Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Protected areas/Infobox

Modification to standard table

Mount Rushmore
Designation	National Memorial
Location	Black Hills of South Dakota, United States
Nearest City	Keystone, South Dakota
Coordinates	43°52′44″N 103°27′33″W
Area	1,278.45 acres (1,238.45 federal) 517.37 hectares
Date of Establishment	March 3, 1925
Visitation	2,037,820 (2004)
Governing Body	National Park Service
IUCN category	V (Protected Landscape/Seascape)
Website	http://www.nps.gov/moru/

After using the U.S. protected area table on a couple of sites, others made some modifications worth looking at:

1. Use of a wiki-markup instead of HTML markup to create the table. It is simpler and easier to read while editing, yet looks the same in an article.
2. Insertion of non-displaying BEGIN and END comment tags.
3. An option to insert an image of the protected place in the table.
4. Row for the area's webite.

This example of Mount Rushmore shows all three of these, just hit "edit" to see the code.

Any comments? — Eoghanacht ^talk 12:41, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I dislike having both a picture and a map. The map is the most resonable object for the box as articles may be expected to have multiple pictures and the map has no other natural location except near the top of the article which discusses the location of the park. Conversion to Wikimarkup is wlecome. I never did it because I am not great at it. Rmhermen 15:52, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

File:Liberty 1 by bencwright.jpg

Statue of Liberty

I can't say I am overly fond of the image there either. Another user inserted it in the table, claiming that my effort to place it a paragraph down and to the left caused problems on displaying the article on low-res monitors. I can definitly understand the desire, though, to have an image of the resource near the top of the article. I did a similar move for Ford's Theatre without complaint. Maybe adding the table to another high profile article (such as Statue of Liberty), and moving the image "down and to the left" (as demonstrated) will either generate more complaint - or no complaint at all - and help decide if there is any use for the picture in the table vs. elsewhere. — Eoghanacht ^talk 16:11, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
I removed the image in the table above, as no one supported it (which is just fine with me -- if you want to see what it looked like, either look up the "history" here, or see the infobox in Mount Rushmore). But one new thought is to have a row for the area's website. — Eoghanacht ^talk 15:23, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I updated a few of "my" articles which had pictures in the upper right...after adding the infobox, I simply moved the picture down and to the left and it looks fine I think. example: Great Falls Park--MONGO 16:21, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I also think it's important to have a spac between the infobox and the text as I just did here in the last edit to this page...I went around and put my old modified infobox in a lot of wilderness area articles and and User:BlueCanoe made the spacing correction which I think looks better. I see no problem with a website row but hope we don't get to adding to many rows/columns and detract from the text too much. I used "my" old infobox template in about 50 articles so now I guess I'll switch them all over...whew...good way to up the ole edit count I guess. --MONGO 16:31, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

National Forest categories

I've been working on National Forest articles so does everyone think they should be classified as VI since they harvest lumber and allow hunting and mining and livestock grazing, but still are "protected", or do you think they should not have a protected template at all?--MONGO 16:31, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Try looking it up on http://sea.unep-wcmc.org/wdbpa/ under the "search for sites" button to the upper left. Most National Forests should be listed, as they are a decent size. For small historic sites, I am running into a lack of categorization, though. A quick look for Chattahoochee N.Forest came up with "VI". However, I have not been too happy with the Lat/Long listings on that database -- often pinpoints an area of nothing. I generally like to key in on a useful feature (such as the memorial at Little Bighorn, or the mountain top for Catoctin Mountain Park). Try typing the full name of the site into http://www.topozone.com/ . — Eoghanacht ^talk 17:00, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I added one and it fits the VI status. I use topozone all the time, and oftentimes have to also use mapquest, locate the nearest hamlet of small town and then switch back, locate it in topozone and find a coordinate that way. Also, U.S. fish and wildlife sites should use all

three coordinates due to their size but use the IV color scheme since the focus is almost entirely species protection of animals and their habitat.--MONGO 05:25, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Australian infoboxes have been changed

FYI, I just noticed that about a week ago, there has been an implementation of new infoboxes for Australian sites away frow the example here. See Organ Pipes National Park. — Eoghanacht ^talk 17:00, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

What do you think of them? I thought style-wise the current tables were fairly outdated so I created a version based on the Arcade Infobox template. I wasn't experienced with creating infoboxes so I used tables on each page instead. I know you in the U.S. probably have thousands of pages already with the original table style and wouldn't want to change them (or simply prefer the original) but I would like them to all be changed to something that's a little more visually appealing. see Category talk:National parks of Australia for discussion. I'm also in the process of creating new state locator maps that are modelled after the U.S.A. locator map (there's one in wikicommons). - Diceman 12:54, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Hectacres or square kilometers

I say use square kilometers for large areas and hectacres for smaller areas...but what is the cutoff point? Additionally, I recommend the use of acres before the metric equivalent in articles about U.S. protected areas, and vice versa everywhere else. And, the use of American English in U.S. articles and British English outside the U.S. Just a few musings, but lets develop a concensus of what metric dimension we need to follow to standardize articles. What is more readily understood in the metric world, hectacres or square kilometers?--MONGO 05:32, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

My "little red NPS book" listing all national park areas has everything in acres, regardless of the size. The IUCN database has everything in hectares. I do not have a publication by the Forest Service or BLM, though, so I do not know their standard for measuring land. Agree with the "acres first" and American spelling for U.S. locations. — Eoghanacht ^talk 13:11, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Thoughts

Rather than get all confusing about colors and what not, why not have all National Partk Areas (all those managed by the NPS) be one color...all wildernesses be one color, all national forests be one color, etc. I recognize that this may not jive with the IUCN specs, but I remeber reading somewhere in these talk pages that the only exception to this would be if a protected area has more than 50 percent wilderness, it should be labelled with that color tab...the only people that are going to know why there are different colors are those that edit these types of articles, so long as we approximate the IUCN specs, we should be good to go.--MONGO 05:43, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Since I am a late comer into this, and did not participate in the discussions developing the table, I accepted it pretty much as-is (except of non-displaying codes) when I updated the infoboxes here. If others think it appropriate to re-evaluate the infobox, I do not mind. But if we decide to do so, perhaps we should have a temporary hold on using it until we arrive at a consensus.

I have some questions for discussion, but no pre-conceived answers:

1. Should we move to a template-based infobox? (One was developed, and could perhaps be reworked, and is at: Template:Protected Area Table)
2. Is the map the best thing to have as the main image, as the lat/long will now link to various map sources that can pinpoint the park and zoom in and out? (Right now we have four location sections: map, location, city, and lat/long).
3. Do we want separate templates for big vs. small areas, specifically encoding for degrees-minutes vs. degrees-minutes-seconds?

— Eoghanacht ^talk 13:28, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, I went and changed the template to the wikimark for every single one of the 58 national parks, already. I've now decided, since the template is used in lots of other articles, such as wilderness areas, that unless I do or someone else does a major reorganization, the template stays, but any new article I do will utilize the wikimark style infobox. I think that except in situations in which a park is super small, the cordinates of degrees/minutes is fine, but I see that in the wikiprojectes for mountains, they use D/M/S due to the need to pinpoint more precisely. The map is pretty basic, but not sure what you mean...do you suggest a nore detailed map? Also, to answer my opwn question, I've been putting the right color code in an article infobox as detailed in the IUCN details, but one must be careful as that information isn't the most up to date, as I saw a few things that were incorrect...ie Black Canyon of the Gunnison they listed as a National Monument and it's been a National Park for a number of years...they didn't have Congaree listed as a National park either.--MONGO 17:52, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

But it's not a template right now (except at El Morro National Monument), they are all tables. One issue with tables versus templates is that tables are much easier for editors of individual pages to alter. Also, if there is a desire for a global change (such as width of the infobox, or coloring) it can be done globally with a change to the template, versus altering dozens of articles.

My question about the map is about redundancy and visual appeal. The map tells you two things very quickly: 1) it is in the United States, and 2) roughly where with the the country. But there are also three other rows related to location, one of which will link to map resources -- so is there a redundancy? As for visual appeal, the space could be used for other things: a picture of the resource (say, Old Faithful for Yellowstone) or a detailed map of the park. I am not saying I think the map should go, just that I am not opposed to discussing it.

As for how detailed to get with the coordinates, I have done some very small sites (such as Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site) where the minutes are essential. I admit it may seem silly for Yellowstone. But (to play devil's advocate) would it hurt to link to 44°27′38″N 110°49′42″W?

