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Archive 1

Saving the talk page

I think this page kept being deleted because it was empty. So I'm fixing that. Montanabw(talk) 00:20, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Johnny Baker

One of the links in the Wild west shows page is incorrect, it mentions Jonny Baker who performed in the Buffalo Bill WWS. when you click on his name ( a highlighted link ), it goes to a Jonny Baker that was a athlete for USC in the 1930s!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.76.13.49 (talk) 16:27, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Please provide a link. I can't seem to find it. The UtahraptorTalk/Contribs 22:00, 15 November 2010 (UTC) Never mind, I have found it and fixed it. The UtahraptorTalk/Contribs 22:03, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Suggested population

I would suggest using Category:Western (genre) in your tagging process, Sadads (talk) 13:33, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Mass Tagging

By the way, if you guys need a mass tagging of some categories, I'd be happy to do it with DodoBot :). It can also automatically assess short articles as stubs, inherit the class from other WikiProjects, and choose an importance level based on what categories the page is in :). - EdoDodo talk 17:25, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

That seems like a good idea. How are the articles chosen, that need tagging?--Jojhutton (talk) 17:27, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, we'd have to pick out relevant categories, for example Category:Outlaws of the American Old West, Category:Lawmen of the American Old West, Category:Forts in the American Old West, etc. Then I'd tag all the articles in those categories. If you like you can also specify an importance for each category, for example tagging outlaws and lawmen as mid importance and forts as low importance. There will, however, be some incorrect importances, for example some particularly notable outlaws may have to be tagged as high importance, but the vast majority of importances should be correct. - EdoDodo talk 17:33, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
OK...That sounds like a plan for me. They three CATS are good, but as I just joined this project, like an ahour ago, I'm not too familair with every other Category that its associated with, but you have my vote to proceed.--Jojhutton (talk) 17:45, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

You could have me tag the two main categories, Category:Wars between the United States and Native Americans, and Category:People of the American Old West, those two alone will get you loads of articles (approx. 3000), which is quite a lot for a new WikiProject. You can always tag more categories later, if needed. - EdoDodo talk 17:56, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Pardon me for being new to this, but how complex is it to create further subgroups within the two main categories you mentioned above? I like the idea of having two overall categories to start with, but as this progresses I can see the need for some more precise groupings.Intothatdarkness (talk) 20:38, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
There already are subcategories to the above categories, which would be included. The discussion here isn't about creating the categories, they already exist, it's about finding categories that are relevant to the project, so that we can tag articles in them accordingly. - EdoDodo talk 21:28, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Got ya.Intothatdarkness (talk) 21:40, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Fictional portrayals of the Old West

The following discussion has concluded. Please do not modify this section. Result of discussion: Any article about a subject notable after 1900 does not belong in the scope of this WikiProject.

