Talk:List of villages in Massachusetts

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List cleanup

The differences between a "village" and a "neighborhood" and a "census-designated place" and a "section" or "district" are quite fuzzy, and in many cases there are different terms used to refer to the same thing.

I've just added a long list of named places from the Secretary of the Commonwealth. I think this list is too long to keep here, and I would suggest the following:

Weed out any names that are railroad stations and not neighborhoods. Usually the articles on the (possibly former) railroad line will list stations, and these railroad articles can be linked from the article on the municipality.
Weed out any names that are for post offices only. I don't think Wikipedia keeps track of this information.
For each real neighborhood (XXX), make a redirect from "XXX, Massachusetts" to the article on the municipality that it's in, unless there's already an article on that neighborhood (like say for Savin Hill).
Chop up the list of real neighborhoods among the articles on each municipality.

I wonder if we should just merge the categories for Massachusetts villages, neighborhoods, and CDPs (see Category:Settlements in Massachusetts) into one big one, while maintaining the local terminology in articles. These are really one class of thing with local variations as to the name.

I'm not sure that we need to list neighborhoods in county articles, though that does seem more useful if there is an actual article for the sub-municipal entity, or for those that cross municipal boundaries.

It would also be nice to have maps for each municipality, of course, but that will require a lot of local research. -- Beland (talk) 14:47, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, and maybe we could even split the second half because it is 100 kilobytes long right now. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 15:44, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is an old conversation, but to offer some clarity, "district" and "parish" were legal terms for administrative subdivisions within Massachusetts towns. They had clearly defined and surveyed boundaries and limited autonomy, in that they were required to hold their own annual town meetings, but were not treated as separate towns in census records or legislative representation. No districts or parishes remain in Massachusetts. The closest comparison the state has today are wards and precincts, though these have virtually no autonomy.

In instances where a district or parish is inactive and has incorporated into its own municipality, I advise removing these from this article, as there is already space for them on list of municipalities in Massachusetts. Wswoo22 (talk) 18:22, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nagog Woods

The link for this locality takes you to the article for Acton, MA, where it suggests it's a subdivision or suburban development. If so, what kind? Johnny-Come-Lately or long-established?

Deciding what to include/exclude on this list is indeed a tough problem.

Jimlue (talk) 01:22, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Active/inactive

What on earth do "Active" and "Inactive" mean on this page? AJD (talk) 21:12, 22 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

West Hanover

There isnt West Hanover and its refusing to let me add it. The fuck is up? Theswayzeexpress (talk) 14:08, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Lake Pleasant

By what criteria is Lake Pleasant “inactive”? It still has its own post office and village association. People there will definitely tell you it is a village. 2601:19B:4B02:330:8838:8223:6E58:540 (talk) 06:14, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]