Talk:Civic Center, Denver (neighborhood)

promotional
How can this article be improved to make it sound less like a promotional brochure? Denverjeffrey (talk) 17:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Requested move 18 December 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus. There's no agreement to move here, but feel free to put together a merge proposal or other suggestions if you think they will gain consensus. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 00:03, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

– As per the discussion we had in the deletion request for this article, I wanted to start a renaming request. There should be two articles for Civic Center. One for the neighborhood and one for the historic district. Golden Triangle is not the name of the neighborhood, and as such it should be named Civic Center. Here are two official websites backing that up. Denver Post crimes by neighborhood. Denver Gov website that lists it as Civic Center. Also want to point out that on Google Maps the area is only listed as Civic Center. The highlighted part of the map on the Golden Triangle article itself calls it civic center. And anecdotally, I live in Denver. People call it Civic Center. I've suspected that the whole Golden Triangle thing is to lure tourists to the area, but that's just speculation. If our goal in naming articles is to not confuse people, I think we should use the name that appears in most other spots, with a clarification in the article that it is sometimes called "Golden Triangle" I also threw the naming question to the people of the Denver subreddit. Here's what they said. Overwhelming majority said that they call it Civic Center. So both its official name and common name is Civic Center, so that's why I think the Golden Triangle Article needs to be renamed. Bluedude588 (talk) 22:51, 18 December 2019 (UTC) —Relisting. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:09, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Golden Triangle, Denver → Civic Center, Denver (Neighborhood)
 * Civic Center, Denver → Civic Center, Denver (Historic District)
 * Before finalizing the article name for the second one above, please have a look at the disambiguation page for Civic Center. You'll see that the name for the historic district has been established there as "Civic Center Historic District (Denver, Colorado)." I suggest that this name be considered as the new article title. Jeffrey Beall (talk) 11:05, 20 December 2019 (UTC).
 * Thanks for pointing this out. Using that name makes sense to me. I just don't know how to change this renaming request to reflect that. Bluedude588 (talk) 22:33, 22 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment: "Neighborhood" is not a proper noun, and so should not be capitalized. HandsomeFella (talk) 07:44, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Good observation. Thank you for pointing that out. Bluedude588 (talk) 20:18, 26 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Using Reddit as a proxy for determining the common name is inventive, but here when we say "common name" we mean "the name that is most commonly used as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources". Dekimasu よ! 14:10, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. The other sources I listed prove that too I'd think. Bluedude588 (talk) 15:26, 28 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Clearly "Civic Center" is the city's official name and will show up in such things that are based on lists of official neighborhoods. But we have to determine the most common usage. I don't see for myself the claim about Google maps. If I type in "Civic Center, Denver" in the search box, google highlights the triangular-shaped neighborhood. I have to scroll in a bit for any name to appear, and at the right resolution, I see "Golden Triangle". I am not seeing "Civic Center" at all. If I scroll in further, the neighborhood name goes away as more street names are shown instead - so what you see depends on settings, perhaps the kind of device, and maybe other factors. Other indications that Golden Triangle is commonly used are clear from searching on the term (Denver Post, hotels.com, zillow.com, nextdoor.com, zagat.com, grubhub.com, yelp.com, and so on).  I also found the city of Denver planning department uses the "unofficial name": "Golden Triangle Zoning and Design, Read the Golden Triangle Plan, Learn about the vision for the Golden Triangle neighborhood in the community's plan, adopted in 2014. which is also a good indication that Golden Triangle may be more common than the official name. Bluedude pointed out in the AFD that the city named the neighborhoods in the early 70s and Golden Triangle was coined in the late 1970s, so neither one has a significantly longer usage. All things to consider. MB 21:43, 28 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose until we see a more coherent proposal. Why not merge to one article instead? Dicklyon (talk) 05:53, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That's what I originally proposed, but it was shot down. The consensus on that debate was that one article should focus on the historic district and one should focus on the neighborhood, hence the renaming debate we have going on here now. Bluedude588 (talk) 16:05, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see that discussion. Can you link it? Dicklyon (talk) 05:27, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure! Here you go. The discussion. Bluedude588 (talk) 21:46, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It claims a "weak consensus" there, but I don't really see it. The article you want to move to be about a historic district says it's about the neighborhood, and doesn't mention a historic district.  A merge looks more sensible for these two articles with slightly different perspectives on the same neighborhood/district. Dicklyon (talk) 22:14, 3 January 2020 (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 or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Developing
