Talk:Tampa, Florida/Archive 2

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Sports teams in Tampa

May I suggest that instead of fighting over whether major sports teams based in Pinellas County should be listed in the Tampa article, that you move of this stuff to Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida, Metropolitan Statistical Area, and link there from the city articles. -- Dalbury(Talk) 17:32, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

By your command... - Aerobird 18:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Someone keeps deleting all of Tampa's Sports Teams! And putting them on the metropolitan area page... Being a season ticket holder with the Bucs since Day 1 in 1976, and a graduate of the University of South Florida, we need our teams listed on Tampa's page. They could also be listed on the metropolitan area page. If anything, this town is a huge supporter of sports competition, and they give Tampa national recognition, so to not list them on Tampa's page is ridiculous...
They were moved to Tampa Bay Area because St. Petersburg teams kept cropping up in the Tampa listing. If the St Pete teams had ever stayed deleted, the Tampa teams would have been left. But noooo..... - Aerobird 01:07, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
You must work for Rose Ferlita! We'll see what 620 WDAE, Steve Duemig, thinks about this wikipedia page...and your editing. And what Pam Iorio thinks as well. I would suggest you leave the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on the Tampa page. You can put them on a St. Pete page too, to make yourself happy, if ya want...
To anon. editor above, what does city councilwoman Rose Ferlita or 620 WDAE have to do with editing sports teams in the Tampa article. The fact is that all sports teams in the area have the name Tampa Bay in them, NOT Tampa, not St. Petersburg ect... Rather, the teams should be on the Tampa Bay Area page.
P.S.: Speaking of WDAE, As the late great Chris Thomas used to say, there should be UNITY IN THE COMMUNITY not just Tampa or St. Petersburg or Plant City...you know what I mean. --Moreau36 01:33, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Here's the article that explains the Rose Ferlita reference and how she crossed wires with our Mayor's statement that the Devil Rays are Tampa's home team: http://www.620wdae.com/localsportsstory.html?ID=20060121131210
I work for no man, beast, or other intelligent life form other than myself. I simply follow the common-sense rules of geography. Team not located in the City of Tampa? Voila, team not on the City of Tampa's page. - Aerobird 18:43, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
You should be working for the Wikipedia community and its efforts to build an informative web page for everyone's use. Not just for yourself. Its not just the geography of where a Team is located. It's who the team represents. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays represent Tampa, as well as all of the other cities in our great bay area. The team isn't named the St. Pete Devil Rays. Or the Clearwater Devil Rays. They are named Tampa for a reason, as Tampa is the dominant city in the bay area. And to establish UNITY IN THE COMMUNITY they could be listed on all the regions specific pages. But they most definitely should not be left off the Tampa page. Its insulting to MLB and all the citizens of Tampa to do that. Please put the Devil Rays back on the Tampa page too. Thank you,
That is simply preposterous-- please note that none of these teams are named, "Tampa X;" they are all named "Tampa Bay X." The main set of information should be on the MSA page. I would suggest one further change to the description here by making clear these are sports teams "in the area," since the Rays do not play in Tampa, and in fact play a good half hour away. ALC Washington 00:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Who would want to buy a t-shirt or a hat that says "The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida, Metropolitan Statistical Area (X)" to support their team?? What-a-joke! The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Southern California and North Orange County is bad enough, and is the source of enough jokes on ESPN and late night talk shows already. The reason "Bay" is included on our team names is to try to pull everyone together. Just about every city in the USA has a metropolitan area and their sports teams are listed on BOTH the main city name and an area page on Wikipedia. Look at this page: List of North American cities by number of major sports teams
First of all, could you stand to sign your name on your posts? It's common courtesy around here. Second, Tampa is not the "main city" in the Bay Area, just as San Francisco is not the "main city" in that Bay Area. To say so only shows a very narrow parochialism. Third, no one is suggesting we rename the Rays or Bucs or Lightning the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA X. It's not relevant to the dicsussion here. What is relevant is that 1) these teams represent the entire area, not just Tampa, and 2) the Rays do not play in Tampa. As a result, you should feel free to list on this page the teams that represent the area, but it should be noted for purposes of accuracy that the Rays play in St. Petersburg. This seems to be what everyone else has agreed to, but what your IP adddress keeps changing. ALC Washington 16:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Tampa most certaintly is the main city in the Tampa Bay M.S.A. Are u saying that St.petersbrug is a larger or more noticable city than Tampa. If you've noticed, the Tampa Bay area teams stadiums are located in Tampa with the exception of The Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Not to disrespect Clearwater or St.petersburg, but most people would say that Tampa is the main city of the Tampa- St.Petersburg- Clearwater metropoltian area. -VG

Just for the fun of it, I ran the 2000 population figures. The Jacksonville Metro Area has a population of 1,214,124, and only has one major league sports team. It is also the second smallest market with an NFL team, after Green Bay. Now tell me that Tampa or even all of Hillsborough County would have any major league teams on its own. It is Tampa Bay as a whole that forms a big enough market to bring in those major league teams, and Pinellas County is only slightly smaller than Hillsborough County.
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area ..2,589,637
Hillsborough County .......................................................998,948 38.5%
Pinellas County ...........................................................921,482 35.6%
Pasco County ..............................................................344,765 13.3%
Hernando County ...........................................................130,802 05.0%
Tampa .....................................................................321,772 12.4%
St. Petersburg ............................................................248,232 09.6%
Clearwater ................................................................108,606 04.2%
-- Dalbury(Talk) 02:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Hey ALC Washington, you live in Washington, and the UK. A fine city and a wonderful country, but leave the Tampa Sports wikipedia page to those of us who live here. Your choice of words and descriptions just are not accurate.
Hi there. I am glad you think highly of Washington and the UK. Allow me to address some of your concerns. 1) I lived in the Tampa Bay Area for eight years, and still visit often as I still have family in the area. So if you meant to imply that I do not have proper knowledge of Tampa Bay Area sports to edit this page, in that you are incorrect. 2) Do you mean to say that none of my most recent revision, in its "choice of words and descriptions" is accurate? If so, could you please point out where each of my individual revisions is inacurate, to include the revisions made for grammar, style, and wiki-formatting? I understand that you are a guest to Wikipedia, as you don't sign your name, and as this page's history reveals. Perhaps you misundertsand some of the basic guidelines. Here is most of the information you will need to get started. 5) In the mean time, while I appreciate your input, I have reverted the page back to my previous edit, which reflects the consensus developed by a large number of Wikipedians on this talk page. 6) After you have learned some of the editing ground rules, please feel free to come back to this talk page and discuss ideas you have to make this page better! Welcome to Wikipedia! ALC Washington 20:27, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Cool that you have some Tampa connections. But I don't understand your wholesale changes to the site. And don't agree with your conclusions about the Wikipedians discussions here. Looks to me like not everyone agrees with your analysis. If you are going to make sweeping changes, please discuss them here first. I just created an ID so you can see my background. I've lived here a long time. And yes, I do think highly of the UK! As my wife is from there. cheers,
Hi, Floridagators. I'm glad you have decided to join the Wikipedia community by creating an account. Let me try to address your concerns again. 1) The above discussion (and the edit history on the sports section) reveals that all registered editors were in agreement on the nature of the changes I made (though we did not set out the new section word for word). If any registered editors take issue with individual edits taht i have made, they are of course welcome to change them. However, since this has become a contentious topic, it would be Wikiquette for those editors to also explain their reasons for the changes on this talk page. 2) You have again reverted the page to its state before my last edit-- some of which, again, are relatively uncontroversial, such as adding wikiformatting and correcting for grammar or style. If you have any issues with my individual edits, please list your concerns on this page, and I will try to address those issues. It may turn out I agree with you on many of them after hearing your view presented, and we can proceed with your reversions! Or, it may be that we disagree and the rest of the community of editors who have been working on this page can weigh in, thus allowing us to find some consensus. But in order for this to happen, you have to first list your concerns here. 3) You may wonder why I didn't list my reasons for editing the section. This is because it was created almost entirely by an anonymous editor, and included a great number of grammatical, structural, and stylistic errors, and nonconformance with Wikipedia style guidlines. As a result, most Wikipedia editors will go ahead and change the section, unless reservations are raised later on the talk page by registered editors. If you would list your reservations here, you would be the first, and we could get started on finding a consensus! 4)Once we've accomplished these simple tasks, I would of course be more than happy to work with you toward finding consensus with my mind open. In the mean time, however, I think it is safe to say that no reason has been given on this talk page for reverting my cleanup of the section. As a result, I will re-re-revert the section back to the cleaned-up version. Please leave it in that state until we can find some order of consensus. Again, welcome to Wikipedia. ALC Washington 20:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and one more thing-- please remember to sign your name with comments on talk pages by typing four tildas (~) following your post. ALC Washington 21:02, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, But here is a suggestion. Why not start from the way I had it. And then you could list the individual changes you want to make from that and why. That way, I can learn something. Because if you just change the whole thing the way you see that it should be, I'm not learning anything from that. And the sportsman in me rises to the competition... So I'm going to change it back to the way I had it. And could you then please list out the major changes you are making and why, so that we can reach agreement here, and I can learn more about Wikipedia. thanks, Floridagators 21:18, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Can I propose we put the following section into a footnote?
(Many entrance signs in Tampa now read Tampa: City of Champions due to the previous championships of the Buccaneers, Lightning, and Tampa Bay Storm. Recently, the issue of adding the New York Yankees to the signs have been raised, raising controversy on whether the team should be considered since it only holds spring training in Tampa. Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio disagrees with this idea stating that the Tampa Bay region already has its own baseball team, and that the signs do not name specific teams, they name the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup, and Arena Bowl championships.)
I want to check here first since the overall section has been subject to much controversy in the past. The sentences are borderline-relevant, but it's poor style to have several sentences in a single parenthetical on an article page. ALC Washington 16:20, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Shopping Centers

