Talk:List of New York state parks

Untitled
Thanks for the help. Tmesipt.

A mighty effort!


 * Well, I always wanted to know what they were. :) -- Decumanus | Talk 05:46, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Useful?
Not sure how useful this list is in its present form. What might make it more useful? Further development into a sortable table? Inclusion of information regarding county, size, amenities? Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 20:29, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that this page isn't as useful as it could be. The format used as List of Pennsylvania state parks (a Featured List) is something I've thought would be nice to emulate. One problem is that basic info, such as size and date of creation, is not summarized for New York State Parks in one location; I've been slowly working at getting NYSP articles spruced up (progress report here) and have been gathering those stats for each park, but it usually requires a bit of digging and I sometimes must admit defeat. Additional columns to consider may be whether camping is offered, and annual visitation (oddly easy to source to here.) It would take some time but would probably be worth it; the official NYSP pages are really lacking so this is an opportunity for WP to provide a unique resource. Antepenultimate (talk) 01:01, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, indeed, that serves as a very nice model. It does not have to be completely compiled all in advance... Thanks & Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 10:34, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, this is excellent motivation to get started on this task... perhaps I'll set up a sub-page in the next few days to play around with a few different configurations. Unless you were looking for a project, then by all means have at it (especially since I see you do quite a bit with lists), but let me know if I can help. Of course the holidays make it hard to predict when anything will get done. Thanks! Antepenultimate (talk) 13:49, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Great, thank you. You might consider setting up a sandbox page or two, and then soliciting input via this talk page & possibly elsewhere. Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 15:34, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Sortable table design suggestions
Some suggested topics/ columns for a NYS Parks sortable table, adapted from the List of Pennsylvania state parks featured list:


 * Park name
 * County/ies
 * Area (acres/ ha)
 * Date est.
 * Water bodies
 * Notes
 * Image

And a couple of notes of caution:


 * Wikipedia has articles on most of the individual parks, which is wonderful. No need, then, for external links from the individual table entries in this list. See also WP:External links.
 * Strengthen table & list article with improved use of reliable sources.

Thanks & kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 12:07, 25 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I finally got a chance to get the ball rolling on this in my Userspace: NYSP list sandbox. I'd like to get the first 10 done (as completely as possible, realizing that they won't all be complete when the full table is built), possibly try out a few different configurations and add some notes, before pinging others that have helped out on this article and perhaps soliciting feedback at the (largely dormant?) WikiProject Protected areas. I'll be traveling today but may have some time to poke at this again this evening or tomorrow, but any thoughts about this incomplete start are appreciated. Thanks - Antepenultimate (talk) 16:21, 27 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Excellent, I like it! Looks great... Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 16:42, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Conversion of list to sortable table: Two versions available for review
OK, after a bit of delay I have completed two proposed versions for presenting this list as a sortable table, per discussions above. They can found here, in my userspace. I have also written there a sort of introduction, summarizing what's been discussed above, and some aspects of the table that may benefit from discussion.

To solicit feedback, I am pinging several people that have been broadly involved in editing NYSP articles, or have done substantial edits to this list page itself:. Also pinging two editors heavily involved in building the inspiration for this conversion (List of Pennsylvania state parks),, in case they have any insight. Apologies to anyone perturbed by the notification, feel free to ignore. Since many editors pinged above are inactive, or very sporadically active, I will also be posting at WikiProject Protected areas.

Mainly, I'm curious whether it is a good idea to include a column for a recent year's visitation. Both a version with and without 2014 visitation stats have been mocked-up with the first ten entries. Since removing or adding a column involves a a fair amount of work, I'd like to get that settled before building out the rest of the table. Of course, any other thoughts or suggestions are greatly welcomed too at this early stage!

