To Dual Freq: You can’t simply remove all towns and villages from the page, just because many are included on another template. What if someone were to create a Central Illinois template? Then it would be redundant to have those places listed on the Illinois template as well, wouldn’t it? Then there would be no cities left on the Illinois template. Additionally, several villages are important to Illinois as a whole. Did you know that Schaumburg is 2nd only to Chicago as far as Illinois economics goes? Or how about Cicero having more people than Champaign, even though it was incorporated as a town. You simply can’t omit these places that are important to Illinois as a whole, simply because they’re located in Chicagoland.
To Telos: I disagree with the standardization of state templates to only include cities over 50,000. It may work for California and Texas, but for the rest of the states, it just doesn’t cut it. The whole purpose of a navigational template is so that you can navigate to the important pages associated with that topic. How can you have an Illinois template and remove the sites of Illinois’ second and third largest universities (DeKalb and Carbondale), well-known independent manufacturing cities (Freeport and Galesburg), important suburbs that have suburbs of their own (Crystal Lake, St. Charles), and so forth. Also, lumping them all together as cities is inaccurate, since some are cities while some are not. I thought Wikipedia is supposed to be professional, yet including the Village of Hoffman Estates or the Village of Schaumburg under the title “cities” is inaccurate and unprofessional. I have worked on this template for a long time, trying to fine-tune it to the appropriate level it was at. To come in and recklessly standardize it to standards that make templates pointless and difficult to use, non-representational of the State, inaccurate, and unprofessional is completely irresponsible. Abog 21:21, 25 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
I'm sorry if you disagree with the standardization, and I won't edit your version unless someone else speaks up impartially, but please don't engage in personal attacks. I beg to differ that my desire to shorten the template amounts to being "unprofessional" or "irresponsible". Telos 22:28, 25 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- I'm sorry...I didn't mean to personally attack you. I just find this concept of standardization frustrating and inappropriate. Abog 23:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
This template is a huge mass of links sitting at the bottom of a lot of Illinois related pages. Please, tell me to the reason we need 40+ "Towns" and "villages" on this template. What is the criteria for inclusion or exclusion from this important list? Is this population based? Is this a top 40 largest list? Is this a list of "My favorite cities"? What value do these links add when placed at the bottom of pages like:Adams County, Illinois, Alexander County, Illinois, Bond County, Illinois? Looking at the Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states/state templates, I don't see many that are larger than this template. If you still want to include this list, please let me know the inclusion criteria so that I can make sure it reflects the entire state. --Dual Freq 00:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- If the threshold is a 25,000+ population, then I suggest raising the bar to a more suitable number. 25,000+ at the 2000 census is around 75 total, 40,000+ is around 37 total and 50,000+ would be about 25 total between the cities and towns box. I think I could live with 25 total cities listed. --Dual Freq 03:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- The threshold is 25,000+ population, as indicated either by year 2000 Census figures or more recent official special censuses. I think 75 total is fine. I don't see how you can include every little county, and then not include all important/major cities. How you can you make an Illinois template, and then not include Danville and Kankakee which are recognized as metropolitan areas? How can you not include important college towns like DeKalb and Carbondale? How can we exclude regional cities like Quincy that actually have their own national television affiliates? How can you not include important satellite cities that have now become suburbs such as St. Charles and Crystal Lake? Yet, we include every po-dunk county, even those that have like 15,000 people. That's not to say we shouldn't include all 102 counties, as we should. However, I think it is appropriate to have a good balance of counties and municipalities, and I find that a 25,000 population threshold assures that a balance is made and that most of the important cities are included. I mean, if we're using this 50K threshold for every state, are we only going to put Cheyenne and Casper on the Wyoming template, ignoring other important cities like Laramie, Gillette, and Green River? Are you seriously going to exclude Meridian, Hattiesburg, and Vicksburg from the Mississippi template? Or how about Vermont?...Are we going to put no cities on that state's template whatsoever?Abog 03:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- Additionally, to reemphasize my belief that the population level should be brought down to a more appropriate level: both Moline AND Rock Island are under 50,000 people, yet under this ridiculous 50K threshold level, we would have to