Talk:Elk Creek (Rogue River tributary)

A fact from Elk Creek (Rogue River tributary) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 31 May 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that in 1987 the Elk Creek Dam's construction on Elk Creek was halted due to a court injunction issued over a lawsuit designed to protect salmon and other migratory fish from the effects of the dam on the river?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/May.

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Name of tributary on upper 6 mi. of the creek[edit]

An IP just made this change to the course section of this article. The editor is right that Bitter Creek is not a tributary of this Elk Creek, based on these GNIS results for "Bitter Creek" in Oregon; what I don't know is whether: 1) "Bitter Lick Creek" (as the IP wrote) or 2) "Bitterlick Creek" or 3) neither, is the name of the stream that flows into the upper 6 miles (9.7 km) of Elk Creek. I put the coordinates of each of the last two streams listed below into Google Maps, and one was between Ashland and Mount McLoughlin, and the other was just northwest of Mount McLoughlin, so neither was within Elk Creek's watershed. Might anyone know what the article should say?

Bitter Creek, ID 1138165, Stream, Wallowa, OR, 452512N, 1172535W, 3684 ft., Lostine map, entrydate 28-NOV-1980

Bitter Lick Creek, ID 1138167, Stream, Jackson, OR, 424730N, 1223820W, 1962 ft., Sugarpine Creek map, entrydate 28-NOV-1980

Bitterlick Creek, ID 1156668, Stream, Jackson, OR, 422839N, 1224434W, 1391 ft., Brownsboro map, entrydate 22-MAY-1986

--Jsayre64 (talk) 00:03, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Bitter Lick Creek" is correct, GNIS ID 1138167. The Elk Creek watershed is northwest of Mount McLoughlin, north and west of Lost Creek Lake. Little Mountain 5 05:52, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

When I enter the coordinates for that one into Google Maps [1] it shows a spot between Mount McLoughlin and Lost Creek Lake, and much closer to Mount McLoughlin. Jsayre64 (talk) 15:42, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're confusing degrees-minutes-seconds (DMS) coordinates with decimal (DEC) coordinates. "424730N 1223820W" equates to 42 degrees, 47 arcminutes, 30 arcseconds north, 122 degrees, 38 arcminutes, 20 arcseconds west. Because arcminutes and arcseconds are base-60, the equivalent decimal form is different—"42.7917919N 122.6389301W". In other words, putting a decimal point in DMS coordinates to change them to DEC coordinates doesn't work, it requires a longer process.[2] Both DMS and DEC are included on GNIS entries, and both produce the same result on Google Maps: [3]. Little Mountain 5 01:06, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see. Thanks for clearing up the confusion. This discussion would not have been necessary if Google Maps were programmed to recognize coordinates in the DMS format, so I've written a feedback message to Google about that. Jsayre64 (talk) 17:45, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Major Edits on the way[edit]

Hello, Wiki folks. I'm just giving this community a heads-up that I intend to make some additions to this page (and over at Lost Creek Lake's page) soon. I am a former Park Service ranger now living near Elk Creek and I thought I'd pitch in. I want to add details on the recreational use of the area, hopefully some historic and scenic photos, and maybe more as I dig it up. Rangerdavid (talk) 05:27, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do we need the "Course" section?[edit]

I feel like a decent map, with all the tributary creeks named, would suffice. This paragraph seems almost entirely unnecessary, except perhaps the final sentence or so. Thoughts? Can we clean this up a bit?Rangerdavid (talk) 05:37, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your interest and help. The recreation map is a good addition, IMHO. As for other improvements, please be bold. I thought, though, I should point out in response to your question that the Course section follows the article-structure guidelines for the Wikipedia rivers project. You can see all of the guidelines here: WP:WikiProject Rivers. The guidelines are suggestions, not absolute rules, but they represent a kind of consensus of editors interested in rivers. Finetooth (talk) 20:46, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]