User talk:Buaidh/Archive 2007

Welcome!
&mdash; † Webdinger BLAH 02:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Montbello, Denver, Colorado
"PS - It is usually considered bad manners to remove the material of others without prior discussion." Watkinsian 08:24, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport
I do not have access to a map showing the official boundaries of the airport property. However, your map of Broomfield shows the city limit/county line is aligned along the axis of 120th Avenue. An aerial photo of the airport, which can be called up at Google Maps, clearly shows that the north end of the north runway crosses this axis. Thus, the runway straddles the county line and puts at least some portion of the airport property in Broomfield.

Please stop your arrogance. If you are unwilling to do a little research, please don't edit -- or leave rebukes on my talk page. Watkinsian 03:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

List of U.S. cities in multiple counties
"I don't mean to come across as arrogant."

Describing any edit of your work that you don't agree with as "vandalism" is rather arrogant. Watkinsian 00:23, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Cities Participation
Hi, your name is on a list of active members for WikiProject Cities. We have recently revitalized the project by including an article assessment department. Presently there is a great deal of work to complete in rating/tagging all of the 1000+ article which have not been assessed or tagged with the new WPCities banner template. Further, we have made changes to Infobox City that require some formatting changes in the articles that use the template. Your assistance at this time of change would be greatly appreciated. Alan.ca 15:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Mountain Biking on Mount Tamalpais
Hello, An article that I created as a part of Wikiproject Cycling called Mountain Biking on Mount Tamalpais and linked to the Mount Tamalpais article, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Articles for deletion/Mountain Biking on Mount Tamalpais. Thank you, Bob in Las Vegas - uriel8   (talk)  11:25, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Advice requested
I've been attempting to overview and tidy up the geography cats which involve the places where people live. From the top level down to local neighbourhoods. There has been some overlapping and various mis-routings. It's been interesting looking at it all. However, there appear to be two useful ways of doing it - by region, and by size. And these can operate side by side quite usefully. The by region isn't a problem. But the by size has become difficult because User:Hmains wishes to use the term settlements to cover all sizes of communities, and has altered dictionary definitions to fit his own understanding of the term - . Community appears to be the term used most often to describe the places where people live, regardless of size. This is the definition of community -. I did some sorting, placing the cat Human communities under Human geography. Human communities splitting into Urban geography and Rural geography. And those splitting into appropriate sized communities - cities, districts, neighbourhoods, villages, settlements, etc. Hmains has reverted much of my work, and insists on settlements being the term we should use - basing it on | this decision, which was a declined proposal to rename Settlements by region to Populated places by region. What do you think? Is settlement an acceptable term for covering human communities ranging from well established cities down to refuge camps. Is Human community a viable alternative? Are there other choices (apart from populated places of course!)? I have started a discussion here and here, with the above wording, but no response as yet. Am I doing the right thing? SilkTork 19:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Discussion taking place at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) SilkTork 11:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! We welcome your help to create new content, but your recent additions (such as Cleveland, MS μSA) are considered nonsense. Please refrain from creating nonsense articles. If you want to test things out, edit the sandbox instead. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. JohnCub 21:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually now that I look at it, It seems to be a "MY bad" situation. I didn't know that μSA meant "Micropolitan" area.  Still, are people bound to type that in?  JohnCub 21:26, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I think very few people know how to type "μSA" on their keyboards, much less use that kind of term to seek a Wikipedia article. Any reason not to delete the "μSA" redirects? NawlinWiki 21:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

An alternative to the long "see also" sections
I see that you've created articles relating to the census in various states of the USA. Good for you, and I wish you luck in completing that project.

I noticed that you've put a long "see also" section after each state article, including links to the similar page for all the other states of the Union. This is unusual for Wikipedia, and not particularly pleasing to the eye.

I recommend that you create a template containing all the 50 states, and then remove the equivalent links from the see also section. I'll explain how in a moment —The preceding unsigned comment was added by YechielMan (talk • contribs) 03:42, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

An alternative to the long "see also" sections
I see that you've created articles relating to the census in various states of the USA. Good for you, and I wish you luck in completing that project.

I noticed that you've put a long "see also" section after each state article, including links to the similar page for all the other states of the Union. This is unusual for Wikipedia, and not particularly pleasing to the eye.

