Template talk:US county navigation box

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Changes to US state version of this template 2 Not much need for the map 3 Title bar text 4 2 county seats 5 County seat, edit request 6 Parentheses? 7 Should the county navigation boxes be required to organize contents based on obscure Census Bureau jargon?

[edit] Changes to US state version of this template

Earlier today, Template:US state navigation box (upon which the county version is based) was reverted to its state as of March 9th, thereby removing the "v•d•e" and "[show]/[hide]" links. To read or participate in the discussion, visit Template talk:US state navigation box. -- Zyxw 04:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not much need for the map

It looks kind of bad in California because of the shape of the state (look at Orange County, California). It makes the title bar abnormally tall. Wouldn't an article of a state's county already have a map so why do we need it twice? --MarsRover 06:32, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

As I posted here, I have proposed to use to tweak this template so the maps are disabled for states like California. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 21:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

If there is a consensus to remove the map from the title bar, the county navigation boxes could be implemented with Template:Navbox generic. It is designed to handle templates that use group headings, similar this one. An example can be seen at Template:Leon County, Florida. -- Zyxw 07:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Ideally, I would prefer another type of image there in the corner, since the CA maps do not appear too well on a thumbnail scale, especially the smaller counties in terms of area. Since the county seals are fair use. and thus not allowed on templates, my second choice would be to have individual images for each individual county's boundaries. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 14:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Zzyzx11, and don't feel there is a consensus to remove the image completely from the title bar. Its a common element that county navboxes contain whether they have been converted to this template or not. The idea of using maps of the individual counties is a good alternative. VerruckteDan 21:43, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Title bar text

I've added back the original text "Municipalities and communities of" to the title bar. I think this text is vital to keep the purpose of these navigation boxes in focus. Without such focus I foresee lots of other topics being placed into the navboxes, making them exceeding long and reducing their effectiveness as a navigation tool. VerruckteDan 16:33, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The reason why I removed that phrase in the first place[1] is that there seems to be a word wrapping bug in Firefox on 800x600 display monitors where the second line is not completely centered. I cannot remember the exact guidelines (I can only remember the second paragraph of WP:GTL#Images), but we should make it so the layout is easy to read on those users who still use the 800x600 monitor display resolution setting. And since Firefox is becoming more widely used, my compromise is to decrease the font size, rather than revert your edit so the phrase is hidden again. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 17:35, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, because of the length of the phrase, a newline break may have to be inserted between "communities" and "of" instead.Zzyzx11 (Talk) 17:40, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The solution may be related to why Template:*mp was created, or may be related to Template talk:Navigation#Header not centered...?. Further investigation is needed. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 18:37, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The line break is fine and addresses the problem with Firefox. I'm always gonna try it with a smaller text or maybe without the bold, so that the county name stands out a bit more. VerruckteDan 19:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2 county seats

I used this to create a Template:Hinds County, Mississippi template which is causing me issues because Hinds County, Mississippi has 2 county seats, Jackson and Raymond. Since the template auto-wikilinks the seat, if I put "Jackson and Raymond", it becomes Jackson and Raymond, Mississippi. Any way to solve this issue? Thanks. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 13:59, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a parameter "seat2" for counties with 2 seats. I've made the change to the template. VerruckteDan 15:39, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! -- ALLSTAR ECHO 16:34, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] County seat, edit request

Please change the following

|above = {{#if:{{{seat<includeonly>|</includeonly>}}}|{{#switch:{{{state}}}
| Louisiana = [[Parish seat|<span style="color:{{{text_color|}}}">Parish seat</span>]]
| #default  = [[County seat|<span style="color:{{{text_color|}}}">County seat</span>]]
}}: '''[[{{{seat}}}, {{{state}}}|<span style="color:{{{text_color|}}}">{{{seat}}}</span>]]'''}} <!--

