Talk:North Dakota

Do we need all these counties???

Aagh! Wikivoyage isn't an encyclopedia - do we really need to list all the counties in North Dakota - surely we should only list the interesting areas / cities? See Travellers' pub/Non-Destinations. (WT-en) DanielC 16:10, 8 May 2005 (EDT)

It may be hard to judge from London, but North Dakota is quite interesting for many visitors. It offers outdoor sports galore, including skiing, hunting, fishing, boating, biking, hiking, etc. There is probably a better hierarchical organization by region, which I will work on after I am done making it comprehensive. (WT-en) Stavp 8 May 2005.

I'd be open to other suggestions of how to organize the breakdown of the state if there's something better than counties-- is there any sort of generally recognized "areas"? But it doesn't look like an overwhelming list-for-lists sake. I don't think anyone wants to get into judging what's "interesting" or not (I mean it's not like we're going to run out of room ;-) so all the destinations should be covered. (See conversation at Travellers' pub/Non-Destinations). It may just be a matter of deciding on how to organize them... (WT-en) Majnoona 22:22, 8 May 2005 (EDT)

Sorry for coming across overly negative and picking on this page as an example. The list of counties - it was about 1 1/2 pages long looks much better now that you have sorted it into groups. I should learn some patience - I was just looking most of the counties and they do look quite encyclopaedic - eg. Burke County (North Dakota) & Cass County (North Dakota), plus the town that I looked at - Medora is just a list of shops, restaurants and hotels. I guess that this is just a starting point. I'll make my more general points on Travellers' pub/Non-Destinations. (WT-en) DanielC 14:37, 9 May 2005 (EDT)

regions

There were already two regions defined: Turtle Mountains and Badlands. I carved those out of the four generally recognized regions of the state, so now we have six, with a pretty tight organization. All counties are in alpha order in the regions, so if you want to find a particular county, its not too hard to locate in the list as now organized,

County (North Dakota) Article Names

Copied from my talk page. -- (WT-en) Huttite 08:11, 11 Jun 2005 (EDT)

When I first set up the 53 counties of ND, I was finding many names duplicate names of counties in other states. To avoid confusion and duplicate work, I decided to name all 53 as Name County (North Dakota). I realized when I did this that some of the counties were not duplicated in other states and the ND parentheses were not necessary, but it was easier to stick to one naming convention as I wrote the various articles. By changing Oliver County (North Dakota) to Oliver County, this becomes an exception to the naming convention I am using, and will almost certainly lead to errors down the road. Unless there is really a good reason to go changing some of the names and leaving others unchanged, I would like to keep the (North Dakota) in all the county names. Do you see a problem with that? (WT-en) Stavp 17:20, 10 Jun 2005 (EDT)

According to the Project:Article naming conventions, Oliver County is prefered over Oliver County (North Dakota). Unless there are multiple articles (regions in this case) with the same name, there is no need to disambiguate them with the (North Dakota).

The Big risk with having (North Dakota) in the name is that other unwitting authors will create a second article without the (North Dakota), rather than contribute to your wonderful articles. I understand this has already happened with Bismarck and Bismarck (North Dakota).

If you intend to continue using the (North Dakota) in article titles, can I suggest you also create redirection pages to those articles from pages with the matching names that do not have (North Dakota) in the title, especially when you know there are duplicate names. That way we can set up disambiguation pages, in the future.

However, I think the better solution is to leave the (North Dakota) off the name unless there are other articles with the same name that already exist. Even though other places may exist, we may never write articles about them. We can always move existing pages to disambiguated names later, to make room when we need it.

Lastly, if I have upset your plans, I am sorry; but I was unaware of your decision to use the (North Dakota) for the County articles. To save all this pain, frustration and disputing it may have helped to document your decision somewhere where I, and others could have read it. By responding here I hope that I have now done that documentation. Unfortunately, as many of the (North Dakota) articles do not follow the existing naming conventions, they are still at risk of being aligned to it, by others. I can tolerate what you are doing, now I understand it, others may not. How we resolve the risks oulined above I leave as a challenge for the Wikivoyage contributor community. -- (WT-en) Huttite 08:11, 11 Jun 2005 (EDT)

Thanks, for the explanation Huttite. I certainly understand the need for clear and unambiguous conventions in a large multi-contributor project. I think the complexity comes from the very common county names used in so many states. For example (by no means comprehensuive) here is a list of 8 counties in ND that are also county names in other states:

• • Ward County: North Dakota, Texas
  • Golden Valley County: North Dakota, Montana
  • Ramsey County: North Dakota, Minnesota
  • Pierce County: North Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Georgia
  • Mercer County: North Dakota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, West Virginia, Kentucky,
  • Logan County: North Dakota, Ohio, Illinois, West virginia, Kansas, Colorado, Kentucky, Virginia, Oklahoma,Arkansas
  • Adams County: North Dakota, Colorado, Illinois, Washington, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Idaho, Mississippi
  • Grant County: North Dakota, Wisconsin, Washington, Indiana, Oregon, Kentucky, Colorado, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Kansas, West Virginia, Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota

Now, I have not checked if any of these names have been used in other WikiTravel state articles, but I think the odds are if they have not yet been, they will be at some time. I would like to propose that, for the time being, and until the North Dakota article data base is reasonably well filled out, I would like to continue to use the (North Dakota) modifier for each county name. I probably have another couple of months to go to get this done. Once that is done, I would be very glad you or anyone else who is willing to take on the task of renaming and/or redirecting the county articles as necessary to abide by the WikiTravel naming conventions. Thanks again for your help. (WT-en) Stavp 15:29, 11 Jun 2005 (EDT)

I am not too worried that the naming conventions are not being followed to the letter in this case. There are valid reasons for doing what is being done. Also I am not familiar with the counties of the United States of America. Consequently, I have not interfered (too much) with the work going on developing these North Dakota articles. It is also quite clear that famous presidents and generals do get honored by having a lot of counties named after them. Given the above research by (WT-en) Stavp indicates almost 4 dozen other ambiguous county article names exist, pre-disambiguated county articles may be a good thing. Perhaps there is also need for deciding how political regions (which US counties really are) fit into a geographical heierachy. In some places, counties and their like will be the most convenient way of dividing up a larger regional area, like a state. However, in other cases, counties may not be appropriate, especially where the political division does not match the natural geographical division.

The basic questions I have are:

(1) Is it County, with a capital, or county, with a lower case C?

(2) Should the word County be included or not?

(3) Should all counties be disambiguated by state as in Countyname County (State)?

(4) Should this apply world wide or only for the USA? (Compare shires Australia and both counties and shires in England.)

(5) What are the consequences of these decisions?

(6) How can any risks, such as duplicate articles, multiple redirects and article moves be (or should they be) mitigated?

In some respects, what we decide now locks us into the way we must move forward. Also, what seems expedient now may not be convenient later. I would like others to think about these issue and comment. -- (WT-en) Huttite 00:48, 12 Jun 2005 (EDT)

Removed external links

The following links were removed from the main article but may be useful for research:

• Official State web site
• North Dakota Tourism
• Discover ND
• North Dakota.com
• The Real North Dakota Project

Get rid of county articles

This state is waaaay too subdivided... we should combine all of the county articles into their immediate parents, leaving the 6 region articles only – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 16:22, 22 May 2008 (EDT)

There's a lot of underdeveloped articles.... but if you eliminate the county layer then you get too many cities per article. -- (WT-en) Colin 17:03, 22 May 2008 (EDT)

Stay Safe section

This section reads like an Uncyclopedia parody.

Absolutely agree. The whole section makes it sound as though leaving city limits will doom you a short life of being frozen, then eaten by wildlife. It's overly histrionic and sounds very unprofessional. The Understand section, with its declarations about people using Native American sites as a "toilet," seems unfounded and is also overly dramatic. A simple request not to disturb prayer flags, cairns, etc. -- and to remove any trash you generate at these sites -- would be a better use of the space. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) Afraydknot (talk • contribs)

Please plunge forward and make any needed changes. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 00:50, 12 December 2011 (EST)

Alternative banner

I propose a new banner for this page:

Current banner

Suggestion 1

--Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 04:23, 1 March 2019 (UTC) (comment adjusted on April 20, 2018)

Moved discussion from Talk:Theodore Roosevelt National Park to here and adjusted my comments accordingly. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:06, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

• I like this one better than the current. Ground Zero (talk) 21:19, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Added current banner for comparison. /Yvwv (talk) 21:56, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

• I like the new one better too. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:38, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
• I definitely favor the proposed replacement. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:31, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
• The new proposal is better but I would crop it a little lower.--Traveler100 (talk) 07:23, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion 1a

• I prefer Traveler100's crop. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:39, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
• Your suggested banner as modified in Suggestion 1A would be a great improvement over the current banner. Zcarstvnz (talk) 12:21, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
• I'd go with 1A too. Ground Zero (talk) 13:02, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
• Yes, that focuses on the important stuff even more! Thanks. Nice version of it, though I've actually created another alternative just in case you guys really like it. I'm not sure, though, if it's quite as good as 1A. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 00:33, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion 2

• The new image is good and could be used somewhere, but I prefer 1A. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:25, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
• I think 1a is better than 2 because it shows both detail and a vast panorama in the same photo. Hopefully someone will find a use for #2 elsewhere. Zcarstvnz (talk) 08:41, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
• @Ikan Kekek, Zcarstvnz: According to information in North Dakota Banner Alternative.jpg, the image is from Theodore Roosevelt National Park so it could be used there. Also, in case you didn't know, I've also done some alternative banners for Texas (see Talk:Texas#Alternative banners) and it would be great to hear some thoughts on those. Thanks! --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:34, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion 2 looks like a good replacement for the currently-used banner at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:04, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek, SelfieCity: I agree that Suggestion 2 would be a much better alternative for TR National Park. Zcarstvnz (talk) 09:20, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

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