish work on my proposal for a summary. And please note, by the way, that there was nothing prohibiting the use of CDPs in new templates. Nyttend (talk) 02:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, there was nothing prohibiting it. However, what useful purpose was served in creating new navboxes that highlight CDPs, not to mention reverting my changes when I merged "CDPs" with other unincorporated places? --Orlady (talk) 04:56, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

This is just a two-way conversation. If anyone wants to follow up, look at Orlady's or my talk pages. Nyttend (talk) 05:35, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Orlady: That surprises me as well. As was stated, this discussion concerns all U.S. county nav boxes. If the new templates are U.S. county nav boxes, then they should indeed adhere to the consensus reached here. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 03:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't interpret that as a consensus to remove all listings. Give me a consensus down below (that's what the thing is) and I'll abide by it, but my interpretation of the above discussion is that CDPs are not required. Nyttend (talk) 04:15, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

My concern was precipitated by your creation, on February 15, of a brand-new template that listed "CDPs" separately from "unincorporated community" (singular since only one of the non-CDP unincorporated communities in that county has an article). I've edited that one (current version is Template:Cumberland County, Tennessee), but I have formed the impression that you feel strongly about the need to include "CDPs" as an item. --Orlady (talk) 15:45, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Please see the wrap up above (and the postings immediately before it). Huwmanbeing ☀★ 15:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposing a way to organise these templates

In consideration of the previous discussion, it's obvious that there's no national standard for what should and shouldn't be listed on a county template. I think it would be helpful to systematise what we've decided related to these templates, and thus I'm proposing this set of standards:

• Because state differs from state in its local government, those most familiar with a state should decide how to lay out the templates. Therefore, state wikiprojects should maintain and regulate their county templates.
• Because few state projects have any such guidelines, there should be somewhat of a national guideline for templates that aren't administered by their state projects.
• Most states' templates follow a specific pattern; fewer than half a dozen states have varying styles on many templates, and of the 48 states with at least one template, about 40 have essentially the same listing style on every template. Therefore, in order to cause the least disruption and accommodate each state most easily, I propose that each state be standardised, with a few exceptions (stated below).
  • If the vast majority of templates in a state have the same style, all templates should be fit to that style. Only in cases when multiple formats are popular will the format need to be up for discussion.
  • In all templates, all types of municipalities/incorporated communities should be separated, regardless of their type — for example, Massachusetts should separate towns and cities, even though (if I understand rightly) they're the same governmentally. This is the main exception to my proposal of going with the statewide usage, as the majority of Indiana templates merge cities and towns. By "incorporated communities", I mean any place that has an official state governmental (i.e. outside of Census) existence, whether cities in Alaska, towns in Maine, townships in Ohio, or hundreds in Delaware, whether or not they are incorporated. Give me a better suggestion for a name and I'll adopt it; I simply can't think of anything better at the moment.
  • Inclusion of places in the unincorporated communities line should be done on the basis of statewide usage at this time. In states where most CDPs are listed on templates as CDPs, all CDPs should, such as Ohio; in states where most aren't, no CDPs should, such as Michigan. Of course, this doesn't mean that they shouldn't be listed at all, but (as in Connecticut) be listed as unincorporated communities.
  • Similarly, inclusion of neighborhoods (in my usage, a region of an incorporated place other than towns or townships) should depend on primary statewide usage at this time. Taftville, Connecticut is an example of such inclusion in Connecticut, which is an example of places that should be included. I don't know of many states where this is done; it's officially done in New Jersey, and present in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, but not elsewhere in that state.
  • The names for unincorporated areas (aside from CDPs in the states where CDPs are listed separately) should depend on common usage. For example, apparently "village" is the term for a settlement within a town in Massachusetts, so these lines should be entitled "villages" rather than "unincorporated communities" or something like that. It might well be better to make this an exception to the statewide usage, as "communities" would better be listed as "unincorporated communities" or something like that.
• Maine and Montana don't have any templates yet. I propose that the Maine templates, when created, be made along the Massachusetts pattern; and that the Montana pattern follow the Idaho pattern.
• Finally, any agreed standardisation should be listed on or at least linked from the US County Navbox documentation page.

Here's a chart with what each state's templates list, using symbols for the common types of places. This list doesn't include consolidated city-counties, for which a standard template usually isn't made, and in most cases hasn't been made — one that has been made is {{Queens}}, which is a navbox of neighborhoods, not a US County Navbox.

