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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3→Archive 5

Article names in San Diego area

I get lost in all the sections on this project so I don't know where to put this. A "thing to do" is to correct the article titles for places in San Diego County or City. Many are incorrectly formed and the redlinks on the list of SD city neighborhoods are also misformed. Where should this task go? Thanks, -Willmcw 06:08, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

I've hopefully cleaned up the ToC so it is easier to navigate. I think you should put it in the Projects section. JesseW 06:55, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
Most of it looks pretty good. In the beginning I just subst: in {{WikiProject}}, which was a pretty basic layout at that time. Since then I've been looking at other WikiProjects and Regional notice groups and trying to borrow those features that have worked the best. I have tried to organize things as I added new sections but it was a bit of a kludge, and I kept the very "flat" structure that the original Wikiproject template had, which didn't help make it easy to find different sections.
While I've been adding stuff to both the California WikiProject and Southern California Wikiproject, I've also been trying to add the new ideas back to the old Template:WikiProject so that other new WikiProjects can also take advantage of some of the same ideas. Now it looks like I'll have to go back to the WikiProject Template and modify it to match your new organization. ;-) BlankVerse ∅ 08:55, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Los Angeles County worksheet

For renaming the cities and neighborhoods in San Diego County, it may be useful to create a worksheet similar to the one that I've started to work on for Los Angeles County. To see what I've been able to create so far, see User:BlankVerse/Sandbox. If anyone knows more about creating tables than I do, you can see the last table on Districts and neighborhoods of Los Angeles needs some more work. BlankVerse ∅ 09:46, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

If anyone is interested, I've updated the worksheet to cover some of the cities in the South Bay, Los Angeles-area. Almost all of the South Bay city articles that I looked at are barely stubs if you eliminate the User:Rambot-added Geography and Census section. BlankVerse ∅ 15:56, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

The SoCal WikiProject To do list

{{SoCalTasks}}Most of you have probably noticed the "Open Talk" infobox that is up at the top right of the page next to the Table of Contents. I've borrowed the idea from the Utah WikiProject so you can look at their page to see how they are using it. Right now the SoCal version only has some categories listed but no articles. I am wondering if we should just start filling that page up, or should be try to find some sort of consensus on which SoCal articles either need the most attention, or are the most important articles to work on. To the right is a copy of the same To do list. BlankVerse ∅ 15:29, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Stubs

The {{California-geo-stub}} category (Category:California-related stubs) is becoming quite large (~450 articles), and I keep finding SoCal city and community articles that should have the geo-stub template that don't, so I've suggested over at the Stub-sorting WikiProject that one or more new geo-stubs should be created for California. Right now the consensus seems to be for creating just one new stub ({{California-south-geo-stub}}), which would leave the California-geo-stub on Northern California and state-wide articles. You can join the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria#Southern and Northern California geo-stubs. BlankVerse ∅ 15:56, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Categories

This is to explain what I think needs to be done under Wikipedia:WikiProject Southern California#Projects #1. Category cleanup:

The other day I was going to try to create a couple of listings (with heirarchy) for the categories for California and SoCal topics, but after a quick examination of the categories involved, I postponed my efforts. It was clear that rather than the quick hour of work I was planning to do, it was going to take much longer than that (especially because I wouldn't just be listing the categories, but would be trying to clean up all the problems that I found). These problems included:

  1. confusing organization of the categories
  2. poorly named categories
  3. duplicate or overlapping categories where all the articles should be moved to a single category and the other one deleted
  4. too narrow a categorization (i.e. categories that will never have more than a few articles)

On the other side of the coin are a large number of SoCal articles without articles, or are in the wrong categories, or are in too broad a category and need to be moved to a more focused category. (For example, a large number of the User:Rambot-generated city and community articles have had their stub tags removed, even though they only have a few sentences beyond the original Rambot article.)

What I think needs to be done are:

  • reorganize the SoCal categories.
  • move articles to new categories that need to be moved.
  • delete any duplicate categories and too-narrow categories.
  • rename poorly named categories.
  • create new categories?

Now the big question: Does anyone want to help with this boring and tedious, but necessary task? BlankVerse ∅ 08:28, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to work on this. I'll crank my Category Browsing Tools back up(download the most recent database, fix any bugs that show up, generate and put up the results, and that will help clarify things.) JesseW 19:28, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
After about a day of crunching(parsing the cur table to get the id's out takes a long time), I present: The Children of Category:California! Praise, blame, or requests may be sent to my talk page. BTW, I really see what you mean about terrible organization, BlankVerse. JesseW 00:12, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Category layout

From the category list I generated, it seems Category:California is laid out as follows:

I think we need to pick one of the two main geographical hierarchies, and disband the other one.

