Talk:Yellowstone National Park

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This article is part of WikiProject Protected Areas, a WikiProject related to national parks and other protected areas worldwide. It may include the protected area infobox.

Yellowstone National Park is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do.

Yellowstone National Park appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on March 29, 2004.

This article has been selected for Version 0.5 and the next release version of Wikipedia. This Geography article has been rated FA-Class on the assessment scale.

Selected on Template:March 1 selected anniversaries (may be in HTML comment)

taken from Feature article nominations:

[edit] number of visitors

The number of visitors given in the infobox is from [1] and applies to the fiscal year, which most probably does not coincide with calendar year. [2] gives the number of visitors for the calendar year 2002 as 2'983'051. Also, the km-ha discrepancy I noted at Featured article candidates should be fixed (just decide on one of the numbers, apparently, not even the NPS itself knows how big the park is: [3] gives again slightly different numbers). Lupo 09:59, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Several quibbles

I very much enjoyed reading this article (and loved the photos) after following up the featured article nomination. I have several quibbles which can mostly be cleared up quite easily.

• The lead paragraph doesn't say what country this is in, OK most people have heard of the names of American States, but it might be a good idea to mention the USA as a courtesy to the non Americans amongst us.

• The lead also contains the area down to the nearest square meter, a bit precise? I'd put such precise stats in the infobox, and give the area to the nearest square mile/square km.

• Throughout the article, there's a mixture of imperial and metric measurements. Pick one as standard (imperial as it's in the US?) and give the conversion after every time. Example of current text: "It was created by a cataclysmic eruption that occurred 630,000 years ago that released 1000 cubic kilometres of ash, rock and pyroclastic materials ... forming a crater nearly a kilometre deep and 45 by 25 miles in size"

• "The park was named for the yellow rocks seen in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone - a deep gash in the Yellowstone Plateau that was formed by floods during previous ice ages and by river erosion from the Yellowstone River." - can you have a flood in an ice age? Are we talking about glacial erosion or was this area always too hot for that?

• "It was known to the aboriginal natives as "Mitzi-a-dazi," the "River of Yellow Rocks," because of the high sulfur content of the rocks exposed in the river's canyons. The yellow rocks seen in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone are caused by hydrothermally-altered iron-containing rocks." - shouldn't this kind of info (and more?) also be included in the Geology section?

• There's no map of the park; I was wondering why there was no geographic/geological map of the park when I was reading the continental divide section - showing the two drainage sytems and the continental divide. Then I realised there is not a political map of the park itself either. I have no knowlegde of this area, or the geography of the US at all, so a map combining these two factors would be invaluable (showing the mountains/rivers etc, and pinpointing notable things like old faithful and any other significant named areas).

Well, that all sounded a bit negative. I really enjoyed this article - honest! fabiform | talk 17:58, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Not negative at all. Thanks for the feedback! I'll try to address these issues this weekend. --mav 02:04, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

• The outline map and the box which gives the location as USA seems adequate.
• I tweeked the units.
• The NPS doesn't seem to have an appropriate map.
• For info on (post)glacial flooding, see http://www.nps.gov/yell/nature/geology/geocanyn.htm .

For more on the general subject see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Bonneville and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_Floods . We need an article on Washington's Channeled Scablands. Bill Woods 03:00, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I wonder if one of the various wiki map people could help out and find us a map? There was a list of the various map people on the village pump the other day, IIRC. I snuck "US" into the lead paragraph, I don't think it's too obtrusive. I just read the link which described the flash flooding, and classic v-shaped valley. Interesting (thanks)... as are all the gaps in our understanding of the area.  :) fabiform | talk 04:13, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC), off to second the article.

[edit] Location map

How was the location map for this article created? I'd like to create simllar maps for other parks. - Bevo 22:21, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ansel Adams?

If I recall correctly, Ansel Adams did much of his photography of Yellowstone Park. Perhaps information about that could be added to the history section. That might also fill in the big gap in dates between the 19-teens and 1970's. --zandperl 03:36, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

He did work in many national parks, but is most associated with Yosemite National Park, not Yellowstone. --mav

[edit] 62%?

Anyone got a citation for this number?

---current text--- Preserved within Yellowstone are many geothermal features and some 10,000 hot springs and geysers, 62% of the planet's known total.

