Talk:List of cemeteries in California

Organization
This was trimmed from the List of cemeteries in the United States meta-list. I am undecided on whether to reorganize it. options: alphabetical by name of cemetery (as is), alphabetical by city, alphabetical by county then city. putting the information in table form might be nice, but i cannot do that myself. Right now the list is skewed towards highly famous sites, and alameda county cemeteries, so i needs significant expansion. I know that redlinks need a reference, but all the ones i added are at find a grave, and i havent added the refs yet. its a trivial matter to add them, so please dont remove redlinks unless the cemetery actually doesnt exist. (i have not checked every redlink extant before i began editing)Mercurywoodrose (talk) 22:22, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * settled on alpha by name within county (not alpha by city), which was done with high schools in calif, and with the list of cemeteries in new jersey.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 17:02, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Additional data
I think adding #of burials, date of founding, acreage would be nice here. a lot of work.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:22, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, more data is good. See the notes on tables, below.  Acreage is a good one.  The coord is really good since we can get a map by county of where the cemeteries are located.MikeVdP (talk) 18:06, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Individual interments
Editors should not add supporting reference data related to individual interments. Doing so would only end up cluttering the article due to the potential huge list of individual burials. The notable names we have are for interest and illustration only.--S. Rich (talk) 14:11, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * As long as the cemetery articles and biographical articles have this info, i agree. however, as always, we can add names that dont have articles if we provide references showing notability, such that an article could be written about them. Still, its better to create the article first, then add the name, as redlinks in lists are usually a red flag for material being inappropriate. PS: I think we could make this a featured list if more cemetery stubs were created.(mercurywoodrose)50.193.19.66 (talk) 16:36, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

2021 Discussion

 * A few notable internments are useful -- they really indicate whether a cemetery is worth looking into further. This helps educate people broadly about the communities in which they live.  Having this as a column in a table (see year-old talk, below) keeps this from becoming cluttered.  We are refreshing Sonoma County from the Excel file we are working on, so the names got added back for now.MikeVdP (talk) 05:08, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That would be unmanageable, both in terms of page size and selection criteria. This is a list of cemeteries, not interments. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:21, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Let's keep it manageable: 1. Use tables.  2. Limit number of notable interments to 3 or 4 per cemetery.  The ability to link directly to the persons' articles gives Wikipedia power and utility.MikeVdP (talk) 17:52, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Limiting numbers impacts the first problem but not the second, and rather undermines your final point. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:11, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 * There are (maybe) three types of cemeteries out there: (1) big ones with many burials and many notable interments.  These will have their own Wikipedia articles.  Those specific articles can have sections for notable interments.  (2) medium-sized cemeteries with a few notable interments.  These may or may not have their own Wikipedia articles.  (3) Small cemeteries -- sometimes with a single interment.  These are unlikely to warrant a Wikipedia article.
 * Notability limits would not allow listing all interments in Wikipedia. That's best left for Find A Grave and Billion Graves and such.
 * So, a few notable interments on the master list of cemeteries could have some from the (1) category, and all the notable interments for (2) and (3). That seems workable.MikeVdP (talk) 03:36, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It really doesn't, on two fronts. First, you end up with entries that do not have a Wikipedia article, and therefore do not have confirmed notability - eg the "mother of" and "his wife" entries. Second, if you're not including every notable interment, then you need a non-arbitrary means of selecting which ones are included - not seeing that here. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:59, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not clear on what the beef is. (Is it re the listing overall, or simply about Sonoma County?) Per my recommendation at the top of this section I said we oughta avoid clutter. Right now the Sonoma County section does not comport with the layout seen in the other county listings. Thus it is a big bit of clutter in this overall list. Okay, here's another recommendations — look at the cemetery list articles for Riverside and San Bernardino counties. (Aren't they wonders to behold?!) Nice grids, little clutter, all names are notable, etc. E.g., please setup a new article for Sonoma – following the same format. Then there will be little contention about individual name inclusions. – S. Rich (talk) 06:02, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

As I did not see anyone taking up my suggestion, I did it myself, a'la WP:BB. See List of cemeteries in Sonoma County, California. That is the article where this vague discussion (and editing effort) should take up residence. – S. Rich (talk) 04:51, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

