Category talk:Dog parks

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Deceptive title: This section links to dog parks in the U.S. only. There are dog parks all over the world. Click on dog park to view dog park locations in Australia, Canada, etc. The title or a subheading on this page should indicate that the dog parks it links to are located only in the U.S. Vsanborn (talk) 13:34, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you know how categories work? If not see WP:CAT, as there are no sections here, only articles that have been added to the category. And this includes one from Canada (would have added more back when the cat was created, but the ones here are the only ones I could find). But we can't add dog parks that do not have articles on Wikipedia. So all those external links in the dog park article you reference (and FYI please do not link that term as many times as you can, see WP:OVERLINK and WP:SEEALSO) means there are not articles by those titles (at least not linked from that page). Once those links are dark blue or purplish if visited (though it depends on your settings), as in internal links look like this and external links look like this (see the difference?), then those articles can be added here. And again, for something to be in a category it needs to have an article (so if there are any articles on these parks, feel free to add this category to those articles). Aboutmovies (talk) 19:57, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I notice on your page that you ask people not to be rude, yet I found your tone condescending to say the least. I am new to the Wikipedia fold (and admit that I have nowhere near contributed as much as you), but I have spent a sincere amount of time adding researched information to certain topics. Your point is taken. I was merely reacting to some comments made on the discussion page that U.S. dog parks were overly represented. As for overlinking, I have studied my contributions and removed perhaps 3-4 links from 4 articles. I don't think I was going crazy with linking the term dog park, or linking within the article itself. Frankly I would change the title of this category to U.S. Dog Parks. And yes, I am learning. One of these days I'll get the hang of it all. Vsanborn (talk) 19:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it was partly meant as condescending, which was in reply to the condescending remark "There are dog parks all over the world" (at partly to the "deceptive title" remark). I think most people know that dog parks exist outside of the US, and the fact that there is at least one park from outside of the US in this category should provide clear evidence that people on Wikipedia know this, and that the category does include those parks from outside the US, where those articles exist. Once articles are written on dog parks outside of the US, they will be added to this category, but it is not a category issue. It does reflect a larger systematic bias towards US and even British topics, but that's because most people tend to write about things they know/live near, and most editors are from the US and Britain. But again, it is not a category issue, or problem, and certainly not an issue concerning the title of the category. Also, part of the response (which you may have considered condescending) was meant as education for someone who didn't appear to be proficient with how Wikipedia works.

With overlinking, I went from this edit where you added it to a sentence that already had it linked, and this edit where you added it to the see also section even though the term was already in the article. These were the only two non-talk edits of yours to show up on my watchlist, and 100% showed overlinking/lack of knowledge on the Manual of Style. So, I don't know about your other edits, but the ones I saw showed overlinking, which is common with newer contributors, and something we try to then discourage before it gets out of hand.

Ultimately, if you feel there are not enough articles about dog parks in Argentina or Italy or anywhere else, then by all means write articles about those dog parks, as it is possible nobody else will if you don't. Aboutmovies (talk) 23:02, 21 April 2009 (UTC)