User talk:Omnedon/2009

Worldtaekwondofederation

Thanks for trying the patient approach, I wasn't in the mood. --Nate1481 11:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Taekwondo

Thanks for helping out with reverting vandalism on Taekwondo. Unfortunately, it seems like I reverted a bad version of the page to only a slightly less bad version, not to the proper version, which you fortunately found. So, I apologize for giving you extra work to do, and thanks for your help! --Ericdn (talk) 13:36, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

No need for an apology -- I know how that can be, and the extra revert was the work of a few seconds. Omnedon (talk) 21:44, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll second that. Seems the idiot is IP hopping and has returned. I've reverted for now, but better keep an eye out. Nelson Miller (talk) 19:54, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Oops that was the wrong user I was looking at. Same guy causing same old annoyance. Nelson Miller (talk) 19:56, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't read that properly, thought was a legitimate entry judging by the first sentence!!! Possum Pint (talk) 18:21, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Since the article was protected, I thought I'd look back through the edits to see what was going on, and if anything had been missed. I was just clumsy is all, I am not a vandal :) Possum Pint (talk) 19:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Drama at TKD again, thought I'd give you a heads up before it escalates. --Nate^t/_c 11:11, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've been watching and did provide one comment earlier; it seems to be an edit war involving several editors (not just two), which is rather complicated. Omnedon (talk) 12:59, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

File:Map of Bartholomew County, Indiana.svg

FYI the small town labeled Columbus in Clay Township, Bartholomew County could actually be Petersville. Best wishes MetaEd (talk) 21:41, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know; I'll take care of that. Omnedon (talk) 21:51, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Consistency?

In a number of redirects, you added the county name to township articles and wrote "Included county name for consistency." But unless there two or more townships with the same name in a given state, the county is unnecessary in the township article title, and gives the impression there is another township with the same name in the given state. 98.221.129.66 (talk) 09:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

In this case, "consistency" refers partly to the naming convention. Using "Township, County, State" for all townships in a state ensures that each township is named in the same way, instead of some being named that way and others named "Township, State". There are many benefits to a consistent naming convention, and I don't see that it gives any impression about other townships. It also specifies, right in the article title, where the township is located. Then, too, townships are units of county government, not state government, so it is logical to associate them with their parent counties in the article title. Omnedon (talk) 13:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Templates in categories

I don't know if you remember, but somewhat over a year ago you helped to explain to a Louisville-based editor that county templates belonged in the county category. Vegaswikian has recently decided that at least one of Nevada's county templates doesn't belong in its county category; could you please help explain why it does? Nyttend (talk) 11:17, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Minnesota townships

Remember how we moved all the Minnesota townships some months ago? I've just posted a request for opinions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pennsylvania, with the idea of doing the same thing there. The only Pennsylvania I've received (which suggested that I take it to the project talk page) was from Ruhrfisch, who sounds supportive of the idea. If this passes, would you be willing to help? Nyttend (talk) 13:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Iowa townships

Thanks for restarting the creation process! I've never quire figured out how to get all of this information that's included, so I can't do it. Could you help to get the Kansas counties along I-70? I took tons of pictures for those townships over my spring break, but I have nowhere to put many of them. Nyttend (talk) 02:05, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

image of county

how do you make the images of with the countys highlighted like this  ?Nextext (talk) 15:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I use my own PHP code, which depends on PHP MapScript (part of MapServer, [1]), in combination with shape data from various sources including the US Census and the National Atlas, and sometimes sources that are available for specific states. It's something I've been developing for a while now and is semi-automated. If you have any maps that need to be created, let me know. Omnedon (talk) 16:31, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Since you can help with this, would you create maps for the townships of {{Sherman County, Kansas}}? Nyttend (talk) 20:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

