Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennessee/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 → Archive 5

New WikiProject

I've had this in my watchlist for a while. More than happy to help get it off the ground. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:18, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't even know it existed till you tagged Murfreesboro. Of course, now I see it was just created today.... Don't know what I can do, but I'll add my name. -- Huntster T • @ • C 21:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Wow, this Wikiproject was sorely needed. A good member to have would be User:Rlquall, that guy has probably edited every TN-related article a few times, and every one is far better for it. Danthemankhan 21:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Progress

Yesterday, in a fit of activity, I applied {{WikiProject Tennessee}} to all the pages linked to from {{Tennessee}} and all TN sports teams articles, along with a bunch of other the smaller cities.

I also whipped up a quickie userbox at {{User WikiProject Tennessee}}.

Wheee. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Unreferenced

Hello, I commend the work that has gone into both Tennessee Titans and 2006 Tennessee Titans season. However, these article are completely unreferenced and I have tagged them as such. Articles on Wikipedia need to compley with WP:V and WP:RS. Please add some sources to these article so they do not get deleted. Thanks and keep up the good work. Johntex\talk 16:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Franklin

I am shocked by the lack of information on the city of Franklin in Williamson County. That town is filled with many historical sites from two civil war battles and many other events. I'm in school right now so I can't go to these historical places to do research right now but when spring break rolls around I will definantly write some articles about the the Civil War sites. SMBriscoe 01:17, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Knoxville, TN, Historic Structures

Since the Knoxville, Tennessee page is an overview of the city, would it be better if I created a separate page for the historic structures rather than have them on the main page? I could then do links from Knoxville, Knox County and Farragut. I'm the newbie, so I could use your input.--Baxterguy 12:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow...this list definitely needs to be either moved to a separate article or significantly pruned down. If these locations are on the National Register of Historic Places, then I would suggest removing them from this article and placing them at List of Registered Historic Places in Tennessee#Knox County, which can then be wikilinked from the Knoxville article. This tidies up the page, and consolidates all of the Knoxville area and statewide locations in one place. Additional historic places that are not on the National Register, if they are actually notable in some way (being old doesn't imply notability), should remain in the Knoxville article. Also remember that it isn't necessary to create an article for every location, again, if it isn't truly notable. -- Huntster T • @ • C 15:34, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Focus

So what should be be focusing on? I've been adding the TN Wikiproject template to discussion pages, any other major initiatives we should be doing? Anybody notice any areas that need work? --AW 15:36, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

At this point, I'd suggest raising the quality and citations of the major cities (Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga), then secondary cities (such as Jackson, Murfreesboro, Clarksville, Franklin, etc). Of course, every person has their areas of specific knowledge, so just work on those things you are comfortable with. Any contribution is great. -- Huntster T • @ • C 16:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. I do think we could use some more people though. i've brought in a couple, but the more the merrier --AW 17:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm more than happy to help in any way - I'm not as familiar as many on the subject, but I'm pretty handy with templates and fact checking. Ancjr 07:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Clinton, Tennessee

Can some of you good folk watchlist and review the content of this article. We've received a complaint and I have removed blatant pov pushing, but the article needs watched against a return and the current content checked for fairness. Thanks.--Docg 22:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Will do --AW 15:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

New articles

Dear Wikipedians, a list of possible Tennessee-related articles found by bot is available at User:AlexNewArtBot/TennesseeSearchResult. Colchicum 15:09, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Very cool! If people could tag some of them with the TN template, that would be great. I've done a few --AW 18:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion for Project Template

Hey!

I have joined the TN project just recently, I am glad I found it. I live in Tennessee and have started a few articles about smaller TN topics. I also have put some photos I made of TN locations into articles. This project is a good idea for people who are interested in whatever niche of TN topic and they can concentrate their knowledge and interests and discuss their issues.

There's something I would like to ask about the formulation of the project template.

On the project template is says "This article is part of Wiki Project Tennessee".

Some other state templates read "This article is within the scope of Wiki Project state"

Are there objections to change the Tennessee project template to the second formulation "... is within the scope of ..."? Here's why I suggest it. Is "part of" sounds like or might give the impression that the very article is currently being worked on according to the Wikipedia sandards and being improved and soon it is going to be ready and finished.

Furthermore it might discourage new Wikipedians to contribute to articles. Imagine a newly created articles about any topic. Someone might work on or even start a new article and later the tag appears saying that the article is "part of" a project now. This could discourage the contributor in two ways. First he or she might get the impression that someone else has taken over now and stop him or her from contributing or they might feel like their efforts are not recognized. Of course, there is no ownership of articles but people sure are proud of their work.

The formulation "is within the scope", however, can sound more rewarding if put on an article because, especially for new articles. It could encourage the contributor to continue because the article has been recognised as an important element in something bigger.

Since I understand this project to be an ongoing one the second formulation would better make the point. It would suggest that the article has been recognized as one that meets the criteria of the project and is going to become subject to improval once an expert on what needs to be improved starts over on the article. The improval need not be immediate but rather ongoing, just as the project is.

As a conclusion I would say that "is within the scope" better underlines the constant process and ongoing progress in the project as well as in Wikipedia and it can encourage new Wikipedians by recognising their work. The formulation "is within the scope" has less possessive connotations and might be encouraging to new Wikipedians.

Finally, this suggestion is just about the words, I don't want to change any project policies. Words can be very precise instruments.

I am looking forward to hear your opinions!

DoxTxob 19:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely, the second term sounds better and would bring the template into standardization with other such WikiProjects (and with WikiProjects as a whole. I have no problem with the change, and say go right on ahead :) -- Huntster T • @ • C 06:45, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Maybe we could expand the project template. I like what Kentucky's says, for example, inviting people to join:

{{WikiProject Kentucky}}--AW 18:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, unless someone objects, I'm going to make it more like the Kentucky banner. Anyone? --AW 15:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Great idea, full support, I like that it is encouraging users to join, so far there are not too many users in the project Tennessee. Great way to encourage users with similar interests.

DoxTxob 18:27, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, I did a little work at it here: User:Awiseman/Sandbox/Template:WPTN. I can't get the Watch All link to work though, can somebody else have a look? --AW 18:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks great already!

I found these pages. Probably you have found them already, too. The project Kentucky had their list of related changes to project articles done by the user who maintains the WatchlistBot. The code for the bot is available but that seems to be lots of effort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WatchlistBot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mom2jandk#Bot

Maybe I find some time to check it out further tomorrow.

DoxTxob 19:46, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I asked the bot owner about it, I guess we'll see --AW 19:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, bot is done, here is the page it makes Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennessee/Articles. So should I replace the template with the one I made? --AW 15:06, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi AW, Wow, we can now get a list of all the tagged Tennessee articles and follow the changes made, that is an amazing feature we were missing. I love it! Great work! I vote for replacement because of the valuable extra features. PS - I made a minor edit on the template in your sandbox. Sorry for the intrusion. DoxTxob 17:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good, I'll replace it today. I was away for a few days --AW 15:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I say rock it Qmax 16:28, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

User Category

Currently there are two user categories for this WikiProject: Category:WikiProject Tennessee members & Category:WikiProject Tennessee participants. It is requested that you choose one or the other and request a merge of these categories. --NThurston 21:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm gonna go ahead and say "participants", as that is the category that {{User WikiProject Tennessee}} uses and it has 10 pages, versus "members"'s 1. Doing it now. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Images of Tennessee

Today I went through all the links in the {{Tennessee}} infobox and added most of the images in the articles to the Category:Images of Tennessee.

Most ... Those few (about 10% of them) that were from the Wikipedia commons did not work. I could not add the images from the commons to the category, the category link would show up in red. So I left those out. I also did not add photos of people, however famous, or maps because they belong in other categories.

1 - What kind of images should be categorised as images of Tennessee and which should not? Are there Wikipedia standards already? And if not, what standards would be appropriate?

