Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of counties in Washington/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Giants2008 via FACBot (talk) 00:27, 24 August 2020 (UTC) [1].

---

List of counties in Washington

List of counties in Washington (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured list candidates/List of counties in Washington/archive1

Nominator(s): Reywas92^Talk 22:53, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

We have 21 other county lists as FLs, hope this one, being up to date with additional information, can make it 22! Should be pretty straightforward but there may be other information that could be mentioned or revised. Reywas92^Talk 22:53, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Resolved comments from ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:38, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

;Comments "except when the small area of Cliffdell was moved from Kittitas to Yakima County" - seems odd not to mention when this was "Councils in other three charter counties" - word order seems wrong here "Elections are nonpartisan in non-charter counties, but charter counties may choose to make some positions partisan, though all elections are by top-two primary." - ref? "both the least populated and densely populated" - slightly clearer to say "both the least populated and least densely populated" "political figures, but only five of which had lived in the region" => "political figures, only five of whom had lived in the region" Think that's it from me -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:28, 27 March 2020 (UTC) All done, thanks! Reywas92Talk 21:42, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:38, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

• Some thoughts
  • I would use either the labeled map or the static map
    • Why? The linked one only has space for abbreviations (and are not part of the image itself) so the full labels are also appropriate. Mobile and desktop users may prefer one or the other.
  • FIPS codes haven't been used for more than a decade, I would drop them0
    • Every one of the links redirect to a page with the actual county name in it like this
    • The census does still use FIPS county codes, the census links are still appropriate.
  • Needs a better source for the county seats and establishment date.
    • Why? NACo is a reliable source, and general sources are allowed so only one is needed at the header, adequately covering all entries; it links to all counties.
  • Why is there a citation to HistoryLink for etymology when each one is cited to a book?
    • I removed the general link.
  • The paragraphs of the leade are short and choppy. Several can be merged.
    • I combined the three relating to government.
• --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 15:11, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks, Reywas92^Talk 19:42, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Drive by comments I may have time to do a full review in the near future, but for now I do have to agree with the previous poster, that the FIPS codes are not very useful for the wikipedian reader, and I would suggest removing them. Mattximus (talk) 15:37, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

This is built into Template:Countytabletop/Template:Countyrow and cannot be removed from just this page; I think it's best to keep this template for consistency across the 50 articles. It could be updated to use "ANSI Code" or "Census Code" but the Census still uses "FIPS" [2][3] and these data links are useful direct references to include. Tompw, you were involved in featuring a few of these long ago, any thoughts? I have also posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. counties. Reywas92^Talk 22:41, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

The FIPS code column could be re-named "US Census page", which is a useful thing to link to (and avoids people wanting to add extra things to the main table). Use the FIPS code in the link - let the US Census website looks after the redirect. Tompw (talk) 20:06, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

We should avoid using WP:EASTEREGG links. The FIPS code is fine as it is, since it does have niche uses (mostly for those using raw Census data for GIS or other kinds of data processing). It is also a useful unique identifier for each county in the country. SounderBruce 23:20, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Comments by Dudley

• The article name sounds odd to me as I would take Washington without qualification to mean Washington DC, but I assume it is OK in AmerEng.
  • Yes, while it can get confusing to have two places with the name, DC does not have counties and disambiguation is not needed here
• 'See also' normally follows the main text.
  • Hmm the hatnote was in every county list since creation but yes it doesn't need to be there, no dab.
• "Elections are nonpartisan in non-charter counties, but charter counties may choose to make some positions partisan," This implies that being nonpartisan is compulsory. Is it illegal for candidates to run for a party in non-charter counties?
  • Correct, in a non-partisan election parties do not appear on the ballot.
• "though all elections are by top-two primary." How does this work when 3 to 5 commissioners are being elected?
  • They are divided into districts and they run for separate seats, but it's actually a bit more complicated than I'd want to describe in this list (in non-charter counties, the top-two primary is by district to ensure some geographic representation, but the general election is at-large; charter counties can do their own thing but I think all are fully by district). I should add Government_of_the_State_of_Washington#Local_government to the to-do list.
• "Counties are not subdivided into minor civil divisions like townships; local government is only by incorporated cities and towns, and services in unincorporated areas are provided by the county." I do not understand this sentence. Does it mean that the county has no role in incorporated cities and towns?
• What services is the county responsible for?
  • With both of these it's quite complicated and varies significantly by county and city. E.g. counties have sheriff departments that have jurisdiction everywhere but primarily serve unincorporated areas but also smaller cities that contract with them, while larger cities have their own police departments (see King County Sheriff's Office). My county, King, has a library system with branches everywhere except Seattle which has its own. There are county courts, but some cities also have a city court for minor infractions. Code and zoning laws are mostly only for unincorporated areas, as are the county parks and road services. Garbage services are for everywhere but Seattle. Then there's special purpose districts! Not as familiar with other counties but it's still inconsistent for the less-urbanized ones. I've revised that line to exclude that since I'm not sure how to accurately summarize it while being adequately informative but let me know your thoughts.

