Talk:Houston/Archive 3

message: Atlanta ISN'T the fourth largest city. Atlanta proper is smaller then Boston, where I live, and we are somewhere in the teens. or twenties. who knows. --Raj Fra 20:10, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Atlanta is only mentioned once in the Houston article, under airports. Did you mean to claim that Houston isn't the foruth largest, or did you just forget which article you were reading? Psycho Medic 03:11, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fourth-largest

message: The population density is given as "Density 	502.6 mi² / 1,301.8/km²" in page "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston".
Shouldn't the values be other way around, ie., 502.6/km² and 1,301.8/mi² ?
 
I dont think so, because the Metric system isnt really used in the U.S.
69.91.106.248 01:59, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect population density 

message: It is a fact that Houston is the largest city in the southern united states. much to the dismay of dallasonians or atlantians, this is fact. please refrain from removing said fact in the future. i will never stop re-editing the page to reflect said fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mellotone (talk • contribs) 
:Houston is the largest city west of the gulf of mexico, south of oklahoma, and east of california.   However, it's pointless trivia, not interesting, and irrelevant, so it's not included.  Dbchip 18:37, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Largest city in the American South

message: The opening sentence has been written like this for almost a year: 
:"The city covers more than 600 square miles (1,600 kilometre|km²) and is the county seat of Harris County—the third-most populous in the country."
User:Polaron said that this was confusing because he thought that the sentence meant that the city is the third-largest in the country. As a result, Polaron changed the sentence to say: "The city covers more than 600 square miles (1,600 km²) and is the county seat of Harris County—the third-most populous county in the entire country." Now the word "county" appears twice in one sentence—making it look very unprofesional. What is the point of using an em dash now if you are going to write it like that? The em dash is a connection saying that Harris County being the third-largest in the country. The em dash indicates a sudden break in thought—a parenthetical statement like this one—or an open range (such as "John Doe, 1987—"). The em dash is used in much the way a colon or set of parentheses is used: it can show an abrupt change in thought or be used where a period is too strong and a comma too weak. The sentence right after the em dash describes that the third-largest in the country being Harris County. I am sorry, I do not know how to explain this any better—I just know how to use it properly. From a person that knows how to use the em dash and uses it regularly, it does not seem to be misleading at all. I can understand that it can be misleading if someone doesn't know what "—" (<---that is what an "em dash" looks like) is.  Can someone explain this better than I can regarding the usage of an em dash? —RJN 00:49, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We don't really need a dash there, a comma would do and probably clear up the confusion.   I also think "county in the country" is sort of clumsy.  I'd suggest something like....  "The city ... is the county seat of Harris County, the third most populous county in the United States." · Katefan0 (scribble) 00:59, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I know this is being discussed and will soon be rephrased. However, I changed the intro back to the original wording because Harris County now appears to be a country. Thanks Postoak 03:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That was my mistake. I meant to change it back to the original wording. —RJN 03:34, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The em dash

message: This paragraph has been in this article ever since I started editing this page back in May 2005. I have no idea who wrote this and where they got the information. I have been wondering for a while if the claims made in the following paragraph is nothing but an editorial. See below:
:"Because the Greater Houston area and the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex are the major economic centers of Texas, the two areas enjoy a friendly rivalry. Houstonians often consider themselves more "down to earth" than their neighbors to the north, and some Houstonians complain that Dallas seems to get more attention nationally, though Houston has a larger population. This rivalry often leads to comparison of the assets of one city to the assets of the other. For example, Dallas has more restaurants per person than even New York City while Houstonians eat out more often than residents of any other city in the United States."
Anyone with comments regarding the above paragraph in the "People and culture" section of this article? It's fine if anyone wants to remove it because it sounds like an editorial to me. —
RJN 03:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  A discussion of the rivalry between the two cities here never made sense to me. "Houstonians eat out more often than residents of any other city in the United States" -- would this be considered an asset? I'd like to see it go. Postoak 04:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you seriously dispute that Houston and Dallas have a friendly rivalry? · Katefan0 (scribble) 04:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't recall that I disputed the rivalry. I feel this section should focus more on the ethnicities, cultures and traits of the citizens rather than an entire paragraph describing the rivalry with Dallas. What do you think? Postoak 05:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Culture