Someone decided that the comment reflecting the poor sales of the University Square Mall and its status as a semi "dead" mall was an unsourced opinion? It appears that the same person was offended by the fact that the neighborhood was mentioned as "suitcase city". This is a common name for this section of the city, and a citation can be found somewhere, I'm sure. A user has decided that that part of the article was a mere "opinion", but the user who labelled the University neighborhood did not call it "poor", "trashy" or "ghetto" (all of which are biased, opnionated terms) but merely made reference to the neighborhood's semi-oficial name. I suspect this is the same group of people who refer to International plaza as an "upscale" mall (which it is), and the Westshore Plaza as "a upper-middle class mall", so I am a little confused why said persons would be upset by making mention of the University Mall as being the worst mall in Tampa, and the most likely to go out of business in the near future (which it is). A mall is being planned in Southern Pasco county right now, which will be the death of University mall, as many stories have already made plans to pull out of University and move to the new mall. Will the comment about the mall be acceptable to you then?

I have moved this section to the end of the page, as it is customary to place new sections at the end. I reverted the following from the article page,

In recent years, many stories, including one anchor store (JC Penny's) have pulled out of the mall due to poor sales. Many blame this on the neighborhood the mall is located in; Tampa's "University" neighborhood remains one of the most dangerous parts of the city, and this section is known as "suitcase city" due its large transient population.

All material in articles in Wikipedia needs to be verifiable. Edits presenting potentially controversial opinions such as many blame this on the neighborhood the mall is located in, one of the most dangerous parts of the city and known as "suitcase city" due its large transient population in particular need to have references from reputable, published sources. Please read the Wikipedia policies on verifiability, prohibiting original reasearch and maintaining a neutral point of view for more information. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 17:32, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Radio

I added two radio stations to the list of radio stations in Tampa. They are the ones that say Christian rock on them. I feel that that section NEEDS to grow, as there are way more radio stations in this area than are currently mentioned. Please do not delete them. If you do, I will just put them right back up again. Later!!! --64.12.116.135 05:07, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Tampa article needs cleaning up

Cities with attractive articles (e.g. Seattle, Chicago, Atlanta) do not have long lists of items, like schools, that take up an enormous amount of space that visitors must scroll through. Isn't there another way of doing this, like have a link to List of Schools or something?

Take a look a Louisville, Kentucky which is considered a Featured article by Wikipedia, as is Marshall, Texas.

Also, unlike other cities, the Tampa article has no notes or reference. It looks like one big commerical advertisement rather than a description of an important and historic city.

Also, what is all that stuff at the bottom about the State of Florida? Does that need to be there? KarenAnn 13:34, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the paragraph at the end of History about Charles Bishop's plane crash should be removed or moved to a "Tampa in the news" section. Newsworthy, but not historic. The [Billy Ferry firebombing] was more significant.

Shopping Centers

Why is a list of shopping centers even included? KarenAnn 13:39, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Why not? Mike H. That's hot 22:23, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Tampa In The Movies

Even though not dealing with the city itself, "Oceans 11" had a scene filmed at Latoms Restaraunt near Ybor City.

Sunshine skyway

I have taken the liberty to remove the sunshine skyway reference in the landmarks section. This has nothing to do with Tampa, this connects St. Petersburg and Bradenton. I guess anything of note in St. Pete is always going to be grouped in with Tampa, like the Devil Rays. Bad example actually, since they aren't of note :) --Lakerdonald 16:10, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Technically, while the bridge never touches land there, it is within the boundaries of Hillsborough County. Gamaliel 17:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Parts of the bridge fall in Manatee and Pinellas counties. And while it is true that part of it is in Hillsborough, this still doesn't make it a Tampa landmark. It might merit a mention on a hypothetical list of Tampa Bay Area (I really hate that phrase however that's another topic :) ) landmarks or something similar... --Lakerdonald 17:27, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Do the Tampa city limits extend down to the bridge? I can't tell from the map in the article. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 17:59, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Nope. But the bridge falls inside of three counties: Pinellas being the northern part of the bridge/the Meisner bridge/etc., Hillsborough being the middle part, and Manatee being the southern stretch of the bridge. It doesn't fall within Tampa city limits however, and that is why I removed it. --Lakerdonald 18:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Then I agree with you. I'm getting tired of people wanting to throw everything within fifty miles into articles about cities. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 18:27, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Yeah I agree. If it were on say the Bradenton or St. Pete pages that would be different. The main problem I had with this was that it just shows the tendency for anything of note within the greater Tampa Bay area to be thrown under the category of "Tampa", despite the fact that St. Petersburg is a major Florida city in its own right. But I'm ranting. :P --Lakerdonald 18:37, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
It's just a suburb of Tampa. ;) Gamaliel 18:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Wait Tampa in Russia or Tampa in Florida? --Lakerdonald 18:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Tampa in Florida. This city is in no way associated with the Russian city of the same name.--Chili14

Servers are here

Should there be any mention of the main Wikipedia servers being here? Just wanted to know.--Chili14 18:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. It's never mentioned on the news. If it was something notable in the community, which also had even an inkling of press coverage, I'd say yes, but nobody outside of Wikipedia would know, and probably for a good reason. Mike H. I did "That's hot" first! 19:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Skyline Photo

I have replaced the skyline photo, the last one was obviously photo-shopped, which I believe should not be used.