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to look, and especially thanks for any feedback you may have. Finally, thanks to for getting the discussion started above. Happy new year! Antepenultimate (talk) 22:39, 1 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Excellent, thank you! I like the second version with the visits data... A nice, added touch. Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 01:39, 2 January 2016 (UTC)


 * If I might make a suggestion, how about creating a template for each row similar to NRHP row so that in the future it is easier to make mass changes to the list without having to worry about table syntax, missing columns, etc. I don't know much about NY state parks, but if there is any kind of ID associated with them (e.g. the refnum parameter in NRHP row), it might be able to hook this list up with WP:WLM and its myriad of automation tools for finding images and categories relevant to the items on the list.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:54, 2 January 2016 (UTC)


 * That's an interesting suggestion, Dudemanfellabra. I will need a few days to investigate how it would work here (especially since I've never edited templates beyond creating simple navboxes). One thing I'll mention is that, to my knowledge, no uID is assigned for NYS parks, which is a shame, it would be neat to link them into the sort of system you describe above. Anyhow, I'll definitely try and take a deeper look into this soon. Thanks! Antepenultimate (talk) 02:07, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

As interesting as creating a template could potentially be, it's completely beyond my scope of ability at the current time. Work has started getting busy again and probably won't let up for a while... I'd like to see some progress made on this article, so I'm going to move forward with the table. This doesn't preclude possible exploration of a template in the future, and at least all of the info will be gathered in one place. I'll start building out the incomplete table soon in my userspace (maybe tonight), and will post it once at least the 'county' data is complete for each park. After that it'll be a bit of a process just adding existing info, or finding stats not currently included in articles... anyone is welcome to join in of course! Antepenultimate (talk) 02:56, 16 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a plan. Thank you for your efforts! Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 12:42, 16 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I also like the visitation data - wish it were easily available for PA state parks. Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 11:00, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, This is coming along very nicely. Thank you for all your efforts! Regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 12:24, 1 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks, and thanks for weighing in, ; it's strange that visitation is so easy to obtain for most NY state parks, given that most other basic info is relatively hard to come by, but we'll take what we can get! Getting this table done has taken a lot longer than I'd hoped, and slowed somewhat lately as the paying job becomes busy once again, as it does every spring. But it's rounding the final corner, and hopefully it won't be too long before the table is ready to go. As always, any feedback is very appreciated! Antepenultimate (talk) 22:46, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Table ready
I believe I have the table at a state that is ready for posting. It's not completely done - I stopped filling out notes/descriptions for most parks to speed the process, and I have discovered that there are quite a few parks that are missing from the list. Hopefully the descriptions can be completed gradually, and I'll add missing parks over time as well. (Going on lists from the Rockefeller Institute of Government [list starts at p. 9 of the .pdf, but is somewhat confusing, as it included historic sites as well but uses abbreviated names] and the formal legislation defining the NYSP system.) Please let me know if any problems are spotted, otherwise I'll probably move this over here sometime this week. Thanks! Antepenultimate (talk) 01:14, 11 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Excellent!. Looks great, thanks for all your efforts. Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 10:06, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Well, I'm guessing that got some attention from a few Recent Changes patrollers! Of course there's still work to be done, but it feels nice to finally push this table into the mainspace. In case it's helpful for folks looking to update the table in the future, here are the templates for adding rows to the table:

Current park row template:

! scope="row"| Park name

Former park row template:

! scope="row"| Park name

I hope this table serves as a useful improvement to the project, and to readers. Thanks to everyone who chimed in, especially who got the ball rolling and added encouragement along the way. Take care - Antepenultimate (talk) 01:50, 14 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Beautiful!. Well done, ! Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 02:55, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Overlap with List of New York State Historic Sites
Just stumbled across this the other day... the State historic sites section of this article is redundant to the content of List of New York State Historic Sites. Although I think there are a number of issues with the separate article as it currently stands (title capitalization and structure, mostly, and refs could be improved as always), I think that in the long run, it would be best to list NYSOPRHP's historic sites on a list separate from this one, and remove these entries from this article. A link to the separate list could be included as a "See also" link, or perhaps in prose of an expanded introductory section here.Alternatively, the content of "List of New York State Historic Sites" could be merged here, and then redirected; however given the title of this page, I believe that to be less preferable. Any thoughts? Antepenultimate (talk) 03:36, 8 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Agree: The sublist in this article is more complete, but I think you're probably right that ultimately it makes sense to merge the sublist from this article into the other one, and for that to be its own list... That leaves more room for further, focused development of both. Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 10:29, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