Regarding the many subject categories, some are pretty obviously on the same topic, and so should be merged, and probably they should be divided into larger groupings and put into subcats in that way. I've commented on some possible mergings above. Feel free to add your own ideas. JesseW 18:19, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Many of your suggested name changes do not fit in the (very-hard-to-find) Wikipedia naming policy. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics) for the policy, and the Talk page for the reasoning. Also, for Category:California-related_stubs, I know that the Stub-sorting WikiProject has recently decided to change all of their Foo-related stubs categories to Foo stubs. I am going to try to get someone from Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories and/or WP:CFD to look at the current categorization to see what names don't match their poorly-documented conventions.
After looking at that page, I agree, and have changed the suggested renamings to reflect that. (In my defence, I just went with the renaming that required the least renaming of pages, not knowing about the as you said, poorly-documented conventions). JesseW 02:33, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
Where I think some of the biggest problems with names are is related to "Los Angeles" categories, where most of them are NOT about the city or the county, but are about the Los Angeles metropolis (e.g. Category:Radio_stations_in_Los_Angeles. Most of those categories should probably be changed to "Los Angeles-area foo" or something similar. For those categories that ARE specifically about the city or county, they should be amended to say "Los Angeles City" and "Los Angeles County". BlankVerse ∅ 00:53, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree - we need to look into the issue of regions, and how to best name categories related to them. Your suggestion makes sense, but we need to decide on a case-by-case basis which grouping seems best. JesseW 02:33, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Maurreen left these comments on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject California/categories. I copied them here, as the main discussion seems to be here. JesseW 04:29, 11 August 2005 (UTC) BlankVerse asked for suggestions. Here goes:

  1. Put "Communities" in "Geography"
  2. Put highways, etc., in "Transportation"
  3. Agree on clarifying or separating, whatever, LA city, county and metro areas.
  4. Unsure if this is already done, but consider categories for various regions such as Southern California, etc.
  5. Consider "Business" or "Organizations cat, which would include companies. Maurreen (talk) 03:21, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

LA Skyscrapers

I'm not sure what to do with this info, but I found a list of the 327 tallest building in the LA area here. BlankVerse ∅ 12:15, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure it will come in handy. Add it to the External resources section on the main page, if you havn't already. JesseW 19:00, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
There's been talk about identifying the different buildings in the LA skyline in the Los Angeles article, so perhaps that info would be useful there. Theshibboleth 11:50, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

John Anson Ford Theater - pictures needed?

I'm going out to the John Anson Ford Theater, up near the Hollywood Bowl, in a little while, and I wondered if anyone knew of which pictures might be needed up around there... I'll go get on IRC, (as JesseW) so you can respond here or there... JesseW 15:47, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm off. JesseW 16:23, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Los Angeles Power Outage... just now

So yea... the power outage just now... where should we post about it? Make a new page, add it to Los Angeles or what? -- NatsukiGirl\talk 22:16, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Power outages are rarely encyclopedic. Maybe try WikiNews? -- Norvy (talk) 02:54, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I know that. I didn;t make the outage page that got made... but I asked this question before it was explained what exactly happened... it could have been a big thing. But now it's old meme. So whatev. -- NatsukiGirl\talk 03:47, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales to Attend San Diego Meetup on October 18 2005

Hello, Jimbo Wales will be in San Diego to attend OOPSLA and has agreed to come by and visit with the San Diego wikipedians. If you are interested, you will find more info on my talk page. Johntex\talk 00:54, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Ennis-Brown House

I've added images of the Ennis-Brown House in Los Feliz. It was a little overcast today, but feel free to remove that article from the requested photos list if the images are adequate. Mike Dillon 02:43, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Very nice. Thanks for doing that! JesseW, the juggling janitor 18:29, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
It is indeed good work! --Siva1979Talk to me 09:00, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you both (belated for JesseW). Mike Dillon 16:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

User 70.33.74.35

This IP/user has made a few edits today to articles on LA . Some of them look unencyclopaedic, but I'm unqualified to judge. Perhaps someone would like to go through his/her contribs? - mholland 05:37, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Some of 70.33.74.35 (talk · contribs)'s edits looked okay. For example Area code 562. I am wondering where they got the information for those edits, because it it much more detailed than anything I was able to find on the internet. On the other hand, the edit to South Bay, Los Angeles used a much narrower defintion that I've ever seen used for the South Bay, so I basically reverted that edit. I am now going through each edit to see if there are any more problems. Thank you for the heads up. BlankVerse 11:09, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. The editor sounds like a local, perhaps a bit POV. - mholland 11:49, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Someone who knows the City of Los Angeles much better than me will have to check some of these edits: Beverlywood, Los Angeles, California [1], South Robertson, Los Angeles, California [2], Beverlywood, Los Angeles, California [3], Crestview, Los Angeles, California, West Los Angeles (region) [4] (note the removal of Baldwin Hills and Ladera Heights!), and Westside Village, Los Angeles, California. BlankVerse 12:06, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Category:Los Angeles, California - Ambiguous/misnamed?

IMHO Category:Los Angeles, California is confusingly misnamed. It looks like it should be for only the City of Los Angeles, California, but the description says that it is for the Greater Los Angeles area. I think that this category should be renamed to something like Category:Los Angeles area or Category:Greater Los Angeles area, and then put under Category:Metropolitan areas of the United States (see Category:San Francisco Bay Area for another California example). BlankVerse 12:01, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree about the problem. I can't suggest a better solution. -Willmcw 20:44, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
I also agree. My preference for an areal category is Category:Greater Los Angeles Area (since the main article is Greater Los Angeles Area). Mike Dillon 21:11, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Los Angeles, California page move discussion

There is a discussion at Talk:Los Angeles, California on moving the Los Angeles, California article to Los Angeles. This issue needs more input from Southern Californians. BlankVerse 12:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

template:PD-CAGov

{{PD-CAGov}} has been nominated for deletion by User:SPUI. Plase join in the relevant discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 March 13#Template:PD-CAGov. BlankVerse 13:40, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team cooperation

Hello. I'm a member of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing articles using these criteria, and we are are asking for your help. As you are most aware of the issues surrounding your focus area, we are wondering if you could provide us with a list of the articles that fall within the scope of your WikiProject, and that are either featured, A-class, B-class, or Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Do you have any recommendations? If you do, please post your suggestions at the listing of all active Places WikiProjects, and if you have any questions, ask me in the Work Via WikiProjects talk page or directly in my talk page. Thanks a lot! Titoxd(?!? - help us) 18:45, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikimeetup Santa Barbara (short notice)

Hi everyone,

Santa Barbara Wikimeetup April 8, time and place TBD. Angela will be in town for a conference. I'll almost certainly be able to attend. Antandrus (talk) 16:25, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Anaheim Hills, California

Anaheim Hills, California could use more editors to particpate in some serious, even possibly archeological, editing. -Will Beback 09:09, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I like that there is a boundary map for something that doesn't have incorporated boundaries. It's also cute how the article claims:
Anaheim Hills is identified as its own city to its residents, and the locals that live in Orange County, but the City of Anaheim has failed to recognize Anaheim Hills as its very own city yet
Um, isn't that the Secretary of State that does that... Man, that thing is full of original research ("I recently emailed the City of Anaheim..."). Mike Dillon 14:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Wow. That's a ton of original research... Burn it down! 15:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for editing that aggressively. The article did have some of the funniest writing I've seen in a while, though that was not the intent. -Will Beback 19:01, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
It might have been a little aggressive to roll back to April 5, but I really couldn't see any way of turning the additions into something verifiable. I figured it would be easier to put back the good edits that were interspersed with the anonymous user's edits than to massage that mass of boosterism into a real article. I figured that's what you meant by "archaelogical"; i.e. digging out the content from the mess that was created. Mike Dillon 23:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

This image is cute. It looks like a fake city seal indicating that the "City" of Anaheim Hills was/will be established in the year 2006. This is too weird; somebody really doesn't want to believe that Anaheim Hills is not a "city". Mike Dillon 02:16, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

It's happening again. We now have a fake {{Infobox City}} on the article with a fictitious "city seal" for this neighborhood (Image:Ahills.jpg). I stopped reverting yesterday before hitting the 3RR. Now, the editor is basically trying to call me out on my talk page. I'd rather not have a personal pissing match with User:Ericsaindon2 and his IP addresses. Mike Dillon 16:23, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

There's the rub. Maybe we need to create a neighborhood infobox. In this instance Pringle is not the mayor of Anaheim Hills, he's the mayor of the whole city. -Will Beback 02:30, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Rockero

User:Rockero is currently nominated for adminship by User:Will Beback at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Rockero. Quite frankly, I think that he's getting a raw deal from some of the oppose votes. I hope that all of those editors who are familar with his fine edits on Southern California and Hispanic-related topics will join in to support his nomination. BlankVerse 04:12, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I supported him and now he is an admin as well. --Siva1979Talk to me 08:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in California

Many articles covered by this WikiProject lack photographs. As part of a subcategorization of the requested photos category, there is now a category for California articles needing photos - to use it, just add {{reqphotoin|California}} to the article's talk page. I have only added a few articles to the category so far, but it would be an easy way to make an extensive list California-related articles lacking photos. I hope you find it useful! TheGrappler 05:19, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Huntington Beach/Newport Beach coastline Photo Project

I drive up and down the Huntington Beach/Newport Beach coastline five days a week from Seal Beach to Newport Beach. I was wondering what people had in mind for this photo project. What pictures are needed/wanted?

