Talk:Los Angeles/Archive 1

message: Why does the title for this entry not bear ", California" like other cities' entries?
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The bit about the "pachucos" is not NPOV. They attacked servicemen as well. They weren't just innocent victims.
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Sorry those images I took are so ugly.  They look like they were taken in the 1970s but they werent.  :-/  Koyaanis Qatsi 21:50 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
:They do look a little bit "vintage", but they're better than nothing. ;) Nice job. --Dante Alighieri 21:51 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
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Is the big long Spanish name still in force?  I thought that most of it had just been dropped. -Smack 23:03 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:Searching the official city web site for the Spanish name gives only a few historical hits, and the current city charter and the city seal use "The City of Los Angeles", so I moved the Spanish name to the history section. 130.188.8.9 07:50, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Early discussions 

message: I believe that I have read that California lead the nation (and was a significant portion of world output) in oil output, in one year in the early 20th century -- perhaps 1923 ? I think this was driven by huge finds near and in Los Angeles. This article only alludes to oil discoveries in the late nineteenth century.
:I've added a bit more, in the history section Will McW 19:49, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oil 

message: I think we should move the history section to its own page--it really is quite big. jengod 23:30, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, move to its own page, but leave a one paragraph summary on this one and head it as:
Well...what we have now is quite shitty. The population data should be moved too. --~~~~
==History==
Main article: History of Los Angeles
[text of summary]
--Jiang 23:33, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, that population data table isn't working.  And feel free to revert my link to the time zone page.  Somebody's doing heavy work there, but it's probably a lost cause.  The Pacific Standard Time Zone page just plain sucks.  Mackerm 06:55, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: History Moving?

message: I am disputing this article's neutrality for the following reasons: 1) "manifest destiny" refers to one point of view or theory of American History 2) the part on the Owens Valley water deal is biased in that it portrays the people who arranged for the aqueduct as being somehow villainous. 3) The stereotypes section is pointless and lame. 4) The history of L.A. as an Open Shop town part is too ideological/leftist to be construed as serious history - maybe pseudohistory? 
Having said that, I will now proceed to post something on food in Los Angeles and enlighten all to the invention of the French Dip Sandwich (either Cole's or Phillippe's, but most likely Phillippe's), the salad and the Tommy's Hamburger. I will invite others to augment that part. 
--User:tcotrel 16:28 22 Feb 2004
:If you don't like something change it, don't just post the disputed neutrality notice and leave it for others to clean up. You're the one disputing the neutrality, so you should be the one to make the changes. jengod 00:34, Feb 23, 2004 (UTC)
I tried making changes a few weeks/months ago. The bias, as I see it IMHO, is too widespread and would require a complete re-write. 
User:tcotrel 16:50 22 Feb 2004
:I've read a little bit of LA and Calif. history, including some of the leftist stuff. On the two points, I would agree the length and POV of the open shop part is polemical and perhaps "pseudohistory"; outside of the Nation or In These Times, you'd never see a text that spent this much time on it. Perhaps there should be a separate articles on Los Angeles labor history for those who care that much about it.
:OTTH, it's impossible to do a history of Los Angeles in the early 20th century without considering how essential water was to the city's growth and where it came from; this is in all the textbooks. It seems to me that this could be easily fixed -- a paragraph could talk about the need for water, and a concluding paragraph could talk about what getting the water did for the growth of the city in the 20th century. As an Oxy grad, Thomas, I think you could add those two paragraphs to make your case.
:Don't let what's "perfect" be the enemy of the good. Joelwest 04:49, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: What is meant by Los Angeles's sister cities? ¶ nichalp | Talk 18:49, Jul 25, 2004 (UTC)
:Not very much.  Follow the link to Sister city and you can read about this program.  It usually involves exchange of minor but symbolic gifts, visits by delegations from one city to the other, etc. JamesMLane 09:37, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Most city articles on wikipedia mention this, and the common standard is to have it as a main section, near the end of article (not under "government"). Anyway, the list of LA's sister cities was actually incorrect; there are 21, not 20. The complete lists of sister cities are available online here. Dr. Cash 19:33, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sister Cities 