I recommend that you create a template containing all the 50 states, and then remove the equivalent links from the see also section. You would need to create a template with code similar to the hidden text on this page (click "edit" to see it). It's probably not correct, but it's close enough that a template expert could help you finish the job.

I hope this helps. Best regards. YechielMan 03:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The template you have created is nice, but rather large (550) for a "see also" section. Would it be possible to scale down the size a bit, after all, it is a "see also" template... :) Rarelibra 18:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I could reduce the size of the U.S. map template by linking to the two character state abbreviations rather than the state names, but this would make the template more difficult for children and folks outside the United States to use. Since the template is normally placed near the bottom of articles, it doesn't seem too distracting.  Your thoughts?  --Buaidh 19:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * It really is a nice map, but should be a bit smaller. I think if you use the state abbreviations it is applicable... if they want to find out, then they can click on the abbreviation and find the name. After all, it is a US map - regardless of whether someone from around the world looks at it. Rarelibra 20:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I've reduced the area of the U.S. map template by 47%. See Table of United States primary census statistical areas.  Please let me know what you think.  Thanks.  --Buaidh 18:31, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Really looks great! It is a nice reference, especially for those state pages. Rarelibra 20:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

List of capitals in the United States
Just want to say thanks for the work you're doing on this, it's looking good. Kmusser 15:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Typo redirect West Plains, MO μSA
Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on West Plains, MO μSA, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because West Plains, MO μSA is a redirect page resulting from an implausible typo (CSD R3). To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting West Plains, MO μSA, please affix the template  to the page, and put a note on its talk page. This bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion, it did not nominate West Plains, MO μSA itself. Feel free to leave a message on the bot operator's talk page if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot. Thanks. --Android Mouse Bot 2 00:15, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Territorial evolution of Colorado
Great idea. Great. I see you used my maps; do you think it would help if I whipped up some 'zoomed in' versions, focusing only on Colorado, maybe showing its present-day borders, or should we keep the 'wider' perspective?

Most states this wouldn't be useful for, but you're right, Colorado's borders have definitely had an active history. --Golbez 20:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

"The State of..."
Please don't change the names of the states to "The State of..." It makes the definition improper. Please discuss on Delaware's talk page. Thanks. HokieRNB 18:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I have additional concern about your use of the edit summary to mask the true nature of your edits. In at least one instance, your edit summary was "fixed the IPA", and yet all you actually did was add "The State of" back into the article.  I didn't see any instance that your edit summary said "added the official designation to the state name".  Please see the discussion on Delaware's talk page.  Thanks. HokieRNB 12:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Please see Talk:U.S._state. Thanks, Buaidh 13:44, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

IPA
Why did you change the IPA for Minnesota? The pronunciation has a reference, and you changed the IPA without changing the reference. -Ravedave 03:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I changed the pronunciation to match the reference at U.S. state. Where is your reference?  Thanks, Buaidh 13:11, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * You know how the footnote system works, right? The U.S. state pages does not have a reference for the IPA pronunciations, whereas the minnesota page has footnote 2 which has the actual IPA provided by Dictionary.com (takes a second to load, click on show IPA). I will be updating the U.S state page with references. -Ravedave 04:03, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
 * IPA needs to be referenced. If you can find another IPA reference besides dictionary.com go ahead, but I will be directly pasting from there, and not deciding on my own what the pronunciation will be. -Ravedave 04:54, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

redirected two of your redirects
I don't know whether you care, but I redirected both Eau Claire, WI MSA and Eau Claire-Menomonie, WI CSA to Eau Claire-Chippewa Falls metropolitan area instead of to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Just a heads up. Tom e rtalk 21:38, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you much. --Buaidh 21:40, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for responding
Thanks for responding to by message on Talk:U.S. state, but please do make an effort to read into what people are saying more. Doyel 05:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I read your comment, but I believe you are missing the point of the note. Some people think of a "city' as being a municipality, and some think of a "city" as being a metropolitan area.  If the largest municipality is not the center of the largest metropolitan area, I made a note to that effect.  --Buaidh 13:04, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello
Hi Buaidh. Thought I'd just say hello more formally since I have left a lot of comments in the past few days on pages that you started or have heavily edited. I know that can feel a little confrontational. I hope we can collaborate positively on our common interests. Cheers, Spireguy 22:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

One question: do you have a strong preference for the format "xxx feet = yyy m" as opposed to using Template:convert, as in 14000 ft, for example? The latter is preferable, in my opinion, and is becoming standard on mountain pages. -- Spireguy 22:47, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The template:convert utility is a wonderful feature, but it works much better with inline text than in tables. My primary concerns are:
 * Lack of full control over formatting and alignment, and
 * The output of convert sorts in alphanumeric order rather than numeric order.


 * Try sorting on the columns of the following table.


 * Perhaps future enhancements to the template:convert can resolve these problems. --Buaidh 13:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Interesting, I see the problem. Thanks for pointing that out. -- Spireguy 16:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi again. I was just looking at the table on Topographic isolation, and as I noted there, it needs a source. My assumption is that it is from peakbagger; correct me if I'm wrong. It made me wonder about appropriate sourcing for a lot of the tabular info that you have been putting up. In a lot of cases you have put in links to PB inline, which might be enough, but I don't know if it makes clear enough the origin of the data overall. I'm also not sure at what point copyright issues come into play...that seems to have been a topic of discussion (and confusion) elsewhere, maybe you are more familiar with that. Let me know your take on all this. -- Spireguy 19:41, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Buaidh---if you want a place to post tables of prom*elev (which are interesting, as I've said, just dubious as Wikipedia material), you might want to contact Aaron Maizlish, the maintainer of peaklist.org. I'm not sure that he would want to host such tables, but he might be interested. (I have an extensive presence on peaklist.org but I can't speak for Aaron.) You might also be interested in joining the prominence@yahoogroups.com discussion group, if you haven't already. You could propose the term "eminence" for prom*elev there if you like. -- Spireguy 18:21, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Buaidh---as I noted elsewhere recently, I'm still concerned about the prom*elev issue. At first I was not too worried about the inclusion of the statistic, just about the name "eminence". But the more I think about it the more I think that even including the statistic is OR. WP:NOR excludes material if "it introduces an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor." I think that ranking peaks by prom*elev is such a novel synthesis. It's definitely new (in the sense of not already existing in a source), it does synthesize two concepts (prom and elev), and it makes an implied argument that such a ranking is important and useful. (That's an argument that I personally believe, but that's not relevant.)

Since the folks at WikiProject Mountain are thinking about lists in general right now anyway, I'll post a note there, and also at Talk:Topographic prominence, asking for more opinions on the question.

My intention is not to undo a lot of hard work on your part, but simply to make sure that the lists respect the fundmental policies of Wikipedia. As I noted above, these lists might find a home elsewhere, such as peaklist.org; it might be enjoyable to collaborate on a larger project there on alternative measures derived from prominence. -- Spireguy 14:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Buaidh---You'll probably want to read the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mountains if you haven't already. The consensus so far is fairly clear, that "eminence" is indeed OR; but please feel free to add your comments or concerns. -- Spireguy 16:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Dude, that's not vandalism on the Mountain peaks of Alaska page. Wake up to reality: there are several notable omissions from that list. See this list from the National Park Service - - it doesn't include prominence, so it's possible that not all the peaks on this list qualify, but most do. Several columns in the table were left blank because I don't have all the info, and not all mountains on the list have their own wikipedia entry. Feel free to fill in the blank spots, but your revert is a disservice to accuracy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.107.67.131 (talk) 16:24, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Photos of mountains
I've had excellent luck searching Flickr for pictures of mountains that are licensed under Creative Commons. For an example search, see http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=%22Mount+Elbert%22&l=commderiv&s=int .. you can upload pictures you find to Commons automatically at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~bryan/flickr/upload ... Good luck! hike395 15:54, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Lieutenant Governor of Colorado
You're our resident Colorado expert, so I have a question from this article. It says, "The lieutenant governor, who acts as governor in his absence and succeeds to the governorship in case of vacancy, is elected on a partisan ticket with the governor." Has it always been so? Comparing the lists, one Republican Lt. Gov is listed as serving from 1895 to 1899 - even though the governor from 1897 to 1899 was a Democrat. Is this a new thing, or is one of our sources incorrect? Thanks. --Golbez 11:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The Colorado Governor and Lieutenant Governor were elected separately for two-year terms until the Colorado State Constitution was amended to lengthen their term of office to four years beginning in 1967. The Colorado State Constitution was amended to elect the Governor and Lieutenant Governor together on a single ticket beginning in 1986.  In 1991, the Colorado State Constitution was changed again to limit state officials to no more than two four-year terms.  --Buaidh 17:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you! --Golbez 08:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Territorial governors of Colorado
Here's another question. Could you take a look at List of Governors of Colorado and give a comment on the end-dates for the terms? Because in every case, we have references (sometimes unfortunately contradictory; I'm going with the colorado.gov versions in those situations) for the start dates, but not the end dates, and I know it's possible there were vacancies in the office back then. Do you know if there were any, or should we just assume a total continuity of power? I think it's getting close to FLC, I'm working on the intro now. --Golbez 12:07, 1 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The office of Governor of the State of Colorado has always been filled since the Lieutenant Governor automatically assumes the Governor's office if the Governor dies or resigns. There has been at least one vacancy in the office of the Lieutenant Governor of the State of Colorado since the Colorado General Assembly must fill a vacancy in that office.  --Buaidh 17:11, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm talking territorial. Before the office of Lt. Gov existed. There's many cases in other states where there was not continuity of the office because there was a gap between the end of one term and the appointment of a replacement; usually the secretary of the territory acted (and it was only acting, though they usually wielded asm uch power as they could, they were not in any way officially governor) in the office. --Golbez 17:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll see if I can find any gaps. --Buaidh 20:30, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

National Historic Landmarks in Colorado
Hi Buaidh -- I've been editing a List of National Historic Landmarks in Colorado and the articles it lists. Have noticed several article names involving "National Historic District", which I do not recognize, including Georgetown-Silver Plume National Historic District that you created. There do exist National Historic Landmarks, and National Historic Landmark Districts, but not that, as far as I know. I am renaming the articles as I go through the list. For this one, I think it should just be called "Georgetown-Silver Plume Historic District" which is how the NHL summary for it calls it. Relatedly, I see that a navigation infobox template on Colorado Protected Areas, which appears on many pages, links to the "National Historic District" names, but I don't know where or how to get to edit that template. Hope you don't mind my taking your work and putting it under another name. Glad you are at it, keep up the good work. Please feel free to check out the List of National Historic Landmarks in Colorado and provide comments, I would welcome that. Cheers, doncram 00:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I dropped the "national" in Central City/Black Hawk Historic District, too. Just to explain, my perspective is from editing numerous NHL articles, having completed out lists for those in AR, NY, IA, IL, and other states.  I see that your wording would be reasonable on its own, it is just that it is inconsistent with usage elsewhere.  These happen to be unusual too, in that they were declared NHLs before being listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which did not start until 1966.  More often, a historic district is defined by local ordinance and/or by its NRHP listing, then later it might become a NHL.  Then it is more natural that National does not appear in the historic district name.  Probably more than you want/need to hear. :) I was just struggling with how to edit the Colorado list, am becoming more clear now, I hope. doncram 01:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Eminence and OR
Buaidh---I just wanted to remind you of the discussion that took place at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mountains about "summit eminence." The consensus there was that the eminence info is indeed original research. We'd like to hear from you if you have any comment.

I know if I did a lot of work on something that then was edited out of WP, I would not be too happy about it. However I do think it's necessary. For example, I just saw a post on the prominence yahoogroup referring to the summit eminence calculations. That is an example of an idea originating on WP and propagating to the rest of the world---that's exactly what is not supposed to happen under the NOR policy.

What would be legit would be to propose the measure, and the name "summit eminence", on the prominence yahoogroup. It could get batted around a bit there, and perhaps eventually come into common usage. Or perhaps people would shoot it down, I don't know. Your contribution would be welcome, in any case. -- Spireguy 18:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Lafayette and San Luis
There's some uncertainty as to how to interpret the IPA transcriptions you have given at Lafayette, Colorado, San Luis, Colorado and San Luis Valley. It would be helpful if you were to answer the following questions:

Is Lafayette pronounced laf-ay-ET, lah-fay-ET, LAF-ay-et, LAH-fay-et or in some other way?

