I can't believe I spent time doing this (rather than working on actual articles) but I just created a userbox (current version pictured to the right) for this Wikiproject.
The template is located at Template:User protectedareas and you can add it to your userpage babel box simply by entering "protectedareas". My userpage shows an example.
Adding the template to your userpage also automatically lists you in the Category:Participants in WikiProject Protected areas which I created to supplement (not replace) the list of traditional list of participants.
It is a lovely userbox. However, with the recent imbroglio over Kelly Martin's deletion of userboxes, I think I'll wait a bit before deciding whether to add it to my page. Still, it is very nice work. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund(talk)21:54, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I like it. Walter does touch on a cord as of late...there may be a policy change over the use of userboxes, but I doubt it...I may add it later so please don't delete it.--MONGO02:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Most of the userbox issues seem to center on two perceived ideas: denoting POV and irrelevency to the production of an encyclopedia. I doubt a userbox relating to a well established wikiproject would run afoul of either claimed abuse of boxes. So I'll bet this one is kosher with even the most restrictive hypothetical userbox policy. — Eoghanachttalk13:43, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree. Most of the recent push to remove userboxes was because they multiplied in number so much over the past month...to the point of ridiculous. I'll add it to my userpage.--MONGO13:46, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Putting "U.S." in front (which seems to be non-standard wikicategory format)
Capitalizing the designation
Using "in" versus "of"
I propose the following standard format: Category:National foo of Country
My rational being:
The designation is not a proper name, and should not be capitalized by itself. (Example: "We went to Big Bird National Wildlife Refuge." but "There are four national wildlife refuges in West Dakota.")
Protected areas are designated and protected by a country, and therefore should be "of" that country. Also, "in" can be problematic for territories (example: Caribbean National Forest is owned/protected by the federal gov't of the U.S., but is in an unincorporated territory (Commonwealth of Puerto Rico) -- someone is going to dispute which "country" category it goes in.)
Yes there should be a set standard. National Parks...."P" in Parks needs to be capitalized. National Historic Sites of the United States is the only one of the four examples you provide that is correctly worded. "of" instead of "in" always. Last example should be National Recreation Areas of the United States. That's where I stand, anyway.--MONGO01:36, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
To be pedantic, not all protected areas are created by a country. Some are created in the country by private individuals, non-government organisations, or local authorities. For example, in the UK, the Woodland Trust, RSPB, Wildlife Trusts etc. all own or manage protected areas, some of which are nationally or locally designated, and some of which aren't. Flit00:38, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
It seemed a good idea to me to have a section about open tasks, with suggested ideas for participants to work on. I got the idea from the {{Opentask}} template.
I added a quick list (certainly not balanced nor exhaustive) to the main page. Please feel free to add/edit. If alot of you think it is of little use, I won't mind seeing it deleted.
One idea is to have it as a separate template. Then it can added not only to the project page, but also as part of a welcome message to new project participants. — Eoghanachttalk18:56, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes! That can be due to any combination of three reasons: 1) I don't get out of the country enough. 2) Other countries' Wikipedians are so on-the-ball they have it all under control. 3) Us Yanks have been doing a bad job so far. — Eoghanachttalk19:20, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Image:US Locator Blank.svg seems to be blank - but doesn't seem to have been edited. The Australian ones work - and the image there shows a map of Australia. Rmhermen23:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if the nearest city in the infobox should be changed from Springdale, UT to St. George, UT with the justification that St. George (with scheduled airline service) is more correctly classed as a city. The respective articles make this distinction. Walter Siegmund(talk)10:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm proposing for consistency and uniformity that the criterion for nearest city in the infobox be the closest city or town with airline service scheduled at least six days a week. I've copied a discussion (above) to provide an example and context. Walter Siegmund(talk)01:20, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't think we need to make a rule as specific as requiring an active airport. I usually looked for a city big enough to have supplies - some of these parks are very isolated. Rmhermen03:31, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I would like to hear more behind the theory of the "nearest city" field. In a related thread... I have been primarily working on smaller sites, and often they are in sizeable cities -- in the case of the District of Columbia my "location" and my "nearest city" are coterminous. Mostly editors have been putting (for U.S. places) the state/territory and country under "location", and a nearby city/town under "nearest city." Perhaps, the location field should list the place, state, and country (example Parkville, West Dakota, USA) and the "nearest city" could be left blank for protected areas already in a notable place. (For big protected areas that are adjacent to multiple small towns, perhaps the location of the adminstrative headquarters could be listed as the place.) In the case of remote protected areas continue to enter the nearest sizeable city/town (example: Bigcity, West Dakota). Does this make sense to anyone else? — Eoghanachttalk17:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
You can remove the nearest city line without odd things happening to the table so I think that is a good solution for parks inside cities. Many larger parks are not necessarily in a " place, state, and country" so I don't think that is a good universal solution. Rmhermen17:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I think I simply became too formulaic in my approach to these fields in the infobox. I agree there is no universal solution; I plan to be more flexible from now on. For Location, sometimes the state(s) is appropriate ("Texas, USA"), sometimes a general location in a state ("Southeast Wyoming, USA"), otherwise a county ("Smith County, Iowa, USA"), or even a town/city ("Townville, Arknasas, USA") -- it all depends of the scale of the protected area. If the location is already big city, I will just leave the nearest city section blank (see Touro Synagogue National Historic Site). Where the location is not a big city, on a case by case basis, I may enter something under nearest city (see: Casa Grande Ruins National Monument). — Eoghanachttalk17:59, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
One final thought: For NPS sites, most units have a "Plan Your Visit" section on their nps.gov websites that will identify the nearest gateway city. Other agencies probably have similar information on their websites. — Eoghanachttalk18:58, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
That is an interesting point. I've been putting the center of the dot at the location of the protected area. Because the dot is quite large, much larger than the protected area in this case, it extends well beyond the boarders of the National Park into Arizona. That doesn't bother me, but I can understand that it may bother some people. I think it is going to happen occasionally if the center of the dot is placed at the location of the protected area. See Devils Tower National Monument and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge for other examples.
Alternatives:
Place the center of the dot at the location of the protected area. Exception: if it would cross a state boundary and the protected area does not, then move the center of the dot directly away from the state boundary until the dot no longer overlaps the state line. I fear this would lead to inconsistency.
Place the dot as seems best to the editor as long as the protected area is completely contained within the dot boundaries. This might lead to arguments between editors or require adjustments if the dot diameter were decreased.
Decrease the dot size. This doesn't eliminate the problem but does mitigate it. The disadvantage is that the dot may be harder to see, especially for the visually impaired. Walter Siegmund(talk)17:15, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
The red dot is supposed to quickly communicate roughly where in a country (or other base map) the place is located. If the exact location seems misleading, I have no problem moving the dot a little. The "location", "nearest city", and especially the lat/long (which links with multiple map resources) will give someone looking to visit a place more exact navigational information. — Eoghanachttalk17:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Is it possible that these dots "migrate" somewhat? I have seen a few articles that have had no edits to the loc dot that have moved since the least time I looked at that article. I think it may also have to do with the use of different browers by different editors.--MONGO17:04, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
The dot is 3px lower in IE than in Firefox, I found that out when making the locator grid images. Also, the coordinates input don't match up with the real location of the locator dot (it just occurred to me that the upper left-hand corner of the dot might be considered 0,0). - Diceman18:06, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
I use IE, so that explains why the dot for Zion National Park appeared to be partially in Arizona, when the park is solely in the state of Utah, just over the northern border of Arizona, hence the shift from my perspective. Thanks, Diceman.--MONGO09:36, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project
Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Shanel22:19, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
As from the main page here: Featured articles list
(BOLD faced articles were featured on the main page for Wikipedia)
Thank you..I saw that those first two were not on this list when I copied it from the main protected areas page...I'll fix that now.--MONGO13:47, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Nice list, and thanks for doing that for us. Would you mind keeping the list for your WikiProject up to date in the centralized listings? The subpage would be the Places sublist, which includes Geography articles. Titoxd(?!? - help us)05:37, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Any feedback will be greatly appreciated. :) Next step is to find a few good references for the biology of the place and create a biology section at Capitol Reef National Park, then clean-up and cite for FAC. --mav13:30, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
FYI -- I recently noticed (at Washington Monument) this experimental template: {{CoorHeader}}. It puts the coordinates in-line with the article name. It is listed as "disputed" apparently because there is no standard "experimental" header. I am not sure if I like it or not. Since protected areas are places, it seems potentially useful to this project. As our infobox already has the coordinates, I have no plans to "jump on board" with it yet -- nor do I plan to delete it in articles I am planning to add our infobox. — Eoghanachttalk17:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I stumbled across this mostly redlined list which is apart of the US-FWS. Do you think we should consider these to be protected areas (and as such within the scope of this project)? ClarkBHM14:27, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Not sure. I think many of them are small and I don't know if the land istself is per se a protected area. I recognize the buildings and pools used for these hatcheries are designed to increase fish for stocking rivers and lakes. I would be inclined to exclude them, but I can see no reason that they must be excluded.--MONGO19:21, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I am not sure it belongs here either. Although I am not sure exactly where it would fit. I see it more as an Agriculture issue. Rmhermen20:16, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I looked in the IUCN database for "hatchery" and came up with 8 results:
I am not really sure this provides an answer, though, unless someone knows more about these few examples and why they are listed. For all I know these few may be listed for historical character rather than for wildlife preservation. Some hatcheries help bring back endangered fish species, others I think are just to stock rivers for recreational fishing. — Eoghanachttalk20:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
And none of those is listed on the National list we are discussing - maybe they are state hatcheries? Rmhermen00:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Excellent point...indeed, some may have helped restore threatened and endangered fish species...I hadn't even thought about that. The IUCN listing is very helpful, but sometimes out of date...I wonder how often they update their data as there are a lot of NWR's and other areas that hve been created or chamged designation more than 5 years ago that are now either not shown or incorrected attributed.--MONGO00:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
While working on memorials and historic sites in the District of Columbia, I have often had difficulty sorting what things should be treated as Units (or their equivalent) versus a sub-feature of a larger protected area. The NPS website helps little with this. However specific examples are not really important, because I only bring it up as background to an idea I had...
I just created template {{Part-of}} (experimental for now) to add a link to a parent article to the right side of an article's title line. I placed on the following articles as examples: Zero Milestone, Jefferson Pier, Cape Henry Memorial. These are features of larger parks. For areas that are ambiguous in regards to their unit/pseudo-unit/feature status (such as a National Cemetery within a National Battlefield), I see using this in lieu of the protected area infobox.
If anyone wishes to comment, please drop a note at the template talk page. If the concensus is that this is a bad idea, I shall request it be deleted. Alternately, if a good idea, it could find use in non-Protected-Area articles. — Eoghanachttalk14:07, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I think it looks fine but I would request a clarification on when its supposed to be used. Old faithful is a part of Yellowstone. No problem. However, is Yazoo National Wildlife Refuge a "part of" the Theodore Roosevelt National Wildlife Refuge Complex as it is completely administered by it? I would want to keep them separate. We had a small discussion at Talk:List of National Wildlife Refuges about this and figured that individual units within a refuge shouldn't have their own articles, where as individual refuges within a complex should have their own articles. If this template is adopted, we should have guildlines on when should and shouldn't be used. Otherwise, I think its a great idea! ClarkBHM19:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that some guidelines are in order. Perhaps of the next few days we can suggest some "right" and "wrong" examples. I'll start thinking of some suggestions. — Eoghanachttalk20:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I have been noticing that there are coordinates at the top of many protected area articles and just below, the same coordinates in the infoboxes...but I cannot seem to find out how to remove the small and redundant coors at the upper right of the articles...an example is at Yazoo National Wildlife Refuge and there are many others. Does nayone know when this started and why we need it?--MONGO01:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Recently the a title coordinate display was embedded into the existing Template:Geolinks-US-cityscale. This is causing the display on Yazoo. If you think that is bad, see Old Faithful Geyser where (at least at the time of writing this) there are competing title coordinate templates (the other being Template:Coor title dms - which I actually use on non-infobox articles). I intentionally did not delete one at Old Faithful, so that the the developers of the two templates could (hopefully) sort it out -- but it has been a couple days since I left messages on the template talk pages, without action. Personally, I have never been a fan of the Geolinks template, as I find the 5-line display too cumbersome, but I understand that it is easier for novice users to figure out what is going on, as compared to a simple lat/long link. Examples of the geolinks template is just below (notice it adds the lat/long to the tile line of this talk page). — Eoghanachttalk12:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I see...well, I am not good with templates, but if I can figure out a way to eliminate the coords from the top of the articles I am going to do so. I already took out the redundant coordinate that was really making a mess at Old Faithful Geyser...I can see the top coordinate for articles without the infobox but definitely not in articles that have the infobox...regardless, I can see no reaosn since the links are all at the bottom that we need the coords at the top...just my view. Thanks for the update.--MONGO13:24, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Hmmmm... I just realized that they had changed that template to include the coordinates up top. It does seem kind of redundant when its presented that way. However, I felt that having the links under "See also" allowed the novice user a nice way to see maps and aerial photographs of the area. Perhaps we could make our own version of the Geolinks template which doesn't display the coordinates up top? In any event, we should consider whether or not we should standardize the inclusion of these links in protected areas articles... ClarkBHM14:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes. I am well aware of that. However, as you know, the NPS stub is only used for US protected sites. I'm looking for something that can be used for protected areas which are not NPS locations, regardless of where they are... ClarkBHM17:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I still don't understand if you are proposing an international protected area stub or just a U.S. protected area stub. You're first comment lists only U.S. designations but your second says "regardless of where they are". I would definitely support an international tag. I am not as sure of a U.S. one but it would probably be useful as well. Rmhermen17:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm proposing either, or both. I mentioned the US designations because those are the ones that I'm primarily working on... ClarkBHM18:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I guess I'd have to see it. You mean a template that links all protected area stubs together?--MONGO20:06, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
No, not a template. A stub that indicates that the particular protected area article is not completed. It'll allow us to tag things that should be worked on later. Something like Template:Wyoming-geo-stub. ClarkBHM20:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm supportive of this, as there are numerous featured articles for this topic. I suggest a list be generated of all the featured articles, as well as good articles. Another requirement for portals is that they are properly maintained. I expect WikiProject participants could help maintain the portal. Take a look at Wikipedia:Featured portals for more ideas. -Aude (talk | contribs) 15:56, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Comment: The proposal is not for parks, etc.; it is for designated buildings (and is being called related to Portal:Architecture). Rmhermen17:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I would not consider National Register buildings, nor even National Historic Landmarks, to technically be protected areas. These two federal programs are about recognition of historic resources, and encouragement of private enterprise preservation through published standards and (in some cases) tax incentives, but protection is not mandated on a federal level (although some locatilities might have special protective zoning based on these designations). I am not nay-saying the idea of the portal, just making a clarification. — Eoghanachttalk13:37, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The non-naural parks are not protected areas and shouldn't be linked the same as the Great Barrier Reef of course. How about we create [[Category:Protected marine areas]] and move all natural parks that are not in the business of entertainment out of the old category. We can also edit that article to differentiate the two.--MONGO22:31, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
What happened to this article? The lead is an absolute mess. It is easily fixable, and I ask some one to do it. It would be a shame if it had to go to FA review. PDXblazers05:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I removed some of the nonintroduction type of information that was in the lead. The article was one of the earliest to become feaure that this project produced, and it could use sections that discuss the management, recreation and a discussion of areas that are above ground, since a lot of the acreage is there. I'm pretty focused on other areas for the time being...don't forget to be bold and add or subtract what you feel are needed changes.--MONGO05:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
PA-stub split proposal
I'm not sure why I didn't mention this here before, but a while ago I proposed several sub-types of the protected area stubs. Another possible axis, as I mentioned to MONGO, would be the US's division into census-board-defined regions, as has been done for several other types. (None of the states are individually quite large enough, but per-state templates would certainly be feasible.) I won't be acting on any of these immediately, as the category's no longer quite oversized, so there's no immediate hurry from a "stub crowd control" point of view. Alai00:33, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Banff National Park - peer review request
I have been working to get this article to featured status, with help from two other editors. Until recently the article's talk page was empty, so I don't think this article has had the scrutiny needed. I've posted a peer review request, and would greatly appreciate feedback, comments, or suggestions. Thanks. --Aude (talkcontribs) 02:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
BC parks, protected areas?
Are these and in particular, these protected areas in the sense of the article, Wikiproject, and stub type? There's a massive number of them been created as nano-stubs, and some discussion over at WP:WSS/P as to the best way of sorting them. Alai01:29, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
There isn't enough information in those links for me to understand exactly what you are proposing in each place. But state parks and provincial parks are protected areas. (Local cities parks may be debatable.) Rmhermen23:19, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, sorry, the actual sections are probably a little cryptic if you're not a hardened stub-proposer... There's some background on WP:STUB which may help. Essentially I'm suggesting that new stub types corresponding to the (existing, "permanent") categories "Category:Parks in Florida" (or more especially to Category:Florida state parks), and to "Category:National parks of Queensland. As there's some reluctance to create "park stubs" (lest this lead to "mountain stubs", "river stubs", and "town stubs" and the like, which are progressively less and less meaningful as stub types), it might be preferable to scope these as Category:Florida protected area stubs (which already exists, and may be suitable for some or all of the Floridian candidates), and Category:Queensland protected area stubs. As this would be purporting to put them within the remit of this WPJ, I thought I'd sanity-check this as a plan. Alai23:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm still relatively new to wikipedia and don't know how to improve this page, Daniel Boone National Forest, would appreciate ideas. It is still stubby; I began expanding it and copyediting, adding a map, etc. An anon user has added text under "Recent Controversy" which seems POV and poorly written. Attempts to push toward NPOV and copyedit get reverted without responses to questions raised on talk page. I'd like to see the article improve, but as it is I don't know what to do other than let it go and be a poor article. Ideas? Pfly15:16, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree that 209.209.140.21 seems to be pushing a POV and adding external links that are most certainly not relevant to the article. I would suggest reverting the POV/irrelevant edits once again while stating the reason for the revert in the edit summary. If the non-NPOV material is re-inserted yet again, then leave and appropriate warning message (a list of which can be found here on the user's talk page. As far as improvements to the article, check out Shoshone National Forest. I've used it a little bit as a guideline for national forest articles I've worked on because it is the only national forest article to have obtained featured article status yet. --Nebular11020:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
I have added the infobox template to the article and a link to the USFS website...that is an excellent website and should do a lot to help anyone make a really great article.--MONGO20:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Florida protected area stubs, and "protected buildings" generally
The stub type Category:Florida protected area stubs has become quite gynormous (to use the technical term), and seemingly in large part with protected or historic buildings of some sort. Is this correct tagging, as far as this project is concerned, or would a different tag be preferable? These'll have to be split up in some way or another, but there's the issue of whether to move them "down" the hierarchy, or "sideways". (And in which way, in either case.) See also the discussion at WP:WSS/P. Alai05:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Wow...I am not in favor of having sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places as many of these sites are not really protected in the same way. They are often privately owned and to get on the list, all one needs to do is to establish that the house is "historic" or architecturally significant per se, and agree to restore or maintain the structure in accordance with guidelines. Some folks do this for tax reasons, or to fetch a high resale value after restoration. I'm inclined to not have these areas be a part of this project. There are areas that are managed by government entities and are also on the National Register of Historic Places, however if they are not managed by government entities, then I can't see how they should be included in the scope of this project.--MONGO06:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Since we already have Category: Registered Historic Places in Florida, I don't think we need to list them as protected area stubs. Registered Historic Places stubs maybe. Rmhermen07:20, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Aside from the "protected" question... are these places "areas", either? My reading of the protected area article would be that it doesn't appear to cover "buildings and structures" at all. (What the intent of this project is of course entirely a matter for yourselves.) Alai07:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I would be the guilty party in this issue, creating stubs willy-nilly. Y'all noticed! And I always thought the technical term was hugantic, not gynormous. Learn something new, huh? :)
MONGO already left me a note about this, suggesting this be made a separate category/project? I'd be down with that. Any and all advice or helpful hints are always appreciated. I want to do it correctly, going through the proper procedures, and not step on toes.
It's ironic you started this discussion today, as I daytripped up to the Florida Panhandle Saturday to take pictures of some of the historic places up there. Because those stubs need pictures after all, don't they?
There's certainly plenty of these for a (or indeed several) new stub types, whether or not there's a separate wikiproject, either now or later. See the proposals I've made at WP:WSS/P#Florida_protected_area_subcats: if you have different names or scopes that would be useful or accurate, please suggest away. Alai14:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Had a thought. I'm thinking Florida-history-stub. It would then be useful for other, non-building related, articles as well. --Ebyabe14:42, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T214:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Russell Cave National Monument
The Russell Cave National Monument article has been taken through a major expansion. I have submitted a peer review request and have incorporated the comments of the first reviewer. Please give me your comments so that I can further improve this article. Thanks for your help. Leeannedy20:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
New template for National parks and AONBs in the UK
Carlsbad Caverns National Park has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.
If I remember right, the entire continent of Antarctica is officially a United Nations protected area. Taking into account the amount of articles we have on it, I believe that it would make sense to have a project actively dealing with it, and there now is such a project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Antarctica. However, there are also comparatively few inhabitants there who can type, so I wonder whether it would ever get much support on its own. Would the members of this project be willing to take it on as a possible task force/work group? I'm thinking that might be one of the few ways to draw attention to it. Also, splitting the administrative overhead would probably make both groups function a bit more easily. Thank you for your attention, and any responses, positive or negative. Badbilltucker21:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker19:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Anybody can join?
Is this project one where anybody can join as long as they contribute to it? Or do you have to be approved by someone?
Posted by: Hdt83Talk/Chat02:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
What do you think should be the convention about State and National Parks vs the geographical features located in them? Specifically, I mean when that park is pretty much synonymous with its main geographical feature. The article on Mount Diablo State Park handles both in the same article (Mount Diablo redirects to the other article). Other articles treat the two separately, but often one of the articles is a stub:
Keep them separate as long as there is enough information. For instance, mountain need mountain infoboxes while park have protected areas box which cover different information. Best to keep them separate, I think. Look at some featured "feature" articles like Geology of the Grand Canyon area. (Others listed on this Projects main page). Rmhermen00:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Yosemite National Park FAR
Yosemite National Park has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.
SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:35, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Dear Atulnischal, I'm not sure what grand plan you have in mind, but copying the section on Flora and Fauna from the India page and pasting it to create a new article and then referencing it on the India page itself requires some explanation. Fowler&fowler«Talk»23:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)User talk:Saravask
"Wildlife of India" deserves an article in its own right, "Wildlife of India" is a popular term that people look for and search for on the internet, school kids, nature lovers and people who want to go on nature and eco-tourism trips etc. General people and younger generation looking for Info on Indian wildlife do not look for scientific and little known and boring words like Fauna or Flora or terminology like Protected areas of India etc. All this can be brought together under "Wildlife of India" article by a popular and commonly used and searched name. As per the content of this article: everybody is free to edit and add info on it.
If you are interested in Environment, Wildlife, Conservation and Nature etc. please join in to contribute, even starting off with making new stub class articles will be a great contribution.
We need senior administrators or people who are long in Wikipedia to help us with the templates and for other further helps. Details can be seen in its talk page. IT's urgent. We want this wkiproject to be added to the exsisting WP:IND banner. AmartyabagTALK2ME05:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not exactly sure what you need to do with the boundaries, but I have GIS files for federal lands including Angeles National Forest. I have plotted them on a map (see right), with Angeles in bright green. Don't have the time at the moment, but I need to go back and do a better job of labeling features. --Aude (talk) 14:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
This Conservation related Article is being considered for deletion, kindly have a look when you have some time, Wikipedia is taking Votes for Deleting it or Keeping it, please do improve the article if possible:
Hi! I created a template for World Heritage Sites: {{Infobox World Heritage Site}}. Since many of the protected areas are also recognized as World Heritage Sites, I thought that it will be appropriate to forward this template here, and hopefully, for the community to help improve the template. Someone mentioned that the footnotes are unclear (i.e. why the need to emphasize "official" there). It's because the official name (or the name as inscribed on the List) is different from what we usually know. And the Region also has footnote to tackle specifically the classification of those regions which may fall ambiguously between two continents (e.g. those in Russia, Turkey, Cyprus, etc.). In addition, I think that the info provided in the template is much like a jargon for most readers since it box is more of use for internal references in the World Heritage program. I hope that the community will help improve the template and make it more relevant to the readers of wikipedia in general. Thanks. Joey8013:24, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
NRHP collaboration
Hey all! Just in case anyone around here is interested . . .
Yellowstone National Park has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.
I did a lot of updating on the article lately, mainly so the article would continue to be a featured one since there have been some criteria alterations since it was originally promoted to FA level in 2004.--MONGO04:40, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
IUCN categories in article infoboxes
I've not been involved in this project, but stumbled on the Protected Areas infobox in doing some edits to the Lincoln Memorial article. The infobox says the memorial is IUCN Category V (Protected Landscape/Seascape) Though I wasn't familiar with the IUCN categories, this seemed off-hand like an odd category for the Lincoln Memorial. Out of curiosity, I looked at articles for the Washington Monument and Ford's Theatre; they, too, were described as Category V (Protected Landscape/Seascape) I found a citation to the World Database of Protected Areas. Is this the official source from which IUCN categories are to be determined? If not, what other sources are used? In the case of the Lincoln Memorial, the World Database doesn't list it at all; the Washington Monument and Ford's Theatre are both listed in the database, but the IUCN category for each is listed as "Unset." I'm confused about why these articles have IUCN Category V infoboxes. Can someone briefly explain? Thanks. RickDC19:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Proposal for World Heritage Site Wikiproject
Hi! I am considering creating a World Heritage Site Wikiproject to better coordinate and organize information related to all of the 830 designated World Heritage Sites. Since many protected areas are also a World Heritage Site, I posted a message here in case anyone is interested. See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#World_Heritage_Sites for more info. -- Hdt83Chat05:38, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not involved in this wikiproject, but as an outsider I think it would be nice if the infobox for protected area articles could be designed to have two images- one of a map, and one of the area itself (something similar to {{Infobox Settlement}}. It seems a pity that the articles on some of the most beautiful areas on earth all start with bland maps instead of photographs. It also leads to messy articles like this when editors try to cram in photos on the left side to compete with the map on the right. Calliopejen108:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree, working on the Illinois State Parks has shown this to be a problem. The maps are very, very bland and they don't really add all that much to the article, at least not as the lead image which should be reserved for an image which excellently illustrates its topic. IvoShandor09:53, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
I do know that the geobox boys were creating something, but I think it was put on the back burner for the time being. I will have to ask since I think the infoboxes are pretty bland.--Kranar drogin10:30, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
I am not part of this and I don't know if this has been proposed before, but this is a rather large wikiproject not to have an assessment system. I don't know if you would like it, but I would be happy to set it up and adjust the template to include it.Yamaka122...:)21:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Featured Article Review
Rondane National Park has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. --RelHistBuff16:06, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
List of forests is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of forests. I expressed the opinion that there should be more stringent criteria for listing a forest on the list, such as being a protected area (e.g. a United States National Forest or a state forest). I don't know how that translates into other countries, though. If anyone has any thoughts on organizing/refactoring the list, feel free to express them. Or, if you think the article should be deleted, feel free to express that as well. --Elkman(Elkspeak)18:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Terminology: National Park System
Hi there, I am the most active person writing about US National Parks, National Monuments and the like in the German Wikipedia and I need your help with terminology: Which units are considered the "National Park System"? Only the ones in the jurisdiction of the NPS or does it include those National Monuments administrated by the BLM, FWS, USFS and others? TIA --h-stt!?06:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I think that the term "National Park System" means only parks that are under the jurisdiction of the NPS although I'm not too sure. --Hdt83Chat08:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. So we have the National Park System (all units administrated by the NPS), the National Forest System (USFS), the National Refuge System (FWS) and the National Landscape Conservation System (BLM). All four, as well as NOAA and Armed Forces Retirement Home, administer National Monuments. Is this the correct terminology? This NPS web site isn't really specific, so your help is appreciated. --h-stt!?16:56, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Whereabouts: Becharof National Monument and Yukon Flats National Monument
Hi, while I'm here, another question. Does anyone know about todays legal status of Becharof National Monument and Yukon Flats National Monument in Alaska? They were created by presidential proclamation in 1978 and with the big reform of protected areas in Alaska in 1980 they were renamed to Becharof National Wildlife Monument and Yukon Flats National Wildlife Monument. USFWS lists them as Becharof national wildlife monumentand Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge on all of their websites, but I can't find any trace of another renaming in the "Thomas" database at the library of congress. The FWS-field office in Alaska does not reply to my e-mail. Are they still National Monuments and should be listed in our respective list? Or are they NWRs now? --h-stt!?10:31, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
These do not appear to have ever been National Monuments. Becharof was created as a "national wildlife monument" in 1978 and in 1980 changed to a "national wildlife monument".[2] Which is where we list them. Rmhermen16:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
The presidential proclamation says otherwise: Now, THEREFORE, I, JIMMY CARTER, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by Section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431), do proclaim that there are hereby set apart and reserved as the Becharof National Monument all lands, including submerged lands, and waters owned or controlled by the United States within the boundaries of the area depicted as Becharof National Monument on the map numbered FWS-81-00-0414 attached to and forming a part of this Proclamation.
