Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Milpitas, California

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[edit] Milpitas, California

(Self-nom) That's right - the Milpitas article is going for a featured article nomination. Here are a few good reasons why I think this article is such a fascinating and high-quality work on Wikipedia:

  1. This article is really detailed for a suburb with a population of only 62,698 people. The Sunnyvale, California and Santa Clara, California articles still look sort of like stubs, but those two cities each have a population TWO times larger than the Milpitas article (about 120,000). This article is even beginning to rival that of San Jose, California. The "Television" and "Radio" sections (under Media) is more detailed than the media list on the San Jose article. Although it may not be as big as some of the other featured aticles, the article size for Milpitas is tremendous. Because I used many offline resources for this article, some of the information available can not be seen in any other place on the World Wide Web.
  2. The images are colorful and fascinating. In fact, I myself took many of the photographs. These pictures actually give readers an idea of what Milpitas is like, and the different sides of the city are also shown. This article is just studded with these jewels.
  3. Reliable sources are also used for this Milpitas article. I used many offline resources - all of them are found under the "Bibliography" section. I have also used many of the external links in writing this article, but I didn't heavily rely on them. This article has absolutely NO copy-and-paste work. That's right - I have done no cheating by copying texts from other websites. This article is totally an original work that I have written and spent hours writing on. The bibliography and external links sections all cite the resources for this article, so you know that this is a serious no-nonsense work that I have written originally.
  4. The history section shows the rural past of Milpitas. Many people just see Milpitas as an ordinary suburb of San Jose, but when you read about the history, you can see the rich cultural heritage and the local life of this formerly farming town. I have used the books Milpitas: A Century of Little Cornfields, Milpitas: Five Dynamic Decades, and History of Milpitas as important sources for this article.
  5. Urban layout, neighborhoods, geography, transportation, and climate are all really detailed, with nothing important missed. This article is about a small suburb, but it is huge!
  6. See also, external links, and bibliography direct readers to more information on this town. Besides citing references, these detailed lists give ample resources for further study.
  7. I have worked very hard on this article for weeks and put lots of information in here. These weeks have been fun and also educational for me. The flowing sentences, dazzling illustrations, detailed information, etc - this is just brilliant prose. I have been working on this for months, and it has really gotten a long way. Come on, let's give this article a try for a featured article nomination!


-- Milpitas guy 06:49, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Object Good work overall. Two things that should be fixed are the overwhelming Table of Contents and lack of inline references to your print sources (e.g. footnotes or parenthetical citations) for things like climate, "issues," and so on. I think the header organization could be improved (for shrinking the table of contents) by working the "notable corporations" into the text above, making the police a bold line like "mayor" instead of a header, and making "geography" and "physical geography" a single section. Otherwise, it's probably featurable. Dave (talk) 13:58, May 19, 2005 (UTC)


Object — Its too early. I agree, you have made substantial good contributions to the Milpitas page, but much of it is new and has not undergone significant peer review to date. Lets put this off for at least a few months to give it time to develop some significant review/criticism/corrections. To get that ball rolling, here are some observations:
  • Factual error: "Highway 237 begins at Milpitas and goes east to Sunnyvale."
    • Comment: Changed to "west" now.
  • No city logo, seal or flag.
    • Comment: They were available on the city's website, but when I uploaded them, the Wikipedia server said that .bmp files aren't recommended. I linked to the seal from inside the article, but I can't upload them. Can anybody help me with this? Milpitas guy 21:42, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Is race needed/important in the following sentance? Why? "The Milpitas Police Department (MPD) is headed by Chief Charles Lawson, an African American who has been serving as chief since 1994."
  • Media section lists many stations and newspapers that do not originate in Milpitas. Area-wide media would be better seperated into a Media of the San Francisco Bay Area or San Francisco Bay Area Media page that every city/town can reference, and then only have the local media (KICU, KTEH, Milpitas Post) talked about on the Milpitas page.
  • Photos of Yosemite Drive and UP Railroad are unappealing and uninformative (empty pavement, empty rail line with no station, no crossings, no switches).
  • They really don't look boring to me, but if some people think it's boring, maybe we can get some more pictures. Milpitas guy 21:42, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
    • They're not ugly pictures, I just don't understand how they are relevant to the article. Can you tell me what they are supposed to illustrate? What makes them different than any other random piece of pavement or railroad? I don't get it. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 04:11, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
I think this article is on its way, but its not there yet. At least list it on Wikipedia:Peer Review before making it featured. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 16:07, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Support: Great work. I wish all city articles were as detailed and informative. Danny 00:27, 20 May 2005 (UTC)


