Talk:Kansas River

Missouri River basin map

Source: USGS National Map: The Kansas-Lower Republican (KLR) basin drains almost 10,500 square miles within blue-shaded Missouri River basin

This mis-captioned map of the Missouri River basin (in blue) was added to the page; can it be captioned in such a way as to be made specifically relevant to the Kansas River page? -- Malepheasant 02:37, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Corrected ...
RJBurkhart 01:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

References

• Kansas Policy Review (Spring 2004)
• PDF: The Waters of Kansas: Past and Present by Donald Worster

See also

• USA National Atlas streamflow stations
• KELP: (Water quality community connections)

RJBurkhart 11:39, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Re*Cycling Arkansas River and Kaw River Earth Science

Also see:
MentorshipART of Peace (Eco-Futures Forum)
WikkaWiki's logo from the project's website.
RJBurkhart 02:28, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

USGS National Map Geo-Tourism

• Purging GPS survey topology waypoint creates a false flatlander perception.
  • Fort Riley (Eco-History Trails and Tales)

USGS TOPO! GPS Data Format Deg NAD83 ElevFeet
JUNCTNCTY,39.02861,-96.83140,1107,JUNCTION CITY :: ELEV 1107 FT

What information are you trying to convey? That one end of the river is higher than the other? There may be a clearer way of doing so. Maybe something like a sentence that reads: "Its headwaters are at 1100' above sea level, while its junction with the Missouri is at 700'". Regarding the categories, every river contains water, so that category is nonsensical. Category:Biogeography and Category:Human geography are other categories which seem applicable to every river, and which are not appropriate. We need to keep these connections much tighter than some editors have done. -Will Beback 22:26, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Great alternative! Modified introduction as suggested.RJBurkhart 11:47, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Jan. 2006 edits

A few notes:

• I recently removed this unsightly and unexplained burst of text and numerals:

"USGS TOPO! GPS Data Format Deg NAD83 ElevFeet JUNCTNCTY,39.02861,-96.83140,1107,JUNCTION CITY :: ELEV 1107 FT", and found it re-inserted a few hours later. I don't think it should be there but don't want a revert war.

• It's not explained in the text of the article why this particular river should be in Category:Biogeography and Category:Human geography, but not every other river in the world. (These were also been removed and reverted recently.) Maybe some connection is made in the sea of external links that have been added to the article, but at the very least it should be laid out in sentences and paragraphs in the text of the Wikipedia article itself, if these categories are indeed appropriate placements for this article.

Since 1999, the Kansas Water Office (KWO) with Kansas Department of Health & Environment (KDHE) have "championed" community stewardship efforts to preserve & protect water quality via multiple river orienteering programs like Friend of the Kaw and bioneering interdisciplinary K-State Extension initiatives.
RJBurkhart 23:09, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

This multi-agency effort focuses on engaging community stakeholders in civic social responsibiltiy for water resources. Hence, biogeography & human geography categories seem appropriate.

• KELP Kansas Environmental Leadership Program
  • Kansas Public Health: Community Workbench
    • Kansas Community Pride
      RJBurkhart 23:09, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
      

Kaw Valley watershed connections

(This list follows Kansas River flow downstream)

• Shawnee - Elev: 732 ft
• Kaw Point - Elev: 727 ft

This'd be swell info to have in the article, just like this. -Will Beback 11:23, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Done - Thanks for ongoing review & comment! -RJBurkhart 22:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Re*Visioning RO/CS Lessons Learned

River Orienteering / Community Stewardhsip (RO/CS) geoWIZard for Prairie Pasage Flyways @ http://FutureThought.info

RJBurkhart 11:09, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Kaw Valley social capital network

(Recycling prior lessons learned as wisdom)

• Talk:Kansas River/Biogeography
• Talk:Kansas River/Community toool box
• Talk:Kansas River/Dam safety monitoring
• Talk:Kansas River/Shawnee Crossings
• Talk:Kansas River/Virtual Team Tactics

RJBurkhart 10:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Prairie Passage in Kansas flyways

• Audobon Society was added to the "see also" list, but no mention of the Kansas River is made in that article; what's the connection? --Malepheasant 01:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Our Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) seeks to protect waterfowl habitats & the National Audubon Society helps multi-state participants promote flyway corridor birding maps ...