I agree the IUCN database needs to be taken with a grain of salt. — Eoghanacht ^talk 21:19, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I simply took the example you had created and cut and pasted it into the parks articles, changing the color tab, etc for each park. I have no problem with precise measurements to the second so that works. Anyhoo, I'm going to let you run with this as I think I may end up messing something up, being no wiz with a computer or with things like templates...--MONGO 01:43, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

New template based infobox

Based on the archived proposals/discussions in October of 2005 I have put the new template on the infobox page. I plan to add some more usage examples later. — Eoghanacht ^talk 13:32, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Proposal to change Template:Infobox protected area

Hi. I was wondering what others think about my idea to change Template:Infobox protected area to looking something like this:

{{Infobox_protected_area2 | name = Crater Lake National Park
| iucn_category = II
| image = US_Locator_Blank.svg
| caption = 
| locator_x = 18
| locator_y = 40
| location = [[Oregon]], [[United States|USA]]
| nearest_city = [[Eugene, Oregon]]
| lat_degrees = 42
| lat_minutes = 56
| lat_seconds = 0
| lat_direction = N
| long_degrees = 122
| long_minutes = 07
| long_seconds = 0
| long_direction = W
| area = 183,224 acres (741 km², 74,148 hectares)
| established = [[May 22]], [[1902]]
| visitation_num = 451,322
| visitation_year = 2003
| governing_body = [[National Park Service]]
}}

I think this sort of makes a compromise between the templates that are used on all the national parks pages (such as Yosemite) and I think it looks better than what we have right now:

Crater Lake National Park
IUCN category II (national park)
Location	Oregon, USA
Nearest city	Eugene, Oregon
Coordinates	42°56′0″N 122°07′0″W
Area	183,224 acres (741 km², 74,148 hectares)
Established	May 22, 1902
Visitors	451,322 (in 2003)
Governing body	National Park Service

Just wondering what others think. --Hottentot

Visitation

I wonder if someone knows how to find visitation for U.S. Wilderness areas? Are these tabulated somewhere? Google comes up short on Mount Baker Wilderness and Glacier Peak Wilderness. Also, Template talk:Infobox protected area says "Each group of items above is optional". When I leave the visitation fields blank, the result is "Visitation: (in [[]])", i.e., not very attractive. See the links above and also the prototype Bob Marshall Wilderness for the actual formatting. Thank you. -Walter Siegmund (talk) 06:36, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I haven't been using any visitation numbers for wilderness areas due to the fact that those figures are either impossible to find it seems or merely guesstimates. Even for more heavily visited areas such as National parks, they base it on paid entrants and an average of occupants per car (something like 2.6 people per vehicle). To get rid of the brackets, simply take them out as I haven't had that problem by leaving the field completely blank for the visitation and year stats. Hit edit this page on this article and you'll see how I do it--MONGO 06:36, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

On my browser (MS Explorer 6.0), when the visitation fields are blank, the row does not display at all. Have you tried looking at in using a different computer? — Eoghanacht ^talk 14:25, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

The following is displayed with MONGO's article. I am puzzled by the discrepancy between MONGO/Eoghanacht's results and my results.

MS Explorer 5.2 for Mac (OS10.3)     Visitation:		(in [[]])
Safari 1.3.1 (OS10.3)                Visitation:	(in [[]])
MS Explorer 6.0 (MS Windows xp 5.1)  Visitation:	(in [[]])

The source reads as follows:

<tr class="hiddenStructure" style="vertical-align: top">
<td><b>Visitation:</b></td>
<td>(in [[]])</td>
</tr>

--Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:10, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Very odd. The only thing I noticed in Mount Baker Wilderness and Glacier Peak Wilderness is that there is a space after the visitation number equal sign, but not after the visitation year equal sign -- but I can't see how this would make any difference. Perhaps you should address this message directly to User:Papayoung, as he was the primary programmer. Also... I noticed on those pages that you have a few blank lines around the infobox code. I have found that if you have any blank lines, it pushes down the first line of article text. Compare Mount Rushmore before and after my mods. — Eoghanacht ^talk 16:17, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

The undesired display of the "visitation" field when the associated fields are left blank seems not to be related to the browser or operating system. Instead, it depends on the selected skin (under preferences). Only with MonoBook (default) and Chick skins does the desired behavour occur. I am using Cologne Blue.

 Classic        Visitation: (in [[]])
 Amethyst       Visitation: (in [[]])
 MySkin         Visitation: (in [[]])
 Chick          blank
 MonoBook       blank
 Cologne Blue   Visitation: (in [[]])
 Simple         Visitation: (in [[]])
 Nostalgia      Visitation: (in [[]])

MONGO, thank you for your comments on visitation of U.S. wildernesses. Eoghanacht, thank you for bringing the blank line problem to my attention. I have deleted the blank lines after the final comment, <!-- End Infobox template table -->, in the templates I added earlier. Blank lines between the initial and final comments appear to have no effect on formatting. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 23:09, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Infobox, include image?

Discussion copied/moved here from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Protected_areas

In looking at some historical site articles (e.g. Statue of Liberty and Ford's Theatre — doesn't even use the infobox), I think these are instances where an image of the place belongs in the top right corner of the page, rather than the locator map. When I came across the Statue of Liberty article, the image was on the top left and interferred with the text and headings. I've moved it, but it's now below the infobox and map. I think the image is emblematic of the place and belongs above the map.

I propose an alternative infobox be available for cases where a good image is available and appropriate. A draft of this idea is at Template:Infobox_protected_area/Draft1, and implemented as an example at Wikipedia:WikiProject Protected Areas/Statue of Liberty.

Any thoughts? ---Aude 16:34, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Looking at more articles at Category:U.S._National_Historic_Sites, there is no infobox or standard at all. I think these should follow something similar to the Infobox_protected_area template and provide the option of putting an image above the map. ---Aude 16:37, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I have been slowly adding the infobox to various non-"national park" protected areas, including national historic sites, historical parks, battlefields, memorials, etc. (Some have the old infobox still, some have never had the infobox added.) The current infobox recently went through a retool, with interested parties suggesting ideas for improving it -- there were no suggestions for either removing the map, nor inserting a picture.

I have tried various combinations of image locations (including adding it to an infobox) and can't say I am totally happy with any of them. Frankly, I simply do not like the look of both the image and the map in the infobox. The best placement I have found so far is to the left in the second paragraph -- however for longer articles this can cause problems with the Table of Contents. (The table of contents can be turned off, but that is usually not an acceptable solution). Perhaps this is a general question for infoboxes in general, and should be brought up at Wikipedia talk:Infobox? Also, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Protected Areas/Infobox is probably a better place to bring up any future protected-area-infobox-specific items, rather than here. (For the record, though, I am totally opposed to having a different infobox for historic sites -- the general-use infobox should be able to work for all protected areas.) — Eoghanacht ^talk 14:49, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing me to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Protected Areas/Infobox. I'll copy these comments to the talk page there. ---Aude 15:32, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree with you about including both the image and map in the infobox. Perhaps, we ought to use just the image (when available) instead of the map? As mentioned above, the infobox already includes three location-related items, "Location", "Nearest City", and "Coordinates".

Now it would be a significant undertaking, but I can help out with creating new, more detailed maps along the lines of what User:Denni did with Image:Dwalberta.png. Though, for US parks and historical sites, creating maps is even easier than Canada (data more readily available). I could also include shaded relief/topography.

As for Statue of Liberty, and Mount Rushmore, the images are so emblematic of the places and should be the first thing the eye is drawn to in the article. And, I think the eye is drawn to the image (or map) that is at the top right. ---Aude 15:42, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

See Mount_St._Helens and the Template:Mtnbox volcano, as an example of what I think works well. ---Aude 15:43, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I am not necessarily opposed to having an emblematic image instead of the map -- it is just that the map was the established standard long before I became involved in the wikiproject. Do any "old timers" out there have any comments? — Eoghanacht ^talk 15:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Good point. Changing the map/image would be a big change, from what's been traditionally done. We really would need strong consensus before making any changes. Furthermore, there are plenty of parks and historic sites that lack pictures like the nice ones in Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore. So, we would need to decide what to do in those instances. ---Aude 15:56, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Forgive me, but I think it is a bad idea to deliberately introduce inconsistency in the manner that Kmf164 suggests. Readers will grow accustom to looking for the map in a particular place. It is disturbing to find it elsewhere. I like having the map in the infobox with other data. Also, the proposal invites conflict among editors. Imagine an instance where one editor finds a image sufficiently emblematic of the place and another does not. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 17:06, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in. I respect your opinion, though am willing to propose more bold ideas to help improve the articles. I might take a tally of the articles using the Infobox; Looking at a few of them, I think most are stubs and don't have images. Though, for the more complete articles with images, it's my strong preference to make an image most prominent, in or perhaps above the infobox. See some of the city articles, such as New York City or Seattle, Washington, as another option for positioning the images and infobox. ---Aude 17:59, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Not to sound like I'm shooting down your idea, but I think the infobox should continue to have the map that was adopted over the past few months and that images be relegated outside the infobox template. Even if we provide the nearest cit, coordinates and what not, a lot of people's geography is so bad they might have no clue where that is exactly on the map of the country...for instance, this is an internationl effort, so in the case of South Africa or Australia, without a map, I have almost no idea where the park is if all I have is the nearest city or coordinates....and probably vice versa for those fro outside the U.S. looking at U.S. articles. Besides, the X/Y coordinates is also part of the superscript design of the template and can't be used unless you're going to build an addtional template outside of the one we already have.--MONGO 18:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

As a side note, sort of mentioned above, a vast majority of protected areas that are not part of the U.S. Park system, such as forests, Fish and wildlife areas, wilderness areas, etc, do not have public domain images available of any quality.--MONGO 18:55, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I see the point in keeping the infobox consistent and keeping with tradition. How about allowing an image above the infobox? In longer articles, I think it would work and improve the layout.

