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Towns

I've gradually been adding county nav templates to communities nationwide. I've noted that only 11 Wisconsin counties are missing them, so I expect to add them eventually. One question in the mean time: how do Wisconsin towns compare to New England towns? I find New England towns somewhat confusing regarding the census data and their relation to villages and cities, and I'd appreciate it if someone could explain to me (on my talk page) the significance of the Wisconsin town relative to other official bodies. Nyttend 16:12, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

See Political Subdivisions of Wisconsin.[1]

12.76.157.49 (talk) 00:38, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

USS Wisconsin (BB-64)

Could someone from this project take a look at the article USS Wisconsin (BB-64) and determine whether it falls with the scope of this project, and if it does, add the project template and importance rating to the article? You need not worry about the class, this article has for some time been a Featured Article. Thanks in advance. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:29, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Weak No My opinion is that the only thing that this ship has in common with this WikiProject is its name. Royalbroil 04:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
While many Wisconsinites consider her one of their own, I can't say the article should fall under this project. It already belongs to both the Military History and the Ships wikiprojects, and we Wisconsinites probably can't add any notable information to it (unless we're knowledgeable in those fields). -Freekee 05:01, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, there is a precident for this: Currently the other two FA-class battleship pages (USS New Jersey (BB-62) & USS Missouri (BB-63)) have state project tags on thier talk pages, and many other state projects have adopted their state's respective ships even though they fall more under the MILHIST and SHIPS projects. Just something to think about. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:29, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
In that case I be weakly in favor of adding it to the WikiProject. Royalbroil 14:48, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Wisconsin counties navboxes

User Nyttend left a note on my user page that there are only 10 Wisconsin counties do not have navboxes. Unfortunately, I do not have the experience or know anything about navboxes. Anyone from WikiProject Wisconsin who is familiar with navboxes, etc, please feel free to check out my discussion page or that of User Nyttend's discussion page for any information. We have just 10 Wisconsin counties to do. Thank you- RFD 14:43, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merger of articles:Town&City of Madison&Janesville.

Hi! There has been some proposed mergers of the articles about the Town&City of Madison, and the Town&City of Janesville in Dane&Rock Counties. They have separate local governments that are independent of each other. If we go through with the proposed mergers we will have inaccurate articles about Janesville&Madison. In Wisconsin, the basic local governments units are:towns, cities, viilages and the various articles must be kept to reflect this. Thank you-RFD (talk) 15:35, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Where are the proposed merges listed? I want to strongly object and help explain the differences between a city and township in Wisconsin. Royalbroil 17:36, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Here is the list

There was no note on the Madison, Wisconsin article about the proposed merger. Thank you-RFD (talk) 18:02, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

There are three categories of municipalities in Wisconsin: cities, villages, and towns. Cities and villages differ in size and in the rights allocated to them by state law. Towns are typically, but not always, rural. They exist outside the boundaries of cities and villages. For example, the Village of Mazomanie in Dane County is surrounded by, but not in, the Town of Mazomanie. Towns in Wisconsin were originally based on the Congressional townships/survey townships platted in the early to mid-1800s. In the southern part of the state, the boundaries of civil towns and Congressional townships are usually co-terminous. However, in the north, with sparser population, it was common to combine territory from several Congressional townships to form a civil town. The upshot of all this is that the Town of Janesville is a jurisdictionally different critter than the City of Janesville. Ditto for Madison. There is a very good discussion of the matter here: [2]. See also Political subdivisions of Wisconsin. Towns in Wisconsin are similar to towns in New England and New York, but they probably have fewer rights and responsibilities because counties in Wisconsin perform many of the functions performed by towns in the Northeast. 12.76.153.194 (talk) 00:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Well put. This discussion was dead almost immediately, so no further comments are needed.Royalbroil 04:41, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject:Green Bay Packers

Should there be any relationship between WikiProject Wisconsin and Wikipedia:WikiProject Green Bay Packers? It is the subproject of the NFL WikiProject. Does anyone know about any precedents for a case like this? If nothing else, it should be considered a related WikiProject. Royalbroil 15:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a child project. -Freekee (talk) 01:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Should it matter that it is a subproject of another WikiProject? Royalbroil 01:32, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Other projects have two parents. Like the Wisconsin Highways project. It's a child of both this one and of the US Roads project. Similar setup, I think. -Freekee (talk) 03:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I've been working on List of Governors of Wisconsin for awhile now, and I think it's finally ready for Featured List status. Before I nominate it, I'd appreciate it if anyone interested looked it over to see if there's anything they think is missing or could do with fixing up. For comparison, here are featured lists about similar topics: List of Governors of Kentucky, List of Governors of Arkansas. Thanks! —Salmar (talk) 03:34, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

In the text, you should note that the Gov. and Lt. Gov. are not elected on a ticket like the U.S. President and V.P. get elected, but they are instead elected independently. Sometimes the Gov. and Lt. Gov. are from different parties. Royalbroil 04:21, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Actually, that was only true up until the 1967 amendment to the constitution, but you are correct: that should, and in a moment will, be mentioned. Thanks! —Salmar (talk) 15:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Wow, I didn't know that the law wasn't still true. I'll look for it when I vote in 2010. Royalbroil 20:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
The intro states that Jim Doyle's term will end in 2010, but in the chart it says 2011. I believe the election is in 2010, but the term doesn't expire until 2011. Larkworb (talk) 15:39, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
You are correct, and I have fixed it. I don't know how I missed that! —Salmar (talk) 15:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I've nominated the list for Featured Status! The nomination page is here, if anyone's interested in looking the article over thoroughly and leaving an opinion. —Salmar (talk) 00:18, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Wisconsin Dells website

A contributor with conflict of interest wanted to include their website on the Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin article. Please join the discussion at Talk:Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. I have already warned the contributor about having their company name as a username. They appear to be wanting to positively help the article in other ways, so please do not use strong words if you disagree with the website. Royalbroil 00:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Green Bay Packers

Hey I just wanted to let everyone over here at WikiProject Wisconsin that a WikiProject covering Wisconsin's most favorite football team, the Green Bay Packers, has recently reactivated and are looking for participants. We officially consider the NFL WikiProject our parent WikiProject but it would be great to also be related to Wisconsin. So if you love the Packers and want to help improve their articles, feel free to stop by and add your name to our list of participants and go improve Packers-related articles!
Thanks and Go! You Packers! Go!
Gonzo fan2007 talk ♦ contribs 09:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Kechewaishke up for GA

A few of us have put a lot of work into the article on Kechewaishke (aka Chief Buffalo) the Ojibwe chief from La Pointe (Madeline Island) who led the Ojibwe in the treaties that formed nearly half of the state. Is there anyone from the project who could offer some comments or a review on this important figure in territorial and early-statehood history of Wisconsin? Leo1410 (talk) 15:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a history buff at all, but I'll look it over. I am somewhat familiar with the layout of the land in that area. I would appreciate review(s) of Wisconsin NASCAR champion Alan Kulwicki's article by WikiProject Wisconsin members because I'm planning to nominate it for GA soon. A non-racing person review is especially helpful to weed out some of the racing biases. Royalbroil 15:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm willing to take a look at it, and will leave comments on the article's talk page. Keeping this conversation going, I'd appreciate it if someone would be willing to look through the List of Lieutenant Governors of Wisconsin, which I plan to nominate for Featured List soon. —Salmar (talk) 01:01, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
My comments are on the talk page; thanks for looking at mine! —Salmar (talk) 02:37, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Barnstar

A new WikiProject barnstar has been added to the WikiProject page ({{Wisconsin Barnstar}}) by User:Dual Freq. We should officially agree upon what barnstar should be used. Does anyone else want to propose a barnstar? Should we agree to this barnstar? Royalbroil 01:43, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess I was a bit presumptive to put it up there without discussion. Sorry. The image cam be easily swapped out in the template if you decide to pick another image. --Dual Freq (talk) 01:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)


WikiProject Wisconsin: Articles of unclear notability

Hello,

there are currently 12 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. I have listed them here. (Note: this listing is based on a database snapshot of 12 March 2008 and may be slightly outdated.)

I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability.

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the Notability project page or on my personal talk page. (I'm not watching this page however.) Thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Historical markers

I'm seeing articles where a large portion of the text is copied directly from photos of historical markers (that are in those articles). What do you think of that? Is it allowed? Is it a good idea? Is it as annoying to anyone else as it is to me? -Freekee (talk) 05:13, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

If it's a direct cut and paste job without rewording, then it is a copyright violation and it should be removed immediately. Could you show some examples? Royalbroil 05:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Cedarburg, Wisconsin (Yes, it is Wisconsin related :-). I couldn't remember if copying those signs was a copyvio or not. Thanks. -Freekee (talk) 16:38, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Definitely a copyvio. You can use it to write some content, or use short quotes from it. Royalbroil 17:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Oops. I just realized I asked my question wrong. I meant to ask about text copied from (photos of) historical markers. As you figured out after I linked. :-[ I edited my question, in case anybody else is reading it. Thanks for your help. I'll see if I can fix that article up in the next couple of days. -Freekee (talk) 05:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Wisconsin

I revised the Template:WikiProject Wisconsin to include an image request option by location. I also revised the non-article parameter options consistent with other WikiProject templates and provided documentation for the template. GregManninLB (talk) 03:37, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Waunakee, Wisconsin

Currently stub class, needs reassessment. Mjroots (talk) 10:46, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it's still stub class. It needs a history section before it could be start class. Royalbroil 12:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Wisconsin

