Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon/Archive 17

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musician in Oregon that needs attention

New article. It had one more reference, which was only used to indicate parts of Portland are high-crime. I don't think the artist is notable, but I don't have time to research- gotta get on a plane soon. tedder (talk) 15:55, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree: it might not be notable [1], [2], but we'll have to check if it meets WP:MUSICBIO. Jsayre64 (talk) 23:25, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
Tedder, with all due respect, I think the high crimes in those parts of Portland are mostly harmless. -Pete (talk) 19:59, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

OSU archives on Flickr Commons

Hi WPORE folks! Outside my fellowship work, I have noticed so many great photos uploaded by OSU to Flickr Commons, but unfortunately though they state 'no known copyright restrictions' the actual explanation is somewhat vague. I just wanted to let you all know that today I emailed the archives about clarifying the licensing for those photos. If so, we could get hundreds of historic photos, many of Oregon. Fingers crossed, Steven Walling 03:28, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I've uploaded a few, but it's certainly questionable. See also #a new source for old photos. tedder (talk) 03:41, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm hoping that if we can confirm their viability then we can have them mass uploaded. Then all we have to do is describe and categorize them all. ;) Steven Walling 03:47, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Sounds good! Be sure to give us an update if you hear a response. --Another Believer (Talk) 16:36, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

List of museums in Oregon--routine maintenance

I wasn't involved much in expanding this (I tend to lack enthusiam about list articles) but I noticed someone edited it today and I thought I would do some tidying and standardization of the punctuation and links. But yikes. OK, first of all, it's a {{linkfarm}}. If it were up to me, I would remove all the external links not being used as citations because Wikipedia is not a tourist guide, nor is it a directory. I have various ideas about how to proceed, but I wanted to check in first before I went ahead and just removed the links. Note some of the links ("website") are "official" and others ("web page", "information") are pages with information because the attraction doesn't have an official page. One easy fix would be to turn all the links into citations, but I'm probably too lazy to do that myself. What do you awesome featured list developers say? Valfontis (talk) 20:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

In this case, I'm not so sure -- the way the sites are linked seems useful to the reader, and also to any Wikipedians looking to "bluify" the redlinks. Making the external links into footnotes would, I think, only make a complex page even more complex to navigate; I don't seen any benefit beyond standardization.
I also think it's somewhat relevant that Wikimedia and museums share an educational mission. As distinct from, for instance, a list of tobacco brands or supermarket chains, the reader is likely to be seeking the educational content contained in the museum's holdings. As an encyclopedia, I think Wikipedia should aim to support that educational effort; if the reader is unable to find the desired content in a Wikipedia article, it seems only natural they should be able to easily click through to the museum's site and continue the search there.
I do think the list could use some work, but the external links, as they're formatted right now, don't strike me as a problem. -Pete (talk) 20:20, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
Gosh that is an intense list. I had no idea there were so many.
I think aboveboard to add a column for "official website" and move the appropriate URLs; the others could made into citations, or lost. An enduring example of this strategy (which I started) has significantly helped keep spamlinks at a minimum for related articles; see List of real-time operating systems. —EncMstr (talk) 20:27, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
Pete makes a sound argument for keeping the links--but it's the formatting I really can't stand! My "some links are OK" solution is similar to EncMstr's--ditch everything but the official links. Until all the redlinks are blue! Then death to all els! ::evil laugh:: Museum COTW (again) anyone? Valfontis (talk) 20:46, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
On a closer look, I agree with both of you. An "official web site" column like in the above example would be an improvement; and yeah, the extra "information" links would probably work better as citations/footnotes. -Pete (talk) 20:53, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
Me too. The external links within the "summary" column make the column somewhat messy, and clearly the list needs more references. I'm puzzled why we need a "region" column if we already have columns for "community" and "county," respectively. And as for a museum COTW, I think it would be cool to create articles for some of the notable museums among those red-linked in the list. Jsayre64 (talk) 02:13, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction

Looking for some suggestions here. The Oregon Legislature just passed a bill that the Governor will soon sign that in effect, changes the Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction from an elected to an appointed position. However, due to the Legislature not wanting to monkey with the Constitution, they are actually making the Governor the Superintendent (as prescribed by the state constitution) and giving him the power to appoint a Deputy Superintendent, who would do the job. It also adds some like, you know, qualifications to the job. Go figure.

So my question is: should we rename the current article to Oregon Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction, note the legal change and carry on as is; start a new article describing the new position, and let the existing article just reflect the changes and I suppose update the table with the names of the current governor; or do we keep the article with the same name so as not to confuse anyone needlessly, make a notation like ("officially, Deputy Superintendent..."), and carry on, noting the change? Or my favorite, SOMETHING ELSE. Anybody got an idears? I started making changes a couple of ways and it gets a little sticky.

--Esprqii (talk) 17:53, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, we definitely better wait until when/if the law takes effect, and when/if so, yes, we should definitely reflect the changes. After that, we should move Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction to Oregon Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction so that it can automatically both reflect the law and help readers who aren't yet used to the change by creating a redirect. As for mentions of the change in related articles, I think temporary footnotes should do the job until this news is old. --Jsayre64 (talk) 19:23, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Good point that we don't need to do any moves until 2014 when the law takes effect (after Castillo's term ends). When Kitzhaber signs the law, I'll make an update to the current article indicating that the position will no longer be elected. --Esprqii (talk) 19:31, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)(What's the problem, with, like, Valspeak? --Val) All of the above. Castillo's term runs until 2014 (or earlier if she happened to resign), correct? I like the idea of a page move, but even when the law goes into effect (can't see the governor not signing this), we won't have a deputy SPI for several more years. I think we should just add to the current article for now but redirect the deputy redlink to the current article until such time as a page move makes more sense. Valfontis (talk) 19:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
I think we can in fact have an article for the deputy position once the law takes effect because it exists even though no one will have the position for some time. Until someone takes the position, the article can describe the position, how it's appointed, etc. Once someone becomes that deputy, we'll of course add that to the article. Jsayre64 (talk) 19:54, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Maybe we're all saying the same thing, but I don't think it's worthwhile to create a Oregon Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction page that's anything other than a redirect now--and then as soon as the law goes into effect at Castillo's resignation/end of term, move the redirect to be the official title of the article and the old title redirects. I think we need to retain the list of all the SPIs in the DSPI table and note the distinction. In other words, I don't think we should have separate articles on what is essentially the same position. The first similar example I could think of was how Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (ye olde term) redirects to Secretary of Health and Human Services. Same job, more or less, different title.
I read something in one of these articles (or somewhere, I've been kind of Hatfield-geeking lately) about how when Hatfield was governor he tried to change the position to an appointed position and went afoul of the Constitution. Might be some good background to the current change. --Esprqii (talk) 21:41, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
If you're Hatfield Geeking, let me know if you need a photo of the Gingko tree he insisted be saved. Valfontis (talk) 22:00, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
<chuckle, chuckle> Esprqii: we are saying the same thing. You just wrote a more detailed version of what I had written. Jsayre64 (talk) 22:11, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I had not heard about Governor Hatfield's gingko tree. Who's going to water it when Brad Avakian runs for Congress? I have one in my front yard (invasive species alert!). It was there when I moved in so it's more than ten years old, but still rather puny and nothing like that specimen. The big ones are beautiful in the fall. Maybe in 50 years or so I can enjoy that. From my hovercraft. --Esprqii (talk) 22:50, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Wiknic

Wikipedia:Wiknic is planned for June 18th or the 25th 2011. Would love to work with a group of folks to make this work for Portland. The flavor that I will be bringing to this, is that this Wiknic will be for for all Wiki. :-) Best, MarkDilley -->

I hope for photos, hopefully something to rival these fashionable folks!
Yeah Mark! I somehow imagine you all gathering at Champoeg, Oregon, though I suppose someplace more populated might be more practical..I'd love to come, but will likely be wiknicking in SF. (Hey Tedder, looks like there's one happening down south too…) -Pete (talk) 20:41, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
Won't anybody Wiknic with us? If y'all think this would be fun, maybe the page I set up for the San Francisco Wiknic would be a useful template… -Pete (talk) 01:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
The San Francisco event should be fun, Pete! A meetup page has been created for Portland. --Another Believer (Talk) 15:54, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

REMINDER: Wikipedia:Meetup/Portland/Wiknic. Not certain I can attend, but I still support the event! --Another Believer (Talk) 18:06, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Not to be critical, of course..but it seems like y'all aspiring wiknickers might have a better shot at finding each other if somebody would announce where you're going to meet…and maybe ping the handful of other people who've signed up? -Pete (talk) 18:10, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

This article received a small spike in traffic this week, likely to an OPB special about the festival which aired. I posted the link containing the video on the talk page--feel free to post any other sources you may have come across. This event is quite interesting, unique, and delightfully Oregonian. Certainly one to get to FA status over time. I am a bit busy at the moment, but I'd love to get around to doing additional research on this subject/event. By all means, though, take a stab at expanding if you are interested. Just thought I would note the documentary. --Another Believer (Talk) 19:36, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Definitely need to do some updates to the article with this info. In particular, more about the event itself, such as a list of the bands, seems essential. I see the OPB article includes a partial band list to get started. --Esprqii (talk) 19:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
I can probably add a little info from the copy of Fire at Eden's Gate that Tedder sent me. -Pete (talk) 17:41, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

