Talk:Utica, New York

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EDITOR CORRUPT?

Why is this editor buffaboy removing posts here that complain about edits going on and other info but allows this city to be knocked and bashed, look at what's said in the fire dept thread, why doesn't she remove this or hide it like she has done with other posts, she needs to be removed from editing wiki.67.241.18.144 (talk) 01:18, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Radio?

This section shouldn't be here at all. It is nonspecific to Utica and more general to Upstate NY. If any should be mentioned, only ones unique or local only to Utica. Right now you have a bunch of capital letters and bullet dots taking up useless space. No one will read it anyway. No offense intended. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.209.130.53 (talk) 03:45, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I you read this history it is clear that Uticans seem to have a big issue with overemphasizing the mundane and ordinary, it's partly why this Wiki i such a discordant mess compared to other cities even twice Utica's size.

What is wrong with the people there? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.195.222.168 (talk) 00:41, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Pictures

What's up with the photos of Utica that get posted? For the longest time, the page had a picture of the Radisson, and Adirondack Bank beneath a grey, gloomy sky. Let's show a little pride, and put up some pictures that show off how nice the area can actually look. Other city pages have pics of monuments, and different districts. Utica has many monuments, as well as historical buildings, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.79.76.146 (talk) 23:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, these are the most accurate pictures I've seen of Utica. Other pictures (like that of the Hotel) are often photochopped to remove surrounding blight and adds a false blue sky with CG-generated clouds. Keep the cloudy pictures... It's more common than you think. However, as you mentioned, please feel free to add the many "landmark society"-protected edifices that are in decrepit condition. Not having those pictures gives an incomplete impression of Utica for the average reader that won't have the time (or a reason) to visit Utica. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.236.176.195 (talk) 20:03, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Joseph Crandall??

In about thirty years of doing research and publishing on Utica's history, I've never encountered this name. I can't say with certainty that there was no such person who may have passed through the area, but it's contradictory to say that the place was "founded" by a person named Crandall and then to say that it was first settled nearly 70 years later--"foundation" means the beginning of meaningful settlement. In fact, before the American Revolution there were no more than a handful of white people living in the entirety of Oneida County, let alone the site of Utica. The village of Utica was not incorporated until the 1790s. This reference to this Crandall as Utica's "founder," for which the person who submitted it does not seem to have offered any documentation, is highly misleading, perhaps even fictional, and has now been repeated by a number of websites that refer to the history of Utica, which shows how problematic this Wiki process really is.

I agree with the person who contends that Herkimer is not a suburb of Utica. That takes quite a stretch of the imagination.

Finally, I don't see how anyone who has been around and who knows anything about Italian-American culture can say that "greens" is a distinctively Utica dish. There may be distinctive ways in which escarole is prepared in Utica--notably in the common practice of adding pickled red cherry peppers, which does not seem to be common, although I cannot say if it's uniquely Utican--but southern Italian immigrants were more fond of leafy green vegetables, specifically sauteed in olive oil and garlic, than the average American, so to say that "greens" is distinctive of Utica is really not accurate. Sauteed escarole, broccoli rabe, and so forth were eaten all over Italian-America.

"It doesn't matter, it was popularized in Utica." Spooky873 (talk) 21:56, 15 April 2008 (UTC) --Or so Uticans desperately claim. Says it all about these people when they need to twist reality to make it look like Utican's are "prominent" people.

This Utica page is a disaster and inconsistant with typical Wikipedia pages of like-sized cities.

This page is a mess it is incorrectly formatted and the information presented borders on "everyone in town trying to get in on the act" and has made the entire webpage a disaster. Name one business and suddenly all 569 pizzerias in Utica are stacked tall on their Wikipedia page. If you include their "Signature in-town microbrewery" that they write 7 puff articles a month in their local paperabout and soon it will include list of all the little bars in their "Historic Brewery Section" and then soon you'll have every bar in town up there. There's like 120. Cmon, "Annual snowfall" and a huge chart taking up the page from 1920s?

I made some edits to rearrange things and Editor "Excirial" popped in and immediately reverted back the swap and the removal of some of the more loaded lists of every little fundraiser that goes on in town. These were replaced by Excirial also.

I am not a frequent Wiki "editor" and only offer changes based upon very specific and valuable expertise in several varied interests across WP. I am also a Wikipedia monetary contributor since 2008. If I can't come to my hometown's Wikipedia page, and make a change to some thing that is obviously wrong or overblown, and these changes are reverted by someone who obviously doesn't live there or seem to see how strange a list of NFPs and all the stack of "Signature events" (Really?) then why do I continue to keep supporting and using this website?