The category has gotten out of control and it is fairly useless. It is full of requests by people from around the world (not from Wisconsin) randomly requesting a photo from many random towns, villages, and cities just because their name sounds cool (or whatever). There's no reason or rationale for these requests, and it clogs up the real valid requests. I have driven around eastern half Wisconsin on my racing tour and I've taken pictures from very many locations, but I'm not willing to drive everywhere. The category needs to have these requests pruned. Do I have support to prune out these random cities/villages/towns from contributors who are not members of WikiProject Wisconsin? I'm not advocating removing historic places, buildings, people, etc. Royalbroil 01:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure how they implemented it, but Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Illinois has subcats for each county so people can focus on the county they are interested in. I think its just a matter of placing changing "in=Wisconsin" to "in=Blah County, Wisconsin" then creating a category with that name as a subcat of the Wisconsin photo request category. --Dual Freq (talk) 01:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
My point is that people are randomly picking municipality articles to request photos. There's no rhyme or reason. Is there any chance that these requests will be honored just because someone requested them? Who would do that task? Why list a task when it is most likely unattainable? What about the hundreds of municipalities that are not listed? Are these municipalities more likely to get photographs because they are in this category? Am I the only person who is taking pictures when they travel through cities? Royalbroil 05:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I see your point. I would think a picture request would be for a page that is of high importance that needs an image, but I've seen these reqphoto tags placed in an automated fashion in the past. I wouldn't object to removal of automated requests from the category. I also wouldn't object to recategorizing them by county so that if you were traveling to a county, you could check that category in advance. Personally I don't use the category to determine what to take a picture of. I usually just take pictures of things I'm interested in regardless of a req pict tag. --Dual Freq (talk) 11:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Why do you think there are a lot of random requests? -Freekee (talk) 15:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Just look at the requests for pictures from the municipalities. They are all from the same contributor(s). Look at these contributors most recent edits and you'll see that they add picture requests from all over the world. We don't need a photo request for every city and minor town in the whole state. Ingram, Wisconsin has 76 residents. What's the odds that one of those 76 residents will upload a picture from the town? Does Wikipedia need a picture from every one of the hundreds/thousands of municipalities in the state? I can see the high to mid importance cities, but not municipalities with less than 10,000 people. 76 residents is just plain wrong. Royalbroil 16:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think one has to be from a town to request a picture. I'm not saying these articles should have pictures, I just don't think the requests are particularly random (except in the case of alphabetical listmaking), or if they are, that there's anything wrong with that. I mean, if I live in a town, why would I need to see a picture of it? Shouldn't it be people from other parts of the world requesting them? However, that's my opinion of your terming the requests invalid on basis of who's requesting them and their motives.
My opinion on whether these towns need photos is... probably not. Of the two that I can think what they look like, I don't think there's anything worth showing. Not anything that sets the towns apart from any other towns, except to the people who live there. But on the other hand, someone from a different part of the country or world might want to know what things look like around here. Should they be required to click around other cities to find pictures, and assume the towns are similar?
But the question remains, should we remove them from the list? I would say only if the tag was placed a long time ago (a year?), or the town is particularly unremarkable (maybe under 1000?).
Aside from that, it's too bad more of these articles don't have text besides demographics. -Freekee (talk) 04:25, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles in question (population)

Towns
Villages/Cities

I can see Waukesha's 64,000 people and maybe Germantown's 18,000 but I don't see the rest. They must have been mass requesting photos by the alphabet because there are so many starting with "E" through "J". Why are any of these, besides the 2 exceptions, high importance? Royalbroil 04:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd definitely keep Iola on the list, because of its big car show. -Freekee (talk) 04:25, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

What is the reference to Kevin Rudd and Germaine Greer doing in the part about the settlement of Maroon Bay? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Russell O'Callaghan (talk • contribs) 22:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Wisconsin State Patrol

Someone may want to take a closer look at Wisconsin State Patrol. It may have started as a copy / paste of http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/statepatrol/about/history.htm and http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/about/structure/dsp.htm I just skimmed it while adding an infobox and it looks close as far as wording and structure. It might be reworded slightly, but it looks awfully close to a copy paste. Sorry. --Dual Freq (talk) 20:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I didn't see text at all related to the second source, but I found a lot from the first. I reworded that text so its copyright should be good now. Royalbroil 12:57, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't know what I was thinking on that second one, thanks for taking a look. --Dual Freq (talk) 23:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
For the record... as publications of the State of Wisconsin, both pages are uncopyrightable... Tomertalk 16:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I've never heard this before pertaining to Wisconsin publications. I know that while US Federal Government works are public domain, states have different rules. Illinois, for example, holds copyright on all of its materials and publications, I was under the impression Wisconsin publications were under similar rules. Is there somewhere that explains the copyright status of State documents? Wisconsin.gov's acceptable use policy says "The fair use guidelines of the U.S. copyright statutes apply to all material on the Wisconsin.gov and linked agency Webpages." That seems to invoke some sort of copyright, in my opinion. Can anyone clarify this with a link or publication that better explains this? --Dual Freq (talk) 21:16, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I've never heard this before, I've seen plenty of places on Wikipedia that point out that almost every state retain copyright. I would need to see proof that Wisconsin has waved copyright before I'll be using any state of Wisconsin text verbatim. Royalbroil 03:59, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
U.S. law says copyright must be explicitly waived. Any assumption to the contrary must be sourced properly. I think TShilo has this mixed up with U.S. government publications, where the decision to waive was a legislative one. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:43, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
I know none of you know what you're talking about. I'll get the proof one of these days. :-) Tomertalk 19:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Read and discuss the following two pages: [3][4]. Tomertalk 21:37, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

(deindent) 1) "This Web site, and the pages and material available on it, are for the noncommercial use of the general public. The fair use guidelines of the U.S. copyright statutes apply to all material on the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) Web pages. The State of Wisconsin shall remain the sole and exclusive owner of all rights, title and interest in and to all specifically copyrighted information created and posted for inclusion in this system."

I take that to mean fair use applies, not free use or public domain. The state of Wisconsin owns all rights to everything. Royalbroil 02:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

"If permission to reproduce or redistribute is granted, the reproduced materials shall clearly state: 'Reproduced with permission from the State of Wisconsin.'"

If they give permission then they want attribution. Royalbroil 02:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Yup. Fully copyrighted. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:29, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Your conclusions based on the rather nebulous wording of the statements made on those pages may or may not be correct. This discussion was had several years ago here, and a different conclusion was reached. My reading of the quotation Royalbroil brings above is that the State retains all rights to specifically copyrighted information. Since I don't see copyright claims on the pages in question, my interpretation would be the exact opposite of yours. Since I doubt any of us are in a position to make a judgment that will stand up in copyright court, I have requested input from several legal experts, which I will happily share, should I receive any response. Cheers, Tomertalk 03:38, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Why would you want to copy text when there's even potential that it is a copyright violation? Why are we having this discussion: is it hypothetical or do you plan to use the state's website for writing articles? It's easy to rewrite and reword so that it's not a copyright violation. As long as you credit the source, it's not plagiarism. Royalbroil 04:42, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Don't put words in my mouth. :-p I never said I wanted to copy anything. All I said is that I disagree with your interpretation, and that rather than pretend to be a legal scholar, I've sought input from people who really are legal scholars. Tomertalk 05:22, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if I put words in your mouth. I wasn't understanding the direction of this thread, so I asked some questions. Royalbroil 05:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Lake Delton

Lake Delton, Wisconsin is an article about the village, do we need one solely about just Lake Delton? There are plenty of others in Category:Lakes of Wisconsin to use as an example. Also it might be nice to get a picture of the lake if someone has one laying around somewhere. If I have a picture it would be over 15 years old and taken with a fairly low quality camera. --Dual Freq (talk) 23:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Its problems today made national news, so it easily should be notable enough if you want to break the section from the city article. I would argue it was notable before today's problems. There has to be history on how the lake was created from the dam. Your potential old picture is the best thing available(?) for now. Royalbroil 03:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Even without today's events, I think it was notable enough for its own article. It's a decent sized lake in a populated area, and which many people have heard of. And it's home to Tommy Bartlett's show, which helped start the whole tourism thing. Not that I would have put a high priority on creating the article (before today), but it's valid. -Freekee (talk) 04:06, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
As for the photos, it looks like I don't have anything useful of the lake. It would have been circa 1981 with a cheap 110 camera, so even if I had a picture it would have been too poor to upload. I'll see what I can dig up history wise. Right now all I found was that William Newman and associate Ralph Hines built the lake / dam in the late 1920s. And this copyrighted 1938 map. --Dual Freq (talk) 11:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks to everyone for their help on the article. I nominated it for DYK. A lake of that size emptying in 2 hours is a great DYK fact! Too bad those 5 families had to lose their homes. Royalbroil 23:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Excellent work, folks! -Freekee (talk) 01:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I still haven't found much detail on the construction of the dam. All I can really find is that Chicago millionaire William J. Newman, (Jr.?) was the one behind the dam and the initial development of the lake, constructing the Dell View hotel and a beach. He was also instrumental in the positioning of US 12 through the village to generate traffic as well, donating land for the highway. US 12 forms part of the main strip of hotels and attractions. I also found a c.1930 article about a plan for a lock to connect Lake Delton with the lower dells allowing lower dells boat tours to access lake Delton, though that article was mostly about the positioning of US 12 and the planned (now defunct) Lake Delton airport. That's about all I can find on the net and without looking for a book on the subject, not sure if its worth adding to the article. Anyone else have any luck? --Dual Freq (talk) 01:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Despite the tragedy, Wikipedia precedent in this matter is clear: the settlement is notable, the landform is notable. The article about the lake, if subsumed in the article about the village?city, is a temporary measure, certainly not a matter of policy. That said, while our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Lake Delton, and with the inhabitants of communities downstream, "national spotlight", if it's lingering, as it is sure to be here, does not, in and of itself, constitute noteworthiness. In this age of sensationalism=journalism, Wikipedia should strive to fulfill its mission of Wikipedia=Online Editable Encyclopedia. We're not a news outlet; we're not a fountainhead for the latest winds of the fickle, and far too oft, feckless, media. Write an article about the city. Write an article about the lake. Include the news, but don't let the news drive the article. Tomertalk 10:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Hoard Museum and National Dairy Shrine

I'm torn. I visited the Hoard museum and National Dairy Shrine in Fort Atkinson and I got some excellent pictures. The different museums share the same site and administration. I'm trying to figure out the scope of an article(s) about it. I can't decide if the 2 museums should be incorporated into one or two articles since they share the same administration and buildings. If they are combined into one article, what name should the article be given? I have started the article in my second sandbox, so check it out if you want to see external links to the official websites. Royalbroil 12:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The National Dairy Shrine website contact page lists their administration with many people outside of Wisconsin operating it. It appears to be a separate entity from the Fort Atkinson Historical Society which appears to operate the Hoard Museum and collocated the National Dairy Shrine Visitor's center. I think there is a difference between National Dairy Shrine and National Dairy Shrine Visitor's center which is the museum in Fort Atkinson. The what is page seems to differentiate the visitor's center. Maybe I'm over analyzing it. --Dual Freq (talk) 17:26, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
These some insightful things that I didn't catch when I visited. It looks like the National Dairy Shrine offices are located in Ohio and their visitor is located in Fort Atkinson. Sounds like there should be two separate articles, maybe even three. The building has a third portion containing area artefacts (especially Abe Lincoln), probably for their historic society. I got some great pics of old farming items at the National Dairy Shrine Visitor Center which I added to their articles (Treadle, Babcock test). Thanks! Royalbroil 18:43, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the note, Royalbroil. Two separate articles, assuming either one is notable. I'll look at your sandbox and see if I can add anything. I have a photo of the Hoard Museum in the Merchants Avenue Historic District article. — Zaui (talk) 17:39, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Amish GA Sweeps Review: On Hold

