Template talk:California

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This article is part of WikiProject California, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles related to California. For guidelines see the project page and Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ.

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[edit] Too big?

Is it just me, or do other people find this box way too big and hard to read? I don't believe that footer boxes have to be complete --- I've found that they are more effective if they contain just a few links to core articles, then other links to exhaustive list articles.

My concrete minimalist proposal is:

California Flag of California
History | Geography | Largest Cities | Counties | Ecology | Universities | List of topics

The exact list of links can be changed, but I would like to move to a minimalist footer.

Comments? -- hike395 07:36, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think the whole point of these state footers is to give links to geographic locations within states. What articles are you proposing to put it in? -- I think it would look very strange and out-of-place at the bottom of every county in the state, for example. Links to broad articles like Geography of California, History of California and Ecology of California could be grouped together quite usefully, and placed on the articles which are in the footer, but this is a different purpose than the current footer. Tuf-Kat 07:47, May 6, 2004 (UTC)
I think that the purpose of a footer is to compactly represent likely articles where a reader could get background information. They still have the capability of going to geographic locations, with one extra click: the click on Counties, scan the list, and go to Mono County (e.g.). The vast majority of readers who do not care about counties don't have to wade through the list of counties to find what they want.
We've implemented an analogous footer in articles about the Solar System. Most bodies in the solar system have Template:Solar System at the bottom--- that footer lists only the major planets + asteroids + links to super-complete lists of objects. It doesn't look or feel strange at all. The thought is that high-school students will see the footer, then get directed to planet articles for more background. College students can dive into the complete list at List of solar system objects, with only one extra click.
I don't insist on the particular selection of links, above. I'm just pleading that the long long list of places be abridged. Geography of California already has links to the regions of California (or we can make a pure region list article, if you prefer). List of cities in California (by population) already has a sorted list of cities. List of counties in California already has a list of counties. I just threw in a few other core articles in case someone wanted historical or biological background information. This just shows what you can do with the extra space in the footer, once you compress the long lists down to links to list articles.
Somehow, I got passionate about this tonight. I look at the footer of Sierra Nevada, and I wonder, "How often would a reader of this page care about Santa Barbara County?". It just seems so user-unfriendly. --- hike395 08:25, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
(P.S., to answer Tuf-Kat's question, I think the minimalist footer can be put into all of the current geographic articles, plus any more articles that people feel are particularly Californian (i.e., would benefit from a link to sister California articles). People can use their editorial judgement whether to include {{msg:California}} or not.) -- hike395
While I understand your concerns, I don't feel that your footer is an adequate substitute for this one. This footer is meant as a footer for Californian geography, to aid in navigation to articles on places in California. This is, I think valuable, both in showing the breadth of articles Wikipedia has and in inviting the user to come browse and see what kind of stuff is here, as well as helping to direct wayward searchers. For example, I discovered a few weeks ago that a google search for the county I grew up in finds Wikipedia articles on one town within the county and on a different neighboring county before the Wikipedia article on the county I had actually searched for. The current footer also aids in navigation for users trying to compare and contrast different counties within a state. I don't see how it is "user unfriendly" -- it's a box at the very bottom, past the article text, see alsos, external links and references sections. Many casual users won't even notice them, I think, because they won't scroll down that far. All it does is move the redundant links at the bottom down a bit on the monitor.
I think something like your box could be great, placed on and linked to articles that concern the entire state of California, like History of California, Geography of California and List of counties in California. Tuf-Kat 19:30, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

While I don't have much of an opinion on hike395's proposal, I'll say again that the current footer is too ambitious. It lists too many items and therefore takes up too much space. Either split it into three - one each for regions, cities, and counties - or reduce it to three links like how Template:nationalflags has it. --Jiang 22:51, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

