Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rivers

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Archive 1

Moved to Archive 1:

  • Disambiguation discussion (From Stan Sheb's talk page)
  • Etiquette for updating project
  • Votes for deletion - Trasvasement
  • Proposed Template from Dutch Wikipedia

Moved to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Rivers/Naming

  • all naming discussions are moved there. Includes Requested moves.

Contents

[edit] Project Sample

It has been proposed that every WikiProject choose a single article which represents what the Project members hope each article will eventually look like, so that interested onlookers can see where a Project is heading. If this project is ready to choose such an article, please do so and link to it after the Project name at Wikipedia:WikiProject. If there are no articles ready for this yet, you may wish to focus as a group on an article which is close and/or will be relatively easy to research.

[edit] Armlet

River_Vuoksi, the most famous unknown River ;-) starts with armlet, I wikified it, because I wanted to find out what it is - but there is no article. Can some of the river-experts help? best regards Tobias Conradi 22:27, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I beleive this should be branch, not armlet. Armlet is used as a synonym for inlet when describing seas and fjords. Also I see that the southern "branch" is called River Burnaja which I don't think the article mentions. Rmhermen 13:51, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)
I just redirected Armlet to Arm ring, since all other links to it were about jewellery. I second the "branch" change, and will do it now. -AndyBQ 06:28, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A source

Whilst trying to help "fill in the reds" at Wikipedia:2004 Encyclopedia topics, I noticed that there was quite a few rivers still to do... I start extracting out the rivers (have done the first 11 pages worth so far) and listing them at User:Pcb21#rivers... so if you are looking for something to do... there is at least 100 hundred articles to write right there! THanks Pcb21| Pete 11:39, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)


[edit] List of rivers in another major encyclopedia not in Wikipedia

  1. Al-Kalb River
  2. Alpenrhein River
  3. Angerman River
  4. Arauca River
  5. Arecibo River
  6. Arinos River
  7. Artibonite River
  8. Bafing River
  9. Baghmati River
  10. Bakoye River
  11. Balsas River
  12. Bandama River
  13. Baram River
  14. Camu River
  15. Catatumbo River
  16. Cauto River
  17. Cavalla River
  18. Ceyhan River
  19. Chelif River
  20. Ch'in River
  21. Chin-Sha River
  22. Chiu-Lung River
  23. Ch'ongch'on River
  24. Chu River
  25. Cuiaba River
  26. Daly River
  27. Dawson River
  28. de Grey River
  29. Deseado River
  30. Digul River
  31. Dinder River
  32. Dja River
  33. Doca River
  34. Dong Nai River
  35. Dwanga River
  36. Escarvos River
  37. Fu-Ch'un River
  38. Gandak River
  39. Gascoyne River
  40. Gash River
  41. Great Scarcies River
  42. Grijalva River
  43. Groot River
  44. Guainia River
  45. Guapore River
  46. Guaviare River
  47. Gumal River
  48. Gundlakamma River
  49. Hei River
  50. Herbert River
  51. Hsin River
  52. Hung-Shui River
  53. Hunyani River
  54. Iskur River
  55. Itapicuru River
  56. Jacui River
  57. Jaguaribe River
  58. Jari River
  59. Javari River
  60. Kuei River
  61. Kushk River
  62. Laja River
  63. Larne River
  64. Lempa River
  65. Lerma River
  66. Loa River
  67. Logone River
  68. Loiza River
  69. Mazaruni River
  70. McArthur River
  71. Meta River
  72. Mohaka River
  73. Mokau River
  74. Moulouya River
  75. Mu River
  76. Murat River
  77. Naktong River
  78. Nan River
  79. Nazas River
  80. Nechako River
  81. Nen River
  82. Neosho River
  83. Nestos River
  84. Para River
  85. Paru River
  86. Rokel River
  87. Roper River
  88. Ruo River
  89. Ruvubu River
  90. Ruvuma River
  91. Sabbath River
  92. Sabi River
  93. Saint Paul River
  94. Salado River
  95. Saluda River
  96. Sanaga River
  97. Sankuru River
  98. Santa River
  99. Sao Lourenco River
  100. Sarda River
  101. Sassandra River
  102. Sebou River
  103. Seekonk River
  104. Semliki River
  105. Sewa River
  106. Shemanker River
  107. Shoshone River
  108. Shyok River
  109. Sierra Leone River
  110. Sileru River
  111. Sittang River
  112. Sobat River
  113. Sokoto River
  114. Solimoes River
  115. Solo River
  116. Somes River
  117. Sonora River
  118. Strawberry River
  119. Subarnarekha River
  120. Sure River
  121. Suriname River
  122. Surma River
  123. Swat River
  124. Tuckasegee River
  125. Tumut River
  126. Vardar River
  127. Verdigris River
  128. Wailua River
  129. Winisk River
  130. Wouri River
  131. Wu River
  132. Yu River

Pcb21| Pete 22:33, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Breadth: lots of rivers

Hello, all. Just found this project. There is some good stuff here regarding the depth side of things: how to write a good, comprehensive article on a river. But lately I've been wondering about the breadth side: listing lots of rivers. (By the way, if this has been discussed before somewhere, please point me to that discussion. Thanks.)

