User talk:Peteforsyth

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Couple barnstars…gotta get these into the proper home!

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		I, David Shankbone, bestow upon you, Sir Pete Forsyth, the Defender of the Wiki Barnstar for your diligent work in defending you-know-what article against you-know-who, and for being an all around cool Wikipedian. David Shankbone 01:50, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

		The Wiki Wiffle Bat
		The Wiki Wiffle Bat is an award given to those who have shown exceptional skill in the area(s) of logic, rationality, dispute resolution/mediation particularly in the face of flames and general animosity. These people keep swinging in the face of long odds and distant goals! Thanks for your work in mediation type activities with Dante's. Aboutmovies 23:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC) & Katr67

		The COTW award from WPOR.
		Thanks for leading the way in last week's Collaboration of the Week! Great job leading the way with Hooley, the article looks a whole lot better. Aboutmovies 02:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

		WPOR Award: Sponsored in part by the Big Gold Dude.
		You are hereby granted this shiny object for all your hard work at WikiProject Oregon! Thank you especially for your work on Barlow Road. It really needed fresh eyes to organize it. —EncMstr

Contents 1 Oregon System 2 Legislative Initiative 3 Copyright item 4 US chapters 5 O-vanish irony 6 Columbia River 7 Vitter rfc redux 8 Geolinks coordinates 9 The AEI Legal Center Conflict 10 re:GA 11 Maps, and end-of-sentence punctuation 12 Platypic 13 off wiki ideas 14 Old Oregon Pages 15 Columbia River navbox 16 Brian Baird Biography 17 Re: William Overton 18 check out photos of a spectacular place! 19 State copyright 20 Photo improvements welcome 21 Aw shucks 22 A Big Thank You 23 GAN suggestion 24 GAN 25 hello, i'm writing right now, please be patient 26 Deleting redundant templates 27 Thank you! 28 Oregon COTW 29 Thought you might be interested to know 30 Tillamook, Oregon 31 Osho and WP:COIN 32 Steamboats navbox 33 Hanford 34 Deletion Image 35 Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Oregon 36 See comments 37 Sorry I missed your Goldschmidt request till now 38 Portlanders 39 Ben Holladay 40 Green Scare 41 {{Oregon legislation}} 42 B class 43 Colin Campbell Mitchell 44 Maps 45 Tak's phone number 46 DYK 47 "Novick aide apologizes for Wikipedia edits" 48 Gavin Newsom 49 WHEN you get a chance ... (not urgent!) 50 DYK 51 Brandon Roy 52 Shipwrecks/references 53 Re:WikiProject Oregon 54 Waterboarding 55 Perhaps obvious source for Columbia River as boundary 56 Images and Commons 57 Count me in 58 Lovejoy 59 Thanks! 60 DYK nomination 61 Ameri page 62 Columbia River GAN 63 Last item on your "To Do" list 64 Wiki stats 65 The Original Barnstar 66 Failing folks 67 Vera Katz and History 68 No free image 69 tribes got millions to move??? 70 New comment 71 Oops I didn't put a headline on my last comment (above). 72 Peer review request 73 I say Rouge, you say Rogue, let's call the whole thing off 74 Coastal cities 75 Debby Applegate 76 Location map problem SOLVED! 77 Hanford 78 KRRC (FM) 79 Jack Kemp 80 DYK nom 81 MedCom nom 82 Image copyright problem with Image:Oregon_State_Senate_Districts.png 83 YACHT 84 Re: VT 85 Pete, you rock! 86 Thanks on Colonel Wright 87 Luis Palau 88 Interstate Bridge 89 LPO 90 Got a minute look at something? 91 Article count graph 92 Elected Oregon 93 Image placeholder graphic 94 Concerns over the actions of David Gerard 95 RFC or maybe a project or 'Centralized discussion'? 96 Re: deletion 97 Thanks 98 DYK! 99 Bogus D.B. Cooper book 100 Your blog 101 Thanks 102 Wait for Discussion 103 I stumbled upon an open source web based photo album organizer today 104 DYK 105 'post 106 Elections template 107 Signpost 108 Re: Adminship 109 Wow this really works - positioning coordinates at the top of a page! 110 DYK 111 thanks for the noms 112 Edits to Historic Columbia River Highway 113 the endless debate 114 DYK nom 115 CfD nomination of Category:Oregon radio personalities 116 DYK 117 Juxtaposition COTW 118 Johnson Creek paperwork 119 Thanks! 120 You had a birthday? 121 Proposal to split Kettle Falls, Washington and Kettle Falls 122 Proposal 2 123 Thank spam for pete 124 Oregon House elections 125 Your RFA 126 RFA comment 127 Placeholder history 128 COTW+? 129 Barcamp 130 Conclusion: Image placeholders centralized discussion 130.1 Image placeholders 131 You are now an administrator 132 re:suggestion 133 Cinco de COTW 134 Barnstar 135 One for the success story files 136 Zzzz Oregon COTW 137 edit wars on United States Senate election in Mississippi, 2008 138 RFA question 138.1 IAR 139 Tnx for putting Dospat photo into infobox! 140 No free image--but she told me to use it! 141 Nugget Newspaper 142 Mike Cade 143 Henry Failing 144 DYK 145 QWERTY: Oregon COTW 146 my deletion 147 Thanks 148 67.171.158.152 and the Portland Armory 149 X marks the WPOR COTW spot 150 Fair use and living people 151 What would make the funny spacing in the ref. in this article? 152 Page move 153 Blog 154 Is prisonplanet RS? 155 3RR warning 156 Attack warning 157 Is something messed up here? 158 A is for Apple at COTW

[edit] Oregon System

I came across this, you might find it useful. Aboutmovies 00:01, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Legislative Initiative

Hello! I came across your userpage and the Oregon Legislative Initiative, to get Oregon state produced works released into the PD or licensed under CC. I would have to think this would also apply to institutionally-produced materials at each of the OUS institutions. Or does each institution (for example, the University of Oregon or UO Libraries) retain copyright on their products? This could potentially open up another stream of PD materials that might be available. akendall_(talk) 18:17, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm more than happy to help - particularly where copyright held by the state universities is concerned - sign me up! akendall_(talk) 19:16, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm still in, and the offer for copyeditin' still stands. Keep me in the loop via e-mail or whatever. Katr67 19:37, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome. I feel strongly that the work paid for by the people belongs to the people. Let me know how I can help on any aspect of the Oregon Open Content Initiative Duff 08:07, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright item

Something of interest for laws/copyrights I found at Wikipedia:Public domain: Under U.S. law, laws themselves and legal rulings also form a special class. All current or formerly binding laws, codes, and regulations produced by government at any level and the public record of any court case are in the public domain. [2] This applies even to the laws enacted in states and municipalities that ordinarily claim copyright over their work. The US Copyright Office has interpreted this as applying to all "edicts of government" both domestic and foreign.[5]

So I guess were a free to add laws to Wiki. Aboutmovies 01:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing that with me. It seems like common sense, but I've always had trouble justifying it in discussions that pop up. This will be vey useful! -Pete 17:07, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] US chapters

Have you been following this thread? Have you and your buddies thought about organizing an OR or PNW chapter? Seems to be right up you alley ;) 76.105.183.50 16:45, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Indeed it is! Local Wikimedia chapters…sounds like an excellent idea. Thanks to the tip…wish I knew who to thank! -Pete 17:08, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Just your local friendly admin who prefers to avoid social and political entanglements on en. You should sign up for Wikien-l, Foundation-l and wikipedia-l if you haven't already. Use a gmail account, since it automatically collapses the treads, otherwise the lists are unreadable. (About one out of twenty posts are worth reading)

See also: m:Chapters, m:Step-by-step chapter creation guide and m:Wikimedia United States of America 76.105.183.50 17:50, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] O-vanish irony

On your User:Peteforsyth/O-vanish page, two of your links listed after "See my comments here..." are now dead. Of course, they link to Oregonian articles. Heh. Never mind, I was clicking the links that you intentionally listed as dead.

I was wondering if you had written to anyone at the Oregonian to complain about the problem, and suggest a solution a la the NYTimes archives. Since you can access older articles using their paid archives and see a free preview, I don't understand why they can't make newer articles available that way. Perhaps a friendly letter pointing out how it makes Oregon look pretty rinky-dink might get some action. I'd be happy to co-sign such an article, or participate in a letter-writing campaign to get this fixed. --Sprkee 17:46, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I have not spoken directly to Michael Arrieta-Walden, who I believe is the right target for such a letter/call. Kari Chisholm of BlueOregon has, though (see this comment.) I agree that a letter signed by several people would be a good idea. Can you work up a draft? I could probably get Kari to sign on, and maybe a few other high-profile sorts. I'd say the main points to hit are:

• rinky-dinkness (love that term!) Definitely focus on the embarassing image it gives the Oregonian, and how far it goes toward advancing the notion that they don't "get" new media.
• compare to other local sources (the Tribune, WW, and Merc all do just fine by their readers) and national sources (as you say, the NYT and many others do fine by their readers and have a viable strategy to draw revenue for old stories)
• economic development
• public safety (these two are Kari's angle)
• the general interest of providing for the dissemination of good information (tie in with Oregonian's editorial mission?)
• list a few real-world scenarios of where it causes a problem (Wikipedia, blog posts, Kari's public safety example…)

Glad to know you're interested in this, I think we should make something happen!

-Pete 01:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Who, me? You wrote it already above!

I'll try to take a crack at it at some point soon and email it to you when I do. I did discover a backdoor workaround of sorts: If you use their old archive search at http://www.oregonlive.com/search/oregonian/ you do get a list of articles with a brief summary. It seems to work even for recent articles. It's much better than their ballyhooed new! improved! search that seems mostly to search local businesses and the contents of the OregonLive blogs. --Sprkee 16:52, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Columbia River

Glad to be of assistance and sorry it did not pass. I will keep it on my watchlist for vandals and the like, but perhaps a better way to get my feedback on improvements would be to ask periodically (i.e. section A is done - any comments?). I imagine you already know about this [1] but if you do not, it should be helpful. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

That link looks very promising, thanks! -Pete 04:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vitter rfc redux

Please, you have nothing to be sorry for. The method I used on the Vitter page by breaking down the problems into sections was learned from you on the Wilson page. I appreciated your calming voice and in no way expected you to slog through that lengthy "debate". I'm loving the 50 mph winds, myself. ∴ Therefore | talk 22:08, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Geolinks coordinates

Hey Pete, as you may have seen, nothing is going to change with the Geolinks thing. Do you understand what is going on there well enough to try to set up one of those nifty straw polls that you do? I realize there was already a very well-intentioned straw poll, but I think it just ended up confusing matters more. And in case it's not clear, I have no firm opinion one way or the other except that something has to be done about the empty headers. I guess we need to find an admin who is willing to make the agreed upon changes, because even if we get everyone's opinion, it will do us no good since we can't edit the template once we're done. If you're not up for it, maybe you can think of someone who would be? I've never filed an RFC, but maybe we could do that here? Katr67 03:15, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I did not notice, thanks for the heads-up. I made an attempt to summarize the situation [there], let me know what you think -- did I get the issue about right? I've never filed an RfC either, but I'm encouraged by User:Therefore's successful RfC recently…maybe we should expand our WikiResumes? It does seem that something a little more broad-based than authoritative admin action would probably be best. (Though I suspect that Geoff could be corralled back in, and could be a helpful voice in the process.) -Pete 07:37, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Cool, I'll take a look. Can you check my contribs for the post I've made just before this one? I have to ride off into the sunset...well, go to work...and I'm completely confused now. Could you clarify on that page if necessary? Katr67 15:45, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The AEI Legal Center Conflict

Hi Pete. My withdrawal had nothing to do with you. David reported me to AN/I, armed with age-old conflicts from my edit history. It worked - I decided to drop out unilaterally to avoid having to defend edits from two years ago. No article is worth having to put up with stuff like that. Thank you for your attempts to mediate. :-) ATren (talk) 01:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] re:GA

I responded to the bioterror article issue on my talk, but if you're looking to do some GA reviewing...Hillsboro, Oregon is up for review, as is this complete mess. Cheers, VanTucky ^Talk 03:27, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite, but unfortunately no. I have to take my mother home from the hospital (eye surgery, hence not being able to drive herself). Hope it goes well, perhaps I'll make a donation regardless. VanTucky ^Talk 18:45, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Maps, and end-of-sentence punctuation

Maps: check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Location_map, I think it has all I needed to know on it!
Punctuation:I put a comment that's really for you (but also for EncMstr) on his talk page.
Really zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz -Martha (talk) 08:09, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Platypic

There is a better image here: http://blog.oregonlive.com/johncanzano/ if you wanted to snag it. A pic would be great. I didn't know that qualified as fair use, but hey, go fer it. --Esprqii (talk) 21:09, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Cute trophy. I belong to the UO Alumni Association, can I just say that it's OK with me if you use the picture? :) Katr67 (talk) 21:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Katr's permission is all we need, I'm pretty sure :) I have no doubt it would qualify as fair use in the "real world," but the world of wikiwarfare is another one entirely, so I figured to just cross my fingers and roll the dice (which is more or less what I'll be doing by rooting for Oregon this weekend, incidentally.) -Pete (talk) 21:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm just glad I could help you guys out. I felt so sorry for you not having a real trophy (which I'd like to see after 5 years, BTW). --Esprqii (talk) 21:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

It's a good article, by the way -- didn't know about all that, and enjoyed reading it. -Pete (talk) 21:37, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. It's a cool story, too bad the athletic directors are such stick-in-the-muds. If they have a presentation ceremony, maybe some wikipedian can snap a pic that won't get deleted. --Esprqii (talk) 23:08, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] off wiki ideas

Hey Pete, how's it going? I looked at the database website and it does inspire several ideas. One is a solution for my failed attempt to enter all the USGS data for Oregon in a single article, User:EncMstr/List of Oregon GNIS features. Wikipedia seemed to dislike the size (it just hung after pressing "save page"). Only 2200 or so of the 27,239 entries seemed to fit, 442 kiB of about 5 MiB.

Yep, I'm aware of Wiki Wednesdays, and would attend if I could. The location is reasonably convenient, but finding a free evening is the challenge, especially a Wednesday. Things might change late spring though. —EncMstr 21:30, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Old Oregon Pages

Hey, I just simply used the records available on www.goducks.com. You can find them by going to the football team, the schedule page, and selecting the right year. Aplaceicallhome (talk) 04:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Columbia River navbox

Hey Pete, I just wanted to say that's a good-looking navbox. I love that image. I hadn't really looked at it closely before--that is some rickety platform craziness going on there. Yikes! Katr67 (talk) 17:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Why, thank you! I kinda enjoyed making it. It occurred to me that leaving that photo out of the article was a major oversight, so I thought the navbox would be a good spot for it. Thanks for taking a look! By the way, not ignoring your last message, just busy busy busy… -Pete (talk) 19:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

No worries. Katr67 (talk) 19:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brian Baird Biography

Thank you for showing me how I incorrectly deleted a section of Congressman Brian Baird's biography. I was annoyed at the partisan bickering that has been going on in his biography since someone removed the "protected" status from it a few months ago. Democrats and Republicans have been editing it back and forth when it should be opinion free. The section in question has been repeatedly edited depending on their political leanings and right now shows incomplete and partisan information. I will try to edit it for balance tonight, but I will have a hard time keeping my own bias out of it (which is why I deleted it). If you could check it I would appreciate it. Also, because of mild vandalism in the history, and even his portrait, it would be great to have the page with a protected status again without political smears.

