Talk:Seattle, Washington/Archive 2

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Contents

Streets

Just came across List of streets in Manhattan. Wonder how many streets in Seattle (if any) are notable enough for an article... --Lukobe 07:42, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Aurora, probably. Is Pike notable for more than the Market? Yesler is notable for "Skid row".--SarekOfVulcan 19:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Aurora makes sense. Yesler, too. Pike, on the other hand, isn't even really notable for the Market, since that's Pike Place... Hmm, what else. Broadway and the Ave., maybe? Maybe Madison...maybe...maybe Lake Washington Boulevard... --Lukobe 21:30, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Aurora, sure. Lake City Way/Bothell Way might merit an article. Possibly Rainier or MLK. Maybe Jackson, both as an axis and because of the whole Jackson Street After Hours thing. West Marginal Way because of Richard Hugo's The Real West Marginal Way.
Broadway and bus route 9 are after NYC, as are numerous Broadways and route 9s. (Brooklyn : ) --GoDot 06:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I'd tend to do the Seattle boulevards as a group, rather than single out Lake Washington Boulevard: Interlaken Boulevard is comparably notable, as is Green Lake Way. I think Broadway, the "Ave." and Pike/Pine are better handled in their respective neighborhoods. Probably Madison, as the only street that runs clear from Elliott Bay to Lake Washington; I believe it also once had a ferry at the end. Yesler would have the additional aspect that it once was a trolley route that also went clear to the lake, and remnants of the old trolley route down from what is now the end of Yesler still exist. BTW, do we have anything on the defunct trolley lines or Lake Washington ferries?
HistoryLink.org, Seattle Municipal Archives, Seattle Room at SPL.
What boulevards there are were part of the Olmsted Brothers grand streets and parks plan for Seattle, little implemented. Cf. boulevard, drive, parkway in Pacific Northwest Garden History. --GoDot 06:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
The "Mercer Mess" might deserve an article. And I could imagine an article on the former streets that are now all more or less footpaths through Seattle Center; if you look closely, the street grid pretty much continues through the grounds, with few interruptions. Also, if we could get a citation on which street is most interrupted by staircases... It might be 2nd Ave. N. - Jmabel | Talk 08:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Some of the other cities I edit, or follow have dozens of articles about individual streets. Most of them tend to be stubs though. We have plenty of notable streets by the standards other cities use - though I'd prefer starting a larger article about Seattle's streets with sections for the major ones, then start spinning out sections into articles as they get lengthy to avoid the stub problem. SchmuckyTheCat 09:39, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I like that idea, so long as it would come up in the search. —WAvegetarian•CONTRIBUTIONSTALK• EMAIL• 09:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC) P.S. Why are we all awake at this time of morning on a Monday?
I like that idea. Streets of Seattle? Or we could commandeer Street layout of Seattle for the purpose, changing its name. --Lukobe 00:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, State Route 99 (Washington) (stupid name courtesy of User:SPUI[1] [2]) has some Aurora info, and links to the Alaskan Way Viaduct and several other existant articles on Seattle's various streets. 24.18.215.132 01:38, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

(Washington) State Routes are now colloquially SR, as SR 520 or SR-520. --GoDot 06:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Hybrid busses?

I was visiting Seattle and saw the busses. It looked like they were hooked on a electric cable above but at the same time they could unhook and go off down the street. I'm not a local so I was wondering what is up with that. Are they hybrids? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jess523s (talk • contribs) 23 January 2006

A little of both. Some are trolley-only, some can switch back and forth, and some are "true" hybrids-they switch to hybrid mode for the (currently-closed) tunnel, and run on the regular engine the rest of the time. See http://transit.metrokc.gov/am/vehicles/vehicles.html for more details.--SarekOfVulcan 03:27, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Lenin Statue and Seattle Politics

Seattle may lean to the left, but in no way does it have any specific ties to mother russia and russia's reverence of Lenin. Seattle has many more cultural ties to other areas of the world that are much stronger. And to have a statue of Lenin as a symbolic representation of who and what Seattle is, is ridiculous. Surely we can find a picture of something else that has been in Seattle a lot longer than this rescued Russian statute that was only relatively recently brought to Seattle.

Well, I don't really agree. When I moved to Seattle 7 years ago, this was one of the first landmarks that was brought to my attention. It's notable, for whatever reason. --SarekOfVulcan 17:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
7 years is not very long. I've lived in Seattle for 3 times that long. And 21 years is not that long either! The lenin statue is really a novelty thing, because who else has one? Other than Russia? But it surely does not represent Seattle. Unless you want Wikipedia to be interpreted as representing Seattle as a communist/socialist city. Which most wikipedians would not want to do. And I am sure that Seattle would not want that either.64.16.132.37 22:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, but... Fremont. 'Nuff said. :-)--SarekOfVulcan 22:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, it's the "People's Republic of Fremont," after all. This town is pretty lefty, and Fremont is decidedly so. --Lukobe 22:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC) (30-year resident [born here])

I think it is just Fremont wanting to be different and cooler than say Ballard or Wallingford. --8bitJake 22:34, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Fremont is different, and a fun place, and the lenin statue pic belongs on a page about Fremont, not the main Seattle page.--Floridagators 01:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I lived in Fremont and we are quite proud of the statue as well as the Fremont Troll. I think it deserves a place on the Seattle main page. It is a tourist point and it is quite political. --8bitJake 01:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I live in Fremont, and I like the Fremont Troll. Let's put that picture there! That represents Seattle better than Lenin.64.16.132.37 13:44, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the fact that the statue of lenin is in front of a Taco Del Mar taco shop points out that the artwork is totally out of context and that is the politial statement that it is making. The context is more important than who the statue is of. --8bitJake 17:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

For the record, Taco Del Mar wasn't behind the statue when the statue was put there, so I don't think it's accurate to read into that as being the political statement that the statue is supposedly making. Actually Fremont Hemp Co. used to be there. I think hemp is more associated with the stereotype of American leftists than a statue of Lenin is, so the statue wasn't exactly out of context at that time. Indeed, the statue is not out of context in Fremont. When Fremonst secedes, surely they'll mount their flag on the guy's head. And I think the statue is fine on the Seattle article, though it would be fine off it as well. It's a significant landmark for its uniqueness, and residents do indeed show it to visitors along with the troll, but are there more deserving landmarks than the statue that are not represented? I think in the case of any city it's kind of hard to represent everything of significance and what does end up in the article is pretty much arbitrary. That's pretty typical on Wikipedia in my opinion. Lastly, I suspect that those who don't want it on the page are trying to impose their own anti-leftist sentiment and should move to Bothell with the Seattle Times (at which point they should dive into editing the Bothell article and stay away from this one.) thoreaubred 04:20, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

More, look closely at the work, the artist, and the story the artist told in his interpretation of a commissioned work. By analogy, how does the piece qualify with respect to Oscar Wilde's criterion evaluating writing? Now how does it suit? Further, as Wikipedians, I suggest due care with Newspeak words such as conflated "communist/socialist" and casual meanings that have changed in just recent decades. --GoDot 07:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Casual meanings such as? --Lukobe 17:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
This could drift way off-topic too quickly. Maybe further on some more appropriate page. "Casual meanings such as" those of most any hot-button buzzwords in public life.
Briefly, I suggest the (past tense) Principles of Newspeak (plain) at the ending of Nineteen Eighty-Four. In popular usage, loaded or emotional words are used with similar intent and little regard to their dictionary meanings. "Communist" and "socialist", (even "Communist" and "communist", for that matter) are commonly conflated, "capitalism" and "freedom", though in meaning and historical practice they are quite distinct.
"However, there exist striking instances where Orwell's speculations have matched with reality. Orwell suggested that all philosophies prior to Ingsoc (English Socialism) would be covered under the term 'oldthink', bearing with it none of the nuances of these ideologies, but simply a connotation of badness. Since the Cold War, a similar effect has been wrought on the word 'communism', where it no longer bears with it, to most people, the doctrines of Marx, Engels, or Lenin, but rather a general bad connotation." [ Newspeak ] [Emphasis added]
To avoid getting tangled up in our personal perspectives, consider how "witch" was even more loaded than today in, say, politics and patriarchy in Mediaeval Europe or colonial Salem.
To the point here in this post: "The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of [insert desired correct Weltanschauung], but to make all other modes of thought impossible".[ Principles of Newspeak ] "The basic idea behind Newspeak was to remove all shades of meaning from language".* This often passes for discourse in a narrow political forum like pop culture or corporate media. Cf. Thought-terminating cliché.
_____
[asterisk]Newspeak, attribution not previously provided, from an afterword by Erich Fromm in 2003 U.S. edition. (Content of the foreword by Thomas Pynchon as well as the afterword is frequently plagiarized, as an engine search for key phrases demonstrates.) The foreword is also relevant to this thread (i.e., middle paragraph, p. xxi).

References

  • Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen eighty-four, "Appendix: The Principles of Newspeak", pp. 309–323. New York: Plume, c2003.
    Pynchon, Thomas (2003). "Foreword to the Centennial Edition" to Nineteen eighty-four, pp. vii–xxvi . New York: Plume, c2003.
    Fromm, Erich (1961). "Afterword" to Nineteen eighty-four, pp. 324–337. New York: Plume, c2003.
    Orwell's text has a "Selected Bibliography", pp. 338–9; the foreword and the afterword each contain further references.
    Copyright explicitly extended to digital and any other means.
    Plume edition is reprint of hardcover by Harcourt. Plume edition also in a Signet edition.

--GoDot 06:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Was Fremont Hemp Co. in the space that Taco Del Mar now occupies plus where the gelateria is now, or what? - Jmabel | Talk 05:14, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the precise makeup of the businesses on that block. Honestly, the last time I looked at the block that closely was a couple years ago when I was showing a visitor from out of town the Lenin statue (hah!) I just know that at some point in the last few years when I was down there I noticed that Fremont Hemp Co. was gone and Taco Del Mar was in its place. thoreaubred 05:56, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I know that it's the owner of the gelateria who landscaped the plaza, which has no official name, but (as far as I can tell) is increasingly coming to be known as "Lenin Square". - Jmabel | Talk 05:33, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Lenin Picture

Re Image:Fremont Lenin.jpg vs. Image:Fremont Lenin 2.png -- Then I don't know what's wrong with my monitor, because most pictures look fine, but all I see is a sea of black with some dim grey highlights. For all I know it could be a statue of a Greek fisherman lugging a net full of cod. The Taco Del Mar logo is more recognizable than Lenin. It looks like it needs brightening, which is why I added gamma and contrast to it. - Keith D. Tyler 20:04, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Missing Source

I'm working on a paper about seattle & tried to follow the link to the "Seattle: Booms and Busts" at http://pantheon.yale.edu/~eds25/DrizzlyCity.rtf It seems to be broken. Furthermore, it seems yale disabled crawling or caching all pages in the hosted domain--which means I wasn't able to secure a cached copy. If anybody is reading this and has a copy of the file, could you please send it to arthur (at) imaging-resource (dot) com

More to the point, since the author has given wikipedia blanket permission to use the paper, is there any way this file could be hosted as a source in wikipedia in order to provide access? This is obviously an important source of information for this article and others online (I've seen it referenced many other places online). -Wiki neophyte —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.42.179.196 (talk • contribs)

Wonder if the author, Emmett Shear, is still reachable at sarbandia@hotmail.com ? Might try e-mailing him directly. --Lukobe 06:25, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

First Starbucks location: contradictory

This article lists the current location of the old Starbucks at Pike Place Market as the second, not the original. However, both the Pike Place Market and Starbucks pages say that it is indeed the original location of the franchise. Which one is correct?

