Talk:East Lansing, Michigan

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[edit] Town/Gown Relations

The person who edited this section last has placed unnecessary quotation marks around a large number of words. Further, there seems to be a heavy bias towards events occurring in the late seventies through the eighties, written in a style not befitting Wikipedia. Is this really the place to mention "legendary" parties or "kegs or trash cans in every room"? The section begins with "After the student take-over" and ends with "It remains as such to this day."

[edit] Lingo

Is this lingo actually used outside the student population? If not perhaps it should be not on this page. Rmhermen 21:33, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

When I lived in East Lansing, about 75% of the adults in the city were MSU students (it's probably only a little less today). Students vote in local elections and take part in city governance. So the views, and in this case the terms, used by MSU students are surely relevant here. Kestenbaum 15:19, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. Almost all of the lingo is specific to the campus, the exceptions are an ugly parking garage and a mexican restaurant. These aren't exactly encyclopedic. You should see if these things are desired among the editors of the MSU article, but they really don't belong here (although I wouldn't object to some being moved to landmarks/points of interest). I've spent some time on this campus, I recognize nearly all of these places when I read the definitions, but I've never heard any of this "lingo." -MrFizyx 03:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I can see your point. However, the parking structure is a notable piece of architectural bizarreness, and the Habitrail/Hamster Cage terminology is very widespread in the community. That item ought to be moved to "points of interest". Kestenbaum 03:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I can live with that, the neighboring garage is taller and offers a better view, but is admitedly less wierd[1]. When one googles the "Rape Trail", for example one gets many copies of the wiki[2], and then a "S'News" article that applies the name to an entirely different location[3]. It just seems that a lot of these don't meet criteria in WP:V. -MrFizyx 03:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lingo : "The Nazis"

To what extent is the usage of this "nickname" for the East Lansing police documented in verifiable sources as one common to the student community in East Lansing? Without any authority for the commonality of the usage it sounds like an expression of opinion.

Strongly agreed, and I deleted it already. Kestenbaum 20:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reorganization and some rewrite

I just now moved most of the items in the Lingo section to more substantive categories; they may require reformatting. I also modified a number of them. Brief summary:

Points of interest

  • Divided "points of interest" into reasonable sections, including a non-East Lansing section which should probably be dropped
  • Added mention of the replacement of the Sparty statue
  • Dropped the POV complaint about the architectural fees on the Habitrail (built almost 20 years ago, time to give it a rest), and replaced that with the substantive background for the bizarre design
  • Included the origin of the Class of '73 rock
  • Dropped the hoaxish "Red Cedar Yacht Club"
  • Wikified Fred Miller's name and corrected his title

Notable people

  • Restored alphabetical order
  • Dropped Debbie Stabenow from the list of notable people (hasn't she always lived in Lansing?)
  • Clarified Malcolm X's connection to East Lansing
  • Added NBA player Ben Poquette

Lingo

  • Changed the description of the "student ghetto" to encompass all of it, rather than the very limited section specified.
  • Considered rewriting "Triangle" to correct the geography, but ended up deleting it. The actual Triangle was a small park (barely larger than a median strip) bounded by Ann, Albert and MAC Avenues, surrounded by businesses, with its triangularity stressed by a knee-high stone wall around it; about 20 years ago, the park was ripped out and bricked over as short term parking, and the original triangular configuration is theoretical at best. Nowadays there are other more obvious triangular street configurations in East Lansing.
  • Deleted a whole bunch of non-notable or silly or or inconsistent or too obvious items: "to Baker it", "Frat Rows", "Mating Call", "Rape Trail". "Tundra", "Uptown/Downtown"

Local events

  • Moved some items here which didn't seem to belong under "points of interest"

Okay, that's enough for now. Kestenbaum 21:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The changes look good. I still feel the lingo would be better placed into an MSU article though since it is very much centered on student life (or drop it entirely). I'm very happy with your improvements though. -MrFizyx 18:41, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Good job sorting out the Lingo section. I like the whole "Points of Interest" much better. I vote that we delete what's left of the Lingo section, and convert the Point of Interest sections to prose. Lovelac7 22:43, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
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