After looking over the images on the page, it seems there are at least two (maybe three) copyright violations:
  • Image:Alviso adobe.jpg from [1] [2]
  • Image:Milpitas mid 1900s 1.jpg from http: xtalk.msk.su/photo/Milpitas/photo26.jpg (bogus formatting is needed because of the spam filter) — when questioned about this, the tag was changed to GFDL!
  • Image:Milpitas rr.jpg has no source information
--ChrisRuvolo (t) 21:26, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
The images were from the Milpitas history site, and they seemed to be on the public domain. Image:Milpitas mid 1900s 1.jpg is copyrighted or public domain? I really don't know. If not, delete it. This image seems to be the only questionable pic around here. Possibly a copyright violation. Anyways, I'm not familiar with copyright laws. If that image does violate copyright, pull it off. Milpitas guy 21:32, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
Image:Milpitas rr.jpg is also from the Milpitas history site at [3]. Milpitas guy 21:33, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
  • CopyrightedFreeUse is probably fit more for the images from the Milpitas history site. They probably aren't public domain. Sorry about that. Milpitas guy 21:36, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
I followed some of your suggestions for improvements.. As for Highway 237, "east" was changed to "west." I guess I had accidentally flipped the directions! Milpitas guy 21:29, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
Please leave the URL for the source of the "mid-1900s" image. Under US law, all creative works have copyright automaticly upon creation or publishing. You can't just take these images and declare them "CopyrightedFreeUse" without getting a license/permission to do so from the original copyright holder. The fact that they are published on the web only implies that they are licensed for viewing on the web in their original context. Automaticly, all rights are reserved. I will be listing these three images on Wikipedia:Copyright Problems. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 21:48, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
That's not true at all. There are many websites that utilize the Public Domain on their websites as well. Wikipedia isn't the only one. bob rulz 02:35, May 22, 2005 (UTC)
Unless you know a priori that the image is public domain, there is no indication of it, and you have to assume that it is copyrighted. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 02:57, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
Object - Oh, you were making it seem like no other websites utilized Public Domain. My mistake. Either way, I object to this becoming a featured article. I didn't look over the whole article, but from what I can tell it reads a lot like a travel guide, while the media section is unnecessarily large. Some of the formatting is strange too, wand it relies too much on lists and not enough on "describing" the objects that are located in a list (their location, importance, etc). Overall, with some work, it could work its way up to featured article status, but for the moment its still simply an above-average article. bob rulz 01:04, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

I have cited the sources from inside the article. External links (in brackets like this: [4]) also cite the sources. Milpitas guy 22:12, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I have also followed Harry491's and Chris' suggestions. The table of contents is now shorter and inline references were added. Possible copyvio images are now removed. This article now looks much better. Feature this article? Milpitas guy 22:22, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Object, there are too many list and not enough prose, particularlty in the later part of the article. For example

  1. why are all the schools listed, when they are on the list of schools in the district?
  2. radio and tv stations should be stuck on a separate list and summarised on this page like the media section in Brisbane.
  3. the Law and government section should also be written as prose instead of breaking it up with headings (this will also decrease the lenght of the TOC)
  4. shopping center list should be turned into prose or merged with the neighbourhoods section so the reader has some idea where they are, same with the parks section

The ordering of the sections needs to be tweaked too, see Summer Hill, New South Wales, the only suburb I can think of that has come close to featured status. With the format issues addressed this article should get to featured status --nixie 03:40, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Object – 1) I'm against the abuse of the ToC for geographical places. The ToC is too long. 2) There's no culture section. Sure its a suburb, but still a lot can be said about the culture of a place. Kalimpong is a Featured Article (50,000 residents); take a look at the size, headings and how to use the Footnote 3 style for inline references. 3) The Climate sections should be reworded, it reads more like a travel magazine. 4) Media section is too long, you could enter a few famous radio stations or better still make a new page titled: List of Milpitas radio stations. If this is not feasible, display it horizontally using a table. 5) Also some weasel words are used: "fairly good"; "good condition" (by whom?) 6) Needless text inserted Even though they have a white line to the left that warns drivers from crossing it, careless and speeding drivers often ignore bicycle lanes, so all bikers must exercise caution and ride as far to the right as possible. This is unnecessary, more like rules for motorists in the town. ==government== section is too small. A final analysis reveals that this needs a copyedit.  =Nichalp (talk • contribs)= 13:15, May 21, 2005 (UTC)