My vote: Yes for landscapes, buildings, streets, skylines, parks, other views. No for people, maps Unsure about satellite photos

2 - Should we put categorising images on the to-do list for the project? I guess people are going through the new articles anyway and in case they find appropriate pictures in the articles, they might as well be categorised in that same step of assessment.

My vote: Yes, put it on the to-do list

3 - Is it possible and would it make sense to categorise the Tennesse images in the Wikipedia commons as well?

My vote: I don't know how to but it would probably make sense

4 - Can it be automated by a bot to get a list of recently added images in articles about Tennessee that are tagged with the project banner? This is not helpful to work through the existing articles. But for the future it would be great to get a weekly updated list of images that have been added to TN related articles. So someone could go through that list of images, evaluate them compared to the standards and categorise them.

My vote: I don't know how to do it but it would sure be great to have it automated

Please put your vote or comment directly under the question signed with four tildes to avoid confusion in case there are many.

Take care

DoxTxob 23:51, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

On commons add it to Category:Tennessee. - PatricknoddyTALK (reply here)|HISTORY 11:34, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Project Banner upgrade

Again using {{WikiProject Kentucky}} as an example (aka, blatantly stealing from it), I've upgraded our project banner {{WikiProject Tennessee}} to allow for assessments of both class and importance. Not everything has been fixed or created yet, and I'm hoping to find an automated method for building and tagging some of it, but at least all of the important categories are in place. This should, hopefully, make it easier to assess articles and keep track of what is what. At this time, all tagged Tennessee articles are in subcategories of Category:WikiProject Tennessee articles, in both the class and importance subcats. This also means that they have been removed from the top-level WP:TN categories, so things are easier to manage. There's still a lot to do...so start assessing! -- Huntster T • @ • C 00:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Chattanooga Task Force

Hey, there have been a few of us wikipedians talking about starting a Chattanooga History Project, but perhaps we could just join the Project Tennessee and start a Chattanooga History Task Force instead? Thoughts? Qmax 21:53, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd encourage those Wikipedians to simply join WikiProject Tennessee and create the task force. We are too few in numbers as it is, and perhaps by placing everything under the header of this WikiProject, it will encourage everyone to expand their field of contributions. Perhaps you could just create a subpage here to organize your work? -- Huntster T • @ • C 08:15, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Huntster I have little experience working in WikiProjects. Any guidance or input you could provide would be most helpful. Should those of us involved in the Chattanooga Task Force discuss specific needs here? do we (can we?) create our own talk page? Do we create to-do lists underneath the Chattanooga Task Force heading on the main Tennessee Project page? Qmax 00:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I've slightly changed the front page for the WikiProject. What I would suggest is that you establish your own page, perhaps at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennessee/Chattanooga, which will allow you to more fully discuss material, while still keeping it in line with the wikiproject as a whole. Once that page is established, just link to it from the main WikiProject page. This means you'll have your own talk page. As for the last thing you mention, I'd recommend having the bulk of material on the subpage for the task force, but include a summary of current activities and a small list of your major or current target articles in the subsection for Chattanooga on the main page. These are just suggestions, as I'm not a real expert at WikiProjects myself. -- Huntster T • @ • C 03:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
You're a beautiful human being! Qmax 03:40, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Shut down this task force and head on over to Wikipedia:WikiProject Chattanooga. - PatricknoddyTALK (reply here)|HISTORY 11:33, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Chattanooga was integrated here specifically so that everyone would be able to more closely work together. We only have a little over 500 articles altogether in Tennessee tagged thus far...how many are going to fall specifically under a Chattanooga WikiProject? I just think a separate WikiProject would be bad for everyone at this stage. -- Huntster T • @ • C 12:04, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
'Course not. Maybe around well, 100, articles - PatricknoddyTALK (reply here)|HISTORY 12:24, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Agree. We're just getting started on the Chattanooga Task Force, and it looks like we may have only a handful of active participants. I think making an entirely separate project would be a burdensome and unnecessary. Qmax 13:32, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Agree on that. It makes more sense to have the Chattanooga task force integrated in the TN project. Might be good if other cities want to follow. I think that if you have lots of small projects, it could be hard to accomplish tasks with just a handful of people. With more people in the bigger project with task forces you have more brains available and tasks can be shared more easily.

It is not that we have a milatary structure here, right? As I see it everyone can (and should) concentrate on the topic they like to work on.

Take care,

doxTxob 19:18, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Article Assessment

What does assessment do? --AW 16:25, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey! I have adapted the Kentucky Assessment page for the TN project. It explains which criteria are used to assess the quality and the importance of an article. It seems that all the links and features work already. The page also has a table showing the number of already assessed articles by quality and importance.

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tennessee/Assessment

There are few red links, they all are missing categories. Minor for the moment, but I left them so we can see what categories might need to be created, still. The only adaption I did so far is to change all "Kentucky" to "Tennessee".

For the moment this should work. And if someone wants to go on assessing articles we have a common basis for how to do it and which standards are to be applied. So if someone likes to assess, they should read the instructions first.

Take care, DoxTxob 17:54, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Great, the assessment works perfectly. I have just assessed the article about Brownsville, Tennessee to start with an easy one. I have added an explanation for the rating on the comments page of the article, that page is linked from the project banner as "Rating summary page". Is this how we want to do it?

Take care, DoxTxob 18:27, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey, thanks so much for taking care of that assessment page. I'll be taking care of those redlinked categories later on, hopefully tonight. I think it'll require a touch of code update, but I'm not certain. Either way, it'll add some flexibility being able to tag templates, dabs, and the like. I'm rather disappointed that there is no unified page to explain step-by-step the process of creating these pages and categories, and getting them all set up. Most data does exist (...mostly) but it's all spread out over the WP namespace. And those cats left that are red-linked? They aren't really documented anywhere. Arg.
Anyway, I've found that categories aren't always the easiest thing to work with, given how they branch and form. We have so many now, I'm gonna have to create a tree graph just to track them all, lol. -- Huntster T • @ • C 20:57, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

That would be great. Today I start to assign mid-importance to all the TN counties on the list. According to the assessment standards mid importance is for articles that are notable on a local level within the state but not necessarily outside the state. That describes counties very well and should be done fairly quick.

However, I do not rate the quality of those articles at the moment.

Take care, doxTxob 19:35, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds great, though personally I would think that the political divisions of a state would rate as High rather than Mid, given that those boundaries are what defines the state, but I suppose I'm biased towards that since I care more for the technicals than the people and things that others might define as highly important ;)
While on this topic, I would propose the following simple, informal definitions for the Importance scale (as I consider the existing definitions somewhat fuzzy):
  • Low - Known or of importance to a local population.
  • Mid - Known or of importance to a statewide population.
  • High - Known or of importance to countrywide population.
  • Top - Known or of importance to a worldwide population.
Eh? -- Huntster T • @ • C 20:34, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is basically the same definitions in shorter words, easier to understand.

Right again about the ratings, I guess it depends how you look at it. At first I checked in which category the guys from the Kentucky project put their counties, they have them rated as mid importance.