I came up with the initial box suggestion by starting with a box very similar to the second suggestion of Jiang:
California Flag of California
Geography | Largest Cities | Counties
Then I thought, "Now that I've compacted the lists into links, we have plenty of room for other stuff." ... hence, the few other links in the initial suggestion.
What I hear you (Tuf-Kat) saying is that you want a geographical footer, not a topical footer (correct me if I misunderstood). If a "pure" geographical footer is desirable, then I would stick with my second suggestion, immediately above.
Now, we can split the discussion into two: 1) should very long lists in footer boxes be abridged into links? and 2) should state footer boxes be purely geographical or broader?
On topic (1), I believe very strongly that lengthy small-font lists in footers are not very usable. I look at this as a human-computer interface design problem. Presenting dozens of choices in a small-font list under all circumstances (i.e., always in the footer for all users) is not a good design: users will see dozens of items and just ignore the entire footer. If you have a much smaller set of links, then all users can notice "List of counties". The small fraction of users who are interested in looking for a particular county can click through and scan through the list of counties --- those users are motivated by the information scent, and will not be surprised to see an alphabetic list of counties. Bottom line: Users who want to compare and contrast counties, or people who are in the wrong county article can use the List of counties in California page. We don't have to clutter up the footer with the entire list.
Other people are starting to express the opinion that long lists should be abridged in footers. That is how I interpret the second suggestion of Jiang, above. That is the current state of the discussion at Wikipedia:Article series boxes policy (proposed) (see section 6.3.2). I suspect the majority opinion would favor the abridgement of lists.
I feel much less strongly about topic (2). If your main objection is that the footer should be purely geographical, I can go for the super-short three-link box (perhaps saving the longer initial topical box for non-geographical pages, per your suggestion).
Separating the two discussions made things clearer in my mind. What do you (Tuf-Kat) think about topics (1) and (2) separately? Comments from anyone else?
-- hike395 05:26, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
Sorry for the delayed response -- I'm changing apartments... I have no qualms about separating counties, cities and regions into separate footers, but I don't like removing the links to the individual articles. They aid in navigation for those who are looking for something else. Most readers probably will ignore the footer, no matter it's font size, after a quick glance to see what's inside the box. Only the readers who are interested in finding more articles on places in California will try and look for a link, and all they need to know is whether it's a city, county or larger region, and how to spell it. Most readers won't care about the box -- luckily it's at the bottom of the page and one need not scroll past it to find anything but some duplicated links. I don't see what the objection is to having a long list of links. It doesn't displace any text, nor make anything in the individual article harder to find. All it does is provide an easy way to browse through articles on Californian places without using two windows or tabs. In response to query number one: no, footers should be split into separate boxes if they are too big -- "Counties" does not advertise that we have articles on every county and is not very inviting. In response to query number two: there are many different topics one could study pertaining directly to California. Where useful, these topics should be grouped together with a footer. I think having footers for regions, cities and counties is useful. (if everybody's okay with separating cities, counties and regions into separate footers, I'll go along, though I don't think it's necesssary).Tuf-Kat 07:50, May 11, 2004 (UTC)~
I think that splitting the footer leads to a possible compromise. After some thought, I realized that cities/counties articles have very different readers than region articles. The cities and counties articles are chock full of super-specific details. Readers who desire that level of detail probably do not mind wading through long lists of counties. On the other hand, I suspect that readers of regional articles tend to want less detail.
So, here's my proposal. Split the footer into two: a regions footer and a cities/counties footer. The regions footer would look like:
Geography of California Flag of California
Central Valley | Central Coast | Channel Islands | Diablo Range | Gold Country | Greater Los Angeles | Imperial Valley | Inland Empire | Mojave | Northern California | Owens Valley | Pomona Valley | Redwood Empire | San Fernando Valley | San Francisco Bay Area | The Peninsula | San Gabriel Valley | Santa Clara Valley | Santa Cruz Mountains | Shasta Cascade | Sierra Nevada | Silicon Valley | Southern California | Transverse Ranges | Wine Country
and the city/county footer would look like:
Largest Cities and Counties in California Flag of California
Cities: Anaheim | Bakersfield | Fremont | Fresno | Glendale | Huntington Beach | Long Beach | Los Angeles | Modesto | Oakland | Oxnard | Riverside | Sacramento | San Bernardino | San Diego | San Francisco | San Jose | Santa Ana | Stockton
Counties: Alameda | Alpine | Amador | Butte | Calaveras | Colusa | Contra Costa | Del Norte | El Dorado | Fresno | Glenn | Humboldt | Imperial | Inyo | Kern | Kings | Lake | Lassen | Los Angeles | Madera | Marin | Mariposa | Mendocino | Merced | Modoc | Mono | Monterey | Napa | Nevada | Orange | Placer | Plumas | Riverside | Sacramento | San Benito | San Bernardino | San Diego | San Francisco | San Joaquin | San Luis Obispo | San Mateo | Santa Barbara | Santa Clara | Santa Cruz | Shasta | Sierra | Siskiyou | Solano | Sonoma | Stanislaus | Sutter | Tehama | Trinity | Tulare | Tuolumne | Ventura | Yolo | Yuba |
The cities/counties footer would occur on city and county pages (to enable the county-county browsing that Tuf-Kat likes). The geography footer would occur on region pages, to make the readers of the region pages more likely to look at the footer and hop to other regions.
I am perfectly content with this compromise if only one footer is used per article. I am willing to edit all of the region pages to point to the new footer. (Probably should leave {{msg:California}} pointing to the cities footer, and make Template:California_Geography).
Tuf-Kat and Jiang: is this acceptable to you? -- hike395 13:11, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
I'm okay with it. Tuf-Kat 17:22, May 11, 2004 (UTC)

