Talk:Chicago/Archive 2

This talk page is being used for two major functions. First, to expand and convert the article Chicago over to the new format agreed to at WikiProject Cities. Second, to faciliate active discussions on the content, formating and all other items associated with the Chicago article. Please feel free to add or edit anything on this page to help in the conversion process. Please remember to sign all comments.

Old talk can be found in the archive. Add any new comments at the bottom. To keep this page clean and useful please remove items no longer relevant. This includes requested changes that have been complete or items under debate that haven't been active for more than 3 months.

File:City of Chicago Flag.png

Chicago Flag

General Comments & Discussion

An edit without an edit

At the risk of branding myself a clueless newbie, I'm going to have to report something that looked deeply weird, which I was a little concerned by. I came in and saw what appeared to be a revert, but when I looked at the history page I saw no sign of the supposed revert. I went in to edit the supposedly reverted section, and to my amazement discovered that what was appearing in the edit window bore no resemblence to what I had seen on the page, just a few seconds ago. Not only did the history page have no memory of this supposed revert, but neither did this part of the wikipedia system. I hit "save" without changing anything I saw in the edit window, and the phantom revert went away. For now. I wouldn't care to speculate on how long it will stay gone.

Could the Wikipedia system be breaking down, in some way?

Standardization

In an effort to create some standarization in this talk page I'm putting all the sections in Items Under Debate into a format of Vote, Discussion and Decision. This will help drive quicked decisions about the article. Shortly after a change is decided on I think we should move it to the archive. Additionally I think we should decide how long a debated issue should be up for voting. If there is a standard for this already I couldn't find it. Jasenlee 08:49, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names)

Please vote on my proposal at the city naming conventions, which, if approved, would move this page to just Chicago.

Requested Changes

This section is for making requests to changes for the main article or for suggesting the creation of related sub-articles. When making a request here for a potential new sub-article you should consider adding it to the list at Wikipedia Requested articles.

Lead Section

Over the last year this page has changed significantly and the Lead Section no longer matches the guidelines for a good lead section. We should focus on working towards revising this. --Jason 18:24, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)

Sections to be added/revised/considered

I think the following sections should be considered for this article or Chicago Sub Articles (not lists... prose):

• History
• Law and government
  • Crime (proposed)
  • Social & Contemporary Issues (proposed)
• Environment (proposed)
  • Geography
  • Climate
  • Bodies of water
  • Agriculture (proposed)
  • Flora (proposed)
  • Maps (proposed)
  • Urban Area
  • Suburbs
• Economy
  • Major industries and products
  • Taxes
• Demographics
  • Households
  • Age
  • Income
  • Demolingustics (proposed)
• Education (proposed)
  • Public education (proposed)
  • Private education (proposed)
  • Charter schools (proposed)
  • Libraries (proposed)
  • Colleges & universities
• Communications and media
• Arts & culture
  • Museums & Galleries (proposed)
  • Zoos * Aquariums (proposed)
  • Cultural Centers (proposed)
  • Buildings & Landmarks (proposed)
  • Music (proposed)
  • Film & TV (proposed)
  • Theater & Stage (proposed)
  • Folklore (proposed)
  • Cuisine (proposed)
  • Parades & Holidays (proposed)
• Sports
  • College (proposed)
  • Professional
  • Stadiums (proposed)
• Health & medicine
• Transportation
  • Taxis (proposed)
  • Bicylcing (proposed)
• Tourism and recreation
  • Events & Festivals (proposed)
  • Shopping (proposed)
  • Attractions
• Infrastructure (proposed)
  • Utilities (proposed)
• Religion (proposed)
  • Notable houses of worship (proposed)
• Sources and further reading (proposed)

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There are two other templates proposed for all cities at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities. Please comment there so we can have one standard structure or template for cities. Petersam 07:33, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Picture Changed Again

Someone changed the lead picture AGAIN after we already had a vote on the subject. This is borderline vandalism. I have restored the voted on picture back. PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE IT!

Chicago vs. Chicagoland

I think it really needs to be decided if the related articles with 'Chicagoland' in their names (Newspapers, Radio Stations, etc.) are going to include the suburbs or not. For example, I would NOT include Hamburger U on the Chicago page (and I'm not even sure I'd include it in a Chicagoland "Institutions of Higher Learning" or some such page, either, as it privately belongs to Mcdonalds Corporation. But there should be a spot for the myriad of colleges (including jr. colleges) in Chicago's suburbs. Northwestern I do find appropriate, because they do have a Chicago campus.

I agree.