Please don't modify the box; if you find a factual error, please note it below the box. Nyttend (talk) 16:31, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Incorporated	Unincorporated
C: City T: Town V: Village B: Borough W: Township	D: CDP U: Unincorporated community Y: Community G: Ghost town

State	Incorporated	Unincorporated	Counties and templates	Notes
Alabama	C, T	D, U, Y, G	67 of 67
Alaska	C	D, U	23 of 23
Arizona	C, T	D, U	15 of 15
Arkansas	C, T	D, Y	13 of 75
California	C, T	D, U, "Gs and Lost Cs", census county division	57 of 57
Colorado	C, T	D, U, Y	62 of 62	Some Ts are divided between "Statutory Ts" and "Home Rule Ts"
Connecticut	C, T, B	Y	8 of 8	Y includes CDPs and neighborhoods
Delaware	C, T, V, hundreds	D, U	3 of 3
Florida	C, T, V	D, U, Y	67 of 67
Georgia	C, T	D, U, Y	158 of 158
Hawaii	None	D, U	5 of 5	Counties are Hawaii's only local governments
Idaho	C	D, U, Y	44 of 44
Illinois	C, T, V, W	D, U, Y, Precincts	102 of 102	Most templates list CDPs separately; my standardisation would change 6 templates
Indiana	C, T, "Cs & Ts", W	D, U	92 of 92	My proposal would split all cities and towns
Iowa	C, W	D, U, Y	99 of 99
Kansas	C, W	D, U, Y, G	105 of 105
Kentucky	C	D, Y, G	119 of 119
Louisiana	C, T, V	D, U, Y	63 of 63
Maine	No templates	No templates	0 of 16	No templates have been created
Maryland	C, T, V	D, U, Y	23 of 23
Massachusetts	C, T	D, villages	9 of 14
Michigan	C, V, W	Y	13 of 83	Many Ws are divided, for example, between "charter Ws" and "general law Ws"
Minnesota	C, W	D, U, Y, Unincorporated territories, Indian reservations	5 of 87
Mississippi	C, T, V	D, U, Y	82 of 82
Missouri	C, V, W	D, U	114 of 114	Most templates list CDPs separately; my proposal would change 4 templates
Montana	No templates	No templates	0 of 55	No templates have been created
Nebraska	C, V, P	D, U, Y, G	93 of 93
Nevada	C, T	D, U	16 of 16
New Hampshire	No templates	No templates	0 of 10	State template lists all towns and cities
New Jersey	B, C, T, P, W	D, Y	21 of 21	State wikiproject already has guidelines
New Mexico	C, T, V	D, Y	33 of 33
New York	C, T, V	D, Hamlets	57 of 57	Listings are quite confused
North Carolina	C, T, V, W	D, U, Y, G, Military bases	99 of 99	Most templates list CDPs separately; my proposal would change 5 templates
North Dakota	C	D, Y	1 of 53
Ohio	C, V, W	U, Y, Other localities	88 of 88
Oklahoma	C, T	Y	6 of 77
Oregon	C, hamlets	D, U, Y	36 of 36
Pennsylvania	C, B, W	D, "Ys and Ds"	66 of 66	Many templates list "Ys and Ds"
Rhode Island	No templates	No templates	0 of 5	State template lists all towns and cities
South Carolina	C, T	D, Y	1 of 46
South Dakota	C, T, W	D, Y, Territories	13 of 66
Tennessee	C, T	D, Y	11 of 95
Texas	C, T, V	D, U, Y, G	254 of 254	Most templates list CDPs separately; my proposal would change 8 templates
Utah	C, T, W	D, U, Y, unincorporated areas	29 of 29
Vermont	C, T, V	D, U, grants and gores	14 of 14
Virginia	C, T	D, U	13 of 95	Most templates do not list CDPs separately; my proposal would change 1 template
Washington	C, T	D, U, Y	25 of 39
West Virginia	C, T	D, U, other localities	55 of 55
Wisconsin	C, T, V	D, Y	72 of 72
Wyoming	C, T	D, U	23 of 23

Subheader

Making a subheader here so it's easier to edit the discussion of the above bits...

• Questions:

1. You refer to your "proposal." Is the table above your proposal, or is it a description of the current status of county templates? (The table appears to be the latter, but since your comments refer to your proposal, I infer that the table must be your proposal...)

My proposal is stated above the table. The table is my attempt to set out the current state of county templates nationwide, listing all things listed on some of their templates. In some states, some counties list one thing and others list another; an example is states such as Washington, where some templates list "communities" and other "unincorporated communities". Nyttend (talk) 04:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

And please note that I'm not updating the table for changes; since I created the table, I've created TN and WA templates, Orlady has modified some TN templates, and Huwmanbeing has modified some IN templates. The table is meant to reflect the conditions when I posted it. Nyttend (talk) 04:31, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

2. What does "W" refer to in the above table? I infer that Ws are townships. Is that correct?

--Orlady (talk) 19:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they're townships; it was a typo in the key. Nyttend (talk) 04:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

• Comment (signed in several places to facilitate threading of responses):

The designations "incorporated" and "unincorporated" in the above table are not completely accurate. This distinction is not of central importance for the templates, as they do not use the word "incorporated" and make limited use of "unincorporated," but I think it is important for purposes of developing a common understanding as a basis for discussion. --Orlady (talk) 19:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

