Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rivers/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Featured article review of Zambezi

I have nominated Zambezi for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Tom B (talk) 16:51, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Aliso Creek (Orange County)

The Aliso Creek article has been in existence for 1 year, 1 month and no one has assessed it. themaee (talk) 01:38, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Coordinates format

Hello, I have traveled from WikiProject Geographical coordinates, where we seek wider opinions on whether {{coord}} should offer a N/S/E/W labeled format for decimal coordinates (example: 43.12°N 79.34°W / 43.12; -79.34) either as an option or by default, or if the existing unlabeled format (example: 43.12°N 79.34°W / 43.12; -79.34) is sufficient. Please comment there if you have an opinion on this. Thanks! --GregU (talk) 17:51, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Mobile River

There's something wrong with the length in the article. First it is stated that the course has a length from about 40 mi, then it is said that it is formed approximately 50 mi NNE of Mobile, while it is flowing southwards "in a winding course". However those informations don't match together. --Matthiasb (talk) 19:28, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

The "approximately 50 mi NNE of Mobile" is incorrect. A quick check on Google Earth shows it to be about 36 miles and almost due north. Rmhermen (talk) 20:05, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Names for Lists of rivers

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Most lists in lists of rivers follow a naming style: List of rivers of Fooland. Lists of rivers of Canada do not always follow that style. Some use the style List of Fooland rivers. I suggest the renames below. I thought I would check in here for comment before I make the changes.

Rename List of New Brunswick rivers to List of rivers of New Brunswick
Rename List of Newfoundland and Labrador rivers to List of rivers of Newfoundland and Labrador
Rename List of Northwest Territories rivers to List of rivers of Northwest Territories
Rename List of Nova Scotia rivers to List of rivers of Nova Scotia
Rename List of Nunavut rivers to List of rivers of Nunavut
Rename List of Ontario rivers to List of rivers of Ontario
Rename List of Yukon rivers to List of rivers of Yukon

PEI is an oddball: List of rivers of Prince Edward Island redirects to List of Prince Edward Island rivers. Regards —G716 <^T·_C> 01:26, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

This seems reasonable to me as long as it is consistent. Might want to check with WIkiProject Canada to make sure there is not some national naming convention being followed here. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this to the Canada WikiProject. These articles were created long before we had established any Canada-specific naming conventions, and in any case, the Wikipedia-wide convention is more suitable here. I support this move. Mind matrix 21:32, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I find List of rivers in would be better because that's what being used for other Canadian geography lists and categories. Black Tusk (talk) 01:48, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Most Lists of rivers... use of, not in, including lists of Canadian rivers -- see Lists of rivers. Regards —G716 <^T·_C> 02:40, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

And why is that? I know a few river lists have been moved. But its not a problem for me because I don't contrubute with river articles. Black Tusk (talk) 03:49, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, unless they have to do with volcanoes LOL - Lava Fork, for example.Skookum1 (talk) 19:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

LOL right. There's Meager Creek as well. But now that you mentioned it I remember creating some river articles not associated with volcanoes..... Black Tusk (talk) 00:51, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd support the change, for the same reasoning as Mindmatrix. PK T(alk) 14:03, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Support as per MindMatrix, and also because "rivers of xxx" rolls off the tongue better....somehowSkookum1 (talk) 19:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
- Comment - one question/issue, though is List of rivers of Northwest Territories seems to me like it should be "of the Northwest Territories". The syntax of the older "list of Northwest Territories rivers" was fine, but with Northwest Territories not in the adjectival position it would seem to need "of the Northwest Territories" as the main noun in the prepositional phrase....except maybe there's an official convention about speakign of the NWT without the "the"....I know that's the case with (the) Yukon, though I know Yukoners who themselves say "the Yukon"....but supposedly, officially, it's a stand-alone proper name and to say "the Yukon" is supposedly equivalent to saying "the Manitoba". This came up between BT and myself in terms of the reqphoto categories - see Talk:Cassiar Mountains.....technically "Cariboo" and "Chilcotin" should also be used without "the", though "most common usage" outside the cognoscenti of those places still uses the "the", adn those aren't official names anyway in the way "Yukon" is. So the comparison is "The government of Yukon wears purple underpants" vs "The government of the Yukon Territory wears purple underpants". Maybe User:CambridgeBayWeather might have some knowledge of this....and we might want to look at hte various Category:Yukon subcategories...is this in CanWiki's naming/style guidelines anywhere?Skookum1 (talk) 19:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Agree - this will be List of rivers of the Northwest Territories to conform with similar lists in Lists of rivers. I cut and past w/o checking. —G716 <^T·_C> 20:17, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. All pages have been moved. —G716 <^T·_C> 05:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Left and right tributary

Hi all. "The Foo1 is a left tributary of the Foo2". No problem. "The Foo1 is a right tributary of the Foo2^[1]." Problem. it suggests a 'correct' tributary (and the "right" is often removed in the articles). What is the correct sentence? "Foo1 is a tributary off the right bank of the Foo2"? Or something not so "heavy"? Thanks in advance. Alvar☮ ☎ 17:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

[1]
Very common in articles about french, german... rivers.

I know the terms "river left" and "river right" are used by rafters and geologists to talk about those sides of the river, with forward being downstream... maybe this could help differentiate "right"... hope it helps. Awickert (talk) 17:18, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

"The Foo1 is a river right tributary of the Foo2"? Sounds english? Alvar☮ ☎ 17:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

No it doesn’t to me. Why not link right tributary the first time it is used? Ian Spackman (talk) 17:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that does not sound like (native) English. I also am not fond of linking "Right tributary" as it is just a redirect to tributary. I prefer something like "The Foo1 is a tributary of the Foo2, entering on the right bank." Note that right bank there is a Wiktionary link, as right bank here is a dab. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I like this last suggestion best. Although, I seem to recall several river articles where people tried to standardize the listing of tributaries from the mouth moving upstream, this could create left/right confusion. Gjs238 (talk) 20:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I like right bank better than what I said: makes more sense for tributaries. I edited the article Bouzanne for Alvar☮, and just wrote the whole thing out instead of using a term. I've heard left bank and right bank before (always from facing downstream), but I mostly hear banks given by cardinal directions (i.e., East bank of the Mississippi). Awickert (talk) 20:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your advices. Despite I don't like to redirect to a section, I adopt (for the while) the right tributary solution. It avoids me to build too complicated sentences with my broken english. Alvar☮ ☎ 15:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Thompson River Photo

Naming

Karnaphuli River

Featured topic question

Coordinators' working group

Article alerts

River regime

Rampart Dam ('50s proposal on Yukon R

proposed merge of North River (New York-New Jersey) to Hudson River

Suspended load

Category:Tidal rivers

fr:Résurgence

Assessment

Ward River and separate articles for other tributaries?

I just created the Ward River and noticed it was difficult to find reliable sources online. It leads me to question the need for separate articles for each and all rivers that are tributaries in Australia when they could have a section on their respective mainstem river's article. It is the same for the Jordan River stub I have drafted, a tributary of the Barcoo River. Are all rivers inherently notable and should they all have separate articles or are sections adequate for remote or lesser known waterways?

Additonally I have recently stubbed the following 10 river pages; Russell River, Mulgrave River, Kolan River, Comet River, Nogoa River, Johnstone River, Merivale River, Suttor River, Belyando River and Moonie River. Have I been making any significant, systemic errors? I ask because I've discovered another 13 rivers in Queensland with no articles and another 13 without infoboxs and I would like to get them correct. Thanks in advance for any comments or tips. - Shiftchange (talk) 14:01, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

All rivers are inherently notable and could have their own articles, though it doesn't necessarily mean they should. I think if you don't have more than a sentence or two to say about a river than including it in the parent river's article would be better than having a tiny article of its own. Regarding the Ward, we do have featured articles on streams smaller than that, but they were flowing through much more populated areas so I'm sure there were more sources to be had. I think your stubs look fine though I'd consider using the Geobox|River template rather than Infobox River even if it does end up mostly empty. Kmusser (talk) 17:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I second Kurt's thoughts here. I looked at several of the articles and think it should be made clearer in the first sentence of each that these are Australian rivers (I changed this in one case). Finally, another advantage of Geobox is that it does the conversions from metric to English units automatically - if it is not used, then the {{convert}} template does the job nicely too (I also added this to Ward River). Thanks for your work on these, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:33, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

That they're Australian will be in the infobox, I don't think that needs to be repeated in the text. Kmusser (talk) 19:56, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I usually follow WP:PCR and try to "state the obvious", but agree if it is in the infobox it is at least somewhere on the page. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:22, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

River Tyne, Scotland

Ford

Canadian/BC government resource publications

Maps

Watermills and Textile Mills

C Class articles

Assessment

I have place two comments on Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers/Assessment and received no reply- is any one watching? --ClemRutter (talk) 20:36, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I do not watch that page but will reply there - I would raise the issues here and on the Paulins Kill talk page. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the request for assessment, theres a lot to do and only a few project members. But another basic question. How do you assess a rivers importance? I know that

Amazon, Nile, Rhein, Donau- top
Thames, Severn, Trent, Mersey, Mekong, Mississippi, Missouri, Hudson, Ruhr, Scheldt, Seine, Moldau - high
Irwell, Goyt, Derwent, Avon, Wye, Sieg, Ardeche - Mid
Ingol, Teise (anything with Creek in its name) -Low

But I can't explain why. Volume of flow- giving its name to other geographical features- naming a civilisation all help. A tributary is necessarily of lower importance than the parent river. Can someone give a few suggestions?--ClemRutter (talk) 21:21, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

For myself, I have never been interested in assements, except when trying to get articles added into the 1.0 project. I don't place much importance on them but I would dispute some of your proposals there. Mississippi less iportant than Donau? Any article with Creek low? - some are featured already! If I cared enough to, of course. Rmhermen (talk) 22:27, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed - assessment is only helpful when you are looking for models so you can improve the article you are working on. But assessing is a fairly relaxing task to do when you are laid up with Swine flu. Of course the Donau is more important than the Mississippi- The M is a river local to one country, the D flows through 9 countries and 4 capital cities. No composer has written a waltz about the M- and the beer is better. This is silly: so what does make a river top, high, mid or low. I have put a few suggestions- but I would like to see a real expert giving some guidance. I hear the music now ;-) --ClemRutter (talk) 10:17, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I am no expert, but I think it requires a judgement call. Setting standards would be harder than perhaps establishing a few benchmark rivers then comparing. This to look at are the impact the river has on the area. The Nile was central to life in ancient Egypt. Songs and books have been written about life on the Mississppi. And so on.imars (talk) 11:41, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Neither am I. And I am just passing through- but to be constructive I have lifted the following from WikiProject Historic sites, and done a minimum amount of doctoring

-----------------------------included---------------------|

== Importance ==

This page is a guide to assessing the importance levels of articles that are maintained by WikiProject Rivers. There are four levels of importance that give an indication as to the priority of articles to this WikiProject, as opposed to Wikipedia as a whole.

The importance levels are Top, High, Mid and Low, and are assigned by adding |importance = level to the project banner, {{WikiProject Historic sites|class=|importance=}}, on the article's talk page. A DRAFT guide to the type of articles that should be placed in each category is given below, but these are not hard and fast rules. Any individual article should be assessed on its own merits. If you are unable to decide which importance level to use, please go to the WP:Rivers talk page and leave a message there.

Remember:

Anyone can assess the class or importance of an article, you don't need special permission to do it.
If you feel that an article has been assessed wrongly, feel free to change it.
Any problems or questions should be left at the project talk page, as that is monitored by more people that the talk page here.

More information Importance, Criteria ...

WikiProject article importance scheme
v
t
e
Importance	Criteria	Example
Top	Rivers of global significance, including lists and registers thereof; rivers known to most educated persons in the world.	Amazon, Danube, Mississippi River
High	Rivers of continental or national significance, including lists and registers thereof; rivers known to most people in a given country.	List of rivers of the United Kingdom,River Severn, [Ruhr]], Scheldt
Mid	Rivers of regional (sub-national) significance, including lists and registers thereof; rivers known to many people in a given territory such as a U.S. state.	River Irwell River Ardeche
Low	Rivers of local significance, including lists and registers thereof; rivers generally known (if at all) only to people living nearby	River Teise Cèzel
???	Unassessed, importance still to be determined.

