Template talk:Illinois

Notes

Since the other two regions are named with colloquialisms, why isn't Champaign-Urbana? Thesquire 08:01, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Chicagoland is an official classification that appears on maps, as is Little Egypt. Chambana isn't even ubiquitous in Champaign-Urbana. I should know, I live there. Agriculture 08:04, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Reformatting of this template

Hi, I have heard many people complain about the size of this template. I thought that maybe it can be condensed into a much thinner form. I think it is unnecessary for us to include anything except for the subcategories. If we have a link to "Counties of Illinois", we dont have it list the countie, it just makes the template too big. This format will also allow us to include links to other general illinois-related topics (ie. Hiistory). We can play around with the design, but I think changing it is important. The reason I bring this up is because while conducting a peer review of Chicago, someone commented that the templates at the bottom (Illinois and Chicago) were much too big. This is true on the Chicago page, but even more true on smaller articles, I do not think the template should be twice the size of the text. I have already made a similar change to the Chicago template. As Agriculture kindly pointed out to me, other states use this format too, however I dont think the templates needs to be homogenous and this change woud very much behouve the entire set of Illinois articles. Tell me what you think. --Gpyoung ^talk 02:55, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I of course disagree with the above. Every other state lists the counties and other areas and it is important that this remain the same. The point of the Template is to make it easy to find information on other cities and counties in the state without having to rummage through page after page searching for what it is you are looking for. Otherwise the template is not a decent index, but rather a table of contents of very limited value. Furthermore many of the individual city, culture, region and other articles make heavy use of the template and refer to the template in the main body of the article. It is a critical piece to the utility of other articles and the suggested reduction would be detrimental. Agriculture 02:59, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Template Reformatting

I have tried my hand at reformatting the Illinois template so it wont look so big on smaller articles and can be paired with other templates (ie. Chicago, Chicagoland) without taking up so much space at the bottom of an article. I have not removed any content, I have only tried to reduce wasted space. I hope it works. --Gpyoung ^talk 17:58, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I like it, but think it looks a bit messy, I've uploaded my attempt at the same, you can see a side by side comparison of the two here: User:Agriculture/Template:Illinois. What do you think? I find it less cluttered and easier to use, and it is only slightly larger than your version. Agriculture 21:30, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Sure, that looks fine to me, make any changes you see fit. That was just my attempt, I am not the best at formatting. If you want, just go ahead and put yours as the template. I know you showed it to me before, but I completely forgot about it. --Gpyoung ^talk 04:49, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I redid the template based on the California template (As Sept. 24, 2005), which uses alternating colors to make the information easier to read. I replaced the California template's colors with the colors of the United States template. ("toccolors" and "lightsteelblue"). I didn't change any existing information. Lovelac7 20:49, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

U.S. state templates

Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states/state templates lists and displays all 50 U.S. state (and additional other) templates. It potentially can be used for ideas and standardization. //MrD9 07:16, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Standardization of state templates

There is currently an ongoing discussion regarding standardization of state templates (primarily regarding layout and styling) at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. states/state templates. An effort was made earlier this year to standardize Canadian province templates (which mostly succeeded). Lovelac7 and I have already begun standardizing all state templates. If you have any concerns, they should be directed toward the discussion page for state template standardization. Thanks! — Webdinger ^{BLAH | SZ} 22:43, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Cities/Towns & Villages

Let's try to limit it to places over 20,000 population or so, or places expected to reach that level by 2010. Thanks. :) 131.156.238.75 17:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

What qualifies as a "village?"

According to the suggested population limit, then what qualifies as a town, or even a village? I don't know of too many villages over 20k people. I understand the spirit of the limit is to moderate the size of the template, but something about this does not make sense. --Lmbstl 02:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, a village is any place that is incorporated as a village and has elected trustees and a village president which serve the village as a whole (no wards/districts). Arlington Heights and Schaumburg, with populations over 70,000, are some of Illinois' largest villages.

A city is a place that is incorporated as a city and has elected aldermen which serve different wards of the city, as well as a mayor, who usually has more authoritative power than a village president.

I believe most of the places listed as villages are indeed villages and most of the places listed as cities are indeed cities. If you do happen to find an error in the distinctions, please let me know.

Another option would be to section the template off by population size (i.e. 100,000+, 50,000-100,000, 25,000-50,000, etc.), however I think this would take up more space than the current format. 131.156.238.75 03:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. My conception was that town/village/city designations were corelated to size, not political structure. I don't have any suggestions for the "best" way to organize the info in thee table. Right now, it is based on the political structure of the city. To base it on population would create a whole new set of diffficulties. I am fine with the way it is, recognizing that all templates involve choices of exclusion.Lmbstl 06:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Disagreement with Removal of Items from Template

To Dual Freq: You can’t simply remove all towns and villages from the page, just because many are included on another template. What if someone were to create a Central Illinois template? Then it would be redundant to have those places listed on the Illinois template as well, wouldn’t it? Then there would be no cities left on the Illinois template. Additionally, several villages are important to Illinois as a whole. Did you know that Schaumburg is 2nd only to Chicago as far as Illinois economics goes? Or how about Cicero having more people than Champaign, even though it was incorporated as a town. You simply can’t omit these places that are important to Illinois as a whole, simply because they’re located in Chicagoland.

To Telos: I disagree with the standardization of state templates to only include cities over 50,000. It may work for California and Texas, but for the rest of the states, it just doesn’t cut it. The whole purpose of a navigational template is so that you can navigate to the important pages associated with that topic. How can you have an Illinois template and remove the sites of Illinois’ second and third largest universities (DeKalb and Carbondale), well-known independent manufacturing cities (Freeport and Galesburg), important suburbs that have suburbs of their own (Crystal Lake, St. Charles), and so forth. Also, lumping them all together as cities is inaccurate, since some are cities while some are not. I thought Wikipedia is supposed to be professional, yet including the Village of Hoffman Estates or the Village of Schaumburg under the title “cities” is inaccurate and unprofessional. I have worked on this template for a long time, trying to fine-tune it to the appropriate level it was at. To come in and recklessly standardize it to standards that make templates pointless and difficult to use, non-representational of the State, inaccurate, and unprofessional is completely irresponsible. Abog 21:21, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you disagree with the standardization, and I won't edit your version unless someone else speaks up impartially, but please don't engage in personal attacks. I beg to differ that my desire to shorten the template amounts to being "unprofessional" or "irresponsible". Telos 22:28, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry...I didn't mean to personally attack you. I just find this concept of standardization frustrating and inappropriate. Abog 23:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