[edit] Re: William Overton

Wow, you found more information about him than I thought existed. I had always heard him described as a "Mountain Man" who drifted into the area, started the wheels turning that led to the founding of Portland, then drifted away, never to be heard of again. Because of his shadowy nature, I thought of him as I was reading the articles in Category: Mysterious people.

As for WikiWednesday in January, didn't we decide to move that back a week? I've bene meaning to email the list to confirm this. -- llywrch (talk) 22:19, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

"Hunchensus" -- I believe you did coin a new word. Too bad Wikipedia has a rule against "neologisms", otherwise you could write an article about it. ;) -- llywrch (talk) 22:45, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] check out photos of a spectacular place!

Halong Bay, Vietnam -- Martha (talk) 17:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] State copyright

If in doubt - google. Good stuff BTW, worthy of being in the Wikipedia project namespace somewhere. Megapixie (talk) 07:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Photo improvements welcome

Hi there. I saw that you like to improve poor quality photos. I have posted two pictures of the Eugene Pioneer Cemetery. Feel free to work on them if you are so inclined. --Randy Fletcher (talk) 18:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Aw shucks

Thanks for the most awesomest barnstar! You knew I couldn't resist editing it, didn't you? Here's to great things in '08! Katr67 (talk) 16:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Re:Copyright stuff--I talked to my favorite Oregon government insider today and got some good info. I'll e-mail you about it tomorrow when my brain isn't tired... Katr67 (talk) 07:10, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Very cool!! Can't wait. -Pete (talk) 07:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A Big Thank You

Pete, thanks for the award. I will wear it with pride around my neck. Great job to you too with all your work on government and politicians. Maybe we can get articles for every current legislator this year? Thanks again. Aboutmovies (talk) 13:28, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

But of course, good sir! On legislators, might be best to hold off at least until the primary, it being an election year…plenty of them could easily vanish into obscurity (though, I wouldn't object to articles on them anyway!) I've been thinking that a Columbia River portal might be a fun project, esp. with all the great work Mtsmallwood has been doing on steamboats etc. And of course, getting CR up go GA status. Government of Oregon and History of Oregon are always nagging at me, too. By the way, I've been reading more and more of the pioineer bio's you've worked on, it's a great collection. -Pete (talk) 03:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GAN suggestion

Thank you for the ping; I’ve responded to the discussion. To fully articulate my opinion, as my comments seem to have been misinterpreted: I didn’t make an assertion about complexity. The comments to which I assume you’re referring regard whether the process is confusing. Although perhaps subtle, there is an important difference. I do agree that the process is unnecessarily tedious and would benefit greatly from a more straightforward template “system”. I like what you’ve proposed. Ɛƚƈơƅƅơƚɑ _talk 20:04, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

So much for slipping out under the radar; do I dare ask how you noticed that – and so quickly? Ɛƚƈơƅƅơƚɑ _talk 22:38, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I suppose I didn't consider myself interesting enough to watch. ;) Ɛƚƈơƅƅơƚɑ _talk 22:53, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

No, I certainly didn’t mean to imply any seedy behavior on your part; I do the same thing. I merely took it as meaning you didn’t heed the first sentence of my WikiAnschauung. Ɛƚƈơƅƅơƚɑ _talk 23:08, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

It’s a play on weltanschauung – esoteric, to say the least. Seriously though, I’m likely only taking a sabbatical. I’m concerned that my interpretation of GA policies and procedures is too strict, or at least perceived as such. I don’t want to be the curmudgeon of the project and I certainly don’t want cause friction. I’ll watch the conversations and see whether the winds change. For what it’s worth, I’m fully supportive of your ideas thus far and I’d be happy to interject opinions going forward, if asked. Ɛƚƈơƅƅơƚɑ _talk 03:12, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GAN

Hi. I've just supported your proposal as I don't have a problem with streamlining that particular part of the process. I do agree the overall process is complex, but there are disadvantages to automating the whole system and I don't feel the complexity is a major reason for the lack of reviewers. Epbr123 (talk) 20:40, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] hello, i'm writing right now, please be patient

hi, well, i'm not good at this at all, i'm in the middle of writing my response on wikiproject oregon right now. i was doing so before when someone called katr67 messaged me and i rarely get those, so while reading it i jumbled my pages and lost everything i was writing about both what i was editing simultaneously and the story of how i got there. now i'm playing catchup for the rest of the evening, so i respectfully request that i be given a bit longer to try to prove that i'm not a vandal or attempting to foul up either the material or the process that's going on here. thanks for your patience. Hubertfarnsworth (talk) 02:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Hubert, I totally and completely recognize that you're not a vandal, and that your intentions are good. Sorry about your losing your work that can be frustrating. I'd suggest maybe composing stuff in a word processor, and then copy/pasting into the "edit" window when you're ready to submit; that's often a good way to approach wiki editing until you get familiar with all the little ways it works. (Of course that doesn't bring back your lost text, but it might save you from a similar headache in the future.)

I will be as patient as I can, but please understand that the articles you've chosen to start with are of very broad interest. For instance, take a look at this page to see how many people viewed History of Oregon in December. It's important that we keep things reasonably clean for those readers, even as we go through transitions.

Happy editing, and I continue to look forward to your contributions… -Pete (talk) 02:37, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting redundant templates

I hear you, but there was significant discussion a month ago, at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Oregon#Template:Navbox. If you will notice, there were no new comments there after November 26, 2007 - that is, until now when a user started creating all sorts of weird new, non-consensus templates. The perfect place for these sorts of discussions actually is the Templates for Deletion location, that is exactly what it is designed for. These templates nominated for deletion are all either redundant, old and not used, not used anywhere in any article mainspace, or all of the above. Cirt (talk) 07:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC).

• Well, respectfully, I disagree, and I feel that WP:TfD is the perfect place to discuss this (you'll see I responded in more detail over there). You are correct that consensus can change and definitely the discussion predated the new template - but again, see my expanded rationale at the WP:TfD page. Cirt (talk) 08:14, 11 January 2008 (UTC).
  • History of Oregon does look interesting, but I think I'll wait a bit and give others a chance to work on it. I'm actually in the midst of work on some other articles and portals. But I took a look recently at Portal:Oregon, which could potentially get to WP:FPORT status methinks, but it could use a bit of work... Cirt (talk) 08:19, 11 January 2008 (UTC).

[edit] Thank you!

That cheered me up, which I needed. DYK I actually OWN a red stapler? Katr67 (talk) 23:32, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Better hang onto it tight!! -Pete (talk) 23:46, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry, and I'm also not afraid to use the strychnine... Katr67 (talk) 23:55, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't get it! :(

[edit] Oregon COTW

<snip>

On another note, just a general good job/pat on the back to the project for a great 2007, the first full year of the project. We had 83 DYKs about Oregon, improved one article to FA, and went from around 4 GAs to 17 GAs. Plus numerous new articles, improvements to existing, the introduction of the COTW, and the introduction of article assessment at the project. Again, great job and here’s to a new year. Aboutmovies (talk) 10:08, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thought you might be interested to know

Woody Guthrie is an FA candidate. VanTucky 08:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! I'll check it out. -Pete (talk) 19:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tillamook, Oregon

Hey Pete, If you're around, would you mind reverting Tillamook, Oregon? Katr67, Aboutmovies, and I each have two recent reverts. —EncMstr 08:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, just saw this. I'll keep my eye on it though. -Pete (talk) 17:49, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Osho and WP:COIN

Looks like no real evidence has been laid out there, yet. Are these financial conflicts of interest we're talking about - or just POV tendencies, or some sort of affiliations? The other difficult thing, is that this is a more heavily trafficked article, and it's also quite likely that the Osho Centres work regularly with certain contributors, or in fact edit themselves, in order to whitewash/puff piece/hagiography anything that might seem negative. I had laid out some of my ideas in more detail at the last Peer Review for the article - check it out. Cheers, Cirt (talk) 11:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, the nom seems awfully thin. I'd assume the financial conflict of interest is alleged to stem from the editors' association with the foundation, but it's not made explicit. Not tracking this closely -- at least not yet -- just thought it was something that might interest you, because of your general interest in the subject. Yes, your PR looks like a very useful guideline for the structure of the article. I'll keep an eye on this. -Pete (talk) 19:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Steamboats navbox

not trying to start edit war, but switched back just for comparison. Visual problem with grouping all in Columbia is need to change all text color to white, otherwise black letters disappear in the dark blue. Also, may be some logic in original set up, but if this crowds monitors, maybe some formating commands could narrow columns. I'm working on a new navbox and trying to get some standardization for these things, and if there's a technical problem, should try to address now. Here's the latest:

v • d • e The Mosquito Fleet of Puget Sound Sidewheelers Alaskan  • Beaver  • Eliza Anderson  • George E. Starr  • Idaho  • Olympian  • T.J. Potter  • Wilson G. Hunt  • Yosemite ”They managed to keep their particular sort of jaunty, wind-swept beauty until the end.” – Newell, Gordon R., Ships of the Inland Sea Sternwheelers Bailey Gatzert  • City of Shelton  • Greyhound  • Hassalo (1880)  • Multnomah  • S.G. Simpson  • WT Preston Propellers Athlon  • Clallam  • M/V Coho  • Crystal  • Cy Peck  • Daily  • Daring  • Dart  • Dauntless  • Defiance  • Dix  • Dove  • Fleetwood  • Kingston  • Flyer (1891) • Hattie Hansen  • Island Princess  • Islander (1) • Mary D. Hume  • Mizpah  • Monticello (2) • Rosalie  • Virginia V Steamboat Lines Black Ball Line • Oregon Railway and Navigation Co. • Oregon Steam Navigation Co. • Puget Sound Navigation Co. • Hunt Bros. • McDowell Transportation Co. Steamboat captains William Ballard • Matthew McDowell Builders and shipyards John J. Holland • Robert Moran • King & Winge Steamboats in other areas of the Pacific Northwest Lake Washington • Columbia River • Oregon Coast • Willamette River • Yaquina Bay and river • Coquille River • Cowlitz River • Grays Harbor • Chehalis River • Hoquiam River • Willapa Bay • Columbia River (Wenatchee Reach) • Lake Crescent • Arrow Lakes • Upper Fraser River • Skeena River • Lake Okanagan • Thompson=Shuswap • Slocan Lake • Kootenay Lake and the lower Kootenai River • Columbia Lake and upper Kootenai River • Peace & Finaly Rivers • Stikine River

If text in far left column could be stacked and column narrowed, this would narrow the whole navbox. Mtsmallwood (talk) 06:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

No worries about reversion, just wanted to "show" my ideas rather than telling them. (But FWIW, I think some of my smaller edits, like replacing the bullets with more convenient wikicode, should be retained even if the overall restructuring I suggest doesn't stay.)

On my computer, the black text isn't a problem, but if it is on yours that should be changed. What about a lighter background color, just for those ones? Basically, I think anything that distinguishes those top headers without necessitating a second column, would be an improvement. A better use of space, and easier on the eyes. So either the text color or the background color should be different, but I'm not tied to any specific color. Do you think there's something worth working toward there? -Pete (talk) 06:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I never replied here, sorry, how does this look now, very simple, should fit on a lot of screens well.Mtsmallwood (talk) 07:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hanford

hi Pete, Thanks for the welcome! This is my first time doing a major article edit, and I'm having a good time with it. I do have an interest in Oregon history and I may join you guys sometime in the future. I tend to work on projects like this in spurts, so probably I will take a break after exhausting my focus on the Hanford article, but you'll see me back again soon I hope, and I'd like to work on some Oregon stuff. Northwest-historian (talk) 02:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I saw Columbia River the other day and the excellent work you've done with it & the substantial GA review. I imagine it has been a challenging article to edit, but it's an important one & Columbia River history is something I'm really interested in. I don't have time to do a good job with the article at the moment, but I have it on my watchlist & I'll probably give it a shot sometime soon. I think it has Feature Article potential. In fact, after we address the outstanding concerns, we could do some more work and put it up for FA, bypassing GA, as it has already had a good review, and they seem to be pretty backlogged. A lot of the associated articles Columbia Basin Irrigation Project, Columbia Basin, Columbia River Plateau, etc. could also use some more work. So when I get a chance I'll push forward on all them simultaneously. Northwest-historian (talk) 01:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion Image

Delete it, that image does not matter to me anymore —Preceding unsigned comment added by NimiTize (talk • contribs) 00:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks for clarifying! Enjoy your vacation. -Pete (talk) 01:15, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank You Cool, NimiTiz_e 01:57, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Oregon

I liked the bit about High-powered editors. — Zaui (talk) 20:43, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] See comments

...on your Open Lobby Talk page. --Martha (talk) 21:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry I missed your Goldschmidt request till now

I did look over the article, then got interested in the story and got led astray. It's good to see a listing of things he did, but to the uninitiated it's not always easy for me to guess which things are considered "positive" vs. "negative". I have trouble with one place:

"A rising anti-tax movement gained momentum in that time, passing Measure 5; the state's prison system nearly doubled during his term. He also worked to reform the State Accident Insurance Fund (SAIF), a state-chartered worker's compensation insurance company; these reforms, and his subsequent work as a paid consultant for SAIF, would draw criticism in later years."

Specifically, it's not clear to me which things "these reforms" are referring to - just the things in that sentence? or things from the preceding sentence? (Expansion of the state's prison system, too, leaves me wondering why this is (or is it??) a "good thing" - I mean....it implies the need for an expanded prison system (does that imply a rise in crime?) - maybe you get my drift. I think that needs a little cleaning up, and perhaps also a look at the rest of the page from the viewpoint of - how to say this? - it's possible to be so objective that it's not at all clear what you mean by what you say. Overall, it sounds to me as if the guy really did do a lot of good things, but probably some bad ones, and one really rotten sexual thing that sort of blew him out of the water. (Maybe I didn't use that expression right? Certainly blew him off the playing field!) If that's the case, then it seems to me like a very good article.