There's actually a third article with overlapping content, as well: List of National Historic Landmarks in New York. DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 21:39, 19 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Hmm, there's overlap there, but there are a number of items unique to each list. I think what List of New York State Historic Sites is hoping to accomplish is to list all state-designated (NYSOPRHP) historic sites, which seems a good basis for a list. The best thing to do, I think, would be to unify the content at the state list into one coherent table, which could have a column to indicate whether the site is also a National Historic Landmark... rather than two sub-lists based on that status. For the most part, the SHS and NHL for each location are covered in the same article, the rare exceptions could be described in the notes. Antepenultimate (talk) 00:00, 20 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I've combined the two sub-lists into the table I've described above. Next step will be to make sure that all items listed here are also listed there, in preparation for removing the redundant list from this article. Hope this is an improvement, and I'm open to suggestions. Take care - Antepenultimate (talk) 02:28, 20 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Excellent, well done! Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 10:32, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

After transferring the one non-duplicate entry from here to the List of New York State Historic Sites, I have removed the Historic sites section here as redundant to that previously existing list. Perhaps it may be worth mentioning the other list somewhere in the lead section here (since they are administered by the same state agency), though I'm not sure if that's appropriate. Antepenultimate (talk) 01:13, 21 April 2016 (UTC)


 * ✅! Thank you, . DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 01:31, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Missing parks?
Hi, I noticed several parks on this list of NYS parks with bird conservation areas that currently are not included in this article. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 18:18, 18 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Hm, I'm not seeing any that are missing. Two are listed there under slightly different names - "Mills Norrie State Park ((Margaret Lewis Norrie)" is listed here as Margaret Lewis Norrie State Park (Mill-Norrie is confusingly used as a name to cover both Margaret Lewis Norrie State Park and Ogden Mills & Ruth Livingston Mills State Park) and "Thacher State Park (John Boyd Thacher)" is listed here as John Boyd Thacher State Park. The "Iona Island/Doodletown" BCA could go under Iona Island State Park (sometimes, but not always, listed as just being part of Bear Mountain State Park). The others seem to have been added OK, is there anything else I'm overlooking? Antepenultimate (talk) 18:33, 18 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi, Thx for your speedy reply! May be just an alt. naming thing... Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 19:06, 18 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Yeah, if there was one thing I learned while reformatting this list a while back, it's that there is very little internal consistency for these park names, even in NYSOPRHP websites and documents, to say nothing of what they're called in external sources. I didn't move/change many names, though I did make a few decisions for this list to go with what seemed to be the WP:COMMONNAME when two names were listed on the NYSP page (for instance, "Sunken Meadow State Park" rather than "Governor Alfred E. Smith State Park"). Anyhow, the BCAs are a nice addition! Antepenultimate (talk) 19:44, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Seasonal hunting sites
Hello, I think it may make sense to merge the seasonal hunting sublist into the main list/ table, using the 'Notes' fields. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 12:56, 11 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi, I've always been a little ambivalent about that section due to the difficulty in sourcing it to the level of detail currently presented, which would take careful examination and referencing of individual park pages hosted by NYSOPRHP - a real hassle. Some more general links that could be used for sources are this general list, maintained by OPRHP but not specifying what types of hunting are permitted in each park, and this more focused list, maintained by NYSDEC, but including only parks that allow deer hunting. Depending on the wording to be used in the notes field, one or both may be appropriate. Thoughts? Antepenultimate (talk) 00:43, 15 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi,, Thanks for your reply! Since the current sublist is unreferenced, both of the above sources would be helpful in documenting addenda on hunting in the notes field for individual parks, in my opinion. Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 01:05, 15 March 2017 (UTC)