Epolk 03:54, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

LACMTA

I'm curious about this. The current method we have for naming the lines is LACMTA Blue Line, the stations being Pico (LACMTA Station). But the other rail lines, they are named differently. The Red Line for the Washington Metro is Red Line (Washington Metro) instead of WM Red Line, and a station named Shady Grove (Washington Metro) instead of Shady Grove (WM Station). Should we rename them to the Washington Metro style or keep with the current naming scheme? Hbdragon88 05:15, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe the Washington Metro more closely matches the naming conventions for common names. However, a specific policy for transportation systems is still "under debate" (see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (stations)). That being said, I agree that the current naming of LACMTA articles leaves something to be desired. Here's a couple possibilities of what I think the names should be:
The two choices I see are: 1) what should be in parentheses, and 2) how should the stations be named. I'm pretty sure that using "Metro Red Line", "Metro Blue Line", etc. is best because Metro itself uses that naming almost exclusively. This is kind of covered by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (identity), but not exactly. I think my personal preferences on the two questions are: 1) use "Los Angeles Metro" or "Los Angeles MTA", and 2) include the word "Station" in the article name. The second thing does not match Metro's usage, as they rarely include the word "Station" when referring to stations on metro.net. P.S. The Pico article should be called "Pico-Chick Hearn Station" since that is its official name, not just "Pico". Mike Dillon 15:41, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I had a similar question which I posted on the Metro Rail talk page. Is the real name Pico-Chick Hearn? The Metro Blue Line page spells it with a slash. I also pointed out 7th St/Metro Center; its actual title is 7th St/Metro Center/Julian Dixon, but it doesn't appear to be very common usage. Hbdragon88 21:43, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry. I wasn't trying to specifically say that it should be a hyphen. Another interesting thing with the link you provided is that Pico is the only one that has "Station" in the name on that page. Another thing to note is that when I was riding the Red Line between 2003 and 2005, some operators (conductors?, engineers?) would use the eponymous part of the station name and others wouldn't. One guy in particular would always say "Tom Bradley/Civic Center Station" and "7th and Metro/Julian Dixon Station" (he always said the word "and", unlike with "Wilshire/Western Station"). Mike Dillon 22:02, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Were they automated? I think I recall that the automated recordings would state the full name, while the human voice would simply say the common name. My Red Line experiences have been all with operator voices and I can't recall any of them saying the "Tom Bradley" (I commute to MOCA, so I get off at Civic Center all the time) - heck, I didn't even know that it had that surname until you mentioned it. Hbdragon88 23:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Unlike the Gold Line, the Red Line announcements were not automated when I last took the train (they may be now). This guy was just really animated. For example, he always opened with "Good morning, good morning, good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Metro Red Line.". Mike Dillon 23:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
The Red Line may possibly not be automated. My memories are probably from the the Green ane Blue Lines, as I ride those two for longer times (Green Line takes 10 minutes, Blue Line takes 22-40 minutes, and Red Line is a scant 3 minutes). I know for sure that the Green Line is fully automated; I sometimes hear automated recordings on the Blue Line. Hbdragon88 00:34, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Sunset Strip/West Hollywood photos

Hi all. I'm planning on taking some pictures of the places within walking distance of my work or along my drive to work. I work at 8833 W. Sunset, adjacent to Tower Records. Here is my list so far:

Feel free to give me some more ideas, but for now I'd prefer to stick to places that already have articles. Also, I'm more interested in things I can walk to from work than things along my drive, since I don't want to pay for parking every 10 minutes. Mike Dillon 03:57, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I've completed all of the above images except the Beverly Center and The Roxy. I don't think I can actually get a good shot of the Beverly Center and The Roxy had a bunch of crap parked in front of it today. The pictures aren't great being that it is pretty overcast, but they're better than nothing. Mike Dillon 17:40, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Can you get a picture of a Metro Rapid bus? I'd like to avoid using that fair use image if possible. I just came back from downtown LA and got some better shots of Metro Local, but didn't see a Rapid bus. And I'm still kicking myself for missing the opprotunity to get a Metro Express bus off of the 105. Hbdragon88 03:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do. Unfortunately, the Rapid buses don't have a schedule and they don't run on Sunset near my work, so I'd have to wait around for one on Hollywood Blvd. or something. Mike Dillon 16:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
It's great to see you doing this project. What about the Troubadour (nightclub), the old Charlie Chaplin Studios near the corner of Sunset and La Brea Blvds that later became the A&M Records recording studios and is now the location of Jim Henson Productions, the famous corner of Sunset & Vine, etc. There are still a few radio, TV, and film studios in the area, although mostly it's now the former homes of fill-in-the-blank-here (KMPC, etc.). Also: Can you think of anything that still needs an article created? BlankVerse 07:51, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I didn't do the Troubadour because I wasn't exactly sure where it is. I know it's on Santa Monica, but I've never seen it. The same thing applies to all the "former homes", since I don't recognize any of them by sight. As for articles that need to be created, I can't think of any. The coverage in Category:Landmarks in Los Angeles is actually really good. One thing I was thinking is that we might want to expand Wikipedia:WikiProject Southern California/Requested photos a little bit. We could spell out locations for the "photo projects", including addresses and map links for things that are obscure or otherwise hard-to-find. Use of {{reqphotoin|California}} and the corresponding Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in California could be helpful too. Mike Dillon 01:47, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I guess if Rock 'n' Roll Ralphs and Gower Gulch merit their own articles (which is possibly debatable), then Duke's Coffee Shop probably does too. The original location below the Tropicana Motel was strongly associated with Tom Waits and the current location is in the building where The Doors first played as a house band. Duke's has been a music industry hangout for almost 60 years (assuming it opened in 1947 with the Tropicana, which I think it did). For that matter, I guess Tropicana Motel needs an article too. Mike Dillon 01:53, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to bring my camera with me and add some photos. I live in West Hollywood, so it should be fairly east to get pics. Here is what i have taken so far. I have a good pic of Sunset Gower Studios also, but i guess i need to write an article first. Minnaert 21:05, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for adding more pictures! Maybe I should replace the Tower Records image with an image of the "Going out of business" signs, since they're shutting down next Friday. Mike Dillon 22:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
I was back on the streets with my camera again, and added a few images. I'm trying to work through the articles for the Hollywood / West Hollywood area.: Minnaert 19:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Balboa Island, Newport Beach, California

