User talk:Alansohn/Archive 2

Reversion of demographic data

I saw the reordering of the demographic data, and while I had some issues with it, I let it stand. I myself had gotten into a battle regarding taking out the word "located" from the heading of an article (Municipality is located in XYZ County), demanding that it stay for standardization reasons. What criteria should we use to decide on what can be changed in the standard text we've been given? In terms of overall guidance, do you have any thoughts on what can change and what can't? Alansohn 17:49, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that what it comes down to is that anything can be edited that you can get a consensus on. IMO changing the Rambot (t c) text without clear need is counter-productive. I value consistency in this text since it is used on so many pages. A far more effective way to do it is to get Ram-Man (t c) to change the text accross the board by updating his bot. These are just my opinions, so take it with a grain of salt. If you feel strongly about the "located" copyedits, you should revert them. Just follow the guidelines at WP:3RR if you get into an edit war. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 18:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Township" and other address confusion

It seems you've been doing a lot with municipalities, so I figured I'd ask you about my recent source of much confusion: Why are many of the "XXX Township" municipal buildings (their addresses via their official websites) located in places other than what appears to be the township itself? For example, Cape May County's "Dennis Township" has an address of "Dennisville, NJ" (I did not find a WP article for it. USPS.com yields a result for Dennisville but none for Dennis/Dennis Township. Many other places have "XXX Township" but then the address of everthing in it are located in one or more other places, which is weird when, for example, XXX Community Center is located in YYY, NJ. This all started because I was trying to figure out if people actually use the word "Township" in place names, because up until recently, the only time I ever heard township/borough/village/city used in NJ regarded the Washington townships, Ocean City, Sea Isle City, and possibly 1-2 more, but many pages seem to use Township in their names.

I think I might have lost you in explaining what I'm thinking, but that's just because I'm lost. Could it just be that most places in NJ (I only listed one example, but I've found many in many counties while trying to find out how to "cure" my confusion) are like this and simply that Bergen (where I am from, too) is not? On second thought, despite your living in a "Township," you're probably not the best person to ask because Bergen does not really have any of these "conflicts." Basically, if you or anyone else could explain somehow why many places in NJ have addresses in other places (or places located inside of the first place), I would be very greatful. At least we dont have incorporated places inside incorporated places--I was reading about NY municipalities and was completely lost at how Rockland County only has a few "townships" but that there are many places inside them.

Thanks, and hopefully I did not confuse you, either. And thanks for the WP:NJ invite. //MrD9 05:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AlanSohn's response / converation continued at my talk page. //MrD9 23:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead, due to the overwhelming number of reasons to move them, and put in a request to move Wayne, West Milford, and Little falls. More information on my talk page or (don't forget to vote at) Talk:Little Falls Township, New Jersey. //MrD9 03:11, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus

AfD is not a vote.
When votecounters try to impose their rigid definition of consensus on AfD, the minimum standard is 2/3rds or 66%.
Delete, merge, and redirect are three different outcomes; if there is no consensus, the solution is for the AfD participants to hash out a consensus (whether to merge or redirect or resubmit to AfD) on the talk. Johnleemk | Talk 16:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

NBIL

North Bergen Interscholastic Athletic League Alan, I see you've added links to NBIL to some (or all, haven't checked) of the 12 schools' pages. Thanks, and just to let you know, I intend to do more research on all 12 schools to more completely fill in the "Athletics" (or similiar) sections, hopefully within the next week. Feel free (obviously) to contribute to them if you wish, but if it's not something you have a strong desire to complete, don't worry, since I intend fill them in soon. I also will probably move on, once done with NBIL, to other Bergen athletic leagues or possibly the NJ overall league. Just wanted to give you a heads up so you don't do extra work on something you might not have a burning interest in/don't waste your time that you could spend doing things that interest you more. Thanks. //MrD9 23:42, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was looking at the NBIL page as I worked on some of the member schools. Very often there are disconnects where you have a page that lists articles in some category, but the individual articles don't refer back to the category to close the loop (or vice versa). I started doing some of these pages, but I won't obsess about it, based on your comments.

By the way, congrats on the moves of the Township Three (four, if you include North Bergen). We've been debating the subject for months, but you finally made it happen. Alansohn 06:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First, thanks on the congratulations. I'm going to try to get people (who I know in person and who do not use WP) I know in areas in Western NJ to help with the Twp stuff there--but I dont know if I'll be able to, but that's irrelavent.

Second, I now see what you mean by the loops--eventually, I plan to get to your "closed loop" state, but I think the lack of the current closed loops (other than what you have done to correct them) is just a minor difference in philosophy: you prefer to put something temporary up while waiting for the "real thing" to be put there, whereas I (although your way is logically and informationally better) don't want to waste the limited time I have at the moment on going to 12 pages to put something temporary up before I write the actual things. If you'd like me/you to put in the temp NBIL (or anything else) links, I will, but otherwise, I assure you I will get to the other articles/"open" things soon (and obviously feel free to "close" them for now if you wish). Thanks again. //MrD9 07:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Third, as an afterthought, I'm not sure if it's your personal preference to always reply to comments on the other person's talk page, but you can reply to anything I leave you on your comment page (I have it on my watchlist, along with any of the other WP:NJ people I've conversed with and many articles of personal interest) to keep things from being fragmented--unless, of course, you'd rather continue to reply on my page. In the meantime, though, I am going to copy/paste move this to your comment page (feel free to move it back; since it's not an article I don't think history preservation strictly applies) for organization/to prevent fragments. Thanks. //MrD9 07:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We have to come to some conclusion as to how to deal with a thread of conversation. For now I'll reply here and assume that you'll see it on your Watchlist. My preference for putting in links to non-existent or stub pages is to provide a constant reminder to create or complete the target article. I've probably craeted hundreds of articles solely because a link existed to an article that didn't exists (but should have, as I saw it). You've been making positive contributions to many articles in New Jersey (in general) and our joint Bergen County ares (in particular). If all we disagree on is philosophical issues, once we've filled in the holes, it'll all be moot. Damn the philosophy, full speed ahead! Thanks for all of your work; New Jersey is a better place for it (at least on Wikipedia). Alansohn 07:36, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

School Report Card Links

As we (well, you, mostly) have been updating the NJ Department of Edu school report card links at a fast (and tiring?) rate, I'm still surpised to find schools that haven't been updated--and worse, a year from now, unless NJ changes how it does this, they will ALL have to be updated AGAIN.

Therefore, I was thinking we could potentially create (or have someone help us create if none of us are familiar with how to use the arguments in them) a template for it. The URL is very easy to manipulate--there is nothing that stands in the way that obscures the url.

For example, Fair Lawn, New Jersey

Main District Page

                                              v district's [some form of] ID
http://education.state.nj.us/rc/rc05/menu/03-1450.html
                                  ^year   ^county (apparently they are every odd number based on the alpha listing of them)

Fair Lawn High School

http://education.state.nj.us/rc/rc05/rcoptions.php?c=03;d=1450;s=050;lt=CD;st=CD
                   again, the year ^                 ^co  ^dist  ^school     (lt/st seem to remain CD, at least for the table of contents list main page things)

School seems to be arbitrary, from what I have found, but each school of each district has a unique number within the district.

I also checked this with a few other districts and a few schools within each district, and it appears to be the uniform format across the board. Therefore, again, im not sure exactly how this works, but we could easily feed some sort of

county code|district code
for example: [template]|03|1450

string to a template to make it create the district page (instead of pasting the link directly on the page, you could paste this template string)

and either an extension of the same template or a new template that also has "school" at the end for the specific school pages

This way, when each new year's report comes out, you could simply modify the template once to (change the 04 to 05, for example) show the new year, or you could choose to show the current and past year, or... I think you get my point. Instead of (I'm guessing) a few hundred edits every year, 1 (or a few) edit a year after the template's been put in place.

I/we/someone would have to research how exactly to do this syntax-wise, but other than the initial large amount of work required to insert the template into the pages, it'd be much easier and automated after that.

And then there's the other side that what if they change their URL scheme in the future or somethign so it doesnt work--well, you'd have to replace the links anyway, so it's essentially the same if not much less work to correct.

