Talk:Oak Park, Illinois

Stuff
So this Winslow House.. is it in Oak Park as this article states, or is it in River Forest as its own article states?

River Forest is correct, I'll remove it Kmusser 17:42, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the names of famous (former) Oak Park citizens, I miss novelist Richard Bach, born June 23, 1936 in Oak Park, Ill. Wikiweter (Dutch Wikipedian) 13:40, 8 August 2006 (CET)

What's the criteria for deciding which Oak Parkers are "notable"? There's frequent self-promotion found in this section, with people of dubious notability. Perhaps only people with valid wiki biographies should be included? WikiMrsP 00:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I would suggest that, although it is subjective, the criterion should be more along the lines of it being plausible that a valid wikipedia page for the person could be created. Just a thought. SamBC 01:03, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Me? I would eliminate the section altogether, its a vandal magnet. Follow the structure of the article Detroit, then combine the notable people with the appropriate section. Say under the culture heading for Oak Park you could have subheads like art, architecture, music, film, where appropriate people could be mentioned. I did that with Springfield, Illinois and there hasn't been a non-notable person addition in months and months, I even weeded out a hoax article during the elimination of the "notable people" section that had persisted for years, it was deleted at AfD in a few days. This would be my recommendation if you are trying to improve things in this important article. IvoShandor 13:23, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I have directed Mr. Kryn (see below) to Wikipedia's Conflict of Interest guideline (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:COI) regarding self-promotion and hope he will act accordingly. IvoShandor's advice is very much appreciated. In any case it makes sense to group these folks together based on field rather than whether they were born, once lived, or currently live in OP.WikiMrsP 21:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Notables have become one good way to define Oak Park, and that's why in the late '70s and early '80s I researched and promoted what can now be called the notable list. Most of the names of that era and before come from this research and list, at the time coming under the non-profit Oak Park Center of Creativity, the Oak Park Festival of 1978-9, a 16-week Oak Leaves series, international publicity self-paid and then with a $1,500 grant from the Village, a nine-day exhibit in 1978, etc. This enlarged during the following decades, and is now a mainstream of Oak Park promotion and of the Historical Society. Have addressed addition of personal name on WikiMrsP on her talk. Randy Kryn 3 August 2007

wasn't OP on some list of best places to live or have kids so we can get rid of that subjective "exceptional place to raise a family" sentance —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pujolsala (talk • contribs) 16:45, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Refs
I added unreferenced in the references section. The two citations are far from adequate for this article. IvoShandor 14:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Upgraded to B
Reading the assessment scale, I'm pretty happy that this article is B-class. It's certainly well beyond start-class. SamBC 12:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Definitely! How can we get it to an even higher class? I would love it if this article could be featured one day. GlassCobra 18:30, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Have a look at the assessment scale links in the wikiproject boxes at the top of this talk page. Really important things are being completely free of intellectual property issues, being well illustrated (it's pretty well illustrated now), written to a high standard (some sections are in need of structuring/copyediting), being really well referenced, and including everything notable or interesting (really interesting) about the subject. I'm no expert, but those are bits I've picked up from the assessment scale page. SamBC 19:09, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually it isn't. A "B" is usually given if there are citations as is used in the Munich air disaster example. There are three. Oak Park has none. If there were citations for a lot of things that are claimed in the article, I would have rated it higher. Since there are no, I can never give an article higher than a Start class.