I noticed that many movies set in the Old West have been tagged with this Wikiproject (e.g., Talk:Wild Wild West, Talk:Back to the Future Part III, Talk:The Gambler (TV movie series)). The Wikiproject page states that the scope of this project is for the historical Old West. Nothing on the project page suggest articles on fiction set in the Old West belong. It seems very clear to me that extending the coverage of the Old West to fiction does not make sense for this project. Such a endeavor would be much more appropriate as a sub-project of WikiProject Films. Comments? Jason Quinn (talk) 15:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I basically agree with you. Certainly about Back to the Future, anyway!! I spend most of my time at WikiProject Equine, and while we include a few movies and books specifically about horses (National Velvet, Seabiscuit, Misty of Chincoteague, The Black Stallion, The Horse Whisperer, etc.) we do not include every movie or book that happens to have horses in it because the project would be eaten alive just by films. We also have a Thoroughbred Racing WikiProject that is affiliated, but with very few cross links. So for here, if there isn't a project specifically about the Western film genre, maybe there should be. Or there could also be a task force created (joint between here and films, perhaps?) where the tag is modified to send all the movies to one particular place for those who care. (Again, using the WPEQ example, we have a training task force and a breeds task force). Of course, that said, it isn't a huge issue to me, personally. Montanabw(talk) 17:41, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Talk:Bonanza has the tag, too. I've already removed some of them, but I've been so busy with school, I haven't been able to remove them all. The Raptor You rang?/My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 12:17, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I was tempted to just go ahead and remove them too. I decide to what and see what others thought. If it's clear that they shouldn't fall under the scope of the project, we should perhaps mention this in the Wikiproject page more explicitly. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:05, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
This is actually a tough question, since even the term "Old West" is very tied into the fiction about the period. Cody's reputation was actually influenced by popular fiction of the period, as was Carson's, Hickock's, Pawnee Bill, and a number of others. The fiction of Charles King actually gives us the best insight into social life in the Frontier Army...something that might have been lost to history if he hadn't written his 'romances'. Within the historical community this stuff is more often called "History of the West," Frontier History, or a specific regional study. One could also argue that popular perception of the West has been so heavily influenced by fiction that it's difficult to separate the two (especially since the historical and fictional versions of many individuals are VERY different).Intothatdarkness (talk) 14:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
How about a subproject on the western film genre, which could be considered a sub of both Wikiproject American Old West and Wikiproject Films? I'm certain there's enough articles on western films to warrant a subproject based on that genre, and a good deal of them mention in detail, usually in the production sections, how the events in the films tie in with actual events in Old West history. On this basis, I think it would make sense to have a "Wikiproject:Western films" or such, as a sub to both of these projects. Wilhelmina Will (talk) 18:46, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
You may want to clarify the original heading for this discussion, then. Right now it's just indicating fiction and not films. And again this is a tough area because the perception of the Old West has really been shaped more by fiction (print and film) than it has actual historical events. So would you cross into film and fiction, then?Intothatdarkness (talk) 22:17, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I think we either need to redefine our scope to include western literature and movies, or, as Wilhelmina Will suggested, we need to create subprojects: one for films and another for books. What do you all think? Should we redefine our scope or create subprojects? The Raptor You rang?/My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 22:31, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
For me that's really a tough call. To a degree it brings up the historical purist in me...as in when you say "Old West" you almost by default include the fictional portraits with the hard history. It would certainly (I think) be easier to manage as two subprojects, but some of the linkage might be lost in that process. For example, it's been said that Western novels and movies are a good way to see how American popular culture views the country's past. For example, Gunsmoke had a huge impact on how entire generations thought of both Frontier law enforcement and the cattle town...and that image bore only a faint resemblance to the reality of life in Dodge City during the peak of the Texas cattle trade. And the West was also somewhat unique in that fiction of the times had a great deal to do with shaping public perception. Just think of the dime novelist in Unforgiven. I like the subproject idea, but I'm just not sure that you can easily separate the Western reality from the myth that cleanly. Hope that makes some sense...Intothatdarkness (talk) 22:40, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree. Probably the easiest thing to do would be to redefine our scope. The Raptor You rang?/My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 22:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm new to this project though not new to writing articles that fall under the scope of the project. I've also been a part of the MILHIST group for some time and I see some resemblance between the two projects in that both are about history. MILHIST breaks out its subgroups as Task Forces (as do other projects) and maybe in time it would make sense to have a Task Force or two for the fiction side of The American Old West. However, as this project is in the earlier stages of development, refining the scope to nonfictional makes sense; re-assess in 6 months or so. --Rosiestep (talk) 01:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Some more comments: As presently written, the goal of this project is "help cover the history of the American Old West on Wikipedia". Saying "history" excludes most fictional works in my opinion. Intothatdarkness makes a good point however that excluding all fiction is probably too stringent. For example, it is my understanding that the so-called dime novels were an important part of Americans' interpretation of the Old West and perhaps even influenced the Old West by causing some adventure seekers to migrate (anybody want to back me up on this?). If true, dime novels, in general, and perhaps even individual books if they were influential enough, should fall under the scope of the project. However, when it comes to movies, movies for the most part started right about the time that what is considered the "Old West" was ending. Anything released after say about 1920 did not actually influence the Old West. Sure, it may have influenced the public's perception of the Old West but not the Old West itself. Accurate historical coverage of the Old West requires we see through the mist of perception, which is view skewed, and concerns itself with the way things actually were. So, my suggestion is that this Wikiproject's scope should not include movies at all and should exclude most, if not all, works of fiction, barring the occasional exception that fails under some "use common sense" clause. Having a Wikiproject that covers Western films exclusively is a good idea. However it should be viewed as a sister project, not as a sub-project. That is the correct logical structure, in my opinion. Jason Quinn (talk) 05:33, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Quinn - You are quite correct regarding the contemporary influence of dime novels. It also goes back to Cooper's fiction and carries through to the King novels I mentioned earlier. I don't know that we can honestly exclude the Beadle novels (for one example) from the project, as they were contemporary fiction and did have a hand in influencing both public perception and migration West. Many Frontier Army officers read James Fennimore Cooper's fiction before coming West as well.Intothatdarkness (talk) 13:59, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Adding - I see, Quinn, that you said "most, if not all, works of fiction" above. That would be, IMO, a major mistake. There was just too much *contemporary* fiction about the Old West (Beadle novels and so on) for you to make such an arbitrary cut. They were doing stage plays about the James Gang while the gang was still active, for just one example. I might be in favor of a statement that said something like "fiction written after 1900," for example, but not a blanket exclusion. The Old West is somewhat unique historically in that the myth of the West was being created at the same time the history was taking place. A number of novels about Kit Carson and Buffalo Bill (just two examples) appeared while they were still alive, and Cody in particular was quick to graft the myth on to his own accounts of his life and adventures. So if it's a question of historical coverage, we also have to be willing to acknowledge this effect, and take it into serious consideration when developing the scope.Intothatdarkness (talk) 19:15, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I undid the change. I think it's too early to decide. Would you care to address some of my concerns? If you are for movies falling under the scope, what about TV shows? Above your comment seemed to indicate you were against that. What's the difference? Jason Quinn (talk) 23:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Television programs and TV shows are the same thing; therefore, I did not oppose the idea. I think TV shows should be included in the scope. The Raptor You rang?/My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 01:48, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
My humble opinion is that fictional portrayals, as a group, get into the realm of trivia and thus should be minimized. I mean, so we add wild west shoot 'em up video games as well? (This was a problem over at WPEQ... apparently Barbie and her friends have a horse riding game. and there are horses in other video games too...it never ends! Oh, and don't forget My Little Pony, which we DEFINITELY excluded from WPEQ! LOL!) Where is the line between legitimate, if romanticized and not wholly accurate, portrayals of the west and crap like "Back to the Future?" Seriously, do we really want the project to encompass EVERY book by Zane Gray and Louis L'Amour? "All" is a mighty big place. Montanabw(talk) 21:33, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I got it. How about we include the most popular Western books? That is, the ones that influenced our thoughts of the American Old West the most. Same with movies and TV shows. We could probably exclude all but the most popular Western video games. How does that sound? The Raptor You rang?/My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 00:05, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Too much of a judgement call as to what's "popular", though I suppose "respected" or "significant" are equally a judgement call. I think that maybe we could take a look at other history projects and see the extent to which they tag pop culture stuff. (I mean, does a UK project list every movie that was ever done on Henry VIII??) I guess at the end of the day, I just suggest that fiction should simply be minimized. As for what's appropriate, I guess we could start with a checklist: Does the work have the old west as its primary focus? Does it attempt to accurately portray the history and culture of the region? (even if it failed to do so...LOL!) On the other hand, it does NOT belong if it merely uses a western theme as a backdrop to other matters (thinking that, for example, a quasi-sci fi movie like Westworld would NOT fall into this project, nor would the movie and book about Seabiscuit even though his trainer started out as a cowboy), or if it makes use of western themes so loosely as to have little relevance to the project. For example, the TV show Bonanza, yes. The TV show Kung Fu, probably no. Zorro? Maybe. Montanabw(talk) 04:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
