Talk:Balboa Park (San Diego)/Archive 1

What Christman
There are (Christman) references scattered about, but no details of what is being cited. -- SEWilco (talk) 17:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Why doesn't the "Timken Museum of Art" tag link to the newly created page for that institution? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Snorkle99 (talk • contribs) 01:23, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Missing any Mention
Of the aerospace Museum there. EvangelionTesttype (talk) 01:15, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, there was no mention of the park's most popular museum in terms of visitor numbers (San Diego Air & Space Museum). Now added. Thank you. LewishamBoy (talk) 02:07, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Relandscaping Project and Centennial Celebration
The City of San Diego is planning a major relandscaping project for Balboa Park that will reduce the number of plants to save on watering costs. The first plant removal has begun as of 04/06/10 on the left side of the northwest entrance to the Casa Del Prado building. The various trees removed will be replaced with palms, and the right side of the entrance will follow next. Many other parts of the park will be horticulturally altered and some perennials replaced with desert fauna.

There is also no mention of the upcoming Centennial Celebration (1915-2015). The central plaza and bridge will return to being a pedestrian-only area, as when the park opened in 1915. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.245.7.40 (talk) 03:46, 11 April 2010 (UTC)


 * When a local paper sees fit to comment on it, the city announces it, or a well-known observer writes about it, it will be notable. Until then, the xeriscaping project is under the radar and may as well not exist as far as Wikipedia is concerned. Binksternet (talk) 04:00, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved to Balboa Park (San Diego). There was a move in the middle of the discussion which this closing overrides. After the first move, there was an extensive discussion about the proper name. This is about a park and not a city or neighborhood, this was decided to be the correct form of disambiguation. I will add that while there apparently is a neighborhood around the park using the same name, this article is about the park. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:12, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Balboa Park, San Diego, California → Balboa Park, San Diego — Reason for request: Recently all San Diego neighborhoods were moved from Neighborhoodname, San Diego, California to Neighborhoodname, San Diego after discussion. By analogy the word "California" should also be removed from this page making it Balboa Park, San Diego. I attempted to move it myself, but was unable to because the page Balboa Park, San Diego already exists as a redirect to this page. --MelanieN (talk) 04:00, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment There was supposed to be a bot that would automatically list this at Requested moves. However, that hasn't happened so I manually listed it under "Current requests" at that page. --MelanieN (talk) 05:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Support. This move makes sense. Binksternet (talk) 04:13, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, that was fast! Thank you, Anthony Appleyard. --MelanieN (talk) 15:59, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * revert move Why was this change made without discussion? Reading the article Balboa Park, San Diego, California, I see that it is not about a neighborhood as stated, but about a park. The rationale for the move does not exist.  Move should be reverted.  Hmains (talk) 06:34, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually I did not state that it was a neighborhood; I said it should be moved "by analogy". We currently have San Diego rather than San Diego, California and Neighborhoodname, San Diego instead of Neighborhoodname, San Diego, California, so it seemed logical to remove the word "California" from other locations such as Balboa Park. Are you arguing to retain "California" in this name, and if so, may I ask why? --MelanieN (talk) 15:49, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd say that since this article is about the park itself, it should probably be Balboa Park (San Diego). The comma convention is usually used for cities and neighborhoods, while parentheses seem to be used to disambiguate parks. See Forest Park as an example. Dohn joe (talk) 23:51, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I would have no objection to that; that does seem to be how it's done at "Category:Parks in Los Angeles, California", for example. --MelanieN (talk) 03:30, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * How about Mission Bay? I see you dropped the California there, but should it be in parentheses instead, too? Any others you can think of? Dohn joe (talk) 23:12, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * My first reaction was that all the other Mission Bays are listed with a comma - enter "Mission Bay" in the search window and you get Mission Bay, San Francisco; Mission Bay, New Zealand; and Mission Bay, Florida. However, it turns out that they are cities and neighborhoods, not bays, so that is not a valid comparison. Looking around to see how bays are disambiguated, I find that "Category:Bays of California" uses parentheses; the Morro Bay, California listing there may be mis-categorized since it links to the city, not the bay. So it seems you are right and both this and Mission Bay should be done with parentheses. Want to go ahead and do it? --MelanieN (talk) 01:24, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Mission Bay is done. How do we move Balboa Park - I can't tell if this RM is still open, and I don't know if you're allowed to open a new RM until the old one closes.... Dohn joe (talk) 01:55, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This RM was speedy-closed because I listed it (apparently naively) as uncontroversial. I was only thinking about getting rid of "California". --MelanieN (talk) 03:02, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * P.S. Thanks for restoring the "history" section at Mission Bay. How did I miss that, when someone deleted the whole section? --MelanieN (talk) 03:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that history thing was odd. Someone made a couple of vandalisms, and deleted the history section, while leaving one of the vandalisms. The next editor came by and removed the vandalism, but didn't catch the deletion. Dohn joe (talk) 19:11, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify - the proposal now is to move the page to Balboa Park (San Diego), and everyone supports that, right?--Kotniski (talk) 16:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I for one support that, since it seems to be the way parks are usually disambiguated. --MelanieN (talk) 16:40, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Class I Streetcars
I don't feel the extensive section on Class I Streetcars has much to do with Balboa Park. Any thoughts about whether to keep it, or trim it, or relocate it elsewhere, or delete it entirely? I remember that a few months ago one editor was inserting this information everywhere they could think of, in addition to creating the article San Diego Class 1 Streetcars. The only sourcing provided was (and is) an advocacy website for the streetcars. How do the rest of you feel? --MelanieN (talk) 00:19, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * For this article, we don't need an entire section dedicated to the streetcars. I'd say cut it down to one or two sentences, linking to the main article. We'll need to find better sourcing for that article, but for focus on just the part, the streetcars aren't as notable to the park's history as other areas that could use further expansion. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 21:49, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