While in some instances, it works okay to put the image, left-aligned in the second paragraph. Other articles, it often disrupts up the alignment of text, headings, TOC, etc. (see Grand Teton National Park). If we put the image below the TOC, one then has to scroll down before seeing any pictures. (see Yellowstone National Park) Maybe not a big deal to some people, but I dislike that. National park articles are greatly enhanced by photos, as the scenery is very visual. Thus, I think there should be an image 'above the fold'. How specifically to do this, I don't care as much, but would like to come up with a more consistent/reliable way to do that than the left-align which can be problematic for some people, depending on browser/screen size, etc. ---Aude 22:36, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I understand your concern and don't think it is altogether bad...but in many cases such as National Parks which have numerous major attractions, who determines which picture best idenitifies the park? I guess that isn't such a big deal. What I usually do is insert the infobox and have a picture part way down the left side, which is visible even before scrolling down...I think, at least most browsers can see it. But that's just the way I do it...and, as I said, I have scrounged long and hard for images and in many cases they simply aren't available for free use. I see little to be concerned about placing an image above or below the template and I'm not so stuck on demanding that this messes things up, it's just that with the template, we can create that ourselves and can keep all protected areas kinda uniform. I suppose being a U.S. citizen, I am more opposed to the change as far as U.S. articles go, but less concerned for other nations as the system you suggest may be more pleasing to a concensus of Canadians or Austrlians, etc.--MONGO 02:54, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I think the main issue is for the longer, more developed articles that have lengthy TOC's that push text (and images) down. At times the TOC (at least for me) interferes with left-aligned images. Right aligning the first image would alleviate that.

Though, if the article is shorter or a stub, then the TOC is less an issue. Having the infobox and image both stacked on the right side of the page, and just a little text, definitely causes an imbalance in the layout. In those cases, left-aligned images are good use of space and balance the infobox on the right.

I'll just consider each article case-by-case, as I work on them and problems arise with the layout. I'll be sure to seek input from other editors. ---Aude 03:18, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• After reading this conversation and seeing several of my watchlist pages now contain a map instead of an image, I thought I would chime in. I think it is important to get rid of the maps in these information boxes. The first thing people should see when they get to an article page is a photograph or picture. In my opinion, these maps look like simple space-fillers. Anyone who is interested in seeing the location can simply click on the city name inside the info box and get a map of where that city is. To include a map here when a person can simply view another page seems very redundant to me. I understand that people not from the country where the article in question is located might not have any idea where it is, but this is why the location is also listed in the info box. I can't stress strongly enough how much I think an image needs to be present at the top. I (and i'm sure many others) tend to skip right over articles simply containing maps as I would much rather read about something that has already captured my eye with a photograph. --ScottyBoy900Q 00:08, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

  I can't completely disagree with this, but there are a number of problems to consider. Firstly, the infobox template was/is an attempt to standardize all protected areas listed as National Parks, National Monuments, National Forests, etc, worldwide. By creating some very basic maps with identifying boundaries and then superscripting the locator point to any map we add within the template, we provide a universal standard. Secondly, in a lot of cases, there are no free use or public domain images available to fill in where the map is. We would end up with some articles having the map, some having the picture and that ends the standardization attempt. Thirdly, who determines what image is best to define the site. Obviously, in the case of a fort or small site, there is only one focal point. In the case of say, Yellowstone National Park, do we put an image of Old Faithful or the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone or any other highly interesting points there. Fourth, a lot of places look a whole lot alike...so for example, the forests in one state are all going to look fairly similar and there oftentimes isn't one particular image which will clearly tell the reader, as an introduction, why the forest, etc. is significant. Lastly, the link to the nearest city to locate a map of the city does nothing for areas such as lareg parks and forests that have zero to do with that city...the city is there as a reference point of civilization, not as a reference point of the protected area itself. I click on Cody, Wyoming and it does not take me to a map of Shoshone National Forest. Perhaps the answer is to allow images that can be locate to be at the top of an expanded infobox, and for areas that we do not have an image, don't add the image at the top...I don't think we even have to tweak the template do we? This will make the infobox very long, but this may be good to counter the effect of a large TOC on the left that forces us to add our first image further down on the left, which puts it out of sight when the page is first brought up. Thoughts anyone?--MONGO 03:43, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

---

This has been an ongoing debate, mostly because there is no perfect solution. The basic options are:

1. Keep the map in the infobox, and put a picture above the second paragraph to the left.
2. Use an image instead of the map as the standard.
3. On a case by case basis, replace the map with an image.
4. Have both an image and a map in the infobox. (This was deemed infobox overload, and I agree)

Now I joined this project after the map became the standard, but I was involved in keeping it during the upgrade of the infobox. After putting this infobox in lots of articles, I have some thoughts.

Let's start with infobox theory. You want it to be consist and informative. As MONGO stated, not all protected areas have an iconic image (Grand Canyon Nat'l Park and Mount Rushmore Nat'l Memorial are among a class of exceptions), and many do not have a particularly identifiable image (Congaree Nat'l Park comes to mind, as do dozens of Nat'l Forests and Wildlife Refuges). Let's be honest, Fort McHenry is a textbook design (such as from John Muller's Treatise Containing the Elementary Part of Fortification 1746) and without the big flag only flown when the wind is low, pictures of it are generally not instantly identifiable. (I consider the Orpheus statue to be iconic of Fort McHenry, but probably no one else would.) So images may work for biography infoboxes (portraits), or movie infoboxes (poster), or the taxobox (the animal/plant) -- but I don't think it works as a standard for protected areas -- many would be pictures of relatively nondescript trees, mountains, and lakes.

Protected areas all have two things in common: They are places and they are protected by a legal entity (usually a government). The selection of map usually tells you very quickly who is protecting something (a map of Australia for their national parks, a map of Maryland for its state parks). The map also tells you that it is a place, and roughly where it is. As a former Baltimoron myself, I may not need the map to know where Fort McHenry is -- but many Wikipedia readers are elementary school children, or people in other countries, or maybe just people without a good knowledge of geography. Because the map with the locator dot very quick conveys the "place" and "protected by" components, I concede that it is a good thing -- probably the best.

As for the "swap out" option of eliminating the map, and replacing it with a picture, I have two problems with this. It lacks consistency. Also, it removes something from the article that is useful (at least in my opinion, from the paragraph above). I never like to remove contributing NPOV material from an article.

Having stated my defense of the map, I also declare that I really like pictures in articles, and think they should be high up. There are problems with the "above the second paragraph to the left" picture placement. Particularly where you need a large image, or there are conflicts with the Table of Contents, et cetera. I often have to experiment some. I can live with a particularly iconic image directly above the infobox, even though standard infobox placement Wikipedia wide is top right. The case of the Washington Monument does gives me a little heartburn, however, mostly because it is so vertical, but I have not seen fit to change it back to where I first put it when I added the infobox.

Does this help? Happy St. Patrick's Day — Eoghanacht ^talk 13:42, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I went and put the image of Fort McHenry back where it was and it is now above the infobox...I don't like this, but can live with it so long at the infobox remains, with the loc map. Especially in this subject matter, I wholeheartedly agree that images are very importnat, but we mustn't let our own images take precedence over standards and uniformity. Take a look at every featured article affliated with this project and they all have the infobox in the upper right.--MONGO 14:23, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

