Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Boroughitis/archive1

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

The article was promoted by Graham Beards via FACBot (talk) 20:29, 15 October 2015 [1].

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Boroughitis

Nominator(s): Wehwalt (talk) 23:32, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

This article is about... a peculiarly New Jersey article. Boroughitis may sound like a fake disease, but it's a real thing: the aftereffects still afflict New Jersey today. It seemed normal to live in one borough growing up, going to high school in another, getting our water from a third, a fourth was down past the end of the street, the supermarket was in a fifth ... and I haven't gotten five miles from my house yet. And all of the boroughs I mentioned were incorporated in 1894. Enjoy.Wehwalt (talk) 23:32, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Support – Taking part in a peer review of an article on local government may not seem a prospect to quicken the pulse, but I much enjoyed reviewing this, and found nothing to quibble at during the PR. Very entertaining goings-on in the 1890s! Beautifully constructed, clear, pleasing prose, good balance and well referenced. Meets the FA criteria in my view. – Tim riley talk 06:51, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks for your review and support.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:20, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Image review

• File:Bergen_County,_NJ_municipalities_labeled.svg: source link is dead. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:10, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

I've dealt with that. Thank you for the review. --Wehwalt (talk) 22:33, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Source review

• Format error in ref 30 – check the template
• I'm not quite clear what information is being cited to re 33.

Otherwise, all sources look to be of appropriate quality and consistently formatted. Brianboulton (talk) 18:27, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for that review. 30 has been fixed, 33 sources the number of municipalities and counties, the merger of the Princetons, and some of the efforts for consolidation, as well as the per capita stat. Regrettably, I found the need to run sources together and then another came along, resulting in something of a cite string, I'm afraid. It would be difficult to untangle.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:40, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Support. I was a peer reviewer and my questions and occasional perplexities were answered there. An unsual offbeat topic, typifying the breadth of range in this weird encyclopaedia of ours. Brianboulton (talk) 18:27, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the review and support.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:40, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support (having stumbled here from my FAC). Quite nicely done. Reminds me of a guy who was inflicted with "Boneitis"... But anyways yeah I wonder if there's some sort of longer term plan put forth attempting to address this -- that never gets fully followed through upon. — Cirt (talk) 01:37, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. There really isn't any plan to deal with this. Home rule is very important in New Jersey. Every governor since the 1960s that's been in office for any length of time has urged mergers, but they don't happen very often. Three that I'm aware of.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:49, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

• I have to Oppose this as the article gives undue weight to Bergen County...when this phenomenon is equally and quite dynamically present in the state's other 20 counties (often with quite unique circumstances). There's scant coverage of other instances..., for example, like Franklin Borough in Sussex County where the ruralites separate it from Hardyston as a result of a battle of schools vs. the interests of NJ Zinc Company and backlash from locals who didnt like all the Hungarian, Slavic, and Chilean miners coming into the area. Also in 1693, those two dozen townships were not covering the entire area of the state, only a small portion along Newark Bay, Raritan Bay and the lower Delaware Valley...70% of the colony/state's area was unpopulated by european settlers and unorganized (Karcher is wrong on this...the last parts of northwestern nj were not organized until 1750-1751, West Jersey north of what is now Trenton didn't begin getting organized until 1711). To say this without qualification is unclear and misleading. ALSO, i do take issue the use of Senator Karcher's book (I knew the Senator, btw) in a kindle edition...citations with page numbers like 851 and 1389 don't comport with a book that in print is easily accessible (including online postings like Google Books) and only 238 pages long. Further, there's more primary information on the phenomenon, referencing the laws, in other areas of the state in Snyder's history of NJ's civil boundaries available in its entirery online in pdf...which I use and cite at List of municipalities in Sussex County, New Jersey...and in many other sources (some of which Karcher relies on) that are available quite easily. Some on state websites. Based on undue weight, some historical inaccuracies, and lack of covering other counties sufficiently, I think the article, while good, is incomplete in its coverage. JackTheVicar (talk) 13:12, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your views. I do not believe the issues in the other counties were tied to 1894 and 1895, do you have information that they do? I can get pretty close to page numbers using the index, if that will help.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:37, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Following up, I downloaded Snyder, I had been thinking of getting him on interlibrary loan so thank you. I've integrated some of his background and so forth, but he really doesn't talk much about boroughitis. Using his lists, I found that boroughs were incorporated in 16 of NJ's 21 counties in 1894-96, but except Bergen (26) no county had more than 3. So I'm not sure it is undue weight. The system worked more or less as it was supposed to elsewhere. The Franklin Borough matter did not happen until 1913; this article is about what happened when the legislature left the door open. I'm not as familiar with Sussex County as I am further east, but I would think Franklin Borough was chartered by special act of the legislature? I'd welcome any sources you have on boroughitis as applied to other counties, but given the relatively small number that acted, I think we fulfill WP:DUE by mentioning Roselle and Mountainside. I didn't see anything happening in Sussex. So I've deleted the incorrect background info, inserted new stuff from Snyder, changed Karcher to page numbers, and would welcome any sources that deal with boroughitis outside Bergen County because I didn't see any.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:01, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I've added a bit on borough splits later in Camden and Essex counties.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:53, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

