(WT-en) Jrdouce

Hello!

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Metro West/Greater Boston

Hi, Jrdouce. Welcome. I see you have started a Metro West region in Massachusetts for Framingham, Ashland and some other towns. These towns are already part of the Greater Boston region. What's your take on this? Do you think Metro West should be made a region within the Greater Boston region? Couldn't we just keep them in Greater Boston? (WT-en) OldPine 16:14, 21 June 2006 (EDT)

Hi OldPine. I live in Ashland, and the folks and businesses out there identify the area as Metro West. There is the Metro West Daily news, the Metro West telephone book Metro West YMCA, etc. Metro West is close to Boston, but no closer than towns listed in the North Shore (Massachusetts) or South Shore (Massachusetts). I think the towns West of Boston, outside Route 128 up to those through which Route 495 runs are a distinct area economically and culturally. Of course that is just my opinion. I'm new to this, and I haven't had time to read all of the guidlines. What are your thoughts?

I definitely see your point. Rt. 128 is definitely a convenient dividing line. I had the same thoughts about Concord, MA. I took a look at Wikipedia because I think a lot of the designations we use come from or follow theirs. They include Framingham and Concord (but we don't have to I guess). I could see moving Framingham and Natick to Metro West from Greater Boston. Would also like others to comment. (WT-en) OldPine 13:27, 22 June 2006 (EDT)

I just discovered that Ashland is also under Blackstone Valley. That is definitely incorrect. As watersheds go, Ashland (and Hopkinton) is in the Sudbury River Valley. How are issues like this resolved?

I discovered that, too, yesterday and deleted it. As you say, it was clearly wrong. By the way, if you put " ~~~~" after your comments, it'll help us track them better.

As far as the proper region for Ashland etc, we solicited comment and got none, so it's up to us :). Then, when we make the changes, we'll explain what we're doing and why in the summary box before saving. I'm with you for making the Metro West the region for Framingham/Natick/Ashland etc. and will be happy to make the changes if you want. (WT-en) OldPine 13:36, 23 June 2006 (EDT)

Thanks, I'll leave the changes to you since you seem far more familier with the organization of the site. I'm not sure where you would like me to put " ~~~~". Do you mean after these comments?

There must be some begginer FAQ pages where I can get up to speed, can you reccomentd any? Thanks.

OK, I'm on it. Check out "Help" from the left menu, then I think it's "using talk pages". Yeah, it goes after your comments. Leave out the tags which I just used to have it display correctly on the talk page before editing. (WT-en) OldPine 15:00, 23 June 2006 (EDT)

Thanks. (WT-en) Jrdouce 15:12, 23 June 2006 (EDT)

All done structurally except... Wikipedia includes Southborough. Do you think we should move it from Blackstone Valley or leave it there? Also, I see it both ways, but principal usage seems to be MetroWest with no space. Should it be that?? (WT-en) OldPine 15:35, 23 June 2006 (EDT)

Just a suggestion, but you may want to copy this discussion about the regional breakdown for Massachusetts to Talk:Massachusetts, where it's more likely that others will notice the discussion. Coming up with logical regions with non-ambiguous boundaries is an issue we go through with every state - a couple of examples of how this was attacked previously are at Talk:California and Talk:Vermont (as well as other state talk pages). The general guideline is to not have too many "top-level" regions, and to try to come up with regions that are fairly well-defined so that we don't get a lot of cities put into multiple (or wrong) regions. California was a mess for a long time, although in the past six months or so it seems to have really come out well from an organizational standpoint. -- (WT-en) Ryan 16:06, 23 June 2006 (EDT)

Hmmm... wish I'd thought of that. (WT-en) OldPine 18:30, 23 June 2006 (EDT)