User talk:William Allen Simpson/Geography

Turkey's administrative units
I understand. Okay, in Turkey, there are 81 provinces, 'il' (singular) 'iller' (plural). You can check, Turkish wikipedia page (Türkiye'nin illeri) for the list.]. Each province has a province center (il merkezi) and a number of districts 'ilçe' (singular) 'ilçeler' (plural) to start with the central district (merkez ilçe). You can check them by clicking on the name of a province in the above page. (I am not sure, if the templates are placed for all.)

And after these, there are settlements that are not district centers but still have municipalities 'belde' (singular) 'beldeler' (plural). And then you have villages.

I am trying to think of a context in which the word 'merkez' would signify 'market' in English, but here at present, I can't think of any. The word definitely means 'center' or (as an adjective) 'central'. In the context of a bank, it would mean 'headquarters'.

So their administrative hierarchy is,
 * Province (il) - provincial center (il merkezi) - covers urban and rural areas- is administered by an appointed governor - has a municipality (belediye) in its urban zone as a administrative separate entity subject to elections.
 * District (ilçe) - district central (ilçe merkezi) - covers urban and rural areas- is administered by an appointed kaymakam (sub-governor?) - has a municipality (belediye) in its urban zone as a administrative separate entity subject to elections - depends on 'il'
 * Belde - covers only a more or less urbanized zone, has a municipality (belediye) subject to elections - depends on ilçe
 * Village - does not have a municipality

Best regards, --Cretanforever 12:51, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Milas / Mylasa
I intend to develop the article on the 'district' of Milas. There is some information under Mylasa. I think its content can be developped under Milas, with a link of course. Name changes sometimes arise controversy. See İzmir. Although I do think that the actual/official name should constitute the basis. I copy this text in the discussion page for Mylasa as well. --Cretanforever 13:10, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Coordinates
Just thought I should let you know that the coordinates header is now working, Template:CoorHeader. Here's one example: Kalasha. Sorry if you already know about it, I just found out recently. Sean WI 16:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

coordinates with other skins
Having taken a look at the idea, I wouldn't actually recommend any changes for the other skins. This placement really suits Monobook, but the others all have much more classic layouts that don't lend themselves well to these kinds of placement tricks. If someone had a good idea and needed some CSS expertise, I could work something up. As it is, I think it doesn't need special treatment in other skins. &mdash; Saxifrage &#9998; 22:43, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Saxifrage, this has to be done for the other skins, or it appears in the middle of templates, and at the bottom of pages, and is Really Ugly. --William Allen Simpson 01:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think that it's Really Ugly to have them appear at the bottom of articles&mdash;in fact, that tends to fit the æsthetic of Nostalgia and Classic, and arguably Cologne Blue as well. However, you're right that template appearing in the middle of infoboxes in other skins is a problem. Another approach to this is to make the template invisible by default so that it has to explicitly be made visible in the skin's CSS: it would not appear anywhere in articles that don't have their skin's CSS set up to display it nicely.
 * Alternatively, we may want to reconsider putting it in infoboxes at all. Leaving it to be manually placed in articles allows for more flexibility, and using a bot it wouldn't be any more work either. &mdash; Saxifrage &#9998; 03:26, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Canadian Town Template Coordinates
Your recent change of the coordinates for Canadian Towns has created a second entry line. Check some of the Canadian Towns in Alberta for instance, e.g., Acme, Alberta, Stirling, Alberta, etc. Is there some way you can correct that problem or go back to what we had before? Cadillac 12:36, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * What skins are you using?
 * --William Allen Simpson 14:58, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Why does Acme, Alberta's Latitude and Longitude come up as: 51°29′59″N, 113°29′53″W Coordinates: d1°m1′N d2°m2′W It is the second line which is redundant and needs to be removed since the first line already contains the standard coordinate code: &#123;&#123;coor dms|51|29|59|N|113|29|53|W|scale:50000&#125;&#125; Cadillac 22:21, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * It doesn't in monobook. And again I ask, what skins are you using?
 * --William Allen Simpson 00:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Excuse my ignorance, but what is a skin? Cadillac 01:13, 5 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, that would be the preference you selected for your display. Monobook is default, but there are others such as CologneBlue, etc.


 * Anyway, I've found that rather a lot of the Canadian Towns aren't using the correct "new" parameters to the template, so I've removed the coor title dm until further cleanup. The specific cases you cite are now clean again, no matter what skin you are using.  You still might have trouble on many other articles....
 * --William Allen Simpson 01:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Manual of Style (links)
I know you were involved with Manual of Style (links) and have a query for you. The section reading "Links should use the most precise target that arises in the context, even where that is merely a simple redirect to a less specific page title. Don't use a piped link to avoid otherwise legitimate redirect targets that fit well within the scope of the text. This assists in determining when a significant number of references to redirected links warrant more detailed articles." is definitely correct and accepted. The following advice, "use V8 engine rather than V8 engine", makes a lot of sense too, and is a good example of using a more precise target, though it doesn't constitute an example of using a more precise target that turns out to be a redirect. The bit that reads "link to Rome, Italy rather than Rome, Italy" makes relatively little sense. It certainly is a use of using a more specific name, but the fact is there will never be demand for a more specific Rome, Italy article to demonstrate how Rome, Italy (the capital of Italy) differs from Rome (the capital of Italy) since these are actually two ways of referring to exactly the same Wikipedia article (the disambig page is at Rome (disambiguation) not Rome), the former being a redirect to the latter, and although differing in format, are in no way talking about different aspects of the same subject. Moreover, I can't think of anyone who in their right mind would link using Rome since the main article is at Rome. The rule actually being broken by Rome is "it's really silly to use a piped linked linking to a redirect that sends to the same place as the name appearing on the link", which is so simple it's hardly worth describing why it's wrong. I suspect that the point of this section was to say "use Rome, Italy rather than Rome, Italy", although I think the latter actually has an advantage in that often the "Italy" is link-worthy - depending entirely on context, of course!