Hope this helps - hugs, Martha (talk) 00:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Portlanders

I just added the folks who signed up for the sub-project but who had never signed up for the main project. Adding the PDX sub-project userbox automatically adds one to Category:WikiProject Oregon participants, which is where I noticed the discrepancy, so I don't believe there is a problem with their being counted on the main page. I figured I'd leave their non-signup-age to the main project to their discretion. I thought it would be nice to know we have a few more participants than were actually listed, for spamage and citation of active member numbers purposes. If they don't like being on the main page they can certainly take their names off. Should I inform them? Press release: Today. For sure. And also the other thing you've reminded me about 5 million times. Neurodiversity is a bitch. Katr67 (talk) 01:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ben Holladay

Thanks for the good word. In a nutshell, what I know about Ben Holladay on steamboats is that he bought the Peoples Transportation Company in about 1871, as part of his bid to control river and rail traffic in Oregon. The People's Transportation Company had been organized to mount a challenge to the monopoly of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company but in one of the usual anti-competitive deals of the era, the OSN withdrew its steamboats from the Willamette River in return for People's staying off the Columbia. This happened before Holladay bought People's, so when he did get control of the company, he effectively got monopoly control over steam navigation on the Willamette. Holladay wasn't much of a steamboat man, and he was basically outcompeted by Uriah B. Scott, who mounted a successful challenge to the People's Transportation Willamette monopoly. Holladay then sold his steamboat interests to Henry Villard. The main sources on this is Mills, Randall V., Sternwheelers Up Columbia, at 56-64, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE (1977 reprint of 1947 ediition) ISBN 0-0832-5874. I think Holladay Street in Portland is named after him. Mtsmallwood (talk) 02:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Green Scare

Sorry about adding too much info up on there originally under the operation backfire section, I forgot it was an introduction. I haven't edited any of the other profiles on there (only addded those that weren't there before), but will get round to writing the additional bit about Leurs sentence being reduced. I apologise if it seems that I have been alienating yourself or any other writers, I haven't intended to interfere with anything else anybody else has written or anything, just tried to include a few additional things. Blueberrypie12 (talk) 21:46, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] {{Oregon legislation}}

This? Totally rocks. Good job. Katr67 (talk) 21:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

So my morning isn't completely wasted? Thanks much! ;) -Pete (talk) 21:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] B class

Pete, with the assessment for McCall, it is still B class. It may barely mention some major topics, but that is what B class is. Not mentioning those major topics is Start. Covering those in depth in a neutral manner is GA. Covering all topics in depth and providing context is FA.

From the assessment chart for B class: "Has several of the elements described in "start", usually a majority of the material needed for a comprehensive article. Nonetheless, it has some gaps or missing elements or references, needs editing for language usage or clarity, balance of content, or contains other policy problems such as copyright, Neutral Point Of View (NPOV) or No Original Research (NOR)."

On a side note, great job on the legislation template. Now to just fill in those red links. Damn all those red links we have! Aboutmovies (talk) 06:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Glad you like the template, I've been meaning to bang that out since I can't remember when!

I disagree on McCall -- from the B description, I'd say say it's nowhere near a majority of the material needed for a comprehensive article, when his main legacy is almost entirely absent. There could/should probably be a longish section on each of SB 10, SB 100, Harbor Drive, and the Willamette Greenway. This is far more serious than being "some gaps or missing elements."

Of course, if you insist on the point, you'll probably just force me to do the research and write the stuff up...Curses! Can't you see I have all these redlinks to take care of? -Pete (talk) 07:03, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you are too zeroed-in on specifics. His environmental legacy is covered, just not every detail. For comparison, Emily Dickinson a recent bio FA, does not have a single section on individual works, it covers the broader themes that are consistent with an encyclopedia entry. When I re-worked Charles McNary to get to GA I used an entry from an Oregon only encyclopedia (no not OHS, and it probably has an entry on McCall too). It covered the main points of McNary's life, with some specific details. But it certainly didn't address every piece of legislation he worked to pass or cause he championed in his 26+ years in the Senate. It covers his time on the Oregon Supreme Court, but it doesn't go into the details of what opinions he wrote for the court. I'm not saying these cannot be included, just that those are more of a full biography book version and not something required for B or even GA. I agree the article needs work and isn't near GA, but it has the majority of the material needed for a comprehensive article. Agree or disagree, it would be great for some improvement on the article. I'll be busy with Hatfield and then hopefully Geo. H. Williams before pushing McNary, the supreme court, Kathy Power, and Deady for FA. Later. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, they aren't just any specifics…I can't think of any other piece of OR legislation that the general public knows by Senate Bill number. If you ask some guy on the street, who's been around in Oregon since the 60s, about Tom McCall, I think he'd tell you about the land use stuff mentioned above, and if he got into Vortex I that would be a mere anecdote. But Vortex I has a whole section, while the land use stuff barely gets a passing mention. To me, that's a pretty serious shortcoming in a pretty important article.

You have been on quite a tear lately with improving "old dead guy" articles -- I've been noticing, but I guess haven't said much. I'm very impressed, and hopeful that we'll have some new GA and FA feathers in our caps soon! -Pete (talk) 08:01, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I just submitted my first DYK, for KRRC (FM) -- wish me luck! -Pete (talk) 08:02, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Colin Campbell Mitchell

Just FYI: Talk:Colin_Campbell_Mitchell#GA_review:_hold. If you disagree you know where to find me! dihydrogen monoxide (H₂0) 08:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Maps

Thanks for the help on the image issue -- it's not the browser cache (see my talk page), but hopefully somebody else will have answer. You might have seen similar maps I did recently of Public lands in Western States and US Forest Service land by state. Now that I've got the method down, I find it oddly relaxing to sit here and color in states. If you can think of any other maps that might be useful for Oregon/Washington articles (and you've got a set of data to go with it), let me know... I saw you've been moving forward on Columbia River too, nice work. I'm still working up the energy to get to it, but I hope to help out soon. Northwesterner1 (talk) 02:57, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again. I'm excited to hear you're putting Columbia River up for FA. That's great news. I'll keep an eye on it & help with the nom. Northwesterner1 (talk) 08:19, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tak's phone number

Hey, Tak reminded me that at one point a diff in your user talk has his cell phone number in it. Even if you've deleted it, because of the history it's still showing up in Google. Can you tell me where it is, so I can ask for it to be permanently deleted (Tak said it would be nice). Also, just FYI, you could get permanently banned for publishing personal info like that on-wiki (irregardless of the fact that Tak doesn't have a problem with it really). Thanks Pete, VanTucky 00:26, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

This is all news to me, I don't recall ever communicating with Tak on WP, or ever knowing his phone number -- are you sure he wan't "takking" about someone else? (Sorry, couldn't resist ;) -Pete (talk) 00:29, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh...wait...I wonder if it's because I once posted a WikiWednesday announcement at WP:ORE? I may have published his phone number, mistakenly thinking it was the AU office number...hold on, I'll tak a look. -Pete (talk) 00:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I looked through the archives at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon, don't see anything. Didn't pore through the article histories, but feel free. Or, if it's showing up on Google, why not use the Google search as a starting point to find the page? Also, feel free to report me for a banning -- it would save me the trouble of figuring out whether it's time for a WikiBreak! ;) -Pete (talk) 00:37, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I did use Google, it shows his number on this page. But I didn't see it here, I figured either it's in the archives (I couldn't find it) or in the history. Either way, Google is serving it up with this page as the source. VanTucky 23:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't have any idea what this is about. If you want me to help -- and I'm willing to -- I'd need more information. -Pete (talk) 00:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, checked with Tak -- it's actually in Archive 7 of your talk page, not mine, and it was somebody else who posted it. -Pete (talk) 02:14, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

On 9 March 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article KRRC (FM), which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Gatoclass (talk) 16:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Novick aide apologizes for Wikipedia edits"

You see this? http://blog.oregonlive.com/mapesonpolitics/2008/03/novick_aide_apologizes_for_wik.html --Esprqii (talk) 19:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Geesh, that happened in January. That's like ancient history here... Katr67 (talk) 20:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, and that blog covered then too, although I didn't realize it at the time. I guess I'm out of it too. --Esprqii (talk) 20:44, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't catch it then either, though I had been tipped off to look for it...wasn't aware of that blog. Ah well. I see this as not that big a deal, another reminder that the public still doesn't know what to make of Wikipedia...obviously this was resolved pretty quickly and effectively at the time. Thanks for the tip, though! This reminds me, I have to do an update on the OR Encycl. Cacophony, VanTucky and I are working on a presentation for the first week in April. Draft at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon/Oregon Encyclopedia. Input or co-presenters welcome, of course! Fuller update coming in the next couple days... -Pete (talk) 21:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gavin Newsom

Thanks for your review and help with the article. I finished improving the reference section. When you have some spare wikipedia time, it would be great if you could continue with the review. Thanks.User:calbear22 (talk) 19:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say, it wasn't my intent to take on the whole review, just to help get the article better prepared for it. I'm too busy right now in "real life" to take on the review of such an extensive article, though I will definitely keep it on my watchlist and try to help with any concerns that come up. Sorry if I gave you the wrong impression! -Pete (talk) 03:30, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

That's okay. I thought that might be the case but I wasn't sure. Thanks for your help.User:calbear22 (talk) 08:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks.User:calbear22 (talk) 18:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WHEN you get a chance ... (not urgent!)

Have a look at what I did today (10 March) on Chelopech. I'm still wrestling with map & location templates - have realized what I need to do is export the code for the various templates, and SAMPLES of what produces what - to try to understand it. But (same goes for me as for you!) IFF (and when) I need to! (Do you know this useful mathematical 'word', iff? Means (far as I remember) "if and only if". --Martha (talk) 04:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the small fixes! I'm beginning to understand these things....but I still need to keep a "glossary and examples" page! -- Martha (talk) 02:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

No problem! Sorry, forgot to let you know I did that...glad you found it! (Sometimes it's easier to just show you stuff, than expain "how" it's done.) Yeah -- keeping track of this stuff can be a challenge...since everybody has their own areas of interest and their own level of technical interest...you pretty much have to build your own glossary. (Or just remember where you saw things, and take the time to re-find things, that's what I tend to do.) Ah well, such is life!) -Pete (talk) 02:06, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

On 11 March 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Willamette Collegian, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Gatoclass (talk) 13:34, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Brandon Roy

On 13 March 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Brandon Roy, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 10:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Shipwrecks/references

Yes, I may have been too ruthless on deleting these, some of my earlier articles were too cluttered I felt with references, external links, etc. Please feel free to undo wherever you think appropriate, and I'll note to follow your suggestion on future articles. Mtsmallwood (talk) 14:47, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re:WikiProject Oregon

Thank you for the recognition and the invitation! Unfortunately, I really know nothing about Oregon outside of Portland skyscrapers, so I don't think I would be able to the Project out in ways besides basic article maintenance. However, it does seem like a great group of editors, and I would be happy to join if you think I would be of use to the project, given my lack of basic Oregonian knowledge. :) Cheers, Rai-me 21:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Waterboarding

Thanks for being understanding about editors on waterboarding, did you get the medical source i posted on the waterboarding talk as it has a detailed look at the medical nature of torture. ^{(Hypnosadist)} 06:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Perhaps obvious source for Columbia River as boundary

I saw your question on the RD about a source affirming the C. River as the boundary between Washington and Oregon? Perhaps I misunderstood you, but if I didn't, I offer http://bluebook.state.or.us/cultural/history/historyact.htm as a starting point. It's the act of statehood for Oregon and it names the river explicitly as the boundary, though it doesn't use a specific figure like "300 miles". I imagine there is a similar act of statehood for Washington that offers similar language also. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. Jwrosenzweig (talk) 05:49, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Images and Commons

thanks for tip on this, can you give quick guidance on how to send over to commons PD images that are already on Wikipedia? (I've uploaded a lot, it seems).Mtsmallwood (talk) 14:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

There's a discussion of the reasons and methods, and a link to a script, here: Wikipedia:Moving images to the Commons. I haven't actually used that tool, but it comes recommended. -Pete (talk) 16:50, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

oh dear, this tool is hard for me to figure out. Right now I'll just upload to wiki commons and gradually get the other ones into it.Mtsmallwood (talk) 07:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Count me in

Hi Pete, I added my name to the list this morning. I looked briefly at the Columbia River and tweaked a couple of things, as you've no doubt noticed. My interests range all over the place, and I'm happy to help however I can. Finetooth (talk) 17:17, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lovejoy

Pete, I removed the info about him being director of the first telegraph in Oregon. The citation, and only place I've ever seen it, is the city of Portland's website. I'm not sure its the most reliable of sources. The OHS page talks about the Oregon Telegraph, which being italicized leads me to believe it was an newspaper only. And that's probably where the confusion came from, city workers saw that type of reference and assumed an actual telegraph. There are other references to Lovejoy being involved with newspapers, and the sources I checked about the telegraph company did not mention his name. That's not to say he wasn't, but I can't find anything more historical to say he was the first director. And actually the same with the railroad involvement. I'll check a few other sources as well though, for both items. Aboutmovies (talk) 20:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Good thinking! Thanks for the explanation, and congrats on the GA! -Pete (talk) 20:29, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!

Hey Pete, thanks for the message! Really admire some of your work. Happy editing and take care. JohnDoe555 —Preceding comment was added at 17:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK nomination

On 19 March 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Johnson Creek, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Gatoclass (talk) 09:06, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again, Pete, for nominating this. I don't usually think about DYK possibilities as I go along, and I'm glad you thought of this one. Thanks also for the nudge about hyphenated number-unit combinations; this led me to adj=on, an elegant solution built into the Convert template. I have now used it in the Johnson Creek article and also in Columbia River. Finetooth (talk) 17:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ameri page

Hey Pete, thanks for the message. I actually didn't delete the photo, someone removed it from the WikiMedia commons because they said it wasn't properly licensed, even though its from a Federal Government site that doesn't list copyright data. Thanks for putting it back! JohnDoe555 —Preceding comment was added at 15:16, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Columbia River GAN

I will be glad to look at it in the next day or so. I have it on my watch list and have noted the flurry of activity of late - looks like it is much improved. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

• I passed it - also made some suggestion for improvement, but it is clearly GA and getting close to FA quality. Congratulations! Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:59, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Oh my, thanks for your kind words - I could tell that many had contributed from the history and the talk page, but I thought that you had been working at it longest and hardest, hence the barnstar. I liked the comment about Larrys Creek in the Columbia River talk page (not sure now who made it) - I agree using it as a model article here would be like basing an elephant on a mouse. Take care, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 00:40, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations! You did a Herculean job re-working this article, and in spite of the many IMO nit-picking critiques, always dealing with them with a such a positive attitude -- great job! — Myasuda (talk) 18:14, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Heya -- thanks for the thanks a while ago on this. It does seem like we have a nice team going, and with people from all along the great river. Pfly (talk) 02:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Last item on your "To Do" list

Check out the Access Options link on the "1931 article [that] discusses public vs. private hydropower in the west" - if you follow the Access Options link through, it will take you to a list of libraries where JSTOR collections are available, including quite a number in Oregon! Maybe less co$tly than $17? -- Martha (talk) 16:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Very cool, thanks! -Pete (talk) 19:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki stats

That stats tool is cool. I hadn't seen it before. Columbia River got 24,000 hits in February. That's a bunch. On another topic, I noticed the note directly above this one. I'm pretty sure I've gotten into JSTOR for free from my home computer via the Multnomah County Library. I'll check to see and send you another note in a while. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent -- that makes sense. I use their NewsBank service all the time for old Oregonian and Statesman Journal articles. I just started a reference desk for WikiProject Oregon - you could put any notes there, and help more people than just me ;) Thanks! -Pete (talk) 22:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it works. I just found the article you were looking for. I will post the details at the reference desk for the project. Finetooth (talk) 23:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Original Barnstar

		The Original Barnstar
		Given to Pete for taking the lead on getting Columbia River to Good Article status - congratulations! Given with respect and admiration, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 22:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Well deserved. Congrats! Katr67 (talk) 01:01, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Blushing! Thank you both. The article would not be nearly so good, but for the recent surge in contributions from Skookum, Northwesterner1, Pfly, Finetooth, and others... -Pete (talk) 03:20, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent work, Pete, and congratulations. I think FA is on the horizon, and I'll be helping out when I can. Northwesterner1 (talk) 18:33, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Failing folks

Hey Pete, I heard of this guy from Pickathon--I've always been curious if he was related. You should e-mail him. Other Failing family connections include the unintentionally hilarious Failing Office Building (NRHP) [2] , and this from the PAM article: "Curator Henrietta H. Failing (the niece of founder Henry Failing) organized the exhibition with New England artist Frank Vincent DuMond". Katr67 (talk) 04:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vera Katz and History

Howdy folks, its time for another installment of WikiProject Oregon’s Collaboration of the Week! Last week we made some improvements to the Oregon Coast and brought The Register-Guard up to B class while garnering a DYK! Great job to those who lent a hand. This week we finish up the High priority Stubs with former mayor and Speaker of the House, Vera Katz, which is pretty much a Start class now and could easily get to B class. We also have History of Oregon by request. Help out if you can, where you can. As always, to opt out, opt in, or suggest future collaborative efforts, click here. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] No free image

I apologise for being an arse in my response on my page. What I mean is that even if you have a nice polished article, it's got to be open to new content, e.g. obvious things like missing pictures. Or red links in an article. Even a featured article is open to editing. And adding new stuff will often make the article lumpy and less polished, but all of Wikipedia is a work in progress and ridiculously far off finished - and articles do go through a cycle of add stuff, polish, add a lump of stuff, re-polish, add a lump of stuff, re-polish. So putting up picture placeholders is part of that cycle. Eventually it will get a picture and be a better article.