• Just to throw this in...I wasn't complaining because it was my image moved on the Ft. McHenry article, but the fact that I had it on my watchlist is what brought it to my attention. After reading the comments above, I can certainly see the reasoning behind everyone's frame of mind, I am simply stating that as a personal opinion I would much rather see an image than a map. It would be my preference to have an image at the top to grab attention. I don't see the purpose of the map at all especially since directly under it in the info box there is the city/state/country link. I also can understand the the location in the infobox is often the closest city, not necessarily the location of the protected area. To this I would say that the box already says "closest city." The maps aren't zoomed in enough to point out the location in relation to the closest city, so as long as it says "closest city" and not "here's exactly where it is," I think it's okay. As MONGO also said, the purpose of the box is to standardize all protected areas. I think this is a great idea. However, simply sticking a map into the box as a space-filler seems redundant and pointless to me. If there's an image, I say use it. If there isn't, leave it without one for now. Now...as mentioned in an above post, a lot of places do look a whole lot alike. This doesn't seem to be that big of an issue in most other articles. If someone uploads an image and someone has a better one, the other person can go ahead and upload it and add it to the page. The article discussion page would be the appropriate location to discuss which image is at the top of an article. --ScottyBoy900Q 19:42, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mean to infer that I was talking about your own images, necessarily. The loc map is not a space filler...it was a major improvement over the previous black and white map that used to be in the table. As far as I am concerned, in only rare examples should an image be in place of the loc map or in the upper right above and before the infobox. As I mentioned, every single one of the featured articles that are of a protected area as listed have the infobox in the upper right and images to the left and lower or even further down in the article. Having worked on hundreds of articles related to this project, I can assure you that in the vast majority of situations, it is hard enough to find any free use or PD images, much less get into a discussion as to which one will represent the article. We don't have to be demanding that all articles have the imge first or the infobox and map first, either way. But I would be strongly opposed to removing the loc map and replacing it with an image. I am willing to compromise by having a few articles have the image above the infobox and loc map, as I did in the Fort McHenry article.--MONGO 01:00, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

IUCN Cateogries

I had a hard time figuring out which category the national forest articles I wrote were in. I figured it should be easier to figure it out so I updated these articles to have which IUCN category they should be in.

• National Park
• State Park
• Nature_reserve
• U.S. National Forest
• U.S. Wilderness Area

Did I do it right?

-Ravedave 22:52, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks good, just for some National Parks in the U.S., we have been labelling them as wilderness (Ib) if they have a majority of acreage designated as wilderness...see Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve for an example.--MONGO 10:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

For each protected area, you should first look in the World Database on Protected Areas (http://sea.unep-wcmc.org/wdbpa/), click on "Search for Sites" to the left. If it is not there, I then guess based the definitions (also on that website) and similar areas that have designations. However, the designation (such as State Park, National Monument, etc.), is never a guarantee of the IUCN designation. There are many examples of areas with the same national designation being in different IUCN categories.

When all else fails, my default mode is:

• Wilderness areas: Ib
• National parks: II
• National monuments and world heritage sites: III
• Wildlife refuges: IV
• Battlefields, historic sites, seashores, recreation areas, state parks, etc.: V
• National and state forests: VI

I also put a non-displaying note in the text of the article, just after the infobox, explaining my guess (see the code for Fort Raleigh National Historic Site). — Eoghanacht ^talk 15:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

That's wrong, National Forests should not have Category VI as default, they are unassigned. If they had Category VI, they would be listed in the database. See also GAP Status Codes and IUCN Definitions (GAP is provider of the Protected Areas Database of the United States (PADUS) and works together with the United States Forest Service, so this can be seen as a primary source)...-- Sinuhe20 (talk) 08:15, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Infobox assigned categories

I would like to propose that we modify the infobox to automatically assign a category based on the IUCN Category type. Based on the category number in the infobox, the page would automatically be sorted into one of the following categories:

• Category:IUCN Category Ia Strict Nature Reserves
• Category:IUCN Category Ib Wilderness Areas
• Category:IUCN Category II National Parks
• Category:IUCN Category III Natural Monuments
• Category:IUCN Category IV Habitat/Species Management Areas
• Category:IUCN Category V Protected Landscapes/Seascapes
• Category:IUCN Category VI Managed Resource Protected Areas

I will admit that better naming would be more effective, even just Category:IUCN Category Ia. For an idea of how it would work, check out the Tree of life taxobox. If a species such as the Alabama cavefish is properly tagged as critically endangered, it is automatically placed in Category:Critically endangered species. Pros and cons? ClarkBHM 19:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Not a bad idea..I support this so long as it doesn't greatly alter our current infobox.--MONGO 19:30, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

From what I can tell, the only visual difference would be the addition of the category. The changes would take place at the sub-template level for each IUCN category. ClarkBHM 19:40, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, lets wait a day to allow others to chime in...especially User:Eoghanacht as he was instrumental in creating the infobox.--MONGO 19:46, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

No big objection here, but a couple things.

