User:MakoTheShark/sandbox
1/29/2017
Made a minor edit to the United States section of the Gender pay gap article (edit bolded) where I clarified what I found to be a somewhat dubious presentation of data on the pay gap.
"The raw wage gap data shows that a woman would earn roughly 73.7% to 77% of what a man would earn over their lifetime. More precisely, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates the median earnings of female workers working full-time to be roughly 77% of the median earnings of their male counterparts. However, when controllable variables are accounted for, such as job position, total hours worked, number of children, and the frequency at which unpaid leave is taken, in addition to other factors, a United States Department of Labor study, conducted by the CONSAD Research Group, found in 2008 that the gap can be brought down from 23% to between 4.8% and 7.1%."
2/4/2017
Selected a few articles to potentially work on this semester:
3/9/2017
Put together a new section for the Placemaking article, "Principles", that will precede the "History" section. I plan on adding a section for successful examples of placemaking, as well as arguments for and against the process in the future.
Principles
Placemaking is based on eleven main principles:
- First, the community whom the place is intended is the expert. People who make use of or will make use of a public space on a regular basis will have the best insight into how it functions. Additionally, they will likely be able to help spot issues to consider in the placemaking process.
- Second, placemaking involves making places, rather than designs. While a public space's design is important to the creation of a place, it is not the only thing to consider.
- Third, placemaking is a group effort. A good public space requires multiple partners who contribute ideas, financial and/or political backing, and help plan activities.
- Fourth, you can achieve greater success in placemaking by looking at how people use (or neglect) a public space, and using your observations to determine what aspects of the space people like or dislike. You can then discern what makes a space functional or dysfunctional, and act on your findings to improve the space.
- Fifth, placemaking requires a vision for what the public space will look like, what activities it will be host to, and how it will affect its surroundings.
- Sixth, placemaking is a process, and a public space can take months and even years to develop and fine tune. Don't expect everything to be perfect at first, and instead start with small improvements that can be made to the space to make it more pleasant/useable.
- Seventh, a key to successful placemaking is a process known as "triangulation", which is simply the placement of multiple amenities in close proximity to one another in an effort to encourage greater use.
- Eighth, ignore naysayers. Just because it hasn't been done doesn't mean it can't be done, it is just evidence that no one in either the public or private sectors has the job to create places.
- Ninth, a public space's form should be formulated with its intended function in mind.
- Tenth, when placemaking, money should not be an issue, assuming you have networked properly, and gained an appropriate amount of support from the community.
- Eleventh and finally, placemaking is an ongoing process, is never "done". Minor tweaks can always be made to improve the place's usefulness to its community, and regular maintenance/upkeep of facilities and amenities is a fact of life.
Peer Editing Comments
1. The author's spelling, grammar, syntax, and word choice were good. The author used "placemaking" a lot, but that is understandable because I don't know what word you could use to replace it. 2. I understand the general principle of placemaking after reading this. It seems to be about communities of people joining together to make a common public space. 3. The author comes off as unbiased because he is defining what placemaking is, not whether it is beneficial or not. 4. The article does not flow well. Since it is in bullet form instead of paragraph form, ideas start and stop abruptly. More transitions are needed. 5. The author is defining what placemaking is and wrote that he will address the pros and cons of placemaking at a later time. 6. I would be satisfied with what the author has written if I was looking to learn more about placemaking. The general principles are well defined. Although, I would want more examples of placemaking in practice. 7. There are no citations or references listed. This is the only major problem of the author's draft. Nick2196 (talk) 22:54, 10 March 2017 (UTC)