Talk:List of IATSE locals

Sort me......
If someone could help sort this page that would be great. I don't know if a sorting them numericaly or by location would be best. I think both would be great though. Lekogm 14:48, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * My thoughts are to sort by: District -> State -> number. Multi-state jurisdictions would be primarily listed in their Home Office state: whether to also re-list the local for each individual state should be discussed. i can see positives/negatives either way - Its either too wordy, or you can't find the info where it should be. --Strangerpete (talk) 01:39, 25 August 2015 (UTC)


 * In order to stay on the good side of the wikipedia guidelines, I would like to start expanding this page to include more useful information about our locals, other than just craft, state and urls; my ideas were charter date and membership count, which could be used to create some form of sortable list. The goal being to be a list of information rather than just 'external links', as most locals do not have a wikipedia article to use. thoughts? --Strangerpete (talk) 02:11, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Cited link removal
Bearcat, I see edit removing all cited links from the article, and I disagree; WP policies seem vague and conflicting at times - The list of links removed seemed to be acceptable according to Links in Lists, WP:ELYES, WP:ELMAYBE, and WP:ELOFFICIAL. "Wikipedia articles about any organization, person, website, or other entity should link to the subject's official site" & "Normally, only one official link is included. If the subject of the article has more than one official website, then more than one link may be appropriate, under a very few limited circumstances" - This subject has more than one official site, which is why i believe this list was complied in the first place. In addition, complies with WP:ELRC as all links were inline-citation, and the first line of WP:EL says "This guideline does not apply to inline citations"

Each page linked contains information that is valuable to someone researching the topic, but otherwise couldn't practically be its own page, or properly sourced, including lists of movie and theatre productions (also mentioned in policy i recall for allowable external links.) I appreciate you keeping on top of WP policies, but perhaps such a large removal should have been discussed first? --Strangerpete (talk) 14:05, 25 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I forgot the more important excerpt from WP:ELNO / Links in Lists - "This section does not apply if the external link is serving as a citation for a stand-alone list entry that otherwise meets that list's inclusion criteria." - which this seems to do according to WP:LISTCOMPANY --Strangerpete (talk) 14:16, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * A thing's own web page is not a citation or a reference. A citation or reference is a newspaper, magazine or journal article, or content in a book, about it, not its own self-published content about itself — and offsite links on Wikipedia are permitted only (a) inside nested ref tags, or (b) in the external links section at the end of the article, and are never allowed to be inserted directly into the running body text of the article as a substitute for a Wikipedia article about the thing being linked. Having almost every local's name be formatted as a direct offsite link to its own web page is not making the list "referenced" — it's making the list a directory where the offsite links are the purpose of the list, and that's exactly what a list of things on Wikipedia is not allowed to be or do. Bearcat (talk) 17:24, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:ELRC disagrees with your definition - "Exceptions—websites that can be both references and external links—include any official sites for the article topic, or websites that are specifically devoted to the topic" - these links apply to both exceptions; in addition, the purpose of the list is show geographical distribution and purpose of locals, and the link serves as source. More than one policy says the item must be cited inline, where it appears.


 * To me a list of locals belonging to a historic entertainment union, and a subpage of a few WikiProjects, should fall under WP:ELMAYBE, as its much different than a list of random companies. Being only my opinion above, does it change the situation if this is an article in progress (as it has been slowly been improving) with the intention of adding more content specific to each item, with the item still as the source? It was intended with time to add enrollment statistics, and charter dates, for example.


 * If no, then what happens when this information is eventually added? Should an inline link be added again, on a per-item basis? Or is the information unable to be added because its allowable citation is disputed? --Strangerpete (talk) 00:05, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

5/12/2020 Reorganization
Hi, I finally decided to make an attempt at reorganizing as the page was pretty haphazard. I've noticed a couple issues as a result of trying to categorize the locals and I think I've got a decent compromise, although not fully implemented yet: sorting down by Country > District > Optional prominent area (ie., Production Centers, as defined by IATSE.) Further dividing the sections into individual states gets messy, as some locals have multiple state jurisdiction, or even multiple Districts. I'm still not sure how to deal with multiple district, except simply including in both district's sections.