You're probably right. See? This is why my English teacher tells us to choose our words carefully! Hehe... I'll be busy most of today, but I'll see what I can dig up tomorrow. UtahraptorMy mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 13:45, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I see that this discussion has died down. Should we just include the most influential fiction and media, then? The UtahraptorMy mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 21:06, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest the use of a date cut-off if we're going to focus on historical events (that date could be 1891 or 1900). That will avoid the entire movie/TV thing and focus on what was (for the time) contemporary fiction that influenced attitudes, perceptions, and settlement. If we just use the term "most influential" things could get bogged down in nit-picking arguments about what is influential.Intothatdarkness (talk) 13:52, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that doesn't solve the problem; what if the book/movie is ABOUT the Old West and has tremendous significance. Montanabw(talk) 19:24, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
I think we're talking about two different things. I'm talking about the impact of period literature on the Old West and not the impact of later works on popular perception of the Old West (as seen in the past tense, not present). The Old West is rather unique in that fiction written at the time had a major impact on what were then contemporary perceptions and opinions about the West. I'm looking at the issue solely from the historical point of view, and thus get concerned when people talk about excluding works of fiction entirely (which would be a major mistake). I'm somewhat neutral about discussions dealing with later works (to include movies). Obviously John Ford and Louis L'Amour had a major impact on how people remember and view the Old West, as have a number of other moviemakers and authors, but even there I tend to look at them through a historical accuracy lens (my declared bias). Some are better than others.Intothatdarkness (talk) 14:02, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
And that appears to be precisely the problem, John Wayne and Hopalong Cassidy got added to the project by someone! I have no issue with period literature of historical significant interest, my impression was that the debate was over newer stuff. Montanabw(talk) 15:56, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
That was my impression, too. I thought we were talking about including fairly newer stuff, such as the TV show Bonanza, in the scope. The UtahraptorMy mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 21:27, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm honestly not in favor of including newer stuff in a project that's dealing with the historical Old West. That was why I tossed out some cutoff dates for literature. If we're looking at the Old West as both a historical period and a popular culture phenomenon, then things are somewhat different. I just got concerned when it sounded like some folks wanted to take all fiction off the table. So my take in short: if it's just the historical Old West, don't include anything after 1900. If it's taking a wider scope, then we should consider taking later stuff (but my historian side advises that we exercise serious caution here).Intothatdarkness (talk) 22:12, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
OK, so what we do is, we specifically state in the scope that this WikiProject deals with the historical aspect of the American Old West. Anybody agree or disagree? The UtahraptorTalk to me/Contributions 21:18, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree. That leaves room for discussion of period fiction and its influence on historical events but avoids bringing Gunsmoke and other things into the discussion.Intothatdarkness (talk) 14:13, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
So should I remove the tags on post-American Old West articles? The UtahraptorTalk to me/Contributions 21:04, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Define "Post" If we are just talking entertainment stuff, sure. But what about crossover articles, such as cowboy that encompass both old west and modern times? Just wanting to be sure our discussion has a clear statement. ;-) Montanabw(talk) 21:19, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
By post I meant things created about the Old West after the Old West, like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and 3:10 to Yuma. Awesome movie, by the way ;) The UtahraptorTalk to me/Contributions 21:46, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
I noticed the removal of this WikiProject's banner from individual film articles. I was under the impression that WikiProject categorizations were liberally added. I can understand that items of pop culture would be of low-importance under this WikiProject, but there seem to be some films that miss out on falling under this WikiProject. I'm not going to push for restoration of the banner as I don't find banners to be of utmost importance, but I would not be surprised if people tried to put certain films under this WikiProject, especially with the scope mentioning films for now. (Scope adjusted since, I see.) Erik (talk | contribs) 22:06, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
I think it's important to mention that it wasn't a project member that tagged the movies. It was User:Dimadick that tagged most, if not all, of those movies. As Intothatdarkness and I were discussing, this project was created to focus on the historical American Old West, not the fictional portrayals of the Old West, for, as we all know, fictional portrayals are more romantic and exciting than the true American Old West. The UtahraptorTalk to me/Contributions 22:11, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
"American Old West... comprises the history, geography, people, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States." I agree that fictional portrayals are "more romantic and exciting", but is this reason to exclude individual films? Are there no academics that analyze a Western film to compare it against the reality of the American Old West? It seems like such analysis must be out there, especially for influential films that represent "cultural expression of life [in the American Old West]". Erik (talk | contribs) 22:20, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Obviously there are such academics, but these discussions fall into popular culture or film studies, and not examinations of the historical Old West. Contemporary fiction does play into academic discussions of the Old West, but that's because the Old West was somewhat unique (as I've mentioned before) in that fiction written at the time had an impact on developments on the Frontier. I think if you're going to seriously focus on the historical Old West, then movies DO need to be excluded. The "cultural expression of life" section, IMO, refers more to how various cultures developed on the Frontier (ranchers as opposed to farmers, the dynamic of a mining town as opposed to a cattle town, and so on).Intothatdarkness (talk) 14:35, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
So should Western (genre) not fall under this WikiProject? I see that it's high-importance for this WikiProject, but by the strictly historical criteria applied here, the products of that genre would be more retrospective (except for Western fiction, I guess) than at-the-time. It should ultimately be disqualified. In any case, I think the new scope is too narrow. The real core of this WikiProject is undoubtedly the history, but it's not detrimental to encompass film articles as a set of related low-importance articles. If that is how this project's community feels, though, that is fine. Just don't be claiming The Searchers (film) as a Featured Article if someone ever makes the effort! ;) Erik (talk | contribs) 16:22, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
That's basically the argument, Erik, yes. The problem here is that the project is already unbelievably huge. Adding too much modern stuff is getting beyond the scope. Someone could start a "child" project for fictional portrayals of the Old West, maybe (like dog and cat projects are a spinoff from the mammal project). Montanabw(talk) 19:02, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Including the Western genre just opens up too many headaches, IMO. Just the historical stuff is tough enough (I'm thinking of just the regimental histories that would need to be updated to deal adequately with the Indian Wars...and that doesn't include ANY of the tribal information). And I don't consider a time period running from (say) the Lewis and Clark Expedition to 1900 to be narrow or limited. And if you take the native side back as far as one theoretically could, the timeframe expands to the 1500s. The California Gold Rush period alone could generate hundreds of articles, as could a detailed examination of ALL the tribes that inhabited the frontier (taking that as west of the Mississippi). Adding in the later, fictional, visions of all of those would quickly render this unmanageable.Intothatdarkness (talk) 19:54, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm probably late because I've been busy travelling around. I don't think we should include any fiction in this project. As an experienced historian, I can tell you that the Old West is one of the most notable parts of American history, and as such there are probably alot of Old West articles here on wikipedia. Intothatdarkness is right, if we add the fiction, this project would become unmanageable and would probably become as abandoned as the coal mining towns in Carbon County. OldWestHistorian (talk) 19:38, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear, there is a fine line, after all, the Lone Ranger, Tom Mix, and Trigger all had comic books. I just sold a few of my father's childhood Tom Mix Big Little Books (aka hardcover comic books from the 30s) for a surprisingly satisfying amount...I'd say, lump 'em in with TV, movies and Louis L'Amour. Whatever we do with those we can probably do with comic books. (Which begs the next question: anime and video games?? =:-O ) If it helps, by consensus of the group, we over at WikiProject Equine decided that My Little Pony was NOT part of the project, though Breyer horses were. It was kind of a convoluted conversation in the process, but it ultimately made sense. (One having something to do with real horses, the other having virtually nothing to do with real horses) Montanabw(talk) 02:06, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
This is getting difficult. Why don't we just say that this project is for the historical American Old West only? The project is big enough as it is; even with the fiction out of the scope we'll still have over 900 articles in the scope. The UtahraptorTalk to me/Contributions 03:04, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
Simple answer: anything written after 1900 goes. Once you clear that date, you start getting into what would be considered pop culture and other areas. In terms of the events of the Frontier, there is no good reason to include anything created after 1900 in the scope. OldWestHistorian is correct, and echos what I've been saying. If you include post-1900 items, the scope will quickly become swamped.Intothatdarkness (talk) 14:04, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
OK, I'll rewrite our scope and get to work removing the pop culture stuff. The UtahraptorTalk to me/Contributions 21:00, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
Works for me. 1900 as good a cutoff as any. The 1890 date when Frederick Jackson Turner declared the frontier "closed" (based in part on census data) gives adequate wiggle room to use 1900, IMHO. Montanabw(talk) 01:12, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Category:Unassessed American Old West articles is backlogged