---maybe this?--- Preserved within Yellowstone are many geothermal features and thousands of hot springs. Approximately half of the planet's geysers are located within the park (Bryan, T.S. 1995, Glennon, J.A. 2005)

References:

• Bryan, T. S. (1995). The geysers of Yellowstone, 2nd edition. Niwot, Colorado: University Press of Colorado.

• Glennon, J.A. (2005). World Geyser Fields, website, http://www.geyserworld.com/world.htm

[edit] DNA evidence

I am concerned about the following sentence: "DNA evidence suggests the devastating results of these changes could have resulted in the worldwide population of humans falling to as little as 10,000 individuals." does anyone have a source for this? I don't argue the point, but think it should be referenced. If the last eruption of maximum magnitude occurred 600,000 years ago, then there is little chance that humans were invlved in any way...that is the era of [Homo erectus], not modern humans. Perhaps it should say something more like: Based on the evidence of previous eruption magnitudes, should an equal eruption occur today as did 600,000 years ago, the human population could be reduced to 10,000 individuals, due to the volcanic winter that would ensue.--MONGO 00:19, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

• The edit [4] which inserted it refers to the BBC. But Homo erectus may have survived another 100,000 years, which seems unlikely if reduced to 10,000. I deleted the phrase. Also, the proposal to change from past to future tense does not seem reasonable because of the different number and abilities of modern humans. (SEWilco 04:49, 23 July 2005 (UTC))

Okay, I started other editing but am not sure this article is yet to be a featured article or has already been one...I don't want to step on anyone's toes...--MONGO 04:57, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

The above quote actually refers to a non-Yellowstone event, so deleted it didn't really effect anything about Yellowstone Ralph 22Feb06

[edit] 1988 Yellowstone Fires

Not to continue nit picking, but I fought the forest fires for over 5 weeks in 1988 and I am concerned about the following sentence: "Controversially, however, no serious effort was made to completely extinguish the fires, and they burned until the arrival of autumn rains." The problem is mainly the wording. The facts are that due to a transformation of wild land fire suppression attitudes which went from putting out all fires dating back to the 1930's to letting them burn unchecked in the mid 1970's as, by the time the extremely hot and dry early summer of 1988 came around you had a huge amount of dead understory in the forest. A combination of lightning strike and man made fires were burning in the park and west of the park as early as April as oftentimes happens and was allowed to happen due to the hands off policy of that time. This doesn't mean that the fires weren't closely monitored. When mid to late July rolled around, a series of dry weather fronts with high winds caused the fires to explode and one fire consumed over 100,000 acres in a day. Even though by this time, some suppresion efforts were underway, it was too late. The Park Service then called in all available resources but by then the fires were out of control. Thousands of firefighters were at work in the park, building hundreds of miles of fire line and assisted by dozens of aircraft performing retardant drops. Pretty longwinded response to my questioning the use of the words "no serious effort". Could the sentence be rephrased?--MONGO 00:43, July 23, 2005 (UTC) Additionally, the section should be expanded as it is the most significant event in the park since it's creation.--MONGO 00:47, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind seeing more opinions from firefighters on the "no serious effort to extinguish" comment. Does it even make sense to talk of "completely extinguishing" large wildfires? From what I've seen, once a fire takes hold there's nothing that can be done except to contain it and wait for it to run out of fuel. If I'm not mistaken, this comment not only misrepresents what happened in YNP in 1988, it misrepresents wilderness firefighting itself. Shanley 02:19, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

On my browser (Mozilla Firefox), the infobox has no space between it and the text. This makes the text more difficult to read. I've seen this on other national park pages. I've researched this but I haven't found out how to fix it yet. Would someone else look in to this? Val42 06:02, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] article length

This article is getting rather long. The volcano information should probably be split off into a Yellowstone Volcano article.--FourthAve 04:39, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

• The length seems reasonable to me, and the information on past eruptions explains Park features. (SEWilco 13:43, 1 August 2005 (UTC))
• I have no objection to the length of the article as it stands. Gary D Robson 17:55, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Er - I am the person who is usually the one complaining about articles being too long and yet I am planning on significantly expanding this article. In most cases, we do not even start to consider an article being too long until it at least triggers a page size warning. This article has not done that yet (30KB+ is the size that triggers such a warning). But given the importance of this topic and the fact that so much can be written about it, I would say that an article 50% larger than the current one would still not be too long. See Wikipedia:Summary style. --mav 17:50, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ja

Is there anyone who can speak Japanese and would be willing to contribute to the Japanese article?