Close

I would like to change these criteria

Top: Rivers of global significance, including lists and registers thereof; rivers known to most educated persons in the world. These will be rivers that pass through many countries, have fostered civilisations, have mondial cultural significance or extreme discharges.
High: Rivers of continental or national significance, including lists and registers thereof; rivers known to most people in a given country. These will be rivers that pass through capital cites, have major catchment areas within a country or significant cultural significance.
Mid: Rivers of regional (sub-national) significance, including lists and registers thereof; rivers known to many people in a given territory such as a U.S. state.This class will include the majority of rivers, often they will be primary tributaries of high importance rivers. They will be rivers that have significant interest, passing through many settlements supporting many historical or industrial sites.
Low:Rivers of local significance, including lists and registers thereof; rivers generally known (if at all) only to people living nearby. These rivers will often be short, and tributaries of mid importance rivers. They will be significant to the local culture and economy in a limited number of ways.

I don't mind being bold- but being suicidal is a step too far- if I have consensus I will post the table on the project page. As I said I am just passing through --ClemRutter (talk) 13:24, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you'll go wrong being bold here, this project has been pretty quiet. As far as assessments, I usually don't pay attention to them, but what you have I think could be posted as is. Some other ideas for discussion: you could include a physical geography component, there are some major rivers, especially in Siberia and the Amazon basin that aren't very well known, but probably are pretty important hydrologically speaking. Also I think that rivers that were historically important should probably get bumped up, something like the Hudson which I'd say is only regionally important now, but was very important in the early development of the U.S. Kmusser (talk) 14:48, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Done The asssesment page has been rewritten.--ClemRutter (talk) 08:09, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

While lists of rivers have been a major interest of mine, I don't know that they should be rated so highly. Every country list rating high, will give a huge number of high importance articles, which rating I think is usually kept to a smaller number. Rmhermen (talk) 03:03, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

To explain what I have done:- I lifted text from another project and changed the word 'site' to 'river'- then pasted that in each section. I then appended a subjective interpretation (based on the discussion)of what that could mean. The principle seem unmutable, but the interpretation is open to any editor, I am no expert. Taking a step backwards, as a user, lists are incredibly important being a portal- and flowery flowing prose seems to be over rated- so I would agree with your instinct that lists should be of major interest, and disagree with your reservations. I think articles should be rated on their importance and not by an an attempt to establish a predetermined statistically curve. --ClemRutter (talk) 08:09, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

River stubs

Geographical coordinates

Route diagrams

Again a request for guidance. Some rivers have a Route diagram attached, which is particularly useful when the river is a navigation, or you are writing about industry along its banks. The seems to be three schools of thought about how to use the icons Manchester Ship Canal which is entangled in the River Mersey and River Irwell treats a river as an unnavigable canal- hence light blue. (It flows from bottom to top). The River Len, Kent treats the river as navigable hence dark blue, but flows from top to bottom. On over 100 railway diagrams, rivers are shown using an incomplete set of icons, in the case of River Wye such a diagram has been transcluded. There are thus three conflicting sets of icons, two are shown in Template:Waterways legend and one in Template:River Icons Legend. If it is any help: I would standardise on the Manchester Ship canal approach- but going from source to mouth:

If a route diagram is used, symbols should be selected from Template:Waterways legend. Navigable rivers, should use the dark blue basic symbol and non-navigable rivers should use light blue, where the distinction is important. For general issues see Wikipedia:Route diagram template. It is advised to work from source to mouth (top to bottom).

That could be added to the project page. Please, are there any strong views.--ClemRutter (talk) 11:20, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I think route diagrams are nice to have, but don't have a strong opinion on which icons to use. I do agree standardizing on going from source to mouth would be a good idea. Kmusser (talk) 12:35, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I created the River Len and River Bourne diagrams using the dark blue symbols because all the necessary light blue symbols don't exist yet. No objection to a distinction being made between navigable rivers and non-navigable rivers but we need the equipment to do the job. Mjroots (talk) 21:17, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Note diagrams redrawn to show both rivers as non-navigable. Mjroots (talk) 19:18, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

A good example?

The {{River Medway map}} has been created for use on the River Medway article. I'd say that this is what we should be aiming for. Mjroots (talk) 13:27, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Infobox River

Afon Clun

Inclusions of creeks, streams, sloughs on rivers lists

I'm of the opinion that they do belong, if they are significant and/or there is already an article, or likely to be one; especially because the category to use on creeks is "Rivers of [wherever]". In the case of the list in question - Talk:List_of_rivers_of_British_Columbia#Redundantness is the link to the discussion on it - many of BC's creeks are larger than rivers in many other jurisdiction; many have articles because of history associated with them, or scientific or industrial reasons, or have waterfalls or fishery protection or are otherwise noteworthy etc. User:AndrewEnns has suggested that creeks should be taken out and listed separately; I don't see the point as they're in the rivers category. I don't see the point in culling such a list; I don't think that something being labelled "river" rather than "creek" is sufficient reason to discriminate; especially because many of the streams historically might have been name4d creeks and are now named rivers, and some that were named rivers are now named creeks....I don't know if there's a WP:Rivers guideline on this but I'm tired of the two-man dialect going on; my view is that the list's completeness if the issue, and it's also a lower priority than actually writing river/creek articles.....Andrew maintains they're insignificant but his main argument is that they're named creeks rather than rivers; but some of the remote rivers, large or small, are less notable than many of the creeks he wants to cut out (bluelinked or redlinked). Many also coincide with names of towns/settlements, but have to be separate articles from the towns expressly for that reason. I haven't looked around at e.g. List of rivers in Washington, List of rivers in Texas, List of rivers in the United Kingdom, List of rivers in Australia and am unaware if there are actually any guidelines for such lists....are there?Skookum1 (talk) 12:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm late for this, but I agree with Skookum--some streams called "creeks" are quite large, while some "rivers" are quite small. Historically streams were given names in a very haphazard way. The very word "creek" as meaning a "small river" evolved in North America and the notion of what was a creek and what was a river changed over time. Further, in some parts of North America other terms are used, like "stream" and "brook" in New England, "bayou" and "coulee" in the lower Mississippi River region ("bayou" here meaning a flowing stream, not a long inlet of the sea). Examples of river-class streams: Bayou des Arc, Molunkus Stream, St. Croix Stream, Bayou Bartholomew, and Crab Creek. And then things called "river" that are not really: Annisquam River, Stop River, and Jones River. If this isn't enough, consider this quote from the USGS GNIS FAQ: All “linear flowing bodies of water” are classified as streams in the GNIS. At least 121 other generic terms fit this broad category, including creeks and rivers. Observers might contend that a creek must flow into a river, but such hierarchies do not exist in the Nation's namescape. Near the USGS offices in Northern Virginia, Little River flows into Goose Creek. I'm not aware of guidelines on this topic and suspect it would be difficult to impossible to come up with something logical and consistent. Personally my guideline for inclusion is based on notability rather than physical qualities, for the most part. Pfly (talk) 09:06, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Ruds

Forks are the same as tributaries

There is a belief on Wikipedia that a fork of a river is the same thing as the mainstem, and not simply a tributary. Resultantly, there are very few articles about a river's south fork, north fork, etc. Otherwise why would articles like South Fork Merced River (which is 70 km long) still be hanging around uncreated? There must be a lot more out there; I once thought that every river over 20 miles long already has an article. Shannon1 ^talk ^contribs 23:02, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that these articles should be made. Maybe you could drop a list here of relevant tributaries that need article creation. Awickert (talk) 07:41, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Hello everyone; just joined here. Shannon, I agree with you somewhat, but not entirely. SOME forks, ones such as the South Fork of the Merced should have their own stubs but not all. Only the really significant ones (ones that carry a lot of water &/or are very long) should. An example of one that should not have its own stub would be the Little Fork of the Little Chilliwack River. It is totally insignificant in both accounts & feeds a river that is generally quite insignificant to begin with (by the way, the only reason i made an article for the Little Chilliwack is because of its river title; trust me if there is no river at the end of that there is no article). AndrewEnns (talk) 02:52, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's a really short list that I just thought of right now: Middle Fork Eel River (60km at least), North Fork Eel River (40km), North Fork Trinity River (50km), North Fork Virgin River (30km), South Fork Calawah River (25km at least), East Branch Schuylkill River (10km), North Fork Kaweah River (15km), Middle Fork Kaweah River (20km), South Fork Kaweah River (15km), South Fork Kern River (45km at least) (that's a redirect to Kern River)... The list goes on and on; I'll stop for now. Shannon1 ^talk ^contribs 03:20, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

There are really good articles for creeks and rivers under 10 miles in length; take a look at Balch Creek and Sulphur Creek (I made the second one, they are both under 7 km long and the first is a FA). If you can find data on a river or if the river is historically significant or well known in some other way, it deserves an article. Even rivers just 1 or 2 km long can warrant an article, as in the case of Boeing Creek (Note: I'm kinda slipping away from the "Forks" subject, just clarifying for Andrew). Shannon1 ^talk ^contribs 05:00, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

My working theory on this topic: If a river's page is relatively short to begin with and there isn't much content about its forks ready to go, it's easier to describe the forks in sections of the main river's page. Example: Sauk River (Washington). If needed the forks can be linked to separately, for example: North Fork Sauk River. I use links like that for pages like List of rivers of Washington, where it is useful to list the forks hierarchically. If no page exists yet for a given fork I will just link to a section as above. Redirect pages can be made to the fork sections. If the fork sections grow large enough they could easily be split off into separate pages. But to split them off as stubs? Eh, I'm not a big fan of stubs for the most part. It seems better to keep stubby info in the main article instead of proliferating it out unnecessarily. I wouldn't want to click through links to tiny stubs about river forks when the info could easily be on one page. Another example of using sections is the Skykomish River river article. The forks of both the Sauk and Skykomish are probably capable of being expanded into full and interesting articles, due to their rich history, hydrology, basin characteristics, etc. So a future split seems reasonably likely. Until then, it seems easier and simpler to keep them as sections. I have still not figured out whether to make top level sections for forks, as in the above articles, or use subsections under the larger "Course" section. I went with the latter method for the pages Hoh River and Sol Duc River. It makes some sense to describe the forks under the "Course" section, especially if the forks are rather minor compared to the main river. But since I can never remember how to pipe-link to subsections I am tending toward top-level sections for forks. Finally there are cases where a river is almost entirely made of forks with very little main stem. For example the Hoquiam River, whose three main forks are joined by other fork-like tributaries like the Little Hoquiam River and the North Fork Little Hoquiam River. None of these forks seem a likely candidate for expansion to the point where it makes sense to split them off into separate articles. Also, since there is almost no main stem Hoquiam River, and the river is not particularly large or notable, it didn't make much sense to create sections and/or subsections for each. Instead I just describe the whole lot under the "Course" section. I did the same thing with the Satsop River, which has a small main stem and long forks. Perhaps that page should have fork sections though. Some other examples of using sections: The Cascade River (Washington) page uses sections for the forks and a section called "Cascade River Proper". I'm not sure about this use of the word "proper" though -- I think I prefer "mainstem", as on the Newaukum River page. (for an example of going overboard with fork sections (my fault), see Sultan River--I oughta fix that ugliness!)

Anyway, those are some of my thoughts on the topic. I'm not sure about the idea that river length alone is a good indicator of notability, as you just posted while I wrote this up, Shannon. Short streams may be quite notable, but just the same, long ones may not be so much. The Satsop River forks are well over 20 miles long, but run close together through similar landscapes with similar histories and so on. I'm not sure there's much to say about one that wouldn't apply to the others as well, except basic course info. I looked into it a bit but was unable to find much of note that distinguished the Satsop's forks, other than plain geography.

As for "There is a belief on Wikipedia that a fork of a river is the same thing as the mainstem, and not simply a tributary", I'm not sure how widespread that belief is. There was that thread about the Eel River, but I think that editor was arguing against the name South Fork Eel River, saying it should be South Fork of the Eel River. He knew it was a river of its own, I think, but thought it should of "...of the..." in the name (he later agreed with dropping "of the" though). I suspect many fork articles don't exist because they are either described on the main river page or because no one has bother to get around to writing up a page yet. The forks of the Merced River are mentioned on the main page (but only in passing--I agree someone should write up something about the forks). The Eel River forks are described (briefly) in sections on that main page, which seems acceptable until someone writes up something with more detail about them. The Trinity River (California) page doesn't even mention a North Fork for some reason. Are the forks of the Kaweah River significant enough to warrant full articles? Looking at that page I am confused by the comment, "The river begins as the Middle Fork"... umm, huh? Anyway, I think we river-editors have our work cut out for us, to say the least! Even mainstem river articles are often in much need of work, like the very sad little Clearwater River (Queets River) page. My point, in case it got lost in my rambling, is that I'd prefer information about river forks to be put in sections of the main river's page as long as the fork info is short and would be a mere stub on its own. When there is a good amount of content about a fork, then I'd be happy seeing it split off into a new page. (just my opinion, ymmv!)