--Adilettante 04:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Web link to International Arts and Film Foundation

I have twice now removed Official Site this web link inserted by User:Stevenc317 immediately after this internal link: International Arts and Film Foundation. As the International Arts and Film Foundation article exists, and has the web link in it, I see no reason to to included it again in the Tampa article. We do not as a rule insert web links immediately after internal links. I do not intend to engage in an edit war with Stevenc317, but I think this does need to be discussed. -- Donald Albury 01:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Survey on proposal to make U.S. city naming guidelines consistent with others countries

There is a survey in progress at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) to determine if there is consensus on a proposed change to the U.S. city naming conventions to be consistent with other countries, in particular Canada.

This proposal would allow for this article to be located at Tampa instead of Tampa, Florida, bringing articles for American cities into line with articles for cities such as Paris and Toronto.--DaveOinSF 18:15, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
However the proposal would allow U.S. cities to be inconsistent with the vast majority of other U.S. cities and towns, which (with a few exceptions) all use the "city, state" convention. -Will Beback 23:38, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Strong agreement with Will. I'm even biased in favor of Tampa, particularly since there are so few other cities (if any) with the name worldwide. However, I'm also a student of the Associated Press Style Book and Libel Manual, and of encyclopedic style. In each, "city only" nomenclature is generally only conferred on what writers call "world cities": cities whose influence is felt worldwide, such as London, Tokyo, Paris, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi, etc. Tampa simply does not meet the criteria to make it there, at least not yet. P.F. Bruns (talk) 15:23, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Most prior discussions are now archived

Since the discussion page size was over 50 KB long, it was wise to archived previous discussions. Links to previous discussions can be found at the "archive" template on the top section of this page. --Moreau36 00:47, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Nicknames

Does anyone really call it "T-Town"? Can we have a citation for this? Gamaliel 17:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

A Google search of '"T-Town" Tampa' returned over 15000 results. My quick review of the sites shows that any city or town that starts with 'T' can be called "T-Town". Tampa has a fair share of people using this nickname. LtGen 04:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I've lived here for 25 years and never, ever heard anyone say "T-Town" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Morthanley (talkcontribs) 02:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC).


Seconded...no one referrs to it as t-town that I know, nor have I ever heard of it from others.

my friends and i call it ttown--21:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)~~


I have certain impolite nicknames for Orlando that I use among friends, but I wouldn't claim them to be official nicknames for that place.

Anyway, I've lived in Tampa all my life and have never heard "t-town" used before, either. It's now gone from the info box, retained in the main text. Zeng8r 17:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I've lived here for 10 years and have never heard "T-Town" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.112.130.5 (talk) 23:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I have heard Tampa be called T-Town, but it is VERY colloquial and probably doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Some bonafide nicknames for the city are "Cigar City" and "The Big Guava." Blaze33541 (talk) 04:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Some radio hosts, particularly on the top-40 Clear Channel affiliate, WFLZ 93.3 FM, will occasionally use "T-Town" on live remotes; the studio jocks rarely, if ever, use it. I have a friend who's a patrol officer in the Tampa Police Department, and he hears it used downtown and in the "Suitcase City" district (roughly from Fletcher Avenue to Sligh north-to-south; roughly from Florida to 22nd Street west-to-east). While I've lived here 35 years, I only heard it used regularly myself from about 1995 to 2002, and mostly at the University of South Florida. I agree that it's definitely a term that is no longer commonly used. Tampa Tribune columnist Steve Otto's "The Big Guava" nickname, and of course, "Cigar City," are far more prevalent. If you say you're from Cigar City, nearly everyone in the U.S. will know where you mean. Frankly, I think "T-Town" was a failed marketing attempt to align Tampa with Orlando (still commonly known as "O-Town," either because of or in spite of the band of the same name. P.F. Bruns (talk) 19:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


Can we get some references for all these new nicknames? "Cigar City" and "Big Guava" are very commonly used and accepted, but as a lifelong resident, etc., I've never heard of the recently added "Sunshine City" or "Juke Town".
As previously discussed, the only nicknames listed should be widely used ones, not something a small group of people just invented. I'll clean out that section in a couple days unless somebody comes up with sources. Zeng8r (talk) 16:27, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

+ Since no source(s) was (were) provided, I went ahead and removed the doubtful duo. Zeng8r (talk) 17:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Tampa's flag

I just have to ask...why is there a Stealth Bomber in the fly of the Tampa city flag? - Aerobird 22:39, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Because you want to see it there... a better question would be, what exactly is the flag trying to say in the first place? It doesn't even display the official version of the seal--or the version that's on the city vehicles. I'm no vexillologist, but our flag is lousy. It would be terrific if someone with knowledge of the subject could explain its mysterious design. Thehappysmith 12:00, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The Seal on the flag is the "official" seal. I put official in quotes because there doesn't seem to be a standard seal, just a set of elements that always appear in slightly different form. The flag seen here has the version of the seal seen on most publications and on the city website, and the version that appears on firefighters badges and the badges of police officers ranked Corporal or higher. The versions that appear on city vehicles and city employee uniforms are simplifications. Occasionally a full-color version of the seal is found that has a slightly different ship and lettering design, but the basic elements are the same. The horribly-ugly flag itself is a mix of the US, Spanish, French, UK, and Italian flags, and the bars supposedly form an H for Hillsborough, an F for Florida, and a T (sideways) for Tampa. It's still better looking than St Pete's or Orlando's flags.Ohm 813 08:06, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Good stuff - I didn't realize that there are so many different versions. This info probably should be in the article somewhere, imo... Zeng8r 12:29, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


Sulphur Springs Water Tower

In the Landmarks section, Sulphur Springs Water Tower is referred to as a "highly visible but somewhat mysterious landmark.".

Is there a reason for the term "mysterious" to be included without explanation? Following the link for the Sulphur Springs Water Tower yields a Wiki page that doesn't really clarify the term "mysterious" either; just curious as to the necessity of the adjective. Thanks! 03:10, 6 January 2007 EflatMinor2007 03:18, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Not that long ago most people didn't know what it is or where it came from, but the proximity to 275 meant almost everyone had seen it. It's a bit less mysterious since all the news generated when they purposed to tear it down, but before then I'd wager 90% of the city couldn't have even told you it was a water tower (myself included)
I mean does it look like a water tower to you? ;)
Even now that it's history is a bit more well known the way it became a landmark is still funny. It had sat there rotting for so many years, but the second someone purposed to tear it down everyone was like wohhhh we love that thing.
Personally I'd be for leaving the mysterious description on there just to pay homage to it's unique past. --Reyals 15:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm! I know I read about the water tower in the Tampa Tribune more than one time in the 1960s and/or 1970s, so I've known about it for a long time, and I've never lived in or around Tampa (although my first wife was from there). FWIW. -- Donald Albury 02:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Tags

The tags I put reflect what was suggested by the to-do list to make it a better article like the featured articles so I am reverting it.--Jorfer 18:57, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

They're on the to-do list precisely to avoid cluttering up the article page with tags indicating what needs to be done. So instead of adding empty sections with expand tags and adding "convert to prose" tags to lists (some of which should remain as lists), Be Bold and work on creating/expandng the sections yourself, just beware of wiki-addiction... :-) - Aerobird 02:01, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Religion

Should there be a religion section? Please vote and discuss.--Jorfer 14:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

We do not start off discussions of changes by voting. Please read Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a democracy, which is policy, Wikipedia:Consensus, which is a quideline, and Wikipedia:Straw polls and Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion, which are still proposals, but reflect the feeling of most Wikipedians that polls (not votes, by the way), should only be used to determine whether consensus has been achieved on a subject. -- Donald Albury 00:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

A religion section for Tampa is incomplete without mentioning Tampa's non-Christian demographics, including a significant Jewish population.24.92.193.205 16:01, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Celebrities from Tampa?

--70.149.107.121 01:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Are there any celeberties from Tampa, list some. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.149.107.121 (talk) 01:01, 11 January 2007 (UTC).

I can tell you're from Florida. It's spelled "Celebrities." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.26.101.71 (talk) 20:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC).