The lines of this map should be straight, but for some reason the lines are jagged and they wiggle - check out the eastern county line. This mars what is otherwise a very nice map. Now, when I opened this map up in InkScape I saw that these lines were imported objects and not the typical SVG lines or squares. I think if you used Inkscape lines and shapes you wouldn't have these wavy/jaggy problems. Just a thought. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.64.78.167 (talk) 03:17, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the lines and shapes are not imported; they are produced directly in SVG format by MapScript, based on data from the United States Census mapping data. The visual effect you see is not uncommon with SVGs where lines have width and are not perfectly horizontal or vertical. In addition, keep in mind that township, county and state borders are not always perfectly straight as we might expect; they are often more complex than simple straight lines for various reasons. Omnedon (talk) 03:58, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The eastern boundary of that county is the Indiana/Ohio border. I had thought that this border was absolutely straight from Michigan down to the Ohio River, and yet the line on the map here wiggles to and fro.

And although I'm not an SVG expert, the SVG diagrams I've seen don't have lines that vary in thickness or have what I call the jiggles. You might be thinking of PNG or JPG, which are notorious for the jiggles.

You might want to consult with someone knowledgeable about SVG and this map. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.64.66.163 (talk) 19:25, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

As for the Indiana/Ohio border, you thought incorrectly, though it is a common misconception. As I have already stated quite clearly, political borders are frequently not as straight as they might appear at a large scale. To give just two out of many examples, here (southeast of Decatur, Indiana) and here (a bit further south), you can clearly see that the border is not straight. At a large scale, this border could be considered to be perfectly straight for some general purposes; but in actual fact it is not. The phenomenon you call "the jiggles" is actually part of the political boundary, and the SVG is produced directly from census data. These minor variations are not intended to be significant features of these maps, which are intended to identify townships; but the variations do exist and are therefore reflected on the map. Since you are (as you acknowledge) not an SVG expert, nor (as is quite clear) an expert on this border, you may want to look into it more closely. Omnedon (talk) 20:34, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

barn star

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		For being helpfull.Nextext (talk) 22:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: USGS places

Greetings, and thanks for the comment. I agree that it's a tough call as to how many of these places still exist as settlements. I do check Google Maps for a lot of these places, but since most of them are so small to begin with, it can be hard to differentiate between the ones that still exist and the ones that don't, and I usually give places the benefit of the doubt. In the case of Evans, which I actually did think about for a little while, I decided that there was some evidence of activity (there's at least one house there), so I listed it. It's pretty subjective, but the alternative is to list every non-historical place in the USGS as an unincorporated community, no matter the appearance (which has been done: see Template:Humboldt County, California, for example, which has a few nonexistent-looking places under the "Unincorporated communities" section). Since the nonexistent settlements are still notable anyway for having existed at one point, I suppose the only question then becomes whether to leave them in the "Unincorporated communities" section or create a "Former towns" section as has been done in a few other cases (the linked template above, for example), but even then it's subjective. And that still leaves the question of what to do about places that were added to the GNIS from old maps [2] or appear to be subdivisions [3], but aren't listed as places by any of the online maps; are they unincorporated communities, former towns, or neither? Thoughts on any of this? TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 23:03, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Indiana Division

Sorry about that - I added the reference, which can be seen here. --NE2 11:35, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

CDPs in county templates

I know this is almost a month after the fact, but back in June, I separated two census-designated places from the "Unincorporated communities" section of Template:Rock Island County, Illinois. You merged them back in, saying that they should be there "per a long-standing discussion. Could you please point me to the long-standing discussion? By the looks of it, this isn't widely implemented, as most county templates in other states separate CDPs from other unincorporated communities. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 22:17, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

No problem. The most recent discussion on this, as far as I know, took place here last year and was fairly involved. The upshot of it was that while a CDP is a specific type of unincorporated community, for the purposes of simplicity in navigation, CDPs shouldn't be separated from other unincorporated communities. Let me know if you need further information. Omnedon (talk) 23:05, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Cook County Township Map

