Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rivers/Archive 1
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Disambiguation
(moved here from User talk:Stan Shebs) Hi Stan, I notice you have a Rivers Wikiproject...I thought I should mention that I can think of one river in particular that has a naming problem at the moment, the Thames River/River Thames. The British one is
- Hmm...I think I see. "Thames River (Lake St. Clair) sounds kind of strange thought. Perhaps I will just leave them alone until someone else renames them :) Adam Bishop 04:25, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Actually, Adam, the idea for disambiguating was mine. And the reason I was proposing giving preference to a geographical identifier over a political one was due to the Jordan River. I suspect that there are a number of various waterways in the US & elsewhere named for the one in the Near East, yet how do we identify that one without a flame war? Jordan River (Israel), Jordan River (Jordan), Jordan River (Palestine) ... You see the problem. Calling it Jordan River (Dead Sea) nicely avoids the fireworks. But if you can think of a better way to handle disambiguations, please put it forth! -- llywrch 04:51, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- I see...how about Jordan River (Asia) or Jordan River (Middle East)? Or the most common river may not have to be disambiguated at all...presumably people searching for Jordan River would mean that one. Similarily, people searching for Thames River would mean the British one, not the slightly less impressive one that flows behind my house :) (Also similarily, London is at London, but London, Ontario has extra info.) Adam Bishop 04:55, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- The Jordan River in the Middle East is so much better known than the others it doesn't really need the disambigger, but others will. Stan 05:01, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Problems with disambiguation: Michigan has 7 separate Black Rivers. 3 of them flow into Lake Huron so Black River (Lake Huron) is out. Some of them flow through multiple counties like Black River (Cheboygan/Montmorency/Presque Isle/Otsego Counties) which is overly cumbersome and Michigan has four counties which each have two rivers of the same name. In one case both rivers have their mouths in the same county so that wouldn't work in that case. I would use
- I'm very happy to engage in a discussion about this. I have been adding many rivers to the database lately and I have encountered a great many instances of that would require disambiguation. I personally favor political ones when possible for disambig, because that's the way people usually refer to rivers. I did disambig Jordan River, but completely avoided the issue by leaving the default as the Asian river and simply pointing to a disambig page for the others. Like everything else, I regard these as ad hoc additions to keep rivers from building up on the same page, which I personally feel is not good, considering that the two bodies of water may have nothing in common other than a name, and certainly the Jordan River in Utah deserves its own article page, for example.
- Here's the rule I've been using personally, mainly for rivers in the United States. When a river flows through one state only, it can be unambiguously identified by the state of its location. This seems to be the convention being used, with some exceptions like List of Michigan riversthat brought this issue up.
- I don't know if there can ever be a coherent and simple rule that can apply to all instances around the world. But perhaps there doesn't need to be, perhaps. I've happy so long as there are some rules of thumb. My feeling is that this is the beauty of lists of rivers, which can serve as the de facto convention for a particular river's naming classification. Obviously it's nice if things are harmonized to some degree. There is the case of rivers which are so well known that they should be the default article, probably. In disambiguating Jordan River, I realize it had the side effect in this particular case of avoiding a world of controversy how to label in disambiguation (which I was very happy to avoid). Most rivers of course will have no such political controversies. I'm willing to alter my contributions in any way according to good practice, or to rename pages as necessary, but I am addng many rivers lately, as I somehow motivated to, with each river has its own article.Like I said, I'm very happy to engage a discussion about this. I think it is very necessary too. -- Decumanus 20:37, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I would certainly like the main river to stay at the main article like Jordan River. I suggest we rewrite this as the first step of disambiguation. And rewrite the second step as smallest political entity. So state if all within one state, country if within one country. But that would still leave the problem of international rivers. Currently we have
- I don't think I quite understand your concern about Thames River. It seems to me to be a good way of presenting the information. -- Decumanus21:29, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- If you mean that the disambig reference on Thames). -- Decumanus21:35, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I agree. Also we could use Thames River (disambiguation). Rmhermen 21:37, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)
- If you mean that the disambig reference on
- I just noticed we have an article titled Colorado River (TX). I don't like the abbreviated state name at all. Rmhermen21:49, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)
- Yes, that's a mess indeed and needs to be fixed. The abbreviated state name is ghastly (disclosure I used to live along the Texas river). -- Decumanus 23:20, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- The (TX) is gone. It's now Colorado River (U.S.), I don't know what to do with that. Of course, it flows through Mexico too (or at least it would if any water actually made it across the border :) ) but it looks ghastly as it stands. -- Decumanus23:47, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- The (TX) is gone. It's now
- Yes, that's a mess indeed and needs to be fixed. The abbreviated state name is ghastly (disclosure I used to live along the Texas river). -- Decumanus 23:20, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
There are too many rivers to have a clean and simple naming scheme, so it's going to be messy no matter what. One thing to consider is that really minor rivers that are tributaries can just be described inline in the parent river's article; there is literally nothing to say about some of the uninhabited tributaries of the Congo beyond location and length. I would do that for any river whose article doesn't seem to support more than 2-3 sentences, and for which links to it are uncommon (only passes through two towns with articles, say). Ditto for minor feeders of bodies of water; add a section to Lake Huron for instance. One can always be split out later if it becomes notable, perhaps if an endangered species is discovered in it. In general I've come to prefer a breadth-first rather than a depth-first approach to WP-building, because depth-first tends to result in uneven quality, and generate ambiguity difficulties before we have enough experience to know the best way to disambiguate. Anyway, my preference is to express as "()" disambiguators (some days we may want automated processing, so the special syntax is good), prioritize in the order of country/countries, tributary-of/watershed, body of water at mouth, state/province, county. This should be sufficient, since one-county rivers are unlikely to support their own articles. If more than one formulation seems rational, pick randomly and make a redir or note on the talk page. Stan 23:14, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I agree with that very much, about putting minor tributaries in line with the body of water. I've actually done that in quite a few articles. Some creeks and very small rivers without a significant history associated with them are going to fall into this category. -- Decumanus 23:18, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Well, I'm the one who originally suggested favoring body of waters or principal rivers for tributaries over political names to disambiguate rivers, & I still favor that approach -- although I can be persuaded differently. (And, as usual, no one likes my ideas. ;-) The best reason why I chose this preference is to side-step messy edit wars grounded in national pride; however, the fact we have lists of rivers by nationality is also a good poiont. Probably the deciding point between these two approaches I can think of is how the majority of the cases are done -- following an old Open Source rule that "He who does the work makes the rules." I do concur with the point that we should consolidate minor streams or tributaries under the major one; to use one river in Oregon (the Tualatin River) as an example, I can't think of one tributary one could write more than a couple sentences -- which would consist of the origin of the name, its length, & perhaps some infamous crime. The traditions of the native Americans in that area have not survived. And I concur with Stan's preference for parentheses to express disambiguators over an attached prepositional phrase -- unless the later can be proven to be an observed practice. (A hypothetical example of what I mean by "an attached prepositional phrase" would be "The Deschutes of Oregon" or "The Red River in Ohio".) Again, as Stan said, "it's going to be messy no matter what." -- llywrch 00:22, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- This is hilarious. I could literally write a book about Chicken Creek in Sherwood. Sigh. But an encyclopedia article, no. -- Decumanus 06:35, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- I definitely prefer political body before which body of water it is a tributary of. I would think someone trying to link say to the Yakima River is more likely to know that the river is in Washington (Milk River (Montana)which also flow through Alberta.
- Listing minor rivers under their body of water will not be practical for say the Great Lakes or the Oceans where you will have hundreds of minor rivers. I still favor putting say all the same named rivers in a politcal body under one title like all seven Michigan Black Rivers under Black River (Michigan) instead two of them under Lake Huron, two of them under Lake Superior, one of them under Lake Michigan, one under Lake Macatawa, one under Black Lake (Michigan). That seems needlessly messy to me. Rmhermen19:54, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)
- I definitely prefer political body before which body of water it is a tributary of. I would think someone trying to link say to the Yakima River is more likely to know that the river is in Washington (
Well, Decumanus, I myself couldn't write a book about Cedar Mill Creek, although it is the subject of some fond childhood memories. Two further points I'd like to throw into the discussion:
- Should the disambiguation token be the source of the river or stream, or its mouth or confluence? I ask this just in case some rivers are better known for where they rise than where they empty.
- Having just waded thru a number of articles of Anglo-Saxon Kings, let's not disambiguate for the sake of disambiguation. (I still wonder that someone could think that there could be more than one Eorcenberht.) -- llywrch 20:27, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Etiquette for updating project
What's the etiquette for joining the project? Do I just add my name? I would also like to add a section on rivers with multiple names. This is a big problem in Africa, at least. I wanted to outline the rules I used when creating pages for rivers in Africa as a first draft. -- Walt Pohl 19:45, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- No formalities. Just join the discussion. The problem you mention with African rivers is very interesting. I see you've been adding some redirects. The question is of course which name is the normative name that appears in the title. I'm guessing this can be a matter of delicate sensibilities between languages and cultures at times. Have you come up with any rules of thumb so far? --- Decumanus 20:19, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- In the long run there's some danger of someone being offended, but based on how sparse the information on African rivers currently is, there doesn't seem much interest in the subject in the moment. Here are the rules of thumb I evolved to deal with the situation:
- Choose the name used closer to the mouth, unless
- An earlier part of the river is much longer, then use that (so Kunene River, unless
- For whatever reason some other name is more famous in English (so Cubango River.
- I'd like to eventually add these to the project page for reference, and as an important source for future flame wars. :-) -- Walt Pohl 20:57, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- In the long run there's some danger of someone being offended, but based on how sparse the information on African rivers currently is, there doesn't seem much interest in the subject in the moment. Here are the rules of thumb I evolved to deal with the situation:
Votes for deletion - Trasvasement
Template Ready?
I haven't seen any discussion of the proposed template on the project page. Is this ready for prime-time? I was going to start adding it to river pages. -- Walt Pohl 22:47, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- The river articles using 08:49, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Armlet
- I beleive this should be branch, not armlet. Armlet is used as a synonym for inlet when describing seas and fjords. Also I see that the southern "branch" is called River Burnaja which I don't think the article mentions. Rmhermen 13:51, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)
- I just redirected 06:28, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
A source
Whilst trying to help "fill in the reds" at
List of rivers in another major encyclopedia not in Wikipedia
- Alpenrhein River
- Arinos River
- Bakoye River
- Balsas River
- Bandama River
- Baram River
- Camu River
- Catatumbo River
- Cauto River
- Cavalla River
- Ceyhan River
- Chelif River
- Ch'in River
- Chin-Sha River
- Chiu-Lung River
- Ch'ongch'on River
- Chu River
- Cuiaba River
- Daly River
- Dawson River
- de Grey River
- Deseado River
- Digul River
- Dinder River
- Dja River
- Doca River
- Dong Nai River
- Dwanga River
- Escarvos River
- Fu-Ch'un River
- Gandak River
- Gascoyne River
- Gash River
- Great Scarcies River
- Grijalva River
- Groot River
- Guainia River
- Guapore River
- Guaviare River
- Gumal River
- Gundlakamma River
- Hei River
- Herbert River
- Hsin River
- Hung-Shui River
- Hunyani River
- Iskur River
- Itapicuru River
- Jacui River
- Jaguaribe River
- Jari River
- Javari River
- Kuei River
- Kushk River
- Laja River
- Larne River
- Lempa River
- Lerma River
- Loa River
- Logone River
- Loiza River
- Mazaruni River
- McArthur River
- Meta River
- Mohaka River
- Mokau River
- Moulouya River
- Mu River
- Murat River
- Naktong River
- Nan River
- Nazas River
- Nechako River
- Nen River
- Neosho River
- Nestos River
- Para River
- Paru River
- Rokel River
- Roper River
- Ruo River
- Ruvubu River
- Ruvuma River
- Sabbath River
- Sabi River
- Saint Paul River
- Salado River
- Saluda River
- Sanaga River
- Sankuru River
- Santa River
- Sao Lourenco River
- Sarda River
- Sassandra River
- Sebou River
- Seekonk River
- Semliki River
- Sewa River
- Shemanker River
- Shoshone River
- Shyok River
- Sierra Leone River
- Sileru River
- Sittang River
- Sobat River
- Sokoto River
- Solimoes River
- Solo River
- Somes River
- Sonora River
- Strawberry River
- Subarnarekha River
- Sure River
- Suriname River
- Surma River
- Swat River
- Tuckasegee River
- Tumut River
- Vardar River
- Verdigris River
- Wailua River
- Winisk River
- Wouri River
- Wu River
- Yu River
Pcb21| Pete 22:33, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
Breadth: lots of rivers
Hello, all. Just found this project. There is some good stuff here regarding the depth side of things: how to write a good, comprehensive article on a river. But lately I've been wondering about the breadth side: listing lots of rivers. (By the way, if this has been discussed before somewhere, please point me to that discussion. Thanks.)
Wikipedia is eventually supposed to have an article on anything "noteworthy". And, for flowing bodies of water, I would say that a good rule of thumb for whether something is noteworthy enough is whether the locals call it a "river" (or the equivalent word in whatever language they use). In short, Wikipedia ought to have an article on every river in the world.
Of course, to start with, the vast majority of these articles would contain very little information. But what would make it all worthwhile would be the lists & categories tying everything together. Therefore, along with the guidelines for an article about a river, how about also putting together standards for regional lists of rivers (by watershed & alphabetical), categories, etc. Also a brief guideline about what the minimal article on a river ought to look like (I figure name, general location, stub tag, categories, along with an associated entry in whatever relevant list articles there may be).
Now, with only six people listed as project participants (seven if I sign up), this is a ridiculously large job. But we can dream, can't we? More practically, we can also write bots to lighten the workload, and we can put together standards for those who follow.
Thoughts?
— Nowhither 16:37, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
- I'm with you. The hundred-odd red links in the list above are unquestionably noteworthy enough for WP to get us started ;-). Pcb21| Pete 18:16, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
- I've been working on European rivers. There is a good list by watershed at List of rivers of Europe. As it was getting enormous, I removed rivers that are too insignificant (see the talk page), criterium length under 100 km. There are lists of rivers for several European countries as well, most of them by watershed and alphabetic. An alphabetical list of rivers of Europe would be nice as well, that doesn't exist yet.
- I agree with your minimal-contents-proposal. General location should include what river, sea, ocean or lake it flows into. Markussep 19:32, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Okay, so what needs to be done? This project should probably be better known, and if lots of rivers are to written about, there needs to be some organization. I figured we should put together a River-stub template, which could include an invitation to join this project. However, it seems a similar tempate was recently deleted, so that's probably not a good idea. More generally, the overall organization of geographical stuff on Wikipedia is national/regional; watersheds don't fit into such a scheme very well, so there might be some opposition to other ideas that would get rivers better organized. But I think the following can happen:
- Design a box (like the one at the top of this page, or, better yet, this page) to be placed at the top of talk pages, pointing people to this project.
- Put together standards for lists of rivers.
- The current de facto standard seems to be to have a list page & category listing rivers in a particular country, or province/state for larger countries. On the list page, rivers are given in alphabetical order, and in "tree" form, by watershed. If the lists are long, sometimes this information is split into more than one page.
- Do we all like this? I figure it's not too bad, but, as I said earlier, nations vs. watersheds often don't fit together very well.
- Finish up a standard for a minimal river stub. How about:
- Name, general location, regional <sigh> stub tag, category, and IF KNOWN
- body of water it empties into.
- Something like, "The Blurg River is a river in Blurgland. It empties into the Big Blurg River at Blurgville." + stub tag & category.
- Also place into appropriate list(s).
— Nowhither 02:23, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
- Agreed. We definitely need a river stub template at least, for those short articles like Choaspes. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 22:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Template:Geolinks-US-river
I was dissatisfied with using Template:Geolinks-US-streetscale for rivers for two main reasons (google maps often don't show water--click the second google maps link; for the "Source"--and you just had to pick a single random spot on the river), so I created a river-specific Template:Geolinks-US-river that can map both ends. I also tweaked the formatting a) to better support the two sets of maps, and b) because I didn't like some of the 'streetscale' formatting. Any comments/suggestions? I suspect the most likely area with room for improvement is the 'Mouth or other endpoint' and 'Source' labels. Waterguy 18:42, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
- This just needs a discussion page with some explanation of how to use it. Daniel Case 18:12, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Infobox update
A proposal has arisen at
- I'm the one who's been putting together a new template. Somehow I missed the fact that there's a whole WikiProkect for rivers; it's not listed in a couple of the obvious places. I don't think Jdorje, who's been helping with the template, knew about it either. At any rate, glad to know you're all here, please do drop by and chime in. Thanks, —Papayoung ☯ 21:42, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
- I'm eager to move rivers to 00:14, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and moved all of the rivers that were using {{
TfD nomination of Template:River
Translation of river names
A recent move from
- Schwarze Elster, Black Elster
- Fränkische Saale, Franconian Saale
- Tiroler Achen, Tyrolean Achen
- Bolshaya Belaya River, Great Belaya River or Great White River
- Oude IJssel, Old IJssel
- Sèvre Nantaise, Nantes Sèvre
- Sèvre Niortaise, Niort Sèvre
- Westerschelde, Western Scheldt
- Oosterschelde, Eastern Scheldt
- Nieuwe Maas, New Meuse
- Crişul Alb River, White Criş or White Körös
- Someşul Mare River, Great Someş
- Podkamennaya Tunguska, Stony Tunguska
I'd prefer not to translate them, but give the translation in the text. Thoughts? Markussep 13:32, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
I moved Weiße Elster and Fränkische Saale to their German names. Markussep 16:54, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
- problem with translation of geographic features: if you go there the people won't understand you. On the other hand, it makes the english WP more english. This should probably be addressed in general not only rivers. undecided - (Talk)17:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
- problem with translation of geographic features: if you go there the people won't understand you. On the other hand, it makes the english WP more english. This should probably be addressed in general not only rivers. undecided -
Help request for Arkansas River (Talk), Kansas River (Talk), Marais des Cygnes River (Talk)
Hello, there is a very enthusiastic new user presently insisting on adding these rivers to various broad categories (
- This project was launched during 1968 with the Cimarron River watershed.
The expansion of specific Kansas Rivers was inspired by adult lifelong learners who particpated in the ALL-WinWin Kansas Envrionmental Leadership Program (1999-2005).
- See more 15:44, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
- More nonsense not about improving articles. Rmhermen 17:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project
Hi, I'm a member of the
Categorization of tributaries
On a whim, creating
- We already have Category:Tributaries of the Mississippi River, Category:Tributaries of the Missouri River, Category:Tributaries of the Ohio River so I don't see any problem. It shouldn't be used to replace the text about the tributaries, however. Rmhermen 17:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
- good to know. it would be better to choose the a consistent title of dab (ᛏ)14:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
- on second thoughts, "X basin" categories seem to be doing the same job. dab (ᛏ)15:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
- There is also a Category:Mississippi basin which serves as a parent for the three categories I mentioned before. The problem I see with this is that while "Tributaries of X" is explicit in what the category contains, "X basin" could include other subjects besides streams alone. Rmhermen 15:11, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
- on second thoughts, "X basin" categories seem to be doing the same job.
- good to know. it would be better to choose the a consistent title of
- User:P-A. recently created several categories for tributaries, see for instance Category:Atlantic European basins and its subcategories. I don't think he made any subcategories for major tributaries (yet). I don't really see the added value above the existing lists of rivers (provided they give that kind of information, like the list of rivers of Europe), but well, it doesn't hurt anyone. Markussep 15:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Suggested article
According to a new report, the U.S. may help Tajikistan build a hydropower facility on the
- I suppose it's the same as the Panj River (Pyandzh in Russian). I've never seen the Piandj spelling before. Markussep21:06, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
- I believe that you are correct and have updated the article. I suspect it is one of those translate from a foreign alphabet problems. This was the article that mentioned it. I see we already have an article for Vakhsh River. Rmhermen23:19, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
- Good work on this, Rmhermen! --Siva1979Talk to me 08:47, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
- I believe that you are correct and have updated the article. I suspect it is one of those translate from a foreign alphabet problems. This was the article that mentioned it. I see we already have an article for
Landforms by country
Comments regarding a proposal at
Increasing project visibility
Hello. I just found out about this project last week by typing in "
Then I wound up adding the infobox to the articles on four of the five major rivers of the Northeastern United States (all except the Potomac).
This project needs greater visibility. I created the WP:RIVERS shortcut. I am surprised that unlike the mountains and protected areas projects (among others), no one has bothered to create a messagebox for corresponding talk pages.
I volunteer to do so. Can anyone recommend a good river image to use? Daniel Case 17:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
- I would welcome a message box for the project. As for pictures, Malepheasant18:26, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
- This is done ... see {{river}}. I chose a picture of the Columbia instead ... I wanted one that makes it clear it's a river and not a lake. Plus I feel using a pic of the Hudson would seem like regional boosterism on my part. Daniel Case02:53, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
- This is done ... see {{
- Now go and plant that on every river article's talk page. Daniel Case 02:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I usually do that with all project templates, yes. Daniel Case 17:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
- I am not sure that that image is clearly a river at the small resolution of the the template. I would suggest something like Image:Cuyahoga_River.jpg if it wasn't so dark. Rmhermen 23:41, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
- This one is better: Image:River gambia Niokolokoba National Park.gif. I think this would look better than the current one, clearly showing a meandering river. Rmhermen 03:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Broken archive
The "Archive 1" link at the top is now red. What happened to the archive? --M1ss1ontomars2k4 (T | C | @) 04:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
- 16:22, 7 April 2006 Sceptre deleted "Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rivers/Archive 1" (orphaned talk page)
- Not sure how the orphan term was applied - seems to follow the naming convention an had at least one link to it. Will drop a message on his talk page. Kuru talk 12:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Naming: Multiple rivers with the same name
Re: Rivers in the USA: I would like to unify the methods for the naming of multiple rivers with the same name. Currently, several different methods are suggested. I suggest the following:
- The first way to disambiguate should be to add a state qualifier: Jordan River (Utah).
- When multiple rivers with the same name exist in the same state, the river should be identified as a tributary of another river with the name of the principal river acting as the qualifier: St. Joseph River (Maumee River). The word "tributary" should not be added as a qualifier.
Adopting these naming conventions would eliminate some other methods currently used, such as: River X (County A, State B), River X (Township A, County B, State C), or St. Joseph River (Maumee River tributary). If some consensus could be reached on unifying the naming of multiple rivers with the same name, either with the suggestions above or something else, perhaps we could update this article page accordingly. Gjs238 01:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
- I am not seeing how your suggestion differs from the naming standard already described on the project page. Rmhermen 03:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
- I gave it a few days thinking perhaps it would be noticed, so I'll just cut & paste from my previous post.
- "Adopting these naming conventions would eliminate some other methods currently used, such as: River X (County A, State B), River X (Township A, County B, State C), or St. Joseph River (Maumee River tributary)."
- In other words, when two rivers of the same name exist in the same state, currently two naming conventions come into play. Some disambiguate by tributary, others delve into counties and other political subdivisions.
- Also, some place the word 'tributary' in the disambiguation.
- Would not a standardized approach be desirable? Gjs238 12:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- IMO dab by destination waterbody is better than counties etc. Rivers are from physical geography, counties from human. In doubt, avoid mixing this two systems. Countries as dab may be treated different, as they are well known worldwide. But a physical geographer should may be not need to learn township names. (Talk)13:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- IMO dab by destination waterbody is better than counties etc. Rivers are from physical geography, counties from human. In doubt, avoid mixing this two systems. Countries as dab may be treated different, as they are well known worldwide. But a physical geographer should may be not need to learn township names.
- Would not a standardized approach be desirable? Gjs238 12:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- The practice you suggest is pretty much the current standard in most cases, especially for tributaries of bodies with a relatively high level of recognizability. But I think there are exceptions as well, usually with good reason. For example, with the Great Lakes, there may be any number of rivers with the same name that empty into the same lake, so some sort of geographical disambiguation is needed. Also, when dealing with tributaries of small bodies of water that are not well-known, it may be more intuitive to use a more recognizable feature for disambiguation. I think the preference should be for using the tributary method, but I think there should be room for common sense exceptions rather than trying for a universal, one-size-fits-all standard. older ≠ wiser 13:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- agree. (Talk)13:46, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- I don't believe I have ever seen River X (Township A, County B, State C) and would suggest that some simpler alternative could be adopted - also I don't think there is a naming standard which suggests this form. Rmhermen 16:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- agree.
