Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennessee/Archive 3

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennessee. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

FYI: New URLs for Tennessee General Assembly

Sigh! In its infinite wisdom, the new Republican majority in the General Assembly has decided to dump the old http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/ URL and change everything over to http://www.capitol.tn.gov/ . Suffixes also have been changed from "htm" to "html". This means that many links in reflists and EL lists are now bad and will need to be updated. --Orlady (talk) 17:33, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Seth Walker Norman

This article says that Judge Norman was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1962. Online records don't seem to go back that far; is anyone in a position to verify this with offline resources? Thanks. Gonzonoir (talk) 09:20, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Participate in Wikipedia Loves Art in Chattanooga!

Chattanooga's Hunter Museum of American Art is one of sixteen art museums that is participating in the Wikipedia Loves Art project. If you're going to be anywhere near Chattanooga during the month of February, bring your camera to the museum and join the contest. More details are here. Kaldari (talk) 22:01, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Considering Chattanooga is just down I-24 from me (Murfreesboro), I do hope I'll be able to take part. Hopefully we can get a number of Tennesseans (and surrounding state-ians) involved, perhaps pick a day and go as a group. Kaldari, think it would be a good idea to post to the Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina groups? Atlanta (116 mi) and Huntsville (108 mi) are about equidistant from there as myself. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 04:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I should be able to make it at some point during the month. Bms4880 (talk) 15:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget to register if you're interested in participating. Kaldari (talk) 19:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and registered, in case I can make it. Will be a Saturday, Sunday or Monday, given my work schedule. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 11:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

If anyone goes to this, swing by the downtown area and get a picture of the Hamilton County Courthouse for its infobox. I'm not sure if I'll make it or not. Bms4880 (talk) 22:23, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I plan on going, likely the 21st or 22nd. I'll grab a pic. Any courthouses (or other stuff) between Murfreesboro and there that you're needing? I don't mind detouring a little. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 22:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Coffee is the only other county in the Murf. area without a courthouse image for its infobox, as far as I know. Not sure how far out of the way it is, but we also need a picture of Tims Ford Dam (near Fayetteville), as it is the only major TVA dam of which we lack a photo. Bms4880 (talk) 19:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Some results for the competition have been posted, including several interesting blog installments by the Brooklyn Museum curator who was most involved. Linked from the Flickr website covering the competition, see "Thoughts and feedback" and "Current standings" links. doncram (talk) 23:40, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Milestone Announcements

All WikiProjects are invited to have their "milestone-reached" announcements automatically placed onto Wikipedia's announcements page.
Milestones could include the number of FAs, GAs or articles covered by the project.
No work need be done by the project themselves; they just need to provide some details when they sign up. A bot will do all of the hard work.

Click here for more information or to sign your project up.

I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 22:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Missing biography articles

Here are the first hundred or so people covered in the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture:

It looks like we're missing about half of them in Wikipedia. Kaldari (talk) 02:21, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Nice compilation. The fact that we have that many still blows my mind, lol. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 03:32, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I just fixed ~~two~~ three of those redlinks by creating redirects to other variants of the names. Some of the others may be equally easy to fix... --Orlady (talk) 00:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

DYK suggestion

From searching the DYK archives:

...that the town of Rogersville, Tennessee was founded in 1789 by Irish-born pioneer Joseph Rogers and his father-in-law Thomas Amis?
...that the Paper Clips Project of a small school in Tennessee received over 30 million paperclips from all over the world to honor the victims of the Holocaust?
... that there is no agreement as to the origin of the unusual name of Nameless, Tennessee?
...that prior to the 1916 college football season, John R. Bender and Hall-of-Famer Zora G. Clevenger in effect traded jobs as head coach at Kansas State University and the University of Tennessee?

98.166.139.216 (talk) 23:23, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:43, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Article ratings

Hey there, I am going to rate the unrated TN articles for quality and importance in the next few days. For the TN project, it looks pretty bad that there are new articles accumulating that do not receive a rating, it looks like no one cares about additions and changes to articles related to TN. Ratings do not only help Wikipedia to classify articles and to get the status quo regarding the quality, it also gives feedback and encouragement to users who created the article. If - like it was the case many months ago - there are different opinions about my ratings, feel free to just change it without complaining in a 1000 words about something that can be fixed in 2 seconds. If - like months ago - you feel that one of 100 articles was rated wrong, please just change the rating without filling a book of complaints which would take another book to answer. If you think that 99% of my ratings are fine, please just correct the 1% that you think I got wrong to the rating you find appropriate without leaving a book full of comments about why you would have done that differently. If you can fix my mistake in two seconds, please do it, do not waste hours on explaining why. Thank you! doxTxob \ ^talk 06:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I have rated all identidied TN articles for quality and priority. For the priority issue, see below. doxTxob \ ^talk 05:36, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Project banner suggested improvements

Hey, is it possible to implement the B-class quality criteria checklist into the TN project banner like the Military history project does? Example here: Talk:Andrew Jackson Caldwell. The criteria are listed in the banner code and can be checked yes or no there and the result is on display in the banner. That is pretty neat and it would let article creators know about the criteria and give help to the one who rates the articles. Thank you, doxTxob \ ^talk 07:06, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The Project Arkansas uses a similar banner. (See here Talk:Parkin Archeological State Park). Would that be neat for the TN project or not? Is there opposition to just try this out? It would realy encourage newer editors to understand and apply ratings up to B class. The B class rating option pops up at articles that at at least start class, so you do not have this in the stubs. That would really help. Any ideas or opinions? I would like to at least try. doxTxob \ ^talk 04:01, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Trousdale County Info Box

Does anyone know why Trousdale County, Tennessee is lacking a infobox? I tried searching for it but it redirected to the Tennessee State Box. Terrancee (talk) 22:55, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I attempted making the box, but something is wrong witht the linkage. Can someone help me with it? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Trousdale_County,_Tennessee&action=edit Terrancee (talk) 23:11, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. One of the nowrap templates needed }} to close it. -NatureBoyMD (talk) 23:22, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Importance ratings

Hey, I have changed the TN project banner to read "priority" instead of "importance" to avoid confusion. As discussed many months ago, the formulation "priority" was preferred over "importance" as the latter sounds to much as a general determination of the importance of the topic. I agree fully. I have changed parameters in the baner to now read "priority" instead of "importance". There is no need to rename the categories in my opinion, article would still land in the Category:XXX-importance-TN-articles but the banner would read "priority" instead. The banner tag parameter "|importance=XXX" would still be used as it was. I have updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennessee/Assessment page to reflect the new wording and the banner links to the new headings. It now reads: "An article's priority assessment is generated from the importance parameter", that is alright. The importance parameter determins the prority assessment. IMO there is no reason to change the name of the priority or importance categories or any other syntax. If you hate it, please revert my edits. If you love it, please use it. Take care, doxTxob \ ^talk 05:47, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I hate it, because I don't think "importance" and "priority" are anywhere near the same thing, and I firmly believe "importance" is the better qualifier in dealing with article topics (how is Nashville, for example, of higher priority than anything else...this feels like bad grammar), but I'm not going to revert it. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 10:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Hey Huntster, what I like most with you is your skills and the second most I like your honesty! You're a good guy. I considered the change of the template a try. While rating hundreds of articles I saw that very few project do use the "priority", and you know that template code yourself, this is easy to revert in a minute or two. It is not too important to me how that rating is called. I am happy that all the TN articles are rated now for the Importance or whatever you want to call it. Last time there were discussions about the wording and rating in general. The criteria give a good reference of how to rate properly, independent of the name. Of course, with all ratings there is a subjective factor.

When reading the rating instructions, I found that the importance rating seems to take the viewpoit of a reader. The examples refer to what a reader might expect in a printed encyclopedia, what a reader might find notable or what a reader might recognize as a topic. From that, there might be a priority derived for each article for everyone who is not sure where to start. Not really in that strict sense but if you are really bored and don't know what to do, and have no preference it would be the most valuable contribution to work on a high importance, low quality article. Just to have it sorted and easy to get an overview.

You are right, importance and priority are not the same thing at all. A priority can be derived from the importance, so the importance came first. I do not really care about the term, I was happy with Importance but tried to be bold and make this test to look at it and get an idea and offer the question for discussion. I would gladly change that back if it is desired. Do you think this topic is important enough to vote on? Take care, doxTxob \ ^talk 00:33, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

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Protected Areas of Tennessee

Since Tennessee's weather has entered into warm Spring weather, fellow members are encouraged to expand articles about Tennessee's Protected Areas including State Parks and State Forests. If you find yourself visiting any of these areas this Spring, Summer, or Fall why not take a few pictures and/or report about the history of the area? --Ichabod (talk)21:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Articles Needed

Expansion and Photos Needed

Photos Needed

GA Sweeps invitation

This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Temple Adas Israel (Brownsville, Tennessee)

Just a heads up - I've tagged the article with your project. APK straight up now tell me 14:45, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Cades Cove

Could someone familiar with NRHP verify that Cades Cove is not a historic district? Apparently I'm confused as to what constitutes a historic district and what does not. User:Nyttend says it is not a historic district, but rather a series of individual listings. Bms4880 (talk) 14:13, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Here is the nomination form. Bms4880 (talk) 15:15, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, if the application was approved, and it is labelled on the app as a Historic District, then that would most definitely be the appropriate term to use. This website also calls it a historic district, and given the number of "also known as" codes, it looks like it is a historic district that encompasses multiple individual listings, much like Murfreesboro's East Main Street Historic District encompasses several houses/etc that are also on the register. That's just my take. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 21:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Courthouse photos update 6/8/09

Carter, Pickett, Hamblen, and the distant world that is Johnson County are in the bag, leaving the following remaining county pages that do not have courthouse images in their infoboxes. Most are in West or west-Middle, the exceptions being Hancock, Hamilton, and Coffee.

- Bms4880 (talk) 18:50, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm working on FamilySearch Wiki and we found almost all of these missing courthouse photos at an account on Flickr and received permission to use them. See: http://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Weakley_County,_Tennessee for an example. Do you think people would mind if we list links to each of our FamilySearch Wiki Tennessee county pages to the External Links on the corresponding Wikipedia pages? Thanks for your input or for directing me to someone I should ask. I'm a novice on Wikipedia. Nathan W. Murphy murphynw@familysearch.org. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Murphynw (talk • contribs) 23:23, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

No, we cannot use them, as the photographer has licensed them as CC-by-nc-nd-2.0, which means a user may not use the photographs for commercial purposes, nor can they modify them in any way. Because these buildings still exist, fair-use rationales may not be applied to these images, and Commons (where our freely-licensed images are hosted) does not accept NC and ND licenses since they are not free by our definition. Thank you for the leg work, though, as they make a great addition to your FamilySearch Wiki.

Also, I would strongly recommend not linking to FamilySearch from the articles here on Wiki, as that can and will be viewed as spamming and conflict of interest. Unless the site has an unusual relevancy to the article topic (such as being a wiki hosted by the town or county in question), we rarely link to other wikis. — Huntster (t @ c) 01:39, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Creationism

Is there a Wikipedia policy regarding creationist viewpoints? Someone added a "separate creationist viewpoint" to the Appalachian Mountains article. He basically just made some language passive, but I figured this issue would come up again at some point. Bms4880 (talk) 13:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

See the Wikipedia content guideline Wikipedia:Fringe theories.

I reverted that edit. As I see it, he represented scientific consensus as if science were a faith system, as his wording parsed down to "Proponents of geology believe..." There's no scientific reason to question the relationship of the Appalachian and Ouachita Mountains, and the edit summary suggests that his purpose was solely to push a creationist POV. If there are reliably sourced accounts of the origin of the Appalachian Mountains from Christian creationist cosmology, Native American cosmology, etc., they could be added to the article, IMO, but that drive-by edit was nothing more than POV-pushing. --Orlady (talk) 14:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

People like that have Conservapedia all to themselves. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised I haven't had to deal with it sooner. I've been editing articles on the southern Appalachians for 2 years now, adding lots of geological information with million-year and billion-year timescales, and no one has tried to change any of it. If it happens in the future, I'll refer them to the fringe theories guideline. Bms4880 (talk) 18:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Wiki-meetup Nashville on Labor Day weekend!

Request for "popular pages" feature

I'm submitting a request to have this project indexed by "popular pages" (at this link), which produces lists of the pages with the most page views. This could be useful in identifying articles deserving of editing attention. --Orlady (talk) 00:42, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

As near as I can determine, page view counts will be available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennessee/Most-viewed pages starting on or around August 1 (when July data will be posted). --Orlady (talk) 17:46, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Spiffy Orlady, should be some interesting stats. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 21:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

The data is now available here. --Ichabod (talk) 04:06, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

So Megan Fox is the single most popular Tennessee article, huh? Note that the total page views for the month in that table are too low by a factor of 10. --Orlady (talk) 02:44, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture online

Their url has for years been tennesseeencyclopedia.net. Did it change? Our reference sections may contain several hundred links to their articles. Bms4880 (talk) 20:03, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I also noticed that it's not working. Earlier when I searched for them to see if I could identify the problem, I found that the Tennessee Historical Society, which sponsored the Encyclopedia, still has a link to that URL. The domain registration is good until 2011, registered to University of Tennessee Press. The site is hosted somewhere at utk.edu. My hopeful guess is that there's a temporary problem with their server(s) or DNS. --Orlady (talk) 02:54, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Looks like it's just down now. When I tried to load the page yesterday, it redirected to a site that simply said "Work Group" and prompted for a username and password. Bms4880 (talk) 13:35, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

The site is working fine now. --Orlady (talk) 02:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Tennessee to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennessee/Most-viewed pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 01:49, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Some of the articles that are high on that "most-viewed" pages list are good candidates for attention by Wikiproject Tennessee participants. Ignoring the entertainment celebrities and other topics that are high on the list for reasons that have little to do with Tennessee, the following stick out as candidates for attention (based on high page views and low quality ratings):

Nashville Star - #25 in November 2009 page views; rated "start" and "low" in importance.
Memphis Grizzlies - #30 in November; rated "start" and "medium" in importance.
Briarcrest Christian School - #37 in November (I wonder why); rated "start" and "low"
Tennessee whiskey - #76 in November; rated "stub" (has some issues with sourcing and verifiability)
History of the Tennessee Titans - #78 in November; rated start
Fort Campbell - #79 in November; rated start
Bonnaroo Music Festival - #80 in November; rated start
Neyland Stadium - #87 in November; rated start
Music City Miracle - #88 in November; rated start
Krystal (restaurant) - #91 in November; rated start
Buford Pusser - #93 in November; rated start
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital - #95 in November; rated start
Franklin, Tennessee - #98 in November; rated start (looks like it needs sources and wikification)

--Orlady (talk) 16:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I-40 in Tennessee - West Tennesseans and Middle Tennesseans needed

I've just overhauled the Interstate 40 in Tennessee article, adding a route description and history section. While I know the section of I-40 between Cookeville and North Carolina very well, I'm not familiar with I-40 west of Nashville, having only driven it a few times. Someone familiar with the Middle and West Tennessee sections of I-40 may want to check and/or expand these sections under the article's route description. Bms4880 (talk) 14:55, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject proposal: Memphis (metro area)

Would anyone be interested in forming a WikiProject based on the City of Memphis and the surrounding area? Normally I would propose a task force, but the metro area is in multiple states (AR, MS, and TN), so I am instead proposing a WikiProject as the group cannot be a task force of any one state. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Chiaha

A User:Talamachusee is adding large blocks of unsourced information to the Chiaha article, and I'm going to commit 3RR if I go any further in reverting it. If someone could check on this, I would appreciate it. Bms4880 (talk) 21:26, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Tennessee Volunteers women's basketball

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. You are being notified as your project banner is on the talk page of the article. I have found a number of concerns which you can see at Talk:Tennessee Volunteers women's basketball/GA1. I have immediately de-listed the article as the referencing is so poor. When these issues are fixed the article can be re-nominated at WP:GAN. If you disagree with the reassessment please contest this at WP:GAR. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 21:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced living people articles bot

User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects provides a list, updated daily, of unreferenced living people articles (BLPs) related to your project. There has been a lot of discussion recently about deleting these unreferenced articles, so it is important that these articles are referenced.

The unreferenced articles related to your project can be found at >>>Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennessee/Archive 3/Unreferenced BLPs<<<

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Natchez Trace

Tennessee aficionados may wish to weigh in at Talk:Old Natchez Trace. The issue at hand is whether Old Natchez Trace should redirect to Natchez Trace or be a disambiguation page pointing to potential articles about National Register of Historic Places listings that include the words "Old Natchez Trace" in their record names. --Orlady (talk) 06:05, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Picture request

I'm interested in finding someone in the vicinity of Asheville, North Carolina, to take a photograph for me. If you're interested, please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Visual_arts#Picture_needed. Raul654 (talk) 16:38, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Article title

I'm going to overhaul the Knoxville Whig article, and I'm planning to move it to title that is more encompassing of all incarnations of Brownlow's Whig paper (it was basically the same paper, published under various titles at various locations over the years). I was wondering, what would be the best title? Possibilities are "Brownlow's Whig", which is a common name for all of his newspapers, or Whig followed by something in parentheses. Bms4880 (talk) 18:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The Political Cesspool

The Political Cesspool has been nominated as a Featured Article. The discussion is here. Feel free to contribute. Stonemason89 (talk) 00:40, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Norris Dam - spam?

Someone is trying to add this link to the Norris Dam article - would this qualify as spam? Microsoft's Commercial Intent tool dubs it non-commercial, but there are an awful lot of banners on it. It doesn't add much to the article. Bms4880 (talk) 15:45, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Whois runs it back to an address in Knoxville...so I think it's legit...just not very well designed. --Smashville^talk 20:38, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, we'll let it stay for now. Bms4880 (talk) 14:54, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Notable Residents

I brought this up a year or two ago...and decided today I'd get around to doing it. I know that we've been removing the notable residents sections from a few articles...I'm going to try to do them all. They are all trivia, there is no criteria as to what constitutes a "resident" (the White House, Tennessee article included Andrew Jackson because he was rumored to have maybe spent the night there once) and they are mostly unreferenced. --Smashville^talk 21:13, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, good changes. I would say that if there are verifiable residents who have had a measurable impact on the community, an argument could be made to keep those, but yeah, for the most part, it is all trivia. — Huntster (t @ c) 03:50, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

While I have no love lost for Notable Resident lists (apparently everyone from Cleveland, Tennessee thinks themselves notable), when this issue came up two years ago, User:Orlady presented an argument for keeping the lists (Archive 3), to which no one really responded. I agree the lists are abused, though. Bms4880 (talk) 10:52, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, I've been busy restoring some of the notable residents sections that Smashville has been busy deleting (before having seen this conversation, which Bms4880 pointed me to).

I see these wholesale removals as a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I'm all-too-aware of a propensity to add the names of all manner of show biz stars to articles about Nashville suburban communities where they may or may not live (these are generally unverifiable because these people generally don't advertise their places of residence, so the entries ought to be deleted) and Andrew Jackson should not be identified as a resident of White House, Tennessee. Also, I'm chronically annoyed by the inclusion of names of people who merely attended college in a town (this is a particularly chronic issue in the Clarksville, Tennessee article). Those types of entries are "bathwater" that deserves to be dumped.

However, the names of prominent local residents are an important part of the "story" of many cities and towns -- particularly the smaller communities -- so this information is not inherently nonencyclopedic trivia (as the edit summaries have implied). Furthermore, these people's residency is often well-documented even if the place-name article doesn't cite sources.

Accordingly:

I restored the mention of Grace Moore to the Jellico article because I have the general impression that she's the single most important positive thing that ever happened to Jellico. I researched her article a few years ago because I was puzzled to find that Chattanooga was claiming her (it turns out that she's buried there), and I'm quite sure that the Jellico connection is sourced (although not cited in the Jellico article).
I restored the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers to the Roan Mountain town article with an expanded discussion of who they are (since they don't have their own article, but I think they probably are wiki-notable). There's some ambiguity in references to "Roan Mountain, Tennessee", so I'm not 100% sure they truly are from the town rather than from somewhere near Roan Mountain, but the association seems to be significant for the town. Maybe they can be spun off into a separate article that could be listed as a "See also."
I restored the mention of Dean Dillon to the Lake City article, but with less fluff. It was clear from his article that he's from Lake City (I've now added a source ref to the Lake City article) and that he started his career in the local area; I think Lake City deserves to "take credit" for him. (I also restored the mention of the Fraterville mining disaster, since it's often described as having occurred in "Coal Creek, Tennessee", the former name of Lake City -- and Fraterville isn't exactly an identifiable town.)
I restored most or all of the list to Oak Ridge, Tennessee (where I live). The large number of notable people associated with this small city (which has existed for less than 70 years) is a source of significant local interest and pride (and anons keep adding Megan Fox's name to the article, even though it's already there -- if it were removed, that activity probably would increase).
I restored most or all of the list in the Maryville article, as I believe that most (if not all) of these people are strongly connected with Maryville's present or past. However, I flagged the list as needing references.
I reserve the right to restore additional lists in similar fashion.

Let's not assume that notable people are inherently trivial (particularly when we are looking at articles that document the existence of a Dollar General store or the types of bands featured at the city's annual festival). Instead, I submit that our focus should be on evaluating verifiability and relevance (including WP:N), and deleting stuff that doesn't belong on the basis of those considerations. --Orlady (talk) 14:08, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I wish to second everything Orlady has said here. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:38, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Picture request - Temple Israel (Memphis, Tennessee)

Could a member of this project living in the Memphis area possibly take some photographs of Temple Israel (Memphis, Tennessee)? It's currently over 54kb (and over 5200 words), and a WP:GA candidate, but has not one picture! Jayjg ^(talk) 02:58, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

List of United States federal courthouses in Tennessee

This page has been initiated - any help in filling in missing federal courthouses, or providing missing information on listed courthouses (especially pictures) would be appreciated. Cheers! bd2412 T 00:38, 28 June 2010 (UTC)