Well, despite the Requested Move not establishing a clear consensus for what this should be named, I do think there was enough of a consensus in the past AFD that there should be two separate articles, and that this is the one which should be about the neighborhood. Dickylon's late comment in the RM notwithstanding, and their concern partly addressed by my editing. And I have developed it somewhat that way. And I moved this to "Civic Center, Denver (neighborhood)". while mentioning "Golden Triangle" in bold in the lede, and I moved the other one (to be about the historic district area) to Denver Civic Center. I'm open to refinement of the names, but this is progress, providing distinction between and clear focus within each of them. --Doncram (talk) 21:45, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing this! Much better now. Bluedude588 (talk) 04:12, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Good, thanks for that assessment. One main way forward is to develop what is now the Denver Civic Center article, about the smallish City Beautiful civic center area, with the available stuff about the overlapping NRHP historic district, the National Historic Landmark historic district, and perhaps about any Denver or Colorado level recognitions about them, and to use the available documents about them.  This stuff is not properly reflected in the article;  it should be straightforward to develop it.
 * About this article, there was seemingly good stuff for the neighborhood article found during the AFD, including Denver Post crimes by neighborhood and Denver Gov website that lists it as Civic Center, found by Bluedude588 (B). B was going to the library to get more sources, too.  Have these been properly incorporated into this neighborhood article?
 * I do remain concerned about consensus for sensible naming of both of articles, and about relationships between them (better now I think, but not great yet), and about views among the participants that perhaps weren't satisfactorily addressed, particularly about the "Golden Triangle" name (see new section below). Here, tho, i want to try to cover what can easily feasibly be developed in both articles. --Doncram (talk) 16:30, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Golden Triangle name derivation, sourcing good enough to cite?
Hey, is it possible to find some published characterization of the Golden Triangle name as being a promotional name pushed by real estate interests or similar (as suggested to be the case in AFD discussion)? It would help this article, and I think it could go far towards addressing some of the participants' concerns, if we could state such stuff explicitly, with sources. Probably the strongest opinions stated in the AFD were those of editor Jeffrey Beall (JB), who I characterized as really really disliking the Golden Triangle name of larger neighborhood, and whom I respect but I am afraid I might have offended perhaps by my disagreeing with their recommendation. JB, who I think has lived in Denver, supported outright deletion of the neighborhood article commenting JB "never really thought this article was needed in the first place. I think the article may have been an effort on the part of the real estate community to re-brand the area and avoid the stigma of the 'Civic Center' name. Certainly any content worth retaining can be incorporated into the Civic Center article" and later commented: "here's Denver's official neighborhoods map. Again, I think 'Golden Triangle' is an invention of real estate agents." And Bluedude588, who has also lived in Denver, commented "I've suspected that the whole Golden Triangle thing is to lure tourists to the area, but that's just speculation." (Although B noted: "If our goal in naming articles is to not confuse people, I think we should use the name that appears in most other spots [meaning a version of Civic Center name, which B notes is what people in Denver call the neighborhood], with a clarification in the article that it is sometimes called 'Golden Triangle'".) And I personally agree, personal-opinion-wise though not informed by ever living in the area, that "Golden Triangle" certainly sounds better real-estate-wise or chamber-of-commerce-wise, and I personally believe that however it was derived, that it is very plausible that real-estate and CofC people would indeed promote that name, with their fighting against locals' actual usage of "Civic Center". I agree with JB that "Civic Center" as a name would constitute "stigma", because the term does not convey residential or commercial prosperity at all, it perhaps conveys governmental stodginess instead. It was noted, but by Original Research only i think, that the "Golden Triangle" name shows up only from 1970s on, i think. The examples shared in the AFD support some of this, but also include stuff like the fact that the City of Denver has itself used the Golden Triangle term, perhaps without stodginess in their mind. Anyhow, this may be difficult, but I think it would help a lot to find and use sources explicitly talking about the introduction of the Golden Triangle term and explicitly about conflict/fighting among community forces about which name to use. --Doncram (talk) 16:30, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I did go to the library to look for published material on the subject, but the pickings were sparse. I believe that Phil Goodstein's "DIA and Other Scams" touched on it, but I'd have to check again to make sure.Bluedude588 (talk) 05:43, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Further developing the two Civic Center articles
For better or worse, what happened after Articles for deletion/Golden Triangle, Denver in 2019 and the requested move (also in 2019) above, was, I think:
 * one article was moved (by me) to Civic Center, Denver (neighborhood) to be about the big triangular neighborhood, [ in this edit described as "Doncram moved page Golden Triangle, Denver to Civic Center, Denver (neighborhood): move towards clarifying issues since AFD", and
 * one article was moved (by me) to Denver Civic Center to be about the area of government buildings and plaza(s) [ in this edit described as "Doncram moved page Civic Center, Denver to Denver Civic Center over redirect: Move over redirect, towards clarifying, settling issues of past AFD".
 * there is no article titled "Golden Triangle", though Golden Triangle (Denver, Colorado), a redirect to the neighborhood article, can be found by a hypothetical Wikipedia user who starts searching for "Golden Triangle", and
 * I think this treatment mostly preserved edit history of contributors and was mostly fair, i.e. nobody got what they wanted. [That last was meant jovially; I do believe most or all participants got what they thought was most important. Right, joking on a Talk page often doesn't work. --Doncram (talk) 21:08, 22 October 2022 (UTC)]

