Template talk:Mono County, California

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Please -- let's delete/not use this navigation. It only contains 4 items other than the county, and I can't imagine large numbers of people wanting to quickly navigate from Bridgeport, California to Mammoth Lakes, California.

The category was perfectly functional: why take up more screen real estate with this infobox?

hike395 21:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC) (part-time Mono County resident)

I can't imagine large numbers of people wanting to quickly navigate from Bridgeport to Mammoth Lakes

That's a little presumptuous without any facts or evidence. Also, given that Wikipedia will probably be around for the next decade or two, you do not know how the county will change in the next 20 years. Tourism or residency could increase. Plus, you and I have no idea if other users, either existing or future, will create more Wikipedia articles on each unincorporated community in Mono County. So its' probably better to create it now with all of the other CA county navigation boxes.

It's true that we don't have click-thru data for WP, that's a pity. So, all we have left is intuition --- my intuition says that there isn't a burning need for direct navigation between our sleepy little towns. :-)

Also: given that WP should be editable for decades, why not wait until Wal-Mart invades, then we add the navbox? (If that happens, I probably wouldn't care any more :-) :-) ) hike395

The category was perfectly functional: why take up more screen real estate with this infobox?

It seems I tried to make similar arguements on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion numerous times and ended up on the losing end. I believe the last time I tried it was Template:AcademyAwardBestPicture, but overwelmingly lost on the discussion as users said things like "It's not that cumbersome compared to some of the boxes we have (e.g. Senators, House of Representatives, Star Craft, etc)." and "Its very handy".

I completely mistrust the Cfd/Vfd/Tfd process, and don't think that it is a reflection of general opinion amongst WP editors.. It's like party primaries --- the extremists tend to dominate and drive out the people with moderate opinion. Look: it happened to you (you gave up), and it's happened to me (I agree with you about the bloated navboxes, but I have 0 desire to fight the voting bloc in vfd, so I don't even bother reading ). It's a shame that you and I agree on the principle of "no large navboxes", but we're disagreeing on this particular issue! hike395

Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's a proposal: there's probably 3-5 editors who actively edit Mono County articles. If they like the navbox, we can leave it in, but if they dislike it, we take it out. Does that sound OK with you? hike395 17:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I really do not watch the pages where this template is used... I'll just leave it at that... Zzyzx11 (Talk) 22:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Addition of non-existent communities

I've reverted the expansion of the template, because the expansion contained many non-communities. For example:

• Dunderberg Mill, California --- a pile of rubble
• Lake Mary, California --- no town there, does this refer to the Crystal Crag Lodge?
• Whitmore Hot Springs, California --- no town: this is the town of Mammoth's swimming pool.

While I was typing this, my reversion has been reverted, and I have been accused of vandalism on my talk page (a first in 6 years of editing, hmm). I would like to get more opinions about this, since I don't like revert wars. —hike395 (talk) 04:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

If you have a reliable source that any of these places have slipped from inhabited ones to former ones, feel free to move them - few people think that finding what one thinks is an inaccuracy in a page gives one the right to delete all sorts of things that you have no reliable sources to revert. There is a section for former settlements, if you believe that Dunderberg Mill falls there and have a reliable source to add to the article so demonstrating, it would be logical to move the link to the former settlements group from the unincorporated group. Do you have a reliable source? Edit Dunderberg Mill to add it. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 04:53, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the bigger issue here is whether or not we want articles about everything with a place name but with no firm population numbers and/or other info about them (that is, no significant coverage per WP:N). After RamBot created all those CDP and city articles RamMan briefly flirted with the idea of importing the GNIS database of two million entries but didn't do so (thank god). I don't think we should be creating articles en mass (bot assisted or not) that do not have significant coverage and thus will almost certainly never be more than microstubs with infoboxes and templates. I think that the burden here is with finding more sources than a database entry that these places are notable. Currently inhabited or not, I don't think that most of the new additions are or ever have been notable (I've passed by many of these places, and yup, most are piles of rubble; a few have what could be inhabited mobile homes, shacks or buildings). I suggest merging these microstubs into a list and, if more info can be found about any one beyond a short paragraph, then separate articles can be created. In short, being in a database with 2 million other entries or being a named place on a map does not, by itself, demonstrate the notability of their topics per WP:N. --mav (talk) 23:24, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The other nice feature of having a single list of locales (i.e., places that may or may not be populated) is that this template gets substantially cleaned up. It would have a single link to the list article (e.g., List of locales in Mono County, California) that would make it much easier to navigate. Much more reader-friendly. I would be completely happy with this outcome. In fact, I would be happy to create such a list article for Mono County, and help maintain it: I think it would add nicely to WP's coverage to the county. I hope that Carlossuarez46 also agrees to this? —hike395 (talk) 08:59, 17 June 2009 (UTC)