Excuse me, there is no need to resort to baseless insults. Off the top of my head, Hulk Hogan is from here.Blaze33541 06:10, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

How is it a baseless insult if there is a base (i.e., his misspelling of the word) from which an insult may arise? lol. Macho Man Randy Savage also lives here.

According to the talk page guidelines, there's no place for insults at all, baseless or otherwise. Also, if the original person asking the question had been from Florida, especially Tampa, he or she would likely know what celebrities live here, now, yes? Recommend we stay on topic here. Tampa is a virtual mecca for professional wrestlers, both those who grew up here (Hulk Hogan) and those who resettle here and nearby (Chris Jericho, Edge, Christian Cage, and more.

Actress Liz Vassey grew up here; Brittany Snow was born here; erstwhile American Idol pop-star Jessica Sierra also was born here. "Gone With The Wind" supporting actress Butterfly McQueen, however, is arguably the most prominent. P.F. Bruns (talk) 19:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Music

ok i tried to put tampas music on there but someone deleted it. so can someone please at least mention it!!! its called Jook Muisc

I hope someone deletes it again, it's terrible and looks like original research --Morthanley 18:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
urbandictionary isnt a legit source --Morthanley 01:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I see it's back. What the hell does this mean: The genre of music was created in the early 2000s in East Tampa (a predominantly African American community, but the area is commonly referred to as West Tampa). They're distinct neighborhoods on opposite sides of the city. People don't refer to East Tampa as West Tampa. They refer to West Tampa as West Tampa. If I knew anything about hip hop I'd tried to fix it, but this section drags down the quality of the entire article. I'm going to go edit liberally. Thehappysmith 13:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Meaning of Tampa

170.148.92.42 19:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC)The article states “though it is sometimes claimed to mean "sticks of fire" in the language of the Calusa”. The Calusa’s were indigenous to the SW FL area, not West Central FL. If Tampa DOES mean “sticks of fire”, I would think it would have been named by the people of the indigenous pre historic tribe, which I believe was the Timucuans.170.148.92.42 19:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC)Dean Hanson

As is explained in the next paragraph in the article, the likely location of the original town of 'Tanpa' was on Charlotte Harbor, which was indeed in the Caloosa territory. The transfer of the name to the present day Tampa Bay was likely due to confusion by the Spanish when they returned much later to the west coast of Florida. Also, the Timucua territory did not extend to the Tampa Bay area. The Tocobaga were the dominent tribe around Tampa Bay at the time of Spanish contact. As essentially nothing is known of the languages of either the Caloosa or the Tocobaga, speculation as to the meaning of 'Tanpa' or 'Tampa' is futile. -- Donald Albury 01:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Another question: could this have been the name origin for the former Tampa Bay FireStix National Pro Fastpitch (softball) team? I haven't found anything conclusive, since the team's marketing materials have gotten a bit hard to come by with the team (and apparently the league's) demise. P.F. Bruns (talk) 19:30, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


Somebody keeps putting in an unsourced mention of "Great Lightning" as the definitive meaning of "Tampa". As the article mentions already, "lighting" is one possible meaning, but the entymology is far too murky to state that one theory is correct. Also, the name clearly predates the Seminoles, contrary to the last edit which attributed the name to that culture. Zeng8r (talk) 22:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


The history section was pretty long and has been duely compacted and condensed a bit over the summer. The new info about the meaning of Tampa is good stuff, but probably should be condensed as well. I'm going to cut and paste it over to the History of Tampa, Florida as-is for now and will condense it later if somebody else doesn't do it first. Zeng8r (talk) 16:49, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Why not cut out the unsourced stuff, instead. -- Donald Albury 01:51, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Why? Nothing needs to be cut, just shortened a bit here and expanded upon in the History of Tampa article. There were a couple of uninformed editors inexplicably nit-picking Tampa-related articles months ago, and they successfully (and ridiculously) got the History of Ybor City article deleted because they claimed that it simply repeated info from the parent Ybor City article. I discretely compacted the main Tampa article to avoid similar attacks. Zeng8r (talk) 00:28, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if I seemed abrupt. Since the origin of the name Tampa needs, IMHO, a bit of explication, I wouldn't be opposed to just having that info in History of Tampa and ignore it in the main article, but I suppose someone would want to add some version of it back in. -- Donald Albury 16:51, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Map of tampa

I changed the old "map of tampa" to the new one because the old one was quite literally not recognizeable as Tampa. Where is downtown? Where is the bay? where is MacDill AFB or the peninsula it is located on? I can't tell where anything is nor do I even recognize the basic shape of the city limits of Tampa. That was not a map of Tampa at all. Maybe its not of Tampa. Maybe it about tampa but not a map. But whatever it is, it is not a map of tampa. WAS 4.250 18:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It just occurred to me that maybe it is color coded using colors I can't tell apart. I am red green color blind. If you are color coding it make sure the colors differ in light-dark scale as well - like dark green rather than light green so I can tell it from white and a purple lighter or darker than red or blue so I can tell them apart. WAS 4.250 18:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The map you keep putting up combines Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties, and shows Hillsborough County divided in some way that does not correspond to the city limits of Tampa. The other map shows the city and census-designated-place boundaries in Hillsborough County, with the City of Tampa in red. This same style of map is used in several other Florida city articles. I'm reverting you again, as the map you put up does not show the City of Tampa. -- Donald Albury 03:08, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
I finally figured out the problem. Your map does not distinguish between land and water for either the boundaries of the county nor the boundaries of the city. No wonder I didn't recognize it. As for being useful, you are fooling yourself that this is useful to anyone for anything. I repeat : this is not a recognizeable map of Tampa. Ask anyone who knows the place. As for me, I'm outta here. I don't stay where I'm not wanted. WAS 4.250 03:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

No offense, but they both suck. Morthanley 07:10, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have to agree with Mort. They're not of the best quality and not very useful either way. If you guys want, I can try to come up with something over the weekend. Anyone else want to try, feel free, and we can see what looks best on Monday. EaglesFanInTampa (formerly Jimbo) 15:27, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
The first map was produced the same way as Image:Map of Florida highlighting Miami.png, which has the advantage of showing the political boundaries of the cities, as well as their relative location in the county and in the state. These maps were produced by Bastique (talk · contribs). I suggest dropping him a line to see what can be done about showing shorelines in the maps. -- Donald Albury 13:48, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Map done. If you have any issues...please leave me a message. Bastiqe demandez 18:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
With respect, while your map does show the location of Tampa in Hillsborough County, it shows absolutely nothing else about the city, including, as mentioned, MacDill AFB and various other landmarks. I realize that this is something you have done on your own time, but I think that the lack of detail is the primary objection people have. I don't think I could do a whole lot better sourcing from the public domain; I'm just saying that the ma[p you have provided is definitely locational rather than navigational in nature. P.F. Bruns (talk) 19:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

More places you can add

Check out List of Registered Historic Places in Hillsborough County, Florida. Some of the places are included in the article, some not. Wanted to let folks know, in case there's any that people think should be added. :) --Ebyabe 20:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


Too many images

A lot of the recently added images seem unnecessary. For example three Davis Islands photos and a bunch of stadium and dome photos should be in their own respective articles, not in the Tampa article. Morthanley 22:27, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

"Tamp" Florida ??

The supercaption over the skyline photo says "Tamp" and I can't believe no one has noticed it before now. I'm sure it's not supposed to be missing that last A, right? Citizen P 06:58, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Of course it's not supposed to say that. Be bold! (I fixed it.) Thehappysmith 11:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:TampaSeal.jpg

Image:TampaSeal.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 04:24, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Could someone please edit BetacommandBot's boilerplates to reflect the fact that the word "media" is a plural in the English language? The first sentence in the last paragraph should be "If there 'are' other fair use media, ..." (minus my emphasis, of course).