I believe that the original starbucks stand was inside the market, then later moved to its present location on the east side of Pike Pl. Aep 22:29, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
The one in the market is the original (and long predates the franchising). As far as I know, it has always stood on the east side of Pike Place, in the market, where it is now. Certainly it was already there in the late 1970s. However, it doesn't look much like it did when it was a single store. Now it looks pretty much like any other Starbucks. Then it looked more like Markus Coffee on Connaught Street in London (from the same era; I have no what Markus looks like today), only a little less orderly (throw in a small dose of McNulty's Tea & Coffee Company on Christopher Street in Manhattan). - Jmabel | Talk 22:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Further remark: I can't absolutely swear that they are in exactly the same storefront; I am pretty confident that they are within 100 feet of where they were in the 1970s. - Jmabel | Talk 05:46, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Starbucks Coffee has been at Pike Place Market since the coffee company was founded there in 1971. The current Pike Place Market location is NOT the original Starbucks store! I called the downtown Seattle library and talked with a refference expert who has also been a Starbucks fan since the 70's. He looked up old Seattle phone books and confirmed that the original Pike Place Market location was at 2000 Western Ave from 1971 until sometime around 1976. The 1977 phone book is the first one to list the 1912 Pike Place location for Starbucks! There's the proof. If you don't believe me call the reference desk at the downtown Seattle Public Library 206-386-4636. [3]

An anon has put a remark in the article that needs to be removed and figured out about this - that old phone books show the store at 2000 Western and now at 1921 Pike Place. Without going down there to look, or even pulling out a map - 2000 Western is Victor Steinbruck Park. I know the park existed in the late 1980s, but if it was buildings that needed to be demolished Starbucks moved across the street - meh. It's still the "same" store, and was probably still the only Starbucks at the time of the move, if it moved.
If anyone needs an excuse to go down there and research, here are some discounts this weekend: [4] SchmuckyTheCat 19:43, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Also, are those addresses right? 2000 Western should be the east side of the street, and 1921 Pike Place should be the west side of the street, but the current Starbucks is on the east side of the street. What? SchmuckyTheCat 19:48, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
It's 1912 Pike Place.[5] Postdlf 00:02, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced the phone book claim is substantial evidence, even if it didn't require us to take an anonymous editor's word on his research. The fact is that there is a widespread belief that the one open at Pike Place now is the original. The City of Seattle is convinced that the one open at Pike Place now is the original.[6] As are plenty of other sites online.[7] The doubter posted in a comment on Image talk:Original Starbucks.jpg (moved there by me from the image description page) that in the mid 1980's, "it was common knowledge among all employees that the current store in Pike Place Market was NOT the original location." You'd think it would be easier to verify that were it true without having to resort on phone book hearsay. Absent conflicting evidence of comparable weight, I don't think we have a good reason to change the statement of fact that the current Pike Place location is the original. Postdlf 23:35, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, so I went ahead and asked Zev Siegl, one of the founders and the first paid employee.
Starbucks first location was at the intersection of Western Avenue, Pike Place and Virginia Street, on the northeast corner, in a long-gone building called the Harbor Heights Hotel. This is 1/2 block north of the current store. It moved to its present location a long time ago, in the late 1970's.
This would put the store at 2000 Western. There are also some city archive documents from that time period that identify that parcel with Starbucks 1-6-J R Block; Hotel Conklin; Market Tavern; Starbucks 2000-04 Western Avenue. So, this is the same store, but it moved locations. I don't think the current wording is incorrect. SchmuckyTheCat 02:30, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Interesting... Maybe a footnote should be added to explain the location change? Postdlf 16:54, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
In what way is a telephone book hearsay? If a business is listed in it five years straight under the same address (at a time when there was only the Bell System phone book, and a mistaken entry could cost a business a lot of money) you can be sure the address is correct. ProhibitOnions 23:25, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
It sounds as if the original Starbucks WAS north of the current store--as currently written the article makes it sound like it never moved. Will tweak, see what you think. --Lukobe 08:07, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
BTW, the source of my ignorance of the move is now apparent: I moved here in '77. - 15:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Snowfall is not uncommon as annual total can be up to 12 inches

Where did this snowfall accumulation stuff come from? It seldom snows in Seattle and almost never accumulates rarely lasting more than a day. Is something thinking of the eastern foothills?--Silverback 12:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

The stat "annual accumulation can measure up to 12 inches" is probably accurate, but I agree not very common. I think it really depends on what part of the city you're in, as areas slightly north or east of downtown can have higher elevations and receive more snowfall. As this page points out:
Seattle does not get a 'predictable' annual snowfall. Since 1984, annual snowfall at the Seattle Tacoma Airport weather station has ranged from trace amount to 20 inches in a 24-hour period.
And average annual snowfall typically quoted seems to range from 7 inches [8] to 12 inches [9] which may be a geography difference or how you measure "snowfall."
While the existing sentence is concise, I agree that it is probably misleading and should probably be rewritten. I'll get the ball rolling with a suggestion:
"While snowfall is not uncommon in Seattle, accumulation rarely lasts for extended periods of time. In addition, Seattle receives less snowfall than most locations at the same latitude."
Of course, both facts above are owing to the marine environment, which could potentially be thrown in too. Feel free to tweak/completely rewrite that a bit. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 19:02, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Are you serious? I haven't seen more than half an inch in years...

external links needs pruning

I'm goin' in! Feel free to re-add ones I delete if you really think they're important, but as it stands, I think there are too many in there... --Lukobe 02:13, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Zombie Party Killings

A GUNMAN killed six young people at a "zombie party", where revellers were made up to look dead yesterday.
The killer shot himself in the head when challenged by police as he left the murder house.
Two wounded party-goers were taken to hospital.
Seattle police scoured the scene for clues as to what prompted the shooting spree in the city's trendy Capitol Hill neighbourhood.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18614547-38198,00.html

Why the heck hasn't this been mentioned? Been trying to see if it has an article already created, the details I've read so far sound like the theme of a hollywood b-grade movie.  :/ Hope no one here is affected by this. 211.30.80.121 04:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

  • Because Wikipedia isn't a newspaper. I don't think this article mentions Wah Me either, though I believe somewhere on Wikipedia, Wah Me has an article, and I'm sure this will too. SchmuckyTheCat 15:14, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

It might get it’s own article eventually but it is way to soon to write an encyclopedia article when there is so little facts known on this tragedy. There is a current media storm and it will take some time for the truth to come out. --8bitJake 00:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

  • actually, after I responded above, I found an article already existed, Capitol Hill massacre, but it was a massive copyvio, so I re-wrote it. I still don't believe it needs a reference in the main Seattle article. SchmuckyTheCat 00:15, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Map w/landmarks

Map needed
 It is requested that a map or maps be included in this article to improve its quality.
Wikipedians in the Seattle area may be able to help!

Any volunteers to update/flesh out Seattle_map.png? The original creator appears to have abandoned it and I don't have the time to do it myself (it was wishful thinking on my part when I said I might do so six weeks ago). --Lukobe 08:13, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Goodwill

Does anyone really use "City of Goodwill"? Wasn't that just a publicity thing around the Goodwill Games? - Jmabel | Talk 16:03, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

It's been about a week; no one has answered, I'm removing it. - Jmabel | Talk 04:16, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Chinook

("alki" being a Chinook word meaning, roughly, "eventually")

Was Chinook Jargon or Chinookan languages intended? There should be source for this statement either way. —Firespeaker 10:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

This can be found in any number of guides to Seattle and on many Web pages. I'm a relative newcomer to the area, but it was one of the first things I learned about Seattle, and I was surprised it wasn't mentioned in the article. Says the P-I: "In these early days, an anonymous pioneer with a sense of humor modified the name of New York by appending the Chinook word 'alki' -- which means 'by and by.'" Seattle's convention and visitor bureau has much the same story, though they confirm it is Chinook Jargon. ("By and by" rather than "eventually" seems to be the canonical translation of "alki," but I used "eventually" since "by and by" is a bit archaic). The Chinook Jargon article does list Alki. I made some minor tweaks the sentence today. Jerry Kindall 22:13, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Rat City Rollergirls ???

Does this amateur sports team really need to be listed in the table with the other Seattle professional sports teams? If so, why not Seattle Junior Hockey or the UW Huskies? I feel it just doesn't belong there. 71.121.137.40 02:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

They've been getting a lot of attention lately. I could go either way on this. - Jmabel | Talk 15:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Well it is becoming a part of the Seattle music sceen and Seattle culture. The Seattle Times had a blog and covered the Rat City Rollergirls on the nationals. I sort of think the Huskies should be listed since that is a major regional team.--8bitJake 19:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Neighborhood articles issues

(Moved from my personal talk page. --Lukobe 21:16, 25 April 2006 (UTC))
Subheadings added, posts moved to relevant subheadings, text copied from Lake City, Northgate, and University District neighborhoods articles. --GoDot 04:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Summary of this post: Proposed edits. Make as clear and concise as can. Accuracy is a goal.
1. Typos 2. Style 3. Punctuation 4. Major and minor arterials 5. More accurate 6. { Seattle neighborhoods } & template _. Conclusion
--GoDot 07:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC) [unless otherwise noted], --04:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

1. Typos

[Reply from personal talk page: Fixing typos introducing typos, (which can happen).] Yes, a typo was inadvertently introduced in fixing typos. Henceforth, I'll enlarge the text of my display.

In fixing, I was also looking to making as concise as can, without losing the existing sense of the writer.

2. Style

For style, since The Chicago Manual of Style is referenced in Wikipedia: Manual of Style, it might be a fair extrapolation that the Chicago Style is otherwise generally the standard (per Wikipedia, of course). I might slip, though, 'cause I also like the Modern Language Association (MLA) style.

"[N]orth- and southbound" (N-S) and "(east- and westbound)" (E-W) are in themselves less important in that all the avenues in greater (metro) Seattle have their compass direction following, and these all run near N-S; all the streets have their compass direction preceding, and these all run near E-W. This could be a boilerplate footnote common to all the 'pedia entries for metropolitan neighborhoods, making the body of the entry that much more smooth reading, and making convenient pasting the note into entries. This could be such as:
Note: Metropolitan streets are laid out and designated in a pattern. See Street layout of Seattle.

Adding the compass point and direction to every instance in a sentence or a list can become redundant and less readable.

Compass points do not have periods, as, for example neither does NATO or the element Al. [Chicago Style, Wikipedia Boxing the compass and Cardinal direction ]. The official designations on maps and on actual official street signs use the standard convention. The official designations in USPS addresses use the standard convention. Another way to think of this may be to consider the compass points as symbols ilke those of the Periodic Table. (emphasis added --GoDot 05:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC))

Numbers less than one hundred are generally written in words (incidentally distinguishing them from numbered items or maths at a glance). Particularly with few syllables, this makes for smoother reading.

--GoDot 07:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context, (WP:CONTEXT).

Washington State is a proper noun.

WP suggests avoid overlinking dates. Linking the recent decades years (post-1914, post-1950 or so) may not be sufficiently relevant.
Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context, WP:CONTEXT

It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. [...] It's not always an easy call. [...] This [...] is in dynamic tension with the general rule to build the web.

WP:CONTEXT also recommends linking only a first occurrence. --GoDot 04:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Where is "/" a formal grammatical character?
Recommendation by WP:MoS:

Slashes:
Avoid joining two words by a slash, as it suggests that they are related, but does not say how. Spell it out to avoid ambiguities. Also, the construct and/or is awkward outside of legalese. Use "x or y, or both," to explicitly conjoin with the inclusive or, or "either x or y, but not both," to explicitly specify the exclusive or.


--GoDot 04:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

3. Punctuation

Further, Lukobe wrote,
>
However, in Seattle, "Ave." is usually spelled with the period. (Proper nouns can take the form of abbreviations.)
>
It could be interesting to find refs. I think I've seen it both ways in print, though I don't recall where or when. But then, punctuation marks are popularly commonly added or left out willy-nilly, as The Economist contributor Lynne Truss has amusingly documented.

Some references found. See The Ave. --GoDot 04:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The only rationale I know about for "Ave." with a period in a nickname is to distinguish from Ave as Latin. Since this is on their beat, maybe the city desk of the local weekly knows.

Periods are full stops, so as such they should be minimized unless a full stop is intended.

3.a. If a key phrase is copied from original text, inaccurate results may be returned if extraneous punctuation is not removed. As in English English (the Queen's English), the punctuation belongs within quotation marks if and only if that was so in the original. It's time for Wikipedia to enter the late 20th century with accurate useage. It's more accurately "'The Ave'." at the end of a sentence.

"Include the punctuation mark inside the quotation marks only if the sense of the punctuation mark is part of the quotation" (WP:MoS#Quotation marks). --GoDot 04:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

4. Major and minor arterials

Copied from Talk:University District.

In editing and in Lukobe's reply, my
>
arterials are Brooklyn and 20th Avenues NE (north- and southbound). NE Pacific, 45th, and [part of] 50th Streets are the east- and westbound thoroughfares.
>
delineates light-duty nominal arterials, and heavily-used interneighborhood major thoroughfares or shopping streets ([un]like The Ave). The above Brooklyn and 20th are good representative examples of relatively small, short, stop-sign-and-go minor arterials that are pretty unsuitable for heavy interneighborhood traffic. These may not even be shown on published maps of major arterials. NE Pacific isn't a good thoroughfare either--it's evolved from a sedate, elegant, tree-lined boulevard into an open, rather widely spread-out, ad hoc, cobbled-together east-west connector for converging some five major and minor north-south arterials. The point here in a wiki entry is somehow emphasizing the through streets for visitors, and de-emphasizing the small arterials familiar to locals (and bicyclists : ) .

So, in general for such 'pedia entries, maybe list the main thoroughfares first (journalism style), and then the minor arterials, using turns of phrase for the two that make their relative utility clear.

So far, "principal arterial" xor "main thoroughfare" and "collector arterial" (though I'd prefer "main thoroughfare" for its variety).
The City defines Principal, Minor and Collector arterials:

  1. Principal arterials serve as the principal route for the movement of traffic through the City. These connect interstate freeways to major activity centers, to minor and collector arterial streets and directly to destinations, as well as interneighborhood traffic.
  2. Minor arterials are generally located on neighborhood boundaries except when necessary to provide adequate service to traffic generators located within neighborhoods.
  3. Collector arterials are typically located within neighborhood boundaries and serve small group of stores, schools, small apartment complexes, and residential land uses.[arterials legend.pdf in parent directory.]

