I've just created a stub for the Balmhorn but the image is rather on the large size in the Infobox. Anyone care to tell me how to get it to the more reasonable size that it is on the German page [1]? Thanks. Ericoides19:05, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
At present there is no option to specifically set the image size in the Infobox although the image syntax does support this feature. The German Infobox defaults the image size to 324x300. We should consider doing something similar. RedWolf (talk) 17:05, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I've been having the same problem. The geobox mountain range feature offers a resizing option. I recommend that someone transplant that code into the mountain infobox template. It does nothing to diminish the template, and adds an important control, so I there is (argueably) no controversy in adding it in. ...I'd do it myself, but I'm not hip to how that works. Can someone tackle this?--Pgagnon999 (talk) 22:02, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
For those who didn't notice before, this is actually implemented now by User:Cireus. Alternatively I might propose this [[Image:{{{Img}}}|{{#ifeq:{{lc:{{{Landscape|}}}}}|yes|{{min|300|{{#if:{{#ifexpr:{{{Img_size}}}}}|300|{{{Img_size}}}}}}}x200|{{min|220|{{#if:{{#ifexpr:{{{Img_size}}}}}|300|{{{Img_size}}}}}}}}}px|{{{Img_capt|}}}]] piece of code, that will use different default-sizes for landscapes than for portraits images. It is taken from {{Infobox Musical artist}} --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Just wanted to throw out there something that came up for me recently. . .there seems to be a lot of subjectivity in how the quality and importance tags are applied to the Wikimountain project template (the one posted at the top of article discussion pages). I guess that's to be expected to a certain degree, as we all have opinions about quality & notability, yada yada. I guess I just wanted to say that it's probably a useful practice to do the following before applying tags:
Don't just skim the article and carelessly drop a tag into it--read the article. Then, before you act, think about it.
Read the criterion for tag ratings carefully before assuming how to best apply them.
Be aware that opinions about what qualifies as a notable mountain vary--indeed, there isn't even a conscensus on what exactly is a mountain and what isn't a mountain. Even the USGS shies away from making that distinction. To a mountaineer familiar with the Himalaya, anything under 10,000 feet is probably a hill. However, someone living in a relatively flat area might call a rugged landform as high as a few hundred feet a mountain. One person's mountain is another person's hill. So, we should not impose our definitions onto others. As Wiki editors, it's our job to keep the NPOV with regard to having no bias (or as little as possible) when it comes to applying tags.
Again, with regard to notability, consider other factors beside elevation and placement within a range. For instance, a low mountain with a significant religious importance would probably rate just as high (or higher) as a very high peak in Antarctica that's considered the pinnacle of mountain climbing achievement in the narrow realm of the mountaineering subculture. Remember: mountains mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Basically, they're landforms to which we attach a variety of significance to: recreational, religious, commercial, environmental, political, ecologic, geologic, cultural. . .etc. This project is WikiProject:Mountains, not WikiProject:Hiking or WikiProject:Mountaineering. Ours is a broad category that takes into consideration numerous factors of notability.
If you have little familiarity with the region in question, and can't glean the importance of the peak by reading the article, don't slap an importance tag on it. Let someone familiar with the region evaluate it.
Are peak lists considered valuable in mountain range articles? If so, what is the value -- IOW what goal should be in mind in compiling them?
I ask because I ran across the peak list for the Santa Monica Mountains. It contains one little-known peak not in the USGS list of place names, and another much better known peak also not in the USGS list. It omits several names (of type=summit) listed by the USGS. I know of at least a couple of non-USGS names which are very commonly used. The source is not cited and the contributor who added the list does not recall where it came from.
I am willing to update the Santa Monica Mountains list but I think I should do this based on a goal or purpose, not just because I can throw together some data. (The old Data vs Information.) I'm thinking along the lines of adding a column to indicate when data are USGS-derived and citing sources, but that still begs the question of why the list is there at all.
Also, I could easily add coordinates for the USGS items -- but the ones which really need coordinates are the non-USGS names.
Many readers of wikipedia do consider peak lists (and all sorts of other lists) important, incomplete as they may be. A while back, I put one up for deletion. . .an act which was soundly (and reasonably, since I didn't know better) squashed. That said, the lists aren't necessarily all inclusive; its up to editors to make them as complete as possible. Probably the best course of action would be to make sure that readers know that it is a list of some or many of the peaks in such-and such range/place (see List of mountains in New Hampshire), that way the article doesn't give the impression that the list faithfully shows every peak.
As for the United States Board on Geographic Names and its feature lookup, it's not 100% trustworthy. It bases much of its information on USGS maps as interpreted by data entry staff. The trouble here is that some peaks which have local notability don't end up listed on USGS maps while other peaks have more than one name (the USGS and USBGN may only list one). The USBGN does update their data base via public input and evidence, however, that doesn't happen overnight. Another related issue is that a named summit may be shown on the map as something other than the actual high point on a peak (because the lower summit is more visually prominant and associated with the name). In that case, if you want to know the actual elevation of the highest point on a particular mountain, be sure (!) to double check the USBGN with an actual USGS topographic map, as you may found (as have I), a number of inconsistancies. (See here for a good example; compare the USGS designation of the entire ridge as "Peak Mountain" with the USBGN which lists the prominant but lower southern ledge as the summit).
As for citations, it's good to have them, but, as you know, there is a whole xxxload of articles on Wikipedia that don't cite sources. In good time (hopefully) the articles will be improved--Pgagnon999 (talk) 16:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Yeah, I know that not everything is cited, but if I'm going to add or fix something I may as well rpovide citations for what I add. So I can extend the table, cite what I add, but leave what's apparently correct locally without citation. Thanks again. --Paleolith (talk) 01:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Or you could find references for the uncited material and improve what is already there and add your own cited material. That would be the best practice, but of course it's your time & you're not getting paid for it :)--Pgagnon999 (talk) 03:04, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh yeah, I'll add what I find. In fact, I have a book reference for the USGS-unknown peak that's currently in the list. What I meant to say was that I won't let the lack of citations in the existing material stop me from adding new material and retaining the old. --Paleolith (talk) 04:43, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
New image sizing parameter available in infobox mountain
Step right up & be the first on your block to use the new image resizing option available for Template:Infobox Mountain. This new option is expressed by the line "| Photo size = x " where x= the width of the photo in pixels. The line has been included in the template description for easy cut and paste. If the line is excluded from the template, photo width defaults to 300px. Note, however, if the line is included with no parameter, the photo will not display.
This option is especially useful in working with vertical compositions, which tend to display too large at 300px, or lower quality images that may appear too grainy at 300px.--Pgagnon999 (talk) 05:50, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I surveyed your list of 'top' and 'high' class mountains. I suggest that Mt. Washington (New Hampshire), Mt. Mitchell (North Carolina), Clingsman Dome (Tennessee) and Baldy Mountain (Manitoba) all be moved from top to high catagories (and Baldy Mt., even lower). I don't think they meet the criteria to be top rated. They may be prominent locally, but not nationally or internationally. They certainly don't measure up to more well-known US Mountains currently in the 'high' catagory such as Pikes Peak, Mt. Rainer, Mt Shasta, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea (which, I presume, will be rated as 'high').
Please re-read the criterion for rating mountains and you will see this: Note that general notability need not be from the perspective of editor demographics; generally notable topics should be rated similarly regardless of the country or region in which they hold said notability. Thus, topics which may seem obscure to several audiences —but which are of high notability in other places—should still be highly rated. Also, Mount Mitchell is the highest point in the Appalachians, which according to the criterion, means that it should be "top" rated. But again, this isn't an international popularity contest, and I think that it's safe to say that it is hard to know just what is well known to someone on the other side of the globe.--Pgagnon999 (talk) 02:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
One other thing, which I always find interesting, is the idea that prominent peaks on the western U.S. are often regarded as more notable than prominent peaks in the eastern U.S. (usually by people who live in the western U.S.) If you were survey folks in the northeast U.S. or adjacent Canada about which was more well known to them, Mount Washington or any of those mentioned: Pikes Peak, Mt. Rainer (yep, even this one), Mt Shasta, Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea, etc. I think you'd get an interesting and eye-opening response. And keep in mind the the northeast U.S. and "mainstreet Canada" are no small population centers.--Pgagnon999 (talk) 02:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I read your criteria which is why I made the comments I did. The one think you folks should be careful of is not including too many mountains in the top catagory otherwise you will get full of so many 'top' mountains that the truly top mountains aren't as prominent as they should be. (The play on words is intended, but also a useful analogy). I don't think it would be useful to have the highest mountain in each of the 50 states in the 'top' catagory. Yes, I grew up in the Western United States, but I went to school in the East. Always knew about Mt. Washington, mainly because of their weather station. Mt. Mitchell is forgetable. Neither of them is physically particularly prominent.
I'll admit I did a google search and "Mount Washington" was right up there with Mount Rainer and Mount Shasta, (in the 2,000,000 hit range) and all were behind Pike's Peak (3,500,000 hits). Mt. Mitchell was pretty low (100,000 hits), about the same as Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. But Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea are often in the news because of the active volcano and the observatory. They are also the biggest thing around for a long long way, and from their base, they are the tallest and biggest mountains in the world. But "Clingman's Dome", top-rated? 5000 hits. The Wikipedia write up are fairly reflective of the above.
As for the Eiger, that is one of the most famous mountains in the world (3,800,000 hits) and Vesuvius (2,000,000 hits) isn't far behind. Remember Pompei. The Großglockner (1,000,000) is the highest peak in Austria. And Austria is famous for its mountains. All three, buy any measure should be "top" mountains.
I think you need to re-examine your criteria carefully. If any mountains from the Appalachian range make it as top, it should be limited to Mt. Washington and Mt. Mitchell, and if you do that, you should also include Pike's Peak, Mt. Rainer, Mt. Shasta, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea into the top criteria too. That is to go with Mt. Elbert (37,000 hits, highest peak in US Rockies), Mt Whitney (200,000 hits) Mt. McKinnley and the Grand Teton (1,700,000 hits). Can't think of any other US Mountains that should make the 'top' grade.Swlenz (talk) 00:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. The Google stats are interesting, but Google hits are not considered criteria for notability/importance on Wikipedia (I believe you'll find and explanation in WP:Notability, but don't quote me on that). I don't think most editors want Google or any other internet search engine becoming the defining factor of notability for an encyclopedia. If you think about it, it makes sense; I could go deeper into it if you'd like, but a number of obvious reasons (some potentially alarming) will probably jump out at you if you give it some thought. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. If none do jump out at you, let me know & I'll go there.