In regard to what the bot is actually saying, I'm a bit curious: considering that Wikipedia is a 'reference work', how could the use of an image not be fair use? As I understand it under Title 17 of the United States Code, § 107 (the chapter on fair use):

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Wikipedia is certainly covered under (1), since it is a nonprofit educational work.

Since the work (in this case, a logotype) is a single piece that almost certainly is easier to display than to describe, and since it is the work of a municipality, and was not created for profit in the first place, it would seem to stand to reason that display of the logotype for the city for educational and reference purposes could only be fair use. So much for (2).

For (3): It's impossible to use only a piece of the logo. QED.

For (4): Nobody is likely to try to sell t-shirts with the Tampa logo on, and if they do, Wikipedia's use of the logo will affect the market not one whit.

Hm. Looks like I've got some formalizing of the fair use rationale to do. P.F. Bruns (talk) 06:50, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

...or I would, if it hadn't been wiped over a year ago. P.F. Bruns (talk) 07:00, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


Due to legal fears, wikipedia has been cracking down on the "fair use" rules lately. Lots of photos that were uploaded long ago did not have a formalized rationale and are being questioned. If it's really a case of fair use, it's not a big deal to add the rationale and solve the problem. Nobody saved this particular image in time, but nothing prevents an editor from uploading it again since it clearly falls under fair use. Zeng8r (talk) 23:21, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Items removed from list of attractions

I removed three red-linked items from the 'Attractions' section for the following reasons:

  • Florida Aquarium is already listed in the Zoos and Aquariums section (although with a dead external link).
  • Ben T Davis Beach strikes me as marginal in notability at best. Let's see a well-sourced article that passes scrutiny before adding that back in.
  • Spaghetti Factory is a smallish national chain (approx. 40 locations) with no WP article. We don't list restaurants as 'attractions' in our city articles. -- Donald Albury 09:45, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree with your edit, but I have to question the rationale on the last one. Spaghetti Factory certainly doesn't qualify as an attraction (as it's not Tampa-based; last I knew, it was based in Dallas), but aren't there restaurants around the country that are of significant notability to merit inclusion as "attractions" in city articles? I'm thinking Columbia (the original in Ybor City, not the chain locations elsewhere in Florida) might qualify, particularly as it's been around for more than 100 years. See, for another example, Tony Packo's Cafe in the article for Toledo, Ohio. (I have no connection to either restaurant, aside from being a past Tony Packo's customer.) -- JeffBillman (talk) 23:46, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


Very few restaurants should be listed as an attraction. The Columbia definitely is one of them due to its long and important history. (Speaking of La Columbia, it DESPERATELY needs an article, imo.) The only way a chain resturant should be listed as an attraction is if it's the original location or if something notable happened there, and even then it'd be a case-by-case decision. Just my 2 cents... Zeng8r (talk) 00:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

location relative to other cities

citing the coordinates is helpful, but it would also be helpful to add some info on location relative to other well known cities in florida, and/or perhaps how far down the peninsula it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.80.214.27 (talk) 16:39, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Tampa Snow.jpg

Image:Tampa Snow.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 21:07, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The correct usage for the first sentence in your last paragraph is "If there are other fair use media..." P.F. Bruns (talk) 19:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

history section 21st century?

This section seems too small. Is that airplane crash the only event in tampa since 2000? Would not the superbowl, stanley cups, elections controversies in city council, actions notable figures, election&re-election of Pam Ioria, the hub of activity around MacDill since 9/11 and the names listed on the memorial at Joe Chillura courthouse should also be included?Bayspatriot (talk) 17:31, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


Sounds like you just made yourself a to-list for the new year!
Seriously, the entire history section from the early 1900s to the current day needs extensive additions and expansions. Several users were working on this article last fall, but it's in a bit of a lull right now. You're more than welcome to get things moving again. Zeng8r (talk) 01:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Jook and Tampa Tony

A quick Google search reveals that Tampa Tony enjoys some notability, along with the phenomenon of Jook music (or Jook). However, I'm not sure where to begin on that, being a total noob to the genre. Any takers? -- JeffBillman (talk) 03:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Google hits are more or less useless for establishing notability for inclusion in Wikipedia. Please read WP:MUSIC. If you think an article about Tampa Tony can meet the criteria in that guideline, then feel free to create the article. However, any reader who does not agree that he is notable enough can nominate the article for deletion, and articles about marginal musicians and bands are deleted from Wikipedia on a regular basis. -- Donald Albury 15:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Honesty, friend, I have no idea. An anonymous editor had written the edit that I moved to the Music section of this article. I actually was about to revert the edit when I thought, "Hey, there may be some notability here..." It's not that Google establishes notability, but in this case it suggested to me that notability could be established. Bottom line, though, is that it must be established by someone more knowledgeable than I am. -- JeffBillman (talk) 17:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh, sorry if I came across too hard. You got one of my semi-canned responses. I just see so many attempts to insert non-notable musicians and groups into Wikipedia that my response has become more or less automatic. -- Donald Albury 00:08, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


I dunno - I'm a native and listen to hip-hop but I've never heard of this guy. Also, I couldn't find any music reviews mentioning "Tampa Tony" in the Trib, Times, or Creative Loafing. Not notable for a separate article, imo, and the mention in this entry should probably be deleted as spam. Zeng8r (talk) 15:37, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I've also seen references to jook music based in Santa Monica, California. There's nothing verifiable that I've seen that specifies the origin of jook in Tampa. P.F. Bruns (talk) 07:09, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

recent (?) edits

This article has been chopped up pretty good since the last time I looked it over, including the disappearance and/or replacement of many photos and all of the history section after 1856(!).

Is there a grand scheme in the works here or what??? Zeng8r (talk) 03:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


I restored the history section. While it could be improved with a little condensing, cutting it off at some random date isn't a good idea, imo. Zeng8r (talk) 03:04, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Remove the list of tallest buildings?

Since there is now a List of tallest buildings in Tampa, shouldn't the list of the 15 tallest high-rises in the city be removed from the cityscape section? A link to the new article would suffice. Cheers, Raime 23:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the list, replacing it with a paragraph about the city's high-rises and providing a link to List of tallest buildings in Tampa. Cheers, Raime 13:05, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Images

It seems there were copyright issues with some of the current-day images recently added to the Tampa article. Tampa wikipedians - start your cameras!!! Zeng8r (talk) 23:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Famous Wrestler

Big Show is known to live here.--75.65.177.96 (talk) 00:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

There are several professional wrestlers here:

1. Dave Batista

2. Kelly Kelly

3. Christian (Cage)

4. Gail Kim


To name a few —Preceding unsigned comment added by MsAlyCat (talkcontribs) 06:54, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

explosion of [citation needed]

They may have been there for a while, but I just noticed the profusion of "citation needed" markers all over the history section of this article. A few are valid, but most are ridiculous:

USF was established in 1956 [citation needed]

...c'mon now, that's just silly. And there were several places with a citation at the end of a paragraph or a section that clearly refers to that whole section, yet [citation needed] are everywhere in the text.

So in a little while, I'm going to put in a couple of referrences and throw out a bunch of unnecessary [citation needed] markers. I didn't notice any inaccurate info, so any remaining unsourced info could be cited if needed... Zeng8r (talk) 14:32, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

And what is wrong with actually providing citations for the challenged items? The policy is that challenged material should be sourced or removed. I don't see anything in the policy that says that individual editors have the discretion to remove 'fact' templates because they think the material in question is uncontroversial. If you think someone is being disruptive by challenging too much uncontroversial material you can raise that issue. -- Donald Albury 15:09, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


So it'd be ok to go to the Atlantic Ocean article and do add this: "The Atlantic Ocean is a body of water [citation needed]..."? Or the Ben Franklin article and do this: "Ben Franklin was a statesman [citation needed], inventor[citation needed], printer[citation needed], and author[citation needed]..."? There's no need to include a source for common knowledge.