Can you upload a unhighlighted map of Cook County townships? Cook County, Illinois needs a township map. That or one of the municipalities. (See: Talk:Cook County, Illinois#Map request). Thanks. --Pyho ^T / _C 03:54, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I should be able to do that. Omnedon (talk) 12:15, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Pyho ^T / _C 23:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
		For outstanding work in creating maps. Pyho T / C 00:23, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Township titles

Nobody who looks up a township is going to put the county name in the title. There weren't even redirects in place, e.g. from Reading Township, Ohio to Reading Township, Blah County, Ohio. If you point me to a guideline that says "Townships should be named like this," I won't move them in the future, but putting the article in a place where nobody but Wiki-wonks would think to look for it is a silly idea to me, and it looks weird to list them on disambiguation pages with the counties included for absolutely no apparent reason. Propaniac (talk) 14:49, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

There are apparent reasons, though. Once again, townships are typically part of counties, which are part of states; there is a hierarchy there. Also, a consistent naming convention is important; to have some townships named one way, and other townships named another way, is not helpful or useful. If one is looking for a township, one can very easily find it without knowing the full article name. Your view seems to be that pretty much everyone would go directly to an article named "Reading Township, Illinois"; but not everyone would think like that. As far as I know, cities are never units of county government, so naming a city in this way would not make sense, except for disambiguation purposes; but townships are typically units of county government. Certainly this applies to the ones you moved. Omnedon (talk) 15:26, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Another very good reason: while town and city names are normally unique within a state, township names are emphatically not. For instance, there couldn't be an article for "Union Township, Indiana", because there are 35 of them. Nor could we have a "Washington Township, Indiana" article since there are 46 of those! Including the county name is a necessity to distinguish a great many of these articles, so saying that "nobody will ever think to look there" is obviously wrong. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 16:46, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Just checked Ohio and I see that this non-uniqueness applies there as well as in Indiana. Even just among Ohio townships beginning with "W", there are many duplicate Walnuts, Warrens, Washingtons, Waynes, Westfields, Wheelings and Windsors. In fact, repeated names outweigh unique names more than two to one! Huwmanbeing ☀★ 16:55, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about other states' townships, but if there's at least one Ohio township with a certain name, "TOWNSHIPNAME Township, Ohio" is a bluelink. There's a disambiguation page for every township with a common name, and over two years ago I created redirects for every unique name that didn't already have a redirect. Nyttend (talk) 17:00, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

(Sorry for not responding for so long, I got unexpectedly too busy for Wikipedia for a few days. Also, why are all these people who aren't Omnedon responding on Omnedon' talk page?) I wholly agree that if there are articles about more than one township by the same name in a given state, the county is useful to include for disambiguation. That's one of the irritating things about including the county name in these articles: the link LOOKS like it's disambiguating that township from a township in another county, but it turned out it wasn't. There was only one Reading Township article for all these states, making it unnecessary to include the county in the title. And no, Huwmanbeing, your statement that "Including the county name is a necessity to distinguish a great many of these articles, so saying that "nobody will ever think to look there" is obviously wrong" is ridiculous. Just because the county is necessary to include in the title (in some cases), absolutely does not mean that someone looking for the township will know to look for the article under the county. By that logic, disambiguation pages are completely unnecessary, because everybody will just know that there are many meanings for X topic, and they'll be able to go straight to the exact title where their sought topic is located.

And apparently Nyttend recognizes that users WILL look for these articles under the state, not the county and state, since Nyttend created those redirects for X Township, Ohio instead of expecting users to know they should look for X Township, Y County, Ohio. By the logic presented here by Omnedon and Huwmanbeing, all those redirects should be useless. It still makes more sense, where the township name is unique to a state, to exclude the county in the title, but at the very least, create redirects for them. (Nyttend, I assure you that such redirects did not exist in any of these cases, because if they had, I would not have been able to move the articles to those titles.)