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria and I'm specifically going over all of the "Culture and Society" articles. I have reviewed Amish and believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have left this message at this WikiProject's talk page so that any interested members can assist in helping the article keep its GA status. In reviewing the article, I have found there are a few issues that may need to be addressed, and I'll leave the article on hold for seven days for them to be fixed. I have left messages on the talk pages of the main contributors of the article along with several related WikiProjects. Please consider helping address the several points that I listed on the talk page of the article, which shouldn't take too long to fix if multiple editors assist in the workload. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 08:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 533 of the articles assigned to this project, or 9.5%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 18 June 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subsribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:00, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

  • The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
  • The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
  • A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:33, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Sun Prairie, Wisconsin article

Could someone maybe come on over and check out the article? I've been doing some work on it, and think it could stand to be re-ranked as B-class as per the Six Criteria or perhaps even meet Good Article level, though I'd likely seek Peer Review before then. Come on by - I'll leave a pot on the stove. - Hexhand (talk) 18:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

No article can be assessed as a Good Article without going through a WP:GA formal review by an uninvolved contributor. B is the maximum class without this formal review. Royalbroil 19:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I think high C-class at this moment (and you should not assess articles that you worked this much on). There are sections that need expanding as you have indicated, so it fails criteria #2 (and maybe #3 too) of the 6 criteria. It has come a long way since you started, so good job! The lead section should be about 3 paragraphs long, so it needs major expansion before GA. Just add information already in the article to lead that summarizes the city/culture (like O'Keefe, etc.) Let me know when your ready for a more thorough review, and I'll peer review it against GA criteria. You don't need to open up a formal peer review if your intention is just for me to review it, but you can if you want more people to review it. Royalbroil 19:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Right on. I wasn't trying to get ahead of myself regarding the GA stuf, and there is no way I would attempt to assess it - it's why I asked for help here. I intend to ride this article to FA. It's a nifty little town with fun stuff. Of course, i will leave out the bit about it being the populated by aliens from Viltvodle VI; oddly, i cannot find citations for the invasion... ;) - Hexhand (talk) 20:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I think the article might be ready for a re-evaluation for A or GA. Someone want to take a gander? - Hexhand (talk) 23:57, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Sun Prairie city and town articles

I would like to propose that the article Sun Prairie (town), Wisconsin be merged into Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. As per WP:MERGE, there is significant and consistent overlap between the two articles, the text of the town article is very short (35 kb) and unlikely to be expanded substantially any time soon, and really cannot be done without broaching the context of subjects already covered in the broader (194 kb) article. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and there is no substantial need for two articles for what is essentially the same area. Both the town and the city share utilities, fire service, school districts, etc; much of the information in the town article is already in the broader city article.
Normally, I would simply put the 'merge to' and 'merge from' tags on both articles and simply participate in two different discussions, and have done so. However, considering that there appears to be some resistance to that idea, I felt that initiating discussion here might better arrive at a more reasoned consensus. - Hexhand (talk) 19:17, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Again, I am opposing the merger of the 2 articles. The city and town of Sun Prairie are 2 distinct,independent, separate units of government and they should be treated as such. The proposed merger article of Sun Prairie would very inaccurate in terms of demographic-population statistics. And as I had pointed out earlier, the town of Sun Prairie does has its own town website. I respectfully oppose the merger of the 2 articles. Thank you-RFD (talk) 20:41, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I also oppose the merger. While there is indeed significant overlap between the two articles, it is because of problems with the Sun Prairie, Wisconsin page. This page is intended to be about the actual geographic entity with that name, which is a city. All references therein to the town are erroneous and should be removed. No other action is correct; merging the two is definitely incorrect, as they are distinct geographic and political entities. That they are easily confused is a reason to keep these seperate, not merged. Merenta (talk) 20:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose merge. The two entities are separate, and should have their own articles. This is per longstanding procedure. There will be much overlap in the two articles, but that's how it goes. -Freekee (talk) 01:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Actually, i submit that the references to the town are not erroneous, as they mostly refer to services, utilities that are shared between the two. Frankly speaking, the town article is essentially a stub; It also bears pointing out that the town article has had less than fifteen edits since its creation in 2003. Clearly, the distinction hasn't sharpened someone's hunger on developing the article, and should be folded into the larger and (to toot my own horn) better city article. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. When we can combine a stub in to a related article that are so similar so as to be virtually interchangeable, we should do so. We do so elsewhere in Wikipedia. Respectfully, this is not a case of "that's how it goes." Consensus, as far as I understand it, isn't static.
As well, it bears noting that they are considered synonymous by notable entities, such as the local newspaper Sun Prairie Star, which refers to the entire area as "Sun Prairie". As well, the city fire department doesn't distinguish between the two when responding to calls, nor does EMS.
Noting the previous discussion eight months ago regarding this similar subject, the same folk are opposed as they were months ago. Perhaps others might wish to weigh in with new perspectives. :) - Hexhand (talk) 01:37, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Strong oppose. Towns are totally separate government units that only share a name. If we were to agree to this merge, the question is "Where do you stop?" If you apply this merge to the whole state you open up a lot of cans of worms. Many other town articles around the state list the unincorporated communities within their borders that have articles. In the parts of Wisconsin that I have lived in, towns all offer separate fire, water, sewer, laws, etc. I live in a town that sends students to two school districts. Towns and cities/villages belong in different categories because they are different entities. How would you propose to categorize a combined article? Would it be a city or a town? How would you deal with the history of each of the separate entities? While their histories may be intertwined just like all of the towns in an area, they might be completely different. Compare New Holstein (town), Wisconsin and New Holstein, Wisconsin. How would you deal with pictures of each entity? I have taken pictures of many town halls for the various towns that happen to have the same name as a city or village, such as Stockbridge (town), Wisconsin vs. Stockbridge, Wisconsin; Chilton (town), Wisconsin vs Chilton, Wisconsin; New Holstein, Wisconsin vs. New Holstein (town), Wisconsin; etc. The town articles for these don't belong in the city/village articles any more than any adjacent towns. Who has the time to merge hundreds of town articles into city/village articles? That's what your proposing in my mind. I want to add content, not waste time on administration that add nothing to the encyclopedia. Why should only these towns that happen to share a name with a city/village be treated different than their adjacent towns? I see nothing gained by combining these articles and lots of problems for no benefits. The best fit statewide to this situation is currently implemented. I will help you work with Sun Prairie's city article if you want help with fitting in duplicated services with the town. Royalbroil 13:14, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
The overriding question from RoyalBroil here is 'where do you stop?' It seems an easy enough question to answer - at least to me. Towns like York, which are scattered like mustard seeds throughout Wisconsin (and have been used in arguments opposing mergings) have no proximal connection and share no services. Ie, they are not part of the same entity. In towns like New Holstein or Stockbridge or Chilton, they do share services - in many instances almost all services, as well as a shared history. I respectfully submit that images taken of town halls can be captioned to differentiate their location, which is rather what we do every time we add an image caption anyway.
I would also point out that I am not proposing the merging of hundreds of articles, though blanching at the idea of doing so seems counter to our job - the town pride at creating a separate article simply to differentiate themselves seems to be a move counter to an encyclopedic intent. In those instances where the towns share history, utilities, services, the same roads, and are considered the same entities by citable sources, we treat them within the same article - RS, and not our personal preference, governs. Another question posed by RoyalBroil and others is: how do we do that? Take a look at the first line of the Sun Prairie article:
"Sun Prairie is a city and surrounding town in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and one of seven cities (and twenty-nine towns) located within Dane County."
I guess I am not seeing the scabrous level of difficulties you are suggesting. The benefits seems rather clear - it allows us to present a clear, common sense picture of a subject that is intimately related to itself, without kowtowing to an overinflated civic pride. Yes, the town and city have separate local governments; these can be easily differentiated, via subsection under the governing section of Law and Government. Easy peasy. As the services are already shared, it seems a non-issue.
Where is the line? I suggest a common sense approach; where we have two communities of the same name, located immediately next to each other, share virtually everything but the name of their mayor or supervisor, then we group the two together and note the (in this case, piddling) differences, much like we already do. When we are presented with towns and cities that are exceptionally different, where the differences are significant, we use separate articles. - Hexhand (talk) 15:45, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
No, references to shared utilities are definitely not errors. The primary error that I'm referring to is in the very first sentence of the article - in your edit saved 13:28, 14 July 2008 you changed the lead to indicate that the article is about the "city and town" of Sun Prairie. This is considered very bad form, since this is in fact a portion of the process of merging the articles under discussion here, and was done prior to adding the merge template. This change to the lead sentence is in error, as the article as it currently stands is really about the city, not the town. Your note about Fire/EMS doesn't seem to be accurate, as you can see on the fire department web site's front page [5]. Perhaps you meant to write that they serve both areas, which is quite different from what you actually wrote above. Also, I am very familiar with the information on the Wikipedia is not a dictionary page, and don't see the relevance of it to this discussion. Could you be a bit more specific, please? Thanks and happy editing! Merenta (talk) 15:59, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Er, how about a bit more of an assumption of good faith, Merenta? Note that the edit you note was made: over ten days ago, amidst almost two dozen other significant edits improving the article. The topic of merging the two articles came up yesterday. As well, the SPVFD services both the city and town - have I ever said something else? I did note that different, citable sources don't distinguish between the two. the USPS usage of the zip codes applies to both Sun Prairie city and town. The newspapers Wisconsin State Journal and Sun Prairie Star don't distinguish between the two for purposes of distribution and sales. - Hexhand (talk) 16:45, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Actually my point was that the towns of Stockbridge, Chilton, and New Holstein all share no services with their adjacent city/village. I know people that live in each of them. The only thing that they share with their city/village is the same school district. They each have separate laws, firefighters, etc. The towns have police protection from the county unlike the village/city police. Some towns hate that they have the same name as a nearby city. I worked for a long time at an engineering company in the city of Sheboygan, and some residents of Sheboygan (town), Wisconsin were so upset that some people made this assumption that made a big deal about wanting to change their town's name to end any assumptions about the city. Civic pride in the opposite direction than what you have suggested! Royalbroil 16:09, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Okay, well, that would an example of subjects that should be different articles. Sun Prairie, which share almost all of their services, dovetail more than they differ. - Hexhand (talk) 16:45, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
There's no question that your edits are in good faith; that doesn't mean that they are correct; my guess is that most erroneous edits are in good faith. What you actually said about the Fire/EMS was that "the city fire department doesn't distinguish between the two when responding to calls, nor does EMS". Since that quote comes from this page, I am unclear as to why you need this reminder. The link I provided shows that they do indeed distinguish between them (as a former volunteer firefighter/EMT, that particular statement stood out like a sore thumb.) Anyway, I have no doubt that everything you're doing is in good faith, and that many of your contributions are valuable. Nonetheless, I remain opposed to this particular proposal. Thanks and happy editing! Merenta (talk) 17:17, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for apologizing, Merenta; it's appreciated :). I apologize that my edit was seen as misleading; it specifically meant that SPVFD and EMS don't consider the boundaries of SP city or town when doing their job, which is different than an example Madison EMS and fire service running out to answer a call in Fitchburg, even though that sizable parts of that town and Madison (town) are due to be absorbed by Madison city by 2022. Again, there are so many commonalities between the two Sun Prairies that containing them within one article not only makes good, common sense but it is more efficient from an encyclopedic point of view. - Hexhand (talk) 17:36, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


Sun Prairie merge discussion

RAther than arguing over consensus, let's talk about a practical matter. Here's the opening paragraph as it stands today:

Sun Prairie is a city and surrounding town in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and one of seven cities (and twenty-nine towns) located within Dane County. It's considered to be a bedroom community of Madison, though many residents are actively involved in the operation of local farms. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 20,369 and is expected to double in size by 2020 to around 40,000. It is the fifth-fastest growing city in the state of Wisconsin, and the fastest-growing among cities of 10,000 or more, growing an estimated 14% between 2000 and 2004.

Notice that everything said about Sun Prairie refers to the city and not the town. Let's take a look at what the paragraph might look like if it were to include both entities.

Sun Prairie is the name of a city and also of a town which is adjacent to the city. They are in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, and are among seven cities and twenty-nine towns located within Dane County. The city of Sun Prairie is considered to be a bedroom community of Madison, though many residents are actively involved in the operation of local farms. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 20,369 and is expected to double in size by 2020 to around 40,000. It is the fifth-fastest growing city in the state of Wisconsin, and the fastest-growing among cities of 10,000 or more, growing an estimated 14% between 2000 and 2004. The town, with its greater area of rural land, had a population of 2308.

Does this make sense? I think the two separate entities should have two separate articles, even though there will be much overlap in them. -Freekee (talk) 03:41, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that one can write including both and do so better than is currently in place; while the article is primarily about the city, the aspects from the 35k or so from the town article could easily be incorporated into the article. That, I think is the more practical method of handling this. There is no reason to leave the Sun Prairie article little more than a stub when it is far closer - and therefore far more reasonable - to include both in the article. Looking at the explosive growth of the city in just the past five years, I think the city will likely be following the pattern established by Madison and expanding its borders into the town. It might as well begin here.
Lastly, I will reiterate that the town and city share a lot of overlap, so I am thinking that if someone is concerned that this would set a precedent, i think the worry is unfounded. The other examples don't have as close a relationship (nor the growth potential) exhibited by the two Sun Prairies. After all, we have the US postal service not distinguishing them, nor the news media. I submit that we concede to their greater practical wisdom in this matter. - Hexhand (talk) 03:58, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
But most of the things that you claim about Sun Prairie are true of any adjacent city and town. They all share many services - even the ones that don't share names. Fire, library, post office, schools, whatever. But that's beside the point. Your point is that the two entities are bound together so closely that they deserve to be in one article. Or maybe that they might as well be. Correct? Do you feel that most articles here should be written the same way, and the guidelines should be changed? Or do you believe that Sun Prairie is a special case? -Freekee (talk) 03:41, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
I guess I am not sure I know enough about geographic articles (ie cities) to advocate a change in guidelines. I just think that SP can be well-written noting both town and city. The town article is sparse in the extreme, so the merging would be pretty easy to accomplish. - Hexhand (talk) 13:30, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The city of La Crosse, Wisconsin had been trying to annex the town of Campbell, Wisconsin (French Island, Wisconsin) for years because Campbell used city water. Finally. Campbell and the city made an agreement putting a freeze on the city's attempt's to annex Campbell and Campbell's attempts to be an village. The agreement comes to an end in the early 2020s. The municipal airport, which in the northern part of French Island is part of the city as is some homes along Nakomis Avenue. Also the city of La Crosse and the city of Onalaska, Wisconsin got into a spat over some town of Medary, Wisconsin land in the Valley View Mall area. Eventually the cities worked out an agreement and divided the land up. The Town of Campbell does have their own police department, website and they are part of the La Crosse County Library system.And Campbell does not like the city butting into their affairs. I hope this will give you people some idea of what goes on in a different part of Wisconsin concerning towns&cities. Thank you-RFD (talk) 16:19, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

No, I've been aware of town/city friction issues since the whole Fitchburg/Madison annexation can o' worms some years ago. The situation with the two Sun Prairies doesn't appear to have any of that sort of friction. No one is suggesting that we consign Sun prairie (town) to a tiny shack on the outskirts of Hell; I am saying that the town article receives better coverage within the city article. Again, the difficulties between cities and towns aren't our bailiwick; they can be noted with citation, but they shouldn't govern how we create and maintain out articles.- Hexhand (talk) 19:57, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

[outdent]I just came wandering across this (the discussion about the Sun Prairie merge) this evening, and I have to say I dislike it a lot. Including both entities in the same article implies a relationship between the two that does not exist. The only way to clarify within the article would be to explicitly say "The two entities are unrelated", which immediately begs the question "So why on earth are they in the same article then??!" I see no reason why the standard used elsewhere, and the way paper-encyclopedia-users are accustomed to seeing it, should be scrapped for the convenience of a single editor...or even a group of editors. Tomertalk 05:16, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Pound merge

One of the editors started a discussion about merging the village of Pound, Wisconsin article with the town of Pound, Wisconsin article. Thank you-RFD (talk) 14:43, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
(moved to new section, as the editor suggesting merge isn't one participating here, and the discussion regards Sun Prairie, not Pound). - Hexhand (talk) 16:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Image stumper

I have an issue. I am working on an article, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, and would like to add some images from Wisconsin Historical Society, like this one. I am unsure of the licensing issues, though. I emailed the Image Production and Licensing Manager, and was told that we could use the images gratis, so long as they are credited to the society. As some of the images are at the 90+ year mark, they are not free images. I could use some guidance on how to approach the situation of implementation and obtaining of free usage, either here or through offline wikimail. - Hexhand (talk) 16:06, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

U.S. copyright law says that any image first published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain. You can upload them using the license tag {{PD-US}}. Since you're aiming for a featured article, you should upload them to Wikimedia Commons instead of the English Wikipedia. I strong recommend avoiding all of their images taken after that date. You need to have a firm date or at least year on the picture. The WI Historical Society most likely doesn't own the copyright to the images since they didn't take them, and you need to own the copyright on the photo to assign its copyright. I've been involved with several case where similar situations were determined to be copyfraud. You might be able to claim fair use if you have something important which is unable to be reproduced, but I don't touch them with a 10' pole. Fair use can't apply for something like the image of the watertower since the picture that I took a few weeks ago is free use and things are essentially unchanged. Be careful to get the right amount of images, whatever that means, because people at FA will comment. Royalbroil 04:18, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Aztalan

Former Featured Article Aztalan State Park was one of the original first three articles simultaneously promoted under FA's original name ("Brilliant Prose" status) on July 6, 2003

What does this mean, anyway? -Freekee (talk) 03:53, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I struggled with the wording. Would someone could make it clearer? The current Signpost has an article Dispatches: History of the featured article process that mentions that Aztalan State Park was one of the original first three articles to be promoted to FA when it was called "Brilliant Prose". Royalbroil 04:04, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Do you mean to say that the FA process back then was called "Brilliant Prose"? And that Aztalan was one of the first three articles to receive this designation, and the three articles all earned it at the same time? -Freekee (talk) 05:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that's my understanding after reading the article in the Signpost. Do you come up with the same conclusion? Royalbroil 05:04, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Brillion and Hartford, Wisconsin

Please see my comments on the Brillion, Wisconsin and Hartford, Wisconsin articles talk pages. Someone suggested a merger for the Brillion town and village articles in the to do section of WikiProject Wisconsin page and the town of Hartford, Wisconsin article was merged with the Hartford, Wisconsin. The town of Hartford, Wisconsin has its own town website. Thank you-RFD (talk) 11:42, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

