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Overview

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Norman, Oklahoma article.

Hexavalient chromium controversy

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I noticed that someone added some information on the recent finding of high levels of hexavalient chromium in Norman's water supply to the Utilities section of the article; someone else then added similar information to the top-level portion of the article. In thinking about it, the information added at the very top level of the article really seems like Wikipedia:Recentism to me, which is something to be avoided in Wikipedia articles. On the other hand this information seems at home in the Utilities section since it is a very applicable concern. I intend to delete the text from the top of the article and merge any differences into what is already in the Utilities section of the article. If you disagree let's talk about that here.

Also I am wondering if maybe since Norman now has two known issues with our water supply, that being high levels of the above in addition to high levels of arsenic, if perhaps it might make sense to add a subsection under the Utilities section to go into greater detail about all of this? Perhaps something like 9.3 Utilities / 9.3.1 Water Supply Controversy or something like that? Thoughts? Okguy (talk) 23:57, 21 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, if you folks will go to the California EPA site you will find that some of the information that the non-profit group which published the article everyone is referring to is incorrect/somewhat biased in presentation. The scientific studies referenced at that site indicate that scientific consensus has not been reached as this is a new issue; also California does not have a set limit on chromium-6 in their water supply. They are currently studying is possible effect and are considering whether or not a standard needs to be set. So in addition to my recentism concern I have a concern that the information presented is too one-sided. I plan to make some edits. Okguy (talk) 00:21, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"believed to be a carcinogen" vs. "is a carcinogen"

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Hi there, I thought perhaps this most recent edit should be discussed further here. In the drinking water controversy section I had originally worded a sentence to say that the California research organization believes chromium-6 to be a carcinogen, but that was recently changed to is a carcinogen. The reason I had worded the sentence the original way is because I reviewed many scientific documents and what I found was that chromium-6 had been proven to be a carcinogen when inhaled as a particulate by miners, but it had never been proven to be a carcinogen when consumed in drinking water until 2006. In 2006 a study was done by the NIH which showed an increase of bowel cancers in lab mice when consuming chromium-6. Two important notes about the study as I remember them are that it was the first study of its kind, and generally in science it takes many experiments to show true causation, and secondly that the amounts of chromium-6 that the animals were subjected to if you were to extrapolate to human sizes would have been some 20 times the median values currently seen in water nation-wide. In fact if you review the Brokovich case there was never a ruling of fact that chromium-6 was a carcinogen, let alone the cause of the California town's cancer rates. Yes it may very well be that there is a relationship there, but from a science standpoint I do not believe that has yet been proven. Regardless, courts of law do not dictate scientific fact. The scientific method dictates that once a hypothesis has been generated a test case is run to attempt to disprove it. Once there are findings they are published, and then other scientists attempt to repeat those results over and over again. Eventually when there is consensus as to the results that hypothesis becomes a theory. If you read the science (I think I linked to the NIH report as a reference) this is clearly where they are at on the topic. As a result, I think that the wording "...is a carcinogen" is incorrect. Perhaps my wording was too lenient though, I am open to suggestions, but I just don't think undeniable fact has been established yet. I think the section needs to be reworded again. Thoughts? Okguy (talk) 00:27, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I waited a while and then decided to update the text to comply with the current scientific understanding. I added references that support this. Okguy (talk) 08:06, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
New science on this topic has been in the news recently; updated the section to reflect the latest status. Okguy (talk) 21:05, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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The External Links section is not a place for advertising your business or fire-fighting agency. All of the links provided in this section are supplemental material to something referenced in the article. If you want to reference something here then you need to find a way to work it into the article as well. Okguy (talk) 19:01, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • TimHusker, you keep adding the same external link and I keep removing it because your links are always to the same external site and are typically: 1. placed in places where external links do not make a lot of sense; or 2. not related to the article. Because the Norman article currently does not make any mention of firefighters I am not sure it makes a whole lot of sense to continuously keep adding a link to the firefighters association. Articles are not for advertising. All the other External Links and See Also's that you see in this article are there because content related to the links is discussed in the article.
  • I'm thinking the correct way to go about this, in accordance with what I know of Wikipedia's Manual of Style, would be for you to add some content regarding hard verifiable data on the Norman Fire Department to the article, and then add your external links and references supporting the content in the article. Probably a good place for information on firefighters is in the government section that is already talking about police. Thoughts? Okguy (talk) 06:35, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Notable Residents

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This section was moved to its own article and entitled List of people from Norman, Oklahoma. A link to it now appears in the See Also section.

Culture, Museums and Theater: The Moore-Lindsay House

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I reworked this paragraph to make the text more neutral and also added references and links to other pages. To the unsigned person who keeps changing the name of the house to "Moore-Lindsay Historical House" please note that this text is set up as a link to an article, and when you change the name of that text it changes color to red because you have broken the article link. You can leave the link in place but override its name using the "pipe" character, you will find examples throughout the Norman article. Or you can use the name of the article as it is. Okguy (talk) 06:38, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

School Districts

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If you are listing School Districts, you left out the Noble School District, which covers a large chunk of eastern Norman. See this map for details. --plaws (talk) 15:42, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, will add that soon! Okguy (talk) 17:09, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Complete! Okguy (talk) 19:58, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Architecture Section

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This new(er) section contains only one entry about the Bavinger House. You know, the section was added the day that there was a lot of coverage of the house in the local media having to do with some severe damage the home took. It was recently written in the Transcript and the Oklahoman that it's believed the house has been completely torn down now. Because the section seems to fall into the Wikipedia negative category of "recentism," contains only information on the architectural item that is recentist in nature, and the item highlighted is now no more, I wonder if this section should really even exist? Okguy (talk) 04:57, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I confirmed that Bavinger House has been destroyed. Since architecture is already discussed in other paragraphs, I removed the Architecture section. Okguy (talk) 20:02, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article Re-assesment request

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I have looked over the article as requested at Wikiproject Oklahoma Requests. At this time I have to say that its not really ready to be listed as a B-Class article, this is because of a few minor things that need to be fixed. I have made notes on what need to be fixed and I will post them below.

  1. Lead could use to be expanded remember its meant to be an inviting summary of the whole article.
  2. The following statements in the History section need sources. 1. In 1887, when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway began service to the area, the railroad continued the use of this name for their station site. The area was opened to settlement as part of the Land Run of April 1889; early settlers decided to keep the name "Norman." 2. The Navy again utilized the bases in a lesser capacity from 1952 to 1959 in support of the Korean War effort.
  3. In the Law and Government section it would be good for you to list who the Mayor and City Manager is. I noticed that they are listed in the Infobox but it would be a good idea to list them in the article itself.
  4. The entire Sisters cities section is unsourced you should be able to find this information from the Sister Cities International website.
  5. The following statement from the Geography section needs a source Approximately 27 square miles (70 km2) are developed urban area.
  6. The first paragraph in the Climate section has no sources.
  7. The Demographics section needs to be updated with the 2010 figures and some additional source to back up the information are needed.
  8. This statement from the Neighborhoods section needs a source Norman west of I-35 is home to several upper-class modern neighborhoods, including Brookhaven, Cambridge, and Cascade Estates. Brookhaven Village is a retail area consisting of numerous restaurants and other retail and is located within the Brookhaven addition.
  9. Under the Education section the whole Private Schools sup section needs a source
  10. In the Culture section under the Museums and Theater subsection the last sentience in the first paragraph needs a source.
  11. The Sports section needs to have some additional sources added to back up all the info in it.
  12. The Roads and highways sup section needs additional sources.
  13. The Utilities section needs additional sources added.
  14. The See also section should only list articles that are not already linked in the article.
  15. The External links section may be a problem however I'm not to sure I would look over the policy on external links to make sure there's no issues.

Other then the issues I listed above the article is well written and vary informative and I would have no problem raising the assessment class once the issues are fixed. Once the issues are fixed make another request at Wiki-project Oklahoma Requests or contact me on my talk page and I would be happy to take another look. If you have any questions ask them here I will be following the page and I will try to answer them as quickly as I can.--Dcheagle 06:42, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I may need your opinion on a few things as I start to work through these. One question I have is related to sourcing. Some of the paragraphs I have written in the article are paraphrased from a book on the history of Norman, and each sentence in the paragraph I have written contains a lot of 'hard data' type information that should probably be cited. When an entire paragraph comes from the same source, is it customary to cite a reference to it after each sentence, or is there something else I should do? That was one big question I had initially that I just really didn't know how to handle... I was tempted to just place one cite at the end of the paragraph, but that may not be the correct thing to do. Thanks! Okguy (talk) 04:06, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My rule of thumb is to provide a source for each paragraph and anything that deals with statistics, every unusual claim, and every direct quotation. An example would be the Census data should have a source for each number that is listed. Other then that just provide a source that would cover the information listed in the paragraph at the end of the paragraph unless the information only covers one portion then the source should be at the end to the sentience that states the information. For more info here's a Link to a page that covers it more in depth.--Dcheagle 05:00, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Sister Cities reference turned out to be surprisingly difficult and just led to more questions than anything else. Here is the deal... the Norman city web site lists who its sister cities are, and if you go to the city websites of those sisters their sites (mostly) list Norman as a sister city too. But, if you go to the actual Sister Cities International website, Norman is not listed. I checked about a dozen Oklahoma cities and was very surprised to see that only OKC and one or two other cities was listed in the database. I know that listing is contingent on payment of an annual fee/donation, and so I tend to think that several of our OK cities have let their dues lapse. In fact if you go to the Tulsa wiki (FA class), they talk about SSI and list their sister cities, but the SSI website does not list Tulsa as a current member. They are however pointing to some third-party website as a reference for their statement. Not sure what to do about Norman... maybe point to a third-party as well? Okguy (talk) 02:45, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Try this link, it has the city's listed and can be used as a source.--Dcheagle 05:51, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Okguy (talk) 06:32, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Items remaining to be cleaned up

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Just to make it easier for me to keep track of, the list of items that I still need to look into is:

Everything else not listed should have already been taken care of. Okguy (talk) 06:32, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Everything is done! Please reassess. Okguy (talk) 04:57, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is this ready to be nominated as a good article?

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This article seems to be very comprehensive, and I was wondering if we should go ahead and nominate it as a good article? I think it meets WP:WIAGA. Michael73072 (talk) 21:11, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me I'd say go for it. I've nominated it for GA now we just have to wait for someone to review it.--Dcheagle • talk • contribs 22:07, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thank you! Michael73072 (talk) 22:58, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I see you put it under WP:GAN#GEO, but shouldn't it be under WP:GAN#PLACE? Michael73072 (talk) 03:07, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Woops fixed.--Dcheagle • talk • contribs 07:46, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

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GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Norman, Oklahoma/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: - Adam37 Talk 15:36, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Rate Attribute Review Comment
1. Well-written:
1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.
1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. In accordance with lead sections (see left), ideally all it should consist of is a set of summaries of longer or less-joined up statements made elsewhere. Therefore kindly repeat by interweaving into prose the statements into the existing sections, keeping all the references, and thereby free the lead from citations. I am pleased to see this has been adequately addressed, subject to a wishlist for FA status.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). 150 sources, all of which appear properly formatted.
2c. it contains no original research. No first-person or on-the-ground sources are used for contestable statements, save for recent photographs excepted from no original research in my view.
3. Broad in its coverage:
3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. Compared to other articles on comparable cities in population, Norman is very well developed, even to the extent of having sourced data about Neighborhoods which rightly sets those places out with notable facts and negates the twin perils of editors indulging in significant overlap and of readers setting up articles which do not meet standalone notability.
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). No deviations
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
7. Overall assessment.

Norman's article has only one shortcoming in my view, having regard to all the good article criteria and some links are broken. - Adam37 Talk 15:36, 23 July 2013 (UTC) Reviewer: Adam37 (talk · contribs) 15:36, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So all that needs to be fixed is the Dead links and the lead section is that correct--Dcheagle • talk • contribs 21:11, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That is correct. - Adam37 Talk 20:03, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok thanks I'll get to fixing these issues then.--Dcheagle • talk • contribs 20:08, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I believe I've fixed all the issues you have listed.--Dcheagle • talk • contribs 19:08, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. - Adam37 Talk 13:16, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So great to see this go to GA standing! Okguy (talk) 02:18, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Early history rewording in May 2014

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The article stated:

"Shortly after this the Arbuckle Trail, a feeder route to the Chisholm Trail, was developed to hasten the transfer of cattle from Texas to the railroads in Kansas. A federal survey of the empty lands along the Arbuckle Trail was undertaken in the early 1870s, headed by 23-year-old Abner Norman."

I feel that a careful reading of p. 6 of the source [1] shows that the survey wasn't particularly connected to the Arbuckle Trail. The paragraph about the Trail immediately precedes the paragraph about the survey, and that was taken to mean that there was some connection between the two. I removed the mention of the Arbuckle Trail, since it only serves to confuse at that point.

Rather, the survey was of an area the book calls "the unassigned lands", a reference to ceded lands previously discussed on p. 5.

It is unclear to me whether the area of the survey was exactly the same as that described and mapped in Unassigned Lands, so I decided not to wikilink that, or capitalize it. Mandruss (talk) 17:13, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinates?

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In the Geography section, the source provided for the coordinates is here. The decimal-format coordinates given there are 35.240577, -97.345306. The article's text states the decimal coordinates as 35.2217; -97.4183 (35.2216, −97.4182). It is unclear why the two very slightly different versions are given, but in any case neither version agrees with the source.

Converting the source's decimal coordinates to degrees-minutes format (rounding to the nearest minute) gives 35°14'N 97°21'W. This location is almost four miles east and slightly north of the article's current coordinates, 35°13'N 97°25'W. It is about two miles west of Lake Thunderbird and appears to approximate the geographical center of Norman city limits.

I'm not sure how to resolve this, which is why I am starting this talk section. If there's a method consistently used in Wikipedia articles for cities of this size, I haven't found it. But it's clearly wrong to cite a source and then differ from it. As I see it, there are at least two reasonable options:

  • Modify the article to agree with the source currently given.
  • Drop the source and use the precise (degrees-minutes-seconds) coordinates of City Hall.

Any comments? Mandruss (talk) 22:17, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is an easy one just go back to what is sourced.--Dcheagle • talk • contribs 22:50, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, glad to know it's an easy one. I'll wait a few days for other comments and then go ahead if there's no disagreement. I also plan to change the words, "Norman is located at" to "Norman's geographical center is at". For those who don't know that Norman city limits extend out past Thunderbird, that will explain why the location is in a sparsely populated area about 7 miles east of the center of the developed city, and it may prevent an incorrect "correction". Mandruss (talk) 23:17, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good to me. That's probable why it was changed from whats sourced.--Dcheagle • talk • contribs 04:54, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Not exactly what we discussed, but even better I hope. Mandruss (talk) 07:37, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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List of mayors

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Challenging all parts of a recent edit

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Re: [2][3]

  1. They are called "unassigned lands", not "unknown lands". See Unassigned Lands.
  2. "Lobbying" has a specific meaning distinct from "proposing", and is the more accurate of the two in this case. Likewise "to locate" means to choose a location (city) for the university, which is not exactly the same as building it.
  3. If you can make a case that the airport's WP:COMMONNAME is "Westheimer Airport", then use the requested moves process to propose the new name for the article. For now, the article title defines the COMMONNAME and the space saving is not sufficient reason to shorten it here. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:03, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Updated city governance information, other minor cleanup

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Greetings old friends. I updated the mayoral information bringing it current, and I removed the update banner that was above this section. I also updated the police department paragraph with current information. I updated sources on all. I also did some minor clean-up here and there throughout the document, such as rolling to 2020 statistics data (from 2010) and adding at least one sentence to better transition / add a bridge between what was too obviously two different writers.

I noticed that we still have a few question marks in the list of mayors. I happen to have recently purchased a few historical books on Norman; I will see if I can fill in the gaps. Okguy (talk) 21:11, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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