Go ahead and change it.--Jiang 19:26, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Why the hell did this get so big? --Plexust 06:03, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
Agreed, this template is much too large. Perhaps it should be broken into four separate ones. - SimonP 14:01, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)
I also agree it's too big. The census regions aren't useful. Mackerm 06:04, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
MSRs removed for space. They were very duplicative of cities. I think we could/should trim cities/urban areas for space before we break it up. See {{New York}}. jengod 17:14, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)
I agree that the current California template is much too large. It is a big visual distraction, being optically loud and cluttered, and contains links to other articles that are quite unlikely to be useful to readers of a given article. I like Hike395's proposal a lot. Alison Chaiken 05:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:CA parks?

See my question at Category talk:California and respond there. Thanks. Elf | Talk 17:48, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Some of the urban areas are ridiculous

Hello to Jengod:

I like most of what you've done with the California footer (even if it is even more humungous), but some of your urban areas are rather strange. Most Bay Area residents wouldn't consider Redwood City, San Francisco, and Richmond to be a single metro area (as opposed to, say, San Bernardino and Ontario), because the cities are so far apart and so different.

--Coolcaesar 00:40, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I'm so exasperated, I spent some time tonight and made the template consistent with the List of urbanized areas in California (by population) page. Of course, I admit that the only problem with the current template is that it doesn't mention famous communities that are away from major urban areas, like Santa Cruz or Barstow. If we need that in the template (it is probably big enough as is), I would prefer to have those in a new row, so that we can keep the "Important suburbs" list in this template consistent with the List of urbanized areas in California page and with the California page itself. --Coolcaesar 02:30, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Instead of "Central Suburbs" (which is kind of vague and in some cases misleading, for cities whose "centrality" is arguable), which implies the closest, most central suburbs to a major city, how about a term like "Significant suburbs?" Also, as many of these cities are not traditional suburbs or bedroom communities but postsuburban "edge cities," it's debatable whether the term "suburb" should be used at all. What is Irvine really a "suburb" of? Or Ventura or Santa Cruz for that matter?! Svenska84 01:40, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I originally used "Important suburbs" when I modified the template on the 14th and someone else changed it 6 hours later without explaining why on the talk page. Also, Santa Cruz was not originally on the template after my edit---it was added by someone else. I had edited the list of suburbs on the template to match the List of urbanized areas in California page. But now it seems people are finding my changes just as annoying as I found the earlier grouping of San Francisco with Richmond and Redwood City!

Perhaps another way to approach this is to have lists on the template for important cities, important suburbs, and important towns.