And I think it's pretty weird that apparently Omnedon's Talk page is the central point of discussion for people to decide how these township articles should be named, since nobody has been able to provide me with a link to a guideline or even a public discussion on the issue. Propaniac (talk) 14:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Let's take your issues point by point.

• This discussion is taking place here because I questioned your recent article moves on your talk page, you responded on my talk page, and I responded to you on my talk page as well. Huwmanbeing and Nyttend have both done a lot of township article work for some time and chose to become involved in the discussion as well, which is perfectly acceptable. I see nothing "weird" about that.
• You seem to assume that any article for any place in the format "Place, County, State" would only be so named for the purposes of disambiguation, and that this indicates nothing but disambiguation. That is typically the case with places like cities and towns. Not with townships -- there, the county name needs to be included both for naming consistency and because they are units of county government (unlike cities, towns, villages, et cetera).
• As I have already stated, users may look for articles on Wikipedia in various ways, so redirects are typically provided, and if they don't yet exist in some cases, then they can certainly be created. Users might search for "X Township", or "X Township, Y County, Z State" or "X Township, Z State". They'll find the articles they are looking for with any of those searches, and others besides. They might also search for "Y County" and look for the townships there, since (again) the townships in question are units of county government. There is no problem with finding township articles because of this naming convention. The Wikipedia framework makes it easy to find articles without knowing their titles in advance.
• There have been various other discussions about this topic on various other talk pages, as this issue has been raised several times before. If you are unable to find them, I can provide you with some pointers.

So far I have seen no description of benefits that would result from the change you're advocating -- except some perceived problem with readers finding articles, which has been debunked -- and I've described the reasons for the existing nomenclature. I believe all of the thousands of township articles in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Minnesota, et cetera are already named in this standard way. Why do you wish to change that? How does it help the reader or the editor? Omnedon (talk) 16:16, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• • • • It's weird because I've asked repeatedly now for some kind of link that indicates this format was actually discussed or decided at some point, anyplace other than a user talk page, and no such link or even evidence of such a discussion has been provided. If such a discussion did take place (and I think it probably did, but that's just a logical guess on my part), and the consensus was that this should be the standard, then I'll accept that (as I said in my initial reply to you). But from what I've been given here, it looks like one of the three of you just decided to do it this way, the other two went along with it, quite possibly none of you considered contrary arguments, and even if it's true that you've named a zillion pages with this standard, it doesn't mean that it's the best way or that anyone agrees with it except you. If there has in fact been no discussion except among the three of you on your own Talk pages, I find that very unconvincing (and the fact that you're inviting me to argue further about it here is making me think that just may be the case). I feel like in any similar disagreement I've had with a user over something like this, by now I would have been linked to the central point of discussion where I could suggest that the standard be changed if I wanted to.
      • You say that "the county name needs to be included both for naming consistency and because they are units of county government." On the first point, if I understand correctly (and I may not), you're saying that the county must ALWAYS be included, because SOMETIMES the county does need to be included for disambiguation, so it should ALWAYS be included so that all the township articles are named in the same way. I don't agree with this logic, because in other article categories, disambiguative terms are used only when needed. For example, some rivers are at X River and some are at X River (Y country). On the second part, it seems like you're more concerned with suiting a scheme that seems logical to you, than with where the user is actually going to look for the article, which I believe is supposed to be the central tenet for how articles are named. But, honestly, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, because I know very little about townships; I don't even know if they exist in my state. In my experience, I thought they were generally considered synonymous with towns in the common vernacular, but if you can assert that a random user looking up a township will associate it more often with a county than a state, I'll give it to you. I don't think you HAVE asserted that thus far, though. Certainly, your acknowledgement that redirects are useful indicates you do believe there's a reasonable possibility that a user will look for it under the state and not the county.
      • And, okay, I missed your third point in my initial skim of your response. If I have been in any way ambiguous to this point, I'll try to be clear right now: Yes, I would appreciate a link to a page in the Wikipedia mainspace where users have openly discussed and/or decided that this should be the naming standard for township articles. I would just like to see that this "standard" isn't just the whim of you and your two friends.
      • No, sorry, I don't agree that the idea of "some perceived problem with readers finding articles" has been "thoroughly debunked". Until I moved around the Reading Township articles, someone searching for any of them by state would not be sent to the article about the Reading Township that exists in that state. Readers being able to find articles is not a trifling concern. If you insist on locating township articles in this manner, you should be equally diligent about creating redirects or disambiguation pages for them. (My other concern, which I could acquiesce on if I'm convinced there's a good reason, is that these article titles appear strange, inconsistent and confusing when listed on disambiguation pages.) Propaniac (talk) 17:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in but I'm just here to post a link to one of these discussions (I think there may be more) that I participated in. See [[4]] for the Pennsylvania case. --Polaron | Talk 17:20, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Propaniac: There's actual hard data we can look at when judging how to perform township naming. For instance, of Indiana's 1008 townships, only 299 have names that appear only once; the remaining 709 have names that appear twice or more. This means that right off the bat over 70% of such articles must be named using the county anyway. In light of the fact that such a large majority of the articles must be named in such a fashion, you haven't demonstrated how the user is harmed by employing consistent naming for them all.