The Balboa Island article is sorely lacking in sources. If anyone is interested in taking a crack at it, have at it. Also, the current photo is probably not OK for Wikipedia to use, judging by the license statement on its description page, so I added {{reqphotoin|California}} to the talk page. Mike Dillon 06:20, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

The uploader did get permission before the drop dead date, so it's okay...for now. My attempt to CSD it failed, so I've put a fairusereplace on it. Perhaps I could go out there to get a free shot... Hbdragon88 21:32, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

New LA-area Wikipedia meetup?

There is a proposal for a 3rd LA-area meetup at Philippe's on Saturday, 24 June 2006. If you are interested in another meetup, please visit the proposal and comment on the date and location. BlankVerse 08:23, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Communities strawpoll

There is a new poll on naming communities within cities at Wikipedia:Communities strawpoll. Since many of the communities that have had article naming disputes are located in Southern California (including Hollywood, La Jolla, and Anaheim Hills) the participants in the Southern California WikiProject should add their votes and comments to the discussion so that hopefully there will be a clear consensus and that will then stop most of the interminable debates on this issue. BlankVerse 11:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposed move, San Francisco, California -> San Francisco

It looks like Serge, who is unhappy with the current naming standard for cities, has embarked on a city-by-city effort of renaming them, starting with Chicago, and now continueing with San Francisco. My personal opinion is that the current system works fine, but you may have other opinions. Please visit Talk:San Francisco, California and register your opinion. There is also a more general survey on naming cities at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements). BlankVerse 22:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Los Angeles USD

For the reasons that I stated at Template talk:Los Angeles USD, Template:Los Angeles USD has been nominated for deletion. The template is already huge and ugly. Imagine it populated with all 1,035 LAUSD schools. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. BlankVerse 20:35, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

CA-geo-stub sub-types proposed

There's a discussion here about how best to (further) split up the Category:California geography stubs. Ideally, we'd do this by generally-recognised regions consisting of a readily-identifiable list of whole counties, such that there's at least 60 existing stubs in each (but not so many ast to mean we're likely to be doing the same thing again before too long). Comments welcome. Alai 00:41, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

The discussion has ended. The decision was to create stubs for every California county (e.g. {{LosAngelesCountyCA-geo-stub}}), which then belong to a regional Calif. stub category (e.g. Category:Southern California geography stubs), which then all fit under Category:California geography stubs

RMS Queen Mary

There is a low-scale revert war going on over the RMS Queen Mary right now, mostly over the inclusion/deletion of a couple of external links. Could some of the other Southern California editors put this article on their Watch lists until this edit war blows over? I don't have the time to check things tonight, but it looks like at least one of the editors has violated WP:3RR. BlankVerse 10:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Portal:California

Portal:California has recently been created, but it needs some filling out to turn it into a full-fledged Portal. BlankVerse 07:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Cerritos, California

The Cerritos, California article is also the subject of revert war right now, with an editor repeated deleting a section with negative information on former Cerritos councilwoman Grace Hu who is now running in a California Assembly race. It looks like California may be next on the list of reports about politicians and/or their supporters editing on the Wikipedia. ;-) Could other Southern California editors help watch over the article? BlankVerse 08:45, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Category:Streets in Los Angeles, California

I have proposed renaming Category:Streets in Los Angeles, California to Category:Streets in Los Angeles County, California at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 October 3#Category:Streets in Los Angeles, California. If you have any opinions on this renaming, please contribute to the discussion.

The organization of categories for California, and especially for the LA area is a mess, so I am thinking of trying to set a goal of at least one renaming a week, along with the occasional group reorganization. BlankVerse 01:46, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Requested move: Los Angeles, California to Los Angeles

Only 2 1/2 months after the last failed requested move, and after the failure of a bunch of other requested moved at San Francisco, New Orleans, and other cities, there is yet another request to move the article on the City of Los Angeles from Los Angeles, California to Los Angeles. I have emphatically stated my position. I think it is imperative that every editor involved in this project also express their opinion on this requested move. This is at least the third attempt to move the article. BlankVerse 12:30, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Filming locations

Many city articles, especially those in Southern California, list films and TV shows that have used those places as filming locations. Currently the material is treated in a haphazard manner, sometimes having a special section (like "Filming in X"), sometimes covered in "Trivia", othertimes as "X in popular culture". I think it'd be helpful to develop a more standardized approach, perhaps a section heading that could serve for both TV and films. Any thoughts? (crossposted to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Films) -Will Beback 01:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that there should be a section titled "XYZ in the media", and then, if it is large enough, then subdivided by books, film, TV, etc.
One thing that I find unencyclopedic, however, is that some cities or locations are getting lists of every single minor appearance in films, TV programs, commercials, music videos, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. I am not sure what criteria to use, but I'd say that there should be some minimum requirements for inclusion, such as: used in an important scene or multiple scenes, relatively important movie (no direct-to-video), etc. For small towns (e.g. Vernon, the criteria could be looser because there would be fewer film shoots.
The problem with Southern California is that even the smallest cities and communities in SoCal has been used at least a dozen times for filming. Many schools, historic buildings, etc. have been used numerous times. For example, the two cemeteries down the street from me are used as filming locations a minimum of 2-3 times per year, and I've seen some years where it's more like once a month.
One of the columnists for the Long Beach Press-Telegram regularly highlights filming in the Long Beach area, and every month it seems like there is a minimum of 2-3 movies being shot in town, 3-6 TV shows, and numerous commercials and music videos. Even just listing the movies where important scenes were shot in Long Beach would turn into a very long list (my fave: It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World—many of the scenes near the end of the movie were shot in Long Beach). IMDB lists 350 matches for Long Beach, California, BlankVerse 00:52, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Just one example of the listing of the filming of television commercials is Long Beach Polytechnic High School#Popular Filming Location:. The is also at least one of the city articles that a long list of filming, but I can't remember which one. BlankVerse 11:10, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Venice, Los Angeles, California#Venice on Film has a long list. Santa Rosa, California#Film locations once had an enormous list because it included the entire surrounding county and each entry had a plot summary. "X in the media" is a good over-heading, but we need a short, grammtically correct term to cover the use of a place as a location (which may be film or TV). "Location shooting"? That may sound like a crime scene. -Will Beback 19:53, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 18:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Assessment importance examples

Anyone want to take a shot at updating the examples at Wikipedia:WikiProject Southern California/Assessment#Importance scale? Currently that section just has the stock examples from the Saints project or some such.

Also, I set the importance for Southern California to "Top" in both {{WikiProject California}} and {{WikiProject Southern California}}. Mike Dillon 18:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Requested move: Anaheim, California -> Anaheim

Having failed at other requested moves, including Los Angeles, California and San Francisco, California, and not gaining any consensus with a mass change in the naming convention for US Cities, the same group of editors is back proposing changing individual cities. The latest example is Talk:Anaheim, California#Requested move. Please go to that section and express your opinions on this latest proposed page move. BlankVerse 10:27, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Articles to watch

There is a low-scale revert war going on over the Griffith Observatory observatory between two fairly new editors. I'll be putting warnings on theor talk pages, but if it continues, it may be best to put a short block on the page.

After the youtube videos, there also seems to be a low-scale edit war over Los Angeles Police Department. This article should probably be watched a little close, but of the potential for random page editors to cause things to escalate. BlankVerse 15:25, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

FA nomination for California Gold Rush

The California Gold Rush article has been nominated for Featured article status. To go directly to the Featured article candidate page for the Calif Gold Rush article, go to this page: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/California Gold Rush. BlankVerse 08:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Panavision FAR

Panavision has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

Sandy (Talk) 21:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

List of Los Angeles street gangs

List of Los Angeles street gangs has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Los Angeles street gangs. I've already expressed my opinion, but other editors familar with Southern California should also add their two centavos to the discussion. BlankVerse 19:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The consensus in the discussion was deletion of List of Los Angeles street gangs, which was then protected against recreation. One suggestion that was made, because of the numerous problems with the gang list (violations of verifiability, original research, etc.), was to write, instead, a well-referenced article, probably titled Gang activity in Southern California. BlankVerse 13:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Template:LACMTA Station

