Talk:Reston, Virginia

message: It seems to me that the Reston Town Center article should be merged into this one. While RTC is an important component of Reston, it hardly seems worthy of an article on its own. RossPatterson 03:41, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: * I agree.  It should be merged.  Stiles 02:08, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

text: * I'm not so sure about the merge. Granted, RTC is a somewhat obscure topic for a global encyclopedia. But we have plenty of those kinds of topics, and many aren't as substantial as the current RTC article. My primary concern would be ensuring that the material read more like an encyclopedia article and less like a brochure. If so, I'd support it as a separate article instead of folding into this one. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

text: * I think it should be merged. RTC is part of Reston, and the artilce on RTC is not long enough to be it's own article. Also Robert E. Simon had in his masterplans for a mixed use high density area of Reston. Articnomad 22:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

text: ** The RTC article is well beyond stub size, making it "long enough" by definition. The real question is whether its content deserves a separate article. I'm not clear on what Simon's master plan has to do with this issue. If you mean that the plan should be mentioned here, and that RTC is part of it, please feel free to add it to the article (preferably with a source). That doesn't mean that the RTC article should necessarily be merged in, as this new text could merely allude to the Center and provide a link to the article for more details, which is standard WP practice. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:50, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

text: *I disagree with the merge, for similar reasons as Jeff Q: Wikipedia has plenty of articles (and even a category) on shopping malls.  RTC should be mentioned and linked from this article, but should remain separate. VT hawkeyetalk to me 02:46, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

text: **Yeah, considering the length of the Town Center article, and all of the articles in :Category:Shopping malls in the United States, I'm reluctant to merge. -LtNOWIS 04:27, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge with Reston Town Center 

message: The reference to the "Paramount" condominiums is in error.  The buildings shown in the picture are the Midtown Reston Condominium buildings. Dagman1 (talk) 16:12, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I reverted it. The new picture needs major adjustment it is to have a chance of being suitable. --Howdybob 10:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I turned my monitor up all the way, uncomfortably so, and there is indeed some detail, but it is much darker than the other pictures on the page. I'll leave it if there's nothing else but it's not good. I'm copying these two comments from my talk page onto the Reston, VA talk page.  --Howdybob 18:46, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

text: It does indeed look a bit dark thumbnailed because of the high contrast, and I will improve that later... but based on your comment above, it seems that there is something wrong with your monitor. "Some detail" ?  You can count the plants on the balconies and read the signs in most of the storefront windows!  --Gmaxwell 19:35, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been adjusted, and now the brightness and contrast are fine. Looks a little unnatural and maybe too green, but it's good enough. --Howdybob 09:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Sorry, it's a new top picture, the old one had been removed. Someone else felt that the image of Condos at Reston Town Center didn't properly represent Reston, so he moved the one of Lake Anne to the top. What do you say, move the condominium picture to the top? Signed - Joshua Davis (articnomad) 12:32, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm talking about the Lake Anne picture, all this is about that one. --Howdybob 13:39, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

text:  The "Lake Anne plaza" picture of Washington Plaza has been the "top picture" since Joshua (Articnomad) replaced the Hickory Cluster picture on March 21, 2007, except for a brief appearance by the Dulles Toll Road.  The Washington Plaza picture is perfectly nice, although it could stand being thumbnailed a little larger, as are rest of the pictures in this article.  It's bright — brighter than everything else except the Paramount condos picture (which focuses more on the red roses than the building :-) ). It seems like a good starting image for a Reston article, and it has the benefit of showing the very first section of Reston (the distillery doesn't count, it was there beforehand). Full disclosure: I think I'm the  "Someone else" that Joshua mentioned above, although I was advocating for the Hickory Cluster picture. RossPatterson 17:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Top picture 

message: Sure Reston doesn't have a traditional bussines district, but other areas such as Plaza America, and the office buildings between the 267 and the Town Center aren't officially part of the Town Center. My question is what would be an acceptable sentence to call this area?Articnomad 22:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Acutally, the 267 corridor is the Reston CBD and was intended to be so.  The 1962 Master Plan called for an "industrial" district on both sides of the "Airport Access Highway" — i.e., the area between Sunrise Valley Drive and Sunset Hills Road — and extending up and down the east side of the "Outer Circumferential Highway" (Fairfax County Parkway) between Glade Drive and  Baron Cameron Drive. RossPatterson 17:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Central Business District 