Further, we can look to WP conventions for guidance. Two key bullet points at WP:Naming are:

• Precise – Be precise, but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously.
• Consistent – Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles.

Let's apply this to Indiana. As just demonstrated, the large majority of the township articles must include the county name for the purpose of disambiguation; this satisfies the first point, precision. Extending the scheme to the remaining small minority of townships helps satisfy the other point, consistency. This seems reasonable and appropriate.

Since your original post you've asserted that nobody but "Wiki-wonks" (whatever those are) would know a township by its county and search as such, that it's "silly", "weird", etc. This sounds like opinion. Is there tangible evidence to support your view? For my own part, I don't claim to know what users in this case normally do, let alone assert authoritatively what all users will do. That's why it's good to allow for the fact that users may search in varying ways. As Omnedon and Nyttend have both already pointed out, disambiguation pages do exist to help a user easily find an article however he searches; for instance, if looking for "Wayne Township, Indiana" you'd get a page from which you choose among the 16 possibilities. So the question still remains — how is this hurting the user? Huwmanbeing ☀★ 03:22, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Propaniac, please check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Ohio townships#Title, where this naming convention is defined as a standard for Ohio townships. You're right, there have been discussions about this, as Polaron's contribution shows; I just assumed you would think to do a search to find them yourself, rather than insist that others provide this for you. Still, here are a few more for you:

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_U.S._counties/Archive_3#Township_Question
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Illinois/Archive_2#Township_Questions
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#RfC: Article titles for US neighbourhoods

As I have stated quite clearly more than once, people search for things in various ways, and redirects and disambiguation pages can definitely help people find what they are looking for. The actual article name should still include the county name when the township is a part of the county, for reasons which we have already provided. Rivers are not typically part of counties, nor are towns, cities, villages, et cetera; townships typically are, though township roles and definitions do vary by state.

• What is "strange, inconsistent and confusing" about the way they appear on disambiguation pages?
• If you are claiming that a user would most commonly search for "X Township, Y State", what is your source for this claim?
• I am not "inviting you to argue further"; I simply ask once again: how does the reader or editor benefit by the change you are advocating? Is your whole position based on a belief that most users will search for "X Township, Y State"? Omnedon (talk) 03:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Your reverts

Please refrain from reverting large portions of my edits. This type of behavior can and has been interpreted in the past as stalking. An editor was just blocked the other day for doing the same thing. albeit he had been blcoked for that behavior before. Thank You--Jojhutton (talk) 16:24, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

"Large portions of your edits"? I reverted five edits in which you had unreasonably removed a link to "United States" from five Indiana township articles. Your behavior thus far foreshadows a block on you, not on me. Omnedon (talk) 16:34, 13 December 2009 (UTC)