I am now wanting to develop the Civic Center government buildings and plaza area one to cover, in appropriate detail, the NRHP-listed historic district and the smaller National Historic Landmark district that are within that area. Please don't anyone have a cow, but I will develop a bit at Draft:Civic Center Historic District (Denver, Colorado), with expectation that the material will go into a section of the Denver Civic Center article, and that Civic Center Historic District (Denver, Colorado) will become a redirect to that section. [UPDATE: There's so much important to say, and so much detail available, that the draft article is going to be too large to merge in, so it will have to stand alone. Separate articles exist (or may yet be created) for many of its component buildings, but those contain (or will contain) more detail than appropriate for the historic district article. I will plan to provide summary about the historic district in the Denver Civic Center article with a "main"-type link. --Doncram (talk) 21:08, 22 October 2022 (UTC)]

I'm not happy, but I see that two Denver Landmarks named "Civic Center" and "Downtown Denver" exist (per Denver's list of historic districts or landmark districts) which probably don't match up to either article, but they should be covered in Wikipedia. By the way it happens that Denver's "Civic Center" one includes a few individual Denver Landmarks (per Denver's list of individual landmarks) whose addresses put them far outside the government buildings area, i think. I don't know the boundaries of either yet, and I don't know Denver very well at all, but I'm going there soon and hope to upload some pics.

I hope, knock on wood, that it will become clear that the "Civic Center" one can be covered in one of the two articles that are going now, or in a section in the Denver Landmarks article itself, and I hope the "Downtown Denver" one can be covered in Downtown Denver. And I'm hoping to avoid ever using the phrase "Civic Center Historic District" as the proper noun name for Denver's landmark district in these and related articles. Instead I hope we can call it "Civic Center Landmark District" or "Civic Center Landmark District (Denver)" (currently redlinks which should be redirected to wherever the topic ends up). Denver's usage seems to be okay with calling them either "Landmark Districts" or "Historic Districts".

Pinging those with opinions in previous discussions (User:Denverjeffrey, User:Bluedude588, User:Jeffrey Beall, User:Dekimasu, User:MB, User:Dicklyon, User:Britishfinance - though maybe you were just mediating) to update you, and to suggest further discussion if needed should be here on this Talk page. --Doncram (talk) 02:22, 22 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Very briefly, the AfD appears to have ended with a close that says another move request was needed, and in general pages should not be moved away from their stable titles without further discussion when there is a previous RM discussion in either event. The discussion at the top of the talk page did not find consensus for Civic Center, Denver (neighborhood), so that should have been reverted and further discussion should have taken place (WP:RMUM; we know that there were already "reasonable disagreements with the move"). This may be moot since the move took place a long time ago, but please avoid making undiscussed moves when there is previous discussion about the title. Dekimasu よ! 04:48, 22 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Dekimasu, thanks for replying, though I disagree in this case with your judgment that a wp:RM consensus should have been obtained before my wp:BEBOLD moves.


 * What you said is okay on one level; it seems fair you could have that opinion, and you delivered your message, and on that level i would be happy to just let that be said without responding, or just thank you. But I am responding more substantially below because I do not want this to be held against me in the future, elsewhere, out of context, which seems to me to be quite likely.  I don't want the record to show just that I was chastised and appeared to have been disruptive or otherwise to have done something obviously bad, with disrespect for Wikipedia's proven processes.  I may seem overly defensive about this, but I have been dragged down in too many ANI-type processes with unfair criticisms from random parties bringing up misinterpretations of semi-complicated situations as here.


 * I do understand that a move during an AFD or RM discussion can be unhelpful (though not prohibited). After an AFD with "delete" outcome, it is allowable for an editor to create a new article, as long as they have obtained new sources or otherwise judge it to have addressed the reasons for "delete".  Their new article will likely be scrutinized by AFD editors who "watched" the article title.  If they try using a slightly different title, that will likely be caught, too.


 * Here, it was/is my judgement that there was clear enough consensus that two articles should exist (indeed the AFD outcome was to keep two articles), one about the governmental area and one about the big triangular neighborhood. And that there was some strong dislike for the "Golden Triangle" name, and effectively there were requirements that "Civic Center" should be part of both names, if both articles were kept.


 * I also judged that no good pair of names was emerging, nor would it be possible to get enough explicit agreement in a wp:RM for any "bad" pair of names. The current names, after my moves, are arguably ridiculous: one is "Denver Civic Center" and the other is just the same words, rearranged as "Civic Center, Denver" (plus parenthetical "neighborhood").  No formal process would lead to a consensus decision that this was acceptable; it would seem crazy, for at least some participants, to have hatnotes from one ordering of words to the other ordering of the same words.  I have been on the receiving end of sniping like that RM would engender, and i would endure it if the process would nonetheless lead to some good action, but the RM would fail.  Considering each separately, though, I think they are okay for naming what they are.  And with those accurately-descriptive-enough names, I was willing, and did, put in the effort to edit them both into okay shape, e.g. removing/revising text that had been added to the neighborhood article that this was not about the neighborhood, etc.


 * And after I did those edits necessary to make the names sensible again, I explicitly announced having done all that in "Developing" section above, and no one stated any objection, and there was one "much better now" comment. I believe the announcement was noticed, and that participants could see that what I did was helpful and that they couldn't suggest any better alternative pair of names.


 * And, two and a half years later(!), I even bring the intractable mess back up again explicitly, and give notices to everyone, out of extreme goodwill and responsibility on my part. Even pinging everyone because they might be watching the wrong article.  I had kept in my mind all this time that it was not resolved fully satisfactorily, that not everyone was likely to be completely happy.  And I was reminded of that when I began to turn to developing more, before I would go on a trip there.  If anyone has a better suggestion for a pair of names, it would great for you to speak up.  Obviously, it would be fine to have a wp:RM to improve either or both names, to move from acceptable-but-not-great names to better.  It was not acceptable to leave them as they were, though. Frankly, I think my constructive actions and extraordinary respect shown to co-participants during, right after, and again much later than an intractable disagreement deserves a medal, not criticism! --Doncram (talk) 21:08, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * P.S. I've invested time in developing Draft:Civic Center Historic District (Denver, Colorado) along, and I think something good is emerging, and anyone can help directly or comment at its Talk. --Doncram (talk) 21:08, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Denver's usage (distinct from NRHP etc.) is "historic district" for a group of buildings or an area, while "historic landmark" is for individual building designations; i believe confusion mainly stems from Denver's program being called "Landmark Preservation"; in local terms, the Denver designation of Civic Center Historic District is the most impactful designation (for example it has direct control over modifications to buildings); i do think the article ought to lay out the various designations, including the state designation
 * the Downtown Historic District is laid out explicitly in ordinance, but Civic Center Historic District, like most others, was not codified as an ordinance but as a resolution by City Council; the term "District" is specifically included among definitions in the Landmark Preservation enabling ordinance; see also the offical map, wherein each district's name and boundaries can be found (along with the separate individual landmarks)
 * it's very common in Denver for there to be a larger neighborhood enclosing a smaller historic district with the same forename — that's essentially what we have with Civic Center, and there's a reason Civic Center Historic District is not entirely within the same-named neighborhood: the city's official names and boundaries for neighborhoods date to 1973 and they often didn't reflect popular usage of the time; the boundaries were chosen to divide areas along US Census tracts to track demographics; it so happens including the entire actual Civic Center complex in the same-named neighborhood wouldn't work well with the census tract boundaries; over time not all of these names, nor in some cases boundaries, became common usage; for better or worse "Golden Triangle" is far more recognizable as a neighborhood to Denverites than "Civic Center"
 * Phil Goodstein's book The Denver Civic Center really ought to be sourced in developing both articles -- Garbanzito (talk) 06:19, 25 October 2022 (UTC)