Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portuguese geography

message: *We need to clean many Portuguese disambigs, for instance the Azores and Madeira are passed in EN wikipedia as Portuguese dependencies or worse independente states! this is umbelievable! An example: Santana. There are many articles like this one in EN. I don't know if that was ignorance or someone's motivation. --Pedro 22:50, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguation pages

message: I’ve finished the infobox for the cities that aren’t head of municipality Template:Infobox_city_pt, please take a look and give your feedback. João Correia 19:19, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  City Template 

message: I'm joining the project. The first things I have done are: template:Parishes of Barcelos and I'm trying to start making articles for parishes from various municipalities, starting with the one who has more: Barcelos. Let's work :) --Serte 23:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Joining the project 

message: Hi all - there's a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting to split  into smaller sections. When a country's geo-stubs are split, they are usually split by official subnational division. According to the articles on the subject, Portugal is split two ways, into 18 districts and 7 regions. The current proposal is to split the category into seven subcategories, one for each region (The Azores are already split out, so that would be six more subcats). If there is some reason why districts would be preferable, please let us know at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals/2007/June#Split_of_.7B.7BPortugal-geo-stub.7D.7D ASAP. 
One note: for maintenance and ease of use, WP:WSS tries to keep category splits to cases where a subcategory would have 60 or more stubs. Since there are currently about 700 Portuguese geography stubs, if the split was by district, only a few districts would be split out immediately, since most would not reach that threshold (the average stubs per district is about 40). With the regions, though, it is quite likely that most, if not all, of them would pass the 60 mark quite easily. Grutness...wha? 23:16, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Split it by districts, I say. Regions are still being studied, the ones used now are provisional and are quite uncommon in daily conversation. Joaopais 02:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stub split 

message: I think we need a complete revision on this page, to reassess the aims, tasks and elaboration of existing geography-based content. I note that one of the "aims" of this group is "To attract Portuense editors to the English WP and work together on articles and copy-editing". Promoting one group of people (from Oporto) in this case sets a bad precedent, since it invites bias. One thing that I have noticed in the articles on Portuguese geography, is the bias nature of the discussion and some edits that favors one region, or city over another. Although this is obviously a dichotomy that exists in reality between the north and south (Oporto and Lisbon), it should not be supported here. Since it would create biased point-of-view articles that are in no way encyclopedic. 
Further, it seems that geography-based content elaboration has stagnated on all pages associated with Portugal and its territories. I have been slowly updating the article pages in the Azores namespaces, elaborating details, citations, adding imagery and updating content. Occasionally, I have updated or revised content in the Madeira and continental Portugal articles, but most reflect sudden interest in the location (such as Alcácer do Sal, Águeda Municipality or Sines, Portugal). There are just too many stub-class articles in the Portuguese namespaces that could be elaborated.
Regardless, maybe we should assess other "geography-based" projects in order to get a better definition on the aims of the group, and begin turning it from potentially inactive, to active. Just some motivational words. Ruben JC (Zeorymer) (talk) 09:28, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Aims

message: The most important thing about an infobox is to show the reader where a place is on an island or in a country. Geobox generally does not allow for pin maps. Therefore I recommend you use Template:Infobox settlement which is specially designed to be used for this.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:50, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the above. Geoboxes for settlements are not commonly used by others for the fact that they are messy, complicated, and overall not the best. I find it detremental that the wikiproject is alienating portugal from the rest of the world on wiki by not using the settlement template. I put forward a motion, if I am allowed to, to make that the standard. Wiki seeks for constistency, we must aid it in such. Thank you, Cristiano Tomás (talk) 07:54, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The use of Geobox in the context of Portuguese "settlements" is an issue of extent rather localization. Portuguese settlements, as you know, can not be delimited in terms of the North American context: a city/town (North American definitions) can not be used to imply the politico-administrative divisions of Portugal, primarily since cities are extra-territorial, while the Portuguese hierarchy is based on defined regional area boundaries and legal definitions. For example, although Lisbon the "city" extends across several parishes (both within and without the municipality of Lisbon), the governmental entity (the Câmara Municipal of Lisbon) is only responsible for management of those areas within the predefined borders. The use of Geobox, rather then Infobox settlement, is more practical since it is a regional extent rather then a point data element. I'll refer you to the example of Obidos, Portugal and Óbidos Municipality, two different subjects (one using the Geobox for extent, and the other Infobox for localization). The Portuguese namespace has several of these type of articles: NUTS II, NUTSIII Subregions, Districts, Municipalities, Civil Parishes and THEN settlements, of an extra-territorial nature (cities, towns, etc.). The creation of two levels of articles, one for municipalities (area) and other for cities/towns (point) was established by early by editors who saught to differentiate the legal entities from the contextual reference: just like in Sintra Municipality versus Sintra, Portugal or Braga Municipality versus Braga, Portugal. ruben jc ZEORYMER (talk) 11:08, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Geoboxes