Naming: Multiple political jurisdictions in the U.S.
Related to the above discussion, a user has politely
- Chattooga River (Alabama-Georgia)
- Montreal River (Wisconsin-Michigan)
- North River (New York-New Jersey)
- Pearl River (Mississippi-Louisiana)
- Pigeon River (Minnesota-Ontario)
- Pigeon River (Tennessee - North Carolina)(with spaces around the hyphen)
- Red River (Tennessee-Kentucky)
- St. Croix River (Maine-New Brunswick)
- St. Croix River (Wisconsin-Minnesota)
- St. Marys River (Michigan-Ontario)
And these with slashes:
- Little River (Missouri/Arkansas)
- Little River (Oklahoma/Arkansas)
- St. Marys River (Florida/Georgia)
(Disclosure: I started the 2 "Little River" articles above with hyphens, and they were moved by another user to the "slash" format.)
(Further disclosure: The article at "Big Sandy River (Kentucky-West Virginia)" was recently moved to "Big Sandy River (Ohio River tributary)," and I moved it to
If the "tributary" format were used, the above lists would be:
- Chatooga River (Coosa River)
- Montreal River (Lake Superior)
- North River (Hudson River)
- Pearl River (Gulf of Mexico)
- Pigeon River (Lake Superior)
- Pigeon River (French Broad River)
- Red River (Cumberland River)
- St. Croix River (Atlantic Ocean) or St. Croix River (Bay of Fundy)
- St. Croix River (Mississippi River)
- St. Marys River (Lake Huron)
--
- Little River (Red River)
- Little River (St. Francis River)
- St. Marys River (Atlantic Ocean)
Which is better? I think the second list looks cleaner, and I think I'm coming around to Tobias Conradi's suggestion above that the "tributary" format might be worth considering as the generally preferred option for disambiguating -- because what we call the
- I must say I have never been a fan of the "Little River (St. Francis River)" format - how do I know (if I am The man on the Clapham omnibus) that this means the Little is a tributary of the S. Francis and not that St. Francis is an alternate name for the Little. I have moved a couple of rivers (which flowed close together) to "Y River (X River tributary)" which is think is more obvious in this respect. Rmhermen03:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
- Good point. Maybe for X River (Y River) the word tributary should be added. (Talk)16:24, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
- Good point. Maybe for X River (Y River) the word tributary should be added.
I think the tributary naming convention is more workable. As an extreme example, look at "Pine Creek". A search at www.topozone.com reveals 18 Pine Creeks in Pennsylvania (PA), with three counties that have two Pine Creeks each and one county that has three of them. Arkansas and Arizona have similar Pine Creek issues, as do other states. We would have to go with county names if we chose political locators and then the possible issue of multiple counties arises (like multiple states above). What we have done so far is name the largest Pennsylvania Pine Creek's article Pine Creek (Pennsylvania) (as "Pine Creek (West Branch Susquehanna River Tributary)" or "Pine Creek (Potter - Tioga - Lycoming - Clinton Counties)" was too ungainly) and it is the largest 'creek' in the United States and best known Pine Creek in Pennsylvania. the others are named as tributaries. My $0.02 worth, Ruhrfisch 03:41, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Request for Peer Review help
I would appreciate it very much if anyone could take a look at Larrys Creek, which is up for peer review at Wikipedia:Peer review/Larrys Creek/archive1. It does not have a list of tributaries yet. Thanks, Ruhrfisch 04:30, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Moves
- (Talk)17:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
- (Talk)23:59, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
- (Talk)01:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Move questions
- shall "X reka" in (Talk)00:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
- what to do with (Talk)00:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
- I say move them both. This is the English Wikipedia and those are by no means common terms in English. Although the local name can be included in the introductory sentence. Rmhermen 18:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
- Agreed (the redirects will still be there after the move if anyone is looking for reka or älv. Ruhrfisch 19:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
- Also agree. --Malepheasant02:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
- done :-) with ref to (Talk)18:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Maps
Hi there! I was thinking about doing maps for the Category:Rivers of Argentina, and I wanthered if there's a standard for them regarding colours, topografy, etc. More importantly, I wanted to know if any of you knows a good way to do so (sources, programs, wites, etc) Thanks a lot, Mariano(t/c) 16:36, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
- For colors, etc. I try to follow Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Maps. For sources - if you have GIS software you can go use [1] for the rivers and [2] for boundaries. If you don't have GIS try using the Online Map Creation at [3] and then cleaning up the map in a graphics program like Photoshop or GIMP. Kmusser 16:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
- Yeap, I've already gathered enough datafiles (E00, shapefile, etc). I really don't like the OCM map generator, so I tried to install some free software for map-creation. I'm curently testing GvSIG, which is not that bad, but still a little bit buggy and limited. I got the idea that ArcGIS is kind of the as good as it gets right now, but I haven't tried. Can you give me your oppinion on these two, JUMP GIS, and GRASS GIS?. Thanks a lot. Mariano(t/c) 09:14, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
- The problem with ArcGIS is how expensive it is, I'm fortunate to have a copy from work. I've used GRASS GIS in the past and liked it, haven't heard anything about the others you mentioned. Kmusser 13:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
- OK, I think I will settle with MapWindow GIS, wihch proved to be more stable than the rest. Problem is I can't open E00 files, nor grids, but you can't have it all!!
- BTW, any more detailed source for rivers with dams ? Thanks a lot, Mariano(t/c) 13:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
- On dams, for the U.S. you can get them out of the National Atlas, but I don't know for Argentina - I don't know of any world data set that isn't copyrighted. Kmusser13:57, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
- There ought to be freeware conversion programs out there that will turn E00 (aka "interchange") files into shapefiles, coverages, and what not. A quick google on "E00 interchange conversion" gave lots of leads. I'm not sure what MapWindow GIS needs, but I'd bet there's a way to convert E00 files to something useable. Pfly 03:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- On dams, for the U.S. you can get them out of the
- Yeap, I've already gathered enough datafiles (E00, shapefile, etc). I really don't like the OCM map generator, so I tried to install some free software for map-creation. I'm curently testing GvSIG, which is not that bad, but still a little bit buggy and limited. I got the idea that ArcGIS is kind of the as good as it gets right now, but I haven't tried. Can you give me your oppinion on these two, JUMP GIS, and GRASS GIS?. Thanks a lot. Mariano(t/c) 09:14, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Members
Can anybody join this group? I've never joined a WikiProject, but as a California based water resources engineer (presently I work on the Bay-Delta estuary for the government, but Oct. 1 I'll be joining the State's flood forecasting group), I have access to large amounts of information (including photos) on California rivers. MCalamari 18:01, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
- Anyone can join. The Wikiprojects mostly function to keep terminology and styles the same among large groups of articles. And to provide a pool of interested and knowledgeable persons to ask questions of when they arise. Rmhermen 19:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
- I quickly looked at List of California rivers (I don't know how complete that is) and noticed there are a lot of articles started for California rivers. Hoewever randomly checking two found one (Big Pine Creek) using unit of acre-feet but no metric (or possibly more common "English" system) units and another (Sespe Creek) stating that it "...is one of the longest creeks untouched by dams or concrete channels." without stating how long the creek is or where it is one of the longest (longest in the world?, in California?) So obviously there is work to be done yet. Rmhermen19:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
- I quickly looked at
Proposed move
See the proposal to move Litani River to Litani River, Lebanon at Talk:Litani River. Rmhermen 19:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
British Columbia Rivers added to project
I'm not signing on as a participant; too much already on the boil; but when I saw the {{Rivers}} tag on the Talk:Okanogan River page I went at the BC Rivers Category and added it throughout, where it wasn't placed already. Just wanted to note that the tag has been placed on some major creeks, which have articles, and it's worth understanding for non-BCers reviewing any of these pages that many creeks in BC are much larger than "named rivers"; and there will be more to come. Also I'd already used the rule-of-distance in naming the Okanogan River article, as most of the length, especially the naturally-flowing length, of that river, is in the US and so the US spelling seemed a propos; even though the name for the valley, Okanagan, is a major geographic name/region in BC. I also amended the Pend Oreille River article to give the BC/Canadian spelling for its brief stretch there, "Pend d'Oreille River"; and somewhere in there made an edit-comment that the official mapped name of the Clark Fork is exactly that, NOT "Clark Fork River"; "Fork" turns up here and there for "river" in the same way that "creek" does, y'see. But especially in that case (the Snake River used to be the Lewis Fork or something like that, as I recall); Skookum1 06:28, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
- I made the correction on the Clark Fork River page. There are quite a few rivers in the U.S. that use both Fork and River in the official name, but Clark Fork isn't one of them. Not sure if the page should actually be moved though as it is useful to distinguish it from the town of the same name. Kmusser 15:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
- I moved it to Clark Fork (river). Rmhermen 15:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
- which is not in line with the Naming conventions of this project. (river) is depreceated. (Talk)17:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
- Actually it isn't deprecated. "Clark (river)" would be a deprecated form. Clark Fork (river) isn't. The phrase could also be (stream) as the USGS uses. It is a name with an added disambiguation phrase to separate it from Clark Fork. I can't think of any other rivers disambiguated this way. All the others I can remember not only disambiguate from towns, but also, other rivers of the same name. Like the example Indian River. Rmhermen 21:25, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
- which is not in line with the Naming conventions of this project. (river) is depreceated.
- I moved it to Clark Fork (river). Rmhermen 15:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
A River Featured Article Candidate
Larrys Creek (in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, USA and with our project tag) is a Featured Article Candidate. If you want to weigh in on the nomination, it is here Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Larrys Creek. Thanks for any feedback! Ruhrfisch 17:41, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
- Larrys Creek made featured article today - thanks to all who helped in any way! Ruhrfisch 03:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Issue with River infobox
Looking over the above FAC, I noticed that it displays the "Basin countries" listing a single county. It will be the case that many rivers do not cross international borders. I think that this line would be better called "Basin location" allowing more variability in the information included. Rmhermen 18:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks - I also think it would be good if it also listed the mouth elevation (as many rivers do not have their mouths at sea level). Ruhrfisch 18:29, 24 August 2006 (UTC) PS I am working in the map color issue in the FAC - may take a while.
- On the map I just made the orange a little more orange for you. Kmusser 18:40, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks so much - I really appreciate it. Ruhrfisch 18:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
- I added the variable mouth_elevation to the infobox to allow entry of the elevation at the end of the river. The source elevation still uses the variable named elevation which is slightly confusing. Changing that to source_elevation (or changing basin_countries to basin_location) would require changing all the pages that use the template. Rmhermen 20:37, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
- (Talk)01:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
- I put "| mouth_elevation =" with the proper example units into the examples to copy and paste on Template talk:Infobox River(it was only in the actual infobox, but not the examples). I would appreciate it if someone would check that I did this properly.
- As for the "basin_location" parameter, if I understand it right, here is a possible (although not very elegant) solution / kludge. What if there were just an optional pararmeter called "basin_location" that could be used in place of "basin_countries"? Since any parameter can safely be left blank, just leave "basin_countries" blank and put in "basin_location" instead. There could even be an example box to copy with this text. If I have misunderstood how the software works and this is not practical, I apologize. Just an idea. Ruhrfisch 19:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
- This is possible. However, if we have two parameters to change (and source_elevation would be much more elegant) it may be a good idea to request some bot help. I believe there are 516 pages using the infobox. I was going to add the mouth elevation to the example myself but some of the pages I checked were behaving oddly. It may have been a caching issue, but if anyone else notices odd lines in the infobox, please speak up. Rmhermen 19:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
- I remember checking the Volga article to check what the river's mouth's elevation actually was to use it in the example but the article was not clear at all on where the mouth is. And the map is only in Cyrillic! Rmhermen 19:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
- I put the mouth elevation into Larrys Creek and it worked there. Can't help with Cyrillic. Feel free to revert my other edits in the examples - it sounds like a bot is the way to go. Ruhrfisch 21:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
- I remember checking the Volga article to check what the river's mouth's elevation actually was to use it in the example but the article was not clear at all on where the mouth is. And the map is only in Cyrillic! Rmhermen 19:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
- This is possible. However, if we have two parameters to change (and source_elevation would be much more elegant) it may be a good idea to request some bot help. I believe there are 516 pages using the infobox. I was going to add the mouth elevation to the example myself but some of the pages I checked were behaving oddly. It may have been a caching issue, but if anyone else notices odd lines in the infobox, please speak up. Rmhermen 19:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
- I put "| mouth_elevation =" with the proper example units into the examples to copy and paste on
Version 0.5 Rivers selection - request for comment
I have nominated a set of rivers at
- River Thames is listed on its Discussion page as at least a candidate for the Wikipedia CD Selection and is a notable and historic river and OK article (a bit list heavy, although not all "38 major tributaries" are listed). Ruhrfisch 14:18, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Naming Help
I need help naming articles for the two creeks named Conewago Creek. Both are tributaries of the Susquehanna River in the U.S. State of Pennsylvania. The larger is west of the river in Adams and York Counties (mouth is in York Co.).[4] The smaller is east of the river and is the border between Dauphin and Lancaster Counties (mouth in both Cos.) and is also in Lebanon County.[5]
I am making start class articles for Lancaster County, PA red links which is how I found these. I will also make a start class article for the other Conewago Creek and a dab page (they each have a "Little Conewago Creek" tributary and Conowingo Creek has "Conewago Creek" as a USGS recognized variant name).