For anyone interested in breaking precedent and merging the articles for villages/cities and towns of the same name, I recommend bringing it up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities. -Freekee (talk) 02:25, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
They should link provide a wikilink here at WikiProject Wisconsin's talk page too so that we can comment and follow any discussion.
I keep wondering: Is someone being pointy / disruptive by making all of these proposals all at the same time? We went for years with no proposals, and now we keep getting merge proposals every few days. Something doesn't add up. It can't be a coincidence. Royalbroil 03:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
The merger of the articles on the town and village of Hartford, Wisconsin took place in 2005. Both that and the proposed Brillion town and village mergers had been on the WikiProject Wisconsin thing to do section of the projects talk board for months before anyone like myself even notice until now. I think this has been an ongoing problem of people who meant well, but lacks knowledge and understanding of the Wisconsin political subdivisions. I do know the town of Hartford article needs to be recreated. I think part of it extends into Dodge County, Wisconsin. We may have to check to see if any other mergers of town and village articles took place unknowingly in the last few years. Thanks-RFD (talk) 10:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Or that articles that are different articles shouldn't be merged. ;) - Hexhand (talk) 14:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
RFD might be right, maybe there was an accumulation that we are first noticing now. I was not pointing my finger at anyone in particular, especially you Hexhand. If you were trying to hide something, you probably never would have gotten a name. I remove the merger requests for Hartford and Brillion from the To Do list because consensus has been determined to be against merges like this. That Hartford merge was especially problematic because multiple counties were involved. Royalbroil 19:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I am not sure what you mean, but I give you my level word that before contributing to the Sun Prairie Wisconsin article, I have never contributed to a Wisconsin article from this or any previous IP account. Ever. I just think think (maybe incorrectly) that when we can merge that content which is close enough to another so that a merging allows for a better explanation of the subject. That there doesn't seem to habve been a lot of discussion regarding this to show a project-wide consensus - and 4 people doesn't really seem to indicate that. - Hexhand (talk) 22:11, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I reread my first post in this section, it reads like I was implicating Hexhand. I was NOT, and I felt that needed to be explicitly stated. I agree that you were not trying to do anything wrong, as I stated in my last post. In my last post, I was defending you, Hexhand, pointing out why you most likely DIDN'T do it.
As for consensus on whether or not to merge these articles, 4 contributors feel they should not be merged and 1 contributor feels they should be merged. That number of contributors is a typical number to determine consensus for a question of this size. It's not at all unusual for one contributor out of five to disagree with something that gets called as meeting consensus. The scope of the question was "should the articles for a Wisconsin city be merged with an adjacent township with the same name". Royalbroil 02:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Royal - I appreciate you explicitly stating that. I didn't really think you were suggesting such, but it might be misconstrued by folk new to the project page.
I think it is important to clarify my position on the matter of merging: I am not in favor of a blanket policy on these articles, either to merge or not. I think each of these situations need to be approached on a case by case basis. Towards that end we should choose those city-town articles that are ideal for merging and use them as a benchmark of sorts; guidelining what might serve as a good example of a merge candidate. It would also serve to define what bad candidates are, as well. Approaching the entire merge issue with a 'well, they have a website' isn't a strong argument, to my reckoning - any more than the 'well, they have the same name argument' is.
Maybe we can avoid this stuff by setting rough guidelines towards that end. Absolutism is contrary to our role as contributing editors; there has to be room for variance; its the reason that uniformity isn't enforced at the point of a sword in Wiki-En. - Hexhand (talk) 15:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
My opinion is absolute, under no circumstances would I support a merger of a Wisconsin town article with a Wisconsin city/village article. There has to be some sort of system where anyone can look up any article on any specific government unit and be able to easily differentiate between towns and cities/villages, and the current system does exactly that. Royalbroil 15:53, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
That's rather my point, Royal - any reader should be able to look up a city and be able to find a cohesive article that covers two closely connected entities, rather than clicking back and forth between two articles that essentially have precisely the same information. An absolutist point of view doesn't seem to serve the interests of an encyclopedia. We aren't a directory. When presented with situations where merging is beneficial (and it sometimes is helpful), adopting the point of view that it should never be done seems too narrow a view to take. - Hexhand (talk) 16:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Here's an example of a fairly good merging edit between the relatively anorexic Sun Prairie (town), Wisconsin and the larger and more diverse Sun Prairie, Wisconsin article. Granted, some tweaking and expansion wouldn't hurt, but still, a pretty good idea of an effective merge. Again, note that it isn't the solution for all city and town articles, but it seems to work for this one. - Hexhand (talk) 16:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

(deindent) What I meant was if anyone is looking for ANY town article in the state of Wisconsin, they can find that town's article separate from any city article. My contention all along has been that cities and towns are NOT closely connected, just in name only. What does the current town article share with the city article? Going section by section, the geography is different because each has different area and composition, the demographics are completely different in terms of number of people and other statistics, they each have different histories of incorporation and other dates, and their websites are different. So they have nothing in common! The system for building municipality articles was not willy-nilly at all. They were built on census data, which is how they are organized. There needs to be a consistent system that is the same throughout the state. Wikipedia was built by using discussion to create precedents. This discussion took place a long time ago, and a great system was built in my opinion. Royalbroil 19:39, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

No one is arguing that, Royal. What we are suggesting is the idea that the wiki can be flexible enough to compensate for those towns and cities which are in fact closely related. Sun Prairie is one of those examples. Not all city/towns are going to be as closely related, and therefore a strict policy of merging all town into city articles or vice versa isn't warranted, any more than a prohibition versus merging shouldn't be a de facto rule.
Were your use of the census info to serve as the final word, it would fail to note that, according to the same source, Sun Prairie town, apparently has no "Structural, Plumbing, and Equipment Characteristics" at least as of 1990 (1), nor even, a population ([Land Area and Population Density: 1990 2]). See, statistics can be made to say just about everything, and I am not sure that using a single source to defend treating entire swaths of articles is appropriate. After all, the US postal service doesn't distinguish between town and city, and they are a source as equally notable as the US census when it comes to determining the exigence of separate articles. As well, the local and state and national media do not distinguish between the two.
However, they are different, if interconnected entities, which is why certain town and city articles, as closely related as some are should be merged. We cannot allow civic pride to determine that a town article deserves its own article, that is a slippery slide into speculation, evaluation and OR, which I have been led to believe we don't do.- Hexhand (talk) 20:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

State voting methods

I've reverted a couple of attempts to add odd quotes from the election manual to the state article in the last day or so. Is there a need for a paragraph on voting methods in Wisconsin in the state article? I don't believe selectively and deceptively quoting an election manual is a good place to start that and certainly voting methods vary widely in different municipalities from optical scanners to direct recording electronic machines. Briefly looking at a few other state articles, California, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota don't mention voting rules or methods. I don't recall hearing about any peculiarities in Wisconsin voting methods compared to other states to make it worth noting. I have heard of irregularities in Milwaukee, some of which reached national news and seem to be persistently in Wisconsin media. I linked a few examples on the talk page. I don't see any of the Milwaukee voting issues mentioned in the Milwaukee article, so I'm not sure its necessary to single out Milwaukee in the state page. Anyway, maybe someone would like to leave a third or fourth opinion on Talk:Wisconsin. --Dual Freq (talk) 01:39, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Naming convention for unincorporated communities

I have around 100 images to upload that I took this past month while traveling all over the eastern half of Wisconsin (Crandon, Mountain, and Amberg to Milwaukee). A few of these pictures depict unincorporated communities that share the same name as the town that they are located in. Up until now, I added information and pictures of these unincorporated communities as a merged article to the town article, example in the Brothertown, Wisconsin article. I might want to make separate articles for these unincorporated communities instead of making it merged. What is a good naming convention for these unincorporated communities? I'd prefer to keep the work minimal, so I'd prefer to keep the town articles as they are and set up the unincorporated articles with a less desirable name. For example, a few days ago I took pictures in the unincorporated community of Langlade, Wisconsin while traveling down Wisconsin Highway 55 back from the Crandon International Off-Road Raceway. The unincorporated community is located in the town of Langlade, Wisconsin in Langlade County, Wisconsin. How does Langlade (unincorporated community), Wisconsin sound? Royalbroil 21:29, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I look at the unincorporated communities of Wisconsin list. One example is Jump River (community), Wisconsin, in Taylor County, Wisconsin. The unincorporated community of Jump River is in the town of Jump River (town), Wisconsin.I would go along with Langlade (community), Wisconsin but without the unincorporated in the name. It would be too long.Thank you-RFD (talk) 22:19, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Works for me. Royalbroil 13:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks-RFD (talk) 13:44, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
One critical thing about naming 'unincorporated communities' is that the information should be verifiable. We should not be creating 'unincorporated communities' where none exist. By this I mean that all 1250+ towns in Wisconsin are 'unincorporated'. Some of those towns have 'unincorporated communitities' within them. The towns themselves should not be double listed as both a 'town' (which is unincorporated) and as an 'unincorporated community'. The State of Wisconsin keeps an official list of all Counties,Cities, Villages,Towns, AND Unincorporated Communities. That makes it verifiable. When our project chooses to create an entry for an 'unincorporated community' or a town. We must, I believe stick to what is verifiable. Capitalismojo (talk) 20:22, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Here is the State of Wisconsin, Department of Administration, Division of Intergovernmental Relations, Bureau of Demographic Services http://www.doa.state.wi.us/section_detail.asp?linkcatid=11&linkid=64&locid=9
Here is the link to the State of Wisconsin's list of cities, villages, towns, and unincorporated places from DoA's website. http://dhs.wisconsin.gov/vitalrecords/pdf/cvtslists.pdf Capitalismojo (talk) 20:33, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Current Wikipedia consensus is that all communities in the world are inherently notable (no matter what size), although that consensus is currently under review. RFD and I both have highly detailed atlas books of the state which include every single mile of the state. These books can be used verify location information on unincorporated communities within a town of the same name. For instance, they verify the location of the community within the town. They list the name of the community at the intersection of two roads which is usually included in the stub. They list the names of the tiniest communities, some of which do not have signs in the real world. So verified information exists. I only create articles on signed communities that I have photographed while driving through. Royalbroil 20:51, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
I appologize if I was unclear, and for being annoyingly pig-headed. The state of wisconsin data includes all entities in the state of all sizes. The state does not recognize a distinction between the town and the intersection on the map where the bulk of a town's inhabitants reside. I don't think we should create such a distinction, especially where it adds confusion rather than clarity.Capitalismojo (talk) 21:50, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Unincorporated communites with same name as town vs. unincorporated communities in the same town with different name