GNIS as a source
Use GNIS to find cemeteries. Select state, county, and then feature type (cemetery). No name for feature is needed. GNIS will pop up with the cemetery names, a GNIS feature ID, Lat/Long etc. – S. Rich (talk) 17:36, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

GNIS access?
The link goes to GNIS which requires a password, but no "create an account" option. Ideas?MikeVdP (talk) 19:37, 2 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Try this  – S. Rich (talk) 05:12, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Main articles and their listings
Once a county has a "main article" created for its cemeteries and notable burials it makes little sense to duplicate the data in this article. Specifically, I'm referring to Riverside and San Bernardino counties, which have well crafted lists for their cemeteries and notable burials. – S. Rich (talk) 15:49, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Shall we go to tables?
If we take each county section to a table (wikitable sortable), we can get automatic mapping, sorting capabilities, etc. What columns do you suggest? Name City lat/lon number of burials type: lawn, rural, church graveyard ownership notes famous people image

Other ideas?MikeVdP (talk) 19:49, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
 * One editor, above, suggests adding acreage.MikeVdP (talk) 18:07, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

one county?
I'll look at doing Sonoma County as a table.MikeVdP (talk) 19:39, 2 January 2021 (UTC)


 * As I did not see anyone taking up my suggestion, I did it myself, a'la WP:BB. See List of cemeteries in Sonoma County, California. That is the article where this vague discussion (and editing effort) should take up residence.  – S. Rich (talk) 04:51, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Orange County section missing
What happened to the section for Orange County? It disappeared back in September and I can't find a link to it anymore. --OCLiving (talk) 18:52, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

many cemeteries are not list-item-notable, to be deleted
Many items in this list-article are not "list-item-notable", and should be judiciously weeded out. Same for many items in List of cemeteries in Sonoma County, California, List of cemeteries in Riverside County, California, List of cemeteries in San Diego, and List of cemeteries in San Bernardino County, California, which have been split out. Cemeteries which have a separate Wikipedia article, i.e. which are believed to meet Wikipedia standards for individual article notability, can be kept. "Redlink items", for cemeteries not yet having an article, but for which credible assertion of article notability is made and is supported by inline citation, are also okay. But other items, "blacklink items", in this and other list-articles, must meet some standard, which can be determined by the collective decision of editors of these pages. See wp:STANDALONE for guidance, that local editors can decide. For cemeteries and related items such as mausoleums, not every one can be list-item-notable. I understand Find-a-grave will have or be willing to create a page for every plot of land anywhere that has just one interment. In Sonoma County, one item that I will dispute is Jack London State Historic Park... sure, that has grave of Jack London, a great man, and grave of his wife. But it is not what readers expect in a list of (notable) cemeteries. To move forward, I suggest removal of all unsupported, non-obvious items from these list-articles. To support civil discussion and possible "saves" of some, I suggest the items be removed but placed onto Talk pages for further discussion. Ping User:Nikkimaria, User:Srich32977, User:MikeVdP. Comments? --Doncram (talk) 19:16, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * There is a bit of stress between WP:NOTABLE and WP:NOTEWORTHY with cemetery lists in general. I agree that lots of WP:OTHERCRAP is out there, BUT I also think the well developed cemetery list articles satisfy WP:CSC: "Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group." To broaden the issue (and discussion) I suggest we bring it up with the Death and Lists WikiProjects and/or WP:Village Pump and/or as an RfC. – S. Rich (talk) 20:25, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think this particular list would qualify as "short". Nikkimaria (talk) 21:51, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Here are the numbers I found: 430 listings (e.g., "* space"); 190 links – red & blue (e.g., "* space S. Rich (talk) 00:23, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * OKAY, per WP:BB I've cleaned out a massive amount of unreferenced material. Cemeteries without refs and lousy refs are gone. I hope that editors who want to keep particular items will keep WP:BURDEN in mind. – S. Rich (talk) 04:17, 31 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Question: Where are the Wikipedia links which defines what the obscure made-up term not "list-item-notable"? Djflem (talk) 12:28, 15 February 2021 (UTC)