Wikipedia talk:WikiProject California/San Francisco Bay Area task force

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Wikipedia:WikiProject San Francisco

I've put a suggestion on the talk page for the also very new Wikipedia:WikiProject San Francisco that the two projects should be merged. My suggestion would be to move everything to this project for now, and put redirects from there to here. ^Blank ^Verse 08:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Poll: Merge WikiProject San Francisco into WikiProject San Francisco Bay Area?

Support: Many Bay Area- and San Francisco-related subjects are highly overlapping and difficult to disentangle, plus the active members of both projects are small and entirely overlapping. If enough contributors emerge who want to work on subjects strictly related to the City of San Francisco, we could always split off WP San Francisco again. Right now, having two separate projects is premature. Peter G Werner 07:33, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Since I'm the one that proposed the merge, I guess that I should. Since both projects are so very new, I formal poll is probably overkill. If most of the four or five people who have edited both projects say merge, and nobody says don't, then that's a good enough consensus. ^Blank ^Verse 09:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support - as per nom. While the city is diverse enough to have its project vs the entire Bay Area which is the more inclusive project, based upon the level of activity and Peter G Werner's comment, I support combining them until such time, if any, that both projects be combined into the larger project. Ronbo76 14:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: When the two finally get merged, I recommend archiving Wikipedia talk:WikiProject San Francisco and putting it here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject San Francisco Bay Area/Archive 1. Peter G Werner 23:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I'm not opposed to the idea of merging nor to the idea of having a separate SF-specific WikiProject. I believe SF is complex enough to eventually merit its own WP, maybe not right now. SF-specific things that have broad, regional, importance - e.g. history of SF, economy of SF, major landmarks, etc - would be something that a Bay Area wikiproject could participate in, but I don't think we'd want to get this wikiproject involved in things which are distinctly local - schools, individual neighborhoods.--DaveOinSF 01:17, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The reason that I recommended the merger is that I've seen that you really need to work pretty hard to get a WikiProject started, and part of that is getting a critical mass of editors involved. In the beginning, the Bay Area WikiProject should cover everything involved with the Bay area, including the local details. Still, it might be best to either adopt an informal structure of separate task lists for different areas, or a more formal task group structure like the Military History WikiProject. Eventually there probably should be a separate San Francisco WikiProject, but that may be one or two years from now. ^Blank ^Verse 11:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Well, its been about a week and the consensus is to merge – should we go ahead and do it, then? Peter G Werner 01:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I agree with Peter G Werner; they could always be split if San Francisco expanded into a WikiProject worthy of being unique. As of now, both are small and insignificant and could use the strength of joining forces. - Emiellaiendiay 04:46, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I agree on bringing these projects together so then they will both get enought information and be able to develope enough together that they can do good on their own. --Gndawydiak 01:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since there seems to be pretty much unanimous support after having this poll up for several weeks, I'm going to merge the two projects some time in the next few days, unless anybody objects. (Or would like to do it themselves and save me the work. :) Peter G Werner 06:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merged

I've gone and merged the articles and will archive the above discussion unless anybody has anything to add. I've moved the "articles to be improved" list under open tasks to its own page, which is linked to under open tasks. I've divided up the list into general Bay Area topics and various County topics. Science and culture topics I've put in the "general" category. I've also put Museums and Universities under "general", even though strictly speaking, they could be said to be part of various city/county topics. That was a judgment call on my part; if there's not consensus on that, change it - no big deal. I've listed elementary schools through community colleges under local topics. However, its highly questionable whether we should be creating articles about elementary and middle schools at all – if I'm not mistaken, they generally don't meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Please list more articles in need or work, as I've only added general, SF, and Marin-related topics so far. Anyway, hope I didn't jump the gun on all of this. Peter G Werner 05:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Articles about State and National Parks

I just wanted to get some opinions on this. What do you think should be the convention about State and National Parks vs the geographical features located in them? Specifically, I mean when that park is pretty much synonymous with its main geographical feature. The article on Mount Diablo State Park handles both in the same article (Mount Diablo redirects to the other article). Other articles treat the two separately, but usually at least one of the articles is a stub:

So, merge such articles or keep separate? Peter G Werner 23:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think each case needs to be evaluated independently, and the standard ought to be whether the feature and the park are indeed synonymous or not. Personally, I'd support merging Mount Diablo but keeping Point Reyes separate. Also, any examples from outside the Bay Area?--DaveOinSF 01:25, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Death Valley and Death Valley National Park are separate. So are Grand Canyon and Grand Canyon National Park. However, Wind Cave redirects to Wind Cave National Park. The convention seems to be to have separate articles in most cases. The article that should be the larger of the two should probably be the one that covers the greatest area. So in the case of Mount Tamalpais, that article should be larger since Mount Tamalpais State Park takes up only part of that area. On the other hand, in the case of something like Death Valley, Death Valley National Park should be larger because though its centered on Death Valley, it includes other areas too. Point Reyes is more difficult – not only is there the National Seashore and the larger area, there's also a difference between Point Reyes proper and the Point Reyes Peninsula, a larger area that also includes towns like Bolinas and Inverness. (In the case of Mount Diablo, I think there's a little inconsistency there between that article and the articles on Mount Tamalpais and San Bruno Mountain.) Peter G Werner 01:54, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if convention is to have separate articles in most cases, then we should follow that unless there's a clear reason not to. I'm less concerned about the relative article sizes - people will write about whatever they feel like. Kind of difficult to say "Don't make Article X any longer because, if so, then it will be longer than Article Y, which is more important". No way to control things on that level. However, if you feel that Article Y is important but lacking, it would be something ideal to bring to the attention of the WikiProject.--DaveOinSF 02:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, size is somewhat controllable by moving edits from one article to another, where appropriate. Peter G Werner 09:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well only if appropriate. I'm less concerned about size than about content. If the right information is in each article, but the one you think should be longer turns out not to be, then I dont' see what the problem is.--DaveOinSF 16:46, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Santa Cruz County?

Should Santa Cruz County be included in the scope of this WikiProject, or should that be set aside until there's a WikiProject Central Coast? Peter G Werner 11:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, a bit touchy. The Bay Area is the nine counties which touch the bay. THe San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Consolidated Statistical Area includes those nine counties and also Santa Cruz and San Benito counties. (You can even make arguments that Mendocino, Lake, Yolo, San Joaquin and Monterey counties are culturally the "Bay Area" too.)

Thus, we either include ONLY the nine counties which touch the bay, or include all eleven counties. I'm inclined not to include the extra two.--DaveOinSF 06:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the thing with Santa Cruz is that these days, its practically a suburb of Silicon Valley, hence tied pretty closely to the core of the SF Bay Area in a way that the other areas you mention are not. As for San Joaquin County – I've lived there. Its geographically and culturally part of the Central Valley and very much not like the Bay Area culturally. Then again, I suppose you could argue that Tracy at least is also a commuter suburb of the Bay Area. (Also, if I'm not mistaken, Napa County doesn't actually touch the Bay, but is considered one of the nine counties.) Peter G Werner 09:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I don't disagree that Santa Cruz is essentially a suburb of Silicon Valley these days, but by the same standard, we'd also have to include San Benito County. And as for San Joaquin County, well, that was exactly my point. People who live in Tracy commute to jobs in SF, East Bay, Peninsula or Silicon Valley. The times, they are a-changin'.

As for Napa, yeah you're technically right, but you can consider some of the marshland as part of the bay. But here's another standard - the Association of Bay Area Governments includes the nine counties we've defined before; the Metropolitan Transportation Commission uses a nine-county definition; the SF Chronicle uses these nine counties whenever it's using the term "Bay Area". I agree that the definition is shifting, but don't think it's shifted yet.--DaveOinSF 16:17, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a clear enough definition, then. Somebody could always start a "WikiProject Central Coast" if they want to work on that area. Peter G Werner 07:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to only include the nine Bay Area counties. No one has ever heard of the "eleven Bay Area counties," right? --²¹⁰physicq (c) 06:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So, for the purposes of this WikiProject, what shall be our scope? Just the nine Bay Area counties? Or...? --²¹⁰physicq (c) 00:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, for the time being, unless circumstances show a clear need to include Santa Cruz County or other areas peripheral to the SF Bay Area. Peter G Werner 07:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some really important figures in need of articles

Two very notable (and controversial) figures in San Francisco history do not have any article on them at all – Michael O'Shaughnessy (early cheif city engineer, best known for the O'Shaughnessy Dam at Hetch Hetchy, but did a lot of other things that was important in SF history, such as coming up with the name "Golden Gate Bridge") and Justin Herman (1960's SF Redevelopment Agency head best know for the massive redevelopment of the Western Addition). Also the article on John McLaren (park superintendent) – the man who built Golden Gate Park – is only a stub. These three, for better or worse, played a big role in shaping San Francisco – it seems like they deserve more mention in Wikipedia. Peter G Werner 06:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bring this project roaring to life

As of now, we have five members. Considering the Bay Area has a population of 6 million, I know we can do better. We must invite more members, add more pages and features to this project, and do a lot of work. So far I've added a userbox and a rating system for tagged articles, but there are a lot of pages left to create. I've taken shamelessly from WikiProject LGBT studies, but I think that with some work we can eventually get to the level that that project is at. — Emiellaiendiay 07:36, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some suggestions:

Tagging SF Bay articles with the WikiProject's banner will help. The Calif. project say a nice increase in membership when a bot went through and tagged all the California articles.
Personal recruiting: Look through the membership at WP:CAL, as well as regular editors of SF Bay articles, for editors to recruit.
- When you welcome a new editor who has edited a SF Bay article, also mention the WikiProject.

Good luck with the project. Blank Verse 11:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the suggestions. — Emiellaiendiay 04:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Goals

As I see it, the top two goals as of now are:

Tagging and assessing every Bay Area-related article.
Inviting more members to join, and encouraging current members to contribute.

From there we can add more goals, such as expanding the options this WikiProject offers (adding a Peer Review, for example).

But what do you all think? Should there be any other major goals as of now? Any ideas how to meet these goals?

(Oh, and another goal of mine is to make sure this Talk page is actually used.)

— Emiellaiendiay 04:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some more suggested goals:

Creating stubs for 'missing' articles
- Getting new articles and improved stubs mentioned on the Main Page in the Did you know? column
- Creating a list of 'missing' articles, and stub articles on important topics that need expansion
Improving the quality of existing articles
- Improving shorter articles up to Good article standards
- Improving lorger articles up to Featured article status
Making sure that all SF Bay-area cities have an infobox, with a city logo or flag if available
- Making sure that all of those cities also have links to official city websites and their local chamber of commerce (and clearing out any spam, low-quality links, and non-relavant links from the External links sections).
Raiding the Library of Congress website to find public domain photos that can be uploaded to Commons for cities and communities in the Bay Area that are older than 1923.

One suggestion is to look at some of the other city and regional WikiProjects and see which features they have that you might want to copy or adapt. Some of the Australian city WikiProjects, for example, have fancy progress graphs, although most other city WikiProjects have not copied those.

WikiProject-level Peer Review is something that has only been adopted by a very few of the largest WikiProjects, so I'd suggest holding off until you have a much larger membership.

To get the talk page to be used, suggest that every project member have the page on their watchlist so they will see when new comments are added. Blank Verse 12:58, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm of two minds on the whole tagging articles thing. On the one hand, it's a good way to drum up participation. On the other hand, what's the use of tagging an article as part of a Project if we don't think we're actually going to work on it within a reasonable time frame? My opinion on where to focus energy would be on identifying pretty good Bay Area articles and bringing them up to Featured status, and on identifying important subjects which lack articles or which are in rather poor condition. Perhaps a more targeted approach.

To that end, I listed the Bay Area-related GAs and former FAs on the Project page, and I think there's already begun a discussion on some articles which require more content. What do people think?--DaveOinSF 18:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The newly created Collaboration of the month I hope will help move articles towards FA status. — Emiellaiendiay 04:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Watchlist

Thanks to Ingrid, we now have a watchlist for all relevant articles! You can see the recent changes here [1].

— Emiellaiendiay 06:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation and Welcome templates

I created a template for inviting new participants:

{{WP SFBA Invitation}} Hi, I noticed your contributions and thought you might be interested in joining WikiProject California, including the San Francisco Bay Area Task Force.

If you are interested in California-related themes, you may want to check out the California Portal.
If you are interested in contributing more to California or Bay Area related articles you may want to join WikiProject California, especially the San Francisco Bay Area task force (signup here). ~~~~

There's also a "Welcome" template for those who to join:

Hi, WikiProject California, and welcome to the San Francisco Bay Area task force!

We are a growing community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to identifying, categorizing, and improving articles relevant to the Bay Area. Here are some points that may be helpful:

Our main aim is to help improve Bay Area-related articles, so if people ask for help with an article, please try your hardest to help them if you are able.
Most important discussions take place on the project's main discussion page. It is highly recommended that you watchlist it.
The project has several ongoing and developing activities, such as article quality assessment, which you are welcome to participate.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask on the talk page, and we will be happy to help you.

Again, welcome! We hope you enjoy working on this project. ~~~~

I went over the history pages for all the FA, A, and GA-class articles, looked for users who made large or repeated contributions, and invited those who's userpages seemed to indicate they'd be interested in this topic. Also, users from WikiProject California indicating a specific interest in the Bay Area. Hopefully, this will drum up some interest. Peter G Werner 20:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, good job increasing the member count! I like to add on a personal note to invitations, but it's nice that there's a template as well. — Emiellaiendiay 04:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Missing a county

After decades of studying and tutoring California history, it's a bit surprising to find we lost one of the 9 Bay Area counties. What's missing? Why? KP Botany 04:00, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We're missing a county? I count Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma, which come out to be nine. Or did you mean in another context? --²¹⁰physicq (c) 04:14, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Collaboration of the month

I've added the Collaboration of the Month feature. This month's, I hope you don't mind my choosing, is Oakland, California. Basically, the idea is for all project members to focus improving one article a month to FA status, even if some people can only contribute a little. We can discuss the collaboration and possible future articles on the collaboration talk page. — Emiellaiendiay 04:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's in serious need of proper citations if its going to be FA. I'll also note that even though the San Francisco article is at FA status, there are entire sections without proper citation. Peter G Werner 04:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps then San Francisco should be next month's article — the goal being maintaining its FA status by making sure it still qualifies. — Emiellaiendiay 04:58, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that would be a good idea. Peter G Werner 05:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What sections in San Francisco need citations? It's substantially identical to how it appeared when it became an FA in September. I'd rather we work on articles that are in need of more serious work than that one.--DaveOinSF 06:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]