So why should an unincorporated community with a different name than the town have a different threshold for having its own article than one with the same name as the town? Why should there be a system with an exception to it? The community may have a different history than the town. It certainly has a separate specific location within the town. It has no population or geographic statistics. So what if the state originally chose to name the town after a community within it. Royalbroil 21:01, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe that as a matter of verifiable fact that where there is a Wisconsin town of the name "x" there is not a seperate unincorporated community of the same name "x". The State of Wisconsin doesn't recognize such, the Wisconsin Towns Association doesn't recognize such, the inhabitants of the towns (of which I am one) certainly don't recognize any such distinction. Why are we trying to create such a distintion here? Capitalismojo (talk) 21:43, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
There is certainly a physical location where there may be a sign that says "x, population 100, unincorporated" That would be the center of the standard unincorporated Wisconsin town "x", it is not a seperate entity "x unincorporated". Unincorporated communities are listed by the state. There are, possibly, unincorporated communities that have different histories than the named towns. I haven't heard of any but I don't entirely discount it. If so, they should have a special and seperate page otherwise we should WP: MERGE and check that the data isverifiable. Capitalismojo (talk)
Then there's no hope of us agreeing on this topic. We'll have to agree to disagree. To me, merging the unincorporated community article into the town article is exactly same as merging the article about the unincorporated community of Langlade into the town of Langlade article, and then merging that combined article into the Langlade County article. All 3 are completely separate government units. By that logic what would have happened if the Calumetville, Wisconsin in the town of Calumet hadn't decided early in its history to leave Calumet County, Wisconsin to become a town in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin? Royalbroil 00:21, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
The 'unincorporated community' of Langlade is not a unit of government under Wisconsin law. The smallest unit of government is the town. Unincorporated communities that are not themselves towns are administered by the town that they reside within. Unincorporated communities exist and are recognized by wisconsin government. There are no unincorporated communities with identical names within town units in government sources. (The Calumettville example doesn't work on its face because Calumettville is not identical to Calumet, and is also a hypothetical) Capitalismojo (talk) 00:59, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
I think we can agree, I am willing to be convinced. Everything I have asserted is verifiable on Wisconsin governmental websites. I am willing, even eager to concede that I am wrong. All we need to do is find something that will verify the assertion in these cases that there is an 'unicorporated community' that is seperate from the town. I have looked, however, and found the opposite references.Capitalismojo (talk) 00:59, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
From both links that you provided, there's a quote "Names of unincorporated places are included in this listing to allow record filers to look up an unincorporated place and convert it to its appropriate township name." I take that to mean that the only unincorporated communities listed were ones with different names than their town. I wonder if you understand exactly what a town is. A town is a subdivision of a county and it is not a collection of houses like a city or village. It's size is typically in the vicinity of 10 miles east/west by 10 miles north/south. It's the unit of government in unincorporated areas. I grew up in the country in one of these towns. This town happens to have a small unincorporated community with the same name. An unincorporated community is a collection of houses with a name but no government. There are many unincorporated communities listed on the Wisconsin road map. Some of these unincorporated communities have the same name as the town that they are listed in. Some towns have more than one unincorporated communities in them, such as the the town of Taychedah in Fond du Lac County which has the unincorporated communities of Taycheedah and Peebles, Wisconsin. If you didn't understand this distinction, then you probably will have to re-read my comments. Royalbroil 01:42, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
You say" There are many unincorporated communities listed on the Wisconsin road map. Some of these unincorporated communities have the same name as the town that they are listed in." Fine, show me where someone (BLUE BOOK, WisconsinTowns Association, a county website, a town website) backs up the assertion. I've been in state government in wisconsin for 22 years and this assertion is (I believe) inaccurate. I can be swayed, please show me I am wrong. Capitalismojo (talk) 02:14, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
This happens most often in the lower population density portions of the state. It helps knowing that you understand the difference between a town and an unincorporated community. Ok, an example. Townsend, Wisconsin is a town, agreed? Now you can find the unincorporated community of Townsend within that town at the intersection of Wisconsin Highway 32 and Oconto County Road T. I'm looking at it right now on my 2001-2002 Edition Official State Highway Map with Gov. Scott and Laurie McCallum on it and 2 state patrol officers - WP:AGF. You can verify this location as the location of the town at google maps [6], although google places the marker about a mile south of the community. I've found very few towns have websites, county websites don't usually talk directly about tiny unincorporated communities or towns, and the Blue Book doesn't talk about it to the best of my knowledge. I wish you lived in one of the small towns in the state because then I wouldn't have to explain this. Royalbroil 02:47, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
I have lived in a small town. I still own a farm in small town, albeit not a profitable one. I have family that still live in the town and they have served on the town board, and the county board. I am presently working with a town on a town's WisDOT grant application. I think I have a pretty good grasp of a town and how it fits into the Wisconsin system. I do assume your good faith.
We seem to be talking at cross purposes. Let me go back to where this started for me; Forest County and splitting Laona into a town and an unincorporated community. On our Forest County listing we presently have Alvin* Argonne*Armstrong Creek*Blackwell*Caswell*Crandon (town)*Freedom*Hiles*Laona*Lincoln*Nashville*Popple River*Ross*Wabeno listed as towns. We have Laona and Mole Lake as "unincorporated communities". Under this present theory each of the towns must also be listed as an unincorporated community. It is undeniable that each town in the county has a location on the state map. It is undeniable that all towns in Wisconsin are unincorporated. It is clearly absurd and inaccurate to list the towns again as "unincorporated communities". "Unincorporated community" has a specific meaning in Wisconsin. It is an area that has NO GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY, a mere grouping of homes. Laona contrawise is a town. It has a townhall and town board that execises authority within a specific area. That area is about 10 miles by 10 miles or roughly 100 sq miles. The fact that there are signs both on hwy 32 and on hwy 8 that say "Laona Unincorporated" in no way takes away Laona's status as a town (by definition unincorporated). The fact that Wisconsin has conflated "survey townships" with towns does not change the fact that Laona is a town in the specific Wisconsin sense of the word and NOT an unincorporated community in the Wisconsin sense of the word. Furthermore all towns in Wisconsin counties are towns and not also 'unincorporated communities' in the sense you are attempting to make. The Laona-community listing (and, separately, the Taycheda-community listing) are (as far as I can tell) Original Research. The locations on state maps are the heart of the towns and not seperate entities in either legal or cultural terms. I believe it is dispositive that the official list of the state's cities, towns, villages, and unincorporated places DOES NOT LIST Laona or Taycheda as unincorporated places. They are listed as towns and not listed again as unincorporated places. I believe that if you would have the Project list a place on either the county template or on individual pages as an 'unincorporated place' we must have an official listing of it SOMEWHERE as an unicorporated place. It must be verifiable. The fact that a town may control one or more actual unicorporated communities does not change the status of the town into a second entity as an 'unincorporated community'. Well, I've gone on and on with this, but t seems important to me to have some official source that can verify such a designation. Capitalismojo (talk) 04:31, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
P.S. I appologize for using all caps on the words I was trying to emphasize. If there is a way to bold or italicize I haven't yet figured it out.Capitalismojo (talk) 04:35, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

(deindent) Emphasis is important and that's how I took it. You can bold by using the ' character three times on each side of the bold section. There need not be articles on every unincorporated community - they only need to be created if someone wants to split out content specific to the community. I'm not saying that an unincorporated community is the same thing as a town. They are very different. Towns and unincorporated communities are both unincorporated. Yes, the town is the governmental unit and unincorporated communities are the merely a collection of houses. In the case of Laona, I split the town article into two articles because there is both a town and an unincorporated community. One is still the town. The other talks about the unincorporated community only. The content about the planned community appeared to apply only to the collection of houses and not the entire town. A town is not a community, it's a geographic unit. How does that content apply to the entire town? So do you want to get rid of all unincorporated community articles in Wisconsin? Otherwise, why should there only be articles on unincorporated communities that do not share the same name as the town? I don't think your reading that official list right. It's purpose appears (to me) to include a list in a small unincorporated communities and their town location. It's there for convenience.

I waited 8 days for other WikiProject Wisconsin members to answer my question about how to deal with towns and unincorporated communities with the same name. Wikipedia's reliable source guideline (WP:RS) does not require that an official source state something, just something reliable. A state road map or an atlas is definitely considered good enough for even featured articles. I'm well beyond sick of talking about the differences between Wisconsin's cities, villages, towns, and unincorporated communities. This is about the 5th time that there has been long drawn-out discussions. I am pleased at least to hear that you understand the difference between each, because that has usually been the problem. I wish that I hadn't wasted my time taking pictures of these unincorporated communities. Royalbroil 05:09, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

The Wisconsin Historical Society website has a Dictionary of Wisconsin History. You have to go to search then go to term.The term link will have browse people, places, things. The unincorporated communities are in the browse place link. An example:[7]=Calumetville, Wisconsin. The information in turn comes from some sort of U.S. Geographic database.Many thanks-RFD (talk) 11:02, 23 October 2008 (UTC) Made a slight mistake-got the unincorporated community of Black Earth, Wisconsin instead.Minor mistake with the numbers.Since the Wisconsin Historical Society is part of the Wisconsin State government we can assume it has the reliable information.Thanks-RFD (talk) 11:08, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Both are listed for Laona too [8]. The town is listed as "Laona, Town of, Forest Co." and the community is listed as "Laona, Forest Co." Royalbroil 12:52, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, sorry to return late to this discussion. I have been ill. With due respect to the Historical Society Dictionary. It is a searchable database of a minor sort (something like a version of wikipedia with no way to track the changes or edits). As you can see without much searching; anyone can add information and listings as long as you have one reliable citation. That said, I have found a citation that may run counter to my argument on the USGS website. I will post it when I can find it again and am feeling well. Perhaps tomorrow.Capitalismojo (talk) 18:43, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

You have to look for the information and be patience when typing the information.You can easily misplace a number,letter.This has happen before to myself.It can be tedious.Thank you-RFD (talk) 13:02, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

This is preposterous. I'm sorry for having been too busy with being Jewish to participate in this discussion before now, but this discussion is ... eh... ridiculous. Unincorporated communities are locales, completely independent of the occasional eponymous minor civil division that happens to carry the same name... This discussion completely ignores such situations as Allen and Foster, Wisconsin both of which are located in Eau Claire County's Town of Clear Creek, preferring instead to concentrate on MCDs where they have the same name as communities within their boundaries...in what I can only charactarize as a deliberately misleading attempt to confuse the issue, or to ex post facto, eliminate by trivializing, the history of the communities after which the townships were named. Tomertalk 07:15, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
So your proposed solution is what? Merge the community (populous place) with the town (minor civil division)? Leave it the same? Drop the issue? Inquiring minds want to know.Capitalismojo (talk) 18:46, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Is the community necessarily distinguished from the township that it's inside of? The question is whether its history is distinct from that of the surrounding area. Take Ulao, Wisconsin. It was once an important settlement, but has now nearly vanished. It is located within the Town of Grafton, but its importance had vanished long before its remains were swallowed up by Grafton. That's part one. The second part is whether the same questions apply when the history (past of current) small community is distinct from that of the surrounding township, when the two entities have the same name. If so, the smaller community is deserving of its own article. If not, regardless of the technicalities of the above, ongoing discussion, why would you bother? -Freekee (talk) 01:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