And as I said, there is a citation somewhere for pretty much every fact in the history section, just not at the end of every single sentence or paragraph. Putting them in wherever there's a [citation needed] currently would make the text both difficult to read and to edit, what with reference tags all over the place. Balance in all things... Zeng8r (talk) 17:47, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I think one or more citations per paragraph are appropriate for a quality of article of more than minimum length. I intend to discuss each of the paragraphs for which I just restores the templates, but I have to go off-line for a few hours. I'll post more later. -- Donald Albury 19:01, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


Several of those places[1] where you restored a [citation needed] tag [2] have citations [3] only a sentence or two[4] away[5] that provide the source[6] for the relevant info[7]. Is this [8] what every wikipedia[9] article [10] should look like?[11]? Zeng8r (talk) 20:35, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

If the citations are not in the same paragraph, how is a reader supposed to know they apply? I notice that another editor has added some new references for some statements to which I restored the fact template. I ask you to indicate which of the existing references in the article cover the following:
  • [The railroad] ... brought many new products into the Tampa market, and started the first real tourist industry. Visitors came in modest numbers to Henry Plant's first Tampa-area resort built on Tampa Bay literally on stilts.
  • Those months, while unpleasant for the troops wearing thick wool uniforms in the oppressive Florida heat, were a great boon to Tampa's growing economy. It was also the only time when Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel was full to capacity.
  • As the market for cigars began to wane during the Great Depression, other industries came to the fore, especially shipping and, of course, tourism.
  • The University of South Florida was established in 1956, sparking development in northern Tampa and nearby Temple Terrace. )I am not concerned about the founding date of USF, which I hope is documented in the USF article, but would like to see a source on the effect of the new school on the area.)
  • The biggest recent growth in the city was the development of New Tampa, which started in 1988 when the city annexed a mostly rural area of 24 sqmi between Interstate 275 and Interstate 75. Since then, many subdivisions and thousands of homes and businesses have filled in, accounting for much of Tampa's population growth over that time.
  • East Tampa, which has historically been a mostly black community, was the scene of several riots in the 1970s and 80s, mainly due to problems between residents and the Tampa police. (As I noted on the article page, the Tampa Riots article does not list any riots in the 1970s. Are there reliable sources to support that statement.)
Also, please drop the strawman arguments. I'm not asking for more than one citation to paragraph here unless there is already a citation in the middle of the paragraph, leaving the balance of the paragraph unsourced. -- Donald Albury 01:58, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


Acually, I'm making a point by exaggeration, not straw-manning it up. Not much of an exaggeration, though, as you seem to have gone through the entire article and placed a [citation needed] tag at the end of every paragraph where there is not a citation at that exact position. As I've already pointed out, however, a good number of these locations have a citation nearby that clearly is meant to include the info you tagged.

I have neither the time nor the patience to worry about this right now. But somebody should take care of it, as these unnecessary tags gives readers the impression that much of the article is incorrect, or has at least been factualy challenged. That's not the case; all of the tagged info I've glanced over is accurate. Zeng8r (talk) 01:12, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

One, I'm not in the habit of dumping a lot of fact tags at random on articles. I feel a responsibility of following up on fact tags I have added, and do not want to have too many out there unresolved (as it is, it may take me months to get back to them). Have you looked back to see who did add all of those? Two, if you know the information is accurate, how do you convince me? Not everyone is as knowledgable about Tampa as you are. I don't expect anyone in Wikipedia to accept my word on anything, so I provide citations to reliable sources for just about everything I add to main space. -- Donald Albury 11:55, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

IPA Pronunciation?

Seems to me that most of the major articles have IPA Pronunciation help on their names. Though not necessary, I think it immediately grabs attention as a high quality article. Polis4rule (talk) 02:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Is the article now Feature Quality?

I looked at the Ann Arbor and Seattle articles, and not only is this one longer, but this one is also a lot more detailed. So the question is, is this article ready for Feature status, or does it need more work? Polis4rule (talk) 02:48, 28 September 2008 (UTC)


It's too disjointed at this point, imo, with some sections over-detailed and some lacking. I'd overhaul the text myself if I had the free time and the patience to deal with unreasonable editors, but I have neither. Perhaps somebody else does... Zeng8r (talk) 16:59, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
I'll try to fix up things if you guys would like. That's over course when I get the time. I just need to be pointed into the right direction. Polis4rule (talk) 01:39, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Northwest Surrounding Municipality - Town & Country

I have recently moved to Town & Country, which is NW of Tampa and has a Tampa zip code. It could be mentioned in this section. Banosd (talk) 07:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

It's actually its own article here: Town 'n' Country, Florida. While it has a Tampa ZIP, it's still, for US Census purposes, its own entity (classified as a Census-designated place (or "CDP")), so it wouldn't be correct to call it part of Tampa.
Also, (more of an FYI), it's not truly - as you called it - a "municipality", as that word means it is incorporated and has its own governmental operations. Since there are only three municipalities in Hillsborough County (Tampa, Temple Terrace, and Plant City), to call Town 'n' Country (the proper name of it, BTW - no ampersand ("&")), Valrico, Brandon, Carrollwood, Lutz, or any other CDP in Hillsborough County a "municipality" would be incorrect. No harm nor foul, though. Thanks for asking nonetheless, and welcome to the Tampa Bay area, and Wikipedia. Feel free to ask anything and change anything (within reason, of course) anytime! EaglesFanInTampa 16:51, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:Tampa Trib 10-16-08 front pg.jpg

The image File:Tampa Trib 10-16-08 front pg.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

  • That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
  • That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --10:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Handled. Removed image from this article, as there's no need for it to appear anywhere but the originally-intended article, The Tampa Tribune. EaglesFanInTampa 14:44, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Climate

I changed the climate fact for Tampa, such I did for over 100 other cities to a much better, easier and cleaner fact. --Mattiss44 (talk) 15:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Why does lead photo have a picture of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge?

This is located in the city of Tampa? It connects 2 completely different cities. The photo collage is invalid and needs to be changed. This article is on the city of Tampa, not Hillsborough County or the Tampa Bay area. - Marc Averette (talk) 04:39, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Page is getting out of control and messy

There are way too many pictures on this page, so I have started cleaning them up. Mainly getting rid of the ones that arent about Tampa, but just things that happen to be in Tampa. For example, we dont need multiple pictures of the same thing (like the convention center and skyline) nor do we need a picture for every section. Most of these pictures would be more appropriate in their subjects' respective articles. Also there is too much extra information that does not have to do with the city itself. This is especially true in the sports section which has too much team-specific information which belongs in that team's article, not an article about the city. Morthanley (talk) 03:22, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

"only IMAX theater in Florida..."

If you run a google search on IMAX theaters in Florida, you will find there are at least 7, including 2 or 3 in Orlando —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.230.86.19 (talk) 23:38, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

There's also another IMAX theater in Tampa, in Channelside. However, the text says that MOSI has the only domed IMAX theater in Florida, which is indeed the case. Zeng8r (talk) 01:51, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Washington D.C.??

Is NOT in the Southeast so why is it listed as one of the four largest cities in the Southeast? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.97.119.249 (talk) 01:35, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Reviewing Suspension

I am currently reviewing this article. Because I am currently busy, I will have to suspend my review for five to six months. Us441 (talk) 22:24, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Then you are not reviewing the article. Let someone else do it. :/
Binksternet (talk) 23:36, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Prostitution, syphilis, aircraft accidents

This article should summarize the information about how Tampa was assessed as the worst U.S. city for rampant prostitution as well as syphilis infections among airmen stationed at MacDill during WWII. If none of this information is the article, in can hardly be complete. A phrase came into use at MacDill that went "one a day in Tampa Bay" which referred to an alarming rate of aircraft accidents during training and operations. This phrase should be briefly explained. Some of the info can be found at St. Clair Streett#Tampa, and this report details how the trouble in Tampa led the state of Florida to pass laws for the first time against prostitution as well as against unmarried persons participating in "licentious sexual intercourse without hire." Binksternet (talk) 23:36, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

This sounds like a possibility for the history section (though the adult industries remain controversial throughout the city). I would encourage you to keep it within context of all the other aspects of the city and not let the negatives from World War II-era MacDill Field take over the entire piece. Boomshadow talk contribs 00:52, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
"The negatives" aren't the point—the notable qualities of Tampa are. At that time, Tampa led the nation in prostitution, and it was acknowledged by Florida Dept. of Health. Same with syphilis in military men stationed there. Notable. The fuss at Tampa was the catalyst for Florida to pass new state laws. Notable. How many catchphrases have been coined with the word "Tampa" in them? I think that makes "one a day in Tampa Bay" worth mentioning. Binksternet (talk) 01:00, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I'm not saying not to put it in. I'm not saying it's not notable. I'm just hoping it doesn't become the centerpiece of the entire article. That's all I'm saying. Boomshadow talk contribs 01:12, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Um, I'm saying it's not notable. I don't see any reason to include this, at least using more than a half a sentence somewhere. The WW2 era is hardly covered at all right now, actually. There are many more important and relevant facts to include for that time period before some obscure report about an obscure topic is pushed to prominence. Zeng8r (talk) 11:56, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
If I'm writing about a city, and something about that city shook the state it was in, or shook the country, that something would be notable. It's like the tail wagging the dog. Binksternet (talk) 14:32, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Comment: I know almost nothing about Tampa more than the article. Setting aside questions of how significant these things were at the time these are historical elements and this article should be predominantly about the modern city. Perhaps these elements are important enough for the history article but I would argue that they are probably too detailed for this article (the current History section in this article needs to be cut down anyway). Regarding the VD stuff it was actually quite common for places with major military installations nearby to have major prostitution and serious VD issues. "One Day in Tampa" sounds like it has a colorful history ([1]) but, as I personally have never heard the phrase (implying that to me that it is simply a local expression) I wouldn't say that explaining it is absolutely imperative though it seems interesting enough to merit a mention in the History article. --Mcorazao (talk) 21:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Alright, you guys are driving. I'm taking this article off my radar. Binksternet (talk) 00:35, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Pinellas

There are fair amounts of content about sports teams, colleges, etc. in Pinellas County on this page. Us441 (talk) 18:08, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Where? There's a paragraph about the Rays, but that's all I see. Zeng8r (talk) 19:25, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Pinellas County is not the topic of the article.Us441 (talk) 15:04, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


Obviously, but what in the article implies that it's about Pinellas County? The Rays represent the entire area, so the brief mention is appropriate, imo. Again, I don't see any other examples. Am I missing something? Zeng8r (talk) 18:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Stetson College of Law is in Gulfport, not in Tampa. Us441 (talk) 20:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Several years ago, Stetson opened the Tampa Law Center near downtown as a satellite location: [2] Zeng8r (talk) 00:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

We should put that Tampa has only a satellite campus of Stetson College of Law in the article. Us441 (talk) 23:13, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

D'oh, thanks for finally fixing this. I'd forgotten all about it... Zeng8r (talk) 20:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Long Lead

WP:LEAD says the lead should be no longer than four paragraphs, but the lead is five paragraphs. Us441 (talk) 15:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Religion section

TampaAGS, that's some great work you did in the "religion" section. However, this article is already very lengthy. Since there's a lot of history in your addition, do you think it'd be better to condense the info here and move the expanded version over to History of Tampa, Florida? Just an idea... Zeng8r (talk) 17:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I wasn't sure regarding the length, but that section just struck me as woefully lacking in scope to the point where it needed either revamping or removal. The prior content focused on history, so I took that theme and ran with it. The edit can be easily condensed by moving the history-related content to History of Tampa, Florida, as you suggested. My only question is how best to situate it within the History article, which is fairly chronological in its organization. Should it be appended as a separate section, or dissected and injected at various points into the article? - TampAGS (talk) 09:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Well, having elicited no suggestions on the issue, I reorganized the content as I saw fit. - TampAGS (talk) 23:45, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

report

Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida.the populition was 333,040 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.21.201.11 (talk) 01:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

sports section

I've been working on Sports in the Tampa Bay Area and noticed that much of it was copy & pasted from the sports section of the main Tampa article. This article is too long anyway, so I trimmed and compacted the sports section here quite a bit. Unfortunately, I accidentally clicked the "minor edit" checkbox when saving, but it was NOT a minor edit. Zeng8r (talk) 22:19, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Inclusion of Big Cat Rescue

Hey, I don't know much about the editing process here, but I was wondering if Big Cat Rescue could be mentioned? It's fairly significant in Tampa. 96.254.15.157 (talk) 02:42, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Point us to reliable sources about it, and its significance to an article about the city. -- Donald Albury 10:14, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Seasonal residents and U.S. control

-"Events" are what led the Seminole tribe into Florida? -I checked source source #21. It says nothing of Bayshore/Hyde Parl, and is of questionable origin. What happened to using academic sources? -Each topic in this subsection is covered by two sentences. It either needs to be expanded upon, or eliminated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.168.132.70 (talk) 23:05, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, Seminoles were not 'driven' into Florida (at least, not during the 18th century). Various bands that later became part of the Seminoles started entering Florida early in the 18th century, after the indigenous peoples had died out. Some of those people had established villages near what would become Tampa by early in the 19th century. As for the Cuban/"Indian" fisherman, I know of reliable sources for there being a number of Cuban fishing "ranchos" employing Indians and Spanish-Indians along the Gulf coast of Florida through the first half of the 19th century, but I'm not sure I can find one specifically for a site in present-day Tampa. The article Second Seminole War cites sources that cover much of that. -- Donald Albury 10:36, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
The existence of a Cuban/Spanish settlement at Spanish Town Creek well before the founding of Fort Brooke is well established. It's mentioned in "Tampa: The Treasure City" by Mormino and Pizzo and in "Tampa Before the Civil War" by Canter Brown, for example. Zeng8r (talk) 21:49, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm sure there were Spanish/Cuban fishing "ranchos" in Tampa Bay. I should have just said that I hadn't seen sources for that. Do those sources mention "Seminoles" living in the area of what became Tampa? I have seen that, but I don't remember exactly which sources. -- Donald Albury 10:40, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
You know, I've also heard it mentioned that Seminoles lived in the Tampa area before Ft. Brooke was established, but not from reliable sources. "Tampa Before the Civil War" talks about them living east of Tampa and coming to the fort and to Bradenton (Braden's Town at the time) to trade, but not living here. The Tampa Bay History Center has a whole section on the Seminoles, but also doesn't explicitly state that they had any sort of village here (before the reservation and Hard Rock Casino on Orient Road, anyway). I'd say that the evidence is sketchy or simply doesn't exist.
Also, in response to the original IP user comment (which I just noticed) - the history in the main Tampa article is condensed so that the text doesn't get too long and hard to read. The expanded history is located at History of Tampa, Florida. Zeng8r (talk) 01:25, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Surrounding communities

Just how far out will this section reach? I can see listing adjoining communities, but including places in other counties seems to be pushing it. -- Donald Albury 10:21, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Tampa is now ranked as a Gamma world city

The sentence in the fifth paragraph that says “Tampa is ranked as a ‘high sufficiency’ world city by Loughborough University and is one category away from becoming a Gamma world city” should be updated. Apparently, Loughborough University has recently come out with a new updated list of global cities, and this new list now has Tampa ranked as a Gamma world city. See this and this. Willminator (talk) 15:59, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Edit: I have done the update myself. Willminator (talk) 15:54, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Recent climate section additions

An anonymous user and a new user (who might quite possibly be the same person) recently added lots of info to the weather/climate section. At first glance, most of it looks like good stuff, perhaps needing some trimming, wikifying, and more references. However, most of the additions are relatively minor details that do not belong in the main Tampa article, which was already quite long and overstuffed, and should be moved over to the Climate of the Tampa Bay area article instead.

