Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon

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Do these articles qualify for WikiProject Oregon?

Before supporting nomination Aranas for deletion, some things to consider:

• Is he a "mover and shaker" or "up and comer" in the Greens? I'm elbow deep in the major parties and their prominent figures, so it'll be awhile before I collect material on the minors beyond what would fit in stubs.
• Should we consider merging his info into Pacific Green Party rather than nominating for deletion (do we really want to reflect a major party bias by treating their failed nominees differently than the biggies).
• Notability is so subjective. While the deck is stacked so heavily toward the major parties that "third party" candidates seldom get elected, they more frequently have an impact, by forcing issues to be addressed and/or playing a "spoiler" role (especially true now that so many races are decided by razor thin margins).
• I haven't really had time to think through the whole "vanity" and/or "promotional" vs. "comprehensiveness" thing. I sure don't want to spend a lot of time researching the chairman of the "blow up the Columbia River Dams" party while I have a couple of full days' work ahead of me to get a decent article on Jim Redden up. On the other hand, I don't want to neglect the little movements altogether... they are, after all, part of the strange and wonderful Oregon tapestry, and a picture of Politics in Oregon would be incomplete without them. So, I'll just shut up and think on this a bit, if that's okay. I guess I'm just not up to bold tonight. -- J-M Jgilhousen 06:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree we shouldn't be hasty. Merging sounds like a really good option. You're probably right about third party candidates, but judging by some of the candidate profiles I read in the Voters Pamphlet (hmm, there's an article idea...), where Joe or Jane Candidate say s/he has been Chair of the Podunk, Oregon PTA, been active in Podunk High School Soccer and Choir and is now running as the Blow Up the Dams Party (heh) candidate for the 5th congressional district, well... Does running for office make someone notable who otherwise isn't notable? People like that should definitely get mentioned in the Blow Up the Dams Party article, but do they need their own articles? Just more food for thought. Katr67 08:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

You don't wanna get me started on what the Voter's Pamphlet has become with the institution of a "buy a page, say what you want" policy. But, back to the point, there is a distinction to be made between those who pay a filing fee and declare themselves a candidate, and those who have received nomination from a party recognized by the Secretary of State. As I am sure Ralph Nader would attest, the latter isn't as easy as it might seem. -- J-M Jgilhousen 11:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

(Unindent) I just stumbled upon a proposed guideline that seeks to address these very issues at Wikipedia:Candidates and elections. I would suggest we hold off on deleting or merging these individuals until consensus is reached, and the result becomes "official." -- "J-M" (Jgilhousen) 09:47, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

By the way, articles on Joe Keating and Teresa Keane were recently deleted. (Keating info is still available in hist in case anybody wants to merge it into Pacific Green Party.) Prolly shoulda said something sooner...oh well. -Pete 18:06, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Featured Article collaboration?

Last spring members of this group had talked about collaborating on either Oregon or Portland, Oregon and trying to get one of them to featured status. People agreed to work on Oregon, but this effort seems to have fizzled. Before I archive the posts relevant to that discussion, is anyone still in interested in this type of collaboration, or are we all happy working in our own little corners of the project? As has been discussed, Oregon will need a lot of work, including full articles on History, Geography, Government, etc. But we now have interested people working directly or indirectly on those subjects. Neither of articles is terrible, but definitely need a lot of work because of the kind of inconsistency that creeps in when many people are making additions and subtractions. Let me know what you think and we can decide what to do from there. I’d also like to make this an opportunity to see who still considers him or herself an active member of the WikiProject. Thanks! Katr67 00:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Leaving this mini-poll up for a while because of Winter break for those studenty types... Katr67 18:45, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• Katr67 Active and daunted by the prospect of cleaning up the articles, but I’ll go if you go. :) Katr67 00:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
• EncMstr Mildly interested, but put off by the late summer feverish pace—and major direction changing—of the Portland article. The Oregon article seems a more reasonable target, but the scope seems too big for our merry little band. Within the WikiProject Oregon scope, my more visible edits are often short-lived by the hand of those with a different style: that's discouraging. — EncMstr 02:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
• JGilhousen I definitely consider myself an "active member" of the project. I'm feeling like I've bitten off about as much as I can chew by tackling the Government and Politics subproject, and want to leave myself some time to dabble in other subject areas within the project. A major collaboration on a single article doesn't appeal to me right now. -- J-M Jgilhousen 02:57, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
• VegaDark I consider myself active, and would try to help on any collaboration if one were chosen. VegaDark 06:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
• Big Smooth I'd pitch in if we had a single article to focus on. I've been hanging around the fringes of the project lately but I've still tried to improve Oregon-related articles whenever possible. -Big Smooth 20:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Follow-up

Anybody care to chime in before I wrap up this moribund discussion? Katr67 20:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I would love to work on something like this. I feel that the thing that's lacking is someone asserting their vision for the project. Y'all are smart and motivated folks, and I think if anyone were to step up and commit to shepherding this process through, many of us would get in line and offer our services. Personally, I don't have much interest in doing that at the moment, but I would love it if somebody else did. I'd mildly prefer Oregon over Portland, but would gladly work on either. In the meantime, I'll continue hammering away at List of Oregon ballot measures and other politics-and-gummint type stuff. -Pete 21:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it would be a good idea to focus on a GA or FA, rather than the independent works each of us is doing, valuable as those may be. A high visibility article could bring more interested helpers to our project. —EncMstr 22:39, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I was going to say I have no interest in leading the effort, due to preferring a wikignomelike existence, but when you said "Helpers", I pricked up my ears. Helpers=good! My vote is for Oregon over Portland as well. I think whichever one of us wants to lead the charge to an FA, the rest of us will follow, no matter what we've said. :) Maybe...just maybe...I'll take a stab at starting the process for Oregon. Katr67 23:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

That's the spirit! What else might create even more spirit? —EncMstr 23:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

A round of Oregon microbrews? Katr67 00:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

No? Well, Aboutmovies created a cool new Oregon barnstar. Anyone up for making a (monthly?) newsletter? We have a ton of inactive members and that might help get them more involved. Katr67 22:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm late, but I'm kinda here. I'm interested in helping where I can, but I'm a little immersed in another project right now (trying to get all articles related to PNW Wrestling properly sourced and, as much as possible, up to a "B" level article. What would it take to do a newsletter? I might be able to help with this. Theophilus75 17:53, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

How should we do this?

There's about six of us who are the most active members of WPOR, and I know of a couple others who could be prodded into action, so how are we going to do this? I was poking around the Minnesota page (the only featured U.S. state article right now), and the main Minnesotan "cat herder" User:Ravedave's edits and it seems I got the impression that they split the project up into sections so as not be so overwhelming.

For starters, we will need subarticles. See my thoughts on Government and Politics and History.

Several of us each have our niches, so we should of course continue to work in the areas we love best. I haven't looked at the featured article criteria in depth, but at some point me (or someone else) can post a list of projects and we can take our pick... Katr67 22:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll volunteer for the history articles and a re-write of the current section. Plus I'll take care of the redlinks from the Econ section. But not till Spring Break. Redlinks are not a criteria, I just think it will look better without them.

For the gov't section might I suggest a table with the current main elected officials: Gov, SOS, AG, etc. from Executive branch; Chief Justice from Judicial branch; Speakers of the House/Senate.