• Prairie Passage in Kansas ( Adopt-a-Habitat )
  • Citizen science via Great Backyard Bird Count
    • National Audubon Society

Also see global UNEP efforts: To support interdisciplinary Earth Science, EPA funds both KACEE and KAWS to create a sustainable sense of place in space by understanding the water cycle within watershed basins.
RJBurkhart 16:02, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

New updates

I've been updating this article and plan to do a lot more. This will be my first series of major updates (to any wiki article). Please tell me how you think its going! Sculptorjones 23:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Geopedantry

This article begins: "The Kansas River ... is the southernmost part of the Missouri River drainage.." Which isn't quite true, as there is the more southernly Osage River, Gasconade River, Meramec River, and other rivers of Missouri. Pfly 17:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Fixed. I made that typo. I changed "southernmost" to "southwesternmost"

Request for comment: Infobox river template vs. Geobox river template

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Yesterday, I swapped out the Geobox river template on this page for the Infobox river template. User:TimK MSI didn't like that and reverted my edit. Today, I undid his reversion. Tim wants to establish consensus about the change. I'm skeptical that anyone else cares except him and me, but consensus is what makes Wikipedia go round so I'm putting it out to the editor community to decide. (Please note: we are having the same disagreement over the Little Arkansas River article.)

I think the Infobox river template is more concise, logically structured, and aesthetically clearer and simpler. The field labels are more straightforward and logically grouped (e.g. elevation data clustered together), and it contains less redundancy (i.e. no redundant field to enter "river" into when that's already included in the name of the stream). It also adds the Progression field which provides a quick and easy-to-understand way of conveying the relationship of a tributary to its parent streams.

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Rivers#Infoboxes lists both templates and appears to be agnostic as to which one should be used.

Both templates contain fields for mostly the same basic information so, ultimately, I think this boils down to aesthetic preference.

So what do you say, Wikipedia? Which one should be used: the Infobox river template, or the Geobox river template? FUBAR007 (talk) 16:17, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

• Well, I didn't undo your change because I "didn't like that," so please don't ascribe that motive to me. I undid it because the Manual of Style guidelines, by specifying that infobox selection be established through consensus "at each individual article," discourages people from wantonly switching articles en masse from one infobox to another in the absence of consensus to do so, as you were in the process of doing on numerous articles. I personally think Infobox River is possibly the most absurdly organized infobox on all of Wikipedia, and that it is aesthetically hideous because of its excessive white space, its absence of sections and dividing lines to contain and organize related information, and the way its attribute labels continue onto multiple lines (using two lines to write "basin countries", etc.) -- to my eyes, the information barely even looks like it has been organized into a table. (And I feel exactly the opposite from you about the source and mouth elevation: I want to see the source elevation listed next to the source location, and the mouth elevation listed next to the mouth location -- because what sense does it make to separate those pieces of information by inserting a U.S. state name and the river's length in between them, as Infobox River does?) But despite feeling strongly about it, I don't convert articles using Infobox River to my preferred template, because of the Manual of Style's guideline specifying that consensus be built at each individual article, and because I know that people do feel strongly about the matter, as evidenced by the spectacular multi-year conflagration that resulted (as I understand it) from people aggressively enforcing their infobox preferences, and that resulted in the current language at the Manual of Style. So I didn't revert your edit just because I like mine better, nor because I was enforcing a "personal little fiefdom," per your unwarranted accusation.

As for which infobox is better for the Kansas River article, I think the most solid argument in favor of the Geobox (others can see it in use on this article here) is that it tells you right from the start what country the river is in, whereas Infobox River organizes the information thusly:

It tells you that it starts in a city in Kansas.