County navigation templates

Why do the county templates have the order city - town - village - community (example)? A village is FAR more important than a town. I propose city - village - town - community. Royalbroil 13:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The proper order depends on the specific state. In the case of Wisconsin, villages are probably more important than towns. --Polaron | Talk 13:30, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Is the order normally determined by the order of importance? Villages are incorporated in Wisconsin, towns are not. Royalbroil 14:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
There is no set guideline for the order that I'm aware of but what I said above reflects current practice in other states. Generally, incorporated places first, minor civil divisions (if they exist) next, and unincorporated settlements last. --Polaron | Talk 14:49, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
In the various articles about Wisconsin counties, there would a section about the various cities and towns. Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin is a good example. I would insert villages where applicable so the heading reads:Cities, villages, annd towns instead of just Cities and towns. The Wisconsin county articles just list the headings as Cities and towns ignoring the villages. Thank you-RFD (talk) 16:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Many county articles nationwide say "Cities and towns", even in states such as Minnesota (see Pipestone County for an example) that have no towns; this is a generic thing that really needs to be fixed. I've fixed this in some counties of various states to "Communities" or "Localities", both of which I think better because they're simpler and more succinct. As far as the order: as noted by Polaron, settlements are usually ranked in order of importance. In New York and New England, towns (minor civil divisions like in Wisconsin, but much more powerful) are more important than villages, and in most other states with towns and villages, a town is generally superior: for example, New Mexico's towns are usually more impressive communities than New Mexico's villages. I would guess that this is the reason: whoever made the majority of these templates (not I) likely wasn't aware of the civil-township-like nature of Wisconsin towns, and thought that they should be treated like towns in other states. The only state (to my knowledge) that consciously places communities in a non-importance order is New Jersey, which has five equal types and eleven forms of municipalities (see Local government of New Jersey and articles linked therefrom), so the confusing array of municipalities — equal in status — has led New Jersey to list its communities in alphabetical order by type (boroughs, cities, towns, townships, and villages) instead of by importance. Since there's plainly some sort of hierarchy in Wisconsin, and since there are just three types of municipalities, it's much better to list by importance — and I agree that city-village-town is the best order. Nyttend (talk) 16:52, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
"States are the laboratories of democracy" and all that. In Wisconsin, given the statutes involved, yup: City - village - town - unicorporated place is the way to rank 'em; then alpha within each category. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I went through the Wisconsin counties and made the changes where applicable.There are exceptions like Florence County, Wisconsin just has towns-no cities and villages and of course has unincorporated communities.Forest County, Wisconsin has cities and towns but no villages.Menominee County, Wisconsin has one town and several unincorporated communities;Milwaukee County has cities and villages and no towns the last town in Milwaukee County was annexed in the mid 1950s.Many thanks-RFD (talk) 18:55, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
So we're agreed that they should be ranked city/village/town, where applicable? This has been annoying me for some time. -Freekee (talk) 02:59, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Sounds/Looks good to me. Tomertalk 05:10, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Wisconsin

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:44, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Holler House

I have just created Holler House and would like help improving it, especially finding free images of this pub/bowling alley. Thanks. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:10, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

University of Wisconsin Armory and Gymnasium

Currently this article is stub class. I've added a lot to it, so could someone take a look at it and reassess it? Suggestions for improvement also welcome. (Yes, I know there's only one source...) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.76.156.2 (talk) 05:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I rated it B. Other opinions are welcome. -Freekee (talk) 16:24, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Please contribute your opinions on proposals at Talk:Weatherman (organization)/Terrorism RfC

An RfC has started on whether the word "terrorism" can be mentioned and discussed in the article Bernardine Dohrn (her WP article is listed as part of this project), the leader of the now-defunct Weatherman (organization). The RfC Talk:Weatherman (organization)/Terrorism RfC also encompasses the same question concerning the Weatherman article and the articles on Bill Ayers and Obama-Ayers controversy. Editors are discussing whether we can come to a consensus. Please take a look and participate. -- Noroton (talk) 18:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Wisconsin Idea Theatre

There's a request for an article at Wikipedia:Articles requested for more than a year. Does anyone know what this is? Is it worthy of any article? Royalbroil 01:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Green Bay Press-Gazette tone issues

There is conflict on the article's tone between myself and a new contributor. Please give your opinion on the article's talk page. Royalbroil 16:40, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Wisconsin Milk Strikes

wisconsinhistory.org has an online copy of Wisconsin magazine of history: Volume 35, number 1, autumn, 1951. There's a bit about the milk strikes of the 1930's in Wisconsin. Iowa Cow War has an article, maybe something similar is in order here? Not sure what someone could use as a DYK hook for it, but bombs exploded at cheese factories and national guardsmen using tear gas and fixed bayonets could make for an interesting encyclopedia article. --Dual Freq (talk) 03:40, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

FYI, I've started a rough draft for 1933 Wisconsin milk strike at User:Dual Freq/1933 Wisconsin milk strike. Right now it's in a pretty early phase (not ready for critique), but I should have something fairly decent in a few days. I thought I'd better drop a note here so that someone doesn't duplicate the effort in case someone was working on a parallel draft article. --Dual Freq (talk) 04:13, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
FWIW, the entire archives, back to 1917, of the Wisconsin Magazine of History is online at the Wisconsin Historical Society website. There's a lot of great source material there. 12.76.152.222 (talk) 22:54, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I've given up on the draft page, I've placed the rough article in mainspace, 1933 Wisconsin milk strike. Sorry, but it looks like all I can put together is a rough outline of it. http://www.badgerlink.net/ allows people with Wisconsin IP addresses access to newspaperarchive.com which has archives that go back 100+ years. --Dual Freq (talk) 22:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Wisconsin articles needing geographic coordinates

47 articles in Category:Wisconsin articles missing geocoordinate data do not have geographic coordinates. Coords are useful for making the article appear on Google Maps & many other mapping services; and they allow our users to click through to see the article subject location on a map. There's a short guide to on how to add geocodes to articles ... it really is very easy to do. I hope you'll take some time to ensure that Wisconsin is as well represented as it can be on wikipedia by fixing up the listed articles. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:47, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/ USGS GNIS is a good place to get coords for many locations in the US. --Dual Freq (talk) 02:54, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Chief Justice Dieterich, Wisconsin Supreme Court

Here is a proposal to move an article about a senator over William H. Dieterich, a disambiguation page. Another person by this name was William H. Dieterich (judge), a Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The article William H. Dieterich (judge) is a stub and lacks references; please expand it and add references. --Una Smith (talk) 22:23, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Questionably licensed Wisconsin images

Someone might want to double check this upload log. It looks like many of these are web images erroneously claimed GFDL. I'm not very diplomatic about these sorts of things and I don't want to discourage their other contributions. --Dual Freq (talk) 17:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I've left a note, hopefully not too confusing and put nld tags on all the copyrighted images. --Dual Freq (talk) 02:54, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Looks good. Are we allowed to removed the GNU tags from image where it's clear he did not take the photos? -Freekee (talk) 06:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
I removed tags and requested new licenses for the ones that were clearly taken from the internet. If that user would like to claim fair use for those they can add a non-free tag, but most of them are for structures that still exist, so I don't think the fair use rationale would be accepted. I suppose the other option would be to run it through the PUI process, but I don't think that's needed in this case. --Dual Freq (talk) 01:02, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Possible wrong data in infoboxes

Hey folks, I just discovered a problem with some village infoboxes. All of the articles on Ozaukee County villages that had infoboxes were using the population and area information from their associated towns. (In other words, the Village of Grafton infobox had info from the Town of Grafton.) The changes were made by Capitalbot in October 2007. Please check the towns, villages and cities that you're familiar with. Or even the ones you're not. If you see two village/town/cities of the same name sharing the same numbers, please change them to agree with the data in the text section of the article, or leave a note on the talk page or here. -Freekee (talk) 17:49, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The bot's user page shows it's progress for infoboxes in all states as complete or skipped for every state except Wisconsin, where it says "Complete - but with a few known problems; will fix soon!" Its last edits were made on October 23, 2007. The contribution logs for the bot lists about 1500 edits for Wisconsin. -Freekee (talk) 18:01, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I did a haphazard sampling of places in the state and found that the problem is not isolated to Ozaukee County. Every place with more than one jurisdiction with the same name that I checked had the same problem. See the towns and villages of Arlington, Columbia County; Eastman, Crawford County; Mazomanie, Dane County; Hustisford, Dodge County (and on and on). Is there really no other recourse but to find them all manually and change them all manually? --Sift&Winnow 20:38, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Maybe a bot user has some suggestions? I asked CapitalR if he could offer any assistance. Every county has a navbox. We could make a list of all 72 counties, and mark them when they're checked/fixed. -Freekee (talk) 17:24, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't see how a bot or WP:AWB could do it. I went through several counties quickly. I don't think it would take very long. Royalbroil 17:51, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Locating same-named towns, villages, and cities can also be done using the List of towns in Wisconsin, List of villages in Wisconsin, and List of cities in Wisconsin. --Sift&Winnow 18:34, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
   * Adams County, Wisconsin
   * Ashland County, Wisconsin
   * Barron County, Wisconsin
   * Bayfield County, Wisconsin
   * Brown County, Wisconsin
   * Buffalo County, Wisconsin
   * Burnett County, Wisconsin
   * Calumet County, Wisconsin
   * Chippewa County, Wisconsin
   * Clark County, Wisconsin
   * Columbia County, Wisconsin
   * Crawford County, Wisconsin
   * Dane County, Wisconsin
   * Dodge County, Wisconsin
   * Door County, Wisconsin
   * Douglas County, Wisconsin
   * Dunn County, Wisconsin
   * Eau Claire County, Wisconsin
   * Florence County, Wisconsin
   * Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin
   * Forest County, Wisconsin
   * Grant County, Wisconsin
   * Green County, Wisconsin
   * Green Lake County, Wisconsin
   * Iowa County, Wisconsin
   * Iron County, Wisconsin
   * Jackson County, Wisconsin
   * Jefferson County, Wisconsin
   * Juneau County, Wisconsin
   * Kenosha County, Wisconsin
   * Kewaunee County, Wisconsin
   * La Crosse County, Wisconsin
   * Lafayette County, Wisconsin
   * Langlade County, Wisconsin
   * Lincoln County, Wisconsin
   * Manitowoc County, Wisconsin
   * Marathon County, Wisconsin
   * Marinette County, Wisconsin
   * Marquette County, Wisconsin
   * Menominee County, Wisconsin
   * Milwaukee County, Wisconsin
   * Monroe County, Wisconsin
   * Oconto County, Wisconsin
   * Oneida County, Wisconsin
   * Outagamie County, Wisconsin
   * Ozaukee County, Wisconsin
   * Pepin County, Wisconsin
   * Pierce County, Wisconsin
   * Polk County, Wisconsin
   * Portage County, Wisconsin
   * Price County, Wisconsin
   * Racine County, Wisconsin
   * Richland County, Wisconsin
   * Rock County, Wisconsin
   * Rusk County, Wisconsin
   * St. Croix County, Wisconsin
   * Sauk County, Wisconsin
   * Sawyer County, Wisconsin
   * Shawano County, Wisconsin
   * Sheboygan County, Wisconsin
   * Taylor County, Wisconsin
   * Trempealeau County, Wisconsin
   * Vernon County, Wisconsin
   * Vilas County, Wisconsin
   * Walworth County, Wisconsin
   * Washburn County, Wisconsin
   * Washington County, Wisconsin
   * Waukesha County, Wisconsin
   * Waupaca County, Wisconsin
   * Waushara County, Wisconsin
   * Winnebago County, Wisconsin
   * Wood County, Wisconsin
If you put the word "auto" in the density fields, it calculates it for you! -Freekee (talk) 04:57, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks - the "auto" tip is quite helpful! Make sure that you change the "settlement_type" field from Town to either village or city. Royalbroil 04:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Wha? That's an odd field - it doesn't display anywhere, does it? *looks it up* Oh, it only displays if the "name" field is filled in. And then, IMO, it doesn't look very good. Okay, since it doesn't display anywhere, I'm not going to go back and fix the ones I've already done, but I'll correct the ones I do from here out. -Freekee (talk) 04:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
If anyone could spare some time, we'd appreciate some help cleaning these up. Thanks. -Freekee (talk) 03:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
Is Superior really a town, village, and city? I've always thought that the villages and cities in a county had to have different names. I know that towns frequently have the same name as a city or village. Royalbroil 04:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Check out these two lists from the Wisconsin Department of Administration:
Both report that there are 3 Superiors in Douglas County - a city, a village, and a town. --Sift&Winnow 16:02, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Wow, interesting! Thanks! Royalbroil 01:46, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I've been going county by county, using this list. It makes it really easy to compare. -Freekee (talk) 06:07, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I had just found them. They are VERY helpful because you just have to go through the cities and villages. Going through all of these counties, I'm VERY impressed with how many cities that I photographed! Royalbroil 02:43, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for finishing those up! (I haven't had time to spend here lately.) I'm a little surprised all these went unnoticed for so long. -Freekee (talk) 01:34, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Wisconsin templete