Anyway, how should these articles be named? They are both in Pennsylvania, they are both Susquehanna River Tributaries (their mouths are even fairly near each other), and they are both in multiple counties (so naming after a county is difficult). Gertler's book "Keystone Canoeing" names them "Conewago Creek (east)" and "Conewago Creek (west)", which seems simplest. The east creek is also on the right bank but "Conewago Creek (Susquehanna River tributary, right bank)" seems a bit much. They are the only two Conewago Creeks in the United States (according to
- Do they need to be separate articles? I mean, is there that much to say about either? Until such time that the one or both have enough content to stand on their own as non-stub articles, I'd suggest simply creating a multi-stub article and describe both of them. In fact, that may make it easier to distinguish between the two without repeating a lot of detail in both. older ≠ wiser 15:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
- Excellent point: a combined article seems a very elegant solution. Searching Topozone for Conewago Creek returns only the two features.
Place County State Type Elevation USGS Quad Lat Lon Conewago Creek Dauphin PA stream unknown Middletown 40.13222ºN 76.71472ºW Conewago Creek York PA stream unknown York Haven 40.113068ºN 76.71111ºW
- If the time comes to separate them, the county of their mouths might be the way to go. — EncMstr 16:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks for your thoughtful repsonses, but I really want to make two articles, one on each creek (plus a dab), and want to have names that are acceptable (each creek is noteworthy and I have enough information on each to make a start class article at least - six or seven refs each). I am thinking long term here - get the names right at the start and we won't have to have this discussion again later (plus all the work of moves and redirects and changing links). "Conewago Creek (east)" and "Conewago Creek (west)" seem the easiest to me. "Conewago Creek (York County, Pennsylvania)" (the western one) is clunkier but would work, but the other Conewago Creek is literally the border between Dauphin and Lancaster Counties (the border is down the middle of the creek in USGS maps), so I am not sure which county to use. Pick one and make a redirect from the other? Interstate 76 (west), for example). Thanks, Ruhrfisch02:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
- Given your work in making Malepheasant06:04, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
- Given your work in making
- Gertler had it right when he used the "east/west" nomenclature - go with that. Each article could have a top of page disambiguation to the other to help avoid confusion. County designations are too cumbersome and a combination article is just begging to be split in the future. Gjs238 10:18, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks for all the feedback. I can see two streams in one article when one is a tributary of the other but is not noteworthy / large enough for its own article (i.e. Second Fork of Larrys Creek is one paragraph in Larrys Creek), but that is not the case here. I also see that the Eel River article uses north and south to distinguish between the two rivers within the article. Both the Eel and Carp River articles seem to me articles on one of the rivers with a bit thrown in on the others of that name as a temporary stopgap. I am pressed for time now, but will make something this weekend. I am leaning strongly towards a dab and east / west separate articles. Part of it is I just can't see mentally how to write it as one article - with two infoboxes??. The funny thing is I have more right now on the eastern creek, which has a watershed a tenth the size of the western creek (roughly 50 vs 500 square miles), but east has a very nice watershed association page. Thanks again, Ruhrfisch 03:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks again for everyone's feedback. I have made a dab at Conewago Creek, and two articles: the more detailed Conewago Creek (east) and the shorter Conewago Creek (west). Edit away! Ruhrfisch 04:28, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Notability, or how short can a river be?
In writing
- There is none. We have article on the world's shortest river (can't think of their names but there are two competing claimants.) We have articles on some creeks. If you look at List of Michigan rivers you will find that large numbers remain without articles yet. If you want to start one, please do. Rmhermen23:41, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
- Both claimants for shortest river are listed at the page for the Roe River. The criteria that I have seen for inclusion in general (not on Wikipedia) is often the area of the drainage basin. For example, the Pennsylvania Gazetteer of Streams II (1984) list all 571 named PA streams whose watersheds are larger than 25 square miles, while the Susquehanna River Basin Commission seems to use 50 square miles as a cutoff. I agree with Rmhermen - if you can find enough to write about it, go ahead and make the article. By the way, congrats on the Did You Know for Ada covered bridge, Ruhrfisch 00:32, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks for the info. I think the Thornapple River (in MI) has more than 50 sq in its watershed and there is good google hittage on the name, although I haven't looked at the hits to see relevance. But it was a red link in that article so was bugging me. That's the smallest bridge I've written about yet... but it's in my home town, so! :) Happy editing, appreciate the followups. ++Lar: t/c 17:20, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
- In California there are a number of rivers in the distributaries of the San Joaquin River that are relatively short. However, they are significant in California water supply and ecological issues (i.e. they are part of the plumbing for 23 million people), so in principal I'd say that notability isn't about the size of a waterbody, but should instead be limited to the more general question "would people be interested in this article". As for the smaller San Joaquin distributaries, I plan to eventually give them proper treatments here if somebody else doesn't beat me to it. :) MCalamari18:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
- In California there are a number of rivers in the
- Thanks for the info. I think the Thornapple River (in MI) has more than 50 sq in its watershed and there is good google hittage on the name, although I haven't looked at the hits to see relevance. But it was a red link in that article so was bugging me. That's the smallest bridge I've written about yet... but it's in my home town, so! :) Happy editing, appreciate the followups. ++Lar: t/c 17:20, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
I did the Thornapple River, comments welcomed. It's been tagged as being in the project. Embarassingly, it's way longer of an article than the river it feedsw into, Michigan's longest river, the Grand... ++Lar: t/c 01:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Project directory
Hello. The
I invite all of you to take a look at
- I made a few changes. Rmhermen 02:01, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
- Obviously you have put a lot of work into it and it looks good so far. Just a quick scan (didn't read it all) but if it is going to be featured it needs an expanded lead section - everything that is a header or subheader has to be mentioned in some way (even very briefly) in the lead. You will also need to put in metric units (Google does conversions - if you type "28 miles in km" it gives you the answer) and put a non-breaking space "& n b s p ;" (without spaces) between numbers and units. You need more images, if possible, and a map would be great. I can run the semi automated peer review script if you are interested, though AndyZ will do this if you submit for peer review. Good luck, Ruhrfisch 02:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
- If you could run the Peer Review script, I'd be much obliged. Thank you. Also, thank you both for your comments and changes so far. —ExplorerCDT20:29, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
- If you could run the Peer Review script, I'd be much obliged. Thank you. Also, thank you both for your comments and changes so far. —
New River
I'm not a member of this project, but I went ahead and tagged the
Drainage basins
Is there an agreed upon source for drainage basins of rivers? I noticed a rather big difference (800.000 km2!) between the figure mentioned in Amazon River and the figure mentioned for that river in the article drainage basin. I could suggest using the figures from World Resources Institute, but there may be others? --Sir48 12:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
- I haven't find a general source that I trust. When making maps I use both WRI and USGS and they often disagree with each other and I've found definite mistakes in both databases though they're still the best I've found. I think the best you can do is pick a source and cite it. WRI does have the advantage that it doesn't take GIS software to get at it, though it only has the largest rivers. Kmusser 04:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Another River Featured Article Candidate
White Deer Hole Creek (in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania and with our project tag) is a Featured Article Candidate. If you want to weigh in on the nomination, it is here Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/White Deer Hole Creek. Thanks for any feedback, Ruhrfisch 15:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
- White Deer Hole Creek made featured article today - thanks to all who helped in any way! Ruhrfisch 19:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Featured Article Candidate: Paulins Kill
The Paulins Kill, a river in Northwestern New Jersey, is now a Featured Article Candidate. Please feel free to comment, throw your support, or trash the article here:
- ExplorerCDT02:58, 28 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. Badbilltucker 19:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Paulins Kill is now a Featured Article
The article
Replacement of river infobox template proposed
For anybody unaware, a replacement of the river infobox template was proposed for discussion by another editor at
Missing topics
I have a list of missing topics that includes a section about rivers. I've tried to make sure there is no equivalent Wikipedia article but I'd appreciate if anyone could have a look at the list. - Skysmith 11:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
- I added some comments. Several of these seem dubious. What was the method used to assemble the list? I would guess that there are thousands of rivers awaiting articles so this is a very small sample. Rmhermen 17:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
- Where does this list come from? I think your Moracha refers to the 17:24, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
- I couldn't find any other list of missing river articles (I only found User:Markussep/rivers which lists existing articles with some missing information.) One could start to assemble such a list from the red links in the various "List of rivers in..." articles and Wikipedia:List of missing Africa topics which lists several rivers. Rmhermen 17:42, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Proposed Australian collaboration
There is a discussion at
GeoBox River
Just saw this added to Stave River and remarked that the language used in it is highly US-centric, i.e. "state" as the default for national subdivision; I'm coming at it from the Canadian end, of course, and while it's true Australia, Mexico, Brazil, India have "states" as well as the US, this is still not workable; Canada and China (to name only two) use "province", and then there's Norway with fylker. The rest of the GeoBox details I'll have to think about after seeing it applied here and there, but I just wanted to do a heads-up that if someone is designing such a box could they please think outside of the usual "Lower 48 box" and remember that the rest of the world is constituted differently, and that Wikipedia isn't only American in content/language.Skookum1 20:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
There is a discussion on whether the name of the article should Ganges or Ganga (the name in the Indian languages). Please provide your opinion. Thanks! GizzaChat © 22:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Historical floods/crests
Are historical floods and crests of rivers and/or major tributaries to be included on that article's main page or within a separate article? For example, the
- I'm thinking that a specific notable flood event would probably best be covered by its own article, perhaps "Ohio River flood of 1936" or something like that. The editors at Malepheasant07:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Rhode Island Rivers
Hello. I have joined the project as I am in the process of creating an article on
Cheers! --Analogdemon (talk) 13:25, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Alex's bot seems quite efficient in spotting new articles about rivers (and lakes). The rules used to find them are defined at
Stream names
I've done some articles on streams in northeast Iowa, and have come across name space problems. Im following the ideas on the project page. See Smith Creek, Trout Run and Village Creek, and how I have done disambig pages. I'm tempted to move Menominee River to Menominee River (Lake Michigan), and turn the resulting redirect into a disambig. Another issue is how creeks tributary to rivers are to be handled in categories; for the moment, I've been dumping them in category Rivers of Iowa. Similarly, there are some very tiny tributaries of the Mississippi, e.g., Village Creek (Allamakee County, Iowa) which share category space with some very significant tributaries. --Ace Telephone 22:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
- Your disambig pages and names look fine by me. Menominee River though I'd leave as is, there are just the two of them and I think the MI-WI one is much more well known. Kmusser 23:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Arvandrud/Shatt al-Arab
Requested move:
- examples of usagein the article's talk page.
The previous move request (which took place 30 March to 6 April 2007) was rather problematic. So, I encourage (ok, beg :-) everyone to take at least a quick look at the issue.
I believe the issue to be a simple, straight-forward case of reflecting the common English usage clearly exemplified by the
Best regards, Ev 03:14, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
- the article's talk page. - Best regards, Ev21:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Once again, we're repeating the move request from discussion will be greatly appreciated. - Best regards, Ev02:00, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
- Once again, we're repeating the move request from
Discharge statistics
I have a few thoughts, questions, and maybe a source, on the topic of river discharge statistics.
