Talk:Decatur, Alabama

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Wondering how to edit this U.S. City Entry? The WikiProject U.S. Cities standards might help.

I am currently working to establish citations where they are warranted. Sedriskell (talk) 23:49, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Problem with Areas in table
There is a problem with the areas in square kilometers and square miles in the table on the left. I don't know the correct values to insert. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by KudzuVine (talk • contribs) 21:27, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

To Test Your Objectivity
Decatur has a problem with syphilis now. It is a fact. I have posted it on here to see if you people really can stand a NPOV, or want everything whitewashed. Please, don't disappoint me.


 * Don't delete it again. Just because you've never heard of it, doesn't mean it isn't happening. Yay for Decatur's beautiful Soviet-style logic!


 * As the piece of information that you have contributed has been deleted before by the AntiVandalbot, I see no reason for it to be included. So, it hasn't truly* been my decision, I'm simply holding up the AntiVandalbot's decision.  Also, if you're going to edit on this site, learn how to do it correctly, and with a username.  People might respect your* opinions more if it does not appear that you are trying to hide your identity. AlaGuy 20:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)


 * How am I doing it incorrectly? If a user name was required, it would not be optional. I have a right to anonymity. I know it was removed by you and not the AntiVandalbot just by looking at the history, so don't feed me that. It's going back up. Plus, it's not an opinion. It is fact. Why do you think I'm including the link to the CDC website? By the way, if you're going to complain about untidy truths, learn how to spell.


 * It'd also be nice if you would read the correct context. I meant your opinion that it should be included (what???).  I'm not an* idiot I realize it was backed up.  One thing you do not have the right to do is to edit my comment on the discussion page.  That's got to be breaking some rules.  Who cares if I misspelled it, big woop.  Another thing, if you want that piece of info in the article, please put it in the CORRECT section, it does not belong on the opening paragraph.  The opening paragraph is not for that specific of info, put it in a section that pertains to the quality of life.  This site is open to anyone who has info about the place, but please, if you're goig to edit do it correctly.  The link need not be so long, and please move it to a section that relates to the info you are providing. AlaGuy 01:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, upon reviewing it AGAIN, I'm removing it again. This is old information. I cannot even pull it up anymore, the link is dated 1-31-1004.  This is the year 2006, a good two years since this information has been published.  If you can show me more recent proof I'd be glad to put it in the correct section for you.  But, seeing as this link is very old, I don't see how the information you provided is even close to accurate.  It sounds more like you're trying to make the city look bad, judging by how much you've been fighting to have this included, than to provide useful information.  AlaGuy 01:12, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The link still opens fine for me. I don't know why you couldn't get it up.


 * I went to another computer later that pulled it up. Please, read this carefully.  It is a copy of my previous comment which you obviously didn't not understand.

"This is old information. I cannot even pull it up anymore, the link is dated 1-31-2004.    This is the year 2006, a good two years since this information has been published. If you can show me more recent proof I'd be glad to put it in the correctsection for you.  But, seeing as this link is very old, I don't see how the information you provided is even close to accurate.  It sounds more like you're trying to make the city look bad, judging by how much you've been fighting to have this included, than to provide useful information."


 * If the information were recent, I would see a reasonable use for the information. But seeing as it has been delt with, and a verfiable epidemic no longer exists among the population, I see no reason why it should be included. If anything, it's a historical reference.  And since it does not go to the context of explaining how the city formed, it should not be included.  Please, try to understand this and tell me what the decision should be.  Think in the best interest of the article.  Not in the interest of shouting every last problem to the world. AlaGuy 22:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Decatur a "tiny little burgh"
Decatur has it's own Wikipedia page, and it's huge. It makes this tiny little burgh look vastly more important than it really is. Alright, which one of you Morgan County Economic Development Board folks made this? Let's not pretend we're *that* much of a "city". ;) Reverend Raven 07:55, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually I've contributed the most to the article, but I'm not a member of the Economic Development Board. Haha, I'm really not that old. AlabamaGuy2007 07:27, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


 * That's not really an appropriate attitude to have here. One of the fundamental principles of Wikipedia is a neutral point of view. Decatur, regardless of how you may feel about it personally, is one of the largest and most important cities in North Alabama. And to me, the beauty of Wikipedia is that almost anything people care about is notable enough to have a significant article, and that because Wikipedia is not paper, it has infinite capacity for information. Though you may argue about their relative value, Decatur does have its own history and culture, and I expect this article to grow a good deal more. —LonelyPilgrim 16:36, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


 * You may not share my opinions of the city of Decatur, and that's fine. However the tiny passage I added about one of Decatur's nicknames was valid. It is a phrase I have heard many times during my lifetime of living in Decatur, and I added it to the main wiki page because of this. It is as NPOV of a statement as any of the other statements on the page (some of the other statements even come across as not having a NPOV, but a positive POV). I encourage considering this, as I feel strongly that the tiny passage in question should be restored. Decatur also has a darker, more insidious side than the article mentions, and information along these lines shouldn't be downplayed simply because some Decaturite doesn't like the sound of it. Reverend Raven 01:12, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I've also lived in Decatur my whole life, and have never heard anything close. By that virtue alone, I don't think it's common enough to warrant mentioning as a nickname, but it also comes across as somewhat offensive. It's true that Decatur, like any city, has its share of blights and dark spots. I'm not trying to whitewash them. Feel free to write about them at great length in an unbiased, neutral historical context. But inserting this as a nickname is only a step or two above name-calling. —LonelyPilgrim 04:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Slavery
It is said on many "dumb laws" style websites that slavery is still legal in Decatur, Alabama. I would suggest that someone in the know about this issue explain the history of this. It is a very strange thought, and I was looking here to determine whether it be a fact or urban legend and how this law or legend came to be. Jon Thompson 01:16, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Can you show us an example? That's patently impossible. To begin with, slavery was prohibited by the thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865. For another, slavery would have been a matter of state law rather than local, and Section 32 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 also prohibits slavery, in mirror to the U.S. Constitution. So it sounds like someone is just making things up. —LonelyPilgrim 01:45, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I should also add that I've lived here my whole life and have never even heard such a myth. —LonelyPilgrim 01:48, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I realize that it is impossible because of the Constitution. I also realize that there can be a law on the books that is symbolic, such as those legalizing medical marijuana in some states.  As for examples...