This template is a huge mass of links sitting at the bottom of a lot of Illinois related pages. Please, tell me to the reason we need 40+ "Towns" and "villages" on this template. What is the criteria for inclusion or exclusion from this important list? Is this population based? Is this a top 40 largest list? Is this a list of "My favorite cities"? What value do these links add when placed at the bottom of pages like:Adams County, Illinois, Alexander County, Illinois, Bond County, Illinois? Looking at the Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states/state templates, I don't see many that are larger than this template. If you still want to include this list, please let me know the inclusion criteria so that I can make sure it reflects the entire state. --Dual Freq 00:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

If the threshold is a 25,000+ population, then I suggest raising the bar to a more suitable number. 25,000+ at the 2000 census is around 75 total, 40,000+ is around 37 total and 50,000+ would be about 25 total between the cities and towns box. I think I could live with 25 total cities listed. --Dual Freq 03:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The threshold is 25,000+ population, as indicated either by year 2000 Census figures or more recent official special censuses. I think 75 total is fine. I don't see how you can include every little county, and then not include all important/major cities. How you can you make an Illinois template, and then not include Danville and Kankakee which are recognized as metropolitan areas? How can you not include important college towns like DeKalb and Carbondale? How can we exclude regional cities like Quincy that actually have their own national television affiliates? How can you not include important satellite cities that have now become suburbs such as St. Charles and Crystal Lake? Yet, we include every po-dunk county, even those that have like 15,000 people. That's not to say we shouldn't include all 102 counties, as we should. However, I think it is appropriate to have a good balance of counties and municipalities, and I find that a 25,000 population threshold assures that a balance is made and that most of the important cities are included. I mean, if we're using this 50K threshold for every state, are we only going to put Cheyenne and Casper on the Wyoming template, ignoring other important cities like Laramie, Gillette, and Green River? Are you seriously going to exclude Meridian, Hattiesburg, and Vicksburg from the Mississippi template? Or how about Vermont?...Are we going to put no cities on that state's template whatsoever?Abog 03:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, to reemphasize my belief that the population level should be brought down to a more appropriate level: both Moline AND Rock Island are under 50,000 people, yet under this ridiculous 50K threshold level, we would have to remove them from the template. However, I don't believe we should have a double standard in which downstate municipalities are included on the template while Chicagoland municipalities are not. Abog 04:07, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Let me also point out that this 50K pop standardization thing seems non-existent to me. The state templates are all different. Texas doesn't even have its counties listed. California has metros listed. Oregon has both metros and cities listed...and many of the cities listed are quite small. Indiana and Wisconsin appear to have population thresholds at 25K. North Carolina's threshold is at 15K. It's actually all over the board...as it should be, since every state is different, and what may work for one state may not work for another. I feel that the 25K population threshold works best for Illinois, and the template really isn't that much bigger than many of the other states'.Abog 04:16, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd compromise at 50k, but I don't think Illinois articles need links to 75 city articles. I'm only concerned with having a workable template that is useful for navigation of Illinois articles. I don't care if Quincy, Carbondale, Danville, Urbana, Addison or Algonquin (which wasn't even over 25k in 2000) are listed. There is a link to each county and a link to the full list of cities and towns. There is no need to list every city over 25,000. If you're so concerned about history, then how can you exclude historically significant towns like Cairo, Illinois or the former state capitals of Vandalia, Illinois and Kaskaskia, Illinois? If Cairo is included, then why not list every town city and village in the state? My point is, the template is huge, reduce its size, or it will be unusable. I'm considering not adding it to future Illinois articles I edit if it is not reduced in size. I'll probably start removing from some of the articles that I feel it is inappropriate for. --Dual Freq 04:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

When did I ever say anything about including places based on historical signifcance alone? Nowhere! Regarding Algonquin, it has 27,000 people, as confirmed by an offical special census in 2003, and continues to grow. Additionally, to deny important cities like Quincy, Moline, Rock Island, Danville, Belleville, Carbondale, DeKalb, and so forth, in addition to all major suburbs, from inclusion on the Illinois template is comepletely inappropriate, and would result in a template not representational of the State. Abog 05:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

If you want MSAs then remove the towns and cities and just link the MSAs. That would make the list even shorter. --Dual Freq 04:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

That still wouldn't cover all the important municipalities though. If you did that, then you would be excluding Aurora, Waukegan, Elgin, Evanston, Crystal Lake, St. Charles, Belleville, and other important places. And you still wouldn't get all the important downstate cities. I really don't think the template is all that big. If you really want to hack away at a template, see templates for Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Nevada. I wouldn't be opposed to adding a "hide" feature to the template if you really think it's that big and cumbersome. Abog 04:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The consensus on the template project talk page seems to be against show/hide. It looks like I will be removing / omitting this template from Illinois articles I edit. I'll only include a county template instead of both. --Dual Freq 04:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Whatever floats your boat. However, I think that all places/topics listed on the Illinois template should have the Illinois template at the bottom, yet places that are not on the Illinois template should not have the Illinois template at the bottom. I think that only makes sense. Abog 04:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Is it time to get the sock puppets out to do a 4th revert? I'm not impressed. --Dual Freq 05:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I think there probably is some sort of process to arbitrate this dispute. Maybe I am wrong, but it sounds like Dual Freq simply doesn't like the "look" of the template. Illinois is a big, diverse state. A city/town's significance is not necesarily related to its population. I am of the opinion that a 50K population threshold is too high-- it sounds like a convenient round number chosen solely to reduce the size of the template. As far as the Illinois template being "too big," I would like to direct everyone's attention to {{New Hampshire}}, {{Minnesota}}, and {{Virginia}}.

Does the template exist to provide cosmetic enhancement to Illinois articles, or does it exist to be a navigation tool? I like that it shows me Illinois at a glance. I believe that is what the template should do-- it should provide a balanced "picture" of the state. Of course, this introduces some subjectivity. I hope that the disputes can be managed constructively here.

Regarding a "show/hide" function, Wikipedia users are free to use the function. It simply needs to be used sparingly and tastefully. Perhaps introducing the "show/hide" would be reasonable compromise?

Abog: what is your ideal for the Illinois template?

Dual Freq: what is your ideal for the Illinois template?