But it probably wouldn't have gotten that picture without a direct request for it. I put the placeholders on articles - particularly on every living bio I can - because they noticeably work really well at getting pictures, and showing the need for pictures. And thus, placeholders lead directly to improvement in the content of Wikipedia. There shouldn't be a current politician article in the world that doesn't have a photo on it (I alerted the wikimediauk-l list to the disgrace that not having every UK politician article have a picture is). Etc.

I hope that makes why I'm doing this a bit clearer, and sorry again for being snappy about it - David Gerard (talk) 22:04, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] tribes got millions to move???

H'mm. I missed that, I thought it was more like a roundup but maybe I missed something.Rvannatta (talk) 00:14, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New comment

I am just angry because I have been working on getting those links up all day long and then someone just goes and erases everything like they own the place or something. So I know how to view my history, and post to a discussion, but then what? How do I actually get it back on there? Like if it's a debatable topic on the discussion page, what happens next? Will Wikipedia eventually put it back? I just don't feel like waiting for an eternity for something to happen. It seems like that's how things work around here- slow and full of red tape. I've been very disappointed so far. I may just screw utilizing this site if that's the case. I'd appreciate your advice, thanks. Career Genie (talk) 22:01, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Oops I didn't put a headline on my last comment (above).

It was in regards to a message you left me about what I said to Katr67. Career Genie (talk) 22:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review request

Hi Pete, if you have a chance could you look at Wikipedia:Peer review/List of tributaries of Larrys Creek/archive1 and see if you have any suggestions for how the article could be improved? I am going to try and go for WP:FLC with it and would appreciate feedback from soemone who has river knowledge. Thanks in advance for any help, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 13:57, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for your reply on my talk page - no rush on the comments and thanks in advance again, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:12, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks so much for your peer review comments, I have addressed all of them I believe. Take care, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I say Rouge, you say Rogue, let's call the whole thing off

FYI, here's what it looked like before everyone started messing with it. Bkonrad knows what he's doing and it was clear enough... Katr67 (talk) 22:53, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Please read the DAB guidelines. If you disagree with them, take it to Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation please. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:15, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

You may not realize it, but your edit restored a redirect. I tried to find the part of the guideline that addresses that, but came up short. I'm pretty sure redirects are discouraged unless necessary for partial italics and other unusual situations (I have actually read the guideline recently.) I'm almost certain that the guideline says to use the exact name in this case, which would be Rouge River on one page and Rogue River on the other.

The reason I included the explanatory comment -- which is likely outside the guideline -- is because these particular two words are visually very similar. To the quick reader, it looks like an error. I could actually find a study from about a year ago, done at Columbia if I recall, that found that all it takes to recognize a word is that the first and last letters be in the proper order; the human brain takes care of the rest. (Pretty astonishing to see a paragraph randomized in this way; you can read through it at almost normal speed.) So, maybe it'd be worth updating the guideline taking that into account. For now, I'd hope WP:IAR might apply to what seems to me a pretty obvious solution. But you're right, it should probably be discussed somewhere first. -Pete (talk) 02:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Look for this on WP:D#Links to disambiguation pages (note I bolded it on your talk page to help you seek it): To link to a disambiguation page (instead of a specific meaning), link to the redirect to the disambiguation page that includes the text "(disambiguation)" in the title (such as, America (disambiguation) rather than America). This helps distinguish accidental links to the disambiguation page from intentional ones. See Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:27, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the clarification. (I really did look for that, honest. It's a long page, and I'm not really myself today. Excuses...) I will think about revisiting my second point later. -Pete (talk) 02:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Now that I think it over, I was mixing up piping and redirect in my memory. -Pete (talk) 02:32, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Is Katr67 watching this conversation? As I hope (s)he understands as well. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Pretty sure, usually keeps a close eye on my talk page. If there's a problem I'll take it on. Thanks though. -Pete (talk) 02:42, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I read the guideline. And I hadn't planned to edit the pages anymore. Hence "Carry on" and "I'm unwatchlisting it", i.e. "Do what you will, I don't really care to edit war over a five-entry redir page." Then Pete said he would try to improve the pages so I posted the above link, which to me was a big improvement in clarity, to give him something to work with. Since you seem insistent on following the letter of the wikilaw, I personally don't see the point in any more discussion. Though I can certainly post a mild grumble on my collegue's talk page. I happen to think in this case the rules don't always make sense but I don't care to change the guideline. Honestly though: "accidental links to the disambiguation page from intentional ones" really shouldn't be a problem on a disambiguation page vs. in the prose of a regular article. Seems a letter vs. spirit debate, but whatever. Do what you will, you don't have to work to convince me about the guideline, I don't plan on editing the page anymore. But if Pete wants to take it on I'm all for it. I think in some cases we need to think more of our readers and less about our rules. Katr67 (talk) 05:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Coastal cities

Hmm. Interesting bot. Is it authorized as a bot? I think that's a username violation... Say, would you mind if we kept the cities double catted, per this discussion? Katr67 (talk) 23:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I had forgot that discussion. I agree, and will try to clean up after myself! -Pete (talk) 23:35, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

As you can see, I took care of it. Got the "bot" blocked too. Katr67 (talk) 05:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I did see that -- thanks. Sorry I didn't get to it quicker! -Pete (talk) 17:28, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Debby Applegate

Oh people of the excellent library searching skills! Would you or AM like to try to find this article for me? "Pulitzer-prize winning author has Eastern Oregon ties", East Oregonian, May 9, 2007. I can't find anything on the Eastern Oregon thing other than this vanished article. Not sure if anybody's library has access to the East Oregonian's stuff. I just want to know if she lived over there or what. Thanks! (cross-posted to AM's page) Katr67 (talk) 18:35, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Wish I could help, but my county library apparently doesn't care about Pendleton, and http://www.archive.org (which you should know about, if you don't already) didn't archive that article. Don't know any other tricks for stuff like that. I've found the East Oregonian one of the tougher papers in the state to search. :( -Pete (talk) 18:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Location map problem SOLVED!

And such a simple solution.... see User_talk:Martha_Forsyth#Location_map. Should've asked sooner - tnx for suggesting the proper place to ask (on the Talk page of the problematic template). -- Martha (talk) 15:41, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hanford

Hey Pete, I put Hanford Site up for FA. Would love your help addressing whatever concerns come up if you have some time. Northwesterner1 (talk) 20:16, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Most excellent! I will keep an eye on it. -Pete (talk) 21:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] KRRC (FM)

Hey Pete, I noticed you working on the KRRC (FM) article. I'm at Reed, and we met at the WikiWednesday in (I think) November. I took a couple of pictures and uploaded them to Commons, so you can add them however you like. The first is the actual KRRC office in the student union, Image:KRRC.jpg, and the other two are pictures of the what I assume is KRRC's antenna on top of ODB, Image:KRRC antenna.jpg‎ and Image:KRRC antenna (2).jpg‎. They're not really much to look at though. :-) Dmcdevit·t 02:28, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Most excellent, thank you! Any way you can get a shot inside the station office? Also, do you know when it moved to the SU? It was still in ODB whey I graduated in 1996, I bet it moved when the Paradox moved which I think was 1997. Also -- if you have or could snap any good pics of the Canyon, that would be great -- at some point I'd like to work up an article on Crystal Springs Creek combining stuff from the Reed article, the Blue Bridge (Oregon) article, and the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden article. Anyway, not looking to pile on the tasks -- I really appreciate your thinking of this, and am excited to see the KRRC article get some graphic support! -Pete (talk) 02:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll see what kind of picture I can get tomorrow of the inside, though I don't think it looks like much. ;-) I actually know very little about KRRC as it's not I've ever been involved with it, or given it much thought. As for the canyon, I have several pictures of that already. There are this and this (same picture, different crops) are the only ones I've uploaded to Commons, and there is also a picture (though it was more the bird that caught my eye) of the waterway that connects Reed Lake with the water in the Rhody Gardens: this and this. But you can also take anything from my flickr album set for Reed ([3]) where there are other pictures of Reed Lake [4][5][6]. Dmcdevit·t 10:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Jack Kemp

Thanks for your contributions to the talk page discussion. I am in the process of nominating the article at WP:FAC please come join the discussion as soon as I have finished the nominaiton process.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 02:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK nom

On 31 March 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Followers of Christ (Oregon church), which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Wizardman 12:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] MedCom nom

I've done all the tedious procedural stuff in line with your withdrawal. I personally look forward to seeing you back there for a second nomination if/when you're still interested down the track, and thanks for your interest. Cheers, Daniel (talk) 23:59, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I do hope that doesn't discourage you. MedCab is always in need of help, and I hope you'll be ready to join the Committee in awhile. :) Best, Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 00:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the concern, but not discouraged in the least. I want to help WP in the best ways I can, and thought this might be a good fit. It appears it's not, at this time; so it goes. Nothing to be discouraged about. I may try out the MedCab…or I may just stick to the editing for a while. We'll see :) -Pete (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I third Daniel and Keilana's thoughts: thanks for your interest, and I look forward to future expressions of interest from your corner. All the best, Anthøny 18:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Oregon_State_Senate_Districts.png

Thank you for uploading Image:Oregon_State_Senate_Districts.png. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the image. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. MECU≈talk 02:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] YACHT

Hey, I hope you're not in the middle of doing more work on that, 'cos I just did a bunch of stuff. I thought idly about slapping a {{WIP}} tl on there, alas. You didn't tell us you wanted to the join MedCom, sorry that didn't work out. You should definitely check out the Med Cabal though, you'd be good there. Katr67 (talk) 03:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

No worries -- thanks for restoring the stuff I put in. As for MedCom, it was really just a trial balloon…I kinda suspected they might want more formal experience, but it doesn't state any guideline criteria so I thought I'd just feel it out. I've been thinking the mop might be worth pursuing, but I'm obviously pretty interested in content too, so mediation seems like a natural way to go. I'll probably take another look at the cabal. I want to check in with EM about the other thing. Also: what do you think I should do about the notification above? I'm unclear, because of all the User:Peteforsyth/leg stuff. Maddening! I'm getting back to work, which I'm all behind on thanks to this wikifun. -Pete (talk) 04:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Never mind about the PD stuff, I figured it out thanks to an excellent link that AM sent me a while back. State- and local- produced maps ARE PD!! Glory be! -Pete (talk) 05:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: VT

Thanks for your advice, but I don't share your optimism. Perhaps I've been here longer than you and I've seen things you wouldn't believe. In any case, I don't call a failure to use references and an insistence on OR a "content dispute". It's been going on for several years and it amounts to a willful disdain for basic policies and guidelines. That's form, not content and requires administrative oversight. If I had a content dispute, I would be arguing over X said Y, or Y said X but sometimes Z. This is pretty clear-cut and does not require me wasting two months of my life "talking" about it. I'm going to get back to writing now. —Viriditas | Talk 04:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, a quick check reveals you've been here a *little* longer than me, though I don't know what that proves. At any rate, my apologies if I misread your problem. Since I'm not an admin, and you seem to think admin intervention is necessary for whatever the issue is, I'll back off…sorry my suggestion was not helpful. -Pete (talk) 05:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pete, you rock!

Pete, thanks again for your edits on the Goli Ameri page --someone keeps adding their own opinions on there without references --I appreciate your having removed them. Great work! -Johndoe555 (talk) 15:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

No problem -- it's always easier when there are a few sets of eyes on an article! -Pete (talk) 15:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks on Colonel Wright

I just keep reading the books and writing the articles. I only learn this stuff then. The whole Colonel Wright story is amazing, the area was completely unsettled at time, except of course by the native tribes, there was a chief called Lawyer who spoke English and had been back east. The officers of the Wright were amazed at how well they were treated by him, and they knew they were just the advance guard for invasion of his land by the whites. A whole article itself.Mtsmallwood (talk) 18:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Luis Palau

On April 3, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Luis Palau, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--howcheng {chat} 00:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations on the Palau article. He is one fine speaker. I heard him at the Georgia International Horse Park in Conyers last September as part of the Celebrate Freedom concert being held there. I took the picture of him speaking via the Jumbotron. Chris (talk) 00:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I thought it should have been in the Main Space, but the picture came from a camera phone, something which is frowned upon by some other editors within Wikipedia though I have managed to get eighteen in at last count. I have thought about a digital camera, but I am happy with the camera I have right now. Chris (talk) 01:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Some anonymous user from Australia is now claiming that the picture I took of Palau on the Jumbotron consititutes a copyright violation. When is a free image on a Jumbotron considered a copyright violation? Chris (talk) 20:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I understand your frustration, but honestly, I don't know copyright law well enough to know if a ministry would own copyright on something like that. Wikipedia holds itself to a pretty high standard. You could contact the ministry, and request that they send an email to WP:OTRS releaseing it under GDFL I suppose...that's about the best I can suggest. Sorry! -Pete (talk) 23:22, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Interstate Bridge

What sort of update does it need? - Denimadept (talk) 01:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me that the discussion of plans to replace/upgrade the bridge are pretty thin, relative to the amount of media coverage the issue has received. But if you want to remove the template, I won't object. I think some stuff has been added since I first slapped the template on there. -Pete (talk) 01:55, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not local, so I'm not aware of any coverage. - Denimadept (talk) 02:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] LPO

Pete,

I am curious as to why you've been so persistent in deleting my entire edit rather than using specific discretion in editing individual parts of my addition. I will admit that while the tone could (and arguably should) be changed, the broader context is nonetheless accurate. You're criticizing my sources when some of them are very credible. I'd like to know how VIDEOS aren't credible? They seem to be the most telling of any source. And transcripts/minutes from official meetings? The Oregon office of the Secretary of State?