The Bill H.R.39 (96th Congress) suggested renaming: Title III: National Wildlife Refuge System - Redesignates Becharof National Monument as Becharof National Wildlife Monument and Yukon Flats National Monument as Yukon Flats National Wildlife Monument.
The final Public Law 96-487 doesn't even mention that there are already National Monuments: (2) BECHAROF NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE. - (A) The Becharof National Wildlife Refuge shall consist of the approximately one million two hundred thousand acres of public lands generally depicted on the map entitled "Becharof National Wildlife Refuge", dated July 1980. – strange … --h-stt!?17:11, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Interesting that they have their own history wrong on their website but doesn't change the fact that they are wildlife refuges now. Rmhermen17:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
IUCN categories in article infoboxes
May I repeat this question originally posted in April 2007, which hasn't gotten a response?
I've not been involved in this project, but stumbled on the Protected Areas infobox in doing some edits to the Lincoln Memorial article. The infobox says the memorial is IUCN Category V (Protected Landscape/Seascape) Though I wasn't familiar with the IUCN categories, this seemed off-hand like an odd category for the Lincoln Memorial. Out of curiosity, I looked at articles for the Washington Monument and Ford's Theatre; they, too, were described as Category V (Protected Landscape/Seascape) I found a citation to the World Database of Protected Areas. Is this the official source from which IUCN categories are to be determined? If not, what other sources are used? In the case of the Lincoln Memorial, the World Database doesn't list it at all; the Washington Monument and Ford's Theatre are both listed in the database, but the IUCN category for each is listed as "Unset." I'm confused about why these articles have IUCN Category V infoboxes. Can someone briefly explain? Thanks. ~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by RickDC (talk • contribs) 00:15, August 30, 2007 (UTC)
Well lvl 5 is the most appropriate: "V - Protected Landscape/Seascape An area of land, with coast and sea as appropriate, where the interaction of people and nature over time has produced an area of distinct character with significant aesthetic, ecological, or cultural value, and often with high biological diversity. Safeguarding the integrity of this traditional interaction is vital to the protection, maintenance, and evolution of such an area." The Washington Memorial is listed as V in http://www.unep-wcmc.org/protected_areas/data/nat2.htm . I couldn't find the others. But remember that those databases are highly incomplete. Rmhermen14:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm still dubious about this designation. The Washington Monument listing that you cite isn't for THE Washington Monument but for a state park in Maryland. Also, if an official IUCN category designation isn't found for a particular site, should we not leave it undesignated in Wikipedia, rather than making our own judgment about what IUCN category we think is sounds right? RickDC02:49, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Speaking as someone who has worked on all 120 Pennsylvania state park articles (and the 20 state forests there too, we just assumed that state parks were either IUCN III or V (about the only categories they could fall into) and the state forests (which are managed and have some cutting of timber) pretty much have to be IUCN VI. We used III for parks that were mostly natural attractions and V for more historic sites (like Fort Washington State Park). Ruhrfisch><>°°14:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Greetings, I have rewritten the Jim Corbett National Park article. Since I am now beginning to realize that the article has GA potential it would be of help to me if editors took time to weigh the article and voice their opinion on what more needs to be added to it. I'm seeking opinion in this regard here since the article falls under this Wikiproject and would benefit from attention. With Regards, Havelok20:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Very nice article, only some minor fixes needed:
{{cite book}} and {{cite web}} templates should be used also for inline references
Years should be linked (never understood why it is required, but it is)
{{coord|....|display=title}} should be included as well
At least most important numerical values should be with {{convert}} in imperial units as well
Wikilinks should not be to redirect and disambiguation pages (also elephant should link to Asian Elephant etc etc etc)
Every sentence does not need to be inline referenced, unless it is a (controversial) unit of its own. One reference per paragraph is OK (see paragraph starting with "As early as 1991...")
More web references would be nice, at least home page http://www.jimcorbettnationalpark.com should be linked and used. Quick googling gave quite a lot of usable references, also in Google Books and Scholar.
Some general cleanup (such as "Jim Corbett National Park" should always be capitalized, ha is without point, in some cases a language could use a bit of reviewing for readability, there are some extra commas)
All that said, it is a solid article. As a fan of Jim Corbett, it was very nice to read about National Park named after him.
BTW, if you (or someone else) would care to check Matsalu National Park as well? I plan to apply it for GA in few days.
Duly noted and thanks for the prompt reply. I was drawn to the article following the connection with Jim Corbett as well and I plan to expand and source his bio in the near future. I've glanced through the Matsalu National Park article and it looks good to me thus far. I can suggest that the lede needs to take into account the history and should be expanded to provide a summary of the article. Since many people just read the lede and glance through the main body a substantial lede, providing a summary of the article, is the best way to impart knowledge. The external links section may need the names of publishers in addition to the titles and the sandwiching of text between images and infoboxes can be lessened in two cases. The article is well written, well sourced and needs only a bit of fine tuning. I applaud your effort which produced an article like this but would also recommend bulking up the article further since it's shorter than most other GA articles. Expansion may even be done by extracting maximum information from the present sources. With Regards, Havelok22:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, expanding the lede was in my plans already - it was previously too long and irrelevant, I shortened it yesterday. And I think you are right about "bulking up", too - I will do so, indeed. -- Sander Säde08:17, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I have improved the quality of the article. I'm interested in nominating it for GA and perhaps FA and I'm interested in any suggestions for improvement before I nominate it. I appreciate it. --Moni3 (talk) 03:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
National parks of England and Wales has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.— Rodtalk20:26, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
I would like to note that Berland did indeed post on the infobox template talkpage and waited a substantial period and got zero response before he made any changes. I personally don't see the need to have the coordinates appear at the top of the article since the infobox for the protected area is also near the top and has the same coordinates imbedded in it....so it seems redundant. I also want to point out that over time, a number of articles have had the coordinates template added to the end of the article that automatically places the coordinates at the top of the article space, above the infobox. The article Yellowstone National Park now has a doubling effect at the top of the page now. So I guess the question is, how many times does the coordinates need to appear in the article....I personally would prefer it just appear in the infobox but am not that opposed to also having it at the top of the article on the title line...so long as we go around and remove the third placement, which has been added to some articles down near the references sections.--MONGO19:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I have seen coords=inline,title in most infobox'es that I am dealing with, so Infobox protected area was/is the one out among those. I don't mind so much about the placement in the title, but I do mind that google earth is able to pick up the articles coordinate. As for Yellowstone National Park, I removed the coor title at the bottom, which definetely should not be there when there is also coordinates in the infobox, if someone would like to update the coordinates, it should suffice to do it only one place in the article. --Berland (talk) 21:28, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Three is certainly too many. I think twice is alright and probably happens for other location articles with infoboxes. Rmhermen (talk) 22:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah...I'm cool with that...I think the wikiproject for mountains has their infobox show the coor in the title line as well....which template hyperlinks or transcribes to google earth? I hope we're using the correct template so the wiki icons are displayed there.--MONGO02:40, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Please note that Google Earth and most other reusers of Wikipedia data only look at what is available for each article in the database dumps, ie. only the wikitext of the article, without expanding the templates. This means that if the article doesn't directly use one of the coordinate templates Wikipedia says articles do, the information will not be used. So, even though you see the coordinates at the top of pages, it does not mean that parties reading the wikitext with something else than MediaWiki see them as such important data. Berland's edit unfortunately didn't help with this, and Google Earth for example is unlikely to take it into account. Google's Geographic Web Layer FAQ used to have a mention that if the coordinates are inside an infobox using an inline coordinate template, as opposed to a title one, they will then be used, but the mention has since disappeared and may or may not still be in effect, and doesn't apply here anyway as the coordinates are given in composite parameters. WP:GEO tried to help with the situation to make Wikipedia consistent for editors and reusers, by proposing parameter names to be used for coordinates in infoboxes, but there has unfortunately been little progress in actually making templates and articles conform to those names. What would be needed is some help in the parameter name consolidation effort, and once the data is consistent, (re)informing reusers of that type of coordinate entry. --Para (talk) 16:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Umm, Protected areas are supposed to cover Natural Monuments, but not all National Monuments are natural areas. I notice that perhaps all 8 of the U.S. National Monuments in the state of California, such as Pinnacles National Monument, may be natural places, but none of the 5 National Monuments in New York State seem to be. For example, the African Burial Ground National Monument in downtown New York City is in the middle of buildings and paved areas and has no naturalness to preserve, but is mislabelled as a "Natural monument". Likewise Fort Stanwix National Monument, which is a fort, is mislabelled as a "seascape/landscape". "Protected" areas are not supposed to include the many thousands of historic buildings, memorial statues, and most other historic sites that are Registered Historic Places in the united states, in my view. However, two years ago Mongo and others went through all 80 or so of List of National Monuments in the United States and added Protected areas infoboxes to them, which seems also to put those articles into Category:Protected areas. I think the National Monuments ought to be reviewed and the protected areas description ought to be removed for many of them. Comments? doncram (talk) 17:13, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Maps for protected areas, parks, forests and other areas
I just wanted to get opinions from editors of this wikiproject concerning location maps. It seems that articles like the ones in IUCN Category V use this map . But other articles (mainly state parks) use a map like this one . I've got a couple of questions. 1) Is there a guideline as to which map should be used for the different types of articles? 2) For the articles that use the US Locator blank image, wouldn't it be better to use the state image instead? Since it would show a more detailed location? I'm thinking of the images like these Wikipedia:WikiProject_Protected_Areas/Infobox#State park infobox Thanks for your advice. Rocketmaniac (talk) 00:00, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello Rmhermen. That was part of what I was asking. The first question was about which style of map should be used for each type of area, ie. state & national parks, state & national forests, wildlife refuges, wildernesses etc. There seem to be two different types of maps. or this type . My next question (which you addressed) was about national vs state map. Why do you feel a national map is needed for a national park? The only difference between a national park and a state park is which form of government is in control of the land. Thanks for responding. Rocketmaniac (talk) 04:10, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Hey. Rocket asked me to come in and give my opinion since we've been working closely on various Georgia related articles and such. For my part, I think the Georgia Locater Map () is a more effective and plain more eye-catching map than the Amicalola Falls locater map (). As for the other question regarding State and National maps, I can see where you're coming from Rmhermen. At the same time, though, I think a map like the Georgia Locater Map is more effective in showing exactly where a national park is located in the State. It would be really effective if we could find some way to differentiate the locators - green for National and red for State. I don't know if that's possible, though. Reb (talk) 14:40, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
A further suggestion. I recently remembered an infobox and an image I'd seen over at the Protected areas of Tamil Nadu article. Somehow, they each have two maps in them - one thumbnail map of India and a map of Tamil Nadu. Furthermore, the second map has locater dots for each of the National Parks in Tamil Nadu. Would that be feasible in this situation? Reb (talk) 18:22, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I really like the idea of two maps. I've copied the code and have gotten the thumbnail of the US map in the corner of the Georgia map. Now I am trying to make the red locator dot appear on the bigger map. Here is what I've done so far. User:Rocketmaniac/Sandbox6 Does anyone know what to do from here? Thanks for the idea Johnny. Rocketmaniac (talk) 13:01, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Anytime, Rocket. Just checked out what you've done and I think it looks really good. No idea how to do the locater, though. Reb (talk) 13:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
P.S. I like the superimposed US locaotr map in your sandbox - neat trick. I would move the US map to the top right corner though, there it would not obscure any part of Georgia (nothing against South Carolina, but it is a GA article). For just putting the dot in, the code is fairly easy - see for example {{Cogan House Covered Bridge Map}}. Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch><>°°16:35, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Hey Ruhrfisch, thanks for the links to those other articles. You are right about the left/right placement of the US Map. I've now figured out how to move it to the right and saved it. I looked at the code for the Cogan House Covered Bridge Map, but was unable to figure out how the dot was placed. Can you edit the working example on my sandbox6 to show me? Pick any place in GA. I've still got a lot to learn about Wiki coding. Thanks for you comments and help. Rocketmaniac (talk) 18:53, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I tried some but I think your coding for superimposing the smal inset map and mine for placing dots don't get along. I will keep trying. Ruhrfisch><>°°20:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
That's perfect, if only we could have that in the infobox. Maybe in time we (or someone else) can figure out the coding. Thanks for working on it. Rocketmaniac (talk) 10:56, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
It seems clear from protected area that the meaning encompasses land; it it not clear that the meaning encompasses buildings, trails, highways, rivers, monuments, memorials, etc. So questions:
Definitely not as a general rule. The 2,430 or so U.S. NHLs are usually not "natural" but rather include buildings, stone monuments, etc., and they also are not "protected" to the degree envisioned in the protected areas definition. They are designated to be of U.S. national historical importance but may be privately owned and sometimes are altered or demolished. There may exist a few properties that are valid protected areas which may also have historical importance and be NHLs, but none comes to mind for me. Unless archaeological sites that are NHLs should be included, but then they are not generally protected well enough to qualify. If NHL archaeological sites qualify, then similar sites that are among the 79,000 or so U.S. Registered Historic Places (but which have not received the higher NHL designation as well) also would qualify. doncram (talk) 22:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
These are usually (but not always) owned and operated by the U.S. National Park Service, so they may be "protected", but are not necessarily natural. I think generally not. doncram (talk) 22:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Generally not say I as well. The park service greatly disturbs the natural landscape of some of these places to build visitors' centers, parking lots et al. Sometimes there are natural aspects, like at Grey Towers National Historic Site, which I would count as at least in part a protected area, but that's an exception that sort of proves the rule: it's run by the Forest Service, not the Park Service. Daniel Case (talk) 16:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Agree this is a real mixed-bag. In Pennsylvania, there are 26 NNLs, 7 of which are at least partly in state parks, many of the rest are in state forests (one of thse is a former state park), but some are privately held. Ruhrfisch><>°°04:30, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
No. I think the Appalachian Trail should be given NHL status someday (it would certainly set an unbreakable record for most states sharing a single NHL), but it's not, and while it goes through many protected areas and has an NPS-owned corridor in many areas where it doesn't it is not by itself a protected area.
some of the above categories/their articles are also included in the templates found in Category:Protected areas templates. Should they be included or not?
Thank you for opening this topic here. I further would like to know if the IUCN or anyone else has compiled a list of protected areas. It seems somewhat inappropriate to apply "original research" thinking in determining whether a given site qualifies under the IUCN definition or not. In wikipedia I have mostly worked on articles on U.S. National Historic Landmarks, where it is unambiguous: there is a list of the sites which have receieved the designation and there are documents and webpages to source from. "Protected areas" seems not to be a proper noun term though, and the determination of which areas are protected and which are natural or not seems to me to involve an uncomfortable degree of of personal judgment, if wikipedians rather than some external source is making the determination. doncram (talk) 22:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I think doing the merger and developing the list-table with pictures and perhaps some short description, perhaps like sortable, illustrated List of National Historic Landmarks in South Carolina or other NHL list-table articles, would be worthwhile.
I guess I would merge into the 2004-created one, to preserve its somewhat longer edit history, and eventually redirect from the other one. doncram (talk) 17:25, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
There's also List of U.S. National Parks by Elevation which is sortable already. I think i would not merge this one into the others, as it has plenty of material already in a specialized way, yet does not provide the general overview that could be provided in the merged table. doncram (talk) 17:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I guess i would use the description column in some cases to clarify what is protected by the national park, in any cases (not sure don't think there are any, among US National Parks) where it is a buildings with no natural areas. Even Hot Springs National Park, although it mostly features bathhouses, includes a natural area. doncram (talk) 18:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
William Howard Taft National Historic Site
An editor actively working on Ohio historic sites in WP:NRHP has gone ahead already and revised one of the National Historic Site articles, William Howard Taft National Historic Site, replacing the Protected areas infobox by the NRHP infobox. This is for a site within the city limits of Cincinnati, Ohio, that preserves the birthplace and boyhood home of U.S. President William Howard Taft. The site also has a Visitor Center, called the Taft Education Center that has offices, a National Park giftshop, and exhibits and film displays. I think this is just coincidence that the other editor did this just now, or perhaps he had seen mention of the new version of NRHP infobox that is designed to cover National Historic Sites, etc. Anyhow, I edited it to ensure that the NRHP infobox carries all the info that was in the Protected areas infobox (including visitation figure for 2005 and area asserted to be 3 acres). Here is the [previous version of the article from March 24] for comparison to current version.
I checked also in the search site of WDPA and find that the site is not listed there (although 32 other U.S. National Historic Sites are listed there).
This is an example of a type 1 situation, where there appears to exist no evidence this is a natural area, and the WDPA does not list it as a protected area, but our wikipedia work presented it as if it was a protected area. I believe the correct remedy is to replace the Protected areas infobox by the NRHP infobox (as was already done by the other editor), remove this site from WikiProject Protected areas, remove the Category:National Historic Sites of the United States from Category:Protected areas of the United States, and continue reviewing other NHS areas to see if any of them should otherwise be listed in Protected areas. And remove this site and other NHS's from the Ohio protected areas navbox.
New working table to review Protected area status of U.S. sites; to try updating WPDA
I've started Wikipedia:WikiProject Protected areas/ProtectedAreasUS to be a working table for review of U.S. protected areas, to cover areas that meet and/or have been asserted to meet definitions for protected areas, such as by listing in WPDA or in wikipedia "Category:Protected areas".
Type 2a: Washington Monument is not natural but is WPDA-listed. WPDA error. Wikipedia lists as a PA (of IUCN Type II: Natural Monument).
Type 2b: Crailo is not natural but is WPDA-listed. WPDA error. This is a state historic site and a U.S. NHL, but not NPS-administered. Wikipedia does not list as a PA.
Type 4: Acadia National Park includes natural area and is listed by WPDA and is categorized by wikipedia as a PA.
I note that search screens within the WPDA system state "If you are able to update, correct or provide protected areas information, please contact the protected areas programme." with link to protectedareas (at) unep-wcmc.org. I'd like to build out the table to identify a number of corrections to suggest to WPDA, then send a small batch of the most salient errors, and see how responsive they may be. doncram (talk) 18:36, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Revisiting NPS areas, dropping many of them from this WikiProject
I'm about ready to start revisiting articles on U.S. National Park Service areas to remedy the apparently incorrect categorization and description of some of them as protected areas. I believe that the right action to take is to remove any incorrect descriptions and to remove protected area category, and to remove these articles from WikiProject Protected areas. I'm posting here now to let WikiProject Protected areas members know, and to allow for discussion, and to see if others would help in this task.
Background: Per recent discussions above and some over in Talk page of WP:NRHP, it is clear that there are some National Park Service-administered areas that have historic importance but do not meet the definitions of protected areas. Some sites are merely buildings or memorial monuments that provide no protection to any natural environment. All of the List of areas in the United States National Park System areas were included in this WikiProject and, I believe, all of them carry Protect areas infoboxes. There are 391 National Park Service areas; this is very rough but I think about 100 to 200 are misidentified as being protected areas. I have noticed hidden comments in some of these articles by the original editors, to the effect that "this is not an officially listed protected area, but we think it is one", but with more information accumulated describing the sites it is clear now that some of those were misjudgments. And, some of the IUCN listed sites are clearly not environmental areas, too.
Modifications to the NRHP template have been developed which would support use of that template for infoboxes of National Historic Sites, National Monuments, etc. This has been developing here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places#Adjustments to accomodate National Monuments, National Historic Sites, etc. I would use this newly modified infobox and replace use of the Protected Areas infobox for sites that are historic only. For sites that are both historic and which also protect a natural area, I am not sure whether to have two infoboxes or whether to seek to create a combined infobox.
I would expect to proceed slowly, and could post here about some or all of the specific articles changed. I would appreciate very much if others would join in and help with this work. doncram (talk) 20:09, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with this entirely. The definition of protected area was left vague just to allow for the huge range of designation in a large number of countries. Providing a single type of infobox, etc. best serves the reader who see a consistent presentation. Otherwise you have to start dropping British national parks because people live in them and the land isn't government owned and African parks under tribal control, and Brazilian parks were visitors are not allowed entrance, etc. Not to mention that in two or three years Wikiproject Buildings will come and strip your infoboxes off some of your project articles but leaves it on Mount Rushmore, perhaps, - until Wikiproject White Marble comes along and strips that box off of Independendence Hall, ad infinitum. Besides you are proposing removing a large number of areas that are established specifically to protect an area of land under your own definition. Rmhermen (talk) 00:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Please don't over-react. I think you misunderstand me. Please don't peg me as simplistically fighting for one wikiproject's infoboxes against another, I am doing nothing of the sort.
It is my understanding that this WikiProject seeks to describe protected areas in the world, using the IUCN definitions of 7 categories (denoted Ia, Ib, II, III, IV, V, VI). All of these categories involve natural areas / the natural environment to some degree, and Category V: Protected Landscape/Seascape explicitly covers areas where people live such as you describe in Britain and Africa. In broad terms I think it is a great service that wikipedia can provide to help document what are protected areas. But the flip side, and also a service, is to document that some areas are not natural and/or are not protected. What i am addressing now, i am speaking of the 391 National Park Service administered areas in the U.S. Many of these are national parks and natural monuments that are protected areas according to IUCN definitions. Some of these are not, some are merely a building or a stone monument. Perhaps I mis-estimate the numbers, perhaps badly. But it does no service to the world to include protected areas that have nothing to do with the natural environment and fail to meet the IUCN definitions. For an extreme example, you would not want to include a Federal Reserve cache of gold in the basement of a building in New York City, that would be "highly protected" in some sense but it is nonsensical to call it a Protected Area in the sense meant by IUCN. It happens that some of the National Park Service-administered areas are sort of like that, they involve no natural environment at all, or effectively none, such as merely having a manicured lawn in front of a marble memorial monument. In the absence of better information a few years ago, I believe that the wikiproject chose to consider all U.S. National Park Service areas to be protected areas. Now, with better information accumulated on some of them, it is time to un-deem those that were incorrectly identified as natural areas. We can verify, using usual verification by secondary sources, whether specific sites are environmental areas or not, and whether they are protected or not.
I see four types that matter for this review of NPS articles within WP:PA. These are all protected by Federal government, and they have all been deemed to be protected (environmental) areas by the wikiproject. These include:
1. Sites that are not environmental areas and that IUCN itself does not recognize as protected areas (but wikipedia does, erroneously)
2. Sites that are not environmental areas that IUCN lists as protected areas (IUCN erroneous)
3. Sites that are verifiably environmental areas but that IUCN does not list.
4. Sites that are verifiably environmental areas and IUCN recognizes as such.
Of these, I want to remedy the first type by removing any of those from WikiProject Protected Areas (remove infobox, remove categories). About types 2 and 3 here, where IUCN's list has errors, I am not sure what to do. Perhaps work directly with IUCN for them to correct their errors, as I have worked with the U.S. National Park Service for the NPS to correct some errors. Type 4 is the hunky-dory one. doncram (talk) 03:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I guess i/we could start by tabulating the 391 sites and identifying in columns whether each is/is not a natural area, whether it is or is not listed by IUCN, whether it is listed by wikipedia as a protected area (all of these are listed by wikipedia I believe). doncram (talk) 03:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Rmherman, I do see in the history of a category renaming: Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category:National parks by country, that you were a major participant and leader on how to proceed, in 2005. And that Category:Protected areas by country is defined as: "This category is intended to encompass all national parks, reservations, protected nature zones, and the like. The terminology and meaning of these designations varies considerably from nation to nation." So I see that the definitions were left vague, and I expect that was probably the best way to proceed back then. I think you and others did a great job.
However, the meaning of National Park, National Monument, etc., does vary considerably within the United States even. While the legislation enabling the President to declare National Monuments may have been very clear in what kind of areas would get that designation, and that they would be natural-type areas, once the president had the power it has not been applied strictly in that way. None of five National Monuments in New York State appear to have any natural area to speak of, and definitely not African Burial Ground National Monument in downtown Manhattan, recently declared by President Bush. I think it is possible now to have a detailed article about every one of the National Monuments that includes a section or a sentence or two describing its inclusion of natural areas, which would be the basis for determining that some are not Protected areas in the sense described by IUCN and which is/was the adopted definition for this wikiproject. doncram (talk) 17:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
How to credit WP:PAREAS? WP:PAREAS the project and its members back in 2005-2006 or so really did great work creating articles, and the great Featured List List of areas in the United States Park System, started in 2002 was developed very much by them. Now, if a bunch of those articles like Jefferson Memorial are reviewed and found not to meet the IUCN's definition for protected areas, then it doesn't seem entirely proper to strip out all mention of WP:PAREAS. I don't want to confuse readers, and I want to remove all mention of IUCN and protected areas in articles about places that are really not protected areas. But, does WP:PAREAS want to keep those articles within WP:PAREAS by keeping the PAREAS template (or a variation of that template) on the Talk page? I wonder if a modified template should be created easily that would be shown on the Talk page, saying this article was created or developed by the WP:PAREAS project, although it has since been determined that the place is not a protected area / does not meet the PAREAS definition. The template could possibly also put the Talk page into a new "Category:PAREAS-created but not a protected area" or something that sounded better than that. Or, maybe this would be too concerned about trying to give credit, when no one cares about credit? I think i kinda do care about credit though, myself. Comments? doncram (talk) 00:01, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Jefferson Memorial
I visited the Jefferson Memorial article about a U.S. National Memorial which was described as an IUCN Category V (Protected Landscape/Seascape) site, and have tried replacing its Protected areas infobox by a NRHP2 infobox. The replacement infobox shows all the same information (and perhaps more), except for dropping the IUCN category V claim.
It was one of thosewith the hidden comment "Note: site is not listed in IUCN database, but appears to conform with Category V". I checked at WPDA, and it is not listed there, although 7 other sites are listed under U.S. National Memorials (Coronado, Fort Clatsop,
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania Co. Battle, Johnstown Flood, Lincoln Boyhood, Mount Rushmore, Wright Brothers).
The site is located on a tidal basin, but I believe its 18 acres are not a natural area. It is a landscaped area, but i believe it is not a Protected landscape in the sense of IUCN category V. So this is of type 1, not a protected area and not claimed by WPDA.
The replacement infobox is not as nice in some other respects. It is narrower and currently does not look as good on the page, especially for the reduced size of the included image. Also, it includes a map that is probably not helpful, in addition to the image. The Protected areas infobox included coordinates but did not display a map, I guess because of the included image. doncram (talk) 10:51, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I removed the map by blanking the locmapin parameter. There is an image_size parameter for infobox nrhp2 that can be set to any number to display the image at that width if needed. All of this is explained at Template:Infobox nrhp2/doc. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 16:51, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I didn't think there was a downside haha.. but people were complaining about it being there. I, personally think the map looked fine. The image below the infobox, though, needed to be moved to another place for aesthetic reasons. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 17:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks both of you for checking up on this! Thanks Dudemanfellabra for resetting the image size / infobox width and for removing the map. I do see now in the documentation that a blank in the locmapin option is explained as having the effect of removing the map. Not sure if the default option should be to show no map, even if coordinates are available; perhaps the default should be to show the USA map. Also, it could be clarified in the documentation that changing the image_size option will change the width of the entire infobox (at least for an increase? perhaps a smaller image would not narrow the infobox?).
About showing the map or not, I wanted first to match more closely what had been in the article, now accomplished. I think the map with locator pin would be informative, would add to the article. But, I would fairly strongly prefer to see it in Image, Information, Map order, rather than Image, Map, Information order. In fact if only the Image, Map, Information order is possible, i think that for this article, editorially/visually, I would forgo the map. doncram (talk) 20:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Most of the U.S. articles covering Protected Areas use a U.S. map if any. I've been thinking about adding a "locmapin" parameter to the infobox so that they can use the state maps used in the NRHP infoboxes. So I'm surprised that you said that perhaps the default should be a national map. Do you think most readers would prefer that over a state map (with USA insert)?--Appraiser (talk) 21:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Hmm. We have to separate what should be the default setting of "locmapin" for newly generated filled-out infoboxes coming from the Elkman NRHP infobox generator, vs. what should be the default display for infoboxes that have coordinates but no locmapin set. For the former, like you I do support that the default Elkman output should be locmapin set to the state (which now will also show the USA map as an inset). But if locmapin is blank, I sorta think that the default should be USA, I sorta think that is more natural and I kinda believe that is the current default for the current NRHP (not NRHP2) infobox. doncram (talk) 22:02, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
The code of the nrhp box (not nrhp2) is set up to automatically display a map when coordinates are given. There is no possible way to display coordinates without displaying a map unless a main image is present. The nhrp2 infobox allows you to display coordinates without displaying a map; that would be the entire purpose of disabling the map by leaving locmapin blank.
Okay, good to understand this as an advantage of NRHP2. Being able to have coordinates in place, without displaying maps, should be an option, is one more part of reason to undergo conversion / revision of the NRHP infobox when NRHP2 is thoroughly understood and documented.
If on any article, an editor does NOT want to display the map but DOES want to display coordinates, he/she couldn't do so if the parameter has a default value. The parameter can be SET to USA if one wants the national map to be displayed, but automatically DEFAULTING the parameter to USA forces the map to be displayed even when an editor may not want it to. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Well you would have to create an locmapin = NONE option (also allow locmapin= None or none or NO or no), to allow the user to suppress the map display. I am currently thinking that doing that, while setting the default (what happens when locmapin is blank or when locmapin is not even present) to USA would be the correct thing to do. doncram (talk) 22:40, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Eh.. well that's easier said than done. Here is the code to the locmapin section of infobox nrhp2:
As you can see, the locmapin parameter is not even handled by the nrhp2 infobox. It passes it on to Template:Location map. If locmapin was set to "NONE," "None," "none," "NO," or "no," it would trigger an error with that template. While there is a way (there's always a way) to allow for a locmapin = none option, the coding would be messy and hard to understand. That's one of the main reasons I hesitate to allow more than one order for the sections of the infobox as well. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 23:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
New category Category:IUCN protected area error
Antelope Valley poppies, photo from yesterday
I created new category Category:IUCN protected area error to label articles about sites that are, or appear to be, erroneously listed by WCPA in its World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA) as protected areas. See explanation of what the category is intended for (briefly to support correction of the WPDA, external to wikipedia, and to support data quality within wikipedia, e.g. by helping to prevent repeated erroneous additions to protected areas categories). So far it includes Washington Monument and Fort Crailo. doncram (talk) 19:04, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Hmm. Another maintenance category is needed for Type 3 sites, such as Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, which is a protected area but is not listed by WPDA. How about "Category:IUCN protected area omission" or "Category:WPDA omission"? Purpose would be to likewise support correction of the WPDA, and to support data quality within wikipedia (e.g. by supporting wikipedia eventual use of protected areas categories only where WPDA listed). doncram (talk) 18:17, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Guidance on crediting WP:PAREAS for creating articles. Request for Vote.
I edited another article that was created by WP:PAREAS, HA. 19 (Japanese Midget Submarine) to remove its Protected areas infobox and hence its categorization in IUCN Category V. It was a type 1 error situation, it was listed in wikipedia as a protected area but is not listed in WPDA. And it is a miniature Japanese submarine, used in the attack on Pearl Harbor, it is not a natural area, so I am sure that it is not a valid protected area.
However, this like many U.S. historic site articles was created by WP:PAREAS, and I do feel sorta bad to strip out all mention of WP:PAREAS. Is it desired to create a template to give/claim credit for WP:PAREAS to put on the Talk page of such articles, or should it remain in WP:PAREAS, or should all mention of WP:PAREAS be stripped from the article and talk page? Please comment / vote! doncram (talk) 19:14, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Technically, yes, it was sort of created as part of WP:PAREAS. At the time I made it, though, I'd not started WP:NRHP, which I think it's more appropriately part of. When creating the Florida stubs under WP:PAREAS, I had to often "guess" as to IUCN category. It matters not to me how credit is given. Share the love, I say. :) --Ebyabe (talk) 19:35, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Categories of protected areas in a given state
Background: See short discussion at Category talk:Protected areas of the United States, see definition given within "Category:Protected areas of New York", and see discussion far above in this Talk page about category naming.
It seems somewhat natural to want to break apart the category of Federally protected areas of the United States into state-specific categories, and also to add state-protected and perhaps also to add locally-protected areas within the states. However, the nature of what is a protected area is not clear. The Wikiproject Protected Areas display box visible at, among other places, Category talk:Protected areas of the United States is pretty clear that Protected areas of interest are those designated by national governments only. IUCN definition refers to nationally designated parks.
The "of" vs. "in" distinction was discussed in the context of U.S. National Historic Landmarks, when the "Category:National Historic Landmarks of the United States" had grown to about 1500 items out of a possible 2,430 or so. At first some categories like "Category:National Historic Landmarks of California" were created. But it was pointed out the NHL designation is "of" the nation, not "of" California, and these were switched to "Category:National Historic Landmarks in California" and the like.
But a list article or a category of "Protected areas in California" can be ambiguous. Does that include only Protected areas designated by the nation that are in California, or does it also include California-designated areas. I think that the should perhaps be divided explicitly between a category of "Protected areas of the United States in California" to cover the Federally-designated ones, and a category of "Protected areas of California" to cover the state-designated ones. Note, a list-article could easily include both a list of one type and then also a list of the other type, while category titles can't convey so much. But then I wonder if states can designate "protected areas". What is a protected area? In common usage, a protected area might be a building that has a security guard. There apparently is a formal usage in which "Protected areas" is a term defined by IUCN for nationally designated natural conservation areas. "Protected areas of California" is a term not in common use, however, so that we would be inventing a term if we created such a category. I think a category of "State parks of California" or "State parks in California" is fine, that is well-defined and we are not inventing anything. But i am currently not on board with either "Protected areas in California" or with "Protected areas of California". I would be inclined to support deletion of any such categories.
Perhaps the existing categories along these lines should be nominated for deletion, as the proper way to focus a discussion? I am afraid there might not be a quorum here in this Talk page, to get to any consensus. doncram (talk) 07:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Upon further investigation it appears that Protected area and Category talk:Protected areas of the United States cover only areas designated as Protected Areas as defined by the WCPA and the IUCN. A list of such sites is here [3]. Their focus seems to be mostly about natural habitat with the purpose of maintaining bio-diversity, although some historic sites, monuments, and recreational areas are on the list. Their definition is, "An area of land and/or sea especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or other effective means."[4] Because of this, the text in Protected area and Category talk:Protected areas of the United States should both be modified to clearly state that their scopes cover only sites on that list. Because the list doesn't cover our other categories comprehensively, I think the applicable articles will need to each have their own category. Due to the size, sub-categories by state would make sense. I'd suggest renaming these (Category:Protected areas templates) to use "In" instead of "Of", since the designation comes from an international group.
Although places such as cemeteries, burial grounds, battlefields, nhls, nrhps, lakes, rivers, streams, state parks, national parks, national forests, national wildlife areas, etc. are also somewhat protected from destruction or redevelopment, in order to avoid judgement by editors, we need to stick to WCPA's list and try to make sure that places omitted from their list are also omitted from the categories.--Appraiser (talk) 15:06, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I support Appraiser's opinion. When this project was started, there was some confusion over whether or not, say, National Historic Sites should be included, and the lack of provision for them elsewhere (at least in terms of an infobox; recently rectified by WP:NRHP) as well as their management by the park service led people to include them as protected areas.