message: I take issue with the statement that the LA metro area is frequently called the "Southland". That is a relatively recent nickname that many people are not aware of. If I'm not mistaken, journalists were the first to use that nickname.
Additionally, "Southland" has been used to apply to Southern California, which includes San Diego.
:I at least am familiar with the term.  Also, some people would consider San Diego to in fact be part of the LA metropolitan area—looking at a satelite map it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. I think the term should at least be referenced here somehow. Theshibboleth 22:40, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Southland" 

message: It would be great if there was a map(maybe even clickable) that identified where the neighborhoods in LA are in the city.  When the're just a big list, it's hard to get any feeling for them.  As a LA resident, I know that the neighborhoods are one of the most important parts of LA. JesseW 11:03, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  It would be nice to have a map of the LA neighborhoods 

message: Due to the size of the main article, some more topics should be split off into separate articles. Some that come to mind are Los_Angeles%2C_California#Sites_of_interest, Los_Angeles%2C_California#Notable_natives and Los_Angeles%2C_California#Culture. Any other suggestions?   Willmcw 21:52, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've gone ahead and moved the "culture" section into its own article, Arts and Culture of Los Angeles, and added to it there. And I moved the "historical population" chart to the "history" article. The wonderfully-detailed "transportation" section seems like another good candidate for spinning off.  Willmcw 23:33, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This does seem like a good idea.  Go ahead with your spliting off. JesseW 01:48, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Moving stuff to separate articles

message: I would like to see a reference for this.  I never throught of the LA freeway system as a "symbol of dysfunction" and I couldn't find a google reference for this in a cursory search.  Anybody what to defend this phrasing? JesseW 05:17, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I wrote that as part of the transportation stub (which is probably too long for a stub anyway). It was intended as a reference to traffic jams and gridlock, which the city, however unfairly, is known for. It is only mentioned to debunk it, so I wouldn't object to cutting it (along with much of that stub).  Willmcw 06:31, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've hacked away at it. I'm not totally sure it's better, but I think it is.   Feel free to look it over and cut more. JesseW 08:01, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with the revision of that phrase.
I don't know about the freeways but I know our public schools and public transportation are paragons of "dysfunction", and by dysfunction I mean crap. --24.126.30.46 02:52, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I definitely concur, though unfortunately Wikipedia is probably not the right forum to express that sentiment.  --Coolcaesar 22:37, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "While the system has become a symbol of dysfunction" 

message: The sources that have given me the impression that the battle of Rio San Gabriel was the decisive battle in which Los Angeles became American comes from http://www.cityofmontebello.com/CITYINFO/HISTORY.HTM , http://www.losangelesalmanac.com/topics/History/hi06.htm  , http://www.mta.net/LAUND/yester/lytimeline.htm , and http://www.lospobladores.org/Battle-San-Gabriel.htm   and best  http://www.gbp.net/mexicanwar/mexwar/messages/12.html
Yes there were many battles after the Battle of Rio San Gabriel but nobody is re-enacting it as they have the Battle of Rio San Gabriel.  You can ask steveclugston@yahoo.com  Even the MTA recognizes the battle as decisive.
  Here is Mr. Clugston's impression on why importance is not given to the Battle.
"The battle is very important, and for some strange reason, overlooked by historians. Why this is so, is very suspicious in that the battle was the pivotal and largest battle in California history (as far as the number of combatants invoved). After San Gabriel, and the battle the very next day: the "Battle of La Mesa" (many link the two battles as one), California became a U.S. possession ever since. One theory, which makes the most sense: is that Fremont and Senator Benton wanted to slander and minimalize General Kearny & Stockton's victory of the Californios at San Gabriel and focused on his alleged defeat at San Pasqual instead. This was due to the court-martial of Fremont. Kearny died in 1848 and was not around to defend his record, and San Francisco historians supported the writings of Fremont since he was running for state senator and then a presidential candidate, as well as being appointed a Civil War General later. We hope to be able to set the record straight by emphasising the truth about the war in California and hope to be able to report more progress soon. 
"
So please.... I really think it is worth leaving in.. if not, add a mention of La Mesa battle and it will be complete.--Lebite 08:32, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Battle of Rio San Gabriel 

