User talk:NorCalHistory/Archive5

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Archive 2

Do you realize you just created a mainspace article called Archive 2? I don't think that's what you intended... --Finngall talk 21:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Thomas J. Farnham

I just started an article on this person and came across a reference to an incident in CA called the Graham Affair. Don't know if you are interested in starting an article or if you know someone who might be, but it looks interesting. Aboutmovies 23:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Image tagging for Image:California_Clipper_500.jpg

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History of the west coast of North America

I would be happy to look at this. Here's my question: how far inland should I go?? For example, I wouldn't think that the Valley of Mexico should be included in the article since it's equidistant from the coast. I believe I should concentrate on the true coastal areas. In any case, I'm interested. Thanks for the offer, Madman (talk) 04:39, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Lake Siskiyou

No probs. There may be a category for man made lakes or reservoirs in California. I would be inclined to use something like that rather than Lakes which implies it is natural. Just quickly scanning th newbies thats all. Regards Baldy ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ Talk? 18:21, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks much for the California Barn Star - Much appreciated! Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 02:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Kanakas in Siskiyou County

Thanks for adding that to my baby, List of Chinook Jargon placenames, which was made from an exhaustive search of known CJ words in online databases; there may be others), interesting to think about that again after finding those when searching Topozone to build the US portion of the list; who these Hawaiians were? There are two main possible routes/paths by which a Hawaiian might have settled in that area, either through the fur company (HBC/NWC at Fort Vancouver) or later on in the gold rush - '48 is relatively late in the history of Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest, although there again they could have been "Oregon Kanakas", i.e. from the Oregon Country/Territory (term is my coinage, not historic), or those who came to California directly during the spawning of California (from the "uprising" against the Mexicans through to statehood sounds like a great period to read a book on, lots of crazy characters and strange political stew...any suggestions? Thing that always gets me with Cali and Texas and some of the other erstwhile independent states is those interregnum periods are chaotic; though not all books describing them capture that, or go after it; that's what I'd like...when I finally get time to read again). Anyway, just cause I know your Cali thought I'd comment on those Kanaka placenames in Siskiyou County; any chance of finding out about Kanaka communities in rural California, and/or if this was maybe an HBC-connected placename? Who knows, one of them might be article-worthy, or at least an interesting tale overall. Ref Kanaka article for ref to Tom Koppel's book (no relation) by that title; and see talkpage for my usual....Skookum1 (talk) 00:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

San Francisco

Portsmouth Square, 1851.
Portsmouth Square, 1851.

Hi, I've restored this article and added it to the California gold rush article. Perhaps you'd be able to identify: is that Telegraph Hill in the background? Regards, DurovaCharge! 06:38, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

"acre-feet" conversion?

Ya got one for "acre-feet"? It's the most common American measure of the volume of large bodies of water - typically a reservoir behind a dam. If you check around some of the reservoir/dam articles, you could probably find out the metric equivalent unit (m3? km3?) and figure out the conversion formula math. Let us know if you work one out! Thanks for your work. NorCalHistory (talk) 19:10, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know about that unit. I have done lots of conversions of acre feet in Wikipedia. Try the following code:
  • {{convert|76|acre feet}}. This will give 76 acre feet (94,000 m³)
  • {{convert|9000000|acre feet|km3}}. This will give 9,000,000 acre feet (11 km³)
I hope that helps
Lightmouse (talk) 11:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


Interstate 5

You don't consider a 3.5 days closure of Interstate 5 to be notable? —EncMstr 03:26, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

No offense taken. As I recall, it's been over 40 years since anything of that magnitude occurred. Even Mount St Helens raining ash on I-5 in 1980 had much less disruption. The aftereffects were felt for weeks as retail stores of all kinds had minimal inventory. Perhaps in other areas a multi-day closure of the only interstate highway for a hundred miles is routine, but not here. I'll accept your decision however. —EncMstr 07:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Sacramento River map