Wikipedia is eventually supposed to have an article on anything "noteworthy". And, for flowing bodies of water, I would say that a good rule of thumb for whether something is noteworthy enough is whether the locals call it a "river" (or the equivalent word in whatever language they use). In short, Wikipedia ought to have an article on every river in the world.

Of course, to start with, the vast majority of these articles would contain very little information. But what would make it all worthwhile would be the lists & categories tying everything together. Therefore, along with the guidelines for an article about a river, how about also putting together standards for regional lists of rivers (by watershed & alphabetical), categories, etc. Also a brief guideline about what the minimal article on a river ought to look like (I figure name, general location, stub tag, categories, along with an associated entry in whatever relevant list articles there may be).

Now, with only six people listed as project participants (seven if I sign up), this is a ridiculously large job. But we can dream, can't we? More practically, we can also write bots to lighten the workload, and we can put together standards for those who follow.

Thoughts?

— Nowhither 16:37, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm with you. The hundred-odd red links in the list above are unquestionably noteworthy enough for WP to get us started ;-). Pcb21| Pete 18:16, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
I've been working on European rivers. There is a good list by watershed at List of rivers of Europe. As it was getting enormous, I removed rivers that are too insignificant (see the talk page), criterium length under 100 km. There are lists of rivers for several European countries as well, most of them by watershed and alphabetic. An alphabetical list of rivers of Europe would be nice as well, that doesn't exist yet.
I agree with your minimal-contents-proposal. General location should include what river, sea, ocean or lake it flows into. Markussep 19:32, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Okay, so what needs to be done? This project should probably be better known, and if lots of rivers are to written about, there needs to be some organization. I figured we should put together a River-stub template, which could include an invitation to join this project. However, it seems a similar tempate was recently deleted, so that's probably not a good idea. More generally, the overall organization of geographical stuff on Wikipedia is national/regional; watersheds don't fit into such a scheme very well, so there might be some opposition to other ideas that would get rivers better organized. But I think the following can happen:

  1. Design a box (like the one at the top of this page, or, better yet, this page) to be placed at the top of talk pages, pointing people to this project.
  2. Put together standards for lists of rivers.
    • The current de facto standard seems to be to have a list page & category listing rivers in a particular country, or province/state for larger countries. On the list page, rivers are given in alphabetical order, and in "tree" form, by watershed. If the lists are long, sometimes this information is split into more than one page.
    • Do we all like this? I figure it's not too bad, but, as I said earlier, nations vs. watersheds often don't fit together very well.
  3. Finish up a standard for a minimal river stub. How about:
    • Name, general location, regional <sigh> stub tag, category, and IF KNOWN
    • body of water it empties into.
    • Something like, "The Blurg River is a river in Blurgland. It empties into the Big Blurg River at Blurgville." + stub tag & category.
    • Also place into appropriate list(s).

— Nowhither 02:23, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. We definitely need a river stub template at least, for those short articles like Choaspes. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 22:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Geolinks-US-river

I was dissatisfied with using Template:Geolinks-US-streetscale for rivers for two main reasons (google maps often don't show water--click the second google maps link; for the "Source"--and you just had to pick a single random spot on the river), so I created a river-specific Template:Geolinks-US-river that can map both ends. I also tweaked the formatting a) to better support the two sets of maps, and b) because I didn't like some of the 'streetscale' formatting. Any comments/suggestions? I suspect the most likely area with room for improvement is the 'Mouth or other endpoint' and 'Source' labels. Waterguy 18:42, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

This just needs a discussion page with some explanation of how to use it. Daniel Case 18:12, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox update

A proposal has arisen at Template talk:River to create a new infobox template to replace the current one from the Dutch Wikipedia. The current one, in the eyes of many (myself included), is inflexible and difficult to use and not consistent with most other infoboxes. Participants of this project are invited to participate in the discussion, as Wikipedia:Infobox notes that "if you want to redesign an Infobox, please take it up in the appropriate WikiProject". Thanks, Wikiacc (talk) 19:30, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm the one who's been putting together a new template. Somehow I missed the fact that there's a whole WikiProkect for rivers; it's not listed in a couple of the obvious places. I don't think Jdorje, who's been helping with the template, knew about it either. At any rate, glad to know you're all here, please do drop by and chime in. Thanks, —Papayoung ☯ 21:42, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm eager to move rivers to the new template; I'd love to have more feedback before doing so, but I'm going to get started soon! The new structure is pretty flexible, so changes down the road will be easier than with the old template. Thanks much, —Papayoung ☯ 00:14, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and moved all of the rivers that were using {{River}} to {{Infobox_river}}, generating measurements in both metric and Imperial as I went. There are no more articles using the old template other than a couple of Sandboxes, so in a bit I'll mark it for deletion. That was really satisfying. —Papayoung ☯ 01:59, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:River