So perhaps, "The [principal] thoroughfares are the Roosevelt Way and 11th Avenue one-way pair, 15th Avenue NE, and University Way; minor arterials are Brooklyn and 20th Avenues NE (all north- and southbound). NE Pacific, 45th, and 50th Streets are the east- and westbound thoroughfares." The one-way pair is not at all apparent to those who don't already know. One-way streets are not always immediately adjacent. Which is which direction is less essential since the pair conforms to the "drive on the right side of the road" convention. That they are not so well-known is demonstrated by drivers occasionally going the wrong way for blocks. [ed. --07:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)]

Lukobe wrote,
>
Roosevelt Way, 11th Avenue, and University Way have lost their "NE" designation by your change.
>
I'm attempting to minimize redundancy by grouping like together in a single sentence, such as "Avenues NE" in one and "NE Streets" in another. This could do well in general for smooth readability of wiki entries on neighborhoods.

This is way too long a post for me to deal with right now :) but I do take issue with one statement of yours: The point here in a wiki entry is somehow emphasizing the through streets for visitors, and de-emphasizing the small arterials familiar to locals (and bicyclists : ) . I don't think that is the point at all, is it? Wikipedia isn't a tourist guide, but an an encyclopedia. Thoughts? --Lukobe 21:20, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Clarification:
"The point here"
I'm trying to be brief, which carries risk of being less precise. My intent is, "the point here in this particular detail in a wiki entry is somehow emphasizing the through streets carrying interneighborhood traffic, for readers at a glance, for non-locals, for a demographic overview; and de-emphasizing the small arterials that are effectively residential streets with controlled intersections, used by locals for intraneighborhood travel and therefore of little more consequence than residential sidestreets." A walk along a major thoroughfare and a walk [in the U District] along, say, 20th NE (particularly all except the two blocks between NE 50th and 54th streets) amply demonstrates.
The distinction in writing is something like that between upper- and lower-level headings in an outline form.
But the post was far too long in the first place. [--GoDot 07:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC)]

5. More accurate

For [the] Northgate Seattle [collection of] neighborhood[s], a brief description of North College Park and the wiki entry content as a combined "Northgate and North College Park neighborhoods" should suffice [for now].

See also 6. { Seattle neighborhoods } & template, below. --GoDot 04:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

In general, suggest correctness would be more important than appearance.

5.a. The Ave

"The University of Washington University Book Store" is more accurate. "The Universtiy of Washington's College of Medicine" would be similarly more awkward than such as "The University of Washington College of Medicine". The mention of a theatre chain (albeit a [formerly] local one) without mention of neighborhood icon Andy Shiga of Shiga's Imports looks very much like product placement.

Both local newspapers of record officially use "The Ave", no period [Cf. The Ave].

I feel like I'm missing something coming into this. But I will say that "The Ave" shouldn't have a period, because it's not short for "The Avenue". SchmuckyTheCat 22:46, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
According to the main U-District article, it is: "...in 1919, 14th Avenue (by then already known as "The Avenue" or "The Ave")..." Anyway, this post is the result of GoDot changing directionals like N.E. and N.W. to NE and NW in some neighborhood articles, as well as the format of the thoroughfares section in those same articles. He originally brought them up to me via e-mail, I replied via e-mail asking him to post on my talk page, and then he posted this there. It was so long and detailed and really of relevance to more people than just me I thought I'd bring it over here. --Lukobe 00:25, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
re The Ave: Yes, it is historically. But if you said "The Avenue" today people would look at you funny. A period, to denote an abbreviation, isn't accurate because the abbreviation has become the term. Anyway, both "Ave" and "Ave." appear in Wikipedia for our loved street. No big diff. SchmuckyTheCat 01:32, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
"No big diff." Yes, yet a goal is accuracy. Having verifiable sources, should this particular point be explicated as it is above [and now in The Ave]? Here is a point of this original post as a whole; the post contains verifiable content having references. Another point of this post is toward furthering Wikipedia itself becoming a more credible reference.
--GoDot 07:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC) --GoDot 06:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

PS: With respect to cars, such as The Ave are more accurately retail corridor arterials (a "retail arterial", technically a "minor arterial", distinct from larger and smaller.[arterialslegend.pdf]). Due to that, casual cruising, and consequent heavy traffic, most of the length of such an arterial is not suitable as a thoroughfare in the sense of getting from A to B expeditiously for any volume: I'm suggesting use of more accurate words.

5.b. Neighborhoods, Seattle

Accuracy. "The official city map[10] shows" referenced in some neighborhood entries is explicitly not. Cf. the fine print footer of such as Wedgwood.

Cf. Shenk, Pollack, Dornfeld, Frantilla, & Neman in the References, below. --GoDot 04:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

5.b.(1.) Suggest focus on particular, relatively unique people, places, events that characterize or define, rather than such as occasional listing of, say, well-known franchise outlets per se.

6. { Seattle neighborhoods } & template

{{Seattle neighborhoods}}
Copied from Talk:Northgate. --GoDot 04:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Street Layout of Seattle

[A descriptive referral to] Street layout of Seattle is a useful internal link that is particularly relevant to content of metro neighborhoods articles, since such info is of particular interest to anyone wishing to navigate a city. Its codification has been a big deal in Seattle public works (cf. Phelps, Samson in Street layout of Seattle). The layout patterns of New York are famous. As such it is also a distinctive aspect of community character, demonstrably so with respect to those of different cultures. --GoDot 03:31, 18 May 2006 (UTC), --04:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Neighborhoods template

Maybe we should add a link to it in the neighborhoods template. In fact, I think I will do just that. --Lukobe 04:53, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
A concise description would be useful, as for West Seattle just above it. Lake City may well have enough neigborhoods (and its own history) to be treated as is West Seattle. For consistency, there could be four (or more) such: West Seattle, Rainier Valley, Northgate, and Lake City. Bryant and Ravenna might be left in the main category, but grouped together since they are also known as (aka) Ravenna and Ravenna-Bryant, as could Licton Springs and North College Park, two names for very nearly the same neighborhood. All together, these actions might make the main group more readable as well. --GoDot 05:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
On this detail, north Wallingford is nebulous with south Green Lake, and that indefinite Twilight Zone is aka Tangle Town (where is it possible to get appropriately bewildered by the tangle of street layouts : ) --GoDot 02:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Feel free to modify the template: I am sure you could do good things with it. (For that matter, Downtown might be thrown in with West Seattle, Lake City, and Rainier Valley.) --Lukobe 06:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Per WP:NOR and WP:V at WP:CITE, some standard verification should be provided beforehand : ) --GoDot 02:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

"[G]rouped together since they are also known as Ravenna and Ravenna-Bryant, as could Licton Springs and North College Park, two names for very nearly the same neighborhood."
So, we might combine a Licton Springs and a North College Park (NCP) article from the Northgate article. NCP is more widely known,[11][12][13][1] but Licton Springs is the precedent of the two.

Assemblages of neighborhoods

"Lake City may well have enough neigborhoods (and its own history) to be treated as is West Seattle. For consistency, there could be five such: West Seattle, Rainier Valley, Northgate," Lake City, and Ballard. [From "Neighborhoods template", above.] [--GoDot 02:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)] --04:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

As a former incorporated town, Lake City [and Ballard are] more accurately [each] a set of neighborhoods--an informal district, quarter, or borough--rather than a single neighborhood. As such, that is less awkward than using "sub-neighborhoods". Where is sub-neighborhood a correct word? [--GoDot 19:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)]
Copied from Talk:Lake City. --GoDot 04:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Northgate as a collection of neighborhoods
Copied from Talk:Northgate. --GoDot 04:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

North College Park is shown on the article <!-- [[media:180px-Seattle_Map_-_Northgate.png|map]] etc. DNF --> map as part of the Northgate district of neighborhoods. This should be retained. See article text, Northgate.

North College Park has been moved to a section heading of Licton Springs, the same neighborhood with the precedent name. --GoDot 05:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Accuracy is a goal
Northgate is more accurately an informal quarter, district, or borough comprised of four or five neighborhoods (six, including the namesake shopping center)[map]. Previous construction was more consistent with citation.
Northgate and North College Park are most-recognized in the district, though North College Park for NSCC, named with respect to Central and South, with the name of the mall being incidental.

Northgate Mall was carved out of Maple Leaf neighborhood; Maple Leaf more accurately belongs in this Northgate district of which it is the SE quadrant. Cf. citations.

I don't think anybody considers Maple Leaf to be part of Northgate these days. --Lukobe 04:53, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
With respect to an encyclopedia, however, the question is, "what does the verifiable relevant information say?" What is the reference? What has been found so far all documents that Maple Leaf is also a quadrant of the Northgate district; large-scale commercial development originated with the namesake mall and was still mostly in Maple Leaf (south and east of the mall) until the Target complex recently became fully occupied.
If the verifiable relevant information is wrong, then I do not believe we should follow it. --Lukobe 06:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
See reply just below. --GoDot 02:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Independent of this, with regard to your consideration, how does that correspond to topography? People tend toward more belief in what they see. Substantial northwest Maple Leaf overlooks Northgates (south Northgate complex, Northgate Mall, Northgate Way), Maple Leaf northern arterials and commuter bus routes flow into Northgates, and those commuters see more of Northgates than Maple Leaf. This has become increasingly true in recent decades with the Park and Ride interchange.
In summary, so far, there is sufficient body of verifiable evidence that Maple Leaf is also a neighborhood of the informal Northgate district or borough.

Ask residents of Maple Leaf if they think they live in Northgate and most will say they don't. Those who say they do may not think they live in Maple Leaf! We should be accurate, but as far as I am concerned that means accurate to facts on the ground. --Lukobe 06:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Apart from talk pages, Wikipedia:No original research.
Northgate and Maple Leaf are not [quite] exclusive. Maple Leaf is a member of the set of Northgate neighborhoods. A Venn or Euler diagram would illustrate. Maple Leaf (A) is a proper subset of Northgate assemblage (B).
Maple Leaf (A) is a proper subset of Northgate assemblage (B).
Per citations, Northgate is a commercial shopping center and an informal assemblage of neighborhoods, as distinct from a Northgate neighborhood per se, per cited maps[2] as well as other valid citations. Names and boundaries are informal. Apartment dwellers near, say, a Northgate Mall car park might consider their neighborhood as Northgate, but so far, that has not been shown to be verified. (Ed. --GoDot 05:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC))
Isn't the decision per Wikipedia? By dictionary definitions, Wikipedia recommendations, and logic, that which is verifiable with respect to Wikipedia accepted sources is therefore accurate.
NB: The formal academic standard is likely far more rigorous than necessary for non-technical, non-emotionally charged topics like neighborhoods, but the WP standard[3] should apply.

This policy in a nutshell:
Information on Wikipedia must be reliable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
[...]
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. This means that we only publish material that is verifiable with reference to reliable, published sources.
{Wikipedia:Verifiability {WP:V}}

With regard to this particular issue, citations provided qualify per the list at Reliable sources # Evaluating sources. All my citations do, apart from reference to other WP articles,[14] with exceptions noted. --GoDot 02:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Ballard, L. City, Ngate, R. Valley, W Seattle

Cf. Seattle neighborhoods#Informal districts.
Ballard neighborhoods (Ballard), itself a former town for 17 years. o Adams, o Loyal Heights, o Sunset Hill, o West Woodland, o Whittier Heights

Lake City neighborhoods (Lake City): o Cedar Park, o Matthews Beach, o Meadowbrook, o Olympic Hills, o Victory Heights

Northgate neighborhoods (Lake City): o Haller Lake, o Maple Leaf, o North College Park (Licton Springs), o Pinehurst

Rainier Valley neighborhoods (Rainier Valley): o Brighton, o Columbia City, o Dunlap, o Mount Baker, o Rainier Beach, o Rainier View

Additional districts of the city are similarly assemblages of neighborhoods, cf. full city neighborhoods map. Click on a number or name for a more detailed map. For example: Downtown neighborhoods.
Conurbations tend to have grown up organically from once-autonomous towns or around such as trolley stops in the 19th c.

--GoDot 04:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

_____

Notes and References

  1. ^ Cf. reference to Shenk, Pollack, Dornfeld, Frantilla, & Neman.
  2. ^ About these maps:
    Shenk, Carol; Pollack, Laurie; Dornfeld, Ernie; Frantilla, Anne; & Neman, Chris (n.d., maps .Jpg c. 13 June 2002). "Seattle City Clerk's Office Neighborhood Map Atlas", Information Services, Seattle City Clerk's Office. Retrieved 21 April 2006.
    Sources for this atlas and the neighborhood names used in it include a 1980 neighborhood map produced by the Department of Community Development, Seattle Public Library indexes, a 1984-1986 Neighborhood Profiles feature series in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, numerous parks, land use and transportation planning studies, and records in the Seattle Municipal Archives.
    [Maps "NN-1120S", "NN-1130S", "NN-1140S".Jpg dated 13 June 2002.]
  3. ^ Providing sources for edits is mandated by Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Verifiability, which are policy. This means that any material that is challenged and has no source may be removed by any editor. See those pages and Wikipedia:Reliable sources for more information.(WP:CITE)

--GoDot 02:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Conclusion

This WP neighborhood topic category [{{Seattle neighborhoods}}] is great--'used to have to coax diverse sources to find this local info for a city or some place. Thank you all.

