Wikipedia talk:WikiProject California/Assessment/Archive 2

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Archive 1

Archive 2

Updating importance scale criteria

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

It's been a while and the original importance criteria and examples which were originally set in 2006 probably need a bit of updating/clarification. It's probably best we start with what constitutes the Top importance articles, and after some agreement on those slowly work through each subsequent importance rating. As far as the general description I think what is written is fine.

The criteria used for rating article importance are not meant to be an absolute or canonical view of how significant the topic is. Rather, they attempt to gauge the probability of the average reader of Wikipedia needing to look up the topic (and thus the immediate need to have a suitably well-written article on it). Thus, subjects with greater popular notability may be rated higher than topics which are arguably more "important" but which are of interest primarily to students of hagiography. Importance does not equate to quality; a featured article could rate 'mid' on importance. Note that general notability need not be from the perspective of editor demographics; generally notable topics should be rated similarly regardless of the country or region in which they hold said notability. Thus, topics which may seem obscure to a Western audience—but which are of high notability in other places—should still be highly rated. Rate international region/country-specific articles from the perspective of someone from that region.
— Importance scale at time of this writing

Thanks for any feedback in advance. Once it's done we'll replace current table with a {{Importance scheme}} (with the Top, High, Medium, Low, NA, and ??? fields populated) -Optigan13 (talk) 05:54, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Top

Current language looks ok to me on the text.

Subject is a "core" or "key" topic for California, or is generally notable to people other than students of California. They define and determine the subject of the California WikiProject.

I think the below list should be comprehensive as to what should be. I've started with the links from main links of California, {{California}} and some reorganization of the existing Category:Top-importance California articles.

California, {{WikiProject California}}, {{California}}

California
Geography of California
Features
Mount Whitney

Mojave Desert

Death Valley

Lake Tahoe

Yosemite National Park

Sierra Nevada (U.S.)

San Andreas Fault

Mount Shasta

List of rivers of California

Sacramento River

Colorado River (Natural state boundary)

Regions
Northern California
Silicon Valley

Wine Country (California)

San Francisco Bay Area

North Coast (California)

Southern California
Greater Los Angeles Area

Inland Empire (California)

Central Coast of California

Central Valley (California)

Coastal California

Other political geography
List of counties in California

List of cities in California (by population)
Los Angeles (1 by pop)

San Diego (2 by pop)

San Jose, California (3 by pop)

San Francisco (4 by pop)

Fresno, California (5 by pop)

Sacramento, California (Seat of government)

List of municipalities in California
Climate of California
Natural history of California
History of California
Origin of the name California

Spanish missions in California

Alta California

History of California to 1899

California Gold Rush (Major Historical Event)

Rail transport in California

History of California 1900 to present
Demographics of California
Economy of California
Energy use in California
Transportation of California
Government of California
Governor of California

California Constitution

California ballot proposition
Politics of California
Politics of California to 1899

Districts in California

Elections in California
Culture of California
~~Cuisine of California~~

~~Music of California~~
Sports in California (I tend to want to leave the major franchises to the high level, hence no subpages here)
Education in California
University of California (Major education system)

California State University (Major education system)

University of California, Berkeley

Stanford University

California Institute of Technology
List of people from California
Junípero Serra (Significant historical legacy for state because of Missions)

John Muir (Major environmental figure, most of work was in Cal and importance extended beyond state)

Ronald Reagan (former Cal governor, US president)

~~Richard Nixon (former Cal ~~governor~~Senator/Rep, US president)~~

Please take a look at it and let me know what you think. I'd like to keep the total number fairly low(it's 64 pages at the moment), otherwise top importance loses its usefulness. So, if you suggest additions please suggest some removals (to high category).

Right now for the examples I'd suggest maybe California Gold Rush, San Francisco, and Ronald Reagan -Optigan13 (talk) 08:25, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Possibly include Stanford University and UC Berkeley as the two world class universities in California. Also given the international name recognition of Hollywood and the California movie industry something in that area under culture (I'm not sure Hollywood the city is quite the right article). --Erp (talk) 01:24, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking of UCB and Stanford, but I was a bit worried that it might be a bit odd to leave out UCLA and USC. From there I want to then put in UCSF, Hastings, and Caltech. Also I feel like the UC and CSU system articles cover a huge amount of education in the state already. But I might just be over correcting for my bay area bias.