As for how many mountains make it to the "top" category, I don't see that as a big issue, unless Wikipedia is running short on hard drive space. Is there a reason why the top category should not have several thousand mountains in it? I can see an expansion of the ratings system to include a wider range; that would make sense.
Finally, you should not miss the point that importance is not rated on a global scale. Many people assume it is, but if you check out the criterion carefully (see my quote above), you'll see this is not so. This makes sense for a number of reasons. Take, for instance, the Western Ghats in India. Here you have a mountain range that, although not well known in Europe and the U.S., is located in one of the most populous places on earth. The city of Bombay is located at the foot of the Ghats. The range has a great deal of religious and cultural significance to an enormous number of people. It is among the most biodiverse areas on earth. But how many people know about it in the U.S.? The point is, as people who are living in North America, and within specific regions in North America, it becomes too easy for us to start rating importance from our biased regional perspectives--POV which has no place in an encyclopedic work. It's easy for me to think that just because I am educated (I have two degrees), that I have some idea of what might be important on the other side of the globe or continent, but it's a bad practice to get into, a pitfall of ignorance. By extension, this idea of regional bias can be carried to any number of other milieus, for instance, a particular DNA sequence might be of absolute critical importance to the study of cancer among physicians or the evolution of life to natural historians, but fall outside the radar of the general population. And yet, it is highly notable within those subject areas. A Wikiproject associated with DNA might rate those things quite highly, even though other DNA topics might have broader notability among the general public (and more Google hits). Again, this is not a popularity contest (or an internet popularity contest); this is an encyclopedia.
As far as Mount Mitchell, it is the highest point in the Appalachians. High points in major ranges are generally rated "top" or higher importance. Why is Mount Everest so important to human beings? Because it is the highest point on earth, and we human beings tend to attach an unusual significance to such measurements. --Pgagnon999 (talk) 04:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
(copied from discussion on my talk page) The more I think about this issue, the less it seems to really matter. I'm not sure that the importance tags are doing anything beneficial for the project--in fact, they may actually be hurting it. People are going to edit articles about mountains that mean something to them. ..most of us aren't going to read the importance tags (even if we go to the discussion page of the article at all) and make our editing choices based on them. And someone who creates an article about a mountain only to find someone has later labeled it as of "low" importance may be discouraged from contributing again. I'm settled. . .I'm settled. . .I !vote delete the entire "importance" rating system. The project is better off without it; many other successful Wiki projects don't have one and are no worse for wear. --Pgagnon999 (talk) 00:14, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I've decided to shun the practice of importance tagging, Black Tusk (see above for my reasons). If the tagging interests you, you may wish to check out the rating system & tag as seems reasonable to you based on what you read there. Best, --Pgagnon999 (talk) 05:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Canadian Cascade volcanoes
Obviously needs lots of work (e.x. Mount Garibaldi, Mount Cayley, Mount Meager, Mount Silverthrone). I have worked on geology and a lot of referening of these articles for quite a while but still need more info and detail other than geology (e.x. history, climbing, discovery, etc). Canadian Cascade volcanoes have produced major explosive eruptions and large landslides in the recent geological past, including The Barrier landslide in 1855-56, the major eruption of Mount Meager 2350 years ago, sending ash as far as Alberta. These observations are indications that Canada's major Cascade volcanoes are potentially active, and that their associated hazards may be significant. For this reason the Geological Survey of Canada are planning for developing hazard maps and emergency plains for Mount Cayley and Mount Meager volcanic complexes. They are closely related to the other Cascade volcanoes in the United States (i.e. Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, etc).
In addition, volcanic disasters have occurred in Canada. During the 18th century, the Tseax River Cone eruption killed 2000 people. I'm asking for help from anyone willing to expend these articles into a GA and eventually an FA. Thanks. Black Tusk23:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
It looks like you are doing good work, Blacktusk. As you are probably already realizing, things move a bit slowly in this project. You may also wish to leave messages at the Wikiproject for volcanoes, as well as the regional and provincial Wiki projects for those areas of Canada. Also, look to see if the articles are fully categorized (but don't over-cat). Catting increases the visibility of the articles. Another user recently did a good job of catting a series of mountain articles I was working on; see Metacomet Ridge and the category by the same name, and see how each mountain is distributed into town categories and other relevent categories as well. best of luck, --Pgagnon999 (talk) 04:43, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Pgagnon999. I know things move a bit slowly in this project, but I thought the Canadian Cascade volcanoes are more less known than the American Cascade volcanoes. This is probably why the Canadian Cascade volcanoes arn't getting much attention like the other Cascade volcanoes. I left a message at the British Columbia project page as well. Black Tusk05:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I've been working with the articles about mountains in Oregon and I've come across an issue I thought should be discussed here. I've been using coordinates from GNIS. I think that is Ok and is not in question. Other sources have become an issue however.
I've been using Peakbagger.com as a source from information concerning which range a mountain is in. People have claimed that it fails to conform to WP:RS and that the site is bogus. (see the discussion here)
We have no consistent authoritative source for elevations of mountains in the United States.
I have received advice that SummitPost.org, Peakbagger.com and NGS are frequently used. I personally have no problem with SummitPost or Peakbagger except that it is hard to defend them as authoritative. NGS is accepted as being very accurate although I have noticed that the data given is for bench marks that are seldom at the highest point on the mountain. This is clear from reading their data sheets. They are in the business of maintaining control points and not in the business of deternining the elevation of summits. I beleive this is why their data is often a few feet lower than other data such as that at GeoData Clearinghouse, Department of Geology, Portland State University that I have used for some data concerning Oregon Mountains. Another source is GNIS but their elevation data seems to be seldom used and elevations given are usually lower than that found at other sources. The good thing about GNIS is that data is given for almost every summit in the US, it is consistent and authoritative. It appears that sites like Peakbagger get there data from somewhere but I don't know where. It would be interesting to find out.
I have no strong feelings about what the consensus should be. I just feel that there really needs to be a consensus. If a wikipedian not familiar with the project questions why one elevation is given and not another there should be somewhere to point them. If I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill let me know. --DRoll (talk) 19:34, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree that Summitpost and Peakbagger are not authoritative. I tend to use Summitpost more as an external link (a very valuable one, often) and less as a reference. I use Peakbagger to find out info, and I have cited it, but I would prefer other sources over it. (As to where Greg Slayden gets the data, he says on his contact page that he added it by hand (presumably from maps) and also from GNIS, BGN databases.) I'll also mention www.peaklist.org, which mainly only has high-prominence peaks, but is very carefully researched. (Disclaimer:I have a connection to that site, but its current elevation research is not due to me.)
NGS is quite authoritative for what it is, but as noted above, it's benchmark info, not summit info. Sometimes it's clear from the data sheet that the BM is the summit, and it can be used. This has been done for a number of the Colorado fourteeners.
I'm not sure why the USGS topo maps, available on Topozone, are not mentioned above. That's where I most often cite summit elevation info for the US. Some summits do not have spot elevations, but when they do, it's a pretty reliable source, although not infallible. (But it's better than GNIS.)
I don't know how to distill all the different sources and levels of reliability into a consensus, but I thought I'd throw in my two cents. -- Spireguy (talk) 02:58, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Please don't use GNIS for elevations. The USGS says
The elevation figures in the GNIS are not official and do not represent precisely measured or surveyed values. The data are extracted from digital elevation models of the National Elevation Dataset for the given coordinates and might differ from elevations cited in other sources, including those published on USGS topographic maps. Published map data represent precisely surveyed points that often are marked by a benchmark or triangle on the map and a benchmark seal physically anchored into the ground at the site.
The best data for elevations are indeed NGS --- the USGS topographic map data is often in the 1927 vertical datum, taken with old surveying technology. I believe that summitpost and peakbagger often (?) take their data from USGS maps.
Given that the USGS map data is out-of-date, for US peaks, I would recommend using the NGS data --- even if the benchmark is not at the very top, it is usually within a couple of feet, and the error induced by that is less than the USGS <-> NGS error. And the benchmark location is verifiable, at least.
I noticed that DRoll had reverted some of my Oregon NGS elevations --- can we revert them back?
What should we do about non-US peaks? Is there an up-to-date geodesic survey of Canada, for example?
When I add a new mountain, I try to find several sources for elevation, range, first ascent, etc. but as I'm sure many have found out, authoritative sources for such information are far and few between. For some reason, gov't agencies tasked with providing geographical data just don't seem to think that providing accurate and up-to-date information on mountains is a key concern for them. I tend to rely on PeakBagger for elevation data of U.S. mountains but not necessarily for mountain ranges because I know the site "makes up" suitable range names where no official names exist. The level 1-4 ranges named there typically are official but one must be careful about level 5 and lower.
I will use SummitPost for verifying elevation from PeakBagger and for maybe finding info on the first ascent and possible routes. As for GNIS, I do use the coordinates but rarely the elevation since it seems to be way off the mark most of the time when I compare it to other sites. The one main exception being Antarctica where the GNIS elevation is almost always used because I cannot locate another source.
For mountains in Canada, I primarily use bivouac.com (Canadian Mountain Encylopedia), peakfinder.ca and Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies although I'm not certain what CME uses for sources. Sometimes, I even refer to topo maps that I have of the Canadian Rockies although I try to verify data from the map using other sources. The Canadian Geographical Names Data Base (CGNDB) provided by Natural Resources Canada (http://geonames.nrcan.gc.ca/search/search_e.php) provides a way for me to find mountains/peaks by the same name as well as the relevant topo map but that's about it. Sure it has coordinates but the seconds is always 00 so I can only assume the minutes is just "close" most of the time (CME tends to have the most accurate coordinates). There are no details about naming or history like there is for GNIS. I don't know, maybe it's in there but they have decided not to make it available on the web site. So, I don't use it as a primary source on a particular mountain in Canada. The CGNDB is rather limited in its use as an authoritative source which is unfortunate. I sometimes check the Parks Canada web site for information on mountain ranges or glaciers but there tends to be scant information at best.
To alleviate some of the confusion on elevations and prominence in the infobox, I now typically add an inline citation to where I got the data from. Given my observations on GNIS elevation data and the GNIS statement above, we should not be relying on GNIS for elevation except for Antarctica and perhaps should be using NGS with an inline citation for mountains in the USA.
