Talk:El Cerrito, California

Opening comments

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Title

This article's title should be El Cerrito, California, and the El Cerrito in riverside county should be El Cerrito, Riverside County, California the same way the city is Mountain View, California and the unincorprated area is Mountain View, Contra Costa County, CaliforniaCholga^talK! 00:44, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Why should it be this? Is one El Cerrito, California (there seems to be at least three: in Contra Costa, Riverside, and San Diego) significantly better known than all others? What's the evidence that it is? Andrewa 13:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

not better, but the actual invcorporated city should have preferance as does Mountain View (city). The others are a small neighborhood and a small unincorporated area near Ontario, California. The most common El Cerrito, California should have preferance to not need the county in its name, I mean could you imagane a Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California article or a San Francisco, San Francisco County, California title just because there are neighborhoods or subdivisions or unincorporated areas with the same name?Cholga^talK! 05:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be saying that this El Cerrito is better known than the others (similarly to San Franciso), but in your first statement you seem to explicitly deny that you think this. It matters. If your first statement {not better} is correct, then refer to WP:NC and WP:DAB and I think you'll see that the name should stay as it is. Andrewa 13:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there are in fact three El Cerrito in California. El Cerrito, Riverside County, California and El Cerrito, San Diego, California being the other two. I am not saying I disagree with this move, but you do have to consider the confusion this move would cause if it is successful. Chris! _{my talk} 23:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

The example of Mountain View is actually a good one. For the city, it is called Mountain View, California. And census-designated place, it is called Mountain View, Contra Costa County, California. Now it seems to me that for CDPs, the name usually include the name of of the county. So according to this example, this move seems to work out. As El Cerrito, Riverside County, California is a CDP, it should remained its current name. El Cerrito, San Diego, California is a neighborhood of San Diego, and the current name should remained as well. Chris! _{my talk} 23:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I just did a quick search on Google and Yelp for businesses/organizations located in the Riverside County El Cerrito, to try to get an idea of how strong the local identity was. It turns out that every single business I looked at located within the CDP gives their address as "Corona, California". I couldn't find a single example of "El Cerrito, California", besides businesses that were actually in Contra Costa County and placed in the wrong location on the map. What looks like the main shopping center within the CDP is named "The Crossings at Corona." The address of the "El Cerrito Library", in the middle of the CDP, is "7581 Rudell Road, Corona 92881".

It seems clear that the Riverside County El Cerrito barely exists outside of the census bureau's data, and is nowhere near as prominent as the actual city of El Cerrito. While the city is not very big, it is several times larger than the CDP. It's located near the center of a major metropolitan area, has two BART stations with its name, an actual government, history, and identity.

Giving the same prominence to the two places might cause more confusion than moving this article. Right now, it looks like most, if not all of the wikilinks that link directly to El Cerrito, California are referring to the city. I doubt most people are even aware that there are any other places, and many don't know which county the city is located in, or the difference between cities and CDPs. -Nogood 08:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"There is only one city in California named "El Cerrito." While the practice of using the county name to disambiguate multiple places with the same name might make sense for other parts of the United States, in California there can only be one city with any given name, and there are no overlapping municipal entities like townships, villages, etc (only cities and unincorporated parts of counties). The other El Cerritos are an unincorporated census designated place and a neighborhood of San Diego. —Nogood 08:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)"

This is a copy of a comment by User:Nogood from the official Wikipedia:Requested moves page. Chris! _{my talk} 23:58, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Oppose. No case has been made that the city is the common use of the unqualified name, in fact it is denied (above) that this is the case. Andrewa 14:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
• Support According to local convention (The Mountain View example), this move is entirely legitimate to distinguish between a CDPs and a city. As far as common use is concern, this move is not trying to assert which usage is more common, but rather it is trying to follow local convention currently in used. Chris! _{my talk} 20:53, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
• Support (nominator): There is only one city with this name in California, therefore additional disambiguation should not be required. The other places with the same name have nowhere near the same prominence, and it appears are not even commonly called "El Cerrito, California." The current setup causes unnecessary confusion. -Nogood 05:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