Template:River has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:River. Thank you.--Wikiacc (talk) 19:59, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Translation of river names

A recent move from Weiße Elster to White Elster made me wonder whether we should translate the adjectives in names like this. I'm only talking about rivers that have no commonly used English name. Some more examples (I put the link to where the article is located now):

I'd prefer not to translate them, but give the translation in the text. Thoughts? Markussep 13:32, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I moved Weiße Elster and Fränkische Saale to their German names. Markussep 16:54, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

    • problem with translation of geographic features: if you go there the people won't understand you. On the other hand, it makes the english WP more english. This should probably be addressed in general not only rivers. undecided - Tobias Conradi (Talk) 17:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help request for Arkansas River (Talk), Kansas River (Talk), Marais des Cygnes River (Talk)

Hello, there is a very enthusiastic new user presently insisting on adding these rivers to various broad categories (Category:Human geography and Category:Biogeography), and is also adding an array of strange messages, numbers, etc., to the Kansas River article. I seem to be alone in the matter, so if anyone can help, I'd appreciate it. Thanks -- Malepheasant 08:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

This project was launched during 1968 with the Cimarron River watershed.

The expansion of specific Kansas Rivers was inspired by adult lifelong learners who particpated in the ALL-WinWin Kansas Envrionmental Leadership Program (1999-2005).

More nonsense not about improving articles. Rmhermen 17:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Shanel 22:19, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization of tributaries

On a whim, creating Kurrum, I categorized it in Category:Indus tributaries. Now before I create this category, I wanted to check here: How about grouping tributaries of major rivers in categories? Of course, this should remain at firstrestricted to major sea-going rivers, such as the Indus, Ganges, Rhine, Danube, Volga, Ob, Mississipi, Yangtze etc., but in principle, categories are perfect for reproducing hierarchical systems, so that there could be a full representation of the topology of the world's rivers in Wikipedia categories :) dab (ᛏ) 16:29, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

We already have Category:Tributaries of the Mississippi River, Category:Tributaries of the Missouri River, Category:Tributaries of the Ohio River so I don't see any problem. It shouldn't be used to replace the text about the tributaries, however. Rmhermen 17:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
good to know. it would be better to choose the a consistent title of Category:Tributaries of the Indus River, then. dab (ᛏ) 14:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
on second thoughts, "X basin" categories seem to be doing the same job. Category:Rhine basin at least seems to render superfluous a Category:Tributaries of the Rhine. dab (ᛏ) 15:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
There is also a Category:Mississippi basin which serves as a parent for the three categories I mentioned before. The problem I see with this is that while "Tributaries of X" is explicit in what the category contains, "X basin" could include other subjects besides streams alone. Rmhermen 15:11, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
User:P-A. recently created several categories for tributaries, see for instance Category:Atlantic European basins and its subcategories. I don't think he made any subcategories for major tributaries (yet). I don't really see the added value above the existing lists of rivers (provided they give that kind of information, like the list of rivers of Europe), but well, it doesn't hurt anyone. Markussep 15:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested article

According to a new report, the U.S. may help Tajikistan build a hydropower facility on the Piandj River - we don't seem to have an article for the river. Rmhermen 20:47, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I suppose it's the same as the Panj River (Pyandzh in Russian). I've never seen the Piandj spelling before. Markussep 21:06, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I believe that you are correct and have updated the article. I suspect it is one of those translate from a foreign alphabet problems. This was the article that mentioned it. I see we already have an article for Vakhsh River. Rmhermen 23:19, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Good work on this, Rmhermen! --Siva1979Talk to me 08:47, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Landforms by country

Comments regarding a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (categories) that would make "in country" the naming convention for Landform by country categories (such as rivers by country categories) would be very appreciated prior to a cfru. Kurieeto 22:53, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Increasing project visibility

Hello. I just found out about this project last week by typing in "Template:Infobox river" and suddenly finding that, to add to Wallkill River, which I created last summer. I wished I had known of this project then.

Then I wound up adding the infobox to the articles on four of the five major rivers of the Northeastern United States (all except the Potomac).

This project needs greater visibility. I created the WP:RIVERS shortcut. I am surprised that unlike the mountains and protected areas projects (among others), no one has bothered to create a messagebox for corresponding talk pages.

