Talk:Westbrook, Connecticut

Comment
I removed two sentences about a town budget dispute. It didn't fit the tone of the entry. If it's important enough, someone should add it back, but with a little bit of detail about the dispute, in the proper tone. 163.192.21.43 18:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Famous residents, past and present
I noted back and forth editing where non-registered, new editors are adding names to the article, and an experienced Wikipedia editor is removing them. There is no apparent difference in quality of sourcing for any names proposed vs. those in the article, because there is no sourcing provided for anything. It seems mean to punish the new editors for not magically knowing what the editors who "own" the article will accept, with no standards being apparent.

I commented out the section in the article, and inserted hidden comment requesting: "Please do not add any names here without footnote to a reliable source describing the person's association with Westbrook, Connecticut. Please make suggestions of persons who might be associated, but where you cannot prove it, to the Talk page, instead, so that others may research these and add them later."

The unsupported items in the article when i removed them were: I don't know if these persons had association with Westbrook or not, or whether they are worth listing, but their entries are not supported by any footnotes at all, even to unreliable sources. Please feel free to improve the article with information supported by reliable sources. -- do ncr  am  15:29, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Everett Bacon (1890–1989), athlete and World War I veteran was born in town.
 * George Lessey (1879–1947), silent movie actor lived his later years and died in Westbrook.
 * David Bushnell (1740–1824), american inventor who built the first submarine ever used in combat.

Regarding Westbrook as part of Greater Hartford

 * I have recently reverted an edit you made which classified Westbrook as being part and parcel to Greater Hartford. Being very familiar with Westbrook myself, that seemed like an odd claim.  As the crow flies, Westbrook is a good 35 miles from Hartford; it's about a 45-mile drive.  Thus, if we are going to call Westbrook part of Greater Hartford, then it should follow that we ought to be calling nearly 2/3 of the entire state "Greater Hartford", which truly dilutes the meaning of the term.

Of course, that was just my personal impression, so I went ahead and looked up Greater Hartford right here on Wikipedia. Now, while it is true that Westbrook falls within the esoteric "Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT Metropolitan Statistical Area", that is definitely not the same thing as "Greater Hartford". And furthermore, the article goes on to state the following:

To be fair, that sentence lacks a citation. However, I think that a common sense evaluation would suggest that it rings very true. You would be very hard-pressed to find a Westbrook resident that thinks of themselves as living in "Greater Hartford". With that, I would ask that before any further attempts to lump Westbrook in with Greater Hartford, we find legitimate published resources which specifically state that Greater Hartford contains such far-flung towns as Westbrook. —Jgcoleman (talk) 04:11, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Population density
I had modified the population density value to conform with the values in the article. The article shows a population of 6,938 and an area of 21.4 sqmi. 6938/21.4 = 324.2, which is the value I changed the density to. This was then reverted as an unsourced change, and a message left on my talk page that it was 'unverifiable'. However, the original population density value didn't have a citation, and the value is easily derived from the population and area values just a few lines up in the infobox. Is a further citation needed for the population density? Phosphorescent Wave (talk) 13:51, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Although I did not revert your edit personally, I would say that poor/absent citations in the past aren't a valid reason to continue a tradition of poor/absent citations in the future. My philosophy has always been that it's quite easy to add information to an article; what makes those additions truly valuable is when the editor takes the time and makes the effort to ensure the article improvement is backed up by sources. That is ultimately the goal with Wikipedia, after all. That folks may get away with adding things here or there which aren't properly sourced is unfortunate, since they shouldn't be doing it (WP:VERIFY). The fact that they managed to get away with it is all the more reason you should want to genuinely improve that portion of the article by incorporating a valid source. —Jgcoleman (talk) 20:27, 11 July 2018 (UTC)