The WCU's categorizations most definitely apply to PAs below the national level ... I saw a list once that included the category for every U.S. state PA; that's how I was able to apply Category V to the Catskill and Adirondack parks here in New York. I think it's pretty easy ... any site protected primarily for ecological reasons is a protected area; sites protected primarily for historical reasons are not. There are some, like the aforementioned Adirondack Park, that have official designation for both reasons. They can be included if and only if they have both official designations. Daniel Case (talk) 16:14, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Thank u both for providing more background and pointer to the http://www.unep-wcmc.org/wdpa/ World Database on Protected Areas. Theoretically it would be very satisfactory to rely upon the determinations of such an official designation list. However, I browsed in that database and find it is not satisfactory for wikipedia reliance, at the state/local level. At that URL, click on "Search for sites", select search by country, select United States, it gives a list of "National designations" categories starting with "Aquatic Parks", and including "Historic sites", "National Historic Sites", and "State Historic Sites". The "Historic sites" category includes 42, which when I look at them their names leap out to me as being very New York State oriented. Then select, say, "Crailo" and drill down to its "WPDA Site Details", and you see the information source is "Previous Source: NY Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, 1991", and you see that the WDPA is in fact unaware of the nature of the site, there are not sufficient details available for them to know whether this is a valid protected area for their own database. This site in fact is Fort Crailo, the Yankee Doodle House article which I created and added a HABS pic for, which is a building in an urban area and is not a natural preserve. According to this source, the majority of the 42 so-called "Historic Sites" in the United States are among the 37 New York State Historic Sites. It just looks like an amateur/volunteer found his/her way to the NYS OPRHP and entered those in. Note the "State Historic Sites" category has just 2 entries. The database appears haphazard, and is unaware of NHLs and NRHPs. It just looks to me that the WPDA list is not mature / accurate enough to use as basis for determining protected areas. This is in contrast to the use of the NHL list in the United States, and the NRIS system, to determine which are NHLs and NRHPs for wikipedia. Although I am aware that some NHL program webpages have some content errors (and I keep a list of these and correspond with the NHL program about them), they are stable with respect to the determination of which sites are NHLs. This WPDA database does not appear to be comprehensive or stable. So, while I think that publicizing protected areas and the WDPA's efforts may be noble endeavors, it appears that the WPDA needs staff or volunteers to work on its database, before it would be appropriate for wikipedia to rely upon it. doncram (talk) 18:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps in fact the WDPA would welcome volunteer participation, and several of us could in fact help them a lot. They might be responsive. By the way, I did obtain some response from the NHL program, which recently corrected the 3 most egregious errors in NHL webpages that I had called to their attention. The 3 fixes addressed the only 3 issues of site mis-identifications that I was aware of, and which indeed were the most important to address. Perhaps the NHL program is not staffed for it, or for other reasons, but they did not choose to make corrections for other errors of fact within the content for specific sites which I had pointed out. The WPDA could perhaps be more responsive and/or could open up access to one or more of us, if we wanted to help them. And then eventually in wikipedia we could rely upon an updated WPDA database. Perhaps we should test them by providing specific feedback regarding the historic sites which ought to be deleted from their database. But this all underlines the fact that "protected area" is not a well-defined term, not even by the WPDA, at the state/local level. Since "protected area" is not a term that is generally understood by the public, and since there appears to be no appropriate official list of protected areas, I think it is not appropriate to use wikipedia to try to educate the public about them. My neighbor's yard is a protected area, in that it has some square footage and it is protected by a big and mean dog. For wikipedia purposes, there's no more or less validity to that yard being a protected area than the natural conservation areas that IUCN would like to know about, but does not in fact know about or determine in a systematic way. So in my view lists and categories of state parks are okay for wikipedia, but not lists or categories of protected areas. doncram (talk) 18:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
It seems there is more disconnect that should be resolved. Protected areas of the United States is written to include many types of protected areas besides IUCN-designated ones, whereas Protected areas is not. Then there are many levels of categories on the same topic, some of which include protected areas outside of the IUCN ones, such as Category:Botanical gardens in Florida. Like Don, I also found errors in the WDPA database pretty quickly (it says that Fort Knox (Maine) is in Vermont). If the IUCN/WDPA does not have an accurate master list, then there's no way we should restrict Wikipedia's definition of "Protected Area" to include only IUCN sites. I have seen infoboxes using the various categories list in Category:IUCN Protected Area infobox templates. I wonder where contributors are getting their information. Lot's of work to be done...--Appraiser (talk) 19:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Browsing in the IUCN wikipedia article and then the IUCN's webpages, i wonder if a person named Kevin Wheeler is the person to aim to contact, via the CEC email address. See Kevin Wheeler's message as Chair of the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication. It would seem to me that their cooperating with a bunch of wikipedians to improve their database would be compatible with their mission and their operation by decentralized, volunteer networks. On our side, for it to be appropriate for wikipedia to cover the IUCN designated protected areas, we would want / there would have to be some regular or occasional process for IUCN / CEC to change update its database according to new information we wikipedians identified, both for additions of IUCN-protected area-eligible sites and for subtractions of inappropriately identified sites. We could possibly define Category:IUCN-recognized Protected Areas (IPAs), Category:eligible for IUCN recognition as Protected Areas (IPA-eligibles), a Category:apparently inappropriately IUCN-recognized Protected Areas (IPA-errors). The process for the IUCN would occasionally accept the 2nd category items and drop the 3rd category items in their database. If we had contact and there was some commitment on the part of IUCN / CEC to cooperate in this way, I would be more on board about supporting categories on "protected areas". I think we would need to coin a new term "IUCN-recognized Protected Areas" (IPAs) or some other proper noun, instead of using "protected area" which could just be my neighbor's yard, though. Would y'all want to make some such proposal and become "CEC members"? We could be among their thousands of supposed experts involved, and in fact we are pretty good at what we do, digging out basic facts about places and documenting them. doncram (talk) 20:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
That sounds a lot like WP:Original Research. The IUCN needs to tell us, in some form, which sites are "Protected Areas". If they don't have a list, then we have no references to support or deny a site's classification.--Appraiser (talk) 20:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I think the database of the IUCN might possibly be a pretty good list of protected areas, but just not be very good when it verges over into sites that are protected primarily for their history, such as the New York State Historical Sites. Also, it is understandable that the IUCN and the Wikiproject:Protected areas wikipedia editors could be misled by U.S. designation of National Monuments that are inconsistent with the original intended purposes of the U.S. Antiquities Act. Perhaps it would take just a little effort to help them out. Providing information to them would be outside of wikipedia. But if they then updated their database, it would then be their list of protected areas, and we in wikipedia could rely upon it in articles and lists. It could be termed WP:Original research if we determined a site was IPA-eligible and then said in an article that it was. But if we determine a site is IPA-eligible, and we tell IUCN, and they agree and put it on their list, then I think it is okay to say in an article that the site is an IPA (because then it is), and there is no original research problem with that. Perhaps there could be a conflict of interest type of issue construed with being involved with them that way, but I personally don't see a COI problem. I think it would be like our "involvement" with the National Park Service on NHL sites. We mainly rely upon the NPS to determine what is a NHL or not, and we request and use their documents and databases. Where their systems have errors, we are free like other citizens to report those errors to the NPS, and we are entitled to state in articles that the NPS has made errors. By the way, my running list of errors in NPS systems is here. And if the NPS makes corrections, then great, and we update our wikipedia articles. I don't see a fundamental problem with planning to give info to the IUCN and then to rely upon their updated database. What else can we do? I don't see any other good alternative. doncram (talk) 18:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
If we are simply informing IUCN of errors and omissions (similar to what we've done for the NPS), I think that's OK. But how do you know if a site is IPA-eligible?--Appraiser (talk) 20:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Partly, we just use their definitions and our wikipedia articles describing sites and common sense. Daniel Case seems to be very sure about knowing which are IPA-eligible sites in his area of New York State and surrounding states; Ruhrfisch author of the List of Pennsylvania state parks and various articles on U.S. natural landmarks would be very knowledgeable about Pennsylvania sites, and so on. We can make some obvious determinations already, like that Fort Crailo does not meet any of the IUCN category definitions, and that some U.S. National Monuments meet the IUCN definition for national parks, some U.S. National Monuments meet the IUCN definition for natural monuments, some U.S. National Monuments do not meet any IUCN criteria. We correspond with IUCN about the obvious cases of omissions and errors, first. If they have training materials on how to determine what is a protected area, like the National Park Service has its big PDF document on determining NRHP eligibility (linked at the National Register of Historic Places article), then we get that, and we can then make solid determinations for many more cases. If they have some staff who can be directed to assist us, we put some questions to them about cases in gray areas, and we (and they) learn as we go. We put our working guidelines into WikiProject Protected Areas pages, and we talk here. Mostly we just do as we always do, which is write up descriptions of parks and sites and ships and districts and so on into wikipedia articles, using our guidelines and principles of notability and verifiability and no original research and so on. Does anyone else see this could work? I am inclined to start by creating trial categories for IPA-designated, IPA-probably-eligible, and IPA-probable-errors. :) doncram (talk) 21:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Per Appraiser suggestion above, and endorsement by others, could all the categories of protected areas in the US, at least, be renamed from "of" any location to being "in" the location?
Also change corresponding "National Forests of ____", "National Monuments of ____", "Wilderness Areas of ___", and any other similar categories within any of the "Protected areas of STATE" categories. National Monuments and National Forests are properly capitalized i believe. However, is Wilderness Area a formal name, or should it be changed to "Wilderness areas in ____", with lowercase "areas"?
Per the following discussion subsections, at WP:CFD, I put up a proposal to rename 80 to 100 renames of Protect areas, Bird and Wildlife sanctuaries, National Monuments, National Forests categories. doncram (talk) 20:44, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Rename categories "of" Australia, Canada, India, United Kingdom all other countries
It was pointed out in discussion of the ongoing Categories-For-Discussion that the renaming of all the protected areas "in" a given US state to "of" the state would cause inconsistency with the categories "of" the 53 or so other nations, and some subcategories. I notice that Australia, Canada, India, UK have the most development. I am expanding the CFD to cover renames of all of these from "of" to "in" names. doncram (talk) 01:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Rename "National parks of __country__" to "National Parks of __country__"
Related cleanup, also being added to the CFD. For National Parks, they are designated by the nation, so they are "of" the nation. But, they are proper noun National Parks. "National parks" is perhaps ambiguous, could possibly be interpreted mean parks in the nation. As cleaning up the rest, this change should be formalized too. doncram (talk) 01:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Relatedly, I contend that the term "National park" is not a valid term for wikipedia, and I wish to revise and rename numerous related articles: national park, List of national parks, List of national parks in Africa, List of national parks of Algeria, etc., etc. I don't want to be contentious, but this is taking a lot of time to clean up on the protected areas categories, and now I see that the National park categories and List-articles seem also to need serious clean-up. Personally, I am accepting the somewhat informal term "protected area" as a wikipedia-coined phrase, used lightly by the IUCN. However, the article on national parks put forward that coined phrase and i do not believe it should be acceptable for use in Wikipedia. doncram (talk) 20:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Wilderness areas in ___?
There exists List of U.S. Wilderness Areas, a list of the proper noun Wilderness Areas designated (and owned?) by the US government. There also exists List of U.S. state and tribal wilderness areas, lower case. Should the categories be converted from inclusion of just the Federal ones, to also include the state and tribal ones? Or maybe they are mixed up already. Perhaps general categories "Wilderness areas in ____" would be best. I am not familiar with these, some comment by someone with some knowledge would help. doncram (talk) 16:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I guess i am inclined to go with calling them all Wilderness Areas, capitalized, whether designated by the U.S. or a state or local government. To differentiate vs. just any old wilderness area, that is out there without any designation or protection. I will rename the state and tribal list article to reflect this, and make similar changes. Thanks for listening... :) doncram (talk) 18:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Request all the renames as noted, except for where the "from" category does not exist.
Articles covered by WikiProject / admin issues
I notice that some articles like Wilderness area have no wikiproject, and I am adding {{Messagebox protected areas}} to that. I wonder if the wikiproject article count could be included in the main page of the wikiproject, and if a brief campaign to tag articles of / for the wikiproject is needed? Related questions:
Click here for a bot-updated list (i.e. not real-time) that also includes stats about Category-, Disambig-, File-, Redirect-, Template-, and NA-Class articles.
Is this wikiproject not part of Version 1.0, not that i really understand what that is?
In my view, yes, they fit in. I think it would be helpful to ensure that the overview article describes their nature, but I would understand them to be a) areas preserving natural features and/or biodiversity, and b) protected legally by a government or through other effective means, so yes. It helps also to focus on whether they are considered by IUCN, through the associated WPDA, to be protected areas. In fact, many of them are actually listed in the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA). 64 "conservation areas" and 353 "conservation authority areas" are listed for Canada there.
I think the whole category Category:Conservation areas in Ontario should included within Category:Protected areas of Canada, so I am adding it now. Category-wise, then, you don't need to add each Ontario conservation area article to the protected areas categories, they are now included. However, please do add the Wikiproject Protected Areas to the Talk page of the article.
And, it still helps if you check each one to see if it is listed in WPDA. If you come across Ontario conservation areas that are clearly protected areas by above definition, but not listed in the WPDA, please add the article to the new wikipedia category:IUCN protected area omissions. When we collect a certain number in that category, we can consult with IUCN/WPDA and eventually get them to update their database. By the way I notice that Spencer Gorge / Webster's Falls Conservation Area, the one of five parks of the Hamilton Conservation Authority areas that has a wikipedia article, is one that is in fact listed in the WPDA. doncram (talk) 18:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I've downloaded a copy of the IUCN World Database on Protected Areas so I could check to see whether Wikipedia's IUCN categorizations are correct in all of those protected area infoboxes. (I was interested after a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places.) After a fair amount of database manipulation, I think I'm finally to the point where I can do some cross-referencing of articles in Category:IUCN Category V versus what's actually in the IUCN database for Category V. (Or other categories, but I'm looking at V first.)
As others would probably expect, I'm finding Wikipedia articles erroneously listed in IUCN Category V when they aren't listed in the IUCN database. I'm also finding areas that are in the IUCN database that have Wikipedia articles, but their articles here aren't in their IUCN category. These deviations happen pretty often with state parks. For example, Bear Head Lake State Park is in Category:IUCN Category V, while Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park is not.
Should I continue this analysis so we can properly categorize articles that are in the IUCN database and decategorize the articles that aren't? Are other people interested in the results of this analysis? It's been a little time-consuming so far to do this cross-referencing, though there might be ways to make it easier. I'm just wondering if the IUCN categories are meaningful enough to most people that it's worth my time to do this work. --Elkman(Elkspeak)05:37, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
This is an interesting exercise you're doing. It may even be of some interest to the World Commission on Protected Areas?. In some ways it may be that you/Wikipedia are not only bringing IUCN database and Wikipedia categories into line with each other .. but you may also be effectively testing the adequacy of the IUCN database's current coverage!!. As I understood it, the IUCN ideal/ original charge was to endeavour to identify, list, and categories ALL the world's protected areas - to enable international comparisons, and prescribe more standardised management practices? Bruceanthro (talk) 14:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Good idea, and nice start. I note that it includes a field for National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) date, and wonder if that is deliberate or if it just survived accidentally. Perhaps you adapted part of this template from the NRHP or NRHP2 template? I am not aware if National Natural Landmarks are automatically listed on the NRHP, as i know National Historic Landmarks are.
There may be some overlap between National Natural Landmarks and NRHPs however, which if significant could justify some consideration of a combination template. As has been considered and/or developed somewhat for Ships / NRHP and for lighthouses / NRHP combo templates. But it is good to start, as you do here, with a template clearly designed to handle the majority of non-overlap cases.
Hmm, there is an obvious overlap between Protected Areas and National Natural Landmarks. The NNLs should probably all be listed by IUCN as PAs (although I am sure they are not yet all listed). For sites which are both IUCN-listed PAs and NNLs, what is the intention for infobox use? Could use both infoboxes, a combo infobox, or just one, or neither, i suppose those are all the permutations. Anyhow, there is a clear usefulness of this template on its own. doncram (talk) 19:39, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Oh, for this NNL template, there are some features used in NRHP or NRHP2 templates that are worth including:
Coordinates (latitude and longitude), and
map, for display of location using locmapin field that selects whether to use USA or a state or other map
Note, the newer NRHP2 template allows for display of both a photo and a map, while NRHP does not. The editor can choose to suppress map display by leaving locmapin field blank.
Also, can you edit some example articles using the proposed template, and link them here? Currently there appear to be no NNL articles, or even sandbox versions, that link to the suggested template. doncram (talk) 19:47, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
To answer the first question - yes, I did deliberately leave the bit about the NRHP in; I know there are a few, and I thought it would be worth keeping that in there.