So far, there are no errors of content introduced; these issues need to be furthered toward the most credible content. Comment would be appreciated.

Clarifications: Comment posts and clarifications moved to appropriate subheadings above. --GoDot 04:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

--GoDot 20:41, 25 April 2006 (UTC), --GoDot 06:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

U Village

Thus far, with respect to Wikipedia accepted sources , University Village (U Village) is a shopping center but not a neighborhood per se. This in the absence of sources at least comparable with such as "Seattle Neighborhoods: Ravenna - Roosevelt -- Thumbnail History" & those referenced by that article.

____ Copied from Talk:U Village ____
per suggestion by Lukobe at Talk:Ravenna.

Suggestion: Disambiguate [[University Village, Seattle, Washington]] to [[University Village Shopping Center (Seattle)]], making consistent with such as nearby [[Northgate Mall (Seattle)]], redirecting [[University Village, Seattle]]. (U Village has a mall with additional buildings not directly connected, so a shopping center rather than only a mall.) [--GoDot 01:02, 28 May 2006 (UTC), ed. --06:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)]

The article was originally named this way because it was meant to deal with both mall and neighborhood. Should there be two separate articles? --Lukobe 23:36, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

____ End copied from Talk:University Village, Seattle, Washington ____

I dunno. Does there exist anything in reliable print that U Village is anything but a business area? AFAIK it's business, officially just U Village, not just a mall but U Village Shopping Center, the U Village name maybe including adjacent tag along businesses. Northgate Mall and Southcenter have become accompanied by business clusters, too, on properties other than of the mall owners, but those properties are not called Northgate Mall. If there's more to U Village, rather than two inter-related articles, how 'bout whatever naming style is used for similiar at Wikipedia, with the two main section headings in the article? There are several dales in Mpls-St. Paul that have 'burbs and malls with the same name, so the line, "with stores in the Dales of the Twin Cities." --GoDot 06:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The area has been Ravenna neighborhood (1887) since Lake Washington was lowered (1916) and the area filled (1911, 1920, 1922-1966, references in Ravenna article). U Village opened 1956. The topic of multifamily (apartment) zoning facing the back of University Village can be noted in the Ravenna article.

Thus far, uvillage.com (holding map) is verifiably a shopping center, a mall with additional buildings not connected to the mall itself, all within a single private property, approximately triangular. Border streets are arterials with commercial zoning facing on two sides, in turn surrounded by intermediate density multifamily on one side, and single family residential zoning beyond, all within Ravenna neighborhood. The University of Washington is south, more of the U District is west, with commercial zoning along the arterial, (map at "Ravenna").

Some disambiguation may be useful, whether rename or not. With demographic trends, U Village is becoming ever more surrounded on one or two of three sides by multifamily housing as well as peripheral commercial zoning. Density in the entire metro region is likely to increase steeply in few decades, differentiating some border portion from Ravenna--but sources not yet found.

___ References ___
Historical Ravenna zoning, 23 August 1973.

Item No: 692
Title: Section 15E zoning [1973 Municipal Code zoning map updated through ordinance 102076]
Seattle DPD (Department of Planning and Development), records at the Office of the City Clerk, Sect5=MAPS5&Sect4 MAPS1 via "DPD -- Research".

Shuey House

... located just three blocks from The University of Washington, and the bustling inner city [!] area known as "The University District". ... walk/drive away is Seattle's favorite outdoor, European style shopping mall, known as "The University Village". If you're looking for an urban environment, but a quiet neighborhood ... [Shuey House location]

This is typical promotional advertising copy (written with a suburban perspective : )

Nordheim Court Apartments (link from Lukobe at User talk:GoDot)

Students at the University of Washington have a new alternative to living in a residence hall - Nordheim Court. This recently completed complex of eight buildings has 460 beds in studio, two bedroom and four bedroom furnished suites. Students can enjoy the project's community lounge, exercise facility, spacious plaza and the natural setting of a large pond. The contemporary design, bright colors and stunning artwork have made Nordheim Court a unique addition to the University Village neighborhood. It is bold, it is vibrant, it is connected. [Case study at Collegiate Development Portfolio]

This is conventional real estate advertising copy promoting apartment blocks facing the back of U Village. (This is real estate. They're not gonna mention the Ravenna name, which has more appeal, cachet, (and pricier digs of residential Ravenna zoning : ) Rather like that "there is no 'r' in Warshington" (nor 'e' in Wedgwood), in marketing, not to mention popular usage, people tend to use language like Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking-Glass.

(Link from Lukobe at User talk:GoDot)

Ravenna Gardens :: Catering to Urban Gardeners in Seattle & Portland -
The first Ravenna Gardens opened in Seattle's University Village neighborhood in early 1997. In late 1997 a second store was opened in ... [Ravenna Gardens, Our roots]

Ravenna Gardens is a retail chain displaying typical ad copy toward promoting a homey image (or avoiding trademark issues with uvillage.com).

--GoDot 06:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Anyone else want to jump in here? Now under debate: Is there a UNIVERSITY VILLAGE neighborhood beyond the shopping center? And, how far east does the UNIVERSITY DISTRICT go? Does it not only include the UW's main campus but also East Campus and the Union Bay Natural Area and hence end as far east as Surber Drive in Laurelhurst? Or does it end at Montlake Boulevard?
Again, the issue is verifiability vs. truth. GoDot goes for verifiability. I prefer truth. And, considering that it is Wikipedia policy that verifiability trumps truth, in cases where the result of that is a statement that the U-District extends that far east I would almost rather not include such information at all. --Lukobe 06:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
This debate is incomprehensible.
The U District ends at Montlake/25th. The commercial area of the U Village is U Village, whether owned by the one company or not. What neighborhood do people between the Burke Gilman (North) and east campus (South) live in? I dunno, does anyone actually live between there? SchmuckyTheCat 07:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Citing sources

Summary: +, cit, so cl, rephrased; see Talk. MoS
Expansion: Added verified relevant text and added citations, so cleaned up and rephrased as needed so text would be congruent with respect to (wrt) sources; see explication on Discussion page. Edits (and Talk) per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (WP:MoS). Existing writing was retained as much as could. Reasoning for changes has been provided. Summary per Wikipedia:Edit summary legend.

Since accuracy is a goal, above added with edits to some articles. The following is quoted from MoS (Wikipedia:Manual of Style):

"Where citations do not previously exist,
contributors should decide on a style that they believe strikes an appropriate balance between preserving the readability of the text and making citations as precise and accessible as possible[...]
[C]ontributors [may] defer to the article's main content contributors in deciding the most suitable format for the presentation of references. "[T]he most important thing is to enter comprehensive reference information - that is, enough information so that a reader can find the original source with relative ease. "Please use

 This article does not cite any references or sources. (August 2006)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Unreferenced - Template:Unreferenced"

But many articles in Seattle neighborhoods don't have much formally cited reference, so this seems a bit too dramatic. "Requesting sources."
In that section, "How to ask for citations", looks a lot less obstrusive.

"If an article needs references but you are unable to find them yourself, [...] It is often more useful to indicate specific statements that need references, by tagging those statements with {{Citation needed}}, which can be placed in the same place you would place an inline reference."

(From # ask for citations)

See also 1 Why sources should be cited, 2 When to cite sources, 3 How to cite sources, and # Embedded links.

Style
Note re. Street layout of Seattle at "Neighborhood articles issues 2. Style", above, provides references for accuracy.

Wikipedia:Citing sources#Maintaining a separate "References" section in addition to "Notes": "It is helpful when footnotes are used that a References section also be maintained, in which the sources that were used are listed in alphabetical order. With articles that have lots of footnotes, it can become hard to see after a while exactly which sources have been used, particularly when the footnotes also contain explanatory text. A References section, which contains only citations, helps readers to see at a glance the quality of the references used."

Format used for books, citing from a periodical, and citing from Web sites and articles not from periodicals.

Bug with Wikipedia:Footnotes#Multiple uses of the same footnote corrected using <ref name=Foo>Foo</ref> & <ref name=Foo /> command set syntax.
References manually generated as the Bibliography, in alphabetical order, per convention. Format per Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style (Wikipedia:Manual of Style, Citing sources {or Cite sources--the pages seem identical, shortcut WP:CITE}).
{subst:Footnotes} auto including both the commentary text and the <references/> tag) refers to Wikipedia:Footnotes#Helping editors unfamiliar with this system of footnotes. (Ed. --19:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC), ed. --06:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC))

Instances of bug replaced with correct syntax, & ed. --GoDot 06:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

--GoDot 06:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC) --19:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC) format 19:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I find this all a bit cryptic. I feel the same about your posts on talk pages for the Seattle neighborhood articles you edit. Could you post a summary in prose, please? :) --Lukobe 06:42, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm using the abbreviations from the WP:MoS. See Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style and concise list quick reference.
Detailed info is in Wikipedia:Edit summary legend:
"This is a list of commonly-used edit summary abbreviations. This page does not lay down any official guidelines on how to fill out an article's edit summary. Wikipedians are encouraged to write accurate and detailed summaries. For more information, see Wikipedia:Edit summary."
Please click on the Wiki links in my posts for detailed explanation.
The basic structure I'm using is per Help:Edit summary. It's detailed, so I haven't yet integrated it all. My posts tend to be 'way long, so would you suggest specific set(s) of some paragraphs I should render in, say, plain English? --GoDot 03:30, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
All your posts, honestly, though perhaps I am alone in this. I would like other Seattle contributors to chime in. --Lukobe 04:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
AFAIK I'm using correct lay English, the most common on-line typing acronyms occasionally in Talk:, and style per the WP:MoS (Wikipedia:Manual of Style). An example would be appreciated.
"Wikipedia editors are strongly encouraged to find Wikipedia:Reliable sources for reported facts, and to cite them." (Wikipedia:Common knowledge). --GoDot 19:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

From Talk:Northgate,
Are so many references necessary? They appear to be something like three times the length of the article. Also, is it just me, or do I see duplications between the two reference sections (those linked to actual notes and those "manually" generated)? --Lukobe 06:40, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

_Accuracy_ is a Wikipedia goal and one of the Wikipedia:Five pillars (verifiable, in 2. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.) WP:MoS (Wikipedia:Manual of Style) says Wikipedia pages are not limited in space like a printed encyclopedia (until a page approaches some 90 KB), so the length of refs at the bottom of an article can be generally ignored. Their purpose is to help further Wikipedia as being credible, that anyone can readily verify the sources. A readily-mistaken name in Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad is an example of a useful (though trivial) citation, since the article topic is itself obscure and its primary sources exist only on paper or fiche, mostly in academic archives (and lead to an interesting story of booms becoming ghosts).
WP:MoS recommends that on-line refs include formal citations, date retrieved, and bibliography (where available) because links can break, and the complete citation readily allows alternative verification even without that link (per Embedded links). Sheridan, Tobin, and Wilma, who wrote the referenced history about an obscure little neighborhood of Northgate thoughtfully provided a _complete_ list of historical primary sources! --for its size, far and away the most detailed I've yet found anywhere, and would be quite different to verify, in contrast to, say Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad refs, or an article with none at all.
With regard to punctuation with quotation marks (such as in citations), Wikipedia has done well to move into the digital age (at least post-1983) and has adopted the English style: accurately literal placement. "Include the punctuation mark inside the quotation marks only if the sense of the punctuation mark is part of the quotation" (WP:MoS#Quotation marks). After all, a logical search won't find the search string if these characters are misplaced. Such as "The London Times," would not return the results of "The London Times", the proper name. Doing what works better is more useful.
For the stature of Wikipedia, ordinary articles probably don't need professional peer review if they have sufficient verifiable, credible references. How much is sufficient for the most effective stature of Wikipedia? As you all may know, Wikipedia is in corporate media and credibility with respect to peer-reviewed professional sources as well as such as The Encyclopedia Britannica --(). The stature depends on those five pillars, so the citations.
One solution might be to enclose agreed-upon refs so that they're hidden but not lost: Template:Secref (since removed, no longer extant 19:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)). There's also some way to reduce the size or reduce or eliminate the superscripting that interrupts consistent line spacing. But first:
"[D]o I see duplications between the two reference sections (those linked to actual notes and those 'manually generated')": Yes.
The seemingly-duplicate == Bibliography == lists in alphabetical rather than footnote occurrence order, and for citations having an author, with added complete source path for ready verifiability .
The placement of footnotes in text could be reduced in size to make them less prominent, as well as restore consistent line spacing display. That's a sophistication step for someone familiar with that command set.
WP:REF (Wikipedia:References) recommends:
3.1.5.3 Maintaining a separate "References" section in addition to "Notes"
See "Maintaining a separate 'References' section in addition to 'Notes'", at "Style" section in Talk:Seattle, #Citing sources, just above.

