User:Dthomsen8/List of PA Housing Authorities

How this list was compiled
I downloaded the data from the Census of Governments in .xls format. Then, I deleted some superfluous columns and ran some  commands to take all of the capital letters to having the first letter capitalized. Then, I ran a  commands to collect the various columns into 1 cell per row, with the requisite "||" characters into a form that was easily plugged into the wikitable code. Then, I sorted by county and copied and pasted the results into the various tables. Then, I ran a find/replace search to turn the Mcc, Mca, and other strings into McC and McA. Then, you have to go through all the redlinked cities and direct them to the best place. Use your best judgment to see where the targets ought to be--either by creating redirects or piped links. --Blargh29 (talk) 07:58, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Some of the authority names had some descriptors in (Parentheses), and after some research, I think that these were added by the Census of Governments as identifiers, but it's not part of the titles. I took them out, so that we get more accurate titles.--Blargh29 (talk) 03:56, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea to do that. It seems to me that having the correct legal name is quite desirable, but sometimes it is not easy to determine. Google searches sometimes provide the answer, if the authority's web site can be reached. --DThomsen8 (talk) 04:30, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

To do

 * Fix all redlinked cities
 * Fix all "St" to "St."
 * Fix all "Mck..." to "McK..."
 * Add categories
 * Expand lead
 * --Blargh29 (talk) 07:10, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * For St to St. and Mck to McK, does Wikipedia have a standard? Do we have a Ft to Ft. situation? (We will have that further west than PA!) --DThomsen8 (talk) 12:56, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think there's a standard for that--we just need to match the link to the article name. No Ft.s in this list.--Blargh29 (talk) 06:58, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Issues with this list
I have some issues with this list, which I would like to discuss before any substantial work on particular lines of data. I am numbering them, for ease of discussion.


 * Is this sandbox list intended to become various actual articles? I would suggest making it a learning tool, but not a way to achieve a final product.
 * I figured this sandbox was to get all the links targeted in the right direction.


 * The final article titles cannot be what we have here, because of overlap with counties elsewhere. For example, I was amazed to hear from the chief of police of Montgomery County on TV, but then realized that was in Maryland, not the Philadelphia suburban county.
 * Yeah, the article splits will have to have proper names.


 * The Function column has some issues. Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation is nothing like the Center City District. South Street Headhouse District is not a general authority.
 * Then they should be tweaked and updated.


 * There are missing authorities in the Census Bureau list. Where is the Sports Complex Special Services District? Can we report omissions?
 * Let's add them. We should check to make sure that they are municipal authorities first. I would say anything that isn't covered by the Census of Governments should have an inline cite. There is a contact email at the bottom of


 * If the City is in red, sometimes there is a big, fat clue in the Name. Dewart, PA is actually Delaware Township, in Northumberland County, for example. If we create a Redirect for Dewart, we can make it a blue link. Is that the right approach?
 * I have tried to match the redirects to the right municipality. Failing that, I piped in a link to the county.


 * If the Function is currently in black, perhaps we can choose a different name, and create either a redirect or a new article to make it blue to start out.
 * Feel free to give a more accurate description.

Enough for now, I have to do other things. --DThomsen8 (talk) 11:51, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Pike County section name went wrong, I fixed it here, but look into why. I would expect our effort here will become a method for doing other states, so we want a smooth process.
 * AWB may furnish an easy way to work on the To Do list, but I need to learn more about it.
 * --Blargh29 (talk) 07:19, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Collaboration needed
When we have the issues and techniques ironed out, we will need a larger group effort to even do Pennsylvania, let alone other states. I have been active in another collaboration, and I can start another one when we are ready to do so. Even now, maybe there are a few other editors who could help us with the immediate issues. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:05, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The next step is to spin these off into county-specific pages. --Blargh29 (talk) 07:45, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Before the spin off into county specific pages, consider changing the Function field for all the convention center authorities from "parks and recreation" to "convention center". Beyond that, can the, and perhaps some other categories be added for each county? During a spin-off, the talk pages should also be added, with the PA template and sometimes others, including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh templates. Also, I would like to keep this sandbox version for easy research on various kinds of problems which are in common for the 67 counties. --DThomsen8 (talk) 12:47, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Each county specific page should have a ==See also== * Municipal authority (Pennsylvania) at the bottom. I used AWB on the category, and it tagged Municipal authority (Pennsylvania) as an orphan. It wouldn't be an orphan with a See also on 67 county pages!  Before a spin-off, I really think you should consider the benefits of fixes done in just one place, rather than 67 places. We are going to produce 67 very useful lists for Pennsylvania, but the process we use will be applicable to other states using the Census of Governments information. By the way, I have talked with a CoG person on the phone on Friday, and sent her an inquiry about why the Sports Complex Special Services District is not in the CoG.  She seemed willing to look into it and get back to me.   --DThomsen8 (talk) 13:09, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Not CoG
I have added an agency, Lancaster City Housing Authority, with a second line, Not CoG, meaning it is not in the Census of Governments, or at least it isn't in the list you produced. Beyond that, I see Beaver County Housing Authority added at the end of Armstrong County, which is rather a puzzle. Wouldn't it belong in the Beaver County list? If it was added later, it should be added alphabetically, and it should be marked "Not CoG" if that is the case. If we add "Not CoG" we should also add a footnote explaining the tag. --DThomsen8 (talk) 00:32, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Separate articles?
I am finding it increasingly difficult to add anything to the list, but I have added a number of links for airports, convention centers, housing authorities, and industrial development corporations.

There should be a distinction between a convention center with its description, and the municipal authority that owns and sometimes manages the facility, especially when there are separate websites for both. The question arises as to whether there should be separate Wikipedia articles for the facility, and for the authority. The larger the facility and its financing, the more likely it is that there should be separate articles, especially if there is controversy about the facility. For example, here in Philadelphia there was a lot of controversy about expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, including fights about demolishing buildings on Broad Street.

Another problem is that sometimes there are redirects to articles which are inappropriate, and there should be a separate article for the municipal agency. A prime example would be the Philadelphia Parking Authority. A reality TV series article is not a PPA descriptive article, so a new PPA article would be the solution.

Once the separate list articles are published, there will be plenty of work for us and others to follow up on the information provided. There will be plenty of opportunities for us to call attention to the lists and invite various projects to participate in creating articles.

Later today I hope to follow up with the CoG contact about the missing Sports Complex Special Services District. I would like to be able to report missing agencies to her, but I don't know how responsive she is likely to be.--DThomsen8 (talk) 11:54, 18 November 2009 (UTC)