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Columbia River nominated for Featured article

Most of you probably know that my biggest personal obsession on Wikipedia is the Columbia River article. Alongside numerous dedicated editors (some of whom are from this project), I've worked to bring it to FA quality over the last several years. Well, I've finally taken the plunge (to use Finetooth's metaphor) and nominated it for FA. I would be honored to have any feedback from members of this project -- please take a look if you have the time. Here's a link to the nomination/discussion: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Columbia River/archive1 -Pete (talk) 18:17, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Portland WikiWednesday tonight!

How late can I be on these announcements? Just wait and see, I bet next time I'll mention it with LESS than half an hour to go ;)

Anyway, we'll be at AboutUs from 5:30 on. Come join us if you can! We've got some interesting stuff brewin'. http://pdx.wiki.org

-Pete (talk) 23:28, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I missed, ya--maybe next month! Katr67 (talk) 17:22, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I'm about .09 or .10 or so after that great performance by the highly regarded Duck offense. Need to know if I should dive into more categorization again. Aboutmovies (talk) 05:47, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you will come up with some very creative ideas! Hop to it, mister, time's a-wastin. :D -Pete (talk)
Don't ask, don't tell. If you ask, you're over. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:57, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm with PF on the DADT thing. Of course, I think if you aren't editing Oregon Ducks, WP:DUCK, you're good.. tedder (talk) 06:00, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm thinking if you start thinking murdering bum(s) at a certain Portland landmark are just mis-understood, then you have had too many. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:16, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
If somebody can design a legal limit filter, I might consider installing one in my throat. -Pete (talk)

In the news

Oregon Ducks star running back (and single season rushing TD record holder) LeGarrette Blount was just suspended for the entire season, after throwing a punch after the season-opening loss. This is a national news story. Also keep an eye on 2009 Oregon Ducks football team. (The day of the game, the Blount article had 18,600 hits; last month, the most it had in one day was 46.)

Let's get to work! -Pete (talk) 21:40, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Crazy number of hits! Thanks to Pete for working on the Blount article, as it takes some tenacity and knowledge of NCAA football to do so. tedder (talk) 23:36, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
It's crazy all right! For another comparison, starting Jeremiah Masoli's bio got 1,000 hits on game day. And, I don't know much about NCAA football, but I'm learning quick! :) -Pete (talk) 03:36, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
I got so into this one, I seem to've busted into another dimension…behold my very first WikiNews article! -Pete (talk) 06:03, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Darn. I was out of town for this one. Great job. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:30, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! I'm sure there will be more opportunities, after all, everyone knows Oregon loves dreamers :) -Pete (talk) 05:29, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Hopefully we'll get one that doesn't involve nudity or violence soon. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:43, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

School's in

And you know what that means: LOL <insert scatalogical humor here> hee hee hee, etc. Refresh the WP:ORE watchlist often and have fun with those uw tags! Katr67 (talk) 18:49, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed- I was thinking about it because I saw an IP that was last active in June. Katr knows, but in case anyone doesn't have it handy, the full version of Template:SharedIPEDU is really handy. tedder (talk) 19:12, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Oregon Historical Quarterly

I just acquired about 100 volumes of the Oregon Historical Quarterly from 1961 to 1994 (!!) This prompted me to wikify the full table of contents from all of them (!!!) through 2007, and make notes about which ones are available via Project Gutenberg, Google Books, and Pete's personal collection.

Check it out here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/OHQ And feel free to ask for loans or scans if you need an article! -Pete (talk) 23:15, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Score! I might have to take you up on that. Katr67 (talk) 19:28, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Milwaukie, Oregon

I left a note on the talk page but just a heads up that the notable residents section was removed because it wasn't sourced, which goes with our project's rules about such things. I'm fairly neutral on having those sections, so I'm not too interested in replacing the section, but if anybody wants to take a stab at finding refs, it shouldn't take too long. Katr67 (talk) 19:28, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Tom McCall

Does anyone know why picture of Tom McCall was removed from his bio article. Since he's dead and new photos are impossible, existing photo should be available under Fair Use rule. I'm willing to write up Fair Use rationale, but I don't want to re-load photo if it would cause problem with wiki-picture police.--Orygun (talk) 02:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

What, you don't want to ignore all rules? tedder (talk) 07:04, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Looking at the history, it looks like someone uploaded it and put a creative commons license on it, which was most likely incorrect since I think it had been taken from the Oregon State Library's website where many of the other were taken from. So it would have been deleted for that reason. Thus, go ahead and re-upload with a proper fair use "license" and there would not be any problems. Just don't add it to the Gov. of Oregon article, as our non-free rules basically prohibit that. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:26, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Done...hopefully, new photo will stick!--Orygun (talk) 00:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

WANTED: your eyeballs (interesting article, DYK?)

I was stubbing out some articles and I created Oregon Connections Academy. It turns out to be.. interesting.. and newsworthy. Can a handful of you look at it and improve it? Some of the wording is awkward and the sections aren't great.

Secondly, can someone come up with a decent WP:DYK hook for it? It's certainly long enough and new enough to qualify.

Third, I can't quite place it (geography wise). I know the exact address, but Google Street View didn't come through for me. Anyone? tedder (talk) 07:03, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

According to Linn County, that address does not exist (enter just the numbers and you get a list of addresses starting with that). 38751 N. Main exists, but I can't tell you for sure which building it is, but I suspect the brick faced one, second from the end of the block on the north. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:13, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the DYK, the article's classified as a stub, which needs to be fixed. (See D10)
Two possible hooks could be:
Good work! LittleMountain5 16:06, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
On the talk page it's classified as 'start', and perhaps should go higher. I'll remove the stub from the article space.
The 0% graduated is only true because the school was K-11 last year; they moved to K-12 this year (ie, this last week). I need wording help with that.
One possible DYK would go like this: ...99% of Oregon Connections Academy's students reside outside the district and never attend the school?
tedder (talk) 16:16, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
I did a couple little tweaks. I can take a stab at the wording after I've had some coffee. A couple things: I think Sarah Gelser figured prominently in the debate this year, though maybe I'm mixing that up with the controversy a the Oregon School for the Blind. Also, I'm wondering if we should wikify individual legislative committees and bills? In the grand scheme of things, I don't think these are notable unless there's some sort of true scandal. Thoughts? Katr67 (talk) 19:25, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
P.S. Should I ride out to Scio today and take a look? I think there's a covered bridge or two out there that still need pics too... Katr67 (talk) 19:27, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Going to Scio would be nice :-) Photos and coords are some of the only near-OR that "we" are allowed to do, after all. Not sure about Gelser- curious what you uncover. I agree, bills may or may not be notable- but I suspect the "education committee" would be notable, right?
Coffee- allowing one to make more mistakes, faster. tedder (talk) 22:29, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I've reworded the lead and removed the 0% graduates reference. (Mathematically '100% graduated' and '0% graduated' are equally true -- and equally unhelpful) Much of the attention OCA has received in the media and in the legislature has been colored by the strong opposition of the Oregon Education Association. (If I'm not mistaken, the bill mentioned was a response to ORCA's establishment.) I have refrained from tagging the article as POV as I am hopeful this can be quickly rectified. (I've made some attempts and added a question to the talk page). As far as a picture is concerned, for a virtual school it may make more sense to show a map with the Scio district and the counties -- or even school districts -- in which ORCA students reside. If that information is available, drawing such a map is another type of WP:OR we're allowed. If the school-district level info is available, then it would be really interesting to color the map to show how many students come from districts that do not offer virtual schools to their resident population. YBG (talk) 05:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your work, YBG. It definitely needed rewording, and the math needed fixing :-) tedder (talk) 12:14, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I've submitted this to DYK, but my DYK hook needs help. Can anyone lend a hand? tedder (talk) 12:14, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey journalism geeks

Check out this database of articles about diversity in newsrooms. Cool stuff! Unfortunately, a lot of the articles it mentions are offline…but it gives a synopsis anyway, which is pretty cool. Just punch "Oregon" or whatever you want into the search box. -Pete (talk) 17:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Columbia River again

Hey all -- we've had extensive input from a very tiny group of people on our featured article nomination for the Columbia River article. It's nearing the end of its review. If you have any interest in looking it over and adding to the review, it would be great if you could do so in the next few days! Sorry to keep harping on this, but it's something several of us from this project have put a lot of effort into over the last few years. Feedback from any project members would be most welcome. (And thanks to project member Peregrine Fisher for your extensive review!) -Pete (talk) 19:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Tryon Creek

I listed Tryon Creek at peer review yesterday. Any comments or suggestions will be appreciated. Finetooth (talk) 23:47, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Oregon schools: one I need help with

I'm almost through my list of 311 public school graduation records. There is only ONE that I can't find any details on.

This, and ten more, are listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/High schools/US/Oregon. We're close to 100% coverage, folks. Pretty amazing.

Can anyone find information on PEC so I can create the article? tedder (talk) 00:45, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

So this is a public school then I take it? Steven Walling 01:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Yes, public school. Just looking for more solid sources- ODE doesn't have it, for instance. tedder (talk) 02:00, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The power of Commons

I was a little bored, so I Google searched my images to see if anyone was crediting me while re-using some images. As some here know, many of our pictures are re-used improperly all the time, but this time I found people actually crediting my moniker. Which brings us to the power of Commons (or in one case a Wikipedia image now tagged for commons). This random article used a fish pic (and not that great of a pic really), these folks using a foreign language I'm not familiar with used an image of WES, and the one that really caught me of guard was our foe Britannica re-using my image (strange choice of an image for that article). So, they attack us, but borrow from us. Other WPORE editors are on Encyclopedia.com, Home&Abroad, and Britannica again. So, we really do get around the globe, and Commons helps spread use around like not washing your hands helps spread the H1N1 flu. Aboutmovies (talk) 09:54, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. I never ran a Google search like that on my images, so I ran one just now. I got one hit, the former restroom (the Stone House) along Balch Creek, re-used with attribution to CC Finetooth by a travel website, Home and Abroad. Finetooth (talk) 18:55, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Cool. By the way, nudge nudge, that would make a good blog post...if you were so inclined... -Pete (talk) 21:49, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Examiner a Reliable Source?

