Talk:Asheville, North Carolina

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[edit] Celebrities

The information about famous people with ties to Asheville seems a bit abrupt. I think that this portion of the article needs to be edited to make a distinct paragraph, perhaps adding a topic sentence and transitions to pull it together and make it flow with the rest of the article.

Noted. The article as a whole needs work, however. So, it may be some time before that particular portion receives attention. (Unless of course you want to jump in there and handle it yourself. (Clumsy hint.)) - Zeno Izen 15:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

When the current editing block is removed, I hope someone links to Wilma Dykeman (an article I started following her recent death). --orlady 00:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

"Famous residents" is getting long, I removed a few entries that I could find little information on. I'm starting to think it should be removed outright. Any suggestions?? -- BreezyB 06:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

What does everyone think, should 'Famous residents-current' include only people who currently live in Asheville now, or everyone who has ever lived in the town (as the article currently includes)? 152.132.10.134

Personally, I think the "famous" or "notable residents" sections should be removed or at least significantly trimmed from every city-oriented article. From what I can see, the larger cities don't tend to have these lists (see Phoenix, Arizona, Chicago, Illinois, Atlanta, Georgia, and Seattle, Washington). It's mainly the articles on smaller cities that have the lists (see Greenville, South Carolina, Knoxville, Tennessee, Hoffman Estates, Illinois, and Hillsboro, Oregon). Every time I see one of these lists it seems like pure braggadocio - as if the the city itself has some claim to the person's success or notability.
In my opinion, the only notable residents listed should be those whose notability ties in with the city. In the case of Asheville, Thomas Wolfe (whose literary works often implied Asheville), and George Vanderbilt (due to the notability of the nearby Biltmore Estate) could be acceptable to keep. However, if the person's notability is not linked to the city, and they just happen to have been born there or live(d) there, they should be removed from the article (example: Harry Anderson, a relatively recent arrival to Asheville). In my opinion, this should be the standard for every article about a city, town, state, nation, etc. ++Arx Fortis 21:36, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the larger cities basically do have them: see List of people from Seattle, List of people from the Phoenix metropolitan area, etc.. But since they have so many, a seperate page was needed. Smaller cities tend to have fewer (some sort of population correlation I'm sure), so no need for a seperate article. Aboutmovies 07:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with Arx Fortis, "if the person's notability is not linked to the city, and they just happen to have been born there or live(d) there, they should be removed from the article". The list is really out of hand and IS clearly "pure braggadocio". Can we vote on this? AVLann (talk) 02:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
In reviewing the list again, it looks like it's becoming longer and longer. I think we can slim it down using basic Wikipedia guidelines plus a little common sense, especially as relates to the living:
1. Is the person notable enough that they have their own article?
2. Does the person actually live in Asheville (currently) and not some nearby community?
3. Does the person's fame derive from Asheville, did they "get their start" in Asheville, or does the person hold some significance to Asheville in general?
4. Can we cite a credible source that the person lives in Asheville?
If we can't answer yes to all four of these questions regarding the living "famous residents", then they should be removed.
Thoughts? ++Arx Fortis (talk) 07:15, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Is there no discussion on this? If not, I will start to cull the list of residents to those who meet the above criteria. In further support of this, I should note that notability is not temporary. Just because someone famous lives in Asheville now, does not mean they will in the future. Unless a person's residency in a town can be linked to the above criteria, I don't see how their residency can be considered notable. ++Arx Fortis (talk) 01:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


I with you on this for sure, Arx. All of these list categories tend to get a little out of control, so clearly outlined limits and/or standards etc. are necessary. I would only add that a person's notability is not temporary, but their place of residence can be. Someone of extreme notability might "live" in Asheville for a short time and it would be right to include that person here. But someone of less notability would have to make a more permanent stay to merit inclusion. Does that make sense? Zeno Izen (talk) 17:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
chop chop CHOP away Arx! please! hooray! :) ~~

[edit] Suggestion re: magazine articles

The third pgraph of the General Information section, there is a list (in pgraph form) of magazine articles that mention Asheville. I think it would be more informative to include the publication years of the articles in the actual paragraph. The problem is that simply sticking the years in there will make the paragraph look very cluttered. There are already a lot of quotation marks and citation numerals in the paragraph, and the addition of four-digit years would probably take the text over the edge into serious eyesore territory. Yet, we surely don't need another bulleted list in the article.