An example river that has always impressed me for the way it deals with forks is the Potomac River and related articles. There are sections not only for the South Branch Potomac River but also subsections for the North Fork South Branch Potomac River and South Fork South Branch Potomac River. There's even a large template about the river system: Template:Potomac River System, zounds.

A different but related issue comes up with rivers whose names change along their course, whether at fork confluences or at random points along the mainstem. A classical example of this is the poor Quillayute River, whose page is rather pathetic for the largest river of the northern Olympic Peninsula. The Quillayute gets shafted because its name changes at a confluence just a few miles above the Quillayute's mouth, after which we have the major Bogachiel River and Sol Duc Rivers. To make it worse the Bogachiel's tributaries include the large North Fork Bogachiel River and the Calawah River, and the Calawah River has two important fork rivers, the North and South Fork Calawah, in addition to yet another large river, the Sitkum River, which doesn't even have a page yet. Then there is the Sol Duc and North Fork Sol Duc rivers, and the Dickey River, which also has no page yet. This large river system is all part of the Quillayute River, and the whole is often referred to as the Quillayute watershed. I know it makes sense to have separate pages on such large rivers as the Bogachiel, Sol Duc, and so on, but that poor Quillayute River page--just a stub, and tagged with "no references". It doesn't seem right. Perhaps it should have sections on each of its major tributaries with brief descriptions and "main article" links? Anyway, this final issue is only tangential to the question of river forks and Wikipedia pages, so I will stop rambling on now. Pfly (talk) 05:54, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

A comment: I might have made a mistake for the North Fork Trinity River - it may actually be the north fork of some other river. Anyway, now after doing some research, I think one of the major reasons "fork" articles aren't present on Wikipedia is that there is simply no information about them to be found in published works or websites. A simple guess is that most people , not just Wikipedians, distinguish rivers with different names better than if they share a name, with an addition such as "North Fork". Internet resources rapidly thin out as you jump from well-known rivers to lesser known rivers to almost entirely obscure rivers such as the Pend Oreille River, and I am probably one out of perhaps half a percent of Californians who even know it exists. (My point is, the trouble worsens when it comes to the forks of a river.) I agree, some rivers certainly aren't worth an article - such as the Upper North Fork of the Middle Fork of the Tule River (and the Tule River page is a lot worse off than the Quillayute River). But then again, did you look at Balch Creek - it's an FA, and it's three and a half miles long. (I'm trying to do such a thing with two Orange County creeks less than 5 miles long.) I guess my original mad plan to post on this page was because I discovered the South Fork Trinity River didn't have an article (at the time). I'd never imagined I could write a USA river article for any stream that drains over 200 square miles. That has a basin of 980 square miles. So there are many fork articles out there, undiscovered, that may represent drainage basins far larger than that of the South Fork Trinity. Be on the lookout. Shannon1 ^talk ^contribs 00:15, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

There is a North Fork Trinity River, it's just very small, it joins the Trinity at Helena, it has a trib called the East Fork North Fork Trinity River. For that matter there is also an East Fork which flows into Trinity Lake. For the more general discussion I agree that Forks should be treated like any other tributary, that doesn't necessarily mean they should get they're own articles, I think really minor tributaries can just be included with the main river. The South Fork Trinity River is definitely a major river in its own right, but yes, smaller Forks and tributaries may not have enough material out there to really support an article. Also I wouldn't take a river missing an article as any sort of judgment call, it just means that no one has gotten to it yet - go outside the U.S. and I've run across 500+ mile long rivers without articles. Kmusser (talk) 13:15, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) While we're at it, here's a few river forks and the like that seem notable but don't have pages. I'm not sure whether these are all long, important, etc, just a quick list, starting with California. The Tuolumne River has North, Middle, and South forks. The Calaveras River does not even mention the North Fork and South Fork Calaveras Rivers. Also no mention of the forks and branches of the Mokelumne River, which if I'm not mistaken include the North Mokelumne River, South Mokelumne, Little, and the North Fork Mokelumne, Middle Fork, and South Fork, whew! No pages for the North, Middle, or South Fork American River. The Feather River, there is a North Fork Feather River page, but no Middle or South Fork pages. Moving north and east, the Owyhee River has very little on the large South, Middle, and North Fork Owyhee, nor the Little Owyhee River (the main tributary). At least some of these are, I think, wild and scenic and otherwise notable. There's no pages for the North, Middle, and South Powder River (Montana), the North, South, and Little Tongue River (Montana). The North, Middle, and South Fork Flathead Rivers have no pages, and all are long and notable (some wild and scenic, a major dam, etc). The Jocko River, another Flathead tributary, is also lacking a page. There's a Middle Fork Salmon River page, but none for the long North Fork or South Fork Salmon River (Idaho). Same for the Clearwater River (Idaho) forks--the North Fork Clearwater has a mean discharge of 5,600 cfs--that's a lot!

Then there's the North Loup River, Middle Loup River, and South Loup River in Nebraska. Also in Nebraska there is no page for the Big Nemaha River, a river about 100 miles long (there is, oddly, a Nemaha River basin page).

And Kmusser is right--there are plenty of huge and notable rivers outside the US with no pages. Even nearby Canada is lacking pages for some very large rivers.

And yes, Balch Creek is excellent. Almost everything User:Finetooth touches ends up excellent (recently the Rogue River (Oregon) page). Oregon river pages are generally good, and many are very good. Like Columbia Slough, Johnson Creek (Willamette River), and Fanno Creek--all feature class and all small streams. I think it is easier to achieve FA status with a small stream a single editor or small team creates from scratch. Larger rivers that already have a lot of content and many interested editors are harder to get to FA level. One of these days I'm going to nominate the Columbia River for FA. It might be good enough--a rare example of a large number of editors working together without conflict! Pfly (talk) 16:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds interesting... especially go look on List of rivers of China, and Kyzyl-Khem - the latter seems to be a really large river I've seen a few times on other pages, but never seen the article. Shannon1 ^talk ^contribs 20:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Aw, shucks! I rarely invent anything, but I learn by imitation. I learned how to do creek articles by closely examining the work of User:Ruhrfisch, particularly Larrys Creek and White Deer Hole Creek, both FAs, before working on Johnson Creek (Willamette River) and then many others. Among other things, Ruhrfisch makes excellent maps, and I spent quite a lot of time learning how to more-or-less imitate his success. Ruhrfisch and User:Kmusser did helpful critiques of my trial-run Johnson Creek watershed maps, and partly because of their good advice, the latest version is much better than the early versions. Aside from getting lots of help from other editors, it helps to live close enough to a creek or river to get the photos an article needs. I can't tell what photos might be needed until an article is nearly comprehensive; research always turns up surprises, and some surprises need to be illustrated. Rogue River (Oregon) is not yet ready for a run at GA, in my opinion, partly because some of its images are not wonderful and the text almost demands, for example, a good image of a mail boat. As for forks, it seems to me the decision about whether one deserves its own article depends almost entirely on notability. If enough reliable sources can be found about a fork (or anything else), it's not hard to create an article that's bigger than a stub. I was able to do Balch Creek mainly because the City of Portland has an enormous database of reliable stream information that is easy to tap into on-line. On the other hand, small streams far out in the boonies may be notable. Little Blitzen River, for example, which is hardly world-famous, was good for a DYK and was fun to do. It's a 12.5-mile (20.1 km) tributary of the Donner und Blitzen River, which has a south fork that is probably (but not necessarily) too obscure for a separate article. I'd love to see the Columbia River get up to FA; its enormous notability makes any particular version a hard sell with its diverse group of editors; I'm right behind ya, though, Pfly. Finetooth (talk) 20:42, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

It's too hard to get a FA with most streams or even rivers, though, because the amount of promotional (and useless) Web sites is vastly disproportionate the the amount of sites that are actually usable, and even some of those sites aren't quite fit to be cited on Wikipedia (eg Google Maps). Like what Finetooth said for streams and rivers of Portland, I actually got lucky with rivers in Orange County because my county has a watershed management division. It's not that nice for most places, though. Shannon1 ^talk ^contribs 22:45, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Besides, bringing up imitation, for my first GA, Aliso Creek (Orange County) I almost entirely (attempted to, at least) imitated the style and structure of Plunketts Creek (Loyalsock Creek), an FA, and the tributaries section of that was inspired from List of tributaries of Larrys Creek. Shannon1 ^talk ^contribs 22:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words. Two points - one reason I worked on the river navbox {{Susquehanna River System}} was to identify streams which have a watershed (drainage basin) larger than 40 square miles (100 sq km) but do not yet have an article. Second, a major Florida river, the St. Johns River, is almost ready for FAC (and is a whopping 301 miles (484 km) long!). Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 23:38, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I just looked at St. Johns River; it is truly an awesome page. Shannon1 ^talk ^SIGN! 00:56, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

It certainly is. Finetooth (talk) 03:05, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Confused with definite article...

Aliso Creek (Orange County)

Hello, could anyone give an opinion on if this article is at least remotely ready for WP:FAC? I've rewritten about of it recently; some of the older sections are unrevised. I need an opinion on if any more of this article has to be entirely rewritten. Shannon1 ^talk ^contribs 05:28, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll give it a read before bed. Awickert (talk) 04:13, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

File:Aliso Creek Muirlands.jpg needs details as to who the copyright holder is and how they have released it. --NE2 04:22, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

~~I ran into that problem with San Juan Creek - I'll remove it soon. Shannon1 ^talk ^contribs 22:39, 15 August 2009 (UTC)~~

It is almost ready; the prose is excellent and the sourcing is very good. Just make sure that each paragraph has at least once source, and something I noticed was that there was no source for the streamflow gages. Also double-check the status of the images, as is noted above. A map would be nice as well, if that is possible. I'm willing to do spelling/grammar checking for you, and also some more thorough work if needed, as this is an area of my editing on Wiki in which I am actually technically competent! But don't wait for my checks if that is all you want to put it through to FAC: the writing looks so good I don't think it will need much. Awickert (talk) 04:24, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually I think the references need to be checked; some of them are lacking some stuff and there may be a repeat or two. There's already a map... I am going to put a route map diagram soon, the old one was insufficient. Thanks a lot for giving an opinion on the status of this article; I didn't think it was ready. Shannon1 ^talk ^contribs 22:39, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I would be glad to peer review it again - have you thought of nominating it for anohter PR? If not, let me know and I can take a look at it again too. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 23:40, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I've nominated if for FAC a little while ago... Shannon1 ^talk ^SIGN! 00:55, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I somehow missed the map, but a better one would be nice; I can assemble one via GIS if you give me the coords and a week to get back to the office. Also, the USGS has freely-available areal photography. Awickert (talk) 03:48, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes; the previous two maps were both really insufficient; the current one doesn't show all the tributaries (User:Kmusser makes better maps for large rivers). I'd love for the article to have a more detailed map. The coordinates for the creek's mouth (according to the GNIS, at least) is 33.3038°N 117.4590°W (DMS) ~~As GNIS seems to have confused it with Las Pulgas Creek, the coords are, according to Google Earth, 33.3040°N 117.4509°W / 33.3040; -117.4509~~. Shannon ^talk ^SIGN! 18:35, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, poke me if I don't do it; I'm very bad about keeping things in my memory. Awickert (talk) 00:32, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Wait, so you can make a map like this for the article? I wanted to make one a long while ago but couldn't. It would be a great help it you could. Shannon ^talk ^SIGN! 16:44, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Renaming

List of rivers of France : done (with Markussep's help). Foo River -> Foo (river)
Problems:
~~#I added 3 items in User:Markussep/rivers#unable to move to X or X (river): Po River Oust (river) (should be Oust) and Meurthe River. Markussep, let me know if i did wrong with using your page~~

~~Aa River (France): I don't know what to do, we have Aa (river) which redrirects to Aa River, a disambig page~~
~~Lys River... unable to move. The river shloud be at Leie, I think already on Markussep's list~~
~~Bar River... we have already Bar (river); should this one be renamed as bar (hydrology)? I don't know~~ all done

I cowardly let you find the solutions; I have no easy acces to the internet during my vacations :-)

Alvar☮ ☎ 00:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

One thing we missed in our discussion of river names was what to do if there are 2 rivers with the same name. German practice is to disambiguate using the name of the river which the river is a tributary of e.g. Vils (Danube) and Vils (Naab). Maybe we should add this to the convention? --Bermicourt (talk) 07:24, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Bermicourt: there is already a section about that disambiguating problem here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers#Multiple rivers with the same name. Alvaro: no problem modifying my "private" list of impossible moves, but I'll move my list here below, and include my suggested names. I moved Aa River (France) to Aa (France), because there are several rivers named Aa. BTW you missed some smaller rivers that aren't in the list, see Category:Rivers of France and its subcats. Markussep ^Talk 08:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I realised (too late !) that the cat. was more complete than the list. I will continue the job when back. Alvar☮ ☎ 13:43, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Markussep - yes that seems to cover it and most other eventualities! --Bermicourt (talk) 17:23, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Countries covered so far

Albania
Austria
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Croatia
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Italy
Luxembourg
Montenegro
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Switzerland

To be moved

Moves that need admin intervention:

- Update, I moved all except Leie River (please pick a destination, I won't prejudge which) and Noord River which looks like some sort of merge is called for. Let me know if I screwed anything up, just wanted to help. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 04:03, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Noord River and Noord (river) are about the same river. Since the former has the longest history, I suggest moving the history of Noord River to Noord (river). For Leie/Lys, I pick Leie. Markussep ^Talk 07:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Leie +1; there is no official way to make a choice between Leie or Lys (river): most of its course is in France => Lys (river) but its mouth is in the Flemish Region => Leie. But, when possible, I prefer to avoid brackets in titles; so... Leie is my choice, too. Alvar☮ ☎ 14:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Leie it is, I moved Noord and merged the histories, and I did the others above. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 17:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

There is also the Lys (Dora Baltea) in Aosta Valley. Since Lys River redirects to Leie, I’ve added a hatnote. Ian Spackman (talk) 10:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Bar (river) problem

(outdent) I am selfishly attached to Bar (river). Hydrology is generally separate from sediment; the only obvious disambigs to me are "Bar (landform)", "Bar (sedimentology)", and "Bar (geomorphology)"; unfortunately, all of these have non-river uses as well, and I do plan on expanding this article as there is quite a bit to say that is particular to rivers. So maybe the French river could be "Bar (river, France), and a "seealso" could be added to the top of Bar (river)? Awickert (talk) 04:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think "river" is a good disambiguator for your article, because that suggests that the bar is a (type of) river, when it's a phenomenon of rivers. I'd prefer "Bar (landform)" or maybe "River bar". But well, the river can also move to "Bar (France)" or better "Bar (Meuse)" IMO. Markussep ^Talk 07:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Markussep. Bar (river) for the geographical feature is confusing and not even strictly correct because they can occur in the sea parallel to a coast or across a harbour mouth. So it would be better to use "Bar (landform)", "Bar (geography)" or "Bar (topography)" as in the following examples: Channel (geography), Highland (geography), Summit (topography), Burn (topography), Spit (landform). Also we aren't supposed to 'own' articles in Wikipedia. --Bermicourt (talk) 13:01, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

@Bermicourt; I think the use of selfishly was a kind of joke ;D Alvar☮ ☎ 13:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC). I wasn't being overly serious either! --Bermicourt (talk) 20:19, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Bar (river) is not a good choice. Even if we didn't ever use (river) for rivers, some other language Wikipedia do. Let's avoid as much confusion as we can. Rmhermen (talk) 13:47, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Markussep too. I think that title like "Foo River", "River Foo" and "Foo (river)" indicates that the article is talking about a named river. But if it's really impossible to move Bar (river), then Bar (Meuse) is the best solution, but my second choice after Bar (river). Alvar☮ ☎ 13:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Since we have a convenient article on River morphology, how about "Bar (river morphology)" to title the article about sand and gravel buildup? Franamax (talk) 20:32, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Huh, I replied earler, but it must not have saved. "Bar (river morphology)" sounds great; I will move it and change the links to it. Awickert (talk) 15:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, everything is cleared out and the links have been changed, and I've requested a speedy deletion of the Bar (river) redirect to make way for the move. Awickert (talk) 16:21, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Gone. Vsmith (talk) 17:14, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

And done the move. Markussep ^Talk 19:03, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:River morphology

This discussion reminded me that I was creating Template:River morphology a while ago. I just fixed it up and implemented it. Any contributions that you (plural) might have would be appreciated, Awickert (talk) 19:57, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm no expert on river morphology, but shouldn't Ox bow lake be added to the template? --Bermicourt (talk) 19:12, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and thank you; that is the best kind of help, as there are probably other terms I forgot while creating the template. Just added it. Awickert (talk) 14:39, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

River naming convention

I have come across a minor but irritating issue with the naming of German rivers. The default setting is fine: "XXXX". However, if disambiguation is required, the convention forces a choice between British usage, "River XXXX", and US usage, "XXXX River". In practice, I have found that there appears to be an unwritten convention for German rivers to move them to the US version, breaking the normal Wiki rule. It could be argued that, since the EU uses British English, the British convention should be followed for EU countries. However this need not be an issue if we allow "XXXX (river)" which is a) neutral, b) conforms to German practice and c) conveys correctly that the most common usages is to call German rivers by their name only ("XXXX"). For small rivers, we could also permit 'river' to be the name of the river system it is part of.

(BTW I have a theory that the reason for the difference in usage may have arisen because US naming is more recent and so rivers are named after something else e.g. an Indian tribe, state, saint or colour e.g. the Big Black River, the Tennessee River, the Red River, the Mississippi River, the St. John's River. So the name is an adjective or pseudo-adjective and rightly comes first. Whereas in older countries, the river has an ancient name and is therefore a noun in its own right: River Thames, River Avon. Of course there will always be exceptions...!)

Back to the subject: can we please allow "XXXX (river)" at least for German rivers! Bermicourt (talk) 19:26, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with this proposal (and think I don't fully understand it): Our standard is (and has been for some years): "River articles may be named "X", "X River", or "River X", depending on location and most common usage. "X river" and "X (river)" are not recommended. This does not say what has to be used in general, whether plain "X" or "X River" (e.g. rivers of Germany are currently mostly "River"-less). "River X" is used for rivers in the UK and Ireland." Articles are not titled to protray the subject in its native language, our standard is "Use English" and "Common name". Rmhermen (talk) 20:41, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I get Bermicourt's problem, our project rivers standard is advocating article titles that are contrary to common usage in Germany. I checked Geonet and it confirms that the German standard for rivers is naming them X, which as Bermicourt said is fine unless you have to disambiguate. So we get for instance Lippe which is a district, presumable the primary usage, so named as it should be (alternatively it could be a disambiguation page), and Lippe River for the river which isn't horrible, except that nobody calls it Lippe River, that's following neither "Use English" or "Common Name" - both of which say the article about the river should also be at Lippe. Either we use X River anyway, on the downside it implies that "River" is part of the name of the feature when it isn't, on the plus side it is clear what it is referring to and lets us maintain consistency. Alternatively allow X (river) in cases where it is indicating disambiguation, this preserves the "Common Name" wiki standard and avoids the X River vs. River X debate. I'm not sure what the solution should be, I think I'd be ok either way, with a mild preference for changing our standard.Kmusser (talk) 18:31, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps an example would help the Isar, Iller, Lech and Inn are four tributaries of the Danube. Of these, the first three are problem free- but the Inn (river) had to be disambiguated. The problem is how. While, referring to the River Inn is just about credible the Inn River is impossible. Both are affectations- the only way we could disambig- is by adding the rivers region (Lets not start that one it passes through 3 countries) or by naming the type of object, so: Inn (hotel) and Inn (river). --ClemRutter (talk) 23:17, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I've had the same thought as Bermicourt (the OP) about X River as a colonial style; in other countries, river-names are likely to be older than the local word for 'river'! But does River Thames have a capital R in British usage? —Tamfang (talk) 01:00, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

@Bermicourt: +1. We have the same problem with the rivers of France. The rivers are known as Foo, not Foo River or River Foo, cf. Seine^[1]. I find it odd to create Lay River instead of Lay (river), because its true name is just Lay. Alvar☮ ☎ 14:14, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

PS: interesting... River Saône and Saône River are used, but are redirects to Saône. Alvar☮ ☎ 14:35, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

[1]
Even in the UK, the Garonne and the Rhone are not known as River Garonne and River Rhone.

Ok, there seems to be a reasonable consensus, so can we amend the convention, at least for German rivers? --Bermicourt (talk) 07:07, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree, but I wouldn't limit it to Germany. Germany can be given as an example, but I think the same considerations apply to France, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia and Poland, to name a few. So what needs to be changed? Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers#Naming now says:

River articles may be named "X", "X River", or "River X", depending on location and most common usage. "X river" and "X (river)" are not recommended. This does not say what has to be used in general, whether plain "X" or "X River" (e.g. rivers of Germany are currently mostly "River"-less). "River X" is used for rivers in the UK and Ireland.

This could be changed into:

River articles may be named "X", "X River", or "River X", depending on location and most common usage. "River X" is used for rivers in the UK and Ireland. "X river" is not recommended. When common usage does not include the word "River", but disambiguation is required (e.g. the river Inn in central Europe), brackets should be used: Inn (river).

I haven't mentioned countries, maybe we should add something like "Country-specific exceptions to this rule should be discussed within that country's WikiProject." Further Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Disambiguation, I think only the example Jade River needs to be changed to Jade (river). Markussep ^Talk 08:04, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that sounds fine, avoiding being country-specific is good. Kmusser (talk) 12:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Looks nice. Alvar☮ ☎ 01:19, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Happy with that. Good solution. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:44, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone know why X (river) was deprecated? —Tamfang (talk) 01:00, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Polish river names

Use of Co-ordinates on river pages

Naming criteria: river basin?

Progression

Unnecessary disambiguation?

Correct ambiguity in naming section

The current guidelines under naming seem to be ambiguous, in that another editor has just cited them in order to revert some tidying I had just done, also citing them. Clearly we read them differently. The problem comes with how rivers with ambiguous names should be disamabiguated.

The second paragraph of the naming section states:

If different rivers with the same name exist, use bracket-disambiguation (e.g. Vils (Danube), Turiec River (Váh), Bistriţa River (Siret), Colorado River (Texas)).

which seems to me to be pretty unambiguous (and supports my original tidy-up). However the next sub-section goes on to say:

Always use parentheses for the disambiguator for U.S. and Australian rivers, not a comma. For example Indian River (Michigan) not Indian River, Michigan which is actually a town. (New Zealand and British rivers have used the River, place format. For example River Wye, Derbyshire.)

The first two sentences here are redundant (given the previous unambiguous statement) but (IMHO) harmless. The problem comes with the two bracketed sentences. I read these as a note imparting a cautionary tale on how easy it is to get it wrong. The other editor appears to read them as an acceptance of comma-based disambiguation for rivers in the UK.

I should point out that currently some UK rivers are disambiguated using brackets (for example River Avon (Warwickshire)) whilst others are disambiguated using commas (for example River Avon, Devon), which is ugly. In order to avoid this ugliness, we need the naming style for UK rivers to be unambiguous and definitive. I don't much mind if the definitive statement is for bracket based or comma based disambiguation, but chose bracket based because it seemed to be what this page preferred.

I propose therefore to remove the following text from the page, so as to remove the ambiguity:

(New Zealand and British rivers have used the River, place format. For example River Wye, Derbyshire.)

I invite other editor's comments on this change before I make it, with the aim of establishing a consensus one way or another. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 18:42, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I prefer to use the comma disambiguation as it is more in keeping with how UK places are disambiguated. --Harkey (talk) 19:30, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I also prefer to use the comma disambiguation. Admittedly, there is some ambiguity, but there is also selective quoting of paragraphs. When the second paragraph is considered in isolation the naming convention is bracket-disambiguation (e.g. Vils (Danube), Turiec River (Váh), Bistriţa River (Siret), Colorado River (Texas)). However the first line references Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) and the second paragraph states that "river articles may be named "X", "X River", or "River X", depending on location and most common usage. "River X" is used for rivers in the UK and Ireland. "X river" is not recommended. When common usage does not include the word "River", but disambiguation is required (e.g. the river Inn in central Europe), brackets should be used: Inn (river). Country-specific exceptions to this rule should be discussed within WikiProject Rivers and/or that country's WikiProject." There are three common methods of disambiguation in the UK: one is to use commas, e.g. River Avon, Devon, a second method is to ignore the "river" and just refer to e.g. the "Bristol Avon" and "Warwickshire Avon"; and the third is to use brackets, e.g. River Avon (Warwickshire). There is at least one river in the UK with the official name of Huntspill River, not "River Huntspill". I agree that some consistency within UK naming is required; and that can be best acheived by comma disambiguation.Pyrotec (talk) 19:57, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree consistency is needed, but am not convinced that "comma disambiguation ... is more in keeping with how UK places are disambiguated". I checked 3 sources: an Ordnance Survey atlas, the UK Rivers Network site and www.withnature.co.uk. All use bracket as the primary or sole means of disambiguation. I also don't follow why consistency "...can be best achieved by comma disambiguation." Why is it any better than comma disambiguation? We should be guided a) by authoritative sources and b) the need for clarity. The latter may suggest e.g. that placenames use commas and other geographical features use brackets. a) should be the overriding criterion though. What do the water authorities use? --Bermicourt (talk) 20:45, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I think one of your "comma dismbiguation"s should be "bracket disambiguation". I agree with you that a) and b) are valid criteria; I'm just that worried that we are getting criteria c) forced on us - the "unthinking PC approach". To answer your question, I did try and get an answer from the Enviroment Agency web site (putting in River Avon produced inconsitent use ] Warwickshire Avon and River Avon both appear. But if you go into "Region" then "River Avon" appears to select the local one). Contrary to what you found, I still use the OS National Atlas of Great Britain (1986 version) at 1:250,000 scale, it uses comma disambiguation for rivers (and county name), where necessary. I have newer UK road atlases, but none matches the index of that OS altas.Pyrotec (talk) 21:16, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I checked out your UK Rivers Network site - the link for list of rivers is either a direct pipe to the wikipedia article or attributed copy (depending on what is clicked). Sorry, but that's a circular argument. So, you can't use a link to or an attributed copy of a wikipedia article obtained from another site as an authoritative source for setting wikipedia policy. Pyrotec (talk) 21:27, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)(ec)I came to this page following the renaming & reversion of River Axe, Somerset and on checking Category:Rivers of Somerset I note the inconsistencies (NB Bristol Avon mentioned above is currently River Avon (Bristol). I would prefer standardisation on River Name, County as this is consistent with other geographical locations within the UK, but think WP:UKGEO participants should be invited to comment on this discussion. Once the dispute is resolved edits should be made to Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about rivers setting out the guidance - it currently strongly recommends River Name, County ie Multiple rivers with the same name
Due to the fact that there are many rivers in the UK with the same name (e.g. there are at least four rivers in England called River Avon), the following method of disambiguation is proposed:

The most important river can stay at the undisambiguated title, lesser known ones add a qualifier.
In practice, most rivers needing disambiguation have been identified by the smallest appropriate political entity. So River Derwent becomes River Derwent, Yorkshire : River Derwent, Derbyshire : River Derwent, North East England & River Derwent, Cumbria.
Most British rivers have used the River, place format for disambiguation rather than the River (parenthesis) format.

(Declaration of bias - I did help to write those guidelines).— Rod ^talk 21:30, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I'd go as far as rewriting the guidelines to state that UK river articles should use the comma disambiguation and not bracket disambiguation, in line with UK places. Jeni ^(talk) 21:32, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Environment Agency is using commas here.--Harkey (talk) 21:36, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

A further complication is that there are examples where disambiguation by county does not work, e.g. River Yeo, of which there are several examples in Devon, including 2 tributaries of the same river. Disambiguation by a smaller political entity does not work well, because rivers, unlike villages, have the untidy habit of crossing political boundaries. I chose a prominent place-name on the river, to disambiguate, and in that case, I think brackets work better because a comma indicates that it is in the disambiguating place (at least to me, possibly because we use commas for settlements), which seems inappropriate. If we do that, I would prefer brackets in all cases for consistency. It's also what we do for mountains per Wikipedia:WikiProject Mountains#Naming conventions. Natural features are different from settlements.Mhockey (talk) 23:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I've obviously stirred up a bit of a worms nest here. I didn't, until I read the above, realise that WP:RIVER and WP:UKGEO (actually Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about rivers) had different (and arguably conflicting) guidelines on how to name UK rivers.

My preference is, on balance, for bracket disambiguation, because:

It is consistent with the rules for the rest of the world
It is consistent irrespective of whether the disambiguator is a political unit, or a parent river, or something ad-hoc where neither of these two works
It is consistent with Wikipedia's general case dab rules
I don't buy the 'is more in keeping with standard UK usage' argument. Outside Wikipedia and book indices, the comma disambiguation style is rarely used in the UK. I believe it originally derives from US Postal Service practice for city names, then became part of common US English parlence, and then became mixed up with WP disambiguators (which were originally intended to be always by bracket). Even then and in their native US, comma disambiguators are usually restricted to cities and other settlements.

On the other hand, if there is a consensus to go for comma disambiguation, I've no desire to argue strongly against this. English is, after all, a continuously evolving language, and there is no doubt that WP is now one of the influences driving that evolution. But please lets settle on a single definitive rule, so we can get rid of the sillyness where (eg) different UK River Avons are disambiguated differently. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 11:49, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but when has wikipedia "bean counting" been more important than National usage, even when that is inconsistent both within a nation and between nations? What right does chris_j_wood to have impose changes to National naming conventions - well the answer is: "It is consistent with the rules for the rest of the world; It is consistent irrespective of whether the disambiguator is a political unit, or a parent river, or something ad-hoc where neither of these two works; It is consistent with Wikipedia's general case dab rules; I don't buy the 'is more in keeping with standard UK usage' argument. Outside Wikipedia and book indices, the comma disambiguation style is rarely used in the UK. I believe it originally derives from US Postal Service practice for city names, then became part of common US English parlence, and then became mixed up with WP disambiguators (which were originally intended to be always by bracket). Even then and in their native US, comma disambiguators are usually restricted to cities and other settlements."

Much of that arguement is a nonsense. Rivers are inconsistently named in the UK and there is a lack of naming consistency between countries, e.g. Garonne (without the "river"), River X and X River, (even river X) (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rivers#naming conventions). A 'Naming Dictate' for the convenience for "wikipedia rules" becomes merely an arguement for dumbing down to the lowest common level. Wikipedia is intended to be an encyclopedia, i.e. a store of knowledge, it is not a personal platform for an editor to rename the world rivers. The Rivers Avon, are fairly easy to handle, use their proper name with a County disambiguation (comma or bracket - and I prefer comma). That system fails with the Rivers Yeo (see River Yeo); and so what? "Bean counting" is merely a tool to make life easy for those who count beans; and it is only them that insist on the importance of rules. Traditionally in the UK if there were two rivers in the same place with the same they were disambiged with a name, such as the Black Cart and the White Cart (River Cart for the bean counters), the Yeo ended up with Blind Yeo and place-name Yeo such as Mark Yeo. These names date back many centuries and have nothing whatsoever to do with the US Postal system - the US had probably not be yet discovered by the European nations when these were named. Pyrotec (talk) 13:52, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Pyrotec, you seem to have a very fiery (if the name fits?) way of apparently agreeing with me. The only bit of your post that I recognise as being at all relevant to what I proposed was the bit where you talk about renaming the River Avon articles, which as far as I can see is entirely in line with my last para above (although on balance I prefer bracket disambiguation for the reasons I've given).

I'm afraid I don't understand the relevance of the Black and White Carts, or Blind Yeo, to this discussion. Those rivers have unambiguous real-world names without either commas or brackets in them, so they neither need disambiguation nor tell us much about what to do where disambiguation is needed. My suggestion would not affect those rivers, and indeed if you check the history of the River Cart article you will find that I made a (admittedly quite small) contribution to it back in 2007 without causing any radical rename.

And I havn't imposed any kind of national naming convention. I've merely initiated a discussion on whether we should standardise on disambiguation style in cases where disambiguation is needed. And I'm not a bean counter, whatever one of those is. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 15:07, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

OK as we are clarifying points. I explain on my userpage that Pyrotec comes from the Greek word for heat, which was chosen to represent my interests, so your link to fiery is consistent with my use of it. This discussion is being held after you started wholesale renaming of river articles and were asked to stop; or as you stated above "the current guidelines under naming seem to be ambiguous, in that another editor has just cited them in order to revert some tidying I had just done, also citing them. Clearly we read them differently. The problem comes with how rivers with ambiguous names should be disamabiguated.".

We are in agrement that the "River Avon" problem can be solved by either the use of e.g. "River Avon, Devon" or "River Avon (Devon)", where the county name is used as a means of disambiguation; but we have opposing preferences, brackets or commas. However, it has been correctly pointed out by Mhockey, who shares your preference for the use of brackets, that County name does not work in all cases in the UK as a means of disambiguating the River Yeo. What I don't agree with, is your contention that there should be a worldwide naming system for rivers (and that wikipedia be employed as an influence driving that evolution). There is nothing wrong with different nations having conflicting naming conventions for rivers. Wikipedia are prepared to accept British-English and American-English spelling and grammar as equally valid, so why are different river naming conventions so unacceptable to you. A "bean counter" is a term used to describe, in particular, management accounts, who generally appear to have a disproportionate (the rest is probably incompatible with resolving this discussion). Pyrotec (talk) 16:27, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

That seems a pretty summation so far. What is not clearly demonstrated though is that a comma-convention for identifying rivers is actually an established convention in the UK. If there were a clearly established convention, this discussion would be moot. We have some expressions of personal preferences and some mixed indications of usage with other reliable sources, but those are not strong bases upon which to define a guideline. older ≠ wiser 17:10, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, these are a List_of_rivers_of_England, List of rivers of Scotland and List of rivers of Wales; very few appear to have disambiguation, but were there is, it is inconsistent. If you take at look at User:Chris j wood, in particular the user contributions for 30 August 2009, you will see which rivers were renamed before this discussion took place.Pyrotec (talk) 17:37, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

That is exactly where I started (noticing the inconsistencies in List_of_rivers_of_England. I don't apologise for trying to resolve obvious inconsistencies, when I find them. In the spirit of being bold (WP:BOLD) I started to resolve this inconsistency. Looking at WP:RIVER that seemed to indicate the preferred option was bracket disambiguation, so I jumped that way. As soon as I realised what I was doing was contentious, and that there other readings/guidelines in play, I stopped and intiated this discussion to resolve the ambiguity. On reflection afterwards in the ensuing debate, I decided I preferred bracket disambiguation anyway, but that is neither here nor there. I've no idea why people are rattling on about different nations having different disambiguation standards and bean-counting; it has absolutely no relevance to anything I did. I can only think they are mixing me up with something somebody else did. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 11:18, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Since nobody else has, I have let the WP:UKGEO participants know about this discussion. Jeni ^(talk) 23:44, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

A slightly different issue, the guidance at present says to name all rivers River X. However, in Wales, the more common form is now Afon X (except that there isn't an X in Welsh!) in the case of some rivers, particularly in Gwynedd. This really needs building into the guidelines, as, in the past, this guideline has been used to justify Anglicisation of the names, regardless of contemporary use. Skinsmoke (talk) 00:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Reprise

This discussion has got convoluted and rather heated, and seems to be going nowhere fast. I apologise if I have contributed to that. In the spirit of moving forward, it seems to me that there are three possible outcomes. First let me be clear that I'm talking here about UK rivers that have no unambiguous real world name; I'm not talking about renaming anything that doesn't already have either a comma or a bracket in its article name; the Black and White Carts have nothing to fear. The choices are:

Standardise the guidelines to recomend the comma-disambiguated form; over time rename all existing bracket-disambiguated UK river articles to the comma-disambiguated form
Standardise the guidelines to recomend the bracket-disambiguated form; over time rename all existing comma-disambiguated UK river articles to the bracket-disambiguated form
Leave the guidelines in their current form; rename nothing; leave the choice of disambiguation form for new articles to individual authors

What are your choices? -- chris_j_wood (talk) 11:34, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Bracket-disambiguation - for reasons stated above -- chris_j_wood (talk) 11:34, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Comma-disambiguation - in line with UK places. Jeni ^(talk) 19:47, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Comma-disambiguation - in line with UK places.— Rod ^talk 20:19, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Bracket-disambiguation - but it's a mild preference, if there is a clear UK usage outside of wikipedia I'd go with that, I went hunting for one but got mixed results. The Ordnance Survey which would be the obvious source to take a lead from is inconsistent. As noted above the Environment Agency uses commas , but I couldn't find anyone else other than wiki that does; , , , all use brackets.
Bracket-disambiguation - in line with rivers elsewhere and other UK natural features, which I see as following at least the spirit of WP:DAB#Naming the specific topic articles more closely, on this rationale:

If there is a more complete name which can be used to disambiguate, we should use that. So "place-name, county" is a common way of referring to place names in ordinary English usage (think "Newport, Isle of Wight", "Whitchurch, Cheshire").
Otherwise a disambiguating word or phrase can be added in parentheses.

So in ordinary English usage, we might say "Cambridge, Gloucestershire" when we need to be clear which place we mean, but it is less natural to say "River Cam, Gloucestershire" in an ordinary English sentence (try it!). We would probably say "the River Cam in Gloucestershire" or "the Gloucestershire Cam". So Cambridge, Gloucestershire is a "natural" disambiguation, whereas River Cam, Gloucestershire seems less natural. So I think the rationale which applies to places does not apply to rivers. Mhockey (talk) 20:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

But what about "Cam (river), Gloucestershire"? —Tamfang (talk) 06:21, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The river's name is River Cam, so that needs to be in the article title. Mhockey (talk) 14:42, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Bracket-disambiguation for the reasons given by both Chris j wood and Mhockey -- unless of course there is some evidence of a clear UK preference for commas with rivers outside of wikipedia and derivatives. older ≠ wiser 23:04, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Comma-disambiguation - in line with UK places.--Harkey (talk) 10:28, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Comma-disambiguation - in line with UK places and:

Standardise the guidelines to recommend the comma-disambiguated form; over time rename all existing bracket-disambiguated UK river articles to the comma-disambiguated form.Ahjet (talk) 10:44, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Comma-disambiguation - in line with UK places. Pyrotec (talk) 22:32, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Comma-disambiguation - in line with UK place. Skinsmoke (talk) 00:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Comma-disambiguation - in line with UK place. -- Dr Greg talk 01:09, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

If we were deciding an international standard with a blank sheet of paper, the answer might be different, but geographical comma disambiguation is already well established in the UK (for things other than rivers) and I can't see any good reason why there should be an exception for UK rivers. (What happens outside Wikipedia isn't really relevant, I'm arguing for consistency between Wikipedia UK articles. That seems more important than consistency between Wikipedia river articles in different countries. We can't have both.) -- Dr Greg talk 23:15, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

~~'Bracket-disambiguation~~' I have been on a wikibreak, so come late to this discussion. I have been visiting the Ardèche (river), the Hérault (river) the Somme (river)- and because so many French departement are named after a river- this form of disambiguation is needed. With the exception of the Seine in Paris, I don't know one French river that uses the prefix or suffix 'River'.--ClemRutter (talk) 10:53, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
- This discussion is about disambiguating rivers with the same name, not using (river). Jeni ^(talk) 12:07, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

That changes my opinion. --ClemRutter (talk) 11:30, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Bracket-disambiguation as per reasons given by Chris j wood, Mhockey and Bkonrad. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:02, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Comma-disambiguation - for UK rivers as per UK locations. Keith D (talk) 21:56, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Bracket-disambiguation. Disambiguation has to be global, simply because it is often necessary to dab between with the same name in different countries. Also I think the argument that disambiguation for rivers (a geographical feature) needs to kept in line with that for cities and towns (geopolitical features) is a poor one. A better analogy would be with mountains and hills, or islands, all of which are normally bracket disambiguated in the UK. -- Starbois (talk) 10:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Brackets, being our standard way of saying that the text inside the brackets is not part of the actual name of the place. --NE2 11:08, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You are defining "our" as "the American way" there. Jeni ^(talk) 11:10, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually I'm defining "our" as "the Wikipedian way". --NE2 13:58, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
NE2 is absolutely correct. The only general-purpose disambiguation method Wikipedia uses is with brackets. Whilst the use of a comma is sometimes called a disambiguation method (even in policies), in reality is a real-world addressing convention. Places have addresses, so its use is not inappropriate for them. Rivers do not have addresses, so it is inappropriate for them. -- Starbois (talk) 14:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

This is what NE2's "our way" actually states:

For disambiguating specific topic pages by using an unambiguous article title, several options are available:
1. When there is another term (such as Pocket billiards instead of Pool) or more complete name (such as Delta rocket instead of Delta) that is equally clear and unambiguous, that should be used. 2. A disambiguating word or phrase can be added in parentheses. The word or phrase in parentheses should be: * the generic class (avoiding proper nouns, as much as possible) that includes the topic, as in Mercury (element), Seal (mammal); or * the subject or context to which the topic applies, as in Union (set theory), Inflation (economics). 3. Rarely, an adjective describing the topic can be used, but it is usually better to rephrase such a title to avoid parentheses.
4. With place-names, if the disambiguating term is a higher-level administrative division, it is often separated using a comma instead of parentheses, as in Windsor, Berkshire. See Naming conventions (geographic names).

It is obvious that both brakets and comma are acceptable means of acheiving this objective. Pyrotec (talk) 21:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Only "if the disambiguating term is a higher-level administrative division". Rivers are not administrative divisions. --NE2 23:46, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Nobody is suggesting we use rivers as disambiguating terms. -- Dr Greg talk 03:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

We actually do sometimes: River Blackwater (River Loddon). But that's irrelevant; my point is that a river is not an administrative division, so a river doesn't have a "higher-level administrative division". The point of putting something in parentheses is to indicate that it's not part of the name, as opposed to "city, country", where, while the common name may be "city", "city, country" is a valid alternate name. --NE2 04:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Come off it NE2. The example given is "Windsor, Berkshire"; where Berkshire is a county and a higher administrative divison. Another Windsor is "Windsor, Ontario", so its the place after the comma that is the "higher-level administrative division". There is no difference between those examples and, for example, "River Avon, Dorset" and River Avon, Hampshire". In both cases Dorset and Hampshire are counties and higher administrative divisions. Pyrotec (talk) 19:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Both of those Windsors are administrative divisions, and the counties and provinces are higher-level. But rivers are not administrative divisions, so speaking of a higher-level administrative division is meaningless. --NE2 22:58, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

List of crossings of the Saint Lawrence River

Stream Order (Strahler number)

Sources for Canadian hydrologic data

Template:Infobox river deprecated

Article needs help

Renaming

For the naming discussion see Archive 2#River naming convention. The result was this modified convention: Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers#Naming. As a result of this, river articles are being moved, see below for progress. Markussep ^Talk 14:03, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Countries covered so far

Albania
Austria
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Croatia
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Italy
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Montenegro
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal (disputed)
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Switzerland

To be moved

Moves that need admin intervention:

~~Timok River --> Timok~~
Pusta River (South Morava) --> Pusta reka?
Archar River --> Archar
Mesta River --> Mesta (river)
Achelous River --> Achelous (river)
Bouraikos river --> Bouraikos

Timok

this is bad. Timok is not primary topic! TrueColour (talk) 16:39, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I think for none of the other uses (Timok valley, Timok region, Timok Vlachs etc.) the word "Timok" is used as such (you can't say "I live in the Timok" unless you're a fish). The other uses are all derived from the river, so yes, IMO the river is the PRIMARYTOPIC. Markussep ^Talk 17:02, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Budapest played against Timok, Timok won the match. Real world example: Teleoptik vs Timok
Tribalia says: Timok is a territory
I looked at Special:WhatLinksHere/Timok - the first page linked to Timok, and meant the region - for link quality safety to have Timok a dab is good. If the river is meant, editors should explicitly say so
Whether one name is derived from the other is irrelevant for WP:PT
WP:PT requires the topic to be "well-known" - I contest that for the river. Wasn't there a "least surprise" rule? Can't find it.

TrueColour (talk) 11:27, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Did you know that there was already a disambiguation article for Timok? Timok (disambiguation). We'll have to merge that with the dab you created. About your arguments: 1 I didn't know that club. It appears to be a 3rd league club, doesn't seem very notable. 2 Tribalia is not exactly a well referenced article, I sincerely doubt that Timok is actually used in English. Timoc appears to be the Romanian name for the Timok valley. 3 the link in the article Stefan Nemanja refers to the Timok Frontier = Timočka Krajina, I don't think Timok alone is used for that region. 4 correct. 5 couldn't find that either. So the remaining point is whether "Timok" is used for the region, do you think you can find reliable sources doing that? Markussep ^Talk 16:06, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Initially I didn't see the other dab. I think I created a little extra work for an admin, I am sorry for that. 1 I didn't know the river, seems to be a third league river, not very notable. 2 I do not know that. 3 the article was Romanian language, I fixed the link, so it didn't link to Timok anymore. 5 remaining is "well-known", whether Timok is used for the region, and whether the FC is well-unknown enough. I wouldn't put too much time in that and go for clarity. To have the article at Timok (river) seems really the most stable solution. Thanks for your straight forward way of discussing. I like that. TrueColour (talk) 19:23, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Not much admin work, we can merge the dab pages ourselves. I'll move the river to "Timok (river)", and fix the dabs. Discussions without arguments don't make sense IMO, I'm glad you prefer this way of discussing too. Markussep ^Talk 19:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Rivers of Portugal

Hi, I see you moved some rivers from "X (river)" to "X River", for instance Minho (river). I had moved these last August to "X (river)" after a naming discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rivers. You can find the discussion at Archive 2#River naming convention, the result is this naming convention. Before I start moving articles etc.: do you agree that the word "River" is not part of the common name for rivers in Portugal? Markussep ^Talk 08:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I now reviewed the matter. Why imposing Central European naming convention on Portugal? Why splitting the naming of the world's river articles? It is predominantly "X River" in case "X" alone is not sufficient. Did you coordinate with Latin America, and with other kind of landforms? How come, that less than a handful of editors decide within a very short time frame to overthrow a long standing naming scheme? Do projects own naming schemes? TrueColour (talk) 16:33, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome to join the discussion. Have you read the archived naming discussion? Our main argument was that for many rivers, the word "River" is not part of the name. For instance, "we travel along the Danube River" sounds strange. It is not a Central European naming convention per se, the moves were initiated by editors that are mostly active on French and German river articles. I haven't determined English usage for Portuguese rivers specifically. Do you have sources or arguments that support using "X River" for rivers in Spanish and/or Portuguese speaking countries? Markussep ^Talk 17:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

That discussion probably doesn't apply to Portugal (or Spain) - I did quite a bit of work on Latin American rivers and it seemed like common English usage was to either leave them untranslated i.e. Rio X which is what they are natively, or if translated to use X River. Kmusser (talk) 18:41, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I am concerned with link quality and the scheme "X", "X River", "X River (dab)" looks very clear to me, easy to memorize since it is hierarchical, one only adds some new chars if needed, and thus very likely to be applied consistently. For Portugal specifically I transformed the list of rivers from ptWP which uses "Rio X" with some regular expressions to "X River", see list of rivers of Portugal. So the class name river is appended always. Otherwise people will have X, X (river), there will be lengthy talk about primary topic X vs X (river) etc. All avoided with X River. Ok, check may be needed how common this scheme is. And with country specific solution, you will end up with Ega River and Ega (river). Very hard to detect wrong links, one river is from Portugal (at least the list says so), one from Basque Country, Spain (so says the article). TrueColour (talk) 19:35, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I am not familiar with Portuguese rivers, but your generic case for "X", "X River", "X River (dab)" cuts across the logic previously agreed for how to name rivers which is that it depends on a) native usage and b) English usage. This varies from country to country e.g. in the US, rivers tend to be called "X River", in the UK (with exceptions) "River X" and in countries like Germany or France simply "X". The bottom line is that calling something "X River" simply to disambiguate is bad practice unless 'River' is part of the name. Read the earlier debate and you'll see where we're coming from. HTH. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:10, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Mmmh: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/501771/Rhone-River , isn't that France? Agree with "River X" for UK/IE. Why was the old scheme active for years, maybe the editors there went parts of the road you didn't walk yet? TrueColour (talk) 20:19, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Probably not a good example for you to pick - sure it uses Rhone River as the title, but Britannica's disambiguation policy is different than ours - if you actually read the article it doesn't use the phrase "Rhone River" once in the text, it refers to the river as "Rhone" because that's its name in common usage. Contrast this to the the Mississippi River article which refers to the river as "Mississippi River" - as in the U.S. "River" is commonly considered part of the name. Kmusser (talk) 21:37, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Where is the Britannica disambiguation policy located? TrueColour (talk) 04:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

They're proprietary, they don't leave their editorial policies out where we can see them, but from browsing it looks like for geographical features they usually include the type of feature (river, mountain, whatever) as part of the name - that is admittedly just guessing, but Britannica's titles often don't match ours. Kmusser (talk) 13:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Renaming

Strong concerns with the new naming scheme

Just one example, the move of the Spanish Arga River to Arga created a situation where lot of incoming links were false. The links refer to a location in India. Please add the word River everywhere for such short words. How many places around the world are named ~~Agra~~Arga? Adding "River" reduces ambiguaties to a large extent. TrueColour (talk) 20:16, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Ehm, couldn't you discuss that move first, or move it to "Arga (river)" like the other rivers in Spain? Please don't confuse Agra (where the Taj Mahal is) and Arga. The village in India is linked so heavily because it's in a template with maybe a thousand links, we have no idea of how big and/or notable this place really is. Since there are no other articles about "Arga", the river is probably the primary topic. Markussep ^Talk 20:40, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I think you miss the concept of PRIMARYTOPIC. It is NOT about that topic X is known by more people than topic Y. TrueColour (talk) 04:37, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

No one disagrees with the need for disambiguation when needed. The issue is how to achieve it. Both "X (river)" and "X River" achieve disambiguation, but the latter is bad practice when used solely for disambiguation because it implies that 'River' is a normal part of the name, which in many cases it isn't. Also it's illogical to call the majority of rivers "X" and others "X River" simply because "X" clashes with another usage in Wikipedia. Certainly in Germany, a river is known by its name only, i.e. "X", and German Wikipedia disambiguates with "X (Fluss)" or "X (river system)", never "X Fluss" or "Fluss X". Please read the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rivers/Archive 2#River naming convention otherwise we'll keep going around the same buoy. --Bermicourt (talk) 09:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

@TrueColour: PRIMARYTOPIC says "much more used than any other topic covered in Wikipedia to which the same word(s) may also refer", so that's exactly what I meant. The other possible meanings of Arga aren't even covered in Wikipedia (all red links), so yes, for now the river is the primary topic. The place in India isn't even in the GNS database, so it can't be much, might be an error in this Template:Settlements in Uttara Kannada district. Then there's the park and the beach (which are probably never called just "Arga"), and an alternative (Greek?) name for a town in Turkey. Markussep ^Talk 12:23, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:PT: When there is a well-known primary topic.... all three are not well known. @ Bermicourt - here it was neither X River nor X (river) anymore. The "X (river)" system invites people to drop the class name. ptWP always has "Rio X" for PT rivers, pt:Categoria:Rios de Portugal and esWP has Rio X for ES rivers: es:Categoría:Ríos de España. It is just much more straightforward. I do not say plain "X" is incorrect, but it is just much more easy to get good structure. If for Germany and France this X River thing is incorrect ok, do not use it. There may also be less conflicts in the names. But for Spanish and Portuguese names with whole Latin America one gets much more conflicts. TrueColour (talk) 01:16, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

If "Rio" is part of the name in Spanish and Portuguese, that may be a point in favour of "River X" for rivers in that part of the world. But what do your authoritative English sources say? I only have 2 English sources: The Rough Guide to Portugal doesn't translate anything so the rivers are Rio Lima etc. The Insight Guide, Portugal uses "X" e.g. "bridge on the Tagus", or "X river", e.g. "along the Guadiana river" with "river" in lower case showing it is not part of the name. But what you really want is an authoritative geography book of Portugal or two. I use English geography books of Germany to help with the naming conventions and proper name translation - it avoids too much 'Wiki opinion' ("Well I always call it A", "I've never heard anyone say B", etc.). And adding "River" just to provide a Wiki structure is bad practice. Fine for categories, not for titles. --Bermicourt (talk) 09:44, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

"River X" - do not follow you. Why? Isn't this English WP? River X is archaic English, one can find in the British Isles. Someone above brought in that deWP always writes "X (Fluss)" to support the point that enWP should write "X (river)". When esWP and ptWP were mentioned it was to counter only this point with respect to Spanish and Portuguese rivers. "But what you really want is an authoritative geography book of Portugal or two." - Britannica article titles? X (river) will also make links different to article title: [[X (river)|X river]] vs [[X River]]. "along the Guadiana river" with "river" in lower case showing it is not part of the name - at least, in contrast to German, the class name is added in the sentence. In enWP these class names for landforms are almost always upper case. With the exception of some rivers. TrueColour (talk) 13:01, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

@primary topic: I hope you agree that when the other meanings of the same name aren't very likely to get an article in the near future, it's not necessary to disambiguate a term, even if the topic that has an article isn't well known.

@Spanish usage: Spanish wikipedia does not consistently use the word Río for article titles, see es:Duero, es:Ebro, es:Onsella, es:Guadiamar, es:Tajo. It does seem to use Río for all rivers in South America, including es:Río Amazonas. I agree with Bermicourt that actual English usage should be reflected. And of course what people speak on the British Isles is not archaic English, try Beowulf or Chaucer for that. Markussep ^Talk 13:47, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

@WP:PT I hope you will apply more foresight in the future to your edits and save us all time. It is wiser to give names that will be likely be stable for the next 10 years. Arga is not such a case for the river. It is so easy that someone creates an article, let the Indians have more internet access and they might edit more. ... Of course, only if the Euro- and US centrism does not drive them away. Instead of talking about what might happen and moving articles back to conflicting names, I created Arga (village). Who will write about Arga Beach? @ Spanish: I just picked one for research and then stopped, because it supports what I assumed. Ebro, why is it Battle of Ebro River? Not "Battle of River Ebro" nor "Battle of Ebro"? Update: There is another one, called: Battle of the Ebro :-). TrueColour (talk) 21:27, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

@ "River X". As Markussep implies, it is not true that "River X" is archaic English. It is the standard and official way of naming most rivers in England (see separate discussion), although there are exceptions.
@ 'river' in lower case. In English we often write "the river X" or "the X river" particularly if we're introducing an unfamiliar river name to the reader. Thereafter the expressions are used interchangeably with "X". No different from "the Piddle valley" or "the valley of the Iller". But 'river' and 'valley' are not necessarily part of the name in such cases. --Bermicourt (talk) 22:06, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

@ "River X" - archaic. Yes, you find it in England, British Isles. I do not know how to express it better. These kind of names were applied to rivers long ago. But rivers that got an English name later, it is "X River" as one can see from North America. Hope it is now more clear what I meant by archaic. TrueColour (talk) 22:59, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation by mouth

Why is it Pearl River (Mississippi-Louisiana) and not Pearl River (Lake Borgne). Mouth is clear, but identified by the smallest appropriate political entity. is ambigous. Why not use a county? Why not use United States? Why use two states? TrueColour (talk) 20:57, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

It probably should be Pearl River (United States), the two states naming is used for a bunch of rivers that form borders and I think predates the naming convention for this project. For this case the namer might have assumed there were other Pearl Rivers in the U.S., but I did a quick search and it doesn't look like there are. Kmusser (talk) 15:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Why not water body it flows into? This is a general concept in physical geography, not dependent on political/administrative entities. TrueColour (talk) 15:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Our naming guidelines are an attempt to codify existing common usage, not necessarily to come up with a logical classification scheme. If I'm talking about the Pearl River and someone asks me to clarify which one, I'm more likely to say "the one in China" or "the one in the United States" than I am "the one that flows into the South China Sea" or "the one that flows into Lake Borgne" even though the latter might make more sense from a scientific point of view. Kmusser (talk) 16:25, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Water body and political entity are both allowed according to the present rules. If there is no other (significant) river named Pearl River in the United States, "Pearl River (United States)" is a good suggestion. I didn't know Lake Borgne, maybe Gulf of Mexico would be a better disambiguator, as Lake Borgne is apparently an arm of the Gulf. Markussep ^Talk 16:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I usually apply them in the order that we have them listed on the project page, so political entities first and then water body if a political unit doesn't work (i.e. there are more than one X River in the appropriate political entity). I think Pearl River (Lake Borgne) would be acceptable, and if there were multiple Pearl River's in the U.S. would probably prefer it to the current Pearl River (Mississippi-Louisiana). -- written by Kmusser? Yes that was me Kmusser (talk) 03:09, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

So I understand that political entity is preferred because political entities are wider known, than water bodies. Lot of people likely heard about United States or any other country, while never have heard about Lake Borgne or so. This leads to extra disambiguation related work if same named rivers within a country get an article. Countries with more same named rivers are more affected. This may be countries with more rivers and those with less naming variety. Is there a page showing numbers of rivers per country? Category:Rivers by country only shows numbers for countries that do not have subcategories.

There is/was a Pearl River/Muddy Creek in Pearl River, New York. I couldn't find where it flows/flew into. TrueColour (talk) 02:23, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not really extra work, rivers with the same name have to disambiguated somehow regardless of what method is used, there are plenty of cases with the same named rivers flowing into the same water body as well, discussed in the archives are cases with same named rivers being in the same county and flowing into the same water body at which point we have to get creative :-) For bigger countries you'll just have to drop down to the next level of political sub-divisions more often. For your New York case, the name of the water body appears to have always been Muddy Creek - it flows into the Pascack Brook. GNIS also lists a Pearl River reference in Missouri, but it isn't on any maps, so that's a bit sketchy. There aren't any list of numbers of rivers by country, but there are on-line databases of geographic names, so if you have a feature name, you can search to find other features sharing the name (not all of which are necessarily notable, but it's a start). Kmusser (talk) 03:09, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

There is a tool that lists articles within category trees, see this example for rivers of the U.S.. Markussep ^Talk 09:01, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Was happy to see this tool mentioned, followed the link, entered "3" in the box on the bottom and got an article list containing lots of non-River articles. Crawling level "1" shows some human settlements, likely false categorized. As long as all rivers are on level 1 the tool seems to give correct results if miscategorisations are fixed - only Lists of ... have to be sorted out. I created Little River (Maine), a good illustration of what Kmusser said. Is it possible to get a list of articles that user Infobox River / (Geobox|River) and are in a specific country? The tool list shows a duplication: Río de la Ciénaga and Río de la Cienaga. Better hidden are duplications if two articles about the same river differ in dab term, including in dab method. A stricter dab policy might help. Same county, same water body - any examples? TrueColour (talk) 11:11, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Looked back, the one I was thinking of wasn't the same county, but was the same water body and they were both multi-county rivers, so using county wasn't convenient: Conewago Creek (east) and Conewago Creek (west) both Susquehanna River tributaries in Pennsylvania. Kmusser (talk) 14:22, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Right, left, would be another method. First when I read East/West bank tributaries I was thinking of the right-left system. Right side of a river can be its East, West, North, South bank in different locations. In infoboxes references are made to right/left. TrueColour (talk) 14:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Bot adding basic infoboxes to river articles

Little River naming convention

Crystal Cove streams article name

Renaming

Oliphants River (Western Cape)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

Bot tagging some articles, offer to auto-assess while there

Page numbers for books used in River Parrett FAC

Lack of maps, nature of infobox pics

I have noticed that many river articles lack a map showing the course of the river. In my opinion, that's a serious lack. Shouldn't it be remedied to (I have done so for some articles) ? And especially, shouldn't such maps be placed as the infobox picture ? I have noticed that many infobox pics are very similar : taken from the bank of the river, they do not offer a good view of the characteristics of the river. All one sees is some water. In my personal opinion, these pictures should be replaced by maps : it's the first thing I'd expect to see in an article about a river. Failing that, if maps aren't appealing enough as infobox pics (and I understand they may be seen as too dull), it really would be better to select more significant pictures, like aerial views of the river, or satellite imagery, or perhaps a really significant landmark. What do you think ? --Alþykkr (talk) 18:20, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I certainly agree that clear maps of a river's course in the surrounding terrain should be added to all river articles and that too many of them lack exactly that. I don't think it should replace the infobox image, though, which IMHO should be an eye-catching photograph that is representative of the river and encourages the lay reader to read further. Of course, the choice of photo is always going to be a bit subjective and we are also limited by what photos are actually available. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:02, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Generally the availability of good maps is also an issue. You worked on 3 (out of over 17,000!) articles but the map you added to Volkhov River is poorly suited to the article and the one in Northern Dvina River is labeled entirely in Cyrillic. Rmhermen (talk) 19:20, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

13:12, March 13, 2010 (hist | diff)

Any pointers to articles that have good maps, so we know what is required? --ClemRutter (talk) 22:36, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe that all of of the FAs and the one FL have decent maps - see Category:FA-Class River articles Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 22:49, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Hey all, thanks for your replies, and sorry if I sounded a bit flippant earlier. Didn't mean to diminish the work of this Project. I just felt so betrayed in my quest to patch the gaping holes in my knowledge of Russian geography... ;)

I know my edits are less than perfect. I just wanted to add something that gave some faint notion of where the river was... But then I thought it was better to seek some consensus on what to do and how (on that note : what do you mean by "poorly suited" ? I'd be happy to remedy any problem, or try to anyway).

Bermicourt is probably right as to maps being not eye-catching enough. And I know it can be hard to find good, usable pictures... But the problem I felt, looking at most infobox pics, is that they could have all come from the same river. Pics are often occupied mostly by nondescript water. Well, I know, it's supposed to be a river, but I feel many pics fail to convey some sense of where and how the river flows... But again, I know it's not easy to depict that. Just making a note here.

