Talk:James Whitcomb Riley Museum Home

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Whitcomb Riley Museum Home is within the scope of WikiProject Indianapolis, an open collaborative effort to coordinate work for and sustain comprehensive coverage of metropolitan Indianapolis, Indiana and related subjects in the Wikipedia.
Start This article has been rating as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the Project's importance scale.
Please explain ratings on the ratings summary page.

This article is within the scope of the National Register of Historic Places WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of listings on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the assessment scale.
DYK A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on February 5, 2008

[edit] SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN MOVED!!!

Instead of moving it, I SHOULD HAVE BEEN ASKED WHY I NAMED IT AS SUCH. I used "James Whitcomb Riley Museum Home" to

  1. prevent confusion with the James Whitcomb Riley House of Greenfield.
  2. it is called that in the book "My Indiana:101 Places to See", a publication of the Indiana Historical Society, and in the AAA Tourbook for Indiana
  3. it is called that at http://www.rileykids.org/museum/tour/entrance.asp http://www.indy.com/venues/show/5376 and http://www.indy.org/indianapolis/web/jsp/whattodo/detail.jsp?c=7014807:showhide&p=1&x=1202300649179

In other words...IT IS THE ACTUAL NAME!!! Next time, ASK WHY I NAMED IT AS SUCH!!! --Bedford 12:28, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The main reason, and a valid reason on its own, to move it is that I looked at the "Official Site" given in the article and that reports, after you drill down to the source document a walking tour guide to the Lockerbie district, that it is named James Whitcomb Riley Home. The name J W R Museum Home sounds weird, like it is the home of the museum on James Whitcomb Riley, not a home of JWR himself. So it seems reasonable to go to a more normal, and the official name for the house. doncram (talk) 20:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
A separate point than about the name of the article, is what should appear in the NRHP/NHL infobox. The name of the site on the National Register of Historic Places of the United States of America, is "J W R House". The name of the site in the National Historic Landmark program of the United States of America is "J W R House". For both reasons, and for consistency with policy on NRHP infoboxes, it should be J W R House there, no matter whether a different common name for the site is used as the name of the article. doncram (talk) 20:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I think it is better in wikipedia articles to confront the truth straight on (the truth that this is, weirdly, one of 2 sites given the same name by the National Register). It is better in encyclopedia articles not to avoid this truth by coming up with an alternative name that is not in official use by the site. doncram (talk) 20:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I reverted the article to my last edit, because I had added NHL webpage reference and a long reference that is the NRHP text PDF file for the site, which was lost in the Undo performed by Bedford. Please do not lose these references. Sincerely, doncram (talk) 20:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Further, checking the asserted uses of the "ACTUAL" name, i do not immediately find the asserted name used at the first link given, which is the website of RileyKids which seems to be a children's hospital which has an affinity for the nearby home of its namesake, but which may be / seems to me to be external to the actual organisation that owns/controls the house. Browsing around within the rileykids site, i do find the name at its [Museum Home - FAQ]. However, the FAQ seems unreliable on other points: it starts off "James Whitcomb Riley Museum Home…Remains the only late-Victorian preservation in the United States." which is surely a false statement. Later it asserts "Was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1963." which is false because a) the National Register was not created until 1966, and b) by the reference to the NHL webpage I document that it was named to a National Historic Landmark in 1962, not 1963. So I do not take this webpage to be an authoritative source. As for the other two links, that are at www.indy.org and www.indy.com, those are attractions site lists that are taking up and repeating an unofficial and awkward name for the site. They are not primary, authoritative sources.

Note, I do not insist that the NRHP/NHL name for the site is necessarily the name used by the current/official owners of the site (I don't know who those are). If they use another name, and that can be documented, then i would be fine with that for the name of the article. The NRHP/NHL name is the only name that should be represented as the NRHP and NHL name for the site, however. doncram (talk) 21:07, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] new photos and photo uploads needed

The article is illustrated by one of the 3 NRHP photos from 1975. Additional photos, interior and exterior would help. There are high quality photos of interior and exterior available from HABS link just added to article, that could be uploaded to commons and used. Also, new color pictures would help. doncram (talk) 22:02, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


It is requested that a photograph or photographs be included in this article to improve its quality.

Wikipedians in Indiana may be able to help!

The Free Image Search Tool (FIST) may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites.