Talk:Chatham Township, New Jersey

Money magazine
That simply isn't true. The 2006 Money magazine article ranked the combination of Chatham Borough and Chatham Township. Also the link is dead. Unless someone can fix both problems, this sentence should be deleted.Thefactis (talk) 05:12, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Entire history section is a copyright violation
'''Do not copy text from other websites without permission. It will be deleted. is stated by Wikipedia, yet the following is copied exactly''' from http://www.chathamtownship.org/about_history.html -- including the misspelling -- and copied into the History section of this article.

The first white settlers arrived around 1710, attracted by the fertility of the soil and the rich iron ore deposits in the region. During the Revolutionary War, the entire area shared in the activity of the Morristown encampment.

In 1806, the Township of Chatham was incorporated and included the areas that are now the Borough of Chatham, Madison and Florham Park. It was named Chatham in honor of Sir William Pitt, the elder Earl of Chatham, who had spoken in favor of the colonists in Parliament.

These areas were connected by turnpikes and toll roads originally built by private corporations to transport their goods to market. Local residents later built Shunpike Road to avoid paying tolls.

The most important transportation development was the coming of the Morris and Essex Railroad in 1837. This led to sharp increases in the population, which resulted in incorporating Chatham, Madison and Florham Park as separate boroughs.

In the late 1870s and 1880s Chatham Township became a center of the rose-growing industry. The speciality of the Louis M. Noe Greenhouses was the American Beauty rose with a stem five feet long. At Christmas, he sent them to European royalty. Queen Victoria received 50 of them on her golden anniversary.

After a five-year construction ban during World War II, home-hungry families invaded the township, and large farms gave way to luxurious home sites. Former rose farms became two major shopping centers at the corner known as Hickory Tree, named for a hickory tree planted during President Madison's term.

now the "history" given on that site -- even though it would be copyright by its publication alone -- is questionable operating under the new modern Wikipedia rules of history -- since "Chatham Township was incorporated in 1806" -- but nonetheless, it should be deleted.


 * Quit pulling holier-than-though crap here since you're losing the argument. This section was added by Alansohn nearly a year ago. —lensovet–talk – 03:27, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Not surprised by perpetuation of copyright violation
Do not think it matters who cut and pasted the information. The entire history section has been taken verbatim from another website -- that is a violation of copyright and contrary to a Wikipedia rule which states that it should be deleted. I do not consider attempting to make my edits be the best I can for Wikipedia an attempt to win an "argument". The only loser in your petty battle is Wikipedia and the people who read it to find accurate facts. You are the one for whom I suspect a personal agenda and your statement indicates that further... you have no intention of acting appropriately. Given your behavior -- where you even altered other articles in order to "win an argument" -- I am not surprised.
 * Yeah ok, why don't you go back to making personal attacks instead of posing like you want to improve something...the copyvio's fixed. —lensovet–talk – 15:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

interesting discussion elsewhere
How do we find out the city name?

This might seem silly, but how do we determine a city's name? In the process of a discussion at Talk:Chatham Borough, New Jersey, an anonymous user as well as a respected editor dismissed Census bureau data as incorrect. Alansohn then suggested that references by the municipality to itself [would be relevant]; the anonymous user retorted with The name of the government is not the name of the town. So...how do we resolve this? Thanks. —lensovet–talk – 03:30, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The point that the name of the government is not the name of the town is well made. In fact, I believe we confuse city governments with cities in Wikipedia, and, actually, all kinds of governments with places. As to how to find out the real name of the town, it's common usage. Normally, they are the same as "official usage", so it's not much of a practical problem. --Serge 04:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

We've had much confusion with New Jersey municipalities. Just to clarify the situation, boroughs and townships are equivalent civil divisions in New Jersey; a borough does NOT exist as part of a township. Though boroughs are often contained within townships, they are indepent municipalities. In a typical scenario, The Borough of Foo was formed from portions of Foo Township. People refer to the Township as "Foo Township", but may often refer to the borough simply as "Foo". This may lead to confusion when someone links to "Foo, New Jersey"; are they referring to the Township, the borough or both (the combined Foo area)? Princeton, New Jersey is an interesting example of this phenomenon, where the borough article is named Borough of Princeton, New Jersey. However, most borough/township pairs have article names that are in the Foo/Foo Township form. Possible solutions:

1) Keep "Foo Township, New Jersey" as is; leave the borough as "Foo, New Jersey" with appropriate cross reference in both articles.