These are the things you're deleting! I would be willing to give you the blog references, but there are references within the blog that are credible. Also, providing people with negative information is not always reflective of a biased POV. If I had wrote about how great, successful, or beneficial this person's work was and didn't provide "credible sources" would this be happening? Sometimes there aren't pretty ways to write ugly information.

I can re-edit my original entry, but please stop being so dismissive about the WHOLE entry. You're ignoring points that, while negative, do have credibility. You should not be deleting edits without closely examining these things. Please be more courteous and responsible in the future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heystak (talk • contribs) 15:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Got a minute look at something?

I spent quite a lot of time on an inscription on a painting at the Rila Monastery, the discussion about it is here. But now I'd like to "finish" this off, get the photos in an appropriate place and clean up the mess I left in the process, and I can't really see my way through it, could use a tip or two. Tnx! —Martha (talk) 23:50, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments! Actually, after I wrote to you, User:Cameltrader fixed up the tags pretty well, so that all those photos get linked together. And I do think that the "one-click-fixed" version of just the lower panel with the inscription should get put up in its own right - you can see it here (when I loaded the inscription one, by mistake I put the whole picture up first!). I do agree that it's good to leave the inscription, making that was important to untangling all the details of what it says.

I think most of the "help" I need has to do with deciding where to put these: on Wikipedia, or on Commons. Do you think the ones on Wikip should be moved to Commons?? (Also, I sure hope I picked the right licensing code!! that's a pretty murky area to me. The photo said it was Creative Commons 2, I think - OK to use as long as attribution is given.) Then I think I have a little clean-up to do so that ALL the versions I know about on Wiki are linked! (Camelt. did this for me, I didn't know enough to use the Image template.) —Martha (talk) 18:51, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article count graph

I put the graph below the photos at WP:ORE. Feel free to move it. It is displayed at 50% resolution there. —EncMstr 17:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Elected Oregon

Hello fellow WikiProject Oregon folks and entities. Thanks to those who helped out with improving Vera Katz and History of Oregon during the last Collaboration of the Week! As you may have noticed, we have changed the banners a bit, but not our dedication to everything Oregon! This week, in honor of the political process, we have: Current Oregon Senate members & Current Oregon House members. Hopefully by November we can have an article on every current member of the Oregon Legislature. So feel free to turn a red link blue or expand an existing article. Since it is an election year, there should be plenty of newspaper stories. Plus, the state archives has this site that allows you to go back and see when they started serving and district info, plus at a minimum show they were a state legislator from a WP:RS. And per WP:BIO, all state legislator's are notable so no need to worry about AFD. As always, to opt out, opt in, or suggest future collaborative efforts, click here. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image placeholder graphic

Hi and good morning (Japan time). I've been looking at WP:RFC but I can't find any good precedents. Have you seen any similar disputes about formats that we could use as a model? I'd like to do this as clearly and fairly as possible. Ideally I'd like to bring the present (obscurely located) discussion to a close after another 24 hours or so. Is that in line with your ideas? That will also give us time to think about the next step. BTW the voting is now about two-thirds/anti one third/pro the graphic - and David Gerard has stopped pasting it everywhere with AWB. Best. --Kleinzach (talk) 22:31, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Concerns over the actions of David Gerard

I just had a look at Image:Replace this image female.svg 's history and found something highly fishy. It seems that on 14 March 2008 user Tizio nominated the image for an AFD (non-speedy) but then Gerard immidiatly removed it saying speedy keep instead of allowing a discussion to occur. Gerard is also the creator of the current template. Should he really have made an AFD ruling on a page he created? Sounds like shady behavior. Should it be reported?Nrswanson (talk) 02:41, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not worth getting into all that. First, it was actually admin Will who made the determination of speedy keep; and his reasoning doesn't sound so bad. Second, the only result of all that is that it delayed the discussion we're now moving toward; it didn't prevent anything. David is clearly convinced he's doing the right thing for Wikipedia, so it's important that we all recognize one another's good faith; I have no doubt that a wider discussion will lead to a result that is best for the project as a whole. No need to get anybody worked up by dragging in old issues. Good sleuthing though, always good to look into the background of these things. -Pete (talk) 02:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RFC or maybe a project or 'Centralized discussion'?

I'm having my doubts about WP:RFC. I don't think there is provision there for what we want to do - other than putting on a tag as Nrswanson has already done. In any case going to RFC seems to label it as a dispute, which I don't think is what we want.

I'm wondering whether it would better to take it to a project. Wikipedia:WikiProject Free images seems appropriate though not widely used. What do you think? --Kleinzach (talk) 05:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to be lurking; Pete's on my watchlist. I think this should be a matter for Wikipedia at large. WikiProject Free images may have a bias in favor of any method to increase free images. This not really a disagreement about free images. It's a disagreement about what kind of content is appropriate on article main pages. Not sure if it should be RFC or somewhere else, but I think this is larger than any particular WikiProject.Northwesterner1 (talk) 05:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

No, I appreciate feedback. Wikipedia:WikiProject Free images doesn't have a large active membership so I don't see bias being a large factor and it would 'ground' the issue in a home that it doesn't have at the moment. However if you can suggest somewhere better - or a suitable RFC-based procedure - I'd be grateful. (We've got one day to sort this out.)--Kleinzach (talk) 05:59, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Request comment on policy and conventions seems to work. In fact, it looks like we are active at RFC already simply by putting the {{RFCpolicy}} at the top of the page. {{RFCstyle}} may be a better fit than policy, I'm not sure. I've never participated in RFC before, but it seems like we could leave the discussion where it's at (on the image talk page); start a new section and clarify the RFC tag to reflect discussion on the new point; and then publicize widely on WikiProject free images, any other WikiProjects that have had disputes, any articles that have disputes, on the talk page of the male image, at the Village Pump, etc.Northwesterner1 (talk) 06:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

We've effectively done the RFC thing with the tag that Nrswanson put up, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/All#Policies.2C_guidelines_and_proposals (though that refers to the existing proposal rather than the discussion that is about to begin).

However I've also been looking at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion. According to that we could put up the box template {{cent}} to get attention. That might be more conspicuous than RFC. --Kleinzach (talk) 06:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Also do you think leaving the debate in situmight result in the discussion being eventually deleted together with the image? --Kleinzach (talk) 07:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)--Kleinzach (talk) 07:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

OK. I propose to start a centralized discussion at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders. (Title OK?) This will be similar to Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Country of birth. It will be listed on the box template {{cent}} to get attention. Is that an acceptable solution? Do either of you (when Pete returns!) see any problems with that? --Kleinzach (talk) 07:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. Might still be worth using an RFC tag on it, as that would bring attention to the new discussion (and also meets the suggestion of David Gerard).Northwesterner1 (talk) 09:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes indeed. --Kleinzach (talk) 10:14, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, seems I chose an inopportune time to get offline for a while! This suggestion seems good. Also, an explicit notification to the wikiproject you mentioned (free images) would probably be a good thing. Kleinzach, do you want help writing up the notification? We could write it ahead of time in userspace if that's something you'd like a few eyes on. Just a suggestion, fine by me if you want to just write it yourself too. -Pete (talk) 14:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Pete (and Northwesterner1, good morning (Japan time). I'm a little confused by your message on your talk page which seems to have been written after that above. I think we should stick with the plan above and not go to RFC because that would mean keeping the discussion on the Image talk:Replace this image female.svg which might be deleted in the future. Moreover the discussion would only be indirectly on RFC. What I intend to do is move the existing discussions over to Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders and put it in an archive there.

What I am going to do now - assuming nothing much has changed during the night - is sum up the discussion and bring it to an end (insofar as this is possible). I suggest we then work together on setting up the centralized discussion. I've started a userspace page at User:Kleinzach/Imageholders for this purpose. When that is finished we can move it to o Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders. Is that OK with you? --Kleinzach (talk) 23:24, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I've now posted the summary and also seen your intro which looks good. If there are no other considerations I'm happy to go ahead and set up Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders. --Kleinzach (talk) 04:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. As you will see from the blue ink above, I've started the new page at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders. Would you like to give it a test run? I think I've done all the things suggested by you and Northwesterner1. See you over there . . . --Kleinzach (talk) 06:06, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: deletion

I've restored and moved the page. Because there was already a page located at User:Peteforsyth/Scratch1, I moved the page to User:Peteforsyth/Scratch1_2. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thank you for recognizing my extreme sexiness. Honestly, I'm just so sexy, it hurts! I'll try to get to Goldy this summer, but I've got some others to work on first (McNary, Deady, Oregon Supreme Court) for FA. Though I will say one step pre-FAC would to start the Neil Goldschmidt sex scandal and move some of the info to there, plus tie in Bernie, Ted, and whoever else was involved/implicated/accused in the cover-up. This would include the fact that the WW story earned a Pulitzer, which seems a little out of place in the article the way it is currently mentioned. Maybe the prize could be integrated with the sentence talking about the WW story in the 3rd paragraph of the section. Otherwise I think the sex-scandal subject dominates the article and posses an WP:UNDUE problem.

Also, great job yourself with your own string of GAs and DYKs! I think you have enough Oregon DYKs now for the Oregon DYK badges of courage. Anyway, time to see if I can pop out a Larry George article by 3:00. Aboutmovies (talk) 20:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK!

On 12 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Josiah Failing, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Thanks, —Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:42, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bogus D.B. Cooper book

Pete, thanks for your interest on the DB Cooper book. Nishkid and I already talked about it somewhat. Let me tell you all the details. Someone posted in the discussion forum of the DB Cooper page that there was a new book out, published 2008. So Nish put it in the further reading section of the article. Intrigued, I decided to order a copy off Amazon.com, which advertises the book as being 52 pages long. Basically, I knew it would only be a short pamphlet, but it was only about $10, so I decided to buy a copy. When I got it, I found that actually 50 pages of text. Of those 50, the final 10 are simply the GNU Free Documentation License, which apparently is part of what's needed to print something verbatim off Wikipedia. The first two pages of the book basically just say that it's published by Filiquarian Licensing LLC. So that basically leaves 38 pages of text, which is all straight off the Wikipedia article only in very large font. This includes the Wikipedia references for the article (6 pages in all, in the book), and a Further Reading section. Everything is verbatim from the Wikipedia DB Cooper article, and I would estimate a January version of the article. The book was published in February, I believe, and it includes the stuff in the article about the FBI update on Cooper that occurred on Dec. 31, 2007. Everything is EXACTLY like the Wikipedia article, right down to the lead and the subheads ("You Are Being Hijacked," "Releasing Passengers in Exchange for Demands," etc.). The only author for the book is "Biographiq." You can check out their website at www.biographiq.com, but you will hardly find anything about them there besides some of their other books ... which I suspect also were pulled from Wikipedia articles. There is no way to contact them through their website, even though they have a "contact" section listed. Very, very shady. I don't know if the whole thing is technically legal or not. Even if it is, it is very disingenuous and misleading. I obviously never would have bought it if it had advertised itself as a copy of the Wikipedia article. As it is, I paid $10 for a lesser version of an article that I myself contributed to (coincidentally, the book was published before I really contributed much to the DB Cooper article, and also beefore the article became one of Wikipedia's feature articles). As you might imagine, whether this whole business is technically legal or not, I feel ripped off and outraged, even if it was only $10. It's the principle of the thing. If you have any more questions or ideas about what to do about it, I'd be more than happy to talk about it. Harry Yelreh (talk) 02:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you very much for your ideas, Pete. They are much appreciated. I will think it over and try them out. I have already talked with others about this whole thing, and they agreed that a book review on Amazon is of high order. I will put one up very soon and will also post something on your blog. Thank you also for your part in publicizing this. I think it's only fair to people that they have the opportunity to be aware of what they're getting into or purchasing. Please do stay in touch if anything else arises with all of this, and I will do the same. Harry Yelreh (talk) 21:08, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Point of possible interest: re "Biographiq" - note that "q" is a very common (though I find it repulsive!) transliteration for Slavic я (sounds like 'ya'), and the word Биография ('Biografija or Biografiya') is a standard slavic word meaning - surprise! - Biography. This may be a tiny lead to the source. —Martha (talk) 22:37, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Interesting article in the New York Times on publisher using a automated computer programs to generate print-on-demand books. I have no idea whether it's related to the DB Cooper thing but it sounds like a similar process, and I'm sure there's a lot of Wikipedia info mixed up in there. -Northwesterner1 (talk) 22:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Thanks for your continued work on the subject, Pete. I really enjoyed your latest blog. That must have been an interesting phone conversation. I still share the same concerns and general outlook on the matter that you do. Frankly, I find "Josh's" reply unsatisfactory. I'm pretty sure that what they did was technically legal, but I still am much more certain that there is a more honest, more open, and better way of doing things than what Biographiq has done. Did he by any chance tell you if this is how they've "written" all their books (i.e., copying Wikipedia articles)? By the way, I've been extremely busy for the last week or so and hadn't been keeping up on things. I still certainly, at the very least, plan on writing a book review over at Amazon. Harry Yelreh (talk) 06:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Your blog

Hi Pete. I noticed your blog. You probably want to add it to Planet Wikimedia. You should make a request here (it can be filtered by tag). You would also want to join Open Wiki Blog Planet (sign up here).--Pharos (talk) 18:57, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

	Thanks for your peer review, edit, support and comments - List of tributaries of Larrys Creek made featured list! Take care, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 20:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks (again) for your kind words. Keep up the good work on the Columbia Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 05:03, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wait for Discussion

Please allow for discussion before reverting. That's the point of this. Is it not? Let others participate in the debate prior to making revisions. Thank youAgntOrange (talk) 00:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I stumbled upon an open source web based photo album organizer today

This may (or may not) be news to anyone but I thought I'd pass it along: Gallery. —Martha (talk) 01:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

On 15 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Brad Avakian, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Cheers, Daniel (talk) 02:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 'post

Done. A request - can we be consistent and call the ugly things 'image placeholders' and not 'placeholder images'? This may seem pedantic but clarity may be the difference between getting new people involved and turning them off. Best. --Kleinzach (talk) 04:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Elections template

Should we somehow tie in the Oregon Democratic primary, 2008 and Oregon Republican primary, 2008 with the Template:OR2008elections? Maybe the State Senate and State House and Local Elections links suggested by the template should be created. On the other hand, the items on that template may need to be adjusted to fit what we have. In any case, we should get this stuff organized somehow. Thoughts?

