Talk:Chicago park and boulevard system

Restoration of primary sources / sources that failed to verify

Greetings! In a recent edit, the content that failed to verify - although already removed once - was restored to the article.[1] The rationale for the removals was given through tags and Edit Summaries, but please find the explanations below in brief and short:

No. 1 A WP:PRIMARY source was tagged, as it was a national registry's nomination form.[2] Moreover, the source was about the "Logan Square Boulevards Historic District", a concept that already has its own separate Wikipedia article, and that is different from the "Chicago Boulevard System". Still, it's a primary source.

The primary source and the material it failed to verify was removed from the article.[3]

No. 2 The material was tagged for failing to verify.[4]

The material that failed to verify was removed.[5]

No. 3 A paragraph dealing with the "Logan Square Boulevards Historic District" was removed, as we already have its own Wikipedia article and the source made no references to the "Chicago Boulevard System".[6]

No. 4 The source was tagged for failing to verify the material.[7] Actually, the source didn't even mention the "Chicago Boulevard System". The source was description of a TV program provided by the channel.

The material that failed to verify was removed.[8]

No. 6 Again, a paragraph dealing with "Logan Square Boulevards Historic District" was removed. Not just it has a Wikipedia article of its own and the paragraph makes no connection to the "Chicago Boulevard System", but the whole paragraph is unreferenced.

I find the Edit Summary given by the editor who restored all this a bit baffling;[9] indeed, no material has been removed during the AfD nomination. Moreover I can hardly see any consensus to keep the sources (1 pro-delete; 2 pro-keep; 2 pro-merge). That's not important though, since all the material must be verifiable according to the Wikipedia:Verification. This is not a question of consensus; as we know that "consensus is not a vote". What matters is the quality of arguments. According to WP:CON:

The quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view. The arguments "I just don't like it" and "I just like it" usually carry no weight whatsoever.

Well, perhaps this wasn't so "brief and short" as I expected, but hopefully this covers the changes in enough detail. In all cases, however, we must adhere to the Wikipedia policies. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 21:07, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

A more recent edit added some more unreferenced material to the article.[10] Also, the lede was changed from "Chicago Boulevard System" to "Chicago Park Boulevard System" (boldings added), even though that's still not supported by the source (neither is that the name of the article). From now on, let us discuss the issues here at the article Talk Page, shall we? Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 21:16, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

List

Regardless of the quality of sources are for the rest of the article, the boulevards in question need to be listed (in the article) to at least define its scope. Does this include every street with the tag "BLVD" at the end of its name in the city or just the ones that have landscaping? Either way we need specificity of which ones and where they are. Lost on  Belmont ^3200N_1000W  (talk) 01:02, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Rename proposal

I propose renaming this article, from "Chicago Boulevard System" to "Chicago boulevard system". Chicago has a system of boulevards -- a network of wide, tree-lined boulevards that connect Chicago's largest parks. Its construction was authorized by the Illinois legislature in 1869, and construction continued until 1942. The boulevard system is still very much a part of the city's streetscape, and part of it has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. Indeed, this article could be expanded quite a bit -- based on reliable secondary sources, of course! But, as far as I can tell, the Chicago boulevard system is not officially named the Chicago Boulevard System, so lowercase "b" and "s" would be appropriate here. (Pinging the editors who participated in the AFD discussion: @Jayaguru-Shishya, Alanscottwalker, Lost on Belmont, Doncram, and TonyTheTiger: — Mudwater ^(Talk) 23:40, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

• I suggest "Chicago's park and boulevard system", although that may be improved upon. As discussed in the AFD, the parks aspect must be included in the name. (There are boulevards in Chicago which are not part of this system.) The 142 page document (sometimes said not to exist) has, on page 7: "Planning for Chicago’s park and boulevard system began in 1869, ...". What matters is how the system is called in sources and in general usage. This rename proposal, whose timing is perhaps prompted by my editing at the article, might better have been postponed. What it is called may become really well established by the development of the article. But it's okay to move this to a better name before it gets moved to a perfect name. --doncram 00:00, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