I agree as well. --Jason 23:50, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

Given that Evanston literally borders Chicago, and that the only way that one can tell that one has left one and entered another is with a road map, I would go so far as to say that it would be silly to exclude schools in Evanston from a Chicago listing. Keep in mind that Chicago, unlike Indianapolis, for example, is not ballooned up by the annexation of large amounts of countryside and surrounding small towns in the name of unigov. It is built right up to its borders, as are the suburbs that surround it, with the result that the real city extends well beyond its legally defined frontiers. It would be more sensible to regard Evanston as being an autonomous neighborhood of Chicago than as a fully distinct city in its own right; the seperation between the two is largely a legal fiction, and has been for as long as anybody can remember. - The noneditor :)

United States Political Party Conventions

Any thoughts to at least a note about twenty-five major party (well, okay, the Republicans weren't yet a major party in 1860, not until Lincoln actually got elected) political conventions being held in Chicago? More than any other US city by a WIDE margin?

DuPage County part of City of Chicago

According to the US census burea (and I've heard brief mentions of this on the local news with regard to O'Hare) a small portion of the City of Chicago is located in DuPage county. I find it quite inexcusable that this is missing from Wikipedia In quite a blatent rip off from the US census burea here is this information. If you want to verify Go here http://factfinder.census.gov/jsp/saff/SAFFInfo.jsp?_pageId=sp3_pop_est and then go 2003 estimate, then go to search, Chicago both Chicago in Cook and DuPage show up. Also the website for DuPage county lists the city of Chicago as a community link as well http://www.co.dupage.il.us/generic.cfm?doc_id=1578

Chicago city, Cook County, Illinois Chicago city, DuPage County, Illinois

                         Total Population
                               July 1, 2003
            2,868,891                                                      230
                               July 1, 2002
            2,882,116                                                      148

                               July 1, 2001
            2,892,940                                                       84

                               July 1, 2000

2,895,426 18

Comment from actual Chicagoan (Joe): I think that the use of the word "inexcusable" is overkill on this one; the error is a small, technical one. The only part of Chicago overlapping DuPage county is one corner of O'Hare airport, with at most a few houses in it, if even that. By all means correct it, but let's not blow this out of proportion and act like this was a massive distortion of reality. Chicago comes >extremely< close to being entirely a Cook County municipality, in terms of population, and in terms of infrastructure, we're mainly looking at some runways lapping over the county line. Why harp on this little point when there are so many excellent reasons to despise this article?

Items Under Debate

Getting harassed by Boothy:

Have submitted some corrections to the numerous factual inaccuracies included in the Chicago article, and find that they keep getting deleted. Forget this! When one gets to the point where a simple description of the climate is too controversial for some self-appointed censors to tolerate, as is a description of local dishes, somebody obviously has issues that need working out, and they certainly are not going to be worked out on my time. - Joseph

External Links

It is my belief that creating an external links section is an obsolete method of organizing content. Since Wikipedia now gives a visual indicator of an external link I don't think it is necessary to make a separate section for them. I believe it is more usable for readers to have the links in a "See also" section. For example a external link to the Chicago Tunnel Company or the Chicago GIS maps would be more fitting under sections like Transportation or Geography (respectively). Some people have changed this repeatedly but I disagree. The Manual of Style doesn't seem to have any concise guidelines for this. Thoughts? --Jason 11:11, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

There are a few good reasons for keeping external links separate from internal ones, placing them at the end of the article. One is semantic: the article itself should be about the subject (i.e. Chicago), whereas a reference or external link usually provides information about the information. This distinction is subtle, but mainly boils down to the fact that although Chicago GIS maps are indeed about Chicago, the link itself is not. Another issue is the fact that people frequently add external links where there should be an internal link, only because the article does not exist. For example, perhaps the Chicago Tunnel Company should have an article? I also noticed City Colleges of Chicago. Also, inline external links don't make much sense in an eventual paper version, and last, perhaps as a result of the above points, mixed internal and external links just don't look clean (IMHO) ;)

Although indeed there doesn't seem to be any written guideline for this, it is the standard practice, and following conventions means readers will know where to look. If readers want more information about geography, they will (only after a few articles' familiarity with Wikipedia) know how to scroll down to the external links section and expect the selection of links to be comprehensive enough.

Have you considered the solution of adding subsections to the external links section? Fredrik | talk 15:38, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

sources...

it seems to me that a lot of the history section of the article is taken directly from Don Miller's book, "City of the Century" or the PBS documentary based on the book, yet I don't see it listed in the sources. J. Crocker

Comment - How very interesting, if this should be true. The word for the practice described is "plagiarism". I'll be sure to check out that book and get in touch with the author to advise him of a violation of copyright on Wikipedia, should this prove to be the case.

Anybody still want to give this article an award? (I bring up some of its numerous inaccuracies in the peer review page, and leave them there for anybody more interested in the truth than in postmodernist posturing) - Joseph from Chicago

I wrote a good part of the History section and like anyone else who does research... you read books, watch documentaries, etc. I have looked at both of these so I can definitely tell you nothing has been plagiarized but feel free to contact the author or do your own fact checking. I'm quite confident it is in my own writing. If it seems to follow a similar flow to his works it is because they are both very well done. I'll add a reference to this, which BTW, wasn't common practice on Wikipedia when this was written. Jasenlee 03:33, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)