Talk:Putnam County, New York

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Good article Putnam County, New York was a nominee for Geography and places good article, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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[edit] Major rewrite

Juliancolton, thanks for your efforts in improving this page. There are two different populations listed for Carmel (33,000 and 34,000) that should be made consistent.--Ana Nim (talk) 20:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I am happy to help! I will get on that population issue right now. I live in the Hudson Valley, so I might end up cleaning up a few of the county articles in New York. Juliancolton (talk) 16:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review

The article does not meet the Good article criteria at the present time, primarily with issues of completeness. There are also some organizational and reference citation issues as well. I'd rate it as a pretty good, solid, B-class article right now.

  • The history section only contains information cited form a single source. While some paragraphs look like some effort was made to paraphrase the information, others look like possible copyright violations (text copied word-for-word). It would be best to try and get additional information from additional sources, and integrate that into this section, and paraphrase information cited from the source that's there now. Done
  • The government section contains the minimum required information, and nothing more. I would recommend eliminating the subsection headers, and trying to integrate the executive and legislative branches together more. Talk about how they work together. Are there any courthouses in the county? When are elections held? Done
  • Geography starts out good, but then goes into a rather boring listing of reservoirs and adjacent counties. Listing is primarily a B-class article attribute, not GA. There's no information on climate, either. Done
  • The 'towns and municipalities' section actually looks pretty good. Make sure you link to all applicable city articles that exist here (some have no links).
  • Demographics is ok. What about including information about population growth?
  • Transportation is ok, but when providing citations for a bulleted list, it's better to put the citation after the colon in the introductory sentence, rather than on each individual item. Eliminate the subsection header for rail and integrate the information into one cohesive section, in prose. Also, the article only covers roads and rail; is there any air travel in the county? Done
  • Major sections missing: Economy, Education, Media (newspapers, radio, television), infrastructure (electricity, water, healthcare), Culture (annual cultural events, some points of interest is covered, but integrate that into a large culture section).

Hope this helps improve the article. Cheers! Dr. Cash (talk) 00:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I have done a couple of those things, and will work on the rest. Although, there is no major airport in Putnam, the only university or collage is the county collage, there is no major newspaper, but rather minor ones, etc. Would these need a section for just one collage of just one minor newspaper? Juliancolton (talk) 16:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

The section on courts is unnecessary. There is nothing unique about the Putnam County courts and its court system is virtually identical to every other county in the state outside of New York City. It adds nothing to an article on Putnam County to recite the structure of the state court system here. I deleted it once before but have not done so again in an effort to reach consensus on this. I'd be interested in hearing reasons why a section on the courts adds value to an article on Putnam.--Ana Nim (talk) 21:23, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
First, to someone who doesn't know anything about county courts, they don't know that it is the same as other county's courts. Also, per the GAN review, it is needed, although I don't know why it is necissary. Juliancolton (talk) 21:36, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
It would make more sense to me to just link to State Court where the New York State court structure is covered, and also linked to via an external link. Perhaps the GAN review is based on the notion that some counties have unique court structures, but this is not the case in New York generally, or for Putnam County, specifically. It just doesn't make sense to me that there should be 57 NY county pages with identical entries on the court systems. It just isn't encyclopedic.--Ana Nim (talk) 17:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
First, there are 62 counties in New York, not 57 ;), and second, the average person isn't going to see all 62 pages when they look for information of Putnam County. And third, it is what the GAN review says. I don't see why it hurts to keep it. Juliancolton (talk) 20:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Please take a deep breath, relax, and read what I wrote. ;-) I said Putnam's courts are identical to the other counties outside NYC. There are 5 NYC counties. 57 + 5 = 62. As for the GAN review, first, I don't think it makes sense to be a slave to format when the result is silly. Second, and more importantly, perhaps GAN's criteria refers to aspects such as describing where the courthouses are located and what is significant about them, and not to the organizational structure of the courts. A link to the standard would be helpful here, as I cannot locate it. (Just what specifically does it say an article on counties should have as respects courts?) Finally, the most important and encyclopedic aspects of the Putnam courts are omitted: 1) The old courthouse is the oldest working courthouse in the state; and 2) Putnam just opened a brand new, modern courthouse a few weeks ago. Those are the kind of facts that should be in the section, and not an off-point discussion of the organizational structure of the state court system. In fact, the Good Article criteria states that a good article "stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary details." The structure of the courts in all non-NYC counties is unnecessary detail and certainly not focused on Putnam County.--Ana Nim (talk) 18:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Adding only one new source to the history section doesn't exactly make that 'complete'. I would think more research needs to be done here. The section also pretty much leaves off with WWII and then states that it's "one of the fastest growing counties in NY." There's a whole lot of time between WWII and 2008. What happened in the past 60 years?

The 'government' section seems ok.

The climate section is too short -- there's only two tables and no text actually talking about the climate and weather patterns. This section should actually be in a subsection under 'geography', not a main section.

There still needs to be a section on the economic infrastructure; I'm sure there are businesses and industry to talk about here. What do people do for a living in this county?

An 'education' section doesn't necessary need to include colleges. What about primary & secondary schools? Libraries? Many counties have some type of school district (or districts) associated with them. How many students? How many teachers? Are there any notable schools (magnet schools, governor's schools)? Any teachers of the year working in the district/county?

Lack of a specific 'media' section is probably ok, if there's no real media within the county and all the news & tv stations are from nearby cities. It still might be nice to mention some of the smaller papers, or even if there are some radio stations broadcasting from the county. But this is less of an issue and more of a suggestion.

Article still needs something about the local culture. Local cultural events, county fairs, merge the 'points of interest' into this section, talk about any museums or local/state parks that might be present. Is there a substantial immigrant community and where did these people come from? How has this impacted the local culture?

Still needs a short section about 'infrastructure'. Where do residents receive electricity, water supply, healthcare?

I'll put this on hold for now. Cheers! Dr. Cash (talk) 15:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I hate to not be able to do that stuff, but I have searched all over the internet for infastructure, and all I could find is where the county gets its electricity. Would it effect that article alot to leave that out? Juliancolton (talk) 17:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
What you've added about infrastructure is really just a list and hardly worth mentioning. It's really just a listing in disguise as prose, and isn't all that important. I wouldn't worry about it too much for GA status, but at least, I'd move it to the very last section, and maybe make it bullet points for now (as more research is done, possibly offline, in these old things called "libraries", the information can be expanded).
The absolute musts at this stage for GA is:
1. expanding the history section to include (a. more than two references, and b. don't largely stop at World War II).
2. information on education needs to be added, preferably not just a listing of schools in disguise as prose.
3. Add an economy section.
4. The culture section is probably ok, but I still think it can be expanded more. Try to weave the information better together, rather than having two subsections, and one subsection with a single line. Promote this section to earlier in the article, maybe right after the economy section.
5. Also, can the data in the two separate climate tables be incorporated into a single table (answer: Yes, it can (minor issue).

Dr. Cash (talk) 18:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Putnam county is a small and rural county, and the history info is sparse. I think three refs for the history is pretty good, but I will continued my serch. Juliancolton (talk) 22:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
You might try looking for a paper copy of this. Choess (talk) 21:48, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid this article still does not meet the Good article criteria, and cannot be passed. The lead section is still too short, there are still lots of very short sections and subsections, indicating a dire need of expansion of content, the history section still largely cuts off with World War II and then goes on to just list county executives, which is already in the government section immediately following it, and the reference citations are not in the proper format. I've left this on hold as long as I could, but the on hold time has clearly elapsed a long time ago, so I have no choice but to fail it at this time. Dr. Cash (talk) 06:22, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, but there's just no more information. Putnam County is a very small, rural, county, which has basically no economy, no history after WW II and really nothing more to write about. In any event, thank you for your review and comments, which I will try to work off. Juliancolton The storm still blows... 13:30, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Being a small, rural county is not an excuse for skimping on content. There's plenty of small towns out there; Basin, Montana is probably smaller, and they certainly didn't skimp on the history section. Dr. Cash (talk) 16:46, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Basin Montana was a mining town, and had loads of geneological and geographical history. Putnam County doesn't have those things. You have to live in the Hudson Valley to know that. If I were to rewrite Dutchess County, New York, it would have enough history for a sub page with all of the historic sites, presidents, ancient history and such. Putnam just doesn't have that. Now, I don't want to be a pain in the neck here, but there's just no more information, so I am afraid I am going to have to abandon it, at least until there is a published work or a good website that I find that would include new information. Juliancolton The storm still blows... 17:07, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Education

The article as revised today contains this statement: "Every town and municipality in Putnam has its own school distict..." That is not correct. Cold Spring does not have its own school district; they send their students to the Garrison district. Patterson does not have its own school district; most kids from there go to Carmel schools. Kent does not have its own district; most from there to Carmel schools. Some parts of I am correcting the statement to say that the county is divided into six districts: Brewster, Carmel, Garrison, Haldane, Mahopac, and Putnam Valley.--12.144.20.254 (talk) 21:52, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Patterson does have one. And even if most kids go to Carmel, we still have to mention the rest of them. And Cold Spring is not a town, but rather a village. That is why I said "every town and municipality". Juliancolton (The Giants Win!) 21:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I correct myself; Patterson does not have one. I will fix that, and thanks for catching that for me. Juliancolton (The Giants Win!) 21:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Cold Spring is still a municipality, so the statement is wrong any way. And the data on Brewster being largest is way off too. Please check your data before posting.--Ana Nim (talk) 22:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Cold Springs is not a municipality. It is a village, and is within a larger town. Also, I never said that Brewster was the largest, but with further research, that is correct. Juliancolton (The Giants Win!) 22:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but you are wrong on both counts. You wrote Brewster high is the largest, but it only has 1200 students compared to Mahopac's 1600. Carmel has more too. Also, the term municipality includes incorporated villages. Cold Spring is an incorporated village, so it is a municipality.--Ana Nim (talk) 22:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand that. I don't ever remember adding that statement to the article, but I will not continue to argue. Also, in New York, a village and a municipalitiy are different classifications, so I believe that Cold Spring is indeed not a municipality. I will leave it at that, and if you believe that the information I have added to the Education section is incorrect, I will correct it to the best of my abilities. Juliancolton (Talk) 16:24, 11 February 2008 (UTC)