message: I found this article generally easy to read, understand and informative. Also, the images are well done and add much to the article. With that said, there are three significant areas that need to be addressed before it should advance to GA status: (1) Improve the Lead; (2) Support all statements with reliable sources and standardize footnotes using inline citations and standard templates; and (3) Merge duplicated info and links from the See also and External links sections into the body of the article. Since the article is "broad in its coverage", fairly stable, and appears to be WP:NPOV (with a qualification as described below), a modicum of additional effort should bring it along quickly so it can be considered for GA again soon.
:GA review (see here for criteria)
#It is reasonably well written.
#:a (prose):  b (MoS): 
#It is factually accurate and verifiable.
#:a (references):  b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR): 
#It is broad in its coverage.
#:a (major aspects):  b (focused): 
#It follows the neutral point of view policy.
#:a (fair representation):  b (all significant views): 
#It is stable.
#:
#It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
#:a (tagged and captioned):  b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA):  c (non-free images have fair use rationales): 
#Overall: 
#:a Pass/Fail: 
===Lead===
The Lead is interesting and should catch the reader's attention without problem, but it does not serve as "a concise overview of the article . . . summarizing its most important points". Much of what is mentioned in the Lead is not supported in the body of the article. For example, the Lead references the number of Fortune 500 companies in Reston, but the statements are not supported elsewhere. Similarly the statement about Reston being "an internationally known planned community that revolutionized post-World War II concepts of land use" is not supported or discussed later. The Lead is meant to summarize the article and all content should be expanded and sourced in subsequent sections. Also, there is room to expand the Lead, covering more material.
===Sourcing and NPOV===
Too much of the article contains statements that are unsourced for this to go GA at this point. Of the nine main sections, only History has adequate reliable sources; a pretty good job was done on this topic. However, significant areas — such as Proposed town status, Population history of Reston, Local media, Ebola, Guiding principles, Geography, Education, and Demographics — have virtually no supporting sources at all. Some of them even have quoted phrases ("award-winning Reston Community Players" and "guiding principles") with no cite for them. Demographics references the Census Bureau, but a specific link should be provided. All of these sections need substantial sourcing.
Additionally, the Cultural and other activities and Transportation sections not only need sources, but should be rewritten. Their tone differs noticeably from that of the other sections, making them almost sound like PR pieces. Related to this is the possibility of COPYVIO issues. Much of these sections also appears in a copyrighted blurb advertising apartments (www.apartmentsearch.com/apartments/Virginia/Reston.htm). There's really no way to tell who copied whom, but it doesn't help that these sections actually do sound like an advertisement.
The citation information varied from footnote to footnote, as different editors used different styles. I suggest using standard templates to ensure consistency and completeness.
===Merging copy===
Move any duplicated material in the See also and External links sections into the body of the article. There are too many external links and their descriptions should be more informative (use cite templates for these to ensure consistency and completeness). I would think some of those external links can be used as sources for article content. Also, two of the three See also links are already in the article, and I bet the third one can be merged into the body as well.
The only other opportunities for improvement I see are clarification and making some areas a bit more concise, removing some excessive detail. I'm uncomfortable with using the word "unofficial" for population figures in the Lead. The paragraph about Wiehle mentions his "sons didn't share his vision", but never tells us what his vision wass. The paragraph about traffic congestion is a bit convoluted and could be tightened. Finally, an encyclopedia article doesn't really need to include bus fare info.
I removed all forced image arguments from the image links per MoS.
I hope this helps. My praise to all the editors who contributed to what will become a GA article: Good job. Please feel free to ask me for clarification on any points.Jim Dunning | talk 06:11, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: GA review

message: Move any duplicated material in the See also and External links sections into the body of the article. There are too many external links and their descriptions should be more informative (use cite templates for these to ensure consistency and completeness). I would think some of those external links can be used as sources for article content. Also, two of the three See also links are already in the article, and I bet the third one can be merged into the body as well.
The only other opportunities for improvement I see are clarification and making some areas a bit more concise, removing some excessive detail. I'm uncomfortable with using the word "unofficial" for population figures in the Lead. The paragraph about Wiehle mentions his "sons didn't share his vision", but never tells us what his vision wass. The paragraph about traffic congestion is a bit convoluted and could be tightened. Finally, an encyclopedia article doesn't really need to include bus fare info.
I removed all forced image arguments from the image links per MoS.
I hope this helps. My praise to all the editors who contributed to what will become a GA article: Good job. Please feel free to ask me for clarification on any points.Jim Dunning | talk 06:11, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Merging copy

