Talk:Mount McKinley

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Contents 1 Denali or McKinley? 2 Why have Mauna Loa in here? 3 Reorganization, additions 4 Possible POV in "Name Controversy" section 5 Removed link 6 Reverted weather pictures table

[edit] Denali or McKinley?

Should the name of this article be changed to Denali, with a redirect put in from Mount McKinley? (which is the reverse of how it's set up now). Denali is the original Native American name, and the name of the National Park (although per the US Park Service site, they call it Mt. McKinley in Denali NP, which is silly). I just made a similar suggestion on the talk page of Krakatoa (the real name of the volcano was Krakatau). There doesn't seem to be a consistent wikipolicy on this, as many geographical features have multiple names. But, for example, Ayers Rock redirects to Uluru. But evidently they decided not to rename Victoria Falls Mosi-oa-Tunya (the local name). Binkymagnus 01:32, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)

The official name is McKinley, and the most commonly used. Sometimes you'll see changes to native names - these reflect official name changes, which happen periodically, but not to McKinley. The cynics suggest that the park was named "Denali" as a compromise that allowed McKinley to stay as it is (as the highest peak in the US, it appears in print a lot.) Stan 05:21, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The article's name should be McKinley(official) but should be refered to as Denali in the article because Wikipedia generally gives respect to the local populatin's view. Most Alaskans I've met refer to it as Denali not Mckinley. 12.220.94.199 02:49, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Alaskans use both names, it is not really a big deal. Hudson Stuck, leader of the original climbing party, thought it should be called Denali. But Denali, which means, "Big Mountain", is also the native name for Pioneer Peak, and probably 20 other mountains in Athabaskan Alaska. McKinley is still the official name, and I propose that the article should continue use the official name to avoid a POV issue. When the official name changes, we should change the article name to follow it. RPellessier | Talk 17:53, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

As the article now states, the name is officially "Denali" according to the Alaska Board of Geographic Names. It's just that the national board officially disagrees. So both are "official", you just have to pick your authorizing organization. - BT 16:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the repeated changes of the sentence "Denali is the name preferred by the mountaineering community": if you can provide a reference to support the change to "Mount McKinley", please do so on this page and we can discuss it. Please do not simply keep re-changing the sentence without support. Also, if anyone else has a reference supporting the "Denali" usage, it would be good to put it in. --Spireguy 17:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why have Mauna Loa in here?

The article gives some comparison to Mauna Loa and Everest. I am not sure if they have any relevance.

I'd say the comparison to Everest is relevant, although the notion of "height above base" is intrinsically slippery. Denali's massive rise above local terrain is one of its key features. --Spireguy 19:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reorganization, additions

I just added a lot of content to this article, and reorganized it as well. Feel free to make comments about the new organization; in particular I'm not wedded to this particular ordering of the sections. --Spireguy 19:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible POV in "Name Controversy" section

Is it just me, or is that section biased toward the Denali side? I've added the POV-check template to that section for review by more experienced Wikipedians. —smably 19:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I didn't write that material (although I did put it in the "Name Controversy" section), but I don't think it's particularly biased. The truth is that this mountain, more than almost any other, does have a lot of native-name support, so it's important to mention that. I would drop the quotes around "McKinley" though. (Also see the "Denali or McKinley" thread above.) -- Spireguy 15:54, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, maybe it is accurate. It just looked to me as if it were saying "everyone agrees that the name is Denali, but some crazy congressman keeps introducing legislation so it stays McKinley", instead of "many people believe it should be called Denali; but others, including Ralph Regula, disagree". (In other words, it seems to be trying to convince me that the name should be Denali, instead of dispassionately presenting the arguments of each side. If there really is a controversy, surely there's more than one side to it, even if there is a lot of support for the native name.) —smably 20:01, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The text and controversy are accurate. I would not say merely Congressman, but people from Ohio defend that naming. The Congressmen are merely their representatives. Maybe the rest of us should consider renaming Ohio to Nukansas or something. --eugene miya [climber] 20:00, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

First: above I should have said "quotes around "official"", not "McKinley", in case that confused anybody. Second: I can see the interpretation smably put on it, and perhaps simple changes of phrasing would make it clearer. But I agree with Eugene that the substance is accurate. Third: I would leave it as referring to the Congressman, not something like "the people of Ohio." He does represent them, but I don't know of a statewide referendum on this particular issue. -- Spireguy 19:28, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, I went ahead and did a little tweaking of the paragraph. I dropped the quotes around "official", and added a sentence about the name McKinley having some general support, not just Ralph. Seems pretty balanced to me now. -- Spireguy 21:45, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

It would be cool to have actual references for the position of the "Indian-rights activists" referred to, and for the position of the "mountaineering community" - just going by the titles in the references, publishers awkwardly squeeze both names in, suggesting that neither name alone would be satisfactory to much of their audience. Stan 22:27, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Great! Thanks for the work, Spireguy. That section sounds a lot more neutral now, to my ears at least. I'd be happy to remove the POV template, assuming that no one else has a problem with the section. Anyone have any objections? If not, I'll get rid of the template tomorrow. —smably 22:44, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah, so you were editing while I wanted to place one more edit. Basically, I think the tone of what you guys are proposing is fairly neutral. It's not an issue that we are going to resolve here, but I think you guys are basically fair.--eugene miya [climber] 23:00, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Added note, one source of naming in the US if you want a link is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Board_on_Geographic_Names . --eugene miya [climber] 23:10, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed the note about McKinley's never visiting the mountain. In addition to being unsourced, it's really not relevant. Many mountains are named for people who never visit them; in fact many are named for people who are deceased. So there is nothing special about McKinley's never having visited the mountain (especially since it was hard to travel to Alaska at the time, he had a pretty demanding job, and he died four years later). Hence including it in this section is somewhat POV, IMO. -- Spireguy 14:19, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I have never even heard of the mountain being referred to as "Mt Mckinly", Only as Denali, I believe the native title should have precedence. Oz

[edit] Removed link

I removed the link to the www.wildlifechronicles.com site. It was spam of a particularly poor nature: the link itself was broken, and when I looked around the site, the only thing I could find was a photo of McKinley with a caption which gave its elevation as 14,495 feet. -- Spireguy 19:02, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted weather pictures table

I reverted the added table and additional picture, since the additional picture is almost exactly the same as the picture in the infobox, and the table didn't work (it extended awkwardly into the next section). I think the point about the mountain making its own weather is made just fine as it was, and doesn't require an additional picture for contrast. -- Spireguy 19:02, 26 September 2006 (UTC)