Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Cook County, Illinois

Revisions
I removed Thomson & Taylor Spice Company Building from the Chicago entries; I can't find it in the official site's listings. MisfitToys 23:14, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Chicago & Northwestern Passenger Depot (Wilmette, Illinois)
I almost thought Metra was reusing this station, but I was wrong. Anyway, here are two link for anybody looking to do an article on the former station (http://www.wilmette.com/whpc/details/1139wilmette.htm)(http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/IL/Cook/state2.html). Good luck. DanTD 01:27, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Chicago sections
The neighborhood divisions in this list's Chicago section are indecipherable to anyone not from Chicago. How is anyone supposed to update this list? IvoShandor 00:08, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * No answer, so I am removing them under the "stupid as hell" clause. IvoShandor 23:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Too much work, they will not be on the new version of this list being worked on in user space by the Illinois project. If anyone is unconvinced, bring in some outside editors and you shall see just how useless and counter-productive the neighborhood areas are. I myself couldn't update the list because I am unfamiliar with the neighborhoods. This stinks of WP:OWN. IvoShandor 23:45, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know these "neighborhoods" either, and really, anyone outside of Chicago won't either, nor will they care. To me it is the same as including all the subdivisions that are hooked up to Byron if there are historical places in them, or Rockford for that matter. When they click on the article, then you can have the neighborhood listed in there, same as if it was a township.--Kranar drogin 23:50, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, being unfamiliar with the neighborhoods (all of which have their own articles) is not really different than being unfamiliar with a small town where a site is located. Subdividing by neighborhood is more helpful than one long list with hundreds of entries. The Manhattan listings recognize the need to subdivide the massive list geographically within the city; Chicago's neighborhoods, having formally defined boundaries, make this easier. Considering that only three Chicago sites have been added in the last several months, isn't this something of an overreaction? MisfitToys (talk) 01:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