--Lmbstl 14:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

My ideal template? One that doesn't fill the entire screen and lists a reasonable number of municipalities, say 10 to 20 and worth using on many Illinois related pages, yet not so large as to take over the entire page. I'm willing to compromise at 50,000+ pop per 2000 census as listed here, which has about 27. The template is easily supplemented by other lists that are more specific by area as illustrated by the DuPage County, Illinois and Ogle County, Illinois article which contains two other templates that are pertinent to that area. My secondary ideal would be that as soon as I mention 3RR, no anons drop in and revert. That seems very suspicious to me. The 2000 census seems most fair as all municipalities were counted, while interim ones only counted select locations. --Dual Freq 21:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I will also add that in its current bloated form, I am not encouraged to use this template. I would rather make use of a different one that is smaller. As for other states, I guess that's for them to worry about. I'm equally opposed to the large size of those. Do we really want something like Template:New Hampshire? --Dual Freq 21:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Lmbst says it best: "of course, this introduces some subjectivity." Well, in that case, we may well march on adding anything we please. Inform all the "village" mayors -- they'ed be delighted to see their two-houses-and-a-gas-station cities added in too. I mean, someone has to live in all these places, so clearly they're ALL enourmously important and template-worthy. I think not. Subjectivity is for travel guides and movie reviews, not Wikipedia.

I also agree with Abog in that "every state is different, and what may work for one state may not work for another." It does not work for users of the Illinois template to have to muck through the 75+ cities we would have if we fixed the population bar at 25,000. Abog's solution, however, is to include only the 'important' cities and towns. Quite beyond the obvious problem of how to determine importance, this also leads to the exclusion of larger suburbs in favour of 'interesting' smaller communities with far fewer people. Most users see no reason to jump from Lake in the Hills to Elk Grove Village, and in any case, the counties already included in the template should direct anyone searching for more information to a more specific list.

I also happen to disapprove of sockpuppetry to get in that crucial fourth revert -- it not only lowers credibility to do something so desperate, but it's also hideously cliché. This breach of Wiki policy should be kept in mind when evaluating Abog's other contributions. Telos 22:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, my computer shut down and I forgot to re-login when making that edit, and based on the 24 hour policy, whether I was logged in or not, would have only been my 3rd edit, not my 4th. Additionally, it appears that Dual Freq and Telos are in cahoots with each other, quickly following each others edits, out to get other people, and assuming the negative right away. This should also be kept in mind when evaluating their contributions.

As for the template, I agree with Lmbstl, that it is supposed to be a picture of the state, and is supposed to be representational of the State. Of course, the only way to avoid subjectivity is by doing it based on population. And for your information, special censuses (at least in these cases) DO count all residents.

I feel templates are not for cosmetic purposes, and are for navigational purposes, and it wouldn't be out-of-the-ordinary for someone looking at the Peoria page, wanting to navigate to the Moline page, and from there to the Galesburg page, and maybe from there to the Quincy page, and back to Springfield. Additionally, it wouldn't be out-of-the-ordinary for someone looking at the Rockford page wanting to navigate to the Crystal Lake page, then over to the Algonquin page, and then maybe over to the Bartlett page, then over to the Elgin page, and down to the St. Charles page, and over to West Chicago. These manuevers would be impossible to do without the 25,000K threshold limit.

I think the solution would be rather to get rid of the Chicagoland template, and simply just have county and state templates at the bottom of the page.

As Lmbstl said, a 50K limit is too high, and doesn't give users an accurate glimpse of the State or allow users to easily navigate. I mean, we're talking a few cenimeters here. From my perspective, removing 50 cities serves no purpose, and the drawbacks (harder to navigate, not representative of the State) of this action significantly outweigh the benefits (shortening the template a few cenimeters for cosmetic reasons). From my viewpoint, as long as the template fits within the screen, it isn't too big. Additionally, they're at the bottom of the page anyway.Abog 03:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• • Keep in mind, I have compromised already. I was initially proposing including all places over 20,000, but that would open the floodgates too much, and would only serve to add more suburbs than downstate locales. 25,000, however, includes most of the major cities people would be looking for when looking at Illinois-related pages. I also use 25,000, as it appears to be a major threshold in many mapping/geographical products. Abog 03:14, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Quickly following each other's edits? You violate 3RR with an anon IP and you tell me that several hours separation is quickly? What is your definition of quickly? The closest edit I can see is 4 hours. Please, don't try my patience, your lucky I don't file a 3RR report on you. My opinion is that this template follow the 50k+ per 2000 census guideline for state templates. The only part of this template I've found useful has been the county and list links, but if you want 75 or 200 cities listed, do whatever you want. It's obviously your template, right? You own this template, so do whatever you want, don't worry about guidelines or other opinions. --Dual Freq 03:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me, but you're not being understanding and quick to assume the bad right away. I'm sorry, I often forget to login, and my computer was being slow so I had to restart it. Additionally, if you look at the history, whether I was logged in or not, I wouldn't be violating the 3RR.

What guideline are you referring to? The 50K threshold is only found on like four or five templates from what I've seen.

So far, you haven't really explained what purpose it does to remove valuable information from a template, other than it's not too long. So, you're going to recklessly remove 50 cities people would be likely to navigate to for the purpose of shortening a template a few cenimeters? Most articles have gobs of templates and stuff at the bottom anyway. Do you really think someone looking at the Chicagoland or Chicago articles are really going to care what the size of the template is, when they have a mile of templates to go through anyway? Is a few cenimeters really going to make a difference? No. But I can guarantee you they would prefer having templates down there that can actually allow them to easily navigate, instead of a bunch of templates that take them only to counties.

You complain about having to sift through 75 cities. Well, people have to sift through 102 counties as well. And I think people looking at Illinois articles would be more likely to want to navigate to a Galesburg, or a Moline, or a Crystal Lake, than say a Macoupin County or a Hardin County. That's not to say we shouldn't include all counties, however we should be balanced in our approach of including the right amount of cities vs. counties. Abog 03:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, Rock Island is under 50,000 people...you might want to remove it. Just an example of how this ridiculous threshold level would cause both Rock Island and Moline to not be included on the ILLINOIS template. But no, you do whatever you want with this template now, since you seem so concerned about it. Keep hacking away! Might want to venture over to the Minnesota template while you're at it. Abog 04:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Please also tell me where this standardization guideline is that you're referring to. I'd really like to see it, especially as most templates don't seem to follow it anyway. Abog 04:18, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, what is the short version of why duplicate information from {{Chicagoland}} keeps being restored into {{Illinois}}? —Rob (talk) 20:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Quite simply, the short answer is "Abog". Let's just settle this, shall we, as no one else seems willing to provide any further sane arguementation. I propose a simple vote: Telos 00:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Should the cites list for the Illinois template be condensed to include only cities over 50,000 in population?