Below it the note I left "Excirial" in their mailbox. I will wait a response. Let's see if anyone can help figure out a way to address this kind of nonsense in the future because the info is plain wrong and formatted like a disaster and apparently that;s fine with some people.

The note:

The article starts of with the title and after the basic paragraph you see "Geography and climate"? I moved it and "Demographics" below history and more useful initials figuring the huge graphs and charts were a little much. What other cities could we find on Wikipedia that follow this odd and cumbersome formatting like this? It just seemed odd and glaring and has caught my attention for some time now. The folks in utica have an obsession with their Wikipedia page they discuss it on the local "Topix" page. They also place a huge emphasis on weather in their area both local news stations open with news and withing 7 minutes begin discussing at miniumum 15 minutes of weather with a recap after sports after that. And that's on a warm summer evening. Ditto the news paper to some extent. I'm not kidding so it seemed some of that weird enthusiasm has managed to find its way with enthusiasm onto the wiki page here.

If you look at Utica's page you might notice all the NFPs and minor minor local organizations have all been listed also in discordance with like articles on the Wikipedia. As well as a (to a local at least) lot of gross embellishment, itself a Utica trait of notoriety there. I drop in from time to time and make sure they aren't claiming their Auditorium was the "Inspiration for Madison Square Garden" despite its architect building an almost identical design some years earlier in NC etc, and a strangely inordinate number of other like wives tales I heard from them living there over the years and later learned were completely unfounded and untrue.

That Utica page has become a sort of untended battlefield between reality and their imaginary land Excirial. If that sounds strange I'm sorry but to someone with a little experience on the place that's not strange at all that's just "Utica".

So I'll check in and see what you decide sometime, I see by your barnstar for helping out that you'll make a good choice or keep it in mind when you see someone expect go try to tighten that page up it looks ridiculous... if you compare it with a like-sized similar city's Wikipedia article. Everyone in town with the slightest claim to fame has their website listed and embellishments in full force trying to get in on the act like it's a free website. There is not enough normal, plain history and facts as you'd see in a normal Wikipedia page. Just count how many businesses are listed on the page alone. It's something like a cross between apublic edited version of one of those junk content farm "Business Listings" sites and a "Myspace" page. If you strike changes to that much bloat and incorrectly sequenced charts and "Demographics" it just grows until the huge stack of lists as you see there and easily stands out as inconsistent with what you'd expect to see on a typical cities page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.241.24.237 (talk) 19:34, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, a lot of what you say has merit, but I think your edits may have been seen as of a "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" thing. For instance the Boilermaker Road Race has its own article so I'm not sure that that it's not notable and should not be included, and so forth. I'll take a closer look it presently. Herostratus (talk) 19:55, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Looking at a few of articles, a typical format seems to be "Lede -- Geography (including climate) -- Demographics -- History etc." (I don't know if there's any Manual of Style prescriptions about this or if it's just a common practice.) So I can't see moving the climate data lower, necessarily. The only possible problem is that there's this huge snowfall table which is arguably too much detailed info and scrolls off the page. On the other hand, somebody went to the trouble of adding it and it is encyclopedic and does get across the useful point that it snows there a lot. It's not that long. I'm inclined to keep it, I guess. Herostratus (talk) 04:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

But a lot of the stuff you removed is trivial. I don't know as the page is a "disaster". Lots of times people add stuff to pages, and you have to remember that these people live in Utica. There's nothing to do there. So of course they're going to add stuff about the weather and so forth. I think you're main problem was removing so much stuff with one edit, which tends to set off red flags.

• America's Greatest Heart Run & Walk -- there's no info about this. Removed.
• Boilermaker Road Race -- has its own article. Kept.
• Falling Leaves Road Race -- dunno. Its web site says it has "over 1000 entries". Is that a lot or little for a road race? I have no idea, but it sounds like a lot so I left it for now.
• RiggieFest -- not sure, but sounds lame. There website looks amateurish so on that basis: removed.
• Children's Museum Festival of Trees & Lights / Holiday on Main Street. I dunno, every city has something like this. This is kind of akin to "Annual Intake of Oxygen, a 365-days-a-year event participated in by practically all Uticans". Also, ref does not support the material. Removed.
• St. Patrick's Day Parade -- probably ditto. Removed.
• Snowfari. Not sure about this, but the claim is that it's a big deal in Central New York. It does have a ref, although a poor one. There are actually competitive events and something about the Empire States Games which I was not able to understand. Should probably be deleted, not sure, so I left it for now.
• Utica Monday Nite. By now I'm starting to feel sorry for people in Utica (Look! Jeremy Wallace is coming!) so I left it in. It does have a website. At least it's arts and not centered on the consumption of some loathsome concoction like Riggies. Should probably be deleted.
• Utica Music Fest. Ditto.
• Taste of Utica. Greasy-fingered restauranters trying to pass off their heathen swill on an unsuspecting public to the unwelcome squalling of Fritz's Polka Band. Do Not Want. Removed.