It is odd not to have some general article about the Entertainment Industry in California. Cinema of the United States comes close, but it is trying to cover all of US cinema. It looks like a large part of it might have come from the Hollywood article at some point though. I also tend to shy away from California as nothing more than surfers and movie stars. -Optigan13 (talk) 05:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

There's a big difference between UCB and Stanford (and CalTech which I overlooked) on the international scene and the other California schools. Looking at two international rankings THE–QS World University Rankings (British based) and Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The first has California Institute of Technology at 5th and Stanford at 17th (out of 20 listed). The second has CalTech at 6th, Stanford at 2nd, Berkeley at 4th (several other UC schools are also there ranging from UCLA at 13th on down). University of Southern California came in 50th. Now all of these ranking systems do have a multitude of faults, but, they can offer some guidance on significance. (I'll confess to being a Stanford alum so I do have a bias). I would suggest dropping Music of California and possibly Cuisine down a level. --Erp (talk) 15:05, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I've put Cal, Stanford, and CalTech into top, and moved Cuisine and Music down to High. Those rankings around about the closest you can get to some accurate gauge of prestige (or something to that effect). -Optigan13 (talk) 02:19, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

arbitrary break-top

Maybe in purely academic terms Cal, Stanford, and Caltech are the most important schools, but I would bet you that USC and UCLA have more renown those schools (at least nationally) for their athletic accomplishments (USC in football and UCLA in basketball and in college sports overall). Also, using the pure academic rankings might be flawed because the steps are probably not discrete; the raw scores would probably be a better show of relative prestige than just the pure rankings. Finally, including Cal and Stanford but not UCLA and USC seems a bit biased toward NorCal since I would say that UCLA and USC are more culturally important in SoCal than CalTech. I would recommend dropping all of the individual schools down to a ranking of high and leaving the UC and CSU systems as the only top ranked articles.--mcd51 (talk) 18:26, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm ok with a move of those three schools back to high, for the same reasons I said above because it does have a bit of a balance issue to me. But I'd like to hear Erp's take on this before I start flipping these schools back and forth. -Optigan13 (talk) 05:05, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I admit to thinking academics are a bit more important than athletics and that international prestige trumps national prestige. I should point out that dropping Stanford and CalTech down means they have no representation nor anything about private universities except in the very broad education article at the Top level. I would be more inclined to drop the California State University system down one level and bring UCLA up that way we have one private and one public from both the south and the north. Another comparison might be Nobel prizes (Berkeley, 20 faculty (living and dead) and 24 alumni; Caltech, 31 prizewinners but 1 has two; Stanford, 27 prizewinners among the faculty (living and dead); UCLA, 5 faculty, 4 alumni; USC, 1 faculty (gotten at a quick glance around the web)). --Erp (talk) 05:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay on responding, but I'm a bit stumped on how to split this well. The problem is that USC and UCLA are known for college sports and not for pure academics. I've requested a popular pages list to see if UCLA and USC's popularity would cause them to show up on any 1.0 collections, to see if the sports and cultural notability would be represented by a traffic difference. The main issue I've been thinking of in terms of splitting the universities and colleges in the high, mid, and low levels was by enrollment. Enrollment size is why I'd rather leave the CSU system at top as well. Data collection for the popular pages list will start at the beginning of next month, so would it be ok if we just left this on the backburner and revisit it when we look at Universities and colleges in California on the whole, or at least until the page info is ready? -Optigan13 (talk) 08:22, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how important Richard Nixon is specifically to California history (he was btw never governor) as opposed to US history. Ronald Reagan has a greater role within California, but, I'm not sure he is in the top rank as a California governor. Mount Shasta might need to be in the top rank given that Tahoe and Whitney are. It dominates its region much like Tahoe does its (in contrast Mount Whitney though the highest mountain sort of fades into the rest of the Sierra Nevada). The San Andreas fault is possibly of top importance given its past and almost certain future effects on California. I've reorganized the geography section to separate regions (and subregions such the Silicon Valley) from geographical features to see if it makes it easier to evaluate (I might be making some errors here).--Erp (talk) 03:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks the reorganization is helpful. With Reagan & Nixon I was trying to flush out a few bios I could think of to balance out the geography, I'm not sure Jerry Brown or any other politician might fit, Nixon was just the next big Cal political figure. Dropping Nixon back to High is fine, but I'd like another biography to take its place if there's one that's applicable. Were you thinking of dropping Reagan back to High as well? I like San Andreas Fault for Top (added). I'm not sure about Shasta though, let me sleep on it. Maybe drop Death Valley to High, since it's overlaps with Mojave Desert. Maybe add in California poppy or Sequoia for some state symbols/flora? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Optigan13 (talk • contribs) 01:20, August 26, 2009