message: Since I can remember, this page (and all pages on Portuguese cities and administrative units) has always stood out (and not in a good way) from the rest of the reputable cities of the world in its use of the geobox instead of the infobox. Apart from my own personal distaste for the disorganization and cluttered feel of the geobox, I find it unnecessary to break consistency of the infobox with Lisbon. I understand the structures of cities in Portugal are one of relative uniqueness when compared to a regular city, but it is not so revolutionary that it would warrant a special box. Let us finally decide on the matter, as a community, using democracy and logic, above all. Shall we use the infobox or the geobox. Thank you,Cristiano Tomás (talk) 22:01, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Lisbon Debate

message: I would like to first apologize for the confusion during the lead-up to this debate. In reference to User:Cristiano Tomás' comments on Geobox versus Infobox, I offer the above presentation of both, to argue my points. Apart from the aesthetic differences (using the Vector-based formating), I offer that this format is neither disorganized nor cluttered, easily providing a structured example of all components identified in the Infobox. The Geobox begins with toponomic information, follows into geographic statistics (divisions, point reference, dimensions) , histo-political information, administrative codes, before social information. The Infobox, in comparison, starts at divisions, then history, then government, then physical dimensions, then social, followed by administrative codes before jumping back to social. I find that the Infobox "jumps" around far more then the Geobox. Meanwhile, the Geobox design encapsulates the important geographic and socio-political references, allows enough customization to add new groupings, automates the calculation of dimensions (area, distances, etc), and integrates directly with Wikimedia Commons, within a more compact structure then Infobox format (lateral page size). It has been discussed in the past (can't find the reference) that the Geobox positioning of the map might not be the best, but even that does not dissuade me from preferring, what I feel is, a content-rich layout of the Geobox. Its just MADE for this type of data summary. I note that there many details that can not be duplicated within the Infobox: in fact, I will concede to Infobox (against my dislike), if it is possible to duplicate the detail already based in the Geobox format. ruben jc ZEORYMER (talk) 22:54, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Community Comments 

message: I decided to take it upon myself, being a resident of the parish of Algoz to update the pertinent article... and I'm somewhat stumped on account of the recent gerrymandering that has Algoz and Tunes share the same president and other administrative organs. At least from the Câmara Municipal de Silves site[1] one can tell that basic services are kept on both former parish offices. Yet on the Portuguese wiki one is seeing a veritable flood of "União de Freguesia" articles.[2] What shall then one do? Dracontes (talk) 22:46, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough then. I do agree that regarding the merger debates, perhaps the best solution is to wait for the official word from the pertinent entities. Perhaps the placeholders if they ever become needed should just be notes on the current parish pages that warrant it (i.e., more than a stub) noting the union and that for economy of effort merger will only be effected when an official name is published. In any case I'll ignore the administrative peculiarities for now. Dracontes (talk) 00:18, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  On administratively united parishes  

message: I think the Administrative divisions of Portugal article needs a complete overhaul. As far as I know, it does not reflect the current situation. If I'm correct, there are the following administrative subdivisions now:
*autonomous regions (Madeira, Azores)
*municipalities
*parishes (major reorganization in 2013, see link)
*intermunicipal communities and metropolitan areas (see link)
The intermunicipal communities and metropolitan areas apparently cover the same territories as the statistical NUTS-III subdivisions, for some with the same name (e.g. Cávado), some with a different name but the same municipalities (e.g. Região de Aveiro = Baixo Vouga). The article mentions more metropolitan areas than the two in the law text (Lisbon and Porto), see also . Probably the other metropolitan areas (e.g. Aveiro, Viseu) have existed (briefly?), but I can't find when they were abolished. 
Apparently, districts are not units of local administration anymore, but they used to be. I couldn't find when they were abolished. I'm a bit confused about the regions: there's the NUTS-II statistical regions (e.g. Centro Region, Portugal, no administrative region) and a proposed regional administration level, rejected in the Portuguese regionalisation referendum, 1998. 
Is this correct, and does anyone have some additional references?  
BTW, the new administrative map of Portugal is now available: link, and also an updated table of areas of municipalities and parishes: link. Markussep Talk 12:51, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Administrative divisions of Portugal 

message: As a result of the controversial moves by Tobias Conradi and his sockpuppets, we now have many articles at "X Municipality" and several more or less duplicate articles. I made a list of them, see below. I suppose, given the outcome of the move discussion above, moving articles to a "Municipality"-less title is not controversial, so I would like to list them for a mass move, if you agree. Merging the city and municipality articles requires some effort, so I hope we can do that together. Markussep Talk 13:57, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no problem with a mass elimination of the "municipality" qualifier.ruben jc ZEORYMER (talk) 14:02, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I've completed the easy mergers, now I'm requesting technical moves for the articles that only need to be moved. Markussep Talk 20:41, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice! That is something I've been wanting to do for a long time but never got to it. So I'll be glad to help. Most of them will need a history merge, right? - Nabla (talk) 19:53, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be great, thanks! I updated the list below. Most of the move targets only have very trivial history (I listed them as ), but you'll probably know what to do. Markussep Talk 07:17, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I just did the remaining move (Sabrosa). I also rescued the todo list from the page history, in order to keep a clear (as possible) record of what was done and why. Anyone knowing of any merge in need of a history merge, please say so and I'll do it (eventually, I'm not here every day), I'll sample a few, but I will not go through them all - Nabla (talk) 19:29, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Municipality and city articles