• I think you should say something, even if it's only "The services provided by counties vary but usually include..." Dudley Miles (talk) 13:38, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

• Updated. I intended this answer to apply to the prior comment too – yes, the county does have a role in cities and towns, though it's not the same between them and unincorporated areas. Reywas92^Talk 00:50, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

• "King County, home to the state's largest city, Seattle, holds 29.58% of Washington's population (7,614,893 in 2019)" I was confused at first by this and took the figure as the population of King County. Maybe "Washington has a population of 7,614,893 (in 2019) and 29.58% live in King County, home to the state's largest city, Seattle." Also, in view of inevitable errors and changes in population, two decimal places (29.58%) is false precision.
  • Revised
• In the infobox, you should specify that the figures in 'populations' and 'areas' are for the smallest and largest.
  • Done
• The map shows the counties covering the whole state, including Indian reservations. Do the counties have juriscdiction over reservations? Dudley Miles (talk) 12:50, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes in that reservation residents vote for their county officials and the county provides services. Tribes have their own governments and police agencies, so I've added that as local government, good catch of my oversight. Jurisdiction can get complicated though: [4]. Thanks for your comments!

• See further comment above. There is one point you have not replied to. Also, the last paragraph of the lead seems too technical for the main text - perhaps move it to a note? Dudley Miles (talk) 13:38, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

• This is discussed above, I think it's good to be more visible there rather than as the only note. Reywas92^Talk 00:50, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support. Looks fine now. Dudley Miles (talk) 17:50, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Comments from TRM

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (Stay indoors, stay safe!!!!) 08:40, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

(WikiCup entry) Seven paras for a lead is too much per MOS:LEAD. Strikes me that this could be resolved by writing a brief summary, perhaps two paragraphs, and then create a prose "history" section based on the current lead. Only two of these paragraphs contain historical information. I don't think slicing this with a header would be an improvement and leads for lists are different from those of articles. Perhaps the two paragraphs on government could be separated, but that would imply that it should be more comprehensive than just introductory information. "in unorganized Oregon" what does "unorganized" mean in this context? The Oregon Country did not yet have a government organized by the US Congress; I linked Unorganized territory. See also Organized incorporated territories of the United States. " to 54°40′ North latitude. " this is an Easter egg link for sure. Hmm I just bypassed the 54-40 redirect; it's actually an important part of history and I don't want to just remove the link but not worth expanding on with respect to counties. Don't want to link 49th parallel north. "Washington State Constitution " why not just call it what it is, i.e. "Constitution of Washington"? Because that's literally how the WA legislature and Secretary of State call it. Both are correct, unless you want to go with "Constitution of the State of Washington"... William Clark doesn't need to be disambiguated. "Martin Luther King Jr. " we stopped putting commas in these Jr Sr names a while back. Got both Table could use a caption. Updated Template:Countytabletop, should work Ref 6 missing date(s). Fixed Some online references have publication and accessdates, and some just have publication dates (when accessdates could be added). Be consistent. All should have retrievals Does the {{Countyrow}} implement row scopes properly? I had a look and couldn't see anything so we'll need to look at that per MOS:ACCESS. Updated the template, hope that works right. That's it, cheers. The Rambling Man (Stay indoors, stay safe!!!!) 17:14, 8 June 2020 (UTC) Thanks! Reywas92Talk 22:09, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support once the comments below are addressed. The Rambling Man (Stay indoors, stay safe!!!!) 08:40, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• Comments Could use some climate information. Maybe as a section. Another possibility would be to put selected climate information into the table, so it could be sorted by warmer/colder or wetter/dryer places. Bot-generated climate charts and summaries can be found at ceb:Skamania_County other ceb.wikipedia articles. For counties that are missing a full chart in the ceb.wikipedia, at least a summary may still be included which is readable enough on Google translate. Anther possibility would be to browse the location articles in each county until you find one.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 21:48, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Other county lists do not have climate tables or summaries, because they can vary wildly within the county themselves. In fact, the climate data at ceb.wikipedia should be removed for this reason. SounderBruce 01:09, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Full out climate charts for each county would be too much for the list. The ceb.wikipedia resources were not available the last time a list was proposed for FA. So this is new ground to tread here without precedent to follow. I am of the understanding that rainfall varies substantially between the eastern and western parts of the state; with a difference comparable to Oregon's, but more serious than most states. Some people may be looking for a quick way to sort counties by subregion and putting rainfall in a sortable table for the peak month or annual rainfall would allow that.