While I was adding Colonel Robert Bruce McCoy's name to the Sparta, Wisconsin article-I notice the WikiProject Wisconsin templete was deleted from the talk page of the Sparta, Wisconsin article.Why did this happen?Is there a problem we have to look at?Has this been done to other articles connected to the project?I let RoyalBroil know.I did put it back.Thanks-RFD (talk) 14:28, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I looked at the deleted edits with the admin mop thingie. The original Sparta article had been for the town, and Tshilo12 moved the town article to Sparta (town), Wisconsin and deleted the main article (as an admin). So at that time, there was no article named Sparta, Wisconsin. Another admin deleted the talk page because there was no article associated with it. In other words, don't worry about it. You did the right thing by creating the page. Royalbroil 03:24, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Requested move notification

I have requested the move of Empire Builder to Empire Builder (Amtrak). Reasons given at the talk page. Mjroots (talk) 14:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

I added the new alert system so that we can see if any article in the WikiProject is nominated for deletion, Did You Know, Good Article, etc. You can find out more at Wikipedia:Article alerts. Royalbroil 02:40, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 07:00, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:52, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Frankie Rayder/GA1

At Talk:Frankie Rayder/GA1, there is a discussion on the organization of Frankie Rayder. If anyone has any advice, please comment.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 07:12, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I have replied and made comments from an outside view. Royalbroil 01:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Project tasks

I was looking around at the project recently, and decided I'd update the Tasks list at the top right of the Project page. I was somewhat bold about it, so take a look. First of all, I thought the list of articles to expand was really too big. There's already a huge list of stubs, so having a whole bunch of articles there is kinda redundant. I removed some that looked like they were in decent shape, and some others that were just plain stubby. Most of the ones I left seemed to me to have a higher importance. I cleared out the list of articles needing cleanup, since there weren't any that stood out as needing particular help. And then I took a couple of names off the list of "articles to create". And fixed some article names in the Lists section. The other big change I made was to remove the header for "To Destub". I see no difference in that and "To expand".

Feel free to take a look at my changes, and add things back if you feel it neccessary - you won't hurt my feelings - though I'd prefer you didn't outright revert it without a discussion.

Here's what it looked like yesterday, and here's the diff. Thanks! -Freekee (talk) 03:21, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

One other thing. I removed the Project collaboration of Milwaukee Public Museum. That's been at the top of the list for years. I would love to see a collaboration, but I think we should only list an active collaboration there. Let's get going on one, and when (or if) work peters out, we remove it from the task list. If someone would like to get one going, please start a new section and let's discuss it. -Freekee (talk) 03:25, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Good job, it was out of control. I don't think that anyone was using it anyhow. The people who created most of that list probably havent' edited for a few years anyhow. Royalbroil 03:41, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
There was a slow but steady stream of updates, so some people were aware, but it seems most of the changes were alphabetizing things. -Freekee (talk) 04:10, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Lists to complete, I would appreciate it if people would take care of these lists. If you volunteer to do one, research it, and either complete the list, or update it as far as you think it can be done. Then take it off the list. Basically, we need someone to say either "this is complete" or "this is as good as it gets." Thanks again! -Freekee (talk) 04:14, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Reworked the project page

Okay, I think I'm done, for the moment. I changed everything around. I don't think I actually added or removed much, but I reorganized it. There are three main sections. Project organization, Tasks, and Resources, including members. That members list got out of hand, so I removed and transcluded it, at the bottom of the page. I think that section needs a little help, since I didn't really know what I was doing. I think it needs more visibility, at the very least, a more visible "show" button. Maybe some color or headers or something. Feel free to give it some love. Many projects just have a link to their members category, but I really like this list on the project page, especially since people say a little about themselves. We could leave it shown, since it's at the bottom, even if it does take up a third of the page. What do y'all think? -Freekee (talk) 05:24, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, That Participants section at the bottom is kinda invisible. Can someone help? Maybe add some color or something? -Freekee (talk) 16:42, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Wisconsin Participants page seems screwed up.

When I went to see the participants it only showed names R through Z. I tried several times. I'm not sure what the problem is. ???? Capitalismojo (talk) 12:58, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

This link; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiProject_Wisconsin_participants gives the bad list. The "show" button at the bottom of the WikiProject Wisconsin does show all the participants. So those who navigate to participants via the WikiProject pages (as I did this morning) can not view the participants for reasons that are unclear to me. Any thoughts? Capitalismojo (talk) 19:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Nevermind. It just seems like a formatting issue on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiProject_Wisconsin_participants . Everyone is listed but it just starts with 'R' for some reason. Odd but, eh not so problematic. Capitalismojo (talk) 19:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
No, the list is alphabetized properly... sort of. Notice that RoyalBroil is the only one who changes his name to display under proper alphabetization? Everyone else is alphabetical under "user". For anyone else interested in alphabetizing properly, put {{DEFAULTSORT:your name here}} on your userpage. -Freekee (talk) 00:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I can remove defaultsort for this list to make my name listed the same as everyone else! Royalbroil 03:43, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure how much it matters. Though it did cause confusion to at least one person. I'd like to see everyone sorting, but I doubt that's going to happen. I wonder if we can add the DEFAULTSORT to the userbox. -Freekee (talk) 04:25, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
It doesn't matter to me. It is probably too minor too worry about. Capitalismojo (talk) 00:08, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Participants - administrators?

Speaking of the participants list, do members who are admins want to mention that on the list? It could be nice if someone needs some admin-style help, so they'd have someone to ask. -Freekee (talk) 05:22, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree, it's helpful to know who to ask when a block or protection situation comes up. Royalbroil 12:07, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
I would have just put it by your name, but I think a separate section is a good idea. Thanks! -Freekee (talk) 16:45, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

New article

I just wrote an article. Anyone want to take a look and see if anything needs improvement? American System-Built Homes. Thanks! -Freekee (talk) 16:45, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Does your WikiProject care about talk pages of redirects?

Does your project care about what happens to the talk pages of articles that have been replaced with redirects? If so, please provide your input at User:Mikaey/Request for Input/ListasBot 3. Thanks, Matt (talk) 02:32, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation

This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:57, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Governor, Lt. Governor, Sec. State, Treasurer: Should their official pay scale be included in articles.

Their pay is online at the JS Online site. I believe is is also at the online Bluebook. Should they be included? Capitalismojo (talk) 21:14, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

That sort of information doesn't seem very "encyclopedic" to me. Or all that important, really. Can it be framed with some sort of context? If not, I'd say not to bother. But if you really want to add it, I wouldn't argue about it. -Freekee (talk) 04:24, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm with Freekee in feeling that this is the kind of uber-trivia we don't need here. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:46, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Okey doke. Sounds good. Capitalismojo (talk) 22:53, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Yea, too far off topic to me. Royalbroil 04:49, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

New article that could use help

I started 2 new articles, one on polka hall of famer Verne Meisner. Polka coverage on Wikipedia was really bad. I emailed Tom Brusky offline with questions about his article, and he suggested that I work up articles for Meisner and Louis Bashell. I decided to nominate Meisner's article for Did You Know using the fact that he (and his son Steve) were the first polka artists to win the Wisconsin Area Music Industry (WAMI) award. I assume that they won the Best Artist when they won in 1988. Either that, or it was the first year that ANY polka artist won an award. I'd appreciate if anyone can clarify. So I created a new article on WAMI, but it falls short of the 1500 characters to get a double nomination. If anyone can help expand WAMI to make 1500 characters, they can get a DYK credit too! Anyone wanna help? Royalbroil 13:27, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Good work, particularly on Meisner's article. And thanks for creating the WAMI article. That's been needed for quite some time. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a lot of information about it out there. I added a few backlinks to other articles. On a tangent, there was an article in the newspaper yesterday about how the polka category was dropped from the Grammys. -Freekee (talk) 17:45, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for you help, Freekee! I was just about to leave a thank you note on your talk page. I had heard about polka getting axed from the Grammys. Kinda sad. Fortunately, I'm not a fan. I went to a family wedding this Saturday, and I was surprised at how full the dance floor got when they played an occasional polka. Even the teenagers and 20-somethings knew how to dance it. Royalbroil 02:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
I wish I could have been of more assistance. It's kinda funny that people are complaining about the Grammys dropping polka, but the WAMIs dropped years ago! I hope that polka still fits in some other category (i'm not a fan either, but a fan of music in general). I wish WAMI had their own info online. Folklib.net doesn't have info on any of their polka awards prior to 1996. I guess we'll have to assume that the one reference you found is reliable. -Freekee (talk) 05:38, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Special:Search/Wisconson

I've fixed a number of these, but feel it could be better handled by someone with the time and patience to figure out how to do it with a bot... Tomertalk 20:53, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

checkY Done It was easy for me. Next time that you need something automated, let me know. Royalbroil 01:23, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
Excellent! Thanks RB! :) Tomertalk 20:13, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Mazo Beach

We need to do something about the Mazo Beach article- Wisconsin's nudist beach. The article is unclear as to exactly where the beach is and this is a controversal subject. One editor took the references out claiming they are bad. Another editor thinks the references are outdated-Thanks-RFD (talk) 00:02, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

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