While working on river pages I've often had trouble finding good discharge numbers. Stream gauge data often comes in "realtime" form, giving stats for the last few days, without providing long term averages. I understand why this kind of data is not good for a river's discharge in general, but still, even when you can find good long term discharge data, it is clear that there is no truly "correct" way to determine a river's discharge, especially when it comes to maximum and minimum discharges.
For example, for the minimum discharge of a river, do you use lowest-ever reading of a stream gauge ("instantaneous") or the lowest daily mean, or the lowest 7-day mean (as the USGS often reports). For many rivers, especially those with irrigation diversion, dams, and dam construction over the stream gauge's life, the lowest-ever reading will sometimes be zero or close to it (sometimes even a negative number due to some river modification project). Even the lowest daily means can be absurdly low, representative of some very unusual, probably artificial circumstance -- and thus not really about the river's streamflow but rather some special event. In such cases, I'm tempted to use the lowest 7-day mean, or even the lowest monthly mean, depending on which stat seems least absurd.
Also, even for average discharge there are often choices to make without obvious answers. For example, some rivers achieve a high discharge volume along their course only to have large amounts of water diverted for irrigation. Some rivers dry up completely, some sink into the ground. If there are several stream gauges along a river and the discharge is higher at an upriver one due to diversions downriver, I'm tempted to use the upriver one as more "natural".
I'm wondering what thoughts the river wikiproject people have on these things.
Also, the project page refers to the relatively new Template:Infobox River Geography, but it is now called Template:Geobox River. The link redirects, but still, would be nice to have the template's current name. Perhaps I'll just edit that change myself (never edited a wikiproject page before).
Finally, on sources for discharge data, including max and min values over a stream gauge's lifetime -- I'm curious to know what sources people use. I hurt my brain trying to coax such things from the USGS stream gauge pages, but have begun to find other sources that give a streamgauge's lifetime annual mean discharge and various forms of max and min. This webpage has links to PDF files with such streamgauge data for Washington state, and this one does for Montana. Does anyone know more about these kind of reports and where to find them more easily than google hit-and-miss? Any other good sources?
And, more importantly, sources for discharge stats, stream gauge data, etc, outside the United States? I've been working on some rivers that cross and recross between the US and Canada, and the USGS's streamgauge data simply ends at the border, frustratingly. The one site I have found, just today, that looks promising at first glance, is this one. Looking for more resources! Thanks. Pfly 03:31, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
- I think annual mean discharge is what you want if you can find it, but for many rivers it's probably never been calculated. I haven't found any more reliable than what you already have. Kmusser 03:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- I completely agree: I've often wondered what the intent of the numbers is. For example, the Willamette River has reverse flow for a few minutes or hours each day due to Pacific tidal effects, and a wide degree of natural seasonal variation in flow rate. I "stretched" the info box to handle these, but even that wasn't adequate: the end of the description section gives detailed extrema. —EncMstr 17:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- I think (annual mean) discharge numbers are used as one way to compare rivers using a single number for each, although as noted, which number to use and how to get it are often problematic. While rivers can also be compared using their length or drainage basin area, two rivers could have identical lengths and drainage areas and very different discharges (say one in an arid area vs. one in a rain forest). Might I suggest the article on discharge (hydrology) be updated to reflect some of the problems / issues discussed here? Ruhrfisch 21:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- For U.S. rivers, I found this USGS link, which links to PDFs of stream gauge reports for most of the states (several are missing), of the type Pfly mentioned above. Also, I had a go at working the data into a short narrative on the Malepheasant05:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
- For U.S. rivers, I found this USGS link, which links to PDFs of stream gauge reports for most of the states (several are missing), of the type Pfly mentioned above. Also, I had a go at working the data into a short narrative on the
- I think (annual mean) discharge numbers are used as one way to compare rivers using a single number for each, although as noted, which number to use and how to get it are often problematic. While rivers can also be compared using their length or drainage basin area, two rivers could have identical lengths and drainage areas and very different discharges (say one in an arid area vs. one in a rain forest). Might I suggest the article on discharge (hydrology) be updated to reflect some of the problems / issues discussed here? Ruhrfisch 21:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- I completely agree: I've often wondered what the intent of the numbers is. For example, the Willamette River has reverse flow for a few minutes or hours each day due to Pacific tidal effects, and a wide degree of natural seasonal variation in flow rate. I "stretched" the info box to handle these, but even that wasn't adequate: the end of the description section gives detailed extrema. —EncMstr 17:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Belated feedback on flow rates The flow rate sections read well. A few ideas to make them less dry (take or leave them). 1) Would it help to give the relative position of the stream gauge(s) in the watershed (distance to mouth and/or size of watershed they are measuring that point, I know USGS gauge reports usually give the size of the part of the watershed feeding the gauge. 2) If the date of the highest or lowest flow is a significant weather event, mention it (in northern and central Pennsylvania, Hurricane Agnes flooding is often the highest flow recorded, or perhaps a well known drought). 3) Would it help to make some sort of comparison for flow to help the reader visualize the amount of water involved better? "X cu ft/s is equal to Y Olympic-size swimmming pools of water a second / minute / hour?" I was trying to think of a better volume comparison - maybe standard oil tanker volume or Alaska pipeline output per minute? Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 04:05, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I would like to add a navbox to every stream in the Susquehanna River system and have made three different versions of possible navboxes to add, which I would appreciate any and all feedback on. The navboxes and some questions about them are here: User:Ruhrfisch/Frog. Since it is in User space you can add comments right in the page (it is one of my sandboxes, so I don't use the Talk page for it generally). Thanks in advance for any feedback, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 14:44, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
FAR of Niagara Falls
Geobox river
I'm doing up the geobox for the Verde River, but had a couple snags. One, is that the headwaters of the river change, depending on the time of year. As well, the discharge section measures cubic feet per second, but the number I have is for acre feet per year. I don't know enough about this stuff to know if this needs conversion, or how to do that. Help? It's here if you wanna look at it. Murderbike 18:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
- I don't know what to do about the headwaters issue, but there are conversion factors for acre feet per year here.Kmusser 19:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
- For the headwaters, you might use the place described by the source coordinates listed at its entry on Malepheasant00:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- You can do conversions like this as a Google search, triggering Google's calculator. For example try "500 acre-feet per year in cubic feet per second" in Google (500 or whatever amount you have).
- Also, looking at your sandgeobox I notice one of the things about the geobox that has annoyed me. Perhaps there is a solution and I just don't know, but -- when listing tributaries, if one happens to have a page on wikipedia, it becomes a link, often to the wrong page. If there is no page for the tributary you want to list I don't know how to "force" it to not be a link. One can, of course, redlink it, but sometimes it would be nice to just have it shown in black text as a non-link. Can this be done? Thanks Pfly 03:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- I've been using <nowiki></nowiki> on either side of words & phrases I don't want to wikilink (note that if you want to copy them from the edit page I had to double them to make them show here.) For instance on the Malepheasant04:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
- I've been using <nowiki></nowiki> on either side of words & phrases I don't want to wikilink (note that if you want to copy them from the edit page I had to double them to make them show here.) For instance on the
- For the headwaters, you might use the place described by the source coordinates listed at its entry on
Thanks for the tips folks! Murderbike 07:37, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
- Oh good idea with the nowiki tags, Malepheasant. Thanks! Pfly 09:09, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Assessment
As some of you may have noticed, the {{tl:River}} template now has an argument for assessing an article's quality. This was initially set up by User:Bejnar, and I've since created the categories and tweaked the template so it adds the articles to the correct category. Details are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Rivers/Assessment. I'm kinda new to this project, but I think it might be an idea to mention this use of the template, and put a link to the assessment page on the main project page. Anyway, I hope it all works right, and can provide us with a useful means of finding articles to improve -Kieran 18:25, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
May I?
I am a water engineer and, though living in the USA, I have a long experience working overseas in various countries in Europe, Asia and Africa. I would like to join the team if the list is not yet closed. I have started compiling a list of rivers, for the time being I have started with Romania. I intend to continue, to make the list as complete as possible before moving ahead to other items, though I think it would be presumptious ever to claim that the list of rivers for any particular country is complete.
I also consider that besides articles on rivers, the project could also be concerned with developments on rivers, such as dams, storage reservoirs, hydroelectric plants etc. Maybe there is another project, which I failed to identify, dealing with those. But that is valid for the future. At present I just want to know that what I started is OK with everybody else.
I may be dealing with water but still dont intend to make waves. Afil 01:33, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
- Welcome to the project, have fun editing. VerruckteDan 13:34, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Suggestions regarding the names of international rivers
Most international rivers have different names in the different countries they are crossing, generally in the languages of these countries. I would suggest the folowing rule for the title of the article (all other names should be mentioned and be redirected to the main article.
- If the river has an English name, even if it does not cross an English speaking country, the English name should be used. Example: The Danube River has several names such as Donau, Duna, Dunai, Dunăre and others.
- If the rivers do not have English names, the name in the language of the country with the longest reach of the river should be used. Example: This Tisza river has the names Tisza in Hungarian, Tisa in Ukrainian, Romanian and Serbian, Theiss in German. As the reach of the river in Hungary is the longest, the name Tisza should be used.
This rule was followed in the two examples quoted. However, accepting the rule as a general rule could avoid disputes in other cases.
I would appreciate the comments of other members of the team, so that I know that, in applying an accepted rule.Afil 22:09, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea of the rule. I am not sure about the sole use of the second criteria: "longest reach", if there is no English name. Our existing policy for
A related problem is the "Rio Grande River" problem where editors don't realize that one of the words in the name is "River". I think that we need a rule of thumb that says when the word for river is used in the non-English name of a river, that that word will be translated as "River" in the Wikipedia tile. Thus "Rud-e Safid" in Iran becomes "
- I agree that if, in any language, the name of the river contains the name "River" in that language (or any other name which indicates a water course such as "Stream" or others specific to that language) the english name River should not be added.
- In such cases one of the following rules should be applied:
- the name of the river should be left as is (including the name of the river in the original language) thus: "Rio Colorado", "Bela Reka", "Rud-e Safid", "Râul Galben" etc. This version is to be preferred.
- only the name "River" should be translated and the actual name of the river should be left as is in the original language. This would lead to the forms "Colorado River", "Bela River", "Safid River" or "Galben River" for the above quoted examples.
- The total translations such as, for the above quoted examples "Colored River", "White River", "White River" or "Yellow River" should be avoided. I had trouble finding out that Safid Rud means White River and whould hardly have looked it up under that name (and I sincerely believe that nobody else would.