Dilemma! Any suggestions? Zeno Izen 20:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it would suffice to say that Asheville has received significant media coverage in the media, then simply use citations for the sentance to give some examples (no more than 3-4 of the most significant articles). ++Arx Fortis 05:10, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Precipitation

I don't know how to work this URL into the body of the article, or a link to it, but here it is: http://cirrus.dnr.state.sc.us/cgi-bin/sercc/cliMAIN.pl?nc0301 Asheville gets about 37 inches of precip per year (not the 80-100 inches claimed in the article, so I removed that "fact"). Some areas in the WNC mountains get much more precipitation than does Asheville. The Highlands area is a good example. But that rain falls on Highlands, not on Asheville. Mr Frosty 16:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Smashing Pumpkins

A user (24.178.172.145) has deleted the same information from this article three times (5 July, 9 July, and 24 July). The user has not given any reason for the deletion. The 9-day launch of a well known band's national tour in Asheville certainly meets WP:NOTABILITY for this article and is cited. It should be noted that the same user added information on a different music venue in Asheville. This gives the appearance of a conflict-of-interest on the part of that user. After first warning the user, I have now asked the user to stop removing the information and to present their reason(s) for deletion on this page. ++Arx Fortis 23:00, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article assessment: B-class

I have assessed this article as B-class, with a mid-level importance to WP:CITIES. Mid-importance because, despite a population lower than 200,000, it is nonetheless a major population/industrial/business city in western north carolina.

I think this article is better than Start-class because it has a significant amount of information, and has started to assemble information into reasonably good categories. However, there is still quite a bit of work done before the article meets the Good article criteria, primarily on the prose, organization, and completeness factors. The lead section is also very short -- it should provide an adequate summary of the article -- but it does have some of the basics: population, metro area size, rough location. Consider nuking the 'general information' section, and move much of that info into the lead, or to other areas of the article, as appropriate.

The first four main sections should roughly follow this order: History, Geography & Climate, Demographics, Economy. Transportation can be moved nearer to the end of the article, and possibly included as a subsection under 'Infrastructure', adding to that info on local utilities, communications, and hospitals.

The 'Metropolitan Area' section can be included under 'Geography'. Add population history (many other cities have a table with populations every decade for this) as well as information on crime, to the 'demographics' section.

Consider moving the list of famous residents to a separate page, linking to it under 'see also'.

Combine the 'local culture' section with the list of 'points of interest' into one section called 'arts and culture'. Expand. Include photos. This section shouldn't be a list at all -- write out descriptions and significance as prose. Arts and culture should probably fall, in the order of sections, right after 'economy'. The article, of course, does lack an economy section. A description of the business and industry in Asheville should be included. Provide more than just a listing of major corporations and fortune 500 companies.

Much thanks Dr. Cash! This gives us an excellent starting point. ++Arx Fortis 23:59, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
That should give some good information to get you started. Hope that helps. Consider also looking at some of the info at WP:CITIES for guidelines on city articles. Cheers! Dr. Cash 21:58, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] I'm about to make an edit...

I haven't touched this page in a while, but I've just noticed a large block of text in the history section that would do well broken up into a couple of paragraphs, and also needs some citations. I will make the lightest possible edits here for the sake of readability and also add some 'ref' tags. Zeno Izen 17:12, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FYI: Archiving

An archive of this page was established some time ago. Rather than manually archiving the page, I've setup MiszaBot to do it. I've set the bot to archive any discussions that have not had any activity for longer than 180 days. Archived discussions can be accessed via the link at the top of the page. Thanks to Zeno Izen for pointing out the need for another round of archiving. :) ++Arx Fortis (talk) 16:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)