Hmm, i browsed in List of National Natural Landmarks to find an example or two. I find there is a nice Protected Areas infobox at Snyder Middleswarth Natural Area, which shows it is a NNL, as a local designation. It includes coordinates and map. It would be nice to add to it the NNL designation date if that is available, then maybe it would have every field in your version (and many more). Maybe there is not a clear need for a separate NNL infobox. doncram (talk) 08:59, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
I think that the Geobox as seen at Snyder Middleswarth Natural Area can be used in place of creating a new template. Doncram mentioned being able to add the NNL designation date to that template. That can easily be done with the parameter "established" and "established_type". In the Snyder example, it's using the parameter to show its founded. If a NNL designation date can be found it could be added with "established_1 = the date" and "established1_type = NNL Designation" Hope that helps in the discussion of how best to address NNL templates. VerruckteDan (talk) 15:23, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
I am the main author of Snyder-Middleswarth Natural Area and have been thinking about making a nav box for National Natural Landmarks and state Natural Areas in Pennsylvania. One problem with National Natural Landmarks is that they tend to also be in other designations. So in Pennsylvania, several NNLs are also in or contain state parks, several are also state natural areas, others are also private protected areas, and as has been pointed out, they can also be on the NRHP. I like the Geobox too, but whatever is chosen should be able to accomodate all of the possible other designations. Another thought - what about NNLs that are part of larger units or articles? For exmaple Gull Point NNL is part of Presque Isle State Park. The Presque Isle SP article, which is already an FA, has a substantial section on Gull Point NNL. The Presque Isle article would be gutted without the Gull Point material, so I really don't see a separate article on it (and to confuse matters more, Gull Point is also a PA state natural area). Ruhrfisch><>°°17:15, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Protected areas infobox
I have adjusted the templates that now permit images, maps and a UN World Heritage date recognition into the infoboxes used on a vast majority of project related pages. There is apparently some disagreement, perhaps ongoing, as to the use of a second infobox which details the World Heritage information for those protected areas that have been so designated. A sort of discussion is commencing here at this link...all members might want to voice their opinions regarding this matter. I feel that the addition of the World Heritage infobox simply adds more clutter but others may feel differently.--MONGO05:41, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Hi there. I 've made a suggestion to several editors who edit national park articles in Africa that is would a good idea to set up a task force to specifically improve coverage in coordination with WikiProject Africa. If you are interested in joining please sign your name and leave a note if possible.
This article includes claim that there are 24 National Parks in the NYC area; it is my understanding that not one of the U.S.'s 58 National Parks is in the NYC area. Some input to the article or its talk page would be helpful. doncram (talk) 18:32, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Just a quick correction, the article does not say that. What it says is the same that NPS does, "the ten national parks and 23 historic sites" TravellingCari20:55, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Consistent capitalization of plant and animal names
Several months ago, an editor changed Template:Protected Areas of Oregon to be sorted by region instead of by type of park. I personally don't think the template is particularly useful when sorted this way, but no consensus was reached and a short straw poll solved nothing. Because there was stubborness and bad behavior involved, nothing was resolved and people stayed away from the discussion, so I'm hoping some fresh eyes could look at the problem. I won't be adding anything else to the discussion because my opinion is already quite clear, but I'd like to hear from others who have broader experience across the project as far as these kind of templates. Relevant discussion is on the template's talk page, further discussion took place at Talk:List of Oregon state parks, and the WikiProject Oregon talk page. I'd recommend further discussion take place on the template talk page. Thanks a lot! Katr67 (talk) 22:40, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Death Valley National Park has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:52, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Proposal to rename many "protected areas" categories
It is a little more than half the minimum size needed for DYK, and if there is a chance for it to appear on Saturday, additional quality text needs to be added in next day. Kablammo (talk) 22:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Dunno, but it seems remotely possible somebody here might be interested in trying to save an article of potential interest to hikers in North America and elsewhere.
Wilderness Diarrhea is getting merged into Travelers Diarrhea by a couple of zealots who seem to have no concept of outdoor interests and a narrow, clinical orientation toward medicine.
I get around a lot in the outdoors and rarely treat water, but WD article had some good stuff.
After a couple of weeks of calm discussion, I went ballistic and no longer want to participate. Rational voices might help.
These guys have irrationally convinced themselves that WD isn't a legitimate topic for a Wikipedia article.
I've pointed out several bomb-proof arguements to no avail. I'd say the strongest is the rather vast number of published articles that discuss WD as a separate concern from TD. They are both environmental health topics, and obviously the context of each are far different.
Just thought I would give you guys a heads up on some issues regarding protected areas in Florida namely National Wildlife Refuges. The infoboxes showed these parks under the direction of the National Park Service, and I changed it to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. There might be more like this even outside of florida so just watch to make sure. Best of Luck -Marcusmax (talk) 16:20, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Bryce Canyon National Park
Bryce Canyon National Park has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 21:47, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Are maps to be considered primary or secondary sources?
As said in the formatting section for level 4 article, (i.e ones that are directly about a protected area), a map locator has to be included. However for my article Kamchia Biosphere Reserve I need a locator which works for Bulgaria. Is it possible for someone to direct me to, (or otherwise create), a locator for Bulgaria? I would be very grateful, and it would also benefit many other articles which can be located on a map.--P.Marlow (talk) 20:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
I have nominated Zion National Park for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Cirt (talk) 03:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Requested moves that may interest project members
A number of related articles, some of which tagged as being within the remit of this project, have been nominated for a name change which involves changing the capitalization scheme used. They are:
(the links point to the discussion of the requested moves.) Members may wish to comment on the requests both for and against the proposed moves. I'm not sure where else notices could be posted to get as wide a discussion as possible, both for and against the requests), and so would appreciate people identifying appropriate projects and posting similar messages there. DDStretch (talk)09:04, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
In discussion at wt:NRHP, User:Dmadeo recently stated: "I've broken out the state lists into separate articles and I've worked through the List of National Natural Landmarks in New York into as complete a list as I can make it. It's a good example of where I think we can get all of the state lists to and with just under 600 of them nationwide, it's not as imposing as what we've already done. One important todo is to modify the nrhp2 template to support NNL's as well. Besides that, it's all about the articles as usual. The NPS has provided a handy map of all NNLs.
Me, I totally support working on the list of National Natural Landmarks, and i even went out of my way to take a pic of one of the NY NNLs on Dmadeo's list recently, but i think the topic falls more naturally within the domain of Wikipedia:WikiProject Protected Areas, aka wp:PAREAS. Could we modify the Protected Areas infobox, instead? I suggested moving/continuing this discussion at wt:PAREAS, so came here. doncram (talk) 05:43, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Dmadeo, does the PA infobox that i inserted into the first article on your NY NNL list serve your needs? What other fields would you like to have, if any? doncram (talk) 07:04, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
proposed change Protected Areas template for article Talkpages
Adding "WikiProject Protected Areas" to the Talk pages of articles puts a nice template box on the page, with a nice photo and so on, but the text seems outdated. The current text reads "This article is part of WikiProject Protected Areas, a WikiProject related to national parks and other protected areas worldwide. It may include the protected area infobox."
I suggest dropping the last sentence which has no information value: the article either has an infobox, which will be observed by the reader, or it does not.
I suggest otherwise changing it to provide some clarification about what are protected areas, meaning that they deal with environmental or ecological sanctuary and do not cover protected historic sites like buildings with no natural features whatsoever. I suggest: "This article is part of WikiProject Protected Areas, a WikiProject related to national parks and other protected natural or ecological areas worldwide."
I've been working on an update for {{Infobox Protected area}}. You can find it at User:Droll/template sandbox. A test page is at User:Droll/tests. The updated version is based on the meta-template {{Infobox}} which will make this version much easier to maintain. More information on changes make can be found on the test page. In brief there are new fields related to photos that will make it unnecessary to use the current kludge and alternate field names for the map fields that are less ambiguous. In general the changes will be transparent to editors who are not in favor of change and no learning curve will be necessary. No changes to articles that currently use the template will be required. The update is completely backward compatible.
Please fell free to experiment with the this sandbox. Changes will be revered periodically. If you wish to experiment with the template please setup your own sandboxes as others will want to evaluated the current version.
I started working on this because I like the appearance of the current template with the exception of where the IUCN field ends up when both a photo and a map are displayed. I also didn't like the workaround for a photo. I did like the way coordinates are parsed. I hope in the future to find a means of eliminating the need of the x and y coordinates and simply derive that information from the geo coordinates. That will take some fast talking with the powers that be if its to be done right. If this update is accepted then I'll start work on that.
It cannot be implemented until a minor change is made to the meta-template. If there is no concensis for the change to the meta-template I will still be able to proceed but it will require kludging.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Any support on the for the change to the meta-template at Template_talk:Infobox#Request for new fields would be even more appreciated.
There is no rush about this. I've been working on the update for quit a while and have learned a great deal in the process. If consensus is not reached then I still be happy but there are some good features in the update including better control of vcard fields.
I am trying to look this over. It seems very good that you are taking an interest here, and there is definitely room for improvement.
To clarify, am I correct that your main changes are to revise the use of image= and caption= fields, which have often/usually been used to show just a map, to enable showing a photo instead or in addition? Your test page mentions allowing "the addition of a photo without resorting to a kludge." What is that kludge, could you perhaps point to an example using it?
Instead of the image= and caption= fields, you provide map=, map_caption=, photo=, and photo_caption= to allow for both. I note u mention that your version provides backward compatibility, allowing image= and caption= still to be interpreted as the map= and map_caption= fields. Are those really just two image fields, which you could use to show 2 photos, i wonder, or is the first one really different. I suppose that it interacts with the locator_x and locator_y fields too. Offhand, I would tend to want to use the image= and caption= fields to refer simply to a photo, and to provide other means to display a map. (Actually i don't understand use of the locator_x and locator_y fields, to start with. Are the x and y percentage values on a 0-100 scale, which post a dot on the (map) image displayed? If so, the values are useful only for that image, have no general validity, unlike use of latitude and longitude coordinates. It would seem better to have users get actual coordinates of more general usefulness.) See alternative treatment of image and map in the similar template:infobox NRHP, for U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The NRHP one uses image= and caption= fields for a photo, and it displays a map if coordinates are given and if the locmapin= parameter is not blank. The locmapin parameter allows user to choose a USA map or a state or other region map. There's extensive good documentation about the NRHP infobox. I've also asked the most active editor/programmer of the NRHP infobox to comment here. doncram (talk) 18:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for your interest. The major difference will be ease of maintenance. The map= (image=) field is associated with the locator_x= and locator_y= fields. The photo= and photo_caption= fields are exclusively for photos and are independent of the map= (image=) field. The template {{superimpose}} is used interanally by the current template and the updated version to superimpose the marker on the map. It requires x and y coordinates so it knows where to place the marker. You can still use the image= field to display a photo as this is required for backward compatibility. So photo= displays an photographic image in and map= displays the map. This will be the documented implementation. I don't understand how locator_x and locator_y are calculated. I've asked but no one answered. It is not a percentile scale it is a pixel value which creates a technical problem but that is beyond the reach of this discussion.
You could display two images (photos) by using both photo= and image= (map=) but that is not the intended use and but this cannot change in the foreseeable future. It is a sort of undocumented feature. In general undocumented features are best not used, So don't tell anyone. :-) (Actually I'm trying to figure out a way to eliminate the need for these values if geo coordinates are given.) It would be my preference that the image= and caption= fields are not used from here on as they are ambiguous in the new context. They probably will not even be documented. They should remain strictly for backward compatibility.
Actually the reason I started my update project using this template is because of the way it displays the marker. The way {{Infobox NRHP}} and {{Infobox Mountain}} do it precludes the use of the {{coord}} template by the editor if a map is used although it is used internally. There should be a easier way. That will be one of my future projects.
Here is a link to kludge. Sorry I used the word. It is a term of art in the programing community. In the case where both on photo an a map are displayed using the current template, the required this code:
| name = Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park<br>[[Image:Dry Island Provincial Park2.jpg|center|280px|Panoramic view]]
That is a kludge. It requires the editor to use a field in a way that was not originally intended. It also breaks a polity at WP:ACC.