remove them from the template. However, I don't believe we should have a double standard in which downstate municipalities are included on the template while Chicagoland municipalities are not. Abog 04:07, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- Let me also point out that this 50K pop standardization thing seems non-existent to me. The state templates are all different. Texas doesn't even have its counties listed. California has metros listed. Oregon has both metros and cities listed...and many of the cities listed are quite small. Indiana and Wisconsin appear to have population thresholds at 25K. North Carolina's threshold is at 15K. It's actually all over the board...as it should be, since every state is different, and what may work for one state may not work for another. I feel that the 25K population threshold works best for Illinois, and the template really isn't that much bigger than many of the other states'.Abog 04:16, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- I'd compromise at 50k, but I don't think Illinois articles need links to 75 city articles. I'm only concerned with having a workable template that is useful for navigation of Illinois articles. I don't care if Quincy, Carbondale, Danville, Urbana, Addison or Algonquin (which wasn't even over 25k in 2000) are listed. There is a link to each county and a link to the full list of cities and towns. There is no need to list every city over 25,000. If you're so concerned about history, then how can you exclude historically significant towns like Cairo, Illinois or the former state capitals of Vandalia, Illinois and Kaskaskia, Illinois? If Cairo is included, then why not list every town city and village in the state? My point is, the template is huge, reduce its size, or it will be unusable. I'm considering not adding it to future Illinois articles I edit if it is not reduced in size. I'll probably start removing from some of the articles that I feel it is inappropriate for. --Dual Freq 04:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- When did I ever say anything about including places based on historical signifcance alone? Nowhere! Regarding Algonquin, it has 27,000 people, as confirmed by an offical special census in 2003, and continues to grow. Additionally, to deny important cities like Quincy, Moline, Rock Island, Danville, Belleville, Carbondale, DeKalb, and so forth, in addition to all major suburbs, from inclusion on the Illinois template is comepletely inappropriate, and would result in a template not representational of the State. Abog 05:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
If you want MSAs then remove the towns and cities and just link the MSAs. That would make the list even shorter. --Dual Freq 04:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- That still wouldn't cover all the important municipalities though. If you did that, then you would be excluding Aurora, Waukegan, Elgin, Evanston, Crystal Lake, St. Charles, Belleville, and other important places. And you still wouldn't get all the important downstate cities. I really don't think the template is all that big. If you really want to hack away at a template, see templates for Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Nevada. I wouldn't be opposed to adding a "hide" feature to the template if you really think it's that big and cumbersome. Abog 04:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- The consensus on the template project talk page seems to be against show/hide. It looks like I will be removing / omitting this template from Illinois articles I edit. I'll only include a county template instead of both. --Dual Freq 04:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- Whatever floats your boat. However, I think that all places/topics listed on the Illinois template should have the Illinois template at the bottom, yet places that are not on the Illinois template should not have the Illinois template at the bottom. I think that only makes sense. Abog 04:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
Is it time to get the sock puppets out to do a 4th revert? I'm not impressed. --Dual Freq 05:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- I think there probably is some sort of process to arbitrate this dispute. Maybe I am wrong, but it sounds like Dual Freq simply doesn't like the "look" of the template. Illinois is a big, diverse state. A city/town's significance is not necesarily related to its population. I am of the opinion that a 50K population threshold is too high-- it sounds like a convenient round number chosen solely to reduce the size of the template. As far as the Illinois template being "too big," I would like to direct everyone's attention to {{New Hampshire}}, {{Minnesota}}, and {{Virginia}}.
- Does the template exist to provide cosmetic enhancement to Illinois articles, or does it exist to be a navigation tool? I like that it shows me Illinois at a glance. I believe that is what the template should do-- it should provide a balanced "picture" of the state. Of course, this introduces some subjectivity. I hope that the disputes can be managed constructively here.
- Regarding a "show/hide" function, Wikipedia users are free to use the function. It simply needs to be used sparingly and tastefully. Perhaps introducing the "show/hide" would be reasonable compromise?
- Abog: what is your ideal for the Illinois template?
- Dual Freq: what is your ideal for the Illinois template?
- --Lmbstl 14:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
My ideal template? One that doesn't fill the entire screen and lists a reasonable number of municipalities, say 10 to 20 and worth using on many Illinois related pages, yet not so large as to take over the entire page. I'm willing to compromise at 50,000+ pop per 2000 census as listed here, which has about 27. The template is easily supplemented by other lists that are more specific by area as illustrated by the DuPage County, Illinois and Ogle County, Illinois article which contains two other templates that are pertinent to that area. My secondary ideal would be that as soon as I mention 3RR, no anons drop in and revert. That seems very suspicious to me. The 2000 census seems most fair as all municipalities were counted, while interim ones only counted select locations. --Dual Freq 21:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- I will also add that in its current bloated form, I am not encouraged to use this template. I would rather make use of a different one that is smaller. As for other states, I guess that's for them to worry about. I'm equally opposed to the large size of those. Do we really want something like Template:New Hampshire? --Dual Freq 21:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
Lmbst says it best: "of course, this introduces some subjectivity." Well, in that case, we may well march on adding anything we please. Inform all the "village" mayors -- they'ed be delighted to see their two-houses-and-a-gas-station cities added in too. I mean, someone has to live in all these places, so clearly they're ALL enourmously important and template-worthy. I think not. Subjectivity is for travel guides and movie reviews, not Wikipedia.
I also agree with Abog in that "every state is different, and what may work for one state may not work for another." It does not work for users of the Illinois template to have to muck through the 75+ cities we would have if we fixed the population bar at 25,000. Abog's solution, however, is to include only the 'important' cities and towns. Quite beyond the obvious problem of how to determine importance, this also leads to the exclusion of larger suburbs in favour of 'interesting' smaller communities with far fewer people. Most users see no reason to jump from Lake in the Hills to Elk Grove Village, and in any case, the counties already included in the template should direct anyone searching for more information to a more specific list.
I also happen to disapprove of sockpuppetry to get in that crucial fourth revert -- it not only lowers credibility to do something so desperate, but it's also hideously cliché. This breach of Wiki policy should be kept in mind when evaluating Abog's other contributions. Telos 22:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- Actually, my computer shut down and I forgot to re-login when making that edit, and based on the 24 hour policy, whether I was logged in or not, would have only been my 3rd edit, not my 4th. Additionally, it appears that Dual Freq and Telos are in cahoots with each other, quickly following each others edits, out to get other people, and assuming the negative right away. This should also be kept in mind when evaluating their contributions.
As for the template, I agree with Lmbstl, that it is supposed to be a picture of the state, and is supposed to be representational of the State. Of course, the only way to avoid subjectivity is by doing it based on population. And for your information, special censuses (at least in these cases) DO count all residents.
I feel templates are not for cosmetic purposes, and are for navigational purposes, and it wouldn't be out-of-the-ordinary for someone looking at the Peoria page, wanting to navigate to the Moline page, and from there to the Galesburg page, and maybe from there to the Quincy page, and back to Springfield. Additionally, it wouldn't be out-of-the-ordinary for someone looking at the Rockford page wanting to navigate to the Crystal Lake page, then over to the Algonquin page, and then maybe over to the Bartlett page, then over to the Elgin page, and down to the St. Charles page, and over to West Chicago. These manuevers would be impossible to do without the 25,000K threshold limit.
I think the solution would be rather to get rid of the Chicagoland template, and simply just have county and state templates at the bottom of the page.
As Lmbstl said, a 50K limit is too high, and doesn't give users an accurate glimpse of the State or allow users to easily navigate. I mean, we're talking a few cenimeters here. From my perspective, removing 50 cities serves no purpose, and the drawbacks (harder to navigate, not representative of the State) of this action significantly outweigh the benefits (shortening the template a few cenimeters for cosmetic reasons). From my viewpoint, as long as the template fits within the screen, it isn't too big. Additionally, they're at the bottom of the page anyway.Abog 03:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- Keep in mind, I have compromised already. I was initially proposing including all places over 20,000, but that would open the floodgates too much, and would only serve to add more suburbs than downstate locales. 25,000, however, includes most of the major cities people would be looking for when looking at Illinois-related pages. I also use 25,000, as it appears to be a major threshold in many mapping/geographical products. Abog 03:14, 27 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
Quickly following each other's edits? You violate 3RR with an anon IP and you tell me that several hours separation is quickly? What is your definition of quickly? The closest edit I can see is 4 hours. Please, don't try my patience, your lucky I don't file a 3RR report on you. My opinion is that this template follow the 50k+ per 2000 census guideline for state templates. The only part of this template I've found useful has been the county and list links, but if you want 75 or 200 cities listed, do whatever you want. It's obviously your template, right? You own this template, so do whatever you want, don't worry about guidelines or other opinions. --Dual Freq 03:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
Excuse me, but you're not being understanding and quick to assume the bad right away. I'm sorry, I often forget to login, and my computer was being slow so I had to restart it.
Additionally, if you look at the history, whether I was logged in or not, I wouldn't be violating the 3RR.
What guideline are you referring to? The 50K threshold is only found on like four or five templates from what I've seen.
So far, you haven't really explained what purpose it does to remove valuable information from a template, other than it's not too long. So, you're going to recklessly remove 50 cities people would be likely to navigate to for the purpose of shortening a template a few cenimeters? Most articles have gobs of templates and stuff at the bottom anyway. Do you really think someone looking at the Chicagoland or Chicago articles are really going to care what the size of the template is, when they have a mile of templates to go through anyway? Is a few cenimeters really going to make a difference? No. But I can guarantee you they would prefer having templates down there that can actually allow them to easily navigate, instead of a bunch of templates that take them only to counties.
You complain about having to sift through 75 cities. Well, people have to sift through 102 counties as well. And I think people looking at Illinois articles would be more likely to want to navigate to a Galesburg, or a Moline, or a Crystal Lake, than say a Macoupin County or a Hardin County. That's not to say we shouldn't include all counties, however we should be balanced in our approach of including the right amount of cities vs. counties. Abog 03:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
Also, Rock Island is under 50,000 people...you might want to remove it. Just an example of how this ridiculous threshold level would cause both Rock Island and Moline to not be included on the ILLINOIS template. But no, you do whatever you want with this template now, since you seem so concerned about it. Keep hacking away! Might want to venture over to the Minnesota template while you're at it. Abog 04:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
Please also tell me where this standardization guideline is that you're referring to. I'd really like to see it, especially as most templates don't seem to follow it anyway. Abog 04:18, 27 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
Okay, what is the short version of why duplicate information from {{Chicagoland}} keeps being restored into {{Illinois}}? —Rob (talk) 20:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
- Quite simply, the short answer is "Abog". Let's just settle this, shall we, as no one else seems willing to provide any further sane arguementation. I propose a simple vote: Telos 00:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)Reply
Should the cites list for the Illinois template be condensed to include only cities over 50,000 in population?
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YES, for the purposes of navigational ease, standardization, elimination of subjectivity, and significance of the cities listed --Telos 00:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)Reply
NO, for the purposes of navigational ease (so people can actually navigate to important Illinois cities like Moline, Rock Island, Danville, Belleville, DeKalb, Galesburg, Quincy, St. Charles, and Crystal Lake, just like people in Wisconsin and Indiana can navigate to 25K-50K cities), avoiding subjectivity, being representative of the State of Illinois, balancing the listing of 102 counties, being accurate (there's a difference between cities and villages and they link to different pages: Major cities and Major towns and villages), being in touch with geography (25,000 is a common major threshold in most maps and other geography-related materials), and so forth. It should also be noted that the new template would only be a centimeter or two shorter, but would deny users the navigation to 50 important cities and villages.
I'm also still waiting for proof that this supposed 50K standardization was actually something that was discussed and agreed upon by the Wikipedia community.
And this vote is ridiculous anyway, since it's pretty much 2 against 1 and I'm going to lose. I think dispute resolution would be more appropriate. Abog 02:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)Reply
- I vote NO-- because we haven't decided how the template should appear. Everyone can say what they don't want-- fine. Now we need an agreement on the purpose of the template and what should appear on it. Please see below. --Lmbstl 13:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)Reply
Dispute resolution
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What is wrong with trying to arrive at a concensus? Can we agree to try and do so?
First, using population count as a threshold for template inclusion is not sufficient. This has been the foundation for all these senseless arguments about the template. People are choosing an arbitrary population threshold that corresponds to the the size of template they prefer. This overlooks the purpose of the template-- if we can agree on the purpose of the template, then we can better arrive at its proper size-- NOT based on cosmetics but based on function. Can we agree to do this?
Purpose of the template
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To provide a visual "menu" in order to easily access information about Illinois regions, counties, and cities, assuming that hte reader knows little about Illinois. I welcome thoughts and debate on this statement of purpose. --Lmbstl 13:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)Reply
In line with the above template purpose, I clarified "Metro-East" to read as "St. Louis Metro-East." It is referred to as such in official documentation[1], real estate [2][3][4], and it clarifies the region for those not familiar with the state. --Lmbstl 08:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)Reply
- Since you're from St. Louis, maybe you could help with the Metro-East article. None of those links explain what Metro-east actually consists of. See Talk:Metro-East, the initial stub said ten counties, then 11 counties, now 6 counties. St. Louis MSA only includes 5. I don't know which is correct, I thought I'd add an SVG map, but the last image I found on Commons was dumped because it had 11 counties. --Dual Freq 19:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)Reply
Criteria for inclusion of cities
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Idea 1: Keep only the "regions" or "counties" listing on the Illinois template, then have sub-templates for cities within the regions/counties. There are a couple of problems with this approach:
- a. Not everyone knows which cities correspond to which region/county. For example, how many people know that "metro-east" is the St. Louis metro area, which includes Illlinois? Further, how many people looking for Edwardsville (seat of Madison County and home to SIUE) would know to look at the Metro-East? Or Belleville? This is problematic, and it is the main reason I do not support leaving cities such as Edwardsville off of the main Illinois template.
- b. There will still be arguments about which cities to include the subtemplates, anyway. Therefore. . .
Idea 2: Whether listing cities on subtemplates or on the main Illinois template, there must be criteria for inclusion. If we have to go through city by city, then so be it. I propose that we use our energy to develop a set of criteria to allow a city inclusion into the template.
This is what I have been able to come up with:
- Significant historical/cultural contribution (h)
- Major economic input (will typically coincide with population) (e)
- Location of a major university (u)
If we want to inroduce numerical criteria, we can rate each quality on a scale of 1 - 7, with 7 being the highest. For example, the city of Chicago would rank as follows:
- h = 7
- e = 7
- u = 7
for a a top score of 21.
Decatur:
- h = 4
- e = 5
- u = 4
for a score of 13.
The above scoring may have to be evaluated within each region, I am not sure. What should be the threshold for inclusion? Let's debate the above criteria. This will decide the template. --Lmbstl 13:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)Reply
- That's... crazy complicated, and will be a significant pain in the arse to maintain. Theoretically, it's great.
- I'd go with top 10 or 20 in population, but then some of those are cities in the greater Chicagoland area that not everyone in the state knows. So now I'm thinking major population centers. Chicago, Rockford, Quad Cities, Bloomington-Normal, Champaign-Urbana, Peoria, Edwardsville/Belleville. —Rob (talk) 19:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)Reply
- Alternatively, take the list from control cities on Interstate highways in Illinois (from [5]): Metropolis, LaSalle, Mendota, Rockford, E.St. Louis, Edwardsville, Litchfield, Springfield, Lincoln, Bloomington, Pontiac, Joliet, Chicago, Cairo, Marion, Mt.Vernon, Salem, Effingham, Matton, Champaign-Urbana, Rantoul, Kankakee, Vandalia, Decatur, Moline, Galesburg, Peoria, Champaign-Urbana, Danville, Genesco, Princeton, La Salle, Ottawa, Morris, Sterling, Rock Falls, Rochelle, DeKalb, Aurora, Naperville, Downers Grove, Elmhurst, Villa Park, Lombard, Elgin, Waukegan, Highland Park, Skokie, Calumet City. But that's way too big. —Rob (talk) 19:19, 1 February 2007 (UTC)Reply
- I agree that the above-mentioned formula is way too complicated and way too subjective. As I said before, seeting a limit or having a population threshold is the only way to avoid subjectivity. Edwardsville is likely to reach 25k population soon anyway. It isn't realistic or fair for someone to be unable to navigate to a nationally-important city such as Moline or a city important to Illinois like Quincy. I think metro areas/micro areas might be an appropriate compromise, but then that would cause large anchor cities such as Elgin and Aurora to not be included, since they fall under the Chicago metro. I really don't see the problem with having 80 cities to balance 102 counties, especially considering people are more familiar with cities than counties anyway. Additonally, I think the Chicagoland template is redundant and unnecessary, since we are already forming individual county templates and have the state template. The Illinois template with 83 cities and 102 counties really isn't much longer than any of the other state templates. I don't see why we need to recklessly remove cities.
- Additionally, please help revert the senseless edits by Dual Freq. He's now got the list down to 10 cities, and is considering only having Chicago listed. This is ridiculous...no state template is like that. We need the more navigable version up until this is settled. Abog 19:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)Reply
- It's complicated because of these disagreements. Economic input and the presence of a university are hardly subjective. Historical contribution, I admit, is rather subjective. I disagree that Wikipedia does not allow for subjectivity. Anyway, the point is-- we can keep this simple or make it complicated-- the "complication" is lack of agreement. If everyone wants to decide to use the census, then so be it. Let's agree to do so. (Then the template will only change every ten years, right? ;) ) --Lmbstl 07:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)Reply
Top 20?
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