If you truely want to go for FA, you will have to look first at Springfield, Illinois for a city that is GA. Springfield was modeled after Detroit which is a FA city. Until there are citations for every statement, the article will not go above a B I am sad to say. Good luck with the expansion.--Kranar drogin 21:20, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I saw three citations but the majority is unreferenced. To go up to GA class it would need more references and anything likely to be challenged would need an inline citation. I will see what I can do if I get time. Copy editing will also help which I am also OK at so I'll give it a look on that too. IvoShandor 21:55, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It is a C class article now. I did some work on the History section to focus on the importance of railroads and street car lines in the population growth, and updated so many dead links, as sites reorganize themselves -- the information is there but the link was wrong. The only one I could not test was the one supposed to be at Chicago Public Library, a timeline of a railroad's development, I think. Used at start of History section. If anyone can test it, that would be good. Otherwise it might get deleted, as it cannot be verified. The architecture section depends wholly on FLW, when part of the charm of the town is the variety of architecture. I thought I could find a chart of population every Census year, but did not find that. I think 1930 is the peak year, but that high population may have lasted a few decades before families got smaller and lots of one person households. Hope this can be improved. --Prairieplant (talk) 03:52, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Philander Barclay?
It seems someone from the River Forest Historical society has taken it upon themselves to do some creative editing. Can someone eliminate the bulk of the paragraph about the photographer. While interesting, I hardly find it relevant or significant enough to the article to justify its size and prominence.--71.196.221.191 (talk) 01:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Marion Street
Also, the paragraph detailing marion street is extraordinarily biased and unnecessary to the article as whole. Who wrote this stuff? A village board member. Honestly, if I was a better wikipedia-er, I would re-write this entire article, as it reads like one huge editorial. This is just plain awful. Perhaps the article should be protected from re-editing by those responsible for the history section? What history does the section detail. Where are Hemingway, Wright, Julian, Simic, Kroc, and the many other outstanding Oak Parkers? Hemingway and Wright are only mentioned in relation to that photographer. Simply put, this article is outlandish, and one of the poorest I have run into on Wikipedia (I am biased, as I grew up in Oak Park and know a lot about it).--71.196.221.191 (talk) 01:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I live here, you haven't said anything I disagree with, and you don't need anyone's permission to go edit it. Be WP:BOLD. --- tqbf  01:29, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, thanks, I understand that, but I am lazy and was hoping someone else would do it for me!--71.196.221.191 (talk) 01:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Be more specific, and I will. --- tqbf  02:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * So, the first step I took was to reword the two Marion Street grafs, choosing simpler, more direct language and shorting the copy substantially. This eliminated some peacock language and breathy prose, which should take some pressure off.
 * I then did the laziest, most mechanical POV pass you can do, which is to "allege" and "intend" and "attempt" every disputable assertion in the section. This, of course, sucks: we need to reword this.
 * The biggest problem here is that there are no references --- but the Marion Street project was a big deal, and controversial. I have an Oak Park library card, I can use it to pull up news articles tonight, but I don't have time for it now.
 * At least it doesn't read like a developer wrote it. --- tqbf  02:23, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Hand gun law
I think it would be helpful if somebody added a section about Oak Park's hand gun law. Wiki3655 (talk) 22:22, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Halas is not from Oak Park
Halas is not from Oak Park nor is ever considered being from Oak Park. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.203.136.247 (talk) 18:30, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Sockpuppet cleanup
Much damage has been done to this article in the past few months by confirmed sockpuppets of Les Golden. Please be advised that edits made by DianeSteele, Drlesmgolden, and RexKingsley were in fact all made by Les Golden, and many of them seem clear violations of WP:COI and WP:NPOV policies. Part of me thinks we should just scrap EVERY SINGLE THING that isn't fact with a clear, verifiable, reliable source, and just start over. WikiMrsP (talk) 20:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Location relative to Chicago
Oak Park is not the closest suburb to downtown Chicago. That honor goes to Cicero, as the northeast corner of Cicero (at Roosevelt Rd and Cicero Ave) is closer to downtown Chicago than anywhere on the east end of Oak Park (on Austin Blvd). Even portions of Cermak Rd in Cicero are closer to the Loop than the edge of Oak Park.

Chicago Loop (State & Madison) to Oak Park (Austin & Madison) - 7.6 miles (http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=State+St+and+Madison+St,+Chicago,+IL&daddr=Austin+Blvd+and+Madison+St,+Oak+Park,+IL&hl=en&sll=41.875824,-87.700939&sspn=0.069789,0.154324&geocode=FecRfwId6efG-ilNDaHFpCwOiDFtv6VwLXIiyg%3BFWQKfwIdRarE-imzWCC7XzMOiDGfIx0eS4Cd0w&vpsrc=0&dirflg=h&mra=ps&t=m&z=13&layer=t)

Chicago Loop (State & Congress) to Cicero (Cicero & Roosevelt) - 6.6 miles (http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=State+St+and+Congress+Pkwy,+Chicago,+IL&daddr=Illinois+Route+50+and+Roosevelt+Rd,+Cicero,+IL&hl=en&sll=41.867484,-87.730722&sspn=0.017449,0.038581&geocode=FQv5fgIdrOjG-ik_7rCmoiwOiDFrgVvc03mlPA%3BFcfSfgIdDh_F-ilPFMwEBTMOiDHU5Sb4YJsNpQ&vpsrc=0&mra=ls&t=m&z=13) JasonMath (talk) 23:24, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Economy section needed
This article is getting better, with a longer history section, and more on architecture than Frank Lloyd Wright. There is no section on the economy of the Village. Tourism is one focus, but there are businesses here, and Madison St, now being reviewed, was once "auto row". Is there a report from the Village itself, or other sources? Plus, the new construction in Oak Park before and now after the Great Recession of the oughts in the 21st century changes the place, especially the higher density building now under construction on Lake St in downtown, and the other development proposed, still being discussed, along Harlem Ave at Lake St, down to North Blvd. --Prairieplant (talk) 05:19, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

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