(On a related note, List of candidates for the Oregon State Senate (2008 primary) needs some weeding out--for example, Devlin is on the list and he's not up for election this time.) --Esprqii (talk) 05:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, a navbox might be nice...I was trying to just make sure there's adequate cross-linking, which is easier to do =) It's a little annoying that several of them look like they were created generically by Presidential campaigns, with wording that would indicate that "primary"="presidential primary" (but I think I too care of the worst cases of that.) As for the Senate races -- I did my best to weed out the seats that are not up for election, but must have screwed up on Devlin's. Hopefully that's the only one. I'm very frustrated with the Sec. of State's site this year, they seem to have left everything to ORESTAR -- which is awful for this purpose. For instance I am 99% sure that Ryan Deckert and Avel Gordly are not running, yet they are on the list; I assume they still have active PACs, and are Senators, so it lists them automatically. I dunno. Any insight or help much appreciated! I'll try to do a similar list for the House races in the next few days, though I'm definitely not going to put in the time I did on the '06 races! Not worth the trouble. Anyway -- if you see an improvement to be made, be bold! Not sure how "techy" you are, but let me (or maybe EncMstr) know if you see something that could be taken care of with some fancy search/replace or spreadsheet functions. -Pete (talk) 05:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I think someone created those for each state with the intention that they be used specifically for the Presidential race. To avoid a big hubbub (bub), I was thinking that we should leave the Presidential stuff in there, then briefly summarize state races and have "main article" links to articles suggested by the Oregon elections template. Then let's add the primaries to the elections template. Maybe I'll take a stab at that later.

I think your ORESTAR search was by committee filings...if you search just by the candidates who are running for State Senate, here is the list you get: https://secure.sos.state.or.us/eim/CFSearchPage.do?sort=asc&cfSearchButtonName=sort&by=OFFICE. This is probably more accurate. No Deckert and Gordly on that list. --Esprqii (talk) 14:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Signpost

That's a neat feature! I followed the "Wikipedia in the news" link and checked out What to Do With Wikipedia - was particularly impressed by point 3 in the section "Embracing the world of Wikipedia":

3. The most daring solution would be for academia to enter the world of Wikipedia directly. Rather than throwing rocks at it, the academy has a unique opportunity to engage Wikipedia in a way that marries the digital generation with the academic enterprise. How about these options:

• A professor writes or rewrites Wikipedia articles, learning the system and improving the product.

• A professor takes his or her class through a key Wikipedia article on a topic related to the course, pointing out its strengths and weaknesses, editing it to be a better reflection of reality.

• A professor or information literacy instructor assigns groups of students to evaluate and edit Wikipedia articles, using research from other sources as an evaluative tool.

• A course takes on specific Wikipedia topics as heritage articles. The first group of students creates the articles and successive groups update and expand on them. In this way, collections of key “professor approved” articles can be produced in many subject areas, making Wikipedia better and better as time goes on.

If you can't lick 'em, join 'em? But even better than that - there's nothing like hands-on experience to teach how something works. Maybe these concepts could help your cooperation with the OHS folks? —Martha (talk) 20:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Adminship

Yes I was thinking of nominating you, I need to review some of your contribs first, which I haven't had much time for this week. I should have more time next week, which I will also hopefully have time to write up a nomination. As for the Stephen Colbert issue, I think you will find the community is rather forgiving for an incident as small as that that happened nearly a year ago, and if that is the worst event in your history here you are in good shape. In the meantime, I would recommend you take a look at recently closed RFAs as to see the type of questions you should be prepared to answer. VegaDark (talk) 22:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I have a good chunk of the nomination statement complete, however I want to include a portion as to what admin tasks you plan on helping out with, and/or what tasks you perform that would be easier with use of the tools. After looking through some of your recent contribs, your mainspace contribution is terriffic, but I haven't seen a lot of vandalism reversion/AIV reports, speedy deletion tagging, xfd participation, etc, lots of which is a good indicator of the tools being needed (blocks, speedy deletion, xfd closing). Lately I have seen some RfA comments opposing for no demonstration for need of the tools, and I wouldn't want yours to fail for that reason, so I want to verify that you would in fact make use of them. VegaDark (talk) 21:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

No fair, I wanted to go first. :P Katr67 (talk) 23:36, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

He mentioned it on my talk page first :P. I should get to you eventually, finals are coming up soon though so I may have to put it off until after that is over with (appx. a month, then I'm coming back to Oregon for the summer) and should have lots of free time then. VegaDark (talk) 23:43, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Vega! As for Katr, if I may be so "bold"...I think there's a perfectly good double nom sitting out there for you, just waiting for you to accept and answer a few little questions...so get out of the pantry already! ;) -Pete (talk) 23:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, just teasing. Scientizzle has been hounding me about it for months. I've got a vacation coming up, lots of time to write then, if not sooner. Katr67 (talk) 01:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wow this really works - positioning coordinates at the top of a page!

Check out Template_talk:Coord#Fixing_the_position - I did the thing of adding importScript('User:TheDJ/movecoord.js'); to my monobook.js and b'golly, the coordinates in the upper right-hand corner of a page now sit "tied" to where they belong - just below the horizontal line, on a level with the "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" text but in a smaller point size! Small thing, but it really affects how the page looks. Nice! —Martha (talk) 06:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

On 17 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Frank Morse (Oregon politician), which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Cirt (talk) 11:38, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] thanks for the noms

I had a block on coming up with interesting hooks. But I think they'll reject the Devlin one since they don't like redlinks in DYKs; quick, make a Tiernan stub! --Esprqii (talk) 18:32, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Grr. There should be redlinks in DYKs! Readers should have lots of gentle reminders that there's more work to be done. Ah well, you're probably right. I'm too busy to really do that justice though...I shouldn't be on here right now! -Pete (talk) 18:34, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Likewise. I'm bad at leaving things at truly stubby stubs, but maybe I'll make an exception for the sake of the project. --Esprqii (talk) 18:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edits to Historic Columbia River Highway

Please see Wikipedia:Redirect#Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken; thank you. --NE2 21:19, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] the endless debate

I am concerned. It may all be just childish nonsense, but all that nonsense is a disincentive to any new people taking part. Why would anyone want to read all that garbage? (It's not just one editor either.) I think it would better to bring the discussion to a conclusion soon. 23 April was suggested and I've supported that. Best. --Kleinzach (talk) 14:39, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, which I have just read. Regarding process decisions, I never expected the whole thing to become so big, but since it did, I feel some responsibility. . . . I don't think I'll say much more about Geni - he will doubtless be reading this anyway. Perhaps it's a case of the Teacher's Dilemma: If you have a class of 24 good students and one disruptive one, should you give equal time to each student - or special attention to the disruptive one?

The lack of an end date is serious though. Having no end date encourages delaying and spoiling tactics, not to mention canvassing. If it's in the minority's interest to gridlock the discussion - that's exactly what will happen. It becomes a stamina/shouting contest - nothing else. The only alternative to this - in all decision-making systems is due process (including time limits). Personally I'm not prepared to devote much more of my time to this (I've already given up trying to read the big page. Just too long - most of my attempts to subpage the question section (enabling multiple watchlist items) being blocked for tactical reasons). Best wishes. --Kleinzach (talk) 04:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK nom

On 20 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Kurt Schrader, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Wizardman 15:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] CfD nomination of Category:Oregon radio personalities

I have nominated Category:Oregon radio personalities (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. Rtphokie (talk) 00:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

Did you know? was updated. On 21 April 2008, a fact from the article Richard Devlin, which you recently nominated, was featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Cheers, Daniel (talk) 00:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Juxtaposition COTW

Howdy Ho WikiProject Oregon! Time for another installment of Collaboration of the Week. The last few weeks we’ve knocked out quite a few articles of our current state legislators, and even a few former ones too. Great job to all those who helped make it happen. On a related note, we have had several DYKs from this and now have 53 DYKs so far this year (not counting multiples), less than four full months into the year. Last year we had a total of 83 DYKs for the entire year, and 7 combined for 2006 & 2005. So we are well on our way to another record year. Each time an article makes it to the main page as a DYK it will typically get an extra 1000 hits, which is usually far more than the typical 100 hits per month most minor articles receive. With that said, this week we have two requests, Portland Lumberjax and Silicon Forest. As always, to opt out, opt in, or suggest future collaborative efforts, click here. Aboutmovies (talk) 03:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Johnson Creek paperwork

Hi Pete. Johnson Creek (Willamette River) was promoted to GA on Friday, and I'm making changes suggested by Ruhrfisch before attempting a run at FA. I removed the article from the GAN list at WP:ORE, but I don't see how to add it to the list of GA articles on that page. I'm not even sure whether I should try or whether a project administrator updates the list periodically. Any advice you can give would be appreciated. Finetooth (talk) 04:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Congrats! I was away for the weekend, didn't notice. The Oregon GA list is kept here: Portal:Oregon/Good articles and I don't see any problem with you adding it...except, I just did. I'll take a closer look at the GA review, and if I can help with FA I will! -Pete (talk) 04:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!

For catching the fact that I wasn't logged in (by mistake), and re-reverting somebody's well-intentioned but misguided revert! —Martha (talk) 06:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] You had a birthday?

[edit] Proposal to split Kettle Falls, Washington and Kettle Falls

Not sure if this is on your watchlist, but I thought you might be interested in my proposal here, which I thought would help the Columbia River series: Talk:Kettle Falls, Washington.Northwesterner1 (talk) 11:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal 2

Hi. It looks as though there may be a stray piece of your text at the top of this proposal. Maybe it was moved into the wrong position? Maybe even by me? Anyway I'd be grateful if you could take a look. Best. --Kleinzach (talk) 03:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

No problem. I'm also late with my summaries. --Kleinzach (talk) 05:51, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thank spam for pete

Thank you for voting in my RfA, which passed with 194 supporting, 9 opposing, and 4 neutral. Your kindness and constructive criticism is very much appreciated. I look forward to using the tools you have granted me to aid the project. I would like to give special thanks to Tim Vickers, Anthony and Acalamari for their nominations. Thank you again, VanTucky

[edit] Oregon House elections

Should we move Oregon House elections, 2008 to Oregon House of Representatives elections, 2008 to be more precise? Either way one should redirect to the other. --Esprqii (talk) 18:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Heh..all my future discussions were supposed to take place in adminspamland, thanks a lot for messing it up!! You have a good point, I don't really care either way, do whichever you think is best. What do you think of what I did -- did you see I started Oregon state elections, 2008 as well? I think it's all in keeping with our earlier discussion, but let me know if you think there's a better way to keep it organized. -Pete (talk) 18:42, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, looks good. I think some tables of candidates and races would be nice, especially the non-self closing ones like VanTucky's template.

OK, I can't resist, I'm gonna be totally anal and move it to the full name. --Esprqii (talk) 19:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Your RFA

A heads up that I and some other editors have given you some (optional) questions on your RFA. LegoK^ontribsT^alkM 03:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RFA comment

Hi. You recently added a comment to your RFA addressing Balloonman, but put it under my !vote. I didn't want to move it in case this was intended, but I am guessing that it wasn't. Cheers TigerShark (talk) 09:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Oops- I'll fix it, thanks for checking. -Pete (talk) 09:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Placeholder history

Thanks Pete! That's a good idea to put Geni's summary there. I absolutely think the summaries should be joint work so thanks again for pitching in. DoubleBlue (Talk) 21:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] COTW+?

		The COTW award from WPOR.
		Thanks for leading the way during the legislator drive! Aboutmovies (talk) 04:28, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Pete, I can leave it up till Monday. Speaking of the COTW, I was just looking for the award, and it and the main WPOR award are no longer on the project page. Do you know where they got moved too? Aboutmovies (talk) 04:28, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Barcamp

Thanks for the tip, Pete. Can't make it to Portland this year but I will keep an eye out for future events. I've heard of this before & have been intrigued by it. Thanks also for the cooldown help at the image placeholders. Whew. Probably the last time I'll get involved in something like that, but I do want to see the process through on this one.Northwesterner1 (talk) 07:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Conclusion: Image placeholders centralized discussion

Hi. I'm sending this to you because you participated in the Centralized discussion on image placeholders that ended on 23 April.

That discussion must produce a conclusion.

We originally asked "Should the addition of this box [example right] be allowed? Does the placeholder system and graphic image need to be improved to satisfy policies and guidelines for inclusion? Is it appropriate to some kinds of biographies, but not to others?" (See introduction).

Conclusions to centralized discussions are either marked as 'policy', 'guideline', 'endorsed', 'rejected', 'no consensus', or 'no change' etc. We should now decide for this discussion.

Please read and approve or disapprove the section here: Conclusion --Kleinzach (talk) 11:31, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Please note this message conforms to WP:CANVASSING and has not been sent to anyone has not already participated in the centralized discussion.

[edit] Image placeholders

I give up. I'm taking it off my watchlist. Best of luck to you. I hope it works out.Northwesterner1 (talk) 00:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Pete. At the moment, I'm not helping the situation. I've said my piece, and I think it's time to step back and let others have their say. I wouldn't back out if I thought I could do some good there, but I really think I've done all I can for the time being. I'm antagonizing Kleinzach, and I'm hoping if I disappear he might cool down a bit. Comic relief. Northwesterner1 (talk) 17:39, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] You are now an administrator

Congratulations, I have just closed your RfA as successful and made you an administrator. Take a look at the administrators' how-to guide and the administrators' reading list if you haven't read those already. Also, the practice exercises at the new admin school may be useful. If you have any questions, get in touch on my talk page. WjBscribe 23:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Congrats! Malinaccier (talk) 23:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Well deserved, congrats! May the force be strong with you.Northwesterner1 (talk) 23:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah dude! Woohoo! --Esprqii (talk) 23:54, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

• Jeez! How did I miss voting on this?!? Strong support!!! --David Shankbone 23:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations, I trust that you will take the comments in the oppose section and improve upon them as you have always proven to do. If they community can trust you with the tools, than that is good enough for me. If you have any questions fell free to drop me a line! Cheers, Tiptoety ^talk 00:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations Pete! VanTucky 00:50, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I second that! —Martha (talk) 01:14, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

High five! Katr67 (talk) 01:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Congrats! First of many I have the opportunity to nominate I hope! VegaDark (talk) 03:07, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Was that a Stealth RFA or what!? This is the first I knew of it. Well, it was a few minutes before that when I saw this entry in my watchlist:

• (User rights log); 16:49:56 . . WJBscribe (Talk | contribs | block) changed rights for User:Peteforsyth from rollbacker to sysop (Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Peteforsyth)

Congratulations! As James Bond once said, "You won't play with the switches and knobs, will you?" —EncMstr (talk) 03:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations! Cirt (talk) 04:06, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations. Finetooth (talk) 05:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all for your support, and kind words. I find myself ill-prepared for the obligatory spam "thank you" campaign, so for the moment I'm just leaving this one message here. But it is really gratifying to get all this positive feedback from so many of the great editors I've enjoyed working with. I also see a lot of wisdom contained in the various reservations expressed by some participants, and will be very careful about how I approach my adminly buttons. Above all, I'm looking forward to the break in all this administrative stuff, so I can get back to, you know, writing articles! -Pete (talk) 05:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations (and I did not know about the Google Earth flight simulator - thanks)! Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 11:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I just discovered this -- congratulations and etc etc. I've always been impressed with your ability to stay cool in the midst of flames and kindly suggest focusing on improving articles instead of arguing. I felt like mentioning something like that here recently anyway, and now seeing this adminship section... well cool, makes me happy. Pfly (talk) 07:00, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] re:suggestion

Thanks for the tip, that's a great idea! VanTucky 22:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cinco de COTW

Greetings once again from the Collaboration of the Week at WikiProject Oregon. Thank you to those who helped out with the last set of articles. This week we have the lone Stub class article left in the Top importance classification, Flag of Oregon, and by request, Detroit Lake. Help where you can, if you can. To opt out of these messages, leave your name here. Adios. Aboutmovies (talk) 22:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Barnstar

		The Original Barnstar
		With appreciation for your help with Johnson Creek (Willamette River), especially for raising an important accessibility issue and nominating an FYI, I award you this barnstar. Finetooth (talk) 17:04, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] One for the success story files

I don't know if you caught this back in the fall, but Zab, a WP:ORE member, got the Geographic Names Board to change their listing for Lake Creek, Oregon! Details at Talk:Lake Creek, Oregon. Katr67 (talk) 04:21, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Zzzz Oregon COTW

Howdy ya’ll, time for another Collaboration of the Week from WikiProject Oregon. Last week we improved Flag of Oregon & Detroit Lake, enough I think to move them to Start class, so great job everyone! This week, we have another request in Oregon Ballot Measure 47 and a randomly selected two sentence stub that should be easy to expand enough for a DYK in Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. To opt out of these messages, leave your name here, or click here to make a suggestion. Aboutmovies (talk) 18:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] edit wars on United States Senate election in Mississippi, 2008

You have no idea.--Dr who1975 (talk) 04:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Well there's obviously a lot of energy around the article(s), maybe it can be converted into something that actually improves it (them)! I'm encouraged by the edits you and others have been making since I got started... -Pete (talk) 05:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I apreciate that...due to history I couldn't be the one to merge them.--Dr who1975 (talk) 06:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RFA question

jc37, thanks for your thoughtful participation at my RFA. I find myself curious about your perspective on WP:IAR. I looked through your RFAs, but didn't see it addressed in much detail. If you're so inclined, I'd be interested to hear your perspective on the policy. -Pete (talk) 00:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

First, let me congratulate you on being granted adminship : )

And, no, my RfAs were quite a different experience. In the first, I made several mistakes mostly due to not knowing the "climate" of RfA of the time as well as I thought I did. I think things have definitely changed quite a bit since then.

As for IAR, I'm not certain what you're asking. Would you clarify? - jc37 06:41, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the congrats. During the RFA, I was asked when it would be appropriate to invoke IAR (question 8 under Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Peteforsyth#Questions for the candidate.) I gave an answer that I'm confident is a good one, as I think it's an accurate representation of what guides most of my work here, and I find my work to be generally well-received. Still, it may not be the best answer, and I'm sure there are many different good answers. At one point during the RFA, you said that you thought my answer was close, but "not quite there." It didn't seem appropriate to me to get into a debate over that during the RFA, but I'm interested in the perspective of someone who's obviously put some thought into it himself. (In rereading my answer, I see that I didn't spell out one thing that I maybe should have: basically, in any instance where I might be tempted to directly invoke IAR -- something that I don't think has ever happened -- I would try to reformulate my justification in terms of specifically how my action made the a better encyclopedia, rather than descend into alphabet soup.) -Pete (talk) 04:10, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I know that RfA can be a "trying" (pardon the pun) experience. And sometimes our answers to questions don't well enough convey what we may actually mean. (If in doubt, check out my first RfA : )

But if you;d like to have a philosophical discussion concerning IAR, I'd be happy to discuss with you. I'll start a new section below, pasting your original response for reference. - jc37 04:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] IAR

8. When is it appropriate to invoke WP:IAR?

A. Ignore all rules is, in my opinion, the most interesting and the most important of the five pillars. At its core, I understand it to be a reminder that Wikipedia is what we make it, by the rules we agree to; and that the primacy of making something good is what holds it all together. I think it's important for anyone who takes their Wikipedia work seriously to think carefully about IAR at some point in their development as an editor.

Unlike other policies, I tend to be skeptical when editors invoke IAR to justify a specific action. Sometimes laziness, or an inability to fully articulate an argument, might make IAR a tempting principle to end a complex or contentious debate. This can be particularly dangerous with admin tools, where those who disagree may not have the ability to admit revert the invoker's actions.

I think that more than other policies, any serious invoking of IAR should be carefully considered in its context, and along with any accompanying argument, before being agreed to. In the abstract, all I can say is that it is probably only applicable in a case where there is strong consensus that a rule was created in ignorance of a specific situation, which demands a more nuanced solution.

I suppose, the simplest way to respond would be to suggest reading: User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles.

Your answer above shows that you've been on the "other side" of someone (apparently poorly) invoking IAR.

When I said "come close", that's what I meant. You skirt around actually defining what the policy means, and talk about what it shouldn't be, and how it shouldn't be invoked.

And this in particular: "At its core, I understand it to be a reminder that Wikipedia is what we make it, by the rules we agree to; and that the primacy of making something good is what holds it all together."

seemed to indicate that you almost grasped it, but "not quite". It's like skirting the edges of a fire, rather than jumping right in : )

Does that at least clarify why I said what I said? And please feel free to clarify your above response, as well. - jc37 04:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to that statement of principles, that's a good read, and something I was unaware of. The rest of what you say makes sense, too. I guess I didn't see the need to explain what such a simple policy meant, in order to discuss when it should be invoked. (All it says is "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.")

I guess I see what you mean about not giving a straight answer. I probably could have been more clear and direct, but that would not have been a good representation of my view. My standard for myself is, never invoke IAR. (Though there may be a circumstance I can't foresee where it would be appropriate.) But, I wouldn't impose that standard on someone else; it's a policy, and it's available to be invoked whenever somebody sees fit. It's not up to me to dictate to others how to enforce or apply policies.

Anyway..it was said a few times during my RFA that my answers were weird or unsettling. (Don't recall if you were one of the ones who said that.) Your response here, I think, helps me understand how people might have felt that way, so thank you for that bit of insight. -Pete (talk) 22:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

(Continuing the philosophical discussion.) Ok, so you wouldn't utilise the policy, and wouldn't hold others to your standard, but...

• "(All it says is "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.")"

So what does that mean to you? When and how do you feel it's appropriately applicable? - 17:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I regard it as more of a guiding principle than a specific rule. As such, detailed analysis is something that seems counterproductive, and would take me in a direction of making statements that are inconsistent with how it guides my behavior on Wikipedia. (Please note, though, I didn't say I wouldn't utilize it, but that I wouldn't invoke it -- as in, never use it as the justification for a specific edit or action.) Maybe I could put it this way: IAR essentially reminds us that every decision must ultimately be made on its own merits (in the context of improving or maintaining Wikipedia), rather than out of simple adherence to rules. So seeking a statement about this one rule that accurately describes when and how it should be applied in all situations is a fundamentally self-defeating exercise, and wholly misses the point. -Pete (talk) 20:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Well put! What would a rule to ignore rules be? Nothing at all. —EncMstr (talk) 20:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you just fell into the oxymoronic semantic "trap" that Peteforsyth is trying to dextrously stay out of. : )

I regard it as more of a guiding principle than a specific rule. - ok, nice start.

As such, detailed analysis is something that seems counterproductive, and would take me in a direction of making statements that are inconsistent with how it guides my behavior on Wikipedia. and So seeking a statement about this one rule that accurately describes when and how it should be applied in all situations is a fundamentally self-defeating exercise, and wholly misses the point. - Nope. Though I've fallen into that same logic pit myself in the past (my first RfA, for example). It has to do with getting so "hung up" on the question that you forget why it's being asked, or perhaps are too focused on trying to "guess" why it's being asked.

IAR essentially reminds us that every decision must ultimately be made on its own merits (in the context of improving or maintaining Wikipedia), rather than out of simple adherence to rules - Rather close. And that answer, at least, might have been enough for me to support, at least in regards to this question.

That said (since we're discussing this philosophically after-the-fact : ) - it isn't that decisions need to be made on their own merits. If that were true, Wikipedia would be a right chaos.

It's that a set of rules typically cannot be thorough enough to cover every contingency, every possible situation. So, while we may be mindful of the "rules", decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis, while keeping both typical Wikipedia convention, and the current situation in mind. In other words, don't let the rules stop you from doing what's "right". With "what's right" not being a case of personal preference, but a case of following the "spirit" of the guidance of "the rules" rather than the demarked text of such pages.

This leads directly into the often misunderstood situation on Wikipedia that Wikipedia policy is not equal to Wikipedia policy pages. And also is reinforced by WP:NOT#BURO.

So yes, the question is answerable without needing specific details, or coming up with hypothetical cases.

Incidentally, I've found that those who best invoke WP:IAR are often those who understand policy very well. (Though without necessarily having ever read a single policy page.) - jc37 21:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, thanks for spelling out your own answer in detail, that's what I was most interested to see. I disagree strongly with one of your premises, but can appreciate where you're coming from. And I definitely wouldn't presume to tell you that you're "wrong." But, as to the primacy of making decisions on their own merits, I could point to lots of articles -- many of them GA or FA -- where that is exactly the collective attitude that lead to the healthy collaboration that produced the articles. It was not an understanding of WP policy, but an understanding of the nuances of the subject matter, and of the academic and media sources covering them, that lead to vast improvements in the article. (I'd say that's the case with pretty much every FA and GA listed at Portal:Oregon.) I don't know if I'd consider that "right chaos," but maybe so. After all, it's been said that "Wikipedia is something that in theory cannot work; it only works in practice."

And EncMstr, I envy your ability to say a lot in a few words. Well said. -Pete (talk) 21:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

So to clarify, what premise do you "strongly disagree" with? - jc37 22:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

it isn't that decisions need to be made on their own merits. -Pete (talk) 22:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The reason I asked, is that your statements directly above would seem to support that it's the situation, not the decision. That the "merits" of a decisions are and should be secondary to the situation at hand. (In other words, a case-by-case basis.) Would you further clarify? - jc37 22:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm having trouble making sense of this last question, and suspect that there's some inconsistency in the way you and I are using signivicant terms. (Maybe we mean different things when we say "their own merits.") So, more generally: human judgment is the essential stuff that makes Wikipedia work, and it's more important for an editor to understand the subject matter he is writing about, than it is to understand the rules governing the project. That's the key to improving and maintaining Wikipedia. The rules are not the most important ingredient.

I suppose what you said in the paragraph following the one I quoted is essentially the same thing. So maybe I just misunderstood that sentence. Maybe we don't disagree on much, after all.

Do you have an example of a case where you think IAR was invoked in a way that really helped the project? If so I'd be interested to see it. -Pete (talk) 23:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

In general, the "rule" to WP:Be Bold : )

That aside, would you clarify something you said above:

• "...I see that I didn't spell out one thing that I maybe should have: basically, in any instance where I might be tempted to directly invoke IAR -- something that I don't think has ever happened -- I would try to reformulate my justification in terms of specifically how my action made the a better encyclopedia, rather than descend into alphabet soup."

So essentially you have no trouble with "ignoring all rules", you just don't feel that it's appropriate to cite WP:IAR when doing so? - jc37 00:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

You're close, but not quite. I have no trouble, in principle, with ignoring all rules; remember, I said I regard it as the most important of the five pillars. But I have yet to encounter a situation where it was necessary to invoke it, and continue to see it as a worthwhile personal challenge to seek resolutions that don't resort to IAR. Again, I do not hold anyone else to that standard, so you are incorrect to say that I don't find it "appropriate" to invoke the rule. -Pete (talk) 04:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tnx for putting Dospat photo into infobox!

Looks good there. I'm a little worried, though - it's not a "bathymetry" picture, it's a satellite photo. Is it OK to stretch definitions like this? —Martha (talk) 03:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

No problem! I guess we could wait and see, huh? I guess you know as well as anyone, I've never been much of a stickler for rules (see above ;) -Pete (talk) 04:12, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] No free image--but she told me to use it!

Hey Pete, David hasn't gotten back to me about Mary Robinette Kowal's photo. She is bewildered herself at the news of the copyright issues but as a busy puppeteer and writer, doesn't have time to look into this herself. Please help me to understand, and to find some way to reinstate her photo. I'm not a WikiWizard, and generally my edits are limited to grammar and spelling corrections, but I'm sort of the unofficial caretaker of her page. ThorneyDayna (talk) 03:21, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Pete, I answered you on my Talk page, but I guess you didn't see it...can you indeed walk me through the steps? I have another photo with all the information I hope I will need...ThorneyDayna (talk) 21:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nugget Newspaper

Is there an admin in the house? Wanna try out those fancy buttons? Can you see if this is salvageable and perhaps restore it? You can put it in my userspace if it's questionable. We do need this article. Despite WP:OTHERCRAP, see Wilsonville Spokesman for context. Thanks! Katr67 (talk) 21:32, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mike Cade

I removed the red link to Mike Cade because the page was speedily deleted, and it didn't look like there was a chance that Mike Cade would ever have a page. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 01:17, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. I can understand that some red links are necessary. Otherwise, I'd have removed every red link from the article. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 01:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Henry Failing

On 20 May 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Henry Failing, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 03:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

Oop, I hadn't noticed, and am flattered you wrote one up, thanks! I don't know about hook wording -- I wrote mine quickly and just picked a zinger that doesn't really have all that much behind it. I'll look more closely. Pfly (talk) 02:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] QWERTY: Oregon COTW

Hello WikiProject Oregon participants, time for another edition of Collaboration of the Week. Last week we made some great improvements to Wallowa-Whitman National Forest and Oregon Ballot Measure 47 (1996), with a DYK for the forest. Great job everyone! This week we have another stub, George Lemuel Woods, one of only two governor stubs left, and should be an easy job getting it to Start class. Then, in honor of the long weekend, we have our second State Park Article Creation Drive. Lots of red links to turn blue, lots of opportunities for DYKs. Help if you can, even if it is only adding pictures of state parks. To opt out of these messages, leave your name here, or click here to make a suggestion. May the The Schwartz be with you. Aboutmovies (talk) 10:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] my deletion

Sorry about that. :( Thanks for letting me know what happened. Gwen Gale (talk) 02:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for the info! LittleMountain5 03:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 67.171.158.152 and the Portland Armory

Hey, thanks for your thank you note to 67.171.158.152. It's actually my girlfriend, from her home IP address. She's a historic preservation major at U of O, and heard the redeveloper give a lecture on the Armory, so I thought it would be good for her to expand the article. Anyway, thanks for dropping her a note, it got her excited about editing :) VanTucky 19:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Hah, cool! She can brag now that she contributed to a WP:DYK (coming soon...) and a B-class article! Hope she does keep editing, she's obviously got some skills =) -Pete (talk) 08:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Ooh, I want to talk to her! My step-uncle's sister (long story) got her master's in HP and was curator of Kam Wah Chung and now she has a sweet job at Yosemite. Though I'm thinking of getting an MLIS, HP sounds like a lot of fun too... Katr67 (talk) 09:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] X marks the WPOR COTW spot

Guten Tag WikiProject Oregon team members! Great job last week with the Collaboration of the Week, we improved George Lemuel Woods and added eleven new state park articles. This past week we also surpassed the 6000 article mark as a project. The weather may suck, but WPORE is not. For this week we have by request Music of Oregon and Phil Knight. Both need some help, and with Knight we might be able to improve it to GA standards. Once again, to opt out of these messages, leave your name here, or click here to make a suggestion. Aboutmovies (talk) 19:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use and living people

Your welcome. The profile picture in the Bill Bowerman article has the same copyright infromation and rationale. It even links to the Phil Knight picute instead, and that picute has been up for a while. So I thought I might try my luck. I would be very interested in a list of requested pictures of Oregon and would love to help at any step of the way. Searching for pictures is fun. Thanks Pete!