I volunteer to do so. Can anyone recommend a good river image to use? Daniel Case 17:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

  • I would welcome a message box for the project. As for pictures, this one of the Hudson might work well. Malepheasant 18:26, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
This is done ... see {{river}}. I chose a picture of the Columbia instead ... I wanted one that makes it clear it's a river and not a lake. Plus I feel using a pic of the Hudson would seem like regional boosterism on my part. Daniel Case 02:53, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Now go and plant that on every river article's talk page. Daniel Case 02:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Silly question, but before I plant this on every river talk page on my watchlist; is this a template you'd normally "subst:'? Or sans subst? Kuru talk 03:13, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I usually do that with all project templates, yes. Daniel Case 17:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure that that image is clearly a river at the small resolution of the the template. I would suggest something like Image:Cuyahoga_River.jpg if it wasn't so dark. Rmhermen 23:41, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
This one is better: Image:River gambia Niokolokoba National Park.gif. I think this would look better than the current one, clearly showing a meandering river. Rmhermen 03:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Broken archive

The "Archive 1" link at the top is now red. What happened to the archive? --M1ss1ontomars2k4 (T | C | @) 04:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

16:22, 7 April 2006 Sceptre deleted "Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rivers/Archive 1" (orphaned talk page)
Not sure how the orphan term was applied - seems to follow the naming convention an had at least one link to it. Will drop a message on his talk page. Kuru talk 12:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming: Multiple rivers with the same name

Re: Rivers in the USA: I would like to unify the methods for the naming of multiple rivers with the same name. Currently, several different methods are suggested. I suggest the following:

  • The first way to disambiguate should be to add a state qualifier: Jordan River (Utah).
  • When multiple rivers with the same name exist in the same state, the river should be identified as a tributary of another river with the name of the principal river acting as the qualifier: St. Joseph River (Maumee River). The word "tributary" should not be added as a qualifier.

Adopting these naming conventions would eliminate some other methods currently used, such as: River X (County A, State B), River X (Township A, County B, State C), or St. Joseph River (Maumee River tributary). If some consensus could be reached on unifying the naming of multiple rivers with the same name, either with the suggestions above or something else, perhaps we could update this article page accordingly. Gjs238 01:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not seeing how your suggestion differs from the naming standard already described on the project page. Rmhermen 03:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I gave it a few days thinking perhaps it would be noticed, so I'll just cut & paste from my previous post.
"Adopting these naming conventions would eliminate some other methods currently used, such as: River X (County A, State B), River X (Township A, County B, State C), or St. Joseph River (Maumee River tributary)."
In other words, when two rivers of the same name exist in the same state, currently two naming conventions come into play. Some disambiguate by tributary, others delve into counties and other political subdivisions.
Also, some place the word 'tributary' in the disambiguation.
Would not a standardized approach be desirable? Gjs238 12:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
IMO dab by destination waterbody is better than counties etc. Rivers are from physical geography, counties from human. In doubt, avoid mixing this two systems. Countries as dab may be treated different, as they are well known worldwide. But a physical geographer should may be not need to learn township names. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
The practice you suggest is pretty much the current standard in most cases, especially for tributaries of bodies with a relatively high level of recognizability. But I think there are exceptions as well, usually with good reason. For example, with the Great Lakes, there may be any number of rivers with the same name that empty into the same lake, so some sort of geographical disambiguation is needed. Also, when dealing with tributaries of small bodies of water that are not well-known, it may be more intuitive to use a more recognizable feature for disambiguation. I think the preference should be for using the tributary method, but I think there should be room for common sense exceptions rather than trying for a universal, one-size-fits-all standard. older ≠ wiser 13:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
agree. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:46, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't believe I have ever seen River X (Township A, County B, State C) and would suggest that some simpler alternative could be adopted - also I don't think there is a naming standard which suggests this form. Rmhermen 16:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think I've seen the township used as the disambiguator in a river name either. I know of several using the county in the name (I may have been responsible for creating a few of them). older ≠ wiser 16:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming: Multiple political jurisdictions in the U.S.

Related to the above discussion, a user has politely proposed moving Cedar River (Iowa) to "Cedar River (Minnesota and Iowa)," because the river rises in Minnesota. (It flows for most of its length in Iowa, but does pass through Austin, which is a fairly important town in its region in southern Minnesota.) What is the preference in this case? For a few examples, we have these hyphenated disambiguators (not all of them good articles):

And these with slashes:

(Disclosure: I started the 2 "Little River" articles above with hyphens, and they were moved by another user to the "slash" format.) (Further disclosure: The article at "Big Sandy River (Kentucky-West Virginia)" was recently moved to "Big Sandy River (Ohio River tributary)," and I moved it to Big Sandy River (Ohio River) per the above discussion.)