It appears someone associated with The Oregon Holocaust Resource Center decided to participate in this week's collaboration of the week. I did, however, revert the edit, as it did not include a source. My revert can be undone if someone sees fit. Happy to see the attention given to the article, though! --Another Believer (Talk) 23:04, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

SawStop

You might consider creating an article on SawStop (http://www.sawstop.com/), a startup company in Tualatin, Oregon which since 2005 has sold tens of thousands of table saws with an electrical sensor that detects when the blade touches flesh instead of wood. According to one source, its technology has prompted hearings by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to consider whether the feature should be mandatory. Its technology was the subject of the Illinois General Assembly's 2005 Electrical Saw Safety Act, and has been the subject of Congressional lobbying by major saw manufacturers. I suspect these references and others mean the company is notable enough. I just wikified the two references already present in Wikipedia. 67.101.7.183 (talk) 16:39, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Do you want to help create the article? I've followed sawstop since before 2005, they've tried hard to sell the patent, (and when that wasn't successful) sell their own brand of saw, (and when that wasn't successful) lobby to have it legally mandated. Because it's a revolutionary idea that has received plenty of press, it'll have no question passing notability guidelines, but I'm not really interested in creating it- but I'm willing to help. tedder (talk) 22:52, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I created a first draft of such an article, called Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon/TempSawStop. It's got several refs, an infobox, and categories. It needs work but I think its enough to move to SawStop. 67.101.6.107 (talk) 09:16, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
It looks like an excellent start -- but there is really only one high quality, independent, focused reliable source in there (the design article). I'd recommend adding in one or two of these somehow before moving to mainspace. Maybe not necessary, but it should help fend off anyone raising notability concerns. -Pete (talk) 20:09, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
I'd be interested in having other members of the wikiproject weigh in on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon/TempSawStop as it is right now. It has five references, only one of which is a primary source, with the others being Design News, and one each from a U.S. federal legislative branch website, a U.S. executive branch website, and the website of the Illinois General Assembly. As I said, it certainly can be improved, and I plan on helping improve it after it becomes an article. I think the existing references are sufficient for moving it into place, and I ask you to reconsider and others to take a look. If Peteforsyth's is the consensus viewpoint of the wikiproject, feel free to delete the draft I did, since I have no further interest in working on it as a talk page draft. Thanks. 67.101.5.155 (talk) 05:42, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
67, I think the draft is fine as it stands; as I said, an "excellent start." I don't throw that term around lightly. The company's notability is clearly established by the number of hits in the search I linked above. My suggestion is merely there to avoid the possibility of Wikipedians with a more deletionist bent than myself from objecting. I support you moving it into main space as is, if you feel it's time. You should be aware that other Wikipedians may share my belief that the government sources don't add much to the case for the topic's notability, but the Design News article should be enough by itself; and adding one of the NPR sources or similar would clearly put it past the notability threshold.
Again, nice work. -Pete (talk) 16:32, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. Once someone moves it into article space, I'll work on improvements. 67.100.125.24 (talk) 22:23, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
It was just moved. Jsayre64 (talk) 22:53, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for moving it into article space. I've worked on the article as I said I would. 67.101.6.105 (talk) 20:44, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't have time to look into this, but the article looks like it could use a few more observers. I had left someone a COI notice regarding edits to the article a few months ago, and they replied on my talk page about the controversy (I don't recall what it was) but I didn't have a chance to get back to him/her. I have slight COI as I know people who knew (and liked) her when she was in Oregon. Valfontis (talk) 14:59, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Meetings

What is the status of Wiki Wednesdays? Where is the most activity regarding these and other Portland meetups? Wikipedia:Meetup/Portland does not contain much information or activity (even the Wiknic failed to come to fruition from what I can tell). I don't make it over to the Portland Wiki very much... perhaps that is my problem! --Another Believer (Talk) 22:42, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

It's hard for me to get to Portland, and half the people I know in real life and Wikipedia moved to California! If it helps, there will be a WP:ORE embassy here next week, shoot me an e-mail folks who will be there. Valfontis (talk) 23:14, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
The PortlandWiki folks are the ones pushing WikiWednesdays forward these days..if you can believe it, they seem to get together for casual chatter every Wednesday, AND ALSO every Monday for write-a-thons! Best to keep an eye on that wiki, and/or join the Portland/wiki email list, to stay informed. I'll be back with links unless somebody gets there first! Gotta run, you know, California stuff to do.... -Pete (talk) 00:40, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Tom McCall

Tom McCall article previously had two pictures—a good head shot in the info box and interesting photo of Gov McCall during energy crisis embedded in text. I thought this was nice combination since it provided readers with a good image of McCall’s face and a separate activity photo of the Gov at work. However, the head shot was a “Fair Use” image which is only appropriate for Wikipedia as long as there’s no “Free Use” image that can replace it. Based on that rule, an editor just replaced the head shot with the activity photo. Unfortunately, the activity photo shows the Gov working in lamp light (and looking down) so it’s very hard to see his face. In my opinion info box needs good head shot of the person who is the subject of the article, and the lamp light photo currently being used to show Gov McCall isn’t an adequate replacement for the previous head shot. Does anyone else have thoughts/opinions on these Tom McCall images. This is time sensitive since orphaned “Fair Use” images (like the deleted File:Tom McCall, Oregon Governor, 1967-1975.jpg are quickly deleted (in this case, on/about 4 Jul).--Orygun (talk) 01:08, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

The non-free image is probably going to be deleted because it's an orphan and it is replaceable by a free equivalent. I agree that the photo of him during the energy crisis is not ideal; this one may work better (provided that the portrait depicted isn't copyrighted). I'd say you should play it safe and ask at WP:MCQ. Jsayre64 (talk) 04:08, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Oregonian archives

Wow -- for anybody in Multnomah County, the NewsBank newspaper archive available through their web site recently added Oregonian archives from 1861-1972. Lots of good info to mine there! (And, it's as good a time as any to point this out to any who have missed it: a while back, several of us started keeping notes on reference resources here: WP:ORE/Reference Desk) -Pete (talk) 16:44, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Welcome to the party, pal! --Esprqii (talk) 16:57, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Hey, it's a State of Excitement! I won't ask my "friend" to lend me his card number, but he is willing to do lookups, just let me know. Valfontis (talk) 17:57, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
I was glad to see this mentioned here (again, but 11 months later), because I was beginning to think that this huge data upload by the library (made in stages between July and about November 2010) was not well-known even by members of this very active project. And thanks, Esprqii, for updating the relevant Reference Desk section; I had been meaning to suggest that (too lazy to do it myself) for awhile now. The fact that it's all searchable makes it a goldmine of info., and its availability – which I learned of from this very page last August – led directly to a significant increase in my Oregon-related editing (at the expense of many non-Oregon items on my lengthy WP to-do list!). SJ Morg (talk) 12:11, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

() This might be a good time to mention that I have access to Credo Reference, thanks to Credo and the WMF. I think Pete got an account too. Anyone else? Another newspaper source that I can't recall being listed at WP:ORE is the UO's Oregon Digital Newspaper Program. This is in beta and sometimes the site goes down while they tweak the database--cached version often works, but note the OCR ranges from good to inadvertently hilarious to gibberish. Valfontis (talk) 18:19, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah geez. I remember the old days, when you had to pay off the guard outside the library and crawl through dusty tunnels to dig through smeared piles of microfilm to find this stuff. Glad to see you guys were all over it. Now get off my lawn and write some articles!! -Pete (talk) 21:24, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
I have a Credo Reference account as well. LittleMountain5 21:28, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Me too, though I think I need to do more exploration as my first attempt using Credo was not very successful. Any tips? --Another Believer (Talk) 21:49, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Context here.

Just a note to inform you that I've volunteered the project's services to help out a user who has some COI with this article. No offense to whoever wrote it (I didn't look) but the phrase "approximately as the crow flies south" would make me twitchy too if I worked for the National Park Service. Valfontis (talk) 00:49, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I noted a link to a good source on the article's discussion page. –droll [chat] 06:56, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Oregon state parks

I've been working on Oregon state parks and there are two related things that I question. First, Category:Oregon state parks is included in Category:Protected areas of Oregon. I checked the state parks categories for Utah, Arizona, New York state and California and those state parks are not included in a protected areas category. (Washington state parks are included in a protected areas category.) It seems to me that some state parks are highly exploited and do not qualify as protected areas. I guess some do, but not all. Also, if they do not qualify as protected areas, should the banner {{Protected Areas of Oregon}} be used in all of these articles? –droll [chat] 07:26, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm gathering more data so perhaps we should hold off on this discussion for a bit. –droll [chat] 08:10, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
So it turns out that all articles in Category:State parks in the United States, which includes all state parks in the country, is in Category:Protected areas of the United States by state. This means that Wikipedia considers every state park in the country a protected area. So my point is moot, I guess. It seems to me that the way we apply the term protected area renders it meaningless since many state parks are no more protected than commercial campgrounds. [End of rant]. –droll [chat] 16:17, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I suppose it depends on your point of view. I have assumed that a "protected area" is actively defended against some random person coming in and building a house or shopping mall. Maybe you are thinking it is protected against any kind of change at all? —EncMstr (talk) 17:22, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I think the application of the protected area cats is more the domain of the categorization folks rather than WikiProject Oregon folks. Personally I think the interpretation of what goes in the category is a bit loose, but I mostly leave it to the categorization experts to sort out. Valfontis (talk) 17:46, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

no attribution of CCbysa3 photo

Recent updates to Exploding Whale added content from an intriguing source, http://www.offbeatoregon.com a roundup of interesting Oregon tales. The one about Forest Park has an appealing photo of a random park trail. Looking more closely, it resembles one I took, so I looked to see where it was taken and who took it: The author attributes the photo to a Portland Monthly blog, where the very same photo appears—without attribution. But wait a minute, did my photo have so many ferns in the foreground? I finally looked (right), and sure enough: it is my photo. I don't see any attribution on the blog, nor in the page source.