"Cultural references" section
On most pages this section is called "In popular culture"; should this section be called that also? --MelanieN (talk) 02:03, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * In popular culture works for the heading for now. Ideally, as this article develops further (I'll help out more starting this week, current finishing up a few other articles), we'll just be able to incorporate these into other sections within the article, keeping only the most notable occurrences. Otherwise, it's just going to continue to develop into a long list of trivia mentions. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 21:49, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Shops???
The intro contains the following sentence: "Besides open space areas and natural vegetation green belts, it contains a variety of cultural attractions including many museums, theaters, gardens, shops and restaurants, as well as the world famous San Diego Zoo." I was about to delete "shops" - there are almost no "shops" in the park, except a few in the Spanish Village area and the museum gift shops. I think it gives a wrong impression to imply that the park is some kind of shopping center. But I thought I had better ask consensus before deleting it. As for "restaurants" the park contains only one sit-down restaurant, the Prado - plus Albert's in the Zoo. The rest of the food facilities are just snack stands. I'm inclined to delete "restaurants" also. What do the rest of you think? --MelanieN (talk) 17:23, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Shops and restaurants could probably remain in the wording as they do exist (but are not what the park is known for). However, the wording could be adjusted to say "several shops and restaurants" to place emphasis on the fact that it's not some large shopping/dining area. Eliminating the wording completely will imply they don't exist at all. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 21:49, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * How about "a few"? --MelanieN (talk) 15:05, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd be fine taking out the shops and restaurants reference, since they are such a small part of what's found in the park. Not only that, but they aren't really "cultural attractions", are they? I would, however, like to see some mention made of the recreational side of the park in the intro - Morley Field is a pretty important part of the park, if less widely-known. Dohn joe (talk) 19:57, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Great idea and good catch. The park is heavily used for recreation, from hiking to swimming to lawn bowling - recreation definitely needs to be added. --MelanieN (talk) 23:14, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, I reworded that paragraph to make it flow a little more logically, and I added "recreation" and de-emphasized the shops and restaurants. I went with Nehrams' suggestion of "several" and I made it say "gift shops" - there really aren't any other kinds of shops in the park, are there? --MelanieN (talk) 23:29, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The wording looks good to me, and I believe that they are all gift shops. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 04:24, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Article improvement
It's good to see the recent improvement to the article. RightCowLeftCoast and I met with several Balboa Park staff a few weeks ago and we suggested that this article be the first for improvement as part of the GLAM project. I went through and removed the general references from the article and archived the urls (feel free to add more citations and I'll archive them as they come in). There are definitely a wealth of available sources for improving this article including the San Diego journals, several books, and multiple local newspaper/magazine news. To help bring this up to GA, we'll need to continue to find these reliable sources and still phase out a few of the general history sources still included within the article. I'm going to invite the BPOC staff to see if they have suggestions for sources we should incorporate. Looking at similar articles, I think this could develop to look something like National Mall. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 04:24, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not clear what you mean by "general references," or why you deleted the references you did. Could you educate me? Thanks. Also, I have put in a lot of references from the archives of the Union-Tribune but I'm afraid they may become dead links for anyone who is not a subscriber. Can you suggest a way to deal with this? --MelanieN (talk) 23:46, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Websites that link to the main websites of organizations such as the park itself or the SD Pride page should be avoided when citing material when outside sources are available. Much of these will be covered in books or related newspaper articles about events held at the park. I've already fixed all of the Union-Tribune sources so that they link to a url that readers can see (except for the older 1994 one which is only available through purchase). All I did was go to the Union-Tribune's website and search for the title and, since most of them were recent, found the current url. I archived all of them so we don't have to worry about losing access when they eventually put them up for purchase. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 23:54, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! --MelanieN (talk) 01:55, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm puzzled by some of the references - "Christman" and "Showley" with a year but no other bibliographical information. Is the rest of the information not available? And if it is (even if not available online), shouldn't the full information be cited at first mention? --MelanieN (talk) 14:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, I found it - it's listed separately under "bibliography". Is that a usual way to cite references here? --MelanieN (talk) 14:07, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It's usually common to use just the author and page number when an attached bibliography is used. Usually if an article has only a book or two for sourcing then I'll cite it out completely at each instance. This article has multiple books available so the simplified cites are usually preferred. Ideally I'll add the formatting to directly link to each book in the bibliography like at Raid at Cabanatuan. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 14:57, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Duplication?
Question - why do we now have all the museums and gardens in both list form and prose form? That seems like an unnecessary duplication, and as I understand it, Wikipedia prefers prose in most cases.. --MelanieN (talk) 05:11, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The article is still a work in progress, and I'm trying to get back to it after a long delay. I'm attempting to bring it in line with some similar articles, such as National Mall. Ideally, I'll secure an overhead image of the park and be able to identify the individual museums and other landmarks. The list also provides a centralized comprehensive area to cover the main areas of the park, as the article does not cover all of these. I left the prose in the same section for now as it provides the locations of where many of these museums and attractions are at. The two may be split up and re-worked significantly, but I'd definitely welcome any input on the best way to map it out. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:15, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Headline image is awful
The main image is heavily photoshopped (with HDR specifically) and thus not an accurate reflection of reality. It should be replaced with a normal image, yes? CGameProgrammer (talk) 00:34, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I may be getting some better images soon to replace this one. It is a good example to show on the HDR image, but could definitely do with a replacement. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 04:27, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