I need help reducing the backlog of articles in Category:Unassessed American Old West articles. There are over six hundred in the backlog already, and I don't want it to become as extensive as some of the backlogs I've seen that have tens of thousands of articles. For now, ignore the fiction books, movies, and TV shows. The Raptor You rang?/My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 00:07, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Anybody up for it? UtahraptorMy mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 03:53, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Nope, because someone else went and tagged everything without assessing it at the time...the mad mass tagger is the first person responsible to assess! (grin and noogies). LOL! Montanabw(talk) 04:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I know exactly who started all of this. The person that tagged the Western shows and books, that's who. They've been tagging more than just American Old West articles without assessing them. I'll let them know they've got to clean up the mess they made. UtahraptorMy mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 13:47, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
That's usually the functional approach. The stick is to un-tag everything not assessed by a certain point ... Montanabw(talk) 02:18, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
No response. I've been hacking through the backlog for a while now, but getting through that backlog is just as hard as trying to cut a diamond with a butter knife. ;) The UtahraptorMy mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 22:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

American Old West articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the American Old West articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 00:08, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

If anyone feels up to a challenge

The Mason County War was set up 2-1/2 years ago by an unregistered editor with unknown sources. Possibly lifted verbatim from elsewhere. Possibly somebody just deciding to tell the story in their own words after having read something. It's not well done. The whole section of "Background" really is not relevant to the war itself. The content, while having some validity, is often questionable. Not much has been done with it since.

In a nutshell, the Mason County War (or Hoo Doo War) in Texas was about cattle rustling, vigilante mobs and questionable law enforcement. It is sometimes portrayed as a racial war against the German population, but that is misleading as non-Germans were also victims. The usual names that surface in this are not German.

I started out to try and add some sourcing about the burning of the courthouse, which happened a year after the war ended - but which the writer would have us believe was "an obvious case of arson" and tied to the war.

As I read the article, I realized it needs a complete re-write. Something I am not able to devote time to at present, but the project is worthy.

This is not something that should be repaired patchwork, a source here, a source there. And because this is one of those history areas where different sources will present a different slant, the sourcing needs to be cross-checked. Maile66 (talk) 14:53, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