New tabular format, comments requested
I've drafted a new tabular format listing of the RHPs in Cook County, temporarily located at List of Registered Historic Places in Cook County, Illinois/Temp. My general intention would be to spin off a separate list-article on RHPs in Chicago (unless there is a movement to integrate it instead into List of Chicago Landmarks), spin off a list-article on RHPs in Evanston, and use the remainder table to replace the current List of Registered Historic Places in Cook County, Illinois article. Before doing so, all the neighborhood info and other info in the current article would need to be translated over. Comments welcome. doncram (talk) 22:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Help needed, too. Particularly in reviewing the sites in the "Other" section, to see if some of those should be in the Chicago city list section instead.  When separating the corresponding Los Angeles city list out of the Los Angeles County NRHPs, it was an issue that some sites were listed as being in places other than Los Angeles, such as Hollywood, which really are just neighborhoods in the city proper.  Please help move any such Chicago neighborhood ones into the Chicago city table! doncram (talk) 23:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Like the table, dislike the lack of any organization. This list is divided into municipalities (suburbs and other towns in Cook County-which does not just consist of Chicago). Were you planning on reorganizing the list to match up more with the current live version? If so, that would be great, the list itself looks much nicer than the current version. We are doing something similar with the IL list in a user workspace. IvoShandor (talk) 00:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, I think the Chicago section here is actually broken down by neighborhood, but that is more than likely someone's own original research and probably ought not be incorporated into the new list, that and it makes it nearly impossible for anyone outside of Chicago to add to this list.IvoShandor (talk) 00:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for reviewing it. Yes, i am planning to replace "Chicago" by specific neighborhoods within the Chicago table, according to neighborhoods given in the current list-article, and spin that off to be a separate list article as this is now too large.  Likewise spin off Evanston.  Then the remainder table replaces the current list, with a town/city column that should correspond to the towns/cities in the current list, and under Chicago and Evanston will point to those separate Main articles.  So, if you choose to sort by Town/City column, it will "match up" to the current list, or I don't understand exactly what you mean by match up.  However, i was intending to leave the sites in landmark name order, presuming that the name is more important and sometimes a reader interested in a site does not know what town it is in.  But the sortability of the list allows you to get it either way you like.
 * About the difficulty of outsiders adding in new NRHPs to specific neighborhoods:
 * #It would help the Chicago list-table to have a map of Chicago neighborhoods included or linked from the article, so that a given address could be looked up and it could be determined by an outsider what neighborhood a new NRHP is in.
 * #It is logically more satisfying to have a MECE neighborhood allocation. Note the map included in Grand Boulevard, Chicago shows how Grand Boulevard is Community Area #33.  Perhaps the neighborhoods used will each correspond to one of those areas.
 * #However, it is not such a problem if outsiders cannot determine neighborhoods. That is what local Chicago wikipedians are supposed to do, to add location-specific information.  An outsider editor adding a new NRHP can put it in an "Other" neighborhood or just put down "Chicago" for it, leaving it to locals to determine its neighborhood.  I would not term this "Original Research" as there is no controversy, no point-of-view, on this factual type information.  I really dont see a problem here, just leave it to others who know the neighborhoods.
 * This is part of Illinois, a pretty big chunk of it, so I am not sure what else you are referring to about doing Illinois in a user-space, but perhaps this dovetails into that effort.  Thanks! doncram (talk) 01:33, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As for the locations outside Chicago and Evanston, they're all indeed separate cities, so unless the location listed is actually wrong, they're not in Chicago. As to the neighborhood issue, I can't imagine how it could be considered OR; the neighborhood boundaries are all officially defined by the city, so their addresses clearly place them within the neighborhoods listed. We've been through this before. MisfitToys (talk) 02:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Call it what you want, do what you want, thats what the Chicago project always does anyway. I don't care, I just thought I would make my opinion known again, since it has been so readily dismissed by almost everyone in the Chicago project in the past on just about every issue, excuse me for bringing it up again, you guys obviously don't value outside perspective like you should. IvoShandor (talk) 10:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * OK that was a bit harsh, but it is how I have been made to feel. As for the OR issue, read your description, it's practically the definition of unpublished synthesis, just because it is about a minor issue doesn't change what it is. However, that said, it's not a big enough issue to be concerned about, but it is what it is. Original research has nothing to do with controversey and everything to do with maintaining Wikipedia as a tertiary source. IvoShandor (talk) 10:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well i don't know about past history with the Chicago project, of which i am not a regular part. I am currently just working on these list-articles of NRHPs that happen to be here.  About the OR question, I have been concerned in the past about my tallying up how many churches, bridges, homes, ships, etc. are listed on the National Register, or are National Historic Landmarks, in a given region, and putting that into statements in articles.  For example I wrote a lot of such statements in intro to List of NHLs in NY.  Neither the National Park Service nor anyone else can be sourced for the specific statements of these counts, even about how many NHLs there are in total in the U.S.  So, I know that our list-articles and these statements are creating new knowledge (of these counts), about which I am proud but a bit concerned.  But I have read up on NOR and have followed some long discussions about Original Research and Citing Sources in the Wikipedia policy talk pages.  I conclude eventually that it is not a problem, if the list of elements that are counted are detailed out, and if identifications of neighborhoods are entirely factual and can be verified, which they all can be.  If I produce a list of NRHPs in a neighborhood, there are many eyeballs checking to see if their addresses fall within the defined boundaries of the neighborhood stated in an article about the neighborhood.  This is not "Synthesis of published material which advances a position", there is no POV, this is neutral, NPOV.  I believe that the NOR dictum is to fight against POV, not against objective summaries, which is termed "good editing". doncram (talk) 14:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:SYN states that "Synthesizing material occurs when an editor comes to a conclusion ..."; stating that a building is within a certain defined area, or that several buildings are all within that area, hardly constitues reaching a conclusion or forming a theory - it's merely a statement of fact. If an editor states that the Empire State Building is in Manhattan, or describes its distance to another building, they hardly need a source to back it up. MisfitToys (talk) 00:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I can see both sides of the issue myself. I have seen vehemnt rejections of such tactics at places around WP such as FAC. I still think that Wikipedia is not the place for original ideas, no matter how minor they seem, I think it's an invitation to open Pandora's Box so to speak, but I won't raise a big fuss. I don't know, I don't think that all cases are as cut and dried as Chicago, there are many locations around the country in which neighborhoods are de facto designations, there is nothing official. Perhaps this is my major issue with the practice. It only advances no position until someone challenges it's legitimacy, landmark designations are far from free of political shenangins and I could very easily see the neighborhood where such a site exists becoming a victim of such shenangins, especially in places that aren't as on top of their neighborhoods as the city of Chicago is. Just my thoughts, I don't intend to get in some big fight over the issue, but I cannot abide by the failure to see the other side of the issue, so I just want to make sure my viewpoint is known, because I am certainly not the only editor that is leary of this practice, at least based on my experiences.IvoShandor (talk) 06:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your following up, and I see merit in your concerns, too. I particularly want to acknowledge that which neighborhood is to claim a positive landmark or to dissociate itself from some negative historical event can sometimes be a political matter, and not so objective.  One of my pet peeves is Bennington Monument in Vermont, which has attracted tourists for decades using misrepresentations that it is the site of the Bennington Battlefield in New York State. (i have ensured that wikipedia articles describe that the battlefield is 10 miles away, and i am very happy we now have a new pic that depicts the battlefield, for the battlefield article, and that we can now win against Bennington Monument advocates who keep wanting to post pics of the monument there!)  To identify neighborhoods in a column in list-tables like this one, it certainly would seem unprofessional / not encyclopedic, if the neighborhoods are not well defined.  For another example, List of museums in New York has been going astray with some really vague region names in a column (please join Talk:List of museums in New York if you are interested).  I believe that NRHPers have struggled with finding neighborhood schemes to use in Seattle and in San Francisco.  But here in Chicago, it seems there is a usable, nice partition of the city into neighborhoods that we can depend upon.  doncram (talk) 19:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Big switch to table form pending...
Hey, i believe that List of Registered Historic Places in Cook County, Illinois/Temp has been developed to fully include all the information (displayed and hidden in wikilinks) that is in the current list, but now in table form and with additional info and with room to grow. I think it is better, although the any comments / suggestions / corrections would be appreciated.

One thing i noticed is that the current version shows some sites in more than one neighborhood, such as the Midway, which runs through 3 of the defined neighborhoods. The current version's organizational format, by town, was indeed nice and the whole article was nice that way. However, i do think the tabular format organized alphabetically by landmark name is better and it is worth switching over.

Depending upon if there is any big discussion, I plan to blank the current version and copy the Temp version into its space, fairly soon. That will preserve the edit history of the current version, and will show all the work done in the Temp space as one big edit. I plan to spin off the Chicago section into a separate article soon. I was planning to spin off the Evanston section also, but it is almost all red-links, so i may merge it back into the main table of all the other non-Chicago NRHPs. Thanks! doncram (talk) 19:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Have implemented the big switchover from list to sortable table. What i haven't done is really check the table properly to make sure it includes every RHP that was in the previous list, and otherwise captures all the neighborhood and other info in the previous list.  Cross-checking is needed.  But i think the table is basically pretty good, and i would rather it was in place and allowing pics and descriptions to be added. doncram (talk) 11:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)