Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lakes/Archive 1

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Help wanted

I'm wondering if I could get you guys to help me expand/cleanup/update a few Great Basin lake articles, namely: Pyramid Lake, Walker Lake (Nevada), Great Salt Lake, Bear Lake (Idaho/Utah), and Sevier Lake. The latter three are technically covered by WikiProject Utah, but that project sort of... died. BTW I love the idea of a WikiProject specifically for lakes --there's just something about them that I find strangely fascinating. In any event, I really need to take some aspirin and stop pretending I'm not sick :) --Lethargy 14:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner ... I somehow missed your comment. I will definitely give you a hand with your lakes. And if you haven't already, put the lake project banner on all of those pages. And as far as lakes being fascinating ... I agree wholehartedly, though I haven't really spent much time ON a lake. Cheers!! Em3rald 16:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Project message box

The project message box for some reason has extra spacing below it, for example:

Examples removed so we don't get categorized incorrectly.

What should happen, using protected areas as an example:

Examples removed: see above.

This is also seen with the mountain template. Can we remove the excess padding?

  • DONE Em3rald 17:49, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

A second suggestion, Wikipedia:WikiProject Utah and Wikipedia:WikiProject Protected areas' templates add the pages to associated categories, Category:WikiProject Utah and Category:Articles of WikiProject Protected areas, respectively. Is there some way we can modify the template to do this as well? I'd like to have a Category:Articles of WikiProject Lakes, but I'm not sure how to do this. --Lethargy 17:40, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

  • I see what you mean. I will see if I can do something about that. I am not 100% sure how to do some of that either, but I have someone to help if I need her to. Em3rald 17:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I looked over the templates and I think I can whip something up. --Lethargy 17:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


Metric vs. U.S. Customary

I noticed that in the infobox we are always using metric units. This is fine for most of the world, but unfortunately we ignorant Americans can't necessarily figure it out. I propose that on lakes that are in the U.S. we place the United States customary units first, then the metric measurements in parenthesis. We could switch the order around for lakes outside the U.S.. As for lakes on the border, I'm not sure I care what order they are in, but both measurements should be there.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lethargy (talk • contribs) .

I concur. That's the way it's done in both the river and mountain projects. Daniel Case 02:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I also found out that apparently this is Wikipedia's policy, so we should definitely have both. --Lethargy 01:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Special request: to-do lists

As often as possible, please add a to-do list to articles so wikipedians can quickly see what improvements need to be made to an article. I have already done this on Talk:Utah Lake and Talk:Great Salt Lake, and have requested input for creating one in Talk:Capitol Reef National Park. These greatly improve the efficiency of the editing process, which is sorely needed in a project with few active members such as this one, as well as wikipedia as a whole. --Lethargy 22:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Copied my comment from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Utah

--Lethargy 19:02, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Categorize goals using the to-do list

I'd like to take a page from WikiProject Utah's book (the only other project I have experience with) and use the to-do list to categorize what we want to do with articles. For instance, Utah has sections such as:

  • Collaboration:
  • To Nominate at WP:FAC:
  • To Improve to Featured standard:
  • Pages with an open task list:
  • To Expand:

etc.

These are very nice to have so project members know what to focus on. To see better how this works Check out their list. --Lethargy 19:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Fantastic ideas, and thanks fer the cool to-do box. I wonder if something like that would be more suited to the main project page? I've seen some other projects with some pretty cool main page layouts. I should have some time tonight (nightshift, and the plant is quiet), so I will see if I can familiarize myself with some other projects and sorta professionalize WP:LAKES a little more. Cheers! Em3rald 00:09, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


Naming

I have been around a lot in article naming for country subdivisions. Also participated in river naming and fixed other landforms. IMO, since the landform naming faces some similiar problems, we should all join forces and write a Wikipedia:Naming conventions (landforms). If you have ideas for lake naming maybe have a look there. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Great Salt Lake peer review

Great Salt Lake has now been listed as a good article, and I plan to submit it for peer review soon. Before I do that, I'd be very grateful if everyone could copy-edit it (see Wikipedia:How to copy-edit) to improve grammar, punctuation, tone, etc. Also, please review it and list any opportunities for improvement here or on Talk:Great Salt Lake. --Lethargy 21:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

It is now up for peer-review. If you get the time, please add whatever feedback you can think of. Thank you. --Lethargy 22:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia version 0.5 lakes and seas

If you have any comments on what has been nominated at Wikipedia:Version 0.5 Set Nominations/Lakes and seas, or if you feel something else should be added, please add your comments there... or here... anywhere :). Also, please help us to improve those articles on this list that are in the greatest need of improvement, so they can be included without any problems. --Lethargy 18:35, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


Good articles

Right now we have two articles that are GA standard (Great Salt Lake and Lake Kariba), and none that are featured. There are two featured lakes (Chew Valley Lake and Lake Burley Griffin), but we haven't worked on them with this project and they aren't tagged as part of this.