Finally, I agree that Santa Cruz isn't really a suburb of anything, but I believe that both Ventura and Irvine are both suburbs of Los Angeles — they both began as bedroom communities from L.A. and people still do commute from both of them to L.A., though not perhaps as many in the past due to the congestion on the Ventura and Golden State Freeways. --Coolcaesar 04:25, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I would say especially for Irvine, which is relatively loosely in the LA area and despite its early years as more of a bedroom community, that at this point it has nearly defined the concept of "Edge City" which creates its own jobs and wealth to the point that it becomes a major regional magnet itself. My friends who commute from San Diego to Irvine are painfully aware of that :) Anyway, I don't want to split hairs over its terminology, I just think that under a list of suburbs, some cities like Irvine and Ventura don't neatly fit into the ideas that the name "suburb" traditionally conjures up. Svenska84 07:52, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why only suburbs should be listed, especially when some much more important cities, i.e. all of the non-suburbaban cities of size 10k-500k+ listed on List of urbanized areas in California (by population) are not. Which is more important, Lincoln or Santa Anita or say, Santa Rosa, Redding, or even Eureka? "Important cities" is really a misnomer here, if it only lists cities that (at least by Census reckoning) play second fiddle to major metropolitian areas. Perhaps it would be better to list cities rather than "urban areas" and have some threshhold, say 50,000 or 100,000 regardless of the cities' membership in some larger unit. I don't think anyone would complain too much if San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose or LA and Long Beach are separated. (The categories are somewhat arbitrary anyway: What magical dividing line separates LA from Santa Ana-Aneheim-Irvine, for example?) Speight 01:37, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template:California/Temp

Template:California/Temp was created and only edited on 25 May 2005 by User:Jengod. Is that page still needed, or can it be deleted? BlankVerse ∅ 16:07, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rearranging Other significant communities

I will be deleting some communities from other significant communities soon. I do not think the following communities are notable enough to justify their mention in the main California template:

  • Carmichael (too small, rarely mentioned in the national media)
  • Elk Grove (rarely mentioned in the national media)
  • Folsom (too small, rarely mentioned in the national media)
  • Fremont (M.C. Hammer doesn't live there any more)
  • Lincoln (too small, rarely mentioned in the national media)
  • Rancho Cordova (rarely mentioned in the national media)
  • Roseville (rarely mentioned in the national media)
  • Santa Clara (occasionally mentioned in the national media, but usually as part of Silicon Valley)
  • Sunnyvale (same as above)

And I'm thinking about adding the following better-known communities:

  • Monterey (major Central Coast city)
  • Redding (primary city for the far northern end of Northern California)
  • San Luis Obispo (major Central Coast city)

Anyone have any issues with my proposed changes? --Coolcaesar 02:29, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, no one responded, here goes. --Coolcaesar 04:23, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
It's done. I also took out several more Sacramento suburbs than planned and left Santa Clara and Sunnyvale after some thought, since they are both home to a lot of well-known high-tech companies. Both Elk Grove and Citrus Heights were removed because neither of them has anything special that makes them different than most of California's suburbs. Simi Valley stays just because of O.J., and Santa Clarita stays because of Princess Cruises, 24, and CSI (the two latter shows were/are filmed there). --Coolcaesar 04:47, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why I reverted recent changes by RJN

I reverted these changes because the official urban areas as defined by the Census Bureau make no sense. Furthermore, no one but RJN has any problem with the template, as indicated by the rather small number of edits this fall. Please discuss your issues with the template to develop a consensus before making such drastic changes. --Coolcaesar 02:17, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] RJN response to Coolcaesar

Please read my entire response and rationale before responding and/or making further POV changes to the template.

