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Updating importance scale criteria

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This section is transcluded from Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject California/Assessment/Archive 2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the discussion.

It's been a while and the original importance criteria and examples which were originally set in 2006 probably need a bit of updating/clarification. It's probably best we start with what constitutes the Top importance articles, and after some agreement on those slowly work through each subsequent importance rating. As far as the general description I think what is written is fine.

The criteria used for rating article importance are not meant to be an absolute or canonical view of how significant the topic is. Rather, they attempt to gauge the probability of the average reader of Misplaced Pages needing to look up the topic (and thus the immediate need to have a suitably well-written article on it). Thus, subjects with greater popular notability may be rated higher than topics which are arguably more "important" but which are of interest primarily to students of hagiography. Importance does not equate to quality; a featured article could rate 'mid' on importance. Note that general notability need not be from the perspective of editor demographics; generally notable topics should be rated similarly regardless of the country or region in which they hold said notability. Thus, topics which may seem obscure to a Western audience—but which are of high notability in other places—should still be highly rated. Rate international region/country-specific articles from the perspective of someone from that region.

— Importance scale at time of this writing

Thanks for any feedback in advance. Once it's done we'll replace current table with a {{Importance scheme}} (with the Top, High, Medium, Low, NA, and ??? fields populated) -Optigan13 (talk) 05:54, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Top

Current language looks ok to me on the text.

Subject is a "core" or "key" topic for California, or is generally notable to people other than students of California. They define and determine the subject of the California WikiProject.

I think the below list should be comprehensive as to what should be. I've started with the links from main links of California, {{California}} and some reorganization of the existing Category:Top-importance California articles.

1. California
2. Geography of California

   Features

   Mount Whitney

   Mojave Desert

   Death Valley

   Lake Tahoe

   Yosemite National Park

   Sierra Nevada (U.S.)

   San Andreas Fault

   Mount Shasta

   List of rivers of California

   Sacramento River

   Colorado River (Natural state boundary)

   Regions

   Northern California

   Silicon Valley

   Wine Country (California)

   San Francisco Bay Area

   North Coast (California)

   Southern California

   Greater Los Angeles Area

   Inland Empire (California)

   Central Coast of California

   Central Valley (California)

   Coastal California

   Other political geography

   List of counties in California

   List of cities in California (by population)

   Los Angeles (1 by pop)

   San Diego (2 by pop)

   San Jose, California (3 by pop)

   San Francisco (4 by pop)

   Fresno, California (5 by pop)

   Sacramento, California (Seat of government)

   List of municipalities in California

3. Climate of California
4. Natural history of California
5. History of California

   Origin of the name California

   Spanish missions in California

   Alta California

   History of California to 1899

   California Gold Rush (Major Historical Event)

   Rail transport in California

   History of California 1900 to present

6. Demographics of California
7. Economy of California
8. Energy use in California
9. Transportation of California
10. Government of California

    Governor of California

    California Constitution

    California ballot proposition

11. Politics of California

    Politics of California to 1899

    Districts in California

    Elections in California

12. Culture of California

    Cuisine of California

    Music of California

13. Sports in California (I tend to want to leave the major franchises to the high level, hence no subpages here)
14. Education in California

    University of California (Major education system)

    California State University (Major education system)

    University of California, Berkeley

    Stanford University

    California Institute of Technology

15. List of people from California

    Junípero Serra (Significant historical legacy for state because of Missions)

    John Muir (Major environmental figure, most of work was in Cal and importance extended beyond state)

    Ronald Reagan (former Cal governor, US president)

    Richard Nixon (former Cal governorSenator/Rep, US president)

Please take a look at it and let me know what you think. I'd like to keep the total number fairly low(it's 64 pages at the moment), otherwise top importance loses its usefulness. So, if you suggest additions please suggest some removals (to high category).

Right now for the examples I'd suggest maybe California Gold Rush, San Francisco, and Ronald Reagan -Optigan13 (talk) 08:25, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Possibly include Stanford University and UC Berkeley as the two world class universities in California. Also given the international name recognition of Hollywood and the California movie industry something in that area under culture (I'm not sure Hollywood the city is quite the right article). --Erp (talk) 01:24, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking of UCB and Stanford, but I was a bit worried that it might be a bit odd to leave out UCLA and USC. From there I want to then put in UCSF, Hastings, and Caltech. Also I feel like the UC and CSU system articles cover a huge amount of education in the state already. But I might just be over correcting for my bay area bias.

It is odd not to have some general article about the Entertainment Industry in California. Cinema of the United States comes close, but it is trying to cover all of US cinema. It looks like a large part of it might have come from the Hollywood article at some point though. I also tend to shy away from California as nothing more than surfers and movie stars. -Optigan13 (talk) 05:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

There's a big difference between UCB and Stanford (and CalTech which I overlooked) on the international scene and the other California schools. Looking at two international rankings THE–QS World University Rankings (British based) and Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The first has California Institute of Technology at 5th and Stanford at 17th (out of 20 listed). The second has CalTech at 6th, Stanford at 2nd, Berkeley at 4th (several other UC schools are also there ranging from UCLA at 13th on down). University of Southern California came in 50th. Now all of these ranking systems do have a multitude of faults, but, they can offer some guidance on significance. (I'll confess to being a Stanford alum so I do have a bias). I would suggest dropping Music of California and possibly Cuisine down a level. --Erp (talk) 15:05, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I've put Cal, Stanford, and CalTech into top, and moved Cuisine and Music down to High. Those rankings around about the closest you can get to some accurate gauge of prestige (or something to that effect). -Optigan13 (talk) 02:19, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

arbitrary break-top

Maybe in purely academic terms Cal, Stanford, and Caltech are the most important schools, but I would bet you that USC and UCLA have more renown those schools (at least nationally) for their athletic accomplishments (USC in football and UCLA in basketball and in college sports overall). Also, using the pure academic rankings might be flawed because the steps are probably not discrete; the raw scores would probably be a better show of relative prestige than just the pure rankings. Finally, including Cal and Stanford but not UCLA and USC seems a bit biased toward NorCal since I would say that UCLA and USC are more culturally important in SoCal than CalTech. I would recommend dropping all of the individual schools down to a ranking of high and leaving the UC and CSU systems as the only top ranked articles.--mcd51 (talk) 18:26, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm ok with a move of those three schools back to high, for the same reasons I said above because it does have a bit of a balance issue to me. But I'd like to hear Erp's take on this before I start flipping these schools back and forth. -Optigan13 (talk) 05:05, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I admit to thinking academics are a bit more important than athletics and that international prestige trumps national prestige. I should point out that dropping Stanford and CalTech down means they have no representation nor anything about private universities except in the very broad education article at the Top level. I would be more inclined to drop the California State University system down one level and bring UCLA up that way we have one private and one public from both the south and the north. Another comparison might be Nobel prizes (Berkeley, 20 faculty (living and dead) and 24 alumni; Caltech, 31 prizewinners but 1 has two; Stanford, 27 prizewinners among the faculty (living and dead); UCLA, 5 faculty, 4 alumni; USC, 1 faculty (gotten at a quick glance around the web)). --Erp (talk) 05:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay on responding, but I'm a bit stumped on how to split this well. The problem is that USC and UCLA are known for college sports and not for pure academics. I've requested a popular pages list to see if UCLA and USC's popularity would cause them to show up on any 1.0 collections, to see if the sports and cultural notability would be represented by a traffic difference. The main issue I've been thinking of in terms of splitting the universities and colleges in the high, mid, and low levels was by enrollment. Enrollment size is why I'd rather leave the CSU system at top as well. Data collection for the popular pages list will start at the beginning of next month, so would it be ok if we just left this on the backburner and revisit it when we look at Universities and colleges in California on the whole, or at least until the page info is ready? -Optigan13 (talk) 08:22, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how important Richard Nixon is specifically to California history (he was btw never governor) as opposed to US history. Ronald Reagan has a greater role within California, but, I'm not sure he is in the top rank as a California governor. Mount Shasta might need to be in the top rank given that Tahoe and Whitney are. It dominates its region much like Tahoe does its (in contrast Mount Whitney though the highest mountain sort of fades into the rest of the Sierra Nevada). The San Andreas fault is possibly of top importance given its past and almost certain future effects on California. I've reorganized the geography section to separate regions (and subregions such the Silicon Valley) from geographical features to see if it makes it easier to evaluate (I might be making some errors here).--Erp (talk) 03:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks the reorganization is helpful. With Reagan & Nixon I was trying to flush out a few bios I could think of to balance out the geography, I'm not sure Jerry Brown or any other politician might fit, Nixon was just the next big Cal political figure. Dropping Nixon back to High is fine, but I'd like another biography to take its place if there's one that's applicable. Were you thinking of dropping Reagan back to High as well? I like San Andreas Fault for Top (added). I'm not sure about Shasta though, let me sleep on it. Maybe drop Death Valley to High, since it's overlaps with Mojave Desert. Maybe add in California poppy or Sequoia for some state symbols/flora? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Optigan13 (talk • contribs) 01:20, August 26, 2009

The problem is so many famous Californians. Earl Warren thrice governor as well as US Supreme Court Chief Justice. Ansel Adams as a photographer of so much of the Sierra Nevada. Not to mention so many movie stars:-). John Steinbeck born in Salinas and with much of his writings set in California. Perhaps we should balance top geography more with top history (Central Pacific Railroad, something on Chinese/Japanese immigration, something on the history of water disputes in California). Or perhaps look at the high biographies and try sorting them and see who comes out "high high" and might be kicked up to top. Oh, and California Constitution should be top. --Erp (talk) 18:10, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I've marked Mount Shasta, California Constitution, and Rail transport in California as Top, and moved Death Valley to High. California Constitution still needs a quality assessment. It might be best because of just the overwhelming number of people who do have that equally high influence to leave those Bios to that High ranking. Do you think Nixon should be at High, and not top? I'm a little stumped on what should be pushed into history above the other high history pages, also is it ok to leave it a bit geography heavy, or should we remove geography pages, or add more in. -Optigan13 (talk) 04:12, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Also with the wording for the description I'd add scope to "They define and determine the subject and scope of the California WikiProject." -Optigan13 (talk) 04:26, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I would move Nixon to high as most of his importance is not specifically California. I added the article California in since it is marked as Top and isn't in the list above. I also did some more rearrangement to try to group similar with similar. The project is a geographical (in the widest sense) and historical project so we should probably look at things from natural geography, political geography, cultural/demographic geography, natural history, political history, and cultural/demographic history. Some articles fall within more than one of these categories. We might also want to divide between lists, survey articles, single-topic articles (again overlap between the last two but the latter is less likely to have sub-articles such as between Government of California and California Constitution). The Top category probably will have more survey articles to cover scope and a few key single-topic articles.--Erp (talk) 14:57, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Nixon is back to high. I had left California in the header along with the nav template and project template since it's an obvious top. Are you talking about splitting the pages out in terms of the list above, or in the description? The 1.0 assessment will split the lists out on their own. I'm fine if you want to add some form of notes either as ref tags or some form of parentheses comments if you want to do that. I took another look at High class and feel pretty safe that there isn't any more material to bump up into top. -Optigan13 (talk) 22:53, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

break 2 - top

I may be late to this discussion but perhaps UCLA and/or UCSD should be included in the list of top importance schools. Both are very wel known educational institutions, and both are considered leading in different fields of study. For instance UCSD is known for its connection to Oceanography and Biological Engineering, and UCLA is known for athletics program and medical school. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:24, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, I believe that Death Valley is more significant to California than Mount Shasta, and I am curious as to why Mount Whitney hasn't been mentioned. Both Mount Whitney and Death Valley are the highest and lowest points within the State and the Continental United States. Therefore, both are more significant than Mount Shasta which is a high peak, but nowhere nearly as notable. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:39, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

As for ranking politicians, regardless of their political affiliation, I agree that Nixon should be considered High within the scope of our WPP, for although he held a significant national office, he was never the Governor of California. And if Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon are benchmarks for this category overall, the highest non-Governor & non-U.S. President could be evaluated at would be High. And to continue with that line of thought to be rated at high a politician would have to have been Governor and have served in a Federal level office, therefore Pete Wilson would be considered High, where as Jerry Brown would only be mid. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Moreover, I would say that all California Governors, or historical equivalences, should be rated at minimum of mid importance, and any individual who has held both State and Federal Senator offices should be rated at mid importance as well. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:03, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

With respect to the Universities I'd keep UCLA and UCSD at High for now, since Stanford and UCB have well known for a wide array of academics compared to individual schools. I had moved Death Valley to high since Mojave Desert was already included in top, and was somewhat redundant coverage of the area. I had set Nixon(yes I screwed up and mixed up Nixon and Reagan, I do that from time to time) back to High, as with all US Senators, I also set all California Governors to High as well, so Pete Wilson should be high. I set Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from California to mid just because of the large number of them, and I don't think they've had nearly as significant an impact. I'm pretty sure there was a discussion about the politicians before made those WP:AWB runs, but I'm spacing on where those were. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:52, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

If the article of the Mojave desert makes the Death Valley article top listing as redundent, then perhaps UC Berkeley should be considered redundant as well as it falls into the UC system, which it is a part of, and is already considered TOP importance.

Regarding political importance, perhaps Representatives should be auto-assessed as Low, Senators as Mid, due to the number of each from our fair state. And Representatives given a mid rating if they have held other offices at the state level prior to their term as a Representative. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:51, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd prefer to keep the Senators and Reps at High and Mid because their relative numbers pale in comparison to the number of ghost towns, businesses, and other rather obscure (but still notable) subjects that will fill up the low importance ratings. Any particular state offices you had in mind when you talk about reps? -Optigan13 (talk) 08:13, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

High, Mid, and Low

I know I said above that I was thinking of doing this by stage, but looking at Category:California it is probably easier to do this by sub-category, and deciding how to break them up by importance category, preferably by some numerical standard or something which is easily referenced. This was already discussed for settlements with High for > 100,000, Mid for > 25,000, and all else low. I've posted the wordings from the existing guidelines as well as the importance template's default wording. We can come back with examples once we've worked through the sub-categories. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:24, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

High-Class

• Existing - Subject is notable in a significant and important way within the field of California, but not necessarily outside it.
• Template - Subject is extremely notable, but has not achieved international notability, or is only notable within a particular continent.

I like the existing wording for this one. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:24, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Mid-Class

• Existing - Subject contributes to the total subject of the California WikiProject. Subject may not necessarily be famous.
• Template - Subject is only notable within its particular field or subject and has achieved notability in a particular place or area.

Subject is only notable within the greater subject of California, and has achieved notability statewide, but not necessarily at a national level. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:24, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Low-Class

• Existing - Subject is not particularly notable or significant even within the field of California, and may have been included primarily to achieve comprehensive coverage of another topic.
  
• Template - Subject is not particularly notable or significant even within its field of study. It may only be included to cover a specific part of a notable article.

Subject is not particularly notable or significant even within the field of California, and may have been included primarily to achieve comprehensive coverage of another topic. This includes topic of limited interest, including those at the city/county regional/local level. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:24, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

How about ...including those at the regional/local level.? Then it would include things that are important only for SoCal or NorCal as well.--mcd51 (talk) 18:29, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking city/county since it was more specific about what size region, but its basically things that may only be important to SFBA, Inland Empire, Greater LA, etc. Either way I've tweaked, may just need to specify with the examples, or longer language. -Optigan13 (talk) 08:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Buildings and structures

I can't think of a numerical way to seperate Category:Buildings and structures in California into importance levels, but I think presence on a list might help, with some items bumped up to high. I'm thinking of Category:National Historic Landmarks in California (105 pages) for Mid-importance with all others being low. Specific bumps up would be for:

1. Alcatraz Island
2. Hearst Castle
3. Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
4. Manzanar
5. Mare Island Naval Shipyard
6. Presidio of San Francisco
7. Rose Bowl (stadium)
8. San Francisco cable car system
9. Watts Towers
10. Cabrillo National Monument
11. Fort Point, San Francisco
12. Golden Gate Bridge
13. Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
14. San Quentin State Prison
15. Hollywood Sign
16. Grauman's Chinese Theatre
17. Griffith Observatory
18. Disneyland Park (Anaheim)
19. Disneyland Resort

Any feedback on this would be appreciated. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:42, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

List of National Historic Landmarks in California (135 sites plus some former and proposed) might be an easier starting point. I'll note that some significant buildings and structures may not be on the list. Examples seem to be Golden Gate Bridge (which should be high and if any structure in California deserved top this would be it), Grace Cathedral, San Francisco (mid)(for a variety of reasons working churches may not want to be listed as National Historic Landmarks and in this case the building is also not that old).--Erp (talk) 16:48, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

What about the California missions? Where should they go?--mcd51 (talk) 18:27, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Spanish Missions of California is more history and is classified at Top level. Individual still existing mission buildings probably range from low to mid. Some are National Historic Landmarks and so would be mid by the above criteria. We do need some method of determining the status of building/structure articles not on that list either because their significance isn't historic or for some reason they aren't on the list (e.g., San Quentin State Prison) or that they no longer exist and so can't be on that list--Erp (talk) 21:17, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Yup, Category:California missions are listed as a first level sub-category of Category:History of California versus about 2 or 3 levels down in Buildings & Structures, which is why I forgot about em. I added Golden Gate Bridge, Grace Cathedral, and San Quentin to the list. I'm not sure if items like Hollywood Sign, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Griffith Observatory, and either Disneyland Park (Anaheim) or Disneyland Resort should go in as well. We should probably go through the High Importance cat and look at what buildings/structures are in there already and where they should go. -Optigan13 (talk) 08:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)I've added the locations I noted above (Disneyland Resort was already High, so both pages are High at the moment). I've also pulled the intersection of the unknown importance category and 3 levels of the Buildings and structures of California, the results are located in one of my my sandbox. Category:Restaurants in California is in the structures category, but most of the pages are about chains, and not specific structures. I think they're find to just assess based on business guidelines when we get to those, otherwise low. Also, Category:Schools in California is in the structures category. I think we should ignore this until we get to the Education category. Both restaurants and Schools appear to be in for consistency among state categories, and there is some overlap in the categories so leaving them in overlapping categories makes sense. I also found a few pages that are high (Monterey Bay Aquarium (Aquaria in)) , (California Aqueduct (Aqueducts in)), and (Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct (Aqueducts in)). Those three seem reasonable at high for me, but let me know. Also Prisons in California is currently Mid, but I'm thinking that should be High. I think we should also add all missions in Category:California missions to Mid Importance unless they get a bump up for some reason. I've already requested Category:California ranchos for Mid as part of a bot run. It's much easier to tag some of these based on being in a category instead of doing individual consideration for level on each article. -Optigan13 (talk) 07:12, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I would be inclined to move the Category:Schools in California out of buildings and structures since it seems to include complete universities. If there are specific buildings on those campuses that would be another matter. I've done some work on Category:Stanford University buildings and structures though whether we should do the same for other universities may be debated. I've looked at the sandbox and some articles probably need to be deleted or renamed. I'll look through and see if some should have cats removed or altered. --Erp (talk) 23:50, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that this categorization seems to be consistent at least for Category:Schools in the United States by state. What appears inconsistent is Category:Universities and colleges in California, which we might want to move from the schools cat. I'm ok with working around it because the elementary and High Schools tend to have a fixed campus, but you might want to float this issue by WP:WikiProject Schools to see what their thoughts are. -Optigan13 (talk) 05:35, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I've moved Universities and colleges in California out of schools. I've also gone through and created categories in several major universities for buildings and structures and placed some articles there and also have created Category:University and college buildings and structures in California as a subset of Category:Buildings and structures in California. --Erp (talk) 23:28, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

That works for me, as long as it has some consistency. I've refreshed the list. Take another look and see if you think some more tweaks are in order. -Optigan13 (talk) 04:57, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Don't seem to have picked up some of the university buildings in your sandbox list (I looked for Stanford Memorial Church). Also I've renamed some of the street addresses to include city (except for 165 University Avenue which needs to switch directions on a redirect). --Erp (talk) 15:01, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) If they had an importance assessment it wouldn't have shown up it that list. The full building list was 8,809 articles with several getting in multiple times because of category overlap, and I didn't remove dupes. Below are all the "Stanford *" followed by several UC articles in that list. 165 University Ave, Palo Alto, California -Optigan13 (talk) 21:03, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

buildings and structures break

Apologies, I had forgotten they were only the unstatused ones. I must admit I wasn't aware of a Stanford Caltrain station (oops, looked at the article, I would call it a stop since it is used only during football games and there is no building, I'm pretty sure it isn't even worth an article). --Erp (talk) 23:38, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I've taken a look over the sandbox list. Not sure why Stanford University Press is considered a building and couldn't find anything obvious in the cats. Also W. M. Keck Observatory is in Hawaii should we NA importance? It is there because some of the UC campuses are involved. I've gone through some of the Stanford items and set importance (also fixed SFBA if necessary)--Erp (talk) 01:14, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Stanford University Press is probably coming in via Category:Universities and colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area which is a sub-category of Category:Buildings and structures in the San Francisco Bay Area. The observatory is probably in because of the California Association for Research in Astronomy (CalTech/UC). -Optigan13 (talk) 05:52, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm so do we move UC in SFBA out of BS in SFBA? Keck I understand and it makes sense as a building but should it be under WikiProject California or should we indicate it is Not Applicable or low? --Erp (talk) 06:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

U & C in SFBA's parent structure should match U & C in California. The various Cal sub-projects and task forces are all defined as a county or a collection of counties, and it is best if we keep the same structure for each county as we do for the state. I was trying to organize the Category:Universities and colleges in California by county, public vs private, and type (largely for specialty schools). This matches the general structure found in the US level. Because the coordinating organization is the combination of California University organizations it should probably be in, but low importance. I'd like to keep NA importance to Non-articles. The API fix should allow a bot project template run, so we may pick up SFBA and LA related unknown importance articles once the run finally goes through. Please tweak the U & C in SFBA, and any other regional U & C categories to have the same basic structure as the California setup. I'll perform an AWB run to rank the California Landmarks as noted above, and try to categorize the Universities and Colleges in California into the new categories I've created. From there we can see how that list would change. From there I can re-grab the info, and we can go for there. -Optigan13 (talk) 08:59, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Tweaked what I could find.--Erp (talk) 00:32, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Importance assessments of California settlement articles and Quality assessments

As part of the task force conversions proposed a bot run would be necessary to replace instances of the project banners. There are a few other items I would address as part of that same bot run if possible.

• An importance assessment of all settlements in Category:Unknown-importance California articles based on population size (assuming this is possible). I'm thinking along the line of (High = Pop >= 100,000, Mid = Pop >= 25,000, and all other pages being low). I'm not particularly attached to those numbers. I'm trying to think of reasonable levels, and not sure how many that means would be in the mid and low categories. I'm also not sure if this is possible with any of the existing bots, but I'll check.
• Tagging all articles in Category:California ranchos with a project template and a mid-importance (where one isn't already present). I feel they were of sufficient historical importance as they covered land which ended up being multiple cities and large parts of whole counties to warrant mid-importance.
• Assessing all pages for class in Category:Unassessed California articles in the same way with the [[previous run where we copy the higher of the project's assessments. Most of the articles should be in the unknown importance category, and I'm trying to limit the number of bot writes to each talk page. There appears to have been enough articles (especially those with stub tags) to decrease the number of unassessed articles by at least 100.

The reason I'm trying to do all of this is because I would like to have the class and importance categories to a manageable level so that we can effectively respond to new articles and re-assessment requests. Thank you everyone for all of your patience in reading all of this and in all your work so far. Are there any thoughts, questions, or comments? -Optigan13 (talk) 04:49, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with what you said. As far as the numbers for the cities, I'm not attached to those numbers either, but somewhere around there sounds good. From your prior experience in organizing things, I trust your judgment. Killiondude (talk) 08:24, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Task force replacement and assessment bot request

Just placing this here for a more formal wording and a bundling of several requests to link to

• Replace all transclusions of {{SFBAProject}} with {{WikiProject California|sfba=yes}}. Discussion
• Replace all transclusions of {{WikiProject Los Angeles}} with {{WikiProject California|la=yes}}. Discussion

For the remaining ones see above for the discussion

• Assess all articles in Category:Unassessed California articles for quality using the higher of any existing ratings, or stub tags if present.
• Assess all articles in Category:Unknown-importance California articles for importance. With the settings:
  • High = Population >= 100,000
  • Mid = Population >= 25,000
  • Low = Population < 25,000 ; including all settlements listed in Category:Unincorporated communities in California and Category:Ghost towns in California
• Tag with the project banner all pages in Category:California ranchos and setting importance to mid.

I'm off to go request this. Thanks to everyone who chimed in at the various discussions. -Optigan13 (talk) 02:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Since the standard for rating the importance of settlements already seems to be in practice and no bot run has been made yet, I went ahead and rated the importance for all Los Angeles CPD's and unincorporated areas by hand.--mcd51 (talk) 03:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the High cut off should be those cities that are over 250,000 in population, otherwise such cities as Chula Vista and Fremont would be considered high importance. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Well the bot run happened a couple months ago, but I'm in still in favor for the over 100K limit, largely because of the large number of low importance unincorporated communities (2,059), former settlements (1,162) and other articles. Template:CA cities and mayors of 100,000 population shows 63 articles, compared to all the other material Category:Settlements in California. It's not that the cities are so important that everyone in the world needs to know about them, but they are important relative to the large number of low and mid importance topics that we have, and will likely continue to see added, so increasing the number of high importance is helpful to split them out. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:14, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

New category: Mount Shasta

FYI: I created and populated Category:Mount Shasta and subcat Category:Glaciers of Mount Shasta.

New Sacramento task force?

Maybe one of these is in order. A lot of progress can be had here. --Starstriker7 06:13, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I just registered with Misplaced Pages, hope to write an article on my employer (Rabobank, a significant player in the Central Valley banking world based in Roseville, part of a giant Dutch bank which already has a Wiki article) and live in Sacramento as of about three years ago. While that article seems like a good start for a newbie -- something I know about and can write knowledgeably (yep,I'm well aware of the need for NPOV). I'd be glad to help with Sacramento since I'd like to get involved in Misplaced Pages, probably get more helpful as I gain experience.--Jbh5jbh5 (talk) 03:37, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Please be careful regarding creating said article as it may fall under WP:COI. As for the need for Sacramento having its own task force. I could see the need for a more inclusive Central Valley/Sierra Nevada Task Force, but in relative size Sacramento itself does not need a task force. I mean if San Diego doesn't have one, and it's one of the ten largest cities in the United States, why does Sacramento?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 08:29, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Bluewater, California page

(http://en.wikipedia.org/Bluewater,_California) is a hoax. Please remove it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.187.44.4 (talk • contribs)

It looks to me to be a valid place. It pops up on Google Maps () and GNIS has a page on it (). Killiondude (talk) 23:49, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree. But this website which was removed in the last edit is fake.Emargie (talk) 23:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

see more here --Emargie (talk) 05:14, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what there is left to do at this point, blocking Bluewaterca (talk · contribs) may be in order for inappropriate username for imitating an (WP:ORGNAME), but all of this is after the fact. Not even sure this is worthy of even a mention in the WP:Signpost. -Optigan13 (talk) 05:49, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree. The fake TV Station page is gone .--Emargie (talk) 06:08, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Idea regarding task force

Why not set the Southern California task force so that it does not cover Los Angeles and Orange counties, since there is a Los Angeles task force for those counties? WhisperToMe (talk) 03:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I would strongly advise against that. Until recently, the Southern California and Los Angeles task forces were entirely separate WikiProjects with their own self-defined scope. One Task force (and its members) should not be in the business of determining another one's scope. Both of those task forces are inactive at the moment, so this is largely a moot point. -Optigan13 (talk) 07:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, since the task forces are empty anyway, I would suggest revising the task forces so that none interferes with another. I understand that until now there were two parallel task forces that sort of covered each other. Now we need to drive LA-area editors squarely into the LA one, instead of having them split their duties between LA and Socal. Since Inland Empire has its own project, it is making the Socal task force almost redundant, if it wasn't for San Diego. Why not turn Socal into a solely San Diego task force? WhisperToMe (talk) 08:04, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I was unaware that Inland Empire had its own WPP until now. They only have four members, I don't see why they, and the LA Task Force aren't subsumed into the greater SoCal Task Force which is far more inclusive a task force than either of the two separately.

That being said, as States second largest city, I must comment that many in San Diego feel like we are considered far less important as other parts of the state, and receive significantly less attention then our size warrants both by the State Government and the general public at large. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:29, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate use of "Chinatown"

Please see Talk:Southern_California_Chinatowns and Talk:Chinatown, Talk:Chinatowns in Canada and the United States and related article talk-pages. Either citations for actual common-use (not promotional use) of places like Rowland Park as "Chinatown" should be provided or the article in question should either be deleted or renamed.Skookum1 (talk) 18:32, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Subcategorization of Category:California articles missing geocoordinate data by county

I've now added support for Californian counties to the {{coord missing}} tag, and subcategorized 3600 of the articles under Category:California articles missing geocoordinate data into their respective per-county categories. I hope this helps geocoding these articles. If you wish, you are also welcome to join the general geocoding project at WP:COORD. -- The Anome (talk) 01:38, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

List of United States federal courthouses in California

There are probably about a dozen courthouses missing from this page. Nine of them are at the FJC cite in the external links, the rest, locals may know better. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:21, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks like someone made that list using only the historical courthouses link at the bottom of that page. A second source would helpful if somebody wants to go look. -Optigan13 (talk) 07:47, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

The FJC is a good resource, but only for old courthouses. The rest might be found by searching the individual district court pages for the four districts of California. bd2412 T 19:18, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Pageview stats

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

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 06:02, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've added a link to the project page. -Optigan13 (talk) 07:47, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Request for comment

I ask fellow WPP Californian editors, to comment regarding a current discussion of content of the San Diego Comic Con article. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:40, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

There is presently an active effort by editors from WPP Comics to exclude information in the article San Diego Comic-Con International regarding participation of individuals, and expansion of the event to areas outside the comic industry. Furthermore, what mention there is of said expansion is framed in a non-neutral point of view, that puts non-comic industry participation in a negative light. Is there a way of remedying the issue regarding exclusion of referenced content? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 07:36, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Mount Whitney importance rating

Mount Whitney, in my opinion should be rated Top importance to the scope of our project. It is the highest point in the State of California, and the highest point in the contiguous/continental United States, therefore, it is more important overall to the project then Mount Shasta. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:58, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Fine with me. --Stepheng3 (talk) 23:16, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It is rated as top importance. I had listed it as part of the top importance suggestions at the assessment discussion, and no one disagreed, hence why it's easy to miss that it should have been top already. Sorry about the delay in responding, I'm trying to catch up on some talk page discussions. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:23, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Why was Death Valley, or more specifically Badwater Basin struck from the Top list? It is the lowest point in the State and contiguous/continental U.S. after all. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I've responded over at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject California/Assessment/Archive 2, I'm just trying to keep all the assessment discussion over there. I placed it on an archive page so that I could initially transclude it here to get more attention. -Optigan13 (talk) 00:09, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

IMO, the following geographical features should be top:

• Mount Whitney
• Death Valley (not one now)
• Lake Tahoe
• San Andreas Fault
• Pacific Ocean (not one now)
• San Francisco Bay
• Mojave Desert
• Sierra Nevada
• Salton Sea (not one now)
• Colorado, Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers (last one is not)
• Central Valley (California)
• Channel Islands (not one now)
• Yosemite and perhaps also Kings Canyon National Parks
• The cities of Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, Fresno, and Monterey (last one not one now)

Badwater is too specific a place to be top, though Death Valley should indeed be top Purplebackpack89 (talk) 01:38, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

See the assessment discussion at the top of this page (re-transcluded), we're rehashing the same discussion from August. -Optigan13 (talk) 02:05, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

That's because a wrong call was made in August, and I agree 100% with RightCow that Death Valley (along with some other stuff as well) belongs as top priority. I see no consensus for dropping Death Valley except for an unsigned comment, and two current contributors are clearly for it. Also, you shouldn't be making new edits to an archive (this applies to both Opt and RightCow) Purplebackpack89 (talk) 02:18, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I know about not posting in archives, but I was under the impression that Opt was the project coordinator. Furthermore, there is a duplicate conversation in the non-archive talk page. Of course, that would be a more appropriate place to post, and from what I have seen, any changes are reflected on poth pages. So you bring up a good point, but at the same time it is a bit moot.

As for back on topic, lets continue in the assessment talk page. Yes?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 09:07, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I added a new section. Hit it up. Happy T-Day Purplebackpack89 (talk) 18:50, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and SoCal

Newbie here. I don't see the Coliseum listed anywhere, as a native So. Californian I am very interested in your project and the Coliseum is important: The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is home to the University of Southern California Trojans football team. It is located next to the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena adjacent to the campus of the University of Southern California (USC). The stadium is jointly owned by the State of California, Los Angeles County, and the City of Los Angeles. The Coliseum has the distinction of being the only stadium in the world to host the Olympic Games twice, in 1932 and 1984. It is also the only Olympic stadium to have also hosted Super Bowls and World Series. It was declared a National Historic Landmark on July 27, 1984, the day before the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics. Also, you have not mentioned the Port of Long Beach, one of the largest shipping ports in the world. It has been mentioned as a prime target for terrorists because it would have worldwide repercussions. You mentioned the Loma Prieta earthquake but not the Northridge, the costliest seismic disaster in U.S. History. If you have these on another page please excuse the intrusion, but I hope to be of some small help and maybe a SoCal perspective.JoyDiamond (talk) 06:35, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Is this the article you are speaking of?

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 09:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Request for comment

As an organization based out of San Mateo, California, Junior Statesmen of America falls within the scope of our WikiProject. Presently there is a content dispute between myself and another editor, who may have conflict of interest, regarding a new section of the article regarding a single high school club, which is being referenced to a website from that club which falls under WP:SPS.

In an attempt to avoid an edit war, after the first reversion, I created a section in the talk page. I kindly ask others to comment on the present dispute. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 12:34, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

It's perfectly fine for you to delete the content regarding a single high school club. I may even ally with you in this so you don't get slapped with a 3RR Purplebackpack89 (talk) 16:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Merge Inland Empire Project into this?

Let's keep this all in one thread over there. -Optigan13 (talk) 08:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

We need to do it. Needs to be merged in like LA, SOCAL, and the bay. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 16:29, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why not. however, what do their members say to becoming a task force of this WPP? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 05:51, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

A few months ago, a discussion ended in no consensus. The problem is that it only has 50 pages and 4 members, much less than other Cali projects that have already been merge Purplebackpack89 (talk) 15:44, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you should reopen the discussion in the appropriate talk page, and let us know, so we can add our 2 cents. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:17, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

A discussion on merger of the Inland Empire project is open both here and at the Inland Empire Project talk page Purplebackpack89 (talk) 23:06, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

As the Creater of WikiProject IE, I think not we have made a lot of progress. Please see the project talk page, and we ask that you respect our requests. House1090 (talk) 04:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

OK...#1, you might want to get rid of that stray "not". #2, being a taskforce doesn't mean that all work on articles stops; but being a project means you violate precedent. #3, as far as I can tell, the "respect our requests" you're referred to is a several-months-old discussion where the only editor who clearly spoke out against the merger was you yourself, and now several editors, on and off IE, have come down in support of the merger. And finally, I think that you have a little too much invested in this project. I am 100% for this merger Purplebackpack89 (talk) 06:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll leave a note for Optigan to look into this, he's the one who actually did the merges of the other projects, so he knows the technical part. Because Misplaced Pages works by consensus, I'm afraid only one person wishing it to remain it's own wiki-project isn't enough support. Killiondude (talk) 06:31, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

As an afterthought, because the Inland Empire is not as major of a region as the other parts of California, I feel that it makes sense to make the Inland Empire project a task force of WP California. If regions of California were to have their own projects, it would first be Los Angeles, and then SFBA. To raise awareness of the latter I am posting the San Francisco portal (which indirectly leads to the task force) in several prominent articles. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:36, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion is live at the Inland Empire talk, so I copied your comment there Purplebackpack89 (talk) 00:28, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

San Diego task force

User:Alex537 started a San Diego WikiProject on the Spanish Misplaced Pages. Here I asked him if he was interested in starting a San Diego task force on here, and he said on his talk page that he was interested. Do I need to do anything else before setting up the task force? I helped start Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Michigan/Detroit - I hope to use that as a model for the San Diego task force. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:31, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

That's a good idea, i just hope that more San Diegans Wikipedeans can join us.--Vrysxy! (talk) 23:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Given that there are very few wikipedians in, or from, San Diego, I don't see a reason for it. However, if there are a significant number of wikipedians willing to work on articles who are connected to San Diego County, I would not be against a task force. After all there are projects with fewer active contributors. -sigh- --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:54, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking that the scope of the project would be everything in San Diego County. There may be some San Diego-area Spanish Misplaced Pages users who may decide to contribute in the English language version as well. Speaking of WikiProject Asian Americans, I am linking the project to several Asian American neighborhoods in the United States to increase exposure to the project. Also WhisperToMe (talk) 07:00, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

BTW I need to remind myself to add Iomega to the San Diego task force once it is established. WhisperToMe (talk) 07:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's see how many people are interested first. If there's enough interest I'll set it up using the same layout as the other projects, but I'm just finishing up with the Inland Empire task force conversion, and need a little break. Also, is there any reason why you don't think the main project or the Southern California task force would be a good venue for working on the same material? -Optigan13 (talk) 09:56, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

1. There is already a project on the Spanish Misplaced Pages specifically in regards to San Diego. There needs to be an equivalent project here, and a task force will fill that role.

2. The San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA MSA is the 17th largest in the United States - several MSAs below that position have their own WikiProjects (St. Louis, Tampa, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Austin, and New Orleans - As a note, while WikiProject Charlotte exists, it is inactive). Therefore there should be a significant interest in developing the task force.

3. I think the scope of Southern California conflicts too much with LA and other task forces, and also I think it is too broad to really work. I would prefer to have task forces generally set up around metropolitan areas instead of broad regions.

WhisperToMe (talk) 11:40, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree with this, and also perhaps a Sacramento task force Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

← Task forces are hardly needed when WikiProject California (itself) has very little activity. You'd be subdividing what is already an (essentially) dead project, in my opinion. Killiondude (talk) 01:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

California is the most populous state in the United States, and has many large metropolitan areas (especially Los Angeles and SFBA) - It is the center of the technology industry and it has the headquarters of the Wikimedia Foundation. Several California cities are popular tourist destinations and have an interest from outside of the state and outside of the country. See, WikiProject California is not supposed to be anywhere near dead. If you think it has less activity than it should, then tag California articles with portal links. Tag article talk pages with the California template if they don't already have the appropriate tags. Tag articles of SFBA-related pages with SFBA portal links. Aggressively let the population know that this project exists and that it is calling for members. If you look at my contributions list, I went crazy and spread the SFBA portal around to many such articles, and I plan to tag even more articles with the SFBA portal. WhisperToMe (talk) 02:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with User:Killiondude. House1090 (talk) 03:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Acceptance of WikiProject California having a perceived low participation is harmful to the project itself. Instead of saying "Oh, we have a low participation, so don't bother starting another task force," one should be saying "Oh, gosh! WikiProject California should not be having a low participation rate. It is wrong. We need to do something about it. This low participation rate is a problem for the project that needs to be solved, and we cannot accept it." You should be seeing this low participation rate as a disease, a problem, a malady. It is a flaw that needs to be fixed. It is a problem that needs to be solved.

I want this task force to be started, and if someone says "but we have a low participation rate already" one should stop, realize that it is unacceptable for WP:CAL to have this low participation on the English Misplaced Pages, and be striving to fix that. The WikiProject ought to have a high participation rate, and this WikiProject having a low participation rate is an embarrassment for the State of California and for the Wikimedia Foundation.

Currently I am spreading around the SFBA Portal to raise awareness of that region's task force. I am doing something to raise the participation rate of this project. Everyone needs to find some way to make this project's participation increase.

Anyway, Task force San Diego ought to exist. The region has the population and attention to be viable. Even if few Wikipedians who identify themselves as being from San Diego are visible, there is the potential to attract more residents from San Diego and people who are interested in the area, so one can make a reasonably sized task force for the city.

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:38, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Tell me what I can do then, I will be happy to help and try to save this project from disaster. House1090 (talk) 05:23, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Make sure all articles are tagged with WikiProject California.

If the article is about LA County or Orange County, ensure "la=yes" is included. If it is about SFBA, ensure "sfba=yes" is included - similar with other taskforces like Inland Empire, etc

Make sure that SFBA-related article have the SFBA portal (code: {{Portal|San Francisco Bay Area|SF From Marin Highlands3.jpg}} included in the "See Also" or "External links" section of the articles.

Adding the portal will draw readers into the SFBA task force, as the task force is mentioned in the portal and the task force is a reader's introduction into SFBA.

Non SFBA-related subjects (especially articles of statewide concern or state agencies) should have the California portal (code: {{portal|California|WPCF.svg}})

Consider establishing a portal for Los Angeles so it will be easy to attract readers into the Los Angeles task force.

Ensure that key topics (Tourist attractions, Fortune 500 companies and other major companies headquartered in California, major city agencies, state agencies, large school districts, etc) are all tagged first, and then go down to topics of lower and lower importance.

For instance I found that Visa Inc. was not tagged with the WikiProject template, nor was it tagged with the SFBA portal. So I added the portal and added the project tag

WhisperToMe (talk) 05:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I will start off with the Inland Empire related work and the work by way to the rest of SoCal and eventually Central and NorCal. Should I put my name in the list of Wikiproject Cal list, or is it fine if im just in the IE Task Force page? House1090 (talk) 05:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion I would try to put your name on both lists. Anyway, thank you in advance for your efforts :) WhisperToMe (talk) 20:39, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

No problem, I want to avoid Amerique as much as possible, so this should be good and should keep me busy for the next couple of days. Actually thank you for allowing me to work and join wikiproject Cal. House1090 (talk) 23:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Medal of Honor

I have began to tag those recipients of the Medal of Honor who were born in, or who came from, California with our talk template. I will go from present, backwards in time. The process will probably take several days, if not weeks, to complete.

Importance wise, should they be given automatic ranking, or is it case by case?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 11:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, I was thinking, would a category for those individuals like "Category:Californian recipients of the Medal of Honor", under the parent category of "Category:California military personnel", be appropriate? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 12:19, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I am not going to be adding people who retired, died, or were trainined in California, least every "Hollywood Marine" who was awarded the Medal of Honor, be listed. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 12:36, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, I have gone as far back as the Korean War. I'm going to take a break before sorting through the large number of World War II recipients. Also, would anyone else support the idea of creating a list of California MOH recipients? I don't want to create the page, only to have it AFDed. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:39, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

New article on Bay Area group at AfD

Yesterday I created Magic, Inc. (organization) and it's listed at AfD. I'd appreciate your opinions on whether the organization is indeed notable, as I thought, and if anyone has access to sources I haven't used, could they mention to me? I'm having problems searching newspapers since the Mercury News uses a paywall and in any case its online archive only starts in '85, I think it is, and they seem to have deep-sixed the (Palo Alto) Daily News archive. I also suspect there may be relevant books on environmentalism and/or the human potential movement that are too new to show up in Google Books that might cover the group, but I wouldn't know where to begin in identifying them. However, I do have access to the San Jose State/San Jose city library. So I'd appreciate any advice anyone could give; the AfD means I have to get my skates on improving this article, or let wiser heads prevail on notability. Yngvadottir (talk) 14:28, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Handling House1090 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Following House reporting me for edit warring over Polaron's improvements to the Inland Empire article, 2over0 recommended a project discussion over how to approach issues pursuant to this user, who some of you have become acquainted with due to his zeal in defending his preferred versions of anything that can be made tangentially or remotely related to the IE or San Bernardino, not to mention anything actually within those subject areas themselves.

His level of understanding of these areas (or rather "confusion", more appropriately) is made evident by his edits. This account has a lengthy history, most of which related to sockpuppetry is available here, but there is more over the year since then of edit warring primarily, not to mention horrifically bad English proceeding from his ability in that language, that I haven't collated yet for a full WP:AN review. My intention ultimately is to request support for a topic ban of House from any articles or nav templates relating to Southern California. I suppose the purpose of a discussion here would be to determine if a consensus at WP:CAL would support this action or if anything else can be tried. Thanks to all, Amerique 22:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

First off how were those improvements? Having an old IE metro picture, and calling the area a region when it is about Cal's 3 largest metropolitan area (MSA). Now I have done more contributions to the Inland Empire Articles, than you have. Also I want to change and stop arrguing with users and being such a pain, but you are impossible to work with and come to a conclusion with. I put stuff on the talk pages but people esspecially you ignore them, and just revert, revert and revert. I love wikipedia, if I did not I would not be here trying to help expand the IE and other articles. I am truelly sad you have suggested this but this is life, and I hope people can see beyond my past and see my side of the story. PS: when you stop contributing to the IE it was like ending a war, MissionJim.Inn and I disscussed and together edited the IE, and if one of us did not agree we would come to a conclusion. But not with you, I have tried but I am starting to think its impossible. Now as for my english I graduated from Cajon High School last year with a 3.67 GPA and in English got all A's in my 4 years of High School. Its just that I type fast and I tend to make a lot of errors and I am always in a hurry.House1090 (talk) 23:14, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

(e/c)House, in the few weeks that I've been aware of your presence on the project I can see that some of your contributions, while they may have been your attempt to help Misplaced Pages, have been somewhat disruptive. After reviewing your behavior on Misplaced Pages and reading the thread on WP:AN3, I can say that it looks very much like you edit with a distinct POV (see also WP:NPOV, which is Misplaced Pages policy) which is to further the topic of the Inland Empire on Misplaced Pages, no matter the cost. Sure, it's great to write articles or add content relating to a field you're interested in. But when it starts to become spammy, it's not good.

Amerique, I can understand your concerns about House, but you knew better than to edit war. I don't support a topic ban for House at this point, but I would strongly recommend that s/he takes a step back from their current behavior. Should I find more information, I might change my opinion, but that's how it stands at this time. Killiondude (talk) 23:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Please look at Talk:San Bernardino Valley and Talk:Inland Empire it looks as if I was talking to my self, when I am trying to talk out our differences so we can come to an agreement. This is what wiki is about coming to agreements for the better, but you have to be willing to talk it out rather than reverting with out a statement & judgeing without knowledge. These are exactly the problem with Amerique. By the way thanks Killiondude, for your support, and I do plan on taking sometime out will working with WikiProject Cal. House1090 (talk) 23:46, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Continuing to comment on Amerique won't lead anywhere. Please refrain from doing that. You can provide facts without the commentary (i.e you can say "I commented here, but Amerique didn't respond", not "These are exactly the problems with Amerique"). It is nice that you plan on stretching the topics you work on, on Misplaced Pages, but I don't think that means you shouldn't be careful about the bias you have been adding into articles. I would still recommend cautious content editing. :-) Killiondude (talk) 23:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, sorry for that. I plan to, I want to be more cautious of my edits, there is just times that you forget to look it over and leave it at that, you know? But I think communication is the key to happy editing here in wikipedia, and if we cant communicate we wont get no where, and so that is all I ask is to communicate, with who ever is involved. House1090 (talk) 00:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, let's talk. You are imposing your strange idea that "region≠MSA" on the thousand or so readers that click on the IE article each day. Polaron's edit used a simpler term in describing the area and also provided an explanation of what the MSA term means as applied by the Census Bureau. There was not a qualitative difference in the pics. One was less fuzzy, I suppose.

For some reason, you asked for input in that one case earlier about changing the name of the IE article, which you have been trying to do since you got here. While it was good that you did seek input, the fact that you had to be convinced and apparently still hold to a belief that the IE is entirely bounded by the terms of the Census, and therefore can't be a "region", shows how far off the map you are in terms of basic comprehension. I believe you sincerely want to improve the articles. If I was not convinced of this, I would have acted before now. But you are operating at a grade school level, at best. Other people, I believe, are willing to humor you because it is easier than confronting you. It gives me no pleasure to confront you. But if we care about the content of the encyclopedia, and not about humoring anyone's misplaced sense of egotism related to their area of origin, then we have to act accordingly to expedite quality controls.

For the rest of the audience, harsh as it sounds, sometimes the welcome mat has to be rolled up. Before House ever showed up on Misplaced Pages, I fully participated in driving off two hardcore trolls who were busy for months owning the University of California, Riverside article entirely to louse it up. That article could not have been brought within minimal WP standards and eventually to FA without the extreme vigilance of those Wikipedians who had confronted those users every step of the way. I'm not saying House is as bad as that, but a topic ban to get him out of the IE/Southern California mainspaces would be the best option for the articles, as he has indicated willingness to contribute elsewhere and may still improve if allowed to work on subjects he is dispassionate about. Amerique 01:27, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

First off, User:MissionInn.Jim is in favor of a name change, I can go either than thats why I suggested it The Inland Empire is a nickmname of the Riv-SB-Ont MSA. Now I only contribute to the IE because thats the only place that I have real know about in order to contribute. I am working in other places you dont know about. You are trying to get rid of me, and have been since the beginig, other users believe in what I can do and of my knowlege of the Inland Empire. I am constintly doing research in this area, everything I put down here in wiki is from my research and knowlege of the area, I dont make it up. Now how is a region the same as a MSA? Most people confuse the IE as being only SW San Bernardino County and NW Riverside County, now that could be the region but the article is an MSA which includes all of SB and Riv. Counties.

Now I M cting like in grade school, well so are you, by sinking to my level (i.e. edit warring, and not willing to confront me). When I got here to wiki the article did not even had a infobox, it was unorganized and was just bad. I did a lot of work on there, and its still is present there. You are no better than me, I am no better than you, but you think you own the IE related articles and you just get frusterated when people dont agree with you. You just want it your way dont you. You are also a very mean and insulting person to me and treat me with disrespect which I have just ignore, you have been fueling our fights. Ok I am not here to argue like a baby I am ready to move on and forget, but I dont think you can do that. I seems like your objective ever since I got here to wiki, is to get rid of me.

1. http://nisee.berkeley.edu/northridge/

• Project-Class California pages
• NA-importance California pages
• WikiProject California articles