Is this thing reliable?: www.examiner.com/portland It looks like a cross between a blog and a newspaper and appears to have some vetting and oversight. Someone added a link to it on the Oregon wine and I was about to revert it as spam, but I wanted to check out this source first. It's likely to come up again. Katr67 (talk) 21:56, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Some are real local papers, but I don't think the Portland one is. It's basically a blog with no editorial oversight, and hence not reliable. The reliable ones are the papers in San Francisco, Washington, and Baltimore. I don't think other cities have them. See Philip_Anschutz#Summary_of_business_interests. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 22:03, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Whether something's a reliable source is pretty heavily context-dependent…what sort of fact is it being used to justify? (On a cursory look, this appears to be something that has a pretty low bar for becoming a contributor, so I'm thinking it's unlikely to qualify as an RS for much. There's always the WP:RSN… -Pete (talk) 22:12, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not. Being used to justify anything, that is. Someone stuck it in the el section, a series of articles by an "examiner" who writes about Southern Oregon wine. It looks bloggish, didn't check the author's cred. It likely should be deleted in any case per WP:WINEGUIDE. Katr67 (talk) 22:30, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
I don't know the rules for wine ELs, but it is a blog. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Reminds me of http://about.com. Clarity Digital seems to have taken over http://www.nowpublic.com/ and a merger with www.examiner.com may be in the works. As for reliability, I'm going to wrench the cogs a bit and point out that press accuracy is at a 20-year low.[1] ZabMilenko 05:05, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Thought so. Thanks! Some days I get weary of being unilaterally shrewish. Pulling the link now. Katr67 (talk) 14:53, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

In the News again

The Brooke Wilberger article could use a little attention. It's listed as "stub" class (though I think it should be higher), there were 5,500 hits on the day her remains were found, and the Wikipedia article is Google's #1 hit. -Pete (talk) 17:32, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I fixed it up a bit. Katr has taken a look, but other eyes would be appreciated since it's kind of a sensitive subject, and possible covered by BLP. I also moved the page, and I'm not totally sure about naming conventions in cases like this. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:30, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Wow, and 10k hits on day 2! Good team effort guys, thanks for pitching in :) Updating WP:ORE/NEWS. -Pete (talk) 03:13, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

AOP (the /admin section)

So I'm reviving my effort to get Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Admin replaced with an automated solution. After all, nothing bad has ever happened by letting the computers take over.

The (minimal) project writeup and associated talk page are here: User:TedderBot/AOP

I would really like more feedback on this. If you are okay with it, I'll get the script so it can make "overseen" revisions to /Admin. I'll also need to go to WP:BRFA with it, I think. Hence why feedback is so important :-) tedder (talk) 04:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Article to make: Willamette Meridian?

Being overly-curious about geography and history and the Pacific Northwest, I keep running across mentions of the Willamette Meridian in a wide variety of places. As you can see from that link the page is currently a redirect to Willamette Stone, which is related but not really about the meridian so much--plus the page is short and could use some tender loving editing. The Willamette Meridian was the first and most important surveying line in the Pacific Northwest and was used to define myriad boundaries--range and townships, county lines, and so on. And not just in Oregon but all through Washington too. If I recall correctly, the US-Canada border survey party of 1858 or so made sure to establish their locations in reference to the Willamette Meridian (even if the line they were surveying was latitude not longitude). I'm sure there is a lot more about the history and surveying of the Meridian than I have discovered. It's significance is nothing less than the foundation of nearly all legal boundaries, public and private, in the PNW.

Normally I might just research and draft up something myself, but this is a topic I don't know a great deal about. I wondered whether anyone here might have ideas, sources, leads, resources, etc; also wondered whether others thought it warranted a decent article. And I'm posting here because even though the significance of the Willamette Meridian is not restricted to Oregon, you WikiProject Oregon people are so much more organized and active than the poor idle Washington project. I wonder if the Willamette Meridian was used beyond the two states though--northern California? Idaho? Nevada? Anyway, any thoughts? Are there other article on Wikipedia about survey meridians? There are plenty about lines of latitude and longitude, but survey meridians are a bit different--they remain legal and definitive once surveyed, even if the surveys contains errors (as they always did). The one promising looking source I have found is a book called Chaining Oregon (here's it's page at amazon). Otherwise--thoughts on other sources, how one might approach writing an article like this, etc? Should I add it to the "To create" list on the WikiProject Oregon page? Pfly (talk) 08:02, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Oop, nevermind on the question of whether there are WP pages for other meridians and baselines. I see we have a List of principal and guide meridians and base lines of the United States page. Pfly (talk) 08:57, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm interested to see what you come up with...this aspect of the settlement of Oregon is pretty obscure to me. -Pete (talk) 18:19, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Oregon Country Fair

I am very sorry, but I don't know where to exactly post this. Perhaps a reviewer who does will move my remarks to the appropriate place for action. The wiki article on Talk:Oregon Country Fair has been substantially updated in 2009 with useful information and reliable source citations and the WikeProject Oregon Quality assessment for this article should be upgraded from a starter to a C.Bear (talk) 17:14, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done- looks like Aboutmovies and Katr67 handled this. tedder (talk) 23:24, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau

A fellow who has written a book on Charbonneau just added a bunch of material with unconventional citations and destroyed all the Wikimarkup. My first impulse is to revert and encourage him to start over, but since this seems to represent a lot of work, maybe someone has the time and patience to sort this all out today? Katr67 (talk) 23:17, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done Cuchullain took care of it. Katr67 (talk) 18:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Arr, that was a surrrrprise

I just wanted to show off this photo of Glendale Jr/Sr High School in southern Oregon. I had no idea the whole school would be faux-finished in "stone" and have the pirate theme! I'm jealous because it was a victory when the roofs weren't leaking in my high school.

Bonus to anyone who can start research on this, it'd be fun to get an expansion DYK and put this 100px image on the homepage. Or another one, or that one cropped. tedder (talk) 03:45, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

[2] - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

PF: I remember that, I was hoping for enough sources to really blast out the article, though. tedder (talk) 05:11, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
The school is in Douglas County, so the main paper is the Roseburg paper. Which looks like they have some coverage. Don't know how much, but there is likely enough among the 300+ articles. Plus you can always add more from the state report cards, such as racial make-up of the student body, SAT scores, etc. for some filler. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Requesting feedback ...

I have just completed making a series of edits to Les AuCoin, which falls within your the scope of your WikiProject. I aim to fully comply with Wikipedia's policies and content guidelines, but I recognize that I may stand in a conflict of interest. With that in mind, I retained the services of an expert member of the Wikipedia community to assist in my efforts to keep the article neutral and encyclopedic. I am hoping that one or more uninvolved editors will now take a look at the article, review my work, and if necessary, suggest and/or make changes to it. Thanks. Lesaucoin (talk) 19:39, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I removed the tags from this good faith effort, has anyone had a chance to read the article closely? Katr67 (talk) 19:50, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for letting us know about the COI. I looked through it at the time and again now- it's a great article that has been solidly written. tedder (talk) 20:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Somebody in Oregon ♥s You

New userboxes. Check it out: Category:Wikipedians interested in Oregon. Katr67 (talk) 19:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Where is the I hate people from the state of Oregon? It would likely have at least one adherent. Aboutmovies (talk) 20:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
And two more: "Keep WikiProject Oregon Weird!", and "WikiProject Oregon: Mostly Harmless." tedder (talk) 21:14, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Lookingglass, Oregon

Here's an opportunity for a fun little DYK without too much trouble for someone who wants to expand this. Read the article to see how many great potential hooks there are. To expand, add info about how the fellow who named the valley was shot by "friendly fire" while trying to negotiate with the local Cow Creek tribe. BTW, can someone explain to me how to tell how long an article is? Thanks! Katr67 (talk) 19:37, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

For your 'BTW', the flip answer is that you count the number of words in it :-) The real answer is to add User talk:Dr pda/prosesize.js to your monobook. tedder (talk) 19:43, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Cool! Thanks, Tedder. I read your note above and added the script. Finetooth (talk) 21:48, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Ya tedder, I meant for Wikipedia purposes. :P Thanks! I haven't touched my dreaded monobook in months... Katr67 (talk) 22:06, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
OK that worked swell. Now. How do you translate that into "characters of prose" as in a DYK article has to have "1,500 characters of prose". How many characters per B? Math class is tough! Katr67 (talk) 22:38, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
"Math is hard!" is an in-joke in my household, comes up a few times per week. Anyhow, bytes=characters in Wikipedia's case, so that article qualifies. (it might not be true if we were on non-Roman languages, but I'll stop geeking out). tedder (talk) 22:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Bytes don't always equal characters, look at Politizer's comment under number 10 here. Shubinator's tool counts characters, and is really awesome to use if you want to check an article for DYK eligibility. Just add importScript('User:Shubinator/DYKcheck.js'); //DYKcheck tool to your monobook page. Cheers, LittleMountain5 23:46, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Thanks LM! Katr67 (talk) 14:25, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Made in Oregon Sign