1. I have typically "assigned" an IUCN category for protected areas that did not have one listed in the IUCN database (with a non-displaying note in the text). I based this on near-identical types of protected areas -- while I am pretty sure the sites would be listed in those IUCN categories, technically they are not (or were not). Perhaps I have been wrong in this practice, but it made up for a big gap in the IUCN database. However... The database has been updated recently, and many of these sites (usually the small ones) seem to have been assigned a category. Creating these Wikipedia categories may actually make fact-checking easier. Perhaps we should add an "IUCN Category not assigned" group?
2. How should these be phrased? This site uses the format Category:IUCN Category Ia (Strict Nature Reserves) rather than Category:IUCN Category Ia Strict Nature Reserves. Perhaps simpler (Category:IUCN Category Ia) is best?
3. Before implementation, let's discuss what the Category tree should be? Maybe something like this:

• Category:Protected areas
  • Category:Protected areas by IUCN category or Category:Protected areas by International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources category or Category:Protected areas by World Conservation Union category
    • Category:IUCN Category Ia (Strict Nature Reserves) or Category:IUCN Category Ia
    • Category:IUCN Category Ib (Wilderness Areas) or Category:IUCN Category Ib
    • et cetera

— Eoghanacht ^talk 13:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

1. Response to number 1, that could work. I guess my only question would be for the sites which aren't assigned a category, but they obviously fit into one of them. Would these categories get the "IUCN Category not assigned" or the category whcih best fits them?
2. Response to number 2, simpler may be better just so you don't get unwieldy category groupings on the bottom of the page.
3. Response to number 3, that seems logical, again probably using shorter category names where applicable. We can put the full name on each category page to describe what it should be used for. ClarkBHM 14:55, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Done! See Category:Protected areas by World Conservation Union category.

Looks good.--MONGO 19:37, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Outstanding! Precisely what I had in mind... ClarkBHM 19:47, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

As to the question of unassigned protected areas, let's start a separate thread below. — Eoghanacht ^talk 19:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

IUCN Category not assigned

(This is a segway from the above discussion.)

Some articles use the infobox, but do not have any IUCN category identified in the infobox.

• In some cases the protected area may have an IUCN Category, but the editor did not enter it (for whatever reason).
• In some cases the area is listed in the IUCN database does not have an official IUCN Category assigned and the editor left that infobox field blank.
  • In other cases the area does not have an official IUCN Category but the editor went ahead and marked one based on similar types of protected areas.
• In some cases the area is not listed in the IUCN database at all.
• In a few cases, the IUCN Category is simply not applicable, such as in an administrative groupings of protected areas (see National Capital Parks-East).

Some questions for group consideration:

1. Should there be a new feature in the infobox to state that there is no IUCN Category? (If so it should logically be put in the place of the IUCN Category row, I presume.)
2. How detailed should it be? i.e. differentiating between areas in the database, but with an unset category, vs. areas not in the database at all.
3. Does anyone know how to program a feature such that articles, lacking any input in the IUCN field of the infobox, would be automatically added to a "IUCN Category not assigned" Wikipedia category?
4. Does anyone have a big problem with the practice of editors assigning IUCN Categories for unlisted/unset areas, based on similar types of protected areas? I have been doing this, but adding a not-displaying note to that effect in the article code.

— Eoghanacht ^talk 19:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Locator Dot

What's up with the locator dot on the US protected area infoboxes? Nationalparks 03:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

It does seem to have an odd shape.--MONGO 05:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Could someone please teach me how to calculate the x and y coordinates to place a locator dot on a map? I've been looking through all sorts of talk and help pages and just can't seem to find any directions. --McGhiever (talk) 01:08, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Long & lat in the header

Could this infobox be modified so that when long & lat data is added, then the coords also go in the upper-right hand corner of the article, where many articles have geodata? --Padraic 17:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm opposed to that since we already have the coordinates in the infobox..it seems redundant.--MONGO 17:08, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

content squeeze

Big template. Edward Tufte would not be amused.--Knulclunk 03:13, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Infobox protected area: maps and locations

I have recently checked through hundreds of pages of counties, cities, villages, towns, hamlets, and templates for New York state.

I have found the box (FIPS, ZIP, population, land area, coordinates) to be interesting and useful.
• What is the Infobox protected area? This seems to be the large box (table) usually in the upper right corner of all of these pages except the template pages.
• Why does the map sometimes show a dot for a town, city, and village; other times show a colored area for a town, city, and village? (these links are to examples of such pages)
• Why do many of the maps (when clicked) only show a blank (no dot or colored area) map of the state?
• Why do some of the pages have a FIPS code in the box but others do not?
• Why do some of the pages have a ZIP code in the box, but others do not? (few have it elsewhere on the page)
• Why do some pages have so much more info in the box than most? Why do others have very little info in the box or the box is missing entirely?
• How does one put specific places on a map of his own using coordinates for those places, such as are used a lot at wikipedia?

hello (talk) 22:48, 12 November 2009 (UTC)