The meaning and definition of incorporation varies from state to state. Some of the elements listed in the above table under "incorporated" are official places, but not incorporated places. Notably, New England towns in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island are officially established local government units, but they are not "incorporated." (I did not extend that statement to Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine because I know there are some towns in Maine that are "unorganized," meaning that they have no local government, and I think there might be a few similar situations in Vermont and New Hampshire, including but not limited to those "grants and gores" in Vermont.) Similarly, in much of the country "townships" are by definition not incorporated. --Orlady (talk) 19:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

At the same time, some communities classified in types listed above under "unincorporated" are not really "unincorporated," in that they are not lacking in a duly constituted local government, but rather are contained within officially constituted places that have official local government. This is particularly, but not exclusively, true of villages and "sections" within New England towns and cities (many of which are treated by the Census Bureau as CDPs). --Orlady (talk) 19:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Due to the different meaning of "incorporated" and "unincorporated" in different places, the word "unincorporated" is a meaningful and significant part of a designation for some community types in some states, but absolutely should not be used in some other states. --Orlady (talk) 19:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm well aware that the meaning of these varies. I'm just using it as a blanket term for "places that are duly constituted entities with defined boundaries recognised by the state government" and "places that are not their own governmental bodies and do not have boundaries set out by the state government", since it's much shorter than those definitions are :-) As I noted above, the designations rightfully should vary (for example, the "villages" in Massachusetts) depending on the state.

• Comment: Note from the above that Maine absolutely should not be patterned after Massachusetts. There are some significant differences in local government structure and nomenclature. --Orlady (talk) 19:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

As far as that goes: I'm not meaning that Maine and Massachusetts should be identical; it's just that I would guess that Maine should be as close to Massachusetts as is possible. We can't pattern it off New Hampshire or Rhode Island, since they don't use county templates. I'm asserting that it would be best to pattern its templates off another New England state's templates; do you think it would be best to pattern them after Vermont, Connecticut, or Massachusetts? Nyttend (talk) 04:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Nyttend: Thanks for the summary — it's definitely useful to see the content of all the templates.

As others have suggested, I think the combined "towns and cities" category is suitable and indeed preferable in at least some states, particularly those in which the practical difference between a city and a town is slim to none. This obeys WP:NAV's guidelines, which strongly encourage nav boxes to be succinct and simple. Also, the line about CDPs ("In states where most CDPs are listed on templates as CDPs, all CDPs should [be listed]") is at odds with the earlier discussion and should be changed to indicate that CDPs should not be listed separately. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 17:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

As far as the CDPs relative to the above proposal: it's your opinion and my opinion what the above discussion meant, and the line that you mention is simply what I'm proposing. The above discussion did not treat with that question. This is the place I'm seeking to get consensus on the CDP question, and which I'm obviously getting your disagreement with my proposal :-)

• Two off-the-wall observations. This one is important. Why no mention of budget when a) the county is a taxing organization, unless the county government is separate and has it's own template which includes taxing and budgeting? or b) gets money to run the county as is done in Vermont? Student7 (talk) 17:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean, why is there no mention of budgets in the nav boxes? It's because nav boxes are strictly for the purpose of navigation, and Wikipedia discourages including in them any specific, article-level data. I'm not sure how such figures would be worked in anyway, or what they'd link to. Are you sure you're not thinking of settlement infoboxes? (Also, remember that adding such things as budgetary data to the relevant articles is perfectly fine.) Huwmanbeing ☀★ 18:40, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you mean that the way the local governments gets their money is a useful way of organising the communities? I can see that as a distinguishing factor, but I don't think it's important enough to make a distinction on the templates.

• Less important is the renaming of the current Queens template to "Queens neighborhoods" or something dissimilar. It shouldn't be grabbing the county template IMO. Student7 (talk) 17:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The Queens infobox and similar ones aren't using the county templates. They're navboxes that seek to list the communities in a separate county, and they're put in the category simply because the navbox seeks to cover the county — Queens, you may remember, is also Queens County. It's the same with California: {{San Francisco}} is a city navbox. You can see the difference, for example, between {{Los Angeles}} and {{Los Angeles County}}: one's a city box (like San Francisco) and one's a county box; San Francisco is put in the category only because the county and city have similar borders. Nyttend (talk) 20:40, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: It is generally good to have consistency within a state. If a vast majority of county nav templates in a given state do it one way (e.g. lists CDPs separately), then the ones that don't conform should be adjusted. However, the prior discussion does indeed show that listing CDPs is not required and perhaps it is even preferable not to separate them. If someone is willing to adjust all the county nav templates of a given state to not separate CDPs, and to do it within a reasonbaly quick period (say in a day), that should not be reverted. --Polaron | Talk 18:18, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

