Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Texas/Houston task force

Bulletin board

Here's the place to enter important notes, events and messages that are common to the project that need to be communicated to all participants.

This sounds like a travel brosure for the City of Houston. The Houston Metro article should mention a few of the following. A) Metro board is not an elected board! It is chocked full of appointees of the Mayor (Bill White) and City Council. They are not accountable to anybody and spend tons tax payer dollars without any regard,they know they can just increase bus / train fair or vote for a greater portion of the tax payer subsidies. B) The Metro toy train is a waste of money! Metro decided to put it down already existing bus routes which didn't add any new riders, it simply just moved already existing bus riders on to a much much more expensive mode of transportation. C) Metro decided against running the toy train somewhere where it would be most affective like to either one of Houston's big airports, nope, they choose carving up freshly redone street's and rerouting traffic to tackle a much more pressing problem of how will homeless poeple get around through downtown streets (which most people avoid because downtown Houston sucks to navigate through) which caused a real conjestion night mare. D) Houston now leads the nation in train / vehicle accidents. Yep, Along w/ carving up busy downtown streets of Houston and usually taking a traffic lane (in both directions which further increases traffic) the train now zig-zags through the streets of Houston.It cuts through intersections, back and forth over streets,under freeways and through our medical center, which ironically helps since again we lead the nation in train and car accidents. Metro has it's own police force to issue citations to people who are unlucky enough to get hit by a train. It is always the fault of the driver, even when eye witness account's contradict Metro drivers. E) A vote was put to Houstonian's for the toy train to run down desolate West Park, it was approved. Now, Metro decides they don't want it down West park any more, they now want to run the toy train down much more congested Richmond Ave. Real estate down this ave. is much greater and businesses would be hurt by the snail's pace of construction and the sacrifice of lanes for this experiment. They refuse to allow Houstonians another vote of the matter for years now. F) Houston Metro has a history of snatching up real estate through eminate domain,(usualy real pieces of prime real estate) sitting on it for a while, then selling it to big corporation's or political cronies for big profit. G)The 10,000 sf building they were housed in didn't do much for them,so the Metro board decided a collosal $20 million dollar mansion was much more appropriate for the unaccountable board members of this city subsidized theives union. H) The toy train cannot operate in 3 inches of water. And recently (Oct. 2006), a rat chewed through some power cables and shut the whole system down for a day stranding thousands of Houstonians. Just brilliant.

I could go on, but I think I have made my point. When writing an article, especially for Wikipedia, balance should be the ideal. The above was written because the Metro article sounded like a sales add created by a marketing firm out of Nebraska. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.89.166.243 (talk • contribs) .

By: Porkchop

Why don't you voice your concerns on the article's talk page? Even better, why don't you revise the Metro article? Nobody is stopping you. Be bold! Postoak 07:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

IAH

IAH has been ripped through with false information and factual inaccuracy at a pace i cannot keep up with within the last two days or so. any help would be great, there may be sock puppets, or people not following the rules or guidlines doing or going past 3RR, not adhering to photo deletions. i know Postoak has seen some of this. if we come together to help this article, because its an important one for houston, then maybe this can FINALLY get under control. thanks guys. Urban909

I've noticed a lot of "sock puppet" activity lately. I will keep an eye on IAH the best I can. This is a very important article and I feel will soon be a candidate for Good article. Postoak 23:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question

Is this wikiproject for the Greater Houston Area or just Houston? Tennis DyNamiTe 22:56, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tennis Dynamite, I feel that any article included in Category:Houston, Texas should be part of the WP:HOUSTON wikiproject, would you agree? Thanks for your help with template placement on the talk pages! Postoak 02:13, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for not elaborating, but what about say Galveston, or things like Astroworld and the Astros. People such as Marvin Zindler and Beyoncé? Tennis DyNamiTe 03:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would say any person, place or thing directly related to the city or the immediate area. Galveston would not be included. Astroworld and the Astros, absolutely. I would say yes to persons with a long history or relationship with the city...Marvin is a Houston institution. I'm not too sure about Beyoncé. I hope this helps Postoak

I'm pretty sure it's just for the city. -

(User | Contribs) 04:20, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see conflict with answers given here and whats stated on the project page I quote from the project page " Scope

Geographically-related articles in the Greater Houston metropolitan area. "

