Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Delaware/Archive 1

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My introduction

It's good to see this project started. I have been working with Delaware biography and government/history articles for 2 years now and have noticed only a couple of contributers with a sustained interest. I have the Governors, U.S Senators, and most U.S. Representatives complete and up to a certain standard. I have also created/edited numerous lists of same again to a standard. Many of these articles are probably good enough for high quality ratings, but I am not competitive enough to bother entering them in the process. I have tried to put the {{DEGeneral}} template on all these articles as the {{Delaware}} template is too heavy on geographical information vs. topical. If it has the {{DEGeneral}} template on it, and is biographical or historical, most of the work is probably mine, or heavily edited by me. Frankly I have used these and other Delaware articles to showcase ways to solve formating and content problems for biographies throughout WP. Many of the ideas have found their way into general practice. Some are still being hashed out. I follow all WP policies and attempt to follow relevant guidelines, but have tried to moderate certain seemingly immoderate uses of templates and navigation boxes.

I am dividing my time between Delaware articles and U.S. Congress articles as the spirit moves me. There is much to be done expanding the historical and biographical information relating to Delaware, but it seems to me it is generally in better shape than most other states. I have dabbled in other areas, like geographical and governmental, and they are still badly lacking. To keep myself focused, I rarely if ever edit any articles outside these areas and the ordinal U.S. Congress articles.

My question is about the purpose and expected accomplishments of this project. I would very much enjoy a productive collaboration with anyone interested in making a serious and sustained effort to build good quality content. Goodness knows my stuff is seriously in need of editing, and my ideas could use a reliable, friendly sounding board. I'm guessing the reverse is true for others, which I would enjoy being a part of. However, I am very wary and weary of the regular appearance of "editors" who know enough to be dangerous, debate trivial things to death and cause many hours of rework to undo the results of their misunderstanding. There is also an abundance of contributors who like to make lists of things to do or create templates for all manners of things that clutter up otherwise attractive articles.

My personal goal is an attractive, standard formated, accurate and well-sourced series of articles for all notable Delaware historical and governmental people, organizations and events. I would welcome assistance in achieving that goal, and would enjoy providing assistance to others working in other Delaware related areas. This effort gives me a great deal of satisfaction and enjoyment, and I go to some extent to keep it from becoming unpleasant or confrontational. I would expect that to be a priority of any collaboration. Before making more specific suggestions, of which I have many, I would appreciate some feedback on the expectations others may have about this project. stilltim 03:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Meetup this weekend

Just so everyone knows - there's a wiki-meetup this Sunday in Philadelphia. Raul654 17:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Participate

Hello all,

I'm getting back to wikipedia-ing and Delaware (history esp.) is one of my interests; I'd like to contribute a bit to the WikiProject. What are some places in the Delaware articles you would suggest?

Epimethius 02:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Probably a good place to start would be with the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Delaware articles by quality statistics. The articles with the highest importance ratings and/or lowest quality ratings that interest you would probably be the places where work would be particularly useful. Of course, any of the Top importance articles, like Delaware itself, could probably use some improvement as well. John Carter 17:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Assessment and portal

I think that I have now assessed just about all the articles which relate to Delaware. These articles have also been added to the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Delaware/Articles. As indicated on the main project page, this list can be used to help check for changes in these articles.

Also, I note that there has been a statement on the main project page for some time now referring to the project having a portal, Portal:Delaware, when, in fact, no such portal existed. Well, it does now. Anyone interested in nominating articles for it or in helping to maintain it is more than welcome to do so. I think some input in maybe helping to select the color scheme would be particularly welcome. John Carter 19:11, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Iron Hill (news article)

A recently published article in the News Journal contains information that might be useful in the context of one or more Delaware articles:

Kathy Canavan (2007-12-21). "Digging into Earth's secrets". Life. The News Journal. Retrieved 2007-12-21.

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:42, 22 December 2007 (UTC)