just created a page for the made in oregon sign. I have no wiki experience so would love some help from people that know more than I! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Docmphd (talk • contribs) 00:07, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I made a redirect to the Made in Oregon article, which means that clicking on that article will go to the Made in Oregon article instead. Since you were already copying most the text from that article, there seemed to be no need to create a new article; I just added the text you added to the end of the sign section. I did read about that today, but it needs to be updated to include a citation. I will try to get to that later, or maybe someone will beat me to it. --Esprqii (talk) 00:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Beat you to it. tedder (talk) 00:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Rats, citation class is hard! --Esprqii (talk) 01:03, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
But you know, the sign is way more notable than the company; maybe it does really need its own article. Perhaps make "Made in Oregon" a dab page to the sign and the company? --Esprqii (talk) 01:05, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I personally think it does deserve its own page. It no longer has anything to do with the Made in Oregon company. The sign itself has had 3 different sayings, the most recent of which being Made in Oregon. It is also a controversial thing in Portland/Oregon right now.71.245.101.103 (talk) 02:38, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
The sign is probably more notable. I remember some articles on it in the Oregonian when they changed it from White Stag. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:17, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so is the Made In Oregon company, minus the sign, actually notable? tedder (talk) 04:19, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Probably, but a good amount of it will come from the sign. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:31, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
There should be a ton of info on the company due to the Naito ownership (i.e. Front Street for those not familiar with the company). Also, from what I recall, there has been some messy will/probate stuff, but I'm not sure how much of that is the Made in Oregon company part or what I believe is a holding company that also owns (or owned) the Galleria and other various real estate around Portland. I searched "Made in Oregon" stores at the PBJ and got 37 articles, though some are about the sign and others about retail in general. The Daily Journal of Commerce and Portland Tribune and Willamette Week should have some more. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:29, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I think the company is notable enough for its own page, but think the sign is notable enough on its own...actually more notable than the company.149.117.7.28 (talk) 18:24, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) OK, I made the sign its own page here: Made in Oregon sign and copied the text from the company article over there. I also moved the company article to Made in Oregon (company) and redirected Made in Oregon to the sign. Feel free to disagree with any and all of that. I think the sign would be good to beef up to a DYK with the recent news. --Esprqii (talk) 19:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

If it's a redirect, maybe the sign should be at Made in Oregon. Probably takes an admin to get it done. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Never mind. You're way is best. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

thanks for the help and support on this! I am starting to 'get' the wiki process!Docmphd (talk) 20:01, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

big news

One of our own, Pete Forsyth, is moving to the Bay Area to join the Foundation as the new Public Outreach Officer. Steven Walling 22:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this. I didn't know if it was OK to publicly congratulate him, but I guess the cat's out of the bag! Katr67 (talk) 23:22, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
It went out on the foundation-l mailing list, so it is public. Woot to Pete! (not to mention, I'm glad I got my tools back before he left town for good) tedder (talk) 23:24, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
And it's here too; though they need a pic. Nice article Steven, and of course, congrats Pete, and remember everyone, if he makes any WP:CAL edits, you get to tag him as a vandal. --Esprqii (talk) 23:32, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Nice one Esprqii. Vandal indeed. ;) Steven Walling 23:36, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I'll still speak to him if he does any WP:WPSF edits. That's like a separate country. Katr67 (talk) 05:45, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Congratulations, Pete! Much deserved. --Another Believer (Talk) 06:06, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all so much - it's been great working with you, so great that I intend to keep doing it ;) The great thing about the Internet is that I don't *really* have to leave Oregon. (Don't tell my boss ;) Really though, I have learned so much from working with you all -- it's exciting to take all that to a different venue, and very gratifying to have your support. -Pete (talk) 18:38, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

That's terrific news. My congratulations (belated though it be). Finetooth (talk) 18:44, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

List of Oregon state symbols

Hey all! I am trying to get List of Oregon state symbols up to FL status, similar to List of Indiana state symbols, List of Kentucky state symbols, and List of Maryland state symbols. I did a major overhaul on the list, but feel free to contribute in any way possible. I figured many members contributing just one source, fact, or image would go a long way. I am surprised the flag and seal are not currently listed as official symbols. Once the list is complete, I hope to guide it through the FL process. Just giving an update and recruiting anyone willing to help! Thanks! --Another Believer (Talk) 20:45, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry this entire post is going to sound cranky. The flag and the seal aren't official state symbols, they are just the flag and the seal, if that makes sense. The list was complete at 23 when Esprqii added the state crustacean to the list. Did you see the recent discussion on the list's talk page? Katr67 (talk) 21:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
I think this could be an interesting expansion, but some of the current descriptions seem not really germane to the article. Seems like "description" should be why it was chosen, not just a description of the symbol, which can be read about in the symbol's article. For example, the motto and song ones are OK, but the Oregon Hairy Triton description should be more about the fact that it was chosen because it is a large shell that shows up on the Oregon Coast, and the square dance should explain that it was chosen because it reflects the Oregon lifestyle, not just the rules of square dancing. I see the Indiana list just described its state beverage, water, as "necessary for human survival;" is that why it was chosen? If we just describe milk as lactic fluid of the bovine species and not get into the role the dairy industry played in getting it to state symbol status, seems like it's kind of pointless. --Esprqii (talk) 22:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Katr67, your post does not come across as "cranky" at all. I did not add any symbols to the list... I only reformatted the information and created tables, so the list remains at 23. Esprqii, I understand what you mean, and I certainly have no problem editing the descriptions. This is exactly why I requested assistance, because you guys come up with even better ways to improve the list! :) I appreciate your comments and contributions to the list. Hopefully it will eventually make it to FL status. --Another Believer (Talk) 05:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
Though I'm sort of neutral on..."tarting up" if you will, Wikipedia lists, if you want to fancy it up go ahead. But rather than copy the format of Indiana's list, can we just put the items in one big sortable table so it's sortable by alpha, year of adoption, etc? Sections make the list look pretty, but I don't know if they increase the usability of the table for our readers. I think most people would just be looking for the state bird or tree, and though I know it's not a big intellectual stretch, they might not want to figure out if what they are looking for is "flora" or "fauna" or whatever. For other additions, perhaps mention that Oregon is the only state with a state team (if that is indeed the case), one of only three with a state crustacean, etc. Katr67 (talk) 17:31, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
I have completed the tables. Now I just need to come up with a DYK fact, assuming the list is eligible due to 5x expansion, complete the lead, and take the list through the FL nomination process. Feel free to look over the list or contribute to the lead if interested. Thanks! --Another Believer (Talk) 01:57, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Could you acknowledge my post here (above) and Esprqii's post on the article's talk page suggesting that it not be several separate tables? Thanks. Katr67 (talk) 03:40, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I'd be happy to acknowledge your comments/preferences during the FL nomination process. It doesn't matter to me whether they are divided or not, but I was just going based on the other FL lists relating to state symbols. Not sure if it was decided in one of those nominations that sections were better than a single list or not. --Another Believer (Talk) 04:05, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough, but it seems strange to ignore our comments until then. Maybe give your fellow WP:ORE members a little benefit of the doubt over whoever it is over at FA? It's possible I'm misunderstanding you. I realize I appear less-than-enthusiastic about your efforts; I don't know if that is a factor. (I'm really not big into GA/FA stuff, but I'm glad other people are.) In any case, I don't think it's necessary to copy another state's list in order to get to FA, unless there is some effort afoot about uniformity across all the states. Though judging by a random sampling, that doesn't seem to be the case at the moment! Katr67 (talk) 04:46, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
My apologies! I don't mean to ignore requests. I was simply going off a format that I assumed to be preferred based on FL reviewers, and I had no problem having a debate over a single list vs. sections. Also, I am still working on the list, so there is plenty of time for updates. Also, I mean no offense, but other WP Oregon members are more than welcome to contribute in ways they seem fit. I am not stopping others from working on the list. --Another Believer (Talk) 04:52, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and nominated the list for featured list status. I did bring up the issues raised here. Esprqii, I hope I addressed your concern that the descriptions discuss the relationship between each symbol and how they are significant to Oregon. Katr67, I acknowledged your preference for a single, sortable table, and indicated that I was simply following the format used by other FL lists. You are both welcome to comment on the nomination link, if interested. Hopefully all will go smoothly and WikiProject Oregon will have another featured list to add to its collection! --Another Believer (Talk) 18:54, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Any suggestions for expanding the lead, which is needed for both DKY inclusion and featured list status? I would indicate which symbols are unique to Oregon, but it is hard to find reliable sources that indicate such. --Another Believer (Talk) 19:19, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Write more on the process of making it official, as in does the legislature just declare, or is there a bill they pass and then the governor signs into law? Then maybe a time line type sentence or two, as you have the first, the second and then the last; something along the lines of "by 1950 there were 10 official symbols, and by 2000 the list had grown to 25." Do we have any former symbols? Aboutmovies (talk) 23:31, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
P.S. And if sourcable/true, are most symbols made symbols due to lobbying efforts by citizens and industries, or just the initiative of politicians? Aboutmovies (talk) 23:34, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestion. No former symbols, as far as I know. --Another Believer (Talk) 23:49, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
How about failed symbols, ie, symbols that were proposed but rejected? These include the Oregon waltz as state dance, jory silty clay loam as state soil (no, really!), and the Kiger mustang as state horse. Maybe there are more? --Esprqii (talk) 19:42, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
ooh, very cool. Those are cooler than the accepted ones. (Portland has an official dance, can't remember what it is) tedder (talk) 20:09, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
I added it in, have at it. --Esprqii (talk) 20:57, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) There was also an effort to declare an official Oregon Tartan, see Talk:List of U.S. state tartans. And to follow up on AM's suggestion, some of these are the result of massive lobbying efforts. The milk lobby is pretty powerful, and the pear lobby (yes there is such a thing) worked hard to get the pear approved. (Wanna see my stuffed anthropomorphic pear?) I think there may have been some talk of declaring the Marionberry state fruit or state berry, but I think the growers of various berries disagreed. I bet the Hazelnut growers also had some influence. No time to check for you right now--just some *ahem* food for thought. I think that's it for emblems with possible commercial interests, though there may be some failed efforts that have them. Oh, and P.S. When I looked a couple of years ago, it appeared that the Champoeg Historical Pageant was defunct, so I don't know if it's accurate to say it's held annually. Katr67 (talk) 20:26, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