If the "tributary" format were used, the above lists would be:

  • Chatooga River (Coosa River)
  • Montreal River (Lake Superior)
  • North River (Hudson River)
  • Pearl River (Gulf of Mexico)
  • Pigeon River (Lake Superior)
  • Pigeon River (French Broad River)
  • Red River (Cumberland River)
  • St. Croix River (Atlantic Ocean) or St. Croix River (Bay of Fundy)
  • St. Croix River (Mississippi River)
  • St. Marys River (Lake Huron)

--

  • Little River (Red River)
  • Little River (St. Francis River)
  • St. Marys River (Atlantic Ocean)

Which is better? I think the second list looks cleaner, and I think I'm coming around to Tobias Conradi's suggestion above that the "tributary" format might be worth considering as the generally preferred option for disambiguating -- because what we call the St. Croix River (Wisconsin-Minnesota) was a tributary of what we call the Mississippi River long before it was used to define the boundary between Minnesota and Wisconsin, and because the Mad River (California) went into the Pacific Ocean long before California existed; and because U.S. political subdivisions are well-represented on the Wikipedia whereas watershed networks are not. But I can also see where such an approach might be viewed as extreme in practice (and it would create its own disambiguation problems where streams of the same name entered the same body of water). Any thoughts? And, more simply, if Cedar River (Iowa) is to be moved, where should it go? To "Cedar River (Minnesota-Iowa)" or to "Cedar River (Iowa River)"? Or should it not be moved? Thanks -- Malepheasant 03:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I must say I have never been a fan of the "Little River (St. Francis River)" format - how do I know (if I am The man on the Clapham omnibus) that this means the Little is a tributary of the S. Francis and not that St. Francis is an alternate name for the Little. I have moved a couple of rivers (which flowed close together) to "Y River (X River tributary)" which is think is more obvious in this respect. Rmhermen 03:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Good point. Maybe for X River (Y River) the word tributary should be added. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 16:24, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the tributary naming convention is more workable. As an extreme example, look at "Pine Creek". A search at www.topozone.com reveals 18 Pine Creeks in Pennsylvania (PA), with three counties that have two Pine Creeks each and one county that has three of them. Arkansas and Arizona have similar Pine Creek issues, as do other states. We would have to go with county names if we chose political locators and then the possible issue of multiple counties arises (like multiple states above). What we have done so far is name the largest Pennsylvania Pine Creek's article Pine Creek (Pennsylvania) (as "Pine Creek (West Branch Susquehanna River Tributary)" or "Pine Creek (Potter - Tioga - Lycoming - Clinton Counties)" was too ungainly) and it is the largest 'creek' in the United States and best known Pine Creek in Pennsylvania. the others are named as tributaries. My $0.02 worth, Ruhrfisch 03:41, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Peer Review help

I would appreciate it very much if anyone could take a look at Larrys Creek, which is up for peer review at Wikipedia:Peer review/Larrys Creek. It does not have a list of tributaries yet. Thanks, Ruhrfisch 04:30, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moves

[edit] Move questions

  • shall "X reka" in Category:Rivers of Serbia be moved to "X River"? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
  • what to do with Göta älv? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
    • I say move them both. This is the English Wikipedia and those are by no means common terms in English. Although the local name can be included in the introductory sentence. Rmhermen 18:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Agreed (the redirects will still be there after the move if anyone is looking for reka or älv. Ruhrfisch 19:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Also agree. --Malepheasant 02:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  • done :-) with ref to WP:NC:LFORM#Rivers. We should include translation there. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maps

Hi there! I was thinking about doing maps for the Category:Rivers of Argentina, and I wanthered if there's a standard for them regarding colours, topografy, etc. More importantly, I wanted to know if any of you knows a good way to do so (sources, programs, wites, etc) Thanks a lot, Mariano(t/c) 16:36, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

For colors, etc. I try to follow Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Maps. For sources - if you have GIS software you can go use [1] for the rivers and [2] for boundaries. If you don't have GIS try using the Online Map Creation at [3] and then cleaning up the map in a graphics program like Photoshop or GIMP. Kmusser 16:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeap, I've already gathered enough datafiles (E00, shapefile, etc). I really don't like the OCM map generator, so I tried to install some free software for map-creation. I'm curently testing GvSIG, which is not that bad, but still a little bit buggy and limited. I got the idea that ArcGIS is kind of the as good as it gets right now, but I haven't tried. Can you give me your oppinion on these two, JUMP GIS, and GRASS GIS?. Thanks a lot. Mariano(t/c) 09:14, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
The problem with ArcGIS is how expensive it is, I'm fortunate to have a copy from work. I've used GRASS GIS in the past and liked it, haven't heard anything about the others you mentioned. Kmusser 13:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
OK, I think I will settle with MapWindow GIS, wihch proved to be more stable than the rest. Problem is I can't open E00 files, nor grids, but you can't have it all!!
BTW, any more detailed source for rivers with dams ? Thanks a lot, Mariano(t/c) 13:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
On dams, for the U.S. you can get them out of the National Atlas, but I don't know for Argentina - I don't know of any world data set that isn't copyrighted. Kmusser 13:57, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Members

Can anybody join this group? I've never joined a WikiProject, but as a California based water resources engineer (presently I work on the Bay-Delta estuary for the government, but Oct. 1 I'll be joining the State's flood forecasting group), I have access to large amounts of information (including photos) on California rivers. MCalamari 18:01, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Anyone can join. The Wikiprojects mostly function to keep terminology and styles the same among large groups of articles. And to provide a pool of interested and knowledgeable persons to ask questions of when they arise. Rmhermen 19:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I quickly looked at List of California rivers (I don't know how complete that is) and noticed there are a lot of articles started for California rivers. Hoewever randomly checking two found one (Big Pine Creek) using unit of acre-feet but no metric (or possibly more common "English" system) units and another (Sespe Creek) stating that it "...is one of the longest creeks untouched by dams or concrete channels." without stating how long the creek is or where it is one of the longest (longest in the world?, in California?) So obviously there is work to be done yet. Rmhermen 19:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed move