Hi, sorry for the delay in replying -- it's been a while since I made that map and even longer since I acquired the data I couldn't remember exactly where to point you. I had to boot up the Old Computer. I made that map with ArcGIS, an absurdly expensive GIS program that I was able to get cheap as a GIS student a while back. GIS software in general is able to do the overlaying of states, counties, rivers, watersheds, etc. There are some free GIS programs out there if you want to dive in. I'm not up to date on what programs can do what, so I'm not much help there. I got the river and watershed data from the National Atlas website: watersheds and streams and waterbodies. These datasets were made by the USGS -- though perhaps I ought to credit National Atlas too. Unfortunately you need some kind of GIS software to read these files. Hope that helps! Now that I have the Old Computer booted up perhaps I will see if I remember how to make a map and make one for the Trinity River. Pfly (talk) 05:36, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Well I threw together a rough map of the Klamath River and Trinity River, see: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:TrinityRiver_watershed.png and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:KlamathRiver_watershed.png
I remember now why I slowed down making these kind of maps -- I wasn't exactly happy with the look coming direct from ArcGIS, so I began to fiddle with them in Photoshop and Illustrator, improving the cartography, adding text, key cities, and other map features. But this extra work added at least twice the time for making a map, so everything bogged down, although the results were much better, I think (like this one; http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Clark_Fork_Map.png (note no watershed shading for international rivers since the USGS data is US only). Still that kind of detailed map is more than I can bite into at the moment. Perhaps these rougher maps might be useful, as they are or as a basemap to build from. Let me know if I can do anything else. I enjoy making maps like these, when I have the energy and time. Thought I'd post these two quickies in case they are useful. And thanks for reminding me of how fun, albeit time-consuming, map-making can be.
Another excellent river map-maker, whose style I deliberately imitated at first, is User:Kmusser. He has made some lovely maps, like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Senecarivermap.png His GIS data sources are much the same as mine, except I don't know where he got that nice hillshading layer. I believe his user page has more info on sources and methods of making these kind of maps. Pfly (talk) 06:55, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
They are all merged down -- I just took screenshots of ArcGIS and dumped them into Photoshop. The slightly-out-of-date version of ArcGIS I have is not good about exporting maps into useful layers. But I find in Photoshop I can at least fiddle with colors using the eyedropper and select by color range. Each "layer" is its own color, so one could manually layerize the file. I just made a geobox plus map of Trinity River (California), see what you think. I'm on my way down to CA in a few days -- but to the Santa Barbara area, where rivers are dry more often than not. Cheers! Pfly (talk) 07:42, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Heh, I bet that one of yours took all day -- making maps is a lot more work than most people realize, I think. Looks great though! Pfly (talk) 07:44, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: Well-intended anon editor

Sure! Glad to help. - Milk's Favorite Cookie 20:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Northern California History

Dear NorCalHistory,

I notice that you are protective of the history section for the Northern California article. Unfortunately that section is in need of serious revision. It offers little, if anything, that is specifically Northern California history. Instead, it is simply a standard California history with the word "Northern" stuck in whenever the word California appears. The Northern California article deserves a better history section.

I feel, as do others, that the section should be eliminated or revised. Since you seem to be in the camp that feels the history section should stay, I would like to invite you to rework the section to make it truly about Northern California. In order for the Northern California article to be as strong as possible, anything that would appear in this revised history section should pass the litmus test of being information that would not normally appear in the article for the entire state of California. History for the entire State of California is best included in the "Northern California" article via a link to the "California" article. The discussion page for the Northern California includes a growing number of topics that could be worthwile topics for a revised Northern California history section.

Please understand that dispite my possibly bitchy tone, I mean no offense. I sincerely believe that the Northern California history section could use serious help. Given your username and your obvoious care for creating quality articles on California, I think you are better qualified than most to initiate much-needed changes to the article. Thanks! 75.37.144.221 (talk) 03:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Dear anon editor - I'm flattered (I think!) by your comments! The last time that I contributed in any substantive way to the Northern California article was in Nov/Dec 2006 - some 15 months ago. A quick read of the History section just now makes me scratch my head a bit at some of the reactions. Much of the history of California did take place in Northern California (Monterey, Sonoma, Gold Rush, San Francisco, Sacramento, etc.) so I'm not sure exactly why these events aren't viewed as appropriate in an article about Northern California. If there are additional topics to discuss in that article, those additional topics could be easily accommodated, but I'm not sure that I see the need to delete the current section. I'll go re-read through the talk page comments, and see if there's anything particularly valuable I might be able to add. Thanks for the heads-up! NorCalHistory (talk) 04:55, 21 February 2008 (UTC)