Again, just an idea, but I'd appreciate your comments. Thanks. //MrD9 02:40, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I've been going through the search process and changing dozens of pages, I was coming to exactly the same conclusion. It might be a pain in the behind to make the changes to every single page all over again, but at least once its done we shouldn't have to deal with it again next year. Of course, the NJ Department of Education could change the format next year, but at least we'd have tried. Furthermore, even if the link format changes in a future year, the odds are that the codes for individual districts and schools wouldn't change and we could probably just change the template. Do you want to take a stab at it? Alansohn 02:49, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Definately. I don't know how much you know about templates, but I do know that I don't exactly get how the ones with the argument variable things work. I attempted to figure it out based on userbox stuff I had tried to do, but since there were only two "choices" for the "variable," I ended up just hardcoding a version for each. The other thing is if we have something like (this order seems to be most logical, most to least inclusive) county|district|[school], we'd have to find out (or maybe you already know) if leaving school blank could produce the district page and filling it in could create the school page OR if we need a separate template for each (either way, not a big deal).

And regardless of what we do or how we get it to work, we should "test" it on a few districts and potentially see if anyone can think of any reasons why it might not work before we go ahead and "roll it out" to do the whole state--at least that way if we can't get it to work right (which sould not be the case), we only have to change 10 to 20 or whatever number you want pages, and we wont have to revert them 29 hundred times. //MrD9 03:29, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is from a template for states--apparently you can write this on the page {{US state | Name = New York | Fullname = State of New York | Flag = New York state flag.png | Flaglink = [[Flag of New York]] | ... }}

or, in our case {{[template name]|county = 03|district = 1111}} or someting like that, but I think it's also possible (although I'm not easily finding a "template variables for starters" article or anything remotely like it) you can also do it so you dont have to type in the parameters...

but then on the template you would literally just typ , for example, {{{county}}} where you want the county to go and I think that's it, other than formatting it into a URL

Originally, I thought the |03|1111 way would be better, the "expanded" version above has the benefits of allowing others to more easily identify what's going on, but at the same time, it has the drawbacks of having to type a lot when adding single entries (when not copy/pasting it in), in which case |##|#### is much easier to type wtihout all of the added words...

I don't know--just some ideas--I dont know how you'd want to go about this task, and I don't want to jump into it without your feedback, obviously

and the name--I was thinking something simple, like NJ DEP url or NJdepURL or nj dep url or... something--something that doesnt require one to type out a lot, but I dont know if that might be a problem for other people who "woudlnt know what it is" and who could potentially feel it's unimportant or something, again, feedback //MrD9 03:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed that this is the way to go. Let's pick a few model schools and districts and start playing with it. Thanks for pushing the idea forward. Alansohn 03:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm playing around on sandbox template x8 Template:X8 and if you scroll to the bottom (the stuff is all repeated twice--the top is the page original, the bottom (second repeat) is the template calling itself with the data filled into it. And the link it produces works. THe gibbrish (about games) is something I saw on a userbox page for some video game thing that I am going to try to modify into having it make school/district links with teh same template--otherwise we'll just make two templates

What do you want to name it? Since you edit way more than I do, pick a name, and I can create the page with what I have so far so it works better, and then we can just play around with it util it does what we want/start adding it to pages. //MrD9 04:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Something like NJReportCard might work. Alansohn 04:13, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

GOT IT TO WORK! Template:NJReportCard, but that won't show you anything. go to Template:X9 to see it print out the stuff (we have to change the text and everything, what is there was just expiermental, my main goal was to get the URL's to work.

The only question now is if we want the text to say something about the School--like right now, an example of what is currently (not related to template at all) on the high school page of INdian Hills is "# 2004-05 School Report Card for Indian Hills High School from the New Jersey Department of Education", with the 2004-School as a link to the data and NJ-DEP a link to the NJ DEP

do we wnat it to say "Indian Hills High School" in the template link? if yes, there are two ways--one, hardcoding it in; or two, i think you can use "{{{PAGENAME}}}," but then if the link appears on another page, the latter way wont work because it will say the wrong name. In a section I'll explain the syntax (as it exists now) on the template page after I try something with the link text //MrD9 04:27, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For further discussion, see Template talk:NJReportCard

I think the fourth parameter works now- I listed it under the templates on WP:NJ. AndyZ 01:31, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New providence speed traps

Would it be okay for the speed traps to be put into a wikibook? IM not that familiar with wikibook policy. --Larsinio 14:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I read the Wikibook info correctly, it wouldn't. I think that there should be a place for information like this about speedtraps, but it would seem to fall outside the scope of the main Wikipedia encyclopedic mission. Alansohn 15:51, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unincorportated townships in NJ

Have you come across a list of unincorporated areas of New Jersey. I am always confused when a town has enclaves within it. I dont know if they were areas incorporated into the town and still have their historic names (like Greenwich Village in Manhattan) or are unincoporated areas not paying any taxes to anyone. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 03:35, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So what is the relationship of the two towns, what does "unincoportated" mean here? Or is one an "enclave" of the other. I live in a township with several enclaves. Taxes are paid to the main township and it houses the school system.