Is the San Luis of San Luis, Colorado and San Luis Valley pronounced san LOO-ee, sahn LOO-ee, san loo-EE, sahn loo-EE, san LOO-iss, sahn LOO-iss or in some other way?

Timeineurope 17:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Lafayette, Colorado, is commonly pronounced lah-fay-ET.
 * So the first vowel is that of father and not that of baffled?
 * The first a is pronounced as in father.


 * Neighboring Louisville, Colorado, is commonly pronounced LOO-is-vil.
 * Is that LOO-iz-vil or LOO-iss-vil?
 * LOO-iss-vil


 * The San Luis in San Luis, Colorado, and San Luis Valley is most commonly given a Spanish language pronunciation. Buaidh 18:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * In Spanish, the final s is pronounced, while the IPA transcriptions you gave at San Luis, Colorado and San Luis Valley both indicate a silent s. Is San Luis pronounced san LOO-ee, sahn LOO-ee, san loo-EE, sahn loo-EE, san LOO-iss, sahn LOO-iss or in some other way? (san rhymes with ban, sahn has the first vowel of father.)
 * Timeineurope 13:04, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

State Highways in Colorado
What are you basing your recent edits to this article on?

The most eastern extent of Aurora is east of the disincorporated community of Watkins; Aurora surrounds it on the west, north, and east. Thus Watkins is part of the string of places, which should read thus: "Golden-Lakewood-Denver-Aurora-Watkins". It should not appear on a separate line.

Furthermore, you cite that the I-70 Business route travels 10.31 miles (16.59 km) through Watkins. First of all, Watkins is not an incorporated town or city and therefore has no official boundaries. So how do you determine where Watkins begins and ends? (and at that, precise to hundredths of a mile/km?) In any case, there are only about two miles of the highway in the vicinity of Watkins that are beyond the Aurora city limits. In other words, I don't see how more than about 2 miles of the highway could be attributed to Watkins, let alone ten miles.

I'm afraid that if this edit exhibits such inaccuracies, your other edits may also be incorrect. It is problematic to assign mileage of highways traveling through towns and cities because they often have irregular boundaries (the highway may pass in and out of the city limits, the highway may remain within the city limits well after it leaves the built-up area of the city, etc.) I don't see how the mileages add much to the article, anyway.

In any case, I suggest you review current maps produced by the Colorado Department of Transportation, such as that for Adams County, and correct your edits accordingly: http://www.dot.state.co.us/App_DTD_DataAccess/Downloads/CountyMaps/Adams.pdf (Note that the map has not been updated since Watkins was disincorporated.)

Watkinsian 17:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

About your recent edit
Thank you for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and it has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you may want to do. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. --Nehwyn 16:05, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Territorial evolution of Colorado
An article that you have been involved in editing, Territorial evolution of Colorado, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Articles for deletion/. Thank you.

Number Adjustments
User:71.208.154.224 just went through and adjusted some demographic numbers for three Colorado towns. They seemed somewhat suspicious to me. I noticed that you've been updating Colorado town articles. Thanks! Because of this, I assume that you're somewhat of an expert, so I wanted to run these changes by you. Do they seem legit to you? --Mdwyer (talk) 21:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The latest United States Census Bureau estimates for incorporated places as of 2006-07-01 can be found at Estimates of Population for Colorado Incorporated Places. Buaidh (talk) 21:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Colorado
No problem. It's now at User:Buaidh/Territorial evolution of Colorado.

Thanks for taking up this article, by the way. It was hard to try to remain neutral; I'm from Colorado originally and really like the intent of it. I look forward to seeing it developed further. Let me know if I can help. Tijuana Brass (talk) 21:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

"State of...", part 2
I've noticed that you have been re-editing many of the changes I've made in Colorado city and town infoboxes. I think, in the interest of preventing edit wars, we should come to a consensus on what should go in an infobox.

Rockvale, Colorado is a good example of the format I'm currently using. Most of the changes you've made I can appreciate and I think I can work with; but some I don't like as well as others. I've decided to go with your formatting for counties of adding the word "County" and having a &lt;br/&gt; between them. But the one I dislike most so far is the way you're entering the State name.

First of all, I'd prefer to go with "Colorado" instead of "State of Colorado" because when used with the heading "Incorporated (town)" later in the infobox, the words "of Colorado" wrap. The rest of the time I'd like to keep it to just "Colorado" for consistency, both with the towns and with the template usage example.