Dear NoCalHistory - I really appreciate the efforts you have been making in order to strengthen the history section of the Northern California article. Passion such as yours is exactly what makes Wikipedia great.
I understand your point about my notion of a litmus test, and can only say that there may sometimes a fine line between what is superfluous duplication of information about California History, and what would be a meaningful addition to the Northern California article. Your example of the SF earthquake is interesting. I think the key difference is that it would not be redundant in a SF article because the SF earthquake did not have the same impact for ALL of California, or even in areas relatively close to SF. While the earthquake was certainly important to all of California, it was obviously much more important to San Francisco itself. I think the difference is that a California History article would not cover the earthquake in the same depth as a San Francisco history article would.
In contrast, if you devote sections of the Northern California History section to the standard California history of Native Americans, Spanish Rule, Mexican Rule, Sutter’s Mill, American Settlers, Statehood, the Gold Rush, etc. it isn't really information that is going to be unique to this article - it's going to be redundant. I think you would agree that there is enough to say about Northern California that could make for a long article. Even if for no other reason than efficiency, I would suggest we focus on topics and details that aren't going to be found in the same form in other articles. On Wikipedia, related articles are only a mouse click away, after all. In my opinion, if an historical event is also true, or is equally important for, Southern California, it should probably only get brief mention in the Northern California article - it will be covered in the California History Article(s). The difficult thing, I think, in writing a history for Northern California is that it is a large region that covers half the state, and which - just to make things really interesting - doesn't have 100% set-in-stone boundaries. As such, it is hard to distinguish what is Northern Californian and what is simply Californian.
My personal thought is that I would mention things such as the fact that the missions extended only as far as Sonoma, and that areas north of there were basically outside of sphere of Spanish rule during the colonial period. I would probably also mention something about Sir Francis Drake landing in Northern California and declaring New Albion (although recent research seems to suggest he may have landed in Oregon, and nothing really came of it anyway, so maybe that isn't so good), about Russian fur trappers (who, to make the Cal/NorCal distinction clear, did not go to Southern California)...Historical details that have much more importance for Northern California than for California as a whole, and that aren't going to get the same coverage anywhere else. I admit, it's not always cut and dry.
I'm going to re-post the bulk of this to add to the dialog going on at the NoCal discussion page.
Keep up the good work! BTW, I made sure to log-in this time. I'm still getting the hang of Wikipedia. I understand why you are - officially, at least - taking a break from Wikipedia. It sure takes a lot of time! Udibi (talk) 06:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)



Re:GA review of Castle Lake, California

That's ok, take your time. I find it easier to take my time in improving an article, rather than rushing. :) Again, for the most part, it looks good other than a couple of issues. Juliancolton The storm still blows... 01:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind, but I gave you a few more suggestions as to how to further improve the article. Juliancolton The storm still blows... 17:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Great, it always helps when people are willing to do more work! Again, if you want, I can go through and give it a copyedit if you are having a hard time finding some issues. Juliancolton The storm still blows... 17:12, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I'd be happy to help. Juliancolton The storm still blows... 17:16, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
It looks much better. A few more tweaks and it should be good to go. Juliancolton The storm still blows... 17:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I've made some tweaks, and I think it is much better now that you have addressed all of the issues. However, I always like to see the nominator take one last look at it, to see if there is anything more they can do to improve the article. All around, it looks very good. Juliancolton The storm still blows... 17:56, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Great, thanks. Juliancolton The storm still blows... 18:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I will give it a final review. Also, thank you for your kind comments, and as well, it was a pleasure working with you, and if you have any more GANs I will be happy to review them, and if you need help with something, just leave me a message. Juliancolton The storm still blows... 19:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


Re Featured Pic nom

Umm, not sure what you're talking about. On FPC new noms go to the top of the list (page), same on PPR. Edited/revised noms still stay in their correct order until the nomination is closed & archived. Renominations are possible if you feel a significantly revised nom hasn't attracted enough feedback since the revision. It's just basic etiquette - if you reorder them it indicates some candidates should have some sort of priority over all the others. --jjron (talk) 05:27, 13 March 2008 (UTC)