Talk:List of rivers in the United States

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I propose listing each river name only once on this page. As it is we already have 4 White Rivers listed. If this page apporaches completeness, we would have 28. And 46 Black Rivers and 30 Red Rivers, etc. Why don't we just list the disambiguation page once. White River is already set up as a page with all the White Rivers and each state river page already lists all the rivers in each state (theoretically). I notice that the White River page already lists more White Rivers than this page. I am concerned that this page will become too difficult to use (too long to be useful) when it reaches several thousand entries. Maybe we should retrict it to important rivers and leave the all rivers lists on the state rivers pages. Rmhermen 13:27, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)

I still like the idea of a central list of all rivers in the U.S. not just by state. I've been thinking for a while that the page is going to have to be broken up, perhaps alphabetically, and have been thinking about possible ways to do that, based on other pages. It's definitely approaching a size where this is going to become an issue soon. I think it would be eventually several thousand entries, even if names are listed only once. I would prefer breaking up the page to restricting to "important" rivers, because I think that becomes a judgement call that easily breaks down and would require policing to keep off the constant addition of everyone's favorite smaller rivers (which may in fact have unelaborated historical significance). I'd rather be a happy inclusionist than a mean exclusionist in this regard. Maybe this page could become a pointer to the state page lists and the sub-alphabetical pages.-- Decumanus | Talk 15:31, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Q 2 Creeks 3 Sort by Flow 4 Alphabetical breakup

[edit] Q

Is alphabetical listing supposed to be a list of all Wikiarticles on U.S. rivers? Or...? :) jengod 21:57, May 21, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Creeks

Why have we started adding Creeks to this list? Just covering rivers this list will run to several thousand, adding creeks and otherwise named small streams will put it into the tens of thousands. Not very useful. Rmhermen 04:57, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think the "we" is just "me". In response, I realize there is a distinction, but sometimes its rather pedantic to make. The cutoff between river and creek is often quite fuzzy, especially in the east where a great many "creeks" are also called "rivers", with the USGS saying one thing and local usage or history saying another. It seems bizarre to split hairs in that way. Creeks in one part of the country are different than in other parts. A great many creeks in Pennsylvania would be a river elsewhere, whereas a creek in Oregon would be a "brook" or "run" in Pennsylvania. The distinction in nomenclature is moot I times. There are creeks in Montana that run to a hundred miles long. I realize that you do a lot of rivers in Michigan, where creeks are indeed minor, based on a very liberal application ofthe word "river" (because of the lake geography perhaps). A great many Michigan rivers would probably be creeks if they were farther east. So the question is: does "river" in the list mean a thing named a "river" or does it mean a stream of local importance. In any case, my philosophy was to have one list of all the stream entries in the United States, with the idea that for the forseeable future there would be very few entries created for truly minor creeks. Right now there are about 440 streams on the list. But I think the category thing is taking over anyway. If you want to remove anything not named a "river", then fine, I won't oppose you. I just like to write river entries. -- Decumanus 05:28, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I was thinking of a "creek" that is larger than many of the rivers in the area, and is quite important in the commerce and history of the area. The distinction is often an accident of history. I haven't added it, because I realize this is a slippery slope. But I've thought about it.... Pollinator 12:06, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)

I see many waterways have just been deleted from the list of PA rivers. Other than the word "river" in a waterway's name, is there a specific defination of "river" that is supposed to be used on these lists? For example, must a "river" discharge to the ocean? Gjs238 17:15, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sort by Flow

Would it be worth it to sort it by flow, as in List of Florida rivers?

I would say that would not be a good idea. The main reason is that the list is too large for that. It would involve many,many nested html lists--like List of Ontario rivers, except it would be much bigger. Nested lists render slowly on many computers in different browser software, to my experience. Also, I personally like the alphabetized version as an overall directory. I think the watershed lists work well for small sets, but become unusable on larger one. Perhaps start a separate article List of rivers in the United States by watershed? -- Decumanus 07:47, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabetical breakup

If there are no strong objections, I'd like take on the task sometime soon of breaking this up alphabetically so that it can continue to be comfortably expanded and made more complete. (At present, some states' rivers are very much underrepresented here.) I couldn't find a wikipedia guideline for multiple-page lists (perhaps because their existence is a source of contention), but here are a couple of options: List of songs by name, which is divided into List of songs by name: A and so forth; and List of colleges and universities, which is divided into List of colleges and universities starting with A etc. Personally I prefer the former format. Any thoughts?

Also, I'd like to implement Rmherman's above suggestion of having each name be listed only once, with a link to the disambig page, perhaps adding a " - Disambiguation" note in lieu of the state name(s).

Objections/suggestions? Malepheasant 20:18, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

• Alphabetical split now complete Malepheasant 02:58, 8 October 2005 (UTC)