Talk:San Jose, California/Archive 1

message: The page :Category:Coastal cities includes in it's description that a city must have a port capable of handling international vessels.  San Jose has no shipping activity at all, and the Marina at Alviso is often silted up and uselsess for presonal watercraft. Gentgeen 20:44, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Why I reverted addition to Category Coastal cities

message: I've looked over the other featured articles about cities, and while I don't think this article is perfect yet, the quality of this article equals or exceeds those, in my opinion.  Anyone else want to weigh in on this before I nominate it?  Gentgeen 02:28, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's worth a shot. Elf | Talk 06:51, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured quality? 

message: thumb|City Logo
The convention in Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities is to include the Flag and Seal in the info box.  However, as San Jose's seal is included as part of the flag, I think it would be better to include the flag and the city logo in the info box.  Any other opinions?  I've included the three images so everyone can see them. Gentgeen 22:29, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I just put the logo in later in the article. Probably better to stick with convention. Wouldn't surprise me if lots of places included the seal on the flag.  Elf | Talk 22:57, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logo, seal, and flag 

message: I noticed that the "Official Name" field in the infobox has been changed back to "City of San José".  We have had long discussions on the correct spelling of the official name, without coming to a clear answer.  Can we come to some consensus on this, or at least take a vote, so that we don't keep changing this? -- Seitz 08:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Official name" in infobox 

message: new addition on page says that ...sued france... about the eiffel tower, but it doesn't say who: city of San Jose? descendant of original designer?  Elf | Talk 02:17, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The city of San Jose, according to  and , which I've added to the article. Niteowlneils 22:05, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Suing france

message: The law and government section contains detailed descriptions of some specific, recent police shootings.  Could we shorten this and make it more general by just including the current sentence "However, reports of police brutality have become more common.", followed by a list of references?
:"Police brutality" is a little overused, but something along the lines you're suggesting is probably better than, as you say, one recent ongoing news story.  Elf | Talk 05:46, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Police shooting details 

message: I edited the information about city elections:
* replaced the dates of the next council and mayoral elections with the dates when the current system began.  That way the information doesn't have to be updated every two years.
* clarified the term limits to reflect that they only limit successive terms.
* moved information about the current vacancy in the office of Vice-Mayor to the "Current Leaders" article.
* replaced the date of the next Vice-Mayoral election with a description of when each election takes place, again to avoid having to update the article after each election. Seitz 06:15, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Election information 

message: Found this informative paragraph in a recommendation to increase the height limit for a small area:
:The General Plan Transportation Policies state that development in the vicinity of airports should be regulated in accordance with Federal Aviation Administration guidelines. The Airport Land Use Commission height restriction for buildings in this area is 208 feet above mean sea level. Buildings proposed to be constructed at or above this elevation could pose an aviation safety hazard. The ground surface of the subject site is measured at 33 to 38 feet above mean sea level. Therefore, the proposed project to develop structures up to 150 feet in height would not exceed the 208-foot height restriction and would be consistent with the Airport Land Use Commission height restriction and the General Plan Transportation Policies. The Santa Clara County Airport Land Use Commission (ALUC) did review the proposed project to increase the maximum allowable building height to 150 feet and noted that the project site is located outside the ALUC referral boundary for the North San Jose Airport and therefore, had no comments regarding theproject
However, then I found this article , which seems to say that there is no height limit and that many structures are much taller than what's discussed above.  Guess I could always call San Jose and see whether I could find someone who knows...
Elf | Talk 18:41, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Building height limit

message: There should probably be a climate section--seems to be a common part of both print city articles and Wikipedia city articles. I will probably try to write one someday if no one else does, but it would probably be more informative if written by someone who's been in the area longer than me (5 years). Niteowlneils 00:32, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on my many years of experience, the climate has two seasons: dust (hills are golden) and mud (hills are green).  Or were you looking for something a little more, um, scientific? :-) Elf | Talk 01:21, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL, um probably, although being a native of Seattle, where there are four distinct seasons (well, I suppose autumn and winter are often pretty similar), I would be inclined to concur with your summary. Ah, I see you've already done it. Thanks. Niteowlneils 01:48, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Climate

message: Based on this map (a screenshot of a pdf at the SC County site, our stick map seems to be incorrect. It most closely matches the "Urban Service Area", least matches the "Sphere of Influence", and mostly matches the incorporated area except in the southeast corner. Before it's fixed (probably by someone other than me, as I have zero expertise in computer graphics), we should be sure which we want to use. I assume the Wikipedia standard is usually the incorporated area, but since the terms "Urban Service Area" and "Sphere of Influence" are unfamiliar to me, I don't know for sure. Anybody know if they are CA-specific, SCC-specific, everywhere-but-Seattle-specific, or what? Niteowlneils 02:17, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd agree with that--that's what *I* think of as San Jose, and I've lived in this valley since (harrrumph harrumph) a long while.  I think we'd be better served by having the image with a caption, but currently the macro doesn't allow that. I actualy looked at the macro last week to see whether I could fix that, but I'm afraid I'd break some other things, like make those who don't want a caption suddenly have one or worse, so I didn't muck with it.  Elf | Talk 05:15, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, I poked around and found that the terms are from SCCs LAFCO, which seems to be uniquely Californian (at least by that acronym--other states may have similar bodies by other names). I agree the incorporated boundaries are probably the way to go. If this image is used, it needs to be cropped--I just did a quick&dirty version for the discussion. Also, the copyright status is iffy--while based on PD data, county employees apparently added the SoF and UrbSArea boundaries, and while the pdf itself has no copyright notice, the site I got it from has one on the footer of every page. I guess we could contact the SCC Planning Dept and see if they claim a (c) on the pdf, and if so try to get them to release it under the free-ist licsense they're comfortable with. Also, it's pretty cluttered--it would be awesome if someone could clean it up. Oh well, I'm up and functioning earlier than normal, so I'm off to take pics of some of the east-facing buildings I'm usually too late to get unshadowed pics of. (Oh, and when it's being cropped or otherwise editted, a caption could be added as part of the image itself.) Niteowlneils 19:10, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: I like "C". The problem with legends in a diagram is that they're hard to localize (translate). On the other hand, the problem without legends in a diagram is that they're hard to understand.  Sooooo.. IMHO go for it.  Elf | Talk 20:22, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 8 hours!! That is above any beyond.  I have just two minor suggestions.  1. Consider saving a clean version of the image (not from a jpeg source, if you have it) as a PNG to remove all of the jpeg artifacts.  The file size should be much much smaller and the image will be more accurate and easier to read.  2. Consider a easier to distinguish color when in thumbnail format.  Primary colors like red, blue or green would work better than the pale green IMO.  Thanks.  BTW, I also like version C.  --ChrisRuvolo 00:23, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It started as a printscreen image of a PDF :/ (not the image at the top of this section, but one that looked the same, except not being cutoff--the biggest pain was getting rid of all the black census lines correctly). I did try saving a PNG version, and it was 13% bigger, and looks identical. The SoI line is bluish, and the USArea line is reddish, so that leaves either yellow or a darker green. I'll play around with it. Oh, and a good chunk of the time, and part of why I was willing to do it, was learning the program--I'd never done much of anything with graphics programs before. Niteowlneils 03:06, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Nice, looks good to me.  I'm surprised about the PNG being bigger.  Have you tried PNGCrush?   You also might get better compression if you change the image to palette mode instead of RGB mode.  --ChrisRuvolo 23:59, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: RE PNGCrush: It seems to only have compilable source available, no EXE. Given that it's only 132 K, and there are a number of people uploading 15 M photos (totally ridiculous, IMHO; besides being disk hogs, out of thumbnail mode you can only see a small fraction of the pic on the screen at one time, and printing would probably take an industrial-sized plotter. I think the Upload function should have a much smaller max size.) I don't know if it's worth spending any more time trying to shave off a few K. I'll probably add it to the article later today--I should probably add a bit of text about the LAFCO's role re SJ--probably in the Law and government section, I imagine. Niteowlneils 00:38, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, Using GIMP 1.0.x (don't ask, its old) I converted the 134330 byte JPG to a RGB PNG and it came out to 143902 (9k bigger).  If I first converted it to a indexed palette (256-color, optimized palette, no dithering) and saved it as a PNG, the result is 29479 bytes.  Much better.  Going from a non-artifacted source should be a little better.  BTW, for pngcrush binaries:  (although it didn't help for the images I was working with) .. And yes, 15 meg photos is quite rediculous.  --ChrisRuvolo 00:44, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: I was just coming back to add to my previous response, as I realized I had forgotten to address your palette/RGB comment. If you can tell me how to do it in PaintShop Pro (I scanned the menus and a few dialog boxes and nothing jumped out at me), I can try it here (remember, I am 100% new to graphics editing--Paintshop just happened to be on the hand-me-down office computer I got to take home as a 'parting gift' when I was layed-off, jeez, just a couple months shy of 2 yrs ago, now). Otherwise, let's use your version. Niteowlneils 01:07, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't use PSP, but according to the online manual (PDF) there is an option for the format to save the PNG in under File > Export > PNG Optimizer.  Set the "image type" to "Palette-Based".  Turn dithering off.  Under "method of color selection" try either "optimized median cut" or "optimized octree".  I hope this works with your version.  --ChrisRuvolo 02:01, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Good work. Thanks. Elf | Talk 19:35, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Stick map

message: Re: "Can get 4x the rainfall or more--60" or more--" chgd to "up to 60" "...
Some notes on rainfall from the web:
*from  Larkspur consistently receives greater rainfall amounts than the majority of Marin County because it is in the shadow of Mount Tamalpais. Kentfield, which is upstream from Larkspur, has the highest average annual rainfall in the Bay Area--52.5 inches.   (Elf notes--if this is its MEAN, it undoubtedly goes over 60 in various years.)
*From , re boulder creek annual rainfall, a few numbers:
**1977-78 80.37
**1978-79 46.73
**1979-80 65.06
**1980-81 36.44
**1981-82 87.17
**1982-83 111.48
**1983-84 46.53
**1984-85 43.21
**1985-86 72.30
**1986-87 29.15
**1987-88 33.91
**1988-89 33.93
**1989-90 28.32
**1990-91 32.50 
:This isn't the mean, but it clearly went 6 to 8x sj's annual average.  (I think it's interesting that after all those heavy years it then went to much lighter rainfall for several years. That's weather for ya!)  So anyway there's probably a better way of phrasing the info, but it's clearly true that parts of the BA get 4x or more sj's average.  Elf | Talk 18:08, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Annual rainfall

message: Saying that it is the tenth largest city in the U.S without explaining that in America "city" always means "within city limits" is totally misleading for readers from much of the rest of the world, where the primary meaning of city is "urban area". I will add a qualification. Wincoote 00:38, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: City poulation misleading to non-Americans

message: I believe that Peggy Fleming is actually from Los Gatos, a small/medium city south of San Jose.
Dawn22 02:06, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peggy Fleming 

message: SJPL currently has 15 open branches, or 16, if you include the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, which is shared with SJSU.   Currently, there are 5 "closed" branches that are in various states of being renovated or rebuilt.  http://www.sjlibrary.org/about/locations/
Eventually, there will be more branches, thanks to a bond measure that was passed in 2000. http://www.sjlibrary.org/about/sjpl/bond/map.htm
I don't know if this needs to be added or not, so I'm just leaving the information here.
Dawn22 02:13, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I tweaked the table layout (before I noticed you'd left this note), if that's what you're referring to. Niteowlneils 01:13, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  San Jose Public Library 

message: I have a copy of the City of San Jose's Mission, Vision & Values.  I'm new to Wikipedia and unsure where this should be added in (under government? a subheading?).  Any suggestions?
:Yeah, that might be a good place. Make sure that you summarize the content if possible; WP isn't a place for exact reproductions of other text. On the other hand, if it's only something like one sentence, well, then, like a motto, one can't really summarize it and would have to use it as is.  Elf | Talk 19:02, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mission, Vision, and Values? 

message: Alright! I VISITED the City Hall only yesterday!  The Rotunda is "still under construction".  And when it opens, I can see what is available.  I am so sorry to say: not much.  There is a fountain on the grounds, but it is regularly cleaned for algae, it has disclaimer signs saying "do not enter because water is recycled" and ther is a car wash RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from the fountain!  All rights! Maybe I am being too picky because I am spoiled by the San Francisco City Hall and its opulence!  What can I say? I RECOGNIZE that the SF Civic Center was only possible because of the 1906 Earthquake and fire.  You have GOT to have a contiguous space to achieve such an architecture.  I attended the http://www.sfopera.com/ premier party after the inagural performance of Turandot in .
I remeber the Gala afterwards. The elite of SF promenading over to City Hall and the grand staircase with the grand piano in the middle of the Rotunda and the different musical themes in the North and South Light Courts.  I KNOW it is NOT FAIR to make comparisions, but it lingers yets in the back of my mind.  There is something to it: life is not fair. -- PlsTalkAboutIt 20:27, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I attended my bar exam prep course in San Francisco last summer and had to walk past City Hall from Civic Center BART to St. Mary's Cathedral at least three times a week for two months.  San Francisco's City Hall has a rather large population of homeless people inhabiting the plaza in front of it, which makes it quite unpleasant to linger for extended periods of time (due to factors like odor, infection risk, robbery risk, etc.).  San Francisco's Civic Center suffers from severe traffic congestion due to the city's failure to complete the Central Freeway or any reasonable alternative.  In contrast, San Jose has a lovely new City Hall plaza where homeless people are relatively sparse, and only minor congestion since downtown San Jose is surrounded by four major freeways.  And San Jose actually tries to provide parking for visitors in order to attract them to see the sights and spend money.  --Coolcaesar 21:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I hate going to SF. Too many people. Too many cars. Nowhere to park, or you have to walk miles for public transit, which is slow. Too much trash. Too expensive. And almost always cold. I'm not super fond of going into downtown SJ, either, although free parking weekends & nights makes it a little better. However, all that aside--what is this dicussion going to add to the article, which is what this page should be about?  Elf | Talk 16:27, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You guys are responding to , a blocked vandal. Pay no attention to him. Davodd 09:10, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  So I am a realist... 