I'm not sure whether to be flattered or upset. What should I do? What can I do? Does Creative Commons have a mechanism for chiding or pursuing misappropriation of content? —EncMstr (talk) 07:43, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

That's annoying. It's especially annoying for me because I should have recognized that photo from the Wikipedia page. (Offbeat Oregon is my baby --more on that here.) I'm updating the page to reflect the right credit (and disconnecting the link to Portland Monthly). It's a great photo. Finn-jd-john (talk) 13:39, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
BTW I sent Brian Barker an e-mail about this. Portland Monthly is a solid, professional mag and I'm pretty sure they'll fix it on their end too. Finn-jd-john (talk) 14:16, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
One time Tedder had a similar problem--his photo of the Boardman coal plant was used on Brian Libby's PDX architecture blog, I believe. When I read his license and the one on the above photo where it says "attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)." I don't see a clear place where the author is to specify how to attribute the work. Is that how it looks to anyone else? I think perhaps in the absence of a statement clearly stating something like: "Please attribute this to EncMstr" people kind of think the photos are public domain? Does something over at commons need to change or am I showing evidence of my copyright understanding impairment? Usually my reading comprehension is pretty good but I find this kind of confusing. Valfontis (talk) 17:39, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
P.S. Thanks Finn for getting this cleared up! Valfontis (talk) 17:40, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
@Finn-jd-john: thanks for fixing it on your site. I don't see any change on Brian Barker's blog yet, but I'll take your word for it.
A useful tool for identifying image usage on other sites is http://www.tineye.com It doesn't find them all—probably because is isn't too aggressive of spider—but it sure does a good job of finding matches. —EncMstr (talk) 18:15, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
Fun tool! I've got images at the Daily Mail and the Dexter Daily Statesman. My images are generally crappy so they're in the public domain. I still get a credit occasionally--"Cuckoo's Nest" photos seem to be the most popular. Valfontis (talk) 19:12, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
There's also this site. It seems like it borrows most of its Creative Commons pictures from Wikimedia Commons, but it's cool to be addressed as a "source"! Jsayre64 (talk) 00:35, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Not legal advice. First, O-Live used one of mine a few years ago of Lattice without attribution (they have since used it numerous times with attribution). So I sent them an email that in essence was a "take down notice" though I actually told them the could use it, they just needed to credit it to me. They eventually complied by removing the image. Basically as long as they had a process for removing it, they would have been able to claim the "safe harbor" provision of the DMCA. Further, had I wanted to sue, I would have had to register the copyright. Then, had I won, there would have been limited damages, as if I recall correctly, I would only get damages for the improper usage after the copyright was registered.
As to CC license ambiguity, basically the default is that you provide attribution by listing the person who created the image. The "in the manner specified by the author" is basically to say that 1: do it as I tell you and list me and not Wikimedia Commons and/or 2: if I tell you to attribute it to me as "World's Greatest Photographer Named John" then you have to do it that way, no if ands or buts. You want to use my work, fine, but I am the master of my domain and you do as I say or no soup for you (to borrow some lines from a certain sitcom). But if nothing is specified, just put the name. In essence, listing the name is the default, and you have to at least do that. For an analogy, if you are driving down a road and do not see a speed limit sign you are not free to drive 120 mph, and that at most you could go 65 in Oregon if you happen to be on an interstate. Or for another example, if you see a picture on the internets and there is no copyright © on it, that does not mean it is free (I know most people don't seem to get that in general). Aboutmovies (talk) 06:55, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
@Finn-jd-john: did you receive any response from Brian Barker or Portland Monthly? So far, there is no change at the blog page. —EncMstr (talk) 21:58, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
I haven't heard a thing. I was just thinking about this yesterday, and thinking I'd better go see if they'd done anything. I'm wondering of the e-mail was overlooked. I'm going to send Barker a second e-mail with "copyright violation" in the subject head and follow it up with a phone call ... that ought to get their attention. Finn-jd-john (talk) 15:18, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Bend, Oregon at Commons

Methinks this collection of 34 images does not represent Bend very well. Be sure to upload any images you have taken in Bend! :) --Another Believer (Talk) 16:12, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Update: Added a few images from Flickr; created subcategories for Old Mill District and Tower Theatre, and added Commons links to both articles. Hopefully more to come! --Another Believer (Talk) 16:37, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

WP Oregon in the Signpost

"WikiProject Report" would like to focus on WikiProject Oregon for a new Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Other editors will also have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 01:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I greatly approve of this as both an occasional WP:OREGON participant and an occasional signpost editor! I can't volunteer myself for the article (inactivity), however I would like to say make sure to get someone involved in the Portland Wiki-Wednesday meetup for the article (Oregonians better than me will be able to refer you). jorgenev 01:42, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Off-topic: Portland Greyhound garage

Ages ago some of us were talking about the old Greyhound garage/terminal thing in Portland. Here's a Portland Preservation blog post about it. Valfontis (talk) 01:09, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

P.S. This would be on-topic if interesting enough to add to Transportation in Portland, Oregon. hint, hint Valfontis (talk) 01:13, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
That last discussion also included this interesting photo. I've now added the location coordinates to that file, and an Oregonian archives search (via the Multnomah County library database) reveals the address to be 2521 S.W. Water Avenue. It was definitely a garage, and I'm almost positive it was never a passenger facility. The earlier discussion here pointed towards that conclusion ("just a garage"), and it really wouldn't make any sense to have a passenger facility in that location. If this is correct, then it's probably not notable for Wikipedia, even within a broad article like Transportation in Portland, Oregon. I just did a quick search of the "historical Oregonian archives" and didn't find much, but found this from September 6, 1956, page 11, in one of several articles about a huge fire in the area south of downtown: "The leaping flames threatened the garage of the Greyhound Lines at 2521 S.W. Water avenue, and 30 buses were hastily driven to safety." That was the most recent news article I found that mentioned it, nothing later. An October 14, 1951 article refers (briefly) to the place as Pacific Greyhound's "office and garage building on S.W. Water avenue". The most recent search result I found for Greyhound + Water Avenue was a want-ads listing, by Western Greyhound, looking to hire drivers, published on March 16, 1966 and giving that address. (Another search result shows that Greyhound was already using that building by at least 1940, but I have no idea when they first moved in.) My impression is that Greyhound left the place in the 1970s, but I have no firm info. and am not inclined to spend any more time looking. Anyway, as I said earlier, it's probably not notable for Wikipedia, even within the Transportation in Portland, Oregon article, although if someone finds better info., maybe it could merit a sentence or two (within a history section that would mention the 1985 move of Greyhound's passenger terminal/depot from 5th/6th & Taylor to near Union Station). SJ Morg (talk) 08:46, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up, Valfontis. I love old semi-derelict buildings. I wish they were all notable and I could obsessivly research them. I also have a dream of living in a building that looks like the lair from a midcentury horror movie (see the American Brewery (building), semi-unfortunately renovated). tedder (talk) 17:20, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

It's not as fancy, but try the old Oly Brewery. Valfontis (talk) 18:47, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

As a relatively new resident, I have come to appreciate the significance of roses in Portland. Several articles discuss this significance, but I think one central article relating to the history and importance of roses could be very beneficial. I went ahead and created a stub for Roses in Portland, including sections for climate, nickname, gardens, events and local namesakes. If you have any thoughts on the proposed structure of the article, do share!

Climate
  • detail about Portland's climate and what makes it ideal for roses
Nicknames
  • how did "City of Roses"/"Rose City" become the city's nickname?
  • expand on the history of roses in Portland
Gardens
Events
Local namesakes

There are so many great pictures of roses, gardens, events, etc. to supplement this article. What is missing? Feel free to help expand the article in any way possible! --Another Believer (Talk) 15:34, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Cool! Not a bad start. I might help out a bit when I have the time. Jsayre64 (talk) 17:49, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
I remember this. Roses in Portland, Oregon might be a better title. Jsayre64 (talk) 19:44, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I brought the subject up before but just decided to take the plunge without further discussion. :) I thought about Roses in Portland, Oregon, but wasn't sure if the additional disambiguation was necessary. I am certainly not opposed to an article move if others feel it is beneficial. --Another Believer (Talk) 19:54, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
I think "Roses in Portland" is okay (not great, but not worth worrying about) until the original or the wrong-coast folks come up with a need for disambiguation. tedder (talk) 19:57, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

COTW Old Camp Casino

The current collaboration of the week is redlinked to Old Camp Casino. I haven't found any hints of the topic intent, try though I did. Leading Google hits include http://oldcampcasino.net/, a native American casino near Burns. It features 17,000 square feet (1,600 m2) of slot machines, and... canceled Blackjack and Bingo.[1] Another hit is to an RV park, apparently associated with the casino. Is this what the article is for? —EncMstr (talk) 02:10, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Seeing that the casino was this week's COTW, I did some "googling" on my own but couldn't find too much information on the subject. Does the subject even meet notability requirements? --Another Believer (Talk) 04:01, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Did you look at "what links here"? It is the Burns Paiute Tribe's casino. Looks like they ran into some trouble. There might be a story there. If there's not enough notability for a full article, what information that is available should be put in the tribe's article and the casino redirected there. I think it would be a good idea to follow up on this in order to counter systmatic bias. </soapbox> Valfontis (talk) 06:03, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
It is a casino in Burns with about four incoming redlinks (outside the banner). If you do Google News' archives there are a few Register Guard articles from the 1990s ([3], [4], [5], [6]). Also, I suspect if we could get Eastern Oregon sources we would find a wealth of sources. And in a way, that is why it was selected, help add some coverage for part of the state that is under-covered. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for the clarification At first glance, being COTW seemed a mistake: a trailer park with a casino shack beside it. Until I found the 17,000 ft2 I thought it might have been Aunt Betty's grandnephew's roadside attraction. —EncMstr (talk) 18:00, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Gaming General Info". Old Camp Casino. Retrieved 2011-07-30.

Two GA candidates

Keller Fountain Park and Director Park have both been nominated for GA status. Be sure to check them out and see if they can be improved before they are reviewed! --Another Believer (Talk) 16:11, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

After a brief look, both articles look like really tremendous compilations of research. Good work! I haven't done a GA review in a long time, but am thinking maybe I'd like to take one of these on.
I'd suggest one general thing, which would be to expand the lead section a bit -- especially on the Keller Fountain Park article. Maybe not necessary, but I think there is definite room for improvement there. But regardless, I can tell that you've put a huge amount of work into researching and building these articles -- impressive! -Pete (talk) 06:21, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Director Park/GA1. --Another Believer (Talk) 15:57, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

GA! Well done! --Another Believer (Talk) 04:07, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Keller Fountain Park/GA1 --Another Believer (Talk) 22:16, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

GA! Congrats, Tedder! --Another Believer (Talk) 17:23, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Another one

I've just nominated the Willamette River article for GA review, shortly after User:Orygun decided that it met the B-class criteria. I know User:Finetooth has been working hard to improve this article, and let's hope it pays off! Jsayre64 (talk) 20:23, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

It passed! Golly, what a recent trend of new GAs! Jsayre64 (talk) 17:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Great job! Go us! --Esprqii (talk) 17:30, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Well done! Loving all the new Oregon-related GAs! --Another Believer (Talk) 17:43, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Excellent! I remember when it looked like this. Tom McCall would be right proud of your efforts. Valfontis (talk) 19:52, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Wait? What? McCall isn't even mentioned in the article! Be sure to add him before you take this to FA! Valfontis (talk) 19:59, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
That would be perfect for the "pollution" section. I'll try to add that information sometime soon. Jsayre64 (talk) 21:48, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
The article is now an FA candidate. Check out the nomination. Jsayre64 (talk) 02:21, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

And an encore. Klamath River. Jsayre64 (talk) 17:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Fantastic! WPOR is on a roll! My next attempts might be Bitar Mansion and Roses in Portland. --Another Believer (Talk) 18:03, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
That was quick! Great job everyone who helped. Valfontis (talk) 19:30, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Bitar Mansion

Does anyone know if an article has been started for Bitar Mansion under a different name? Following are some sources that could be used for expansion:

--Another Believer (Talk) 15:25, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Here's the data from a search the Oregon Historic Sites Database:
  • Green, Harry A, House 3316 SE Ankeny St Portland Multnomah 1928 EC

Sorry, with the browser I'm using I can't access the property's page, but it looks like it's "eligible contributing" which doesn't necessarily mean it's part of a historic district, but it could be. Is Laurelhurst an HD? It's not an individual listing so it may or may not be considered notable. I wish I had time to do more research, maybe tonight. Valfontis (talk) 16:39, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Here is the link to the historic sites database page on the Harry A. Green House. Finetooth (talk) 19:25, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback, both. Any thoughts on notability, or Harry A. Green House vs. Bitar Mansion for the article name (assuming established notability)? --Another Believer (Talk) 19:31, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
Re: Notability--I'll need to do more research and get back to you. Notability is not a given since this isn't on the NRHP (thanks Finetooth for the link), so the bar may be set a little higher than for the NRHP stuff. Another way to do it is if Harry A. Green himself is notable, write the article on him and include the house info in there. (Or even in the Herman Brookman article.) If this were on the NRHP, you can bet it would be listed as Harry A. Green House with Bitar Mansion as its alternate name. But what is it commonly known as? You might check the number of Google hits for each. Valfontis (talk) 20:03, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

() Is it a Portland local landmark? That ought to be enough notability. Valfontis (talk) 18:00, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

This article inspired me to start the article. Do take a look if interested! --Another Believer (Talk) 07:25, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Goal is GA status (hopefully shortly following the auction to occur in August). If you come across any images of the mansion, feel free to post or upload (I took and uploaded them to Commons last month, which shows the neglect but it would be better to have past images). Thanks for the DYK hook, J! --Another Believer (Talk) 03:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
If possible someone should take a tip from Bart King's playbook and pose as a "prospective buyer"--his interior shots that I linked in the article are fabulous (and copyrighted, of course). Valfontis (talk) 04:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the links on the talk page, Valfontis. I have library holds on the two books not offering previews. I am still searching for images (I can always walk by the house for exterior shots, but they wouldn't offer much detail and would be of the same side already pictured). I am hoping the books contain more detail about the mansion's features and perhaps ownership under the Bitar family. If not, I will combine the History and Ownership sections. I feel that I got the most out of the "Bad Neighbor" article as possible, making sure the Fournier section includes information related to the house (this isn't an article about the Fournier's after all...)--let me know if you have any other suggestions! --Another Believer (Talk) 16:07, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
It was odd to see what appeared to be COI edits to the article. You must be doing something right to draw that kind of attention! I bet that won't be the last we hear from that editor though... Valfontis (talk) 19:28, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Yikes! The current discussion on the article's talk page was unexpected. (Feel free to add to discussion, if interested.) I noticed the PDXTruth edits to the article as well. --Another Believer (Talk) 21:02, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

North Bank Depot Buildings

Wow, check out North Bank Depot Buildings! Well done, SJ. I hope you don't mind my edits (mostly ref formatting), which should (hopefully) help the article through the GA process. Keep up the great work! --Another Believer (Talk) 15:15, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Others' contributions are, of course, welcome. It's not "my" article, although personally I prefer the citation formatting the way I had it, with date in parentheses after the title (as recommended at WP:CITE/ES for newspapers) over the format generated by the template. And I don't understand why you included an "accessdate" parameter, when none of those old newspaper articles can be accessed online except by Multnomah County Library cardholders. SJ Morg (talk) 08:28, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, I assumed citation templates would be necessary for the article to be promoted to GA class in the future, so I went ahead and made those changes. I've noticed the order of parameters changes depending on which parameters are entered for each source. I wish there were more consistency sometimes, but I think that is a discussion that needs to take place on the template's talk page or a citations talk page. I always include accessdates out of habit (and what's wrong with knowing when the sources was used and when the information was added to WP?), but if they are not necessary for news sources I will certainly keep that in mind. Again, great work on the article! --Another Believer (Talk) 15:13, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
DYK hook? --Another Believer (Talk) 15:16, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
The article is certainly DYK-worthy, but I'm not planning to nominate it myself. DYK nominations now require review of another nom, and other new reviewing requirements put into effect very recently (over the past two weeks) have made the process more complicated. I was willing to deal with that for one nom, of Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1, but I don't want to spend time doing it for another, more-or-less concurrently. If someone else wants to nominate North Bank Depot Buildings (they'd receive nomination credit!), I'm certainly willing to help address any issues that might arise during its review, but if not, I'll let the DYK opportunity pass (expires Saturday night). SJ Morg (talk) 08:28, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
I, too, do not like the new DYK requirements and often decide not to bother with submitting DYK hooks. More trouble than its worth, sometimes. --Another Believer (Talk) 15:13, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
I've cut back too. In a way, it's good, because I only submit a DYK when the content is incredibly compelling, instead of simply because a new article meets the technical guidelines. tedder (talk) 15:23, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Does every article really need to have an image for the hook to be approved? That seems unfair. But I managed to dodge the new rules by reviewing a hook nominated before the new rules took effect (if I read the instructions correctly), and I nominated this article. It's at Template talk:Did you know/North Bank Depot Buildings and also transcluded on the article's talk page. Jsayre64 (talk) 15:27, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

There's no requirement for an image with DYK nominations (.... wondering where you got that idea). Only one hook in every set of seven (recently reduced to six, temporarily) gets a photo when displayed on the Main Page, so only a fraction of the nominations that include a photo actually see the photo make it through to the Main Page. However, if a good photo is available, it's smart to include it with the nomination, even if the nominator figures its chances of being selected for the coveted illustrated spot (the one at the top of the DYK list) are small. If a hook does get that spot, in my experience the article is guaranteed to get a lot more page views than it otherwise would have. SJ Morg (talk) 04:05, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
Oh, just realized that you probably meant an image in the article, not an image to go with the hook, at DYK. If so, I still don't believe that's a requirement. SJ Morg (talk) 04:08, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

New "Historic Oregon Newspapers" archive

As reported recently in The Oregonian (from KEZI/AP), the U. of O. has placed content from 18 Oregon newspapers online in a new database called "Historic Oregon Newspapers". Freely available, no card or registration required. So far, the content ranges from 1846–1922. The site is Historic Oregon Newspapers. Only certain dates (and pp.) of any given newspaper have been added, but the site is still under development. Although the content is searchable, the search function is (so far) very limited in its usefulness; for example, it's not possible to search for exact phrases or pairs of words. However, if you do find something useful as a citation for WP, every page on the site has a persistent link which can be used in citations. I've already made use of this myself.
I found the site rather cumbersome to navigate, but hopefully they are working to improve it. If you have a specific date in mind and don't need to do a digital search, you may be able to go to that issue, if you can locate the index page for the particular newspaper (there's no master index, as far as I could find). I managed to find calendar-format index pages indicating the dates in the archive for The Morning Oregonian (Mon–Sat.) here (change the year manually) and for The Sunday Oregonian here. And, there are several other newspapers in the archive. SJ Morg (talk) 10:19, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes. See also my comments above. Valfontis (talk) 18:18, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Quick question for those of you who may have passed through Dayton, Oregon looking for historic buildings to photograph (Tedder, Encmstr, Aboutmovies, Finetooth and Ipoellet?). Did you find that either the house numbering had changed and/or some buildings appeared to be missing? I plan to contact the City of Dayton about this and then inform the NRHP about some apparently demolished buildings (talking to one person I learned for sure that one had been torn down, but in general I got the "you're not from 'round here, are y'all?" feeling so I didn't talk to a ton of people), but I wanted to do my homework first. Maybe those UFOs over at Mac had something to do with it. Valfontis (talk) 18:29, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, DeadFriend and I passed through there, hunted for addresses that didn't exist, and if they did exist, they didn't match the buildings that were there. I suspect the numbering changed. I agree, there was a bit of the Deliverance vibe to the place. IIRC we spent an hour riding in circles and taking pictures of low-slung ranches that were built in the 1970s. tedder (talk) 18:45, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
I spent an hour walking in circles and I think I was a bit more successful, maybe getting half of the properties we don't already have images for (some places I flat out didn't feel comfortable photographing because of dereliction and/or having to practically stand on the front porch to see past the landscaping), but I need to double check with the city regarding the addresses. There's actually a map on the city website and on a bulletin board in the park, but I didn't know that until it was too late. I found planning committee notes about the house that was demolished (Cain House), so that one is gone for sure. Valfontis (talk) 19:10, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, the feeling of did I black out for a minute but don't remember it? was present when I looked around. I had to go 10+ blocks further than place-sense intuition (which is usually very reliable) suggested. Hard to believe there is that much dislocation in such a small grid. —EncMstr (talk) 19:20, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes, the town is messed up. Hence why the list is almost complete outside of the Dayton properties. Throw in the GPS coordinates problem for pre-1990ish entries, and you really can't find anything. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:57, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Time to perfect our 10,000th?

I added some alt text and organized images in the Spruce Production Division article today. It was a great thing to get the article to GA status back in February. Maybe it's a long shot, but it would be fun to make the article an FA, although it may require peer review before that. See this section I opened on the article's talk page a while back. Is anybody interested in collaborating a second time on the project's 10,000th article? Jsayre64 (talk) 03:08, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Oregon SoS website now a 404 fest

I don't know exactly when this happened, but it appears that the Oregon Secretary of State website, home to a lot of useful archival and historical information about Oregon, has decided to move everything around and give us the chance to see a lot of 404 errors. This is great for all our Wikipedia articles that use the old links.

A couple of examples:

Info on state legislature sessions was here is now here (I've used that one tons to look up Old Dead Guys info).

Governor biographies have been moved around or removed: Paul Patterson's old bio location is now here

Ben Olcott's bio seems to no longer exist: no mention of it here

Sheesh, you gotta love it when links on their own website don't work (click on "Governors of Oregon" there).

I wish I could figure out a pattern for the changes so we could make some kind of script, but there doesn't seem to be one.

Anybody interested in writing a formal complaint on behalf of WP:ORE or is it just me that is annoyed at this stupidity? In the meantime, I note this line of that 404 page I keep seeing:

If you are unable to find what you are looking for, please email us at reference.archives@state.or.us.

--Esprqii (talk) 19:48, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

When a website reorganizes its URLs, especially a reference website, the obligation to provide external remapping is on the organization. This is easily done with URL rewriting rules: on webservers derived from Apache, a .htaccess. I'll send that to the mail address unless there is a better idea. (I bet it bounces though.) —EncMstr (talk) 20:43, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
I found Ben Olcott's bio here. I agree that it can be annoying when a website gets reorganized like that. But a good trick when fixing a dead URL is to Google the old title and it will probably come up somewhere in the results. There's also something called the Wayback machine that can archive a webpage's contents and you can link to it in Wikipedia articles if you can't find a replacement. See WP:WBM. Jsayre64 (talk) 22:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, I linked that page above, but that's not the bio, just the "Olcott Administration" page. Many of the gov articles have another "Biography" link under the TOC which is the same as the old page (see the P. Patterson link above.) but so far I can state that Olcott's and I. L. Patterson's appear to be gone. --Esprqii (talk) 23:07, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
..which is exactly why a geek with mod_rewrite could clean it up with very little effort. Sigh. tedder (talk) 23:11, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
You're right, Esprqii. My mistake. But I found an archive of the Olcott bio here and the I. L. Patterson bio here. Jsayre64 (talk) 01:15, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
This won't help with links already relegated to 404-dom, but WebCite makes it possible for individuals to archive important source articles before they get moved. I'm starting to archive things I would hate to lose. The link to the self-archiver is about midway down in the WebCite main page, under the heading "How do I use WebCite as a (citing) author to archive webpages I want to cite?" Finetooth (talk) 01:43, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Great Signpost interview, WikiProject Oregon! Well done. --Another Believer (Talk) 15:05, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Yup, interesting article. I had no idea this WikiProject was as active as it is. I moved to Oregon about a year and a half ago, and I'd love to help out in any way I can. I've been adding some panoramic photos to various Oregon articles, like File:ColumbiaRiverGorgePanorama.jpg and File:Craterlake-panorama.jpg. I also created Disappearance of Kyron Horman but haven't had time to expand it much. My main contributions to WP have been technical in nature lately, I run a bot (User:Snotbot) and I have recently set up a toolserver account where I've been making various tools (see here for a list). If anyone needs any assistance with something technical, whether it be gathering statistics, automated tasks, etc.; just let me know and I'd be happy to help. —SW— verbalize 16:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Welcome, Snottywong--feel free to join the club and contribute in any ways you see fit! Keep taking pictures and expanding articles, and be sure to add the project page to your watchlist to stay involved in discussions. I am hoping the Signpost interview not only provides exposure but brings new contributors to the project. --Another Believer (Talk) 17:00, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Speaking on automated tasks, is there an automated way to distribute newsletters? I miss receiving alerts about collaborations of the week and other WP Oregon updates. Just a thought. --Another Believer (Talk) 17:11, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Are you volunteering? :) Since Aboutmovies got too busy to do regular COTW updates, there is certainly room for someone to do it. I think he just used the membership list and AWB. Valfontis (talk) 17:32, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
You know, I hate to say it, but I am not (at least not at the moment). I love WikiProject Oregon and Wikipedia in general, but sometimes I feel stretched a bit too thin and as I am starting a new position at work I hesitate to take on the additional responsibility. I had hoped to organize another photo blitz, along with a "List of parks in Portland, Oregon" collaboration this summer, but never got around to either. I try to participate in COTWs when possible and interested, but I can't take on the task of organizing them each week right now. I do think, however, that distributing newsletters and other updates by clicking a button would be much simpler than posting individually on dozens on talk pages. (Also, I am not familiar with AWB... should look into this.) --Another Believer (Talk) 17:39, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Auto Wiki Browser--lovely tool--it's what I've been using to tidy up the architect field, etc., the NRHP articles, and I bet you would find it useful in that area as well. It's also handy for making lists and checking them twice, like all the updates I made to List of cities and unincorporated communities in Oregon. Valfontis (talk) 17:59, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Just wanted to say - congratulations to an active regional project! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:10, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Request a photograph for Temple Beth Israel (Eugene, Oregon)

Temple Beth Israel (Eugene, Oregon) is currently a GA candidate. Would anyone here be able to take a photograph of it and upload it? It would be greatly appreciated. Jayjg (talk) 22:12, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I hate to step on your toes but I'd love to make a similar request for Beth Israel School (Portland). Not sure how much I can help with Eugene requests, but I always have my camera on me in case I stumble upon NRHP sites and other picture requests in PDX. Best of luck with the GA process! --Another Believer (Talk) 22:27, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
I checked Flickr and Picasa: nothing usable. (I also tagged the article with reqphoto.) —EncMstr (talk) 23:23, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I have a postcard of Temple Beth Israel that I believe predates 1923. I'll check.Finn-jd-john (talk) 16:57, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

That would be the one in Portland, most likely. The old TBI in Eugene is a mid-century structure, and the current one was built within the past few years. I'll see if my friends who belong to the temple can get a pic. Also, one of the rabbis was editing the article, maybe someone can contact him and walk him through the photo upload and copyright process. Valfontis (talk) 18:06, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Oops, you're absolutely right. The good news is, though, I did find the postcard ... a hand-tinted beaut from about 1915. Ah well. Finn-jd-john (talk) 01:37, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Cool! That would be the Moorish revival one. Can you scan it and upload so it can be used at Congregation Beth Israel (Portland, Oregon)? Valfontis (talk) 04:50, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
done! http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pc-temple-beth-israel-1800.jpg Finn-jd-john (talk) 14:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Very cool! --Another Believer (Talk) 15:05, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
I can get a photo sometime. But hey, it looks like the article passed its GA review anyway! Jsayre64 (talk) 18:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
I finally got the chance to take a photo and I uploaded one just now. Jsayre64 (talk) 19:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Cool infographic

U.S. post offices spreading over time 1700-1900. I don't know if there are any graphics wizards active in the project right now (where the heck is NW1?) but it would be nifty to do this just for Oregon. Valfontis (talk) 19:23, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

If you watch the dots you'll see that the first post office west of the Rockies was in Oregon: It opened on March 9, 1847 in Astoria. Valfontis (talk) 19:27, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
Astoria was what I remembered too, but at 0:41 that dot sure looks like it's at Oregon City. Silly visualizers. Great graphic though! -Pete (talk) 15:15, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I saw that infographic a few days ago, and it is very cool. Looking at the source data, http://webpmt.usps.gov/pmt011.cfm, the earliest dated OR PO is 97045 OREGON CITY 03/29/1847, followed by Forest Grove, Corvallis, and Eugene, all in 1850, then The Dalles, and Wilbur in 1851. A good half of the entries have blank date fields, including Astoria. So it is quite possible that Astoria or some other place pre-dated Oregon City. Certainly ship packets were taken to Astoria at least as early as the Oregon Treaty, if not as early as 1812 or so. For what it's worth, Olympia, WA, dates to 1850, and Seattle to 1852, although I find it hard to believe that Steilacoom didn't predate both of them. Pfly (talk) 11:58, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
Our best bet of an Oregon version is probably to email the creator of the video and ask them if they can make an Oregon version and release it under a free license. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 15:09, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

This article is up for AfD and could probably use a few more Oregon opinions, just be sure to use policy-based arguments. Personally I think a redirect will be fine, but I don't have time to do the required research at the moment to make an informed !vote. On the other hand, I *think* it's more than a bumper sticker slogan... Valfontis (talk) 19:55, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

  • I added a couple referenced sentences. Could someone tag team this with me? If you ad a ref, I'll ad another one. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:32, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
I probably don't have time today, but it looks like the article is already much improved. I will note, however, that the campaign has spawned the imitative "Keep Salem Lame" sticker, in reference to Salem's nickname of "So-Lame". Absolutely trivial, and alas, absolutely true. Valfontis (talk) 18:19, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
Keep Portland Wired: cars with this bumper sticker usually have IBEW decals: there's a billboard too
Keep Vancouver Normal: on lots of autos with Washington plates, and bicycle buckets: how's that for normal?
I found a few RSs, but I see they are already present. —EncMstr (talk) 07:25, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Precision Castparts emissions fail

I didn't even know there was a hazmat/chemical issue at Precision Castparts Corp. in May.

FYI in case someone wants to write it up. tedder (talk) 20:47, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Me neither. Interesting. I summarized the news article in a couple sentences and added the information to the Wikipedia article. Jsayre64 (talk) 02:44, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Washington?

Hello. So WikiProject Washington is, relative to WP:ORE, rather dead in the water. I know a number of your live in the general Portland area, or at least the Willamette Valley. Surely you must have Washington experiences and interests. Portland's "mountains" include Mt St Helens and Mt Adams, no? Vancouver, WA, is part of Portland's metro area. If you are the camping and hiking type, surely you must have spent time camping and hiking in Washington. Okay, so WP:ORE is technically about the lands within the political boundaries of Oregon, but political boundaries be damned. Would y'all consider the possibility of working on pages that, while near Oregon, are actually in Washington? You all have covered Oregon very impressively, but there is, after all, this whole other world just north of the Columbia. Surely some of you are passingly familiar with it. What do you say? The WP:WPWA project is rather dead in the water. Pending the never-to-be-created WP:Pacific Northwest, perhaps we can focus our sights on something beyond political boundary lines? Just a random plea. Pfly (talk) 11:32, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Personally I limit my participation mostly to Oregon-related articles in order to have something to focus on, otherwise I'd spend all day fixing what's wrong on the Internet. I do dabble a bit, especially because I lived in Olympia for 5 years, and it is still dear to my heart. But I also haven't wanted to step on too many toes, as I once inadvertently did with WP:Idaho (which now also happens to be moribund). If we could ever agree on what the term "Pacific Northwest" means, I'd be happy to work on all of Cascadia. But I'll see about stepping up my Washington efforts, at least in the WikiGnoming department. I've ignored some pretty serious WA clean up issues that rival those at the Hanford Site (to name one WA-related article that was brought to GA by mostly Oregon folks). Valfontis (talk) 18:16, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, I had a couple of strange Idaho interactions too, but do adopt some Washington articles- sometimes out of personal interest, sometimes because of the connection to Oregon (like Vancouver and few high schools). I guess this is a good time to announce that the Oregon Territory will be coming back, so we can change this to WikiProject Oregon Territory and recapture some of the pages that were stolen from us in the 1859-1889 period. tedder (talk) 18:32, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
Washington is on my radar (I did promote List of Washington state symbols to FL status, after all), though I am certainly more dedicated and interested in Oregon. I tend to work on Washington articles after a visit, so perhaps I need to get back up to Seattle or do some exploring in other areas of the state! --Another Believer (Talk) 19:27, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
(ec) Oooh! WikiProject Oregon Territory! I like that idea. It kind of leaves out the controversial ::cough::Canada::cough:: PNW question. If there were enough interest we could make it a workgroup or task force, though judging by the usage of {{WikiProject Oregon government}}, we tend to prefer working as a larger group. I'd say for now we unofficially take more interest in the clean up, creation and expansion of any Washington-related articles that would fall under the purview of "Oregon Territory". Valfontis (talk) 19:35, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm in for WP:ORTERR. I think that's a good way to keep focus on common interests with WP:WA without getting caught up in possibly contentious topics... --Esprqii (talk) 22:41, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
ORTERR sounds like a new form of terrorism coming from here. Not saying it isn't (if you consider putting birds on things as terrorism). tedder (talk) 23:10, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
Fragmenting projects doesn't work too well. Combining us all into a Northwest project might work, but I doubt editors would go for that. Could be wrong. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 01:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
I'd hate to see the word "Northwest" get used for something like this ... my experience has been that when people talk about "the Northwest" they usually mean "Seattle and its imperial provinces." But maybe that's just me. :-) Finn-jd-john (talk) 04:46, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
My comments about a new project were somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I don't think we should make an official new project, I just meant that I thought it made sense for people in WP:ORE to consider working on topics that might be part of a theoretical Oregon Territory project. I thought that would help to avoid stepping on any toes in the Washington project (Washingtoes?). --Esprqii (talk) 16:46, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, Tedder was joking around too, as was I--see the reference I put in to the board game Risk (pretending we Oregonians want to take over the entire NW). But I do think it's a good idea for us to take more interest in regional topics. Valfontis (talk) 17:06, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Your annual heads up--Clark, Lewis, and everyone else is in danger

Looks like school is back in or will be soon. Adjust your watchlist vigilance accordingly. Valfontis (talk) 17:46, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I'll be on alert with Twinkle. Jsayre64 (talk) 18:07, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Sacagawea dollar hit the front page today too... I think most of the related articles (Sacagawea, Clark, Lewis) are already protected though. Valfontis (talk) 01:35, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
I requested protection of the Lewis and Clark Expedition article. Since you're an admin, you can take care of that if it's eligible. The William Clark (explorer) and Sacagawea articles are already protected; however the Meriwether Lewis article isn't (but it hasn't been vandalized that much anyway). Jsayre64 (talk) 03:27, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
3 vandals in 3 days is not sufficient for protection. See WP:ROUGH. tedder (talk) 04:22, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Active editors

So, I thought it might be nice if we could have a more useful list of who is active and who is not than our membership list where users that have never edited in the last three months get shunted. I wrote up a little script, the output of which can be seen below, if you all like it I can make it into a bot and be a regular thing.

TEST

Its based of a (slightly weighted) edit count from our recent changes, I have obscured the actual scores with wrenches just because some users might not like having their edit count listed publicly. It would also have an exclusion list. Tell me what you think! jorgenev 19:34, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

The concept of "inactive" editors has been somewhat dormant since 2008. I maintain the list by hand when I get around to it, as did Aboutmovies. And actually, I've been working with tedder on this. I don't have time to look it up, but the idea of edit counts within the project is somewhat controversial and has been discussed at length. I'd like Tedder and the others who were involved in the previous discussion to weigh in before we implement anything.
Jorgenev, in terms of being "useful" do you mean something that isn't updated by hand when I get around to it, or some other measure of usefulness? I don't mind "shunting" people to the inactive list, though sometimes the decisions I make about this are somewhat subjective, and the idea of having a bot do it, if we reach consensus on what the threshhold of "active" is, makes the maintaining of the list less problematic for people who had a problem with the subjectivity. Other than that, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of ranking the activity level of WP:ORE editors. Perhaps because I already have a problem with people treating Wikipedia as some sort of MMORPG, it makes it seem like another thing that people might find necessary to "compete" for. I think "active" and "inactive" should cover it. Of course we need a way to measure this with the script, but I don't see how it is useful to publish the "wrenches" or whatever. Valfontis (talk) 20:16, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
My thinking was that I personally would really would like a way to be able to quickly assess how active a wikiproject is and that a list of how active the editors were would do that as well a strength the community by just giving a feel of who is around. Knowing who is around would be useful for canvassing (in the non-harmful way). Perhaps you are right though that the ranking here is to explicit. How about just publishing two lists; "Currently active with the project" and "Currently semi-active with the project" below the full list of members? jorgenev 21:56, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Here is what a demo run of that scheme produced with 10 edits and 2 edits per week respectively:

Currently active with the wikiproject

Currently semi-active with the wikiproject

What do you think? jorgenev 22:16, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Both of these ideas look pretty good to me. I think that having this kind of information is indeed handy because, as you said, it guides non-project members to the right talk page if they have an Oregon-related question that doesn't get answered on this page (which happens sometimes, but it's not really a problem). I'll leave it to other editors to decide which idea is better, though. Jsayre64 (talk) 02:27, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Wait, so how does it work exactly? Is it checking against an actual comprehensive list of the WP:ORE tagged articles and then cross-referencing with the recent contrib histories of editors who are in the project? There are also multiple ways to see who is in the project too, since they might do something like use the userbox but not edit the membership list. Steven Walling • talk 02:56, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
It uses this to get the edits (which should be comprehensive) and cross references it with the membership list. jorgenev 03:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
  • While my edit count isn't as high as some folks, I'm pretty sure I put in as much time on my articles as other Wiki-Oregon editors do in their work. I usually contribute at least one in-depth article per month...though I occasionally do an article that isn't related to Oregon and last month I had to pass because I was asked to write an article for a hard-copy publication. Understand why it might be useful to keep track of active members, but don't like the idea that I might be dropped from Wiki-Oregon community because I focus on longer articles that don't produce at lot of edit-hits.--Orygun (talk) 03:10, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
The edit count bars are set low enough that I wouldn't expect that to really be a problem. And, the idea of the list is not to be a value judgement of anyone's contributions, just a pointer to those who had been around recently. jorgenev 03:15, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
  • My most recent Oregon article got lead DYK w/photo on Wikipedia main-page earlier today...that's pretty recent, though not enough hit-points to keep me on active list. Oh well, tool would probably be helpful so I won't complain any more.--Orygun (talk) 03:24, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Your right that ideally you actually should be on the list, as you have been active in the last week with WP:ORE related activities; the only data I really have is the changes of pages tagged with the banner though which explains your exception. Note that our conversation here has been enough to push you onto the next generation of this active list! :) I think such exceptions would be rare though, and if this is added it would have an explanation that would make it evident what it was, and what it was not (a listing of contributors by value). jorgenev 03:34, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe adding this and this to the data would solve that problem. Jsayre64 (talk) 03:58, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Sheesh! I go backpacking in wilderness for eight days and immediately I am relegated to inferior status. (I'm only 75% joking.)
I'm good with the general concept, but it lacks the most critical piece of information: how many project members are actively reading this page. I know—technical limitations and Wikimedia policy prevent the information being collected and/or being available—but read-only members, who only edit when they have something to add, are the most important measure of "activity". —EncMstr (talk) 07:17, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I like the general idea, but I hope we can find fairer metrics. I'm new at this but one thing I know ... it took me most of a day to build the one new article I've done (Wilhoit Springs) and it usually takes me 10 minutes to find and fix something, or 20 to add info to an existing article. I'd hate to see the people who are doing the heaviest lifting get left off the guest list.
I've worked with enough volunteer projects to know how important being appreciated is. It may not look or sound like it, but the stakes are probably pretty high here if we get this wrong. Finn-jd-john (talk) 15:24, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I doubt anyone will quit Wikipedia because they didn't make it on the Active Users list. However, it's probably a good idea to consider selecting criteria for "active"-ness which doesn't inadvertently motivate people to make a bunch of quick and easy edits over difficult, substantive edits. —SW— prattle 21:17, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Instead of messing around with edit counts, the ranking ought to heavily reflect—if not exclusively—the length of time since a project member edited an applicable page. Something like an edit within 1, 7, and 30 days. —EncMstr (talk) 07:51, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I just added a short article on this soon-to-open state park. Hope I didn't step on any toes among the many park experts out there and I hope you'll all beef it up as needed! --Esprqii (talk) 23:25, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!
What toes could be stepped on? There are so many park articles which could use work, being struck by lightning seems more likely. —EncMstr (talk) 23:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
I figured not, but since the park doesn't open for a few more days, I thought someone might be preparing to have a full-fledged Feature Article spring from Jimmy Wales's head on September 20. My piddly little article might spoil their fun. Esprqii (talk) 23:33, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't know about the park, but that is the funniest redirect ever. Valfontis (talk) 01:35, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
This R-G editorial might be a good source for the article. Jsayre64 (talk) 14:57, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Research offer

I have acquired a pile of Oregon Voter magazine "Who's Who in the 19XX Oregon Legislature" editions for the 1959-1973 legislative sessions (1969 has not turned up yet), and also 1981. Oregon Voter was a weekly journal, I believe published by pro-business interests. These special issues have short bios of all the legislators and statewide officials as well as other stories and ads (Standard Insurance, Associated Oregon Industries, Willamette Valley Lumber Company, etc.) Let me know if you would like the info on any of these fine ladies and gentlemen. Senator Jack Ripper (D-Coos Bay) anyone? I also have a Xerox of the July 12, 1919 edition (some of these earlier ones are in Google Books) and a few pages from months after that regarding veterans, enlistments, military manpower contributions by state, and war casualties. Valfontis (talk) 19:42, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Have been collecting info on several Oregon legislators from that period and your info would be helpful. Two I’m most interested in are Rep Dick Magruder and Rep Roger Martin. They were key players in House coup that stripped power form Speaker during ’77 session. Unfortunately, don’t think I’ll be finishing either article anytime soon since I haven’t found any wiki-able photos. Can I contact you later when I get closer to finishing article(s).--Orygun (talk) 02:07, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Well don't let the lack of a photo stop you, but yes I can certain supply that info, just let me know on my talk page and I'll either type it up or scan it and e-mail it to you--let me know if you have a preference. For my part, I type fast but access to a scanner is more difficult for me. Martin is in the 1967, '71, and '73 editions, and Magruder in '71 and '73. As you probably know, Caroline Magruder took over her son's term after he was killed (farm accident) in 1978, her profile is in the '81 edition. Valfontis (talk) 03:40, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I plan to take this article back to FAC as early as next week. The first nomination failed due to concerns of the quality of the prose. I read through the article again and copyedited it to improve the prose. If anybody thinks there are additional problems, the article's talk page is a great place to leave comments. Jsayre64 (talk) 00:43, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Here it is. Jsayre64 (talk) 03:35, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
Another Oregon-related article currently at FAC is John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. It was nominated last Thursday. Jsayre64 (talk) 02:42, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Photos

Check out what our newest project member has been doing: Visitor7 (talk · contribs) has been working nonstop adding photos to articles tagged with the "reqphoto" parameter on the talk page! Maybe our next COTW should be a photo drive; after all, the Portland parks list needs to have images for each listing. I've exhausted the properly Creative Commons-licensed supply on Flickr. Jsayre64 (talk) 03:51, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Yep, my watchlist has lit up like Christmas! Rock on, Visitor 7! Valfontis (talk) 15:05, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Bitar Mansion

Bitar Mansion

Update: http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-18013-murmurs_condoleezzas_speaking_fee_and_illegal_wastewater_dumping.html. Also, the image used in the blurb looks quite similar to one that I took and uploaded to Commons. Coincidence? --Another Believer (Talk) 01:57, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

That's always a risk when one is dealing with an expensive home. The image they used sure does look like yours. I think they cropped it, though. If so, sorry pal, you've caught the disease. Maybe it's become contagious? Jsayre64 (talk) 02:50, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
I've been thinking about this since the Portland Magazine thing, in which I picked up and attributed (to Portland Magazine) a photo that they had lifted from EncMstr without attribution. When I finally got PM's attention, they deleted the photo rather than add an attribution. Now we have Willamette Week doing the same thing to Another Believer -- yes, it's clearly your pic -- no way they sent a staffer to get a thumbnail for the Web -- and I'm thinking perhaps the real issue here is, they haven't yet made their peace with "handles." I know when I was editing the C.G. Sentinel or The Springfield News, five or 10 years ago, I would never have run a photo credit like "Photo by GnarlyMon333" or "PirtleTrekker." The world has changed, especially in digital formats, but a lot of my old print-media cronies haven't ... this may explain why more traditional publications tend to either not run our stuff or run it without attribution.
I think the only solution is to either wait for their practices to come around, or offer the option of attributing photos to a name that sounds more like what a professional photog or photography house would use, like "GnarlyMon Productions" or "Pirtletrek Graphics," or a name. Finn-jd-john (talk) 12:14, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I am quite impressed by this, and would like to add this to some of the proejcts I take care of. Can you tell me how is this generated? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:12, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

It is quite out of date now, but look at the talk page for the original bot request and what went into making it. We are talking about reviving it, so maybe when tedder has time to redo it he can share the code with you. Valfontis (talk) 17:28, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
If I write something, it would be possible to do a redlink list for other projects. tedder (talk) 17:47, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes. Once we get TedderBot to manage the list, the list will be much more useful. But as of now we just check for Oregon-related articles with redlinks to them and list them on the page. Jsayre64 (talk) 22:55, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Though I'm not a wikiproject member, I just boldly added Oregon Brewers Festival to your list. 72.244.204.200 (talk) 21:18, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! You wrote there were 3 incoming links, but I count 7, so I updated it. —EncMstr (talk) 21:50, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Just FYI, this might be a promotional effort, so check for notability before writing. Also note the correctly incorrect apostrophe (or lack thereof)... Valfontis (talk) 22:15, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Valfontis, as to a purported promotional effort, note that with the exception of the OBF disambig page, the OBF-related edits wikified existing uses of Oregon Brewers Festival. As to notability, here are a few references to start with:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/language_tips/2003-07/25/content_529382.htm
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dailydish/2010/07/oregon-brewers-festival.html
http://www.sltrib.com/travel/ci_14786637
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3469/is_7_56/ai_n12414060/
http://www.beerhunter.com/events/0018.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/30/travel/what-s-doing-in-portland.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.travelportland.com/partners/14609
EncMstr, I think the convention for the Redlinks list is to only count WPOR links, i.e. articles within the scope of WikiProject Oregon; but even by that criteria, the number as of today appears to be 4. 72.244.206.165 (talk) 00:48, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, we count all incoming links from article space--it's a matter of the red link being Oregon-related, not the incoming links. Sounds like enough material for you to get a username and start an article. ;) Though maybe you have chosen to disappear? Cheers, whoever you are. Valfontis (talk) 05:05, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd say it's plenty useful now, as it is still full of redlinks. Get writing, y'all. Valfontis (talk) 23:14, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Who can get the first article to GA status? Go! :p --Another Believer (Talk) 23:17, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
OK, I'm calling a "Get the Red Out Drive"--this is now officially the Collaboration of the Week (or fortnight, or whenever). --Esprqii (talk) 00:30, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
Game on! Valfontis (talk) 19:23, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
When it is ready, can you ping me? Or just create the lists for Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland, Wikipedia:WikiProject Sociology and Wikipedia:WikiProject Pittsburgh, and ping them. Thanks! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 02:25, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
If its not too much trouble I would like to do this for WikiProject United States and associated projects too. --Kumioko (talk) 02:28, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
I'll keep it multi-project while I'm developing it. Watch this page or my talk page, I can't promise to keep a list of people to notify, though. tedder (talk) 15:46, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a project member, but notice the Bishop of Juliopolis redlink has a blue article under his real name, Joseph Provencher. I'm new & not sure how to fix, so over to you.Cataobh (talk) 20:28, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The usual means of fixing this would be to add a redirect. I would have done it, but the article Joseph Provencher doesn't mention anything about being a bishop or Julio-anything. Is that the right person? —EncMstr (talk) 21:27, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, I should have checked further. Scratch that. I was going from this http://www.ohs.org/education/oregonhistory/historical_records/dspDocument.cfm?doc_ID=F6F38B27-0026-9B3C-5F55CF7C8BAC6B83 But the person the OHS site refers to as "Joseph Provencher", the one with the Oregon connection, has an article under Norbert Provencher It's not the person with the article under Joseph Provencher. Secondly, I should have realized that there are a series of bishops of Juliopolis - There's a redirect from Titular Bishop of Juliopolis to Juliopolis (titular see) This has a link to a list of bishops here http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/d2i07.html. So I guess that's where Bishop of Juliopolis should actually redirect. Cataobh (talk) 02:36, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

PYP article, help requested!

Fellow WikiProject Oregon members, I humbly request assistance with expanding the Portland Youth Philharmonic article to its fullest potential. I have been working on a major overhaul for quite some time now, and I still have lots of work to do. However, I have moved a large amount of content from my sandbox so I request eagle eyes for grammar, punctuation, flow, weight of content, etc. This article has potential to reach featured status and could eventually become a good or featured topic if I can find enough information to expand articles for each of the conductors (I am currently working on the Gershkovitch article, some of the material of which will be moved to the PYP article). I specifically request help with expanding the Reception section of the article; I am not comfortable expanding this section on my own due to a conflict of interest and connection to the organization. That being said, the orchestra has a reputation for excellence and the section should not be difficult to expand with a bit of research. PYP, the first youth orchestra in the United States, deserves a quality article and will make a wonderful addition to WikiProject Oregon and Wikipedia once expanded. Any assistant with improving this article would be very much appreciated. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments or concerns as I continue to expand this and related articles. --Another Believer (Talk) 16:45, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I assume this means I cannot upload this image or this image to Wikipedia? Here is another image but I assume it is not in the public domain since it was taken in 1927. Early history jackpot here and gallery here, but not sure which ones can be uploaded (if any)! Any one more familiar with image uploading guidelines and copyright policies than I am (I only upload landscape images I have taken myself to play it safe)? --Another Believer (Talk) 23:31, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
If it's from before 1923, I think you're OK. Commons info Digital repros of 2 dimensional images do not get a new copyright. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
That's only if it was published.
To avoid angering the Oregon Historical Society, I would stay away from images in their collection. The Harney County Library, however, may be a good resource. I think the best approach would be to e-mail the Harney County Library and ask them about the copyright status of those images. Jsayre64 (talk) 03:16, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice. --Another Believer (Talk) 03:20, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I think that flyer or whatever was published. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:27, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Also, the museum isn't the copyright holder of a lot of that stuff, anyways. It would be the original photographer if it isn't in the public domain, or made as a work for hire in very specific circumstances. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:35, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
That's what I don't understand.. can museums purchase the rights to an image taken by someone else? I wish museums and other archives would just dump their image collection into Commons and save me all of the confusion... :) --Another Believer (Talk) 03:55, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I bet some editors at WP:MCQ can answer questions like that. Jsayre64 (talk) 03:57, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
(redent)If it was published before 1923, then it's public domain. The date part is pretty clear, which leaves what does "published" mean. The best I can describe it is if it is sold or given to the public (more here).
Pretty much every website says something about "all contents are copyrighted". It's just the standard way of covering ones behind. That way, if you publish something that you have copyright ownership of, then you've clearly stated it's yours. And, if you publish something that's in the public domain, then that's up to the reader or reuser to figure out, and you haven't given away something by accident.
There was a famous case a little while back where a pedian took a bunch of high res pictures from the National Gallery in the UK. There, if a person takes a picture of an old painting, that picture receives a new copyright. In the US, they don't. So, the pedian was in the US, and the website was in the UK. I think it was all legal, but it was funky and they got pissed. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 16:48, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Of course! Thanks so much for the offer. --Another Believer (Talk) 03:16, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you so much! I have completed work on the Mei-Ann Chen article and have nominated it for GA status. Up next I will create and expand an article for Huw Edwards, then try to complete the article for Gershkovitch. Orygun, your assistance is much appreciated. --Another Believer (Talk) 21:35, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

The PYP is such a great story. I just recently did an Offbeat Oregon article on the PYP (well, on the Sagebrush Symph, actually) -- just in case it contains any info you haven't got, here's a link to it in the McMinnville paper: http://www.newsregister.com/article?articleTitle=country%27s+first+youth+symphony+started+in+oregon+high+desert--1314891246--1527--home-news Finn-jd-john (talk) 13:20, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I have read your article and incorporated it into my research for WP. Compliments on your article--yours is one of the better ones I have read re: Sagebrush Symphony! Update: DYK hooks have been accepted for both the Mei-Ann Chen and PYP articles. The Chen article is up for GA status. I am in the process of expanding the Gershkovitch, Avshalomov and Edwards articles. Once these are up to GA status, my goal will be to get the PYP article to FA status. --Another Believer (Talk) 14:51, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
thanks! It makes it easier when the facts are so compelling. :-) Finn-jd-john (talk) 04:12, 7 October 2011 (UTC)