  Re: Maine - Maine has plantations and Indian reservations (which are not part of any town unlike in CT and RI) in addition to cities and towns. Maine also has a vast number of unorganized townships which are so sparse that the Census Bureau groups them into several "unorganized territories". I'm not sure if these unorganized territories have articles but I'm pretty sure the individual townships don't have any articles so we don't have to worry about them in the template. Maine also has villages (settlements with distinct names that are not separately incorporated). Some (not all) of these villages are listed as CDPs. I don't know how many non-CDP villages have articles (I don't think there are any). Many town centers (not technically villages) are also listed as CDPs. Personally, I think these should be merged with the town articles but are currently separated. In the case of Maine, the current state of articles would probably be best suited for nav templates that list CDPs in addition to the four municipality types. If there are non-CDP village articles, we may have to rethink this. --Polaron | Talk 18:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

What kind of townships are you talking about — civil, survey, or perhaps something like the townships of New Hampshire? Or something else? Some of us don't know a ton about New England local government :-) Nyttend (talk) 14:45, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

There is one article on non-CDP villages in Maine: Forest City. There are also a few unusual places: Criehaven, West Central Franklin, and Whitney, which are unpopulated "locations". I guess that these would be listed in a way similar to those of grants and gores? Nyttend (talk) 16:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

The townships I'm referring too are survey townships. They have no local government at all and don't even have proper names. They're usually known as something like "T3 R3 WELS" (a grid reference and a region code). A few of these have proper names because they have a few inhabitants but I'm not sure if they have any government at all. The Census Bureau doesn't even bother with them and groups a bunch of these townships into unorganized territories and uses those as MCDs instead. --Polaron | Talk 17:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I've been watching the latest discussion. Per my earlier comments, I believe strongly that CDPs do not need to be listed separately in county navigation boxes, and indeed should be listed in the "Unincorporated communities" section; and I have seen nothing new here that changes my view at all. I gave my reasons for this in the earlier discussion; and others with a similar view wrote about it at some length. Further, since it's primarily a census issue, I don't see the value of doing it differently in different states. For that matter, I also question the value of having "Cities", "Villages" and "Towns" separated in the boxes; a single "Cities and towns" section seems sufficiently descriptive, especially when (as Huwmanbeing mentioned) the practical difference among the designations is not very significant. In a nutshell, a simple navigational box is preferable, per WP:NAV. Consensus on the CDP issue has already been reached. Omnedon (talk) 19:34, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I also am a strong proponent of combining "cities and towns" in many situations (and "cities and villages" in others). However, towns should not be combined with cities everywhere. Specifically, they should not be combined in states (such as Wisconsin) where "towns" or "townships" are radically different from "cities". Pennsylvania is another example of a place where the different types of municipalities should be separated. That state's "cities", "boroughs" and "townships" are sufficiently different to be kept apart. (Also, this distinction may be useful for navigation because the same name may exist in multiple Pennsylvania counties.) --Orlady (talk) 19:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree -- the "Cities and towns" issue will vary from state to state because of state-level definitions and terminology usage. Omnedon (talk) 19:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm on board, with the caveats that cities and towns be combined where appropriate and that CDPs be combined with unincorporateds per the original discussion. I do agree that there there should be flexibility in how individual states present certain info, but that there should also be a national standard that broadly governs how the data should be presented, particularly in the absence of any unusual, state-specific idiosyncrasies. I'm not very familiar with Maine or Montana, but adopting the pattern used in nearby states sounds reasonable. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 22:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that these things should be decided on a state-by-state basis. I agree that Pennsylvania should list cities, boroughs, and townships separately. I also think that oddballs should be treated separately where appropriate (there is one town (like a borough) in Pennsylvania, see {{Columbia County, Pennsylvania}}, and only one road district, (like a township), see {{Potter County, Pennsylvania}}). I also think that Ohio's cities (over 5000 pop.), villages (under 5000) and townships should be kept separate. I am not as familiar with other states. I also think that where all the unincorporated communities are CDPs in a given county, it makes sense to list them as "CDPs" and not something less specific (see Columbia Co., PA, above). To be honest, I do not have a problem with separating CDPs and other unincorporated communities, as long as it is done consistently across all the counties in a state. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It seems the core elements of most U.S. county nav boxes are:

• Cities and towns
• Unincorporated communities

If we accept these as national norms, then further additions and changes can be applied at the state level as needed. Variations will likely include:

• Separating cities and towns in states where a clear/significant difference exists.
• Listing villages, boroughs, etc. in states that make those distinctions, or adopting alternate terminology used in that state.
• Listing townships in states whose counties have civil township-level government.
• Other local variations that are significant within the given state.