Again thanks for the interest. Now I'm going to start working on new documentation for the template. It will not be that much differnt than the existing documentation. Any further questions or requests would be appreciated. --droll[chat]01:57, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
New template
I created a new meta-template, {{infobox2}}, which can be used to update the template for this project as well a other projects. It is mostly intended for projects that include images as well as maps in there infoboxes. This does not mean that I am about to change {{Infobox protected area}}. It is just preparation for a future possible update. I placed the {{Messagebox protected areas}} on the template's discussion page. --droll[chat]07:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
This infobox2 is very general, is not specific to WikiProject Protected areas, as you note. Is this being discussed at some more appropriate general forum? There must be such a place, for those with technical/programming expertise to discuss possible changes to many infoboxes, although I am not aware of it. This is not the forum for it, though. It's too much to ask of those interested primarily in Protected areas, for us to have perspective about very general template programming issues. Indeed I would hope we could rely upon consensus among experts elsewhere, at that more appropriate forum, for us to consider appropriateness of implementing such general changes to the Protected areas infobox used here. doncram (talk) 18:37, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
The update will not prelude the use of {{Geobox}}. I don't personally like it for technical reasons but whatever works for you. :-). I am reluctant to start a discussion at WikiProject Infoboxes. It appears to me that this template belongs to this project and people here have the right make this determination. I am relatively certain that there are no technical errors in the update. I am confident that it can be implemented transparently. If someone else wishes to start a discussion there I will be more than willing to join in. --droll[chat]02:19, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Updated version
An updated version of this template is now complete. I will wait a few days more before I change the current template. There are a few changes I am considering. This change should be by consensus of course. Editors are encouraged to take a look at the new template and its documentation which and be found in the sandbox at Template:Infobox Protected area/sandbox. Test cases which compare output from the original template and the updated version can be found at Template:Infobox Protected area/testcases. The updated template is based on a meta-template {{Infobox2}}. If you read this I hope you can contribute to the discussion. I have spent a lot of time on this project and I think the results are very good if I do say so myself. --droll[chat]11:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
Today I updated the infobox template for this WikiProject, {{Infobox Protected area}}, as there were no unfavorable comments. I don't anticipate any problems but if anyone notices anything let me know ASAP and I'll fix it. --droll[chat]19:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
Don't forget to read the new documentation. There are may new options and updates although the old syntax should work for the foreseeable future. --droll[chat]19:55, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I was one providing a positive comment at Talk page of the template. I just reformatted this talk page to combine several discussion sections into one, all about this template. doncram (talk) 20:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
It would be possible to set up the project's banner to provide assessments for the project, and, possibly, for the various related projects and groups, thus saving a bit of talk page space. The down side is, given my own admittedly less than perfect abilities at banners, I haven't yet found a way to incorporate two images in the banner and still allow assessments. Would the members of this project like to see the project's banner adjusted to provide assessments, and, if yes, would you want to set up the banner like either Template:WPMILHIST or Template:ChristianityWikiProject to include separate assessments for the other groups dealing in essentially the same areas? John Carter (talk) 15:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure that there is enough participation in this project to make the assessments of the large number of articles. It is not something I am interested in myself and I must claim no skill at all in banner writing of that sort. Rmhermen (talk) 16:24, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Part of the problem with participation, in at least some instances, is not indicating which articles are weakest/strongest or most/least important. Regarding banner work, I can easily do it myself, but, if I were to do so, I would need to know some of the information I requested above. John Carter (talk) 16:41, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Please be advised that I am cleaning provincial parks of British Columbia out of the regional district categories in which they were mis-placed, and where necessary adding the proper geographic-region cat and/or mountain range/plateau cat where applicable. Provincial parks are no more classifiable by regional district than they are by electoral district; the provincial government's own resources classify them by [[|Land Districts of British Columbia|land district]] and BC Parks itself has its own regions, which are based on the traditional geographic regions (as are the RDs). See Category:Geographic regions of British Columbia and the subcats of Category:Interior of British Columbia and Category:Coast of British Columbia (those being the province's two main divisions geographically-speaking). Regional districts are governments and they do not have jurisdiction over, or relevance to, provincial parks. If anyone else feels like helping me cleanup the parks articles, and maybe add BCGNIS references and the many missing coordinates and location0-statmenets from them (most are stubs), please do - there are hundreds to go....Skookum1 (talk) 14:53, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
UNESCO uses "Band-E-Amir" and the AP uses "Band-e-Amir" (like BBC). Since this is all a transliteration, I am guessing that is the source of the differences. Ruhrfisch><>°°01:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
State Parks
I have noticed a need for an Infobox for State Parks. Besides the Infobox for Protected Area, I did find Template:Infobox_Park which is a good start but could use some expansion to cover more pertinent quick reference State Park fields, such as admission, hours/days/months of operation, website etc... Can someone here direct me to the best methodology to tackle this? EraserGirl (talk) 06:51, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think admission fee amounts and visiting hours should be in a wikipedia article about a park or museum, because it is not encyclopedic info and/or is directory-like, so I don't think those should be fields in an infobox. You can just include an external link to the website of the park / museum, for readers to go look up current information on fees and hours, instead. What's wrong with Template:Infobox Protected area, or what is it lacking that you'd like to include? It does include a field for a URL already. For one example, see: Big Spring State Forest Picnic Area, or others in List of Pennsylvania state parks. Can't the protected areas infobox work for you? If there are other needs, it can be amended. doncram (talk) 00:10, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks man, that's just great. That will do nicely - plenty of fields. I hope I can coax the Massachusetts State Parks into as nice shape. EraserGirl (talk) 01:34, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
Hi! I recently initiated major changes to Template:Protected Areas of California. This is the version before I tinkered with it. Anyways, it was suggested that this format be brought up as the standard for the "Protected Areas of..." series (found in Category:Protected areas templates). Myasuda said I might bring it up on the category talk page, but few very people watchlist or read talk pages of categories... I did some light searching and found this Wikiproject, and I thought I'd bring it up here.
California had the largest infobox out of all of the templates in that category, but I think that some of the other large templates in this category could use this sort of format as well. What do you guys think? Killiondude (talk) 04:55, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Currently there are a number of U.S. National Monument articles now having NRHP infoboxes when the NMs are not actually NRHP-listed. This stems from an editor's well-meant work to apply the NRHP infobox, I think for its nice features of image placement and its use of state-level maps, to replace the IUCN infobox which does not look very good. It is fine to use the NRHP infobox if the NM is NRHP-listed, as some are, but it adds incorrect categories and other incorrect info, if the NM is not an NRHP. Note also it should not be used if there is merely an NRHP-listed building or archeological site within a large NM. Perhaps all the NRHP infoboxes for non-NRHP places were added during March 2008, I am not sure yet. The giveaway is an NRHP infobox (which displays blue-colored "National Register of Historic Places" at top) which lacks NRHP listing date below, as in this recent version of article for Admiralty_Island_National_Monument.
The Geobox can include NRHP listing information, or not include it, per discussion section on #State parks, above. Reversion to old IUCN infoboxes or, better, conversion to good Geoboxes, is needed for all the non-NRHP-listed NMs. Also, the {{National Register of Historic Places}} template, if present below, should be dropped.
Cleanup needed on:
(going in alphabetical order by state)
Alaska: Admiralty_Island_National_Monument. NRHP stuff needs removal. Infobox removed/broken now. Geobox or other replaceement would improve.
Arizona: Hohokam Pima National Monument. NRHP infobox for the NM appears possibly incorrect. Combo article which covers NRHP-listed Snaketown with its own, separate, correct NRHP infobox. NRHP stuff needs removal. Infobox removed. Geobox or other replaceement would improve.
California: Carrizo Plain National MonumentNRHP stuff needs removal. Infobox removed/broken. Geobox or other replaceement would improve.
Utah: Cedar Breaks National Monument. NRHP stuff needs removal. Infobox removed. Geobox or other replaceement would improve.
As I go through checking the NMs, i am removing NRHP stuff where it is simple to do so, basically where no infobox change is needed, as for Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, without noting here. For many of these, though, upgrading from IUCN infobox would improve the article.
Help would be appreciated! --Doncram
What if we used {{Infobox Historic Site}} to show that the monument is a National Monument? Articles using this infobox aren't required to be listed on the NRHP, so the NRHP bar is not displayed by default. A geobox could serve the purpose as well, but Infobox Historic Site was created specifically for the purpose of covering sites that have historical designations other than being listed on the NRHP. I believe this infobox to be more suited for the cause. (P.S.: You didn't sign your post.. but I don't know how to do that for you haha or I would) --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:25, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Ah, thanks, i meant to sign. U can tell it is me, Dudemanfellabra, i think u know what i will write before i write it! :) About using the Historic sites infobox, couldn't that be misleading? I am not sure whether it would explicitly display anything for regular wikipedia readers stating that a given natural National Monument is a historic site, when it is not. It could be confusing for editors, who would tend to think it is a historic site because of the name of the infobox. I am not sure of other possible advantages of using the historic sites one (which i have used) vs. the geobox one (which i have not myself used). I was suggesting using the geobox one because in other discussion above it sounded like the best option. Since it can handle NRHP listing in optional fields, it would also be able to handle National Monument designation the same way. doncram (talk) 19:37, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Further, i don't imagine cleanup help is immediately forthcoming, so I am taking the expedient of striking the infobox entirely out of the articles. making a coarse edit towards making them geoboxes, but broken ones that display errors. I have a different cleanup campaign which I am trying to complete, and these NM article issues are a distraction that i have to deal with efficiently. The NRHP infobox, if present when it should not be, will cause a bot to take incorrect actions. Hopefully others will be motivated to re-create infoboxes for these articles. Sorry that stripping the infoboxes is all I feel i can do now. doncram (talk) 23:46, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
I think this was my mistake, in that I thought nmons were all on the register. Sorry. I really feel that we could combine a lot of these infoboxes, since I'd like one for national natural landmarks which are almost certainly not of the nrhp. dm (talk) 22:56, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
Cleanup to use Infobox Historic site
I don't currently think that the historic site infobox is appropriate for non-NRHP-listed U.S. National Monuments, but i do think it may be more appropriate than the NRHP infobox for the NRHP-listed ones which were National Monuments first. Any NMs listed on the NRHP on October 15, 1966, when the NRHP was started, were previously NMs, perhaps many decades before. For these ones, the NM designation is primary, and the Historic sites infobox can present that properly. (For others, which were NRHP-listed and perhaps also NHL-designated first, the NM designation is secondary and the NRHP infobox is probably still the best option, better than IUCN or Historic sites infoboxes.) doncram (talk) 19:57, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
I've created a more extensive article on the U.S National Parks that has been long overdue. I've been meaning to do something like this for a year now and I finally did it. I styled it like the national monuments page, which I really like. I love having a pic representing each park. I haven't written the intro yet or added sources, but I didn't use that many. I took the pics from Wikimedia Commons and the only source I used other than the Wikipedia articles was National Geographic's Guide to the National Parks of the United States. Could someone help me colorize the table's header, a la Nat'l Mon.? I wanted to add the Park Green used in the template but I couldn't figure out how to do it. There's still some work to do, but I'm hoping this will soon replace the drab, dreadful lists we have now (other than the elevation article, which is good). I've long felt that the National Parks deserved more. I hope you like it; I've spent the past week working on it. I'd love to hear feedback and I'll keep working on it. -- WatchForStorm Surge!§eb22:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Template:Infobox protected area of Australia
There are 254 articles that use {{Infobox protected area of Australia}}. With very little work I could convert them to use {{Infobox protected area}} and it would be almost impossible to see the difference. There are a few good reasons the project should agree to my idea:
Templates that duplicate each others functionality just adds complexity. It says at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion that if a template is redundant to a better-designed template it should be deleted. I would never nominate the Ausi template for deletion but someone nominated infobox2 for deletion and now its gone. I used it to build Infobox protected area because {{infobox}} did not provide enough functionality and still doesn't. Not to worry things are stable now and a resolution will be reached.
If the Ausi template is merged with the main project infobox there will be fewer field names to remember as the Ausi template uses some fields with different names.
I'll do the work myself with a tool named AutoWikiBrowser. It should take only a few hours.
The creator of the Ausi template seems to have taken a break form editing and has not edited since 2007. I need consensus to proceed and I believe this is the correct forum. –droll[chat]03:19, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
A discussion at User talk:Hmains#Protected areas opens the question: should all botanical parks be categorized as protected areas, or not? In Hawaii, there is a Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden which "has actually been the source for numerous invasive species in Hawaii", and seems not about "protecting" native species or a specific habitat locale. However, the botanical garden is included correctly in Category:Botanical gardens in Hawaii which has a parent Category:Protected areas of Hawaii, and this "is the same set up for each US state that has botanical gardens".
I think botanical gardens are usually private entities. That doesn't seem like the general definition of a protected area. Reywas92Talk17:03, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
And further, does anyone else have any comment on whether Botanical gardens are natural/environmental protected areas? Reywas92 and I seem to agree that they are not. If there is not further discussion, I will proceed to cleanup the related categories accordingly. doncram (talk) 04:37, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
I have mixed feelings about this one, but I think it makes more sense to include botanical gardens in the "protected areas" category than it does to exclude them. Botanical gardens are, by and large, managed more for their aesthetic values than for their ecological values, and there often is no particular preservation value associated with them. However, most individual properties called "botanical gardens" are in fact protected areas because they are protected by some sort of legal arrangement, and the plantings on the property may be considered to have acquired special value (for example, they were planted many decades ago and have grown to great size). The issue should be whether the area is "protected" to preserve some perceived value associated with the area, not whether the area has effective ecological management or whether it possesses significant ecological value. (It is possible for an area to be protected by some legal arrangement, but still be poorly managed -- or be judged by third parties to be lacking in significance.) --Orlady (talk) 02:34, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
My local White River Gardens is a botanical garden. It would definitely not be considered a protected area. Maybe some individually are, but we shouldn't call whole categories of them protected areas. Reywas92Talk03:06, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Interesting... I've never seen a botanical garden that advertised itself with a large neon(?) sign like that one. The article doesn't cite any sources, so I can't delve into it further to figure out what that's about. (Is it better described as a "commercial tourist attraction featuring plants"?) In my experience, Christy Woods and Huntington University Arboretum and Botanical Garden are more typical examples of a botanical garden. --Orlady (talk) 14:37, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
I've now seen a website about White River Gardens. From the site, I'd say that this is neither a "botanical garden" nor an "arboretum". It's more of a "horticultural garden" or perhaps a "horticultural attraction." The emphasis seems to be on entertainment and garden design, not botany. --Orlady (talk) 18:17, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
I still wouldn't call those protected areas. Onto the below discussion on the definition of a protected area, I think I agree more with Orlady. Doncram argues that it is only the very limited IUCN definition of an environmental area. When I hear of protected areas, I think of all sorts of national parks, state parks, national monuments, and anything else legally protected. Although some National Monuments are historical rather than environmental, I would still classify them as protected areas. George Washington Birthplace National Monument is not an IUCN protected area, but it is definitely an area that is protected. For simplicity, I would almost consider any property of the NPS or another state or country's parks agency. We have many templates like Template:Protected Areas of Virginia, which include all NPS, Forest Service, BLM, or state protected areas; these are what I believe this project should cover. For botanical gardens, arboretums, or horticultural attractions, although technically environmental, they are normally private entities and not legally protected and should not be in these listings. Reywas92Talk22:16, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
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