If you want to play with HDR on here, you could make it less jarring by taking the best source image, and applyin HDR effects only to the areas that are too bright or too dark. You could either shop in those areas from the different exposures or overlay the HDR using different layer effects or opacities and erase the areas that don't need it. It's less than perfect, but better than the current image.05:19, 18 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.250.165.189 (talk)


 * I came to the talk page to say something similar (in perhaps nicer language) :) The old image indeed looked like a video game or otherwise like the saturation was cranked way beyond looking real. I've replaced it with one I took a few weeks ago, from the middle of El Prado facing the Museum of Man. I looked through the category on Commons. The other one that gives a decent overview-style picture (i.e. not just one of the many museums/buildings) and which wasn't low resolution was File:Balboa Park, San Diego, California 9 2014-03-12-crop.jpg. I prefer the one I uploaded, but if others disagree no worries. If you revert you should really replace it with a different one, though. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 23:27, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The new image is an improvement, thanks. The old one looked like a hyper-colored picture postcard and I never liked it. But the new one doesn't really highlight any of the buildings or other things that make Balboa Park notable. Its main feature is a paved pedestrian walkway, with a glimpse of the California Tower in the distance. Do you have any that show the Museum of Man or the Prado or the fountain or other iconic images more as a focus of the picture? --MelanieN (talk) 23:59, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh, and you forgot to change the caption. This is no longer a picture of "Casa de Balboa behind the reflecting pool." --MelanieN (talk) 00:03, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Oops. Updated caption. Yes, something like an aerial shot would probably be best. There are a couple of those, but none particularly clear/focused. My inclination was to avoid any particular building, as most of the significant ones have their own articles. I've only been to Balboa Park the once, but walking down this stretch, with the Casa Del Prado complex to the right, Natural History Museum behind, Museum of Man in distance, typical trees, etc. sort of captures my museum-hopper's experience, anyway. :) Certainly no objection if you come across something better, of course. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 05:29, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Also missing
The Mingei Folk Art Museum (http://mingei.org/) The Museum of the Living Artist (http://sandiego-art.org/) The Automotive Museum (http://sdautomuseum.org/) The Spanish Village Art Center (http://spanishvillageart.com/) The Sports Museum (I don't have a link handy for this one) The Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theater (ditto)

Alweiss (talk) 17:09, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

The Hall of Champions (Sports Museum): www.sdhoc.com Supersmil (talk) 16:11, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Linked Spanish Village Art Center above, since article has been created. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 06:11, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

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