Deciding on or identifying all possible local variants probably isn't necessary at this point, though discussing any of them is cool. Instead, as Omnedon pointed out, the rule of thumb should just be to keep it simple and not base any template's arrangement on minor or little-understood distinctions, per WP:NAV. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 15:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Semi-unrelated thought: would it make any sense to take this to an RfC for broader participation / more feedback? There are only 7 editors who have weighed in on this latest round, and one of those really had unrelated questions. Considering that there are fifty states and thousands of communities in their thousands of counties, should we try for wider exposure? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

One question: I don't see anything about the state wikiprojects in your discussion. What do all of you think of my proposal of releasing ultimate control to the state projects? Nyttend (talk) 14:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I am fine with deciding on broad generalities here (or at an RfC), then letting state WikiProjects decide particulars. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

• Correction for table Oregon's hamlets are not incorporated. There are also villages, also not incorporated. However, these quasi-governmental entities only exist in one county. Katr67 (talk) 06:03, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

CDPs and county nav boxes

The issue of cities, towns, villages, et cetera is entirely separate from the original CDP issue. I agree it probably makes sense for those to be handled differently in different states. Basically, where there are meaningful distinctions, separate them; when the distinctions are insignificant, keep it simple and don't separate them. That discussion serves a useful purpose, and there is certainly much detail to discuss. An RfC on that issue is probably not necessary at this stage.

However, the original issue was simply whether or not to list CDPs separately in county navigational boxes. That has been hashed out very thorougly above, and the general consensus was against separating them. "CDP" is a term used by the U. S. Census Bureau and has limited value outside that application -- enough for use in actual articles about the CDPs, certainly, but not enough for use in nav boxes, which should be compact and concise. Since no new information is emerging, I don't see the value in going over that issue again and again. Omnedon (talk) 18:38, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Listing cities and towns together in those cases where there's no significant difference is reasonable, and is in keeping with WP:NAV's recommendations to keep it simple. As for the CDP thing, yes, if it was a horse it would be dead. :-) That said, if there are significant points concerning CDPs that users haven't yet considered, discussing them up in the CDP section would be fine; to date, though, no one has responded to the conclusions presented in the wrap-up — a good case for moving on to other matters. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 20:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Random musings regarding CDPs: Ideally every article about a CDP would be revised to also include some information about the nature of the real "place" behind the Census designation. It's probably an over-simplification to call all CDPs "unincorporated" or even "communities." Some CDPs (like Blountville, Tennessee, which is a county seat) are bona fide towns that for some reason are not incorporated -- it would be legitimate to call Blountville an "unincorporated community" or an "unincorporated place," but it should not be called just plain "community" because in Tennessee a "community" is the nomenclature typically applied to a place much smaller and less organized than that. In New England, the places treated as CDPs mostly seem to be villages that formed around factories during the Industrial Revolution, but they may also include villages that were Colonial-era town centers, as well as seacoast and mountain resort areas. I've also run across a couple of retirement resorts (governed by homeowners' associations) that are treated as CDPs. It would be nice if articles about CDPs were expanded to include this kind of information (sourced, of course). --Orlady (talk) 22:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It'd definitely be good for each article to describe more clearly the nature of the community, its origins, history, present condition, etc. Finding strong sources for smaller communities is sometimes a bit of a challenge (particularly when it comes to up-to-date info on unincorporated towns and villages), but local libraries sometimes have that kind of thing. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 13:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Related question: What determines whether these nav boxes are "shown" or "hidden" by default? I can't see any difference in coding between Clarkrange, Tennessee (where the nav box, which is longer than the article, is displayed) and Fentress County, Tennessee, where the same nav box seems to be hidden by default. --Orlady (talk) 22:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

There is an "state" parameter that is set to "autocollapse" by default; you can read about it at Template:Navbox. Normally, if there is only one template in an article (as with Clarkrange, Tennessee), then it is shown by default; if there is more than one (as with Fentress County, Tennessee), they will all be collapsed by default, unless the "state" parameter is set to "show" or "plain" (which is uncommon in my experience -- usually the default behaviour is preferred). Omnedon (talk) 22:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

RFC on county templates

Should the contents of county navigational templates be controlled by their state wikiprojects? And in the meantime, should the templates be left in their current states? 04:05, 21 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nyttend (talk • contribs)

This should be cross-posted to the state WikiProjects. It's the first I've heard of the discussion. Katr67 (talk) 05:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess this isn't a discussion but a preliminary to mediation. This will be interesting because, the material is well beyond a third party, I think. Does it come down to handling of CDPs? I hope not.

States could probably use guidance on templates. No reason that some general standard can't be used so they have the same "feel" to a reader. I don't know what "control" means. If this suggests that all county templates be semi-protected, Hurray (though I haven't seen much vandalism. You have to understand something before you can vandalize it  :)! Probably true of most high level templates. At some point in the future they should probably get permanently protected.

Is the question: should county templates be restricted only to WikiProject State (and presumably by extension, WikiProject Counties)? That is, that people outside the project should keep their hands off? I suppose so. I don't think I'm a member of any Project, but I suppose I could ask for a change if one was needed.Student7 (talk) 12:43, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Placing county templates in county article categories

Templates *DO NOT* ordinarily belong in article categories and in this case, they serve no purpose. I would like to request that this practice be reevaluated and hopefully ended. Thanks. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 18:56, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Care to offer any reasoning beyond simply asserting that they do not belong there? Although I'm inclined to disagree, I'm willing to listen, but simply making unsupported assertions isn't very persuasive. older ≠ wiser 19:59, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Including the county navigational templates in the county categories does serve a useful purpose, in my opinion. A county category is there to keep all the county-related pages together. The template is certainly county-related. Is there some definition of an "article category"? As far as I know there are simply "categories". Omnedon (talk) 20:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

A category in an encyclopedic sense for regular users is supposed to be linking to informational targets, not included entities. Yes, technically, a category can include anything, and we have categories for grouping templates, so that serious editors can look them up. But there is no rationale expressed to date that defends the inclusion of templates in these particular categories. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't carry the burden of proof on this, I'm afraid. There needs to be a rationale for inclusion. I don't need to offer a rationale for exclusion. These are article categories, so what is the rationale for including a template? Why would regular users need to see these templates in these categories? Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Others expressed the rationale clearly on your talk page. Put simply, if something relates to X, it's right to categorize it with X. That's what categories are for, to group together things on the same subject.

Part of the problem may be that you misunderstand the purpose of categories. For some reason you call them "article categories", but in fact there are only "categories" which can contain anything related to the subject at hand, be it stubs, articles, templates, portals, media, etc. Examples of this are abundant.

Further, you say that regular users don't need to see templates, but that begs the question of who is a "regular user". Someone who never edits templates? Someone who doesn't edit anything? Categories don't exist solely as a navigational aid for non-contributing individuals; they provide a means of structuring and organizing all manner of Wikipedia content for users at any experience level. I frequently work with templates, as do many Wikipedians, and having templates categorized with the subjects they describe is unquestionably helpful. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 16:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

If various pages (be they stubs, full articles, templates, etc.) concern subject XYZ, surely they should be placed into category XYZ. To do otherwise would seem to defeat the purpose of categorization. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 20:18, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

It's standard (although not too common) practice to include pictures and other media in categories, as long as the pictures etc. are related to the categories. That's the point of categories. I don't see why templates are any different. Nyttend (talk) 02:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

A template in this sense is for organization/navigation purposes -- it's not an informational target, like an article. There is no rationale for a regular user to have use for linking to a county template from a county article category. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

A template in this sense is not an informational target. Regular users don't navigate to templates -- templates are included entities. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Why (and on what basis) do you distinguish "regular" users from what, "irregular" users? Anyone can edit wikipedia articles, including templates. There is no reason to make them more difficult for such "regular" users to locate. older ≠ wiser 16:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that templates should not be in mainspace categories. The template is a navigational aid to get between those articles, but if you're already in the category, everything in the template should be there. --NE2 12:05, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Portal?

What do people think about having a US county portal? I'm willing to set one up, but would like to think that other peopel would help maintan it. Tompw (talk) (review) 20:52, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Naming convention for counties in same state with same name

I want to get this project's opinion on how to address multiple counties that existed in the same state, but for one reason or another had the same name? One of the counties no longer exists. The two counties were in different parts of the state. I'm assuming the easiest would be to add a subsection to the modern county article explaning the defunct "twin" county. But if a separate article or redirect is warrented, how would you name that article? The Atlas of Historical County Boundaries uses County Name, State (original) to differentiate, but could you also use years, as in County Name, State (18XX-19XX)? I know of three instances in North and South Dakota where this situation occurred, specifically with Todd County, Williams County, and Ziebach County.DCmacnut<> 16:34, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Where the former county does get its own article, the title Todd County, South Dakota (18xx-19xx) seems to fit wikipedia style. The disambiguation Todd County, which covers all states, should list both of them, with the first rendition linked to List of former United States counties#South Dakota if it doesn't have its own article. Today none of Todd and Ziebach in SD and Williams in ND is yet in a county disambiguation page or in the List of former United States counties. Do you have dates for them?

Perhaps the article Todd County, South Dakota should begin with a header on the earlier rendition. (It doesn't yet.)

There was an earlier Todd County elsewhere in South Dakota [or Dakota]. See ...

Sometimes the first rendition of a "Todd County" belongs in the article on the current rendition. That must be so when there is some overlap in territory. Without any overlap territory, the italic header seems to me sufficient. --P64 (talk) 16:35, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Adding congressional districts to county infoboxes

Does anyone have a thought about the possibility of adding a mention of the respective congressional districts to county infoboxes? Qqqqqq (talk) 23:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I have no objections generally, but what about congressional districts that are in more than one county, or counties (like Cook County ) that have multiple congressional districts? Infoboxes could get crowded rather quickly.DCmacnut<> 00:11, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. Good point. Districts that span more than one county I'd propose to include in the infobox of all counties of which a portion is contained in the district. As far as counties with multiple districts, I believe that at 18, Los Angeles County, California, is the county into which the greatest number of congressional districts extend and that Cook, at 11, is second. I was thinking that, in general, a row called "Congressional district" could be added to the infobox, that header possibly linked to the article on that state's congressional districts, and then the field could contain just the district number(s) linked to the respective article, leaving out even the state abbreviation, as that should be obvious based on the article (e.g. 22 as being the way the first district would be displayed in the article on Los Angeles County). I think this should keep the addition of congressional districts to 1 infobox line in about 95% of counties and still only about 3 lines even in the most populous counties of gerrymandered states. Qqqqqq (talk) 00:56, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, and there's already been discussion on this at Template talk:Infobox U.S. County#Congressional District. Qqqqqq (talk) 01:04, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I've started adding this information to counties. So far I've finished Connecticut and have made some progress on Georgia. If anyone else is interested in contributing, simply add this text near the bottom of the infobox (the standard another user requested was to add it near the bottom of the infobox, after time zone or other data but before the county's website or a 'references' line): If the county is in the state's 1st congressional district, add:

|district=1st

If the county is also in the state's 3rd and 5th districts, also add below that:

|district2=3rd

|district3=5th

If the county is taken in by more than 3 districts, I've simply been continuing the pattern by adding |district4=7th, for example, but for some reason any more than 3 districts seem not to display right now. Qqqqqq (talk) 07:06, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm having the same problem at Union County, New Jersey. The county lies within 4 congressional districts and the 4th one won't show up on the infobox. If anyone can help that would be much appreciated. Thanks.--Jersey Devil (talk) 07:08, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Courthouse Photos

I've begun a process to add courthouse photos to the corresponding county articles. Here is what has been accomplished so far:

• Alabama: 25 of 67 counties have courthouse photos
• Arkansas: 17 of 75 counties have courthouse photos
• Delaware: All 3 counties have courthouse photos
• Georgia: 59 of 159 counties have courthouse photos
• Indiana: 53 of 92 counties have courthouse photos
• Kentucky: 115 of 120 counties have courthouse photos
• Mississippi: 24 of 82 counties have courthouse photos
• New Mexico: 10 of 33 counties have courthouse photos
• Tennessee: 61 of 95 counties have courthouse photos

Those wishing to assist with this project can help by adding the following to the County Infobox template

|ex image = courthouse image filename.jpg

|ex image cap = xxx County Courthouse in xxxx, state name

A great source for county pictures is the ERS/USDA Data - County Courthouse Photos by Calvin Beale. These photos were taken by a U.S. government employee and therefore are considered appropriate for uploading.

Courthouse photos may be found on Flickr also, however please be sure to check the CC License so that it does not violate Wikipedia's policy on photos from Flickr. --Ichabod (talk) 01:30, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Ghost towns

Apologizes in advance if this has already been discussed or if this is the wrong forum. There's a lot of inconsistency with how formerly inhabited places in California are dealt with by the California county navboxes. For example, Template:Amador County, California refers to them as Ghost towns while Template:Merced County, California calls them Former settlements. Other templates use combinations of the two. So there is this consistency issue. But a bigger problem, IMHO, is that for those navboxes using the Ghost towns descriptor, most of the places listed as such do not appear to be true ghost towns, by which I mean they don't match description of ghost town given in our article on the subject. For example, Stockyards, California is designated as a "ghost town" on Template:Alameda County, California, but the coordinates listed in the GNIS database geolocate to here. Clearly this is not a ghost town, by any stretch of the imagination, and it is not described as such anywhere other than wikipedia, as far as I can tell.

I proposed standardizing these templates using the term former settlements instead of ghost towns here. I think the term former settlements is preferable because it doesn't imply anything about the current state of the location: it may be currently inhabited under a different name, like Stockyards, California; there may be nothing there at all like Apyu, California; or it may be a true ghost town, like Drawbridge, California. Only one other editor commented on my proposal, and s/he didn't object, so I went ahead and WP:BOLDly made the chances. This was, however, quickly reverted by another editor who, when pressed for an explanation, commented "Nationwide, we use "Ghost towns", but there's nowhere (outside of some California templates) that uses "Former settlements". It's not simply a matter of California internal consistency, but of nationwide consistency." I would argue that accuracy and avoiding original research is more important than consistency. But I also think that we should probably also change ghost towns to former settlements on the nav-boxes for other states, too.

What does this project think? I'll note that this was previously discussed, but with too few participants and no really consensus at Template talk:Humboldt County, California#Ghost towns (and former settlements)? Thanks to User:Zzyzx11 for that link. Yilloslime ^T_C 05:57, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

A major confusing factor here is articles such as Stockyards, which are now part of municipalities (in Stockyards' case, it's Berkeley) and thus fall under the category of pages that generally get merged to their municipalities and never are included in county templates. Let's leave those out of this discussion, since they shouldn't be on these templates at all. When we forget about places like Stockyards, we're left with spots that either have the buildings left (e.g. Bodie) or have ruins of still being populated places. There's nothing of original research or inaccuracy here to argue that abandoned communities (if they're stated as being communities, for which purpose our GNIS sources will serve well) are ghost towns. Moreover, we have no article on former settlement, while we have a decent one on ghost town. This of course isn't the determining factor, but it's important: virtually everyone knows what a ghost town is, but we'd be hard pressed to say exactly what a former settlement is — is it former in the sense that nothing exists, or no population exists, etc.? "Ghost town" works well for the purposes of sorting communities on county templates, and as long as we have no major issues with using that term, it should suffice for the simple purposes of these templates. Nyttend (talk) 06:18, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