As for ceb.wikipedia bot related geographical articles, it is a problem because they are not individually curated. For example, they had the same island listed for three different counties in Wisconsin. Historically, the island has belonged to only one of these counties for well over 100 years. But because Google picks up Wikipedia--even a foreign one, Google was falsely reporting the county's ownership for ordinary searches. Yesterday I turned two of the articles into redirects for the correct one, and I'll see if Google improves or not.

If Wikipedia has a Google liaison it would be good to see if they could get the search engine to automatically remove all of their geographical articles outside of the Philippines.

The flip side is that even though it was bot generated, the climate information comes from NASA, and so it should still work just fine. It would be nice had ceb.wikipedia showed more restraint, but now that the monkey is out of the bag we might as well see if it can be any use. The county tables appear to be an average for the county and not the county seat, but don't take my word for it. I believe even counties without tables still have a paragraph of summary that should suffice. So we do not need to subjectively pick cities in a county.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 02:53, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Using climate data to provide a sortkey between regions is not an appropriate plan. None of this should be included in a general list of counties, and climate data for individual county articles needs to be discussed elsewhere. SounderBruce 06:25, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Your "needs to be discussed elsewhere" comment inspired me to write Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#Proposal:_That_WMF_ask_Google_to_stop_indexing_certain_bot-generated_articles.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 18:01, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Not done. As Bruce said, there is no fact above others that should go in a table cell, nor would a table fit. Washington_(state)#Climate and specific city articles have the best coverage for this. Reywas92^Talk 22:09, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• I agree with SounderBruce that climate info is not appropriate for this list. The scope of this list is political divisions within a state with typical and most commonly compared attributes associated with sub-state political divisions. Hwy43 (talk) 08:37, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Comments from Hwy43
Full disclosure: this is my first time reviewing a counties in the US list and I have not looked to compare with the 21 other county FLs and the comments associated with their nominations. Further, I have only skimmed the above comments so pardon any redundancy.

• "There are/is..." is an awkward way to start a written sentence, and this list article's opening sentence starts with such. I suggest refactoring the opening sentence to read along the lines of "The U.S. state of Washington has 39 counties."
  • Changed.
• The lead section is the lengthiest lead section I have witnessed in a featured list. Can it be split so that the lead summarizes the current state of counties in Washington and the balance placed into one or two sections? At minimum, History and Governance sections would house the majority of the lead content that is not about the current state of counties.
  • I've split a government section

• That helped.

• "... unorganized Oregon Country, extending..." is a WP:SEAOFBLUE. Suggest rewording to detach the two wikilinks along the lines of "... Oregon Country, an unorganized territory extending..."
  • That wouldn't be accurate, it's those two two counties that extended there, not the whole Oregon Country.

• Understood. Is there another creative way to reword to avoid a sea of blue then?

• I see some counties in the lead section are wikilinked while others are not. Why the inconsistency? Should not all counties be wikilinked (i.e. first mentions of each unique county but not subsequent mentions in prose to avoid WP:OVERLINK)?
  • Links added
• FIPS codes, mentioned in prose and included in the table, are really only meaningful to the US government, the US Census Bureau, and a small contingent of readers that know what they are. Such are trivial and non-encyclopedic to the average reader. Further, I thought external links were strongly discouraged yet each county's FIPS code is an external link. If these links to the QuickFacts tables are absolutely necessary, embed each as inline citations in support of each county's population count within the "Population (2019)" column. The inline citation for the column heading is wrong anyway as it takes us to the QuickFacts of the state as a whole and doesn't verify the population of each county. We should avoid making readers have to search for a county upon landing at a QuickFacts page for the state to learn more or verify.
  • This is built into the template that makes the tables and is actually required this way to produce the map and is consistent with all 50 county lists. Changing the template would affect all others. Content on Wikipedia need not be limited to what an "average reader" is already aware of.

• I won't stand in the way on the account of that being how the template was built. I ask that a solution be investigated post-FLC on how to revise the template so that external links are not embedded (instead output as inline citations based on a FIPS parameter) while still producing the maps.

• I don't see the need to mention the postal abbreviation for the state (or its FIPS code for same reasons above). If a reader wants to know the state's postal abbreviation, it can go to Washington (state).
  • Postal code removed
• In the table, does "Area" mean total area (i.e. land + water) or land area only? Change the heading title to "Total area" or "Land area" accordingly. Based on what I learned in preparing my next comment, I believe the answer is land area.
  • Changed to land area
• The inline citation associated with the "Area" column takes readers to NACo's landing page, again requiring them to search for a county individually to learn more or verify. The QuickFacts profile for each county, which is already linked (externally rather than within an inline citation as previously mentioned) presents area (i.e. land area) in addition to the 2019 population and so much more. Building from the suggestion three bullets above, I further suggest you duplicate the ref from the "Population (2019)" column within the "Area" (or "Land area") column for each county.
  • The point of a general ref and the FIPS link is to avoid duplicating refs as clutter.

• The References section features 36 duplicate refs of the four listed works that arguably creates the same amount of clutter that 39 individual county QuickFacts refs, which while appearing duplicate would actually each be slightly different. As alternate means to workaround this:

1. Is there a census highlight table published by the US Census Bureau that presents the population counts and land areas of all states for comparison to each other so that a single ref can be shared between the "Population (2019)" and "Land area" columns?
2. Is there a state-published source that lists all counties with their respective seats that can replace ref [11] in the "County seat" column header?
3. Is there another state-published source that lists all counties with their respective years of establishment that can also replace ref [11] in the "Est." column header?

Unfortunately I could not find any official sources that provide all of this on the same page. The unofficial ones with this together would be Whereig or Ballotpedia. Washington also makes its own population estimates, separate and slightly different from the census. Not even the Washington State Association of Counties actually has a place that lists all the counties, and the MRSC's list only has population. HistoryLink.org has historical profiles for each county, but again not presented together.

• In the "Formed from" column, should any or all of these be wikilinked, or is every county listed within already wikilinked under the first "County" column? Not sure if there is some defunct counties or counties straddling state lines within this column not mentioned in the first column.
  • All listed are existing WA counties, except Furguson which does not have an article to link.

• Looking back at an FLC for List of municipalities in Ontario, we were advised that, for sortable tables, “anything that's linkable should be linked every time.” We were advised that, “Most, if not all recent FLs follow that paradigm.” Thus, wikilink every county in the column despite repetition, excluding Ferguson County.

• Done

• I trust the sum of all 2019 population counts equals the 2019 population count for the entire state. Is that correct? If so, add a final sortbottom row for the state to present its total 2019 population and land area. This would also provide an opportunity to salvage the QuickFacts inline citation for the state. If not correct, add two sortbottom rows that sum the population and land area within all counties in the first row and then present the state totals in the second row for comparison.
  • Yes, the sums are accurate, added a bottom row for the state

• Thanks. Remove Olympia from the bottom row in favour of a null entry as it is not a county seat, and in the land area cell match formatting with that of county rows (add comma delimiter, add units, and add conversion).

• Noted that Olympia is both state capital and county seat, fixed area conversion

• The Former county names, Former counties, and Proposed counties sections that follow the list are very interesting. Each jumps straight into bullets however. Can each have an contextual sentence or two that introduces the bullets?
  • I have no idea what to say other than "Some counties changed their names", "Some counties no longer exist in Washington". There is no overarching context that I'm aware of that would be anything more than a bland duplicative line.

• What about single one-liners such as:

1. "Four counties in Washington have changed their names between 1849 and 1925.";
2. "In the mid 1800s, eight former counties were established and subsequently disorganized, merged, dissolved, or split off into other territories."; and
3. "_____ counties were proposed prior to or during the existence of Washington Territory while nine counties were proposed within the first 16 years of Washington's statehood."

These are just quick ideas that you can adapt to properly suit.

Added

• The External links section would be an appropriate place to include NACo's landing page in lieu of removing it from the "Area" column heading in favour of duplicated QuickFacts inline citations for each state introduced in the "Population (2019)" column.
  • Linked in EL

This is my first pass of reviewing this list article. Notwithstanding the above comments, it has already shaped up quite nicely, no doubt and presumably building off of up to the 21 others county lists that already have FL status. Any further comments from a second pass will less in quantity. Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 08:10, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Reywas92: I have replied to your responses. Thank you for your patience. Hwy43 (talk) 07:05, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks Hwy43, I've made changes based on the last few comments. Reywas92^Talk 20:57, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Here are three additional minor comments.

• aapply the abbreviation template to "FIPS" in the FIPS code column heading just like done for the Est. column header. Realize the acronym is introduced in prose but because it is used in the table this saves the reader from hunting for the acronym in the prose.

• Found some time today to do this myself.

• This is the first time I have witnessed the Countytabletop and Countyrow templates. Are scope cols and scope rows already embedded in these templates to conform with MOS:ACCESS?

• Disregard. Found time today to look myself.

• Ref titles need to meet WP:DASH, so double check all refs to confirm proper implementation.

This concludes my second pass and don’t anticipate raising anything new beyond final discussion on the outstanding previous comments. The article has shaped up as a good list. Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 06:41, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

• Source review – The reliability of the references looks fine, and the link-checker shows no issues. One formatting concern exists, which is mentioned above: three refs – numbers 11, 42, and 53 – need en dashes to replace the hyphens in their titles. That is the only problem I found.. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:33, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Although there was no response here, a look at the article reveals that the one issue has been resolved, so I'm saying the source review was passed. Please do mention the resolution of the issue next time, though, as I could have marked this as taken care of sooner. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:15, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FLC/ar, and leave the {{featured list candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:07, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.