I rated some TN articles as top (constituton, history of TN, big cities, and natural features, hey, and even graceland, stuff of almost global dimensions). Other articles as high (smaller cities, artists, natural features)

Well, and the counties as mid important. "of importance for a statewide population" ... seems about right to me. Maybe there are a few counties that stand out and deserve a higher rating. by the way, i started with the counties because i found them relatively easy to rate. ;) there will be much more discussion when it comes to the quality ratings.

what i really like very much with this new system of ratings is that they are automatically categorized and everyone can have a look and change ratings. i attached an explanation on the comments page to all ratings i gave, comparing the topic to the standard, making the rating transparent. but a lot of things have different weights for different people.

it is very good that we have adopted the system, it seems to be very sophisticated compared to some other state's article ratings. some do not even rate, some only rate quality. ours is more complete and i am sure that sooner or later the best system will be adopted by other states. this system is good for not only the moment but also for the future.

do you have idea for other categories that could be easily rated all at once and all the same way? how about county seats (exception big cities). mid? low? most articles probably need individual attention.

take care,

doxTxob 21:26, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that all sounds quite good :) As for other categories, you are right that most articles will require individual attention, but county seats, I believe, can be rated as mid-importance due to their overall importance as centers of governance, commerce, and (usually) population. This is not always the case, such as with Dickson, Tennessee, which is by far the largest town in Dickson County, but Charlotte is the county seat. These types of situations might require either dual mid-importance, or even low importance for the county seat, depending on just how small the seat is. Outside of large-scale topics like cities and counties, I don't know of other groups which may be mass-tagged, except for perhaps large geological features? Even then, it's uncertain. -- Huntster T • @ • C 21:49, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Agree. I rated all the county seats mid importnat (except major or big cities that have been rated higher already). Funny, about 25% of the TN county seats did not even have the TN project tag. I wonder how many TN related articles are still undiscovered?

doxTxob 00:46, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Status Quo

  • Counties = mid important
  • County seats = mid important
  • Town/villages/settlements = low importance (except bigger cities)

That's how I rated them on the importance scale, according to standards and comparable U.S. state projects. So that should not be too far off. Shortens the list, too. Most of the town or city articles are articles, by the way, that only consist of some geographic and demographic imformation generated by robots or so from U.S. census data. So almost all of them are correct in the low importance category.

I have marked the clear stuib articles as well as the clear start class articles, not many of both, though. Mostly in accordance with identical ratings that have been assigned by other projects in these dual-project cases.

Take care,

doxTxob 22:10, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Main project page

Okay, I've completely overhauled the main page for the project, taking what I perceived to be the best from several other projects. However, there's a number of sections that need fleshing out, primarily under the "Article status" section. If you have ideas for further sections, etc, please list them here. -- Huntster T • @ • C 09:08, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks damn good. Only thing I'd mention is that the text in the project infobox in the top right is really small. Qmax 12:28, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. I'd fix it but I can't figure out how --AW 15:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Er, I'll fix it, but I don't see how it is that small. My screen resolution is 1280x1024, and I can read everything fine. The old one took up so much space, it was awful. But whatever, I'll revert. :/ -- Huntster T • @ • C 15:30, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Ah sorry, didn't mean to make a whole bunch more work for you. Just a slightly bigger font would be perfect. Qmax 15:49, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Oh, no, no big deal. The problem is, with the current format being used, you cannot control anything, other than "big font and full size" or "small font and narrow". I'll eventually reformat the /To do page to add some flexibility. I enjoy playing with templates ;) -- Huntster T • @ • C 15:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Hey, sorry for blowing up the box so much... I have tried out different things, too. Either it is hard to read due to small letters or it gets too big and takes up the complete first screen when you go to the project page. Especially as the TN project is growing, it would be good to have a to-do box that can hold lots of information, but that can still be handled and read well.

How about making it collapsible? I have ssen that occasionally with project templates, when there is more than one, they are all in a box and is just shows the header of the box, then it has a [show] and [hide] option to eith show it or hide it. I have no idea how that is done, though.

Small at the side with larger letters would be great, too. Some other projects have it with small letters and with my resolution it is pretty hard to read. So larger letters are probably necessary.

Take care, doxTxob 17:51, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

It looks good the way it is now --AW 18:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Include TN state routes in the project?

There is a bunch of articles about Tennessee state routes. Should they be tagged with the project tag? Some state projects seem to do it (Texas) others don't. I suppose all of the state routes are part of the WikiProject Roads already. But a lot of topics are covered by more than one project, like TN politicians, they are covered by both the TN project and the Biographies project.

My vote would be yes, include. Because of the comprehensiveness. I would put the TN project banner as the last banner on the list on the talk page (the roads project is the leading project) and follow the quality ratings of the leading project and rate the importance for the TN project as low.

Any suggestions?

Take care, doxTxob 22:44, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd absolutely tag them. They are an intrinsic part of the state, and they are cared for by TDOT. Agreed with the low importance, though. -- Huntster T • @ • C 23:55, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
done doxTxob 22:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

State parks/National parks rating

State parks

I tagged all TN state parks (about 30) from the list of state parks as mid important. Accorting to the stadards the mid importance rating was for topics reasoably noticable in TN but not necessarily outside.

According to Wikipedia State park article: State park is a term used in the United States (...) for an area of land preserved on account of its natural beauty, historic interest, recreation, or other reason, and under the administration of the government of a U.S. state (...). State parks are protected area of IUCN category II.

A lot of the parks are historic sites. Unfortunately most of the articles are stub class.

doxTxob 22:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

National parks

Are there objections to tag the National Parks/Sites in TN with a high importance?

That would be every park or site on this list that is loated in TN, which are only a few: List_of_areas_in_the_National_Park_System_of_the_United_States

doxTxob 22:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. These should be reasonably well known to both those in Tennessee and those elsewhere in the Country.
Also, all WikiProject catagories and state-related templates/stub templates should now be both created and tagged, so as far as I know, the project should be fully functional. -- Huntster T • @ • C 22:44, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Articles for project review

I have found a few good articles for a project review.

Four articles have been added here for importance assessment (three FA class and one GA class articles): Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tennessee/Assessment#Project_review

And a nominee for a GA (good article) here, currently the article is B class: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tennessee#Top-rated_articles

How can we discuss that best? Suggestion: Leave the list of requests on the project page, where it was added and mark the cases as done, when they are done. In case a discussion is needed, I would put that on the article_name/Comments page of the article itself, that's the page you get to when you click on Ratings summary page in the project banner. And on the project page I would link to the article_name/Comments page.

Or should we discuss it here and link to the discussion from the article? There needs to be a connection of some kind between the discussion and the article, I think. At least when it is about higher quality articles or articles of a higher importance for the project.

Does anyone have experience on how it's done best, most effectively and trasparent?

doxTxob 22:26, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Possibly useful map

I made a locator map for Tennessee. Similar ones are in use in infoboxes in state park articles (for example Warrior's Path State Park) or city articles (for example Elmwood, Louisiana). I hope this is useful, Ruhrfisch 04:42, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that, we'll find some ways to use it. Good graphics are too hard to come by to let pass. -- Huntster T • @ • C 05:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

TN State Routes and Rivers

I'm adding this under the state routes because rivers were the first and for centuries most important way of traversing distances through long territories.

We don't think much about it now, but most of the early major cities were founded on rivers, often on the same places where Native Americans had communities or trading centers.

I think editors should look and always identify the rivers on which cities or towns were located. They were integral to history and settlement of TN and other states, to the connection of cultures across rivers, and to business interests - for instance, those states whose rivers ran into the Ohio also had business links to New Orleans and the Mississippi. --Parkwells 21:39, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

At least in terms of categorisation, all bodies of water should be classified in one of the subcategories of Category:Landforms of Tennessee. Yes, they are historical routes, but for our purposes, bodies of water are simply treated as parts of nature. Now, in terms of noting which rivers run through or near which settlements, this information may be of best interest in individual town articles. -- Huntster T • @ • C 22:03, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that information about rivers belongs with towns or city articles. I wasn't thinking about categorization but about referring to them in places where it can be understood what part they played in the development of the towns.--Parkwells 17:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Possible banner additions

I was going through tagging some various articles with the Tennessee banner and also the Schools Project banner. I noticed something on there that seemed somewhat useful and might want to be considered for the Tennessee banner. If not actually showing it on the banner itself it could be a place for another category that it could add the article to. The banner had a parameter that would let you specify that the article needs to be moved and the suggested name to move it to. Thinking on it I thought we could use a category under the articles that need attention for articles that need to be moved or renamed. ~Dan9186 November 10, 2007 19:03 (UTC)

While that's easy enough to code, why not simply apply the {{Move}} template to the article? That is more visible and should draw more comments. -- Huntster T • @ • C 02:32, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
That is an option, however what does that do for tagging it in a maintenance category that is part of the project? That was my main goal with the suggestion. Is that not part of the point of the articles needing attention category? That way it is easier for people in the project to assist with Tennessee related articles that need something? ~Dan9186 November 11, 2007 13:55 (UTC)

List of cities and towns in Tennessee

I've expanded this list, so it now includes name, county(ies), population (in 2000), incorporation date, type of municipal charter, and identification of county seats. There's also article content on the topic of municipal incorporation in Tennessee, which helps to explain the scope of the list. I think the list has potential to be nominated as a featured list, but Tennessee contributors should comment first... --Orlady (talk) 21:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Good work! There are several things I like. First of all, I appreciate the encyclopedic content at the beginning. Every list should have that. The reader is introduced to the topic and the key elements are explained so even the casual, non-expert reader has a chance to understand and learn something. What I also like is that the list looks easily maintainable, once new census data arrives it can be added in a new column and if some hardworking soul wanted, even earlier census data could be added to get an idea of the population development. That also means the list is easily expandable with useful facts. There is only one remark ... Can you imagine an image for the article, something that represents the topic somehow without using the flag or the shape of the state? Just asking, I can't either. Again, great work, would be nice to have a featured TN article. doxTxob \ talk 21:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Hmm... One possibility for images is http://www.tngis.org/images/city_limits.jpg -- a State of Tennessee map that shows the boundaries of all the state's incorporated municipalities. That would, of course, require permissions to avoid copyvio issues. However, the map was generated from GIS data (see http://www.tngis.org/city_limits.html for information); there might be a GIS wizard around here who could create a new variant version of that map.
Another possibility would be to use several images of Tennessee municipalities, such as Image:Memphis skyline from the air.jpg (the top image on Memphis, Tennessee), Image:Chattanooga, Tennessee.jpg (the downtown image in Chattanooga, Tennessee), Image:Knoxville-R.jpg (labeled "Southeastern view of Knoxville" in Knoxville, Tennessee), and Image:Nashville panorama.jpg (the first image in Nashville, Tennessee). List of cities and unincorporated communities in Oregon has a nice collection of images like that, but that list is not formatted as a table. The Tennessee list article doesn't have space for more than 2 photos, at most... A better solution might be to create a collage of photos, similar in concept to the collages at http://www.townofbellbuckle.com/images/header1.jpg and http://www.tml1.org/products_service_guide/index.htm -- and, ideally, including some small-town images similar to http://www.mcminnvilletenn.com//images/churches.jpg
I suppose another possibility might be to create a collage of city and town seals/symbols/logos, combining unusual Tennessee-specific images like http://www.citybellemeade.org/images/sign-post-green-smmall.gif with traditional seals like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Logo_knox.gif
Is there an artist in the house? --Orlady (talk) 00:15, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

My favorite

Do I have to say what my favorite is? The List of cities and unincorporated communities in Oregon is what I liked best of all. That is much better than a single image, having many.

Images from all over he state at the right side of the screen, at a size that does not disturb the main purpose of the list, in alphabetical order, from the top of the article to the bottom. Big towns and small towns, rural and urban, black and white, rich and poor, next to each other, sorted by the alphabet. When the number of images gets too big to accompany the article, there is the option to reduce the image size. Like demonstrated above, images could be sized down to make room for more. 150 px would be a good size to start with. In an image gallery there would even be more room.

What could represent the State of Tennessee better than impressions from all over Tennessee? That is so much better than just one image. There are many images of towns already on Wikipedia that could be used. It would be very easy to maintain also, as all the image-Wikilinks are at the top, that aloso makes it easy for new editors to add images to the list.

Hey, you did the majority of the work and the final decision is yours. Should you like this image idea along the list of cities and towns in Tennessee, I volunteer to gather the first 30 images to accompny the list, to start with something. doxTxob \ talk 04:23, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I found a single photo that illustrates the article. It's not as pretty as a large collection of photos of the state, but I think it works nicely. Check the article to see what you think. --Orlady (talk) 05:05, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm adding my photo to the right (it's the one in black and white), to reduce confusion about which photo is being discussed by whom....--Orlady (talk) 14:04, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
While having the column of photos looks nice in an article, unfortunately, the code used to render them causes merry chaos at lower screen resolutions. Check List of Oregon covered bridges at smaller browser widths...for Firefox, the images begin to overlap the table; for Internet Explorer, the entire table gets shifted below the last image in the column. The only reason that the column format works for the above mentioned Oregon community list is because it is in pure text format rather than table format and the edit section buttons are disabled. I like the Crossville sign image...very unique and something you simply don't see anymore. -- Huntster T • @ • C 15:36, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
What a nice find, I have never seen a signpost like this. That is the perfect image for the topic. Old photos have some charme that new ones do not have, and it even has Hunster's hometown on one sign. Yes, I have tried the column of images and resized the window, it does look messy. That probably also happens when a column is added. So that does not work if the effects are uncontrolable. The signpost is very nice, not messy and a great representation for Tennessee cities and towns. Perfect!
Size of the image: I liked the 250 px size that Orlady chose, but that at was altered to default size by an editor, referring to the Manual of Style. However, the Manual of Style also states that sizing images is appropriate for images in which a small region is relevant, but cropping to that region would reduce the coherence of the image. ... and exactly that is the case! I would consider the names of towns and cities relevant for the image in the context it is presented. With the larger image it was more immediately apparent what the image shows and it is not that it clutters anything or squeezes the text, or so. It is not a too important issue, but there's already two people, obviously, who like the bigger image better. What say you, Huntster?
Orlady, one more thing, the article states that the terms city and town ... do not have significance with respect to population, date of establishment, or type of municipal charter. But what exactly is the difference, then? I have always asked myself that and never really found an answer. Maybe you have an idea. Would be nice to have the answer in the encyclopedic content of the article, too. Have a nice day, doxTxob \ talk 20:36, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Such signposts were not uncommon long ago (and by that I mean before the 1900s), and I believe they were, and possibly still are, quite common in the UK and Europe. You can see some North American examples here...there's a couple from Tennessee (and an unrelated but especially humourous image is here). As for the Crossville image itself, it can be used as-is, or it could be cropped if desired to show just the signs. Both have their value; the wide shot establishes some locational character, whereas the crop would more clearly represent the idea of the article. I would personally edge towards a crop.
The words city and town are likely terms that were simply adopted by a municipality's charter or was amended..."City of Waverly", "Town of Pleasant View". This was, historically speaking, probably indicative of size/population, but modern usage has blurred this distinction since city has the connotation of "large", which many places tend to strive toward...my birthplace of Waverly uses city but is by no means sizable. The article for town mentions that city comes from Latin via French, whereas town is of Germanic origin. I doubt this distinction plays significantly into their modern use. -- Huntster T • @ • C 21:35, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Regarding image size, I personally prefer the full uncropped image at 250px (larger is even better, but 250 is big enough). I prefer the full uncropped image for several reasons. This is an image produced by a famous visual artist; if he had wanted it cropped, he would have cropped it. Furthermore, the stack of signs by itself is not nearly as interesting an image as the stack of signs in the middle of a Tennessee town as it existed 70 years ago. Finally, cropping out the foreground street would make it less apparent that the stack of signs is in the middle of the street (an interesting detail).
Regarding "town" vs. "city," I have been unable to find any information on the significance of these names for Tennessee municipalities. I've even tried original research (wink). Some towns are bedroom suburbs that have large populations (examples: Collierville and Farragut), but Brentwood is also a large-population suburb, and it's a city. Many county seats are cities, but not Alamo, Ashland City, Carthage, Selmer, or several others. Ashland City and Cumberland City have "city" in their names, yet they are "towns." Some of the state's smallest municipalities are towns (examples: Silerton, incorporated 1923, with 60 people; Saulsbury, incorporated 1849, with 99 people; Slayden, incorporated 1913; Hickory Valley, incorporated 1951; and Braden, incorporated 1969), but other small ones are cities (including Townsend, incorporated 1921; Yorkville and Wartrace, incorporated 1858; Mitchellville, incorporated 1909; and Sunbright, incorporated 1990).
--Orlady (talk) 00:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I'm not talking about a close crop where only the sign is visible, just removing some of the surrounding extraneous material so that the sign is centred in the image and the photographic wear and tear elements are removed. When I get home and have access to some photomanip stuff, I'll work up an example. Just because the photographer was famed, doesn't mean perfection...that's where I come in! *wink* -- Huntster T • @ • C 01:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I have photo-editing software, too, but I don't want to crop this image because I think the entire image (including the signs of aging damage to the left side of it -- they help to underline the antiquity of the image) is "relevant". To paraphrase WP:MOS#Images, I see this as an instance in which a small region is particularly relevant, but cropping to that region would reduce the coherence of the image. --Orlady (talk) 02:30, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Original, used in List of Cities and towns
Centered rendering, as suggested by Huntster
Minimal crop, used on TN Portal

Image size, the Manual of Style recommends a minimum size of 300px for images that are purposefully set at a bigger size than standard. The reason is that a smaller size will make the image smaller for users who have set 300px in their user preferences, that's what the Manual of Style recommends in a case where a larger image is wanted. If I had to decide that on my own, I would go with 250 or 300 px, but I am not. I also tried a preview of the image without a caption at all, removing the |thumb| from the tag, replacing it with |right| for alignment, as demonstrated above. One more option ..., I prefer the image caption, though.

Cropping or not, I am opposed to rigorous cropping and centering of the signpost. It is a work of art that should not be altered, unless absolutely necessary. And if it seems absolutely necessary, I would still recommend to hesitate. That is almost like altering a quote. I would support the full image, and the signpost should not be centered, please, not at all, here I support Orlady; if the artist had wanted it centered, he would have done so (Refer to: Golden ratio, often intentionally used by artists for positioning objects off center in a picture).

Wear and tear of the photo, around the edges. The image looks like the reproduction of a postcard or old photo. Wear and tear would be something the artist might have expected but he did not intend the wear and tear. I am not worried about the quality and integrity of the photo if the edges are cleaned and streightened with as minimal loss to the original image as possible, even the left upper corner filled up would be OK for me. What would the artist have wanted? He first made it with neat edges, maybe he'd like that best on Wikipedia, too. Who knows? In my opinion the antiquity of the image would not be corrupted by cleaning the edges, either. The antiquity of the photo comes from the image itself, they don't make singnposts like that anymore, neither do they make trucks like that. That is what I like in this photo, even if you wanted, it would be impossible to make that photo today. And it makes me wonder how that intersection looks like today.

To summarize my thoughts: 250 or 300px size. Keep as much of the image as possible, keep it as original as possible and make it look as good as possible. If you were the artist, wouldn't you want your work of art to look as good as possible? I would!

I am looking forward to see Huntster's example. Hey, let's look at that and talk about it. doxTxob \ talk 04:32, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

FYI: That Crossville sign photo is from the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html . These are historic photos that are mostly free of copyright because they were the work of the US government, but the photographers include some "big names" in the history of photography. Topics of the Tennessee images in the collection include building TVA dams, flooding on the Mississippi River, and World War II industrial production, but the collection is not limited to these topics. --Orlady (talk) 18:10, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, kinda pointless I suppose, since favour goes to Orlady's image, but here's the cropped version taken from the original TIF file (converted to PNG and placed on Commons, which I've moved Orlady's image to as well). Unfortunately, the full TIF file is actually lower quality and less crisp than the JPG, for reasons I can't fathom, and I simply don't have the tools or knowledge to properly do a photomanip to match. So take this as an example of cropping, not as a final product. See, to me a free image should be modified...works of art are not sacred to me, they are a means to an end. I feel this situation calls for straightforward focus, which I don't think the original photograph provides; the whole point of choosing this picture was that the signpost was representative of the various towns in Tennessee, I thought. As for the wear and tear issue, I'm a neat-freak...I dislike old photos specifically because of the little bits and divots hanging around. It just disturbs me, I suppose.
Irregardless, whichever is decided upon, I think this picture is a perfect representative for the article, and I can't say how great it is that Orlady found it. -- Huntster T • @ • C 23:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I completely agree with Huntster here, the image is a perfect representation for TN cities and towns. Even though my town is not on one of the signs, I see my town perfectly represented by the photo. That is what I like, smaller and bigger towns around there, at that time, at that place. How did you find that, by he way?
As for the cropping or not, I have tried a minimal crop, just reducing the double border of the original photo. How little it was cropped, you can see in the top left corner, where the original damage is still present. Hey, when I look at the original, what I notice is that the borders destract me from what's to see in the photo. Compare the original, the centered crop and the minimal crop. What do you look at first? The crisp, clean edges of the cropped versions direct me to the off center focus, either of them.
On the selected images of the TN portal, I replaced the original photo with the minimally cropped one, on the selected images only, not on the List of cities and towns. doxTxob \ talk 02:56, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm still partial to the originally, but I can live with the minimally cropped version (a better description of it would be "minimally trimmed"). I would hate to lose details like the headlight on the truck (which is so evocative of the times), but you managed to keep the headlight.
As noted above, the photo came from the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Collection at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html . These are historic photos that are mostly free of copyright because they were the work of the US government, but the photographers include some "big names" in the history of photography. You can browse the collection by geography. Topics of the Tennessee images in the collection include building TVA dams, flooding on the Mississippi River, and World War II industrial production, but the collection is not limited to these topics. --Orlady (talk) 03:08, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Nominated as featured list

I nominated this list for featured list status. The comment page is at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of cities and towns in Tennessee. --Orlady (talk) 15:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I hope Tennessee Wikipedians are not afraid to comment on the nomination. (And I hope I am not accused of canvassing for making this comment here.)
Meanwhile, at the featured list nomination page an issue was raised regarding the title of the article -- whether it should be titled "incorporated municipalities" (or something like that) instead of "cities and towns". I'm going to take that one to the article talk page. --Orlady (talk) 05:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Is this the first TN related list getting featured status? doxTxob \ talk 06:07, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Archiving this talkpage

With help of Help:Archiving a talk page I have started an archive for this talk page at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennessee/Archive 1. The archive can be accessed from the new Archive box at the top of this page. So far the archive is empty. Not anymore.

My suggestion is for the moment to archive the topics that are clearly solved and a little older. There are few topics, however, that are unclear in their status. Topics that are unresponded to or need investigation to find out if they are solved or not. Inside the archive it would probably be best to sort by date of the first comment on each topic.

What I'll do is to sort out some stuff right now and just copy and paste it to the archive. With the talk we have there is no need for automatic archiving, I think. And for the future I will probably just go ahead and archive older solved topics occasionally. How about that? doxTxob \ talk 21:11, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Archiving Tennessee Project Discussions

Dan9186 left this idea on my talkpage, I think this is a good idea and worth talking about. In the ideal case the project member closest to the topic would apply this box at the end of the topic to indicate that the topic is closed, solved, dealt with and can be moved to archives. Probably it would be best to show the template at the top of the discussion page to encourage editors to watch their own discussion and indicate the status once the case is closed. I think it's worth a try. What do you think? doxTxob \ talk 21:49, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I was just thinking about some of the archiving with the Tennessee Project talk page. Would it be helpful to have a little box marking a section for needing archiving? I figured since you're the one that's been doing it likely not many will just up and archive it if they feel that it is finished and needs to be moved. Just an idea for something to help clean up old discussions from the talk page. I made a template User:Dan9186/Sandbox/reqarchive-talk to suggest and see what you thought. -- Dan9186(T • E • C) December 12, 2007 23:47 (UTC)

Lol well the reason why I really went to your talk page first doxTxob was because I felt that the box was still missing something. I'm not quite sure what but it seems like it needs something else in it. Does anyone else have any thoughts on what might need to be added to it if we used it? -- Dan9186(T • E • C) December 13, 2007 23:44 (UTC)

I think that looks sharp, and quite frankly I see no reason why it couldn't be ported over to the main template namespace. I would suggestion simplifying the name to just "Template:Reqarchive" or "Template:Archiverequest". Perhaps instead of signing it with tildes, it would be cleaner to just use an editors username. Also, I think a note should be added in small text that reminds editors to remove the box before archiving. -- Huntster T • @ • C 04:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Signing with tildes might be easier to understand for new editors. They are easy to use for everyone, if you have not formated your username in the personal settings it does appear in the default setting USERNAME, anyway. Doesn't it? Not that important, though.
That box might be quite useful, placed right under the box with rules for the talk page with an instrcution how to place it underneath the section you want to indicate as closed. If the box is placed at the top of the talk page to suggest closing topics like that, it might also be an idea to remind editors to put the respective talk page on their watchlist, with a link in the box to add that very talk page to your watchlist. So you have the "This is a Talkpge. Be friendly, sign your posts, ..." box. And below that: "... please put it on your watchlist and if your topic is closed, please request archivation" box.
I have doubts that it is going to be used often but it is something I missed so far in discussions. Occasionally, the topic you talked about is delayed and new topics arise and your topic ends up in the middle of the talk. In such cases it would be nice to be able to notify whomever archives the talk that the topic is dealt with and can be archived. So you let someone know without having to mess with a talkpage archive. Neat idea! So far, with that [+] tab at the top of the talkpage can add a new section. Wow, that's the next step: A [-] next to each talk topic to auto-archive the sections you have started or suggest archivation to the user or project that takes care of the article. Wouldn't that be nice? There are requests for photos in articles already and requests to seek new facts and references but I have not seen archive requests yet. doxTxob \ talk 05:10, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
I just used my personal signature that I have saved when I signed it. You can put just USERNAME to sign it. Hunster, feel free to add what you think would look best on it. I have finished with exams but have to get to work shortly so I will try and add your suggestion later if you don't beat me to it. -- Dan9186(T • E • C) December 14, 2007 19:08 (UTC)

I am going to add another optional field to the box so that a reason can be provided, such as author or time. This will change the message such that saying that the original author has requested it or that it has been requested due to time such as a year has passed since it was active. I haven't thought of any other reasons but if anyone can come up with suggestions just let me know. -- Dan9186(T • E • C) December 17, 2007 14:49 (UTC)

It might be over kill I dunno but I have completed everything that I could think to include in the ambox. There are now three renditions of it based on the parameters. It will display a different message based on whether it is the default "please move to archive" or if it is requested by the author or due to extended inactivity. On top of that if the requestor is provided their name is included as well as the request date. This should finish up everything that was planned and if no one has any objections I will move it over to the template namespace under the name reqarchive. Here are some examples. -- Dan9186(T • E • C) December 19, 2007 08:21 (UTC)

The template is now up and in place under {{reqarchive}}. I've provided minimal documentation and examples so we can give it a go and trying to use the template to keep the talk page here clean. -- Dan9186(T • E • C) December 19, 2007 18:11 (UTC)

That is pretty cool! I would say that the different options should cover what is required. Very nice idea and nice work! doxTxob \ talk 20:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

New Portal Tennessee

I have just created the skeleton for the Portal:Tennessee. Technically, it seems to be quite easy to fill it with information. The contents from each box there are saved in a separate page and the contents rotate, so it does not have to be updated manually too often, once a certain amount of information is present. You click on the red links, create the respective subpage and save it. The boxes that are there now is the standard layout, that is how it comes out of the box, so to speak. If there is a box that cannot be filled, it can be taken out and new boxes can be added, each receiving the content from their own subpage.

There is lots of help at Wikipedia:Portal/Instructions, and for those like me who learn best from examples I recommend the Portal:Oregon as a good reference, or other U.S. State portals. For stuff like the layout of the subpages, and how the rotation of contents works, I am probably going to copy that in part from the Oregon Portal, whenever necessary. The Oregon portal has a good degree of sophistication without being too complicated. By default, portals at this stage are automatically marked Portal under Construction, so there is no hurry to complete it in a certain time.

There is certainly enough interesting information in the more than 2,400 TN related articles to fill the portal with some useful content that readers might like to start with when they look for something about Tennessee. There might even be a motivational effect for some editors to contribute to the portal, because it is an important representation of what Wikipedia has to offer about the State of Tennessee. All topics are still open, pick your favorite. Everyone is invited to join the effort! Every idea, suggestion and contribution is welcome. doxTxob \ talk 23:59, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I inserted a "selected article," which went fine. I also created a "Did you know?" page, but somehow (probably as a result of copying an Oregon format that was not identical to the Tennessee template) I created a box within a box there... I hope someone cleverer than I am will fix it... --Orlady (talk) 20:32, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Page tweaked[1], though I don't know if you wanted the "Archive – Start a new article" links inside that box or not. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:37, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I didn't actually want anything; I was merely trying to fill in the blanks in a templated portal. (Sigh!) I think the box is normally supposed to display just one set of 3 "did you know" items, not the whole collection. I think the "Archive" link is supposed to be inside the box, and is supposed to link to the larger collection of "did you know" items. The "Start a new article" link was also inside the box as part of the template, but it is not particularly useful. --Orlady (talk) 20:51, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Wow, that's fun to watch what good information we have so far! It's almost done! Not really, but it is encouraging to see that some of the boxes are filled with a lot of good information. Im am pretty sure that it is not going to take long to have some presentable Portal with the best Wikipedia has to offer about Tennessee.
The "Start a new article" link in the "Did you know...?" box is really not placed very well. Good that it's gone! Although it is there for a reason. The main page "Did you know..?" items are exclusively from newly created articles. I guess it is meant as a motivation to start new, exiting articles. I have my doubts that that makes much sense on the main page but as Tennessee is concerned we should - like Orlady started it already - derive the "Did you know...?" from existing articles. And then the "start a new article" link would make no sense at all because there's nothing realted to new articles in the box. doxTxob \ talk 21:51, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
IMHO, a dynamic "did you know" feature based solely on new articles would require far too much maintenance for the small corps of contributors here. As I see it, this type of portal is an entry point to Wikipedia for people who aren't so much searching for information as browsing for it. Viewed in that context, DYK can be just one more way to entice people to read articles of possible interest. For what it's worth, the format in that section now is copied from Portal:Oregon, which does provide snippets from recent articles but does not invite people to "start a new article." ;-)--Orlady (talk) 22:25, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Along the same lines, I doubt that the "News" part of the portal is sufficiently maintainable to be worth including at this time. Evidence of that is available from the Wikinews Tennessee portal. Under "Latest News," http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Portal:Tennessee has one article from November 2007 and another article from April 2007, but those are the only articles posted there this year (most are from 2005). --Orlady (talk) 22:25, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure about the "In the News" segment. There is not really much more to do than check a few news sources for news about Tennessee during the week and have three or so entires in that box, once a week. That does not have to be anything to keep someone busy for long. I volunteer for that, for the moment. It would make the portal more alive to keep in touch with current events, without intending to replace the newspaper.

At the moment, it is all under construction but some great information has been collected already. Even if we are of the opinion today that something is not needed, let's add boldly but not delete too quickly. Look at the Portal:Kentucky, a lot of the TN project page was adapted from the Kentucky project. On the Portal:Kentucky, however, I saw that many of the topic-rotation features were switched off. That's fine if they want it like that but if you take that example only, you might never think of something else. If you did not know the wheel existed, you might waste time to re-invent it. Let's add to the Portal at the moment and delete unused stuff later. Under construction. doxTxob \ talk 03:54, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

State symbols

There are some lovely images of state symbols in the box in the portal, but unfortunately at 30px they are too small to be seen. I'm thinking that the "state symbols" might work better in a separate box from "State facts" (a wider box) to make it easier to position the images near their descriptions. That's food for thought, anyway...

Yes, I know thay are too small to be seen, but there are a lot of images, too. This option is used on several portals to compile these state symbol images, so small that they can accompany the list. (I like it when the structure of different portals is similar) If your mouse pointer hovers over them, they at least show a short description of what the image is about. And if you click the link on the left it leads you to the correcponding article for clarification. For the moment I'd rather leave them like that. If there are exceptional images of state symbols we could put them in the featured images. doxTxob \ talk 07:29, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
The Portal:Kentucky has a link in the Portal box to a more comprehensive list of state symbols, in a table with latin names and nice big images. We don't have that for TN. Would you like to create an article/list like that? An article to link to from the state symbols? Just asking, because I think there certainly is not enough room for larger pictures in the box. Just look at Kentucky symbols, with bigger photos, there's room for only two or three. doxTxob \ talk 08:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
As it happens, Tennessee has a general article about state symbols, but it needs work: List of Tennessee state symbols --Orlady (talk) 01:21, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Check out how Portal:Hawaii formats things. I really, really like the tabs at the top of the page, as you can place a lot of material in a cohesive manner on subpages. Have a separate page for state facts and symbols, for the categories, for the list of lists, and anything else you may care to subdivide. I may work up something and add it in later. Also, that banner at the top of the page looks very smart; thanks to User:HiB2Bornot2B for its creation. -- Huntster T • @ • C 18:00, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, I have to register an objection to the image for limestone -- that's a microscopic image of structures in limestone that are not typical of our Tennessee limestone. Better images of Tennessee-style limestone are Image:Limestoneshale7342.jpg (just the top layer of rock in that photo) and Image:OrdOutcropTN.JPG, or any of the photos in Caving (those are all limestone caves). --Orlady (talk) 06:15, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Just change it to an image you find more appropriate. All is under construction and if I hate your choice, I will change it back. ;-) The salamander is just a common salamander and not the Cave Salamander, either. It's a salamander, though. But for now, it's better than nothing at all. doxTxob \ talk 07:29, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Hello! The Portal:Hawaii navigation with tabs looks very good, it has advantages. Some of the links to information sufficient to fill a page is at the top op the page. It would allow some not too important stuff to hide in the background, still readily available.
My choice for tabs would be: Categories (they use up room on the portal) and the complete state facts (too many images and too small). A box with key information about TN should remain on the front page of the portal for the general overview, however. I will weed out the images and symbols there. Limit the state symbols to 5 or so, and maybe 2 or three images, smaller images but bigger than now. Leave the Governor and cut the Senators and Represantatives.
I added a link at the end of the portal state facts to List of Tennessee state symbols. I did not know it existed but that list looks like it could need attention. I copy the current contents of the TN state facts and symbols to the talk page of that list (Talk:List_of_Tennessee_state_symbols) so it does not get lost and reduce the content in the portal box. If done well, the List of Tennessee state symbols could be the next featured list candidate. Hey, is it right that the List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Tennessee would be the first TN related article to reach Featured status since the TN project was founded? doxTxob \ talk 03:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Re-directs

In the portal there are links to separate pages for suggestions of new topics. To reduce confusion and to avoid something being missed I am going to re-direct them to this talk page, I will leave a message on the portal talk page, linking to [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennessee]] as well. I usually hate to split discussions off the article page (or portal, in this case) but I doubt that there is going to be unmanageable correspondence. doxTxob \ talk 00:51, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Tagging

I have tagged the talk pages of all the portal related pages existing so far with {{WikiProject Tennessee|class=Portal}}, this makes sure that they all can be found in Category:Tennessee_non-article_pages, in case of an overhaul or just to keep track of it or get a quick idea about he number of sub pages there are for each topic. doxTxob \ talk 21:51, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

TN Portal banner

This is the banner of the Portal:Kentucky and I love it. I have requested a banner for TN from the guy who produced this User:HiB2Bornot2B. One image, with flag and TN impressions in it. I would love that! doxTxob \ talk 06:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The banner is created and in the intro. I love it! It looks pretty with the realiged images, the seal and the maps. I find that a very nice combination with the text. Take care, doxTxob \ talk 23:20, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Tennessee News

The good news is that I put the first news in the box already. Not the most exciting news, probably, but something to start with. The bad news is that this does not seem to work automatically. But as I insisted to keep the box, I am sure willing to keep that updated if no one else does. More people guarantee a wider scope, though. I think it is still very easy to maintain. I have checked some other states, it's not meant to be a news ticker, most put in one or two news items a week. I watch the news almost every day and when I see something there, I put it in the next day or so. The news items all list an externakl link to a news website. So that's the only effort, to find a weblink, put in the new news item and archive one item. (I had trouble first putting in the box, the whole page looked crooked but now it's working). Take care, doxTxob \ talk 23:20, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Selected anniversaries

I put in a box with selected TN anniveraries. Once all the months are filled with 5 anniversaries each, the work is done. The months change automatically to the current month and the name of the current month appears in the box title. Every month has a file of its own. I have prepared the files for all months already and adjusted the links for month to month navigation. All links have been tested, all work as they should. I also have created the "more anniveraries..." page for the link in the box, to get them all on one page.

There are no anniversarier in the pages yet. Maybe I find some anniversaries on the weekend, or if anyone has some in mind already, just fill them in if time allows. Take care, doxTxob \ talk 23:20, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Topics box

I filled the topics box with some content, the idea was copied from the Portal:Arizona. Most of what I did so far was to replace "Arizona" by "Tennessee" lots of times. The remaining stuff might or might not be useful. The Arizonians only used categories in the topics. I am not sure about that limitation. Lists or articles would be nice as well. I left all the mess in so far, so at least the syntax is obvious and it is easier to add or replace information. I am going to improve it sooner or later. All help is welcome, as usual. doxTxob \ talk 01:22, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

TN Project banner

Huntster, you did some updating of the banner and the parameters, I saw. Great that you are updating all that stuff. Especially the portal category, before they were mixed up with other NA articles and images. Much better this way! Very useful to have the images, portal pages, lists and Project pages separate. I like it much better than before, somehow it's not right if stuff that does not belong together has to be put together. Great work!

There is that white "Tennessee Portal" box in the banner with an image of the TN state quarter. Unfortunately the image is so small that it is hard to see what it is. Do you have an idea how to enlarge that image? Or rather the box. I played with it and found that the image is easy to enlarge, it was just adding |XXpx behind it or so. However, the white box was still the same size, so you had a bigger image but you could only see it partly, what reached out of the box was not visible. I tried to force a line break into the "Tennessee Portal" link to enlarge the box but that did not work. Any idea on that? It is not too important, I am just asking as you had worked on the banner recently. Take care, doxTxob \ talk 22:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The way that particular template is set up, the image can have a maximum height of 28px, period. I've written a bit about this on the template talk page, but basically this is set up to avoid boxes with extraordinarily large images that overwhelm everything else. I would suggest keeping an eye open for an image to replace the quarter that would remain recognisable at smaller sizes. In the meantime, I've added the "break" parameter to reduce some of the whitespace, even if fractionally.
Thanks for the comments on the categorisation...I think it will significantly help keep pages wrangled. Also, I'm going to work on adding a "listas" field to the template to control how entries are sorted within the categories, rather than simply by filename. WikiProject Biography implements this for "last, first" name control, so it won't be too hard. -- Huntster T • @ • C 04:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Listas function

Okay, so the "listas" function of the template is now implemented and seems to be working perfectly. You can sort however you feel is best, but remember to only use the 26 letters and 10 numbers of English, begin each sort key with a capital letter, and use no accent/diacritic marks (aka, exactly the same as how DEFAULTSORT functions). For example: {{WikiProject Tennessee |class=Stub |importance=Low |listas=Doe, John}}. To be honest, my primary reason for implementing this was so that I could classify admin and functionality pages not by name, but by namespace or other keyword (an example is how I'm sorting them in Category:WikiProject-Class Tennessee pages, though I've not gotten far yet). Anyone have additional functionality they'd like to see added? -- Huntster T • @ • C 10:52, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I have tried the listas= with the image Image talk:Downtown-knoxville.jpg but it still shows up witht he old filename in the category. That would be a very nice feature to bring order in the images. For articles at least there are some standards that most people follow but with the naming of images it is confusing. You might have "Downtown Knoxville.jpg" under D and "Knoxville downtown.jpg" under K. That does not make sense. With the listas feature it would be great to have them sorted by name of the city and have those images together that belong together. doxTxob \ talk 19:02, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
I get it now. The listas= does not change the filename or so, just lists it under that letter. Still very useful. doxTxob \ talk 20:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
What does the most sense for the listas function with images? My first idea was to use a "City, location" syntax, like "Knoxville, downtown". I did that with the three images that are tagged already, but before I continue tagging further images ... By the way, should we decide to tag more TN images with the project tag, would it be possible to have them in that statistics table at the top of the assessment page as well? That table is a very nice overview of what we have. doxTxob \ talk 21:18, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Precisely, listas sorts the image within categories, the same as DEFAULTSORT does. Images really shouldn't be changed in terms of sorting, unless it is an image which is strictly used within the Portal or WikiProject (in which case it would be tagged as {{WikiProject Tennessee |class=Portal |listas=Image}} or |class=WP); if the existing filename isn't descriptive enough, well, sorting by a different name won't change that, and may serve more to confuse those who aren't aware of what is going on. As for tagging images, sure, any image that relates to Tennessee (which the aforementioned exceptions) can be tagged with {{WikiProject Tennessee |class=Image}}. Unfortunately, the Version 1.0 assessment is only designed to accommodate articles, as there is no set standard for image quality or importance (there are separate projects for that, but nothing we should worry about here). Just having them all tagged and grouped together in a single category would be enough. This very well illustrates how images have long been considered an ancillary part of Wikipedia, but for now that isn't going to change...that's primarily the purview of Commons. -- Huntster T • @ • C 11:20, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Most important for me was to have the images tagged with the TN project banner, identifying them as TN related images to get an overview of their number. I plan to go ahead with that soon. There is this category for Images of Tennessee but I rather start at the small end here, getting the TN articles, images and other project components better structured. That's right, the image names are confusing enough the way they are. doxTxob \ talk 00:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
If I'm interpreting correctly, please note that Category:Images of Tennessee is for some reason specified as being strictly for free-use images, which is why I created Category:Image-Class Tennessee pages and had the WP:TN banner sort images into that category rather than the other one. As for "Images of Tennessee" category, I plan on porting those images over to Commons at some point, perhaps over Christmas break while I'm sitting in dispatch being bored; this will eventually empty out the category, and perhaps we can repurpose it for some other task or simply have it deleted and reduce clutter. -- Huntster T • @ • C 00:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I have just removed all the listas parameters I had applied to images (only 3, that was easy) and did a test with Image:Crossville directional sign, 1937.jpg, the original version as used in the List of cities and towns in Tennessee. When I click on the image to enlarge it, the image tab at the top is red-linked and the image page cannot be edited. Does that mean it's in the Commons? And can I use that talk page still to apply the project banner like in the image talk there: Image_talk:Crossville directional sign, 1937.jpg?

The image page of the photo with clean edges as used on the portal Portal:Tennessee/Selected picture/4 is Portal class, that makes sense for the page. The image itself, however, is image class? That's how I tagged it. And that image has a blue tab for the image at the top. Like here on the respective talk page: Image talk:Crossvillesign clean edge.jpg

They both appear in the Category "Image-Class Tennessee pages", it seems, which would make sense. Is that how it is supposed to work? doxTxob \ talk 01:32, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

If an image tab is redlinked and page has a box saying "This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons...", then it is currently on Commons. While you can add the banner to such images, I would suggest not doing so since they are not technically part of Wikipedia. Any such image should be categorized within the Tennessee category system on Commons. The same goes for any image that is licensed as free on Wikipedia: as I mentioned above, anything in Category:Images of Tennessee should be free and should be moved to Commons. If you want to tag any image you come across with the banner, that's fine, just don't be surprised if they eventually get moved to Commons and disappear from Wikipedia itself (not the displayed image, of course, just the image page).
The way I envision it, only images that would typically be used only within the WikiProject or Portal need be specially marked with "|class=WP" or "|class=Portal". If they might find use or are currently used on a regular article, then tagging as an Image is most appropriate. So you did fine with the clean Crossville sign image. -- Huntster T • @ • C 03:12, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Huntster, I am not sure if I get it yet. You say that eventually all free images are going to end up in the commons, right? Well, except CD or album covers and books etc., which are not necessarily free. So probably most of the images, whether they are in an article or not are going to end in the commons as long as they are free images, right? That does seem to make sense, so they can be used by Wikipedias in any language. It also makes sense that images in the commons are not tagged with the TN banner. I had that problem once when I translated one English Wikipedia article for the German Wikipedia. I had to upload all the necessary images again to the German Wikipedia. So what would the category Image-Class-TN-articles be used for, eventually? What kind of images would be in it? If my above assumptions are correct, there would be only unfree images remaining in that category, in the end, or not? By what I understand so far, tagging the images would more or less prepare and collect the images for the move to the commons. Is that right? Why tag images with the TN banner now when they are going to end up in the commons, anyway? Why not moving them right away instead of taking the step of collecting them in the category Image-Class-TN-articles.
I want to make one point clear: I do not at all doubt that what you are doing is correct and appropriate, don't take my questions as criticism, I just do not understand it completely. Take care! doxTxob \ talk 22:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Sorry if I replicate anything you already know, but let me try to explain. Basically there are the two types of images: Free (public domain, GFDL, Creative Commons, etc) and Non-free (anything copyrighted, mostly, including those album and book covers, state and local seals/logos, etc). Commons is only for those images which are free; non-free images are kept strictly within the individual wikipedias, since each non-free image must have a specific license and rationale for every instance of use within that wiki. Category:Image-Class Tennessee pages will be used for those non-free images that remain (of which there are plenty), and for any free images that don't get ported to Commons (of which there may be some for varying reasons). It isn't necessary to place a banner on those free images, but ultimately it doesn't matter if they do get tagged, by choice or by accident. And tagging them won't really help in sorting free from non-free...the best thing that can be done is that if you find a free image that isn't already part of Category:Images of Tennessee, go ahead and put it in there. As for moving the images, it is a very time consumptive process at this moment, though I'm working to obtain a method that will cut the wait down. -- Huntster T • @ • C 10:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Is there something on the Portal that links to the Tennessee-related images on Commons? Bms4880 (talk) 15:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Actually, no.Actually, it is on the Portal, under the Wikimedia tab at top. But thanks for that reminder, I'll put something into play soon to spread the link around. -- Huntster T • @ • C 17:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's perfect. So, for the moment I'll put free images I find in the Category:Images of Tennessee (not tagging them with the project banner) for you to move them to the commons sooner or later. And for the unfree images it sounds to me like it might be unnecessary work to tag them with the project banner now, but rather at a later stage. Thanks for your patience and comprehensive explanations. doxTxob \ talk 21:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

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