I mentioned this on the talk page of the user in question, but I received no reply as s/he kept adding more text to this article. Anybody want to take on the task of cleaning things up? I would, but I'm quite busy in real life right now and, besides, I'm semi-retired around here. Zeng8r (talk) 01:42, 15 October 2012 (UTC)


I improved the weather part last week and JaviP9 keeps reverting it for no reason. I asked him why and he said "I revert your edition in Tampa, because you has done a lot of vandalian editions". He can't even speak english and I never did vandalism at all. Somebody help please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.91.247.234 (talk) 11:39, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Did you just rearrange things a bit in that section? I don't see anything wrong with the changes, so I'm not sure why User:JaviP96 would revert it. However, anonymous IP users sometimes get accused of vandalism that they didn't commit because IP addresses can change depending on your location and/or internet service. Maybe he has you confused with somebody else. To avoid that problem in the future, you might want to get your own username. Zeng8r (talk) 18:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

"Tampanian"

I lived in Tampa for 30 years and never once heard anyone refer to him or herself or anyone else as a "Tampanian." Could we get a citation for that, or else remove it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.248.33.186 (talk) 18:12, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I've heard "Tampanian" used by other people to describe me, along with "Tampan," and of course "Tampon." (Don't ever use that last one unless you really know the person you're talking to, and he or she can take a joke.) I don't know that there's any one specific demonym used by us here. Boomshadow talk contribs 22:38, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Official name

I notice that someone has changed the official name from "City of Tampa" to merely "Tampa, Florida." Our flag and all official literature from City Hall (actually New City Hall, but that's a long story) have "City of Tampa." Is there a citation? Boomshadow talk contribs 22:40, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Structure

Hi. I'm going through all the US Cities (as per List of United States cities by population) in an effort to provide some uniformity in structure. Anyone have an issue with me restructuring this article as per Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/US Guideline. I won't be changing any content, merely the order. Occasionally, I will also move a picture just to clean up spacing issues. I've already gone through the top 20 or so on the above list, if you'd like to see how they turned out. Thoughts? Onel5969 (talk) 19:41, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good in principle. If you can make the changes in parts (as opposed to massive wholesale changes) it will make it easier to assess the changes being made. Good luck! Candleabracadabra (talk) 13:20, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
Doing it in spurts is pretty difficult (actually, I've never done it in over 50 edits). But I hear your concern. I never delete anything, simply re-arrange to make it consistent with other city articles. I'll do it today, and you can check it out.Onel5969 (talk) 14:00, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I am trying to set up a account in East Stroudsburg, Pa My summer home. I am in Florida now my winter home. even though I created this account on Craiglist Stroudsburg pa it picked up Tampa how can this be done thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.170.244.85 (talk) 22:29, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

City Demonym.

Full disclosure I am new to this, that being said I am not new to Tampa and have a wealth of knowledge about this city (That I can cite) that is not covered within this Wiki page. Recently I made an addition/ slight change to the area covering the cities demonym. I moved the term "Tampanian" to be first and the term "Tampan" to be second as Tampanian is now more accepted and the term Tampan has fallen out of favor, I also added the demonym "Tampeño".

Quickly, which I'm sure is the policy of older editors, the new change was removed. while no reasoning was given for the change of the order a rather hastily excuse was given for the removal of the demonym "Tampeño" that excusse being that it is a Spanish word, I argue that the language of the word does not matter if the origin of the word is from Tampa, which it is and was noted in my citation. If the argument that a word has to be English were applied across the board we could not use names like Florida, San Francisco, Texas ect.

The Idea of wiki is to bestow as much useful information as we can so long as that information is correct and cited. (CubanBread (talk) 21:57, 15 July 2014 (UTC))

I have lived in Tampa many years and never once have I heard anyone speak the word "Tampanian". Some time ago I searched for references on the subject and found some for Tampan, but the only info for Tampanian was that some had attempted to introduce it to avoid the similarity to Tampon. Wikipedia is not the place for engineering the denonym to something that is more socially acceptable. It is the denonym that people use that matters. The denonym Tampan is probably our just punishment for calling that town to the Northeast "Horlando".Jacona (talk) 22:19, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
"Tampanian" is pretty common and attested in many sources, for instance this. And it does sound like it's been popularized to avoid the similarity between the historical term "Tampan" and "tampon". The same source indicates that "Tampeno/a" is popular among Hispanics.--Cúchullain t/c 23:14, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
The reference provided for the spanish word clearly stated that it was a name of a Latin from Tampa, which means clearly that it is not a demonym for a person from Tampa in general. That is why I reverted it. John from Idegon (talk) 23:44, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't say that exactly. In fact, one of the informants says that Tampan "best fits the Spanish word for a Tampa Latin." The last guy says that Tampeno is used by Latin people, not that it's used only in Spanish. All of this would be good info for the article body.--Cúchullain t/c 00:00, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
It does say that exactly. "Tampeno is a Spanish word that functions either as an adjective, e.g., Tampeno culture (Tampa Latin culture), or a noun, e.g., a tampeno (A Tampa Latin person)."[12] Tampeno is no more a demonym for someone from tampa than "white guy" would be for a person from the United States. It is a demonym for a Latin from Tampa, which obviously isn't everyone. John from Idegon (talk) 03:22, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, I assumed you were talking about the source I linked to ([3]), which just says "Latin people go by Tampeno". If other sources verify it's only used for Tampa Latinos, rather than any "Tampanian", then clearly it shouldn't be given as a demonym. But the word is clearly not only used in Spanish, so it shouldn't be avoided on those grounds. I'll write something up for the article body.--Cúchullain t/c 12:54, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

What is missing from the recently created city timeline article? Please add relevant content. Contributions welcome. Thank you. -- M2545 (talk) 14:57, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Merge Infrastructure and Transportation

Should the sections of Transportation and Infrastructure be merged together? According to the WikiProject_Cities/US_Guideline it has the Transportation under the Infrastructure section with the Utilities and Healthcare. Just curious if anyone wanted to either merge it if that's correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adog104 (talkcontribs) 16:49, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. The Healthcare paragraph can move to become a subsection under Economy, and everything else in the Transport section can move to Infrastructure, which is a more inclusive heading title. This article has been a sprawling mess for a long time, so any idea to better organize it is welcome. Zeng8r (talk) 17:12, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Thank you Zeng8r - Adog104 (talk) 17:23, 7 September 2015 (UTC)Adog104
I agree with Zeng8r, except for the part about moving healthcare under Economy. Right now the way that subsection is written (not dealing with the economic impact of those institutions), it seems a better fit to keep it as a subsection of the new merged "Infrastructure" section, as per US City guidelines. And btw, nice work you're doing on the article, Adog. Onel5969 TT me 17:46, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Thank you very much Onel5969 again, much appreciated. Onel5969 TT me - Adog104 (talk) 17:52, 7 September 2015 (UTC)Adog104

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Farmers markets

A user wants to add that Tampa has farmers markets. Since every major city in the United States has one or several, I and others have removed the info, as it appears to be not particularly notable. Unless reasons, backed with reliable sources that support those reasons, are included, such info will not be added. Please discuss. --Ebyabe talk - Union of Opposites ‖ 02:48, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

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