Then, there's the clickable Colorado flag issue. I initially used a clickable flag that I found from someone else's edit of one city. But it had a couple of problems. First, I found that the clickable area extends down below the image, so that I tried clicking on the county once and got the Colorado page instead. Second, once I started using Template:USA, I found that the Colorado flag size I'd been using was larger than the template size for the USA flag. Finally, since there is a Template:flag, why not use it? This leads me to prefer using simply  Colorado  for the state field.

What do you think about all this? I'll wait to hear from you before I do too much more city/town editing.

Thanks! -- Ken g6 (talk) 05:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * P.S. This is not about asking you to change things you've done in the past. This is just about figuring out what we should do in the future. -- Ken g6 (talk) 05:40, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Buaidh,
 * Here are the points where I disagree with your style of editing:

Subdivision Simplicity

 * First, my argument for a simpler style in the subdivision lines. Infoboxes are all about brevity. In particular, the subdivision lines are the first lines that display in the standard infobox style. They should look good to start the infobox, but they should also be clean, simple, and short. I would say we shouldn't be inserting the "official" names of things when it's not necessary. Witness that Template:USA inserts "United States", not "United States of America", or worse, "Country of The United States of America".
 * Now, let's compare some examples to what you've done, and see what consensus is. Here are a few example cities/towns/etc. in other states:
 * Miami, Florida - huge
 * Alamogordo, New Mexico - moderate-sized
 * Agency, Missouri - tiny
 * There's also the Template:Infobox Settlement to consider. So, let's consider the lines, one by one.
 * Country: All except Miami say United States. Miami uses "United States of America", and also has a flag; but its infobox is much wider than normal, probably due to the skyline image. Consensus appears to be United States, and I agree with you that a flag should be added.  That's just Template:USA.
 * State: All use the one word state name (except New Mexico which is two). Florida also adds the flag.  None use "State of".  Consensus is clearly to use just the short form of the state name, and I agree with that, but I agree with you and with the editor of Miami that a flag should be added.  That's just Template:flag with the state name; no name= field.
 * County: All use the county name. Only the usage example has it followed by the word "County".  Miami also adds a county flag, which isn't available in most places AFAIK.  Consensus appears to be to use just the county name, but following it with County may be a viable option.
 * OK, I see why "County" is important. I'll go ahead with that.  But for the states, I can only think of one that would be confusing in the English Wikipedia: Georgia, which does in fact go to a disambiguation page.  Colorado does not go to its disambiguation page, a page which lists no other states or countries.  But I'm getting tired of this argument, so I guess I can just leave the states however they're named, and just fix the flag if necessary.


 * See below for more. -- Ken g6 (talk) 19:46, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Reference Reorganization

 * Next, we need to talk about references. For instance, take a look at Del Norte, Colorado. Especially given the way that wraps, Rio Grande County appears to be unreferenced, and "Seat" appears to be referenced. In acutality, the reference only says that Del Norte is in Rio Grande County (and only Rio Grande County); it does not say that it's the county seat.
 * Instead, I'd prefer to separate the issues. My ideal configuration for Del Norte is either:

 |subdivision_name2       = Rio Grande - County seat 
 * or

 |subdivision_name2       = Rio Grande County - seat 


 * With over on the subdivision_type so it applies to all counties.
 * -- Ken g6 (talk) 01:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 2. "I believe that references should almost never be used in the left columns of infoboxes." So, why do all of the specially designated footnotes tags (except "footnotes" itself) appear on the left column of the infobox? Also, I would assert that &lt;ref name=COMun/&gt; is a list of counties and the municipalities in them; it's just transposed. I used the List of cities and towns in Colorado to get the data for the county nav boxes in the same way.
 * 3. Finally, I agree that a state reference is superior to .  But I've never seen a Wikipedian turn down having two references for a fact before.  Is it just because of the size of the infobox that you don't want the extra ?  More importantly, &lt;ref name=COMun/&gt; is not a reference for county seats.  If you find a state reference for county seats, please let me know!
 * See the previous section if you missed number 1.
 * -- Ken g6 (talk) 19:46, 31 December 2007 (UTC)