YES, for the purposes of navigational ease, standardization, elimination of subjectivity, and significance of the cities listed --Telos 00:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

NO, for the purposes of navigational ease (so people can actually navigate to important Illinois cities like Moline, Rock Island, Danville, Belleville, DeKalb, Galesburg, Quincy, St. Charles, and Crystal Lake, just like people in Wisconsin and Indiana can navigate to 25K-50K cities), avoiding subjectivity, being representative of the State of Illinois, balancing the listing of 102 counties, being accurate (there's a difference between cities and villages and they link to different pages: Major cities and Major towns and villages), being in touch with geography (25,000 is a common major threshold in most maps and other geography-related materials), and so forth. It should also be noted that the new template would only be a centimeter or two shorter, but would deny users the navigation to 50 important cities and villages.

I'm also still waiting for proof that this supposed 50K standardization was actually something that was discussed and agreed upon by the Wikipedia community.

And this vote is ridiculous anyway, since it's pretty much 2 against 1 and I'm going to lose. I think dispute resolution would be more appropriate. Abog 02:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I vote NO-- because we haven't decided how the template should appear. Everyone can say what they don't want-- fine. Now we need an agreement on the purpose of the template and what should appear on it. Please see below. --Lmbstl 13:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

What is wrong with trying to arrive at a concensus? Can we agree to try and do so?

First, using population count as a threshold for template inclusion is not sufficient. This has been the foundation for all these senseless arguments about the template. People are choosing an arbitrary population threshold that corresponds to the the size of template they prefer. This overlooks the purpose of the template-- if we can agree on the purpose of the template, then we can better arrive at its proper size-- NOT based on cosmetics but based on function. Can we agree to do this?

Purpose of the template

To provide a visual "menu" in order to easily access information about Illinois regions, counties, and cities, assuming that hte reader knows little about Illinois. I welcome thoughts and debate on this statement of purpose. --Lmbstl 13:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

In line with the above template purpose, I clarified "Metro-East" to read as "St. Louis Metro-East." It is referred to as such in official documentation[1], real estate [2][3][4], and it clarifies the region for those not familiar with the state. --Lmbstl 08:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Since you're from St. Louis, maybe you could help with the Metro-East article. None of those links explain what Metro-east actually consists of. See Talk:Metro-East, the initial stub said ten counties, then 11 counties, now 6 counties. St. Louis MSA only includes 5. I don't know which is correct, I thought I'd add an SVG map, but the last image I found on Commons was dumped because it had 11 counties. --Dual Freq 19:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Criteria for inclusion of cities

Idea 1: Keep only the "regions" or "counties" listing on the Illinois template, then have sub-templates for cities within the regions/counties. There are a couple of problems with this approach:

a. Not everyone knows which cities correspond to which region/county. For example, how many people know that "metro-east" is the St. Louis metro area, which includes Illlinois? Further, how many people looking for Edwardsville (seat of Madison County and home to SIUE) would know to look at the Metro-East? Or Belleville? This is problematic, and it is the main reason I do not support leaving cities such as Edwardsville off of the main Illinois template.

b. There will still be arguments about which cities to include the subtemplates, anyway. Therefore. . .

Idea 2: Whether listing cities on subtemplates or on the main Illinois template, there must be criteria for inclusion. If we have to go through city by city, then so be it. I propose that we use our energy to develop a set of criteria to allow a city inclusion into the template.

This is what I have been able to come up with:

Significant historical/cultural contribution (h)

Major economic input (will typically coincide with population) (e)

Location of a major university (u)

If we want to inroduce numerical criteria, we can rate each quality on a scale of 1 - 7, with 7 being the highest. For example, the city of Chicago would rank as follows:

h = 7

e = 7

u = 7

for a a top score of 21.

Decatur:

h = 4

e = 5

u = 4

for a score of 13.

The above scoring may have to be evaluated within each region, I am not sure. What should be the threshold for inclusion? Let's debate the above criteria. This will decide the template. --Lmbstl 13:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That's... crazy complicated, and will be a significant pain in the arse to maintain. Theoretically, it's great.

I'd go with top 10 or 20 in population, but then some of those are cities in the greater Chicagoland area that not everyone in the state knows. So now I'm thinking major population centers. Chicago, Rockford, Quad Cities, Bloomington-Normal, Champaign-Urbana, Peoria, Edwardsville/Belleville. —Rob (talk) 19:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Alternatively, take the list from control cities on Interstate highways in Illinois (from [5]): Metropolis, LaSalle, Mendota, Rockford, E.St. Louis, Edwardsville, Litchfield, Springfield, Lincoln, Bloomington, Pontiac, Joliet, Chicago, Cairo, Marion, Mt.Vernon, Salem, Effingham, Matton, Champaign-Urbana, Rantoul, Kankakee, Vandalia, Decatur, Moline, Galesburg, Peoria, Champaign-Urbana, Danville, Genesco, Princeton, La Salle, Ottawa, Morris, Sterling, Rock Falls, Rochelle, DeKalb, Aurora, Naperville, Downers Grove, Elmhurst, Villa Park, Lombard, Elgin, Waukegan, Highland Park, Skokie, Calumet City. But that's way too big. —Rob (talk) 19:19, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the above-mentioned formula is way too complicated and way too subjective. As I said before, seeting a limit or having a population threshold is the only way to avoid subjectivity. Edwardsville is likely to reach 25k population soon anyway. It isn't realistic or fair for someone to be unable to navigate to a nationally-important city such as Moline or a city important to Illinois like Quincy. I think metro areas/micro areas might be an appropriate compromise, but then that would cause large anchor cities such as Elgin and Aurora to not be included, since they fall under the Chicago metro. I really don't see the problem with having 80 cities to balance 102 counties, especially considering people are more familiar with cities than counties anyway. Additonally, I think the Chicagoland template is redundant and unnecessary, since we are already forming individual county templates and have the state template. The Illinois template with 83 cities and 102 counties really isn't much longer than any of the other state templates. I don't see why we need to recklessly remove cities.