I changed the "largest" cities and "other significant communities" to metropolitan areas and metropolitan divisions which are officially defined the U.S. Census and the OMB as of the November 2004 definition. Go look all these terms up if you don't know what they mean. Metropolitan areas and metropolitan divisions give a better crossection of what the major cities actually are. Many of the cities included in the list are suburbs. The changes that you have made in the past after Jengod are to your POV and judgements whether each city is "large," "small," or if they are "important" or not. Using defined metropolitan areas and metropolitan divisions are neutral and official. This way, you or other people can't delete cities or keep adding additional ones because everyone wants their hometown represented. Putting cities in "large cities" is POV. Who is to say which one is "large" or deserve enough to be large or not. Then to put certain cities in "other significant communities" is major POV. How do you define which cities are "important" and/or "significant"? Most of the cities added/deleted in this section have been done by you. With this section of "other significant communities," people like you will keep on coming and adding things in, later there will be a lot of "significant" communities as you would call it.

I also spent about 2 hours on the work you have REVERTED!

Here is an example of combined statistical areas, metropolitan areas, and metropolitan divisions defined by OMB and used by the Census and government. However, CSAs are not used in this template or by anyone—statistical purposes only.

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside (combined statistical area) <---- has 2 MSAs
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana (metropolitan area) <---- has 2 metropolitan divisions
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale (metropolitan division)
Santa Ana-Anaheim-Ivrine (metropolitan division)
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario (metropolitan area) <---- does not have metropolitan division

On the template, I included both metropolitan areas and divisions above, which cross references both large and "important" cities if you will. The cities shown in metropolitan divisions are defined as "important" and "significant" by the government in regards to economic and culture. These are defined. The cities are have deleted/added in the past are not defined and are to your POV of what you consider or don't consider "important" or "significant".

By using defined metropolitan areas and metropolitan divisions (note: not all metropolitan areas have metropolitan divisions), it is official and no one can argue their stay on the template or not. From what you have on the template, anyone can argue.

Also, I noticed that Jengod used to have metropolitan areas defined by the U.S. Census not too long ago until you went and changed it. From what I see, her version and my version have been on there longer than yours and no one else besides you question the metropolitan areas.

Also, I don't appreciate you making rude comments regarding what Jengod had done to this template. If you don't know what I mean by this, I will give you an example. On November 22, you left an edit summary of "Modifying this mess so that it makes more sense". Also, on July 13th, you went and modified a lot of Jengod's work with this edit summary, "(Editing this mess to match List of urbanized areas in California (by population))". This is an attack on Jengod's edit to the template by her using defined metropolitan areas that you don't agree with. You were calling her edits a mess. To me, her edits were legitimate because she used correct and official sources for the areas. Your definition of what cities are "large" or "important" are purely your POV and are not official.

You are also rude to other editors as well, on December 25, you left an edit summary of "(Revert idiotic edit, de facto is more concise and says the same thing!)" on the United States article. I don't know who you think you are, but you need to change your behavior in regards to other editors and leaving edit summaries.

So, in summary, the metropolitan areas have been on there for a while until Jengod stopped editing this template and you took over. You think this template is yours and revolves around you. You didn't just reverted my version to the one before, but you reverted changes made by Branddobbe as well because you don't like the fact that the user added an entry that you don't agree with. I am putting a stop to you taking ownership of this template right now. My version and Jengod's version of the template are NPOV and can be backed up with sources. Your version can not. Jengod doesn't seem to mind my "major" revision. Also, the Census designation doesn't make any sense is your POV. The fact that it is official is what really matters. User 68.65.220.243 didn't mind my revision either and edited additionally after I changed the template by bolding counties in excess of 1 million population. Of course you went and reverted all edits back to your last version. When I edited this template, I knew you were going to have a problem with it just by looking at the edit history. I knew you were going to revert my changes. I was prepared for this. I did it anyway for the sake of this template, the accuracies, NPOV, and all other California related articles.

You have reverted good faith edits done by me that I spent about 2 hours and other editors. I didn't revert any of your edits from the past—I only made changes to them. Your "important communities" are still in the new version—presented in a different and correct manner to cross reference important cities/suburbs and metropolitan areas. Go read United States metropolitan area. It might be "ridiculous" to you but defined metropolitan areas and divisions are NPOV and are official!

Reversion should only be done when there is vandalism! My changes and other people's changes were not malicious or vandalism. So you are telling me that if I or anyone want to edit this template, we have to ask for your permission? You do not own this template and permission or authorization from you is not needed. Everyone is free to edit this template as long as it can be referenced and NPOV. All of your edits on this template are POV to your definition of what is considered "important" or not/which cities or your hometown should be or not be on it!

What are your sources for which cities are "large" and/or "important". If you can provide sources, then I will revert to your POV definition of which cities are "big" and "important"—which are all arbitrary. I have plenty of sources from articles within wikipedia, other sites governmental/economic related sites, and the U.S. Census and its 2004 November definition of metropolitan area designation names.

Tell me, what is so weird about Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale (metropolitan division) being together? Also, Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine (metropolitan division)? Makes good cross-references and representation of a "large" cities and "important" communities to me! ...and Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario (metropolitan area)? Another good cross-references of a "large" city and "important" "communities" around it!

I or other editors do not need your approval/permission/authorization to do a legitimate/factual edit with references all over the place! Also, my edits to the template were not "drastic" like you said. It was just simply arranging/catagorizing cities in a different/non-controversial/NPOV manner. How was it drastic? That is your opinion. If others thought it was "drastic," they would have reverted or left some can of comment on my talk page already. Again, I was expecting you to react this way—not a surprise at all.

I would be happy to enlighten you with CSAs, MSAs, and MDs if you need further explanation or clarification.

RJN 11:35, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Fine. After reviewing the U.S. Census Bureau site and the relevant sections of the Code of Federal Regulations, I accept your argument as a valid one and will not revert your edits.
However, I dispute your false, defamatory, and immature characterization of my behavior as "rude." My earlier comments were in response to this edit [1] by an anonymous user, which resulted in the addition of some clearly questionable metropolitan areas like San Francisco-Richmond-Redwood City (if you look at a map, that grouping makes zero sense). That was what I was attempting to fix, NOT Jengod's edits, although I concede that the substance of her edits was mostly lost when I brought the template into conformance with the List of urbanized areas page. Anyway, I have no problem with Jengod's history of modifications to this template. Please review the page history thoroughly before putting foot in mouth.
Furthermore, if you look at the history of the United States page, I reverted an edit by a clearly ignorant user which was unnecessarily wordy and disrupted the infobox layout. The term de facto is more concise and more accurate in that context than "most common." Most countries have de jure official languages (indeed, Canada has two) while the United States has a de facto official one. That was the point of my edit, to preserve the status quo. If my expression of my irritation with having to do such an obvious reversion was too blunt, so be it. The main English Wikipedia should not be edited down to the reading level of 7-year-olds. We already have Simple English Wikipedia for that! --Coolcaesar 22:40, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Harmonizing Template:California

Finish harmonizing Template:California BigBang11 23:27 Pacific Standard Time, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] U.S. state templates

Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states/state templates lists and displays all 50 U.S. state (and additional other) templates. It potentially can be used for ideas and standardization. //MrD9 07:14, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] bolding specific metropolitan areas and counties

To a newbie or someone stumbling on this template for the very first time, it is very unclear as to why specific metropolitan areas and counties are bolded. Therefore, if nobody objects, I might remove them. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 21:03, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I was the one who bolded the metropolitan areas originally and then someone else bolded the counties. Basically, I bolded cities in these metropolitan areas that exceeded 400,000 in population. I did this as a way to denote that these cities are "major cities" since this template uses metropolitan areas instead of the subjective category of "major cities" like most other templates. I switched it to metropolitan areas from major cities so people will stop adding in additional cities or towns or deleting cities that they don't consider "major." I hope this explanation helps with why I bolded certain cities. If you have any more questions or concerns about the template, feel free to inquire additionally. Thanks! —RJN 12:27, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
My concern is that this template does not currently indicate why they are bolded. As I wrote above, a newbie or someone stumbling on this template for the very first time will have absolutely no idea why those specific items are bolded. Do really expect that they will immediately go to this talk page, this template talk page, and read your explanation? Zzyzx11 (Talk) 18:24, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Therefore, either footnotes should be added to the template to indicate why they are bolded, or the bolding should be removed. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 18:29, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Odd edits by Geomeister on 13 August