- The rule is applicable only for rivers. When we talk about River Systems, such as the Surma-Meghna River System, the problem of chosing only one does not arise, as both names are included in the title. I have worked in Bangladesh for several years on water related projects and am familiar with the problem of river names in Bangladesh and the confusions they may create. Most of the country is a delta area, and as such the rivers have many branches. Each branch has a separate name (sometimes even two or more names). If, for any reason, an article is posted for one of these branches, it should have as title the river name of that branch. For systems, including various branches and rivers hyphenated names should be acceptable. This also applies to various other deltaic areas. For instance, we have an article for the Rhone Delta which is posted under the name of Camargue which is the name under which the area is known, with a redirect from Rhone Delta. This is the name of the system. It mentions the two branches of the Rhone River the Grand Rhone and the Petit Rhone. There also in an article for the entire Rhone basin. If and when articles are required for any of the two branches, they may have the name of the branch as title. Afil 19:50, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
- "only the name "River" should be translated and the actual name of the river should be left as is in the original language. This would lead to the forms "Colorado River", "Bela River", "Safid River" or "Galben River" for the above quoted examples." This is the better rule as it goes along with the general rule that titles should be in English. Otherwise we end up with the "River river" seen in some Wikipedia articles. --Bejnar 23:35, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
question about correct terminology
Hiya,
I know nothing about rivers, except that my grandad used to live beside one. :-) Anyhow, I have a question. I'm reading an article that was translated from Chinese, discussing the
- PS The relevant article is Ling.Nut15:52, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
- Yes they are called meanders. I have included a link to the meander article in the one you wrote, so that persons interested can get additional information. Glad to help in the future, just let me know.Afil 19:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Order of presenting tributaries
The present order is to present tributaries starting from the mouth and going upstreams. This presentation should be discussed. Logically rivers are discussed from upstreams to downstreams. Thus presentations of the course of the river start with the source, describe the course of the river and finally reach to the mouth of the river. When defining the tributaries right and left are defined looking downstreams. Why would the list of the tributaries be done in a different order?Afil 19:36, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- I agree and I asked about this a while back here, but the discussion did not develop. Any river that I work on follows the source to mouth convention and the left right designation is based on this perspective. Hopefully a discussion will develop this time so a guideline can be agreed upon. VerruckteDan 22:58, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- I also agree on the source-to-mouth order. An exception would be for "hierarchical" lists, like Tributaries of the Columbia River, in which it only makes sense to start at the mouth. Pfly03:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
- I also agree on the source-to-mouth order. An exception would be for "hierarchical" lists, like
- There is logic to both systems, source-to-mouth and mouth-to-source. For hierarchical lists such as List of rivers of Europe mouth-to-source is a lot more practical indeed. Generally the tributaries are less significant/important further upstream, that could be an argument for mouth-to-source as well. I'm not sure whether it's really desirable to choose a standard presentation, it's more important that the article text shows which order is applied. Markussep Talk 15:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
- I consider that Markussep is right and that a standard presentation is not really desirable. I would therefore suggest that the prescription in the list paragraph of the main article should be appropriately modified, accepting both orders, as required by the logic of the article. I also agree that the order chosen should be indicated so that readers understand what is being done.Afil 16:19, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
- While I prefer mouth to source order, I can understand that the reverse order (source to mouth) might be useful in some cases. I also think that the same order should be followed for all aspects of river articles (i.e. describing the course, listing the order of tributaries, etc.). The problem is that a standard presentation is already given in the WikiProject River guidelines, which currently call for mouth to source order for listing tributaries: "Lists: List the tributaries, starting from the mouth and going upstream.". Ruhrfisch ><>°° 16:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
- We need to be clear in our discussion here. It may well be logical to discuss them source to mouth in an article (like List of rivers in Montana). Rmhermen17:14, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Mouth-to-source tends to list the "more important" tributaries first in the list, which saves readers from scanning down through the multi-screen lists of intermittent creeks and the like that seem to accumulate over time. We needn't be slaves to consistency, one of the principles of pedagogy is to increase comprehension by presenting the same information in different ways. Stan 16:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Subclassification of rivers
At present the categories for articles and stubs is to indicate the country or countries they cross as Rivers of.... However, I start getting to many articles in the category
I would welcome the input of the participants to the Rivers project on this matter, as they are the experts in this field. We could then submit to the administrators a coherent proposal on the best waty to subdivide the categories and stub categories agreed upon by the participants of the project.Afil 02:32, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Help with river length
So, I'm doing the Lyre River article in my sandbox, and when trying to find stats, I find this document here which says: "The Lyre River has a total length of 16.8 miles, with a basin covering 66.1 square miles. The Lyre is the only watershed in the region that is fed by a natural lake, Lake Crescent, resulting in a unique flow, temperature and water chemistry regime. Lake Crescent, located at RM 5.2, is a large, deep lake of 4,700 acres with a depth of 640 feet." So, if the river has a total length of 16.8 miles, how can Lake Crescent, it's source, be located at River Mile 5.2? Murderbike 22:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
- OK, checking other sources, I've decided the 16.8 number is wrong. Does someone want to rate this article? Murderbike 23:17, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Help with Columbia River?
Hi folks, I've been working pretty hard on the Columbia River article for a few months. I would like to nominate it for GA status soon, though there is certainly more work needed - see the Talk:Columbia River page for some of my thoughts on that.
At any rate, I'd love to have a few more eyes on it leading up to, and during, the nomination. I just noticed the recommended article structure here, and will consider restructuring the article more along those lines - there are some good ideas there. -Pete 19:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Yet Another Featured Article Candidate
- PS What do you think of the word "subtributaries" for tributaries that are not direct tributaries of the main stream? If this is not a valid word, what do you call such things? Thanks, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 03:20, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Columbia River nominated for "Good Article"
And the
Proposed deletion: List of well-known rivers
List of well-known rivers (via WP:PROD)
- --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Islais Creek
Hi, everyone. I recently created an article for
Antuã
I'm considering nominating
- The consensus over at AfD has generally been that all rivers are inherently notable.Kmusser 15:48, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
- Looking at the Portugese article there is a free image (lovely too) here and some info on the source elevation, basin area, etc not in this version. I do not speak Portugese, but I can puzzle out things sometimes - I think the name of the river is disputed, but if someone who can read Portugese could check this out, that would help, thanks Ruhrfisch ><>°° 16:09, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Tibbet's Brook and diverted rivers
Anybody working on this one? I'm interested in how the northwest Bronx was relandscaped, resulting in the diversion of this watercourse. Hard to see how this one, like the Saw Mill R. to its north, had a natural course to the Hudson, when now both end in buried sewers/surface canals that cut under/thru+_+ a high ridge to the west. Seems the "history" section in cases like this should include the actual history of the river's course, not just the history of things around it. Robert Goodman (talk) 17:00, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I've started work on this article (not to be confused the the White Salmon River) in my sandbox, but have kinda hit a wall on sources. Does anyone here happen to know any decent books that would focus on rivers in Washington that would have more info than I'm finding? Murderbike 20:25, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Technical term needed
Hello, I'm looking for the proper English term for a new category on Commons that should include images such as
- English usually uses the term "intermittent river" for these.Kmusser (talk) 18:01, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, so I'll use this term then :-) or "ephemeral rivers" as the article "River" suggests.
- Hmm, another point: reading this main article (here - en). Perhaps you could add something appropriate to that explanation? (I'm not bold enough to do so by myself as my English is not perfect, and "river" is a higly linked-to article). --Ü20:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
- Done, note there is a difference between intermittent and ephemeral, basically of duration - ephemeral might last hours or days while intermittent usually lasts weeks or months. We actually have a better description over at Perennial stream. Kmusser (talk) 18:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Similar to the last question, on this page is a debate on whether a river should be called "dead" or changed to "dry". Rmhermen (talk) 14:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Wiki-canoe
This seems the most obvious place to put this idea. Has this already been done? Franamax (talk) 05:27, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
- Sorry to have missed this until now - I am not aware of anything quite like this. The only thing I know of (could very well be other things I've missed) is {{Susquehanna River System}}, which shows all the tribs and sub-tribs etc. of the Susquehanna River (we decided to limit it to drainage basins larger than 40 square miles (about 100 square km). Ruhrfisch ><>°° 20:44, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Lists
Under
- I too, am puzzled by this. Has there been any other talk that I have missed? It makes the writing of an article quite difficult as the two cannot be integrated properly in the text.--Harkey Lodger (talk) 22:20, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
- See /Archive 2#Order of presenting tributaries. Markussep Talk 08:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Project banner question
I think I could set up this project's banner with some additional parameters allowing it to assess for the various national WikiProjects as well, thus reducing the number of banners on several pages and making updating assessments as required easier. Would the members of this project be interested in such an action? If yes, I could draft a sample banner and let you all look over it before implementation. John Carter (talk) 20:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Tributaries: lists of
As a geographer I should like to question why tributaries should be listed from the mouth and going upstream? Surely that is illogical - the rational idea is that a river grows in stature as it proceeds from source to mouth, and that is simply because of its tributaries? In any case, rivers all flow that way? Peter Shearan (talk) 09:21, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
- There was a discussion about that some months ago, see /Archive 2#Order of presenting tributaries. I think the conclusion was that there's logic to both ways, source-to-mouth and mouth-to-source. Markussep Talk 12:57, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Peer review request
I have nominated
- Thanks to all the reviewers. It is now at 02:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
A river's coordinates
Hello, I saw a request for coordinates for the
River kilometers
It's customary and useful to pinpoint locations on a river by river mile (distance from the mouth). Since other quantities in Wikipedia are expressed in metric as well as imperial units, should we be expressing river miles as river kilometers (RK)s as well? I've been working recently on Balch Creek and other creek and river articles. It's tempting to go back and add the conversions from RMs to RKs. An example from Balch Creek might look like this: "From its source, the creek runs east on private property before turning briefly south through private land and a short segment of Forest Park, a large municipal park in Portland, at about river mile (RM) 3 or river kilometer (RK) 4.8.... It enters the city and the Portland Audubon Sanctuary simultaneously at about RM 2 (RK 3.2) and then flows northeast, entering the Forest Park subsection known as Macleay Park. Any thoughts about RM to RK conversions and vice versa? Finetooth (talk) 18:32, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
- A quick look at google shows 200,000 hits for river mile - but less than 10,000 total for river kilometer/kilometre. Makes me think that river kilometer is not in wide use - but I wonder what term is usually used in metric? Rmhermen (talk) 19:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Merge proposal
There is a proposal to merge
Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you
- The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
- The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
- A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.
Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.
Please
Canyon and waterfall articles
In that these are features on a river, shouldn't all such articles be part of this project? I just added WP:Rivers to Waddington Canyon but didnt' to Lava Canyon; ditto Basalt Falls. Thoughtts?Skookum1 (talk) 21:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
- I am not sure about canyons - some of them may have no river at all. Waterfalls seems ok - if no other project has claimed them yet. Rmhermen (talk) 04:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
- Aren't canyons always formed by rivers? They may no longer have them, but they did once. --NE2 11:18, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
List of U.S. watersheds
I created User:NE2/US watersheds from USGS GIS data. I have disambiguated and fixed all links except for the "Cataloging Unit" (which is the actual name of each watershed). Thus we have, more or less, a list of major rivers if we ignore that column. The following are red links:
- Christian River (Alaska)
- Clear Fork Brazos River (Texas)
- North Fork Red River (Oklahoma, Texas)
- Saline Bayou(Louisiana)
- Salt River (Missouri)
Some Mexican rivers with U.S. tributaries:
Some endorheic basins:
- Buena Vista Lake (California)
- Central Lahontan Basin (California, Nevada)
- Central Nevada Desert Basins (California, Nevada)
- North Lahontan Basin (California, Nevada)
- Oregon Closed Basins (California, Nevada, Oregon)
- Rio Grande Closed Basins (New Mexico, Texas)
- Willcox Playa (Arizona)
--NE2 11:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- First I think we should clearly note that those are government defined watersheds - not the standard geological definition. I seem to see some variations in the Michigan entries from those differences. Second I am not sure we need all the information - the Hydrologic Unit Code column doesn't seem to have a good encyclopedic value; the Water Resource Region and Subregion entries all identical in the majority of cases - is it really valuable to have both columns? Rmhermen (talk) 17:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Sorry - I forgot to mention that the table isn't directly for article purposes. It's useful as a sort of "missing articles" list though. --NE2 17:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I encountered the non-existence of a page for Lake Webb and Lake Evans, are also pageless. Also, "Oregon Closed Basins" is kind of a catch-all term. We do have pages for some of these basins, like Harney Basin. A number of other closed basin pages are linked to from Great Basin. Pfly (talk) 05:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
- If these basins are all listed in Great Basin, a redirect there from the catch-all terms is probably a good plan. --NE2 06:43, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I encountered the non-existence of a page for
- Sorry - I forgot to mention that the table isn't directly for article purposes. It's useful as a sort of "missing articles" list though. --NE2 17:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Geobox versus Infobox
Any {{
Personally, for those who do not have access to a nice GIS system capable of producing "free" maps compatible with Wikipedias various copyright/licensing requirements, it would be nice if we had at least the functionality provided by {{Location map+}} and {{Location map~}} so that at least mouth and source could be plotted if not also the confluence points with major tributaries (to present a rough idea of the river's course).
For some rivers, it would also be nice to present a river mile versus elevation chart (with dams, falls, major confluences, rapids, ... annotated). A very very crude one can be produced as a "Bar chart" with {{Bar box}} and {{Bar pixel}}.
Has anyone addressed the issue(s) of Rivers having "Lakes" in them? i.e. Some rivers are considered to "flow through" a Lake, usually but not always a Reservoir (artificial Lake) created by a dam.
Has anyone considered a Navigation box template to "connect" inter-related tributaries or Lakes (or Waterfalls, rapids, dams, ...)? LeheckaG (talk) 22:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Participants
Use this on your User: page to show you are part of this project:
Code | Result | ||
---|---|---|---|
{{ User Wikiproject Rivers }} |
|
This is the "standard" way a WikiProject shows user membership, It transcludes a WikiProject Rivers Category to your User page. LeheckaG (talk) 22:47, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
- It is a way of showing membership. But not a requirement or the standard. In fact, some of us reject all userboxes (a number of which have caused controversy in the past). Rmhermen (talk) 14:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Geographic Names Information System
Please use the "official name" from a Geographic Names Information System for a River article title, and create REDIRECTS when there is a "Common" name.
For instance (for the United States of America): GNIS Search by United States Geological Survey, and enumerate all/any additional names within the article under "Etymology" which should be under "History". LeheckaG (talk) 22:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
- This is too U.S. specific - and at Wikipedia we use the common name for article titles - even if it conflicts with an official name. Rivers often cross national and subnational language boundaries which would cause conflicts with this criteria. There is no need to include ever alternate name listed in a database as some are very uncommon, unlikely or too minor of variations to need mentioning. Rmhermen (talk) 14:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Disambiguation
While it is often common to refer to a Lake by the smallest civil subdivision which contains it, most larger Rivers, Streams, Creeks, ... with "non-unique" names requiring disambiguation tend to cross multiple civil subdivision boundaries.
- For those in the U.S., please perform a GNIS query for the uniqueness of the Official_Name, and Downstream_Parent.
- A "contested" ambiguous name should redirect to a "Official_name (disambiguation)" page and not to an "Official_name" article.
- Please document your justification for "most important", compare: Flow volume, Length, Historical Significance, Population, Traffic, ...
- An undisambiguated "Official_name" article name needs to have a disambiguation template at the top linking to an appropriate (disambiguation) page.
- Rivers pay little attention to political boundaries!
- A river can be identified uniquely as a tributary of another river or waterbody (lake or definable sea).
- In the U.S., the USGS, (Federal and State) EPA, and (State) Department of Natural Resources, ... uniquely identify rivers by either a hierarchical "hydrological unit code" (8-, 11-, or 14-digit) number or by their downstream parent.
- Article should be named with the downstream river or waterbody following in parentheses "Official_Name (Downstream_Parent)", Examples:
- St. Joseph River (Maumee River)
- Brandywine Creek (Cuyahoga River), ...
- Churchill River (Hudson Bay)
- Remember to perform GNIS queries for the uniqueness of the Official_Name, and Downstream_Parent.
- If you are not sure whether two or more rivers share a common downstream parent,
- For those in the U.S., go to a "Feature Detail Report" (by selecting a Feature ID), and select "Find the Watershed", if the leading/leftmost digits of the USGS Hydrological Unit Code (8-, 11-, or 14-digit number) are different, then they are different downstream watersheds, For example:
- Brandywine Creek (Broken Sword Creek); U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: 1038266 in Crawford County
- Brandywine Creek (Cuyahoga River); in Summit County
- Brandywine Creek (Miami River); U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: 1065935 in Logan County and Shelby County
- Brandywine Creek (Sugar Creek); U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: 1038267 in Tuscarawas County
- Useful resources: USGS; (Federal and State) EPA, (State) Department of Natural Resources.
- In the case where two or more rivers cannot be disambiguated by "Official_Name (Downstream_Parent)":
- In practice, most rivers needing disambiguation have been identified by the smallest appropriate civil subdivision (Town or Village, City, Township, Borough or County, Province or State, Country, or Continent).
- Colorado River and Colorado River (Texas).
- Litani River (South America)
- Smallest appropriate means:
- Civil sub-division needs to completely contain the named river
- mouth to source including unnamed tributaries, but NOT named tributaries nor watershed).
- River name needs to be disambiguous within that civil sub-division.
- Where two or more rivers cannot be disambiguated by "Official_Name (smallest appropriate civil sub-division)":
- Use the smallest appropriate civil sub-division containing a river's mouth and as much of the river as possible, while still being disambiguous.
- Always use parentheses for the disambiguator for U.S. and Australian rivers, not a comma.
- For example Indian River (Michigan) not Indian River, Michigan which is actually a town.
- New Zealand and British rivers have used the River, place format.
- Failing that, the most "common" disambiguating name could follow in parentheses.
- Try to be accurate, but be consistent!
LeheckaG (talk) 23:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
- Besides the enthusiasm!, which I find misplaced, you have reversed our two disambiguation schemes. "In practice, most rivers needing disambiguation have been identified by the smallest appropriate civil subdivision" is the primarty scheme, not by tributary as you have listed. See the archives for these discussions. Rmhermen (talk) 14:17, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
- Agree regarding the reversal of standard disambiguation scheme -- but this statement is also mistaken (or at least misleading): A "contested" ambiguous name should redirect to a "Official_name (disambiguation)" page and not to an "Official_name" article. Per WP:DAB regarding primary topics, if the simple title (that is, without any parenthetical phrase) is not a primary topic, then the disambiguation page should be at the simple title. There should not be redirects from Simple title Simple title (disambiguation). older ≠ wiser15:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Template Geobox
Read the current Template documentation! and Please update the WikiProject documentation accordingly: {{Geobox River}} has be superseded by the Geobox2 templates: {{Geobox}} and supplying a parameter of River; See: Template:Geobox/type/river. LeheckaG (talk) 23:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
- The WikiProject does not recommend the use of Geobox River so the request to upgrade to Geobox2 seems out of place. In fact, it appears that Geobox River was poorly reviewed by members of this project commenting on that template. A first step would be to either get Geobox used here before getting it upgraded. Rmhermen (talk) 14:07, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
- Do you read template documentation? What I said above, and what the documentation cited above says is that they made several "in-place" modifications to the Geobox template, i.e. when you transclude {{Geobox}} you are really transcluding "Geobox2", which is not a separate template but one Geobox template with all the modifications they made to the original. The difference in usage is whether you say "Geobox River" or "Geobox|River", the former separate templates have been superseded by the later which implements all the various Geoboxes, i.e. "Geobox" versus Geobox "2" is a matter of making sure you are reading the appropriate version "2" of the documentation. LeheckaG (talk) 18:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
- My "point" was that the "new Geobox" template "recommendation" (on the WP Rivers page) is not in synchronization with the Geobox template documentation, which has changed from the "Geobox River" to the "Geobox|River" a.k.a. "version 2" format. LeheckaG (talk) 18:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
- My question was: Has anyone done an evaluation or taken a poll/vote on "Infobox River" versus "Geobox|River"? I am not sure whether there is another motivation, but in some other WikiProjects - there has been a "push" to use Geobox instead of Infobox so that they are consistent (across feature types and projects). Geobox is based on one single template - whereas the Infoboxes diverged into a "family" of templates which are now sometimes a bit different from each other. As far as I can see, "Geobox|River" can do everything "Infobox River" can do - I am not aware of something which it can not do, and it offers a little bit more. Which I see as both a plus and a minus, there are some useful additional things it can do, but I also can see people "misusing" parts it if they do not have proper guidance. i.e. specific project recommendations on how to use certain parts - and how not to. LeheckaG (talk) 18:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Articles flagged for cleanup
Currently, 12297 articles are assigned to this project, of which 480, or 3.9%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See
- I assume the list would be here or linked from here? I am interested. Thanks, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 12:22, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Yangtze River
Does anyone at this project care to comment on the recent additional section in
Category:International rivers
I created
Coordinates
I'm a great advocate of adding coordinates to articles (using {{coord}}, to generate a Geo microformat, and to make them appear on Google Maps/ Google Earth, etc)). However, unless we can agree a convention for, say, always using the source and a note to that effect next to the entry, I don't see the sense of adding coordinates, which denote a point, to articles about a linear feature like a (potentially very long) river. Ideally, of course, we'd have infobox fields for source, each major confluence, and mouth. This is touched upon on the project page, but I can find no further discussion. Is anyone interested in taking this forward? Another possibility is adding tables of features, like that on Tame Valley Canal. Even then, we still have to decide which feature (source, mouth/ final confluence, whatever) to use as the defining point for a river. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:22, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
- I am interested in coordinates, for instance like it is done in the infobox at 11:24, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for your comments. What about rivers with no mouth (i.e. tributaries)? Are just two sets of coordinates appropriate for long rivers like the Nile, Amazon, etc? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:01, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
- Mouth can also mean confluence (Merriam-Webster definition of mouth: "the place where a stream enters a larger body of water"). So for tributaries, you use the larger river it flows into. In the Vltava example, the mouth is the Elbe at Mělník. I think articles about larger rivers would benefit more from a good map than from an elaborate list of coordinates. Markussep Talk 14:33, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks again. That all seems sensible, though I do like to see tables of features, even if on secondary pages; see also, for example, List of crossings of the River Severn whose coordinates, like those for Tame Valley Canal, can be exported as KML, or displayed on a map. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:00, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
- I didn't know about that kml feature, looks interesting! Would be nice to add that to lists like List of rivers of France, for instance coordinates for each confluence (titles of the confluences could be major river-tributary, like Elbe-Vltava). And a lot of work. Markussep Talk 17:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
- That should be do-able, but first consider creating a tabular version of the page, perhaps using a template. If the titles are to be double-barrelled as you suggest, they would need to be in one table cell. I'll watch that page, do you can raise any specific issues on its talk page.Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
- Is there a special reason for using tables? I made a test version of part of the list of rivers in France at my user space: User:Markussep/rivers#North Sea, it seems to work. A reason not to use tables is that the indentions in the lists have a meaning (the river is a tributary of the previous river with one level less indention). Markussep Talk 14:08, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
- By using tables, I meant one row per river (or per confluece/ point). It's much easier to apply classes consistently (and to prevent inexperienced editors from inadvertently removing them) if the data is presented in a meaningful tabular format. You can then apply microformat classes to other features, such as the country name or region. The use of coord's "name" parameter, as in your examples, is bogus, because the data is not written on the page. Some microformat parsers will ignore it.
- It's worth bearing that indentation (like colour and emboldening/ italics) are not suitable methods for conveying information to, for instance, blind people using assistive software. Imaging asking someone to read the page to you over the phone! Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
- It's not just indentation, many of our lists of rivers use a series of nested lists, basically an outline, to indicate tributary structure - nested lists meet ADA and W3C guidelines and spoken word browsers can handle them fine. You could convert the lists to a tabular format and it probably would look better, but I wouldn't want to lose the tributary structure information in doing so. Kmusser (talk) 14:36, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, the "name" field is also used like that in your Severn example. If you have a better suggestion, let me know. Also for the indention, I don't know a good alternative that gives the same information. Markussep Talk 14:38, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
- Yes; the name, field shouldn't be in {{coord}} at all. Sorry, I forgot that it was there. It was added in this damaging edit which also removed the "Note" properties from the hCard microformat which was used; and is the better solution. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
- Is there a special reason for using tables? I made a test version of part of the list of rivers in France at my user space: User:Markussep/rivers#North Sea, it seems to work. A reason not to use tables is that the indentions in the lists have a meaning (the river is a tributary of the previous river with one level less indention). Markussep Talk 14:08, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
- That should be do-able, but first consider creating a tabular version of the page, perhaps using a template. If the titles are to be double-barrelled as you suggest, they would need to be in one table cell. I'll watch that page, do you can raise any specific issues on its talk page.Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
- I didn't know about that kml feature, looks interesting! Would be nice to add that to lists like List of rivers of France, for instance coordinates for each confluence (titles of the confluences could be major river-tributary, like Elbe-Vltava). And a lot of work. Markussep Talk 17:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks again. That all seems sensible, though I do like to see tables of features, even if on secondary pages; see also, for example, List of crossings of the River Severn whose coordinates, like those for Tame Valley Canal, can be exported as KML, or displayed on a map. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:00, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
- Mouth can also mean confluence (Merriam-Webster definition of mouth: "the place where a stream enters a larger body of water"). So for tributaries, you use the larger river it flows into. In the Vltava example, the mouth is the Elbe at Mělník. I think articles about larger rivers would benefit more from a good map than from an elaborate list of coordinates. Markussep Talk 14:33, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for your comments. What about rivers with no mouth (i.e. tributaries)? Are just two sets of coordinates appropriate for long rivers like the Nile, Amazon, etc? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:01, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
← Microformats are intended for marking-up data which is visible in the page. In your example, "Moselle-Vologne" is not part of the page content. As a table row, with header row, I would use something like:
! River
! Confluence
! Region
! Coordinates
|- class="vcard"
| Vologne | class="fn org" | Moselle-Vologne | [[Pouxeux]] | {{coord|48|6|50|N|6|34|1|E}}|
(I think that's the right table mark-up) Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:35, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
- And if I want to use a nested list instead of a table, like on my user space (and the original list)? What's the problem with the "name" field anyway? Markussep Talk 15:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
- If you want to use a nested list, then you'll have to use the name property in coord - whose drawbacks I described above (briefly: hidden data, not picked up by some microformat parsers); or create your own template; or resurrect and use {{hcard-geo}}, which was written for exactly such a purpose. If I can figure out anther way, I'll let you know. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:58, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
- OK. There's no hurry, I think I'll add some coordinates to river articles first. Markussep Talk 18:17, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
- I've added coordinates to several river articles, for instance 10:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
- It looks fine to me - I use the Geobox River template - see Larrys Creek for an example - which also does this. I forget - does the Infobox River allow the source and mouth elevations to be added? Ruhrfisch ><>°° 12:42, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
- I've added coordinates to several river articles, for instance 10:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
- OK. There's no hurry, I think I'll add some coordinates to river articles first. Markussep Talk 18:17, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
- If you want to use a nested list, then you'll have to use the name property in coord - whose drawbacks I described above (briefly: hidden data, not picked up by some microformat parsers); or create your own template; or resurrect and use {{hcard-geo}}, which was written for exactly such a purpose. If I can figure out anther way, I'll let you know. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:58, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for River
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.