From a quick brush, I'd say this would also take original research...something Wiki frowns on. If you check the text, the original author seems to have lifted most of it from the linked web sources. I'd also be very cautious with any story that mentions Ringo. If I get time, I'll take a look at it, but Texas isn't really my main focus.Intothatdarkness (talk) 16:21, 4 January 2011 (UTC)...ETA I took a look at the linked historynet.com article (the first listed source), and it's a pretty decent overview of the whole mess. You could most likely source a good chunk of a rewrite from it (and the author points out that there is no evidence that Ringo was in the county during a good part of the war), but that article doesn't list any sources. It's possible that the print version (it came from a 2005 issue of Wild West), but I don't have access to that version. The tone of the article is somewhat florid, but it has a decent narrative. Without cited sources, I can't vouch for its accuracy, though.Intothatdarkness (talk) 16:27, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Here's where I think some of that came from: Glenn Hadeler, Mike Cox.
Here's some other available data on it:
  • Handbook of Texas Mason County Wars
  • Johnson, David; Parsons, Chuck (2008). John Ringo, King of the Cowboys: His Life and Times from the Hoo Doo War to Tombstone, Second Edition (A. C. Greene). University of North Texas Press. ISBN 978-1574412437.
  • Johnson, David; Miller, Rick (2009). The Mason County ""Hoo Doo"" War, 1874-1902 (A.C. Greene Series). University of North Texas Press. ISBN 978-1574412628.
From what I've seen here and there, Johnny Ringo was part of Scott Cooley's group. It's just more than I have time to deal with presently. Your attention is appreciated. Maile66 (talk) 16:44, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
My suggestion is that someone create a sandbox, either off of the article or (better practice) off their own talk page and throw a link here and at the article's talk page to everyone, inviting contributors, then just start a rewrite from scratch. Then, when there's enough to be a "real" article, even if C-class or so, do a wholesale cut and paste. That said, this is also an area where I don't focus much, so I guess we need to find a Little Red Hen willing to take it on.  :-) Montanabw(talk) 20:15, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
I'll take care of it, but I'll need some help finding sources. The UtahraptorTalk/Contribs 01:29, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
For anyone wanting a handy research tool: Google Book Search You would want to click "Limited Preview and Full" to avoid the "Snippet only" results. Pick a result, and it pulls up select pages. Therein, on the left-hand side is "Get This Book". Amazon will give you ISBN numbers. Maile66 (talk) 12:15, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Billy the Kid

There is discussion at Billy the Kid about merging and redirecting Ollie P. Roberts. Any input would be great.--Adam in MO Talk 08:50, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Coeur d'Alene War, Spokane War, or Palouse War?

The article now titled Coeur d'Alene War was originally titled Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Paloos War which is a "SYNTH" title; please see name discussion at Talk:Coeur_d'Alene_War#Moved_reversed. We're trying to come up with the "most correct" name for this war, which goes by all three of those names. Input from someone from one of those three nations or familiar with the history of the region would be greatly appreciated.Skookum1 (talk) 18:40, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Portal:United States is a current featured portal candidate. Please feel free to leave comments. -- RichardF (talk) 14:32, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

A very interesting tool of the Wikimedia Toolserver is called WikiProject Popular pages lists. These lists are similar to project-related article lists like U. S. article lists used for generating assessment statistics. The Popular pages lists include the rank, total views, average daily views, quality and importance ratings for the listed articles. Here is the full list of projects using popular pages lists. An FAQ also is available at User:Mr.Z-man/Popular pages FAQ.

I recently added links to lists of popular pages as shown below to the U.S. Portal - WikiProjects box and the nominations sections for each of the selected articles boxes.

Portal:United States/Projects/Popular pages

Because this project was not included, I am bringing up the popular pages tool here. This tool makes it very easy to track three of four balancing dimensions when selecting articles for showcasing at a portal - quality, importance and popularity. When tracking the fourth dimension, topic, the related article lists tool (such as for U.S. article lists tool) also might be useful by filtering on categories of interest.

If you do decide to use this tool, feel free to update Portal:United States/Projects/Popular pages as well.

Regards, RichardF (talk) 02:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Frontier Army Units

I've been working my way through and adding some Old West Project tags to Army units that played a major role on the Frontier. It looks like only a handful had been tagged before, and some important ones were not included. This is a slow project, as I'm also trying to upgrade the Old West-specific information in those articles at the same time, but I wanted folks to be aware of what was going on.Intothatdarkness (talk) 15:50, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Oregon Trail

Hello. A while ago I split the Oregon Trail article into two sub-articles, history and route, which are the main article's longest sections. I haven't removed the same content from the main article yet, because I'm waiting for more input on the talk page regarding whether or not the split is/was actually a good idea. I won't do anything else significant with the articles until there's consensus. Thanks. Jsayre64 (talk) 03:18, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The main article is probably in need of better organizing; too many subheadings, TMI on minor points, and I'm not sure such a simple split is really the best way to do it; history and geography are often intertwined. I think that a separate "history" article is actually a content fork of the main article and not suitable. That said, I also am not in a position to be of much help. My thinking is to go through the main article and do some ruthless copyediting and consolidating to tighten it up. Then some needed splits may suggest themselves -- perhaps the route article COULD be the place to go more into detail on geography. It may also make sense to make spinoffs for certain Forts, passes, rivers, side-routes or other locations along the way where there is too much detail for a general article. Just thoughts. Montanabw(talk) 04:00, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Wyatt Earp GAN

Wyatt Earp was listed as a GA in April, then went through a GAR and was delisted. It is now going through another GAN. Wyatt Earp is one of Wikipedia's most popular articles and is on an important and complex topic. The GAN is on an initial seven day hold while the reviewer checks sources. Meanwhile there is some work to be done on trimming back excessive detail, and on making the article flow more by reducing the amount of subsections. See Talk:Wyatt Earp/GA3 for more detail. SilkTork *Tea time 20:06, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

San Diego is up for peer review

I have listed San Diego for peer review. Please comment here. Thank you. JJ98 (Talk / Contributions) 00:46, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion to pull this project under WikiProject United States

It was recently suggested that this project might be inactive or semiactive and it might be beneficial to include it in the list of projects supported by WikiProject United States. After reviewing the project it appears that there is some active discussions on the talk page and some content updates to the project page but being supported by a larger project might be beneficial. This discussion is intended to start the process of determining if the project members are interested in the project being added to the projects supported by WikiProject United States. --Kumioko (talk) 17:07, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I honestly don't know if I see a lot of value in that, but that may just be me.Intothatdarkness (talk) 17:57, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
This project seems to be reasonably active, there is no reason to deprecate or eliminate it. If it fits under the broad "tree" of WikiProject US or US History or whatever, we could probably become a member of the "family" (I am thinking of a "tree" the way that WP Mammals is under WP Animals, which is under WP Biology, etc...). Not sure precisely what is requested, though. Can you clarify this, Kumioko? Montanabw(talk) 19:57, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Just to clarify were not talking about deprecating the project. Just adding it to the list of projects supported by WPUS. The only significant change would be to add this project to the WPUS template and you can see what that looks like here {{United States}} with others such as District of Columbia. This would allow the project to be visible to a much larger pool of editors as well as take advantage of the various bots and scripts currently running on the WPUS articles. --Kumioko (talk) 20:03, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
I think adding it to the list of projects supported by WikiProject United States is a good idea. We're by no means inactive, but we're not as active as we could be. I think it'd be great for this project if it were included in the list of projects supported by WPUS. The UtahraptorTalk/Contribs 03:27, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I also see no harm in extra eyes. As long as no one is trying to "kill" the project due to "under-activity." Montanabw(talk) 18:21, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
That's my concern as well. Supporting the project is one thing; absorbing/dissolving it is something else again.Intothatdarkness (talk) 18:24, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I understand, my hope is that by supporting these projects under the WPUS umbrella we can use the infrastructure in place for WPUS (Collaboration, portal, Noticeboard, newsletter, etc to increase visibiliy and participation. Additionally, since many projects have overlapping scopes we can use that to our advantage and coordinate multiple projects on article improvements easier. The last few months the focus has been on getting WPUS going again and getting the infrastructure in place. In the future we will be focusing more on article content with improvement drives (tagging, stub reduction, assessment, picking a topic for improvement, etc.). --Kumioko (talk) 18:40, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
No problem so long as the scope of Old West doesn't change. We spent some time defining the scope and sweep of this, and I'd hate to go through that again because someone wants to add Louis L'Amour stuff back into mix.Intothatdarkness (talk) 16:27, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay I was gone most of July and I need to wrap up some other issues. I wanted to come back and see if we can wrap up this discussion. So it seems like the members of the project are ok with adding the project to the list of those supported by WikiProject United States as long as the scope doesn't change and the project doesn't get dissolved. I would like to assure you that neither is the intent. The only thing that would differ would be to replace the American Old West banner with the United States banner and a parameter for American Old West. The Project would then be included in the list at the top of WikiProject United States and to the Newsletter. I would also like to note that this project to the United States banner also allows it to take advantage of the other parameters in Use on the WPUS template like Needs infobox, needs image, needs attention, contains comments, etc. Would it be alright if I begin the process of adding it to the supported projects list? --Kumioko (talk)

WikiProject American Old West currently has 1,090 articles under its scope. If we replaced the American Old West banner with the United States banner, we'd have to go back and edit the talk pages of all 1,090 articles, wouldn't we? Unless we edited the American Old West project template directly, of course. The UtahraptorTalk/Contribs 20:20, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
The quick answer is yes we would but I could do that in a day or 2 with AWB. I did notice a couple things though that I would like to mention:
  1. The project doesnt appear to support some of the classes though like FL, FM and the various non article classes like File, Template, Category and Project. If it is added to the supported projects list of WPUS I would like to add those classes as well so that it is equal to the others supported by WPUS if thats ok. This would give both projects visibility of these other content types so that Article Alert bot would notify the project if someone submits them for something like Category for deletion.
  2. I also notice that the American Old West template template doesn't support parameters for Contains comments or Needs Infobox, image, map or attention. If supported by WPUS I would also like to add these. --Kumioko (talk) 20:41, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. All of my concerns have been addressed, so as long as nobody else has any concerns, go ahead and do what you need to do. The UtahraptorTalk/Contribs 20:52, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
No problem, since it appears that the members of the project are ok with this I will go ahead and make the changes. It may take a week or two to complete the process due to the number of projects that have recently been added. I will continue to leave comments here as I make them so that if anyone has comments or questions they can be answered or addressed. --Kumioko (talk) 20:31, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Some recent discussions

A couple of editors have views concerns and misgivings about this project being supported by WikiProject United States so I wanted to come here and leave a message. The action to add this project to the supported projects list of United States did not reduce it to a task force! It is still an active WikiProject with an important scope and active participants. This was in no way meant to insult or downgrade the project in any way. The statement was also made that they haven't gained anything for it. Well thats true but the bot only finished pulling in the articles this morning, so we haven't really had time to do anything yet. --Kumioko (talk) 15:32, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

One of these discussions can be found here. For clarity, the person who commented on possible gains (or lack thereof) from a merger was referring to the Washington, DC project.Intothatdarkness (talk) 16:28, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
The DC project is actually a rather bad example. The DC proejct in fact has a lot of activity but a lot of the DC members have been working on DC related subprojects (many under the umbrella of GLAM like Smithsonian Museum, Library of Congress, National Archives, etc). They also meet at least monthly to discuss things and have recently started a Wikichapter and have been working to get DC as the host for the 2012 Wikimania. So aside from what the comments might lead the reader to believe the DC project is extremely active. --Kumioko (talk) 16:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Not saying it was good or bad...just providing a context for the "no gains" comment.Intothatdarkness (talk) 16:43, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
No problem. Not trying to be defensive I just wanted to provide some context about WikiProject DC. --Kumioko (talk) 17:04, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Damn. I take a couple months off and come back to find my favourite new WikiProject emasculated. The banner is an embarassment. --Hutcher (talk) 03:21, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Your absolutely right in fact all the projects icons need to be larger and more prominent in the banner. The icon was accidentally shrunk and should be fixed with the next update. Other than that I'm not sure how its an embarrassment. I just increased it and all of the other icons some more here. I think that looks a lot better. --Kumioko (talk) 03:24, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Bot run to auto assess some of the Unassessed articles

There is a discussion here for a Bot to do an assessment run through the 3500+ Unassessed articles that currently fall under WikiProject United States and the projects supported by it. If you do not want the bot to autoassess the articles for your project or if you have any comments or concerns please let us know. --Kumioko (talk) 14:12, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

September 2011 Newsletter for WikiProject United States

The September 2011 issue of the WikiProject United States newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

 
--Kumioko (talk) 03:13, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Fall 2011 Photo Contest

WP:NRHP is having a Fall Photo Contest running from Oct. 21-Dec. 4, 2011. I'd like to encourage anybody who enjoys photography, and anybody who is interested in historic places to participate as a photographer, a sponsor, or both.