It tells you that it ends in a city in Kansas.

Then it tells you what country the river is in.

Then it tells you that the river is in Kansas.

I think this is a ridiculous way to organize information, but maybe you can make an argument that explains how it helps readers, and how it improves the Kansas River article, to refrain from telling them which country the river is in until after you've told them which city it starts in and which city it ends in. Infobox River's organization scheme possibly makes sense for the large international rivers for which it was initially designed in 2005 -- for instance, a river that starts in country A, ends in country D, and has the "basin countries" A, B, C, and D. But I don't think its ordering is well suited to a smaller one-country river such as this one. --TimK MSI (talk) 19:23, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

You didn't follow WP:INFOBOXUSE yourself. When you reverted my edit, you didn't say "see Talk page to discuss", or start a RfC to reach consensus. You simply reverted my edit and cited WP:INFOBOXUSE as an excuse. You cited the requirement for consensus and yet took no steps to start a conversation to reach it. That tells me you're not really interested in consensus at all. Couple that with how quickly you reverted my edits, indicating this article is on your watchlist, and your behavior suggests to me you have a proprietary view of this, and possibly other, articles and that your primary interest is in seeing your aesthetic preferences enforced. Hence, my reference to your "personal little fiefdom".

Tell me, how was I supposed to know ahead of time that there were other editors working on this page that needed consulting, eh? It's barely been touched since May! The Little Arkansas River article had hardly been edited in the preceding TWO YEARS! As far as I knew, the only current editor of these articles was me!

But, enough of that. You want a consensus? Well, here you're going to get it. I've made my case. You've made yours. The community will decide which template wins out. FUBAR007 (talk) 22:40, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Your assertions about my motives are completely incorrect. To repeat a question pertinent to the quality of this article, which I assume we both care about, could you explain why you think it's good that "United States" is buried in the middle of the infobox on the Kansas River article? Can you explain how it helps readers, vs establishing that context at the top of the table of information, as it was before? --TimK MSI (talk) 23:01, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Uninvolved, bot-summoned editor

• Point, the First: Stop attacking each other and turning this into a battle. Please be civil towards, and not attack/comment on, users who disagree with you. Focus on the content, do not discuss the editors.
• Point, the Second: WP:BRD is policy, WP:MOS is a guideline on stylistic changes. It is generally preferred to have consensus to avoid these disputes, but it is not necessary to have said consensus when acting boldly, in good faith and reasonably.
• Point, the Third: (for previously uninvolved users predominantly) Here is a side-by-side version of the two infoboxes being proposed, in my Sandbox space with minor additions.
• Point, the Last: I would prefer using the Geobox from my Sandbox. I have updated said Geobox with values from the Infobox that were not included in the Geobox originally. My reasoning is per Aesthetics as the information is better presented and more succinct than the said Infobox and with the additions of elevation heights for source and mouth, contains the same information. I do not feel that the "Progression" and "Origin" values are needed for a river that stays within the same state, perhaps if it bridged two different states and the origin was a fair distance away or the progression wound through several states/key areas, then they would be notable enough to include.

Cheers, Drcrazy102 (talk) 01:37, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I'm glad I made myself a fresh cup of coffee - Mmmmm, I love the taste of Aeropress coffee - and a shortbread bikkie to dunk into it before settling down to see what Wikipedia had thrown up for me today. Kansas City is a town I love, and here's the "other river" as the main topic of our documentary entertainment. A bit of wikitactics, some bricks thrown, bad faith pretty much taken for granted, lots of links and arcane mentions. Totes grand. As a place to stay in KC, I highly recommend the Raphael, actually. Thanks to Drcrazy102 for the side-by-side comparo. I think the Geobox has the edge there. We'd booked into the Raphael, which was an indulgence on my part, but was a pretty classy joint, right across from the Plaza. We spotted a restaurant/bar opening off the lobby and went in for a nightcap after a day on the road.