I wsa bold and used parser functions to bring together the functionality of {{LACMTA Multi Transfer Station}} and {{LACMTA Transfer Station}} under the single template {{LACMTA Station}}. The first two have just been nominated for deletion. However, the three-station one suffers from some issues with color; see Union Station. The first box of the third line uses the same color as the second line; i.e. the third line on the Gold Line has both the purple and gold colors. I don't know how to fix this - could someone who knows more pitch in? Hbdragon88 05:52, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. Nice work. Mike Dillon 06:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Image for David Beckham move to Los Angeles Galaxy

Hi, I was hoping that any of you guys in the L.A. area would be able to get and image or something which could go in David Beckham move to Los Angeles Galaxy. If you can help, please reply on the talk page of that article. Thanks!--HamedogTalk|@ 09:03, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Tagging articles

As WP:SOCAL(this page) is the parent project for WP:CAL, I will post my question here: How does one distinguish which tag an article deserves? I would think that Los Angeles, CA could fit in both, but which ones belong in only one? Should it be marked a SOCAL project if it can be, so that SOCAL takes precedence? If anyone knows, I'd appreciate knowing too. —ScouterSig 19:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

My opinion is that everything based in Southern California should at least have {{WikiProject Southern California}} on their talk page (and usually only the SoCal banner). For anything major (e.g. Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles Times, Mt. Whitney, Death Valley), the article should get both the SoCal and California WikiProject tags. Anything that straddles the line between the Northern and Southern California should also get both tags (e.g. Kern County, California).
I've been slowly converting the talk page WikiProject banners by hand as I run across them. If anyone wants to help (and assess the articles as they do the changover), that would be appreciated. If anyone knows a bot owner who could help with the conversion, that would be great. BlankVerse 09:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I am going through articles that affect only Southern California and retagging them. Cities, other than LA and San Diego which will be both, are being retagged as SoCal; Counties I will tag as both. Other major items will still be both, but mostly I'm concerned with obviously single-category articles. I wish I had a bot on my Macintosh, but no one ever answered my questions on the tools page. —ScouterSig 18:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm in San Diego County and have been adding the WP:SOCAL banner to articles, but I don't know how to rate the articles. I don't think I have been around enough to have a clue as to how to rate them. For what purpose are articles rated anyway? It seems like some of the articles of smaller cities and communities aren't getting much attention anyway. --Eric Bekins 19:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Here's my interpretation:
The article ratings serve two purposes. They are to help each WikiProject identify which are their most important articles and also which articles need the most work. They also help identify which articles should be considered for the initial CD-ROM release of the English Wikipedia (The German Wikipedia and I think also the French Wikipedia have already release CD-ROM versions, and the German Wikipedia has even had a print version released). For a top-rated article like Los Angeles, California, it is a topic very important to Southern California, and also an article that any encyclopedia absolutely must have. Top-rated articles are also ones that we should try to make sure are as accurate as possible, and as well written as possible. A minimum goal would be for them to have a Good article class.
High-rated articles are also pretty important to SoCal and should be in any encyclopedia. Mid-rated articles are not as important, and are articles that a thorough encyclopedia probably should have, but would not necessarily be in a condensed CD-ROM encyclopedia, or a one-volume encyclopedia like the Columbia Encyclopedia. Low-rated articles are those you'd never see in a one-volume encyclopedia, or would only be included with a brief dictionary or gazateer-style entry.
I think only about 2-3% should be top-rated. Probably 15% should be high-rated. Roughly 30-35% should be mid-rated. Then everything else should be low-rated. For cities, population could be one criteria for assessing a city's importance, although some cities do not have the importance their population would suggest (perhaps Chula Vista and Santa Clarita), while other cities, such as Beverly Hills and Palm Springs, have an impact much greater than their population would suggest.
There are 478 incorporated cities in California (see List of cities in California). Using my percentages, that would mean there would be roughly 10-15 top-rated cities, 72 high-rated cities, and 167 mid-rated cities, with the rest low-rated. List of cities in California (by population) has a list of the 215 largest cities in California ordered by population. Looking at that list, however, there are some cities that I would still give a low-rating to, such as Stanton and Lawndale. I'd use historic importance and international awareness to upgrade a city, and I'd probably consider downgrading many suburban cities. BlankVerse 23:24, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

BlankVerse was kind enough to call my attention to this discussion. Has anyone asked the {{WikiProject California}} people about whether they agree to the removal of the {{WikiProject California}} tag? A large number of articles have more than one tag, and I think there is a benefit to that. There are certainly state-wide issues that will affect all the cities in the state. On the flip side, I must say I don't see any downside to having two tags for Southern California cities.