A quick search of "Champoeg Historical Pageant" over at the Google News Archive does not offer a source to confirm when the pageant quit being held annually. Is there a known reliable source to confirm the Oregon tartan claim? Esprqii did expand the lead to include information about the Oregon Waltz, jory, and Kiger Mustang, which make a great addition to the article. Feel free to add any other concerns, comments or declarations of support over at the nomination page so they can be addressed. Thanks again! --Another Believer (Talk) 02:15, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
On the tartan talk page I've linked to complete history of the 2003 session, which shows that SJR 31's bill history ended at "introduced". Here's the bill: [3] as introduced. And the tartan is not footnoted in ORS (first citation in the list article), meaning it never was made official. Katr67 (talk) 02:36, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you to all who assisted with getting this list up to Featured status! I am glad WikiProject Oregon has another recognized list to add to its collection. Which one will be next? --Another Believer (Talk) 05:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

People by city cats

I was looking at Category:People by city in Oregon now that the software includes how many pages and categories are in each subcat and noticed we have a handful of categories with 1, 2, or 3 whole articles. Generally this would be a problem with WP:OVERCAT as no need for a category for one whole person, but there is not a set minimum number of articles. I am proposing we set a minimum of 5 people for these categories. Which would mean either finding or writing more articles for those with less than that, or deleting them. Thoughts, comments, points of interest, random quotes? Aboutmovies (talk) 08:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I think 5 is a good number for creating new city categories, but for the most part, I also think it would be overkill to go back and delete city categories that have already been created. There may be some exceptions; I didn't study the list extensively, but should there be categories for unincorporated places in the city list? For example, Category:People from Applegate, Oregon. Removing those would help out the Category:People by county in Oregon categories, several of which are pretty underpopulated. The category that is. Oh, and the county too. I do think we should keep all 36 of our county "people from" categories. --Esprqii (talk) 15:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Portland State Office Building

The current Featured List nomination for List of Oregon state symbols‎ reminded me that the Portland State Office building has exterior artwork representing many of the state symbols. The Public Health Division page in the Oregon Bluebook has photo that gives you some idea of what is there (at the NE corner of NE 7th & Lloyd Blvd). If someone could take pix, it might be a great addition to that page ... or to a page about this building. What about a DYK ... that the Portland State Office Building has artistic representations of many of Oregon's state symbols. YBG (talk) 00:17, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

What a great idea -- I may be up there fairly soon, will try to at least snap a pic with my cheesy future phone's camera. -Pete (talk) 22:01, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
User:Peteforsyth has made few or no credible edits in Oregon now that he has headed south for the winter.
Hoo boy, here we go... :) -Pete (talk) 16:49, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Okay, enough with the funny stuff. I should be able to get over there soon, it isn't far and I've got a useless trinket to shoot with. tedder (talk) 22:07, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Took two pics of it today:

Hope someone can use them. tedder (talk) 02:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Those are nice pics for a future PSU office building article, but didn't we want to capture the rotunda-looking thing on this page to illustrate the List of Oregon state symbols‎ article? Right now the FL review has hit a snag in that a better main picture is desired, and I think a closeup of a few of the symbols on the rotunda thingie might be good. Anyway, if anyone can do it, that'd be swell. --Esprqii (talk) 17:51, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Doh. Will do. tedder (talk) 18:43, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Nice work Esprqii -- a fine effort in the "make sure Tedder gets enough exercise" collaboration of the week. -Pete (talk) 20:58, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Just to clarify, these pictures are of the (Portland) (State Office Building), not the (Portland State) (Office Building). It houses agencies of the State of Oregon such as the Department of Geology, the Department of Revenue, Vital Statistics, and what have you. YBG (talk) 09:14, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I went back and got pictures of the symbols on the PSOB. They appear to be etched on metal- no real texture or anything. Here is the collection of photos. I haven't color-corrected or cropped any of them. Tell me which ones you want and I'll upload the full-size edited versions or originals to Wikipedia- and am also willing to pass the originals onto anyone who is good at image editing. I'm certainly no Durova. tedder (talk) 19:58, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Table anyone?

 Done —EncMstr (talk) 05:38, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I suck at tables but the good faith addition of a list of aerial victory credits at Marion Eugene Carl (WWII flying ace from Oregon) could use some formatting magic if anyone who's not table-impaired wants to take it on. Thanks! Katr67 (talk) 03:48, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

(belated) Thanks EncMstr! Katr67 (talk) 03:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Measures 66 and 67

I've started an article on these referendums. They definitely need to be expanded as the election cycle progresses. Have at it. — Athelwulf [T]/[C] 00:22, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Athelwulf, thanks for getting those started -- good work! -Pete (talk) 16:57, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Partnership?

So the other night I watched an OPB documentary (which apparently has aired previously) about invasive species in Oregon. It was an original to the station, and they were clearly very passionate about it as an awareness campaign instead of just a piece of reporting. You can see more at the official website. The first thing it inspired me to do is check on a List of invasive species in Oregon or Oregon invasive species, which we don't appear to have. But I was thinking that beyond just creating those, why don't we try and offer some kind of partnership between OPB, the Oregon Invasive Species Council and WP:ORE volunteers for creating content and growing awareness? Not sure exactly what it would look like, but I think it's a good idea of a very specific, targeted area of coverage for Oregon that we might be able to help with if enough of us are on board. If that's the case, then my next step would be to contact them. Steven Walling 01:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I've got a little booklet on in somewhere...no, two booklets! "Selected Noxious Weeds of Oregon" put out by the Bureau of Land Management, and GardenSmart Oregon: A Guide to Non-Invasive Plants", which names OPB, OISC, etc. The Oregon Department of Agriculture hands out various pamphlets as well. Giant Hogweed is my favorite. I dunno if we should be in the advocacy business, but a list of invasive plants as a companion to List of native Oregon plants might be a good idea. Death to Scotch Broom and Reed canary grass! It's kinda hard to totally hate Himalayan blackberry though... There's a user IceCreamAntisocial dedicated to creating plant articles, mostly for California, but s/he might be into helping fill in any blank spots. Not unlike invasive plants moving into fertile soil. :) Katr67 (talk) 03:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
That's one good point Katr: we would need to explain to them NPOV for sure. It's not something we can compromise on, but I still think that they'd agree that lots of neutral information on invasive species is better than very little information of any kind. Our readership stats alone are a reason for them to help us build an article. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of actually doing an in-person collaboration on it if possible. We could always write one ourselves, but it would be a good outreach and education opportunity, and they might have some printed resources we can use. Steven Walling 04:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
What a cool idea. I'm very interested to see where this goes. Although it's a holiday, and I can't be sure whether I speak for professional persona, I suspect he'd be intrigued as well…keep us both updated on any developments :) Now, in honor of said holiday, I'm wondering if there's any sprucing up I can do at Posttraumatic stress disorder or something… -Pete (talk) 17:04, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Veterans' Day volunteer project

Pete made a good suggestion above. I made a Google search that should yield a few dozen articles about veterans from Oregon whose articles might need some spit 'n' polish. If you have the day off, don't spend the whole time indoors though! Katr67 (talk) 19:36, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Upper and Lower Table Rock FA

Congrats to Little Mountain 5, Finetooth, ZabMilenko and all their helpers who have been quietly and diligently working away for the past month to bring Upper and Lower Table Rock up to featured article status! Let's hear it for Southern Oregon! Katr67 (talk) 02:03, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Katr. I hasten to add that I was a mere reviewer and not a major contributor. The congrats belong to Little Mountain 5 and Zab. I am, however, mightily pleased that the article made FA. Finetooth (talk) 02:09, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
What a fantastic article! Well done! --Another Believer (Talk) 23:27, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Pacifica Forum

Can a few more folks watchlist this? It's a controversial topic with a slow-burning edit war that doesn't appear to have had much oversight. The group itself has a note on its website to keep an eye on the article. Katr67 (talk) 21:57, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Done. Steven Walling 06:37, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I've watchlisted it, but can you describe the problem in more detail? Thanks. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:34, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Read the article to see why it's controversial. And I always recommend checking a page's edit history to read the edit summaries and check diffs. But in a nutshell, an anti-war discussion group at the UO has been termed a hate group by the SPLC, and called anti-semetic and white nationalist, etc., while group members adamantly deny this. A recent truncated edit summary--likely by a group member (I suspect a leader)--notes that if they were any of the these things, they would be proud instead of denying them. Edit war appears to be between this group member and someone looking to expose or judge the group (the article's creator). I suspect the truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. Which makes the whole thing very interesting if one can keep any POV one might have out of it. I think the biggest deal from a Wikipedia standpoint, besides POV and unsourced statements (article seems OK right now), is to figure out if it's OK to put this into various categories such as Category: Antisemitism and Category: Holocaust denial in the United States if the group itself denies these labels but other people so-label them. The article moves from sanitation to demonization, though right now I think it's fairly neutral. The parties involved have not talked to each other, though one has templated the other with vandal warnings. It's a slow edit war, and nothing is happening right now, but I think some third opinions inserted into future edit wars would improve things and maybe teach these folks something about Wikipedia. Katr67 (talk) 18:06, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Photo requests

Let's focus some energy on refining our photo request system. Currently, we have 23 geographic areas that we can refine the requests into. But, there are several problems. First, as has been discussed into the ground, what do we do with non-geographical type requests. As in, what if we are looking for a historical image, thus driving to the site is pointless, or what if it is a request for something specific. For instance, we have had the Made in Oregon sign drama, or I have left an image request at O. H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory because an interior shot is really needed.