@Doncram: In one of those weird synchronicities, I created this talk page section before I noticed your recent edits to the article. And it took me some minutes to write my comment, so I actually might have started writing it before your first edit. But, anyway, I'm open to other article names. And I'm also open to a discussion about whether the new name should be decided sooner or later. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:08, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

• I second "Chicago's park and boulevard system" or a variation thereof. Including the "parks" is essential. Lost on  Belmont ^3200N_1000W  (talk) 02:52, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

To correct some false claims:

1. As doncram stated in his latest Edit Summary[11], "restore material deleted (I am corrected that these deletions were DURING the AFD discussion, which is worse)", this is not quite true. The AfD was made in 20:28, 23 April 2016‎, whereas the edits to removed the unreferenced / failed to verify / original research constituting material were removed between 01:13, 27 March 2016‎[12] and 15:45, 7 April 2016‎[13] (the edits as whole here: [14]). So there are four days in between the removal of the inappropriate content and the filing of the AfD case, and there certainly is no rationale to recover the old version of the article with all of its shortcomings.
2. The AfD was a close delete, but the only reason why the article didn't got deleted was that "...believes the article can be improved, and he's willing to put in the effort to do so. My suggestion would be to give him time to work on this before bringing this back to AfD again."[15]. So far, doncram has just merely restored the material that failed to verify / was unreferenced / was original research. I wouldn't call this "improving the article" like doncram promised.
3. Interestingly, doncram got just recently "... indefinitely restricted from creating new pages, except for redirects, in article space which are related to the National Register of Historic Places, broadly construed.[16] Looking at the material in the article, as well as the sources, this article definitely should fall under that category. Just as a reminder, the article was created only a couple of months ago. We still haven't overcome the problem that the sources reintroduced don't make any link to the "Chicago Boulevard System" (capitalized or not).
4. In the previous discussion, we had strong arguments to delete this article, and merge the it to another more appropriate ones.

Restoring the old material without fixing the problems is not way to go. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk)

Renaming the article with the drop of capitals wouldn't fix the problems presented at the AfD.[17] RoySmith, could you give your opinion as the closer? Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 01:05, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

@Jayaguru-Shishya: (1) You said that doncram is restricted from creating new pages, and that "Looking at the material in the article, as well as the sources, this article definitely should fall under that category." Since doncram did not create this article, either before or after the restriction was imposed, I don't quite follow your line of reasoning. (2) Perhaps you didn't notice it, but more than half an hour before your post, doncram retracted his statement that you removed text and references from the article during the AFD -- that's here. Instead you removed that material before the AFD, which is also not cool. But, as doncram also said, that's water under the bridge. We should try to move forward from here. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 01:29, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

edits before, during, continuing

I misstated in my edit summary for this edit that I was restoring material removed during the AFD discussion. Instead it was material removed before the AFD, by the AFD nominator. In general I do object to having an article reduced to very little, then nominated for AFD, but whatever, it's over, and sorry for mis-identifying what happened. Hopefully the article can just be developed, by any and all interested, to cover properly the ring of parks and boulevards that was planned in 1869 and subsequently mostly developed. I notice an "in use for 60 minutes" tag on the article now. While I was editing at the time, I don't mind stopping for now.

Open source map identifying Midway Plaisance, part of the ring of parks and blvds, created by User:TonyTheTiger

What is most needed for the article is a map showing the ring of parks and boulevards! I added an external link to a map, though. --doncram 00:12, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Tagging and other recent edits

Hi, I see the article has been edited by addition of numerous tags such as "needs non-primary source", asserting that referenced information is not in the reference given, and so on. It is a bit subjective, etiquette-wise, about when edits should be made directly into an article vs. discussed first at the Talk page, but in much of these I think it is better to raise questions first, for various reasons. Anyhow, if issues are not raised here beforehand, then they needs to be discussed here after (so why not just before?).