 * dumb.com
 * crazylaws.com


 * Also, please note that I requested an exclamation of the comment, including how it could be interpreted as true, or whether it is some sort of urban legend. Snopes does not mention this at all, so I thought that Wikipedia may. Also, I know some of the laws on these sites to be fact, so I know that they are not making everything on the list up.  I also know that many locals have never heard the true laws that are on the list for my state.  Jon Thompson 22:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, as I said, I've never heard of it, so I can't very well tell you how it could be interpreted as true. If it's an urban legend, it's not an urban legend around here. Also as I said above, I can't imagine why, or even how, slavery could have been an issue for local law rather than state. If you know how law in Alabama works at all, you'll know that practically any local issue of any significance has to be submitted to a statewide referendum and ratified as a constitutional amendment. Since I've already shown the constitution to be incompatible (and done a quick search through the amendments), this doesn't appear very likely. These look to be the kind of sites to which anyone can contribute their own crazy laws, without any real research or fact-checking. So I really do suspect that someone just made this up. In short, don't believe everything you read on the Internet. If you're that interested in it, why don't you e-mail the creators on these sites and ask them? —LonelyPilgrim 23:42, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Alabama Jubilee
The Alabama Jubilee Hot-Air Balloon Classic is *not* the oldest balloon race in the South. That designation would probably have to go to the balloon race that is held in conjunction with the Kentucky Derby, in Louisville, Ky. However, the Alabama Jubilee is indeed one of the oldest hot-air balloon races in the U.S. The 30th Jubilee will be held in 2007.

When they say "The South", they refer to everything south of (and including) Tennesse, North Carolina, and Arkansas. They also do not include Oklahoma, and most of Texas. Most people in this area where the event is held do not consider Kentucky part of the South. Especially as far north as Louisville.AlaGuy 21:24, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


 * 10-Aug-2007: (11 months later) I checked that Kentucky was also part of the Confederacy (with 2 rival governments), so it could be called "South" in the sense of the "War of Northern Aggression" (Civil War). I recommend stating, "south of Kentucky's Great Balloon Race (1973)" as a better phrase for all, so I will insert that, replacing "in the South" as previously stated.  This is in the spirit of Alabama as "The Heart of Dixie" for a well-mannered solution, as might have occurred in that southern civilization "gone with the wind" (original meaning).  -Wikid77 08:28, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * That seems a bit tedious to explain. How bout we just put "in the Deep South".  I think that works best.  AlaGuy (talk) 21:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Showing the area
10-August-2007: Many other city articles have been created in a massive push simply to convert demographic tables into town articles. That was the era of "Wordipedia" (2003-2005) when Wikipedia articles were mostly words. Since Decatur is a major city in the whole state, an Alabama roadmap has been added noting Decatur's location, along the Tennessee River, southwest of Huntsville, north of Birmingham, etc. The structure of the text allows the map to be wide, displayed mostly along the Table of Contents, as 310px width, which is a common size in other Alabama articles for rapid redisplay of the cached map-image. The map has been relabeled from the US National Atlas of the United States, as a reasonable sized reduction, of those enormous, slow, gargantuan Atlas PNG-format files that crash browsers with many windows open. As a reduced image, there is ample space to add other labels or major suburbs in the Decatur area, with the luxury to show the whole state, putting perspective on Decatur's northern location.

Roadmaps are generally very tedious to create, so Wikipedia had avoided them like the plague, instead using bizarre blank maps and tons of text to convey a "picture" of a town's place in the region. While the world websites have progressed now to showing video-clips, "Wordipedia un-illustrated" had become a friggin joke, but at least adding maps can vastly improve the value of WP articles, as a major illustration of a region. -Wikid77 06:57, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

water transportation
I was reading about the Delta IV Heavy and that Wikipedia article said that they were made in Decatur. "What?!?" I thought. I know enough geography to know (1)Decatur is in the far northern part of Alabama, and (2) there are no roads nor railroads big enough to transport these rockets. I came to this article and clicked on the "transportation" section and saw nothing to explain how they got these rockets to the space ports. Then I hunted for and found the part of this article about the rocket production facility which said they were shipped by water via the Tennessee River. That is a pretty important "Transportation" fact about Decatur.Nick Beeson (talk) 13:10, 30 September 2013 (UTC) The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway makes it possible to travel from the state docks port of Decatur, Al. to the Gulf of Mexico via the Tennessee River.The Delta IV Rocket is loaded onto a specially built ship called the MV Delta Mariner designed to ferry the rockets from the Decatur facility all the way to the launch site. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Decatur gold refiner (talk • contribs) 04:38, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

→ Also the Atlas V is produced in Decatur. I recently edited the section to show that there are other locations where Space Launch vehicles are produced. B787 300 (talk) 00:10, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Busiest intersections
Is the "busiest intersections" section really necessary? Most people are not going to know those intersections' locations, the roads, and so on; who gives a damn? People seeking information on traffic are not going to turn to Wikipedia, anyways. Bmag32 (talk) 01:46, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

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