message: Template:Houston Infobox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. jareha (comments) 15:03, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of Template:Houston Infobox 

message: Again I ask, why can't the "lakewood" article have "Lakewood is located on the Southwest Freeway (U.S. Highway 59), the busiest section of freeway in the United States."? RJN stated that it was "advertisement" because it gave an address and so it was not allowed. Yet a couple of lines above in the gay/lesbian section this is stated "The event [gay parade] is held along Westheimer Road in the Montrose area—home to many gay establishments, such as restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and coffeehouses." How is that ANY DIFFERENT from the trivia-like info I gave about Highway 59?--Daniel2986 07:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Daniel2986, within the context of the article, your Lakewood Church edit complete with photo, service times, location, etc. appeared as advertising.  If the "busiest section of freeway " fact should be in the article, then put it in the Transportation section where it is more appropriate. The annual parade metioned in the article describes only a parade route and does not mention any particular restaurant, bar or coffeehouse names. Furthermore, if we're going to discuss religious diversity in the article, then we should also mention the other religions from around the world present in the city. Lakewood is only one church and this church certainly does not represent the entire city. Postoak 19:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A cosmopolitan city 

message: It has been suggested that six Houston-related articles: First Ward, Second Ward, Third Ward, Fourth Ward, Fifth Ward, and Sixth Ward be merged into one article—The six wards of Houston.  Please discuss the proposed merger on this talk page. —RJN 03:04, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: RJN, I'd like to hear your thoughts on your proposed merge of the above-mentioned articles into the new article, The Six Wards of Houston.  Thanks. Ufwuct 22:09, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Having the Wards of Houston in one article is a great idea. The article could start with the reason the wards were created, some historical background and then a description of each ward individually. Postoak 20:40, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that organization is great.  I'm just not sure that users would look up "Six Wards of Houston" or something similar in Wikipedia.  I would imagine that it would be much more common for people to look up "Third Ward", "Fourth Ward", "Second Ward", or "Fifth Ward" (I would guess we'd have very few people looking up the First and Sixth, though, because they are not as well known).  Should we have redirects from the more common search terms that most people would use to a much less common term of which most people are probably not aware?  I think the Wikipedia policy is, in general, to use the more common term for the name of the article.  I'm not sure what the policy would be (if there even is one) for this type of merger though.  Please let me know what y'all's thoughts are and if you know the policy on this.  If there are no rules or guidelines for this, I would support the merge if the group was in favor of it. Ufwuct 16:18, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Except for the Houstonians here, I doubt that many readers know about the historic wards. The current individual articles could redirect to the single article, as well as perhaps "Historic Wards of Houston", etc. I think the new article linked from within the Houston article (History?) would also be appropriate.Postoak 18:48, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

text: One more thing: Never mind, I was going to ask about the Houston template, but I see that it's been changed.  Postoak, RJN, or anyone else, I would appreciate your input on Template talk:Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown MSA if you have a spare minute.  Thanks. Ufwuct 16:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Looks great. I'm OK with the article name. Postoak 04:08, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merger 

message: OK, so I'm gonna open the next can of worms ;)... Some remarks about illegal immigrants and New Orleanians strike me as overly POV. I have followed the debate in Houston about these two topics quite closely, and I can definitely tell you that these are highly controversial. So I would suggest softening the phrasing a bit. For example, I seem to remember that some New Orleanians were also murder victims and nevertheless included by the HPD in the "Katrina related homicides". I also remember some people saying that homicides numbers can change drastically from year to year without apparent reason, and additionally some people blaming the city for underfinancing the HPD (which then allegedly led to a general increase in crime). Or what about the reasoning that many New Orleanians who were not familiar with Houston's neighborhoods were directed towards problematic areas in Southwest Houston. 
But before you start bashing me: I'm not taking any sides here, just pointing out that the article as it now stands presents certain aspects of a controversial debate as facts instead of opinions. Crix 04:44, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  lack of NPOV regarding crime and immigrants? 