-->{{#if:{{{seat2|}}}| & '''[[{{{seat2}}}, {{{state}}}|<span style="color:{{{text_color|}}}">{{{seat2}}}</span>]]'''}}

to this in order to account for Alaska having "Borough seats" and Vermont having "Shire towns"

|above = {{#if:{{{seat<includeonly>|</includeonly>}}}|{{#switch:{{{state}}}
| Alaska = [[Borough seat|<span style="color:{{{text_color|}}}">Borough seat</span>]]
| Louisiana = [[Parish seat|<span style="color:{{{text_color|}}}">Parish seat</span>]]
| Vermont = [[Shire town|<span style="color:{{{text_color|}}}">Shire town</span>]]
| #default  = [[County seat|<span style="color:{{{text_color|}}}">County seat</span>]]
}}: '''[[{{{seat}}}, {{{state}}}|<span style="color:{{{text_color|}}}">{{{seat}}}</span>]]'''}} <!--

-->{{#if:{{{seat2|}}}| & '''[[{{{seat2}}}, {{{state}}}|<span style="color:{{{text_color|}}}">{{{seat2}}}</span>]]'''}}

Thanks. VerruckteDan 22:11, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Done, hopefully it works because I have not tested this yet. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 22:39, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Parentheses?

Template:Rutland County, Vermont and other county templates in Vermont (and, I'd guess in other New England states and New York) have a problem: the name of the county seat/shire town includes parentheses. Could someone who knows how to code templates add some sort of parameter to eliminate the (city) in the header, so that instead of

v • d • e Municipalities and communities of Rutland County, Vermont Shire town: Rutland (city) City Rutland Towns Benson | Brandon | Castleton | Chittenden | Clarendon | Danby | Fair Haven | Hubbardton | Ira | Killington | Mendon | Middletown Springs | Mount Holly | Mount Tabor | Pawlet | Pittsfield | Pittsford | Poultney | Proctor | Rutland | Shrewsbury | Sudbury | Tinmouth | Wallingford | Wells | West Haven | West Rutland Village Poultney CDPs Brandon | Fair Haven | Wallingford | West Rutland

it displays the shire town as "Rutland"? Nyttend 18:29, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Can the template simply be changed so that it doesn't wikilink automatically? That would be the simplest solution and would allow for flexibility such as adding comments as well. If one insists that the template automatically do the linking for us, one could use the code:

[[{{{seat}}}{{#if:{{{area|}}}|_({{{area}}})|}},_{{#if:{{{ctdab|}}}|{{{ctdab}}}_County,_|}}{{{state}}}{{!}}{{{seat}}}]]

where "area" would refer to a municipality type (e.g. city, town, village) and "ctdab" would refer to a county disambiguator. --Polaron | Talk 03:09, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Should the county navigation boxes be required to organize contents based on obscure Census Bureau jargon?

I'm looking for some input here on the navigation box in Category:Michigan county navigational boxes begun as a discussion on my talk page User talk:Bkonrad#CDPs in Michigan. Some (not all) of the boxes distinguished between Census-designated places and other unincorporated communities. I updated them to more consistently list any uniquely named unincorporated populated places within the county as communities. I don't see how listing the communities under the obscure jargonish label of CDP (or even the expanded title of census-designated places) is very helpful for users. For persons who do not deal with demographic data on a regular basis, the distinction between a CDP and any other unincorporated place is insignificant. older ≠ wiser 19:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

In some contexts it may be useful to make the distinction, but I agree that it's probably not useful in a navigation template. CDPs are unincorporated communities, and I see no benefit in having them separated out in the template rather than being listed with the other unincorporated communities. Omnedon (talk) 02:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

For these navigation templates, there shouldn't be a need for separating out CDPs. It could possibly be beneficial in some states/counties but definitely not all, particularly urbanized counties. For example, the Census Bureau tends to lump all the communities of an urbanized MCD into a single CDP regardless of the presence of distcint named communities within it. In the end, my preference is to not separate CDPs as they are functionally not any different from other unincorporated communities. --Polaron | Talk 03:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. It's unlikely that a casual user will know (or care) that the U.S. Census designates one unincorporated town differently from another. Separating out CDPs into their own section is also rather misleading -- it suggests that they're something exclusive from incorporated or unincorporated communities, when in fact (by definition) all CDPs are always unincorporated communities. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 12:52, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. There is also discussion going on at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. counties#Standards for County navboxes, which is probably a better forum for this. I had forgotten about that project when I first started this thread. older ≠ wiser 13:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)