Talk:Normal, Illinois

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Contents 1 twin town? 2 re: twin town? 3 fun vandalism note 4 Downtown Normal 5 Vandals 6 Change to geolinks 7 This is nice

[edit] twin town?

I'm going to bring the discussion over from Bloomington, Illinois, I've never heard BN called "twin town" has anyone else? Otherwise, I think it should be removed. --Donutey 04:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] re: twin town?

I have lived here since 1975 and the first time I heard it was in here. Lets remove it.--

[edit] fun vandalism note

While it can probably be reinserted into the article (after rewording), I've removed the following note from the article's "trivia" section, pending citation:

One fact the article fails to mention is a period of time during the early 1970s after an adventurous vandal had climbed the water tower and spray-painted "AB" in front of the town's name.

Tomer^talk 03:00, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I never took a picture of it, and I don't know if anyone else did either. What was amazing to we students at the time was how long it took for the city fathers to fix it. It sat that way for months. I don't know if "fun vandalism" is the right word. Whoever did it, the joke was over quickly and it was just an eyesore after that. Wahkeenah 06:00, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

The "fun" wasn't meant to modify "vandalism", it was meant to modify "vandalism note". Tomer^talk 05:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Downtown Normal

I just saw someone reverted the "uptown" crap, good work. Kudos, I have no idea why it said uptown.A mcmurray 00:56, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

• I agree. Been here 32 years and its DOWNTOWN, not uptown. Can't be an uptown without a downtown and a midtown.. and the whole thing is only about 2 blocks wide from north to south anyway, and if you did a lefttown / righttown / midtown thing, it still isnt big enough anyway. Besides, uptown simply sounds stupid.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.113.205.130 (talk)

It may have been a bad faith edit. We shall make sure it doesn't change. I watch the page for vandals so it should be no problem.A mcmurray 15:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• A McMurray: Well- I don't know if you heard- but the town council decided it should be called "uptown". So, I guess it is officially now known as "uptown".... thats why it said that, but its still pretty corny..........

I have heard now. That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard.A mcmurray 16:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's a town council reference to "uptown" [1] and another [2]. So, should the article reflect local preferences or the official version? Rklawton 16:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know there is no "official" designation for Downtown Normal, although it is ubiquitously referred to as Downtown Normal in the Bloomington Normal area. While it really doesn't matter, both words mean basically the same thing, I think the nomenclature, in the article, should reflect usage considering that there is no official name. Basically what I am saying is that the place has historically been known as downtown, marketing campaigns aside.

I don't know how far this Uptown thing has gone but it appears to be nothing more than a PR campaign to bring attention to the redevelopment plan and differentiate itself from Downtown Bloomington. I don't know if we should be in the business of supporting PR nonsense. Just my two cents.A mcmurray 16:57, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a good question. The challenge is - is this "official" PR nonsense (ie, from the city's leaders), or is this just local developers? Rklawton 18:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Either source is just as dubious in this instance, in my opinion. Neither source could be considered reliable because they both have vested interests in portraying the area the way they see fit.A mcmurray 18:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, if there's been an official name change, we'll need to report it as such. Rklawton 18:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

This appears to have been decreed but would need a reference, such as the ordinance. Regardless I doubt this name change was or is without controversy, this should be noted as well. As well as the fact that anyone who has lived there for more than a year or so would still say Downtown Normal.A mcmurray 19:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

yeah, i changed it originally, and i'll change it back from uptown to downtown any time anyone changes it until they ban my account. or until there's a point made in the entry that it is, at least, up in the air. i kind of don't really care, but like all decisions that were made by and for money and not the people themselves, i feel i have a vested interest in paying attention, having lived here all my life and all. the truth of the matter is the town council spent a bunch of money to buy signs that said uptown normal... i'm uncertain if they even have the actual power to rename a neighborhood, although i'm sure they'd disagree. but it was very much done quietly and not with a great deal of good faith, with the purpose of trying to make rich people more comfortable here and poor people unwelcome. i suppose if someone could point me down the rabbit hole that absolutely proved that the TC had the ability to change anything about the name they wanted, i'd shut up. but i really doubt that's going to be the case. User:me/me 25:84 31 Feburary 2007 (FTW!)

• "Downtown" is descriptive and meaningful. "Uptown" is hype. Wahkeenah 02:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandals

This page has been hit pretty hard by vandals lately, please watch it.A mcmurray (talk • contribs) 15:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I just reverted some stuff that may have been missed previously. WLU 15:08, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Cool, I have requested some folks from WikiProject Illinois to keep an eye on it along with myself and another user who is a self described "anti-vandal patriot." Things should be okay now. There was a lot, so much that I couldn't really find a version to revert to so I just went through and started removing stuff that looked like vandalism or spam.A mcmurray (talk • contribs) 15:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

If you actually know anything about the town, you might want to check the people I just removed, I couldn't find a link to Normal so I took 'em out, but that doesn't mean the links aren't there. WLU 15:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Until I get up to speed on this article, I will only be able to revert content only or obvious cases of vandalism. I can't remember the last time I was in Illinois. Ronbo76 15:20, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I used to live nearby. I'll check em out.A mcmurray (talk • contribs) 15:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Change to geolinks

Geolinks is the preferred mapping engine these days for Wikipedia. It can be scaled at cityscale for a large town; hoodscale for an intermediate suburb or photo for a smaller community like Normal, IL. In addition, the photo scale is useful for showing a picture (if available of a distinct object/building/etc.) that when the scale is brought down on WikiMapia displays really nicely. Clicking on the WikiMapia link, you will now see the community. Plus, you can see a university to the west along with some domed stadium (if you zoom in using the plus sign near the top left). Cheers, Ronbo76 15:44, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

That would be Illinois State University and Redbird Arena. A mcmurray (talk • contribs) 16:13, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It works real nice on arenas, local landmarks, bridges, etc. The coordinates can be found by opening a WikiMapia entry to the nearby item you would like mapped by dragging the map until the crosshairs are over the landmark. Then in the upper left corner, select Add Place and a box will be superimposed over the item. You can enlarge the box or even change the scale as appropriate. Once it is defined, the coordinates will be displayed when you save it. Unfortunately, you need to convert the minutes to decimal minutes, i.e., 40.3060N 89.9910W would required the .3060 and .9910 to be divided by 60 to get the correct decimal minutes. Ronbo76 19:59, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This is nice

It is nice to see some constructive activity around this page. Thanks to everybody who is trying to improve this article. I am trying to get WikiProject Illinois to make it their next collaboration. The current one, Springfield, Illinois, has gone really well.IvoShandor 14:54, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I would recommend some photos. One of the red wikilink Children's Museum (outside) would be high on my list. Maybe even a gallery. Ronbo76 14:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I tend to lean toward using {{commons}} to link to pages there as opposed to adding bulky galleries here. They can have long load times on slow connections, and Wikipedia is a great source of knowledge for the developing world. : )IvoShandor 15:02, 8 March 2007 (UTC)