message: To keep its featured status, this article needs a thorough copy edit and cleanup; not a 100 percent lost cause, but still worse than some of the featured candidates that get rejected these days.
# No longer well-written.  It has become a patchwork of me-too edits. 
#Graphic elements are a hodgepodge that are falling over each other in some areas. Major Growth is the worst section for this. 
# Verb tense in this article is too fluid to be easy to read.
# Lack of flow from one paragraph to the next comes off as amateurish prose. 
# The Meerkat photo, although cute, is not up to featured article quality, (nor is it needed). 
#: I've commented it out, at least for now. It could be replace with a pic of Happy Hollow itself, or some other San Jose attraction. NeoChaosX 20:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: - Davodd 09:15, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured article -- in need of attention 

message: I have reverted this most puzzling change. The rationale is clearly stated in the standard logo template: "It is believed that the use of low-resolution images of logos
to illustrate the ... organization in question ... qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law." The logo is illustrating the city government section. I can't imagine a more obvious place that the standard fair use rationale for logos would apply to. Nohat 17:31, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the logo because there is no mention of it in the article so even though the image has a fair use rationale there is no palpable reason to use it in the article. It looks as mere decoration if it not mentioned in the article. Joelito 17:35, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The logo illustrates how the city government presents itself. Nohat 02:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of city logo 

message: The "telephone history" section is interesting but far too specific and detailed for a general article about a city. If the author likes it well enough it should be moved into a new article and then perhaps linked at the bottom of the "San Jose, California" page. Anachron 16:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur.  It should probably be moved to the article on Area code 408.  Some clown has been adding some really detailed telephone history to a LOT of American city articles and has been driving everyone crazy with moving such garbage to the area code articles where it belongs.  --Coolcaesar 18:43, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree as well. I moved the material to the Area code 408 page as suggested by Coolcaesar.  19:41, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Telephone History section should move 

message: Do we really need the following sentence:
:The designation is based on crime statistics reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 2004 in six categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and auto theft.
It has nothing to do with San Jose itself, and this methodology is explained in the link in the fourth footnote anyway. I'd like to remove this sentence, but I'm wondering if there is any objection to it being removed before doing so. NeoChaosX 21:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Designation of Safest big city 

message: I just reverted the addition of the city council to the infobox. It adds way too much clutter to the infobox and is unnecessary. The listing of all city council members is best left to the article itself, instead of cluttering up an infobox, which is meant for quick access to information (adding a huge list like that almost defeats the purpose).
Also, the fields that were used for adding the city council members to this infobox were just recently added to the Template:Infobox City, and there is still considerable debate over whether these fields will remain in the infobox, due to other issues. Please leave them out of the article until this discussion is complete. Dr. Cash 19:46, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Infobox/City Council

message: I proprose removing the link:
*A Review of the Bay Area Shia Centers
from External links as it should be in the Bay Area article instead, I think since it is about religion in the Bay Area, not about San Jose. If there is no objection I'll remove it in the future. --JVittes 05:26, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: External links

message: This article is twice as long as it should be.  Even the New York City article had no problem fitting into a far more usable 57kb.  The culprits:
*History: we have 3 centuries of history taking up 3 times the space of New York City's 4 centuries.  The history needs to be split off into its own article with a skeleton outline left on this page and link to full history.
*Arts and architecture is an interesting piece, but it also should be in its own page.
*The attractions take up several times as much space as that which I've seen on any other city page.  An extensive list of attractions belongs on wikitravel, or, at the very least, on its own page.
--Loodog 02:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes.  Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the  link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to).  The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills.  New contributors are always welcome. Gentgeen 04:58, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too long, too fluffy 

message: The last paragraph of the Growth about "Many people's view of San Jose is still formed by the Dionne Warwick hit from 1968, 'Do You Know the Way to San Jose?'" seems a bit out of place.  I nominate this paragraph as not notable, at least in regards to Growth.  Perhaps a mention of this song should be added to a notable mention section without the weasel wording stating opinion about how the city may or may not be preceived?Fcsuper 04:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  '''Growth'''Way too San Jose...