--GoDot 03:30, 18 May 2006 (UTC), --19:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC), --04:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC), --19:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

(( Cite web )), (( Cite news )), and (( Cite book )) templates added to Seattle articles edited that have citations (please see also Talk:Seattle #Inline Citations). Verbose citations having an author are condensed to the conventional style of <ref>[Author last name, {date or etc. only if more than one work}], [pp. [numbers] if used]</ref>, with complete reference in the Bibliography.
This is per recommendation by SchmuckyTheCat 06:16, 2 June 2006 (UTC) at Talk:Northgate # About "Northgate" and what is notable, minimizing "stuff" in the text and making most accessible to casual users making edits. --GoDot 05:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC), ed. 19:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

About sources cited

For Shenk, Pollack, Dornfeld, Frantilla, & Neman (authors of the "Seattle City Clerk's Office Neighborhood Map Atlas") as for Phelps in the paragraph beginning "[T]ide lands platted" in Talk:Seattle neighborhoods 5 Style and accuracy, Shenk et al "drew almost entirely upon primary sources. As [...] credible archivist[s], [their work] qualifies as a high-caliber secondary source, per WP:CITE, Wikipedia: # What sources to cite." Indeed given the circumstances described, as professionals, they could not but state that their work is non-partisan. This is similarly true of Cline, though caveats for Cline have not been found so far.
Cf. (see also) Seattle neighborhoods # Informal districts. Cline, Phelps, and Shenk et al have complete citations in Seattle neighborhoods # Bibliography.

Spiedel (1967, 1978) also drew extensively on primary sources, listed in his comprehensive bibliographies (complete citations in Street layout of Seattle # Bibliography).

--GoDot 05:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Featured article removal candidate

Hello there good Seattleites (and others),

I was very happy to see this article make it as a featured article, however it seems to have lost a lot of its quality recently. I will list in on featured article removal candidates within two weeks if some of the following concerns are not addressed, as they detract greatly from the quality of the article:

  • First of all, the writing in this article is extremely choppy. For example, from the Sports section: "In 1990, Seattle hosted the 1990 Goodwill Games.

In 1998, the Seattle City Council failed to pass a resolution supporting a Seattle bid for the 2012 Olympics. In 2004, the Seattle Storm won a WNBA championship. In 2005, the Seattle Sounders won the USL First Division championship. In 2006, the Seattle Seahawks won the NFC championship by beating the Washington Redskins and ths Carolina Panthers and advanced to Super Bowl XL, which they lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers."

  • The images in this article are poorly formatted and do not add to the overal quality of the article. Come on people, I am sure there are more things in Seattle to showcase than the skyline. But almost every photo is a slightly different angle of Downtown. The images are also small and poorly laid out and often butt into each other and push text and headers.
  • There is no inline citation.
  • There are far too many lists in this articles.
  • The transportation section needs a severe rewrite, see Johannesburg for examples.
  • All of the small sub-headers need to be incorporated and turned into paragraphs, such as Utilities.

Thank you! Páll (Die pienk olifant) 19:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

{{sofixit}} Will (E@) T 19:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Too many lists? The only bulleted "list" I see in the current version is the ==See also== section. So what are we supposed to do, not link to related articles? The only lists in the 22:38, 11 May 2006 version were highways and airports which has been rectified. There is a table in the sports section, but that's a common way of dealing with the topic. Oh, maybe the External links section is considered a list--it would be very non-standard to try and make the External links section into prose, and I don't really see any obvious candidates for removal from the section.
My understanding is that inline citation is a requirement that cropped up after this article became featured, so is not a valid reason to make it 'unfeatured'.
Part of how the things like Utilites ended up that way is that, at the time it was an FAC, one person was insisting that it be 32K. Using 'summary style' in that manner was the only way to address that request. Since each has a related 'main article' I don't see how making one jumbled section with a host of see also x, y, z, a, b, c, and d articles would be beneficial to the reader.
It is extremely difficult to layout a page with many pictures in such a way that they display ideally using all possible display resolutions. On a related note, if they seem too small to you, I have to assume you are using an extremely high display resolution, as most of the images are the default 180px thumb size--much bigger and they would completely overwhelm the text on more common resolutions (the most recent numbers I've seen have 800x600 the single most common resolution among Internet users). I've tried to address a couple of the worst pic layout problems. Picture selection and layout is very hard to police, as people are excited to see their new pictures in use, and add them regardless of whether they add anything that isn't already pictured. Most images in galleries don't show up for me, so trying to find useful pictures on commons is very tedious. Of the ones I did take the time to check, most appear to have been uploaded 'as is' but should have been cropped to be worth using, or have lighting problems or ugly foreground items (most often 'telephone wire's) that make them undesirable (IMHO). If anyone finds good pics, feel free to swap them out for some of the more redundant ones. I'm at work and don't really have time at the moment to get into the bigger 're-write section' size/scope issues. 24.18.215.132 00:54, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
It's getting a bit dated, but back in the day Seattle was more comprehensive than most of the other city FAs in this table (trying to squeeze it into 34K took a lot of compromising): Talk:Seattle,_Washington/Archive_1#Comparison_of_topics_and_size_with_other_city_Featured_Articles 24.18.215.132 02:08, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

This page is getting very big

We'd like to gain consensus about issues regarding neighborhoods articles in general, that have so far been a dialogue. I'd like to add yet another section heading. However, this page is getting very big.
Talk:Seattle is getting so big there's a WP note, "This page is 105 kilobytes long. This may be longer than is preferable; see article size." [Mon. 22 May] (Of course, Editing of individual sections is actually used.)
Wikipedia:Article size. Shortcut: WP:SIZE. --GoDot 02:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC), --04:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I have archived old material from this page. SchmuckyTheCat 03
00, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Wanted articles

Emmett Watson, to include a great explanation of the term "Lesser Seattle" or a Lesser Seattle article. SchmuckyTheCat 01:34, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

New article or section needed

The collison betweent the two monorail cars, besides providing delight for those of a particular view of engineering goofs (eg, more spectaculatly the Tacoma Narrow Bridge Incident), deserves its own section, or perhaps an actual article. I can't write it, not having been in Seattle in more than a decade, but... Volunteers, anyone? Perhaps from the Park? Or transplants from the state? ww 06:28, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Seattle Center Monorail mentions the latest accident, though it could use expansion. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse seems to be quite well covered--since I'm an anon I can't create the redirect to it from the redlink above. 24.18.215.132 01:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Redirect created. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 01:36, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Sports in Seattle article

The sport section is getting rather long so I started the transition of the section into an article of its own. Prior to the move I'd like to get the thumbs up from the community on whether it would be better just to leave the text paragraph I have as the lead in the new article (with improvements as needed), or the table and summary. Just doing my part to get this article in compliance with WP:SS and WP:SIZE style guides. --Bobblehead 02:15, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

northgate

(See Northgate, Seattle, Washington)--recent changes have the article saying Maple Leaf is part of Northgate, based on the City Clerk's map. I think, regardless, that this shouldn't be in the article, as nobody considers at least the southern part of the neighborhood to be in Northgate. GoDot disagrees. Any opinions here? --Lukobe 17:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I was going to respond on the Northgate Talk page, but that mess is almost as inscrutable as GoDot's article diffs there. The related sections above here aren't much better. IMHO, the footer of the map (being used to "prove" Maple Leaf in its entirety is part of Northgate) makes it clear the city abitrarily drew lines for internal government organization, and that specifically no one should consider them more relevant/accurate/complete/etc. than common/historical usage. I think the focus of the article should be the commonly understood neighborhood of Northgate (pretty much limited to 5-10 blocks in any direction from the mall) and that there is some overlap with the four surrounding neighborhoods, and then just a brief aside something to the effect of 'city planners group the four surrounding neighborhoods in what they call the Northgate district'. South Maple Leaf, and especially Southeast Maple Leaf, certainly wouldn't be considered part of Northgate by anyone other than the bureaucrats that made that map. (FWIW, other than a 5-year sentence to purgatory, aka Silicon Valley, I've lived in north Seattle since 1964.) Niteowlneils 03:51, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Dates

I just got a nippy message from User:Bobblehead for making this edit, which he has reverted. I took out the 39 links to years in the article, to far fewer than 39 separate years. Is bobble head right to assume that it is the consensus of the editors on this page to go against: "Not every year listed in an article needs to be wikilinked. Ask yourself: will clicking on the year bring any useful information to the reader?" [15] And if so, do you really want all 39 there? I got rid of them because I thought they looked ugly and added nothing at all to the article; apologies if I was out of line and anyone else is offended or considers this an important matter, as bobble clearly does. --Guinnog 03:35, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Heh. I could care less if the dates are wikified and happen to think the amount of blue on the Seattle page is a bit excessive. At most I'd prefer there be one wikify per reference. I just noticed that whenever I left a date unwikified someone else followed shortly thereafter to wikify the date. --Bobblehead 04:00, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, between zero links (for most) and one link {for demonstrably significant dates) would seem to be best, in line with the policy linked above. I've been editing pages that way as part of cleanup for ages now and it's never been a problem before. But certainly there are too many low-value date links at present. More than one for any year is just ridiculous, inasmuch as it matters at all. Thanks for clarifying Bobble --Guinnog 04:11, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Except as noted in this style guide "There is less agreement about links to years. Some editors believe that links to years are generally useful to establish context for the article. Others believe that links to years are rarely useful to the reader. Some advocate linking to a more specific article about that year, for example [[2006 in sports|2006]]." Looks like another case where wiki contradicts itself. --Bobblehead 04:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely. It is ultimately fairly unimportant and should be decided on aethetics and functionality. I think that aesthetically, so many date links looks bad, and I think that functionally it is hard to see how they add anything. At the very least, the duplicated ones should go, surely? --Guinnog 16:07, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Climate

The climate section of the article lists all temperatures as being in Celsius. This seems odd for an article about an American city on a largely American wiki. -dxco

are we looking at the same thing? I see F and C temperatures...which makes sense, since this is in fact an international wiki... --Lukobe 03:19, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I like the new graphic which gives average temps each month(Jan to Dec). Now I think the text about the Seattle climate could be cleaned up to just two, maybe three sentences. The new graphic is a reliable way to express the climate. If it gets too wordy no one reads it.

How about creating a sub-article for Climate of Seattle, moving the wordy portion there and leaving behind the table and summary sentence? The words are important as the graph alone doesn't do justice to the Seattle climate. --Bobblehead 22:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Inline Citations

Since they are starting to make the lack of inline citations an issue on the WP:FAR page, I'm going to be going through and updating this article's inline citations to footnotes. While the article does have 39 inline citations, several footnotes, and a number of uncited references, it does need to meet the Wikipedia:What is a featured article? requirements as most of the inline citations are not properly referenced in the references section of the article. (I'm guilty as charged on this) --Bobblehead 01:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Skyline photo?

I added a recent skyline photo (Image:SeattleSkyline.jpg) that I took at Alki Point. It was removed from this article because someone felt the image was too cloudy (which in my belief showcases Seattle realistically) and because there was a large ship in the foreground. In any case, I think a new photo of the skyline needs to be in this article because the 2nd Washington Mutual Tower was recently created and has changed the city's skyline dramatically (compare my photo to the one that is currently in the Seattle article).

If someone has some extra time, why not get out to Alki Point on a sunny day and take a new photo? --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bigcheesebebbs (talk • contribs) .

That was me. My objection was actually more to the large ship than to the clouds. --Lukobe 23:14, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
How about these? Found from usgs.gov, they're not bad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Seattle2fromusgs_gov.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Seattle2fromusgs_gov_cropped.jpg (version I cropped, could be good for that widescreen effect at top of page. rootology 04:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The Klondike Gold Rush & Seattle

I am having issues with the part on the page in which little history and credit is given to the Klondike Gold Rush having much impact on Seattle.

On the page it is written:

"Arguably, the Klondike Gold Rush constituted a separate, shorter boom during the last years of the 19th century, funding Nordstrom's initial growth."

Excuse me...but every history book I own about Seattle states that the Klondike Gold Rush "made" Seattle a house-hold name! The Rush ended a depression that had been hurting the U.S. economy, let alone, the world's, since the crash of 1893. The properity felt because of it lasted well into the 1900's! And why is Nordstrom's the only company listed?? There were literally thousands of new industries and businesses created and funded because of the gold Rush! "What would you do for a Klondike Bar?"

The sentence makes the event sound like a barely noticeable trivia blip. It needs to be changed!! Soapy 17:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

You're more than welcome to make changes to that section in regards to how the Klondike Gold Rush impacted Seattle's economy. It appears that all of the booms and busts prior to the Boeing crash could do with some expansion. --Bobblehead 17:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Is Bellevue a Suburb?

