User talk:Vegaswikian/Nevada geography

Discussion
Probably salvageable: Great Basin Divide, do be deleted or merged into that article List of Great Basin Divide border landforms of Nevada and Great Basin Divide in north Nevada. Great Basin Divide in south Nevada has already been turned into a redirect. Kmusser (talk) 13:46, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Also, why the keep on Categories named after valleys? Wouldn't that stuff be better off in the general valleys categories? Which for the most part it looks like it already is. Kmusser (talk) 13:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * To answer your second part. The way the category system works, parent categories should be home for all of the articles that the child category contains.  So the Category:Categories named after valleys provides an eponymous tree home for cases when this is not possible.  Some of the valley categories include populated places and buildings, clearly articles that when combined with landforms don't have any likely parents. If you follow the 'named after' tree up and down another branch you can see how it is being used.
 * As to the first part, if a merge is the correct direction, just do it. My main caution is that it is sometimes logical to keep the list articles to supplement the text in normal articles.  Also one point that we all seem to forget, lists do need references. If you need help to improve the table in Great Basin Divide let me know, I already have some thoughts. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:44, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation on the categories, that does make sense. Regarding Great Basin Divide, my inclination would be to just kill that table - I went hunting for references and didn't find much, maybe the whole article should just be redirected to Great Basin.  By the way, a huge thank you for helping deal with this mess.  Kmusser (talk) 19:03, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Black Rock basin could probably be merged to Black Rock Desert. Kmusser (talk) 14:18, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Does either one completely include the other? If so, then a merge into one section should be OK.  There is also a lot of material in there that I think is already in other articles. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:14, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
 * They're the same thing, after I posted that I went and checked the desert article and it already had the basin info it, so I just turned the basin article into a redirect. Kmusser (talk) 18:34, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Saw you two chatting here (just edit conflicted even). Out of curiosity, and to teach myself more about the USGS's Watershed Boundary Dataset, I spent some time this morning looking into the Black Rock Desert Basin, HUC 160402, the hydrologic code explicitly mentioned on that page before redirected. It became clear pretty quickly that this is not a "basin" in the usual sense of a unified drainage basin, but rather a semi-arbitrary collection of closed basins, grouped into a composite hydrologic unit large enough to qualify as a "basin" in the USGS system. There are disconnected closed basins within each of the five "subbasins" of the Black Rock Desert Basin--something like 10 or 11 altogether (such as Hualapai Flat, HUC 1604020303--a playa I've been to, back when I went to Burningman in 1997--it's definitely "closed"). There are also well over 20 disconnected drainages that are not technically "closed" (I'm still not quite clear on how the USGS designates some as closed and some not--the whole region is closed, but smaller units may not be--still learning). There's also at least 200,000 acres of "noncontributing areas". In short, this HUC 160402 strikes me as a great example of how USGS hydrologic units do not necessarily correspond to what is normally meant by "watershed" or "drainage basin". Rather, this is a collection of smaller disconncted basins that were merged into a larger unit simply by virtue of being next to each other and by necessity given the way the USGS's hierarchical system was designed. There is no Black Rock Desert drainage basin outside the USGS system. I imagine the same is true for many other Great Basin "subbasins" and "basins" as defined by the USGS. It may be misleading at best to call them "watersheds", "drainage basins", or even "basins", without explaining the USGS HU context. Pfly (talk) 18:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
 * As an aside I'm working on making us a decent Great Basin map. It's been a little tricky, there isn't a commonly accepted definition for the "Great Basin Divide" - outside of Wikipedia I only found a few references and they were just about certain stretches (namely where it borders the Columbia and Colorado basins), the rest of the boundary is ambiguous - I'm going with what the NPS used in the little map that's currently in the Great Basin article. Kmusser (talk) 19:04, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure on the keeping Black Rock basin. We were able to fix it up a bit, but it's still an article about a HUC and so probably not notable by the same rationale as all the other HUC articles. Considering the discussion above I'm less sure about a merge, the HUC is quite a bit bigger than the desert, but I'd imagine someone looking for "Black Rock basin" would be looking for the the drainage basin (i.e. the desert) rather than the HUC. I could be swayed either way. Kmusser (talk) 05:07, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth--although I made some edits to the Black Rock basin page I have no particular desire to not delete it, or turn into a redirect, or whatever. In other words, don't *not* delete it, or redirect, on my account. My instinct is that most people interested in "Black Rock basin" would be thinking of the playa and whatever drains to it. Tens of thousands of people visit the playa every year for all kinds of events. Must be magnitudes more well known than most of the rest of the HUC, like, say, Massacre Lake. Pfly (talk) 11:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, it will need to go to a full AfD then. Seems our friend has been removing anything proded at the last minute.  You can see that I have a list on the main page for this discussion of articles at AfD with few comments.  Feel free to comment as you see fit. If anyone decides the nominate BRB feel free to do so and move it so we all know. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)