The problem is so many famous Californians. Earl Warren thrice governor as well as US Supreme Court Chief Justice. Ansel Adams as a photographer of so much of the Sierra Nevada. Not to mention so many movie stars:-). John Steinbeck born in Salinas and with much of his writings set in California. Perhaps we should balance top geography more with top history (Central Pacific Railroad, something on Chinese/Japanese immigration, something on the history of water disputes in California). Or perhaps look at the high biographies and try sorting them and see who comes out "high high" and might be kicked up to top. Oh, and California Constitution should be top. --Erp (talk) 18:10, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I've marked Mount Shasta, California Constitution, and Rail transport in California as Top, and moved Death Valley to High. ~~California Constitution still needs a quality assessment.~~ It might be best because of just the overwhelming number of people who do have that equally high influence to leave those Bios to that High ranking. Do you think Nixon should be at High, and not top? I'm a little stumped on what should be pushed into history above the other high history pages, also is it ok to leave it a bit geography heavy, or should we remove geography pages, or add more in. -Optigan13 (talk) 04:12, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Also with the wording for the description I'd add scope to "They define and determine the subject and scope of the California WikiProject." -Optigan13 (talk) 04:26, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I would move Nixon to high as most of his importance is not specifically California. I added the article California in since it is marked as Top and isn't in the list above. I also did some more rearrangement to try to group similar with similar. The project is a geographical (in the widest sense) and historical project so we should probably look at things from natural geography, political geography, cultural/demographic geography, natural history, political history, and cultural/demographic history. Some articles fall within more than one of these categories. We might also want to divide between lists, survey articles, single-topic articles (again overlap between the last two but the latter is less likely to have sub-articles such as between Government of California and California Constitution). The Top category probably will have more survey articles to cover scope and a few key single-topic articles.--Erp (talk) 14:57, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Nixon is back to high. I had left California in the header along with the nav template and project template since it's an obvious top. Are you talking about splitting the pages out in terms of the list above, or in the description? The 1.0 assessment will split the lists out on their own. I'm fine if you want to add some form of notes either as ref tags or some form of parentheses comments if you want to do that. I took another look at High class and feel pretty safe that there isn't any more material to bump up into top. -Optigan13 (talk) 22:53, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

break 2 - top

I may be late to this discussion but perhaps UCLA and/or UCSD should be included in the list of top importance schools. Both are very wel known educational institutions, and both are considered leading in different fields of study. For instance UCSD is known for its connection to Oceanography and Biological Engineering, and UCLA is known for athletics program and medical school. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:24, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, I believe that Death Valley is more significant to California than Mount Shasta, and I am curious as to why Mount Whitney hasn't been mentioned. Both Mount Whitney and Death Valley are the highest and lowest points within the State and the Continental United States. Therefore, both are more significant than Mount Shasta which is a high peak, but nowhere nearly as notable. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:39, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

As for ranking politicians, regardless of their political affiliation, I agree that Nixon should be considered High within the scope of our WPP, for although he held a significant national office, he was never the Governor of California. And if Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon are benchmarks for this category overall, the highest non-Governor & non-U.S. President could be evaluated at would be High. And to continue with that line of thought to be rated at high a politician would have to have been Governor and have served in a Federal level office, therefore Pete Wilson would be considered High, where as Jerry Brown would only be mid. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Moreover, I would say that all California Governors, or historical equivalences, should be rated at minimum of mid importance, and any individual who has held both State and Federal Senator offices should be rated at mid importance as well. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:03, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

With respect to the Universities I'd keep UCLA and UCSD at High for now, since Stanford and UCB have well known for a wide array of academics compared to individual schools. I had moved Death Valley to high since Mojave Desert was already included in top, and was somewhat redundant coverage of the area. I had set Nixon(yes I screwed up and mixed up Nixon and Reagan, I do that from time to time) back to High, as with all US Senators, I also set all California Governors to High as well, so Pete Wilson should be high. I set Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from California to mid just because of the large number of them, and I don't think they've had nearly as significant an impact. I'm pretty sure there was a discussion about the politicians before made those WP:AWB runs, but I'm spacing on where those were. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:52, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

If the article of the Mojave desert makes the Death Valley article top listing as redundent, then perhaps UC Berkeley should be considered redundant as well as it falls into the UC system, which it is a part of, and is already considered TOP importance.