As for climate, since it has been listed as deficent before, how about charts (plus a brief overview) like Portland has for say Burns, Bend, Hood River, Portland, Eugene, Medford, Astoria, Brookings, Pendelton. They would need to be smaller, or maybe some sort of code trick where you could mouseover a link to a city and the chart would magically appear. Anyway that would cover most of the main climate regions. Though if someone is good with graphics I might suggest a rain guage like what is in The Oregonian for the rainfall yearly total instead of just listing the number for a better visual representation of the differences between the coast, valley, and east/south. Aboutmovies 00:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll volunteer to update/cleanup/expand a "Health and education" section (like Minnesota's got), as that's more my area of expertise. -- Scientizzle 01:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm also a copy editor-type person...so I'll work on grammar, style & word-choice, too. -- Scientizzle 02:34, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh good, I'm off the hook then. :) BTW, welcome to the project! Katr67 05:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

You can never have too many copy editors! Oh, and thanks for the welcome. -- Scientizzle 05:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll keep plugging away at the politics and government stuff, and help out elsewhere when I can. I like AM's suggestion of a table. Site note- Wikipedia:WikiProject Arizona has FIVE featured articles. How's that for motivation? One of them's a porn star. We can do better. -Pete 01:37, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

If it's not too late to throw my hat in the ring (and if others are still striving to make Oregon a featured article), I'll take the Education section, including the somewhat-deficient see also to Oregon University System. This seems to have become my niche anyhow. Someone let me know if this is still an ongoing project? akendall 18:12, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

It's never too late. :) We're just doing this on Oregon time, it seems, and no one wants to do the cat herding it will take to make it happen. I don't anyway. Thanks for your help. We'll pull this off eventually... Katr67 18:44, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd say this is very much an active initiative…we just haven't been talking about what we're doing so much. I've been working on the Geography section, and want to take a crack at History and Law/Govt at some point as well. I see there's been recent activity in Climate, somebody made a nice chart of monthly average highs and lows around the state. Some things that jump out at me are: there's a lot of detail about Native American political divisions, without much discussion of what that means or how it fits in with the rest of the article; the History section has too heavy an emphasis on pioneer history, and may not adequately describe the role of Hudson's Bay Company; eastern Oregon is not very well represented; Law & Gov't should describe Initiative system better, and the focus on Vote-By-Mail should be moved to another article and trimmed back. And improvements to Education would most certainly be welcome! None of these are "quick fixes" though, they will all take some time. Oh yeah, how could I forget: we have to settle once and for all how Oregon is pronounced. -Pete 20:16, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

a suggestion

How about we request a Good Article review, or a Peer Review, of Oregon, so we can get an outside perspective on what we need to do? I think we all have some ideas, but a perspective from somebody with no Oregon connection - and who doesn't look at the article every freakin' day or two - would probably be very valuable. -Pete 02:08, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a great idea. I second the motion. =) akendall 04:38, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This would save us from using our energies in unproductive directions. Maybe we can get Stephen Colbert to weigh in... Katr67 04:44, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

arbitrary semi-protection?

An administrator has semi-protected Oregon without explanation (and with a weird advertisement for a TV show in his edit history comments), set to last until May 31. I'm a bit surprised at the unexplained action to begin with, but I think it comes at an especially bad time for our Wikiproject. I have explained this to the administrator in question on his/her talk page; please take a look. -Pete 20:04, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I think its fine since semi-protection only keeps non-registered editors from making edits, so no anon-IP vandalism. We can still make changes. I think it also prevents newly registered editors (3 days or so) from editing, but again that doesn't stop us dedicated editors. Aboutmovies 20:09, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo is appearing on Colbert. I've explained it in more detail on the talk page. The protection will expire soon. alphachimp 20:18, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Take it from someone who's reverted a lot of vandalism--It's not arbitrary at all. I take it you missed the flurry of Colbert vandalism on the Oregon page back in...August I think it was? The whole California/Oregon/Washington/Idaho/Portugal thing? Believe me, Jimbo appearing on the Colbert Report will result in the resurgence of a bunch of anon vandalism on Oregon and several other articles. Let me know if you need further explanation. Katr67 20:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protection also prevents recently-registered accounts from editing, and I'm not sure where the cutoff is. We have very recently welcomed two highly productive editors to our team, and others are coming continually. Also, the current pushes to improve Oregon and to create a separate article for the name "Oregon" are perfect opportunities for newbies to get a feel for the collaborative spirit of Wikipedia, rather than getting discouraged or becoming hostile by having an edit war be their first experience of the community. It's possible that Alphachimp has a good reason, but his/her failure to express it on the talk page, for such a prominent article, is irresponsible. -Pete 20:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

You are certainly welcome to that opinion. It's worth noting that nothing I've done is without precedent. I think you'll find that this actually helps your article. alphachimp 20:38, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think the cutoff is 4 days? I guess s/he could have done a better job of explaining for those who don't know the history of Colbert thing. Maybe we can do a little "welcome new users" thing at the bottom of the talk page? I personally think the conserving of our vandal-reverting energy is well-worth the couple of people who may be put off by the semi-protection. Is that heartless? Anyway, here's a link to one of the previous discussions of the issue: Talk:Oregon/archive 1#Colbert report. There is also a tag about high traffic that usually gets added to an article's talk page when it is featured on television. Katr67 20:42, 24 May 2007 (UTC) P.S. Per alphachimp above--any publicity is good publicity. :) Katr67 20:42, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying Pete doesn't have a point about communication, buthere's a link showing our efforts to fend off the vandalism, even with different two semi-protects in place. Katr67 20:50, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm well aware that Oregon is Idaho's Portugal, and I know that fighting off vandalism can be tedious. But 5-10 reversions per day doesn't sound so bad to me. The Colbert report airs over what, an 4-hour period from east to west coast? If it made any difference, I'd volunteer to watch it closely for that period, and frequently during the next several days. There are lots of smart people who watch Colbert, and if Jimbo's appearance on Colbert is intended as a promotion, why shouldn't we focus on promoting Wikipedia's accessibility, among other things? -Pete 20:59, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, Alphachimp: (1) Thanks for the welcome, but I'm going to have my opinion no matter what; (2) a link to something establishing the precedent would be helpful; and Katr, the semi-protect is a week, not four days. -Pete 21:04, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

No, I meant I think an account has to be four days old to get around a semi-protect. Katr67 21:14, 24 May 2007 (UTC) P.S. In the link I provided above you can see there was was a pre-emptive block in July. Katr67 21:16, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Gotcha, thanks. -Pete 21:17, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I've responded on my talk page. Show over, page unprotected, nothing to see here...get back to improving articles :). "Omegachimp" 07:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

reversing colors on Oregon_DEM_relief_map.gif

The Gomm requested, in 12/06, that somebody change the colors in a widely-used relief map of Oregon. The colors depicted regions known for lush vegetation in brown, and high desert regions in green. Katr67 pointed out that the image was produced by the USGS. Pete said that didn't mean the image couldn't be altered. Cacophony performed the requested conversion, also converting the background from black to transparent, but Katr67 noticed that his alteration was to a lesser-used version of the image (a GIF file.) Pete extended Cacophony's edits to the more commonly-used version of the image in 5/07 (the PNG file.)

Another overlooked but notable Portlander

Okay, I'm sure that everyone here has seen or heard about the guy in the SUV who played bumper cars on SW Salmon next to the MAC club (Youtube video clip here), but Did You Know that he was Broughton Bishop, executive and one of the family that owns Pendleton Woolen Mills, an Oregon business institution? This states that he is President & CEO, but the company website states that he is only a Vice-President. (The fact he is part of the family that owns Pendleton was mentioned in the 19 January 2007 Friday Oregonian front-page article, but very briefly & if you read the article too fast you might have missed the connection.)

I think this combination may just make him notable. -- llywrch 20:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Valsetz description

The description says the town was founded by the William Mitchell Co. This is not true. The founder was Cobbs & Mitchell, which owned the company until selling to its sales agent, Herbert Templeton, who ran the town and mill as the Valsetz Lumber Co. It was then sold to Boise Cascade. So only three owners in its history. (I am the author of Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington Press 2003, and there are several other sources documenting the establishment of the town and its ownership history.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.41.32.185 (talk • contribs) 5:29, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Linda. I wrote the article using information from OGN, which I consider a fairly reliable source, but feel free to edit the article if it is inaccurate. I'd encourage you to sign up for an account--it's great to have real writers contributing. :) It's also usually a good idea to mention this sort of thing on the article's talkpage as well. Thanks for bringing it up. I've been wanting to check out your book. Katr67 06:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Have you seen Category:Company towns? There are several Oregon towns in there. Katr67 06:26, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Opinions needed

Sunriver Resort and Sunriver, Oregon need to be looked at. Take a look at the edit history of the resort article and the article's talk page for the background. Basically, what "Sunriver" consists of is a mildly confusing mess, and I'd like some third opinions about the content of both articles, as discussed on the talk page. I've sort of taken on the role of mediator, I guess, but I don't feel real strongly about a piece of property I'll probably never set foot on. :) Thanks. Katr67 15:38, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Significance of Boones Ferry

My bias is warped by being raised living next to Boones Ferry Road. Should Boones Ferry go in {{Oregon Pioneer History}}, perhaps as a place? —EncMstr 08:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I would vote no, as we don't want the template to get too big like what happened to the Oregon Cities template. And though Boone's Ferry still has a name impact on the area, so do some others (Scholls Ferry for instance), and the shear number of ferries in the early days makes it hard to pick out which ones. I'm thinking maybe a Oregon Historic Ferries article that could go on the template. The article could have a brief synopsis of the varrious ferries, then a link to the individual articles. Aboutmovies 16:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Excellent suggestions. Thanks! —EncMstr 16:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Probably Historic ferries in Oregon, actually. Sounds like a great idea. Some of the individual ferries, like the ones I added on the transpo subproject, probably aren't notable enough to justify their own articles but redirects to the main article would solve that problem. Katr67 02:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Why not distinguish by whether or not there's actually a ferry still running? There aren't many left, and the mere continued use of a ferry these days is enough to be noteworthy -- the rest are just historical.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dismalscholar (talk • contribs) 2007-05-14T17:01:05 (UTC)

There hasn't been a ferry for over 50 years—see Boones Ferry. Even if it were still running, would that make the article important enough to put in one of the navigational templates? Seems like the reverse is usually more the case. I asked the question because living near the road for decades and all the local recognition it received, like Boones Ferry Days and old timers referring to the days before the bridge, etc. as a little kid may have distorted my perception of the importance of the ferry. —EncMstr 18:00, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

WPOR Manual of Style

I think we need to decide on the format of ORS citations. In ORS itself, the format is: ORS 221.333 (the year being implied as the most recent version--currently updated every two years, but with the annual sessions experiment, this may change). Meanwhile, Aboutmovies introduced this snazzy style: Or. Rev. Stat. § 222.125 (2005). Is that how they're cited in the court cases? I prefer the former, but that's the form I am used to using. Thoughts? Since this is kind of state-specific I thought maybe when we decide we can add a little WPORMOS section. I ♥ acronyms... Katr67 00:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The style I introduced is the ALWD citation style. It's the legal, technical style, and probably more than what we need. I really introduced it to make a point on that page, namely cite the full statute plus they seem to be wanting to get legal in their description so I thought I might help them out. Aboutmovies 00:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I know of MLA, AP, APA and CMS but not ALWD. :) Shall we leave it that way on that page then? Or is that a case of WP:POINT? Otherwise, I was planning on doing some rewriting to improve the clarity of that article if it still needs it (because I was the one whining about it), and I can change it to the simpler style then if everyone agrees. Katr67 00:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it quite reaches WP:POINT, but feel free to change if you would like. Just no dashes from ORS, or parantheses around the chapter number, plus there needs to be a full six digit number. Aboutmovies 01:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Hells Canyon

I am a river runner and hydrology expert. I keep editing the article on Hell's Canyon on the Snake River because the flow rates are quite inaccurate. I remove the part that says "The Snake through Hell's Canyon generally carries more water than the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon". I have run both rivers and the Snake River IS NOT bigger than the Colorado River, according to USGS. Here is my source to the average flow of the Snake below Hell's Canyon Dam, which is about 11,000 cfs, compaired to a low average of about 14,000 of the Colorado below Glen Canyon Dam. User:Peckvet55 22:48, 13 Feb 2007 [source http://waterdata.usgs.gov/id/nwis/uv/?site_no=13290450&PARAmeter_cd=00065,00060]

Thanks for explaining. I personally reverted many changes on that article by anon editors who blanked an entire paragraph without any explanation in the edit summary. Unexplained anon blanking looks like vandalism to me. Thanks for signing up for an account. This kind of discussion is better placed on the article's talk page. I'll copy this post there, and if you blank the material again, please fill in the edit summary. Thanks! Katr67 06:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Admin subpage

I added Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Admin as suggested awhile back. It was eyeopening to see the amazing variety of articles in existence! A few might not be enduring (Category:MAX, Category:Avifauna of Oregon).

I'm not planning on doing much more with this, unless several WP Oregon editors feel it is of value. —EncMstr 19:48, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Day-um! That's really cool. I hadn't had a chance to look at it until now because it takes a minute to load. How did you do that? Katr67 05:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

(Sorry for the slow response: I hadn't noticed your message until now.) Yeah, it puts a real load on the browser. I made it by listing the category, pasting it into vim, and performing several transformations (remove "talk", put double square brackets around each entry, etc.) to produce the wikitable. Then I used many regular expressions to categorize. Alas, that might have produced many mistakes. —EncMstr 07:38, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Lat/Long Coordinates - Pine Mountain Observatory

I am brand new and all at sea, completely lost in how to do anything really, but I think I can figure most things out via cheatsheets and the sandbox but this one: How would I go about entering actual latitude and longitude for Pine Mountain Observatory? (I'm sure there's a way to link to that, erk) -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Mountain_Observatory I can't find anything anywhere about how to do that, but like I said - I'm new, and lost! Or if someone who knows how would like to do that ... N 43° 47.485 W 120° 56.542 Chamois-shimi 09:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Hello and welcome! I am no expert on this, but I just ran across something similar…basically what you want to do is use a "template." Wikipedia templates are used by putting their names between pairs of {{curly braces}}; by doing that, you make it pull in a bit of code or formatting that has already been set up. So, as I understand it, you will want to use {{Geolinks-US-mountain|xxxx|yyyy}} (where xxxx=latitude, and yyyy=longitude.) Just put that anywhere on the page (I think the top is traditional), and it should put a little standardized notice of the coordinates in the upper-right corner of the page. There are lots of these templates, for varying uses - see a list here: Category:Coordinates templates. Hope this helps! -Pete 09:37, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, wait - I just looked at the page, and I see it already has a different coordinates template. Please look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Geographical coordinates for instructions on using it. Looks a bit confusing - I'll help you puzzle it out if needed. -Pete 09:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Ohhh. I was going to say something else, but I just looked at the page. Hmm. I would ask the person who put the observatory template on there. Or if you can figure out the name of the template (I couldn't--I tried Template:Observatory), sometimes the talk page will have instructions for using it. Is there a WikiProject Astronomy? I'd take a look but I have to run off to work...

But for future reference, if you're going to fill out one of those geolinks templates (my favorite is {{Geolinks-US-cityscale|foo|-foo}}), I pull all my data from the Portland State geographic names list. Oh and the geolinks template goes in the external links. It will give you the little coordinates in the corner and a bunch of handy external links to maps. (Example). Welcome and happy editing! Katr67 15:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I just figured out how to add the coords, using the info at Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates#Implementation details and running the coords Chamois-shimi gave above through a Google Maps search, which gave me the converted seconds so I could fill out the template. Google, how do I love thee? Katr67 02:05, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

That's nice. But next time you can use the pure decimal lat/lon by using template {{coor d}} instead of {{coor dms}}. That is, {{coor d|43.791417|N|120.942367|W}} instead of {{coor dms|43|47|29.10|N|120|56|32.52|W}} which give 43.791417°N 120.942367°W / 43.791417; -120.942367 and 43°47′29.10″N 120°56′32.52″W. —EncMstr 02:48, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Nice? Nice?! The triumph of my Wikipedia career--a word geek figuring out a math thing--and you call it "nice"? And just where were you when we were trying to figure this out earlier? Good to know about the different tls. I figured I should stay with the one that was already on the page, I have no idea which format is appropriate in which circumstance. To me it's pretty much just a string of numbers that will lead you to a map. Katr67 17:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Sub Project Invitation/Blatant advertising

As I have seen those listed as members grow a lot over the last month or so I wanted to take a moment to invite all members to take a look at the project's subdivions. There is no requirement or even urging to join one, but I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of them and a bit about them.

• You like cities, do population figures get you fired up? Then maybe Cities is just for you!
• Perhaps you don't like other people, but you like mountains and rivers. Well we have Physical geography just for you.
• Wait, there's more. Do you like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles? Then we have Transportation so you can expand the world's knowledge about Oregon roads, highways and choo choo trains.
• Perhaps your expertise is more in the art, music or sports scene. Then we have the Culture division to show Oregon is more than just rain and trees.
• Maybe you love old people. OK that may sound wrong, so maybe do you love to write about old people? Then join People and write biographies about politicians (dead & alive), pioneers, or any other notable person related to Oregon.
• Now, if you order in the next 10 minutes we'll throw in Government for free (OK, government is never free). Anyway, there you can spend hours upon hours writing about ballot measures, the Oregon Constitution, or the evolution and interaction of Oregon's different branches of government.
• Do you like antiques? Well history is all about old stuff so join History today, because tomorrow its history (I know, lame).
• Are you one of those people who is fascinated by the stock ticker at the bottom of CNBC? Well then don't just sit there staring, write something about those companies at the Companies subproject.
• Lastly, if you just like to draw or take pictures, maybe Graphics is for you. Make maps, take pictures, conquer the world. It's all in a days work.

Aboutmovies 21:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

<applause> I think we should nominate you as the WPOR Marketing Director... Katr67 02:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Only if we can increase market share. Aboutmovies 04:21, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Oregon-bio-stub up for deletion

{{Oregon-bio-stub}} is being considered for deletion as it apparently was not created through the proper channels. See the discussion here. I like this stub and voted to keep it. Katr67 18:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

• Actually it wasn't up for deletion as it never was nominated. {{Washington-bio-stub}} was and while its creator did say during the discussion, if you delete mine the other State bio stubs should be deleted as well, the primary reason for considering {{Washington-bio-stub}} for deletion, that it's too small, doesn't pertain to {{Oregon-bio-stub}}. Caerwine Caer’s whines 00:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

That's good. I got nervous--some editors overseeing such discussions aren't as conscientious with the "might as well delete this one too" type things. See my response over there. Katr67 03:00, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

archiving some completed discussions

I'm moving some older discussions - only those that clearly came to some kind of conclusion - here. Hope that's OK, it just seemed things were getting unweildy. -Pete 22:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Oops, I see there's a process for this that I disregarded. I'll come back and clean up soon! -Pete 22:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Three lashes with the Oregon State Fish for you! Katr67 03:02, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Cacophony--see this post. Katr67 01:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I guess I beat Pete to it. The archive that he created fit chronologically at the end of archive3. Thanks, Cacophony 02:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

French Prairie

Rather than cross-post this to all the subgroups and folks who might be interested, I'll just say here that I just finished an article on French Prairie and though I'm sick of looking at it, it's an interesting place and the article could be expanded greatly if anyone is interested. I've stashed what look to be some helpful links as comments in the refs section. Happy editing! ...now go outside and play... Katr67 18:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Article for Deletion

The page on Oregon politician Michael Charles Smith is up for deletion. Worth a look. The article used to read like a campaign brochure, but I've edited it down considerably. My opinion: Smith is notable in Oregon (having two news stories cited, and many more as far-flung as Boston and NH), but is being improperly considered in the context of national presidential contenders. -Pete 15:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Oregon Institute of Technology motto - is that right?

Could some one pls confirm the motto for OIT? The wiki entry gives it as 'Magnus Frater te spectat', which is Latin for 'Big Brother is watching you'. I doubt that's right - sounds like a joker was at work. I didn't spot any motto on the OIT site, but some one must know. -Vince 68.6.39.9 22:13, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I took it out. It was a very sneaky joke edit mixed in with a bunch of legitimate editing. Now if someone could explain what the heck a "Hustlin' Owl" is... Katr67 22:43, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Free the Unfree Images!

One of the reasons our long-lost editor Jgilhousen quit Wikipedia is over stuff like this: Image talk:Ted kulongoski.jpg. Can someone please just go snap Ted's photo next time he's having a press conference or something? Our city flags and seals are slowly diappearing too. The editor who tracked most of those down doesn't appear to be active anymore, so if someone has any interest in trying to get those back, it would be mighty helpful. Thinking about copyright makes me twitch so I'm not gonna go there... Katr67 04:15, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Just in terms of NPOV, I would be happier with a Wikipedian's snap than with the Guv's Official Portrait. So, I agree with Katr67 about the next press conference or whatever other public op. Ipoellet 15:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with both of you, and believe both goals (i.e., getting proper permissions for "official" materials,and gathering more "non-official" materials) are worth pursuing. I have a call in to the Gov's office about this; are there other images I should ask about as well, when they call me back? As a would-be advocate for open-source software and a longtime attorney, the Governor should have a staff that understands the value of jumping through the hoops properly. Wikipedia's hoops need some work, too.

If we can get this thing sorted out, I vote we all chip in for a cake and a greeting card and launch an all-out campaign to get John Mark back on WP ;) -Pete 01:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

ps. Lemme plug my User:Peteforsyth/leg letter again, which aims to get the State government to join the Feds in making government-produced images, etc. public domain. I think this is doable, and would love any feedback or assistance in figuring out how to get it done. -Pete 01:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

New Carissa to be on main page

The New Carissa will be featured on the main page on Saturday March 31 2007. Yay! Katr67 01:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Awesome! Just scanned the article to make sure it's still in good shape - it looks good, with a few minor updates I am researching. The only thing that bothers me is this image of the stern laying on the beach. It's not a terribly great shot, and you'd think in the last eight years someone would have taken a better picture - I just can't find one that's freely licensed like all the other images on the page. Does anyone else know a good place to look? -Big Smooth 17:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Here we go! Let the vandal-fighting begin! Katr67 01:37, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

List of Oregon State University alumni up for featured list nomination

List of Oregon State University alumni has been removed as a good article, since lists no longer qualify as good articles, but it is now up for featured list status. You can contribute to the discussion at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Oregon State University alumni. Thanks, VegaDark 22:29, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Eugene Photo Op