I figure we should start assessing articles that are the closes to becoming good articles, and work on them to the point they can be nominated. As you come across articles that are close to GA standard, add them to the to-do list above under the "To improve to GA standard" heading. As they pass GA standard, move them up the ladder to FA standard in the to-do list. After looking through some of our articles, I think Dead Sea and Lake Erie are our best bets, unfortunately both of these are unreferenced. Let's see if we can find enough sources to bring these up to GA standard.

OK, so that was a long-winded way of asking for help. :) --Lethargy 01:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


Template (old talk moved from project page)

Lake dimensions

This has been the source of some confusion, and this discussion merits further discourse in the talk page. It seems generally accepted that the maximum length of a lake would be the greatest dimension at any angle; the width, therefore, would be the greatest dimension perpendicular to the angle used to calculate the maximum length. Any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this matter are welcome and should be directed to the talk page.
The depth parameter is currently arranged to show both maximum and average lake depths, but it has been brought to the attention of the project by a fellow editor that this appears clumsy. To remedy this, the infobox should include both average depth and maximum depth as distinct parameters. Updating this will require editors to update each lake page that includes these values in the infoboxes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Em3rald (talk • contribs)
(Note from November 18, 2006:) The sample of the infobox above has been updated since by adding "max-dep"). -- User:Docu

Cities vs. Settlements

The infobox was originally designed with those lakes that had cities on their shores in mind. However, it has come to our attention (both in practice and from editor observation) that there are in fact a great number of lakes that don't in fact have cities near their shores. In these cases, any settlement could be used, with preference given to those settlements that are most notable. This will, of course, be left to editor common-sense and the discussion pages for those individual lakes. It stands to reason that if we included every city, town, village, and hamlet around some lakes that this would be an incredibly (and uselessly) long list. On the other hand, some lakes only have one or two very small settlements on their shores - these should not be excluded because relative to that lake those settlements are indeed notable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Em3rald (talk • contribs)


Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 14:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


African Great Lakes

Just wondering if you all thought that this article would fall under your project's scope or not. Badbilltucker 22:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Definitely. I thought it had already been tagged as part of this project, but I guess not. --Lethargy 02:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


Renaming

Hello friends! To which form should Cat:Islands in lakes be renamed? I propose "Islands of the lakes". - Darwinek 13:26, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind the "in"-form (Islands in lakes). -- User:Docu
It seems like this category will very quickly become so large as to be meaningless. Seems that some sort of sub-categorization schema will be necessary at some point if the category is to be of much use. older ≠ wiser 22:44, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Chonji / Tianchi / etc.

A move request is currently underway at Talk:Cheonji lake, to which I would value contributions from members of this project. --Stemonitis 08:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Manger Lake?

Lake Matano is described as 'a natural manger lake' but I can't find out from Wikipedia or elsewhere what this means. Does anyone know? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bwmodular (talk • contribs) 11:47, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

wiktionary:manger?
There are lists of lake types at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Lakes#Lake_types and Lake#Types_of_lakes. -- User:Docu
Yes, but "manger" is not on either of those pages. And I'm sure it isn't a French for eating lake either. I'm just going to take the word out. --AW 16:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (New Zealand)#Lakes disambiguation

At the above talk page, I suggest an update of the naming convention for articles about lakes in New Zealand. They would be titled similarly to WP:LAKES#Multiple_lakes_with_the_same_name. -- User:Docu


Width field in infobox

Note: Section header added by User:Docu

The infobox contains a term "width", I dont know what that means! Length seems quite intuitive, but width isnt. Would some kind soul wikilink to a definition of a width as applied to a lake. Fasach Nua (talk) 17:18, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
It might be better to bring this up on the related talk page. -- User:Docu