Half of it is in the Latin alphabet. SFGiants 00:11, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] First and oldest

It says "Yellowstone is the first and oldest national park in the world" -- isn't that redundant? If it's the first, it's by default the oldest. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.58.208.103 (talk • contribs) 02:11, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

That assumes that every national park ever created is still a national park. If such a park was created before Yellowstone and was decommissioned a decade later, then that national park would not be the oldest even though it was the first. --mav 17:44, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lower Yellowstone Fall Closeup

I added a closeup of the lower falls but it was a little hard to fit in. I thought it was different enough from the existing lower fall picture to be worthy of inclusion. --Zaui 18:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why no Supervolcano reference?

I came here to learn more about the Supervolcano underneath Yellowstone. Why is there no mention of it? I would like to add reference to it, but I know so little about the topic that it would just come across as very amateurish if I did add anything. -- Andrew Parodi 21:18, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

You shouldn't feel that way, and you're right, it does need to be in the article...check here for info [5] and more [6] and another to get you started. [7]--MONGO 21:21, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by no reference? The word supervolcano was used at least twice in the article? Kowloonese 21:42, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Geez. How did I miss that? Thanks. I suppose that I assumed that if the supervolcano were mentioned in this article then it would be given its own section entirely. When I looked at the article index and didn't see any such section, I guess I assumed there was no mention of it in the article. Whatever the case, thanks for the response. -- Andrew Parodi 09:24, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map Problems

Why don't we get a map that actually shows the borders of the park, rather than treating a designated, delineated National Park as an ambiguous region, in which case a simple circle would make sense.

I don't understand your problem, unless you're just talking about the map at the top of the article that has the dot. The map of Yellowstone and the map of the surrounding area show the boundaries of the park. Gary D Robson 00:22, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the problem is that most of the localized maps are at the bottom of the page. There's a lot of scrolling involved to find them. Subversified 00:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The map ion the infobox is just a locator for those completely unaware of where the park is situation on a map of the entire U.S. If the maps we have otherwise are bad or dated, that can be fixed of course.--MONGO 02:21, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1988 Fires

MONGO is right. The section on the '88 fires is too small and too biased. Also, possibly out of date re: the current fire policy. I'll check it out and make an edit. Subversified 01:00, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Google the NIFC and the National Fire Plan and I'll try and assist this in a few days.--MONGO 02:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yellow Stone(s)

This article states "It was known to the original natives as "Mitzi-a-dazi," the "River of Yellow Rocks," because of the hydrothermally altered iron-containing yellow rocks in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (many people incorrectly believe that the yellow color is from sulfur)"

However, someplace else (on Wiki) it states the name Yellowstone comes from the yellow sandstone found near the mouth of the Yellowstone river. I think the reference was either Yellowstone River or Fort Yellowstone articles. The sandstone story also matchs my memory from school. It also matchs history, as the river was called Yellowstone long before the "Park" area was popularly known.

I'd check this out myself, but it's past bedtime Ralph 28Feb06(local)

We may need to find out what tribe or language this comes from, or if it is even an Indain name at all...or if our translation is correct.--MONGO 06:32, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I found a ref here ... [8] & [9]. Per some other research I did, it may be tough to pin the language down to a specific tribe. The area wasn't dominated by a particular tribe. Bad thing is that the US gov sites don't reference this at all... Revmachine21 13:03, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Those certainly are a start...I'll look those over tonight...thank you.--MONGO 13:22, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, two different sources giving two different backgrounds, how surprising (not) Ralph

This is the account given in the Moon Handbooks Guide To Yellowstone and Grand Teton:

"The word 'Yellowstone' appears to have come from the Minnetaree Indians, who called the river 'Mi tse a-da-zi,' a word French-Canadian trappers translated into 'Rive des Roches Jaunes'--literally, 'Yellow Rock River'.