Really this whole section could be removed. The Boilermaker thingy could be moved to a "See also" section or something.

The "Arts, history, and culture" section is also all wrong. There ought to be something to say about this, though. I would mention the Children's Museum, which is amazingly good for a city of this size. The Hotel Utica is notable. But the whole section is too long and needs to be severely redacted.

The "Food and drink in Utica"... Ditto. I see that Tomato pie has an article and is apparently a Utica concoction. Matt Brewing Company has an article... but "Sausage and Peppers — Italian sausage with fried onions and peppers on a crusty bread". Oh, OK. How unique. Well why leave out "toast"? "Toast is popular in Utica". "Many Uticans drink water." But Halfmoons has an article which says "Half-Moons originated in Utica, NY". So although this section needs a redaction there's probably some useful material there.

The bottom line is that you are basically correct. A carving knife is called for here. Herostratus (talk) 05:22, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Herostratus and "unsigned", What you may well have no way of knowing is that the article is unique for a city of Utica's size is that Utica was a city with a history is unique for a city it's size. As hard as it may be to imagine looking at it from 1970 to the present,Utica was until as late as the late 1960s, the biggest little city in America. Utica was where the plot to assassinate Garfield was hatched, where the term "clout" was first coined,where the first pilsner lager beer in America where brewed, where Danny Bisone penned the plan for the 24 second clock, where Dick Clark began his career at WRUN radio, where the plan was laid to kidnap Joseph Bonanno and near where he was held, and the city Walter Winchell spoke of when he said "If you want to get kill someone and get away with it, do it in Utica NY" and the city Will Rogers spoke of when he said "No matter where you go in America, you will meet someone from Utica NY". If you fail to understand why Sausage and peppers, Grrens and half moons are significant not only in terms of Utica, but in the history of an entire american culture,I can't help you. If anything the article is modest and well edited, and great restraint was used. As my favorite college professor used to say,(stolen from a rather obscure spoken word artist)"Don't get so cool that you forget what's neat" Not only Utica, but all the post industrial rust belt cities have a unique story, and sometimes you have to break "encyclopedic" rules to capture them. I don't ask for much in life, but one wish is that we do not create a collective historical lie by omission in my lifetime, for the sake of pop culture revisionism.Cosand (talk) 03:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

So do you have any referenced content to add, or are you just promoting your hometown like this article does? It is a mess, and the mess will be dealt with. Most of this garbage belongs either on the chamber of commerce's webpage or on a Utica fanpage. Truth be told, there isn't anything special about Utica that any city of similar size and length of existence can't say. Do you really think anyone reading this article in say, Calcutta, would care about most of it? Gtwfan52 (talk) 07:42, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Who knows? We have lots of readers and they come for all different reasons. You are basically correct about a lot of the stuff, though. I'm glad that the notation that the fire department provides 24/7/365 protection was removed, for instance; if the fire department didn't ("Eh, it's three o'clock in the morning for chrissakes, let it burn") then that would be notable. Still, the Wikipedia is not paper and we have plenty of room. I don't know what the standard for "notable residents" is but in my opinion any bluelinked person is fair game. Herostratus (talk) 19:46, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

The standard for notable people lists is enough referencing to show notability sufficient to create a wiki article on them, and link them to the city either by birth or by residence, past or present.Gtwfan52 (talk) 20:06, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

pov

The baseball section reads like an opinion piece from a forum. It needs to be cleaned up. MJHankel (talk) 21:00, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, done. Herostratus (talk) 03:15, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Food and drink in Utica

An editor removed the entire following section on the grounds that it's fluff an puffery:

---

Food and drink in Utica

Utica has an array of ethnic cuisines. The Utica area features a number of Italian-American restaurants, some that date back generations. More recent immigrant groups to the city have contributed distinct culinary options including Bosnian, German, Chinese, Lebanese, Burmese, Dominican, Jamaican, Greek, Korean, Spanish, and Thai.