See the proposal to move Litani River to Litani River, Lebanon at Talk:Litani River. Rmhermen 19:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] British Columbia Rivers added to project

I'm not signing on as a participant; too much already on the boil; but when I saw the {{Rivers}} tag on the Talk:Okanogan River page I went at the BC Rivers Category and added it throughout, where it wasn't placed already. Just wanted to note that the tag has been placed on some major creeks, which have articles, and it's worth understanding for non-BCers reviewing any of these pages that many creeks in BC are much larger than "named rivers"; and there will be more to come. Also I'd already used the rule-of-distance in naming the Okanogan River article, as most of the length, especially the naturally-flowing length, of that river, is in the US and so the US spelling seemed a propos; even though the name for the valley, Okanagan, is a major geographic name/region in BC. I also amended the Pend Oreille River article to give the BC/Canadian spelling for its brief stretch there, "Pend d'Oreille River"; and somewhere in there made an edit-comment that the official mapped name of the Clark Fork is exactly that, NOT "Clark Fork River"; "Fork" turns up here and there for "river" in the same way that "creek" does, y'see. But especially in that case (the Snake River used to be the Lewis Fork or something like that, as I recall); Skookum1 06:28, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I made the correction on the Clark Fork River page. There are quite a few rivers in the U.S. that use both Fork and River in the official name, but Clark Fork isn't one of them. Not sure if the page should actually be moved though as it is useful to distinguish it from the town of the same name. Kmusser 15:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
I moved it to Clark Fork (river). Rmhermen 15:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
which is not in line with the Naming conventions of this project. (river) is depreceated. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 17:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually it isn't deprecated. "Clark (river)" would be a deprecated form. Clark Fork (river) isn't. The phrase could also be (stream) as the USGS uses. It is a name with an added disambiguation phrase to separate it from Clark Fork. I can't think of any other rivers disambiguated this way. All the others I can remember not only disambiguate from towns, but also, other rivers of the same name. Like the example Indian River. Rmhermen 21:25, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A River Featured Article Candidate

Larrys Creek (in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, USA and with our project tag) is a Featured Article Candidate. If you want to weigh in on the nomination, it is here Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Larrys Creek. Thanks for any feedback! Ruhrfisch 17:41, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Larrys Creek made featured article today - thanks to all who helped in any way! Ruhrfisch 03:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Issue with River infobox

Looking over the above FAC, I noticed that it displays the "Basin countries" listing a single county. It will be the case that many rivers do not cross international borders. I think that this line would be better called "Basin location" allowing more variability in the information included. Rmhermen 18:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Thanks - I also think it would be good if it also listed the mouth elevation (as many rivers do not have their mouths at sea level). Ruhrfisch 18:29, 24 August 2006 (UTC) PS I am working in the map color issue in the FAC - may take a while.
On the map I just made the orange a little more orange for you. Kmusser 18:40, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks so much - I really appreciate it. Ruhrfisch 18:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I added the variable mouth_elevation to the infobox to allow entry of the elevation at the end of the river. The source elevation still uses the variable named elevation which is slightly confusing. Changing that to source_elevation (or changing basin_countries to basin_location) would require changing all the pages that use the template. Rmhermen 20:37, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia:Bot requests. but maybe only if some more stuff needs to be done. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 01:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
    • I put "| mouth_elevation =" with the proper example units into the examples to copy and paste on Template talk:Infobox River (it was only in the actual infobox, but not the examples). I would appreciate it if someone would check that I did this properly.
    • As for the "basin_location" parameter, if I understand it right, here is a possible (although not very elegant) solution / kludge. What if there were just an optional pararmeter called "basin_location" that could be used in place of "basin_countries"? Since any parameter can safely be left blank, just leave "basin_countries" blank and put in "basin_location" instead. There could even be an example box to copy with this text. If I have misunderstood how the software works and this is not practical, I apologize. Just an idea. Ruhrfisch 19:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
      • This is possible. However, if we have two parameters to change (and source_elevation would be much more elegant) it may be a good idea to request some bot help. I believe there are 516 pages using the infobox. I was going to add the mouth elevation to the example myself but some of the pages I checked were behaving oddly. It may have been a caching issue, but if anyone else notices odd lines in the infobox, please speak up. Rmhermen 19:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
        • I remember checking the Volga article to check what the river's mouth's elevation actually was to use it in the example but the article was not clear at all on where the mouth is. And the map is only in Cyrillic! Rmhermen 19:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
          • I put the mouth elevation into Larrys Creek and it worked there. Can't help with Cyrillic. Feel free to revert my other edits in the examples - it sounds like a bot is the way to go. Ruhrfisch 21:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Version 0.5 Rivers selection - request for comment

