Talk:Philmont Scout Ranch

Ernest Thomson Seton (Grey Wolf) Museum

Excerpts from Ernest Thompson Seton Profile:

"Philmont Scout Ranch houses the Seton Memorial Library and Museum.

Seton Castle in Santa Fe, built by Seton as his last residence, housed many of his other items. Seton Castle burned down in 2005 during an attempt at restoration, but all the artwork, manuscripts, books, etc., had been removed to storage before renovation was to have begun."

Also see:

USS Cimarron (AO-22) Ship's Bell Donation (Oct-1968)

"The bell from the ship was installed at Cimarron High School in Cimarron, New Mexico, where it was donated to honor the Santa Fe Trail "Cimarron Cutoff" and its proximity to Cimarron River Basin's headwaters.""

CNO William D. Leahy's wife sponsored AO-22 during her launching (1938)

Roosevelt threw a surprise party for Leahy on July 28, 1939, during which he presented him with the Navy Distinguished Service Medal.According to Leahy, Roosevelt said: "Bill, if we have a war, you're going to be right back here helping me run it." To make this easier, legislation was expedited to keep Leahy on the active list for another two years. On August 1, 1939, Admiral Harold Stark replaced Leahy as CNO.

The Bluejacket's Manual is the basic handbook for United States Navy personnel. First issued in 1902 to teach recruits about naval procedures and life and offer a reference for active sailors, it has become the "bible" for Navy personnel, providing information about a wide range of Navy topics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EarthSea-Keeper (talk • contribs) 17:21, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

The Gospel of the Redman (1936 F1RST Edition)

Seton, Ernest Thompson; Seton, Julia, eds. (1936). The Gospel of the Redman. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company. ISBN 9781585092765.

Seton, Ernest Thompson (1937). Biography of An Arctic Fox. D. Appleton-Century Company.

Philmont ROCS Program

Participants tackle conservation projects ranging from trail building to meadow encroachment to timber stand improvement to erosion control to streambed restoration. Participants are exposed to the land management challenges facing the West, as well as the rest of America. The program focuses on empowering participants so that they may transfer what they learn on the trail to their lives back home."

EarthSea-Keeper (talk) 15:33, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

• @EarthSea-Keeper: why did you put this here? --evrik ^(talk) 15:35, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

  >> This research library contains Seton's personal collection and an extensive collection of volumes pertaining to western lore and the history of the area.<<

  Seton's "Gospel of the Redman" directly influenced Wyandotte County, Kansas / Kansas River / The National Map / Haskell Indian Nations University / Wyandotte Nation / Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area efforts to adapt Philmont RO/CS Vision as ALL-WinWin GeoVenturing-LNT "River Orienteering CommUNITY Stewardship" (ROCS) Leadership Learning ColLABoratories (LLC). EarthSea-Keeper (talk) 18:05, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

  See National Geographic TopoMaps (GPSurvey mapXchange) results from NE-KS Crew of K-State Extension (KELP Class 6-2005) "Ridges of Leavenworth County ROCS" aka natural Stranger Creek Watershed boundaries.

  File:NEKS-RiverKeeper-Trails.jpg EarthSea-Keeper (talk) 18:12, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Major changes made

I just noticed that @Drmies: made a of major edits on June 16. The result was that these tow images disappeared:

• File:Clark's Fork Camp (Philmont Scout Ranch).png
• File:Black Mountain Camp (Philmont Scout Ranch).png

I don't have the time right now, but perhaps these changes should be discussed. --evrik ^(talk) 15:35, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Drmies does a lot lot of deletions and tagging on Scouting articles. IMO they should start doing more additions :-) North8000 (talk) 19:17, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I just realized that @Drmies: merged a large amount of content at Philmont Scout Ranch camps and I just noticed. I reversed it. --evrik ^(talk) 22:20, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

And now, we have this edit. --evrik ^(talk) 22:23, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

North8000, see this and think about that statement again. What I wish is that BSA articles weren't so blatantly promotional and excessive. Y'all want to count secondary sources on that huge catalog of bivouacs and latrines at Philmont Scout Ranch camps? There's two paragraphs here, on a website run by an amateur historian, and they say nothing about what happened to the land, and there's this, which is used to source this, "owned by the Boy Scouts of America and used as a backpacking reservation". In other words, there are no secondary sources that establish any kind of notability. The whole article is basically a fancy copy of this. Evrik, you're pretty good at reverting without a decent explanation, and you've done it again: "redirected without any discussion", that's it. Drmies (talk) 22:31, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Okay, there are some issues. I'll flag them in the next newsletter and see if we can't get someone to work on this. --evrik ^(talk) 22:35, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

So, in this edit, @Drmies: has accused me of both having a COI and edit warring. @North8000, GoldMiner24, and NThurston:, or anyone else, would someone like to start an RFC about this? --evrik ^(talk) 17:19, 17 July 2023 (UTC) (adding @GoingBatty: in) --evrik ^(talk) 14:44, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

• I sure hope that's going to be a neutral RfC, considering who you pinged. Drmies (talk) 17:52, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Drmies IMHO you may not be adapting your thinking to a large decentralized organization. To illustrate by the extreme, it's not a COI for a human to edit an article about humans. The other area that seems to be at issue is that a lot of the enclyclopedic material about organizations (particularly the "boring but enclyclopedic" kind) has to come from primary sources because secondary sources tend less to cover those types of things. Next, you seem to think that describing the facilities within a facility article is promotional or covering the programs of a "programs" organization means that it is promotional. Finally I don't know why you are talking about wp:notability which is a criteria for existence as a separate article. Philmont Scout Ranch could easily hit a home run under both wp:GNG and N:GEO. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:54, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

@Drmies: I forgot to ping.....would you be interested in discussion on the points in my post? North8000 (talk) 19:56, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I'll weigh in real quick. I will say that I definitely have a COI in this and lean towards support of the BSA. However, looking at Drmies edits of these pages, many of them seem to be unnecessarily cutting chucks of encyclopedic articles. I don't think many of the edits are productive. GoldMiner24 ^Talk 22:08, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

• So, what's next. Do we start an RFC? Do we reverse all of Drmies unproductive edits? Do we reverse the edits and then start the RFC? Thoughts?--evrik ^(talk) 14:31, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Sure, Evrik, so you can try and get all your promotional, unverified, unencyclopedic material back in. I mean, two can play that game. Drmies (talk) 21:00, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Awards section

Someone has been hacking at the content. One of the sections was Philmont_Scout_Ranch#Awards. I restored the section because of the number of images. I think the section explains quite a bit about the culture and should be kept. Perhaps it should be rewritten? What do people think? Let's discuss this and come to a consensus before we take any further action. --evrik ^(talk) 23:10, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

@Evrik:, please carefully read WP:ONUS. There are plenty of articles out there full of inappropriate contents that have not been tended to in years and the duration the garden has not been tended isn't a consensus. Two users (at least), myself and Drmies have removed the contents with good reasons but you continue to restore it. Adding intricate contents of interest to a small proportion of audience is WP:UNDUE and does not maintain a neutral point of view as it gives way too much mic to BSA's voice and Wikipedia is not a program guide. Graywalls (talk) 05:37, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Will this ever end? "I restored the section because of the number of images" is the worst reason one can give in a discussion about encyclopedic content, even worse than "From a content standpoint, restore long standing encyclopedic material", which is the reason given by North8000, whom I just reverted. Drmies (talk) 20:29, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Oh, User:evrik, "someone"? Don't be afraid to name names. I'm still waiting on your COI declaration. Graywalls, we should start tagging these articles on the talk pages. Drmies (talk) 20:31, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy pings to @Smuckola and Neutrality: who have also participated in the same disputed contents or closely interrelated materials in Philmont Scout Ranch camps prior to redirect. Graywalls (talk) 05:44, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Typo: I mistakenly said We don't wait for "consensus to restore". You need go get consensus to put back in, not the other way around. See WP:ONUS Good reasons have been given for removal by two users to not include. in this edit and rather than revert and re-do the edit, I'll explain. I meant to say we don't wait for "consensus to remove". Graywalls (talk) 05:48, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

The last stable version should be in while we sort this out. I could formulate an RFC or else we should have a wider discussion in general. Graywalls and Drmies seems to think that enclyclopedic material regarding an organization's/ facility's methods, awards,programs and mechanisms is somehow problematic. North8000 (talk) 21:00, 13 April 2024 (UTC) I think this is the last stable version: [1]. --evrik ^(talk) 15:55, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

• That is indeed what I think. Methods, awards, programs, and mechanisms are for the organization's website, unless reliable secondary sources dictate otherwise. That's how we work anywhere else. Even K-pop articles are more encyclopedic, since awards for artists are included only if the awards themselves have encyclopedic notability--meaning they have a standalone article with reliable secondary sourcing to prove the award is notable. My kids have those sashes with dozens and dozens of badges and what not--why should such awards be listed in an encyclopedia? Merit badge (Boy Scouts of America) already doesn't have a single secondary source, and in case anyone from the outside is wondering, the current (yuge) list of merit badges is here--which is where it should be, not on these pages. Drmies (talk) 23:06, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Large amount of appropriate enclyclopedic material removed April 2024

A large amount of appropriate enclyclopedic material was removed April 2024. Citing minor flaws, or referring to small portions of it that actually are best left out as rationales for the mass removals. This has not been accepted as a new status quo. It's just damage that is going to take a while (maybe years) and a lot of editor work willing to do that to repair under the current situation. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:56, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

These are program guide like WP:CRUFT that violate WP:NPOV by devoting a huge amount of article on re-publishing the contents from BSA and their affiliated organizations in different wording. Go ahead and start an RFC as you hinted above. Graywalls (talk) 20:16, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

The debate about you classifying facilities, methods, awards as "cruft" aside, since you deleted a gigantic amount of material rather than evolving it to resolve the few issues that were in it, you've made that near-impossible. A simple RFC would be to simply revert the mass deletions and then start editing on a more normal scale from there. I think that some of the mass deletions remain because of a 3RR edit war where the report was closed as stale but the deletion remained. If 95% of the material should have stayed and 5% should have been deleted, in the current environment the deleters would inevitably be talking about such an effort being to include the 5% that should have been deleted. I don't want the 5% in, much less be forced to defend putting in the 5% that I don't want in. I might be up for an effort to rebuild/repair the article without the 5% but I'm really not up for a big time sink in a drama fest in the current environment. An RFC to restore all of the the mass deletions that happened in April and then start paring / editing from there would be a good idea. North8000 (talk) 21:29, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

General policy still applies, which means articles should be primarily based on secondary sources. RFC should be neutral, not pushing one position. You're clearly biased in favor of including all these things sourced to primary sources. This article needs further deletion of all the program guide contents based on primary sources. Graywalls (talk) 08:48, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with many things in that post, but I'm not going to start / engage in a drama fest with you. One note in case it is of interest / would dispell any wrong impressions, my motivation is to help build an enclyclopedia, including including relevant, informative appropriate enclyclopedic information. Your mis-identifying this as "bias" aside, I want to genuinely let you know that there is no other type of bias influencing what I do here.

I think that a good RFC would be whether or not to restore the mass deletions done in April, with the caveat that the intent is reversal of the mass deletion action, not be an endorsement of all of the restored material. It can then be edited through more specific editing and discussion processes.North8000 (talk) 15:43, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you @North8000: for saying this so eloquently. --evrik ^(talk) 15:44, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to @Drmies: since they've been recently active on this article. Graywalls (talk) 17:22, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@Drmies:@Graywalls: While I don't share your quite negative overall view of the discussed mass-deleted material, I think that there are considerations worth thought in your posts regarding setting a direction for evolution of this article. North8000 (talk) 01:12, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

"Encyclopedias are best suited to providing background information rather than in-depth analysis or novel perspective."(from: https://libguides.tcnj.edu/english/wiki) wraps it up well. You call the removal damage. I call what you want to introduce citing mostly affiliated primary sources information pollution. Graywalls (talk) 01:21, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't agree with numerous characterizations and interpretations in your post but I don't think that we need to debate that. The fork in the road toward optimizing at the moment would be a choice between reversing the mass deletions and then editing / paring from there in a more normal editing fashion or else leave this for a longer term fix / evolution. I don't think that anybody is going to argue for zero paring to be done. I would be an advocate for some paring. North8000 (talk) 12:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)