While I can understand that some may question the use of PeakBagger, SummitPost, Peakware, CME, etc. as authoritative sources, this information is typically gathered by experienced mountaineers who have a keen interest in providing accurate information to the public. While it's always nice to be backed up by gov't agencies who are typically considered reliable and authorititive, govts seems to lack some initiative when it comes to mountains — something about priorities some might say. RedWolf (talk) 05:21, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Since it falls within the purview of this WikiProject, I thought I should advise of a new debate to move the article about Sněžka-Śnieżka. As participants in the associated project with the least interest in the specific political and cultural ramifications of this Czech/Polish mountain debate, but the greatest experience with worldwide naming conventions for mountains, your views would be especially welcome. CzechOut☎ | ✍05:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I am tryin to decide if I should make this a single article entry under Mount Yoko or should I make three articles, one for each peak?
The guide book I am using as a source though lists it as just Mount Yoko. This argues for a single article. The mountain(s) probably is not all that important either. The peaks are all around 700 m when the highest point in the range is just over 2000 m. Nor do I have much more information about the peaks other than coordinates, elevation, mountain type, and such.
However, I noticed that Mount Shasta and Shastina have separate articles, too. Granted these mountains are more significant, but it is a single massif in a way. In any case, the Geographical Survey Institute (the mapping agency for the government of Japan has named all three peaks. The do not name all peaks on their maps, so this indicates some significance. This is an argument for three separate articles.
Looking at Google's contour map, I'd call it one mountain with 3 peaks along a summit ridge. Also, the names ("North", "Middle Peak", "South") aren't exactly claiming individual identities. Although the southeast one is somewhat separate, with about 60m of prominence. It might be worth a section of its own, if the article weren't so short.
I would create just one article for the highest peak and have redirects for the other peaks. Mount Everest has a south summit but it is not worthy of a separate article (unless perhaps some noteworthy event happens at that particular location on the mountain in the future). Many mountains around the world have subsidiary peaks and for the most part, do not warrant their own article. A redirect and some information on these peaks in the main article suffices in most instances, including this one. RedWolf (talk) 00:58, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Trails.com is less functional than Topozone was, unless you are paying for the service, but ACME mapper, also listed on Geohack, offers free functionality equal to Topozone. --Pgagnon999 (talk) 14:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
P.S., you have to use the these Wikipedia templates for the lat/long format ACME is using. Be sure to retain the "-" symbol for the longitude: {{coord|00.0000|-00.0000|display=inline}} or {{coord|00.0000|-00.0000}}--Pgagnon999 (talk) 14:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
That's a good question but I think we still need both. The first category is populated when using {{Mountain}} while the second when using {{Mountainindex}}. The second category includes articles that need further work in disambiguating them properly while those in the first category do not usually fall into this scenario. Having two categories helps us to maintain a distinction between these two types of dab pages. This is an established convention for other article types that also need have this type of disambiguation (e.g. Category:Ship disambiguation). I will note that naming of Category:Disambiguation lists of mountains was based on the similar category for ships but it was renamed in November 2007 to Category:Ship disambiguation so it might make sense to also rename this mountains category to Category:Mountains disambiguation for consistency. RedWolf (talk) 21:44, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
No, other WikiProjects dealing with mountains and mountain ranges would be descendants but categories are not WikiProjects. A WikiProject typically organizes the articles of interest into one or more categories. RedWolf (talk) 07:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Naming conventions
It appears that we have never really discussed naming conventions at it pertains to the translation of non-English peak names when an article is created for them on the English Wikipedia. I recall it coming up in an indirect way in various discussions in the past but nothing concrete has been formalized. The policy is to follow Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) where it states that the English translation should typically be used for the article name unless the non-English one has seen acceptance by English speakers (e.g. Mont Blanc). However, I am not proposing that we take the literal English translation of mountain/peak names but rather we should standardize on the use of "Mount", "Peak" and "Volcano" when used in the article name rather than using the non-English equivalent (unless again the non-English name is prevalent in English usage such as Mont Blanc). I see inconsistencies in article names where sometimes "Pico" or "Monte/Mont" is used rather than "Peak" or "Mount" as is what the policy is suggesting (or at least my interpretation). I see other language wikis translating "Mount" and "Peak" to their local equivalents in most cases, although there are inconsistencies.
So, I propose that we establish the convention of using "Mount", "Peak" or "Volcano" (any others?) when translating non-English peak names, with notable exceptions as alluded to above. If one is in doubt of whether the translation should take effect, they could post to a new sub-page dealing with naming decisions. The native name would of course still be mentioned in the opening paragraph. RedWolf (talk) 07:02, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Funny, we just had a similar discussion over on WikiProject Japan. The discussion [2] also referenced this disucssion in our manual of style [3]. Basically, it agrees with your premise. To add to your convention, I have used "Summit" in article titles before when I felt it more appropriate. imars (talk) 11:02, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Infobox Mountain template problem - parent peak
Hallo, I've just added the infobox template to Fountains Fell, copying it from Template:Infobox_mountain, and found that although I'd added the "parent peak" it wasn't appearing on screen. After comparing to another page which used the template, I removed the "_" in the field name "Parent_peak", and it worked. So the version of the template which is displayed at Template:Infobox_mountain doesn't seem to correspond with what currently works. Has it been changed at some point? Are there articles out there whose parent peak has disappeared from the display? PamD (talk) 09:15, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
The documentation was not in sync with the implementation. The actual parameter name is "Parent peak". I have fixed the documentation. RedWolf (talk) 06:31, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I personally have not found the links much use. I checked some of the links and the site only has the most basic info such as coordinates, location and elevation so does not add any value in that regard. There are a number of trip reports which some might find useful though, so I consider that a plus. However, if one did a google search, I'm sure one could easily find the trip reports that way. I guess, in the end, I would not have much of a problem if they remained or were removed. The site is of marginal use at this point but I don't think I would consider the links spam at this point although the change from a .org to a .com domain might be considered a change for the worse in some circles. RedWolf (talk) 06:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Reassessment of Hidaka Mountains
Can I request a peer review of Hidaka Mountains? I have put some effort into expanding the article, which is currently rated as a stub. I have added articles for 60 mountains or so in the range. I am currently trying to expand the related towns, rivers, and passes.imars (talk) 07:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I have upgraded it to Start class. Please see the comments link on the talk page for my assessment comments. RedWolf (talk) 06:31, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
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Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable)21:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Articles flagged for cleanup
Currently, 5321 articles are assigned to this project, of which 492, or 9.2%, 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 User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subscribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 08:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Request for comment from WikiProject
I was pointed towards the discussion at Talk:Mount Rainier#Infobox Image, which is the result of a content dispute for the image in the infobox. The question appears to me to be if it's better to have an unobstructed view of the whole mountain, or a partially obstructed view (clouds ringing the top of the mountain) that's a sharper/higher quality image. I was unable to find an image guideline from WP:MOUNTAINS that would address this; so any comments over on that talk page would be appreciated. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:27, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it's possible to have a good official guideline at that level of detail. It does seem like common sense to prefer less cloudiness in general, in the way that we don't like to have our celebrity photos be obscured from the neck up. :-) Stan (talk) 21:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Request for Comment from Wikiproject: "first ascent" versus "first recorded ascent"
Can anyone who is interested take a look at the discussion at Talk:Shiprock, particularly Talk:Shiprock#Reiteration? (If you start at the latter subsection, you might have to look back a bit for context.) There are two current issues:
(1) For a peak, like Shiprock, where climbing is currently illegal, should the FA and Easiest Route info be in the infobox?
I'm a little concerned by the edits of 2policesquare (talk·contribs). Without exception, they have all been to add links to Cicerone guides, usually in a "further reading" section or similar. Now, I think think that Cicerone guides are amongst the best walking books around; but even so, I'm not convinced that they belong in the "further reading" section of so many articles. (If they are used to reference a particular statement, that's different.) I should also note that 2 Police Square is the first line of Cicerone's address, but that doesn't necessarily imply a conflict of interest—it could just be that the editor is a fan of them. But the overall effect is to make me a little uncomfortable about the user's edits. Anyway, I would welcome opinions. — ras52 (talk) 21:59, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
I noticed a few of these turning up on my watchlist earlier. To me they are obviously spammy. Possibly the edits to the articles on long-distance paths could stay, they are generally good books and may well be one of the top reference works for that path so possibly should be mentioned if not already in the references. I'd still be tempted to delete/move to talkpage though until a more complete list of further reading could be assembled. For some of the articles though (Skye, Hebrides etc) there's no way that these guides are one of the most important reference works on this subject, articles are certainly not a place to collect a list of all the books related to the article topic (unless I suppose there are very few of them). JMiall₰22:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Template for Kashmir?
Recently a number of peak articles in the Karakoram and western Himalaya, e.g. Masherbrum and Rimo I, have been the scene of edit warring regarding the nationality of the peaks. Now, this is my least favorite issue, since it involves a lot of divisiveness, but something has to go in the infobox. See Masherbrum for an example of what might be reasonable to put in. Anyway, it seems like it makes sense to create a template, with a few parameters (Pakistani side of the LOC versus Indian side, etc.) to standardize what is said. (Realizing that it will always be a source of contention.) Then at least the debate can happen at one location, namely, the template talk page. Now, I know nothing about creating templates...anyone want to volunteer? -- Spireguy (talk) 21:45, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
It's a nice idea, and one that I can sympathise with. But I can't see it working. Suppose you have a template called "Pakistan-controlled Kashmir" that expands to a suitable piece of text explaining the situation. What'll happen is that you'll have a continual revert war on the template page (which is the intention) and the side who feel they're losing will then remove the template and start edit-warring on the article again. So instead of moving the argument to one central place where you can ignore it, you'll just increase the number of arguments. We tried exactly the same thing on Northern Irish mountains where the appropriate national flag to display is controversial. It even went to mediation and people agreed to keep the argument on the template page. But it never worked. The situation only finally stabilised when everyone involved got themselves banned. I'm very happy to help create some templates if you'd like, and if you can give me some idea on what you want them to do / say. But to be honest, I can't see it helping. — ras52 (talk) 17:38, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
its not just masherbrum its Gasherbrum also pakistani mountains targeted excessively and only 1 indian mountain Rimo I is claimed ti be disputed i can name 10 others which are but they do not have dispute tag on them why just pakistan??? this is clear bias towards pakistan we should level this and insert disputed on all indian mountains in the loc aswell not just exclusively pakistani mountains cheers dudes 86.158.239.250 (talk) 14:22, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks to ras52 for the reply, even though it is disheartening. We can discuss here further and see if there is a consensus for creating such a template.
I already noted to the anonymous IP editor that much of the reason for the perceived "bias" against Pakistan is that there are more well-known peaks on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control. -- Spireguy (talk) 20:00, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
I have just discovered {{WPBannerMeta}} which provides the same functionality (and more) as that currently coded in {{Mountain}}. I'm thinking we should move to using this meta template as it standardizes the use of the project's template with other projects and does provide a few more features that might be useful. For example, indicating if all six criteria for B class have been met.
Also, I'm wondering if maybe we should make {{WikiProject Mountains}} our official template rather than {{Mountain}}, although the former is currently a redirect to Mountain. The original intent of Mountain was just to note mountain peaks and ranges but the template is now being used on anything mountain related (e.g. passes, plateaus, lists of mountains, categories). RedWolf (talk) 19:23, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
I have implemented the meta template in {{WikiProject Mountains}} as this contains a smaller subset of usage than {{Mountain}}. I will give it a few days to ensure that everything is working properly, then I will redirect the Mountain template to it. RedWolf (talk) 00:34, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Mountain
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.
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Geolinks-US-mountain
This template currently has two functions:
display the coordinates in the title bar
re-display the coordinates at the bottom of the page
It's used in about 300 articles only.
As the second function is only marginally useful, I'd like to remove the template and:
either activate the coordinates display in the title bar of the coordinates in the infobox (sample: [4])
or add the coordinates to the infobox in the cases where this hasn't been done.
Alternatively, we could edit the template to display of the coordinates only in the title bar. -- User:Docu
I have been gradually replacing the use of this template with using display=inline,title for the coord template. I would keep the coordinates in both the infobox and the title bar, partly because the coordinates in the title bar may not be displayed by sites that use Wikipedia content. RedWolf (talk) 03:51, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Note that if one specifies the pushpin coordinates, there is no need to use the Coordinates parameter. What would be really useful if a bot could add the pushpin parameters by extracting from the Coordinates parameter. Of course, it would have to be smart enough to pick the correct map to be used. RedWolf (talk) 00:36, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Hiking article getting killed
Dunno, but it seems remotely possible somebody here might be interested in trying to save an article of potential interest to hikers and mountaineers in North America and elsewhere.
Wilderness Diarrhea is getting merged into Travelers Diarrhea by a couple of zealots who seem to have no concept of outdoor interests and a narrow, clinical orientation toward medicine.
I get around a lot in the outdoors and rarely treat water, but WD article had some good stuff.
After a couple of weeks of calm discussion, I went ballistic and no longer want to participate. Rational voices might help.
These guys have irrationally convinced themselves that WD isn't a legitimate topic for a Wikipedia article.
I've pointed out several bomb-proof arguements to no avail. I'd say the strongest is the rather vast number of published articles that discuss WD as a separate concern from TD. They are both environmental health topics, and obviously the context of each are far different.
Need help to prevent deletion of mountain-related page
A new page, Colorado Mountain Club, has been flagged for deletion. The club has a long history of preserving mountainous areas in Colorado, and WikiProject Mountains seems like a perfect fit to provide legitimacy to the page. Can anyone please help? Thank you.
If this is too long winded skip to the yellow area below.
I'd like to reopen the discussion of summit elevations. I introduced a similar discussion some time back here. I've come to a better understanding of the problem since the last discussion. Below is a part of a discussion that started with the revision of an edit I made to Mount Rainer and then migrated between User talk:Droll and User talk:Cruiser1.
Something else that you may not be aware of is that I gave the elevation based on North American Vertical Datum of 1988 as given in the data sheet. The elevation using National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 was 14,393 feet. Peakbagger.com gives the elevation as 14,411 ft. They generally use the elevation shown on USGS topo maps. I just looked at the USGS topo map and it gives the summit elevation a NAVD 29 elevation of 14,410 feet. Converted to NAVD 88 that gives an elevation of 14,416 feet. Actually this is a pretty reliable figure. As you can see there is more to this than you might think and we all have something to learn including me. DRoll (talk) 03:29, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm willing to concede that the elevation of the mountain is 14,410 or 14,411. But that is based on NAVD 29 an not NAVD 88. If you check on various mountain articles in different states you will note that there is not a universal agreement about which datum to use. If you look at a number of NGS data sheets you will note that they universally adopted NAVD 88.
For a discussion of some of these issues see this discussion. I will take this discussion to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mountains so that a broader community will be involved. DRoll (talk) 23:15, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
I need to work on not sounding so dogmatic.
The correct thing to do is not simple. After studying the Topo map I understood that indeed the benchmark is not at the summit and the elevation of the benchmark is shown as 14,393. This is the elevation shown on the NGS Data Sheet. The map also shows a validated summit elevation of 14,410. A well researched article was added as a reference this morning and can be found here. It is now clear that as stated in the article the NAVD 29 elevation is 14,411 feet. All this taught me that NGS data sheets are not the last reference. It shows the benchmark at 14,399 using NAVD 88 and notes that the NAVD 29 elevation was 14,393 as shown on the topo map.
NGS uses NAVD 88 and topo maps (and peakbagger.com per the webmaster) use NAVD 29. Should Wikipedia strive for a standard and which should it be. I believe we have a standard for coordinates. We use NAD83 (WGS-84) and not NAD27. Note that NAVD 29 can easily be converted to NAVD 88 using the Orthometric Height Conversion VERTCON. NGS data sheets note that this is the tool NGS uses. I'll be happy either way but I think there should be a consensus.
I don't have a definite position on this, but one concern I have is that editor doing the conversion herself (even with VERTCON) might well amount to original research. What is the more important principle, consistency or NOR (rather strictly applied)? I'm not sure. -- Spireguy (talk) 01:28, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
Making calculations, such as miles to kilometers, or one datum to another, is not original research. --NE201:48, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
I've been using NAVD88 when I can get them from NGS (e.g., see Mount Whitney), and I think they are the latest (and most accurate) estimates. I agree that calculation is not OR, but I worry that it will result in numbers that casual editors will simply revert, because they look "wrong", and there isn't a simple link to verify them.
Here's a proposal, which is the evolved consensus at List of U.S. states by elevation, and seems to be the de facto consensus at many mountain articles. How about allowing either USGS NAVD29 elevations or NGS NAVD88 elevations (where available). The elevation should have a clear citation of its source. If the NGS elevation is used, then it should remain and not get reverted to USGS NAVD29. This makes it easy to add elevations (from the USGS), but we can gradually move over to NGS elevations as editors fill them in.
Mount Rainier is odd because of the snow cover: the consensus seems to be to count the snow cover, but that leads to odd conflicts like 14,410 vs 14,411. I don't have a solid suggestion here.
This is certainly an issue that needs to be addressed. Any written work should strive to be consistent in its use of measurements but then the main issue here is that we are using multiple sources using different measurement systems. I will be the first to admit that I have not paid all that much attention in the past as to whether the elevations were based on NAVD29 or NAVD88. As hike395 pointed out, elevations should always have a reliable source provided so that if someone questions the measurement, at least we can determine whether the source uses NAVD29 or 88. Given the much more accurate measurements provided by NAVD88, I think that we should move towards having all elevations based on it but that's not to say we can't have NAVD29 data as a reliable source. I would dare to say that the vast majority of people aren't going to care that much what system the elevation is based on. I think we need to strike a balance between being consistent and trying to avoid tagging on a long winded footnote to each elevation reference, explaining any conversion done from NAVD29 to NAVD88 or why NAVD88 is not being used in this case. I think hike395's suggestion is reasonable and I vote to go along with that. What might be good is to add some information to the project page alerting editors about this issue and perhaps providing a list of common sources (e.g. GNIS, NDS, GVP, SummitPost, PeakBagger, PeakFinder) and which system the source uses. Lastly, I would also agree that using a tool to convert from one measurement to another would not be considered OR. RedWolf (talk) 17:08, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
The units or coordinate system with which to express a summit elevation is important, where consistency is of course preferred when possible. However, it's also important to remember that different areas use different units. For example, Mt. Rainier has its height expressed in feet (meters in parentheses) since it's in the US, while Mont Blanc on the other hand has its height in meters since it's in Europe. Similarly, pages centered on England (like the Harry Potter pages) intentionally use English spelling for words, as opposed to American spelling which is used on most other pages. Your area says poe-tay-toe, my area says poe-tah-toe. ;) In other words, I wouldn't unconditionally switch to NAVD 88 units if the local culture still uses NAVD 29. Mt. Rainier is very well known because it's quite near large urban areas. I live in Seattle, where everybody in the Pacific Northwest knows the height of Mt. Rainier and considers it to be 14410 or 14411 feet. Were that elevation to change due to a more accurate measurment or popular/reputable local sources deciding to migrate to a different NAVD, it would be all over the news, which hasn't happened yet. Thanks, Cruiser1 (talk) 11:07, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't think we should let popular culture/belief dictate our listed mountain height. I recall a discussion where placemats at a restaurant were cited as elevation source for Mount Whitney (as 14,494). The belief in a certain elevation can certainly be noted in the article (just like any other POV), but shouldn't we use the most accurate elevation as "the" elevation listed in the infobox? hike395 (talk) 01:21, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
There's a big difference between accuracy and units! A perfectly accurate raw measurement can be expressed in feet or meters, and can be expressed relative to a NAVD 29 or a NAVD 88 reference point. Mt. Rainier is one of the most accurately measured mountains in the world. The only issue is what units to express that measurement in. I definitely agree we always want to use the most accurate measurement. I also agree popular culture often has erroneous ideas about heights, e.g. many still think Mt. Rainier is "14410 feet (NAVD 29)" because that's still seen in a number of sources, even though that number is based on an ancient 1956 triangulation, predating all the GPS work that's been done on Mt. Rainier since then. What I'm saying is popular culture should determine whether a mountain uses feet or meters, and also what base NAVD to use. In other words, "14411 feet (NAVD 29)" and "14417 feet (NAVD 88)" are both equally accurate heights, however Washington culture uses the former. Thanks, Cruiser1 (talk) 10:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm trying to understand Cruiser1's argument. Common practice on Wikipedia is that the elevation for places within the USA are first specified in feet and then in metres (or meters if you like). This was arrived at through consensus. The point that the elevation of Mount Rainier should be given as 14,411 (NGVD 29) is well documented and seems not to be in dispute. As for whether NGVD 29 or NAVD 88 should be used, it seems that those who have contributed to this discussion have not come to a consensus.
Now, as I understand it, the reason for the shift to NAVD 88 arose because of a problem about where zero is. That is not under the purview of Wikipedia. The NGS make a determination that NGVD 29 could no longer be considered a viable standard for their purposes. NGS datasheets have a been updated and include values converted to the newer standards. Other sources, including some goverenment sources, still use NGVD 29. Wikipedians might come to a consensus to use one standard or the other or both. As of now, I would perfer that we use both but show which standard is being used.
Template:Höhe allows to take into account various ways of specifying elevation. -- User:Docu
What are the reliable sources for both USian and non-USian elevations? It would be good to list them in the project page, somewhere. hike395 (talk) 17:19, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
This featured list is under review, and is in danger of being de-featured, because it doesn't have a well-written lead.
I have been very busy and I don't have time to spare to write a good lead. Would someone else from the Mtn WikiProject like to take a first crack at it? Any help is appreciated.
A proposal to delist this article would be absurd. Defeaturing doesn't seem so dire or meaningful, but I don't see why the item's status should be changed in any way.
I just wanted to emphsize that the referendum is not to eliminate the list but to remove its "featured" status. Featured lists and articles are usually held up to very high standards (rightfully so); a delisting would simply remove its exalted status, not its existence. --Pgagnon999 (talk) 05:19, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
This list has now reached 70k and probably should now be split up into a few other sub list articles to make it more manageable for editing and page loading. At this point, I would recommend splitting all the 4000, 3000, 2000 and under 1000 metres sections into their own articles as these will get pretty large themselves over time. The question is what would be suitable names. Some suggestions I can think of are (using just one section as an example):
I'm the anonymous user who removed the "North America's highest peaks" link from the resources section on the project page. I forgot to log in. It seems the page was removed at the request of the owner. --DRoll (talk) 06:48, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Mount Goode is the name of mountains in the Sierra Nevada and Alaska. It is also a variant name of a mountain not to far from Goode Mountain named Bonanza Peak. --DRoll (talk) 02:49, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I think Goode Mtn is probably best because of GNIS. Though it's true that the USGS is apparently Goode Mtn. What Does Beckey say? He is a major stickler for that sort of thing, and highly influential in this regard. I think he calles it Mt Goode, but don't have access to my copy.
Goode Mountain is the official name according to GNIS and it is our convention to use the official name even though those of us interested in mountains may have a different opinion sometimes (e.g. Mt. McKinley vs Denali). I support the rename. RedWolf (talk) 06:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I've corrected myself regarding the topic. GNIS and USGS use the term Goode Mtn. Dunno how I became comfused. What's the issue? Booker I think is an entirely different place. Beckey usage would carry some weight.
Calamitybrook (talk) 06:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
When I created the article, I followed Beckey's usage. He uses "Mount Goode" and doesn't even mention the alternate name "Goode Mountain." However I agree that we should use the official name "Goode Mountain" for the title of the article. The article should include a mention that "Mount Goode" is a common local usage, as attested by Beckey and Howbert. -- Spireguy (talk) 14:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Booker is indeed a different mountain, right across Park Creek from Goode. The inclusion of Booker as a variant on the GNIS could be because (a) it really is a variant, from way back; (b) the two peaks were genuinely confused with each other long ago; or (c) somebody was misinformed or misread a map when compiling the name info for the GNIS. It's hard to tell for sure. Even though the GNIS is a generally reliable source, and is correct by definition regarding official names, it's not infallible otherwise. E.g. the associated elevation information for summits is often way off. -- Spireguy (talk) 20:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Actually I've been feeling uncomfortable about cite NGS. I'm a retired C programer and C programers tend to have a general hatred of too much capitalization although caps are used for some things. I guess its a reaction to old Basic programing that was often done all in caps. Anyway, there probably should be a standard. {{cite web}} and all other citation templates I know of use lower case but they don't refer to specific sites. There are a growing number of articles with the newer citations used. Someone with a bot would have to help out.
By the way. {{cite gnis}} existed before I started goofing with it. That's were it started. It was lower case. The least work would be to change {{cite NGS}} rather than three others but I'll go along with what ever people want.
I was thinking about {{cite peakbagger}} as it would be very easy. Summitpost would not simplify things in my own opinion. Any others that there is a demand for I would be glad to work on. --DRoll (talk)
Its done! {{cite ngs}} now exists and I will ask for Template:cite NGS to be deleted. The only links to the old template will be this page and two User:talk pages. --DRoll (talk) 01:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
mountain ranges of California now all have at least stub articles
FYI... Some time ago I created the List of mountain ranges of California based on USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) data. With the help of a Perl script (computer program) to generate stub text from GNIS data, I added 216 stub pages to fill in the list. It was still a manual cut & paste process as I tried to collect some additional info for each one when available. There are no more redlinks on the list - meaning there is at least a stub article for every mountain range in California. (Well, that's for the ones listed in GNIS.) Also, all the mountain range pages in California which already existed now have a geobox, locator map, coordinates and a reference from USGS GNIS if they didn't already have these. Enjoy! Ikluft (talk) 08:41, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Hello everybody. I'm wondering about the american alpine journal. Its search engine has recently changed the name of its website. It took me a while to find it. But they cannot keep to their offer of making available anything from 1929 to 2008. I wasn't able to find anything younger than 1961. Articles from the AAJ are a great resource for WP and are referenced in many articles. But all you can find is some 404-lookalike... Maybe there's anybody there who knows more about it?! Yours--Rupert Pupkin (talk) 21:48, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
I too noticed this, just yesterday. It may just be a temporary problem with the change in search engine. If it persists I'll e-mail the editor, with whom I've had personal contact before. It would indeed be a shame if the web access disappears. -- Spireguy (talk) 22:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
It's been going on like this for some days. I thought it was maybe because of the hollidays, but now they might be working again?!? But I'm still faithful that the AAJO will be available again. Maybe there's some bug because of the turn of the year. At least they started offering data from 2008 (respectively at the moment they pretend to...), so one can assume good faith ;-) --Rupert Pupkin (talk) 10:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Western Pacific Cordillera was renamed from a US only title, and Pacific Cordillera was prodded because the editor said the US based article was the same topic, instead of merging the articles. I've deprodded it, because the newly renamed article is US centric, so the Canadian centric article shouldn't be deleted until the US article is no longer a US article. I have problems with the title "Western Pacific Cordillera", since this Cordillera is on the edge of the Eastern Pacific, not the Western Pacific, which would be Japan. 76.66.198.171 (talk) 16:51, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
This article is now a complete mess, as it's begun to be "improved" by an editor whose prior editing experience was only in biology articles; his debut edit says "organizing geographic scope" but it's clear he doesn't know the subject matter; I tried to help out, tried to explain existing definitions, and then got told that because I didn't cite all of what I was trying to tell him, he's just going to ignore me and only pay attention to peer-reviewed materials, even though he clearly hasn't READ any of the connected mountain range articles that are cited (not even Cascade Range or Rocky Mountains). I'm insulted and pissed off at hte waste of a few hours of (as some of you know) my very-verbose-but-knowledgeable-energies. The renaming has gone from bad to worse - it's now at Western Cordillera of North America and in the process I've discovered a redirect "Western Cordillera, North America", which goes to Pacific Coast Range (or Pacific Coast Ranges??) but that's the least of our worries; the article in question should simply be Western Cordillera, the meaning of Cordillera Occidental notwithstanding but that's a side-issue. My main problem right now is that waht is a core article for mountain range geography in North America is now being rewritten and designed near-entirely by someone whose prior editing experience is from biology, with no evidence of anything but travelogue-level geography. I'm pissed off, and will stay away from it (and said so rather pointedly....even though I actually held my tongue in check from what I could have said...); he wants to have a week at it to "organize geographic scope", without actually knowing much of the geographic literature, feeling his way in the dark and making matters worse on waht was already a chaotic and highly USPOV article. It can't be allowed to be a one-man show, given what i've seen this evening, so would other mountain-range editors hereabouts intervene and try and bring it in-line with the better articles in the series (Cascade Range, Rocky Mountains...can't say that Coast Mountains or Columbia Mountains are what they could be, frankly, though I've added to them a fair bit)....I'm not sure whether he's the same as the IP editor above, or whether he's t he one who put in Boreal Cordillera, an ecozone, in the article as if it was relevant to physiography (see my hatnote on the top fo that article, adn on Montane Cordillera...). I'm done for the night, and have only a few wiki-days left before a friend shows up from the West and I won't be around as much; I shouldn't have wasted time on someone who's treated ME as if I were a waste of time; a harsh reminder of the pointless of certain efforts at Wikipedia; no matter how much you try to help or educate someone, they'll find a way to dump on you for it.....such is life, I'd rather play music or, in wikiepdia's case, stick with the history. Mountaibn ranges should be straightforward to write up, given the directness of sources like BCGNIS and Stuart Holland (Landforms of British Columbia, - see section on the target articles talkpage for a downloadable copy), but somehow there's always someone who "knows better" and runs into the china shop and starts rearrangign the shelves based on what they think they know....grrr. somebody forgive me my anger at this turkey, I'm tired of hearing from people who can't be bothered to read things longer than their little minds have been media-trained to pay attention to....Skookum1 (talk) 04:51, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I am not the same person as user:Thompsma. As I've had disagreements with Thompsma, it's rather likely that I'm not him. ; Pacific Coast Ranges appears to have existed at that name since 2004. I would say it's a descriptive rather than a nominative title, so its capitalization is wrong. 76.66.198.171 (talk) 06:37, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
It's actual "official" in some way as a grouping within what Holland calls the Western System; see this map and I'll try and recall how it was that we (the CME, where I was senior geographer for quite a too-long while) sourced the description; it's formal in some way; it may be that we amended "Coast Ranges" (which incldue the Coast Mountains as well as the Cascades, Oregon/California Coast Ranges et al.) by adding Pacific, but I don't think so; I'm going to re-read S. Holland later tonight to see waht he's got in there (He's "official", at least in BC/Canada). I'm trying to weed the Western Cordillera article at the same time as straightening out thigns like the jumbled contents of what's in Caegory:Ecozones of Canada and I just spent a while making comments about OR/Synth in the mixing of fields/definitions/sources - see my new section below, although I've only scratched the surface of what seems to be a widespread problem.....Skookum1 (talk) 17:48, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Let's keep the discussion here, because we're establishing precedent that affects all mountain ranges in our project. hike395 (talk) 09:12, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
User:Pgagnon999 modified the project page to talk about the use of the geobox2 template as a possible infobox for mountains. On my talk page, he mentioned that he thought that the locator map in {{infobox mountain}} was too big, and that we should use {{geobox}} (at least for Mount Katahdin).
This needs discussion, I think. First, a bit of background: This project designed {{Infobox Mountain}} in back in 2003, and has been updated by various editors. Back in 2006 (?), User:Caroig designed {{Geobox}} as a more general infobox for all geographic infoboxes. At the time, we had some discussions about it, and decided to stick with our own project's infobox.As I recall, the discussion was on both aesthetics and functionality.
Shall we reopen the discussion? Should we shrink the size of the locator map? More generally, should we have 1 or 2 possible infoboxes for mountains, and if only 1, which one should it be?
Move this discussion. I'm not sure that Wikiproject Mountains has the last word in the use of templates general to Wikipedia. If we are to decide that all Wikipedia users should not use this template for this particular geographic feature, then perhaps this is something that needs to be discussed in a more general forum. If not, then:
Keep them both for the time being. Note that the new template is not simply a geobox; it is specifically tailored to mountains: Template:Geobox/type/mountain. The new template offers superior useability, better placement of the pushpin map, "free fields" for versatility, more compact form, conformity to other geographic template styles and appearance, etc. If there is some objection to some of the features expressed in the new template, the new template should be adjusted to reflect that. Keeping the old one for the time being might make some sense, as it would allow users time to adjust to the new template. I recommend playing with the new template; don't just shoot it down because it is new and different. My first reaction was negative, but when I took a closer look at it and experimented with it, I discovered that it was actually easier to use, more sensible, and more versitile than the old template. So, please play first, judge later.--Pgagnon999 (talk) 16:31, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps we can leave the Mount Katahdin example up for a while to demonstrate the difference. Also note that the new template has seen some adjustment since the last time a discussion took place on the subject. --Pgagnon999 (talk) 16:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
I think you are correct when you state that the members of Wikiproject Mountains should not decide what all editors should do. Nor should any group of editors make that decision. It seems to me that there is a healthy dose of anarchy present in Wikipedia. I don't believe that fascism is going to become popular here any time soon. There are things about both templates being discussed that I don't like and things that I do. Lets talk it over and see what constructive changes might come about. It seems to me that Wikipedia is always in flux and that is healthy. Decisions are not make overnight. For example check around and find the current discussion regarding date formats. Things are messy here and I like it.
{{Cent}} exists so that such discussions can be held in one place, but made visible in many. I'd like to see a comparison of the two templates, and a list of their differences, but any resultant merger should be called Infobox X, not Geobox X. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits18:14, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I left messages on the relevant template talk pages, and then left messages on relevant wikiprojects (e.g., British Hills) and on people who participated in the design of the relevant infoboxen. I thought it was a bit too narrow for {{cent}}, but if other people want to add it to {{cent}}, then I'm happy to.
In any event, we should not close discussion quickly --- Pgagnon is on a one-week wikibreak, so we should wait to finish until he/she gets back. hike395 (talk) 04:34, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I strongly oppose any conversion to using the Geobox template until the following issues are resolved:
I pointed out several issues with the Geobox template a long while back and they *never* were addressed properly. For example, putting "Mountain" or "Mountain range" in the infobox under the name. Please, you cannot tell it's a mountain/range especially if it has "Mount" or "Range" in the name? Duh, don't assume I am Homer Simpson.
How are we to build our extremely important List of mountains if every other geo feature uses the same template? Now that Mount Katahdin uses Geobox, it will no longer show up in the watch list.
There are now 6,600+ mountain articles now using the existing template. I for one am not about to do any manual conversion. I am very skeptical that a bot could reliably (99%) convert these without having a human check them. If the example shown wasn't easily convertible by manual means how can a bot be trusted to do it?
The above is not an exhaustive list as I'm sure there are a few more I haven't discovered yet but these are the most major issues off the top as I see at present.
While the Geobox template has some nice extra features there are major issues that need to be addressed first before giving conversion a more serious consideration. As for the locator map size, there's an existing parameter you can use to adjust its size which I have used on many occasions. Finally, I'd be curious to see how much slower the pages load using Geobox versus our existing template. RedWolf (talk) 04:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I find the Geobox in mountain articles looks quite nice, however, I agree the issues RedWolf pointed out should be solved before using this on every article. Black Tusk (talk) 06:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree with RedWolf and I 'oppose the use of Geobox, and in fact would prefer to convert usage of Geobox to Infobox Mountain. There are several more reasons to be skeptical of the infobox:
As DRoll points out on Template talk:Geobox, single fields in the Infobox (with references) have to split into 2 fields in the Geobox .. this may be very difficult to automate.
There are several fields in the current Infobox that are completely missing from Geobox. For example, UK_grid_ref (useful for British Hills) needs to be a free field in the Geobox. There are three fields in DRoll's example, above, that had to become free field. This isn't acceptable (to me) -- the purpose of an infobox template is for easy construction of an infobox --- if you must use free fields, then there's no guarantee that people will spell things correctly or be consistent.
Under Linux/Firefox, the locator map in Geobox is mispositioned and overlaps other lines. Looks ugly.
The problem above may be fixable, however, as far as I can tell, Geobox is quite complicated and is unsupported. The original author for Geobox (User:Caroig) left WP a year ago. I'm not sure how we can modify Geobox to fix all of these issues.
If the consensus is to make Infobox Mountain look more like Geobox, and to incorporate some missing fields, I could go along with that. I like the current look of the Infobox, but if everyone else prefers uniformity with Geobox, I'm willing to be flexible. hike395 (talk) 04:34, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I prefer to stick with what we have. I had a long winded response to this matter, but was edit conflicted and maybe that's all for the better since I was pretty much parroting RedWolf anyway.--MONGO16:20, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Comment: I disagree about Redwolf's point #1. It strikes me as a red herring. The fact that an item is a mountain or range is not always discernable from the name. This is a minor stylistic issue anyhow and could be addressed if absolutely necessary. Perhaps you could name some reported problems with Geobox of actual substance that were not addressed>
You could generate the listing for #2 in a number of other ways. Expand your query to include articles with the appropriate Geobox subset. Have the template include a category (perhaps a hidden category, as this would seem to qualify) or base its inclusion on the page being tagged itself with the appropriate mountain-related category.
In forcing {{Infobox Mountain}}, you risk breaking the pattern used by other WikiProjects with just as relevant claims on these articles. Nobody said you had to convert them all. You could permit both types, the infobox and the geobox. Brian Powell (talk) 18:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I came up with a (somewhat ugly) fix to Redwolf's objection #1: Geobox has a category parameter --- if we set it to a non-breaking space, it clears out the extra "mountain", leaving an odd space underneath. I did it to Mount Whitney, above. Perhaps we can put in a special hack to Geobox: if category is "-", then leave it out entirely? Brian: could you help with that? hike395 (talk) 05:38, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
I created a new flag called category_hide that, if it is set to something, will suppress the category label entirely. It's in {{Geobox/Test Mountains}} now. I switched the above example to use it. If people are happy, I'll request an admin copy this version over to the main Geobox. Brian Powell (talk) 06:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Maintenance problem of Geoboxes
Infobox mountain and its WikiProject appear to me as particularly well maintained and driven by a group of dedicated Wikipedians over a long time. They can be used as a scale to assess other WikiProjects.
Are there comparable experiences with sub-sets of other Geoboxes? There are so many uses of Geoboxes that these appear difficult to maintain and keep and overview. Are there groups of Wikipedians dedicated to maintain specific geoboxes? Has this been successful? -- User:Docu
I think we should kick it around a bit more without being to serious about it. If you look at the way I wrote {{cite ngs}} or example. It relies on {{cite web}} for all the heavy lifting. Maybe a template named something like {{geobox mountain}} which relies on {{geobox}} for all the hard work. I noticed just today that {{cite book}}, {{cite journal}}, and {{cite encyclopedia}} all depend on {{Citation/core}} for the heavy lifting with more to come. I certainly do not advocate replacing {{infobox mountain}}. That seems unreasonable right now. I think the list problem could be fixed with a hidden category or a "null" template (a template that does nothing) which would work with "What links here."
PS: Please, please let me know if you have any problems with the templates I have written or ideas for improvement. --DRoll (talk) 09:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
My question is not about maintaining the template itself, but, e.g. all its uses on mountain articles. -- User:Docu
Comment: I've been using the Geobox Mountain (and Geoboxes in general) on the articles I write. I've been very happy with its performance. I've actually modified the Geobox template myself in the past to add additional fields, including the topographic map fields.
User:VerruckteDan is the main Geobox guru, but other people can and do contribute. I've worked on the template several times myself to add fields (topos), expand features (water flow), fix bugs and add new Geobox types. It takes a little while to figure out what's going on, but it's not really that bad.
Geoboxes main advantages come from the fact that it is shared among a lot of different types of articles. It contains a ton of built-in features and is very standardized with their usage. I can largely copy-paste a generic Geobox and edit from there, versus having to figure out how {{infobox mountain}} differs from {{infobox river}} and so on. Geoboxes also offer support for some useful features, such as ownership, that are currently lacking from {{infobox mountain}}. Brian Powell (talk) 17:38, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I recently fixed the coordinates problem in the main Geobox template. That is a problem that was brought up quite some time ago. My solution works, but it's still not optimal. At least, it didn't give me the impression that the template is being maintained otherwise than by SOFIXIT 8 February 2009 -- User:Docu
More than the maintenance of the template, I'm concerned about the lack of consistency of the use of the template in articles.
Is there are specific set of geoboxes that is regularly maintained (e.g. for all mountain huts)? I went through a series of geoboxes and found that even basic fields aren't used very consistently (e.g. some put Canadian provinces in the field "region" other in the field "state"). -- 8 February 2009 -- User:Docu
Infobox mountain
For consistency, the few articles where Geobox is used for mountains should be converted to infobox mountain. - February 7, 2009 -- User:Docu
As an experiment, I converted Rysy from {{Geobox}} to {{Infobox Mountain}}. It was a little tricky: I don't think that it can be done with an automated script. We can gradually convert over manually, but it will be a slow process. hike395 (talk) 17:35, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with a forced conversion. Other projects that involve these articles, such as WikiProject West Virginia where I come from, have been standardizing on the Geobox. I fail see to any significant advantage to {{Infobox Mountain}}.
By User:Hike395's own comment on my talk page, you're already using Geoboxes for mountain ranges. It seems odd to use Geoboxes for one part of your project's scope but then use {{Infobox Mountain}} for others. If there is something you think is missing from Geoboxes, let's work to add that functionality to them. I see no reason why the two different box types can't both be allowed. Brian Powell (talk) 17:45, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
I think that {{Infobox Mountain}} is better in some respects (e.g., more compact Location), while {{Geobox}} is better in others (e.g., allowing >1 county, state, country, topo map). It isn't functionality that would make us convert one to another, but style consistency throughout WP. Does it really make sense for 6600+ mountain peaks on 7 continents to have an infobox that looks one way, but ~30 peaks in West Virginia to look another? Shouldn't the smaller set be converted to match the larger? Is there a compelling reason (other than aesthetic preference of WV project participants) for WV mountains not to match the rest of the world?
Consistency does matter. Admittedly WP:WV isn't as big as WP:Mountains; we've got Geoboxes deployed to probably 150-200 articles of different types at this point with more coming. I'm going to imagine that we have at least as many click-throughs, perhaps more, between various related articles in our WP:WV categories than the WP:Mountains articles however. There are a lot more wikilinks between the various West Virginia articles than between articles on different mountains.
I think the functionality issues are just as important as the stylistic issues, however. There's a lot of extra features we get from the Geoboxes already and stuff that we could leverage, such as using the category information and state names to auto-generate category listings.
Although he's gone now, User:Pgagnon999 was evidently interested in trying out the Geoboxes as well. I suspect there might be others too if given a choice. Other projects such as WP:Rivers accept either their own Infobox or Geobox. I don't see why WP:Mountains can't do the same. Brian Powell (talk) 07:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
It's a good thing to experiment with infoboxes, but there isn't much use in doing a large scale deployment just to test them.
WP:Rivers seems a bit anarchic as they have two different Geoboxes and an infobox. Possibly there is even a forth infobox somewhere.
Anyways, I don't think we should have two or three additional Geoboxes for mountains just because someone already experimented with 30 to 40 mountains. For consistency sake, it would be preferable if you'd try to use Infobox mountain. -- User:Docu
I'm happy to convert the West Virginia mountains to {{Infobox Mountain}}, but Brian objects. Until we can
I've beem slowly converting Geobox over to Infobox Mountain. Here are two interesting things that I've found:
For mountain ridges (which are common in the Appalachians), Infobox Mountain is not appropriate: Geobox handles the multiple locations and highest peak very well, and forcing a ridge into Infobox Mountain destroys information.
Not all uses of Geobox use Mountain as its parameter: there is also Summit. Probably many more of those, we can look at the toolserver query again
Hi. I came over here from WikiProject West Virginia at User:Hike395's suggestion about the whole Geobox/Infobox Mountain debate.
We use a lot of Geoboxes across our articles of all geographic types. The standardization simplifies the box creation process, gives us a consistent appearance across our related articles, and provides functionality and fields that {{Infobox Mountain}} lacks.
Rather than create a whole slew of new templates, it seems to me that we should work to improve what's already there (be it {{Geobox}}, {{Infobox Mountain}} or both) to handle the new items. Having a whole bunch of templates just makes it confusing for new editors and decreases the chance that the templates will be adequately maintained. Having a {{Infobox Landform}} sounds way too generic - landforms could be just about anything.
If there seems to be a consensus for being able to display a nested list of parents for an items, I don't see why this couldn't be incorporated into {{Geobox}}.
Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.
All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:03, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I seem to be out of the loop; I tried adding {{cleanup}} and {{ref-improve}} templates to Rocky Mountain Trench but neither worked although they seem to here. What're their replacements, or what'd I do wrong? The article has undergone major and interesting expansion by User:Egunders but needs fixing-up. Also any mapmakers reading this any chance you could spit out a quickie? This is a major landform in British Columbia, sort of teh opposite of a range....Skookum1 (talk) 02:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Speaking of cleanups, I created this earlier tonight and it could use third-party tidying as well as an infobox.Skookum1 (talk) 02:19, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
RedWolf and I have been having a discussion[5] about categories in the Alps, focusing lately on the example of the Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey. This is at present in the categories Mountains of Aosta Valley and Mountains of the Alps. He makes the point that it shouldn't be in the category Mountains of Italy, as this is the parent to the Mountains of Aosta Valley category, but I wonder whether by the same token it should be removed from Mountains of the Alps. The snag is that for consistency, all other mountains in the Alps would have to have this category removed, a huge and perhaps unnecessary task. Equally, if the Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey is removed from cat Mountains of Italy, then all the many mountains in the various Alpine countries should then be removed from their country category, another huge task. The fact that the Alps are in a number of different countries complicates the parent-child relationship with other categories. The Aiguille should itself really be put in a further but as yet not created category, Mountains of the Mont Blanc Massif, which would then have an oblique relationship with the category Mountains of Aosta Valley.
What do people think generally, and more specifically with regard to the Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey? Which of the three categories – Mountains of the Alps, Mountains of Italy and Mountains of Aosta Valley – should it be in? For myself, I'd say all three for the moment. Ericoides (talk) 11:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I created a new meta-template, {{infobox2}}, which can be used to update the template for this project as well a other projects. It is mostly intended for projects that include images as well as maps in there infoboxes. This does not mean that I am about to change {{infobox mountain}}. It is just preparation for a future possible update. I placed the {{WikiProject Mountains}} on the template's discussion page. --droll[chat]08:00, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
I was getting frustrated at seeing ranges and provincail parks in the North Okanangan Regional District category, where they don't belong, so created this category as subcat of Category:Columbia Mountains. Ultimately the Selkirks, Purcells and Cariboos can have their own cats as well; in this case there's a further subcat of it that would be Category:Monashee Country, which is for the centrla part of the range between the Boundary Country to the south and the Columbia Country, roughly from the Trans Canada highway, to the north (though the western flanks of the northern range are the North Thompson Country and the northernmost would actually be Category:Robson Valley); there just wouldn't be much in teh way of articles to populated it with so opted for the reation of the mountain range category, which will need creation anyway (all the ranges named are significant in size and with many subranges and named peaks). In some areas of Bc, also, the mountain-range cat is more relevant than the regvion/country cats (which tend actually to be about the lower parti.e. where pople live vs remote wilderness; in northern BC Category:Stikine Plateau is an example of a mountain range category which necessairly also is a "region category" and also not a mountain-range name as such (but containts mountain ranges as well as sub-plateaus); also note that Category:Stikine Country is not the same, albeit a region category (cultural/historical based, vs geographical-region-definition.Skookum1 (talk) 02:37, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Pushpin map issue
Take a look at Talk:K2#Border location for an issue regarding how best to use a pushpin map for a peak on a national border. The problem is that using either Pakistan or China for the choice of country (a) puts the peak way at an edge or corner and (b) makes it not neutral, centering and highlighting one of the countries at the expense of the other. (BTW this is separate from the very contentious issue of the Indian claim to the region including K2.) Is there a way to do either two small pushpin maps, or better, to have one map that includes (parts of?) both countries, both highlighted, with K2 more centered? Similar issues would arise for many other border peaks. -- Spireguy (talk) 21:33, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I would prefer to use only one map as I think two would just make it look messy. For cases where a mountain borders more than one country, the best solution might be to have a map of the mountain range showing the country borders then there won't be any claims of favoritism. For example, a number of the mountains in the Alps now are using a map of the Alps rather than of a particular country (I think the Alps map needs country divisions but that's a minor issue at the moment). As for K2, selecting either India or Pakistan is not going to please 50% of the people no matter which you select. In these cases, I tend to pick the country map where it seems to "look better" but that's entirely subjective of course. I'm not particularly attached to which map is used but there is no simple answer I think except maybe for a Korakoram map to be used instead, unfortunately there isn't one freely available yet as far as I know. RedWolf (talk) 03:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Geographical info
I'd like to suggest that geographical information should be included in mountain articles. Does the mountain support any unique flora or fauna? What people live on its slopes or in its shadows? What is their name for the mountain? Do its glaciers or gullies feed any rivers or reservoirs? Does it provide a natural barrier between two nations, tribes, ecosystems? Many of the mountain articles I read focus only on the mountaineering aspect, which is fine (mountaineers need to know a lot), but it's not enough. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 09:47, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I have no problem adding this type of information, the problem is that this information is very difficult to find in most cases. The people that tend to have the most information about mountains are people who climb them and they tend to be more interested in the mountaineering aspect than the topics you mentioned. If you can find reliable sources pertaining to the information you would like to add, please feel free to add this information (as well as citing the sources of course). RedWolf (talk) 03:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
This is one the reasons I have been adding the Geography WikiProject to mountain articles. But RedWolf does not agree it should be included for some damn reason. Might as well not include the Mountain WikiProject on volcano articles because there is a Volcano WikiProject. Black Tusk (talk) 16:24, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
naming conventions
recently a discussion was begun regarding the naming of the articles of two summits that both lie in Santa Clara County, California. The articles currently have non-standard names:
a request for name change was opened, but no action was taken due to lack of census as there were only two participants. part of me says let it go, but these names deviate so far from established convention, i believe wider input is necessary. your comments are invited. --emerson718:19, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Heh, ask the local politicians to rename one of them. Okay, so the chance of that is pretty much 0% but I'm cannot think of a good solution given two mountains of the same name in the same mountain range in the same county. I'm not that familiar with the details of counties but does California subdivide their counties into smaller units? If so, do the mountains exist in separate units? RedWolf (talk) 03:55, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Into towns and cities mostly. You can see their locations on the map. I'm surprised to find that the one on the west side of the county seems to be within an extension of Palo Alto, though it's closer to Los Altos Hills proper. The one on the east side may be in unincorporated county land; it seems to be outside the Milpitas and San Jose city boundaries.
It is quite common to find many mountains with the same name in the Scottish highlands, and mostly within the Highland council area (council areas are new county-level entities in Scotland; the Highland one covers the sparsely populated northern third of Scotland). See Càrn Dearg or Stob Bàn for an example. The convention we've adopted there is use the name of the range as a disambiguator, e.g. Stob Bàn (Grey Corries) and Stob Bàn (Mamores); and in examples where there are several within the same range, we use a geographical disambiguator, e.g. Càrn Dearg (East of Glen Roy). In principle we could use parishes, but I suspect that very few people are aware where parish boundaries go once you are away from villages in the valley bottoms. I expect a similar thing is true of US township / city boundaries.