I have nominated a set of rivers at Wikipedia:Version_0.5_Set_Nominations#Rivers for Version 0.5. This is a small test CD (~1500 articles total) representing some of the key articles on Wikipedia. Geography was chosen as an emphasis, hence we want to get perhaps 20 or so major rivers. It is a balance of importance and quality, with importance being the more important. We have to include the "must-have" rivers, but beyond obvious ones like the Amazon we have to look at quality too. Can you look over my proposal and give comments and suggestions? Thanks, Walkerma 03:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

  • River Thames is listed on its Discussion page as at least a candidate for the Wikipedia CD Selection and is a notable and historic river and OK article (a bit list heavy, although not all "38 major tributaries" are listed). Ruhrfisch 14:18, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming Help

I need help naming articles for the two creeks named Conewago Creek. Both are tributaries of the Susquehanna River in the U.S. State of Pennsylvania. The larger is west of the river in Adams and York Counties (mouth is in York Co.).[4] The smaller is east of the river and is the border between Dauphin and Lancaster Counties (mouth in both Cos.) and is also in Lebanon County.[5]

I am making start class articles for Lancaster County, PA red links which is how I found these. I will also make a start class article for the other Conewago Creek and a dab page (they each have a "Little Conewago Creek" tributary and Conowingo Creek has "Conewago Creek" as a USGS recognized variant name).

Anyway, how should these articles be named? They are both in Pennsylvania, they are both Susquehanna River Tributaries (their mouths are even fairly near each other), and they are both in multiple counties (so naming after a county is difficult). Gertler's book "Keystone Canoeing" names them "Conewago Creek (east)" and "Conewago Creek (west)", which seems simplest. The east creek is also on the right bank but "Conewago Creek (Susquehanna River tributary, right bank)" seems a bit much. They are the only two Conewago Creeks in the United States (according to USGS GNIS), so east and west seem OK that way. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, Ruhrfisch 14:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Do they need to be separate articles? I mean, is there that much to say about either? Until such time that the one or both have enough content to stand on their own as non-stub articles, I'd suggest simply creating a multi-stub article and describe both of them. In fact, that may make it easier to distinguish between the two without repeating a lot of detail in both. older ≠ wiser 15:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Excellent point: a combined article seems a very elegant solution. Searching Topozone for Conewago Creek returns only the two features.
Place County State Type Elevation USGS Quad Lat Lon
Conewago Creek Dauphin PA stream unknown Middletown 40.13222ºN 76.71472ºW
Conewago Creek York PA stream unknown York Haven 40.113068ºN 76.71111ºW
If the time comes to separate them, the county of their mouths might be the way to go. — EncMstr 16:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your thoughtful repsonses, but I really want to make two articles, one on each creek (plus a dab), and want to have names that are acceptable (each creek is noteworthy and I have enough information on each to make a start class article at least - six or seven refs each). I am thinking long term here - get the names right at the start and we won't have to have this discussion again later (plus all the work of moves and redirects and changing links). "Conewago Creek (east)" and "Conewago Creek (west)" seem the easiest to me. "Conewago Creek (York County, Pennsylvania)" (the western one) is clunkier but would work, but the other Conewago Creek is literally the border between Dauphin and Lancaster Counties (the border is down the middle of the creek in USGS maps), so I am not sure which county to use. Pick one and make a redirect from the other? Bermudian Creek, a tributary of the west one already has a stub. Finally, can you please give me an example of such a combined article to look at? Maybe if I see exactly what you mean, it will make more sense to me. Usually it seems the opposite is suggested - articles on two subjects are split (see Interstate 76 (east) and Interstate 76 (west), for example). Thanks, Ruhrfisch 02:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Given your work in making Larrys Creek a Featured Article, I certainly trust that you've got the material to make good articles out of both of these. I had a look at the two streams on the Pennsylvania DeLorme atlas, and I'm just as stymied for a solution, so I think the "Conewago Creek (east)" and "Conewago Creek (west)" titling you proposed is probably the best one if you want to have separate articles for each of them. The streams' mouths are so close together that a combined article in this case might make more sense than in some others, as they have a strong regional affiliation, but I'm neutral on this point and am happy to have new articles either way. Existing multi-stream "combined" articles that I've noticed, such as Carp River (Michigan) and Eel River (Indiana), cover broader geographic areas and appear to me to be unsatisfactory (though definitely worthwhile) early efforts to sort things out, and would be good candidates to be split up in the future. So I think you ought to have at it as you see fit according to your best judgment -- and thank you! --Malepheasant 06:04, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Gertler had it right when he used the "east/west" nomenclature - go with that. Each article could have a top of page disambiguation to the other to help avoid confusion. County designations are too cumbersome and a combination article is just begging to be split in the future. Gjs238 10:18, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks for all the feedback. I can see two streams in one article when one is a tributary of the other but is not noteworthy / large enough for its own article (i.e. Second Fork of Larrys Creek is one paragraph in Larrys Creek), but that is not the case here. I also see that the Eel River article uses north and south to distinguish between the two rivers within the article. Both the Eel and Carp River articles seem to me articles on one of the rivers with a bit thrown in on the others of that name as a temporary stopgap. I am pressed for time now, but will make something this weekend. I am leaning strongly towards a dab and east / west separate articles. Part of it is I just can't see mentally how to write it as one article - with two infoboxes??. The funny thing is I have more right now on the eastern creek, which has a watershed a tenth the size of the western creek (roughly 50 vs 500 square miles), but east has a very nice watershed association page. Thanks again, Ruhrfisch 03:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notability, or how short can a river be?