The other problem comes down to definitions. As in what is Portland area, or Eugene area? Somewhere it was defined that the regions should be set up so someone could reach them within 45 minutes or something. Reasonable, but very problematic. First, southeast Oregon is rather large for much of anything to be reached in 45 minutes, and then where are we centering that on? In Portland, if we center it on Gresham (which someone looking to do eastside images might do) the 45 minute range is a lot different than say centering on Forest Grove. Both are Portland, but vastly different 45 minute ranges. Plus, we have overlapping areas due to the ambiguity. Mulino and Beavercreek was/is in the Willamette Valley req area, but Estacada in the Portland one. Both are not too far from each other, but unless you check both cats you wouldn't know we needed images of both. Some people put things in Yamhill county in the Will. Val. area, I've always put them in the PDX one since it is part of the metro area.

Lastly, rules. We don't really have any, but I think it would be helpful to lay some out. Nothing set in stone and rigid, just more of agreed upon principals.

Proposed solutions:

  • First, work into the template the explanation of what image is needed, as seen with the main reqphoto tag used at O. H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory. This should help any photographers, and hopefully avoid confusion with articles that may already have images.
  • Create more sub cats of the main Oregon one for people and historic images (or some other term or maybe even another cat or two). Let's face it, we usually don't have coordinates for people, and rarely would people just drive up to Vera Katz' house and take her picture. I think its good to know what we need, but the location based system is poorly suited for this types of images. The vast majority of people images I've filled have been from online sources or books. Only a few are from in person, and none of those were taken where the people live (all at events).
  • Set up some rules. The one I can think of is that we should leave a request up if the only image in the article is a non-free image, or if we have images in a bio, but they are not of the person. As in we have a picture of the person's NRHP listed house, but not of them, then the tag really needs to stay.
  • Geographic boundaries. First, define the metro areas along Census lines. The Census uses counties, and so should we. These lines are not subject to interpretation, nor are they likely to change anytime soon. Portland should be Columbia, Washington, Yamhill, Multnomah, and Clackamas counties; Salem should be Marion and Polk counties; Eugene should be Lane county; Bend is Deschutes; Corvallis is Benton; Medford is Jackson. That's it for metro areas, other areas are micro areas. Next, divide the rest of the state into city named regions, each covering at least one county. For instance, Astoria to cover Clatsop County, Newport to cover Lincoln County (Newport since it is the county seat), Grants Pass for Josephine, Roseburg for Douglas, etc. Every county should been in one and only one of these geographic areas, but the city-named region might cover more than one county (maybe Coos Bay for both Coos and Curry counties). See below for addressing some objections.
  • Second request. Allow for reqphoto2=. As the non-Oregon reqphoto template allows for multiple areas, we should too. This would then allow for the broader areas that cross county lines. For example, something in Clackamas county, but in the Cascades, you could have the request in both the PDX area and the north Cascades area. Thus we can then divide up the state into broader regions as well. I envision the city based categories sorted with a * so they appear at the top of the list, and the others sorted normally. So, every article with a request would be in one of the county based, and then if need be also in a region cat. For example, something in Eugene would only be in the Eugene cat, but something in Florence would be in the Eugene cat and the central coast cat.
  • Alternate proposal: Simplify. Divide the state into NW, NE, SW, and SE and that's it. Still define by county to make for finite inclusion, but reduce it to four areas.

So, thoughts, counter-points, other proposals, etc.? Aboutmovies (talk) 11:27, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

My instinct is to simplify so that new editors can understand the system quickly. So, without a lot of deep thinking, I'd lean toward NW, NE, SW, SE, defined by county. Reqphoto2, also simple, sounds good. The second tag on O. H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory, which includes the "of" parameter, adds flexibility to the system. Additional useful information such as "object no longer exists" or "please be mindful of the copyright if downloading" could be noted on the article's talk page under the heading, "Picture request", as you have done with the wave research lab. Finetooth (talk) 15:40, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
The geographic regions were based on the number of pending photo requests in each logical region. The regions are different sizes to match the number of requests, after all, it makes sense that a more densely populated area would have a greater density of photo requests—and correspond rather well to the distribution of potential photographers. Changing the boundaries without acknowledging this aspect will muddle the extremes: SE Oregon will be divided too finely, and the Portland area will not be divided finely enough.
The "Portland area" photo requests has morphed over time. Originally, it was what could be reached from the Portland city limits in a short time, so Forest Grove and Gresham were not included. I expected that eventually there would be so many requests that outliers would be generate new regions, probably by suburban city name. —EncMstr (talk) 22:45, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
EncMstr: I like having regions, they help group the subjects, but that's not the problem. You say changing definitions will muddle the problem, and I say what definitions? That's the crux of the problem, which as I have mentioned, muddle things. Take for example Newberg. It can easily be considered NW Oregon, Portland area, and Willamette Valley. So which one do we put it in? There in lies the problem, you might have a different thought than me, and someone else might have another (as in Yamhill Co. didn't use to be in Portland MSA, and Salem did, yet many people still go with the old MSA definitions). And this isn't theoretical or a mental exercise, I have wasted my personal time going out on additional trips to fill requests that could have been filled before had I known I should check two or three cats. If we had actual definitions with finite boundaries, no problems. After all, don't you see problems in defining a region by a 45 minute window? As in are we talking about 45 minutes by public transit, by car, by bike, by foot, and if by car, are we going by rush hour traffic times or at midnight, and are the times with my parents driving or me driving? Not that I would admit to breaking the law, but travel times for myself vs. my parents are a little different. Plus, the Portland city limits thing, that's the first I can recall that definition, and you can certainly get to Forest Grove and Gresham both within 45 minutes from the Portland city limits. Or, I guess to biol it down, the real problem with 45 minutes is it is rather subjective, using other set boundaries is objective.
Lastly, with the regions set up based on numbers of requests, I fail to see why that matters much. It is not like we have paid photographers and limited resources for sending these people out, so their is no need to balance these regions out. If this was a paid operation and we had say four photographers, and we were planning out where to send them, and want to balance their workload, then I could see a need for balance. But as it is, we have more editors in the Portland area, then Salem, then Eugene, and so on, which is pretty much inline with the populations by metro areas, and I think fairly close on picture requests, but the number of requests is not balanced, and I don't see a need for them to be balanced. And if we start creating even more regions for cities, I fear it will only get more complicated as we end up with categories for every city and community, whether needed or not (see discussion above concerning "People from XXX" categories where this is already a problem). Maybe this problem is more of my problem with all the requests I do fill and how I go about them. I generally use the map feature so I can see clusters or maybe a nice loop. If you are just going down the list in the category, then I could see a need to keep the lists smaller. But maybe that's just how I use the feature. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:17, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

(deindenting to make my proposal easier) So I'm not really concerned about how many regional categories there are, and I'm certainly a fan of fewer categories than more, so I like the current divisions. My issue, though, is muddling the physical "current" categories with historic and biographic entries. I really like the idea of having a category that is all of the physical entries that anyone could take a picture of without doing research. Perhaps the categories could be divided like this: 

Geographic current articles
  -> pdx, salem, southern, etc.
Biographic BLP articles
Historic photos
  -> biographic/BLP
  -> location-based
      -> pdx, salem, southern, etc. (or just leave them in one category?)

Any thoughts on these divisions? tedder (talk) 02:33, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Fewer geographical categories is OK, but they should be unambiguously defined, perhaps by a list of counties. YBG (talk) 07:20, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

People

Let's see if we can at least make one change. How about we see if we can get consensus to at least move all image requests of people to Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of people of Oregon?

  • Support - This will help clear out requests that rarely have coordinates and thus geo based cats make little sense (see my above comments on how grouping them is unlikely to produce photos based on some sort of planned photo trip). Aboutmovies (talk) 09:05, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

List of people from Portland, Oregon

I had so much fun working on List of Oregon state symbols that I thought List of people from Portland, Oregon would be a great new list to tackle. I proposed a table format here, using this list as an example, hoping that the list of Portlanders could eventually reach featured status. It will take some time to find a reliable source for each entry, but the list will be a great resource when it is completed (though really, it is never really "complete"). I'd love to get some feedback from fellow WikiProject Oregon members before doing a major overhaul, and I could certainly use some helping hands from those that are interested. This would make a great Collaboration, so keep that in mind as well! If many people offered just five reliable references, the list would be completed fairly quickly. Hoping this is yet another list the project can be proud of! --Another Believer (Talk) 03:18, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Abbreviations in article titles

We all know that Mt. Hood is really Mount Hood, but what about Mt. Hood Community College? Recently several Oregon articles with "Mt." in the title were moved to the full spelling. I discussed these changes with Wknight94 (who incidentally often helps us with a certain vandal problem) here (see a similar discussion above that one). Basically my take on it is that something is named after a mountain and calls itself "Mt. Foo" vs. "Mount Foo", then it should be at the abbreviated version. Also NRHP things with abbreviations in the titles, such as Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Church, should stay abbreviated. This is the rationale I used when moving Mt. Hood Community College and Mt. Angel, Oregon to the abbreviated versions. Now, as argued on the other talk page, the community naming issue gets messy, because Mt. Angel can call itself that until it's blue in the face, but the post office and GNIS will insist that the full spelling is correct. But as I also mention on the other page, a Google test (suggested at WP:COMMONNAME) shows that "Mt. Angel" is much preferred to "Mount Angel" at least as far as the name of the city is concerned. I reverted several of the changes since Wknight didn't seem to feel too strongly about the matter, but since I've already moved MHCC and Mt. Angel once before, I thought I'd see if we have a community consensus on the matter. We sort of have an unofficial WP:ORE manual of style around here (things like: don't put redlinks in notable people sections), so I'm thinking maybe we could come up with a guideline for this. Obviously if it disagrees with the greater Wikipedia naming conventions then we can't make like we're Ecotopia and tell 'em to buzz off, but as long as we're following the larger guideline, then I think we should be consistent across the Oregon articles. My preference should be clear, but I'm not that invested in it if we decide on something different. We might give thought to how people might search for something, but of course we should have redirects in these cases anyway. Discuss. Katr67 (talk) 19:13, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anything in the MOS argues against WP:COMMONNAME. In fact, in the somewhat similar case of ampersand guidelines, the MOS says use "and" rather than "&" except when the & is part of an official name like Procter & Gamble. The name "Mt. Hood Community College" seems similar in that the college trustees (or another august body of people) get to decide what the name is, and they could change it tomorrow to Mt. Adams Community College if they felt like it; it is whatever they say it is. With towns, there might be more deciders (commissioners, voters), but they still make the choice. So, I agree with Katr's logic that for towns with abbreviations in their names, maybe the Google test is best. Finetooth (talk) 20:37, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
In light of the overwhelming interest in this topic and a clear consensus ;), I'll go ahead and move things back then. I'll holler if I need an admin. Katr67 (talk) 00:11, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I go with COMMONNAME as well, and not necessarily the abbreviations guideline, which I glean from the MOS being for article content since the naming conventions policy (unlike mere guideline for the MOS) exists specifically for naming the article. The ABBR guideline even says at the top "provide guidelines for the use of abbreviations and acronyms in Wikipedia articles" (emphasis added), which suggests it should not apply to the article title, despite later discussions about titles. I think the MOS folks simply have overstepped their bounds on that. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:58, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Civil War craziness

For those of you who follow college football, you may know that it's looking quite likely that this year's Civil War will decide which Pac-10 team gets to go to the Rose Bowl. This has never happened before, so there may be some extra irrational exuberance on the Rose Bowl, Civil War, OSU football, 2009 OSU football team, UO football, and 2009 UO football team articles, so keep an eye out.

There's also a meme I've heard on the radio that it did happen before: in 1964, when the Beavers won and went to the 1965 Rose Bowl. I've seen that get on Wikipedia already. I've added a couple more citations to show that while the Beavers did need that game to have a shot, by no means did the Civil War "decide" who went to the Rose Bowl; USC still had two more games to play and the final decision was made in a smoke-filled room a few weeks later. Also, the Ducks were only 1-1-1 in the conference going in to the Civil War and so had no realistic shot at a Rose Bowl bid.

Hopefully a timely story in the O will address this and we will have a good citation to the real story.
not that it matters anyway because Stanford is really going to go to the Rose Bowl.
--Esprqii (talk) 23:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Is it appropriate to say "Bah, Humbug!" even if one of those schools was my alma mater? Oh, and I apologize in advance for the behavior of my school's team's fans. Katr67 (talk) 00:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
But it will be huge I tell you! YYyyuuuugely huge! Actually, for the Ducks anyway, the more hype there is (eg, right before Boise State and right after USC), the worse the team plays. Your Scrooginess will just keep you on the side of excellent NPOV. --Esprqii (talk) 00:54, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Looks like some kids in Linn County are already having some fun on the Oregon Ducks and Oregon State Beavers articles today...probably more to come in the next 24-36 hours or so. --Esprqii (talk) 22:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Not following the games or the articles, but I semi-protected both of those articles for 3 days. tedder (talk) 22:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, that sounds prudent. There are a few more that are likely targets, but I don't know if preemptive strikes are allowed. If so, Oregon Ducks football, Oregon State Beavers football, 2009 Oregon Ducks football team, 2009 Oregon State Beavers football team, and Civil War (college football game) are good ones to keep an eye on. --Esprqii (talk) 23:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Preemptive isn't allowed, come back here if they do go nuts. The Civil War article hasn't really seen activity, which surprises me- apparently Ducks/Beavers fans are concrete thinkers. tedder (talk) 23:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Makes sense, I was only thinking preemptively since I'm going to be watching the game (with the utmost objectivity of course) and not Wikipedia. I'll just come back later and enjoy scanning the edit history. --Esprqii (talk) 23:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Insert in the Robert B. Duncan Political Biography

I have inserted some historical subtext into the Wikipedia biography of former U.S. Congressman Robert B. Duncan (D-OR). The insert deals with what I'm sure is an innocent omission about the bitter inter-party rift between Duncan and Oregon's senior U.S. senator, Wayne Morse, over the Vietnam war. The schism arguably changed Oregon political history in profound ways, but I did not attempt to assert that in this brief insert.

By 1966, the war had become a searing issue in the country and within the Democratic Party. Morse, a critic of President Johnson's policy of military escalation in Vietnam, was aghast that his party had nominated a hawk--Duncan--for the open Senate seat vacated by Maureen Neuberger (source: Mason Drukman, author of "Wayne Morse: A Political Biography"). Duncan's opponent, Oregon Governor Mark Hatfield, was one of a few national Republicans who shared Morse's opposition to the war. Accordingly, Morse broke with his party to endorse Hatfield, who went on to win a narrow general election victory. Duncan came back at Morse in 1968 when his nemesis stood for reelection--challenging the senior senator in that year's U.S. Senate Democratic primary. Morse won that bitter race but with a divided party behind the venerable and vulnerable Democrat, Bob Packwood, a Republican state representative from Portland, pulled off a narrow upset in the general election.

My insert, fully cited, deals with Morse's endorsement of Hatfield as subtext to the 1966 race and as a catalyst to Morse's demise in 1968.

My mastery of Wikipedia, alas, falls short of my knowledge of Oregon political history and I note that my citations have scrambled up the numbering of end notes to the article. If someone would be kind enough to fix this, I would appreciate it and I am sure Wikipedia readers would too. Thanks in advance!

Lesaucoin 01:15, 24 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lesaucoin (talk • contribs)

Thanks for the changes and the sources. A couple of us have already put eyes on it. I did remove the word "nemesis" and a couple of things like that- basically, trying to keep it being written from a neutral point of view.
I admire your knowledge of Oregon history and we all appreciate your contributions! tedder (talk) 01:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the end notes, the numbers look OK to me. They just appear in the order in which they were first cited in the article, so in some cases, older citations are interspersed with your newer additions. Readers clicking on any of the numbers will be directed to the correct citation. Great information, great references, thanks! --Esprqii (talk) 01:26, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

We have some DYK competition

No, I'm not talking about how User:Aboutmovies has 200 DYKs (wow!). I learned today that a class at Portland State University is working on making some nonminor improvements to Wikipedia pages, assigning them to make DYK-level improvements. It's a CS class, but part of the university studies program, so it is mostly made up of nontechnical students.

Here are the articles I've found, with their student creators. I sniffed it out partly by looking for pages using this image, which is part of a {{tmbox}} thing that User:Chzz had them use.

I'm curious if anyone can find others. There's a fairly similar m.o. between the users- tendency to not use edit summaries, difficulty knowing how to use WP:CITE, sandbox link on their userpage, and substantial (in content and research) edits to generally one page. Overall? Very nice. Hopefully Len Shapiro (father of Ari Shapiro) will consider working with us in the future.

Cheers, tedder (talk) 02:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Note- added the complete(?) list, from Len Shapiro, to the above list. tedder (talk) 04:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

You know you're from Oregon if...

Here's a test to separate the true (and somewhat aged) Oregonians from all you other interlopers. You know you're from Oregon if...you know who Crooked River Bob is! First one to tell me what his trademark trick was wins...nothing! Also first person who can find a reliable source for his very existence so I can add it to the article may win a share of DYK glory! Or maybe...nothing. This message brought to you by Tom Peterson and Aunt Betty. Katr67 (talk) 22:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Crooked River Bob was Bob Lord[4]. His advertisements were almost as memorable as Tom's knocking-on-the-inside-of-the-TV commercials. I don't remember any tricks though. —EncMstr (talk) 23:20, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
I bcheated, so now I can talk about it knowledgeably at exclusive Oregonian-only parties. --Esprqii (talk) 23:24, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Shh. Esprqii, you aren't supposed to know about those. You both win! His trick was spinning his cowboy hat or, as the above blog says, rolling it down his arm and catching it. I seem to recall that the ol' boy dropped it pretty often. I think that both the Crooked River and Tom Peterson ads were shown on Portland Wrestling. There was also a very cheesy used car dealer who was into El Caminos: "The Country Gentleman's Pickup". Ah, even us city kids were kinda rural in those days. Katr67 (talk) 23:36, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Okay, what year was this? I definitely don't remember it. Do remember Tom Peterson's awkward ads vividly, though, and I sat through a taping of Ramblin' Rod. Who was/is the car dealer with tons of semi-awkward ads too? tedder (talk) 23:43, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Most of the 1970s, IIRC. Definitely the mid-1970s. Katr67 (talk) 23:48, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, that's outside of my wheelhouse. I had only blown out one candle on one cake when the mountain had a little blowout. tedder (talk) 00:04, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
That would be Friendly Chevrolet in Lake Oswego. (Youtube has a couple of archived commercials from 1977, including this one.) Ah, memories from when I thought pro wrestling was real. --Finngall talk 01:02, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
The 70s are only a vague memory for me, 1980 is about the start of my memory bank. Speaking of memory lane, this blog on a failed Olympics bid has some interesting stuff to add to History of Portland, Delta Park and such if we can find some WP:RS. I only remember hearing about some failed plans for an NFL type stadium, never knew there was an Olympics "bid". Aboutmovies (talk) 09:32, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Been there, heard the boom, washed the ash off the car... Very interesting AM. I wish we could use certain blogs as reliable sources--like a few good history/architecture blogs I know about, Café Unknown does its homework. Also getting slightly back on topic, I'm still curious if Crooked River Bob turns up in any library archives, if anybody with access to one would like to take a look. I didn't get any hits on Google News. The reason I'm curious is because ironically ("Crooked", get it?), I believe there were some shady goings on around mid-late 20th century Central Oregon development in general and Crooked River Ranch in particular. See also Christmas Valley, Oregon. This might make a great section to add by folks interested in Land use planning in Oregon. Heck there's probably a master's thesis in there somewhere. Found an old ad and a couple stories about CRR: [5] [6] [7]. Katr67 (talk) 20:04, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Well with a quick glance at Café Unknown (which I've never looked at before, thanks for that): The guy uses his real name, he's lived here since 1990. Assuming you're right that he "does his homework," and he's got a track record of getting stuff right, I'd say that qualifies as a WP:RS in some cases. Remember, RS is not a binary "yes" or "no"; extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources, is the standard. So if there's stuff that seems right, comes from a source with a track record and some reputation "skin in the game," and it's not riding the line of defamation or a major history rewrite or whatever…I'd say it's totally fair game. -Pete (talk) 07:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Aunt Betty's revenge?

A bit roundabout, but Katr's mention of Christmas Valley above reminded me that I had added some stuff from the OHS awhile back on that article. I couldn't remember where I had seen it, so I went to the Oregon Encyclopedia, where I noticed that they had a new article about Mill Ends Park. Reading it sounded...very familiar.

Compare OE's: "One day, as Fagan told the story, he looked out his window and saw a leprechaun digging in the hole. Fagan ran downstairs, dashed across the street, and caught the leprechaun. According to Irish lore, if you catch a leprechaun, he has to grant you a wish."

to WP's: "Fagan told the story of the park's origin: He looked out the window and spotted a leprechaun digging in the hole. He ran down and grabbed the leprechaun, which meant that he had earned a wish."

Now, none of the WP sources include this phrasing (added back in 2005), and neither does the OE article (which "cites" one article, also cited by WP). The WP article says a citation is needed for the story, so someone saw it somewhere. I'll assume it's a commonly-known tale that everyone just knows. It would be good to find it, though. Anyway, I found it kind of amusing. --Esprqii (talk) 20:43, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Interesting indeed, and worth bringing up to their editorial team, especially given their own concerns about intellectual property and plagiarisim. Of course, we should keep in mind that the Wikipedia addition was made by an anonymous editor, who could have been anyone at all. -Pete (talk) 16:18, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I wasn't so much accusing them of plagiarism as pointing out that they got their info from somewhere--likely the same place as the anon wiki editor--but didn't bother to cite where that somewhere was. After the whole Binford & Mort brouhaha, it seemed worth noting. --Esprqii (talk) 17:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
What was the outcome of the B & N situation? Did anyone follow up with you Pete? Katr67 (talk) 19:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
I exchanged a couple emails with Bill, he said to me basically what he said to you guys..that they were discussing their approach to that sort of stuff internally, and would get back to me/us. Actually, Bill was not entirely up to speed on the discussion that had already happened on the talk page when he emailed me – my inclination is, don't worry about it unless one of them makes an effort to get back in touch. It may be that they decided it simply wasn't the big deal they initially thought it was. -Pete (talk) 02:20, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Removing Request for Photo Tags

Added quite a few photos to articles with Request for Photo tags during COTW Semi-annual Great Oregon Picture Drive. However, am not sure when I should remove tags. In cases where I add 4-5 photos, I removed tags, but I found lots of articles with photo request tags that had 2-3 photo (or more). If we don't remove tags when photos are added, value of request tag as a flag for articles that really need photos will diminish. What if only single photo is added to info box? That fills basic square...and is more than many article have that aren't tagged, but good article would certainly need more. How about when info box gets photo and 1-2 other photos are added as well? Is there rule of thumb for de-tagging? If not, any advice?--Orygun (talk) 04:47, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The reqphoto template documentation says it isn't supposed to be used on all articles, but on articles where a specific photo is wanted. That may be, but here's what I tend to do:
  • Only place it on articles that don't have any photos
  • Remove it from articles that have one or more photos
  • If I place it on an article with photos, I add a comment on the talk page about why it needs a better photo, and what the photo should show (I wish I could find examples of this..)
Admittedly, I'm usually chasing the tail, and those articles only need 1-2 photos. tedder (talk) 04:59, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree, except that the photos should reasonably capture the article's topic. Sometimes photos are contributed which shows something related, but not terribly revealing, like a sign giving the name of something. In such cases, the photo request should remain until a decent photo actually showing the subject is included in the article. For example Rooster Rock still doesn't have a good photo showing the namesake. (I took that photo, but it is cropped from one meant to illustrate the gorge, so the angle is not particularly good.) —EncMstr (talk) 05:16, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
I'll toss in a "me too". I agree with you both, and I thank you for the reminder. I added a geobox to the Coquille River article this evening and moved its one existing photo into the geobox. After reading your comments, I went back and added a reqphoto to the project template on the talk page and wrote an explanatory note as well. The existing photo is of a waterfall on a tributary and is therefore not exactly ideal. The tributary looks interesting and will probably end up with its own page, which is where the waterfall belongs. Finetooth (talk) 05:48, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Good discussion--thanks!--Orygun (talk) 01:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Help request - picture placement - "U.S. Route 20 in Oregon" page

Could someone wiser than I please have a look at the U.S. Route 20 in Oregon page? I added an image to the Route Description section but it shows up in the wrong place, and there are other formatting issues. I can't see a problem in the page coding, but there must be a glitch somewhere. thanks, Trappem (talk) 06:02, 8 December 2009 (UTC)trappem

I moved one of the images from the left side to the right side to relieve the traffic jam. The basic problem is that the article has more images than it can reasonably support. I usually aim for one image per main text section if each section is long enough to hold a complete image. WP:MOS#Images suggests that images should be completely inside the section they belong to. So, really, the two solutions that come to my mind are (1) add more text or (2) remove the least useful image(s) until you get the layout you want. Hope this helps. Finetooth (talk) 06:39, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Another way to format multiple photos in article with minimal text is to use photo galley (e.g. Leslie Gulch).--Orygun (talk) 02:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia kʰapa chinuk wawa?

I don't know if anyone is interested, but I've made a proposal for a Chinuk wawa Wikipedia over on Meta. Owen (talk) 19:34, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up! Steven Walling 01:27, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Admin needed

Could one of our lovely admins semi-protect Tigard, Oregon. We have a persistant vandal (wouldn't be surprised if it was a certian someone) who wants to change the city's motto/slogan or whatever it is. Just look at the history for all the reverts. The original IP was blocked, now they are on to there third slightly different IP address. Thanks. Aboutmovies (talk) 10:57, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

 Done tedder (talk) 16:58, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Aboutmovies (talk) 18:06, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

1901 Cable

So I walked past 1901 Cable, which has a nice NHRP placard at street level. I can take pics, but I know nothing about researching old homes. Can someone point me in the right direction to get a stub going on it? tedder (talk) 01:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

  • First, need to know that NRHP properties are normally listed by name rather than address. Don’t think "1901 Cable" is NRHP property; however, "1903 Cable" is listed on NRHP under registration #88000079. House was built in 1891 and is known as Alice Druhot House. If this is place you want to write about, might check with Werewombat who uploaded photo—just in case editor has additional info on house. By the way, Werewombat is member of Wiki-Oregon who normally goes by Ipoellet. If you don’t know name of NRHP property, would recommend starting with Oregon Historic Sites Database. However, if address is wrong (e.g. 1901 vice 1903) you won’t get match. In that case, suggest going to nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com. It lists NRHP sites by state/county in alphabetical order. Will take a while to find address on Multnomah County list. However, once you know name of NRHP property, you can use Google or Yahoo to search for on-line info related to specific historic property/structure/district. Some common sites you’ll hit include Oregon Historic Sites Database; Historical Places Datatbase; archiplanet.org; and University of Oregon Libraty photo archives. Can also search NRHP database—but must warn you NRHP search tool doesn’t work very well and on-line data is limited right now. Real gold mine is when you find NRHP nomination form on-line—here’s example. Good luck!--Orygun (talk) 04:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Here are some other sources, though some are the same as above. As a student, you likely have free access to a lot of databases which may have something (JSTOR occasionally has info on items on the NRHP). The Oregonian might have something too, as their online database goes back to 1987 and this house was added in 1988. If you check the OR Hist. Places db, you might find alternate names, which is good to know as a fair amount of the UO listings are under an alternate name. And with any search, be ready to use multiple search terms as the official name may be more of an acronym than anything people really use. With many Portland items, the book I list on my first link would likely have a listing. P.S. be aware that archiplanet is cool, but as a Wiki likely fails RS. Aboutmovies (talk) 05:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you! And obviously it is 1903 (not 1901), I was out hiking and didn't have anything to write it down with. I'll do some more research. tedder (talk) 05:37, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I just skimmed (tl;dr) but it looks like they've about covered it. I keep a bunch of stuff like that here. Watch your step, pardon the dust. Katr67 (talk) 06:27, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
I checked out your links (that sounds kinda creepy), and saw the UW one I vaguely remember from the Waller Hall GA push. I checked it real quick, and came across this on the Cap, and I think they are pretty much summarizing our material (most of what's on the first came from a paper only file at the Salem library and I don't believe most of the info is online), as the are certainly using the image I uploaded. They might want to reconsider the later as we are using it as fair use. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Since you were looking at my links (shame on you), I decided to tidy up my desk a bit. Now the Oregon Blue Book is citing Wikipedia: George Kirby Gay. Compare to the article you started and I contributed to: George K. Gay. Circular refs hurt my head--don't they have access to the same secondary sources we do? They even included my itsy bitsy bit of original research. For gosh sakes, it still has {{citation needed}} on there! If we take that out of the Wikipedia article, can I replace it and cite the BB? Katr67 (talk) 09:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
I say go for the circular ref, plus we could add the DOB. Looking somewhat closely at our version, man was that early in the process of writing good stuff. Needs a good copy edit and more reliable sources. If you want a more reliable source for your OR, I'd bet you Gay is in the Oregon bios card catalog at the OSL, and more than likely there is a listing for a newspaper article on when the group added the marker. I know there was for David Hill. I'd check, but I don't know if I will be in Salem anytime soon. And yes, they do have access to the same sources, in fact the "Provisional and Territorial Records" source came from the state archives. Off-topic: Noticed this below on the edit screen: "Please post only encyclopedic information that can be verified by external sources. Please maintain a neutral, unbiased point of view." I knew it was there for articles, but apparently we have to in talk space too. Guess we'll be busy for awhile cleaning up talk pages. Aboutmovies (talk) 09:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Those dratted "Notable residents" sections

You know you love them and they're supposed to be cited per our standard disclaimer. I've been tending to put the citation after the name, because we're citing the fact that the person lives in the place, and not after whatever they're known for, since we're not citing that (it should be apparent from his/her article). Example:

*Joe Blow,<ref>1</ref> extremely notable guy

I figured people would be confused. But maybe they won't be--I noticed folks have been moving the citations to the end of the sentence, which is fine too. I just thought I'd mention it in case anybody is bored enough to want work on a consensus for this trivial matter. This message brought to you by the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. Katr67 (talk) 18:38, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I prefer the citation at the end, otherwise to me it looks more like we are citing their name, as in that is actually there name. Plus in general I prefer citations at the end of sentences anyway. Aboutmovies (talk) 18:58, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for not calling me out by name, Katr! But hey, my methodology was totally sound: I added a citation at the end of the bullet, noticed it didn't match the others, looked at one other page, and made it look like that page. I guess I looked at one you hadn't handled the citations for. I promise I did not style-shop. Anyway, I see your point about what's being cited, but I guess I thought the citations at the end looked tidier; plus I felt that we are citing the whole noun phrase, like what if there were two Joe Blows?
  • Joe Blow, very notable guy1
  • Joe Blow, also notably notable2
I like that way better, but I'm easy. Let's do have a standard. --Esprqii (talk) 18:59, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, let's cite at the end. I dunno where I've been doing it, but I tend to only cite in the middle if it deals with a specific item. And it's nice that Esprqii has outed himself so we can pile on. BTW, to WP:CREEP this a little, I've been ensuring that new additions are cited or proven. tedder (talk) 19:30, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Both the Katr Method™ and the Esprqiiism work equally well for me. But only one should be used. —EncMstr (talk) 19:50, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Two ref methods, only one leaves. Sorry, I'm loopy today. tedder (talk) 19:53, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

(←) Just to not pile on Mr. Esprqii, I recall that both people whose username begins with "E" did the dastardly deed. Or maybe it was that guy who writes exclusively about films. Anyway, I !vote for the ref at the end then. Any objections? Katr67 (talk) 21:10, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the end is better. As a side note, it's generally better to render the notable people lists as straight prose and to weed out the items for which no RS can be found. For example, the list at the end of Bend, Oregon, could consist of several complete sentences, one about football players, another about athletes excelling in winter sports, another about other athletes, and so on. Jon Fogarty might be deleted if no source can be found to support the claim that he's from Bend. This kind editing often gets done when someone decides to make a push for GA or FA, but it could be done at any time. Finetooth (talk) 21:33, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
I seem to recall that someone once prosified Medford, Oregon's nr section and it got reverted back? Not by someone in this project. There was also an extensive discussion about citations at Talk:Lake Oswego, Oregon, I believe...BRB. Katr67 (talk) 21:58, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Medford discussion. Katr67 (talk) 22:04, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Consensus discussion on WP:ORE's notable residents guideline for background. Katr67 (talk) 22:09, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Eugene, Oregon talkpage wherein somebody did not like the wording of our hidden note. Katr67 (talk) 22:13, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Notable Residents of Lake Oswego: The Saga, wherein someone thinks our standards aren't high enough.
Done now. Do we happen to have a template of our standard disclaimer template, BTW? I always copy one off another article when I need it. Katr67 (talk) 22:26, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
It does seem like when the lists get really looong, maybe it's time to pull them all out into a separate List of People from City, Oregon page. People who come up in the regular prose of the article should continue to be linked. And in the case of Eugene, which has an ever-growing, non-cited list, could we pull out all the folks who are listed only because they are associated with the UofO and provide a "see also" link to List of University of Oregon people? I'm thinking primarily of the folks, mostly athletes, who did their four years and then moved on, not anyone who stuck around or really is associated with the city. --Esprqii (talk) 22:39, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
I should have linked to the guideline I've been relying on for suggesting that lists should often be rendered as prose. It's at WP:MOS#Bulleted and numbered lists. It says in part, "Do not use lists if a passage reads easily using plain paragraphs." This covers not only the notables lists but lots of other lists like the radio-station lists, the list of "Major companies" in the Bend, Oregon, article, lists of schools in various town, and so on. I'd advise against creating a separate Oregon manual of style; I think most debates about style can be resolved by pointing to specific sections of the central MOS and its central cousins like WP:MOSNUM or WP:MEDMOS. If those guidelines are inadequate on some points, I'd suggest trying to reach consensus on a central MOS talk page for a change to the main MOS. Because of the work I do at peer review (WP:PR), I spend a lot of time nosing around in the MOS and other guidelines. They aren't perfect, but they're really helpful in a lot of situations. Finetooth (talk) 20:14, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Time for a MOS?

This type of discussion seems to come up over and over again. I'm thinking we need Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Manual of Style (WP:OREMOS) as a central place to keep track of things we've more-or-less reached consensus on that we can link to when it comes back around again. I'm sure there are a few other examples. We should avoid that whole Project vs. Project kerfuffle that happened over some campus radio stations by making sure our particular guidelines don't cheese off the rest of Wikipedia, but I believe that our Notable Residents rule/guideline/policy is pretty reasonable. Do we have any others? I'm working on one regarding settlements aside from the NR sections, but I need to get a larger consensus going on that. Katr67 (talk) 19:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

(Moved the comment that was here to the previous section). Finetooth (talk) 00:31, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Should the above comment go in the previous section? My suggestion about a WP:ORE MOS is really specific to things such our "standard disclaimer" for WP:ORE, which is, I believe, more specific than any guideline at WP:USCITY for example. We haven't really addressed the bulleted list thing as separate from the greater Wikipedia guidelines and it's a fine guideline, my example about it being reverted by someone outside the project was just to say that not everyone pays attention to the larger guidelines. Like I said, we don't want to trump the larger guidelines, but I know we've reached consensus on several Oregon-specific things in order to have consistency at least across the Oregon-related articles. I'm not suggesting we sneakily avoid getting consensus from the larger community, but several things we've agreed on, well, we've agreed on them and none of them are that controversial. Trying to get the larger community to agree on something is like turning a battleship. Katr67 (talk) 22:12, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm betting FT's comment is in the wrong place. Feel free to delete these comments if it's moved. Anyhow, yes, I think we could use a simple "OREMOS" (oreos?) or perhaps OREBOSPTBFIYLATDC ("booklet of style preferences to be followed if you like and they don't conflict"), as that seems the more laid-back Oregon way. It could/should have pointers to why we choose to do things a certain way, the consensus decision, etc. tedder (talk) 22:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Holy AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD! Katr67 (talk) 22:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

ugh, another new sock

Did anyone notice we have a new sockpuppet to worry about? It's apparently someone very familiar with Wikipedia and WP:WPOR, but since they are apparently in California, I think we can assume bad faith. tedder (talk) 23:36, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Obviously pod people took over Pete's body. Our Pete would never move to California. Do pod people count as meatpuppets? Katr67 (talk) 23:41, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
I just saw that too. And he seems to know my user name, which is downright worrisome, especially considering his apparent interest in karate and zombies. --Esprqii (talk) 23:44, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't know what you guys are talking about. But then, I'm a little distracted, what with my effort to revitalize the 1960s effort to divert the Columbia to CA.[8] I miss my river! -Pete (talk) 19:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Jennifer Moss (activist)

Is this person notable? My first thought is AfD but I think that's because it desperately needs cleanup. The article also seems to have become a bulletin board for the subject herself. I just added to WP:ORE though it's been on my watchlist forever. Katr67 (talk) 19:33, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Seems just barely notable; there seem to be just enough reliable sources there to make her more famous for being famous than anything else. In desperate need of cleanup and removal of YouTube links as well as the link to the speeding arrest...huh? --Esprqii (talk) 00:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Barely notable, huh? Good one, Sprk. I was a little surprised that, considering her claim-to-fame appears to be nudism, that she so readily consented to cover up for the Chamber of Commerce parade. I mean, what if MLK decided he'd participate in rallies that were only a little bit racist? Seems a rather odd way to establish cultural leadership. -Pete (talk) 00:55, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
So I've been thinking more about this. Few thoughts:
  • Because of the parade incident I noted above, I'd guess Earth Friend Jen is a "plays well with others" type who is willing to take feedback on her behavior. So I think sending her a note is probably a good idea, I bet she'd turn out to be a helpful and productive contributor.
  • Dandelion (talk · contribs) seems to be the person who's contributed most of the content, and has been a somewhat active user; this person also might be responsive to some constructive feedback.
  • As a "marginally notable" person (and all punning aside, I agree with Esprqii in that assessment), I think an AfD could go either way, depending on whether or not there's a will to develop a high quality biography. In my view, assessing the interest of EFJ and Dandelion before starting an AfD would be a good idea.
  • Might be worth pointing them at Stanley Green -- this guy, I think, is a similar "famous for being famous" sort, though there appears to be a lot more independent data available about him. But a decent WP:FA to look at for a guide to writing this sort of article. -Pete (talk) 01:14, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
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