One way that an individual editor or a project can participate is to sponsor their own challenge. For example, somebody here might want to include a challenge such as "A barnstar will be awarded to the photographer who adds the most photos of previously non-illustrated NRHP sites that include ranches in western states to the NRHP county lists." To sponsor a challenge all you need to do is come up with an idea, post it on the contest page, and do the small bit of work needed to judge the winner(s).

Any and all contributions appreciated.

Smallbones (talk) 02:42, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Nomination as a United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month candidate

One or more articles relating to this project have been nominated to be a future United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month. All editors interested in improving these articles or voting for next months collaboration are encouraged to participate here. --Kumioko (talk) 19:36, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

December 2011 Newsletter for WikiProject United States

The December 2011 issue of the WikiProject United States newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

 
--Kumioko (talk) 01:34, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

January 2012 Newsletter for WikiProject United States and supported projects

The January 2012 issue of the WikiProject United States newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

 
--Kumi-Taskbot (talk) 18:07, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month

Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:American Old West will have interest in putting on events (on and off wiki) related to women's roles in within American old western society. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. These events can take place off wiki, like edit-a-thons, or on wiki, such as themes and translations. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 20:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

James H. Levy

I'm considering creating a Wiki for old west gunfighter James H. (Jim) Levy as I've noticed there's not one for him yet. However before I take on the task I wanted make sure that one hadn't been done before then deleted due to lack of notability or something. Levy was an Irish immigrant of Jewish ancestry -- something unusual among the noted gunfighters of the period. I've found at least a couple decent reliable sources and searching for more. If anyone knows if he's previously had a Wiki and it was deleted please be kind and save me a lot of effort for nothing. Much thanks and have a great Wiki kind of day! Sector001 (talk) 01:44, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Is there a source aside from Metz? That might help answer your question.Intothatdarkness (talk) 16:14, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Plains Indians article of low importance?

The article on Plains Indians is rated as "low importance." That seems odd as the Plains Indians played a huge role in the history of the American Old West: Custer, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Sacagawea, and all that. Perhaps somebody should take a look at the rating? I vote for "high importance." Smallchief (talk) 11:17, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Although I wasn't involved with the rating, I suspect it might have something to do with the umbrella nature of the category. If you want to raise the priority, I can't see a major problem. The article itself needs some work, though, and certainly needs to look at the period before the arrival of the horse.Intothatdarkness (talk) 15:55, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Red Cloud's War of low importance

Red Cloud's War is rated of "low importance?" As in my previous comment about the importance of Plains Indians, this seems way, way off. The Fetterman Massacre, part of the war, was arguably the second most important battle on the Great Plains. Smallchief (talk) 14:24, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

The Plains Indians article isn't in very good shape, and it's more of a holding tank (I think) to refer people to more specific articles on the various tribes. There's a lot of work that can be done on many of these, starting with the Comanche War, which wasn't a "war" at all but a convenient tag created for Army lineage purposes.Intothatdarkness (talk) 15:03, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
A comment on ranking articles low, medium, high and top. Each wikiproject does its own ranking, and as a rule, the default is "low" until the project has had a chance to review what its priorities are and decide which articles are the "lead" ones of highest importance. Clearly, many things that are important may be ranked high in one project and low in another. Here, Plains Indians may be worth ranking high importance even if C- or Start- class. Red Cloud's War compared to The Battle of the Little Big Horn versus The Baker Massacre versus Fetterman -- oh dear! Versus, say Conestoga wagons or....? You see the problem. We don't want to rank everything "high," either. My thinking is maybe try bumping some of this up to "mid" and see if anyone complains. Montanabw(talk) 23:55, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
That's a fine solution. I've done that with some Army regiments, as the ratings didn't always reflect their level of participation on the Frontier.Intothatdarkness (talk) 14:13, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Delete Comanche Campaign?

I've been trolling through some of the Indian Wars articles, and the Comanche Campaign is a real mess for a number of reasons. Not only is the recently-added "synopsis" of the campaign fatally flawed, I am unaware of any serious historical account that even mentions such a campaign in the way it's discussed in the article. It looks like the article itself was created based on a misunderstanding of how the Army awarded campaign streamers for the Indian Wars, and it took on a life of its own after that. The article mashes the Kiowa campaigns of the early 1870s, Custer's operations against the Cheyenne, and the Red River War into a nasty whole that makes little to no sense. So far there's been silence on the article's talk page, so I figured I'd raise the issue here. Since the campaign as such doesn't really exist, I think deleting the article is the best option.

The original confusion arose because the Army issued campaign streamers for actions against various tribes during this period (Comanche, Apache, and so on) if there were no major operations ongoing at the time. That's why you'll see streamers for the Little Big Horn and Comanches on the same guidon. In some cases there were coherent, planned campaigns (the Red River War being one example), but in other cases it was recognizing the grinding, routine patrols that most regiments carried out in specific regions during a set period of time.Intothatdarkness (talk) 14:11, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