I'll be in Eugene this weekend and I'm going try to get some photos if the weather cooperates and I can figure out my friend's digital camera. I'd like to get some NRHP buildings, especially Knight Library and the UO Art Museum, some of downtown Eugene, and a few train stations enroute. I'll be pedaling around the bike paths and venturing into the western edge of Springfield. Let me know if you have any photo requests and I'll see what I can do. Katr67 19:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

How about Eugene Saturday Market? (And an article? ;-) Portland Saturday Market is ready to link to it.) —EncMstr 19:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Alas, the market doesn't open until April 7, but next time I'm down there I'll make sure to get some photos. Hmm, I should scan some of my Oregon Country Fair images one of these days... Katr67 19:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank goodness for WP:NOT#CENSORED!  ;) -Big Smooth 22:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh don't be silly, it's not *all* naked people in the mud. Too bad too because I have some great shots of the Mud People parade. ;) Seriously though, in an informal poll, everyone I've asked says the first two words they think of when they recall hearing about the fair *before* they actually attended was "naked" and "mud". But I've got some very nice colorful shots of fully clothed jugglers and stilt walkers and such. I bet some of them are even sober, so there. Katr67 23:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Inactive

I will be moving some WPOR members to the inactive section tomorrow if an editor has not been editing on Wikipedia much over the last few months (somewhere around less than 5 edits total since Jan 31). Its nothing personal, and if someone wants to put themselves back into the regular part feel free to do so. Moving those not editing should free up some space on the main project page, and let other WPOR editors know who to contact for questions and/or collaberations. Plus if we ever start a newsletter, we know who not to bother. Aboutmovies 02:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Oregon Barnstar

I've made a proposal to the powers that be to make this official. Go express your opinion if you wish. Katr67 06:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

It was suggested we solicit more suggestions from project members. Please go make suggestions about the barnstar that don't involve an image of a forest. *yawn* :) Katr67 15:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

New articles

Dear Wikipedians, a list of possible Oregon-related articles found by bot is available at User:AlexNewArtBot/OregonSearchResult. Colchicum 15:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey, cool bot. Are you going to be doing this regularly? Katr67 15:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

It is automated (a subproject of User:AlexNewArtBot), so it will need no maintenance as the rules are elaborated. Colchicum 15:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Old articles

I had User:Alex Bakharev have his bot go through the Oregon category tree looking for articles that aren't tagged with {{WikiProject Oregon}} yet: User:AlexNewArtBot/OregonList. (Similar to when someone had the same done for California recently, though they had the bot actually tag the articles too.) As you can see, many of these aren't really about Oregon but about things that Oregon articles are also categorized as (train stations, for example). I asked whether we should delete the ones we've checked out or ??? Anyway, for now, I'm just going to volunteer to check out the first 100... Step right up! Step right up! What better way to spend a beautiful Easter morning than in service to your favorite WikiProject? (OK, don't answer that) Katr67 15:24, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I glanced at the list and was surprised there could be so many. I'm wondering what the bot was thinking it when tagged many of them. The first one I looked at in depth was Joseph Scelsi Intermodal Transportation Center. Does anyone have an idea why it thinks this might be a WP:ORE candidate? —EncMstr 15:48, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The California tagging bot had the same problem. Under the Category:Oregon umbrella are such broad categories as Amtrak, Oregon Trail, etc. Feel free to ask our friendly bot owner if he can rewrite his code to leave some of those sort of things out. I don't want to wear out my welcome... But that's why I wanted us to tag the articles by hand. The California tags were actually added to a bunch of unrelated articles and I bet there's some that are still there... Katr67 16:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi guys- It seems to me that Katr's concerns would be best made with a simple request that the results of the list not be used for an automated or wholesale addition of WP:ORE tags. I'm not sure I quite understand what you guys are doing - looking through every article, and determining if it should be added to WP:ORE? If so, why not simply delete those that you've reviewed, rather than leaving them there and recording your progress here? Seems that leaving that list untouched only leaves open the likelihood that it will be misused. -Pete 02:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

1) I never asked Alex to add the tags. You can see our talk pages for the relevant conversation. 2) Yes. 3) Because a) It's easier to say ahead of time which ones you're going to do, rather than run into an edit conflict/duplication of effort later. b) Camaraderie c) Alex's bot crashed and I wanted to make sure about how he was going to handle adding new entries before I change the page. Except now I see that he simply ran a new version of the list over the top of the old one... 4) Misused how? Katr67 05:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Hm, OK. Think I'll just pass on this one, I'm still kinda confused. But to clear up a couple things: (1) by "misuse" I meant something along the lines of "create zillions of largely inaccurate tags." (2) I didn't understand that you were claiming articles "in advance," I thought you were reporting what you'd done. Anyway, carry on…I may just join in if I, you know, run out of things to do… -Pete 07:43, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Aw, you're just not masochistic enough. Well, if you get bored, pick a range of numbers, sign up, look at each article to see if it should be tagged for WPOR (and its also nice to note if it needs cleanup or deletion), tag it or not, and strike them from the list when you're done. (Don't delete them--that will cause renumbering.) Lather, rinse, repeat. You'll learn a lot. Promise! Katr67 08:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Cleaning new list

I cleaned the list of many railroad and Intel things, alphabetized it, and reposted in on Alex's original sub page. Enjoy. Katr67 08:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Sign me up!

• Katr67 1-400, D-G
• EncMstr items 600–899, O-P
• Sprkee I'll take N, S, T, U, V, W
• Aboutmovies finished W

The dregs

Hey, most of this list is done!! Who wants the rest?

• G-H Katr67
• part of L: -Sprkee I'll take it
• M Katr67
• Q
• R All done!

--Sprkee 23:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations to this effort, and the work of several other editors. The WPOR article count is now 3901, up from 2945 on March 29. That's an increase of 956 articles in 67 days or 14.26 articles per day. —EncMstr 01:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow! Go us! And EncMstr, I hope you don't mind too much that you lost most of your classification tags in the effort. I guess I'll go finish G now... Katr67 01:16, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

All gone! Way to go! Now what will we do with our time...oh yeah, back to work. --Sprkee 17:26, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

So shall we ask Alex if it's OK to delete the list? Is there any reason to hang onto it for nostalgia or research purposes? Katr67 17:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's fine to delete. I think we might consider running it again once a year or so, just in case some old articles not caught by the new article bot become relevant. Some already famous person could move to OR and become appropriately mossy. Who knows. Of course, next time, it should be 99.9% old Blazers, trivial trains, and British Columbia lakes and mountains. --Sprkee 18:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it should be run once in a while, but we should definitely ask Alex to leave out Category:Amtrak, Category:Cascade Range, Category:Hudson's Bay Company, etc. and perhaps a bunch of the sports folks too. I'm still wondering if there's any way to have it track down articles that say "Oregon" in them that haven't even been put in an Oregon category and make a list that wouldn't be ridiculous and tedious to check through. Probably not, but a girl can dream... Good job everyone! Katr67 18:21, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Definitely nix the fixed objects like mountains and trains, but let's leave all the people, including sports people, in. Though it's sorta tedious to go through so many Blazers (who knew there were so many?), clearer eyes in the future may realize the OR importance of some of these people as they move around and get famouser or infamouser. --Sprkee 18:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I think I'll ask Alex to simply run the bot again as a placeholder if no one objects in the next few days. Besides the above categories, besides railroads can those of you who helped out think of other cats to have the bot overlook (if that's possible)? And maybe have him run the sports and school alum people categories separately? Intel, Nike, Oregon Trail, Oregon Country, Modoc War, Religious Culture of the Pacific Northwest (which really needs a definition, BTW) and Columbia River pick up a lot of non-Oregon stuff, any others? Katr67 07:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Oregon Coast Range