It was really nice. Dim light, a piano player, bar staff in formal clothes. Instead of my usual beer, I ordered a martini, and sat there sipping it, basking in the glow.

The piano player was quite an entertainer. Believe it or not, he had a pet monkey, and he talked to it and it did tricks as part of the act. Sat on his shoulder, reached down and tinkled a few keys, waved to the audience.

The musician took requests and was rattling out some good tunes. "Piano Man!" someone asked, and he gave us a great version, rolling his eyes and voice in over-the-top Billy Joel.

The monkey hammed it up for a while and then went visiting, jumping up on tables, begging for pretzels and nuts. It came to us, squatted over my drink, and then to my astonishment and horror dangled its testicles into the glass.

"Get away out of it, yer filthy little bastard!" I snarled, and it scampered back to its master.

I followed, fuming, and the piano man looked up at me as his monkey sought refuge on his shoulder.

"Do you know your monkey dunked his nuts in my martini?"

"Uh no," he replied, "but if you hum a few bars I’ll pick it up." --Pete (talk) 04:04, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

LOL! Perhaps Story would have been a better tag Pete? Cheers, Drcrazy102 (talk) 05:04, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Geobox summoned by bot. MY argument boils down to I just like it more, but I do believe the information is more accessible when in the geobox than in the infobox as the infobox seems to have titles of sections overflowing onto new lines which makes navigating the whole thing rather difficult. I find the geobox to be more easy to understand at a glance, and more visually pleasing: things I find important in an infobox. Wugapodes (talk) 04:44, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Having assessed a number of WP:River articles, my view is that the Geobox is the better template to use. I agree with others that it has a nicer layout and is easier to read, plus it gives ready-made conversions...Jokulhlaup (talk) 16:49, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

At this point, the consensus is pretty clear. Geobox it is! FUBAR007 (talk) 15:48, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Western Interior Seaway

Within the Kansas River valley proper, there are no Western Interior Seaway formations. The Western Interior Seaway was a mid- to late-Cretaceous event, and all Kansas River valley formations are Carboniferous and Permian. Only the tributaries get into the Western Interior Seaway formations. The general Dakota Formation is the nearest Western Interior Seaway formation — the upper Big and Little Blues get into residual Dakota hills in the north border counties. Pebbles of Dakota can be found on hilltops around Tuttle Creek Lake (yes, the Dakota pebbles are OR, but you will never find any publication on that), but that is about as close as it gets. Clearly, the Smoky Hill River and Republican River do cut deeply into the undisturbed Western Interior Seaway formation in central and western Kansas. IveGoneAway (talk) 23:41, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Better source needed - glaciation

While the glaciation clearly had significant impact on the Kansas River, the impact is not really as stated, and the provided incomplete citation is unverifiable.

• The general west-to-east Smoky Hill-Kansas River course existed by mid-Neogene, but much shallower.
• Before glaciation, at least before the actually glacial damming events of the Kansas River, the Kansas River was already cut deeper than the present depth.
• Most glaciation phases dammed only the Missouri River and the Platte River; overflows reached the Kansas River through tributaries, filling them with sediments and altering courses, cutting wide north-south valleys, which present tributaries now cut across west to east.
• The Big Blue River (Kansas) is thought to be initially the diversion of a pre-glacial Vermillion/Republican River course.
• Glacial damming events of the Kansas River between Manhattan and Topeka formed Kaw Lake (Kansas) and filled the valleys with red loess -- the shoreline mud banks can still be traced on the bluffs between Manhattan and Junction City, meaning the bluffs didn't change much west of the Big Blue River during glaciation. And there is a spot of pre-glacial dune sand on top of the bluffs just east of Blue across from Randolf, IIRC. OTOH, spillover may have deepened the Wakarusa River, but I haven't citation on that, yet.

If I get the chance, I will try to fix this with work on the glacial Kaw Lake (Kansas).

IveGoneAway (talk) 22:48, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

References