Honestly, it would seem to me that the {{WikiProject California}} tags should not be removed unless there is a consensus of the editors on the {{WikiProject California}} project to remove their tags. I see that User:Brien Clark has alertly just now asked for such a discussion on that project. Would it make sense to put a hold on further removal of {{WikiProject California}} tags until further discussion in both projects has taken place? Spamreporter1 01:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Merge suggestion at Inland Empire

See Talk:Inland Empire (California)#Merge suggestion: Pomona Valley into Inland Empire. An editor has proposed merging the Pomona Valley article into the Inland Empire article. It would help is some more Southern California editors weighed in on this proposal. BlankVerse 09:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

New Cal WikiProjects

Recently there has been both WikiProject San Francisco and WikiProject San Francisco Bay Area created. Now there is a proposal to merge both projects into the Bay Area version. If you want to contribute your two cents to the discussion, please see Poll: Merge WikiProject San Francisco into WikiProject San Francisco Bay Area?. BlankVerse 09:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Ridge Route FAR

Ridge Route has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

AFD: Culture of California 1800s to mid 1900s

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Culture of California 1800s to mid 1900s. This deletion discussion would benefit from the input of some more editors familiar with California. BlankVerse 03:16, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Two articles for review

I've just revamped two SoCal articles, Mike Feuer and Not Yet New York. It'd be nice if I could get some comments, suggestions, or what-have-you. I'd be most curious about people's considerations of my reference handling. (I know I didn't use the templates, I didn't feel like it; I'd be obliged if someone felt like fixing them up to use the templates.) JesseW, the juggling janitor 07:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposed change to the naming conventions for US cities

Once again there is a proposal to change the Wikipedia's long standing naming convention for US Cities.

There has been a small, but very vocal, and very persistent group of editors who have been trying, without much success, to overturn the "city, state" naming convention for US cities. First they tried at the naming convention level, but failed to achieve consensus for their views. They then changed tactics and tried to change the titles for several US cities, including three failed attempts to move Los Angeles, California, and one each for San Francisco, California and Anaheim, California. The only city that I know where they succeeded (after a couple of different surveys) was Chicago, but even that city has recently been moved back to Chicago, Illinois.

Now there is a revival of a fairly recent proposal to have the article titles for a small number of cities violate the very long-standing "city, state" naming convention. The discussion and voting are currently going on at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements)#Associated Press. Since the past debates have ended up involving a large amount of time for California editors, I hope that they will weigh in on this latest proposal. BlankVerse 11:16, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Rating California Cities

I have noticed that some participants are going through California cities and rating them for their quality and importance—I commend them for their efforts in this dull task. However, I noted that two cities, Ontario, California and Riverside, California were rated as being low importance. Since the cities are respectively the 128th and 62nd largest cities out of 19,429 cities in the United States, I feel they probably deserve a higher importance rating, but wanted to check for consensus here. Any thoughts? Thank you. Brien Clark 01:40, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

As a county seat and a major, very old and historic city in the Inland Empire, I'd rate Riverside as of High importance. I think, however, that the importance of Ontario is far less than the population figures would suggest, and would only rate Ontario as of Mid importance.
Also, for anyone doing these ratings, please convert any Southern California cities from the {{WikiProject California}} header to the {{WikiProject Southern California}} header.
For futher guidance: Be BOLD. ;-) BlankVerse 10:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I am the project member rating cities. I am involved in three other projects and scouring our cities as sources for those projects. I was given initial guidance on this matter and told not to inflate the ratings which I have attempted to do. Unless I am absolutely certain of its rating, I will not rate above a B class, Low importance to avoid overinflating. I have reviewed the guidelines for rating. In some cases upon looking at an article, I agree with its present rating; in others I disagree but do not reassess unless I feel I am on certain ground. On an article that is no longer a Stub article, that is an easy upgrade to Start. On those that had just a generic banner, I rate them. If you check my contribs for the past three days, you will see that I am on the letter D. Time flies when you rate. . .
As a result of criticisms on my talkpage and about putting this banner or that, I will only rate the Norcal articles. I had only updating articles that had the generic WP:CAL banners. I do not have the time to be opening and pasting all the banners from one window to another (I presently have eight windows open on this project). I have lived in both parts of the state (almost equal time) and visit all parts which gives me an interesting perspective on our Mason-Dixon Line. Someone in Socal can take the lead on the Grapevine going south to rate their articles and have them included in the Wiki Cities project.
I do not mind being bold. Cheers, Ronbo76 16:38, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
The other thing that people can do: If they are only sure about the class, then only assess the class of the article, and leave the importance parameter blank. BlankVerse 17:08, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Sandy Koufax FAR

Sandy Koufax has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. LuciferMorgan 22:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

California Gold Rush - Main page Featured article at midnight UTC, February 14, 2007.

California Gold Rush will be the Main Page Featured article at midnight UTC, February 14, 2007. please be on watch for vandalism and nonsense edits. BlankVerse 15:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

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