Some culinary items associated with Utica:

• Halfmoons — Halfmoons are a black and white pastry made with a large (5") dark chocolate cake style cookie iced on one half with white cream frosting and the other half with dark chocolate frosting.
• Tomato Pie — Tomato Pie is a rectangular thick-crust bread covered with a sweet Italian tomato sauce, served cold.
• Chicken Rigatoni — or Chicken riggies as locals call them, are chicken, rigatoni, peppers, and onions in a spicy, cream and tomato sauce. Riggie Fest occurs every April. [1].
• Greens — A generally spicy dish made of escarole with various ingredients (depending on recipe) such as potatoes, sausage, hot peppers..
• Sausage and Peppers — Italian sausage with fried onions and peppers on a crusty bread.
• Mushroom Stew: Crushed tomatoes, ground hot Italian sausage, bell peppers, onions, and mushrooms. Served alone with bread or over pasta.
• Pusties — They are "officially" called pasticciotti, a single-serving Italian custard-filled tart. The usual fillings for the rich tart crust are chocolate, vanilla, lemon, and Italian cheesecake.
• Pierogi — A Slavic pasta dish commonly filled with fruit, potatoes, sauerkraut, or Polish mushrooms.

Utica is the headquarters of the Matt Brewing Company, brewer of Utica Club, Saranac and other beers, which was founded in 1888.

---

I haven't really looked at this and don't know if it's entirely puffery or not, but this is big removal, so I just wanted to note this. Herostratus (talk) 16:29, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

It may not be puffery, but it sure is trivial and not good content for a US city article. Gtwfan52 (talk) 07:44, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

---

Because of the influence of refugee and immigrant populations in Utica (for instance, see here), food is deeply cultural to this city. Other cities do have a space for cuisine, see [York City's page].

What is uncommon is having a tab for tourism, especially in a city that is not a clear tourist destination. Would it not make more sense to say "Attractions," or "Historical Sites," or "Recreation"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smselvic (talk • contribs) 11:25, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

The section headers are based upon WP:USCITIES, although they can be changed up a bit. It's sort of like a challenge to find information on some of the subjects–it's out there, though. Buffaboy ^talk 15:01, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the guidelines. Would it make sense to have a tab for "historical sites" under "history"--since much of Utica's historical value--so often hidden under the surface--can be verified by listing which sites have been deigned "historical sites" and why? For instance, Utica's abolitionist history is not mentioned here, but the site of the "Utica Rescue" has been verified by historians and the building is listed as a historical site. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smselvic (talk • contribs) 20:53, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Fire department

Anyone other than me think that the fire department section is WP:UNDUE? It is three times the size of the government section and asserts absolutely nothing unique (therefore encyclopedic) about the Utica Fire Department. Minimally, it needs to be smaller and a subsection of government. I can see plenty of arguments for it to go away altogether. The city has stoplights too...are we going to introduce a section listing every one of those? Gtwfan52 (talk) 01:56, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Echoedmyron (talk) 02:14, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Although Wikiproject article guidelines are not mandatory, they are a really good suggestion as to what should and shouldn't be in a particular type of article. It is worth noting that the guideline for US city articles does not even mention a section on police and fire departments. It is my view that the only time you should have a section on either police or fire departments is if:

1. There is something unusual about them. (see Kalamazoo, Michigan and Scottsdale, Arizona; two cities that have or had public safety departments as opposed to separate police and fire departments.)
2. There has been something (major fire, loss of firefighters in the line of duty, scandal) that has garnered widespread press coverage.

Let's leave this discussion open for a while and see what others have to say before doing any revision on the article. Gtwfan52 (talk) 04:16, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey guys/ Be informed, Utica is in upstate Ny where they now have more people in public service than in private industry. They live and breathe to talk about their heroic public safety and I have little doubt that this large add was a result of their almost neurotic need to puff chest and talk themselves up. The Utica fire Department actually writes "Above and beyond the call" on their trucks despite the fact that heroes don't call attention to themselves and don't call themselves the heroes they wait for others to do it.

Be warned these people are very self-conscious and will spend 89% of their time defending the delusions they dream up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 32.143.51.99 (talk) 08:54, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Restoring image

Someone changed the infobox image to File:Utica_Panorama.JPG, which is a panorama of a guard rail with Utica barely visible in the distance. I changed it back to File:Utica_97_002.jpg, which is primarily a picture of Utica rather than a picture of a highway safety element. Feel free to add the other image to the article guard rail. -67.249.136.64 (talk) 21:27, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Article reconstruction

Hello my name is Dekema2. I am working to transform articles of some upstate cities into high quality articles that can be closer to earning the designation of WP:GA. I have started with Buffalo, New York and will work on Utica simultaneously. Regardless of what state of life the city is in right now, improving or declining I will put my best foot forward and try to inject life to it while bringing it up to speed with other US cities articles. For more information you can look at WP:USCITIES or contact me on my talk page. Anyone is able to help as well. Thank you and have a nice day! --Dekema2 (talk) 04:34, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

It's come a long way in 7 months... Buffaboy ^talk 06:47, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

So what's it called?