We do similar things in Wales too — see Y Garn or Carnedd y Filiast for examples. In both examples, all the mountains are in the Gwynedd principal area (the new Welsh county-level entity) except Y Garn (Plynlimon) which is in Ceredigion. Nevertheless, we've still used the mountain range rather than the principal area as the disambiguator as the principal areas are adjacent and the mountain close to the border. Generally, we tend only to use counties / council areas / principal areas as disambiguators when the mountains are in widely separated counties, e.g. Morven, Aberdeenshire and Morven, Caithness. (In fact, this example is slightly anachronistic as Caithness is not a council area, it's a historic county name; nevertheless, I think Caithness is widely understood as an area name.)
The problem with using administrative divisions (states, English or US counties, Welsh principal areas, Scottish council areas, etc.) is two-fold: first, purely practically, boundaries (in the UK, at least) often follow watersheds meaning the highest mountains in a ridge often straddle boundaries; second, someone interested in mountains is more likely to be familiar with a mountain range name than an obscure second-level administrative division.
The problem with using mountain ranges for disambiguation is that they're ambiguously defined. Which level of mountain range do you choose? The local range (in the Milpitas case, Oak Ridge)? The bigger range (Diablo Range)? The mountain system (California Coast Range)? I suppose that you could choose the smallest range that disambiguates
A more serious problem is that mountain ranges also have ambiguous/disputed boundaries. For example, the southern boundary of the North Cascades could be Stevens Pass or it could be Snoqualmie Pass.
Also --- some mountains (volcanoes) are not in local ranges at all (e.g, Mount Shasta), although perhaps they are so prominent that we would never need to disambiguate them. —hike395 (talk) 15:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree with using range names as Ras52 suggests. One would use the largest ranges that still disambiguate, correct? If the range names are official (unlike North Cascades) then GNIS usually specifies the extent of the range somewhat precisely (at least in the US). Good point about isolated peaks, but they are pretty uncommon. -- Spireguy (talk) 15:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
the only slight problem with that is there is yet another Black Mountain in the Diablo Range of San Benito County, south of Santa Clara County. another option for the Santa Clara county summits would be:
Black Mountain (East Santa Clara County, California)
Black Mountain (West Santa Clara County, California), or
Black Mountain (East Santa Clara County)
Black Mountain (West Santa Clara County)
however, i'm not too excited about either of these. let's also keep in mind that gnis reports some 64 discreet summits named Black Mountain in California....and apparently each county gets at least one! --emerson719:55, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Just wondering in the proposed naems above if "western" and "eastern" shouldn't be used. I'm here for the next section, though:Skookum1 (talk) 15:57, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Someone just created this, at first only as a subcat of Category:Geography of Washington (U.S. state); I added Category:Cascade Range. But I don't see the point for this category, or for its title anyway; if anything it should be Category:North Cascades as there are no other North Cascades in any other state/location. The North Cascades article is conjoing with the Canadian Cascades (official name in CAnada is "Cascade Mountains"), on the premise of similar geology/terrain, but that premise really only applies to the Skagit and Okanagan Ranges, not to the rest of the Canadian part of the system. Anyway if there is to be a North Cascades category, and I'd say without that dab "of Washington" on it, then it would seem to be necessary to have Category:Canadian Cascades as well, and also a separate article for same (although the official name, as noted, is Cascade Mountains - that would jsut cause too much confusion I think, unless it was Category:Cascade Mountains (Canada). Thought I'd raise it here rather than take it to CFD right off the bat.Skookum1 (talk) 15:57, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I intended for it to be a subcategory of Category:Cascade Range, because there are different parts of the Cascade Range (i.e. the North Cascades as just mentioned, the Southern Oregon Cascades, even the Cascade Range in California.) Because there are so many terms in each portion of the Cascades (mountains, glaciers, rivers, cities, etc.) there should have been several categories for each section of the Cascades a long time ago, rather than all articles pertaining to the Cascades squeezed into one giant category.themaee(talk) 16:23, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree with that, the main issue is the name of the cat, and then also waht to do with Canadian Cascades since without "of Washington", North Cascades as a grouping has been taken, so far, to include the Canadian Cascades, at least for Wikipedia's purposes. The rider to that is that each category should have an article of the same title, or close-to-same title; not that the Cascade Range article couldn't stand being broken up into potentially-more detailed local articles; teh Volcanoes and Ecoregion(s) are already separate articles (most of the ecoregion definitions / articles affected anyway); there may also be Geology of the Cascade Range, I'm not sure. I've also wondered whether "parks in teh cascade range" or "settlements in the cascade range", or "rivers of the cascade range" or "lakes of the cascade range" might not be a good idea; but if ther'es going to be regional-subdivision subcats, then......Skookum1 (talk) 22:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Just to make it clear, I found an image that shows that the North Cascades do extend into Canada, so based on what you said about the "North Cascades" denomination extending into Canada, the name "North Cascades of Washington" was chosen to as not to confuse people. themaeetalk22:25, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
B-Class checklist on the project banner
I notice that your project banner Template:WikiProject Mountains is set up with the B-Class checklist, but neither its documentation nor your assessment page mention it. I was wondering if you were really using this checklist or not. (Without the checklist parameters, all B-Class articles will be classified at C-Class.) Please post a message on Template talk:WikiProject Mountains if you want this changed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:18, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
And I'll make, or re-redirect, the Northern Rockies redirect in a sec. This was long overdue, I've cited it as best I can and the list of provincial parkrs isn't complete' there's a few more immediately north of Lake Wiliston, and I haven't named any of those in the Hart Ranges yet. The term is also often used to include the adjoining Rocky Mountain Foothills, which in this area are very high and mountainous, but I have so far made no reference to them, or to the McGregor Plateau, which is similarly mountainous and immediately adjoining.Skookum1 (talk) 16:57, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
I came across this mountain's BCGNIS entry and thought it unusual enough to warrant an article; the name derives from its strata being at a near-right angle. In a fairly remote area, a picture may nonetheless surface as it's in teh area of Kakwa Provincial Park (near Jarvis Pass.Skookum1 (talk) 02:47, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
It might be best to have two separate articles, if it's something that "deserves" its own article at all. --NE203:40, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
It's an official landform in Canada, therefore deserves it; and the portion in BC is very rugged and mountainous, both east of the Muskwas and east of the Hart Range; not sure so much about Alberta, thet'r'e more just rolling country down that way....Skookum1 (talk) 03:44, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Presumably there's more to say, such as what the land is like, and what places are part of it, which is different for each side of the Rockies. Sounds like a good reason to split. --NE205:40, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
I was wrong about the Alberta foothills being just rolling country; if anything they're even denser mountains than their extension into BC. Still stuck on what to do for a set of coordinates as there's no reason to split the BC/Alberta content (look at the satmap and back out so you can see their full extent). As for farther south into the US, I'm uncertain but I know there's no equivalent belt of mountainous country around Waterton, and what i remember of the Montana topos there's not much like this; and around Boulder/Denver the Rockies rise just pu from the Prairie with maybe a narrow belt of rolling country, but nothing like the thick range of low mountains in Alberta and BC.... so a US definition of the Foothills, if there is one, is different topographically - I'd guess anyway. "both sides of the Rockies" in your reply suggests I think you misunderstood; there are no foothills west of the Rockies; on that side they're delimited by the Rocky Mountain Trench, immediately across which are the Columbia Mountains and, farther north, the Omineca and Cassiar Mountains; other than in the area of the McGregor Plateau and Prince George/McLeod Lake that is, where it's the Interior Plateau that's across the trench (or rather, in some areas, spanning it).Skookum1 (talk) 16:29, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Hmmmmmmm I just looked through all 99 GNIS entries that have "foothills" in them, and other than items in places like Connecticut and California and Nevada and Oregon (shopping malls and communities and related names mostly). there's The Foothills, which is a small mountain range in Clallam County, Washington (?!) and another locale near Spokane (and the usual school/shopping mall kind of thing in Pierce County, which woudl refer to the foothills of the Cascades, which is definitely a local usage I'm familiar with), and two usages in western Montana (west of/in the Rockies, in Flathead and Missoula) there's other names which indicate "foothills of the Rockies" in North Dakota, Jefferson County CO and around Sandia, NM. But not in Wyoming or Montana....so not a continuous belt or landform, and lots of local usages.....Probably Foothills (disambiguation) would be a good idea, if it doesn't exist already - foothill maybe?Skookum1 (talk) 16:39, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
this was always mis-titled; it should be both-words-capped Coast Range. If there's an admin here, could you please make the change (note form in all entries).Skookum1 (talk) 16:52, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Both are in British Columbia, but I suspect they're different. Could somebody please check that and either merge both articles or, if they're different, add the missing one on disambiguation page Three Sisters ? Teofilotalk18:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
They're far far apart. The range is up in Stikine country (northwest BC), while the other is down near Fernie. —hike395 (talk) 03:51, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
In addition to the one in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, where the Mount Foster link currently goes, there are four others, three of them higher (one very much higher) than the Antarctic one, and perhaps the most notable being Boundary Peak 123, which is the northern apex of the Alaska Panhandle and the most northerly summit of the Boundary Ranges - here is the bivouac search. Clearly Mount Foster (disambiguation) is called for, but which one should be the primary target; or should none of them be and there should be:
I'm leaning to Boundary Peak 123 as it's significant as part fo a boundary, but maybe the gerat height of the Kluane/Saint Elias one qualifies it more. Or do we just leave Antarctica as it is and list it on Mount Foster (disambiguation) alongside the others? PS note the dab page should have on it also Mount Colonel Foster...Skookum1 (talk) 15:04, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Mountain Ranges
This WikiProject seems to be used for mountain ranges as well as individual mountains, but the project page provides almost no guidance about making pages about mountain ranges. It is not even clear whether mountain ranges are considered part of this project. They are though, no? It would be useful if the project page was clearer about this and perhaps offered some guidance about making pages about ranges--possible article structure, links to good example pages for ranges, ideas and examples on large ranges vs subranges vs very small mountain "groups", etc. I don't have a specific question here--just came by to get ideas for working on range pages and found so little... Pfly (talk) 04:53, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I can help with that question since I created over 430 stub articles for all the mountain ranges in California and Nevada that didn't already have articles. I added WikiProject Mountains tags to all of their talk pages. I made a Perl script which generates the stub article text from data in the USGS GNIS database. Each included a geobox template with a locator map and all the data that can be automatically pulled from GNIS. Sometimes articles already existed so I just added the geobox. If you have a photo of the mountain range, there's a geobox field where you can include it. Ikluft (talk) 05:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Done. (Thanks Droll!) LittleMountain5 16:53, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