• Support Interesting read, very nicely put together. – SchroCat (talk) 06:07, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
• Thank you for the review and support.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:22, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

• Comments - leaningSUPPORT: Hi Wehwalt, I like the article and am leaning support, but found a few places where I scratched my head and perhaps you can address these matters. Montanabw^(talk) 23:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

1. I'm a little fuzzy in the lead with the difference between a borough and a community, i.e. " townships, in which there might be several communities, each with a local school that formed its own district." If the words are used synonymously, or if they mean two different styles of small municipality, can you clarify? (The township article is of some help, but just a minor rephrase of a sentence or two should solve the problem.)

   Community is used to mean a settlement which doesn't have corporate existence on is own. They generally formed into boroughs, or possibly some other form of New Jersey local government. In New Jersey, community generally followed (and in my opinion, still does) the schools.

2. Lead could be clarified to put the impact of railroads and the early development of suburbs as a sociological factor a bit more prominently.
3. Would like to see a bit of the Voorhees analysis of the problems with Borouhitis placed into the lead, the final paragraph doesn't really summarize the end result and thus I'm left feeling unsure about why a reader would wish to delve into the issue. Perhaps expand a bit to put the juicy stuff up front, at the very least, the "township all but disappeared from Bergen County as a form of government" bit.
4. Background section, second paragraph, the bit about dirt roads seems artificially sandwiched between the other sentences, suggest reworking for better flow.
5. Last paragraph of background and first paragraph of Legislation section really should somehow be melded into the Legislation section, the transition is clunky
6. Still a it fuzzy why Bergen County was the hotbed and would value a brief analysis of other counties that may have been caught up in the craze (Don't agree entirely with Vicar's analysis above, but as someone not from around there, am wondering) ... was it geographic proximity to NYC plus wealth of commuters only or were there other factors?

   The railroad was a very big factor. I've added a bit here. Bergen County was fairly unique in having townships with multiple stations/communities. Other places, the legislature chartered a doughnut hole into a borough, but Bergen County's differences held things back for a while.

7. Passing reference to corruption, but was local-level corruption another factor?

   A bit, in places like Jersey City, that are eternally corrupt. But given that the Democrats suffered the biggest losses in history in 1894 in Congress, I think that it was more the economy. The lower house of the legislature was annually elected until 1949 or so.

8. In Legacy, still unclear why so much resistance to fixing the mess, even over 100 years later. Anything more to add?

   I've added a bit, but it's really about home rule and the local schools again.

Hope these questions/comments can help improve the article. To tell the truth, school control, taxes for local improvements, and the rural-urban battlefields that form as a result sounds just like modern Montana politics. Nothing changes... :-P Montanabw^(talk) 23:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I suspect the difference is that Montana doesn't allow many fixes without the legislature weighing in. Thanks for your very helpful comments and suggestions. If I haven't responded, I've gone ahead. I hope it is clearer now.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:24, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

It's much clearer now, thank you. Voting support above. Montanabw^(talk) 17:06, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

For coordinator information, I've asked JackTheVicar to look back in, here. No doubt they've been busy.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:46, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Wehwalt, I haven't forgotten. It has been a busy week with some family medical issues and work, but responding to your questions has a prominent spot on my desk when I get some more time this week. JackTheVicar (talk) 18:09, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, I hope those things are working out well.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:25, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Graham Beards (talk) 20:29, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

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