So the infobox has a fair number of nicknames:

• Handshake City,
• Renaissance City,
• Capital of the Erie Canal
• Second Chance City

which none of these have cites (at least not there in the infobox) and the last actually has a citation needed tag. I went to add a fifth,

• The City That God Forgot

which at least has a ref, here, at the Children's Museum, how good that is I don't know since it's a children's museum rather than an academic journal or whatever. An editor rolled that back though (it was malformed anyway so maybe he did it for that reason). But rather than including names that don't have refs and excluding those that do, or having like five names, can we find a way to figure out a couple-three that we're confident about? Herostratus (talk) 10:35, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to you this article is now semi protected. This rhetoric you keep introducing is almost straight from Utica's Topix. Buffaboy (talk) 17:12, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Article is messed up now.

Thanks to the valiant edits of one or a few IPs, this article is now full of baloney and personal viewpoints that are difficult to rollback and may require reverting to an older article revision. "Bag Lady Square." Really??? --Buffaboy (talk) 18:08, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, the anti-Italian rhetoric and some of the other aspects of this article are outright offensive and disgraceful. Needs a thorough purge and cleanup. Echoedmyron (talk) 19:09, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. I have already deleted some POV, unreferenced sections. Epic Genius (talk) 15:41, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I've seen the work done. Wish I could help out. --Buffaboy (talk) 20:08, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Dynamic IPs destroying article (Big WP:CRUSH issue)

This article will continue to have attacks such as the one from last week, as it really is only 1 or 2 people pushing their WP:FRINGE views onto the article. Looking at the article history to about 2012 I can see that this person, based upon the language used when editing, is likely one and the same and has committed multiple attacks. Even worse, I personally think this person is engaging in WP:CRUSH!

Every time this happens I believe the IP(s) should be blocked or the article will continue to be trashed. Any ideas, or suggestions? --Buffaboy (talk) 20:16, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

You're doing it wrong

You all are taking the wrong approach IMO. It's not really feasible to block or stop a person who is using dynamic IPs. Just roll back the edits. It only takes, literally, a second, or a couple-three if you don't have any of the rollback tools. This person is obviously trolling so don't engage, just roll back.

I'd be glad to do it, but instead I see that several editors have worked with the mess left by this person, I don't want to roll back now and undo their work. That's unfortunate IMO. Instead, editors wanting to improve the article should just roll back to a clean version and work forward from there. Obviously the troll's "contributions" should be dismissed out of hand. The first person coming across the damage should simply roll it back. If he does it again, roll it back again. Repeat as needed.

Just relax. Even if this person keeps it up and makes 100 (clusters of) edits a year over ten years, and each cluster takes ten seconds to roll back, that's a couple man-hours over ten years split among many editors. It's not worth worrying about.

Just roll it back. Herostratus (talk) 01:08, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I understand. The problem I had was when I attempted to use the "undo" button for all of his edits, there was a message that claim the edit appeared to have been undone when it clearly wasn't, so I went hog wild and went to get this article protected. Not sure why that happened however. --Buffaboy (talk) 03:02, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

OK. But then you can always click on whichever clean version you want (in the history), then edit and save. Ten years ago that's how it had to be done anyway. Only takes a few seconds. Herostratus (talk) 19:03, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips! Just had to do it today with SUNY Poly. --Buffaboy (talk) 00:04, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Nicknames

Nicknames removed until they can be proven with citations! --Buffaboy (talk) 02:32, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Requests

To whom it may concern,

If you're interested in improving the article, these items may go a long way:

• Additional citations and sources for the tags
• More pictures of the Utica skyline (Commons has plenty of historical pictures, but not many contemporary ones)
• More climate information (I can't find any)
• City seal and flag  Done
• Expanding where there {[expand article]} tags are  Done

For now that's about it. I'll try to get and SVG image of Oneida County combined with a NYS red dot map together. --Buffaboy (talk) 05:17, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

 DoneMap on the way, will have all CDPs and MCDs as well as NYS in a combined SVG file. Buffaboy (talk) 20:50, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Flag

Despite the poor quality of the flag image I added, it's necessary until a high quality vector can be created. I hope editors understand. Buffaboy ^talk 23:53, 14 April 2015 (UTC)