Talk:Media in Peoria, Illinois

Scope

There seems to be some understandable confusion about the scope of this article (and pages and categories like it). The subject came up when User:Netchris noted (in User talk:Closeapple#Media in Peoria Page) that some of the stations I've added aren't even receivable in the city of Peoria. I wouldn't dispute that. The problem is that the historical scope of this article (and those like it) is the local media market, not just the city itself; for example, this article had the name "Media in metropolitan Peoria".

An explanation of the underlying problem: About 2-3 years ago, some do-gooders decided to "simplify" things by going around declaring that the media market articles should be named after only the main city, with "area", "market", "metropolitan", and secondary city names removed. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 January 11, by which time this was so common that the nominator said the renaming was for "consistency". I argued against it precisely because it would cause the problem that has now popped up: now we have articles and categories for markets/metros, all with names that imply they are only for the city proper. (See also Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 April 3#More media, where the nominator claimed "Note that if I've condensed a category containing multiple city names into one city, it means that all the content for that category is located in or very near the city" but nominated even though it's clear Bloomington has its own TV station and isn't "very near" anything. Before that, Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 March 18#Media.) In short: the titles look like just cities, but the scope is the market/metropolitan area — unless, of course, the fact that they changed is starting to cause the entries to get re-scoped.

Back to the present: If the scope is now the city proper, then this could lead to lots and lots of lists of "media in" sections in smaller city articles like Canton, Havana, etc., and no parent topic for those areas except for media in "Illinois". If that's OK, and editors are clever enough to refer to larger-city "Media in" articles instead of duplicating difficult-to-maintain market lists to every city with a license (i.e. duplicating Macomb and Peoria lists in the Canton article), I guess this "very close" scope (as proposed in Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 March 18#Media) could work for radio stations. Some heads-up:

• W262BT, allegedly already licensed for Dahinda, Illinois, is really in downtown Elmwood in Peoria County, and has a construction permit for Peoria County near Farmington, nowhere near the city of license.
• There are 2 FM translator applications pending at Pekin in Tazewell; and one each at Chillicothe (just off Illinois 29), Princeville (on Illinois 90), and Wyoming (on Illinois 91), all really in Peoria County; that will have to be decided as in scope or not.

That all being said, User:Netchris might have the right idea. But we should make sure we can get stations that might be received in any part of Peoria, without having to including blatantly out-of-market stations like Chicago clear-channels, though.

By the way: FCCInfo on Google Earth helps quite a bit with finding real locations. --Closeapple (talk) 09:19, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Translators

First off, I want to say that I think we should include stations that rate with Arbitron, but aren't necessarily Peoria stations. I wouldn't include the Chicago stations that receive ratings here though. Although WBNQ and WCDD aren't necessarily Peoria stations, they should be included in the regular list. What do you think about making a separate table for stations receivable within the Peoria County area, but aren't necessarily Peoria stations?? That would include the translators that I mentioned and a few other FM and AM stations. That way they could be included in a list, but when visitors click on the page, looking for a list of Peoria stations (maybe they are visiting the area), they won't have stations included that you can't receive in the city. Just a few thoughts!  :-)

Netchris (talk) 04:49, 9 March 2010 (UTC)