"The Indians apparently called it this because of the yellowish bluffs along the river near Billings, Montana (not because of the colorful Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone)." --Tachikoma 18:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

It also appears here[10] in this website...but they may have used your reference as their source. Billings is actually a fair distance from the present day park though. As far as French Trappers as part of the story, John Colter is widely credited with being the first white man to venture into the present day park. Does anyone have a date for when French Trappers are thought to have been in the region? It may predate Colter's 1806-1808 period when he was there.--MONGO 11:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

All the references I googled kind of look they point around and back to each other. Looks vaguely like an internet urban legend. I went to the National Park System gov website and sent them an email inquiry. So far no answer but I will keep you posted on what they say. Revmachine21 14:39, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Hiram Chittenden, an army engineer and one of the park's first historians, reports the French using "Roche Jaune," perhaps as early as the mid-1700's. "Yellowstone" is a translation from the French name, which is itself a translation of an Indian name. Chittenden gives the Minnetaree name "Mi tsi a-da-zi" as the ultimate origin, but preferred to believe that the name derived from the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone area (simply because he wasn't impressed by the "yellowness" of the rock along the lower Missouri). Aubrey Haines, a former YNP Historian who frequently questioned received wisdom, disagreed. He pointed to the fact that the Minnetaree did not inhabit the upper Missouri, doubted they travelled that far, noted that the Shoshone name for the river tranlates as "Elk River," and dismissed Chittenden's argument in favor of the "lower river" explanation.

Chittenden's "The Yellowstone National Park" first appeared in 1895 and has been reprinted since; for Haines, I'm using his "Yellowstone Place Names" (1996).Shanley 02:21, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Very good find! I googled Hiram's name along with the river of yellow rocks and found the following additional reference which uses the phrase even earlier than Hiriam. [11]. This is looking less like an internt urban legend. Here's an even better reference which itself refers back to a government publication. [12] I think we got this done & dusted. Revmachine21 11:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to incorporate the findings of this talk page into the main article. I don't yet know how to cite references on Wikipedia, so could someone please do that? Feel free to rewrite my text, of course. --[[Ujavascript:insertTags('%C5%AB',,)ūser:Tachikoma|Tachikoma]] 08:02, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I took the liberty of editing the discussion of the name "Yellowstone." I thought the entry could have led to confusion between the naming of the park and the naming of the river. By the time Yellowstone National Park was created, Yellowstone was a well-established name for the river which dominates the park, so there's no controversy about that - for the park, Yellowstone is a second-generation name. The uncertainties refer only to the original name of the river. Shanley 21:03, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

In the process of recaptioning the images in this article, I removed a few redundant images.

• There were three different pictures of Yellowstone Fall and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. I removed P6260126.JPG-Lower Yellowstone Fall Closeup as it did not seem to fit with the geology section text which mainly deals with volcanism and seismicity.
• There were three pictures of bison in the section about those animals. I decided to remove Buffalo Bizon.jpg-A lone Buffalo as it was least representative of the bison in the park. The other two showed the bison near a geothermal feature and the other showed how the bison interact with and are affected by people in the park.

--Epolk 18:44, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• I have a picture I took of the North Gate of the park that is much clearer than the current picture. The current picture is extremely washed out, and you can't even read the sign on top. I uploaded my picture at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Yellowstonenorth.jpg I didn't want to just remove someone else's picture without getting a general OK first. -- Phaldo 18:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Picture looks nice.... Since you've released rights to the image under GNU, go ahead and replace. Revmachine21 02:13, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

CamperStrike

I removed image:Stump - Mallard Lake trail - Yellowstone 2004 12.jpg and made all picture sizes a uniform 200px to prevent crowding and/or clutter. Any thing larger than 200px on the right and 100-150px on the left causes photgraphs to infringe upon the text and each other. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by CamperStrike (talk • contribs) 09:54, 10 November 2006.

Reverted changes by User:CamperStrike as the image size was no problem (I use low res and had no overlap), the gallery images were blanked, and the added section Past and Present Problems in Yellowstone seemed either redundant or irrelevant and incomplete. Vsmith 14:15, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fires (part deux)

Jsut some observation as this section seems a little small. Maybe another article on currrent fire ecology theory is in order but here's my observation; 1). Prior to 1988 the park policy was to fight all fires that were accessible as the park was to be preserved for the future. This created a dangerous situation that led to the fire of 1988. 2). But as catastrophic as that fire was, it was not the sterilyzing burn that pre-1988 "let it burn" ecologists feared. In fact only a very small percentage (less tha 1%) of the soil is sterilized.

and so, as I understand it, mans decision as to whether to fight the fires or not fight them is largely irrelevant in regards to the long term health of the forest. Even the most overgrown, fuel laden forest does not lead to sterilyzing fires. Is the current burn policy still controversial?

My own $0.02 is that "lots of little fires" prevents the "big one" but the "big one" is really only "bad" from a perception point of view and the forrest is ultimately able to care for itself in spite of man's effort to "preserve" it. In a sense, every year that yellowstone has fires too small to make the news is a successful fire management year. The current fire policy was put in place before the 1988 after effects were measured so has this been studied and is there any controversy over the current policy?--Tbeatty 06:22, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

There will be a major expansion and maybe a subarticle on fires in Yellowstone. I'm trying to keep this article at a featured level and hope to follow a similar organizational style as can be seen on Glacier National Park (US), but since there are no glacier in Yellowstone, we won;t have a section on that. No doubt, this article needs a lot of dressing up, so whatever you think should go in here, add it. We have almost nothing about the recreation, park management and aside from what I have started in the history section, no references are cited in the text of the article.--MONGO 08:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photographic Size

Due to the large variety of photographs and great desire for people to feature them on wikipedia, I am requesting that all photographs be kept at a maximum of 200px for uniformaty and to prevent clutter or clipping of the text.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.207.207.137 (talk • contribs).

Added a gallery to the bottom of the page. It should help in the cleanup of this article.

• I agree with AudeVivere's photographic edits. By removing the px size and leaving it as ((thumb)) only, it keeps the photograpsh at their default wiki article size and prevents them from overtaking the article. If a reader needs to see a larger version of a photograph, then he or she is free to click on it for an enlargemnt.--CamperStrike

[edit] Photograph in question

As demonstrated below, User Mogo believes that there is no room for a 2004 photograph demonstrating how the forest had partialy recovered from the 1988 fire. Shall this panaramic photograph stay or go.

I believe it shows how the ecosystem can recover from what was believed at the time to be a huge enviromental disaster. This panarmic shot shows that in time things return to they way they were. It also shows dead scorched trees (as edvidence of the fire)along with new groth and how it affected tourism at Yellowstone (blocked roads).

I also agree that it should belong in the article. It is edvidence of an ecological disaster and recovery all in one article. Mongo has argued that such panaramic photographs don't belong in featured articles but here is one.

A series of lightning-derived fires started to burn large portions of the park in July of the especially dry summer of 1988. Thousands of firefighters responded to the blaze in order to prevent human-built structures from succumbing to the flames. Controversially, however, no serious effort was made to completely extinguish the fires, and they burned until the arrival of autumn rains. Ecologists argue that fire is part of the Yellowstone ecosystem, and that not allowing the fires to run their course (as has been the practice in the past) will result in an overgrown forest that would be extremely vulnerable to deoxygenation, disease, and decay. In fact, relatively few megafauna in the park were killed by the fires; and since the blaze, many saplings have sprung up on their own, old vistas are viewable once again, and many previously unknown archaeological and geological sites of interest were found and cataloged by scientists. The National Park Service now has a policy of lighting smaller, controlled "prescribed fires" to prevent another dangerous buildup of flammable materials.

This June 14, 2004 panorama from of 15 individual photographs demonstrates how forest burned by wildfire is able to recover after a few decades. Young saplings contrast with the remains of old burned trees. Fire is a healthy part of the Yellowstone Ecosystem (Click Image To Enlarge)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.207.207.137 (talk • contribs).

In Featured articles, we make all attempts to limit the number of images and the one you wanted included above shows almost as much of a road than it does of fire "ecology". The text in the blockquote is fine, but has no references and is therefore a violation of WP:NOR. This is a featured article and we also do not use "see also" in featured articles most of the time. You also have your resolution set up too high as most featured articles generally have images around 250-270px. I'm trying to get this article to a higher level, but honestly, if you're going to continue to try and force the issue, I'll just step back and let you continue to do whatever you want.--MONGO 12:24, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with Vsmith that 250px is too big and clutters the page. Notice that parts of the article have a "bottle neck effect" adn appear crammed. Remove 50px from each left and right photograph and that will save 100px of valuble text space per line.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.207.207.137 (talk • contribs).

That's because there are too many images in the article and not enough words. As the article is expanded, the images will be more spread out. Have a look at Glacier National Park (US) or Banff National Park to see how recently promoted featured articles have their images spaced and the size that is generally used....also notice that neither article is overcrowded with images as this one is.--MONGO 07:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

The panorama photo was just too wide to show what it was supposed to at that scale - removed it. As for the 200px stuff, that is the standart for thumbed images - so why not leave out the 200px so user prefs can work? Vsmith 14:19, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I think in the articles that are generally featured, setting them to approximately somewhere around 250px to 270px helps them from appearing too huge for those with a high resolution setting.--MONGO 14:35, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Er - I have my monitor set at 800x600 (the lowest setting) and have no real problem with image size at either the 250 or 200 sizes. I simply recommended the default for thumb size of 200px (in other words leave out the px setting) as that way user prefs can work, but can go either way with image size. Vsmith 11:45, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article protection requested

I was trying to get this article to remain at a level of featured, but have tired of watching the article become of a lower quality than a higher one. If one looks at several articles that have been more recently promoted to featured level, Redwood National and State Parks, Glacier National Park (US) and Banff National Park, they will see that in each case, the images are generally about 250-300px, all the sections have cited references and there is far more text than images. I had started to add cited references, cleanup the text and make improvements, but see can't do this if my changes (which match the FA"s I already linked) are going to be reverted all the time.--MONGO 10:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Page protection has been granted. Please use the talk page to resolve disputes. I suggest that everyone take a look at Image Use Policy and take into consideration that when you specify image size, it overrides user preferences (set in Special:Preferences, under "Files"). --Aude (talk) 12:52, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any discussion here...I have lowered the protection to semi-protection, as I would like to see improvements to this article to continue. I will keep watch on the article. --Aude (talk) 03:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image Resolutions

I'm not too impressed with the quality of the pictures on this site. I uploaded a picture a few weeks back of the Yellowstone North Gate entrance that I took. That's the resolution I'd like to see, personally. Almost every other picture on the site has high digital noise and low resolution which almost makes them look like they were taken from a camera phone. I do have a lot more pictures I can upload, but would prefer not to have a high ego labeled by replacing every single picture with one I've taken. At least not without a general consensus first. But compare the north gate picture with the rest of the pictures on here, and I'd appreciate to hear peoples feedback on their image resolutions. Phaldo 21:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello - your pic of the north gate is unquestionably of better resolution (and a real improvement over the one that was there before). To my eye, most of the other pics are actually OK, both in terms of the way they look as small images on the page, and as enlargements when you click on them. Could they be better? Certainly. Do they need to be? I'd say not, but I certainly would not argue with your replacing them -- see what other folks say. The only pics on the page now that I would like to see better are issues of composition rather than resolution - Ft Yellowstone, Firehole river, and Old Faithful, especially. Thanks for your work - cheers, Geologyguy 22:41, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image sizes

I have removed all the specified "px" sizes, so that user preferences can work. Now, the article is overcrowded with images. Choices need to be made as to which images to keep here, which to perhaps move to the subarticles, and to commons:Yellowstone National Park. --Aude (talk) 17:03, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Galleries

As for galleries, they are typically not used in featured articles, though perhaps one with at most four images could be acceptable with a link to more images in Commons. --Aude (talk) 17:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Prehaps we could use a gallerie and do it with fewer pictures than the previous implementation had? User:CamperStrike

For now, I don't see consensus for a gallery here. We have a link to the Yellowstone page on commons [13]. That page, which serves as a gallery, can use improvement and better organization. --Aude (talk) 17:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Geology images

We currently have 7 images in the geology section. I think we have room for 4-5 images in this setion.

Boiling pool at Biscuit Basin	Columnar basalt near Tower Fall. Large floods of basalt and other lava types preceded mega-eruptions of superheated ash and pumice.	The Firehole River near Excelsior Geyser. Due to the volume of heated water pouring into the river from the geothermal features, the temperature of the river can get as high as 86 °F (30 °C).	An image of the Grand Prismatic Spring.
Steamboat Geyser: The world's tallest active geyser, Eruptions can reach as high as 300 feet (90 m).	The most famous geyser in the world, Old Faithful Geyser	Morning Glory Pool

I think "Grand prismatic spring" is a must, as it is a featured picture. Which of the others do you think should be included? --Aude (talk) 19:43, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I would choose the columnar basalt and Old Faithful (though I wish the OF pic could be a more dramatic one). Cheers --Geologyguy 19:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I personaly like this shot of the morning glory pool, but I think it will need some colour tweeking: the contrast seems to be a bit too high.CamperStrike