Thanks for all your help understanding unincorporated areas in New Jersey. I have been creating County templates and have added the category "neighborhoods" to cover the unicorporate areas: Take a peak at the bottom of Somerset, New Jersey. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 22:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am still trying to think of the best category for unincorporated areas of New Jersey as the category in the Templates. I was thinking of "communities" rather than neighborhoods. I used neighborhoods for the New York City ones and just carried it over. I don't want to use unincorporated area since it has such a big difference between NJ and other states as to who collects the taxes. Maybe we need an article called Unincorporated area (New Jersey) to explain the difference between Census designations, Zip Code designations, and historical areas incorporated into larger townships. What do you think of "communities" as a temporary change? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 19:01, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NJ

Thanks for the welcome, Alan. Let me ask you a question, how do you go about creating a wikiproject? I would like to get one going for the US federal court system and as many of the judges as this thing can handle... Crzrussian 20:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there

Hey Alansohn, I've noticed that you've edited some of the articles I've been working on (peddie, MAPL). Awesome. Just wondering, did you go to a MAPL school? Keep up the good work, Chris. Wangster 04:19, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No MAPL website

Alan, I don't know of a MAPL website. Wangster 17:16, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

NJ Collaboration of the Week

Thanks for participating in Wikiproject New Jersey. In an attempt to create articles for some of the non-existing pages related to New Jersey, NJCOTW was recently created to bring members of WP:NJ together to work collaboratively on a certain selected topic, which this week is List of Governors of New Jersey. Please help by nominating/voting/commenting on articles on WP:NJCOTW, or by helping to improve articles in the scope of the topic for the NJCOTW.AndyZ 23:34, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey -- thanks for your cleaning up/editing of NJ Gov George F. Fort. BTW, I notice I can't find Imlaystown, New Jersey anywhere in Wiki, not even in Monmouth County, New Jersey. What am I missing? Thanks -- Sholom 16:54, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Templates

Can you peak at Template:Manhattan. Someone made changes, and when I told him we had standardized already on a template for all 5 boroughs, and for NJ and NY counties, he wants to change them all. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 02:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Acting Governor / Governor

The legislation that the New Jersey Legislature pass before Codey left office in 2006 was retroactive and gave all previous Acting Governors, the title of Governor. Misterrick 21:40, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

MetroStars/Red Bull New York

Hi there. Just letting you know that I reverted your redirect on this, because a bunch of strongly willed people came to the compromise not to merge the two articles. Please see Talk:MetroStars for info. Thanks!--Mike Selinker 05:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Popups

There are several navigation aids at: [[1]], one of which including semi-automatic reversions.

Millburn, New Jersey

Sorry I incorrectly reverted an edit to this article. I was trying to deal with IP vandal 4.43.102.66 who had changed lots of pages. The vandalism to this page had already been dealt with, so I'm not sure why I didn't notice! JRawle 18:50, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RINO

I saw the change you made on RINO. I am actually proposing pulling the list of names on the talk page. I would appreciate it if you check out the discussion and weigh in. Montco 01:58, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ultra-Orthodox

I am not sure what to feel about this. UO is a term used by media when they're trying to marginalize the event/person/phenomenon they're describing. "Ultra" implies it's more Orthodox than necessary or desirable, "BEYOND" Orthodox. Also, it reinforces an unnecessary distinction between UO, O, and MO. The truth is, we're all part of the same religion, we all (by and large) eat each other's food and daven in each other's minyanim. Right? So what's the nafka mina that he's Ultra-Orthodox? I realize that WP has an article on Haredi Judaism and a separate article on Orthodox Judaism, and I understand the need to describe Haredism as a distinct phenomenon. But do we really need to label him in such a counterproductive fashion? Happy Nissan. - the.crazy.russian (T) (C) (E) 15:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. I am not arguing for parve'ness. Perhaps you'll honor my request and take the UO off. Parve'ness aside, my position is there's no such thing as Ultra-Orthodox. He's an Orthodox Jew. Whether or not he keeps chumra X or wears levush Y is not relevant to his article, his mayoralty, or his notability as a frum mayor of a non-jewish town. Ultimately, not much is lost through it, and the term is much too offensive to be retained. Ultimately, I leave it up to you, since you're the Master of the NJ section on WP. See you around. - the.crazy.russian (T) (C) (E) 15:29, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I could, I would change UO to O in every bio. - the.crazy.russian (T) (C) (E) 15:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia survey

