List of Pennsylvania state parks

This is a complete list of all current 120 state parks in Pennsylvania, and has shorter lists of all known major name changes for these parks, as well as all known former parks. While the list is complete, not all details have been filled in yet, however it is nearly complete and the thought was enough information was present to allow peer review. We would especially like input on the references (should the one list of current parks be used instead of the 120 separate refs for each park's official web site)? We also would appreciate input on the pictures. Since the table is 95% of the possible width, there is not room for pictures in it. We have instead used galleries to show thumbnail images of 16 parks in four groups of four throughout the list, with one panorama. We hope to nominate this as a Featured List. Thanks in advance for all input, Dincher, Ruhrfisch and VerruckteDan 18:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Very complete good job. --evrik ^(talk) 20:13, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks very much - do you have any thoughts on one ref vs 120 for the current parks or the list using galleries of images? Ruhrfisch 20:43, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: I would love to see ((State parks of Pennsylvania map)) incorporated into the ((Protected Areas of Pennsylvania)) template, similar to ((National parks of the United States)). Nationalparks 21:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's a good idea. I wish I knew how to do it. Do you? How about you Ruhrfisch? This would be a lot of work. There are many protected areas in PA that are not state parks and therefore not on the locator map. Dincher 01:45, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think I can do it, but I am also concerned that there are many other protected areas (state forests, scenic rivers, national parks and a national forest) which would make the map even more crowded, and in the cases of the state and national forests and rivers are not easily represented by one dot. I am not sure if I could do it just for the state parks section of the template? May I suggest that further discussion of this idea be moved to Template talk:Protected Areas of Pennsylvania as it is not really concerned with the peer review of the List of Pennsylvania State Parks? Thanks, Ruhrfisch 05:38, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

      I moved the discussion there, but ((Protected Areas of Pennsylvania)) template is not a nav box (it is a very fancy wikitable) so my kluge idea of pasting from ((National parks of the United States)) and tweaking won't work. Maybe VerruckteDan can do this - he made the Pennsylvania Protected Areas template. Ruhrfisch 05:49, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR _t 00:13, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks very much for the suggestions. Here is our response: 1) a third paragraph has been added to the lead section; 2) the wikilinked map of all state park locations in Pennsylvania is the free image in the top right corner; 3) see rest of peer review for gallery usage thoughts; 4) no infobox known 5) suggested use of summary style is probably caused by article length, but list can't be split or broken off and much of the length is due to 120 refs for the current state parks. Thanks, Ruhrfisch 21:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Overall looks remarkably comprehensive and well-constructed. The placement of pictures looks good -- I don't see any reason to change it. Regarding the refs: To me it seems more sensible to use the list since including each individual link takes up a lot of space. But that's just a personal preference. -- bcasterline • talk 07:07, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks very much - cutting out the individual references would also cut down the size somewhat, but I think we may wait and see what they say at WP:FLC. The reason we are concerned about galleries is that they are frowned on (though not absolutely forbidden) in featured content (see Wikipedia:Galleries). We tried making a table of 4 images side by side but it didn't look as nice as the gallery. Thanks again, Ruhrfisch 14:33, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User:IvoShandor

At a glance:

• First off I must say, this is quite the impressive list. To weigh in on the references I would say there is no need to have 120 of the same agency. Is there a page that contains a directory of links to all PA state parks? That would be a good, single reference. You could even write a little explanation in the footnote. I don't think it is necessary or desirable to have a list of references as long as this article's is, it essentially becomes a link directory which Wikipedia is explicitly not.
  • Thanks so much for your helpful comments and edits. I will reply point by point if that is OK. The very first reference in the article is an alphabetic list of all 120 state parks from their official website and would be a fine substitute for the 120 separate reference links. Ruhrfisch 15:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• The map kind of looks like it has the measles. Just a thought.
  • The map is wikilinked - each dot is clickable and takes you to the article for the park it represents. Should this be made explicit in the caption? The map is based on the similar one (with fewer dots) for List of areas in the National Park System of the United States. Ruhrfisch 15:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Yeah. That's cool, I had no idea. That makes the map a great thing.IvoShandor 15:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• It would be cool if there were some way to incorporate useful images into the table, just my opinion, I suppose some folks don't like that. Is there a page on Commons related to PA state parks? Could make use of ((commons)), could create one if you wanted. I know there are a bunch of images of Kinzua Creek and the Allegheny Forest region here, don't know if they apply to any of the parks but there are probably lots of images over there, what I am saying is a link to commons would be neat : )
  • We thought about incorporating the images into the table, but there were two major issues that led us to decide against doing so. First the table is already pretty full with all the information and there is not really room for images too. Second most of the park articles do not currently have images (only 27 of 120 parks have images taken in the park - more have general images), so that would leave a lot of blank areas in the table and a few pictures. Almost all of the pictures used in the state park articles are at User:Dincher/Groundhog (a few have been added to articles since, but are not there I can update it if you want). There are only ten parks with pictures I know of that are not on this list already, eight of which are on Groundhog. We tried to pick images that were typical and looked good in thumbnail and no more than 2 images from a given park. Ruhrfisch 15:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I figured there was probably a good reason.IvoShandor 15:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• One more comment: Might want to think about thumbnailing the images into galleries using <gallery>, nifty rows of four and space for captions too. I just think it looks more orderly.IvoShandor 14:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The images in the list already use gallery tags (4 galleries, with only 4 images in a row for each gallery). The reason we are concerned about galleries is that they are frowned on (though not absolutely forbidden) in featured content (see Wikipedia:Galleries and the semi automated peer review comments above). Ruhrfisch 15:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Ah. Sounds good, sorry about that one, didn't really look.IvoShandor 15:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More in depth (prose) (some changes too, which you may take or leave):