message: What happened to the Unincorporated Areas?  They were only here for about 5 days.  Was the template "getting too big" because of the 119 cities and towns listed or because of the 11 unincorporated areas?  Please tell me what your thoughts are.  My posts on these discussion pages are not requests for work; I'd like to hear your thoughts in detail.  I could make the changes myself, but I'd like to hear opinions.  Thanks. Ufwuct 19:25, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I noticed that The Woodlands, for instance, is larger (by 2000 population and 2005 population estimate) than the first 75 entities listed in "Cities and Towns" and larger than 114 (all but 5: Houston, Pasadena, Sugar Land, Baytown, and Galveston(only larger in 2000)).  So, I'm still not sure why all of these towns were put here and all unincorporated areas (all but 3 or 4 seem notable) are being left out.  I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about geography and there's close to 10 "cities" I've never heard of.  My overall favorite has to be Quintana: population 38.
I am thinking of taking this template out of articles altogether.  What do you think about removing the template or listing it for deletion?  I want to take it out because it is useless and is taking up a lot of space in articles—even for an article as large as Houston. I feel this template is redundant since there is an article on Greater Houston linked on (almost) every page.  Within the article on "Greater Houston," there is a link that list all of the cities and towns within the U.S. Census defined Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area (see List of cities and towns in Greater Houston). —RJN 00:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

text: There are very few other metro area articles with a metro area template.  The templates for DFW and Chicagoland look less cluttered but in my opinion, do not look as sharp as the one you've made for Houston.  One of the good things about those two templates (particularly Chicago) is that it looks like a decision was made to include only cities of a certain size.  This template would be a quick guide while List of cities and towns in Greater Houston could be a more complete list.  Ufwuct 01:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Template rediscussion

message: Does a global city really warrant a disambiguation page instead of a redirect?  I think not.  Most people in the world probably think of  Houston, Texas when they hear simply "Houston", not the town in Scotland, BC, the other 9 U.S. states, the porn star, or a song.  Ufwuct 16:07, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you look at the history page of Houston, it was temporarily changed to point to disambiguation. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias#Nationalistic bias in global city names/redirects. Tinlinkin 06:17, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Redirect vs. disambiguation page

message: I have changed the wording to reflect than there are areas above 90 feet above sea level within the city limits.  If you are interested in my reasoning, please read on:
*At the southeast corner of 1960 and Aldine Westfield (northwest corner of IAH land) in Super neighborhood #42 there is a maximum of around 102 feet above sea level.
*West of I-45, at the intersection of Rankin Road and Spears Road in Super neighborhood #2 (sorry, no land use map available) has a maximum elevation around 106 feet above sea level.
*Just west of BW 8 and 290 in Super neighborhood #3 (to the southwest of Jersey Village), there is a maximum elevation around 112 feet above sea level.
*Just west of Tomball Parkway and north of FM 1960 (Willowbrook mall area) in Super neighborhood #1 has a maximum elevation around 126 feet above sea level.
(For anyone interested, the map showing all Super neighborhoods can be found here and the elevation maps at topozone also conveniently show the city limits (marked "HOUSTON CORP BDY").
I think the quality of the source that I removed is questionable, as it appears to be a summary that the Coast Guard obtained elsewhere and for which they did not provide any sources.  Some questionable claims on that website include:
*IAH is "located approximately 40 minutes" from downtown Houston. It's more like 25 minutes to get to the terminal, not just the edge of the airport according to Mapquest even though Mapquest usually slightly overestimates the time.
*Houston is a city "with more than three million residents".  The metro area is 5.3 million, the city is 2.1 million.  To which entity is this claim referring?
*This portion of their website also refers Astroworld as if it is still open, so I don't know how out of date it is. Was it updated before October 30, 2005? When the metropolitan area population was only 3 million? Before Willowbrook, IAH, Greenspoint, and Carverdale (S.N. #3) were annexed? (If so, this was a very long time ago.)
Also, I don't think the Coast Guard (unless my impression of them is mistaken) can simultaneously be experts on elevation, climate, museums, etc. or even reliable enough sources for an encyclopedia. There are also a few more sources in this article that I'd like to review before the fall. Thanks. Ufwuct 16:20, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Elevation