So its Houston only on everything, but geography is greater houston? I personally think it should be cut and dry one way or the other...But thats just me...Feedloadr 05:38, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is old discussion. What you see on the main project page is correct. Thanks. Postoak 05:46, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

METRORail

Not sure where you put updates. I made you guys a {{METRORail}} template and put it on all the station pages. It's also extensible for when Houston gets line #2 ;) drumguy8800 C T 08:34, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Currently, templates are on the main project page (I'm planning to move to a subpage). Postoak 20:56, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion: project guidelines

Project discussion - Guidelines (November 11, 2006): Our first discussion as members of WikiProject Houston is to propose the operational or functional guidelines of the project. Personally, I don't want to get bogged down with any rigid structure or formality (this is supposed to be fun!), but we do need some basic guidelines as a foundation as we move forward. Please provide your ideas and suggestions. The end result of this discussion is to propose our initial set of guidelines. Please see discussion topics below and add any additonal topics as necessary. Postoak 22:42, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Project scope

Include any article directly related to the city. Qualifying articles about persons are iffy - I would suggest those born or residing in the city for a significant amout of time. Postoak 23:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This was my first notion in developing the Dallas WikiProject as well. WikProjects Chicago, Louisville, Seattle and Southern California (to name a few) include their entire metropolitan area within their project scope. As cities are easier defined as an entire urbanized construct and not just a single municipality, its only logical to me to encompass the entire metropolitan region. However, this view is not garnering as much support as I had hoped over at WikiProject Dallas. drumguy8800 C T 04:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The entire metro area seems good to me also, Dallas might be a special case with FW issues. I think most people associate with Houston, even if they live in the suburbs. Houston also has such sprawl if you limited it to the municipality you would leave out some important articles. - cohesion 18:46, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Metropolitan area sounds fine to me. As for people, someone like Marvin Zindler should definitely be included, but someone like Hilary Duff or Beyoncé Knowles, should not. Although they were born here they otherwise aren't deeply associated with Houston. Mike Richardson 06:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So no famous Houstonians? That sounds good to me. T ennis Dy N ami T e ^{(sign in)} 21:46, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm assuming that events that affect the Houston Area (such Allison) are included, right? T ennis Dy N ami T e ^{(sign in)} 15:34, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus, voting, etc.

I would suggest the model employed by the Dallas wikiproject. Additionally, separate voting page with all requests documented there. Each vote given a name/identifier and date so that it can be easily found. Postoak 23:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest it too, but that's because I made it up. drumguy8800 C T 04:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. - cohesion 18:46, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Graphics - images, template development, etc.

Image review - we have many images that may get deleted (some have been taken out already) based on licensing and WP:FUC. Do we need a process to verify that images are legal? Postoak 23:20, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's a good idea to have a master list of images that deal with Houston. The only two things I could think of to watch out for on the list though would be fair-use images existing in articles you want to bring up to FA status (like Houston, Texas) and images with old or outdated tagging. drumguy8800 C T 04:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm mostly active in image tagging, help, and deletion, so I can probably help with this. Once the articles are selected I wouldn't mind running through them and classifying them. There is an ongoing shift in sentiment regarding fair use images, so any of those images would need to at least be classified for the project. - cohesion 18:46, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I favor a liberal interpretation of fair use for images, though most people disagree. Let's try not to be image nazis. Mike Richardson 06:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article standards

Standard Wikipedia standards, but we need specifically define categories, which articles fall within a category and the appropriate footers. We should determine what qualifies to be a stubbed article Postoak 23:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
WikiProject Dallas is developing subprojects whose aim it is to provide specifically tailored support and information for developing certain kinds of articles. Beyond that, the attribution of a stub can be easily determined by looking at this chart. That's another thing this project should consider, the majority of active wikiprojects have been implementing article grading/commenting/etc through the use of their project-identification template used on talk pages. It may seem like a chore to develop first, but its a great way to step back and look at progress project-wide. Mathbot makes all these cool little logs and tables automatically for you :D drumguy8800 C T 04:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Do most projects use some standard rating, or does everyone use something different? If possible I would prefer some standard, but in general I will be much more quiet on these type issues than images, I am terrible at rating articles. :) - cohesion 18:46, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, all projects that use assessment (that I've seen) use the standard set by WP:1.0 which can be found here. drumguy8800 C T 22:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Collaboration efforts

Weekly collaboration of the week - Propose article and week in the todo box on the main page. Expanded notes for each article is directly below the todo box. We can move these to an archive page at the end of each month. Postoak 08:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Status

The following items are preliminary guideline proposals for the project and are summarized below. Work on article assessment has already started. Please feel free to add additional items.

Project scope (todo - move to scope description on project main page).

Geographically-related articles included in the Greater Houston metropolitan area.
Articles about persons who have had a significant presence or relationship to the city. Does not necessarily have to be a native Houstonian.

Article standards

Establish an article assessment process defined by WP:1.0 and described here. (To do - define assessment procedures and worklist - in progress)
Verify that all images comply with the image use policy. Create a subpage of listed images found in project articles that are not in compliance so that replacements can be found. (to do)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Houston/Administration

Project proposals - Move member/participant proposals from the project talk page to a proposals page. (to do)
Consensus - Establish a voting process for those proposals that will require consensus. (to do)

note

I see this is a starting project. I have a bot that can tag pages for your project if needed. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 07:39, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Images

I was going through the images in Houston, Texas, most of them seem ok, although there are a few that would fail WP:FUC, there are also a few unsourced imaged that are tagged in a way that they haven't drawn attention. Would it be good to start a subpage of the project page called /Images or something and summarize them there? - cohesion 19:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, this will help us to identify and replace the images that will eventually fail, Postoak 05:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

i agree as well. some of those images are 1. not a good representation of the city (ie not good pics, just somewhat decent. i believe there are much better pics out there that would "jazz" up the page) and 2. don't meet the WP:FUC.Urban909

Ok, I was thinking about where I should put the info, and I think having it on that actual talk page would be better (probably in the /Comments section which is part of the rating scheme), that way people that aren't following this project could possibly help. I will create Wikipedia:WikiProject Houston/Images also, and we can link the articles that have had an image review from there. Objections or better ideas? :) - cohesion 21:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stub category

The new stub type "Houston-stub" that I created in now a proud member of Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion. This is because I did not propose the initial creation of the stub at WP:WSS/P. Incidentally, I proposed the stub several days ago and added the stub to >30 articles. Please stop by Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion and provide your input. Thanks, Postoak 01:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Houston-stub is now "legal". Postoak 06:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To do for Houston, Texas

I just made a few suggestions on Talk:Houston, Texas/to do that I think would bring the Houston, Texas article closer to FA standards. Anyone, please tell me if you agree or disagree and if you would like to tackle any part in particular. Thanks. Ufwuct 21:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your suggestions. What we need to do is tackle these as a group. I've proposed your suggested articles as a weekly collaboration effort, please see the to-do box on the main project page. Let me know what you think. Postoak 08:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Peer review for Houston, Texas

Are we ready? What do you feel needs to be done to the article? Should we try a "pre" peer review by requesting a few editors (perhaps previous critics, I know a few) to tell us what they think? Or should we go for it? Postoak 06:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Feature Articles

Should there be a section on the project page that lists the featured or good articles that this project has? T ennis Dy N ami T e ^{(sign in)} 03:10, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is now in place. I've assessed most if not all of the articles under the project. The assessment box on the main page contains all articles by class. You can see all articles in a class by clicking on the class title. Click on "FA" and you will see Portal:Houston and Tropical Storm Allison. Postoak 20:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lakes and roads around Houston

Would Lake Livingston and Lake Conroe fall under the scope of WP:Houston being that the water supply of each lake is owned 2/3 by the City of Houston? And does the Trinity River (Texas) fall into the houston spectrum being it runs through Liberty County, along with the fact it being the inflow and discharge for Lake Livingston. Also are roads in the area going to be included in the project or just leave them to the State highway wikiproject? Just thought I'd ask before I went ahead and added them...Feedloadr 02:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think Lake Livingston and Lake Conroe would be in scope since the city owns a portion of both, but I'm not too sure about the Trinity River. Roads in the Houston MSA area can be included. Postoak 04:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Malls category

I propose that the List of shopping malls in Houston, Texas become a category so we can reduce the amount of listings under Category:Shopping malls in Texas and maybe make it into a subcategory with the other cities' categories. — SirChan 09:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, good idea. Postoak 01:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]