• Intro:

• I changed the first line to read: in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
• Inserted sentence break.
• Minor copy editing (did some myself).

• Overview'

• Minor copy editing (did some myself).
• This sentence: ... and the uniquely named Kings Gap Environmental Education and Training Center)...

• Not sure this makes much sense here, perhaps to Pennsylvanians but I don't really see anything unique about the name

• NPOV

• I am probably the most nitpicky person in the world on this stuff but . . . Seven parks are undeveloped with no facilities, although the last four of these are in the process of being developed

• The word 'although' makes it sound like the article is implying that "developed" somehow means better.

• This sentence: Five state parks are basically small picnic areas

• Seemed pretty subjective, should provide evidence.

• Heh. "Pennsylvania state parks offer millions of visitors each year: over 7,000 family campsites, 286 cabins, nearly 30,000 picnic tables, 56 major recreational lakes, 10 marinas, 61 beaches for swimming, 17 swimming pools, over 1,000 miles of trails and much, much more"

• That really shouldn't be in the article as a direct quote, paraphrase.

Hope that helps. Like I said, you can take or leave my changes, which I mostly noted above. The other stuff I shall leave for you to toy with, or not. Good luck with the list, it's very comprehensive and useful.IvoShandor 14:39, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks again and for your speedy replies above already. I will reply to the all the prose suggestions here. I like almost all your copyedits and fixed the one error (added are, needed after sentence break: "The remaining nine are operated in cooperation with other public and private organizations.").

  The seven undeveloped parks was an attempt to contrast the two kinds of undeveloped parks - three with no plans for future work, four being made into developed parks (like the other 113). How about "Although seven parks are undeveloped with no facilities, the last four of these are in the process of being developed." or "Seven parks are currently undeveloped with no facilities: the last four of these are in the process of being developed."?

  The five picnic area parks are in the Overview section, so the size of each is given in the list (these are five of the seven smallest parks - other two are Hyner View and McCalls Dam, also 10 acres or less) and each is noted as a day use picnic area in its remark in the list (the evidence is also in the wikilinked articles and 120 references ;-) ).

  Could you be more explicit about why the quote is bad? How about using part of it (just the data, not so rah-rah)? Maybe this is better: According to the DCNR, Pennsylvania's 120 state parks have "over 7,000 family campsites, 286 cabins, nearly 30,000 picnic tables, 56 major recreational lakes, 10 marinas, 61 beaches for swimming, 17 swimming pools, [and] over 1,000 miles [(1,600 km)] of trails".[5]? Thanks again for all your helpful comments! Ruhrfisch 16:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• P.S. If we get rid of the 120 parks refs, what about the ones that are cited twice (for history like name changes usually)? Ruhrfisch 16:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It was the "much much more" part, it made it seem like a travel brochure. As for the other ones sorry I missed that, I get pretty excited when I am editing sometimes, its quite the hobby. Glad to have helped. : )

IvoShandor 16:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could take or leave the cites there, I mean if someone wanted to they could easily poke around the PA website and find what they needed to confirm it. Remember if its verifiable it's good and I would say that probably satisfies the criteria, IMO. Have to say I would just lose the word although altogether, heh, because now it makes it seem like "undeveloped" is better. : )IvoShandor 16:29, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• • Thanks yet again, I fixed the quote, labeled the map, cut out "although" (for undeveloped) and "basically" (for picnic areas), and added "major" to the Army Corps dams parks as Frances Slocum's small dam was built by the Corps, but does not seem to be operated by them now. Ruhrfisch 16:48, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds great. I love being able to find a peer review request that I am truly interested in. I make regular trips to PA and have visited a couple of state parks out there. Good luck with the list, I think it has the potential to be a featured list.IvoShandor 16:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all input here at Peer Review. List of Pennsylvania state parks is now a featured list candidate here: Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Pennsylvania state parks. All input is greatly appreciated, Dincher, VerruckteDan, and Ruhrfisch 01:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]