2) Keep "Foo Township, New Jersey" as is; rename the borough as "Foo Borough, New Jersey" with appropriate cross reference in both articles. Change "Foo, New Jersey" to a disambiguation pointing to both "Foo Borough, New Jersey" and "Foo Township, New Jersey".

To be honest, this is my preferred alternative. The only problem with this is that it involves going to every article that links to Foo, NJ and trying to figure out what that link should really point to. Also, how do we resolve references to the "combined" area? For example, if some article says Foo, New Jersey is a suburban town with many areas of wild, undeveloped land, what does it actually mean? Is it referencing Foo borough or Foo township? What if it actually means "the combined area of the borough and township"? How do we link to both towns, or do we just link to the dab page (note that this is technically problematic and might be "fixed" by unaware users/bots)? This matter is not so much of a problem with more specific facts, such as birthplaces, etc, but it's still an issue to keep in mind. —lensovet–talk – 05:33, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

When unidentified references are made, link to Foo, New Jersey. This is particularly important in historical articles, since in most cases the communities are much older than than the donut-and-hole municipal governments, most of which come from the 1890's. New Brunswick, New Jersey is an exception, IIRC. Septentrionalis 20:23, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Whatever our collective preferneces are on this issue, I don't believe the Census Bureau's name for the municipality is useful. Far more relevant is local usage. Even a website that is named FooBorough.com or calls itself the "Borough of Foo" on the website is not necessarily "proof" in my experience. Local usage -- perhaps best demonstrated in newspaper articles -- would be far more dispositive. Any thoughts on the issue? Alansohn 04:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

NJ Municipal Data Book should be in most NJ public libraries, and should be reasonably accurate on names; and Snyder's The story of New Jersey’s civil boundaries will establish name and bounds as of its date. There have been some changes since then, but they will be obvious. (Aberdeen, New Jersey, for example.) Septentrionalis 20:23, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Other possible solutions:

1.Foo (borough); Foo (township) (when Foo has no ambiguity issues with other boroughs and townships)

2.Foo (borough in New Jersey); Foo (township in Jersey) (when Foo has ambiguity issues with boroughs and/or townships with the same name in other states)

--Serge 04:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC) Unidiomatic and unnecessary; Americans have been dealing with their multiple Springfields for years. We don't need to reinvent the wheel, just document how it has already been done. Septentrionalis 20:23, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

See this discussion for a similar problem. --Polaron | Talk 05:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I must disagree on the similarity: NY's townships are not incorporated; NJ Townships are municipalities like the others. Septentrionalis 20:23, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

this should be in the discussion also;

until the articles were changed by lensovet, the articles were Chatham, New Jersey and Chatham Township, New Jersey --- and it worked well. It seems that only a few people who lived in apartments rather than owning houses had no idea of the municipality they lived in... Now there is a third article, about the government of one with many fragments of the information that should be in another and all three articles are so distorted, that they are worthless as encyclopedia entries. Details that should be in one are in another and details that were furthering the information given have been deleted at the whim of one person, who seems to refuse to acknowledge his personal motivation. He knows little about the communities that have very long histories and thinks that the last ten years of his poor "understanding" should drive this train.

Regarding some information deleted and the sarcastic comments based in ignorance -- lensovet should ask Councilwoman Fuller the date when her house (and all of the others along the new street on which it exists) were built by clearing a wooded enclave in Chatham, New Jersey.

As with most obsessions, lensovet lets his interfere with better judgment. Luckily there are other people who at least care about preventing such distorted articles.

dates don't make sense around formation
the overview claims that the township was created in february - as a result of a referendum in march. that makes no sense. does anyone have enough command of the history to clarify those dates? AnthonySorace (talk) 15:43, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

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