If this move is ultimately denied, then more discussion is required regarding a possible move on Mountain View. Chris! _{my talk} 20:57, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you be specific about the local convention to which you refer above? Do you mean a Wikipedia naming convention, and if so which one? Or, is this something about the way Californians speak and/or write the name? Either is relevant, but it's hard to assess the validity of this claim unless you can be more specific. Andrewa 02:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

A local convention doesn't have to a wikipedia naming convention. It is just the way we name article here in the Bay Area (again the Mountain View example). And if you recalled, that is also why the Union Square, San Francisco -> Union Square (San Francisco) move doesn't work out. Besides a quick google test of El Cerrito, California here shows clearly that the city is more common than the other El Cerrito elsewhere in California. Now based on WP:NC, this move is legitimate. Chris! _{my talk} 20:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree about the meaning of local convention, that's exactly what I was asking, thank you.

Disagree that the move is legitimate, or based on WP:NC. Andrewa 03:40, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved. --Stemonitis 12:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Notable People

I believe that the notable people section should be restored. I don't think the lack of references is grounds for just removing the entire section, especial without discussion. Unless someone has a good reason why it should be removed, I plan to trim it, possibly add some references, and restore the section in the next week or two. Chazchaz101 (talk) 23:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think some of these people are "notable" but if they are, then so are Clark Kerr,long time chancellor Cal, Ike Lassiter (sp?) Oakland Raiders,Dr.Siri (sp?) Pres. Sierra Club and member of 1st US Everest climb,Clint Eastwood (actor/directer) for a few years at the large estate on Arlington/Havens Pl. I could think of others.76.166.245.241 (talk) 11:49, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Name change

The name should be changed for the reasons stated above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hemanetwork (talk • contribs) 22:38, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Requested move 2

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved per request. GTBacchus^(talk) 19:42, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

---

El Cerrito, Contra Costa County, California → El Cerrito, California — All city articles in the United States follow the (City, State) formula while unincorporated areas follow the (City, County, State) formula, if there is an identically named city and unincorporated area, the city does not add the county, since if you follow this formula this is unnecessary, the name of the article does not follow the formula and may lead people to believe it is an unincorporated community and make it harder to find, having the county in the title is superfluous and not necessary. Hemanetwork (talk) 22:33, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support I think the basic argument here is that the city is the primary topic within California, and should therefore be at El Cerrito, California. There is already a disambiguation page at El Cerrito, California, though this can easily be disposed of as superfluous, as all the entries are included in the disambiguation page at El Cerrito. A hatnote referring to the other California locations and the disambiguation page might be a good idea though. Skinsmoke (talk) 10:49, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
• Support, although not because cities should never use the county name in their titles, but because of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC as Skinsmoke points out. Powers ^T 21:22, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

• Support I also think it would make sense to move the article. Rather than disambiguating, having Contra Costa in the title suggests incorrectly that there are other cities in other counties with the same name. Chazchaz101 (talk) 16:14, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Although I am neutral in whatever the outcome might be, I wish to clarify the specific relevant guideline, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#United States. It says that "Those places that need even more disambiguation include their county or parish", but does not clearly, specifically state that "all city articles in the United States follow the (City, State) formula while unincorporated areas follow the (City, County, State) formula". One example that I came across recently is Wilmington, Will County, Illinois (a city) and Wilmington, Greene County, Illinois (an unincorporated area). I'm sure there are other examples. Zzyzx11 (talk) 01:21, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Secondly, many of these articles and titles were created by User:Rambot, when that bot was initially creating city and community articles in 2002 using U.S. Census data. The reason why there does exist a "El Cerrito, Contra Costa County, California" article (a city) and a "El Cerrito, Riverside County, California" (a census-designated place) is because both settlements had census data, and Rambot had to disambiguate the two articles immediately, and then create El Cerrito, California as a disambig page. [1] Zzyzx11 (talk) 01:43, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense but it is not needed, the Illinois city should probably be prioritized as well, but I am unfamiliar with unincorporated areas outside of California. In California no one even knows which one they live in, the names are larely unheard of and only city's receive any major credit, people that live in unincorporated areas typically claim the closest city or they claim a geographical region i.e. x valley or north of x city. The El Cerrito in San Diego seems like its actually a neighborhood and the other one is an unincorporated area just south of Corona, California with no government or anything major, its just a tract of housing outside the city limits likely to be engulfed in the future. Anyone typing in El Cerrito, California would expect the city of El Cerrito and nothing else. An example of this is the three mountain views, Mountain View, Humboldt County, California an abandoned settlement, Mountain View, Contra Costa County, California an unincorporated tract of housing outside of Martinez, California and Mountain View, California the city that everyone would assume a link would lead to. I fully support the idea of hatnotes however.Hemanetwork (talk) 19:37, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Little Taipei" nickname