message: Um, I don't claim to know much about the city of Reston, Virgina. But I would like to add that it might be worth mentioning that Reston is the setting of Patricia Hersch's highly acclaimed book, A Tribe Apart. Then again, if you think that this might threathen the privacy of individuals living there, well....I'll let you guys decide. But I just read this most amazing book, and I was surprised to see that this very important non-fiction journalistic study that took place here was not mentioned. That's all. 144.26.129.2 (talk) 06:45, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps a "see also" or similar linkage would apply.  Technically (in the context of the Reston topic), it's trivia. Tedickey (talk) 10:29, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: A Tribe Apart

message: Now that Reston is ahead of Burke in terms of city population of Virginia, is it the 14th most populous, or still 15th, and not ahead of Burke?... 76.111.67.200 (talk) 21:23, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Reston is a named unincorporated place within Fairfax County (not a city).  Ditto for Burke. Tedickey (talk) 22:58, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population rank in Virginia 

message: Some of the edits are unnecessarily focused on relatively minor issues, to promote specific entities.  To put the Rolls Royce comments into better perspective, bear in mind that those are only a couple of dozen people out of the roughly 65,000 in the area.  Checking google for "rolls royce" moves to Reston finds older mentions (which contradict the "recently" used to accentuate the promotion, such as from Chantilly in 2008, and from Connecticut in 1989.  Toning down the promotionalisms would improve the topic and get more attention from readers Tedickey (talk) 20:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This article has too many statements that are not from an NPOV. For instance, the statement that Reston is "undeniably a central business district" (paraphrasing) was inappropriate and I removed it. I don't know which user has been doing this but somebody ought to find out and take action against them. --BLM Platinum 22:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recentisms and promotional edits 

message: I find it interesting that there's no mention of the oil company involvement in Reston's history.  In 1967, Gulf Oil was one of the major investors and "saved the project".  In 1978, Mobil acquired the undeveloped land from Gulf. History of Reston  Da Next Pope (talk) 19:29, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oil Companies? 

message: Kazakh Americans form a community in Reston according to the article on them, but they are not mentioned here. Kdammers (talk) 07:20, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: A large percentage of the demographic information across Wikipedia is poorly sourced (likely untrue, put there for promotional purposes).  In the article you mention, the ostensible source goes to a site which Sophos blocks, saying that it's infected.  Perhaps you could find a reliable source of information for discussion. TEDickey (talk) 11:12, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  I see  what you mean.  The US census data for the county only lists ~10K Asians in R, and no mention of K-speakers.  Maybe the KA article should be changed, or have ref-needed note. Kdammers (talk) 16:16, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

text: no problem (checking the sources is a good start) TEDickey (talk) 00:21, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kazakh Americans 

message: The dates used for this source don't match the actual source (e.g., 2019 vs 2017 and 2018), and since secondary sources tend to "improve" the boundaries for locations, the actual census data is preferred TEDickey (talk) 00:01, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I had mistakenly removed that line in one edit and then added it back... I'm not sure who originally put that source. I agree that census.gov would be the best source. I can correct with the 2018 ACS estimate data that I used in the infobox, or just use the 2010 census data in the lead. 2010 Census is the most reliable (but dated) until the 2020 data comes out next year. Bartzyx (talk) 03:24, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  towncharts source 

message: Notable to whom? There are no supporting references at all in this section, which has had a maintenance tag for almost three years now. As is, it's a collection of direct links to primary sources, some of which are Facebook or blogspot/wordpress pages. This is not appropriate for Wikipedia. See WP:NOTDIR, WP:EL, and WP:ELREG. I would like to, at the very least, remove the direct external links, but preferably remove this whole section. If anyone disagrees with removing the section, I invite you to provide appropriate references that establish the notability of these local organizations. Reston Association and RCC are established elsewhere in the article, but there is no real need to list them again here. Does anyone else have thoughts on this subject? Bartzyx (talk) 04:07, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notable local organizations