These are good points. I agree entirely that places like Stockyards don't belong in these templates at all. They probably all need a thorough going through, and places such as Stockyards to be removed. But that's a lot of work. Certainly much more labor intensive than changing "ghost towns" to "former settlements" or even "ghost towns and former settlements". So can we not make that simply change first, now, and do the more arduous work of ferreting the Stockyardses later? And I disagree that if forget about the Stockyardses then "we're left with spots that either have the buildings left (e.g. Bodie) or have ruins of still being populated places." If that were the case, then I'd agree that "ghost towns" is fine. But we're also left with places like Apyu, California, whose "precise location is unknown" according to our article, so it's safe to say that is has neither abandoned buildings nor "ruins of still being populated places", and is thus not a ghost town. Seems like blatant WP:OR for us pull a place name out of GNIS and declare it a "ghost town" when there are no sources calling it that. This is especially true for GNIS entries that it calls "historical", as according the GNIS FAQ, "A feature with '(historical)' following the name no longer exists and is no longer visible on the landscape. Examples: a dried up lake, a destroyed building, a hill leveled by mining... A ghost town, for example, is not a historical feature if it is still visible. Valid features... become historical if they no longer exist." I agree that "virtually everyone knows what a ghost town is", and I think that virtually everyone would agree that this (Rugg, California) is not one. Former settlement, even without an article on the topic, seems much more accurate. Yilloslime ^T_C 07:18, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

FYI wikipedia includes List of former United States counties and its Category:Former counties of the United States. At the moment, the category begins with a headnote (one link blue and one red, today).

See also: Category:Ghost towns in the United States and Category:Former settlements in the United States

The list of former counties does expressly include name changes and state changes for persistent counties. So the former counties really are former [County, State] pairs of names. --P64 (talk) 15:05, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

So-called former counties

Wikipedia includes List of former United States counties and its Category:Former counties of the United States. Neither one is claimed by this project or any other. Are they unknown here? Is the practice deprecated?

Some of the listed counties were simply renamed or transferred between jurisdictions, so the the listings really are former [County, State] pairs of names. Every listing is marked up with some internal link, so the former names are represented by a mix of redlinks (because three are no articles on counties under their former names) and redirects to the current name. Under Alabama, the first subheading in the list, five out of eight "former counties" are merely former names, according to their one-line entries.

List of former United States counties is emphatically incomplete in the lead sentence and a few lines later with a plea for help. I have added Josh Bell County, Kentucky, a former name, by editing both the Kentucky grouping at List of former United States counties and the lead paragraph at Bell County, Kentucky, with references at the latter.

Let me solicit comments. I anticipate finding more of these soon, probably today. --P64 (talk) 15:09, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Former names. Today I began to study the "Remarks" provided in decennial US Census tables of aggregate population by county. Most of the remarks explain establishment of new counties, intercounty transfers of territory, and interstate transfers of counties. Only about 19 mere name changes are remarked in the Tenth Census (1880, note the early date). See User:P64/Counties/Names for a brief list of those nineteen, only seven of which are in the List of former United States counties that expressly includes name changes.

I wonder whether mere former names should be listed as "former counties" together with all the rest. --P64 (talk) 13:57, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Would it make sense to make the list into two parts - one former counties and the other former names of current counties? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 14:04, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe so, and moreso if the list gets much longer. I need to study other printed Census tables, forward from 1870/1880, for work using the population data. In my user space I will try to sort both the former names and the true former counties as reported in decennial notes. See User:P64/Counties/Names. --P64 (talk) 14:25, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Having read all footnotes to Table II from the Ninth Census report (1870), I have extended that list of former county names in my userspace User:P64/Counties/Names. There are more than 30 mere name changes gleaned from the 1870 and 1880 tables, including more than 20 not represented in our list of former United States counties.

The Atlas of Historical County Boundaries project was successfully completed in June 2010. No further updates from the project are anticipated.

The open question for this WikiProject may be what use to make of that Atlas. Meanwhile, in the printed Census publications I will focus on what I need elsewhere, rather than broaden this my own study of footnotes to Table II.

Do we anywhere provide by state the date of most recent county creation or the date of most recent county boundary change? For inspiration, perhaps, see the interactive Pennsylvania by date, at the Atlas of HCB. Checking ten-year increments it appears that the current counties were all created by 1870 and their current boundaries were established by 1880. --P64 (talk) 21:58, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

There are many list articles on counties by state such as List of counties in Alabama -that particular one and many of these county lists by state are WP:FLs - see Wikipedia:FL#Geography_and_places. I think the link to the Atlas could be added as an external link for each of these, per WP:EL. Lastly, I am afraid this WikiProject is not a very active one. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 13:03, 10 July 2010 (UTC)