In writing Ada covered bridge I realised there is no article for Thornapple River (a tributary of the Grand). How short or small is the thinking on where a cutoff ought to be? thanks! ++Lar: t/c 21:49, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

There is none. We have article on the world's shortest river (can't think of their names but there are two competing claimants.) We have articles on some creeks. If you look at List of Michigan rivers you will find that large numbers remain without articles yet. If you want to start one, please do. Rmhermen 23:41, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Both claimants for shortest river are listed at the page for the Roe River. The criteria that I have seen for inclusion in general (not on Wikipedia) is often the area of the drainage basin. For example, the Pennsylvania Gazetteer of Streams II (1984) list all 571 named PA streams whose watersheds are larger than 25 square miles, while the Susquehanna River Basin Commission seems to use 50 square miles as a cutoff. I agree with Rmhermen - if you can find enough to write about it, go ahead and make the article. By the way, congrats on the Did You Know for Ada covered bridge, Ruhrfisch 00:32, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the info. I think the Thornapple River (in MI) has more than 50 sq in its watershed and there is good google hittage on the name, although I haven't looked at the hits to see relevance. But it was a red link in that article so was bugging me. That's the smallest bridge I've written about yet... but it's in my home town, so! :) Happy editing, appreciate the followups. ++Lar: t/c 17:20, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
      • In California there are a number of rivers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that are distributaries of the San Joaquin River that are relatively short. However, they are significant in California water supply and ecological issues (i.e. they are part of the plumbing for 23 million people), so in principal I'd say that notability isn't about the size of a waterbody, but should instead be limited to the more general question "would people be interested in this article". As for the smaller San Joaquin distributaries, I plan to eventually give them proper treatments here if somebody else doesn't beat me to it.  :) MCalamari 18:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 14:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Paulins Kill

I invite all of you to take a look at Paulins Kill, an article I've been working on for a while, regarding a river in Northwestern New Jersey (USA). I should be almost finished with tonight. I wanted your comments, etc. on it before I submitted it for peer review and possibly as a featured article candidate. —ExplorerCDT 22:00, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I made a few changes. Rmhermen 02:01, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Obviously you have put a lot of work into it and it looks good so far. Just a quick scan (didn't read it all) but if it is going to be featured it needs an expanded lead section - everything that is a header or subheader has to be mentioned in some way (even very briefly) in the lead. You will also need to put in metric units (Google does conversions - if you type "28 miles in km" it gives you the answer) and put a non-breaking space "& n b s p ;" (without spaces) between numbers and units. You need more images, if possible, and a map would be great. I can run the semi automated peer review script if you are interested, though AndyZ will do this if you submit for peer review. Good luck, Ruhrfisch 02:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
    • If you could run the Peer Review script, I'd be much obliged. Thank you. Also, thank you both for your comments and changes so far. —ExplorerCDT 20:29, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New River

I'm not a member of this project, but I went ahead and tagged the New River (California) as part of this project. According to a National Geographic article I read about a year ago, this is the most polluted river in the U.S., if not the world. The article could use some expanding and cleanup, if anyone is interested in helping out. --Lethargy 02:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drainage basins

Is there an agreed upon source for drainage basins of rivers? I noticed a rather big difference (800.000 km2!) between the figure mentioned in Amazon River and the figure mentioned for that river in the article drainage basin. I could suggest using the figures from World Resources Institute, but there may be others? --Sir48 12:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I haven't find a general source that I trust. When making maps I use both WRI and USGS and they often disagree with each other and I've found definite mistakes in both databases though they're still the best I've found. I think the best you can do is pick a source and cite it. WRI does have the advantage that it doesn't take GIS software to get at it, though it only has the largest rivers. Kmusser 04:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another River Featured Article Candidate

White Deer Hole Creek (in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania and with our project tag) is a Featured Article Candidate. If you want to weigh in on the nomination, it is here Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/White Deer Hole Creek. Thanks for any feedback, Ruhrfisch 15:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

  • White Deer Hole Creek made featured article today - thanks to all who helped in any way! Ruhrfisch 19:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
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