Hi. I'm doing a survey of Wikipedia editors as part of a class research project. It's quick, anonymous, and the data will be made available to the Wikipedia community later this month. Would you like to take part? More info here. Thanks! Nonplus 01:00, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New Jersey Schools

I've been using the information I have from the school districts for the changes. In school districts where there's one school (for example, Watchung Hills Regional High Shcool), and the name of the school is also the name of the district, I merged the two articles. -- SNIyer12^(talk), 21:23, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the district and school pages should be combined because the school is the only school in the district, but the school name is also the district's name. Plus the information on both pages is the same. -- SNIyer12 ^(talk), 21:46, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I used the individual school districts for enrollments in regional districts, as well as the their county offices of education. -- SNIyer12 ^(talk), 19:10, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would work on mostly the school districts in Morris and Sussex counties, since those are the two counties I'm most familiar with. I live in Morris County. -- SNIyer12 ^(talk), 19:36, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Zab Judah

Zab Judah is from Brooklyn, New York, not New Jersey.

http://boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=006945

Thank-you Note

Hi Alan, this is A.T. Horsfield thanking you for your message. My aunt visited recently and she gave me the source I used for a lot of the Sussex County, NJ information. She also brought the larger volume that includes Warren County history but that is alas a library book and has to go back. But the Snell history on Sussex County is mine to keep, and has quite a lot. Again, thanks for the note! --A.T. Horsfield 05:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Meir Lichtenstein

give it up :) time to remove the quotes and rephrase into inoffensive language - the.crazy.russian τ ç ë 19:52, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just paraphrase the quote, removing the quotation marks, and replacing the miserable "UO" with "Haredi" or "Orthodox". Same meaning, less marginalizing. Chag kosher ve'somayach. - the.crazy.russian τ ç ë 21:03, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. - the.crazy.russian τ ç ë 15:16, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

some work on the new haftr/rambam thing is prob. warrented.

Thank you for catching my error

Thank you for catching my error on {{NJReportCard}}. I have re-done the change using the new option which allows the default value to be specified properly. Please let me know if there are any further problems. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 07:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chief School Administrator

Whether you say superintendent in a school district, or chief school administrator, they're same.

The New Jersey Administrative Code defines chief school administrator as superintendent of schools, or administrative principal who works directly with the district Board of Ed., if there's no superintendent. [2]

In most school districts where there's only one school, the superintendent is also the principal of that school. That's why I go by chief school administrator. Whenever I address a chief school administrator, I go by chief school administrator as their title, because that's what they are by the state. -- SNIyer12^(talk), 19:25, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed these changes being made and, I have to agree with Alansohn. The working title of this position is determined by each local Board of Education. The term "chief school administrator" is somewhat more obscure. Changing the titles to reflect the State's generic definition does not appear to be appropriate in this case. Regards, Accurizer 17:08, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delbarton School

Alansohn and SNIyer12: I’d like to solicit your opinion regarding the above article. There appears to be a minor edit war taking place between anonymous users, by adding and removing references to the Delbarton graduates who have been involved in the 2006 Duke University lacrosse team scandal. I’m undecided regarding whether the graduates are sufficiently notable at this time so as to be included in the Delbarton School article as “notable alumni”. Another option would be to add a capsule statement about certain alum’s involvement in the scandal, with a link to the main article. Would you have an opinion on this matter? Regards, Accurizer 17:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"RfC"...

...since you're involved with NJ articels, can you take a look @ Wikipedia:Peer review/New Jersey Supreme Court/archive2? Thanx. 68.39.174.238 02:23, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Louis Greenwald

I apologize for stepping on your edits. The sequencing may be strange; I had intended to revert the same anon PoV edit you did. Septentrionalis 23:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]