I've been working on Oregon Coast Range items the last week or so and was hoping we might have a geologist among us? If so could you take a look at Northern Oregon Coast Range to make sure the geology info is correct? I'll tackle the Central Oregon Coast Range next along with Rogers Peak if anyone wanted to put together Southern Oregon Coast Range and Mount Bolivar (the highest peak in the coast range) then the main Oregon Coast Range article should be easy to put together with see: N/C/S parts and a summary of the articles. Thank you. Aboutmovies 21:48, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Kettle Foods

Someone prodded Kettle Foods. I contested the prod, but the content at the article is pretty thin, if someone wants to spruce it up a bit in case it gets taken to Afd. I found Kettle chips in France so surely they're somewhat notable. Katr67 05:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

List of ZIP Codes in Oregon

This article is up for deletion along with all the other states' articles. Some of us were working on revamping it, so it's kind of a mess right now, but I think it should be kept, probably renamed, judging by the consensus that is forming. Perhaps this can be incentive to improve the article? See the deletion discussion page. Katr67 19:08, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, the page was deleted. I tried looking for a saved version of it, but couldn't find it. Maybe someone save the last version as History of Oregon post offices or something like that? —EncMstr 23:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

If you like, I could restore it into your userspace. Just message me and I can access the deleted page to place at, say, User:EncMstr/List of ZIP Codes in Oregon for you to work with as you create a valid Oregon history article. — Scientizzle 01:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Scientizzle has generously restored the article in User:EncMstr/Oregon ZIPs. I don't have much free time now (girlfriend hit by a car), but anyone who desires to should edit it, or use it as a basis to create History of Oregon post offices, or something like that. —EncMstr 17:34, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Waldo Lake...

Hi! New guy here... never posted to Wikipedia before so don't know the protocol, etc. Just wanted to say Waldo Lake is one of the cleanest lakes in the world, and it might be worth mentioning something about this. If I remember correctly they have to use special testing methods to test the purity of the water there because it has virtually no pollution at all. Search Google (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Waldo+%2BLake%22%2C+water%2C+cleanest%2C+purity&btnG=Google+Search) for more info on this. Thanks!

Daniel (vagabondvet [at] gmail [dot] com) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.82.9.55 (talk) 19:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

Salem Monthly

This article is up for deletion. Yes, it's kind of a rag, but it seems like it just might be notable enough to have an article. Maybe not. I've done what I can to save it, if anybody else can dredge up some notability, please share. Katr67 04:38, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Stadium Infoboxes

I was adding stadium infoboxes to Oregon sporting venues that did not yet have them (Gill Coliseum, Memorial Coliseum, and Civic Stadium (Eugene)). If anyone else has more info, those articles are somewhat sparse. Also, the Autzen Stadium article doesn't even have a picture! If someone has a pic of Autzen to put on the infobox, it would make the article a lot nicer.Duckblazer 01:49, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Vanishing stories in The Oregonian

I'd like to make a push for people to make full citations (rather than just links) when citing The Oregonian, because so many links go "dead" at that paper's site, without any indication how to find the article.

Please take a look at my description of the problem at User:Peteforsyth/O-vanish. Feel free to edit. I'd like to start linking to that page when I "flesh out citations" on Oregon-related pages. -Pete 22:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Will do. My philosophy is "a sloppy citation is better than no citation at all" but I'll try to make sure the Oregonian articles are done properly at least. Is this a problem with any other sources? I've noticed some S-J articles are impossible to find in any form short of microfilm as well. Katr67 23:08, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see you know that already... Katr67 23:09, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the input! I basically want to point out the big problem with the "sloppy better than none" approach, which is what I used to adhere to. It's fine for a Trib or Willy Week story, because there's effectively no time limit to fleshing it out; but with an Oregonian or SJ story, a sloppy citation is not even a tiny bit better then no citation at all, once a few months have gone by. -Pete 00:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Direct Legislation League

Hey fellas, (new to this, but) just wanted to point out that the Direct Legislation League was a national organization formed in New Jersey in 1893, with many "chapters" around the country. Just want to make sure people don't get derailed from that (I think incredible) history. Looks like yall have taken on a big project. Good luck! Ogbn 04:31, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Ogbn, thanks for the comment...can you expand a little, I'm intrigued. Sounds like the short article Direct Legislation League might be in error - was Willion S. U'Ren (in 1898) merely the founder of the Oregon chapter, not of the org. as a whole? Was the "Oregon System" actually conceived in NJ, and Oregon simply happened to be the first state where it was successfully passed? Do you know of a good online source for these questions? Much appreciate the input, I'm very interested in this bit of history, and would like it to be accurately reflected on Wikipedia. -Pete 05:13, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Right, U'Ren did not found the national org.

Initiative and referendum were actually first permitted in cities in Nebraska, and a year later in 1898 South Dakota was the first state to adopt statewide I&R. Utah also passed it before Oregon, but it was called the Oregon system by many because yall used it so much, and perhaps used it first? In Oregon recall, and other reforms, came in the years that followed. The American movement for direct democracy was inspired by the Swiss.

There is not much history online unfortunately. There are decent historical summaries at iandrinstitute.org most of them lifted from a book by San Franciscan David Schmidt. The histories on that site should be read with a grain of salt however. For one the organization has a tax reform agenda it doesn't entirely own up to that occasionally shapes its documentation. If you can get acces to JSTOR there are some decent treatments of the populist and progressive periods in the historical and political science academic press.

The Direct Legislation League national organization put out a journal for a few of decades called the Direct Legislation Record, eventually combined with the Proportional Representation Review and published in Philadelphia under the title Equity I think, that there are still a couple of crumbling runs of in research libraries. These are probably the best record of the period I've seen.

Hope that helps. Feel free to email me if i don't check in. Ogbn 07:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Pete, just a quick note w/o much research, so I'm going mainly off memory from high school. I think the Oregon System is more that just the what the Direct Legislation League was trying for. The Oregon system as you know is three parts: initiative, referendum, and recall. It appears the DLL was more just for the int and then later referendum, but not recall (though the article I found was from the 1930s so they could have later picked up on it). And in both cases it looks like Oregon was the 1st to adopt the intiative and referendum. I browsed through: The Constitutional Initiative in Operation, by Winston W. Crouch. The American Political Science Review, Vol. 33, No. 4. (Aug., 1939), pp. 634-645. Mainly about initiative and referendum, but some minor mention of the DLL. Aboutmovies 08:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Oregon Project Ratings

As I've been editing, I have come across some other projects project boxes on the talk pages. Many have a ratings part integrated into the template. I was thinking we could tweak the OR template for the same. Thoughts? Aboutmovies 07:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I too have noticed various rating on articles belonging to many other projects. It seems to me that two judgements are useful in any tagging scheme.

importance

the priority of including the article in an excerpted collection. If only X articles (or Y Mb of content) can be included, what is the succession of articles?

completion

the degree of breadth and depth covered by the article compared to an ideally completed article; it is also inversely related to the work still needed

These two dimensions could be useful in prioritizing work on WikiProject Oregon. I've noticed one project's members quibbling a bit over the criteria for low and medium importance articles.

It occurs to me that tagging each article is inherently disorganized. How about a table instead?

Article	Importance (0..10)	Completion (0..10)	notes
Oregon	10	9	needs more climate information
Portland, Oregon	9	9	needs more proportionate balancing between sections
Bosley Butte	1	3	needs history, coordinates, notability, references
List of Oregon State Parks	3	1	only 7 of 200+ articles are written; still haven't completed article format
Joel Palmer	5	7	his journal has more information not yet included
Breitenbush Hot Springs	3	8	more editorial input needed; photos needed
Applegate River	2	1	stub article
Bill Sizemore	4	5	tagged for cleanup; needs notability in intro, etc.

(I populated it with a sampling of real project articles, but glossed over the values, though they might be close.) The wikiproject tag should addtionally link to an organizing article containing such a table. I used numbers (instead of the more usual low/medium/high) so a sortable table can help organize. —EncMstr 19:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Since no one else seems to care, I guess we can just drop this for another time, though I do like the above table for sorting. My goal was more of the rating "stub - FA" on the individual pages and not even worry about importance, I thought it could help us start rating some of our articles and move some towards FA status. Oh well. Aboutmovies 19:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not particularly interested in ratings systems, but would go along if it were implemented. But as you can see from the discussion I started up above somewhere, people aren't even all that interested in making FA articles. Just bein' maverick Oregonians as usual I suppose. BTW, I'm probably going to do some more archiving of this page in the near future. And P.S. all you WPOR folk rock! Katr67 19:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this would be really cool, of it doesn't take much effort to implement. I saw one at Wikiproject Arizona that would be very useful, it's some kind of auto-generated chart: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Arizona#Arizona-related_articles_assessment

Also, I am definitely willing to participate on making Oregon or Portland into a feature article. Please count me "in" if that ever gets picked up again. -Pete 22:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

User:Theophilus75 is now busy setting up a ratings system. I'm wondering what to do with Category:WikiProject Oregon, since it's now redundant with Category:WikiProject Oregon articles. Katr67 19:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

• I've finished the Ratings/Assessment page and it can be found at Assessment. It is a comprehensive setup where we can rate the class and importance of an article. We can also look up a list of articles by class level or importance level. Any questions let me know and I'll try to answer them. We need to get a link to it on the main project page also...actually, I'll take care of that. Theophilus75 22:24, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm finding that nav box to be a little bright. Can we make it match the {{Oregon}} template or something? Katr67 23:13, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Outstanding job on the ratings! I had seen a lot of the work going on, but it wasn't until to day that I saw the [page]. I'm very impressed. Cacophony 03:42, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

You think it looks good now, just wait till tonight when the chart updates and it will be under 300 left to assess. Aboutmovies 03:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Are these numbers actually the same?

Is there a source for the "more than 104,000 votes" comment in the section regarding the 2004 Presidential campaign? It would be nice to have confirmation that the number was not arbitrarily selected to mirror the later reference to the "$104,000" of funding rejected by the libraries.207.250.133.36 22:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

To which article are you referring? This would probably be better on that article's talk page. Katr67 22:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Project changes

Project templates

Is the fact that all the articles are now in both Category:WikiProject Oregon and Category:WikiProject Oregon articles a transclusion thing that will work itself out or something in the coding? I'm no good at coding so if someone could fix that, that would be swell. Also, I'd like to keep the Template:WikiProject Oregon category and Template:WikiProject Oregon template templates because they don't say "article" in them. Can we keep these and change the non-article assessment criterion in the new rating system (unnecessary if the cats and tls are tagged properly)? If not, we need to add the new assessment coding to these or something. Katr67 02:21, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not sure I'm giving the right answer, but I'm going to take a stab at it. The Category:WikiProject Oregon list is not a list of every Oregon article, but rather a list of some articles as well as subcategories within the Oregon Project, and the rest of the articles are within the subcategories. The Category:WikiProject Oregon articles is a list of every article within the project (not bundled by subcategory). I think, but I'm not sure, that I can change up the coding so that we will not need (or have or see or something like that) the latter, but I'm not sure. If I do (and it works), I don't know if there will be a comprehensive non-subcategorized list of Oregon articles...nor do I know if it is really needed. By default though, that is how the assessment pages are set up. Let me know you all's preference and I'll do what I can. Theophilus75 05:32, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I see that the WPOR cat--which indeed had every WPOR tagged article in it (I know because I tagged a lot of them), even after you changed it--has settled down now, so it must have been a transclusion or browser cache thing. And it's good to keep a complete list of non-subcategorized articles, because I for one rely heavily on watching the Recent changes on the talk pages. Now what about the template template and category template? I'd like to keep them, thus eliminating the "NA" class from the assessment, and we'll need to set up Category:WikiProject Oregon categories and Category:WikiProject Oregon templates by changing the templates. Otherwise we need to replace the tag on those pages with the WPOR template (I can do that easily with AWB) and go with the Category:Non-article Oregon pages option. Which way should we go? Katr67 07:00, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• Maybe it's cause it's early still...but you've pretty much lost me. I'll keep reading and see if I can figure it out, but right now I'm lost. Theophilus75 15:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

The project has three templates that mark things as related to WPOR: for articles, categories and templates. (See the templates section of the main project page) They all used to put WPOR articles in Category:WikiProject Oregon. The article template has been changed to include assessment criteria and default move the articles to Category:WikiProject Oregon articles, the other two haven't. Currently the assessment criteria includes an "NA" class, for non-article things (templates, categories). However we don't need this because all the non-article things are already tagged with one of the other two templates. So we can remove the NA class from the rating system (or maybe we can use it catch articles that need to be retagged?) I also think it would be nice to change the two other templates so that they automatically categorize their respective categories (categories, templates). But maybe other people want there to be only one template (I've seen different projects do it different ways), so I'm wondering if anybody cares how we do it? Does that makes sense? Katr67 15:28, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• I think it is making sence now, then again maybe not...I don't see where you see the "NA" class. I see the "Unassessed" class which tells you which articles haven't been tagged for class and I see the "None" importance rating that tells you which articles haven't been tagged for importance, but I don't see an "NA." I might be able to fix the tags for templates and categories to be classified within the Oregon articles class/importance system, but I'm not sure if we would need to do that. All templates would be of top or low priority, depending on who you talk too...and they would never reach a FA/FL status (same with categories), so I don't think they would need to be rated. Am I making sense? Theophilus75 00:29, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Since no one seems to care or know what I'm talking about, went ahead and moved the non-article pages to their own categories. I tagged one NA page (search for "NA" on the assessment page to see what the heck I'm talking about--it's part of the standard assessment verbiage), which is an image, but the code is broken and I don't know how to fix it. See Category:Non-article Oregon pages to find the article. Thanks. Katr67 04:06, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I decided to be bold and try to fix the template since I did sort of know what you were talking about and it looked like a simple cut and paste error. It seems to be OK now, but if I messed something else up, somebody please put it back the way it was... --Sprkee 04:54, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks right now, but I'm coming back after it was all fixed I think. Now I understand better what you were talking about. I don't think the NA category is even need if those things will be tagged differently. Theophilus75 16:09, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Navbox

Maybe its because I grew up in Eugene and despite graduating from the UO I can barely tolerate yellow and green together, but I think that new navbox is too bright. Can we tone it down a bit? I'm not sure we even need it? Discuss. Katr67 02:21, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• I changed the color scheme to tone it down a bit (I think). I really don't care what color it is, so if someone has suggests I can change it, or they are welcome to do it themselves. With the new assessment page a link needed to be added to the project page...not being sure where to put it on the page and not wanting to change the page up too much I thought a nav box would be easiest (plus it allows for all the main links of the project to be at the top of any page). I personally think it's easier to get around from page to page in the project with it, but that's me. If others don't like it, I'm cool with that too. Theophilus75 05:19, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• I made my attempt at toning it down. Zab 05:35, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry, I read Katr67's recommendation above that was crossed out about trying to match the template box and did that after you did your change (didn't realize you changed it)...if you want to change it back go ahead. Theophilus75 05:39, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• Well, whatever we choose should have very little red in it and primarily blue (to match the Wizard Island picture on the WikiProject home page). Red will just tint the thing purple. When choosing colors, keep blue at EE or FF and green should be only a few scales down. Red still needs at least 20% of blue though (33 or 44) to soften. Zab 05:49, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• Looks good to me! Theophilus75 05:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I like the blue--it does go much better with Crater Lake. Thanks for humoring me! Carry on. Katr67 06:34, 18 May 2007 (UTC) P.S. Now that the thing is not sitting there being loudly Oregon Duckish, I see that it is indeed very handy. Thanks for thinking of it. Katr67 17:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Henry Pittock

If anyone's looking for an easy article to bring up to GA, I suggest Henry Pittock, for which our long lost J-M Gilhousen recieved a positive peer review. Katr67 04:44, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

DYK FYI

As those dedicated editors who are around most days will have noticed, starting in March we have had a fair amount of Did You Knows. The first ones were by accident, many of the later ones are not. First, I think it is a good thing as it brings recognition to the project and brings it additional editors. Secondly, here are some tips:

• Know the rules: Basically its easiest with a new article (massive expansion to a stub also works) and it has to be less than five days old. Then it needs to be more than just a stub. Think Start class size. Lastly, the "Hook" which is the line that shows on the main page has to be verifiable through references.
• You can self nominate, just go to Template talk:Did you know add add your Hook under the correct day the article was created.
• Let others nominate for you. This is how many of the articles last month became DYKs, they were first in the AlexGoodBot list. The AlexBot is a series of bots that searches new articles and classifies them (including one for Oregon). One is the "Good" article bot. This is not the same as GA good, it simply finds articles at a set length and sees if it has references (it may also look for sections). If it meets that criteria it is included in its list. That list is part of the DYK template talk page and any editor on that page can go nominate an article from that list. This happens fairly often. So if you write your article offline until you think you are pretty much done and properly cite things, then there is a good chance it will show up on the list and get nominated. About 80% of those nominated get listed in the template, with most of those not making the cut due to issues with the article (up for AfD, too short, too old, etc.).

That's my guide to getting WPOR more airtime on the main page, at least until we get more FA articles. Aboutmovies 07:03, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Hewlett-Packard

There is some question about our project's tag on the H-P article: Talk:Hewlett-Packard#Wikiproject Oregon??. I'm not much on the history of hi-tech in Oregon, but I know H-P is (was?) a significant presence in our state. Anyone care to add more about Oregon to that article or else should we remove the tag? EncMstr? Katr67 15:52, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Even if the article doesn't have a lot, if any, content about Oregon, it still should be tagged as an Oregon article that way someone on the Oregon project can come along and add content about Oregon on it later. - Theophilus75 22:14, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's iffy to me. I couldn't find "Oregon" on the page in a quick search. The company was not founded in Oregon, nor is it based there. If one of it's "holdings" were founded in Oregon, it may be worth a stub article with a link, but I don't think the whole thing falls under WikiProject Oregon. More appropriate: Category:Companies_With_Some_Obscure_Connection_To_Oregon. Zab 00:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how obscure it is when HP's largest campus is located in Corvallis, OR. <http://www.visitcorvallis.com/explore/about_corvallis.html> - Theophilus75 02:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

It is the 7th largest employer in of Oregon. I would say that alone justifies the tag. #6 is Intel, and it also contains the WP:Oregon tag. Cacophony 02:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Alright. Those are significant figures. Keep the WP tag. Zab 03:05, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Western Culinary Institute

Sanity check on aisle three...I keep reverting edits to the article by someone ostensibly associated with this Portland institution and have left the appropriate messages. I obviously need take a break from this now. If anyone else wants to take a look, help keep an eye on things, etc., it would be much appreciated. Thanks. Katr67 22:55, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Got it on my watchlist. - Theophilus75 00:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I just reverted this article again as the same editor has added most of the info back (though slightly modified). If someone wants to look at what they did this time and determine if it should have stayed you are more than welcome. I'm too tired and been up too long to try and determine if it should stay...but looking through the article it seems pretty much the same as before. - T-75|talk|contribs 06:51, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. It would be very kind of someone to glean what information from Westerncul's contributions is usable and not advertising and add it to the article, but I'm not well-disposed toward someone who isn't communicating or heeding any our messages and whose edits stomp on the existing markup. YMMV. Katr67 07:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Non-existent articles

I just speedily deleted all the talk pages of the non-existing articles tagged with WPOR (per Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Admin), hopefully this will simplify the assessment project. If anyone is interested in knowing which ones they were for watch- or to-do-list purposes, you can check the link above and check for redlinks. Some of the redlinks are also from {{prod}}s and Afd's as well. Cheers! Katr67 20:53, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Possibly useful map

I made a locator map for Oregon. Similar ones are in use in infoboxes in state park articles (for example L.L. "Stub" Stewart Memorial State Park) or city articles (for example Elmwood, Louisiana). I hope this is useful, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 22:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

So very superior to the one we've been using! Thanks! -Pete 00:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I may be able to write a script that generates dot maps based off of input maps and DMS coordinates. If nobody wants to go through the trouble of manually recreating them all I could give it a shot. It would take a bit of startup time because of the WP bot rules, but I have already coded and tested a the bot framework. Zab 10:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Applegate Christian Fellowship

While working on Applegate, Oregon "see also" list, I came across the deletion of Applegate Christian Fellowship. The consensus was that the church is not notable enough for it's own article. Maybe not, but even though I am not religious, I know that to many Jackson County residents the church is notable. Anyways, it does not need it's own article, but I redirected it to Jon Courson, who founded ACF and is now quite famous. If it wasn't for the riveting success of ACF, he probably would still be in his two-bedroom house preaching to the neighborhood watch group. I will keep my eyes open for some other notoriety, though both articles are of quite little interest to me. Zab 10:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm the one who put that article up for Afd. As it was, it was pretty much an ad for the church and did not assert its notability. If it could be written in such a way as to reflect its importance to Courson, it would probably be OK. But the redirect is a good idea. I don't care either way as long as the article is not being used to advertise the church. Katr67 14:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Changing from OSU to OS

I bring this up as a current student of OS (formerly OSU), and I think it holds some significance, though not an incredibly large significance. Apparently there has been seemingly frequent confusion between OSU - Oregon State University, and OSU - Ohio State University. For causes which I personally have not investigated, OSU suddenly became OS instead to alleviate this confusion (that is, Oregon State University OSU became OS - simply Oregon State). If anyone thinks this is a semi-important topic to note about, or add to the page then follow up on the research for it since I myself have very little knowledge about the direct causes for the change (and I do not read the school newspaper, so I may have missed the cause entirely). However, last year there was an incident at Ohio State University where a student was killed in the dorms in an elevator accident, and there was a lot of concern from student parents from Oregon State University confusing the actual location of the death. Whether this is part of the contributing factors that lead to the change, I am not sure of, but further investigation by someone who is seasoned at this sort of thing is welcome to look into the matter.

Western Culinary Institute

Hi Wikipedia Editors, We would like to add factual content to the Western Culinary Institue article. We have removed unnessecary words that make the entry seem advertorial and we have also included references. Unfortunately, we can't seem to get these updates approved and are willing to work on revised copy, but are stumped as to how to get the article accepted after making the revisions suggested. Any suggestions you would be willing to offer would be more than helpful! Thank you!

Westerncul 21:52, 11 June 2007 (UTC)