Template talk:Protected Areas of Oregon

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[edit] Wha'bout…

Clackamas Wild and Scenic River? (Mentioned on Clackamas River page.) What was the source for this page - is it "complete" according to certain criteria, or is there a need to add in places that may have been left out…? -Pete 16:05, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I have thought about adding a complete section for all of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System in Oregon - which would be a lot more than just the Clackamas WSR. But this this box is pretty long already, so I hesitated. You're right that it may be a worthy addition nevertheless.
Generally, the sources for the inclusions on this template are the various article lists of protected areas already in Wikipedia, depending in turn on those articles to have their verifiable citations in order. This template will be incomplete only to the extent that the source lists are. I included hidden comments in the code indicating which articles are referenced. I believe it's very important that if someone wants to add a protected area to this template, they need to make sure it's included on the source list first.
-Ipoellet 20:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] National areas

Under the template section for National Forests is an Other list with Crooked River National Grassland • Hells Canyon National Recreation Area • Newberry National Volcanic Monument • Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. Having a subsection with the same name as the section header ("National Forests") is a sign of something amiss. How about moving "other" to a new "National Areas" section since there doesn't seem to be enough to fill out sections for National Recreation Area, United States National Grassland, and U.S. National Monument. —EncMstr 19:44, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

The logic of including those "other" sites under the heading "National Forests" is because they are administered by the US Forest Service just like the sites named "National Forest". Land management if often under the same principles and practices, the same people carry out the management, and they are often patrolled by the same rangers as the adjacent "National Forests". The difference is really in name only.
That said, it was kind of awkward to have a section named "National Forests" and a subheading also "National Forests". So I went ahead and renamed the section to "National Forest System", which seems to be more catholic in what sorts of sites may be listed under it (in the same way that "National Park System" and "National Landscape Conservation System" embrace numerous different individual designations). -Ipoellet 00:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] wildernesses

Wildernesses aren't included, right? I added this template to Mount Hood Wilderness and then looked for other wilderness. Currently, there are 29 articles in Category:Wilderness Areas of Oregon. Surely, wilderness is more protected than wildlife refuge—I'd expect the section for it would be at or very near the top.

BTW, why is "Area" capitalized on this article name and in "Wilderness Areas"? —EncMstr 21:37, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

When I first put this template together, I didn't give any attention to Wilderness Areas because, in Oregon, the large majority of them are within national forests, which are already listed in the template. The Mount Hood Wilderness, for example, is a part of Mount Hood National Forest. On the other hand, this sort of overlap hasn't stopped us from including other sites, such as all the state parks that lie entirely within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, or the Newberry National Volcanic Monument which is arguably just a part of Deschutes National Forest. So if you or someone else wants to make the effort to include wildernesses, then I'll cheer you on.
The "Area" in the title of this template is capitalized for consistency with the other templates in Category:Protected areas templates. You're right that it wouldn't be in normal Wikipedia style. -Ipoellet (talk) 06:39, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

As discussed, I've added the Wilderness areas. The section title links to an article I have in the works, but got bogged down researching it. I'm unsure about the placement now. I'm thinking the wildlife refuges should come up toward the top to order from more pristine to less pristine. What order were they in before? Clearly I didn't detect it or follow it.... —EncMstr 03:38, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] State parks

The state parks sometimes change types, and the OPRD is inconsistent in how it refers to them. Are there any objections to sorting by area of the state rather than type? --NE2 18:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Since you are making so many changes to various Oregon things, perhaps it would be better to centralize the discussion on the WikiProject Oregon talk page... Katr67 (talk) 20:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
What else am I making changes to? (Not talking about "one-off" changes, but things that would benefit from said centralized discussion.) --NE2 21:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I just don't always agree with your redirects and page moves (many of which involve Oregon protected areas lately), that's all. But I don't want to get into that right now. I'm just thinking we could hash out a naming convention in addition to changing the way the template sorts. Also, nobody watches the Oregon template pages but me, unless I write something interesting in the edit summary box so people checking my contribs might notice. Finally, this tl transcludes to a ton of pages. Even if nobody objects here, I'd imagine there would be some outcry if you change things. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon/archive4#Massive recent template changes and new template. Katr67 (talk) 13:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm slow picking up on this thread, and I see the change is already done, but I'll register my objection to organizing the state parks geographically. My issues are threefold:
  1. There is no objectively set list of "regions" of Oregon. Thus the placement of a park in one region or another is often subject entirely to the discretion of editors, with no independent, verifiable source to cite as authority. For example, is Lewis and Clark State Recreation Site in metro Portland, or in the Gorge? Sure there are books out there that put it in the Gorge, but there are other books out there that don't. Their placement of the park in one region or another isn't because there's some sort of agreed standard out there, but for the convenience of that particular publication - which makes it not reliable in that particular aspect. A site's designation as a "state park" or "state heritage area" most definitely is objectively set. I know it all sounds persnickety, but there are darn good reasons Wikipedia is set up with those rules.
  2. I really don't find the parks' type designations to be all that unstable - just that there is lots of out-of-date and/or just plain incorrect information floating around out there. If one keeps up with OPRD's website and current paper publications, then it's easy to keep on top of any changes. I'd be interested to find out the source of NE2's perceptions on this point. (Added note: For example, I noticed that NE2 at one point referred to some sort of accounting code list for a list of state parks. As a budget analyst, I can tell you that accounting codes are good for accounting and not much else, full of shorthand, superseded names that still serve the accounting purpose, etc. That list was interestingly suggestive of things to look for elsewhere, but was not itself anything like a reliable source.)
  3. I don't find the geographic organization as useful as the type organization. With the template organized geographically, I'm out of luck if I'm asking the encyclopedic question of what are the historic sites in Oregon's state park system. Remember, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a travel guide.
Ipoellet (talk) 17:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
What are the historic sites? How about the Crown Point State Scenic Corridor, which is on the NRHP? You couldn't find that out from its name. --NE2 04:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

See also the thread at Talk:List of Oregon state parks. If we don't have consensus on the change, the template should be reverted. I'll leave a note at WPT:ORE. Waiting one day for input on changes to a little-watched page and then making the changes isn't consensus. For the record, I haven't developed an opinion either way. Katr67 (talk) 18:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sort by type or region?

According to NE2, the state parks listed in the template should be organized by region, as per the current version.

  • Neutral for now. Oppose Per the reasons outlined by Ipoellet. It's true that Oregonians can't even agree on what "Eastern Oregon" is and that the regional designations are overlapping and arbitrary. And the types have been fairly stable in recent years, though there is plenty of old information still out there. For example, many maps and websites still list certain places as state parks that have been handed over to city or county control years ago. Katr67 (talk) 19:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose I agree with the reasons above and would like to see the sorting by type restored. VerruckteDan (talk) 22:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Support; we can't always be sure of the type. For example, road signs say "Hat Rock State Recreation Area" (I'll find it in the ODOT video log if you need proof) and [1] shows that it was renamed ("Hat Rock State Park Master Plan, renamed as Hat Rock State Recreation Area"), but other sources show it to be a "state park". The regions I used are the ones on the OPRD site and in list of Oregon state parks; they may be a bit arbitrary but they were chosen by OPRD. --NE2 04:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)