My suggestion is to place some "mergefrom" tags on it and figure out which article(s) you can pop appropriate paragraphs into (if any), then if no one objects to a merge in a week or so, blank it with a redirect to the closest decent article, put any useful paragraphs into articles where they could be fit and be done with it. Or, if the edit history is pretty quiet, maybe just be bold and see if anyone squawks, and if they do, then BRD. Montanabw(talk) 15:40, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
It's only been edited by one person since August of 2011, and before that it was quiet for about another year. The bulk of the poor content came in that recent edit, and that user was blocked not long ago for copyvio. I may just revert it to the early version and make some adjustments, as the 2011 version was MUCH better (though not perfect).Intothatdarkness (talk) 16:54, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
And it's worse than I thought. Someone created a category for this that has all sorts of unrelated stuff tacked in (like Custer and Beecher's Island). What a mess!Intothatdarkness (talk) 22:22, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Good luck my friend! Sounds like a classic time for WP:BEBOLD! Montanabw(talk) 21:10, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I wiped most of the article and turned it into an explanation of the term. Now let the shouting begin... :-)Intothatdarkness (talk) 14:29, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposal for United States A-Class review process

There is a proposal at WikiProject United States to start an A-Class review process for United States related articles. Please stop by and join the discussion. Kumioko (talk) 01:58, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

New project started

FYI, there's a WP:WikiProject Westerns now -- 76.65.128.60 (talk) 09:05, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Westerns

Howdy, WikiProject American Old West!
Your editing history indicates that you may be interested in joining the new Westerns WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve and maintain Wikipedia's coverage of fictional Wild West articles. If you are interested in participating, you are welcome to sign up at the project page. We hope you will join us!
Ma®©usBritish{chat} 01:43, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's not particularly well worded for non-userpages, but yeah, this WikiProject is now setup and still in the early stages of building its project area before user-participation can really begin to function. Anyone interested, please feel free to join. Note, this project not only covers film and TV, but Western novels, comics, actors, directors and authors, etc who make the fictional-Wild West possible. Thanks, Ma®©usBritish{chat} 01:43, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Mendocino War

Hi All! I just wrote an article (that was previously a stub) on the Mendocino War, so feel free to check it out and make edits or provide some feedback! Bellitan (talk) 20:09, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Discussion to remove the Automatically assessed logic from the WikiProject United States template

There is a discussion regarding removal of the logic used to populate Automatically assessed article categories from Template:WikiProject United States. Most of the categories (over 220 Wikipedia wide) were deleted in February 2013 because they were empty. These categories were previously populated by a bot that hasn't run since 2011 and the categories aren't used. Removal of this uneeded/unused logic will greatly reduce the size and complexity of the WikiProject United States template. Any comments or questions are encouraged here. Kumioko (talk) 18:17, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Lest there is any confusion for people who don't speak the same language, the words "logic used to populate Automatically assessed article categories" refer to the feature that was supposed to allow this WikiProject's template to "inherit" class and importance ratings from other WikiProjects. Kumioko says that there are no longer any bots performing the function that formerly copied those ratings. --Orlady (talk) 22:54, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Irataba FAC

Hello! I recently wrote the article, Irataba, and after a successful GAN it's now at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Irataba/archive1. I'm having trouble finding editors in this topic area (Old West and Native Americana), so I'm posting this here in the hope that it will generate some interest. Thanks! Rationalobserver (talk) 18:07, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Gunmen of the American Old West

Such articles as Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane have been included in the category Category:Gunmen of the American Old West. According to the category, this should reflect "gunfighters", i.e. "outlaws" and "lawmen". Are the articles contained in this category correct? Annie Oakley, for example, was recently recategorized from Category:People of the American Old West by an IP user. Thanks. --Chaswmsday (talk) 11:36, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

"Gunmen" is kind of a silly categorization and one-dimensional ... Annie Oakley was a sharpshooter, Buffalo Bill was (mostly) a showman and former market hunter, Calamity Jane was ... complicated, but was alleged to have some gun skills. Frankly, the entire category is vague and I'd recommend diffusing everything in it to more specific cats. Montanabw(talk) 08:17, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

United States Camel Corps

I've been working on United States Camel Corps. I'd appreciate a review. Thanks.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 17:09, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject 19th-century American Music invitation

Most courteous Greetings to you historical music lovers! Your participation is ardently sought in helping to establish one of Wikipedia's newest projects - 19-century American Music a collaborative venture to improve the coverage of '19th-century American Music' on the English Wikipedia. A treasure trove of adventure awaits you as we improve and expand upon the wealth, heritage, history and impact of this music genre. What is a project without participants like you? If your interest is piqued please leave your calling card and add your name to our proposed Project page. You will be kept informed of the development of this new project in the coming weeks. To leave your valuable opinions and suggestions, please contact me. With All Cordiality and The Very Best of Regards, Barbara (WVS) (talk) 14:44, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Please See - Submissions

https://wikiconference.org/wiki/Submissions
--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:26, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject United States - The 50,000 Challenge

You are invited to participate in the 50,000 Challenge, aiming for 50,000 article improvements and creations for articles relating to the United States. This effort began on November 1, 2016 and to reach our goal, we will need editors like you to participate, expand, and create. See more here!

---Another Believer (Talk) 22:07, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

American Old West Portal

Hello all, I've created an American Old West portal here on Wikipedia, but this is the first portal I've done and would gladly take pointers/help on refining it and making it run smoothly/look nice. Let me know if you're interested/feel free to help on it. --Drown Soda (talk) 02:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   07:25, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:23, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject History needs people

Hi everyone. I am the new coordinator for WikiProject History. we need people there!! right now the project seems to be semi-inactive. I am going to various WikiProjects whose topics overlap with ours, to request volunteers.

  • If you have any experience at all with standard WikiProject processes such as quality assessment, article help, asking questions, feel free to come by and get involved.
  • and if you have NO Experience, but just want to come by and get involved, feel free to do so!!!
  • Alternately, if you have any interest at all, feel free to reply right here, on this talk page. please ping me when you do so, by typing {{ping|sm8900}} in your reply.

we welcome your input. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 20:45, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject Grand Canyon proposal

Hi there, editors at your Wikiproject may be interesting in the related WikiProject Grand Canyon proposal, which you can see and support here! Kingsif (talk) 08:39, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Project-independent quality assessments Quality assessments are used by Wikipedia editors to rate the quality of articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project decides to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:51, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

  • John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

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