Template talk:Alabama: Difference between revisions

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What exactly constitutes "major"?

Because there's no way that the bham SUBURBS of Homewood, Vestavia Hills, Alabaster are major cities. They are part of the Bham MSA. Hoover belongs by virtue of its sheer sprawl...er size. Bessemer is iffy. - (author?) (My bad, I made this comment. -Ttownfeen)

I've gone ahead and made changes to the "Major cities" list based on the following standards. A city is major if:

It is the largest city of a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), or
It would be large enough to qualify as the largest city of an MSA if it were not a suburb (i.e., if the population is greater than 50,000).

I think these are reasonable standards as to what defines "major" - Lissoy 15:46, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Looks good. Ttownfeen 01:24, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

Metro Areas

I am assuming that the "Metro Areas" in the template are used in reference to Metropolitan Statistical Areas created by the Census Bureau. I have used that assumption as justification for changing the names of the metro area to their official names as indicated on this census list. Also, Hunstville and Decatur are technically two seperate census areas. Any combination of the two is probably what should constitute the North Alabama article --Ttownfeen 04:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Harmonizing Template:Alabama

Template:Alabama has been harmonized by BigBang11, 15 March 2006 21:18 PST (UTC)

U.S. state templates

Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states/state templates lists and displays all 50 U.S. state (and additional other) templates. It potentially can be used for ideas and standardization. //MrD9 07:13, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Purpose

What is the purpose of this template? Wouldn't every conceivable use be served by just wikilinking to the Alabama article? I could see maybe inconspicuous separate templates for "Symbols of Alabama", "Regions of Alabama" and maybe even "Major Cities of Alabama" but a template for all 67 counties? Hey look, you could just link to List of counties in Alabama which is better formatted and has a nice big map!

Also, this gigantic box is tremendously ugly and causes me great distress every time I chance upon it. If we are going to keep all this, let's at LEAST clean it up to the standards set by Template:Alaska.

--Dystopos 05:24, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I, for one, use the template to quickly jump for city article to city article within Alabama. IMO, that part of the template definitely is useful. --Ttownfeen 06:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template formatting

I didn't like the following things about this version:

Red and white stripes look bad.
Everything is Bold.
There are no Micropolitan Areas articles, so no reason to include in template.
No real reason to separate "major" and "largest" cities (same for Metro areas).
A whole line for List of cities in Alabama is unnecessary.
The coat of arms has a gray background that looks very bad.
Three pictures is just too much.

So, I changed the template to look like this. 68.191.140.120 reverted my changes without discussion, so I reverted it back. Comments are welcome here. --JW1805 (Talk) 06:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your version is much nicer. I've been looking at a lot of state templates, and until now, Alabama's was the biggest eyesore. You improved it a lot. //MrD9 06:25, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on board with JW1805's refinements. Actually, I don't think they go far enough. The oversized candy-colored one is terrible. Take a look at Template:Alaska for a really appealing version. --Dystopos 14:19, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's anything wrong with the Coat of Arms being on there. I bolded the major cities and counties (by defining major cities as those above 100,000 and counties as those above 75,000) so that we could have the distinction of major and not-so-major cities and counties without resorting to adding a new section. --Ttownfeen 21:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the coat-of-arms; if someone wants to find out about the coat-of-arms, there's a prominent link in the infobox on the Alabama page. There's no point in reproducing it on every county article. The flag is better because it's easier to identify at a small size. Also, I don't see the point in distinguishing "major counties". That's not really an informative concept. Please, let's strip this abomination to its bare essentials. --Dystopos 23:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. And somebody create some articles for these Metro areas. Red links on a state template are just embarrassing. --JW1805 (Talk) 23:46, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a sketch. (User:Dystopos/Template Alabama) I don't know much about table formatting. The flag might look better with a gray hairline around it. --Dystopos 23:51, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any strong feels in any direction for the template. I like your second template. Here are some modification I might suggest. (User:Ttownfeen/Template Alabama) I think I am just bent on having some sort of seperation between the Big 4 and the other "major cities" in Alabama. --Ttownfeen 04:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That one appeals to me for not being oversized. What if instead of putting larger cities in (slightly) larger text, we just ordered the list of cities by population? --Dystopos 06:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would look like the second template (User:Ttownfeen/Template_Alabama). I prefer the first one. --Ttownfeen 21:19, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

About the current version, I don't think that bolding the larger cities and counties is needed. I suggest this template AlabamaGuy2007's Alabama Template . TemplateAlaGuy 02:05, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does the salmon and mint color scheme represent something? --Dystopos 03:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)?[reply]

Hmm, you raise a good point. How does this new version look, AlabamaGuy2007's Alabama Template, I took the "mint" of and replaced it with a ligt blue, I think that the red or "salmon" should stay though since red is a color on the flag. Also, I think the light blue looks good. Or we could completely remove the left column's color. I think the latest version of my version of the template looks best, but I'd like more opinions before I make any major change, or make my version the actual template. AlaGuy 04:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any reason to use the color of the flag. Whatever color is used should be as pale and muted as possible, and you can't do that with red without turning it pink. How many editors do we have in this discussion now? Enough to work out a consensus? --Dystopos 06:24, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How bout this one then? AlabamaGuy2007's Alabama Template AlabamaGuy2007 21:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The two images should be smaller--like the size of User:Dystopos/Template_Alabama's top. Right now they are way too big and make the template look bad. //MrD9 22:45, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Time to decide

A week has passed with no active discussion, so I think it's time to decide on a template. Are we going to keep it as is or change it to one of the suggested new designs? So far there are five proposed designs submitted by four editors (me being one of them). Here are links to the proposed designs:

Which do you think should be the template used?

--Ttownfeen 04:46, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that my proposal should be used, not just cause it's mine, but because it's not small, wimpy, or boring and blue. AlaGuy 03:41, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to suggest a compromise. See User:JW1805/Template Alabama. Basically, it is Dystopos's version with the seal. Not quite so boring...but not quite as flashy as AlabamaGuy's. For the record, I oppose all the ones that don't list the counties. The counties need to be there. --JW1805 (Talk) 04:01, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For the sake of getting rid of the candy-colored monster, I officially support JW1805's compromise (though I prefer the really small and boring versions). --Dystopos 04:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like the compromised one, but the only thing that I would change if I was allowed to do so, would be to put the 3 or 4 largest metro/combined statistical areas on there. AlaGuy 01:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Revision as of 01:03, 13 April 2006 edit 68.191.140.120 (talk) →Time to decide ← Previous edit		Revision as of 01:04, 13 April 2006 edit undo 68.191.140.120 (talk) →Time to decide Next edit →
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	* For the sake of getting rid of the candy-colored monster, I officially support JW1805's compromise (though I prefer the really small and boring versions). --[[User:Dystopos\|Dystopos]] 04:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)		* For the sake of getting rid of the candy-colored monster, I officially support JW1805's compromise (though I prefer the really small and boring versions). --[[User:Dystopos\|Dystopos]] 04:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

	*I like the compromised one, but the only thing that I would change if I was allowed to do so, would be to put the 3 or 4 largest metro/combined statistical areas on there. [[User:~~68.191.140.120~~\|~~68.191.140.120~~]] 01:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)		*I like the compromised one, but the only thing that I would change if I was allowed to do so, would be to put the 3 or 4 largest metro/combined statistical areas on there. [[User:AlabamaGuy2007\|AlaGuy]] 01:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)