• "Needs non-primary source" is not to be applied everywhere the NRHP nomination document is cited. The NRHP nomination document is primary with respect to some information that it introduces, such as facts of the number of buildings covered in the nomination. But it is secondary or tertiary with respect to other material such as the history of the boulevards and parks proposal. Note it has a very extensive bibliography.

Also, you don't get to remove everything referenced to a primary source. It is explicit in Wikipedia's guidance that primary sources can be used "with care". It is unreasonable to remove material that is quite obviously true, supported adequately by a primary source. You have to really doubt the truthiness of the primary source, when it asserts something factual like the 26 mile length of the proposed district, if you going to question it. --doncram 23:19, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

• About assertion, by tag, in the article that "The source does not even mention Noth Side, Kedzie Avenue, four hundred, 118, Romanesque, Victorian, Tudor Revival, or Prairie", I think that is just false. For example, I know 100% for sure that exactly the number 400 and the number 118, regarding various types of buildings or properties, is in the source that I gave[the source that I was reading, but didn't cite properly, ooops]. (Note: the NRHP nomination document is one document in two parts, covered in one reference. If the page number given for a fact is higher than 142 (or whatever is the last page of the first part), then it is in the second part.) To the tagger, I presume you don't mean to insult me by asserting that I made those numbers up, right? So there must be some other explanation, and the first that comes to mind is that the tagger failed to find the bits of info while in fact they are there. Another possibility is that there has been an editing error pointing to one source when it was another that applied. It would seem better to me if a polite question was asked here, instead of having mainspace "gotcha"-type assertions inserted everywhere. Please say you don't think the information is made up. :) --doncram 23:06, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

• Oops, Jayaguru-Shishya was right in questioning the 400 and 118 numbers. Where I got them from was page 8 of the new NRHP nomination document, which gave those in summarizing about the previous Logan Square NRHP nomination document (where I might have assumed the numbers appeared also, I don't recall, but appearently they don't). I'd rather call it an imperfection in referencing than a serious error, but "gotcha" applies correctly if that is the point. Thanks for noting that. --doncram 23:44, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Eventually all the material tagged was removed by these big edits. I reverted to the expanded version and suggest we discuss the issues with that in place. For one reason it is convenient to see, by the material being followed by tags, what is being questioned. My guess is that most of the issues will not be valid. But let me say, I do appreciate the attention paid by the review, in general it is a good thing for stuff in Wikipedia to be checked carefully. --doncram 23:19, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

It's not a primary source and even if it were policy is for primary sources, see WP:Primary. As for most the fails to verify claims, they appear to be entirely unsupported. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:21, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

And the article was restored more fully than I had done, and further edited, so I guess we should discuss specific issues here (perhaps passages that are questioned can be copied here). --doncram 23:44, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes. They most surely should be discussed first because the removals do not appear to based on an understanding of the cited sources (or policy), and/or there needs to be work with others for better phrasing, if necessary. --Alanscottwalker, 23:50, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

• Also it seems right to question the sentence "Some of the most common designs are sandstone Romanesque houses, gray stone Victorian houses, and brick buildings with Tudor Revival and Prairie School styles."

References

I was not the one who added the mention of those architectural styles, and I personally doubted its accuracy a bit before without tagging it myself, although I might be guilty of editing the sentence sometime. Anyhow, reading, I think the Logan Square NRHP nomination document doesn't mention Romanesque until towards bottom of page 15, continuing onto 16, where it is used to describe some of the greatest mansions built previously on Lakeshore Drive (elsewhere, outside the Logan Sq HD) and Drexel Boulevard (also outside the HD?). And then it is asserted that the Logan Square residents couldn't afford to be so elaborate, but their architects did copy elements of the (Romanesque) style of the mansions, implying Romanesque applies here. That's as far as I have read carefully. I don't know if the sentence will be fully supported, but it is fair to call for more precise sourcing (i.e. page numbers) in any reference that is used for this. --doncram 00:22, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

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