Regarding political importance, perhaps Representatives should be auto-assessed as Low, Senators as Mid, due to the number of each from our fair state. And Representatives given a mid rating if they have held other offices at the state level prior to their term as a Representative. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:51, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd prefer to keep the Senators and Reps at High and Mid because their relative numbers pale in comparison to the number of ghost towns, businesses, and other rather obscure (but still notable) subjects that will fill up the low importance ratings. Any particular state offices you had in mind when you talk about reps? -Optigan13 (talk) 08:13, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

High, Mid, and Low

I know I said above that I was thinking of doing this by stage, but looking at Category:California it is probably easier to do this by sub-category, and deciding how to break them up by importance category, preferably by some numerical standard or something which is easily referenced. This was already discussed for settlements with High for > 100,000, Mid for > 25,000, and all else low. I've posted the wordings from the existing guidelines as well as the importance template's default wording. We can come back with examples once we've worked through the sub-categories. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:24, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

High-Class

Existing - Subject is notable in a significant and important way within the field of California, but not necessarily outside it.
Template - Subject is extremely notable, but has not achieved international notability, or is only notable within a particular continent.

I like the existing wording for this one. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:24, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Mid-Class

Existing - Subject contributes to the total subject of the California WikiProject. Subject may not necessarily be famous.
Template - Subject is only notable within its particular field or subject and has achieved notability in a particular place or area.

Subject is only notable within the greater subject of California, and has achieved notability statewide, but not necessarily at a national level. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:24, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Low-Class

Existing - Subject is not particularly notable or significant even within the field of California, and may have been included primarily to achieve comprehensive coverage of another topic.
Template - Subject is not particularly notable or significant even within its field of study. It may only be included to cover a specific part of a notable article.

Subject is not particularly notable or significant even within the field of California, and may have been included primarily to achieve comprehensive coverage of another topic. This includes topic of limited interest, including those at the ~~city/county~~ regional/local level. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:24, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

How about ...including those at the regional/local level.? Then it would include things that are important only for SoCal or NorCal as well.--mcd51 (talk) 18:29, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking city/county since it was more specific about what size region, but its basically things that may only be important to SFBA, Inland Empire, Greater LA, etc. Either way I've tweaked, may just need to specify with the examples, or longer language. -Optigan13 (talk) 08:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Buildings and structures

I can't think of a numerical way to seperate Category:Buildings and structures in California into importance levels, but I think presence on a list might help, with some items bumped up to high. I'm thinking of Category:National Historic Landmarks in California (105 pages) for Mid-importance with all others being low. Specific bumps up would be for:

Any feedback on this would be appreciated. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:42, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

List of National Historic Landmarks in California (135 sites plus some former and proposed) might be an easier starting point. I'll note that some significant buildings and structures may not be on the list. Examples seem to be Golden Gate Bridge (which should be high and if any structure in California deserved top this would be it), Grace Cathedral, San Francisco (mid)(for a variety of reasons working churches may not want to be listed as National Historic Landmarks and in this case the building is also not that old).--Erp (talk) 16:48, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