message: I have changed the source for the claim regarding fault lines from a realtor's website to a paper presentation from the 2006 Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Convention, a detailed fault line map from the USDA, and a comprehensive geological study of the Houston area] from the USGS.
First, I have to say that although I have observed the effects of these small fault lines on sidewalks and roads in west Houston, I was quite surprised that the number of faults and aggregate lengths was even longer than was quoted in this article before (which I even thought was too high).  It's very interesting.
Second, I feel much more comfortable have these scientific sources backing up scientific claims.
Third, I don't know if this section needs all three sources.  Maybe the USDA one is overkill, but nonetheless I think the map is interesting and I think other people reading this article who are unfamiliar with the geology of Houston might find it interesting as well.
Cheers! Ufwuct 02:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fault Lines

message: I have worked hard on this article for a while in hoping it would be come a featured article.  I hope the quality and formatting of this page will preserve as I am no longer interested in editing Wikipedia.  I can now let this article go knowing that there are two other editors interested in taking this article to FA status.  It's nice to know that there are other people interested in improving and keeping this article accurate.  I might come back in a few months or weeks to organize this article, if needed.  Until then, I think I need a Wiki break—editing Wikipedia too much is not healthy.  
Recently, I have trimmed some information to shorten the article size to at least 59KB—we are at 63.2KB right now at the time of this discussion.  I created separate main articles for all the sections of the Houston page so that people can add whatever they want without expanding the main page of Houston, Texas.  The information I deleted from the main page are still in their main respective article section.  I think the History section is too long for a summary article and should be shorten as much as possible.  In general, this article is stable and unimportant information should be added to their split-off pages only.  
If anyone is interested in changing the images on this page, go to www.flickr.com/creativecommons and search for Houston pictures.  Try not to get images from www.visithoustontexas.com if possible.  The flickr website was where I found most of the free images for Houston.  If you guys have not noticed, I have replaced several copyrighted fair use images to free ones from flickr.  
Best,
RJN 03:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  RJN, you made this article what it is today. So take a wikibreak or whatever, but please come back. We need you here. Take care Postoak 03:24, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured article update II 

message: I have reverted edits by LouisvilleSlugger, as they were not sourced and appeared to be random edits.  These numbers for white, black, asian, and hispanic are in agreement with the earlier data.  Thanks.  Ufwuct 22:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Demographic information

message: Reading Alberta today, I noticed that they use 2 pop-down templates.  This tackles the space requirement that RJN objects to (present tense, as I hope he'll come back some time :) ).  The Chicagoland template lists only cities of a certain size.  This addresses the problem I had regarding the elevation in status of some very minor cities (e.g. Quintana, Texas, pop. 38) over larger CDPs (e.g. The Woodlands, Texas whose population is more than 1,000 times greater).  This would also further address the issue of article space.  Maybe a good cutoff would be 10,000 people?  I will edit the template first and then consider re-adding to the article if there are no objections.  Thanks. Ufwuct 21:29, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK. Check out the template on Dallas, Texas. They grouped cities by population and linked the towns under 10,000 to an alternate page. Postoak 19:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Re-rediscussing [[Template:Houston-Sugar_Land-Baytown_MSA|Greater Houston template]]

message: I  most of the edits by User:4.230.54.96 because we're trying to cut down on the size of the article.  One of the edits added was something I deleted because it was already in the sub-article.  Also, the line regarding the University Line was POV and wrong.  The date was correct though.  Good catch!  Thanks. Ufwuct 14:04, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Reverts regarding Politics, METRO

message: Even though this refers to the Education in Houston article, I am posting this here.
I am going create a new article - List of state-operated charter schools in Houston so I can list charter schools not under HISD and SBISD. WhisperToMe 00:08, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Charter schools

message: Does anyone have a source for the pleasure boat statement below? Do we need it in the lead section? Perhaps this paragraph should be revised to describe the international presence and/or ethnic diversity of the city. It think this would be more appropriate for the lead section. Comments?
The city is within proximity to beaches on Galveston Island as well as one of the United States's largest concentrations of pleasure boats.
Thanks Postoak 20:31, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Lead section

message: I found that Philadelphia has a portal. I think Houston should have one too :)
It should be at Portal:Houston WhisperToMe 01:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Houston Portal