This seems to be completely made up out of whole cloth, and has the New York Times and the residents confused. I recommend that sentence be removed. I'm removing the current citation which points to the web page of a grocery store. See: http://elcerrito.patch.com/articles/ny-times-raises-eyebrows-says-el-cerrito-nicknamed-little-taipei-by-residents -Zach (talk) 19:24, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I have lived near and shopped in El Cerrito for over a decade and have never head any such nickname (or indeed any common nickname at all). Based on the article above and the research the local editor did on this issue, it appears clear to me that the information was originally sourced from a commericial site (Pacific East Mall), was never used by El Cerrito's Taiwanese inhabitants, and was cited in the New York Times primarily because of this errant Wikipedia entry. Therefore, I have removed it entirely. --Tim Warner (talk) 20:24, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup/Rewrite of Article

I'm considering rewriting a significant portion of this article in order to produce something a little more cohesive. As it is now, the article seems to have been written pretty piecemeal, with lots of pieces that feel like they were just thrown in by people interested in a specific topic or supporting/promoting a particular organization, especially in the Geography, Places, and Transportation sections. Does anyone else have any input?Chazchaz101 (talk) 12:59, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

2010 Demographics are inaccurate

The 2010 Demographics are for El Cerrito CDP in Riverside county and not the incorporated city in Contra Costa County. I would change it but I do not have much editing experience. Could someone please correct this? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.93.203 (talk) 23:11, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Ouija Board Mass Hysteria

The was a How It Works article on Ouija Boards which mentioned El Cerrito as somewhere that had a mass hysteria incident based on Ouija board use. Does this merit inclusion ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.135.11.20 (talk) 12:52, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

And we're not going to mention the resulting ban, confiscation, and destruction of ouija boards? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cuboid10824 (talk • contribs) 20:42, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive http://www.webcitation.org/64vfLAeJ2?url=http://www.census.gov/geo/www/gazetteer/files/Gaz_places_national.txt to http://www.census.gov/geo/www/gazetteer/files/Gaz_places_national.txt
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070927202128/http://elcerritowire.com/history/pages/countyline.htm to http://elcerritowire.com/history/pages/countyline.htm
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Fiscal crisis

Section needs to be updated to reference the now-released State Auditor's report. Edits repeatedly reverted. Curious why the out-of-date version is preferable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.71.185.176 (talk) 23:16, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Please explain why you removed references in this edit. Additionally, the section you introduced that begins with The State Auditor subsequently undertook... is not sourced. KidAd • SPEAK 23:27, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I removed some information about the preparations for the State Auditor report, which were only important in the context of waiting for the report to be published, and if left in would make the article harder to read without providing any useful information. I added a citation to the section "The State Auditor subsequently undertook" but you reverted it. In any case, if you see content that needs a citation, is there not a "needs citation" tag that might be preferable to simply reverting edits? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.71.185.176 (talk) 23:35, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

So KidAd, I answered your question, are you now going to explain what your problem is with my edit? Yes, I did remove a small amount of content and references in order to provide up-to-date information. Is it generally unacceptable to remove outdated content from an article? (I am aware that Wikipedia is drowning in arcane rules so this actually might be the case, but it does seem like such a rule would make all articles useless over time.) Do you have subject-matter knowledge that leads you to believe that my edit worsened the section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.71.185.176 (talk) 15:20, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

lower decks?

surely them naming the ship the Cerritos is some kind of joke/jab at the town, and should be the TOP ENTRY in the popular culture section, no? 2601:19C:527F:A660:7892:BEFC:639B:C787 (talk) 08:37, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Origin of name.

I see that this article lists two different origins, one citing the many hills in the area (doesn't even make sense) and the second one states that the name originates from the hill now named "Albany Hill" which makes sense. 104.32.232.239 (talk) 18:03, 1 July 2023 (UTC)