Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 17:23, 31 January 2006

Cultural context info

The cultural context information is valid, if unpleasant, as anyone who has visited Big Spring can attest and was not added with the intent of "vandalism" but rather of including a factual description of Big Spring that may differ from that of the local Chamber of Commerce.

Please refer to WP:NPOV. I'm sure that not everyone in this town shares your point of view. Jasmol 05:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

The fact that not everyone agrees with certain information does not invalidate that information. In addition, the cultural context added provides far more useful information about Big Spring, than census data, geographical coordinates and the fact that a 35 year old movie was filmed there.

Yes, Big Spring sucks, we get that. I've been to Big Spring too many freaking times on stupid high school functions to not get that. But, this article is bad. Incredibly. Needs major cleanup work.

Any desire for a brief history of Big Spring? If nothing else, we could rework the blurb on the Cowboy's Steakhouse menu into something useable :) Applejuicefool 20:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

On the Culture information, it clearly does not stand up to WP:NPOV and should be removed. The description of Big Spring is NOT factual, as asserted in the first paragraph on this page; instead, it is a mass of opinion. "Many people believe..." What people? "The school system is appalling" opinion. "Football takes precedence..." opinion (and I'm a science teacher at BSHS). "The economic base consists largely..." sources? "One of the major career opportunities..." compared to what? Sources? "A high percentage of the population lives in poverty..." what percentage? source? etc. etc. etc. This section of the article is nothing but a slam on Big Spring and should be entirely rewritten. In fact, I plan to do so. Thanks, Applejuicefool 18:08, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

This weekend I will write some new content for Big Spring. For now, I am going to delete the entire Culture and Economy section on grounds of NPOV violation. You can't completely slam my town in every substantive way using undocumented opinions (as expressed in the previous paragraph) and then say (and I paraphrase) "on the upside it has good barbecue." Applejuicefool 14:38, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

The Culture & Economics discussion is quite valid. I am a third generation Big Spring resident, born and raised. I love Big Spring. Pointing out some of the challenges that face the city of Big Spring presents a necessary balanced view. If you want advertising copy, the Chamber of Commerce will be all too happy to provide fancy brochures that gloss over all of the difficulties that local residents face.

Ok, I don't want this to turn into a revert war, so I'm going to temporarily leave the content on there to let you explain why your content is balanced. While you're at it, also explain how your content is anything more than your personal opinion and how it fits in with Misplaced Pages policy. According to policy,

• Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia. Have you ever read content in a modern, reputable encyclopedia like your Culture and Economics section?
• Avoid bias.
• Misplaced Pages should only publish material that is verifiable and is not original research. If you're basing your information on your own personal experience living in Big Spring or on your own personal discussions with Big Spring residents, you are in violation of this tenet. In other words, according to policy, "One of the keys to writing good encyclopedia articles is to understand that they should refer only to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have already been published by a reputable publisher."
• Advocacy and controversial material. Please do not write articles that advocate one particular viewpoint on politics, religion, or anything else. By your own words, "Pointing out some of the challenges that face the city of Big Spring presents a necessary balanced view." Necessary for what? It sounds like you have a political agenda in your article. Even if you love Big Spring as you say, writing a Misplaced Pages article to shed light on its flaws is not the purpose of Misplaced Pages.

Incidentally, the first two bullets come from the Misplaced Pages:Policies and guidelines page, the third from Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and the last from Misplaced Pages:Your first article.

I'm not saying I want the Big Spring article to sound like Chamber of Commerce copy. Whether this endears me to you or not, I am a former Herald reporter and now a high school teacher. I don't have your three generations, but I do know something about both journalistic and academic style and integrity. I want the article to be factual and based on outside research, not a mass of anyone's opinions - yours or the Chamber's or even mine. Applejuicefool 03:47, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Ideas for rewrite

Ok, just moving ahead to give you a glimpse of my ideas for this page. I would like to:

• Rework the intro to give more general information about Big Spring.
• Keep the Geography and Demographics sections as is.
• Remove the Culture and Economics section.
• Add a section on Big Spring history.
• Add a list of Big Spring landmarks.
• Add a list of Big Spring's major businesses and industries.
• Add a list of Big Spring organizations.
• Add a list of Big Spring annual events (Pops, Christmas parade, Rodeo, etc.)
• Add a fair, unbiased treatment of Big Spring's major problems (Population decline, poverty, decline of downtown area, empty buildings, trash, etc.)

Ideas? Applejuicefool 04:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with Applejuicefool. I like to see town/city articles that have more information about the town than just the standard census stuff; however, the article should neither read like a promotional Chamber of Commerce piece nor a political commentary. The additions that Applejuicefool is proposing are all verifiable additions (or at least they should be). OhNoitsJamie 05:00, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the Corpus_Christi,_Texas is a pretty good Texas city article; maybe we could incorporate the city infobox that one uses? OhNoitsJamie 05:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for help to Jamie and Kuru! Applejuicefool 15:07, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

New Content

Ok, I'm going to add a new "Points of Interest" section on the Big Spring page, with subsections for Landmarks, Organizations, Businesses, and Events. Eventually I plan to fill them in with a page for each. Jamie, I looked at the Corpus page. I think the info box would be nifty...didn't have time this weekend to quite figure out how it was implemented. Applejuicefool 15:05, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Revising the intro. Applejuicefool 15:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Jamie, thanks for your edits. They look great! Question - what's the policy about linking to a non-official site? For instance, there's not an official Howard County (Courthouse) site, but I did find a non-official site that has pictures of the courthouse. 12.189.48.130 16:55, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

If there is no official site, the best non-official site makes the most sense. The two guidelines I try to go by are (1) don't get carried away with an External Links section (WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_mirror_or_a_repository_of_links.2C_images.2C_or_media_files|Misplaced Pages is not a collection of links]]) and watch for spam links (i.e., low-content or non-notable links that have lots of ads or Google syndication; Misplaced Pages is a hot target for spammers because of the massive traffic). OhNoitsJamie 17:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Political POV

65.122.236.133; the cultural section that you insist on adding is clearly in violation of neutral-point-of-view policy. As mentioned before, this isn't an attempt to sanitize the article and have it read like a PR piece; on the contrary, I often remove positive statements from various articles for the same reason that I've removed the "cultural" section; it is 90% point of view and/or unverifiable statements. There are a few elements of it that if sourced could be appropriate; if you could dig up some poverty statistics, or employment statistics (verifying that the prison is indeed the biggest or one of the biggest employers), that would be fine. The Detroit, MI article provides good examples of how to discuss the negative aspects of a city while maintaining a neutral point-of-view. There is no place in this article for positive/negative commentary about Republican/Democrat/Libertarian/Communist policies. OhNoitsJamie 05:35, 31 January 2006 (UTC)