message: ::I have reason to believe that the population figures listed in this article are grossly underestimated. As far as I can tell, there are roughly 3.2 million people living in *just* the San Fernando Valley area (Los Angeles County) and several million more people living both in the "porper" city of Los Angeles and other parts of the county. If my estimates are correct, this puts the total population of the city, which includes the "proper" city and the county, somewhere in the 16 to 18 million person range, making Los Angeles easily the largest city in the U.S., well ahead of New York. I'm trying to verify my figures before I put them into the article but any help would be appreciated.
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Actually, the numbers on the page are quite correct.  If you define "city" using the strictly legal definition in terms of the municipal corporation and its territory, then Los Angeles has about 3.8 million and New York has 8 million people.  But if you define "city" in the broader sense of greater metropolitan area, then Los Angeles has about 16 to 17 million people (including contiguous portions of Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties), and New York has more than 22 million people (if one includes 12 contiguous counties in two other states in addition to the five counties that make up NYC).   
--Coolcaesar 20:22, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population Figures 

message: --You'll see I've moved three of the most extensive lists on this article to their own separate pages. Most major city articles are now moving away from simply being a "list of lists" as the amount and quality of the text on them continues to improve. A perfect example of this is the New York City article, which no longer contains any lists within it at all. --Jleon 14:49, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving lists to separate pages 

message: Someone who knows something about this please look at the recent edit by BAMJ6 and see if it is correct?  It seems odd that the %age of whites would change so dramatically without the %age of other races changing.  Is this just vandalism by bamj6? --csloat 03:03, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: To be honest, when I see changes like that made, I don't waste a lot of time researching them. The editor should have offered a source in the text and an explanation in the edit summary. More generally, some people (OK, many people) get mixed up about the overlap between whites and hispanics. There are white hispanics and non-white hispanics. Anyway, thanks for noticing the change. Cheers, -Willmcw 03:28, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
--The 2000 Census confirms the 46.9% figure. While it may have a changed a few percentage points since then, whoever put that much lower figure must have done something strange like just adding up the European ancestry groups. --Jleon 18:58, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  How many whites in LA? 

message: see http://www.losangelesalmanac.com/LA/la10b.htm 
:  According to Professor Vyacheslav Ivanov of UCLA, there are at least 224 identified languages in Los Angeles County. This does not include differing dialects. Professor Ivanov estimates that publications are locally produced in about 180 of these languages. Only 92 languages have been specifically identified among students of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Those statistics are for the county, but I would imagine that there is little difference between the county and city for this particular statistic. BlankVerse ∅  10:45, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Number of languages

message: There are a number of nice LA photos in the Commons, including one that is a Feature Photo: Nighttime view of Downtown L.A. and the Hollywood Freeway :Image:LosAngeles04.jpg. The rest of the photos can be found at this link commons:Los_Angeles. BlankVerse ∅  14:59, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: LA in Commons

message: Regarding the original Spanish name and its translation:
El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de la Porciúncula,
"The Town of Our Lady Queen of the Angels of the Small Portion".
It appears that "del río" got forgotten (even though different web sources
vary on this). Also, "pueblo" translates to "village".
:Do you mean that "del rio" was to be included in the above translation, or that the translation is the same but the Spanish version should have "del rio"? As you may know, "del rio" means "of the river" or "from the river", therefore I don't see it fitting in with the above name. --Lan56 18:25, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
:Note that there is a fuller version of the naming story in History of Los Angeles, California. -Willmcw 20:31, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
::Actually, there is some debate about what the "original" name of Los Angeles was. There was an article about that in the LA Times roughly a month ago which talked about a recently released book on the subject. BlankVerse ∅  12:54, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I found a short version of the LA Times article. Theshibboleth 23:33, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Original name