Additionally, please help revert the senseless edits by Dual Freq. He's now got the list down to 10 cities, and is considering only having Chicago listed. This is ridiculous...no state template is like that. We need the more navigable version up until this is settled. Abog 19:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It's complicated because of these disagreements. Economic input and the presence of a university are hardly subjective. Historical contribution, I admit, is rather subjective. I disagree that Wikipedia does not allow for subjectivity. Anyway, the point is-- we can keep this simple or make it complicated-- the "complication" is lack of agreement. If everyone wants to decide to use the census, then so be it. Let's agree to do so. (Then the template will only change every ten years, right? ;) ) --Lmbstl 07:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Top 20?

Now, you're going to reduce it to the Top 20 Cities?!? Pretty much every state template has more than that. It's not fair that people in Wisconsin can navigate to Stevens Point and Manitowoc and people in Indiana can navigate to Richmond and Noblesville, but people in Illinois can't navigate to Moline and Danville. This is getting ridiculous.

Unless you plan on doing this to every state template, NO! Why is Illinois being singled out and having its listing of cities on its template reduced to practically nothing? All for the sake of two centimeters, right? Abog 03:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'd prefer a top ten list. I was trying to compromise at 50k, but since you think that 50k is too arbitrary, then top 20 is a nice round number and should be a reasonable list size wise. Let Wisconsin worry about itself, this template ha a link for all cities, towns and villages as well as each county. Are we supposed to pick an arbitrary threshold for population, like 50k, 75k, 10k, 5k, 2k? As for important cities, what about Cairo? Since it's a historically significant town for Illinois, should the arbitrary pop limit be 3,632? No, the template links to regions, counties, cities, towns, pretty much everything needed. There is no need to list 80 municipalities in this template. --Dual Freq 03:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Cairo isn't an important city. This has nothing to do with history. It has to do with economics, population centers, industrial centers, that sort of thing. Moline, Rock Island, Quincy, Danville, Freeport, Crystal Lake, St. Charles, and Galesburg are significant in those areas and highly influential to the state. And population thresholds, whatever they are, assure that there is no subjectivity. Also, if we can list 102 counties, I think we should be able to list 80 municipalities to balance, especially since people are more likely to be more familiar with cities than counties anyway. As for the "let Wisconsin worry about itself" attitude...that indicates subjectivity, allows for unfair opression of the Illinois template, and throws the whole pretend "standardization" theory out the window. Abog 03:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I beg to differ, Cairo was an economic and population center for most of the first 100 years that Illinois existed. What about the former state capitals of Kaskaskia, Illinois and Vandalia? Maybe we should go down to a population of 9 to include Kaskaskia. Do you want to list every municipality in the state here? Anything beyond 20 or 30 is too much. Counties can cover themselves with templates of their own, like DuPage County, Illinois already has with its Chicagoland template and the DuPage County template. There is a link to each county and each region, listing all these is redundant. There is no need to list 80 municipalities on this template. This is not your template. --Dual Freq 03:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm talking about NOW, in the year 2007. This has nothing to do with history! Yet to deny a nationally signficant present-day city and major Illinois city such as Moline from inclusion on the Illinois template is utterly ridiculous. Same goes for the other major Illinois cities I mentioned a bazillion times before. And once again, a population threshold assures there is no subjectivity.

And anything beyond 20 or 30 may be too much for you...that's a matter of personal preference. Maybe 100 is too much for me. You think listing 80 municipalities is redundant...I think the existence of the Chicagoland template is redundant. But this isn't my template, this isn't your template. This is the Illinois template, and we should have an Illinois template that best represents the state, includes its major cities, isn't subjective, and allows for easy navigation for users. Abog 04:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Unfair oppression of the Illinois template? I haven't laughed that hard in a while. --Dual Freq 04:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and laugh, but why can people in Minnesota and Virginia and North Carolina navigate to all their major cities, but people in Illinois can't. I guess they can blame you. Abog 04:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Please see above "Dispute resolution". --Lmbstl 14:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Top 10? Top 1?

What the hell? This is ridiculous...so you're going to reduce it even more to the Top 10 cities listed, and not have Champaign, Bloomington, Moline, or Schaumburg listed? And now you're talking of only including Chicago. For what purpose? No other state template is this ridiculously oppressed and recklessly vandalized. This isn't your template.

Additionally, I have compromised already by setting a limit at 25K, whereas before I was a bit more nonchalant. I might even be willing to compromise and not include Algonquin, L.I.T.H, Batavia, Romeoville, and Plainfield, since they weren't at 25K population in 2000. You, however, aren't willing to compromise, and keep cutting down the list even more to satisfy your personal preferences.

There is a general consensus among everyone else that we should come to some sort of compromise and that the template should be representational and include all of Illinois' major cities. I also don't see why you had to take out the link to "towns and villages"...now people have to go through like 3 pages just to access a listing of towns and villages. I'm trying to be realistic and user-friendly here. Not everyone's a geo-genius and has every Illinois county memorized and knows where to find Bloomington and Moline.

So enough of the psychological warfare, edit warring, and abuse of the Illinois template. Please justify your actions and try to work with the rest of the Wikipedia community on an appropriate compromise. Thank you. Abog 20:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

For once, I agree with Abog -- ONE city? In addition to 102 counties? Nothing was wrong with the origional template. It seems like everyone is completely unwilling to see any viewpointe other then their own:

Lmbstl, Wikipedia doesn't provide for subjectivity. If we need a formula to decide which cities to include, it just means we're attempting to force something unnatural to justify personal disgresion. Population is a perfectly objective measure, and most other state templates utilize it as such.

ROB, people don't visit Wikipedia to find information they already know! It's better to link to topics with which folks might be less familiar, in case they care to inform themselves. Also, why are suburbs proper cities? The fact that Chicago is next-door doesn't change the fact that Aurora is a sizeable place.

DualFreq, it seems you just want the cities section gone altogether, which would not only put Illinois as the only state in that situation, but it defeats the purpose of a navigational template. You keep asking for more -- first 50,000 population, then 20 cities, 10 cities, just Chicago, etc. Templates aren't just there to hack down.

Abog, how about assuming good faith? I read through your comments and see all sorts of unjustified accusations (psychological warfare? abuse?), personal attacks (senseless, irresponsible), and hyperbole ("ridiculously oppressed and recklessly vandalized"). The fact that you've "worked hours on this template" means nothing -- your contributions will me mercilessly edited, remember? Nonetheless, you have the right general idea, that we need some fixed standard. I think that what this standard is should be the focus of this debate. Oh, by the way, sorry I accused you of sockpuppetry.

Bottom line, I'm reverting way back to the template before any of this happened. Let's stop edit warring, shall we? Telos 23:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I edited it, since Northern Illinois was recently added as a region and also since we seemed to come to terms on condensing the cities and villages/towns into one, but providing links to both pages at the same time. I also removed the places that weren't 25,000 people at the 2000 census, in an effort to be more objective, narrow the template a bit, and as a general compromise on my behalf. I'm sorry if I assumed bad faith, but I've been accused of everything from ownership to bias to sockpuppetry and so forth, and then I get sarcasm, and I generally have just been dishing back what was dealt to me, and that's wrong I guess and I'm sorry. Also, when it gets to the point where we're only having Chicago and Springfield listed without justification, it seems as if people are just hacking away at the template and not willing to talk out issues or find an appropriate compromise. Keep in mind any compromises from here and out should be somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000 population, or something completely different. I think what I've got it down to is workable and very comparable to most other state templates, content- and size-wise. Abog 00:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

That's very nice of you to compromise at your original list of 70 plus municipalities. It's pointless to list all of those, but after all, this is your template. Sorry to disturb it. --Dual Freq 03:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Criteria for including a city/town in the Illinois template

I agree with Telos that we need a fixed standard. Am I correct in understanding that the fixed standard for a city's inclusion in the template is a 2000 census count of 25K people or more? Is this the agreement? --Lmbstl 08:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I propose top 20, 25 or 30 municipalities based on 2000 census. I disagree with 25k pop limit, there is no reason to list 78 municipalities in this template. --Dual Freq 05:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Dual Freq: I know you would like a smaller template-- please explain why. Why shoudn't 78 municipalities be listed? I think the template functions well, and it provides a reasonable navigation for the State. I also don't think it looks all that bad. It funtions well for people who don't know much about Illinois-- the target audience. However, these are my opinions and I would like to hear others. --Lmbstl 07:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, we have 70+ municipalities, I'm guessing 50 of them are in Chicagoland and there are none further south than Belleville. If the template is going to be that lopsided anyway, I see no reason to list more than 20 or 30 municipalities total. If it excludes a bunch of downstate localities, I'm willing to live with that so I don't have to see a list of 50+ Chicagoland cities on every Illinois related page. After all, both lists of cities and towns are linked, the regions are linked and the counties are linked. No one looking at this template or an article it's attached to, like Belleville, Springfield or Peoria is going to "need" to click on Dolton or Bartlett. If I knew nothing about Illinois, chances are the only city I could name would be Chicago anyway. The rest is not going to be learned from linking 78 cities on a template, it's going to be learned from the Illinois article, the regional articles or the county articles. There is no reason to list 78 municipalities in this template. --Dual Freq 15:26, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree with what Dual Freq is saying. The temple for Illinois is huge. 25k really isn't an "important" city in my mine. Heck, I think the town I live in is important, doesn't mean it is. At most, the template should feature the top 25 cities as far as the population is concerned. I would rather see it down to 10-20 personally. Otherwise in some of the villages you have a template that takes up more of the page than the actual article. I also agree that people looking to come to Illinois are really only interested in a couple anyways, such as Chicago, Springfield, maybe Joliet (since it is mentioned so much due to the prison on TV).--Kranar drogin 15:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to do an add-on, look at Template:New York. They have less than 20 listed there, and I am sure the state has a much bigger population than Illinois.--Kranar drogin 15:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I've done some thinking, and I realize that since now that the county template thing is starting to kick into gear, and since many of the cities on the IL template are found on the Chicagoland template anyway, that we can condense it down. However, at the same time, we need to realize that places downstate are important cities and economical centers for the state, as are the anchor cities of Chicagoland. So, I've devised a plan that will include all cities 25K+ downstate (plus Carbondale, since it's pretty important regionally and right at the cusp), the five primary anchor cities of Chicagoland, the two primary cities of Metro East, and Chicago itself. This amounts to about 25, pretty close to the desired amount. Here's what would be listed:

Auora - Belleville - Bloomington/Normal - Carbondale - Champagain/Urbana - Chicago - Danville - Decatur - DeKalb - Elgin - East St. Louis - Freeport - Galesburg - Joliet - Kankakee - Moline/Rock Island - Naperville - Peoria - Quincy - Rockford - Springfield - Waukegan.

If you think it should be reorganized some other way, go ahead, but I really think that this is a good list. It's kind of similar to the metro areas format, except a couple of these are micros (Galesburg, Freeport), and a couple are part of a larger metro area (Elgin, Aurora, Joliet, etc.). I think it's an appropriate compromise, and very representational of the state geographically, economically, historically, and so forth. Additonally, all these cities are insets on the Illinois state map, except for the anchor cities of Chicago which are included on that map. So, whatd'ya say???Abog 05:15, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a much better list. I agree about Galesburg and Freeport, they are kinda iffy, but can deal with it. I also think that including the southern cities that are important down there is better also. I personally would go with those cities you have listed.--Kranar drogin 11:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Just for the record, I concur. I think the city/town list is reasonably representational, even though I think Edwardsville should be included. --Lmbstl 09:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Edwardsville

Can we disccuss the inclusion of Edwardsville? Nearly 25K people, county seat of Madison County (the most populous Illinois county in the St. Louis Metro), and location of SIUE. . . --Lmbstl 10:16, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

What I think needs to be done is to look at what sort of coverage we have with those other cities and why they are included. I could see the removal from the list of one city and then to add Edwardsville, Illinois. We could sit here and say this city is important because....all day. But if southern cities have no been fairly represented, we should include it. Maybe this is one that could be swapped out with Freeport or Galesburg.--Kranar drogin 11:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Evanston

I know this is a huge can of worms and I apologize for bringing it up, but someone has to say it: Evanston, because of its cultural and educational contributions to the region and the nation, is on most non-Illinoisans' very short list of cities they would recognize in Illinois. Why Waukegan and not Evanston? Why Kankakee and not Evanston? I'm not angry about this, but I think it needs to be discussed. I think a reasonable out-of-state reader would expect to see Evanston on a "top 20" list of cities in Illinois. Even if population doesn't justify it there (what will 75,000 get you these days?), culture, history, politics and education probably ought to. _{``` W</sub> i k i <sub>W</sub> i s t a h <sub>W</sub> a s s a p <sub>```} 04:42, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The reason first off that I can see, is that Evanston is in Cook County. When the list was created, we wanted to include major cities from all over the state. Kankakee I am sure fits all those things that you have described also with its own rich history. We can sit here and argue until you are blue in the face, but the line had to be drawn that did not include all those cities from Cook County. If someone wants to find Evanston, they can do a search or click on Chicago and it is on the Cook County template.--Kranar drogin 10:33, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Meh. Kranar brings up a good point, where does it stop. Maybe include the top two or three population wise in Cook County but beyond that it would just get out of control. The Cook County template is probably a good place for the link to Evanston. No worms here. Unless fried. IvoShandor 10:37, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I understand concerns about "where does it stop," and about including cities from all over. But respectfully I must submit that Kankakee, like most of the cities on the template, does not fit all those things I've said about Evanston; it's probably a nice place and all, but I don't think it has quite the name recognition or cultural impact outside Illinois that Evanston has. I agree that Evanston isn't exactly hidden -- a simple search will call it up -- but I'm simply asking a question here: if we're going to go ahead and include cities in the state template at all, and if we're going to use a subjective cocktail of criteria (not complaining -- I happen to agree that none of the "objective" criteria, like pop. size, was perfect), then let's talk about why certain cities make the cut and certain ones don't.

I specifically brought up the case of Evanston because I feel it is the left-out city with the strongest case, and perhaps the only one, for inclusion on the template. Rest assured, I won't be back asking for Skokie and Oak Park and Cicero; each of these is noteworthy in its own right (demographically, architecturally, historically, respectively) but none of them, IMHO, cries out to be on the template like Evanston does. Here we have a city that was historically Chicago's counterpart, before one could speak of a metro area: the Cambridge to its Boston. None of the other cities on the template currently, save Chicago, can claim the national impact Evanston has; perhaps most importantly, as home of the most respected and most rigorous private university in the Midwest. I can't imagine the Michigan template without Ann Arbor, or the Georgia template without Athens. That's why I brought this up. _{``` W</sub> i k i <sub>W</sub> i s t a h <sub>W</sub> a s s a p <sub>```} 05:02, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

The current compromise was very hard to arrive at, and all the positive things noted about Evanston no doubt apply to other cities in Illinois that are not included. I certainly don't want to end up back to this version of the template. There is a very nice Template:Chicagoland that lists Evanston and appears at the bottom of a large number of articles. --Dual Freq 05:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Again I agree with Dual Freq. And want to add to what I said before. The idea that Evanston has a lot to offer Illinois as far as culture/history etc may well be true but so does Oak Park, so does Naperville, so does Aurora. What you have to realize is that no one but the people in Evanston are going to think Evanston when they think Illinois. What identity it may once have had has been swallowed by Chicago, as is the case with most of the suburbs. I don't know where the idea that Evanston is somehow on a short list of places that non-Illinoisians know comes from. Any sources on that? IvoShandor 05:39, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Also I don't think you can just say carte blanche that non of the other cities have national impact because Northwestern University isn't there. I think Evanston is much more important to Chicagoland than it is to the rest of the state. I am originally from downstate and the only reference I had heard to Evanston was surrounding its sub par college atheletics. Living in northern Illinois, I know more about it now but would still argue that you are greatly over emphasizing its impact based upon personal biases. (No offense meant). IvoShandor 05:43, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you are very wrong about Kankakee's impact. I live in the Rockford area, and we have advertisements here for that city's businesses and none for Evanston. Heck, the only time I ever hear of Evanston is when people talk about going to school there (and that was only one person I know). When I hear talk of Northwestern, there is never mention of the city. I'm just saying that I don't agree that Evanston is known more, and again, you can simply click on Chicago and find the Cook County listing of cities.--Kranar drogin 10:39, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, this is a friendly disagreement and I'm not going to jump off a bridge if Evanston stays off the template. Just wanted to make that clear. To address these points: I live out of state (out of Illinois, that is). I think if I went up to 10 people in Massachusetts and asked them what state Kankakee is in, or Oak Park, or Waukegan, I'd draw at least nine blanks. Same question with Evanston ... maybe just six blanks, or seven. A source for this? It's not scientific, but google returns 2.16 m hits for "Evanston, Illinois", and 1.67 for "Kankakee, Illinois", 1.96 for "Waukegan, Illlinois" and a similar 2.14 million for "Rockford, Illinois". I don't doubt that these places have played a noticeable role in the regional and perhaps national scene of Northern Illinois, Illinois and the USA, but my experience has been that more people outside Illinois know what Evanston is than any other city in Illinois, save Chicago and Springfield, and perhaps Carbondale, Rockford, Champaign/Urbana. Again, I disagree with Dual Freq that "all the positive things noted about Evanston no doubt apply to other cities in Illinois that are not included". Which of the non-listed cities -- this is excluding Chicago, Carbondale, Champaign -- has a major research university? Which of them was for years a major banking center under the old protectionist state laws (NBD, WaMu, etc.)? Which has more skyscrapers, a more vibrant and historic downtown? Which was a national leader in the temperance (conservative/Puritan) movement, only to become in recent years a hotbed of university liberalism, with a fiercely integrationist school system?

That said, I'm under no delusion that Evanston is some axis around which the entire state of Illinois turns. What I am saying is that although I understand you want to keep this template's city list as short as possible, I still think Evanston is a worthy addition. I'm not trying to snuff out Kankakee's light; my only point in bringing it up was to say that if Kankakee merits inclusion, Evanston does as well. If for no other reason than Northwestern U., Evanston is a nationally (certainly Midwest-regionally) known city (the school is known for slightly more than just its subpar athletics ... Come to think of it, if you're worried about this "opening the floodgates," why not say Evanston gets in because of NU only? That's an attraction Oak Park, et al., can't claim). The "you can just click on Chicago" argument, to me, is a non-starter. If I wanted info on Waukegan, I could just click on Lake County and get a link there. If I wanted information on Carbondale, I could just click on Little Egypt. If we're going to use that argument, then let's not have any cities on the template at all.

Folks, I think I've made my point, and I won't waste your time rehashing it any longer, and forcing you to rehash your disagreement. Please keep in mind that I'm not trying to put down some of the other fine cities currently included, nor am I trying to open the floodgates, nor am I meaning to suggest that everyone knows Evanston and the state revolves around it. I'm simply saying that I feel it merits inclusion, by the standards you seem to have set by including some of the other cities that are there. If someone else is convinced of my reasoning, s/he can make the change. If not, my life will go on and I will know I did my part to try to improve Wikipedia. _{``` W</sub> i k i <sub>W</sub> i s t a h <sub>W</sub> a s s a p <sub>```} 02:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Nav-box index crisis

16-Dec-2007: As the nav-box Template:Illinois continues to be expanded with more cities or topics, and transcluded into more articles, the Wikipedia indexing is becoming a so-called "N-squared problem" or more accurately an "NxM (N-by-M) problem": when 2,500 articles use a nav-box having 200 wikilinks, the overall effect generates 500,000 entries into the Wikipedia index-file database: the seemingly small nav-box (with just 200 city/region names and topics) snowballs into a massive half-million entries in the Wikipedia link-files database. Currently (16Dec07), Template:Illinois has 159 wikilinks and is used in over 1,865 pages, generating over 296,500 total wikilinks.

The problem is encouraged because some people treat nav-box templates as being shared subroutines or common menus, but they are not: in MediaWiki language 1.6, nav-box templates are actually copied as multiple instances for each page when used, rather than implemented as a shared common routine. If just 10 pages use a nav-box linking 150 cities/regions, that's 1,500 index entries, and the current result has become the 296,500 index entries already created by Template:Illinois. Solutions are being implemented to avoid the growing nav-box index crisis, as discussed below. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Template:Texas reduces nav-box crisis

16-Dec-2007: As a quick solution to nav-box overlinking, the Template:Texas (since August 2007) no longer contains box links to the 254 counties in Texas (most of any state); instead, Template:Texas merely links the full-length counties article by "See: List of Texas counties". Although Template:Texas gives a simple solution reducing the nav-box crisis, it has the drawback of linking a very long article to provide county-name links, rather than a short nav-box template of county-names. Instead, I suggest using a condensed state-counties template for only counties of a state, similar to Template:Texas, but with only box links to county-names, avoiding a full-length article listing descriptions of all counties. Then, that kind of state-counties template ("Template:Illinois_counties") would only be transcluded into a few hundred articles about counties, rather than into 1,865. Meanwhile, each state-template could be substantially shortened (by using "See: Table of Illinois counties" to also reduce overall wikilinks by 173,000 or so), after a condensed state-counties template has been developed and verified, for each state. Long term, the general solution would be multiple smaller templates:

• Template:Illinois - simplified as links to other templates;
• Template:Illinois_counties - condensed box of county names;
• Template:Illinois_cities - condensed box of major cities;
• Template:Illinois_regions - condensed box of major regions;
• Template:Illinois_topics - condensed box of topic articles;
• Template:Illinois_roads - condensed box of roadways;
• Template:Illinois_railways - condensed box of railways.

Other small templates can be added on future subjects.

Once the major cities have been moved to a separate template, separated from the numerous counties, there is then ample space to list, perhaps, the top 30 or 45 cities in the state, alleviating the "Top-25" restrictions debated in February 2007. Similar nav-box size problems have been debated for other states, during the past 3 years. For Illinois articles, using smaller templates could easily reduce the Wikipedia index-files database by over 230,000 wikilinks, while also reducing the daunting size of the bottom nav-boxes on smaller articles. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

How Wikipedia copes with large navbox templates

15-Feb-2008: After Template:Illinois is modified, Wikipedia has the massive task of reformatting all "caller" articles (about 1,873 pages) which invoke that template, so the page-links for "What links here" can be quick and more accurate. There is a delay of a few mintutes before the page-link database(s) begin being updated. When a template is edited & saved, then Wikipedia must begin the (often massive) task of re-indexing every page which uses that template. For just a few dozen articles, the Wikipedia servers might complete the reindexing of a template within 4 minutes; however, Template:Illinois is used in over 1,870 pages. Therefore, 1,870 pages must be reindexed, and that effort is delayed and spread out as a long-term task for the Wikipedia servers. The servers have a job queue of pending page updates, and sometimes that queue can have over a million jobs in the queue, such as indexing 1,870 pages for reformatting the modified template. With today's computers, there is a lot of processing power available to re-index 1,870 pages, over and over. However, if multiple changes could be carefully checked and combined as just 1 save operation, that would reduce the re-indexing to just 1,870 queued pages just once. If more changes are needed, that's okay, and Wikipedia servers will cope, but the effect of changing just one word should be considered. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 December 2013

put in St. Charles/Geneva and Crystal Lake/McHenry/Woodstock 98.228.248.239 (talk) 00:57, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

St. Charles is already listed; I added Geneva and Batavia. Crystal Lake is also already listed; I added McHenry and Woodstock. Maralia (talk) 03:41, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I have reverted these additions. Unfortunately, Geneva, Batavia, McHenry, and Woodstock do not currently meet the population criteria to be included in the state template. To prevent the template from becoming too large, we have set parameters for including cities in the template. The state template includes the city of Chicago, all downstate micropolitan and metropolitan cities, downstate suburbs greater than 15,000 in population, Metro East (St. Louis) suburbs greater than 24,000 in population, and Chicago Metro suburbs greater than 30,000 in population. If we open it up to Geneva, Batavia, Woodstock, and McHenry, we would have to be fair and open it up to all Chicago Metro suburbs greater than 20,000, of which there are MANY more, which would make the template very large. This has been a concern of editors in the past, and we reached a compromise that included most of the principal cities of Illinois, without making the template incredibly large, filled with too many suburbs, and hard to navigate. I am open to discussing this more and building a new consensus though. The bottom line, though, is that we can't be willy-nilly in what is included and what is not. We have to have set objective criteria to be fair to all cities of a similar size and type. Abog (talk) 17:40, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 March 2014

put Geneva next to St. Charles put McHenry and Woodstock next to Crystal Lake move Elk Grove Village next to Arlington Heights move Algonquin next to Elgin 104.1.25.40 (talk) 01:48, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

• Not done: it's not clear what changes you want made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. I'm unclear as to exactly what you want, although I could probably figure it out. The problem is that it is unclear what benefit this change will make and why you think it should be done. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 02:31, 30 March 2014 (UTC)