I'll see if I can find some interesting, usable pics. --Alþykkr (talk) 00:47, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

P.S. : I can also continue my work on northwestern russian rivers, using the same map I used for the Daugava River as a base, if you find the one I posted here acceptable. --Alþykkr (talk) 00:49, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I have found {http://www.openstreetmap.org/} to be a useful starting point, but my graphic skills are limited as you can see on maps in maps on river articles in the Bristol area. I compare to the ordnance survey and go from there. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 04:47, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I followed Ruhrfisch advice, and honestly some of the maps are pretty grisly. I followed the links through to Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps/Conventions and made the horrifying discovery that there is no advice on rivers.I think as a matter of urgency we need to agree conventions in a page Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers/Maps. Aliso Creek (Orange County) is a FA (though cartographically I can't see why), it has many maps: we need to distinguish between a locator map on the Infobox, geological/topographical maps, human geography--- My principle is quite simple,-when something is referenced in the text I want to glance at the map and see where it is. Similarly when something is referenced on the map I want to find it in the text. But all that is up for discussion.--ClemRutter (talk) 10:53, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree that principle - we should adopt it for all geographical articles and place references. It is much easier to understand what the text is saying if there are clear maps showing the places referred to. --Bermicourt (talk) 11:51, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Course, major tributaries, lakes/reservoirs, cities, watershed, but try not to label things like mountain ranges, dams or other physiographic features. Also may try highlighting the course of the river on the map so it is more easily seen. See Snake river. I'm surprised Kmusser doesn't have any comments on this yet. Shannon^talk _contribs 19:26, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Watershed might be more difficult to know/map than other features. Perhaps it should be a suggested, but not a required, feature. I think highlighting the course is a must, since it will allow the reader to get an idea of the location of the river even from a small thumbnail. --Alþykkr (talk) 19:40, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

For mountainous regions, watershed is generally easier to map. But if you have a base map with many river courses shown, it is sometimes still possible to tell the watershed line by searching for the one 'line' where rivers from one basin don't connect to the other. For rivers in the United States, there is the USGS's NHD server, and there are also many watershed maps for other rivers. Shannon^talk _contribs 21:54, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I mainly meant that closely marking a watershed line and shading the corresponding area requires more cartographic skills/photoshop-fu than simply highlighting a river and placing main cities on a map. Perhaps it would be best to forgo the compulsory depiction of watershed at first, so that we have localisation maps more quickly. Then, gradually, we can go and add watersheds to these maps (of course, if one feels like including it right away, let him/her do so). --Alþykkr (talk) 23:20, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, getting reliable information about watersheds is very difficult, even impossible for some smaller rivers. And deducing it from topography would be WP:OR. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 03:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Watershed maps for U.S. states are available on EPA's Surf Your Watershed site. These are lo-res maps (8-digit HUC level), but it's a start. The individual watershed pages have links to USGS and state agency websites, which sometimes have more detailed info and/or maps. Moreau1 (talk) 05:14, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok, having made most of the existing river maps I'll chime in. Absolutely all river articles should have a map, if using the Geobox template for the infobox there is already a space reserved for where the map should go - I suggest using it. I think the general map conventions are applicable to map of rivers as far as colors are concerned. As for what should go on the map is going to depend on the river and what data is available. I don't think consistency is as critical as showing the features important to the river being discussed. Drainage basins would ideally be on all of them, but for many rivers they simply aren't available, especially outside the U.S. Topography is nice, but can be tricky to get to look good and for rivers in non-mountainous areas might not be important. Very simple maps such as File:Susq.png get the basic job of locating the river done and are nice because other language sites can use them without modification. Ideally these would be used in conjunction with a more detailed map that labels important features that are discussed in the article. File:Stjohnsriver detailmap.png is the most complicated one I've done and perhaps goes a little overboard. Examples that strike a nice middle ground include File:Juniatamap.png, File:YellowstoneRiverMap.jpg, File:Seine drainage basin.png, File:Columbiarivermap.png. Recently I've begun including locator inset maps to give the rivers more context as in File:Crotonrivermap.png - I think they help especially for smaller rivers. Kmusser (talk) 14:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I am beginning to understand what is happening here. As many times previously, this thread has raised two issues but from then on, the thread has lost focus. The thread asked for advice on maps in general (The user is working on the Asia continent.)

There in no advice page. Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers/Maps or advice elsewhere. Do we want one? yes/No?
All advice is region specific.
The FAs are inconsistent.

So I propose that Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers/Maps is created, and further discussion is continued on that talk page. If no-one who actually has qualifications in fluvial geography, wants to, I am willing to start the new page. Is this what is required? Just say yes or no. --ClemRutter (talk) 09:08, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, please. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 09:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. --Alþykkr (talk) 13:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Support Shannon^talk _contribs 20:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Since there seems to be some kind of consensus regarding that, and since the discussion here is getting pretty confusing (see Kmusser's answer above), I went ahead and created this page. I copied the present discussion there, editing out the parts not relating to river maps (mostly from my posts, as I also talked about pics of rivers). See you there : Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers/Maps (I hope). --Alþykkr (talk) 02:08, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Advice on dab - Guichon Creek

Ochlockonee River length

River stub tag

Rivers of County Dublin

Categorization of rivers by basin - Germany

I have expanded the category structure for river basins in Germany, basing it on a) the existing top level structure under Category:Continental basins of the North Sea and b) adding additional sub-basins using de.wiki which has already categorized all German rivers based on their hierarchy (why re-invent the wheel?). I have incorporated all existing river articles in the states of Lower Saxony, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt into the structure; others may wish to cover other German states or European countries.

Note that the syntax is [[Category:Foo basin|xName]] where Foo is the name of the basin for an x-order tributary. So a tributary called Xoo discharging into Foo would be [[Category:Foo basin|1Xoo]] and a tributary called Hoo discharging into Xoo would be called [[Category:Foo basin|2Hoo]] indicating that it is a 2nd order tributary. Lakes and canals are also covered but the river name is preceded by a letter L or C in the syntax instead of a number. Have a look at Category:Weser basin or Category:Elbe basin to get a feel for the structure and any of the river articles therein for the syntax. Cheers. --Bermicourt (talk) 11:41, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Nifty. I made one for the ACF basin, how's it look? - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 16:35, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Nice! Isn't the Apalachicola the main river (the one that flows into sea)? I think the system Bermicourt and German wikipedia use would put the Apalachicola under the blank pipe, and its primary tributaries Flint and Chattahoochee under 1, etc. Markussep ^Talk 19:04, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Apalachicola is, yeah. I had presumed the Strahler Stream Order was the one being used, but if it's the other way, that actually makes more sense. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 20:58, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I thought initially that de.wiki was using the Strahler Stream Order, but it's the inverse. I don't know if that's a recognised system, but it seems to work. The only thing I can't work out is when to stop creating sub-basins. I got a slapped wrist on de.wiki for adding an extra category called [[Kategorie:Flusssystem Abzucht]] based on a stream, the Abzucht (Oker), in the Harz. Clearly they felt it was too small to merit its own basin! I suspect the rules for this may be in the standard river basin category text, but I haven't translated the template for that yet. --Bermicourt (talk) 04:56, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

The inverse of Strahler does have a name, but I can't remember it off hand. Kmusser (talk) 05:27, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I have now categorised the Bavarian rivers too and am now going for a rest! --Bermicourt (talk) 07:58, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

This is an interesting approach. It may help if there were a template that could be placed on the category pages explaining how the categories are organized (why some pages are under numbers while other pages are under letters, etc. It makes sense if you've stopped here first, but might baffle the uninitiated. older ≠ wiser 12:32, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

You're right. I have been trying to convert the de.wiki templates that explain it, but they are complex and I haven't cracked it yet. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:32, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Moves of Moldova River and Roter Main

In moving European rivers from "Foo River" to "Foo (river)" we seem to have missed out Moldova River. Also Roter Main should be moved to Red Main which is its English name. I have tried to move them, but they needs an admin. Can someone help? If someone is willing to put me forward as an admin, I'd be happy to help out as an admin on this project. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:56, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

The Moldova is in Romania, we haven't done that country yet. Would be a beast of a job, there's thousands of articles about the tiniest streams there. I'm certainly not a deletionist, but I think we can miss 80% of those articles. About the Roter Main, I'm hesitant about translating names, and would only do that if the translated name is commonly used in English. Please no Great Morin for Grand Morin or Black Elster for Schwarze Elster. Markussep ^Talk 09:45, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Well I agree we shouldn't generally translate names of rivers for the sake of it. However I thought "Red Main" was commonly used. For example, the German homepage for the River Main (by the tourist board of Franconia) calls it the Red Main. See . --Bermicourt (talk) 16:50, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

...and I hate to say this, but the Encyclopedia Britannica refers to the "Black Elster" as does the Catholic Encyclopedia! So that has to be a candidate for a move! --Bermicourt (talk) 20:09, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, they're both pretty outdated, the catholic encyclopedia calls Brandenburg a province of Prussia, so that must be pre-1945. But maybe you're right about the Roter/Red Main. Markussep ^Talk 20:22, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

We need to be careful about ignoring sources simply because they weren't published recently; latest isn't always best. We live in a modern age with lots of low-grade information and not much expert knowledge. However, here is a modern source that call the river the "Black Elster" to show that it is still in use: Website of the Naturpark Niederlausitzer Heidelandschaft. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:24, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Take a look at Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources, and be careful with websites like that, probably written by people who aren't native English speakers. I usually try Google Books or Google Scholar, and read the sources to see whether they're really about the subject, and written in English. Markussep ^Talk 09:09, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you - it makes a lot of sense. Ironically, the few objections I have to English names on Wiki come from native speakers who don't like us translating their names! I had the same objection from a German at work who complained that we English went around the world re-naming places (Munich, Nuremberg, Germany, etc). However I pointed out that most cultures did this and illustrated this with some German examples: Kapstadt, Frankreich, Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika... whereupon he conceded the point! --Bermicourt (talk) 11:03, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

English usage changes over time as well, see for instance Leghorn and Scutari (1911 Britannica uses Scutari for both Shkodër and Üsküdar). If you're interested in translating names, see this version of the Elztal article ;-). Markussep ^Talk 11:51, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Sadly it sometimes changes because of ignorance. More people are educated to a basic level but don't research their subject well enough to know the correct terminology used by experts and authorities in the field. So we have train station instead of railway/railroad station and most kids even call a locomotive/engine a train. Similarly because road atlases default to native spelling (for obvious reasons), people don't know that Braunschweig in English is/was really Brunswick - they only ever see maps with Braunschweig on them. Only the more famous names like Munich are undisputed, including such odd half-translations like Bayern Munich. As an encyclopedia we should stick with the authoritative sources, as you have rightly pointed out, not necessarily adopt common (=sometimes uninformed) usage. But as I often say, there is usually no absolute right or wrong, we just need to be consistent.

Anyway back to the original request. Are we okay with Moldova River moving to Moldova (river) (not suggesting we do all other Romanian rivers!) and Roter Main to Red Main? If so, can someone action that? --Bermicourt (talk) 19:43, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you can blame changes in the English language on ignorance, and what's the "real" English name of a place is really a matter of usage, there's no Académie anglaise that dictates the correct name. About Moldova, I'm OK with that move (and all others in Romania ;-)), you may want to contact User:Afil since he created nearly all of those articles, or maybe announce it on WP:ROMANIA. About Roter Main, I'd like to see some evidence that "Red Main" is (more) commonly used in English. Markussep ^Talk 08:30, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Markussep. Some anglicized names have fallen out of use. A perfect example I can think of is Spires for Speyer. -imars (talk) 10:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Markussep too. Anyway here are some references that use "Red Main". The first one is an authoritative source called "Rivers of Europe" published by a host of international authors in 2009, the second is the one by the tourist board of the region. The rest are examples of common usage.:

Rivers of Europe by Klement Tockner, Urs Uehlinger, Christopher T. Robinson (2009), Academic Press, London.
The Rhythm of the River at www.mainriver.de.
Main River Cruises at www.avalonwaterways.com. Retrieved on 11 May 2010.
Main Cycle Route at www.germany-tourism.de.
Germany’s Main River Begins With Beer And Ends With Wine at www.mygermancity.com.
Main River Cruises at www.globusjourneys.in.
About Main River Cruises at www.vikingrivercruises.com.
Main River - Germany at www.choosingcruising.co.uk.
Destinations - The Main at www.rivercruiseline.co.uk.
Bayreuth - Kulmbach: Where the Red and White Main meet at www.crazyguyonabike.com.
Mountains in Germany at www.everythingaboutgermany.com.

--Bermicourt (talk) 16:44, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

A good example?

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