message: There are also some reports that 95 percent of all outstanding homicide warrants and 60 percent of outstanding felony warrants in the city are for illegal aliens
*This bit of text came and went before, now it's back. Both links go to the same article, so "some reports" is one report. And that reference gives no indication of her source, saying, "Good luck finding any reference to such facts in official crime analysis." All in all, it seems like a factoid or urban legend with no factual support. Until we can find either official crime analysis or another named source, I think that we should remove this. Any other thoughts? -Willmcw 21:36, July 9, 2005 (UTC)
**When in doubt, refer to Cite sources. If there are no reliable sources for the article, delete. The City Journal pretends to be a scholarly urban policy magazine, but if they aren't going to provide footnotes, the article is useless. BlankVerse ∅ 01:55, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crime 

message: Just moved the Geography section a bit upwards in the list and added info about the climate. There was a link to a "main article: Geography of Los Angeles", which really doesn't have any new information. So I cleaned out the old "main article" and marked it for speedy deletion. Dr. Cash 16:05, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That didn't meet the criteria for a speedy delete, so someone turned it into a redirect to this article. It would probably be much better to move most of the geography material to a Geography of Los Angeles article, and only have a brief summary in this article. BlankVerse ∅ 11:04, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. That's probably a better solution than just deleting the old article. I still don't think that the Geography section really needs a separate article. Basic info like Geography, climate, Demographics, are things that should be in the main article. I've cleaned up a few more sections, and moved the skyline and city layout (main sections) to other articles; mainly the Central Los Angeles and Greater Los Angeles Area articles. Plus, there's actually quite a few See also links under the Geography section as it is already, and that's starting to look a bit cluttered. Perhaps some of these see also links should be consolidated instead? Dr. Cash 00:33, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Geography

message: There seems to be two versions of the infobox going around, and not to start an edit war about it, we should have a survey to gauge consensus.
The two versions are as follows; please review each by clicking on the historical links:
*Option 1 - This is the older option and matches the way that many current city articles on the Wikipedia are formatted. It's a bit fragmented, as the skyline image is on the top-right, separated by some paragraph text between it and the actual infobox, which comes later down the page. The heading, Los Angeles, California appears directly above the infobox, but after the image and the opening text.
*Option 2 - This is the newer one. The skyline image is included inside the infobox, eliminating the paragraph flow between the opening skyline pic and the infobox. The heading, Los Angeles, California appears at the top-right of the page.
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*Support Option 2: I think option 2 looks a lot cleaner, more professional, and provides the pertinent information right up at the beginning of the page, when it is called up. Option 1 just looks cluttered and too disorganized; definitely not like something you would expect to see in an encyclopedia. Also, the image width and infobox width don't even match up?!?! Dr. Cash 01:27, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Additional Note: Not every city infobox is configured for option #1. Several notable city articles used option 2 (or similar variants), including Chicago, Illinois, Louisville, Kentucky, Washington, D.C., and Phoenix, Arizona, among many others. Dr. Cash 01:46, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Infobox format survey

message: No, not Wikipedia plagarizing a different source, but....ANOTHER webpage lifting whole sections of Wikipedia's Los Angeles article (and probably others, too)
http://www.answers.com/topic/los-angeles-california
Now, I know that Wikipedia is "open source" but this seems a bit much, no?  Check out the section on "Demographics" on that webpage, it is the Wiki page, verbatim.
Sirimiri 05:37, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
:Thanks for your diligence, but it's ok. Answers.com is a legitimate mirror site. Anyone can copy the entire site so long as they honor the GFDL by maintaining authorship info. -Willmcw 06:06, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
::Ah, you're right.  The more I look into it, the more it is...well, GFDL.  But, at first glance, I saw a site which has ads ($$revenue$$) and blew a gasket for a sec.  Thanks for the reply. --Sirimiri 04:01, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
:::Answers.com is one of the biggest mirrors for the Wikipedia and appears to do a very good job of following the GFDL. There are, unfortunately, some mirrors that do contravene the requirements of the GFDL. Somewhere in the Wikipedia namespace there is a place to report those websites. Most of them eventually come around, but if they don't they will get a letter from Foundation lawyers. BlankVerse ∅ 15:04, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plagarism? 

message: Substituted at 20:51, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment