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A blog for us

Hello friends, a few of us have discussed the possibility of setting up a blog as another resource for our project. I'm really excited about this possibility; I think it'll be a great tool for:

  • reaching out to new contributors
  • getting recognition from the blogosphere, the Oregon news media, and the rest of Wikipedia
  • exploring ways to expand our work (for instance, influencing the government to be a better resource for encyclopedia building, influencing the Oregonian to address its vanishing story problem, working with groups like the Oregon Encyclopedia...)

Any member of our project would be eligible to write posts, so we could explore how we want to use it in an organic and experimental way. To make sure we have frequent updates, I'd suggest we post about our collaborations of the week and any good articles or featured articles that get approved.

What do you all think? I'm inclined to just jump in and make one, but I'll hold off for a couple days pending feedback. Also, if you'd like to be a contributor, send me your email address, and I'll be sure to send you an invitation.

I'd suggest just calling it "WikiProject Oregon blog", and using wordpress.com as the platform, but obviously all that's up for discussion if you have a better idea. Also, I bought oregonwiki.org a while back, which I'd be happy to redirect to the blog if we'd rather have a shorter URL. -Pete (talk) 19:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I can't wait for this, I think it's a fantastic idea for the project. VanTucky 19:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Is there any way to have blog posts show up in one's watchlist? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
No, not really. A watchlist only logs activity on that wiki, and can't handle things off-site (not even on another wiki, much less a static site). The closest to what you want is an RSS feed. VanTucky 20:17, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
But an RSS feed is one of the huge advantages of a blog -- it means you can make a "live" bookmark, or use a service like Google Reader to subscribe. Also, I'd say at least for the short term, it would be a good idea to note new blog posts here, so in that sense, it will show up on your watch list as long as you watch this page... -Pete (talk) 20:20, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, some kind of on-wiki notice would be good. VanTucky 20:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I'll be reading. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:28, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Peregrine, Google Reader is pretty user-friendly for an RSS newbie like me, so you might check it out. The biggest danger is having way too many blog feeds to keep up with. Katr67 (talk) 23:07, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Our blog has been created!

WikiProjectOregon.wordpress.com

Please take a look, add it to your Google Reader or homepage, add a comment or two. I wrote a brief description of who we are and what we're up to, and also wrote a posting on how to get your photo onto Wikipedia, to get things rolling.

Anyone who wants to be added as a contributor, just let me know. (If you create a wordpress.com account for yourself first, so much the better.)

Of course I'm open to changes to design, etc. You can either get an account and make changes yourself, or discuss ideas on the Hello World comment thread. -Pete (talk) 02:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I've dropped a news tip on this at the Wikipedia Signpost. VanTucky 20:45, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Very cool, thanks VT! I just checked, we've already had well over 200 visitors on the blog today (!!!) This is pretty incredible. For comparison, even though I've tried mightily, I've never gotten more than 80 hits in a day on my own blog. Most of the credit here goes to Jack Bog's Blog, which noted our existence and has sent about 85 folks our way. -Pete (talk) 20:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Portland Armory: edit, please!

You all were looking for a pic from the Portland Armory- I took one, now can someone flesh out the page? Probably should be linked to the Gerding Theater too. (congrats on the new blog, btw) Tedder (talk) 01:37, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That's great, Tedder! As you just learned, tiny stubbish articles often get deleted while you're working on them, which can be enormously frustrating. I recovered this one (using my newish adminly powers), and another admin removed the speedy tag, so it looks like we're good to go. But for future reference, a better way is often to create an article in user space (for instance, create a page called User:Tedder/armory draft) and build it up a little, and then move it into the main article space. Anyway, looks like you're doing good things to the article -- I'm going to get out of your way, and check out your other photos! -Pete (talk) 02:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the help and the suggestions. We were stepping on each other a little bit. Glad to actually contribute some things in the Portland space. Tedder (talk) 02:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

New Portland building photos!

I just added a batch of photos to the following wiki pages. I have large originals, plus variations (different angles) if anyone wants them for editing. Pages: Pittock Block, Powell's Books, Portland Armory, Natural Capital Center, 511 Federal Building, Benson Tower. Tedder (talk) 01:58, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Great collection of pics, thanks Tedder! One suggestion, it would be better to upload pictures like this to Commons, where they can be used by other Wikimedia projects, other languages of Wikipedia, etc. In general, the only images that should be uploaded to Wikipedia are copyrighted images being used for a specific article under a "fair use" clause, or occasionally things like charts that are specific to the English Wikipedia. (This tool makes it a little easier to move stuff from one to the other.) -Pete (talk) 17:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Pete. I moved one image over. How do I relink it on the Portland Armory page? Do I need to delete the local copy, or will it happen automagically? Tedder (talk) 22:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
I think a bot will eventually find it, but you can hurry the process along by tagging the en image with {{duplicate|[ [commons:image:whatever its name is on commons]]}}. —EncMstr (talk) 23:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
I deleted the WP copy, looks like everything was in order. No need to "re-link", Wikipedia knows to grab an image from Commons automatically if it doesn't exist on WP. -Pete (talk) 00:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Blog report

Well, I am stunned by how much attention our humble little blog has gotten in its first couple days. Yesterday we had over 240 hits. For comparison, my own blog -- which I have shamelessly promoted in many venues, and has been online for a couple months -- has never gotten more than 78 hits in a day.

File:WPORE blog on Wordpress front page.png
WikiProject Oregon featured on Wordpress's front page

How did all this happen? Well, a brief mention on popular local blogger Jack Bogdanski's blog brought in nearly 100 hits. And then something cool happened -- we were apparently popular enough that links started randomly appearing on the main Wordpress page (see screenshot), which brought even more people.

Lots of visits came from the Planet Wikimedia blog aggregator, too, and various other places.

So, what's the lesson here? I believe this shows decisively that there's all kinds of interest in Wikipedia out there -- that people want to understand this weird new collaborative encyclopedia thing that's dropped in the world's lap in the last few years.

So let's do our part, and share our familiarity, experiences, and knowledge with the rest of the world. A number of you have agreed to write a post or two, and I hope many more do as well. If you don't feel like writing a whole post, drop a comment or two on the existing posts; I think the most important thing is that we show ourselves to be accessible and friendly, and invite non-Wikipedians to ask questions, offer feedback, etc.

This moment of widespread attention is a great opportunity to get the ball rolling -- let's take advantage of it! (If you're not yet set up to contribute, just make yourself an account at wordpress.com, and let me know -- I'll take care of the rest.) -Pete (talk) 19:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

WPOR on the main page

In case y'all hadn't noticed, D. B. Cooper is today's featured article on the main page. Northwesterner1 (talk) 05:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Nice work Nishkid64 (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 06:43, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

readership

I just updated Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Readership which shows the article read counts by month for the 484 most highly rated articles in WP:ORE. The hit count records go back to December 10,2007. For the current set of articles there is a total of 15,051,269 page reads through May 31,2008. By most any measure, that's good circulation! What does the Oregonian get? —EncMstr (talk) 23:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

That's 15 million? Whoa. Katr67 (talk) 03:38, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Do you think it might be useful to include *all* articles, including stubs and low-rated articles? I'm just wondering if there are articles people are interested in that we only have listed as stubs that might be candidates for expansion. And perhaps some of the articles that we think are of "low" importance might be of great importance to everyone else. You know, give the people what they want and all that. It might be fun to generate the list and take a look. --Esprqii (talk) 23:23, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I haven't attempted it pending a response from Henrik (talk · contribs), the keeper of the hit counter summary tool. I asked him almost two weeks ago about the impact such use makes, but he hasn't logged in for awhile. Since WP:ORE has about 6000 articles, there are likely to be wikilimits waiting to flex their muscles, such as maximum page size. Is anyone else interested? It won't take much of a dare for me to do it.... —EncMstr (talk) 04:43, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I double dog dare ya! Katr67 (talk) 05:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I know it's a slight breach of etiquette, but I TRIPLE dog dare ya! --Esprqii (talk) 16:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Oh yeah! I'll show you guys. 6121 articles now processing. Where should the results go? —EncMstr (talk) 18:41, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Good job Flick! I guess somewhere under Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Readership. /TripleDogDare? /FrozenPole? /All? Thanks, that's cool! --Esprqii (talk) 18:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

See the deluxe version at Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Readership/All. Total averages about seven million reads per month. —EncMstr (talk) 23:10, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow...awesome. It's gonna take some time to parse through, but there do seem to be some stubs that get a lot of traffic that might be COTW candidates. But then again...are WebMD and Rooster Cogburn really WPORworthy??? Cool stuff though, thanks! --Esprqii (talk) 17:30, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
P.S. Kinda creepy to see the kind of stuff that gets a lot of traffic. I found myself saying, "wow, who's that person who gets all those hits? Oh, another serial killer." Yikes. --Esprqii (talk) 17:35, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) OK, I made a couple of tables showing the most popular stubs. One is for "all time", and one is for the most recent full month. No serial killers after all, phew; just a lot of actors and singers. Some of these might be good to try to destub a bit. The list is here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Readership/Popular stubs. --Esprqii (talk) 18:16, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! And thanks for taking up the dare, EncMstr! Casually glancing at the list (before it crashed my browser), I noted there were way too many actors, Playboy centerfolds and/or Hugh Hefner girlfriends than those history topics we all love to write about in the top 100. Sad commentary or opportunity? I say at some point we have a MTV Spring Break Party Edition COTW, where we spruce up a bunch of "give the people what they want" articles. Maybe we should also bump up a bunch of those "low" rated but highly trafficked articles to "mid". Esprqii, do I detect a hint of POV in your comments, hmm? Katr67 (talk) 21:43, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Hey, at least the fourth graders are reading up on Oregon Territory. And we're letting them down. I love the idea of the Spring Break Party Edition. There are probably a couple in there that could go to start or B with little effort.
And yes, sorry, that was the least amount of POV I could muster. Feel free to edit me down, but I stand by my comment about bing cherries being yummy! (And I actually thought Homeward Bound was pretty good, but too scary for me in places.) --Esprqii (talk) 22:02, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Oregon State Capitol image on OregonLive

Speaking of the Oregonian, does the image on the left edge of the page look familiar? Maybe we should have a commons image scavenger hunt. First Rachael Ray and now this! Katr67 (talk) 23:56, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Hokey smokes! All your images are belong to us! --Esprqii (talk) 00:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Not bad... They can't figure out how to share stuff their own stuff effectively online, but they're adept enough at sharing other people's stuff ;) -Pete (talk) 21:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Can someone save the Oregonian screenshot image to their free photo hosting site or some such? And post the el? I can't seem to find a way to not run afoul of the imagebots. It is linked in the WP:ORE blog or it wouldn't matter so much. Yours in image copyright impairment, Katr67 (talk) 05:30, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? This is going to be deleted soon. I don't have any sort of photo account. Katr67 (talk) 06:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Here ya go! -Pete (talk) 06:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Yay! Thank you. Will you update the blog please thank you? :) I'm not supposed to be on the Intranets... Katr67 (talk) 07:04, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Good Article opportunity

The Sho Dozono article just had a Good Article review, and came up juuust short. Look at the article's talk page to see the review, and the few small points that need attention. After fixing the article, it should be pretty easy to just contact the reviewer and get the article improved. A great opportunity for anyone looking to get their feet wet in the reviewing process... -Pete (talk) 21:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Interested in joining this group!

I'm from Portland and grew up in the beaverton area - this looks like a great chance to boost some of Oregon's Wiki pages! ScottFish (talk) 18:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Blog update -- cool feature

I figured out how to include the 10 most recent Oregon-related changes in our blog's sidebar. (This is based on the cool Oregon recent changes list developed by EncMstr.)

Also, if anybody wants a good basic intro to blogging, I found this article. It's a couple years old, but a good overview and still pretty relevant. -Pete (talk) 22:24, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

That recent changes feature on the blog is ridiculously cool Pete. Great work! VanTucky 22:50, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Ecoregions of Oregon

I have begun a massive data dump of public domain information + maps at the following new articles:

This may initially lead to some confusion. There are two major ecoregion classifications. The existing Wikipedia series descending from List of ecoregions (WWF) follows the classification of the World Wildlife Fund. If you've seen articles like Willamette Valley forests, they're based on that classification. The new series I have created descending from List of ecoregions in North America (CEC) follows the classification of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (an arm of NAFTA) and the US Environmental Protection Agency. This classification is more relevant to environmental practices in the United States and is the classification now used by most US government and state agencies. So I think we should move toward using this structure in WP:OR articles.

I expect that some editors may suggest merging, for example, my new article Willamette Valley (ecoregion) with the existing WWF ecoregion article Willamette Valley forests or the general geographical article Willamette Valley. I believe these should be maintained as distinct articles. In my opinion, it is useful for Wikipedia to have a list of the ecoregions as strictly defined under the EPA classification, as this classification system is widely used as a basis for environmental study and resource management. Thus, Blue Mountains (ecoregion) is about the Level III ecoregion strictly defined by the EPA, while Blue Mountains (Oregon) is about the mountain range it contains. If a section on "natural history" or "ecoregion" already exists in the main article, I suggest summarizing the information there, with a link to the separate article about the ecoregion as defined by the EPA. How does that sound to everyone? If others would like to help with the project, I could use help cleaning up the associated articles Blue Mountains (Oregon), Oregon Coast Range, Willamette Valley, etc., as well as linking related articles in Category:Geography of Oregon to the new ecoregion articles. I could also use help disambiguating the WWF classification articles like Willamette Valley forests where they exist.Northwesterner1 (talk) 04:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Northwesterner, this is fantastic stuff...haven't had time to read through it all, but thought I'd leave the general comment anyway...thanks for working on this! A big boost to Oregon coverage, no doubt. I'll see if I can find ways to weave some incoming links around this stuff..or maybe make a navbox? -Pete (talk) 00:41, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
This is an astonishing piece of work, and it will be extremely helpful in ever so many other articles. I've never seen anyone do anything quite like this. I'd be glad to help. Should I just plunge in somewhere, or would you prefer to direct traffic or divide the work in some way? Finetooth (talk) 03:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, folks. Glad that it is useful. I say just dive in wherever. I don't want to be traffic director. There are a million things that could be done, so I think collaborative chaos is the best way to go about it. Here are a few ideas, though:
Northwesterner1 (talk) 07:00, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

<outdent>Naturally, I began by adding a sentence to Balch Creek. I encountered two complications that might be worth mentioning. First, because I wanted to source the ecoregion claim, and because the Balch Creek page already consistently uses "cite web" or one of its companions, I created a cite web equivalent to the "citation" template you used. Anyone who needs either can clone either yours or mine, test it, and change the access date. (The Manual of Style says to choose one citation style or the other for individual articles but not to mix them within an article.) Second, as I studied the charts I decided that Balch Creek, short but complicated, lies in two different ecoregions. The top is in the Coast Range ecoregion, and the bottom is in the Willamette Valley ecoregion. This sort of complication is something to watch for in other articles about creeks and rivers and other cross-cutting things. Finetooth (talk) 18:06, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Portland Farmers Market

Someone apparently affiliated with Portland Farmers Market is making changes I don't think are appropriate, but I'm a major author of the article. Would someone else chime in please? —EncMstr (talk) 17:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks like it's been taken care of. It also looks like a lot of the content was copied direct from the farmers market website.. Tedder (talk) 21:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes. Thanks to Katr67 and Northwesterner1 for chipping in. —EncMstr (talk) 21:38, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

A WP:OREGON trivia question

Does anyone else here know why the instrumental piece "Classical Gas" might be of interest to WikiProject Oregon? Use the edit view on this section for the answer. -- llywrch (talk) 19:43, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I had it half right... Katr67 (talk) 03:01, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Shy Huntington

Charles Andrew "Shy" Huntington coached Oregon Football in the teens and twenties. This picture is NOT Ellery C. Huntington, it is of C.A."Shy" Huntington. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.170.75.82 (talk) 02:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. This is strange. Esprqii, are you around? Katr67 (talk) 02:41, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I think I fixed it. Katr67 (talk) 03:04, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 1383 of the articles assigned to this project, or 22.5%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 18 June 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subsribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:19, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea. Cacophony (talk) 18:16, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Agreed -- do you mean to add it like this? -Pete (talk) 20:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
I think that has to be on the WP:ORE page instead of the talk page. I will look into it when I get home from work. Cacophony (talk) 21:58, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
The list is now available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Cleanup listing. It is hidden on the main page so I added it to the To Do list. Cacophony (talk) 23:03, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Nice job Cacophony, thanks for following up on that! There's a whole lot of info there, in a pretty accessible format. It'll be a great resource. -Pete (talk) 00:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:ORE now also on facebook!

WikiProject Oregon Group on facebook. Not much going on there right now, just a way to represent on facebook. I have hereby effectively outed myself, so please contact my agent if you feel the need to stalk me. Always Katr67 (talk) 00:00, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Almost makes me want sign up for Facebook! Congrats on the self-outing Katr ;) and thanks for creating the group. I've added it to the sidebar of the blog, but maybe you want to write a wee little post about it...? VanTucky 03:03, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

NPS NHL photo contest July 7 deadline

Hi, i didn't analyze the individual contributions but i just noticed that List of NHLs in OR is one of very few "fully illustrated" lists of NRHPs of any type. Congratulations!

There is a National Park Service photo contest of pictures featuring National Historic Landmarks ongoing now. I learned of it only a day or two before the June 30 deadline, which has now been extended to Monday July 7. Photos submitted on CDs in packages postmarked by that date, or email submissions sent by that date, meet the deadline. Last year there were only 125 submissions for 12 award categories, including 2 for western region. See the NPS NHL photo contest link within the discussion thread at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places#June 30 email deadline for 2008 NPS NHL photo contest. Go for it? I don't know of any submissions from wikipedians out of the western region yet. Cheers, doncram (talk) 07:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

  • The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
  • The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
  • A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:12, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Support for this is in {{WikiProject Oregon}}. I added a paraphrasing of C-Class to the descriptions in Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Assessment#Quality scale, but didn't change any of the other classes—which might be needed to blend them together. Now would be a great time to tweak those, or confirm that they are okay as is. —EncMstr (talk) 17:56, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Should we discuss whether or no we want to use "C class"? There's a section centralizing WikiProject reactions here. I was a little surprised to see the the Military History project had decisively chosen not to use the status. I personally don't think the new class is necessary or helpful, but I can't say I feel very strongly about it. But, wanted to note that it's within our purview to decide whether or not we want to use it. -Pete (talk) 18:37, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I slightly favor it, mostly because I expect most editors and projects will use it, so adoption goes with the flow and consensus. Articles don't really have linear strengths and weaknesses, and so aren't always easily mapped into an assessment which captures that. C-Class catches the important cases which aren't in line with the other assessments. —EncMstr (talk) 19:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I think the "overwhelming consensus" ;) is that we should just go along with the system. That way we won't find ourselves in the position of having another project use "C" on an article we both track, and having to figure out what to do about it. -Pete (talk) 21:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I wish the "Editorial Team" had put out a wider net to get more input before rolling the new class out, but I don't want to be like the Military folk and have our own scale/criteria. I've tagged a few articles as C class, and so have some others, but I don't plan on going back through all Start and B class articles. If I come across an article I think is C class then I'll change it. With the adoption, we do need to update the other class descriptions on the assessment page. The criteria there is a cut and paste of the 1.0 assessment scale with Oregon articles substituted for the examples. I'll try and update it in the next few days. Aboutmovies (talk) 21:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

GA and FA

Hey folks, I just counted -- we currently have 47 articles or lists that are either "Featured" or "Good". We've had a pretty good run lately! Anyway...

  • Can we buckle down and crank out three more soon?
  • Should we try to choose the "50th" article, something that is a nice milestone?
  • Should we write a blog post about hitting 50? (The answer, of course, is yes!) Who wants to do it?

-Pete (talk) 21:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Of course, I neglected to include our seven Featured Pictures in my counting...d'oh! Which puts us at 54. Not too late, though, to do a blog post...we probably hit 50 about a week or two ago... -Pete (talk) 21:06, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

We now have microblogging stream

Using identi.ca (open source and freely licensed version of Twitter), I've created us a microblogging stream, to be found here. Anyone who wants to contribute, email me for the password. VanTucky 04:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Glide High School

Hi folks, I started this stub. Would anyone care to wikify it and add more information? Bearian (talk) 16:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done I did some cleanup. Katr67 (talk) 17:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Salem Street Network SVG Map Available

Salem_Street_Network

This is to let everyone know that I've uploaded an SVG version of a basic Salem Street Network for use in creating other maps if anyone so desires. This is the first of a great variety of such illustrations I hope to provide for use by the members of this project.

The map only contains a road network, a basic legend (including authorship and contact info), a bar approximating one mile's distance, centerline depictions of regional roads with no importance differentiation, and the Willamette River.

It' is approximately US Letter size in full.

It was produced in Adobe Illustrator CS3 and saved with Illustrator editing capabilities preserved.

Samuel John Klein (talk) 01:07, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

What an excellent resource! Looking forward to exploring this more. Thanks! -Pete (talk) 01:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I am currently making a similar map for Albany and it's adjacent area. Corvallis next. Samuel John Klein (talk) 21:56, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Lake Harriet and Oak Grove

Lake Harriet (Oregon) is part of the "Oak Grove" PGE hydro plant. I have a couple pics (1, 2, more not online), plus coordinates, and there's a little bit of info at PGE's site, more here too. Anyone want to help me flesh out a new page or two? (Lake Harriet, Oak Grove). Obviously, I'll edit and contribute my mediocre pics. Tedder (talk) 04:55, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Did you see Oak Grove, Oregon. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:44, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I didn't- but I'm looking for info on the Oak Grove hydro plant, not the town. I was hoping someone else had more info/sources for new pages on these. Tedder (talk) 06:46, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
It's a nice lake, I've been there several times. I'll try to help out if you start something -- I don't have any special resources, but I'll see what I can dig up. And I may have a suitable photo or two kicking around. -Pete (talk) 13:37, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
In preparation, I created an article for the Oak Grove Hydroelectric Project. Please add to it, especially if you can find more sources than I did. Tedder (talk) 21:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I created Lake Harriet (Clackamas County, Oregon). There's another similarly named lake in Southern Oregon, which, now that I think about it, means this one could have been named with (Oregon) as a suffix. —EncMstr (talk) 01:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Date linking/autoformatting

I just read the Manual of Style's entry on date linking. It didn't say what I expected. I don't know if that's because it's changed recently, or because I misunderstood it long ago.

But either way, there is no requirement that dates (like July 21) be wikilinked. In fact, it seems to be somewhat discouraged.

The advantage of linking them is that it allows registered users who have set their "date and time" preferences to see dates in their preferred format; in other words, the above example will show up as "July 21" for some people, and as "21 July" for others (due to wikimagic).

But the downside is that too many links lead to cluttered-looking articles. They also mean the "code" for a page is a little more complex than it needs to be, a deterrent to new editors.

So, I'm rethinking my approach to this. In new articles, I will probably stop linking dates. What does anybody else think? -Pete (talk) 14:27, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree it is mostly useless to link a month and day without a year. I choose dates to be formatted as ISO 8601 (2008-07-21) and, for that, a month-day isn't transformed. (That is, it shows as written in wikitext: [[July 21]] and [[21 July]]; how's it look to you? July 21 and 21 July.) I last read WP:MOSDATE about 1.5 years ago, and I remember it saying "don't bother". However, when all three date parts are there, everyone who has set a preference gets their desire, so I will always be sure to link those for maximum portability and friendliness. —EncMstr (talk) 14:49, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
It appears that we are moving gradually away from autoformatting. MOSNUM was recently altered to allow editor choice in the matter. The strongest argument against autoformatting might be that it only works for registered users, who are therefore not seeing what most readers see. So far in my relatively brief life as a Wikipedia editor, I've consistently autoformatted all full dates and month-day dates because that's what I thought the Manual of Style strongly suggested. However, the MoS now allows articles without autoformatting as long as they are internally consistent and conform to country-specific standards. I haven't decided what to do with the next article I create, but like Pete I'm considering the idea of no autoformatting but simply using constructions like June 5, 2005, if it's U.S.-centric. Finetooth (talk) 16:27, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Anymore I tend to mindlessly link [[month day]] and [[month day]][[year]] constructions in any articles I write or copy edit, citing the user prefs settings when I do so, while unlinking single years. But I agree it can make the page look cluttered. I'd like to be sensitive to international readers but if we are moving away from the autoformatting, I would write my dates in Oregon articles as Month Day, Year as is usual in the United States. I'm not strongly attached to any format as long as we try to be consistent. If other folks prefer different ways of linking/not linking I'll try not to be a pest by changing the format, though it bugs me to see European-style date formats in Oregon articles and I would probably still change those... Katr67 (talk) 17:42, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

User:Tony1 just proposed to remove date autoformatting at Talk:Hanford Site and provided this list of reasons. For those (like me) who haven't been following the discussion, it may be a helpful summary:

Disadvantages of date-autoformatting


  • (1) In-house only
  • (a) It works only for the WP "elite".
  • (b) To our readers out there, it displays all-too-common inconsistencies in raw formatting in bright-blue underlined text, yet conceals them from WPians who are logged in and have chosen preferences.
  • (c) It causes visitors to query why dates are bright-blue and underlined.
  • (2) Avoids what are merely trivial differences
  • (a) It is trivial whether the order is day–month or month–day. It is more trivial than color/colour and realise/realize, yet our consistency-within-article policy on spelling (WP:ENGVAR) has worked very well. English-speakers readily recognise both date formats; all dates after our signatures are international, and no one objects.
  • (3) Colour-clutter: the bright-blue underlining of all dates
  • (a) It dilutes the impact of high-value links.
  • (b) It makes the text slightly harder to read.
  • (c) It doesn't improve the appearance of the page.
  • (4) Typos and misunderstood coding
  • (a) There's a disappointing error-rate in keying in the auto-function; not bracketing the year, and enclosing the whole date in one set of brackets, are examples.
  • (b) Once autoformatting is removed, mixtures of US and international formats are revealed in display mode, where they are much easier for WPians to pick up than in edit mode; so is the use of the wrong format in country-related articles.
  • (c) Many WPians don't understand date-autoformatting—in particular, how if differs from ordinary linking; often it's applied simply because it's part of the furniture.
  • (5) Edit-mode clutter
  • (a) It's more work to enter an autoformatted date, and it doesn't make the edit-mode text any easier to read for subsequent editors.
  • (6) Limited application
  • (a) It's incompatible with date ranges ("January 3–9, 1998", or "3–9 January 1998", and "February–April 2006") and slashed dates ("the night of May 21/22", or "... 21/22 May").
  • (b) By policy, we avoid date autoformatting in such places as quotations; the removal of autoformatting avoids this inconsistency.

Northwesterner1 (talk) 17:33, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

With help from User:Tony1 and User:Gary King, I was able to add a link to an autoformat-removal script to my monobook.js page last night, and I tried it out on Balch Creek. It worked efficiently on the infobox and main text but did not and probably cannot remove the accessdate autoformatting in the citations. Cite web and its cousins seem to force autoformatting and to require European-style (2008-05-05, for example) to avoid a red link. I solved the problem in the Balch Creek citations by manually removing the accessdate parameter from each cite web citation and substituting a "Retrieved on" phrase after the end of the cite web template. I don't know if this will raise any editorial eyebrows, but it's fairly clumsy. I'm thinking about trying the Citation set of templates, which do not seem to autoformat the dates in the same way as the cite templates. Finetooth (talk) 16:37, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
I noticed that and thought it a step backward. There are flaws in User:Tony1's arguments (which I haven't got around to a refutation). Dropping internationally-written style—and the ability to successfully support that some day—is a significant decision, and not one that small groups of editors can decide. Somewhere I saw a citation project which chose to not display the value of accessdate= since it's primarily of use for maintainers of a citation (to find a replacement if it dies), and isn't often of interest to lay readers. I recommend holding off any more removal of information. —EncMstr (talk) 17:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
I wanted to try it out to see what happens, and what is happening is most interesting. See User_talk:Tony1 for some of the discussion about the difficulties in matching the main text format to the citation format vis-a-vis dates. I think maybe going to a single ISO format may be the future. Not sure I will remove any more info, and I may eventually put it back. Finetooth (talk) 17:31, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Katr67 wrote "it bugs me to see European-style date formats in Oregon articles". Autoformatting conceals such inconsistencies from the few registered users that have set a preference (these are often the people that need to know) but most editors see these inconsistencies. That is one reason why some people believe autoformatting works against the interests of Wikipedia. Go right ahead and fix them. As with color/colour, the format should be appropriate to the geographical region, regardless of whether the date is linked or not linked. The guidance has not changed on that point. Frankly, I do not care which format is used, as long as it is unambiguous, as you can see from the format of all our unlinked signatures on this page. Lightmouse (talk) 18:42, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Lightmouse, except to say that as US-related articles, all of the products of this WikiProject should have US-formatted dates, at least in the main text. That much was inserted into WP:MOSNUM some time last year, and a good thing it was. If removing date-autoformatting uncovers any international date formatting (3 January 1981) that has been manually entered, it should be changed to US formatting. BTW no one minds US date-formatting, I can assure you. The difference is so trivial; my daily newspaper, in an international-date-formatting country, uses US formatting. Who cares?
The citation template mess is more of an issue. There's currently a proposal before MOSNUM to acknowledge reality and not keep drumming on that entire articles must be consistent, citation- and manually generated dates. The citation developers simply ignore it. Sure, whole-article consistency is ideal, and when we clean up the templates one by one, will probably be possible. But in the meantime, I believe MOSNUM needs to recommend simply that manually keyed-in dates (double square brackets) need to be consistent in their raw format.
Pete buzzed me about the propriety of running a script on [Oregon State Capitol. Although he supports the thrust of the move, he's concerned about the potential for edit warring. I can assure you that edit warring will not occur: I, for one, am disinterested in fighting people who are emotionally attached to blue dates. If someone reverts, that's fine. BTW, there has been a notice setting out the capped arguments and inviting objections to the proposal on that talk page for more than two weeks.
Finally, I'm glad to see such a productive discourse here about the issue: most people don't know enough or care enough. Tony (talk) 05:27, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Since I last posted here about this topic, I have unlinked the dates in Fanno Creek, another article on which I am the main contributor. When copyediting for others who are moving an article toward FAC, I often find inconsistency in the autoformatting. I'm now asking those editors whether they prefer consistent autoformatting or consistent de-linking. My unscientific poll thus far indicates a strong preference for de-linking. I have not said this out loud before, but I don't see autoformatting as beneficial even though its intent is friendly. As a copyeditor, I have insisted on autoformatting in the past because I think it's essential to follow the style manual. Now that the manual allows the main contributors to choose, I will do as they wish. When I am the main contributor, the dates will be unlinked. Finetooth (talk) 16:40, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Pete, inspired by Tony1, have issued the appropriate challenge to me. I accept. I hinted at a proposal there, but explicitly it is:
  • Date formatting preferences should be an option to all Wikipedia readers, not just logged in users. (The default image thumb size should also be a choice.) The selected preferences can be held in a browser cookie. A good guess at the user's preferred format can be made in many cases from other browser settings if no preference is set.
  • Wikimarkup processing should either transparently identify wikidates (smart date detection) and format them as requested by the reader, or flexibly accept explicit dates, much like it does now with the addition of constructs such as [[24 July 2008]] and [[July 24 08]] which are properly handled. Date ranges should be sensibly supported.
  • Linking dates is a separate feature which some editors consider clutter. I propose making date linkage optional per user, or failing that, to never link them.
—EncMstr (talk) 21:25, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
Enc, I wonder why you're so attached to fixing a broken system with band-aids so it can be retained. Please say why the presence of main-text-consistent "March 3" or "3 March" is worth the attention, for more than five seconds, of a talented editor such as yourself. Next we'll be devising technical schemes to render "travelling" or "traveling" on the basis of where your IP is. Let's instead take advantage of our good fortune in the extraordinary homogeneity of English—trivial and almost all universally comprehensible variations in usage. We've evlolved to manage this very well for the lexical (ENGVAR). DA was always a solution in search of a non-problem. It should never have been adopted, back in 2003 when we were relatively inexperienced in weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of technical proposals. Tony (talk) 00:12, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Wordles

I was playing around today with the very fun timewaster Wordle, and I thought this might be a creative way to spread the word about our featured articles. I was going to upload these to the blog, but I'm not sure how to do images correctly in WordPress. Anyone else interested? Northwesterner1 (talk) 00:21, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Exploding whale
1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens
1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack
Hanford Site
Johnson Creek

Neat stuff! Uploading images is actually pretty straightforward once you know what button to look for: it's just above the regular tool bar, I think there are four unlabeled buttons for images, video, and a couple other related things. Take a look, or I'll come back later with more specific instructions -- gotta run now! -Pete (talk) 16:58, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Warner Mountains

Can someone do a cleanup and wikification on the version I reverted? I have no patience for this right now. See my talk page, the article's talk page, and the anon contributor's talk page for discussion. Katr67 (talk) 19:20, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Google maps enables wikipedia layer—followup

I found a FAQ for Google Earth which addresses many of the questions we had. The FAQ is here. As I expected, it requires the display=title parameter to coord. Somewhat unexpectedly, it implies that the size and importance of locations are chosen automatically. —EncMstr (talk) 19:33, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Balch to FAC

I nominated Balch Creek for FA last night. The details appear at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Balch Creek. Knock on wood, preferably on Western redcedar or Douglas-fir. Finetooth (talk) 14:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Anvil Media cleanup effort

A Portland-based search engine optimization company, Anvil Media, which I have encountered before, has finally run afoul of the COI/Spam rules enough for others to take notice. You can read about the latest here: Wikipedia:ANI#User:Anvil Media Inc. There is an effort to go through the company's client list for COI. Since many of their clients are Oregon-based companies, I thought I'd mention it here. If you see that an article is worth saving despite having been created by someone from Anvil, please add to the discussion. Thanks! Katr67 (talk) 15:59, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

For ease of reference the articles still remaining to be checked (if, there are any still remaining by the time you read this) are were at User:Gb/Anvil. GBT/C 07:30, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
All done and dusted now, and the page deleted. Thanks. GBT/C 07:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Cort and Fatboy Show

This article, about a radio show produced in Portland, has been short-listed twice for deletion, & I've yanked the tags off this article both times. (My reasoning is that it is arguably notable, based on cites to Willamette Week, so it's not a slam-dunk delete.) However, I know next to nothing about the subject. Does anyone here know enough about this to make a persuasive argument for/against this article being deleted? -- llywrch (talk) 20:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

COTW and Stubs

In addition to nominating any articles expanded for this week's COTW for a DYK and a shot at the Main Page, also remember to list any article for Re-assessment here if you think it is no longer a Stub. Aboutmovies (talk) 10:54, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there a page where one can suggest topics for Oregon-related articles? That is, other than wending one's way thru the Requested articles pages? I just noticed that there is no article on the play "Angry Housewives", produced by Storefront Theatre (which also deserves an article in Wikipedia) back in the 1980s, which not only had a long, successful run but has significance for the local culture. Besides, I look forward to this possible DYK hook: "...that the punk rock anthem 'Eat your fucking cornflakes!' is perhaps the best known song from the play 'Angry Housewives'?" -- llywrch (talk) 15:55, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/to do, as well as Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Culture. (though the subprojects don't get much traffic lately...) I vaguely remember attending the Storefront Theatre in 1986 or so... Katr67 (talk) 16:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
I watch the to-do list pretty closely, and it does get published on our front page and on the Oregon portal. I'd say that's the best spot, the sub-projects can be a good place to park long-term ideas, but don't generally get a ton of traffic. -Pete (talk) 16:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

New article list

What happened to running list of new Oregon articles that used to be avail on Wiki-Oregon page behind User:AlexNewArtBot/OregonSearchResult hot-button?--Orygun (talk) 22:07, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The bot owner is on vacation and the bot went down. Aboutmovies (talk) 23:00, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Anybody want to do initial assessment of new article on Drake Park Neighborhood Historic District in Bend?--Orygun (talk) 23:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I've been looking forward to giving that a close read, but really busy..if nobody gets there first, I'll do the assessment in a few days. Looks like a nice writeup. -Pete (talk) 10:29, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

WikiWednesday

Hey all, anyone within driving, biking, or jetski distance of Portland oughtta come join us for WikiWednesday tonight. We've got lots to talk about -- our upcoming web site, the Oregon Health Consensus project, our blog...and whatever you're fired up about these days! Come one, come all. Details here. -Pete (talk) 10:29, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Native American placenames

I have acquired a copy of Native American Placenames of the United States by William Bright, published in 2004 by the University of Oklahoma Press. Bright's base list is drawn from the Geographic Names Information System (2002). It includes a lot of Oregon place names, their origin and pronunciation. If you want me to look up a particular name that looks like it might have a Native American origin and tell you what Bright says about it, just let me know. (Caveat: I don't know how to write phonetic symbols with my English keyboard at the moment except via copy-and-paste. I'm sure a better method must exist.) Finetooth (talk) 20:45, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

That's great, Finetooth! Are you aware of our reference desk? Might want to add an entry there. (And, I'm curious what it says about the Columbia and Wimahl of course...) -Pete (talk)
Good suggestion. I'll put it there soon. Alas, Bright says nothing about Columbia or Wimahl. Finetooth (talk) 04:36, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Population on city articles

Recently, an addition I made to the Corvallis, Oregon article was reverted due to an obscure WP:CITY determination that no information on population should be included unless it is sourced from the United States Census Bureau. The full details can be found here. My additions were reliably sourced, so I see no reason why a WikiProject determination should override WP:V. I was planning on simply reverting per the "guideline" stating "it is just a guideline and there are no requirements to follow it in editing", but thought I'd get the rest of this project's opinions first. I encourage you to take a look at the edit and decide for yourselves if this should be included or excluded. I can sympathyze with those who want to standardize population methodology accross all articles, but it sets a dangerous precedent to remove any reliably sourced information because some people prefer one source to another, and I see absolutely no reason this information can't be included alongside the USCB estimates. VegaDark (talk) 15:09, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

The Census only publishes data every ten years, but many cities' populations change far more rapidly than that. The guideline you mention sounds arbitrary and constrictive; I'm sure lots of gov't institutions, think tanks, advocacy groups, news organizations etc. use numbers not produced by the Census, so I can't imagine why we wouldn't. I'll try to take a look at the guideline, don't want to dismiss it out of hand, but I'd be inclined to say your edit is the right way to go. -Pete (talk) 17:06, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
See also my question to Nyttend regarding a similar reversion: User talk:Nyttend#Bend, Oregon population and his response User talk:Katr67#Bend population, along with Aboutmovies' comments. I think PSU is a perfectly legitmate source for updated census info. Katr67 (talk) 19:08, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
I like Aboutmovies' comment of "The PSU data passes WP:RS, and frankly that should be the end of it". I agree 100%. The thing is, this isn't even a Wikipedia guideline, it is merely a Wikiproject guideline. We can just as easily make a guideline for this project saying that all population sources that pass WP:RS are acceptible, what then? I think we should do that if they are going to cite such "guidelines" to revert reliably sourced material. If the material passes Wikipedia guidelines, then frankly it should stay.VegaDark (talk) 19:57, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
I've alerted Nyttend of this discussion. I'm glad we have such a reliable source as PSU. Short of the census itself, I can't think of anything better. We are lucky to have this resource, because otherwise people use all kinds of weird commercial mirror websites and/or the sign by the side of the road and/or personal opinion to update population figures... I'm all for embracing the use of the PSU data as an official WP:ORE guideline. If we can agree on that, we can add a note about it at the cities subproject. Katr67 (talk) 21:27, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree with my earlier comments, basically a WP cannot make guidelines that everyone else must follow, unless they take it through the formal process of making it a Wikipedia guideline/policy. The PSU data is updated yearly (comes out mid December and has the pop as of July of that year) and thus is more relevant. It may be less accurate, but who really knows as both the PSU data and Census data are only estimates. Who knows how many people really live here, and how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? Aboutmovies (talk) 07:34, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
Much as I admire the WP:CITIES guidelines, and much as I admire the diligence of User:Nyttend, I agree that project guidelines shouldn't override WP:RS. Variety is messy, but relying on single sources to the exclusion of all others is not such a good idea, methinks. Finetooth (talk) 05:13, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
The WP:USCITY guidelines that prohibit other sources for population data have nothing to do with overriding WP:V or WP:RS. The decision to use the Census data only resulted from a consensus that population figures are unique in that they are most often used to compare and rank cities. The only way to provide consistency on this point is to use standardized figures, and the U.S. census bureau is the only source that provides population data for the entire country. Further, the Census Bureau publishes its methodologies for determining population data, which Portland State University does not provide. We have no idea who was included in those population figures (i.e. college students?) and how large of an area they determined to be part of Corvallis. And, just for the record, the Census Bureau does provide yearly updates in their annual population estimates. Best, epicAdam (talk) 16:00, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
When you are talking about removing reliably sourced information, then yes, it does have to do with overriding WP:V. And as it stands, the overwhelming consensus here seems to be to allow the content. So, barring any last minute changes of heart, I will be reverting the removal of the sourced content I added per the consensus here. VegaDark (talk) 21:08, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Former National Forests of Oregon

According to recent changes a series of articles about the former names of National Forests in Oregon is being created. I think this causes unnecessary confusion and that these should all be merged and redirected to whichever forest article currently holds the acreage. See also Talk:Fremont-Winema National Forests for a similar discussion. The redir pages can still be put in the appropriate categories to show up in italic text. Thoughts? Katr67 (talk) 19:16, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Kettle Foods Proposed Updates

Hello, I work with the PR team for Kettle Foods and have some suggested updates to the company article. The proposed changes are now posted on the Kettle Foods discussion page - thanks Katr67! I haven't proposed any deletions of content, just some clarification and updates since the company now has a second U.S. factory and some of the current information on the environmental initiatives and People's Choice campaign is out of date. All the proposed additions are cited in third-party published sources with the exception of a clarification on the separation between U.K. and U.S. operations. That distinction is noted on the two different company Web sites and cited. I'm unsure of next steps and am very aware and respectful of conflict of interest issues...just trying to make sure the information is accurate. Suggestions and feedback are very welcome, thanks! Eemx7 (talk) 21:24, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for posting here, Eemx -- and thanks Katr for getting things off to a good start. I'll take a look at it this evening. In the meantime, here's a link to the article in question: Kettle Foods -Pete (talk) 21:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Creating pages for Oregon House and Senate Districts?

Hello! Has there been previous discussion around creating pages for the House and Senate Districts? For instance Sara Gelser is a Representative from District 16 but, to find demographic data, etc. on this district, one has to cobble together information from the different cities within the district. It would be nice if the list of Representatives on the Oregon House of Representatives linked to these pages. Thoughts? Thanks! Danielbachhuber (talk) 22:12, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

First, they change every ten years, so for checking demographic data, it may not line up. That is, after the 2000 census the districts were re-aligned, yet the Census demographic data would reflect 2000, unless newer data was available, which it is in some cases. Generally the info would be fairly reflective, but in other cases it has changed dramatically (i.e. Bend I would hypothesize). Next, I personally think there should be a focus to get articles for all reps first. Aboutmovies (talk) 22:49, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Good points, I think you're more knowledgeable in this area than I am. I'll keep contributing on the Rep pages where I can. Danielbachhuber (talk) 16:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Hi Daniel, thanks for your good work lately. Glad to see some extra eyes on the state rep. and senator articles. I'm not inclined to think that the state district articles satisfy WP's notability guideline, mostly for the reasons AM states -- since they only exist for 10 years, it's tough to imagine what could meaningfully be said about them. The kind of demographic info you mention would definitely be useful, but could be accomplished either in a project outside Wikipedia (there are wikis that are more devoted to politics), or on the articles for the Oregon Legislative Assembly houses. Or, we could even have a general article for each decade (starting with the current one) -- say, Oregon legislative districts, 2000-2009, that has a list or chart of the info you're seeking.
Also, a related note: I had a side discussion with Esprqii (talk · contribs) recently; we noted that we now have an almost-complete collection of articles for current state senators, and not so bad on the House side either. I also recently started an article on the Seventy-fourth Oregon Legislative Assembly.
We thought it would be cool if we could have a complete collection of articles on senators (or all reps) within a few days after the November election, and maybe try to grab a headline in a local newspaper. Anyone who wants to help out with that, would be most welcome! -Pete (talk) 19:02, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

A couple requests

Gordon Gilkey

There was a request to have other editors look at this article. Link to the details is on the article's talk page. Katr67 (talk) 17:12, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Medford, Oregon

An editor has removed a great deal of content (this is the notable residents section, not the shopping details I had removed earlier) from the article and I'm not comfortable with this without some input from a couple other members, since Zab isn't around to defend his choices. Again, details on the article's talk page. Thanks! Katr67 (talk) 17:12, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

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