While I agree that a couple of valleys did need to be added (notably Salinas and Victor), I am contesting all of Geomeister's other edits. First of all, nearly all of the added areas are already included within larger areas already mentioned in the Regions section. For example, the Sonoma Valley is part of Wine Country. Second, SanSan and Tech Coast reek of original research, in violation of Wikipedia core policies. See Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. As a lifelong Californian, I have never seen those terms used by the L.A. Times, the S.F. Chronicle, the San Diego Union-Tribune, or the San Jose Mercury News. Such odd terms need to be substantiated by citations to published, verifiable sources. Even made-up words can be used on Wikipedia, but we need citations to sources to substantiate them, as I did for Wexis. If no one defends those edits, I'm reverting them in a few weeks.--Coolcaesar 03:00, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It's been nine days and no one's stepped forward to defend those links which have bloated the template to such a gargantuan size as to render it useless. I'm purging it immediately. --Coolcaesar 18:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Editing Metro Areas

I cut Chico out (as it does not strike me as a metropolitan area, as the editors above have discussed). If someone wants to re-insert, that's fine. I also added the Walnut Creek-Concord-Antioch listing as it appears there was not a listing addressing the exponentially growing communities of Concord, Antioch, and Brentwood. Because Walnut Creek is the most recognizable city of inner East Bay portion of Contra Costa County (and appears to be the cultural and economic hub of that particular region), I included it with Concord and Antioch. Please discuss this and any possible changes (and the reasons for them) here. Thanks. NoRCaLD503 17:50, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Um, that's kind of dangerous, because it risks bringing back the massive edit wars which we had in the past three years over which metro areas should be in the template. I know the MSAs aren't perfectly rational, and I resisted using them first as well, but the advantage to the current system is that by using the officially defined Census MSAs (see the 2005 MSA definition file from the Census at [2]), we have managed to minimize edit wars for several months now. As you can see from the file, the Census counts Contra Costa County and Alameda County together as the Oakland-Fremont-Hayward, CA Metropolitan Division of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. My guess is that Census hasn't seen any need to count Contra Costa County separately because its population is so small and it's not really a major metro area in itself yet; it's essentially a bedroom community for Alameda and San Francisco counties. After all, the TV newscasts say "San Francisco Oakland San Jose" in their opening graphics but they haven't added Walnut Creek or Concord yet!
Are you sure you want to reopen that can of worms and go back into continuous edit wars over which metro areas should be in the template? And trust me, edit wars are very time-consuming. I would prefer to go back to strictly adhering to the MSA definitions. --Coolcaesar 18:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
The MSAs are in no way rational (i.e. how is the little town of Chico a MSA but the entire county of Contra Costa not?) but in the interest of preventing edit-wars, I concur with this edit. NoRCaLD503 09:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Standardization of state templates

There is currently an ongoing discussion regarding standardization of state templates (primarily regarding layout and styling) at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. states/state templates. An effort was made earlier this year to standardize Canadian province templates (which mostly succeeded). Lovelac7 and I have already begun standardizing all state templates. If you have any concerns, they should be directed toward the discussion page for state template standardization. Thanks! — Webdinger BLAH | SZ 22:38, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Regions

What criteria is being used to determine what regions should be on this template? I do not want to see an edit war over this section similar to what happened with the metros section before we decided to strictly use Census MSAs. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:26, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I can see no reasonable criteria other than something larger than a city and less than a state. Actually, that isn't even correct, since the ambiguously named Harbor Area article is all part of the city of Los Angeles. Personal opinion: Anything in the regions section that is a subset of one of the other links should be removed. There may be a dozen links that all fit under Southern California for example. BlankVerse 12:46, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I kind of agree with you on that, except that if we take that to its ultimate conclusion, then all we need are three region links: Northern California, Central California, and Southern California. But regions like Silicon Valley and Wine Country should be significant enough to be mentioned in the template! So I am really not sure what is the best solution. What does everyone else think? --Coolcaesar 00:37, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
If there was some official, credible source to copy, it would make life easier. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 04:18, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I just deleted a bunch of 'regions' that are just parts of LA or LA County (e.g. Palos Verdes Peninsula). I also deleted some of the minor valleys such as Conejo Valley. I think that even with my deletions the regions section is still too large, but every criteria that I can think of would probably eliminate too many regions.