We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.
A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.
We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:40, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Categories
Hi folks.
- The main question for me would be: is there a clear difference between a river, a stream and a creek? If not, I wouldn't bother renaming the categories. Markussep Talk 08:17, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
- According to GNIS, "stream" is the generic term for a body of flowing water (in the U.S.). Creeks are, well, things that are named "Foo Creek" and rivers are things that are named "Foo River". Rivers and creeks are streams, streams are not necessarily rivers or creeks. Valfontis (talk) 08:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Coordinates for linear features
I have started a page, to give guidance on adding coordinates to articles about linear features such as roads and rivers. I intend to use it to document current practise, and develop polices for future use. Please feel free to add to it, or to discuss the matter on its talk page. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:20, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
- The proposal there takes as "main coordinate" the mouth/estuary. For many rivers, neither the source nor the mouth are clearly defined points. When displaying a map for a river, it would be desirable that most of its course would be visible on a map centered on the main coordinate. Using the mouth (or estuary) as primary coordinate that would waste a lot of space. Therefore it has been proposed earlier to use a point somewhere "in the middle". As guidance could be given: the point on the river closest to the smallest circle containing all its branches. Although theoretically not unique, this would in practice be relatively easy to determine. So I propose to change the "main coordinate" in the table accordingly and move the estuary/mouth to "further coordinates". −Woodstone (talk) 14:39, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
I cannot get the River infobox to display an image. Can someone take a look for me? Thanks, Mattinbgn\talk 08:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
- Done, I added image_size and map_size fields to force the width to be 250px. The standard width for images in the infobox is 256px, I don't know why that doesn't work for these images. Markussep Talk 11:15, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Found resource for Arctic-basin rivers
I was looking up someting on the obscure Sikanni Chief River, part of the Peace-Mackenzie drainage, and found this great resource on all Arctic basins, the Saskatchewan-Churchill, Hudson's Bay, Yenisey, etc etc. Just dropping it here for refernce if someone happens to be looking for flow/discharge rates on those rivers.Skookum1 (talk) 22:18, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Recreation
Many rivers provide recreational opportunities - boating, canoeing, angling, walking - and I wonder if this should have its own section under Article_Structure or if these activities should be listed under Economy? In some areas they might be important economic drivers, in others of little economic relevance. Derek Andrews (talk) 10:31, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
sources on river length
Hi, we are currently having a problem at Talk:Egiin Gol. Basically, the question here is what is an acceptable source: can a reproducable measurement on a (published) map/ computer image be acceptable? The problem is that literature offers different values for the river's lentgh (this is even true for bigger rivers like the Selenga), so it's hard to decide which one to pick. In fact, given that other sources usually don't tell how they arrived at their result, giving a reproducable method and its result might even be the more meaningful way? Yaan (talk) 18:24, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
- Use them all - while providing their sources. If conflicting measurements exist, the article should mention it. Rmhermen (talk) 15:24, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Could someone re-assess the River Irwell article? - it's moved on a lot since it was assessed as start class. Richerman (talk) 17:26, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Are maps to be considered primary or secondary sources?
Please give your input at Wikipedia talk:No original research#Regarding maps being "primary sources" according to this policy. --Rschen7754 (T C) 12:04, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
I have just become aware of the Category:Rivers of Ulster County, New York, which appears to be the only Rivers of X County category in New York. It is presently being added to articles that are already in the Rivers of New York cat, which (news to me) says that its OK to include parent and child cats in the same article.
I find myself thinking, is this a good idea? First, I'm wary of the parent/child combo, though I do understand that there are some places it makes sense. According to
But whole the idea of Rivers of X County seems troubling: how many rivers fit entirely within a single county? Rivers of Ulster County contains six creeks, one "kill", and one river. Are we going to assign a dozen counties each to the Hudson and Mohawk and every other river of any normal size. Or should we consider nipping it in the bud before the rest of the River of X County cats get created? -- Mwanner | Talk 15:17, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- I would also be inclined to consider this overclassification that should be discouraged. Rmhermen (talk) 15:24, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- Incidentally, there is something similar going on at Bridges-- see 22:26, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- In that case we're looking at an explicit project directive to do this. Here we don't have one. And for my part, I consider that overcategorization as well. Daniel Case (talk) 21:24, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
- Incidentally, there is something similar going on at Bridges-- see 22:26, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
That category is largely meant for rivers — streams, really — that are exclusive or almost exclusive to Ulster County. There's no need to clutter up the state-level cat with them. Rivers like the Hudson, Mohawk or Genesee which flow through a number of counties in NY should have their own cats that can be listed as subcats of the "Rivers in X County" cats, keeping down the clutter at the bottom of the article. Daniel Case (talk) 21:27, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
- It's too bad there is no term that clearly encompasses smaller rivers-- that would be a nice clean solution. But our stream article suggests that the term "stream" is a general one that encompasses the entire range of river sizes. Our only article on creek suggests that they are tidal. I'm almost tempted to suggest Category:Small rivers of New York, but how the hell would one define the dividing line. We could say that Rivers of X County should be used only for rivers that are contained entirely within a county, but that seems kinda silly. Besides, I suspect that if we go ahead and create the 70 county articles, they'll end up applied to every stream in the state, with the State cat on each as well. Are county list articles a better solution here? -- Mwanner | Talk 21:49, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
- "Watercourses", perhaps? Or perhaps naming the parent cat "Rivers and watercourses in ..." or even just "Watercourses in ..."? Daniel Case (talk) 23:18, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
- "
- I'm sorry, I meant "encompasses only smaller rivers". The idea being to have a cat that applied to small streams but not full-fledged rivers, so as to divide the articles up. I think it's a non-starter, though. But you're right-- does Category:Rivers need to be renamed to accommodate smaller streams?
- Anyway, on the original question, it seems to me there are two options, short of letting county and state cats get assigned to all watercourse articles in NY. One is to limit county-cats to rivers that fit (almost) entirely within the county, as Dan suggests above, and the other is to delete the Rivers in Foo County cats. I worry some that the former would be tough to enforce: an editor sees that a county cat exists and goes boldly forth applying it to all streams that set foot in the given county. So I guess I lean towards deletion. -- Mwanner | Talk 19:28, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
- Or on second thought, what about Category:Small watercourses in Foo County? That would fit Dan's intent and lessen any tendency to apply it to every stream that crosses a county. It might also help keep such articles from being tagged with the State cat, while the Small watercourses in Foo County cat itself could belong to the state cat. Thoughts? -- Mwanner | Talk 19:35, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
- Problem is, who says what a small watercourse is? It's not like ponds and lakes, where there is a clear-cut, objective distinction accepted by geographers and hydrologists (and, of course, we include pond articles in the lakes project). Daniel Case (talk) 17:40, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- Clear-cut, objective distinction? From pond: "Although the term pond is universally used to describe waterbodies that are smaller than lakes, an internationally recognised size cutoff has not yet been agreed, with values ranging from 2 hectares (20,000 m2) to 8 hectares (80,000 m2) used to distinguish the smaller from the larger waterbody." That's 20 acres on the high end. I could name dozens of Adk ponds larger than that, starting with 338-acre Long Pond in the Saint Regis Canoe Area. I've also seen the distinction based on depth, and on whether or not there is a dam (a "pond" being an "impoundment". -- Mwanner | Talk 18:19, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- It's not about the area, but about the water. I learned in physical geography class that a pond, properly, has no clearly discernible inflow (Lake Tear-of-the-Clouds is considered the source of the Hudson for this reason ... it has small inlet brooks, none of which are alone enough to fill it. Lakes have a definite inflow and outflow. Yes, both names are often misappplied, but that's not peculiar to bodies of water. Daniel Case (talk) 02:09, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
- It's not about the area, but about the water. I learned in physical geography class that a pond, properly, has no clearly discernible inflow (
- Clear-cut, objective distinction? From pond: "Although the term pond is universally used to describe waterbodies that are smaller than lakes, an internationally recognised size cutoff has not yet been agreed, with values ranging from 2 hectares (20,000 m2) to 8 hectares (80,000 m2) used to distinguish the smaller from the larger waterbody." That's 20 acres on the high end. I could name dozens of Adk ponds larger than that, starting with 338-acre Long Pond in the Saint Regis Canoe Area. I've also seen the distinction based on depth, and on whether or not there is a dam (a "pond" being an "impoundment". -- Mwanner | Talk 18:19, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- Problem is, who says what a small watercourse is? It's not like ponds and lakes, where there is a clear-cut, objective distinction accepted by geographers and hydrologists (and, of course, we include pond articles in the
- Or on second thought, what about Category:Small watercourses in Foo County? That would fit Dan's intent and lessen any tendency to apply it to every stream that crosses a county. It might also help keep such articles from being tagged with the State cat, while the Small watercourses in Foo County cat itself could belong to the state cat. Thoughts? -- Mwanner | Talk 19:35, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Two comments:
- This argument has also taken place in Category:Rivers of Pennsylvania where there has been a trend to subcatergorize by watershed - certainly an alternative to subcatergorization by county. But whether by county or watershed, how does a visitor know in which subcategory to find a particular river? Is it best to include parent cats, eliminate subcats altogether, or perhaps use subcats to depopulate parent cats and direct visitors to a state list of rivers to aid them in their search? There is already a List of rivers of Pennsylvania, but as it is a manually maintained list, it does not seem a reliable way to accomplish this goal.
- I don't have clearcut answers, but in general, we don't worry about readers not knowing which subcat to look into: for example, we categorize NRHP sites by county but don't include them in the state cat. Actually, I'm not sure this isn't a non-issue-- if I'm looking for a particular river, I'll type it in the search box. The cat search method is useful when I'm looking for all of the rivers in a given area. Granted, what I'm really arguing against here is the "include articles in both county and state cats", not the existence of the county cats per se. I dunno, I'm about ready to back away from the whole issue. Still, it seems to me that, at the point at which only one or two cats exist out of what will inevitably become a set of 70 cats is a real good time to think long and hard about where you want to come out. Especially given the likelihood of editors coming along and assigning a dozen or more county cats to the Hudson, Mohawk, and other long rivers. -- Mwanner | Talk 18:09, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- The defination of "river" has also been a point of contention in Pennsylvania Rivers, with editors removing the PA rivers cat from articles. Gjs238 (talk) 16:42, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
- IMO, categorization by watershed is effectively accomplished by "Tributaries of ..." cats and (if considered necessary) subcats). Or a navbox.
As for distinguishing between what's a river and what isn't, see above. Daniel Case (talk) 17:40, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
As I suggested at WP:BRIDGE, we could always keep the rivers directly in the state-level category, and just use lists for the county subcategories. That way the river articles are not overcategorized by every applicable county, the state-level category is not hindered by forcing readers to browse through county subcategories, and the county-specific information is also preserved. Postdlf (talk) 17:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- Well, any river long enough to be in several different county cats (say, more than three) deserves its own category IMO. Daniel Case (talk) 02:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
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