I have reduced the number of images in the geology section to ones suggested here. The article now appears much less cluttered, with viewing them at 300px ("my preferences"). It might be okay to change them back to 250px, so they are bigger than 180px that non logged-in viewers see. I don't really have a preference either way, but just want consensus to prevail. As for the Old Faithful image, I have found some other options on the NPS's Yellowstone Digital Slide File: [14] and [15] show Old Faithful during winter. There are surely other options for Old Faithful images there. Despite the vast number of images in the Slide File, I don't think the article can accommodate more at this point than swapping the Old Faithful image for a different one. --Aude (talk) 00:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yellowstone Fire of 1988

I also wikified the Forest fires section to provide a link to Yellowstone Fire of 1988. I think there should be a subarticle about the fire and how the ecosystem has recovered. I don't have the time right now or knowledge to start that article. --Aude (talk) 19:43, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images again

I realize he/she means well, but continued efforts to go around to articles and reduce the image sizes to accomdate high resolution setting for browsers is being disruptive. I gave linked Banff, Glacier and Redwoods as featured articles that this one should rise up to. In those articles, the images are fixed at a set size (about 250px) which is a better appearance than the tiny, almost postage size result we get when we have images reduced to smaller sizes. Furthermore, the use of the ultrawide image above may be okay for a featured article, but that image in particular is simply not a decent one...much of the image is of a road, not of a burned forest. There are better images available for this. Finally, articles are not image respositories...they are supposed to have written and cited text and images are only used to illustrate...in other words, accent the text. I have tried repeatedly to explain this to CamperStrike, but I do not seem to be getting the message across.--MONGO 10:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

RE: Images.

• 1)The images look fine on a HD 1920x1080 monitor and are perfectly legible.
• 2)I did not shrink them down further.
• 3)User AudeVivere removed the px size and kept the thumb command and hence shrunk them below the 200px I had set them at to stop the cascading and text collision. As the result of the |200-250px| being removed the photographs are being displayed at to the default 180px.
• 4)Do we really want to take this article back to a more crowded and cluttered version?

-Camper

I have a couple of comments...

1. I think the default image size should be used in most cases. That allows the reader to choose the display size in My preferences. It has the ancillary benefit of avoiding disputes over image size. Also, as technology improves and is adopted, image size can be increased globally by changing the default in the Wikimedia software.
2. The Wikimedia software is not particularly sophisticated in its support for layout. I think that the only layout tools that editors are encouraged to use are <br clear="all"> and the left and right parameters of Image. The former is used just three times. More extensive use may be indicated. Any attempt to "stop the cascading and text collision" with image size is unlikely to succeed except on your own display. Readers use a variety of browsers, operating systems, font and window sizes. The tools listed above display content in a fairly consistent manner, but adjusting image size does not. To get an idea of this, you might try running another browser, e.g., Firefox, or change the display font and/or size. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 17:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

There is active discussion about forced image sizes (specifying px for thumbnails) on the Image use policy page. I personally don't like the small default thumbnail size (180px) for anonymous users not logged-in. With my user preferences (go to "my preferences" -> "files"), thumbnail images are 300px wide for me. I don't think the default size is satisfactory, but not sure forcing image sizes is best. Ideally, default thumbnail size would be larger than 180px, and we could leave the forced sizes out. Forcing the thumbnail size to 250px might be an acceptable, as there were no objections to doing so on those other featured articles. I'm somewhat undecided as to which way it should be here. --Aude (talk) 17:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that link. I saw two or three issues in the discussion that I hadn't thought much about, i.e., portrait v. landscape image sizes, minimum useful size for certain illustrations, etc. I saw no mention of specifying image size as a means of adjusting article layout. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 04:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Second Yellowstone Gallery

More Images Can Be Found here:

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Yellowstone_National_Park

Many of them have never been used and some are quite good and may be article worthy. -CamperStrike

[edit] Notible Dates and Useful Information

Some Information that maybe of relavent use to the article.

   Established 01 March 1872, by an act of the U.S. Congress and signed by President Ulysses S. Grant. 
   Grant was the 18th president of the United States and Grant Village was named in his honor.

   Designated an International Biosphere Reserve on 26 Oct 1976 
   Designated a World Heritage Site on 08 Sep 1978

Most of the above is already in the article. Geologyguy 14:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yellowstone Sub-articles

I will be working one yellowston sub-articles for Anthropology and Geography. The native people of Yellowstone have their own unique culture and deserve a separate article. Much like the French and Italians are similar but have very differant cultures. Another example would be Navajo and Chippawa (spelling may not be correct) indians, they lived on opposite ends of the US and have very differant cultural histories.