Talk:Bloomington-Normal

I seriously think that Bloomington-Normal is a single destination since they basically need to have the exact same sleep section (all of the hotels are on the perifery). -- (WT-en) Mark 00:58, 2 Apr 2005 (EST)

Don't entirely agree, as each has some identifying features. I'm editing the headers for both Bloomington and Normal; please examine and comment. (I'm an ex-Normalite, so some of my comments about Bloomington might be, well, biased. :-) ) -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 20:55, 16 Sep 2005 (EDT)

Sure, they're totally different for locals. What I'm trying to say is that from a traveller's point of view they are basically a single destination. -- (WT-en) Mark 02:12, 17 Sep 2005 (EDT)

Sorry if I'm harping on about this, but these two don't have enough material to be split. Check it out: The entire Chicagoland area is covered by a single article: Chicago. Some of the suburbs covered are so different from the city or each other that they dwarf the difference between Bloomington and Normal. Yet they are a single article. The reason is that we don't yet have enough material to merit separate articles.

You are quite right that Bloomington and Normal feel quite different especially to locals. However, since you Sleep in the same place for a visit to both it's probably better to consolidate the articles until there's so much data that we have to split them. -- (WT-en) Mark 15:07, 15 Oct 2005 (EDT)

I don't really feel strongly about this. If you (or anyone else) want to go to the effort of setting up a merge and redirects, by all means do so with my blessing. I think it's important to do it by way of a joint page with redirects, though, because people will use different paths to the information. (Example: if you look at the airport code, etc., you'll think Bloomington is the dominant component, while if you know about Illinois State University, you'll think Normal is.) While the notion of a single, relatively short article covering all of Chicagoland seems strange to me simply because of the volume of information (the existing page surely doesn't do it justice), it's a different situation because everybody knows what the center of Chicagoland is. Anyway, do whatever you think appropriate, no big deal to me, as long as both cities/towns are there and provide routes to the article with the substantial stuff. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 21:50, 15 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Thanks. I didn't want to just do it since I might step on your toes. As for Chicago, I really think there's plenty of stuff on that page and that the burbs should get their own articles. For that matter perhaps there's nearly enough to re-do Chicago with the Huge City template. Oh well, I'm hardly ever there any more so my info is getting a bit out of date. -- (WT-en) Mark 03:32, 16 Oct 2005 (EDT)

OK, so I've started the merge. Please feel free to help. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 19:31, 27 Dec 2005 (EST)

Why (Illinois)?

Whence the "(Illinois)" in the name? Is this competing with countless multitudes of other Bloomington-Normals out there? (WT-en) Jpatokal 20:10, 27 Dec 2005 (EST)

Chuckle ... No, of course not. However, it (1) simplifies some of the merging and redirecting that's going on, and (2) looks toward a time when we're forced to include state names owing to volume. Think it ought to be just Bloomington-Normal? I don't have a problem with that, if somebody else wants to do the virtual paperwork. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 20:45, 27 Dec 2005 (EST)

What happened to Steak and Shake?

An anonymous contributor says that the original Steak and Shake restaurant -- a Route 66 original -- isn't there any more. Can you provide details, please? A couple of other articles are going to need correction too, if it's entirely gone. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 19:29, 18 June 2006 (EDT)