It was listed as a suburb, then changed to city, then changed back. It is one or the other. I think this might be worth some discussion on the talk pages of both the Seattle and the Bellevue entries. I am curious why one would think Bellevue, Washington is a suburb of Seattle. It is listed on wiki as being the 5th largest city in WA. Even on the Bellevue page there is not a single mention of it being a suburb of Seattle. Perhaps that should be added in if it is listed on the Seattle page as such. Would like to get opinions and as a newbie would be interested in learning about how we decide what the final verdict is. Based on number of folks with the same opinion? Thanks ImpulsivePuppy 02:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, the official definition of a suburb is a smaller community adjacent to or within commuting distance of a city. Since Seattle has a population of 580,000 and Bellevue has 117,000 by that definition it is a suburb of Seattle. However, other definitions of suburb would exclude Bellevue as the residents don't consider themselves residents of Seattle, but rather Bellevue. But realistically, Bellevue is a suburb of Seattle because history says it is and many residents of Bellevue work in Seattle. On the positive side for Bellevue, the US Census Bureau is now calling the Puget Sound area the Seattle-Bellevue-Tacoma metropolitan area. :) How's that for a non-answer answer? --Bobblehead 03:36, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that Bellvue is a large city but it is still a suburb or Seattle. Just take a look at the rush hour commuters over Lake Washington. I would compare it to say Oakland and SF.--8bitJake 06:25, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


Just take a closer look at other suburban cities and unincorporated communities over 100,000:

Here are just a few:

My point is that in areas similar or larger than Seattle's size, there are suburban places that contain populations over 100,000. Las Vegas (city population: nearly 600,000) has five alone (2 cities and 3 unincorporated communities). Bellevue, being in the same county and virtually separated from Seattle by Lake Washington, is a suburban city (despite its size) such as Kirkland, Redmond, and Renton.

And the following links, which discuss boomburbs (incorporated areas over 100,000), which has Bellevue listed: [16] or [17].

--Moreau36 08:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

okey-dokey, i will concede then that based on your explanations Bellevue is a suburb. However, I think part of the definitin of suburb should be this community could not continue to exist with out its corresponding city. Bellevue would certainly continue to thrive even if North Korea gets its wish and Seattle suddenly disappeared ( i live in seattle so i hope that doesn't happen). In fact I would say communities such as redmond, kirkland, etc are more suburbs of bellevue rather than seattle. In fact tons of people live in seattle and work in bellevue, it is like a dual star system. I just don't get how a suburb can have suburbs of its own. But i see i am clearly outnumbered here ;-). ImpulsivePuppy 18:27, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The concept of edge city may be useful (Bellevue is listed in that article as an edge city of Seattle). Still, economically and culturally, the region is dominated by Seattle, which makes all other cities in its vicinity suburbs almost by default. If someone not from the area asks where I live, I am forced to tell them "Seattle" because nobody outside of western Washington has heard of Bellevue. (I did once have a guy on the Internet recognize the name, but he thought WA stood for Western Australia -- there is a Bellevue, Western Australia and he lived in a neighboring town.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kindall (talk • contribs) 13:30, July 10, 2006 (UTC).
Excellent point. Nothing for me to add beyond saying I agree with Kindall on the concept of Seattle making every other city in the area a suburb by default. --Bobblehead 20:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

If I had a nickel for every time I heard Microsoft refered to as a "Seattle Based" company I could buy and Xbox 360.--8bitJake 21:31, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Nevertheless, Kindall made an excellent point. That's the reason why metropolitan areas are more comphrehensive as far as getting data and urban understanding than just within the city limits themselves and very few surburban communities just outside the city limits carry Seattle as their mailing address. --Moreau36 21:41, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Especially with King County trying to get anything that isn't rural to incorporate or absorbed into existing cities.--Bobblehead 21:45, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

so, have we come to any conclusions? Should Bellevue be called an "edge city" instead of suburb? Perhaps a sentence along the line of "Bellevue is an edge city of Seattle though considered by some to be a suburb." Or something like that... ImpulsivePuppy 14:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Based on the article for edge city, it still seems to be relevant to refer to Bellevue as a suburb in the Seattle article, especially if you consider that edge city is not in common usage in the average person's lexicon. It would probably be a good idea to include the reference about Bellevue being an edge city in the Bellevue article, though.. --Bobblehead 17:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I added an edge city reference to the Bellevue article, as well as a link to boomburb, a term which I recently discovered applies. (Even if Bellevue is an "edge city," that's a type of suburb anyway.) Jerry Kindall 07:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Talk Page makes news.

The Bellvue Suburb Debate on this talk page made the Settle blog "Seattlest" [18]--8bitJake 00:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Personal trip blog

Under the heading "External Links," and under a sub-heading "personal," is someones Seattle trip blog. I have noticed that it has been there a while. Should this really be here? Soapy 17:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Emmett Shear

Somewhere in the last 2 months — there's been a lot of activity here and I'm not tracking it all — Emmett Shear's paper "Seattle: Booms and Busts" was dropped from the list of references. Given that it was, and remains, the basis for the History section of this article, that seems intellectually dishonest. Or did I miss something and is there a reason it was dropped? I know a lot of good contributors are working on this article, so maybe there is an explanation. - Jmabel | Talk 06:46, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

See reference 12. The reference seems to be alive and well, unfortunately the link to the paper itself is dead. Unless you are saying the paper should have been cited in other locations of the article as well. --Bobblehead 08:33, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I noticed where it was removed, but not where it was added back. - Jmabel | Talk 04:04, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I've now been in touch with Emmett; he's not happy that Yale tells the Internet Archive not to archive their site (where his paper was originally posted), but he promised either to get it back on line himself or to provide soft copy so we can put it online somewhere. If he doesn't get back to me in the next week or so, I'll remind him. - Jmabel | Talk 00:07, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

demographics / jewish federations shooting.

  1. Surprised upon looking that there appears to be no mention of religion anywhere in this article's demographics section or in the main Demographics of Seattle article. Are there any stats?
  2. Is the murder at the Jewish Federation the other day worthy of its own article, a la the Capitol Hill murders last year? I do notice an anonymous user put info in it in the Belltown, Seattle, Washington article, which I expanded, even though I think that is probably not the best place for it. --Lukobe 05:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
The Capitol Hill massacre was only a few short months ago. IMHO, neither needs a place in this article. Interesting that this doesn't have a demographics section, since most of the bot-written articles on small towns - the census data is about it. SchmuckyTheCat 05:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Of course you're right...no idea why I thought it was last year. So anyway, just a notice to you all that information on the Jewish Federation shooting is in the Belltown article if anyone wants to do anything with it. I'll see if I can find some info on religions in Seattle for the demographics section... --Lukobe 06:08, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
This is the best I could come up with quickly, and it wasn't THAT quick, really...anyone know where we could get better data? There are obviously some problems here..."0 Buddhists"... http://www.thearda.com/mapsReports/reports/counties/53033_2000.asp --Lukobe 06:32, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
We should use the same census data that places like Republic, Washington use. SchmuckyTheCat 06:42, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
There's nothing about religion in that article that I could see...but maybe I'll check out the Census Bureau's page to see if they have anything. --Lukobe 18:27, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmm--"The U.S. Census Bureau does not collect data on religious affiliation in its demographic surveys or decennial census. Public Law 94-521 prohibits us from asking a question on religious affiliation on a mandatory basis; in some person or household surveys, however, the U.S. Census Bureau may collect information about religious practices, on a voluntary basis. Therefore, the U.S. Census Bureau is not the source for information on religion, nor is the Census Bureau the source for information on religious affiliation." --Lukobe 18:31, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Kind of surprising how hard it is to quickly find information on this topic. If anyone has any ideas, please post here--or add the information to the article. --Lukobe 18:35, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

As for religion numbers [19] gives some interesting numbers: "Ask people here, "What's your religion?" and 25 percent say, "I don't have one." Almost 63 percent don't belong to a religious community. Nationally, only 14 percent claim no religion and 41 percent join no church." Interesting. But I didn't have much luck with a web search either. I bet a librarian could help on this. Does someone want to follow up? - Jmabel | Talk 00:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Re the Jewish Federation shooting, looks like someone started an article over at July_2006_Seattle_Jewish_Federation_shooting. --Lukobe 17:33, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Seattle redirects to Seattle, Washington. It's not a dab page and there aren't any other geographical places named Seattle that we need the ", Washington" for. At some point in the past there was a guideline to put a state, province, country, whatever, after a city name, but that isn't true anymore. Most singularly famous cities (and some not so, Vancouver, for our neighbor to the north) don't have a geographical dab after their name.

What say you we move this back to Seattle where it belongs? SchmuckyTheCat 17:25, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

No objection. --Lukobe 18:28, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
No strong objection, but I believe that for U.S. cities this is pretty typical: Boston is a redirect to Boston, Massachusetts, Chicago to Chicago, Illinois, and Atlanta to Atlanta, Georgia. And while there is no geographic disambiguation, there is Chief Seattle. - Jmabel | Talk 00:05, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
No objection. I think we should move this article to Seattle. It is a well-known city even outside the US. Chicago was recently moved to the unqualified name. Since there are no disambiguation issues ("Seattle" already redirects here), would people support moving the article? --Polaron | Talk 04:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Seattle history

User:GoDot and I appear to have a major disagreement about the scope of the article History_of_Seattle. Since Seattle, Washington gets much more traffic, and I'm unaware of any relevant WikiProject, I'm cross-posting and asking others to weigh in there. - Jmabel | Talk 00:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Economy

The statement made regarding Boeing's largest division being headquartered in Bellevue is untrue. Boeing Commercial Airplanes headquarters is in Tukwila.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.17.66.135 (talk • contribs) 09:06, August 12, 2006 (UTC).

Good catch, but it's actually in Renton. Or, at least the address is.[20] --Bobblehead 10:51, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no move. -- tariqabjotu 01:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Seattle, Washington → Seattle – use common name for world-famous city with no ambiguity issues

Reasons to move

  1. Seattle, like Chicago and New York City, is well known even without the state name. [citation needed] Almost no one says they're from "Seattle, Washington."
  2. The state name is not part of the name of the city.
  3. No other place is called "Seattle" and there is no chance of confusing it with any other location.
  4. Seattle already redirects here, therefore there are no known disambiguation issues, and no reason to disambiguate.
  5. World famous U.S. cities should be treated no differently from world famous cities outside of the U.S. (Paris, London, Montreal, etc.) -- use the unqualified city name for the article title.
Correction, a world famous city must have a population of 2 million people. Seattle has less than 1/4 that number. Ericsaindon2 04:20, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
What definition is this from? Are you referring to the political boundaries, the built-up area, or the metro area? I can probably also get you a few cities that are of similar size to Seattle (using the boundaries you want) that are clearly major cities. --Polaron | Talk 04:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I am not using boundaries I want. I am using boundaries established by the city that heads that particular area. Metro areas are not necessarily part of that city, and cannot be considered part of that city in the article. Only what the city defines as the areas it includes are considered part of the city. Ericsaindon2 05:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
So the population within the administrative boundaries of the city government are what determined whether a city is "world class" or "world famous"? --Polaron | Talk 05:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
You can't take the size of a city to determine if it is "world famous". Budapest, for example, is well under 2 million people. So is Vienna. And Warsaw. (They are all about 1.6-1.7 million.) Phnom Penh is half that size, Las Vegas. All of these are certainly world-famous cities. And history can make a much smaller place world-famous. Bethlehem has a population so small that they'd fit in a good-sized soccer stadium. Conversely, there are probably cities of 2 million in China that almost none of us could name. How many of us could place Tianjin (over 5 million) or Wuhan (also over 4 million) on a map. - Jmabel | Talk 06:55, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
But if you go to Wuhan, they would probably not know where Las Vegas, San Francisco, Miami, San Diego, Seattle, etc. is. It works both ways. 69.232.58.207 07:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The naming guideline for US cities currently has two exceptions but does not say anything about what makes one an exception. For those who oppose the move, why do you believe this is not a suitable exception. The simple name is unambiguous and, I would argue, rather well-known even without appending "Washington". Simply arguing that is is against the guideline is not a good enough reason because the guideline is not policy. In fact, in this particular case, it is inconsistent with the more encompassing "Use common names" policy. Why do you think we have the article titled Bill Gates instead of William Henry Gates III? --Polaron | Talk 00:47, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't speak for everyone but I think a large crux is that instead of working on consensus for changing the guideline (and improving the overall consistency of the Encyclopedia), we're leapfrogging around city to city trying to create exceptions-which, as you pointed out, are not even well defined. This creates even more inconsistency in the overall project, which is counterproductive. Let's fix the guideline first instead of trying to poke more "exception holes". Agne 01:45, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