What about the California missions? Where should they go?--mcd51 (talk) 18:27, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Spanish Missions of California is more history and is classified at Top level. Individual still existing mission buildings probably range from low to mid. Some are National Historic Landmarks and so would be mid by the above criteria. We do need some method of determining the status of building/structure articles not on that list either because their significance isn't historic or for some reason they aren't on the list (e.g., San Quentin State Prison) or that they no longer exist and so can't be on that list--Erp (talk) 21:17, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Yup, Category:California missions are listed as a first level sub-category of Category:History of California versus about 2 or 3 levels down in Buildings & Structures, which is why I forgot about em. I added Golden Gate Bridge, Grace Cathedral, and San Quentin to the list. I'm not sure if items like Hollywood Sign, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Griffith Observatory, and either Disneyland Park (Anaheim) or Disneyland Resort should go in as well. We should probably go through the High Importance cat and look at what buildings/structures are in there already and where they should go. -Optigan13 (talk) 08:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)I've added the locations I noted above (Disneyland Resort was already High, so both pages are High at the moment). I've also pulled the intersection of the unknown importance category and 3 levels of the Buildings and structures of California, the results are located in one of my my sandbox. Category:Restaurants in California is in the structures category, but most of the pages are about chains, and not specific structures. I think they're find to just assess based on business guidelines when we get to those, otherwise low. Also, Category:Schools in California is in the structures category. I think we should ignore this until we get to the Education category. Both restaurants and Schools appear to be in for consistency among state categories, and there is some overlap in the categories so leaving them in overlapping categories makes sense. I also found a few pages that are high (Monterey Bay Aquarium (Aquaria in)) , (California Aqueduct (Aqueducts in)), and (Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct (Aqueducts in)). Those three seem reasonable at high for me, but let me know. Also Prisons in California is currently Mid, but I'm thinking that should be High. I think we should also add all missions in Category:California missions to Mid Importance unless they get a bump up for some reason. I've already requested Category:California ranchos for Mid as part of a bot run. It's much easier to tag some of these based on being in a category instead of doing individual consideration for level on each article. -Optigan13 (talk) 07:12, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I would be inclined to move the Category:Schools in California out of buildings and structures since it seems to include complete universities. If there are specific buildings on those campuses that would be another matter. I've done some work on Category:Stanford University buildings and structures though whether we should do the same for other universities may be debated. I've looked at the sandbox and some articles probably need to be deleted or renamed. I'll look through and see if some should have cats removed or altered. --Erp (talk) 23:50, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that this categorization seems to be consistent at least for Category:Schools in the United States by state. What appears inconsistent is Category:Universities and colleges in California, which we might want to move from the schools cat. I'm ok with working around it because the elementary and High Schools tend to have a fixed campus, but you might want to float this issue by WP:WikiProject Schools to see what their thoughts are. -Optigan13 (talk) 05:35, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I've moved Universities and colleges in California out of schools. I've also gone through and created categories in several major universities for buildings and structures and placed some articles there and also have created Category:University and college buildings and structures in California as a subset of Category:Buildings and structures in California. --Erp (talk) 23:28, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

That works for me, as long as it has some consistency. I've refreshed the list. Take another look and see if you think some more tweaks are in order. -Optigan13 (talk) 04:57, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Don't seem to have picked up some of the university buildings in your sandbox list (I looked for Stanford Memorial Church). Also I've renamed some of the street addresses to include city (except for 165 University Avenue which needs to switch directions on a redirect). --Erp (talk) 15:01, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) If they had an importance assessment it wouldn't have shown up it that list. The full building list was 8,809 articles with several getting in multiple times because of category overlap, and I didn't remove dupes. Below are all the "Stanford *" followed by several UC articles in that list. 165 University Ave, Palo Alto, California -Optigan13 (talk) 21:03, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Extended content

buildings and structures break

Apologies, I had forgotten they were only the unstatused ones. I must admit I wasn't aware of a Stanford Caltrain station (oops, looked at the article, I would call it a stop since it is used only during football games and there is no building, I'm pretty sure it isn't even worth an article). --Erp (talk) 23:38, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I've taken a look over the sandbox list. Not sure why Stanford University Press is considered a building and couldn't find anything obvious in the cats. Also W. M. Keck Observatory is in Hawaii should we NA importance? It is there because some of the UC campuses are involved. I've gone through some of the Stanford items and set importance (also fixed SFBA if necessary)--Erp (talk) 01:14, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Stanford University Press is probably coming in via Category:Universities and colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area which is a sub-category of Category:Buildings and structures in the San Francisco Bay Area. The observatory is probably in because of the California Association for Research in Astronomy (CalTech/UC). -Optigan13 (talk) 05:52, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm so do we move UC in SFBA out of BS in SFBA? Keck I understand and it makes sense as a building but should it be under WikiProject California or should we indicate it is Not Applicable or low? --Erp (talk) 06:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

U & C in SFBA's parent structure should match U & C in California. The various Cal sub-projects and task forces are all defined as a county or a collection of counties, and it is best if we keep the same structure for each county as we do for the state. I was trying to organize the Category:Universities and colleges in California by county, public vs private, and type (largely for specialty schools). This matches the general structure found in the US level. Because the coordinating organization is the combination of California University organizations it should probably be in, but low importance. I'd like to keep NA importance to Non-articles. The API fix should allow a bot project template run, so we may pick up SFBA and LA related unknown importance articles once the run finally goes through. Please tweak the U & C in SFBA, and any other regional U & C categories to have the same basic structure as the California setup. I'll perform an AWB run to rank the California Landmarks as noted above, and try to categorize the Universities and Colleges in California into the new categories I've created. From there we can see how that list would change. From there I can re-grab the info, and we can go for there. -Optigan13 (talk) 08:59, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Tweaked what I could find.--Erp (talk) 00:32, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.