The list that User talk:Geomeister seems to be following is List of regions of the United States#California. BlankVerse 10:55, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

But that list suffers the same problem in that there is no official, credible source. Both that and the template seem to be listing arbitrary regions. Therefore, I am removing it from the template until this matter is resolved. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 20:12, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, Geomeister is adding a bunch of links that aren't regions. How are Salton Sea and Santa Ana Mountains regions of California? Are we going to list every mountain range and lake as regions? —Kenyon (t·c) 05:15, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I think listing the San Andreas Fault as a "region" is also a bit of a stretch. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 23:43, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Just purged some of Geomeister's original research again. SanSan and Tech Coast are both science fiction fantasies that have never come into use outside of very small geek communities; that is, they are not known or used by most of the people in the areas which those terms describe. Including them on the California template is nearly as stupid as putting the U.S., Canada, and Mexico on a North American Union template. While some North American intellectuals, myself included, believe that a North American Union is a laudable long-term foreign policy goal, it is currently a science fiction fantasy among a relatively small community of intellectuals which has little hope of becoming a reality in the foreseeable future. Wikipedia is not a soapbox or an indiscriminate collection of random information per official policies Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. If Geomeister wishes to push SanSan or Tech Coast, he or she is welcome to build their own site on WikiCities. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and as such must conform to certain content policies (otherwise it would not be an encyclopedia). --Coolcaesar 05:45, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Garish Color!

Don't know about anyone else, but I think the bright gold we're using here (and in every county template) is waaaaay too saturated. It should be toned down to something more like the Delaware template or West Virginia or even (if you still want a bright gold) New Jersey. As it stands it's hard to look at, and makes all the California-related pages stand out too much. I don't think a template such as this should be distracting from the main content, and this one sure is right now. All opposed? (Also, is there any way to mass change all the counties or is it a manual thing? Thanks) trisweb (Talk) 05:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you! Seriously. It looks much better. trisweb (Talk) 07:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Color

I just acted boldly and changed the color of the template..so if it is for the worse, just revert..I didn't like the first color as it appeared like the fool of new messages.--Alnokta 00:55, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

First, color that you added does not look too good. Second, the shade of gold is basically the same as Template:Pennsylvania and Template:New Jersey. Thirdly, I have never ever heard of a navigation template fooling people into thinking it is the "you have new messages" box. How is that possible? Unless you are using a different skin and/or tweaked your monobook.css file, I think the California flag with the white background, the view/talk page/edit/ links in one corner, the hide/show link in the other corner, and the large "State of California" makes it distinguishable. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 07:10, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
I meant the color only, why use it in another place..there are many many colors could be used..I wonder if there is an alternative to the current color..it is just a convenience imho..--Alnokta 03:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
iirc, gold was chosen because California is "The Golden State". Zzyzx11 (Talk) 03:34, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
you remember correctly, its also called:
  1. Grape State
  2. Land of Milk and Honey

smile.svg--Alnokta 14:31, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New California Flag Graphic

New version - updated bear
New version - updated bear

I recently created an new SVG for the Flag of California. The new version is designed to give a more accurate depiction of the bear. In particular, I attempted to get the textures and shapes as accurate as possible. The position of the star and size and proportions of the bear are compliant with the official flag code. To create the shading effect on the bear, I used an actual California Flag as a reference. The colors used in this image are also the official shades of red, brown and green (unfortunately, manufacturers rarely attempt to get the colors correct).
Anyway, I would like to hear your opinions on the changes ... and if we should use this image rather than the current one. Perhaps someone could replace the existing file on Wikimedia Commons (I created an account, but it is far too new). I also added this topic to the California discussion. Thanks for your time.-DevinCook (talk) 10:51, 29 January 2008 (UTC)