  • Support per reasons listed above. --Polaron | Talk 13:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. --Usgnus 13:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support I proposed this above. SchmuckyTheCat 15:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Neutral see comment below Oppose settle the discussion on Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements) first. Bobblehead 16:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support it makes sense --Edgelord 18:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose Consistency is a Good Thing. --SarekOfVulcan 18:54, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose. This request violates WP:POINT. Violates US city naming standard. If you want this to change, then change the guideline so that requests can be judged on some basis other then a few editors who happen to follow the article involved or this article. Vegaswikian 19:07, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
    • I hope you have a good reason other than blindly following some naming guideline, which is actually inconsistent with the wider use common names Wikipedia-wide standard. --Polaron | Talk 19:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
      • And what gives Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) any more precedence over Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements) which specifically relates to the article in question? There's already a discussion over (settlements) that you are a part of. Settle that first and then come back here. Changing vote to oppose.--Bobblehead 20:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
        • The US city naming guideline already allows for exceptions (Chicago and New York City) if it can be argued that the unqualified name is more commonly used. Whatever the outcome of that discussion, that has nothing directly to do with addressing thr reasons listed above for moving the article to what the city is actually called. It's not like people will suddenly be confused about what "Seattle" is if we drop the "Washington". --Polaron | Talk 20:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
          • And it's not like they'll suddenly be confused that they have the wrong Seattle when they see "Seattle, Washington" in the article title after typing "Seattle" into the search box. Finish the discussion over on (settlements), then come back here. Or, if you really want, get Seattle added to the exception list, then come back here. --Bobblehead 21:04, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
            • But nobody says they're from or live in "Seattle, Washington". The current name gives the impression that "Washington" is part of the city name. And the way to become an exception is to convince people that it deserves to be exempted. There are still no substantive reasons provided that indicate why we should have "Washington" in the name of the article. --Polaron | Talk 21:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
            • Bobblehead, readers who come upon the article titled Seattle, Washington will probably not think they have the wrong Seattle, but they might think (especially if they're from another country), that the name of the city is Seattle, Washington, when, in fact, it is Seattle. Or, they might think there must be another Seattle since there was an apparent need to disambiguate this one. Why not keep it simple? Why disambiguate when there is no name collision issue with Seattle? Why confuse the readers unnecessarily like this? Why not move the common-name specification (the title) to Seattle and be done with it? --Serge 03:24, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
              • Actually, yes, people do say they come from Seattle, Washington all the time. Especially when speaking to people that do not come from the Pacific Northwest. In looking at the edit history and archives on the (settlement) page it appears that the move of Chicago from Chicago, Illinois on August 20 was the cause of the current ongoing discussion regarding the convention on how to name US cities, so citing that as an example of exceptions is faulty. It also appears that moving from the convention of City, State has been brought up several times before and each time has been rejected due to lack of consensus. Making an end run around the convention by going to each city's page is unacceptable. Resolve the dispute on (settlement) then come back here if they agree to using City. You have still not provided a substantive reason as to why this article needs to be moved from Seattle, Washington to Seattle. It has also been established in prior ArbCom cases that when an arguably arbitrary decision has been made, unless a substantial reason it should be change, it should be accepted. In this case the arbitrary decision was to name this article Seattle, Washington, so accept it. --Bobblehead 21:51, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
                • The reasons are listed above. And naming conventions are not set in stone. They can be changed if enough people think they should. --Polaron | Talk 21:55, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Totallypostal 21:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. No brainer. --Serge 03:08, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There's nothing wrong with the current name, there's been no discussion of this move prior to the strawpoll, and there is a discussion of the larger question of the naming convention for U.S. cities already in process. -Will Beback 07:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
    • There is something wrong with the current name: it does not reflect the name of the subject of the article, which is Seattle, not Seattle, Washington. If it's not important to reflect the name of the subject in the title, why not just call it X1WU7@d3v$%? And if the title is supposed to reflect the name of the subject, why do it half-assed? --Serge 07:34, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
    • There has been some discussion above (see "Disambiguation") about moving this to the unqualified name 3 weeks ago. No opposition was voiced since then and this requested move is a logical next step. --Polaron | Talk 15:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose. BlankVerse 13:33, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Seattle redirects to Seattle, Washington. More opposition from the religious guideline followers. -Royalguard11TalkMy Desk 22:52, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support 99% of people around the world will think of the location in Washington State. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 09:20, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:POINT. I do think this matter needs to be settled at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) before making an example here. Secondly, I personally contradict the statement But nobody says they're from or live in "Seattle, Washington". I deal with individuals and business interests throughout the US and world and without even consciously thinking about it, I refer to my location as "Seattle, Washington". It doesn't reflect any ill upon Seattle's status as a "World Class City", it just seems more formal and proper. To that extent, it also seems to be more encyclopedic when you look up in Britannica you see Paris, France; Chicago, Illinois; and Seattle, Washington. Agne 14:38, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
    • You're right -- I should have said a vast majority do not rather than nobody. The current naming convention allows for exceptions so we should be talking about why Seattle does not warrant exemption. Also, does Britannica really refer to the city as "Seattle, Washington"? --Polaron | Talk 14:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
      • No, it's Seattle in Britannica, not Seattle, Washington, of course[21]. But Brittanica doesn't have a bunch of amateurs hacking on it that insist on adhering to a silly convention for no reason. --Serge 20:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
        • I'm talking about the good ole fashion book Britannica. Amazing that folks still have those :p In my case the 1995 edition, though I doubt that the name usage is outdated. Agne 00:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support There is only one Seattle. No further clarification should be needed for a uniquely named, well-known city-Veronique 22:18, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. This is what the guidelines specify and necessary for style comformity with other similar articles. Seattle isn't the most famous city in the world, but I regularly use it unqualified with people around the world with no resulting confusion. Don't worry about fixing redirects - that's easy with a bot. Deco 01:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. And cannot imagine how this is supposed to be WP:POINT. - Jmabel | Talk 01:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
    • WP:POINT comes into play in that this is essentially a new naming convention for cities that is being etched out here as it was on the Chicago page and as it is being done with several other cities like Augusta, Georgia, New Orleans, Louisiana, Calgary, Alberta, San Francisco, California, Winnipeg, Manitoba and others. This is not the proper path to create a new naming convention and this has been pointed out by several users. Clear consensus from the community should be given and a guideline established before trying to through the idea up, like sticks in the air, with several different cities and see how they land. Agne 04:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
      • This move is not to illustrate a point. If I were to do that, I would have proposed moving to Seattle, Washington, United States -- a more complete name that is not inaccurate and would be even clear to people who don't know where Washington is. Or I could have proposed moving to FIPS 63000 -- a completely unambiguous and very precise label used by the Census Bureau for the incorporated city known as Seattle. --Polaron | Talk 21:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
        • No, then you would just be making a different point. The simple question is, why not change the naming convention first? Why not work within the Wiki community as a whole to garner consensus for your naming philosophy? I think that it is what's most troubling about this proposed move and the rash of others. It's like a divide and conquer approach. There's the vanity appeal of "world class city" as if a city's reputation is on the line based on a mere title name. Then once one city to go along with the change, they start getting used as an example. "See, so and so, is named like this and they're a world class city." It's a way of circumventing generating true consensus and making positive change in the naming convention. (which I agree are not perfect but this is not the way to go). That is why this action is consistent with WP:POINT. Agne 02:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. A world class city or a world famous city is defined as a city that has a population in excess of 2 million. This city does not even top a million. It is similar in size to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Fresno, California; neither of which do I consider world class cities, or world famous cities. Cities over 2 million people, or the world class/famous cities should be able to use their name without the state, but this city is not one of those. Ericsaindon2 04:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
These would be most of the world class cities here [22]. There are currently only 91 cities of world famous status, or with a population of over 2 million. Ericsaindon2 04:26, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
And of course, the metro area population of Seattle is nearly 4 million. --Usgnus 07:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The city of Seattle and Census both put the population at just over .5 million. A world class city only includes the defined boundaries by the city, not suburbs and unincorporated areas. Trust me, I know that a city like Seattle would not be recognizable by anyone outside the US. To be a world famous city, you must at least have 2 million people, and Seattle falls well short of this. That is just the way the ball bounces! Perhaps your arguement would be better argued at Houston or Los Angeles, where they do meet this criteria of being a world famous city, because frankly, Seattle has no major significance on a global level, nor does it reach the population criteria. Two reasons why the name Seattle could not stand alone. Ericsaindon2 09:04, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
"Trust me, I know that a city like Seattle would not be recognizable by anyone outside the US." Is that a joke? I deal with people on an international basis everyday. More of them know Seattle as a major city on the west coast of the US than they do that Washington is a state. The size of a city within its legal borders makes no sense because that criteria isn't even consistent within the US, nevermind the world. For that matter, the Chinese can designate a new city, like Shenzen, and move 5 million people into it in a single decade. That doesn't make it world famous. SchmuckyTheCat 19:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Being a European myself, I found this statement pretty insulting. Ask any 12-year old kid in Denmark about the location of the main cities in the U.S. and he/she would get most of them right. I think I learned them by heart back when I was ten, and back then TV didn't show tons of U.S. material. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 19:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
It is pretty obvious that Europeans know our large cities, and we know theirs. But, we obviously do not know Asia's large cities, and they probably have never even heard of places like Seattle. Maybe I was a bit harsh, but since we deal with the Eurpoean people often, most probably know, but other than that, it is a pretty limited knowledge. --Ericsaindon2 22:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - the dubious argument of "world class city" fails, since the article global city states that there is evidence of Seattle being one. --Stemonitis 13:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose for consistency. FairHair
  • Strong Support: Per nom. and a terrible naming convention. —Wknight94 (talk) 00:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Let me see if I got this straight. Over-populated but otherwise unremarkable third world cities are "world class cities" because they are larger than 2 million. Seattle is not because it's probably much better known around the world as a cultural bellweather and economic center of the U.S. west coast but doesn't have the requisite numbers of humans. Sorry, it's the other way around. Quality, not quantity. My idea of world class cities: Seattle, Minneapolis, Tucson, Pittsburgh, Atlanta. Puppy Mill 02:39, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Re: to all above, not just Puppy Mill. The World Class City argument is moot (whether you support the change or not). Seattle's world class status is not what's up for debate because whether or not the article is titled Seattle or Seattle, Washington the Seattle's culture and status is the same. Having lived here, I think Seattle is a World Class city but I don't tie the city's worth up into a title. At best, it's just a distraction debate. At worst, it's an emotional vanity appeal in either direction. Agne 03:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
  • 'Strong Support--DaveOinSF 04:36, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose. For the same reasons I oppose the move of Boston on its talk page. If there are more than a handful of execeptions then the problem is with the guideline, and it should be changed. Adding new execptions just makes the situation more disorganized. - The Bethling 05:22, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Bubba ditto 15:36, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Mellow honey
  • Oppose. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose, as long as the redirect works. Better to keep it uniform with other US placenames. --Guinnog 00:33, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Krugs 03:14, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. josh (talk) 13:21, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose: not a strong enough reason to change the existing practice. Thumbelina 17:16, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
    • What would be a strong enough reason in your opinion? --Polaron | Talk 21:16, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The convention is a good one and there's no reason to make an exception for Seattle. The only reason to do so for New York is that New York, New York means something other than the whole city. —wwoods 18:50, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose and agree with Agne. Olessi 00:21, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support "Seattle" is called just "Seattle" in my World Book, and there is no reason to use disambiguation information in the title of this article. Jecowa 18:08, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments
Why bother? Seattle is already a redirect to this article, seems more bother to move and then fix all the broken redirects. However, if y'all want to go through the hassle, have fun.;) --Bobblehead 16:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

No major problems when Chicago was moved from "Chicago, Illinois" --Polaron | Talk 16:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
~2500 links into the current name, ~2000 to the Seattle redirect. Only ones that need fixing are double re-directs, which will be a few dozen. No big diff. SchmuckyTheCat 16:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Which is why I'm neutral on the subject. In my opinion, having or not having ", Washington" after Seattle in the article name is purely cosmetic because with redirects it doesn't really matter.--Bobblehead 18:47, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
It does matter because it gives the impression that "Washington" is part of the name of the city. Plus I don't think that double redirects resulting from the move would even be more than 10. --Polaron | Talk 18:51, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
The reason to bother is that the title of any Wikipedia article is supposed to specify the most common name used to refer to the subject of the article. In this case, the title should specify the most common name used to refer to the city of Seattle. Like Cher is the most common name used to refer to the artist, Seattle, not Seattle, Washington, is the most common name used to refer to this city. Why imply that disambiguation of the name is required because there is a collision with some other Seattle, when there is no such collision? Why unnecessarily confuse readers with the wrong name? This is a no brainer. --Serge 03:13, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Seattle, Washington is not the wrong name for the city, it is just a more formal name. It's the equivalent of referring to a person that goes by Bill as William or referring to someone as their first and last name rather than just their first name. Please explain how referring to the city as it's more formal and equally correct Seattle, Washington will confuse people? Your example of Cher is faulty because that is the name she uses when performing and only family members and personal friends would know her by Cheryl Sarkisian LaPiere. That is simply not the case with Seattle, Washington. It is known by both. --Bobblehead 19:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
So, you're saying that the , Washington is part of the (formal) name of the city? Others contend the , Washington part is not part of the name, but just disambiguation information. Which is it? Who knows? Why impose a confusing title when Seattle is so clear, simple and unambiguous? --Serge 16:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

So far not a single substantive reason for opposing the move has been put forward by those who oppose. Sticking to the US city naming guideline is not a valid reason because the guideline allows for exceptions. Those who oppose making Seattle an exception should state why it does not qualify as one. The reasons to support the move are that there are no ambiguity issues with Seattle, and it is a well-known major city both in the US and internationally, and that the state name is not part of the city name. --Polaron | Talk 15:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I have to say I'm bewildered at the sentiment that adding Seattle, Washington would confuse a reading as to what the city's name is. I think that is assuming a rather low level of intelligence on the reader not to distinguish the comma as separating the city from state. As for a common usage, type in "Seattle, Washington" in Google News and you'll see papers from across the world refer to Seattle, Washington or Seattle, WA in contrast to just Seattle. Agne 14:58, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
"Seattle WA" and "Seattle Washington" combined is still outnumbered more than 33:1 by "Seattle" -- Less than 3% usage of the city name with the state name. The AP Stylebook also includes Seattle in its list of cities that can be written without the state name. --Polaron | Talk 15:07, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Polaron, you still have not provided a substantive reason for WHY it has to be changed from Seattle, Washington to Seattle. Simply put.. Until a decision is made on (settlements) there simply is no substantive reason to go against the existing guideline and change the name of the article. Seattle is a redirect to Seattle, Washington. Seattle, Washington is as common a name for the city as just Seattle. Seattle, Washington will not confuse people as to whether they are looking at the correct city or not. I've told hundreds if not thousands of people that I'm located in Seattle, Washington and not once have I had someone ask if its the Seattle Pearl Jam is from. --Bobblehead 19:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree, keep it "Seattle, Washington" Soapy 21:42, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
The reasons are listed in the nomination. It's not that "Seattle, Washington" would confuse people about the topic but that is not the correct name of the city. Why insist on an inaccurate name just to follow some naming guideline? We should use the simplest name that is is unambiguous. The primary reason state names are used in titles for US city articles is to distinguish places with the same name. But there is only one Seattle. As you said, "Seattle" redirects here and is simpler than "Seattle, Washington". There is not even a disambiguation page! And whatever the decision on the US city naming guidelines, even if status quo is kept, the guidelines allow for exceptions. So what is wrong with using the simple name since it is unambiguous? --Polaron | Talk 00:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Does it cause harm?

  • A couple thoughts. To merit a name change you will need to prove that-the status quo harms the integrity of the article in some fashion and/or the name change would offer substantial benefit to the article that it otherwise would not have. To that extent..

Does it harm the article? Despite the repeated assertion, Seattle, Washington is not inaccurate. To be technical, if you happen to be standing under the Space Needle your location is Seattle, Washington U.S.A (and add in North America, Planet Earth if you like). Now obviously for cosemetic purposes, such a long title wouldn't do. In this regard, you can argue about the relative "harm" the slightly longer name might give but that harm would be soley be on cosmetic features since the presence of the "Seattle" redirect eliminates any practical harm. Does it harm the "image" of Seattle as a World Class city? In comparing the name of Seattle versus the naming of other cities like Paris, Chicago, London, etc in their articles hints of being a vanity arguement since it's soley tied up in the impression of the Wikipedia articles. I would even say it's slightly POV, since we should let the reader decide for themselves in the factual information in the article (our Parks, museums, events etc) of Seattle's status as a World Class City versus trying to use a naming covention as this "bench mark" for this status. Does the name change offer any substantial benefit? Will the change increase readership of the article? Will the change make understanding of the topic any easier? Will the change benefit Wikipedia as a whole? To all of these, the obvious answer is no. To the last statement, you can even say that the change will negatively affect Wikipedia because of the attempt to circumvent developing consensus on the naming convention guideline. As a whole, the Wikipedia community will be benefited if consensus is established there first instead of having several talk page battles on individual city articles.

Unless the "Seattle only" contingent can make a case that there is some substantial benefit to the change or that having Seattle, Washington harms the article in some way, there is no merit for changing the name from the status quo. Agne 01:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course there's a significant benefit: per WP:NAME policy, "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." (emphasis added). --Usgnus 01:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Linking to those articles easy and as second nature is already done as evident by the 2,500 links to Seattle, Washington and 2,000 links through the redirect Seattle. And similarly, can you contend that the majority of English Speakers would not recognize or see ambiguity in "Seattle, Washington"? So again, the question is, what benefit does the name change have over the status quo? Agne 04:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Fewer letters to type. --Usgnus 07:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
You're not typing anymore letters now. Hence the practical application of redirects. It's like typing the 5 letter Dubya instead of George W. Bush and I get to the same page. So again, we're back to sitting at no substantial benefit that would merit the name change. Agne 15:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Not entirely true. Newbie editors don't know or understand redirects and pipes. They want to link to Seattle, but see the name is "Seattle, Washington" so they paste the entire name, ruining the flow of their prose with the un-necessary comma and state.
Also, "status quo" is anti-thetical to the wiki concept. We don't keep things as they are just because that is how they are.
The editors of this article met no objection to moving it. I don't think anyone objecting to this move have ever edited this article. Instead, they are here trying to enforce their own personal vision of process and guidelines - as a point of fact, guidelines that explicitly allow exceptions like this one! Concensus bureaucracy at its most absurd. SchmuckyTheCat 18:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Re: SchmuckyTheCat, Newbie editors do a lot of things imperfect-such as improper capitalization and not including reliable sources. It's a common occurence but we don't alter the WP:MOS or WP:V because of the prevelance of newbie editors doing so. As for editing the article, when I came here the article was already FA status (elevated to such under its current naming convention) and there was nothing of value for me to add. However, I can help protect the FA quality of the article as well as the integrity of the Project as a whole. There is a proper course for changing naming convention and myself, as well as other editors, have tiredlessly advocated our fellow editors to take that proper course.Agne 03:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, there are several editors that edit this article that are opposed to the move. Besides, since when did editting an article become a criteria to voice an opinion? If that's your stance, then this entire proposal needs to be retracted since prior to this proposal and edits to the article to support it Polaron made all of 1 edit to this article and that was to add the surface area. --Bobblehead 19:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the contention with the longer title is that it is not the simplest possible name. For example, the article on the current US president is at George W. Bush and not at President George W. Bush. Both names are correct and one is more complete but the simpler one is used since there is no doubt about the topic even at the simple name. --Polaron | Talk 21:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Except in the example of George W. Bush, that's his title and one he will hold for only 8 years of his life. If the article were solely about his time as a President, then it might be applicable. So no, titling the GWB article President George W. Bush is not correct. The presence of redirects from the various shortening of Seattle, Washington also makes the point moot. --Bobblehead 21:56, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
How about George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States? Would you support titling the article that way? --Polaron | Talk 21:58, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I believe the example you're going for is George Walker Bush. It's longer and is an equally correct name for GWB. But, on the other hand, if all that matters is length, why isn't GWB an acceptable article title? It is a common shortening for his name, disambiguates him from his father GHWB and minimizes the number of characters one has to type. But at this point. Just going round and round. It all goes back to, solve the issues on (settlements) then come back with the proposal. The people complaining about WP:POINT won't have an excuse then. --Bobblehead 22:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
But Wikipedia doesn't use abbreviations as titles. In any case, if "GWB" is more commonly used and is not an abbreviation and is unambiguous then yes we probably should use that as the title. --Polaron | Talk 22:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia does use redirects and that solves all practical concerns. Once again, we're back to the starting point where there has not been any demonstrated substantial benefit to making the change. Agne 03:06, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Other Relevant Discussions Pertaining to Proposed Name Change

Background information about how this topic is being discussed elsewhere Agne 04:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


Recent edits

I've reverted quite a few recent changes that were either outright wrong, or removed pertinent information. There are some more I was inclined to revert, but I wasn't as certain, so I am bringing it here:

  • "Group Health Cooperative was one of the pioneers of managed care in the United States, the University of Washington is consistently ranked among the country's top ten leading institutions in medical research, and Seattle was a pioneer in the development of modern paramedic services with the establishment of Medic One in 1970," became "Group Health Cooperative is a leading proponent and developer of managed care in the northwest, and the University of Washington is consistently ranked among the country's top leading institutions in medical research. Seattle has seen local developments of modern paramedic services with the establishment of Medic One in 1970."
    • As far as I know, Group Health was one of the half dozen first managed care programs in the U.S.; it may have been only the second (after, I believe, one in Boston).
    • "top ten" is accurate in every study I've ever seen. Why was it removed?
    • "pioneer in the development of modern paramedic services" is absolutely true. As far as I know, Medic One was completely without precedent; certainly without precedent in North America.
  • With reference to First Hill "the neighborhood's nickname 'Pill Hill'" became "the neighborhood's nicknames 'Pill Hill' and 'Hospital Hill'." I've lived here about 30 years and I've never heard anyone call it "Hospital Hill".

If I'm wrong on any of this, let me know. Otherwise, I intend to revert these changes as well. Jmabel | Talk 05:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I too am concerned about so many revisions being made to a featured article all at once especially without any explanation or reasons given. The combined work of so many contributors deserves at least that. Alan Smithee 06:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

elevation data

I'm going through the statistics on the infobox and found a discrepancy in the elevation figure. The USGS Geographic Names database lists 184 ft. instead of the currently listed 14 ft. Does anyone know the source for the 14 ft. number? Thanks. --Polaron | Talk 20:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm.. Depends. How is the elevation determined? The highest point, lowest point, average? The seawall by downtwon Seattle is about 15 feet tall but there are other points that are at sea level (Alki Point). However there are some places in seattle that are several hundred feet up. --Bobblehead 22:21, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure how the USGS defines elevation of a city. But they do have a database of various geographic locations with a single elevation value for each of them. My guess is that it is the elevation at the coordinates used to define the location but I could be wrong. --Polaron | Talk 22:24, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Ahh. Hmmm. Well, oddly enough I did find the highest point in Seattle. [23] Maybe a range would be more applicable? Sea level - 520 ft. But if you've got a source with 184 ft, then what is in the info box could very well be a typo. --Bobblehead 22:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
You're right -- giving a range might be better. In fact, giving the lowest and highest elevations within each city might be more useful. However, I don't know if data for these are easy to come by. --Polaron | Talk 03:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Not sure how easy the data for other cities would be, but for Seattle we know it's sealevel to 520ft. --Bobblehead 16:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll ask the people maintaining {{Infobox City}} to see if they can add optional parameters for highest and lowest elevations, similar to what {{US state}} has. --Polaron | Talk 17:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I've a vague recollection that it's commonly the elevation at city hall. —wwoods 02:17, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Large City Strawpoll Construction

I am trying to work on a large City Strawpoll to end the feuding about larger cities in the United States. Please visit the page, User:Ericsaindon2/Sandbox and leave comments on the talk page, but dont edit the actual page. After it has been modified to satisfy the community, I will go ahead and open it. But, please review it and comment, to avoid controversy over its structure. I hope to open it in a few days after discussion, so please be timely in making your comments. Thanks. --Ericsaindon2 05:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Primeval

"…the primeval forests and along the bluffs and beaches of 535-acre Discovery Park…": Isn't it all second growth? - Jmabel | Talk 00:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

afaik, a basic history goes that it was claimed ~1860, logged by ~1870, subdivided ~1880, eminent domain for Fort Lawton by 1900. Considering it's use during ww2, I doubt there are any trees older than 70-80 years.
Is there any original growth forest anywhere in the city? SchmuckyTheCat 01:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Not that I'm aware of. I think the last of it was probably when Ravenna Park was logged (after some corrupt deal in the 1930s, if I remember the story correctly). - Jmabel | Talk 03:54, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I think the majority of Ravenna, and Cowen, Park was logged well before then, but there remained a grove of amazing redwoods named after presidents. If my memory is not mistaken they were on the upper field around what is now where Ravenna Blvd becomes Ravenna Ave. According to the Cowen Park–Ravenna Park and Ravenna Creek section of the Ravenna neighborhood the last of them disappeared in 1926.
—Asatruer 12:32, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Then it's a little earlier than I thought, but as I'm sure you'll agree, redwoods don't just "disappear". I remember reading somewhere that there was press coverage at the time, but that it focused more on the curiosity of serious logging happening in-city for the first time in a generation, not on the fact that this meant the city was losing its last old growth. - Jmabel | Talk 05:54, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Here's something on HistoryLink. Pretty much as I remembered it in terms of the corruption. Nothing there about the press coverage. Also some interesting material in this article about Douglas fir. - Jmabel | Talk 06:01, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I also found on a Washington Policy Center web site an article called Private Land Trusts: A Free-Market Forest Conservation Tool that has some commentary about this in the section called, Government coercion and "greenlining."[24] that mentions some of the same information about Superintendant Thompson. The linked historylink article cites these interesting sounding articles that would be interesting to track down somewhere: "Beautiful Trees Cut To 'Line Someone's Pocket,'" The Seattle Times, June 29, 1977; "Removal of Trees Protested," Ibid., November 23, 1926; "Removal of Giant Trees Would Be Crime," Ibid., November 24, 1926
—Asatruer 15:19, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


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