We also need to come up with a common local formatting. Aside from the Production Centers sub-section, I propose the remaining locals be sorted alphabetical by State, then Local number, and with a form of: Thoughts? Strangerpete (talk) 16:37, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Local [nnn], [Craft type(s)], [City, ST || short list of Jurisdictions]
 * I do kinda like the by-district organization, but by local number does also make a lot of sense. I wonder if it would be best to use a sortable table where it can be sorted by local, district, state, craft and such. oknazevad (talk) 14:46, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I've created a couple short examples of different styles of tables here, under the premise of by-district. Curious if you, or any others have an option. The style '1a' (out of order, 2nd) is probably ideal. It'll be alot of work to convert the whole list and still has to be manually sorted first, so best that anyone with an opinion chime in early! Strangerpete (talk) 05:26, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * That's the thing. I don't think they should be organized by district. I'm looking at it from the perspective of someone who is not familiar with the union and is trying to learn which locals are, well, local to them, or which locals cover which crafts they're curious about, or they heard the local number and want to know which is which. By-district organization helps none of those, and assumes the reader already knows about the structure of districts. It's too top-down.
 * I guess what I'm envisioning is one big sortable table, with local number-city-state/province-district-craft as columns (note that's city and state as separate columns, which should be spelled out not postal abbreviations in line with Wikipedia guidelines). That way any sort order the reader chooses can be done. oknazevad (talk) 12:00, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok, I see what your saying. I tried something to that effect, if you'd like to take another look. One of the main issues will be city/state versus jurisdiction. Should it just be the office location? Some locals have multiple states, such as 481 New England has an office in Massachusetts, but covers MA, RI, NH, VT, ME; I guess we would just lose sorting on things like that. I'm also concerned that with ~600 locals, the big-list style will get very dense fast, and its not easily maintainable. Strangerpete (talk) 14:36, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the multi-state locals are a possible issue. Perhaps a "notes" column at the end with such details is the best. Such a column might also include mentioning which locals have absorbed other locals as well. I wouldn't worry too much about size of the table, as it being sortable makes it much easier to navigate. And maintenance wouldn't be too big of an issue, I don't think, as changes to locals are few and far between. oknazevad (talk) 19:15, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Strangerpete/List_of_IATSE_locals -- I think I've got the format in an acceptable state, so I'm about halfway through re-adding the locals from the source; now would be a good time for anyone else to suggest any issues. Below the notes at the top, is basically what I will merge here once the list is complete. Initially I was merging from the existing list, but since there are more than a few unverifiable locals, I've stuck to the main source for the remainder, and I'm tempted to flush the first few as well. Non-existent/merged numbers should be cited separately, and arguably notable as well. Strangerpete (talk) 15:30, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Verifiability
One issue with this page is citations; as I understand, IATSE itself doesn't qualify as a reliable source (unless there is a policy or exemption I missed) but the Dept of Labor hosts a union search, which lists all the districts and locals, but it appears you cannot directly link to each entry and filing.

The best we can do is reference a specific file number, but that would mean citing each local, and there are alot...so can the portal act as a citation itself, without needing to reference each one? And when citing on Wikipedia, is using the URL for the search form, along with the file number separately acceptable? Strangerpete (talk) 20:59, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * For simple statements of facts such as a list like this, IATSE itself is a perfectly acceptable source. In fact, it's probably the best source as the most definitive. See WP:PSTS. Being we're not analyzing anything, there's nothing unreliable about using the IATSE website as a reference for listing locals, just as using a corporate website to list operating subsidiaries is perfectly acceptable. oknazevad (talk) 03:01, 7 November 2020 (UTC)