Talk:Utica, New York/Archives/2013

This Utica page is a disaster and inconsistant with typical Wikipedia pages of like-sized cities.

This page is a mess it is incorrectly formatted and the information presented borders on "everyone in town trying to get in on the act" and has made the entire webpage a disaster. Name one business and suddenly all 569 pizzerias in Utica are stacked tall on their Wikipedia page. If you include their "Signature in-town microbrewery" that they write 7 puff articles a month in their local paperabout and soon it will include list of all the little bars in their "Historic Brewery Section" and then soon you'll have every bar in town up there. There's like 120. Cmon, "Annual snowfall" and a huge chart taking up the page from 1920s?

I made some edits to rearrange things and Editor "Excirial" popped in and immediately reverted back the swap and the removal of some of the more loaded lists of every little fundraiser that goes on in town. These were replaced by Excirial also.

I am not a frequent Wiki "editor" and only offer changes based upon very specific and valuable expertise in several varied interests across WP. I am also a Wikipedia monetary contributor since 2008. If I can't come to my hometown's Wikipedia page, and make a change to some thing that is obviously wrong or overblown, and these changes are reverted by someone who obviously doesn't live there or seem to see how strange a list of NFPs and all the stack of "Signature events" (Really?) then why do I continue to keep supporting and using this website?

Below it the note I left "Excirial" in their mailbox. I will wait a response. Let's see if anyone can help figure out a way to address this kind of nonsense in the future because the info is plain wrong and formatted like a disaster and apparently that;s fine with some people.

The note:

The article starts of with the title and after the basic paragraph you see "Geography and climate"? I moved it and "Demographics" below history and more useful initials figuring the huge graphs and charts were a little much. What other cities could we find on Wikipedia that follow this odd and cumbersome formatting like this? It just seemed odd and glaring and has caught my attention for some time now. The folks in utica have an obsession with their Wikipedia page they discuss it on the local "Topix" page. They also place a huge emphasis on weather in their area both local news stations open with news and withing 7 minutes begin discussing at miniumum 15 minutes of weather with a recap after sports after that. And that's on a warm summer evening. Ditto the news paper to some extent. I'm not kidding so it seemed some of that weird enthusiasm has managed to find its way with enthusiasm onto the wiki page here.

If you look at Utica's page you might notice all the NFPs and minor minor local organizations have all been listed also in discordance with like articles on the Wikipedia. As well as a (to a local at least) lot of gross embellishment, itself a Utica trait of notoriety there. I drop in from time to time and make sure they aren't claiming their Auditorium was the "Inspiration for Madison Square Garden" despite its architect building an almost identical design some years earlier in NC etc, and a strangely inordinate number of other like wives tales I heard from them living there over the years and later learned were completely unfounded and untrue.

That Utica page has become a sort of untended battlefield between reality and their imaginary land Excirial. If that sounds strange I'm sorry but to someone with a little experience on the place that's not strange at all that's just "Utica".

So I'll check in and see what you decide sometime, I see by your barnstar for helping out that you'll make a good choice or keep it in mind when you see someone expect go try to tighten that page up it looks ridiculous... if you compare it with a like-sized similar city's Wikipedia article. Everyone in town with the slightest claim to fame has their website listed and embellishments in full force trying to get in on the act like it's a free website. There is not enough normal, plain history and facts as you'd see in a normal Wikipedia page. Just count how many businesses are listed on the page alone. It's something like a cross between apublic edited version of one of those junk content farm "Business Listings" sites and a "Myspace" page. If you strike changes to that much bloat and incorrectly sequenced charts and "Demographics" it just grows until the huge stack of lists as you see there and easily stands out as inconsistent with what you'd expect to see on a typical cities page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.241.24.237 (talk) 19:34, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, a lot of what you say has merit, but I think your edits may have been seen as of a "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" thing. For instance the Boilermaker Road Race has its own article so I'm not sure that that it's not notable and should not be included, and so forth. I'll take a closer look it presently. Herostratus (talk) 19:55, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Looking at a few of articles, a typical format seems to be "Lede -- Geography (including climate) -- Demographics -- History etc." (I don't know if there's any Manual of Style prescriptions about this or if it's just a common practice.) So I can't see moving the climate data lower, necessarily. The only possible problem is that there's this huge snowfall table which is arguably too much detailed info and scrolls off the page. On the other hand, somebody went to the trouble of adding it and it is encyclopedic and does get across the useful point that it snows there a lot. It's not that long. I'm inclined to keep it, I guess. Herostratus (talk) 04:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

But a lot of the stuff you removed is trivial. I don't know as the page is a "disaster". Lots of times people add stuff to pages, and you have to remember that these people live in Utica. There's nothing to do there. So of course they're going to add stuff about the weather and so forth. I think you're main problem was removing so much stuff with one edit, which tends to set off red flags.

• America's Greatest Heart Run & Walk -- there's no info about this. Removed.
• Boilermaker Road Race -- has its own article. Kept.
• Falling Leaves Road Race -- dunno. Its web site says it has "over 1000 entries". Is that a lot or little for a road race? I have no idea, but it sounds like a lot so I left it for now.
• RiggieFest -- not sure, but sounds lame. There website looks amateurish so on that basis: removed.
• Children's Museum Festival of Trees & Lights / Holiday on Main Street. I dunno, every city has something like this. This is kind of akin to "Annual Intake of Oxygen, a 365-days-a-year event participated in by practically all Uticans". Also, ref does not support the material. Removed.
• St. Patrick's Day Parade -- probably ditto. Removed.
• Snowfari. Not sure about this, but the claim is that it's a big deal in Central New York. It does have a ref, although a poor one. There are actually competitive events and something about the Empire States Games which I was not able to understand. Should probably be deleted, not sure, so I left it for now.
• Utica Monday Nite. By now I'm starting to feel sorry for people in Utica (Look! Jeremy Wallace is coming!) so I left it in. It does have a website. At least it's arts and not centered on the consumption of some loathsome concoction like Riggies. Should probably be deleted.
• Utica Music Fest. Ditto.
• Taste of Utica. Greasy-fingered restauranters trying to pass off their heathen swill on an unsuspecting public to the unwelcome squalling of Fritz's Polka Band. Do Not Want. Removed.

Really this whole section could be removed. The Boilermaker thingy could be moved to a "See also" section or something.

The "Arts, history, and culture" section is also all wrong. There ought to be something to say about this, though. I would mention the Children's Museum, which is amazingly good for a city of this size. The Hotel Utica is notable. But the whole section is too long and needs to be severely redacted.

The "Food and drink in Utica"... Ditto. I see that Tomato pie has an article and is apparently a Utica concoction. Matt Brewing Company has an article... but "Sausage and Peppers — Italian sausage with fried onions and peppers on a crusty bread". Oh, OK. How unique. Well why leave out "toast"? "Toast is popular in Utica". "Many Uticans drink water." But Halfmoons has an article which says "Half-Moons originated in Utica, NY". So although this section needs a redaction there's probably some useful material there.

The bottom line is that you are basically correct. A carving knife is called for here. Herostratus (talk) 05:22, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Herostratus and "unsigned", What you may well have no way of knowing is that the article is unique for a city of Utica's size is that Utica was a city with a history is unique for a city it's size. As hard as it may be to imagine looking at it from 1970 to the present,Utica was until as late as the late 1960s, the biggest little city in America. Utica was where the plot to assassinate Garfield was hatched, where the term "clout" was first coined,where the first pilsner lager beer in America where brewed, where Danny Bisone penned the plan for the 24 second clock, where Dick Clark began his career at WRUN radio, where the plan was laid to kidnap Joseph Bonanno and near where he was held, and the city Walter Winchell spoke of when he said "If you want to get kill someone and get away with it, do it in Utica NY" and the city Will Rogers spoke of when he said "No matter where you go in America, you will meet someone from Utica NY". If you fail to understand why Sausage and peppers, Grrens and half moons are significant not only in terms of Utica, but in the history of an entire american culture,I can't help you. If anything the article is modest and well edited, and great restraint was used. As my favorite college professor used to say,(stolen from a rather obscure spoken word artist)"Don't get so cool that you forget what's neat" Not only Utica, but all the post industrial rust belt cities have a unique story, and sometimes you have to break "encyclopedic" rules to capture them. I don't ask for much in life, but one wish is that we do not create a collective historical lie by omission in my lifetime, for the sake of pop culture revisionism.Cosand (talk) 03:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

So do you have any referenced content to add, or are you just promoting your hometown like this article does? It is a mess, and the mess will be dealt with. Most of this garbage belongs either on the chamber of commerce's webpage or on a Utica fanpage. Truth be told, there isn't anything special about Utica that any city of similar size and length of existence can't say. Do you really think anyone reading this article in say, Calcutta, would care about most of it? Gtwfan52 (talk) 07:42, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Who knows? We have lots of readers and they come for all different reasons. You are basically correct about a lot of the stuff, though. I'm glad that the notation that the fire department provides 24/7/365 protection was removed, for instance; if the fire department didn't ("Eh, it's three o'clock in the morning for chrissakes, let it burn") then that would be notable. Still, the Wikipedia is not paper and we have plenty of room. I don't know what the standard for "notable residents" is but in my opinion any bluelinked person is fair game. Herostratus (talk) 19:46, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

The standard for notable people lists is enough referencing to show notability sufficient to create a wiki article on them, and link them to the city either by birth or by residence, past or present.Gtwfan52 (talk) 20:06, 23 June 2013 (UTC)