A more "obvious" example of "Don't use a piped link to avoid otherwise legitimate redirect targets that fit well within the scope of the text. This assists in determining when a significant number of references to redirected links warrant more detailed articles" is the following: Talkie Toaster is a minor character in Red Dwarf. Whether Talkie Toaster deserves his own article will depend on several factors, but I guess if Talkie Toaster got a lot of inbound links (especially from episode articles) then there would be a reason to give him one. So, rather than using Talkie Toaster, lets just use Talkie Toaster - that would seem to be the point of the MoS section. BUT things are more complicated than that... he actually has his own subsection in the Red Dwarf article. Indeed, Talkie Toaster actually contains the text #REDIRECT Red Dwarf characters - but redirects to sections don't work! So, in fact, it would be better to link Talkie Toaster as Talkie Toaster, and indeed, if I found an incidence purely of Talkie Toaster it may even be worth editing this semi-broken redirecting link, unfortunately at the expense of not being able to see how many pages link to the Talkie Toaster section via the redirects page. So, in fact, the truth is a little more subtle than the MoS is describing. There really ought to be a little bit of material on this (maybe a couple of sentences, no need for an essay, though).

A "better" example of what the MoS is describing might be where: you want to link "Minor Topic A". At present Minor Topic A is a redirect to Major Topic B, of which Minor Topic A is a subtopic. However, the article Major Topic B does NOT have a subsection Major Topic B, so you can't make a more approriately targetted link by avoiding the redirect. At some point, somebody will see all the links to Major Topic B that come via Minor Topic A and realise that it might be a good idea to turn Minor Topic A into an article. However, I can't think offhand of any places where this situation occurs. Usually, if Minor Topic A is sufficiently discrete a topic to ever warrant its own article, it will have a subsection under Major Topic B (or maybe a joint subsection Major Topic B. In this case it would be better to link to the subsection. So, I suggest that the emphasis given in the MoS to dealing with this situation might need to be toned down a little (or at least adapted to point out that there will often be subsection links possible, and that at present redirects can't handle these) and also a better example would be good (like I said, I can't actually find one of these minor A/major B/no subsection B#A examples where it's really relevant). I'm petitioning you for ideas, really, mainly because I can't imagine that this is a topic that many people will be interested in! Any thoughts? TheGrappler 16:04, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Subdivisions/Political Divisions/Administrative divisions categories
I have closed all three of the category renames as no consencous, or close to it. The last two definitely had no consensous. On the first I commented:
 * Exactly what is being changed to what is not clear. I'm sorry, but with this complex a set of changes, they really need to be spelled/listed out. Some of these were overlapped by the debates below that were definitely No Consensous. I will encourage the submitter to resubmit as one unbrella debate, not three, and this time listing out exactly what he wants changed. There really is no rush on this. It can easily wait another 7 days.

The first had a consensous in general for "Administrative divisions", it appeared, but several people expressed strong concerns about things being done "correctly". Unfortuneately between the overlap withthe other two, and the lack of any sort of roadmap for the changes, it was impossible to see what "correctly" was supposed to mean.

So, I do encourage you to resubmit. I untagged the entries from the last two as I closed them, and they will need to be retagged if you resubmit (just revert me). I did not untag the ones from the first submission. A single new umbrella submission, listing out exactly how the categories are to be renamed, is what I recommend. - TexasAndroid 19:14, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


 * It started as an umbrella submission, and one of the commenters asked for the details to be listed. So, I split it into 3 parts.  That provided a detailed roadmap with lots of examples.


 * I disagree that there was "no consensus"! As long as a several ignorant folk can disrupt the activity of experts in the field, it will always appear to be disputed.
 * --William Allen Simpson 23:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


 * On the 2nd one, "Subdivisions to Administrative divisions", you had 3 support, 3 oppose. Absolutely no consensous.  The third was 3 oppose, 1 support as nominated (you), and 4 supporting an alternate naming.  Again, no real consensous.
 * You say that this was more one vote, broken out for detail. But the details are where there was no consensous.  I said above that there appeared to generally be a consensous in the first one for "Administrative divisions".  But with no consensous on the details, combined with the lack of a roadmap for the entire proposal making it hard to see how everything is intended to go...  approving some sort of split result would have caused more problems than it solved.
 * This is far from dead, which is why I posted my original message here. To encourage you to post a new submission, including a complete roadmap of the intended moves.  I would encourage you to take the "Administrative divisions" suggestion that had a fairly good consensous and incorporate it into your new plan.  You may also want to follow the suggestion of some of the opposition and take the debate to the appropriate project first to hash out any remaining details.  Building a consensous first can make things sail through a lot more easily.
 * If you do head to the project, I would suggest you be careful about tossing around words like "ignorant". While not quite rising to the level of personal attack (IMHO), labeling your opponents like that is not the kind of thing that helps in persuading them to your point of view. - TexasAndroid 14:25, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Arabian Gulf
Could you take a look at this article and drop a note as to whether or not "Arabian Gulf" should be bold-faced? Thanks. AucamanTalk 05:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's the standard title form. I also relabelled it as geodis.
 * --William Allen Simpson 16:44, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Category:Political divisions of the Republic of China
I've closed the deletion review of this, and listed the fact that it should be overturned at WP:CFD, where one of the bots can be set to run on it. Steve block The wikipedian meme 10:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC)