Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon/Archive 9

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DYK service awards

How does this work, do people give these out like a barnstar on someone's talk page once a user has reached a certain amount of Oregon DYKs, or is it just something people add on their own to their userpages/usersubpages, or is it either or? Cirt (talk) 18:34, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

They are self awarding (generally, though I have reminded some people in the past that they are eligible), so since you have 5 now, add that to your user page. Then when you hit ten, replace the bronze with the silver, and so on and so forth until you hit titanium. Welcome to the fiver club, now go for the GOLD! Aboutmovies (talk) 20:04, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Now, with Barnstar option!

[1] - Updated and created a few templates for a Barnstar option. Users can still self-award the userboxes if they so desire, but it is a nice option to get recognition from fellow researchers/participants in WikiProject Oregon. Cirt (talk) 08:34, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Any vector maps of Oregon counties?

I'm interested in making some by-the-county election results maps, but I can't find a vector map. The county locater maps are .jpg, which have artifacts along the borders that of course make them hard to color.

There is a .png file that doesn't have this problem, so maybe this is good enough for now. Äþelwulf Talk to me. 22:25, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Agreed..very frustrating that they don't have these available. At least, I've never seen such a thing. Thanks, by the way, for all your excellent work on ballot measures and other election-related stuff! -Pete (talk) 21:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment, Pete.

I've just discovered that there are vector versions of Oregon's county locator maps available. And they're absolutely beautiful! I'll use these. Äþelwulf Talk to me. 04:09, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Oregon Encyclopedia template

I created a new template to make it easier to add external links to the Oregon Encyclopedia. You just have to add {{Oregon Encyclopedia|oe_page_name|optional display name}} to the page. Usage instructions at {{Oregon Encyclopedia}}.

I based it on similar templates and it works, at least so far. But I ain't no expert so if someone's got some improvement ideas, go for it.

It would be cool to add all the existing OE referenced articles en masse, but the page names are not super-intuitive so it might not be that easy. --Esprqii (talk) 20:18, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Great idea, I've been mulling over how to standardize/simplify OE citations too, and I like the idea of a template. It might be good to have a parameter for the author name too. I wish the articles had dates, they will come in pretty handy in 50 years for some of the more time-sensitive topics…but, oh well.

It would definitely be good to link the articles en masse at some point (although I'd imagine they will be craanking them out for a while). Especially since OE performs so poorly on search engines -- it would be nice if Wikipedia could serve as a sort of portal to the excellent content they produce. -Pete (talk) 20:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Oregon articles needing geographic coordinates

58 articles in Category:Oregon articles missing geocoordinate data do not have geographic coordinates. Coords are useful for making the article appear on Google Maps & many other mapping services; and they allow our users to click through to see the article subject location on a map. There's a short guide to on how to add geocodes to articles ... it really is very easy to do. I hope you'll take some time to ensure that Oregon is as well represented as it can be on wikipedia by fixing up the listed articles. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:51, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Oops. A bot is still categorising pages. I hope some Oregon pages turn up in your category soon; if no, why not help another state :) --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:52, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I've spent considerable time over the last month or so identifying Oregon articles missing coordinates, and filling them in, so I'm not surprised the category is empty. In fact, I'm happy it is empty! Alas, these articles continue to vex me:

• Fort Boise: had two locations, one of which was reportedly on the Oregon border
• Portland Ice Arena (Oregon) closed in the 1950s, and seems to have been in NW Portland, but need more exact information.

Seems to have been on the NW block of NW Marshall and NW 20th. I also saw another reference that put it at NW 21st so it probably took up the whole block. I added the coordinates and a link to my source in the code. --Esprqii (talk) 02:49, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! —EncMstr (talk) 03:05, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• Snake River Valley AVA covers 12 Idaho counties and 2 in Oregon, but I haven't been able to find a defining map in order to formulate an appropriate coordinate.

I couldn't let there just be one...it's coordinated now. --Esprqii (talk) 01:11, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to Katr67, Sam Brown House was {{coord}}ed earlier today. Finetooth has also done some fine work organizing and fixing these. —EncMstr (talk) 01:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I've put a couple of the articles in the category, but left Fort Boise in Idaho. Well done on your geocoding work - you're the first state to have all (but 2) articles done. --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:09, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• Umpqua Valley AVA also doesn't have coordinates. --Tesscass (talk) 19:49, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Vestas

Vestas (aka Vestas Wind Systems) is in today's news for intending to expand its North American HQ (which is in Portland) from 350 to 1200+ employees. The company is based in Denmark, but somehow it seems to me it deserves to also be a WP:ORE article. Comments? —EncMstr (talk) 23:55, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

No question! If it impacts Oregon, or is of interest to Oregonians, it belongs in WP:ORE. (For instance 1908 eruption of Mt. Saint Helens, Paul Allen, Hanford Site.) I thought Vestas was already on our radar -- good catch! -Pete (talk) 00:37, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. Yesterday, they made an effort recruit me, completely out of the blue: Funny how the world works. —EncMstr (talk) 23:38, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

WikiWednesday tomorrow?

Are you guys and gals going to have the WikiWednesday[2] event tomorrow? If so, I'd kind of like to come. As you can see, I haven't been editing a lot lately (one thing leads to another and it ends up taking too much time), but I definitely read stuff. Some things I was thinking about bringing up:

• Should the Willamette Ballet Academy article be deleted? (See my thoughts on the talk page)
• The Pioneer Courthouse Square article doesn't mention how there were plans for a parking garage on the site (much bigger than the 1- or 2-story one that did exist). My understanding is that played a big role in leading to the square existing. I also see there's a long-running edit war over the article.
• I have many photos available on Flickr with more to come. Most recently, I went to the Tillamook State Forest and Forest Center.
• Should there be links to the neighborhood association Web sites in the External Links sections? I do see that they are in the infoboxes but it seems that the External Links section is where people might look for them.
• There's a bug in Template:Infobox Neighborhood Portland OR. See its talk page.
• Should Willamette Floodplain be merged into William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge, since it exists entirely within it?
• Barlow Road has much improved since I first saw it[3] (editor thanked)
• I see your current COTW is Civil War-themed.
• Your blog has not gotten updated in a while.
• If anyone is interested, I've collected some interesting/funny things on my user page.

Lastly, the question above about Vestas reminds me about how I ran into a group of them on the streetcar earlier this year. They were talking about how (I think) some blades were getting damaged during shipment, and the interesting thing was that it was on the PGE-sponsored car with wind power ads in it. I considered it a Portland moment. Jason McHuff (talk) 06:04, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

You bet we are -- sorry I've slacked on placing notices here! See http://pdx.wiki.org for the particulars. Hope to see you (all)! -Pete (talk) 06:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

And also -- thanks for a neat collection of thoughts. Some good ideas in there. I'll come back to them shortly, should be fodder for some good discussion there.

Along the same lines, EncMstr and I (mostly him) have been cranking away at List of Oregon ballot measures lately, and we've started up a discussion there about how to maybe split up the article to serve a wider range of purposes. Take a peek! -Pete (talk) 06:15, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Jason, you should definitely try to make it to WikiWednesday. It's great fun to meet your co-editors in real life. Unfortunately I can't make it up there this month. We really should think about doing a Salem-area meetup sometime. Especially since I bet Pete will be coming down and testifying in some legislative hearings next year. Katr67 (talk) 17:24, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, I did make it (albeit late). For the record, what I heard being talked about most was politics, as well as both Wikipedia and other sites. Ward also showed off his fixed-gear bike. Also, I'd like to note that I have been a Wikipedia editor since September 2005. This may be my first edit, unless I edited using a different IP before that. (Before I found Wikipedia, I was reading one of the mirror sites; I want to say [4].)

Couple other things:

• As I told Pete, I like how he has brought up the issue of expiring links (see User:Peteforsyth/O-vanish) and I think there's some other stuff he's done that I admire.
• Pete (or anybody else), should PortlandOnline provide web space for neighborhood associations? If so, what about a closed wiki (only people from that NA would be able to edit). One of the pluses of wikis is easiness of editing--e.g. <a href="../page.html">page</a> vs [[page]]. Also, I know my (past) NA leader has complained about trying to find stuff on the POL (I think this is another issue you've raised). My NA's discussion site[5] is hard to find if you don't know the addess. (Forget about the crappy URL)
• I wanted to complain to Ward about all the time he's taken away (and maybe have him argue that its Jimbo's fault). I also wanted to see what he thought of having "final" (protected) and "draft" versions of articles. See User:Jmchuff/Stable versions
• This is the example of a person being happy with sharing I think I mentioned. (It should be contrasted to the people who pick a CC license but don't want to share)
• Pete looks a little like Bill Sizemore. Not trying to link the two or anything.

Lastly, I think having info about past ballot measures is a good idea, since they're a part of Oregon history. For now, Jason McHuff (talk) 10:06, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I would take offense at that, except I'd be worried I'd violate WP:NPOV. So with wikilike equanimity, I shall say: how interesting. (:

Good to meet you, Jason! -Pete (talk) 10:56, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Same here. As I said, I admire some of the things that you've brought up/done. Oh, and I just worked on expanding Transportation in Portland, Oregon. I saw in the Safe walks video that Portland had the 1st pedestrian master plan and had to add it (a WP:DYK?). I need to add how TriMet is like ~10th in ridership vs ~30th in service district population. Jason McHuff (talk) 23:44, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Our blog

Sadly, our blog has been lagging behind in new posts lately. We didn't have a single one all of November (I just wrote one about the sizable grant the Foundation just got). If any new contributors are interested in helping out, please contact Peteforsyth (or Katr67?) for permissions. Cheers, Steven Walling (talk) 20:36, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Nah, I'm mostly just a BlogGnome. Katr67 (talk) 21:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Political maps and their colors

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

File:Oregon-36.PNG

Figure 4.

Figure 5.

I tried starting a discussion at WikiProject Maps, but no avail. I think WikiProject Oregon is more responsive. :)

I have two questions below. Äþelwulf Talk to me. 01:07, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Should a gradient ever be used? And if so, when?

I've been making election results maps for ballot measures and partisan races in Oregon. My gallery is on my Commons user page. At first I figured it would be enough to use the simple yes–no and Democratic–Republican dichotomy, when appropriate, for these maps. Then I decided that this doesn't convey enough information when the maps would end up being mostly the same color, so I started using gradients. Here are specific examples of where I think using a simple blue–red (for races) or green–red (for measures) schemes fall apart, and I think a gradient is better:

• Senator Ron Wyden won all but three counties in his reëlection in 2004 (Figure 1). Sen. Gordon Smith's opponent in 2002, Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, won only Multnomah County (Figure 2). This tells the reader that both Sens. Wyden and Smith were widely popular in these years (If Klamath County voted for Wyden, and Benton for Smith...), but I feel it just seems weird, and possibly pointless, to have a nearly monochrome map. I originally uploaded Figure 1 as a simple blue–red map, but later decided it's more helpful to see the respective margins of victory for Sen. Wyden and Al King. I didn't make Figure 2, but I've considered doing the same for this map.
• Measure 65 lost spectacularly in every county (Figure 3), so the simple yes–no system would dictate that the map be all red, showing all counties voted no. But it might be of interest to see the margin by which 65 failed in each county. That's why I've used a gradient color scheme with three shades of red, the darker shades showing a wider margin of failure. This was inspired by the original map for Measure 36 (Figure 4), which only Multnomah and Benton Counties rejected.

Gradients seem like a smart idea when we want to avoid an overwhelming sea of red, or green, or blue. And Figure 4 has set this precedent for Oregon election articles. But what about when the map is not monochrome? For example, with competitive races or divisive ballot measures, the even split will follow consistent, predictable geographical lines, as we all surely know. The map for the last gubernatorial election (Figure 5) and the US Senate election of this year (which I've made but haven't uploaded yet for some reason) look strikingly similar. And what about when the election wasn't particularly heated, but neither is there a landslide? The logic that blue–red and green–red don't tell you enough could be applied to all election results maps, so perhaps if we use gradients for some maps, for the sake of consistency, we should gradients for all maps. But should we really?

Should we make primary election results maps? If so, which colors should we use?

I think these maps would only be appropriate for hotly contested primaries. In this respect, Oregon was quite lucky this year! We had two, the Democratic presidential and senatorial primaries. These maps surely would be fascinating. If we make these maps, how should we decide which colors to use? Which colors are Novick, Speaker Merkley, Sen. Clinton, and Sen. Obama? Do we pick them based on the winner when making the maps after the fact?

I like these maps, and think WP should have maps for most things where applicable. I think an arbitrary number where one color takes up more than 60% or 70% or 80% of a map, then using gradients might be good. The only thing I would worry about is some manual of style rule that prohibits it. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (diagrams and maps) seems to be dead, unfortunately. They look like a lot of work, so I would ask a few more places like Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics and the main manual of style page if you're going to make a lot of them. It would be a shame to waste the effort. If you're just doing it for 10-20 Oregon related articles, I say go for it, especially if no one here objects. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:22, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree. Gradients are commonly used to map weather, climate, distribution of fauna and flora, etc. Surely political results are merely an extension of those.  :-) I don't think consensus is needed for you to proceed. If someone does manage to come up with a compelling objection, the gradient map can be easily flattened. —EncMstr (talk) 19:18, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

In general, I would support the gradient maps, since they convey more information in the same amount of space. I think the simple red/blue dichotomy is a bit deceptive in its simplicity. It always takes a bit of editorial judgment to decide how to structure a specific map; and I don't think consistency across articles is nearly as important as making sure that each article has a graphic that adequately supplements the article's content. I think the work you've done to date has been excellent, and would encourage you to exercise your own judgment for each article.

I don't think maps for primaries are necessary, but they'd certainly be a welcome addition -- so if you're motivated to make them, go for it! As for colors, I think your instincts match mine -- generally avoiding red/blue except in races between Democrats and Republicans. It's definitely a bad idea to use red and blue on ballot measure maps, as the idea that a certain issue aligns with the parties a certain way is always a subjective judgment. -Pete (talk) 19:22, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Gradients sound like a good idea to me too. I find the red-blue combination a bit garish, and just as a matter of taste I'd prefer something more muted. In doing watershed maps, I've stuck to the color combos suggested at WP:WPMAP#Map colors, and they seem clear to me and restful to the eye. You've probably seen these already, but if not, on the WP:MAP page under "Standard conventions: map colors", you'll find quite specific suggestions. For example, the suggested color for "primary territory of interest" for a four-color map is "light yellow", #FFFFD0, and so on. These colors would seem to have no inherent political meaning, which is good. One way to decide who or what gets which color would be to use light yellow for the biggest surface, and so on. Just tossing out some ideas. Finetooth (talk) 01:45, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Finetooth, I hope you don't mind that I added the specific section of WPMAP to your link. The historic percentages of ballot measure votes range from 11.4 to 94% which is approximately evenly distributed. (See a working summary of ballot measures at User:EncMstr/sandbox2). However, a county which votes 28% vs. one which votes 39% is not nearly as interesting a difference as those near 50%. That is, a county voting 47.5% approval vs. 49.2% is more informative. It seems like there is a logarithmic aspect, though I can see why that distinction might be lost on many people. —EncMstr (talk) 02:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Figure 6.

Wow, I'm getting lots of responses. Thanks!

Peregrine Fisher, I never found anything on Wikipedia that said gradients were forbidden, and in fact I've seen quite a few maps with gradients. Nonetheless, I'll try hunt down the definitive answer sometime later this week.

Pete, my instinct for primary election maps was to use various shades of the color Wikipedia's conventions assign to the party in question. As for which shades to use for which people, it's up in the air.

Finetooth, now that you mention it, the colors are a little harsh. Pastels might look better. Someone else has made a map for this year's presidential election results (Figure 6), and it looks very nice. As for WP:MAP's palette, I'm just concerned that they don't have a palette (that I've seen) showing colors for political parties. There are, however, established conventions for color-coding tables. The category "United States political party election colour templates" shows it all. I've just been using these conventions as guidance, and never thought about using more subdued colors. But I've seen pastel colors on the articles for the Oregon Legislative Assembly, so maybe I could use those.

EncMstr, it makes perfect sense (to me, at least) that a gradient should be finer the closer to 50–50 you get.

Thanks again for all the feedback, you guys. Äþelwulf Talk to me. 02:47, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't put too much stock in the Oregon State Senate district maps -- I did those in the early days, and before I had any idea there were style guidelines for that sort of thing. In fact, if you come up with a general rule you like for Oregon, I'd be happy to redo those in whatever color scheme you think appropriate. I don't think I have the source files anymore, but replacing colors shouldn't be too hard. (It would be good to do ones for the House too, but that gets a lot trickier……) -Pete (talk) 09:44, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Concerning state legislature maps, there are files available from the Oregon government, as I believe I've mentioned on this talk page before, which seem to allow you to make vector maps. After lots of searching, I was able to find the program to render the files, download it, and play with it. But I can't for the life of me pass the barrier blocking me from deriving .svg files out of them. I can only make raster images. My plan was to leave your maps alone until I can finally break through this barrier. Äþelwulf Talk to me. 12:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

(Outdent) I don't have much input except to say, "Bravo" and "Oh, Shiny! Pretty!" (yes, I prefer the more brightly colored ones). But I know Northwesterner1 did a lot of map work--see his user page for some nice purple/green combos with a slightly more subdued palette. I thought they were highly readable. I don't know if he's been around lately...you might try reaching him via e-mail. Katr67 (talk) 17:55, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

New email from the Archives Division!

Cross-posted at the Oregon Open Content Initiative talk page.

Finally, they write me back after three attempts on my part.

---

• date: 12/05/08 11:15 AM

To whom it may concern,

Please tell me the statute that grants the Secretary of State the copyright on the Oregon Blue Book, and the nature of this copyright. Specifically, are there restrictions on creating derivative works with any material published in the Blue Book, whether commercial or not?

Thank you for your time.

-- Patrick

---

• date: Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 11:49 AM

Hi Patrick,

ORS 177.120 grants copyright authority to the Secretary of State for the Oregon Blue Book. This is general copyright authority.

- Julie Yamaka, Managing Editor
Oregon Blue Book
Oregon Secretary of State, Archives Division

---

177.120 Oregon Blue Book. [6]

1. The Secretary of State shall compile and issue biennially on or about February 15 of the same year as the regular sessions of the Legislative Assembly, an official directory of all state officers, state institutions, boards and commissions and district and county officers of the state, to be known as the Oregon Blue Book, and include therein the information regarding their functions that the secretary considers most valuable to the people of the state, together with such other data and information as usually is included in similar publications. The Secretary of State may cause the Oregon Blue Book to be copyrighted.
2. In order to fully carry out the intent and purposes of this section, the Secretary of State may request of any state, district and county officials any information concerning their offices, institutions or departments that the secretary desires to include in the Oregon Blue Book. The officials shall furnish the information.
3. The Secretary of State may distribute the Oregon Blue Book free of charge, under such regulations as the secretary may establish, to schools and to federal, state, county and city officials of the State of Oregon. The copies distributed under this subsection shall not be sold.
4. The Secretary of State shall determine a reasonable price, and charge such price, for each copy of the Oregon Blue Book distributed to the general public. The secretary may also establish a discount price for dealers and shall set the price for resale by dealers in order to maintain a uniform price. The sum collected shall be paid over to the State Treasurer and credited to the Secretary of State Miscellaneous Receipts Account established under ORS 279A.290. [Amended by 1953 c.586 §1; 1967 s.s. c.10 §1; 1973 c.126 §1; 1981 c.467 §1; 1991 c.169 §1; 2003 c.794 §198]

---

Äþelwulf Talk to me. 02:58, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

A-wulf, this is great information to have, and the timing couldn't be better, as we're heading into the legislative session. Any chance I could persuade you to add a note about to this to our wiki page of proposed legislation? I could add it myself, but the more our effort reflects the broad range of people behind it, the better. Again, this is a really helpful thing to know, and I'm really pleased you took the time to research and share this info. -Pete (talk) 09:38, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Surely. No problem at all. Thanks. Äþelwulf Talk to me. 19:27, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

"Oregon state elections, 2008" needs serious updating!

Just so people in WP:OR notice for sure, I've slapped an {{update}} tag on the article. It's a medium-length article, so the more people who help, the better. Äþelwulf Talk to me. 08:24, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes -- and we're also behind on getting the winners into Oregon legislative elections, 2008. I'll try to hammer away at both in the next couple days. Thanks for the reminder! -Pete (talk) 17:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

While we're updating these articles, I think we should generally improve them as well. In my opinion, the article California state elections, November 2008, and its various parallel articles, are excellent models to follow for our state election articles. Äþelwulf Talk to me. 23:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Christmas DYK

DYK is going to have a Christmas themed set of hooks for December 25. If any one is interested in an Oregon one, Christmas Valley Sand Dunes could be expanded 5X or we have Christmas Lake (Oregon) that could be created. There are also two tributaries to the Donner und Blitzen River; South Fork Blitzen River, Little Blitzen River. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Apparently there is also Operation Santa Claus near Redmond that appears notable. Aboutmovies (talk) 09:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm shocked and offended to be greeted with a Christmas-themed DYK in this holiday season. The war on the holiday season must end! We should only have holiday-themed DYKs. I propose instead we expand the 2000 Holiday Bowl, the 2005 Holiday Bowl, and the 2008 Holiday Bowl, and then Holiday Reinhorn, Holiday Airport, and Holiday Sky Ranch Airport. Until then, I'm boycotting the French wikipedia. --Esprqii (talk) 17:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

What about the best holiday of them all, the Holiday Inn? Aboutmovies (talk) 17:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Cheeseburger in Paradise uses the Holiday Inn menu as a pejorative. (Aren't ya glad I don't add stuff like this to articles?) —EncMstr (talk) 18:07, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

And what about the Holiday Inn, Cambodia? It wasn't tagged with WP:OR so it didn't show up in my search. --Esprqii (talk) 18:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. To a water-lover, the Blitzens look tempting. Mistletoe Road in Ashland? Nah! Finetooth (talk) 18:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The Dead Kennedys played the W.O.W. Hall once. Doesn't that mean they should be part of WP:ORE? Especially because Jello sprinkled the mosh pit with powdered Jell-O and stained the floor red and green? Alas, this is original research. Katr67 (talk) 18:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Red and green Jell-O? Now that's the kind of holiday spirit we need! Maybe you should write a book first and use it for your citations. --Esprqii (talk) 19:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to nominate this here as the official "last topic I expected to encounter upon signing up to write teh world's greatest encyclopedia." kthxbye. :) -Pete (talk)

Prompted by this discussion, I created Little Blitzen River this week and posted it about an hour ago. I used one of Pete's images of Little Blitzen Gorge to make the new page all bright and shiny. Using ideas from Aboutmovies, I submitted a DYK with the nation's first redband trout reserve as the hook. This Little Blitzen, although cute in its own way, has nothing to do with reindeer or Christmas. Finetooth (talk) 21:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Glad that pic came in handy -- thanks for including it! Boy, that was an incredible day. Anybody who hasn't gone up Steens Mountain, get ye there ASAP (once the snow melts!) You can drive to the top, so you don't need to be some kind of Oregon outdoors nut. -Pete (talk)

PDX redevelopment stuff

I ran across this category today Category:Redeveloped ports and waterfronts. Some of that newfangled Portland stuff might fit in there... Katr67 (talk) 00:40, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Oregon Cannabis Tax Act 2010

I hope this is not an incorrect place to post this. If so, please forgive me. I will be moving to Portland in the very near future, and so I am reading a lot about Portland/Oregon lately. I was surprised to see I could not find an article specifically dedicated to the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act 2010. I've seen it mentioned a few times, but realized I had to leave wikipedia for more information. I find this subject fascinating (especially coming from such a conservative state). Am I just not seeing it, or is this possible act not worth its own article? I am amazed at the organization and amount of work this group has done, so I thought this would be the place to ask. Thanks! Whataworld06 (talk) 18:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to Oregon, and thanks. I wasn't aware of a tax act, though Katr67 probably has heard of it since she works near the folks who think that stuff up. By all means, go ahead and start the article with whatever references you've found. I'll lend a hand when I see it, and I bet a few others will pitch in too. Here's what I could find on the subject:

• Decriminalization of non-medical cannabis in the United_States#Oregon
• Medical cannabis#Oregon
• Removal of cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act#For rescheduling

This may also have some bearing:

• Gonzales v. Oregon

Though I'm vehemently opposed to taxes, this might actually be a benefit for cannabis users: the state would consciously and subconsciously make it easier for buyers to benefit from the revenue it generates. —EncMstr (talk) 18:35, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing you've both encountered this article, too -- but for the sake of completeness: Oregon Medical Marijuana Act. Also, there are several unsuccessful ballot measures relating to marijuana in the List of Oregon ballot measures. -Pete (talk) 18:59, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, one other thought. It's not exactly common for ballot measures to have Wikipedia articles about them so far ahead of time. I personally believe it's worthwhile to cover significant ones here, but there might be some who disagree. Also, much of the advance coverage of such measures comes from blogs and other sites that may not qualify as reliable sources on Wikipedia. So, you might consider doing some of your advance work on Ballotpedia, a project that's a bit less discriminating about sources. (I should note, the organization that started Ballotpedia is far from being a neutral party -- however, my limited contact seems to suggest that a diverse wiki community has sprung up around it, and that the founders have taken an appropriately hands-off approach. Check this page for BP's 2010 Oregon content. -Pete (talk) 19:23, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

If the OCTA2010 article is started here, unfortunately, it will probably be deleted. According to this, it's on hold now anyway. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:30, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for the replies! EncMstr, I completely agree. Pete, I appreciate the ballotpedia info, though I do think the OCTA is particularly significant and interesting. Many of the articles I have read regarding the subject are from The Oregonion--I would assume that is a reliable source. Peregrine, I have read about the hold, though I believe the plan is simply to re-word the description and continue persuing a 2010 vote. Again, I appreciate the comments and advice. Perhaps I will start putting something together, though I do fear it would be for nothing if deleted. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking an article specifically geared towards the topic. You guys do amazing work here! Whataworld06 (talk) 21:54, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Now that I think about, a more fitting article might be "History of cannabis legislation in Oregon" or some other general title that allows for more information than just one potential act or ballot. This could include information about the decriminalization process, the development of the medical marijuana program (of course, there is already an article for the Act itself), ballot proposals (whether they pass or fail), upcoming proposals, etc. That would certainly make for a more interesting read, and it would include much more information than just for OCTA 2010. I do think that the history of cannabis in Oregon is unique, especially since it was the fist state to decriminalize it and one of the first onboard the medical marijuana bandwagon. Besides, it does seem silly to create an article for every single ballot or law, especially when it is still in the development stages. Any thoughts or other general article titles? The idea of starting a general article seems daunting, even though I think it could produce a very interesting read eventually... Whataworld06 (talk) 22:32, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that's a great idea. Cannabis in Oregon seems a likely candidate for an all-encompassing article, legislation and whatnot. Since you're not "from here" (yet), I think it would be helpful if you outlined the article so it addresses the significance of what Oregon does which departs from other states. We kind of take it for granted, living here and all. —EncMstr (talk) 22:51, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that's true (taking it for granted). I am from Texas, so I am FASCINATED by the lifestyle are legislative policies that are found in Oregon. Honestly, I cannot wait to get there and see for myself! Thanks for the feedback regarding the article. I'll see what I can come up with, and I'd love to see what other people think may be worth adding as well. Whataworld06 (talk) 22:55, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I cobbled some stuff together to make Cannabis in Oregon. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

It might also be good to include what the current laws are, and when cannabis became prohibited. Also, how about moving the page to Cannabis laws in Oregon? Äþelwulf Talk to me. 10:47, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm a fan of leaving it at Cannabis in Oregon because it can cover more than the laws- for instance, demographics/usage per capita. Good job on the article creation, folks. tedder (talk) 13:38, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree, Tedder. A cannabis culture section has already been added, and keeping the article for general cannabis information will allow for additional sections as well. Looking forward to seeing the article expand further. But what a great start! Whataworld06 (talk) 17:44, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, good point, tedder. And I agree, wonderful work, Peregrine Fisher! Äþelwulf Talk to me. 19:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

(redent)I put Cannabis in Oregon up for GA. Check it out. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:46, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Holy hell! That article grew like wildfire. Compare the difference 31 hours made between its first version and the most recent. Excellent work, guys! Äþelwulf Talk to me. 07:08, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

It's a Did You Know right now. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:03, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

New category

Category:Oregon pioneers. Go forth and populate, you empire builders, you. Katr67 (talk) 18:12, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Our bloggerrific blog

Hey all, just wanted to point out that Steven has made a flurry of interesting posts on our blog recently. Also, my post about the new Loren Parks article has triggered a flurry of suggestions about new articles we should work on. Check it out, and add your thoughts! This is one of our best ways to reach new Wikipedia editors and expand our editing powers.

Also, if you want to learn how to use a tool like Google Reader (or another RSS reader) to keep track of this and other blogs, just ask -- it's a pretty great way to stay up-to-date on the web. -Pete (talk)

Portland Hempstalk

Note: The following was also posted on the Cannabis in Oregon talk page, but I figured posting it here might get increased traffic and therefore more feedback.
Any feedback as to whether a separate article could/should be created specifically for the Hempstalk festival in Portland, similar to the Seattle Hempfest article? Of course, Hempstalk is mentioned in the "Cannabis culture in Oregon" section, but I wonder if it could be further expanded into its own article. Any feedback on the subject? Sources could include this (which is used in the "Cannabis in Oregon" article), this, this, this (if considered a reliable source), and here is the link to the annual event's official site. For future reference, here is another source for anything pot-related in Portland/Oregon. Whataworld06 (talk) 02:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Speaking for myself (and without a lot of knowledge about the festival), I'd say it's likely (but not definite) that Hempstalk meets the notability criterion, so it should be fine for you to create an article. I would not personally be as motivated to work on something that specific, as cannabis isn't really an interest of mine -- the Cannabis in Oregon article appealed to me because it touches on a number of important historic and public policy issues in the state. So, I'd encourage you to work on it, but I'll probably be focused on other articles.

I am very pleased by the infusion of new energy, though -- it's always fun to see what people moving here are motivated to work on! -Pete (talk) 06:45, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully much more to come later, but I've started the article: Portland Hempstalk Festival. Feel free to add any additional information you come across, or assist with organization (I'm never quite sure how to best organize articles). This goes for any one (not just Pete). Thanks! Whataworld06 (talk) 05:24, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

ArbCom and WP:ORE

Just writing up a quick blog post about the elections here. Can anyone confirm if any WP:ORE case has ever been arbitrated? I thought not... Steven Walling (talk) 03:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I can't think of any, thank jeebus. -Pete (talk) 04:06, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

And a fine blog post it was -- thanks for keeping us up to speed on the politicky side of the 'pedia! -Pete (talk) 06:47, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Blue Oregon as reliable source?

There's a discussion starting at Talk:Jeff Merkley#Blue Oregon as a reliable source about whether/when BlueOregon blog can be considered a reliable source in articles. Please share your thoughts esp. those of you who are familiar with it. -Pete (talk) 11:16, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Just in general, I thought blogs weren't RS. Has that changed recently, or am I completely misinformed? I didn't see anything on the Wikipedia:Reliable sources page that would make my POV correct. (this is tangental, but I was hoping for a couple of opinions/pointers). tedder (talk) 07:27, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

That is still correct, see WP:SELFPUB, part of WP:V, which as policy makes it even stronger than RS (a mere guideline). Aboutmovies (talk) 08:17, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Pioneer Square, please

Our sockpuppet friend is back on the Pioneer Square article. We need an admin, not just reverts. I've already reverted twice, he's reverted three times and called me a "scum vandal". I kinda like that nickname, but that isn't the point. tedder (talk) 07:24, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I fully protected the page. Somebody else blocked the new sockpuppet. Thanks Tedder. -Pete (talk) 17:24, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Snow event/snowpocalypse

While it's a one-event thing, it seems the December 2008 weather may deserve an article or at least a note in an article due to how rare it was and the financial impact (to businesses and government budgets). If nothing else, perhaps by bringing it up, we can work on collecting information while it is still fresh. For instance, I know Portland spent a bunch of money on plowing and deicer, PDX airport was severely impacted, TriMet was severely impacted, Gresham had National Guard troops sent in.. what else? (and I apologize for my Portland bias) tedder (talk) 23:12, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Someone has started this: Late December Snowstorms of 2008, which is misnamed, but I'm sure they'll officially name this storm soon enough and the article can be moved then. See Great Coastal Gale of 2007, started by our own Esprqii for the evolution of a weather article. Every little bit helps! Katr67 (talk) 23:41, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Bueno- I didn't find that article. Wondered why not! tedder (talk) 23:44, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Sources

article section: (please post articles here, put comments above)

• KGW/AP: Snow storm stymies Portland (12/23/2008) national guard sent to Gresham, Portland spent $150k per day, TriMet was running 24 of 120 routes, I-84 through the Gorge was closed, "hundreds" of flights at PDX were cancelled
• KGW: Slow snow melt begins in Metro area (12/26/2008) Portland "has already spent about $2 million on de-icing, plowing and overtime."

"X in Oregon" articles

I enjoyed helping to make Cannabis in Oregon and Alcohol in Oregon. Since this project is so good at legislative/legal histories, I was thinking we could make another. Any ideas? Maybe Race in Oregon, Religion in Oregon, Capital punishment in Oregon, or whatever you guys think would have an intersting legislative history. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:57, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I didn't realize one would turn out to be a blue link. ;-) - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:57, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't forget Agriculture in Oregon. :) Steven Walling (talk) 06:18, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

That's an idea. Will it excite our project members? I think I have some refs about our hop and marijuana production. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:25, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd be happy to work on any of the above. Actually, I've been wondering if Criminal justice in Oregon might be a good topic -- there's plenty of interest beyond capital punishment. Measure 11, Measure 40 and its offshoots, Measures 57/61...an interesting subject to me because those most strongly opposed (theoretically) to government spending, like Loren Parks and Kevin Mannix, seem perfectly happy to work on measures that drastically increase prison spending. It would be good to have an article that ties all that stuff together. -Pete (talk) 10:55, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a good one. This would make a great DYK. Do we have a page that talks about what to do with Oregonian articles, and how they get put behind a subscription wall? I thought I saw something like that once. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:49, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

You're thinking of User:Peteforsyth/O-vanish. It gets referenced enough, we should probably move it into project space somewhere. What's a good title for it? We could add it to our Reference Desk, perhaps. Oh, I had another thought too -- what about Budget of Oregon? -Pete (talk) 18:29, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) This is not an "in" article, but how about developing Politics of Oregon? Good models, I think, would be California's and New York's. Even North Dakota, although younger than us, has a more comprehensive article on its politics than we do.

A good resource I would suggest for the first half of the 20th century, albeit one with a lopsided scope, is Democrats of Oregon: The Pattern of Minority Politics, 1990 to 1956, by Robert E. Burton, published in 1970 by the U of O Press. Its 2001 reprint is ISBN 0871140276. It overviews grand political trends in Oregon and the DPO's role in those trends. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Athelwulf (talk • contribs) 22:24, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

This is all good stuff, but just to add another idea: what about Methamphetamine in Oregon -- it's actually something that's received a great deal of press coverage, and a number of Oregon politicians are considered national leaders on this issue (relating, of course, to the unfortunate fact that we have one of the worst meth problems in the country). -Pete (talk) 05:55, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

That sounds good. I'm busy until after the first, but that's the one I like the most so far. Kind of a trifecta. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:11, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Mustn't leave out Oregon in Oregon. Cirt (talk) 06:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, meth is stubbified. Cirt, when we get done with that one maybe we can make a list of Oregonians in the Oregonian. -Pete (talk) 21:20, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick note to any readers, Methamphetamine in Oregon now merges to the new (and more general) article, Controlled substances in Oregon. -Whataworld06 (talk) 20:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Center Street and Marion Street Bridge

I have begun the construction of these articles, but finding good, useful information about these bridges dimensions and history appear to be hard to find. Any help from people who may be interested would be gladly excepted.Neonblak ^talk - 19:28, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Good starts -- sorry I don't have any suggestions for sources. -Pete (talk) 21:08, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Center Street, Marion Street. Also Salem Public Library's Oregon Historic Photograph Collections often has pictures which include some details. Then if you have access to The Oregonian and the Statesman Journal's archives I know I have come across info on them, mainly regarding federal funding for I think an overhaul or widening paid for through the efforts of Mark Hatfield. I might find more as these were on my eventual to do list (thus why there are already pics).

On a side note, with the new crossings of the Willamtte cat, should we maybe move all the bridges to "Bridges of the Willamette" or something similar as we also have ferries that cross (which should then be added), and I would assume somewhere there is a dam or two on one of the forks that crosses the river? Aboutmovies (talk) 08:28, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I thought about making Category:Willamette River bridges instead of Category:Willamette River crossings for just that reason, after I'd already done 3/4 of the work on the latter..we could still do it, I might want to fire up AWB and figure out how to use it for a project like that. (I think dams can be considered bridges, but obviously ferries can't.) Also, it occurred to me that Category:Willamette River tributaries Category:Tributaries of the Willamette River might be a useful category too.

Also, Neonblak, you might be interested in our reference desk page, where we keep notes about how to research Oregon-related subjects. -Pete (talk) 08:34, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Pete, as the article creator and an admin, could you rename the crossings cat to Crossings of the Willamette River to fit the exist naming convention at Category:Crossings by river? And I started Category:Bridges over the Willamette River and have started moving. The name seems to best match the naming convention at the bridges by river cat. Aboutmovies (talk) 09:35, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I know some folks who attend city council and planning meetings about the local bridge scene in Salem, so I bet I can scare up some good sources for you. I haven't read these yet, so forgive me if it's in there, but mention of the "Willamette Crossing" project or whatever it is (the likely-not-happening-real-soon third bridge project/boondoggle, depending on your POV) in either or both articles would be good. Stay tuned. Check commons for a pic I took under the Marion bridge, BTW. Katr67 (talk) 18:20, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Oops, yes, I'll fix that. -Pete (talk) 18:43, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Whoa, that was quick. Thanks for taking care of that, I was just about to get started. -Pete (talk) 19:02, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Never mind..I misread =) -Pete (talk)

 Done -Pete (talk) 19:31, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the links and possible useful sources, this is not my area of expertise, but I thought I had better start digging in on some Oregon/Salem related articles. Normally, I spend almost all of my time with 19th century baseball articles. I will get to some of these sources soon.Neonblak ^talk - 06:35, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Neonblak, if you don't already know, FYI you may have access via your local library card to the archives of some newspapers, as well as sometimes other online databases. Check out you local library's website. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:51, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikiwednesday and Oregon stub question

Had a question here about whether Portland Hempstalk Festival is correctly categorized, etc. I think it is, but take a look if you have a chance. Also, is wikewednesday happening? I'm pretty flakey lately, unfortunately, but I'm curious. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:43, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

It looks fine. It's been added to the project via the talk page template and it is in a couple Oregon categories. And since it is not a stub class article, there is no need for a stub tag. As to WikiWednesday, I'm sure Pete will be along shortly as I don't know the answer. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:16, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Yep, WikiWednesday (5:30 at 107 SE Washington) is happening for sure! Steven Walling (talk) 08:40, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Category question

I just created Category:Criminal justice in Oregon. Right after, I found that we already have Category:Penal system in Oregon. Having both is probably overkill -- do you guys think moving the existing one to "criminal justice" makes sense? If so, I'm happy to make a more formal proposal at WP:CFD. -Pete (talk) 03:37, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I think since there isn't a Category:Criminal justice in the United States, that the category gurus will likely say it belongs in Category:Penal system in Oregon. You should ask the category gurus though. Katr67 (talk) 19:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, they asked themselves before I could get to it! This is up for discussion here. I rather prefer "criminal justice," as I think it includes a little more than "penal system," but am interested what others think. -Pete (talk) 21:24, 6 January 2009 (UTC)÷

Hanford Site

In case you haven't noticed, WP:ORE-connected Featured Article Hanford Site is currently on the front page, if y'all want to help with the vandalism or just read it and bask in the glow of its greatness. (Good job NW1 and the others who worked on it!) Katr67 (talk) 22:00, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Portland LumberJax as a major league team at Portland, Oregon?

There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Portland,_Oregon#major_sports_teams over the inclusion of text which describes the Portland LumberJax as one of two major league teams based in the city. Your input, with a view to achieving consensus, is gratefully appreciated. Coldmachine^Talk 14:43, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposing a new {{OR2008elections}} template (and possibly a slightly different page organization?)

I like some of the work that's been done on CA's election pages, and I think a lot of it could carry over very well to OR's pages. One example is {{CA2008elections}}, the navigation template. The biggest difference between CA's and OR's is that ours does not include the ballot measures. Another difference I notice is they organize their election pages not per year, but per election. We include both the May primary and November general in our Oregon state elections, 2008 page. I guess this is more of an organizational difference. It seems like a logical idea. The navigation template can cover an entire year and we could allow navigation between years, while still making main articles for each election rather than each year.

I've modified CA's template for OR, just to make an example, and placed it in my sandbox. What do you all think of this idea? — Athelwulf ^[T]/_[C] 00:27, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

It looks good to me, although it does leave out the statewide offices (treasurer, sec of state, etc.). I would quibble that listing every measure is a bit tedious, but you have the space and unless we break up the list of ballot measures page into per-election pages ("List of ballot measures in the May 2008 Oregon primary"? Yuck...), I can't think of a better way to do it.

I based the original template on somebody else's template that seemed to be running rampant among the states at the time...in fact, that might have been the old Calif. version. Anyway, your version looks better so I vote yea, with the addition of a statewide office link as mentioned above. --Esprqii (talk) 00:40, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I like it, with the addition Esprqii suggests. However, I think the specific articles are multiplying like bunnies. Having separate article for the Dem. and Rep. primaries, and the primary as a whole, and the statewide elections as a whole, strike me as confusing for the reader, and also as a maintenance nightmare. We've discussed this before, and as I recall we sort of reluctantly agreed to make more articles; but adding new articles for the primary as a whole and the general as a whole strikes me as a step too far. Unless we determine which variant(s) we're going to merge and delete. I'm as unsure as ever what the best overall structure is, but I think it's about time we made a decision and went with it. -Pete (talk) 18:35, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Couldn't the proposed May statewide election and November statewide election pages serve the purpose of replacing the existing statewide election page? The measures could also be consolidated there and remove the need for listing them individually on the template. I personally would like to not have separate Democratic and Republican primary pages, as to me that was the step too far, but those were created for all states to collect presidential primary results and I'm sure it would be hard to contain the enthusiasm to do it again in 4 years. Although by then, we'll be using wikipedia from our personal flying cars, so who would care. --Esprqii (talk) 19:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Damn, I missed sign-up day for the free flying cars. I agree that we could (should) merge and delete the separate Dem. and Rep. primary articles; and by 2012 if we have a pretty good system, I don't think we'll have trouble persuading people to conform to it. I'm not entirely sure deleting the overall "statewide elections" page is a good idea, but maybe. Maybe the "general election" article contains some context from the primaries, and serves the same purpose? -Pete (talk) 19:32, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Esprqii, that's a good idea, we should include articles for state-level office races in the template. Many of them don't seem to currently exist though. The terminology "statewide" annoys me a bit, since to me, it means any office or politician that represents the whole of Oregon, which would include federal Sens. Wyden and Merkley. Or maybe I'm wrong? Concerning ballot measures, I don't see any reason to make special per-election pages for them. CA's propositions are being listed in the main articles for their respective elections, with wikilinks to each proposition's article. This has been duplicated in Oregon state elections, 2008. I like this.

Pete, I agree that we should probably decide clearly on the overall structure and organization of our elections pages. It could get excessive and confusing if we don't think about it. (Maybe a separate discussion could be had on this?) If we decide on separate May and November election articles, the current article for all elections in the entire year of 2008 can probably go. — Athelwulf ^[T]/_[C] 22:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Soliciting photos from legislators

All, we're working on a letter to send out to Oregon legislators (like, tomorrow!), requesting that they submit photos for their bios. Please see here for a wiki-editable draft, and make any edits as you see fit! Sorry for the late notice. It will probably go out tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. -Pete (talk) 00:32, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

It looks good, but should you give some guidelines on the photo? Might some less tech-savvy pols try to physically attach a Polaroid? What about image size, use of neutral background, etc.? I realize some of the more seasoned legislators have offices to handle these things, but there are also quite a few true citizen legislators who may not realize what to do. There are probably some digital photo guidelines we could borrow somewhere...

You could also say that if they don't have a WP article yet, sending a pic is one sure way to get us to write a good one! ;-) --Esprqii (talk) 00:45, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

..and sending a bio might be nice. And there are some of us that would be willing to take a CC pic if necessary. tedder (talk) 00:50, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Esprqii, great ideas. Especially in light of a certain photo that was recently uploaded! Actually, we should maybe offer lowish-res as a possible way of avoiding complete release? I'm torn on that. Feel free to just edit that draft directly!

Tedder, in a way I agree, but...WP:RS and all that. I think I'd rather stay away from advising them to influence the content of the article. I like offering to take a photo -- how available could you be for that, and where? Should we have a field trip to Salem and a little press conference? ;) Might be good for the government accessibility bill we're working on! -Pete (talk) 01:00, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

You are right about the implication that a CV would be directly included. I'm between high-end cameras until mid-March (waiting for a product release), but a field trip/press conference/legislator roundup would be great, for us and them! tedder (talk) 01:09, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

AND

Please come to WikiWednesday tomorrow evening! Lots to discuss, as usual. -Pete (talk) 00:32, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

You can also RSVP on Upcoming and check out Calagator's listing. Steven Walling (talk) 02:26, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting Idea

Wondering if there is a techie out there that might be interested in creating a template/bot or something to make researching Oregon stuff a little easier. I was thinking we could have a search function somewhere that you enter the term you want, then it goes through and checks The Oregonian archives (which via online would at least give us the article titles and a brief blurp so we can tell if we need to check the full story), the Willamette Week archives (all online), the Portland Tribune archives (all online), plus non-local sources such as The New York Times and Time magazine that have their entire archives online, plus any others that Google seems to bypass. Or if someone knows of a tool that already does this. Thanks. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:14, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

This is a very good idea. As long as we're dreaming big, <cough>Enc<cough>Mstr how about also adding the ability to search article text via Newsbank, after inputting library credentials? (Though I suspect that would take more work, and/or run afoul of terms of service.) Just a thought. -Pete (talk) 03:34, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I just stumbled on this. I was out of the country luxuriating on a tropical island with no internet access. Well, it might have been there, but I was more interested in other things.

I'm confused. For most of those, won't Google do? For those which are restricted, what would it do? Log in with someone's credentials (almost certainly a terms of service violation), search, and then—what? Return a URL or the article text somewhere? (But where?)

I just tried a multi-site Google using the expression "gus van sant (site:portlandtribune.com OR site:wweek.com)"[7] which returns no Willamette Week results. The advanced search page completely biffs such constructions as well. Not dissuaded in the least, I tried "gus van sant site:(portlandtribune.com OR wweek.com)"[8]. Alas, it seems to treat the site term in an incomprehensible manner. Interesting challenge. —EncMstr (talk) 08:21, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

As your search indicated, no WW, thus part of the reason why Google alone would not work. As to The Oregonian, I meant check the archives search without logging in, which would at least indicate if there are stories covering the topic. It would be up to the user to then enter login info if they had it. The main purpose for me was to try to find a quick tool for indicating notability of Oregon topics, but would also be good for finding stuff for creating articles as well. Limiting it to more reliable sources such as newspapers helps with article quality (along with the notability part), and woudl allow for all results on a single page to make these checks faster. In my experience, Tribune articles and Portland Business Journal articles will come up, but often way down in the search results, and WW never shows up. So these "Idea" would ideally put the results all on one page. Maybe something akin to the old multi-search engine engines where I recall years ago you could enter a term and the engine would return the results from like 4 different engines, each placed in a different frame/table on the webpage. I'm assuming this could be done, but likely would have to be hosted of Wikipedia (though maybe on the servers that have all the tools like the edit count, page view stats, etc.). Hopefully I've been clear, but if not let me know. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:37, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Videos!

I just tought myself how to add videos to articles. If someone else was interested in adding more, there's info I found useful at Wikipedia:Creation and usage of media files and Wikipedia talk:Creation and usage of media files#How to use ffmpeg2theora. You basically download the video, convert it to .ogg, upload it to commons, and add it to the article. Search for them like so. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I just added a cool one at Bull Run Hydroelectric Project#Decommissioning. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:39, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow, very cool video! Thanks for doing that, and thanks for the offer to help assist others. It would be great to get more video content up to illustrate articles. I suspect that finding appropriately licensed content will be a challenge, but I'm sure there's a fair amount that exists if we figure out where to look! By the way, did you make it to WikiWednesday? If so, very sorry not to meet you -- I had to leave pretty early. -Pete (talk) 03:39, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Oregon business news

AboutUs is a Portland-based online company that recently got a flurry of news from various sources. I work for them, so I didn't want to make substantial edits to the article. The number of unique visitors, our employees, and the news about venture capital investment all need updating though. I've placed the most reliable source material on Talk:AboutUs.org for someone interested to use. Thanks, Steven Walling (talk) 23:20, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Cannabis_in_Oregon#GA_Review

I'm working through the review, and the reviewer is curious if there have been any studies showing that legalization has reduced case loads or prison crowding. I couldn't find anything, but if anyone knows of something please drop by the talk page. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 21:46, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

New user: oregonmetro.gov

Just a heads up that some people may be interested to see contribs from Special:Contributions/Www.oregonmetro.gov. tedder (talk) 23:36, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Picture IDs

I'm looking for a little help with identifying some of our politicians. Pete and I were at the opening session on Monday and crashed the credentialed media section and I was able to get some pictures. Most of individuals didn't turn out great due to distance and lighting, but some are at least usable on articles. But I can only pick out a few of who they are, so if you have some knowledge of what some of our politicians look like, please take a look here and leave a note then on this page if you recognize someone and I'll try cropping the higher resolution images I kept and upload them to commons. Please note that some of the people may simply be spectators, spouses, or staff and just look important in their suits. Thanks. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:41, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• #15 is Vic Atieyh in the center, but don't know who is on the left. Same with #16, he is center, but the people in the background are nameless to me.
• On some of the ones with multiple of the same people (Westlund and Kroger), which one do people like best?
• #27 I think is Chief Judge Brewer of the Oregon Court of Appeals, and #33 Armstrong of the same court at center. In general I know who the judges are, its just what shot is best. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
• I think #39 is Edward N. Fadeley as he was announced at that time and I think it looks like him from here and here.
• And is it just me or does whoever is third from the left in #41 look like the actor Edward Herrmann? Aboutmovies (talk) 08:59, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

#9 has Bruce Hanna in the lower right. -Pete (talk)

I think it would be good to add this shot as a supplemental photo to the Brad Avakian article. -Pete (talk)

This one, of three newly elected/appointed statewide officeholders, is great! Love the playful Westlund moment. Maybe a good addition to Oregon state elections, 2008? -Pete (talk) You should upload this one to commons too, for sure -- not sure where we'll use which, but they're a great pair. -Pete (talk)

The woman on the far right is Ramona Kenady, Chief Clerk of the House, and I believe the woman to her right is Judy Hall, Secretary of the Senate. Methinks both their photos are a bit out-of-date. Katr67 (talk) 20:15, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Here is a bit about Ramona. Katr67 (talk) 22:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Great shot of John Kroger. Definitely upload that one! -Pete (talk)

This one: Tom Balmer on the left. And Rives Kistler, I think? -Pete (talk)

By the way, it was great to meet you in person, and thanks for taking all these photos! Glad to see you already put one in the infobox for seventy-fifth Oregon Legislative Assembly. -Pete (talk) 18:57, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Great job you guys! Sorry I didn't make it. Other obligations, stress, as well as an aging knee joint got in the way. Hopefully we'll see ya when the Oregon Transparency Bill comes up for a hearing. Yee haw! They keep re-running the opening ceremony on the Oregon Channel. Did you get your 15 minutes of fame? Katr67 (talk) 20:05, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to miss you too Katr -- hope the stress and all abates! I just cropped the photo and adjusted the caption on the Oregon state elections, 2008 article. Hope you agree the cropped version works better. Aboutmovies, would you prefer when I do stuff like that to upload a separate file to Commons? -Pete (talk) 21:05, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Pete, good to meet you in the flesh, and feel free to crop away or anything else you think is needed, and go ahead and upload over the old version. Katr, too bad you didn't make it. Both, thanks for the IDs. I think I've uploaded everything currently identified. I'll re work the pics and the page to leave only headshots of those not yet IDed so we can work on those. Aboutmovies (talk) 22:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• #3 I'm faily sure the woman wearing glasses is Vicki Walker. --Tesscass (talk) 23:15, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
• #15 The gentleman in the brown suit in the lower left is Bill Morrisette. (I'm pretty sure). Katr67 (talk) 23:38, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
• #20 Susan Castillo. Katr67 (talk) 23:45, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
• #5 Clockwise: Red tie = Senator Fred Girod, Scarf = Senator Betsy Johnson, Blue suit = Senator Suzanne Bonamici, Blue shirt and suit = Senator Doug Whitsett. Katr67 (talk) 00:03, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• #1 Frank Morse. Katr67 (talk) 00:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
• It looks like yellow corsages are for senators and blue corsages are for reps, if that helps with the field identification. (This is likely because bill folders are yellow for the senate and blue for the house--like the Oregon flag...vs. Orange for the Senate and green for the house to match the carpets...) Katr67 (talk) 00:24, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Round 2

Thank you to everyone who has helped out. I've uploaded some and added them to articles. For some, I want to make sure they are who we think they are, as it appears many of there legislative websites have old pic. So here again is the link and none of the links to pics above will work anymore. Each pic is now a headshot. I've broken it down into those we think we know, and unkown folks (some I'm sure are staff/spouses). I've also provided links to the Legislature's photo gallery so we can compare, plus a Google image search also comes in hand for those we think we know. With Smith and Winters, those are ones I think they are, but am hoping for a second opinion. Thanks again for any help. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Who's this? I think I might like to write an article about her. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 08:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain she is a spouse/staffer. On another note, just found this which gives partly birth dates and birthplaces for the folks, as I believe we are missing some of that data. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Isn't there a notability standard for smokin' hot good looks? I think Peregrine might be onto something here. -Pete (talk)

Might be, probably should check here. Aboutmovies (talk) 10:46, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Um, not to harsh on y'all's mellow, but this sort of discussion is probably why there are very few female editors on Wikipedia. Knock it off, por favor? Katr67 (talk) 22:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, Kim Thatcher might be represented among the younger, blonder female Republican reps, though it looks like she has updated her look recently: [9]. (cached photo is different from current photo but this could change) Katr67 (talk) 23:06, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

My comments were meant to be lighthearted...I'm sorry if I offended anyone. Consider it knocked off, for my part. -Pete (talk)

• Back to identifying: Katr, with the Frank Morse person, I don't think its him since the guy was already in the chamber when they welcomed the Senate folks, and though similar looking I think its a bit different. I'm thinking it might be Barker, Jeff or less likely Harker, Chris. For #2, I think its Andy Olson, based on these [10] [11], anyone else agree (or maybe Kevin Cameron: [12])? With #5 it looks to me like it could be Bruce Starr with that big nose and chin [13], though the ears don't seem to match; going by the Senate Dems photo from last session it would appear #5 is either new or a Republican. Aboutmovies (talk) 23:14, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm gonna see if I can enlist a little expert support... -Pete (talk) 01:23, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

AM, yeah it's not Morse, it's Rep. Barker. He's co-chair of the House Judiciary Committee, whose meeting is on the Oregon Channel right now, if anyone wants to take a look see... Katr67 (talk) 21:42, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Henry the Bus guy has this to say:

UnIDed photo #1 is House Republican Leader Bruce Hanna

1. 2 is Rep. Andy Olsen
2. 3 is Sen. Ginny Burdick
3. 4 is, in fact, Sen. Rick Metsger

I don't recognize #5-7

1. 8 is also Bruce Hanna
2. 10 is Rep. Sal Esquivel

-Pete (talk) 23:55, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) I agree that #5 is Bruce Starr. I think #23 is Senator Jason Atkinson--I believe there are a couple other shots of him to compare this one to... Katr67 (talk) 00:35, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Great, thanks for everyone's help. I've uploaded those above who were ID'd.

• #13 - Tim Freeman?
• #11 - Kevin Cameron?

That's it for ones I can figure out. Aboutmovies (talk) 09:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Religion in Oregon

Religion in Oregon is now stubbed. I just found a quick source to get started, though I am not sure it even qualifies as a reliable source. Any thoughts on organization, sources, etc.? Perhaps trends could be discussed, we could construct a chart showing percentages, make note of particularly large or influential churches or organizations, find reasons why Oregon/PNW residents are often not religion, etc. This could make for a very interesting and wonderful article! Hopefully this page will receive as much attention and interest as the Cannabis in Oregon article did. This might lead to some interesting information. - Whataworld06 (talk) 02:40, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I added some thoughts about expansion on the article's talk page. Also, might want to grab the stuff from the Religion section of the Oregon article. -Pete (talk) 21:47, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

MAX Light Rail station articles names

As I noted on Talk:MAX Light Rail, the station articles should really be moved, as the quadrant names are not spelled out. I can get a list of official station names; however, I'm guessing they're as shown on the official map and this page. Also, at the WikiWednesday, someone brought up the idea of noting surrounding development that has occurred as a result of the stations getting built. Jason McHuff (talk) 07:53, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Generally, we spell out abbreviations in article names, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Prefer spelled-out phrases to abbreviations. Also, whether or not TriMet spells it out is not a huge concern, Wikipedia has its own manual of style and naming conventions. TriMet also abbreviates avenue to Ave and street to St, but we don't. Further, taking Willow Creek TC for a case study, of the 10 most recent newspaper articles I went through (The Oregonian), 7 spelled out southwest (this excludes station references where it was just 185th without a direction or no mention of 185th at all). Thus, the guideline of spelling out abbreviations should be followed as there is not near universal usage of the abbreviation (i.e. the exception doesn't apply). On a similar note, we might be able to avoid some of this by moving the articles to names that do not use the street. For instance there might be support for moving Willow Creek/Southwest 185th to simply Willow Creek Transit Center. Similar for Hillsboro Central/3rd Avenue Transit Center to Hillsboro Central, and ditto for the Tuality Hospital, Quatama, and Orenco stops. We would need to do some searching through the media to confirm the shorter names are used more often first, but I suspect we would find support for many of the ones I mentioned as well as many others. Really, who calls the Goose Hollow stop Goose Hollow/SW Jefferson St (note this needs to be renamed at least for the "St" part at the very least)? Speaking of that station, anyone have a picture?

As to adding info about developments around the stations, that would be good. This provides a list of some such projects. I do think we would need to be careful in some respects to separate out those directly related to MAX and those that may be less connected to MAX and more connected to other growth. For instance at the Orenco Station MAX stop, having Intel there before MAX was I believe unrelated to MAX, and this has certainly helped fuel the growth around the station in addition to MAX. In fact the whole redevelopment of the failed Ronler Acres subdivision via urban renewal was at most tangentially related to the westside MAX, and the Orenco Station development was part of that process, though then tailored for the new zoning of westside MAX. Or more simply, Orenco Station the community may have occured even without MAX, though it might have looked differently without MAX. Down the line though, I'm pretty sure the apartment and now other housing boom by Quatama is a direct result of MAX, ditto for the housing and now PCC campus at Willow Creek. Same with The Round in Beaverton, but as Beaverton Transit Center is older than westside MAX, I'm not sure if there was much re-development there related to MAX. Aboutmovies (talk) 09:06, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Good points, on both the station names and development info. I just thought that what is used on maps, and moreover signs, should overrule Wikipedia's guidelines. Overall, we're not taking about street names, but about station names that happen to have street names in them. As for development, (and I'm pretty sure this was mentioned at the WW) there should be sources (like The Oregonian, Portland Business Journal or Daily Journal of Commerce articles) that tie developments to MAX. Jason McHuff (talk) 06:20, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think signs count for much. Signs due to their limited size usually have abbreviations. I can't recall a street sign that spells out either the direction nor the type of street (Ave/St/Ln/Blvd). And in your sign pic above, TriMet abbreviates transit center as well on the signs, its just more cost effective. Another thing to think of is that the overhead announcements say southwest, not "Ssss" "Dubuuu". Now we can ignore the guideline, but I personally don't see a need, but others might. As to development, the PBJ is probably the best source as it is all easily accessible online, and they often do have this type of info. Might also look at journals that cover construction/urban planning/real estate and the like as well. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

O-vanish solved?

O-vanish can be solved, I think, using Webcite. I created this copy of their page. Try it out here if you want. Ultimately this needs to done by a bot, but it's cool none the less. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 14:30, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Great find. I won't mind doing it manually. I guess the best way to do it is using the "archiveurl" and "archivedate" tags on {{cite web}}. I'm shocked that Google didn't come up with such a service earlier. Cacophony (talk) 06:36, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully it will be done automaticaly for us. I did a bot request. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:40, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

We might want to keep the full cites as well, as I can see some copyright problems for Webcite, which may explain why Google hasn't done this. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:27, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The plan is to have both URLs. Use the archiveurl field from cite web. This page talks about copyright. Search it for "copyright". - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

After reading that, I'm pretty sure they'll get sued from people like The Oregonian. Just like the Wayback Machine got sued. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:03, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe. That lawsuit didn't put the IA out of business. A similar one from the Oregonian would proably go the same way, while causing them embarrestment. Most likely they would tell webcitation.org to not archive their pages, and webcitation.org would comply. Any copyright holder that requests removal of archived pages is obliged. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 08:09, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

It looks like consensus for ThaddeusB's bot is moving forward nicely. See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/WebCiteBOT. —EncMstr (talk) 19:05, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Requested move notification

I have requested the move of Empire Builder to Empire Builder (Amtrak). Reasons given at the talk page. Mjroots (talk) 14:39, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

notable people lists

A good faith editor removed the Notable residents section from Lake Oswego, Oregon with the edit summary The entire list should be independently cited; we can't use Wikipedia as a source. In response to my revert and challenge—and citing WP:ORE policy of requiring a linked biographical article which cites association with the city—he/she asserts that WP:V indicates a clear need for such a cite in the Notable residents list.

To me, it seems reasonable to defer the citation to the biographical article, but WhisperToMe has a point: why not require duplicating the cite in the list? Comments? Thoughts? —EncMstr (talk) 23:39, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

The way I understand it is this- for a list (of alumni or residents, for instance), notability means a bluelink. For the bluelinked article, notability should be established. That keeps notability from needing to be proven on the "list of" page. Are there any commandments on this topic besides Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Lists_of_people? tedder (talk) 00:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Seems like in a list of people, you can defer the citation to the person's article, otherwise you could overwhelm the article with citations about people's hometowns. For example, the articles about the various dates--January 27 for example--have long lists of people whose birthday is supposed to fall on that day. By this logic, you'd have to provide citations there, too. That could get ugly. --Esprqii (talk) 00:24, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I have put neighborhood articles through GA nominations - As you can see here Talk:River_Oaks,_Houston#GA a GA reviewer said "Hooray, they all have sources! :)" in reference to the list of notable references. - Better articles have more detailed sources. It does not overwhelm the article to have a citation for each person on a list. Also as per Wikipedia:BLP#Well-known public figures birthdays need secondary sources for citing birthdays. Wikipedia:BLP#Privacy_of_personal_information says that some people choose to keep birthdays private. Now, BLP doesn't address dead people, but it is still a good idea to have sources. WhisperToMe (talk) 02:09, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm willing to do the work to provide cites to every entry in a notable person list if that is what is needed (personally I think it makes for clutter, but if that's what they want at GA, I won't argue). However, I think it's rash to delete entire sections that may or may not meet the criteria we've laid down for Oregon communities (that is, connection to the place is at least cited in the person's article), especially because we here at WP:ORE are pretty diligent about keeping the junk out of these sections--we even have our own editing note about this. It's true you would have had no idea how much scrutiny this corner of the wiki gets. And it's true there may be some articles that don't even meet the WP:ORE criteria--I recently cleaned a bunch of people out of Dunthorpe, Oregon, for example--but if they at least meet our criteria, we should be given the chance to copy the sources over before whole sections are deleted. A note on the talk page would help. Thanks! Katr67 (talk) 03:03, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I am perfectly happy to help with citing entries - we could use the page history to go to the revision with the name list (unless the names are still there), work one by one by the list of names, and remove those who cannot be sourced. Also I would be happy to consult with the WP:BLP noticeboard and/or talk pages. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:06, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

(unindent)Oh, have you already deleted several of these? When I said I would help, of course, I didn't mean now. :) I meant more like, "as I go". There are 241 settlements in Oregon just counting incorporated cities! But I've still got some mayors I need to update so I can check those cities as I go... Katr67 (talk) 03:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Chiming in a bit late, but what do GA criteria have to do with this? That only matters if someone were trying to get an article through GA. Much like FL criteria wouldn't matter either. The other main point, is that in fact references are not always required. Remember, common knowledge does not need to be cited, only those being challenged or those that are controversial and so on. I'm all for citing everything, I think my body of work speaks to that. But unless we start removing all the unsourced info from these settlement articles (which would leave little content in most cases), then it comes across as someone trying to edit to make a point. If one challenges an entry, tag it (that's why we have these {{cn}} {{fact}} tags) and then remove it if no one adds a source. BLP instant removal is only an issue if its negative or positive info (contentious is the policy's term), and I'm not sure where someone lived would qualify as either in most instances. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:45, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Aren't we trying to make every article the best it can be? You said: "That only matters if someone were trying to get an article through GA." - Shouldn't that be the goal? - Anyway, I still stand by what I said (Every entry in these lists needs a reference) - As you can see at Lake Oswego, Oregon this is how to reference those lists. Keep in mind that the Wikipedia:BLP noticeboard will likely back up what I say. As for the "fact" tags, on WP:V Jimbo Wales said: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." - So when I see unreferenced information about living people, how am I to know that it is not of that type? - Anyway, we need to start referencing these people lists, and removing entries that cannot be referenced. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:45, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Student project heads up

FYI User:Tahx/ECA Student Wikipedian Project. This is a school in Pleasant Hill, Oregon. Katr67 (talk) 00:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

From what I can tell, the project was complete in May 2008. —EncMstr (talk) 02:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, well, one of the students did a bunch of edits on the Pleasant Hill article today. So I was prepared for a barrage of other such edits to Oregon articles. Good the student stuck around, though! Katr67 (talk) 02:46, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually about a dozen of those students made edits today and another 5 or so edited in the past week or so, so I think the project is still very much alive! Katr67 (talk) 02:53, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Question abt merging articles

Hi, Project Oregon. I've been going through and merging articles from the Articles to Merge list on the Wikiproject Oregon/Cleanup page. I've noticed, though, that on the discussion pages for those articles, sometimes there is no clear consensus on merging. (See those radio stations, KLVU etc, for example.) If they're on the Articles to Merge list, can I assume it's okay to go ahead and merge them? Sylvia A (talk) 01:48, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I regard Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Cleanup listing#Articles to be merged as a checklist of places to look for things to do, not as any suggestion that things should be done. However, almost all of those articles are lightly trafficked and probably receive little scrutiny, so a {{merge}} tag might go unnoticed and probably languish for years without a response. For such articles, WP:BRD seems appropriate. For the sports-related articles and the political party, I expect an invitation soliciting opinions would definitely answer the question. —EncMstr (talk) 02:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't see this post until I had reverted some of your merges. See my notes at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon/Cleanup listing. To further clarify, the list is produced by bot--the suggested cleanup list has been produced because there have been tags placed on the individual articles that are under the purview of WikiProject Oregon. They may or may not have been placed by members of WikiProject Oregon, and just because a member of the project has placed a tag, that does not mean that the project as a whole has agreed with the necessary cleanup. I hope that makes sense. If it's a fairly low-traffic article, and you have the time, it might be a good idea to check the page history to see who placed the tag, and if you are unclear about anything, ask the person who placed it. Alas, I personally do a lot of "drive-by" tagging so it's likely a lot of those tags were placed by me! It's good practice when tagging an article to put a note on the talk page, but I very rarely do that, so I'm open to questions. Sometimes I tag things by mistake. I hope that helps! Thanks for all your hard work so far! Katr67 (talk) 02:40, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, both of you. Oy. I think I'd better stick to style & grammar edits.Sylvia A (talk) 04:48, 28 January 2009 (UTC)