[edit] What would make the funny spacing in the ref. in this article?

I can't see anything peculiar about the ref, but on my screen it comes up with a big blank space between "Subcamps" and "and". -Martha (talk) 04:26, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm...wish I had a clue! It shows up fine on my computer... -Pete (talk) 09:45, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Pete's mom! EncMstr fixed it. The references were coded with {{reflist|2}}, which breaks references into two columns (e.g.), instead of {{reflist}}. Northwesterner1 (talk) 11:17, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Page move

Per Talk:Blue Mountains, I'd like to move Blue Mountains to Blue Mountains (Australia) and turn Blue Mountains into a disambiguation page (splitting off some content from Blue Mountain). I'm still not sure about when I need to ask for an admin's help at Wikipedia:Requested moves. The article has a complicated page history (in fact it used to be at Blue Mountains (Australia)) and has nearly 500 articles linking to it, most of which are correctly pointing to the Australian article but some of which are intended to point to other Blue Mountains. Am I going to create any problems if I just do this? (I'm asking about technical problems, not people problems, as I believe Talk:Blue Mountains shows consensus for the move.) Thanks for any advice. Northwesterner1 (talk) 20:14, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Hrm, good question. I am pretty sure that, even with out admin privileges, you can simply move it, because the existing page you'd be replacing is just a redirect, and has no revision history. My understanding is that the software's smart enough to recognize that, and allow you to do it without any problem. If there WAS revision history, it would require somebody (I think an admin) to merge the histories, both for tidyness and for GFDL compliance. I'd say let me know if you have trouble, except I'm not sure I'm knowledgeable enough to really be of help on this one...EncMstr may knw mre thn me. -Pete (talk) 01:12, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It takes admin privilege to delete any page, even a redirect. The redirect Blue Mountains (Australia) has only trivial history, so the proper action is for an admin to move Blue Mountains over the redirect. Northwesterner1 won't be able to mess anything up because it will refuse, unless she or he has admin privileges. If you didn't have any admin buddies, there's a template or a page to request page moves. Everything seems to be in order, so I performed the moves (1 article, 2 talk pages) and diverted the original redirect to the Blue Mountain disambiguation. —EncMstr (talk) 01:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Northwesterner1 (talk) 01:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Northwesterner, give it a try anyway. Like I said, I'm pretty sure the software is "smart" enough to allow this move over a redirect. I'm pretty sure I did similar moves before becoming an admin. -Pete (talk) 02:00, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Wait, never mind -- I see now that EM did it. But in the future, I think it works sometimes. Oh, and thank you both for lending a hand to Mom! -Pete (talk) 02:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks like EncMstr's right. I just tried moving A More Perfect Union (Barack Obama speech) to A More Perfect Union (speech) and got busted by the software. (I'll wait for a little more consensus on that one before asking for admin help.) Northwesterner1 (talk) 02:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

OK...well, he often is :) By the way, can you weigh in on my suggestion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon#WPOR template update, since it's so closely related to your recent blog posts? If we're going to go with my suggestion, I think we should do it ASAP, to work better with this impromptu photo drive we seem to be on! -Pete (talk) 02:48, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Then again, according to Talk:A More Perfect Union (Barack Obama speech), they were able to make a previous move from A More Perfect Union (speech) to A More Perfect Union over a redirect. So who knows what's up? Maybe since that was essentially an "undo move" it worked? Unfortunately I don't understand template syntax, and I have no clue what you all are talking about at WPOR. Just sort of nodding my head on that one & leaving it to the pros.Northwesterner1 (talk) 03:24, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Everybody's kind of right. :) Yes, sometimes a regular user can move a page over a redirect him/herself, and sometimes it takes admin assistance. I think it has something to do with whether the page has already been moved between the two titles, essentially "locking out" us mere mortals. But it never hurts to try. If you realize you've screwed something up and can't move it back you can always fetch an admin--it's not the end of the world. I've found the admin help queue speedy enough, if none of our admin pals are around. You can also request a non-controversial redir deletion using {{db-move}}. Then you can move the page yourself, but usually the admin will do it for you. As far as "what links here", it's a good practice to fix all the redirects, though not an absolute requirement. There's a bot that comes along and fixes double redirects. If you don't have AWB already, it can semi-automate tedious tasks like that. Katr67 (talk) 09:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Katr. I think I need to learn this AWB of which you speak.Northwesterner1 (talk) 10:03, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I think Pete's asking for your opinion on the most useful way to manage photo requests. You can safely ignore the template's complexities. The essential question is how to best arrange the reqphoto= parameter to {{WikiProject Oregon}}. Should it treat the article the same as if {{reqphoto|in=Oregon}} were specified—for simplicity and backwards compatibility? Or is something more complex useful enough to be worth some trouble, probably mostly with training and education? —EncMstr (talk) 06:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I still don't get it. I've tried a couple of times to decipher the WPOR conversation but just can't get my head around it. It's not just the template syntax I don't understand. It's also some WPOR practices in general, particularly around categories and other administrative sortings. I've never taken the time to really sit down and look at all the various administrative projects at WPOR and see how they all fit together. Maybe this will be an incentive for me to do that. But for now, I think I better abstain from this one.Northwesterner1 (talk) 07:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

NW1, re: WPORE admin sortings in general: I wouldn't try to understand it if you don't want to! There are a few of us who keep track of stuff like that, most people don't bother. I instigated the latest round of changes to the template to simplify watchlisting and tagging of cat and template pages and it evolved from there. The resulting mess resolved itself into a WP:ORE template that has more complex parameters, but hopefully is more intuitive to use. The gist of it is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Project banner. re: The photo bit: I haven't looked into it. Katr67 (talk) 09:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Understandable. The discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon#WPOR template update covers a lot of ground on several somewhat unrelated areas. Most of the discussion subtopics are esoteric and can be ignored without peril. The essence of the WikiProject Oregon tag is to perform these functions:

• Indicates that someone thinks the article is of interest to WP:ORE.
• Categorizes the page (that is, places the page into a Wikipedia category) as a WP:ORE page, so the magic URLs for "recent changes" and "recent discussions" function.
• Categorizes the page for importance (low/mid/high/top), or flags it so someone soon assesses its importance.
• Declares the page's classification (stub/start/B/A/FA/FL/dab, etc.), or flags someone to soon assesses its class.
• Optionally requests a photo, by putting it in a Wikipedia category that photographers routinely look through.
• Optionally calls for attention.

Does that help? Perhaps this should be copied to the template documentation. —EncMstr (talk) 07:32, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I started the thread a little higher above that section break & I think I understand it a little better. But I'm still not sure I understand the argument against Pete's solution. I would say that backwards compatibility as a goal is very important, because a lot of newbies like me don't necessarily always do things "the right way" (or the currently recommended way). Instead, we look to see what has been done elsewhere, and we copy and paste the syntax to the articles we're working on. So we don't always catch up to current methods or revised best practices. I think the regional breakdown will be very useful for some people, but if we can make it work more smoothly with the old system, so much the better. It seems to me that images with no identified region should be ending up in roughly the same place as images with an identified region, whether one uses the old system or the new system. I don't understand the technical arguments preventing merging the categories, but if it is possible to merge them, then by all means, let's do it. Eventually I think a massive redesign of the WP:ORE page would help explain administrative procedures to newbies. I might be in a good position to do it, since I don't really have a clue what's going on half the time, and trying to figure it out puts me in a good position for explaining it to other newbies. I don't have a lot of time coming up in the next few weeks, but I will make it a goal to try to look for ways to improve the "home page" sometime later this summer. Northwesterner1 (talk) 07:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Northwesterner, I think you're looking for more complexity than there is. I don't think backwards compatibility is the issue here; under either scenario, editors who use the old template will continue to contribute to the project without having to change their practice. In my view, this is a slam-dunk, but I want to be respectful of EncMstr's views too. To my mind, the question on the table is this: is it worth maintaining a distinction between (1) articles that are not geography-specific (like, say, the state seal or Miss Oregon) and (2) articles where the location is not known (like, say, the Wahkiakum County Ferry, which doesn't fit so neatly into the regional breakdown, or Dan Gardner who, if he retains a home in Portland, it's not widely known where it is.)

I don't see any need to keep separate categories for things that are not geography-specific and things where the location is not known. I don't think it's technically difficult to combine them, but EncMstr seems hesitant. If there's a reason to keep them separate, I'd be open to hearing it, but I can't see what it might be. -Pete (talk) 08:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

If that's the core of the issue, then yes, I would agree that the simplest and most elegant solution is to combine those two categories into one.Northwesterner1 (talk) 08:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Strange how neither of us (Pete & I) seem to be clearly communicating this topic. My hesitancy is combining 1) articles which are known to have no specific geography—with 2) articles which aren't yet known what geography might apply, if any. —EncMstr (talk) 08:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not strange, it's Mercury retrograde. Katr67 (talk) 09:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, EncMstr. That helps me understand things. I thought there was a technical problem. I see now there's no technical problem, it's just a conceptual question of which is better. I'm with Pete. I think everything uncategorized should end up in the same dark corner, and then someone should watch that dark corner for things that can be categorized geographically and move them to the appropriate folder. That seems to me analogous to how all categories on Wikipedia work. Articles get dumped into a general category. And then some dedicated soul moves them out of the general category into more specific categories. The general category is almost always a grab bag of "articles known to have no more specific category" and "articles which haven't been identified yet as belonging to a more specific category." It's not ideal. But it's pretty commonplace across the encyclopedia. And it seems to me much better than having two entirely separate dark corners.Northwesterner1 (talk) 09:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

<unindent> Thanks for the remindr, Katr. Mercury retrograde seems to affect believers and non-believers alike. Powerful stuff. Northwesterner, that's a great breakdown, describes the issue very accurately I think. Are you immune to astrological oddities? -Pete (talk) 19:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if bringing this back to the "end user" experience might help us resolve this. To my way of thinking, the "end user" in this case is anyone willing to take a photo of Oregon-related subjects. If such a person is planning to take some pictures, the most fruitful place to look will be in the region she's located in or traveling to; I'd imagine most photographers will look at that first. But maybe when planning more long-range, for instance while thinking about several possible trips to take in the next year, she might want to look at a more extensive list. Or, potentially, a WP:ORE member planning a mailing to various biography subjects or companies to request photo submissions. In either case, I would think a single more general list, containing both "unknown location" subjects and "non-location specific" subjects, would be ideal. EncMstr, can you think of a circumstance where separate lists would help a photographer searching for possible subjects? Or another "end user"? -Pete (talk) 08:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at the present Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Oregon. Aren't you are endorsing maintaining at least one potpourri like that? It contains biographies, places, and some more nebulous things—like universities—and, what the heck is Yamasa? (I now know.)

I keep such a list from many months ago in the car. The problem is that I don't know where most of the sites are without reading the article. Which led to the idea of a regionally organized photo request system. At the time of printing there were ~600 entries; now there are less than 200, so maybe it doesn't matter which way it is done anymore. They are getting cleaned up, and we have the best of both. —EncMstr (talk) 23:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm endorsing a single potpourri category...things will hopefully get moved out of it into more specific locations, but we all know that many things will remain, either because they should or because nobody knows an exact location. -Pete (talk) 16:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Blog

Hey is that Snapshots thing an option we can turn off? Do you like it? I have a browsing habit of opening links in new tabs while I continue to read an article, and it gets pretty distracting to have the article partially obscured by pop-up windows... Maybe I'm the only one who feels that way though... Northwesterner1 (talk) 03:57, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It sure is. I have been on the fence about it...as a new idea, I kinda wanted to give it a chance, but I think I agree that it's more distracting than useful. Go ahead and find it/turn it off if you like -- I'm trying to get offline...but if you don't find the button, I'll look for it tomorrow. -Pete (talk) 06:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Another decision would be, what should we do about trackbacks and pingbacks, like the one that's been sitting in the comment queue, and the ones that resulted from you linking from one post to another. I kinda think we should just delete them, they're confusing. But I'm not sure I entirely understand the benefit of keeping them... -Pete (talk) 06:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

From a reader's perspective, I agree with you. I find them distracting. Even more so, as this one is a trackback to ourselves! Most blogs I read don't seem to use them these days. If it's simply a matter of keeping tabs of when someone links to us, then it seems like Technorati does the job better (or just looking at the stats for incoming traffic). Someone more familiar with SEO could tell you whether there are benefits in generating traffic. Myself, I'm not a big fan of SEO strategies that provide no actual improvement in the reader's experience, but I don't have a strong opinion about this. You're the blogman. Be bold!Northwesterner1 (talk) 07:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not fond of the snapshots either. So that's an admin-level control, vs. a user prefs thing? Hmph. I think we should delete the pingbacks too, but wasn't sure what function they served. But I saw us pop up on Technorati as link in Jack Bog's blog so if that works, let's just rely on that. But since I actively try to foil SEO companies vanispamicruftising on Wikipedia, I'm not going to advocate any marketing strategy besides spreading the word among users on this wiki, in Meta, and doing stuff like getting added to blogrolls like ORblogs and talking to other bloggers. I like the idea of spreading the word through actual live readers and don't really want to think about how the word is spread using machines. Other folks are more than welcome to do that though, as long as the strategy isn't spammy or obnoxious. Katr67 (talk) 20:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is prisonplanet RS?

Hi, can you please tell if this article published in prisonplanet.com can be considered RS or not? The article is written from pro-tobacco and pro-smoking POV. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 07:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Well that's a good question, but one I can't answer without knowing the context. What article is it being proposed to support? What element of that article? Will the article rely on it, or is it merely supporting a minor point? WP:RS states that context and editorial judgment are essential elements of determining whether something is a reliable source or not. I will say that it's a little hard for me to imagine a case in which a web site run by an outspoken talk radio host is regarded as having the kind of editorial structure WP:RS identifies -- but it's possible that's just a limitation of my imagination. If you'd like to point me to the discussion this arose from, I could try to give a better answer... -Pete (talk) 07:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I want to use it for the article Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany. I did not use this reference, but it has a good information that the term "passive smoking" was first coined in Nazi Germany. I want to use this reference to support this fact. I have mentioned this fact in the article by using a different reference (Science in the Third Reich), but the book Science in the Third Reich does not mention the German name (i.e. passive smoking = Passivrauchen) which is mentioned in this prisonplanet article. Also this prisonplanet article has information that the Nazis equated smoking with the Gypsies, I did not find this information in any other article. I want to mention this information also, but confused if this can be used as RS or not. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 07:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem with the prisonplanet source is that the prisonplanet reference is trying to equate the present day anti-tobacco movement with the Nazis, which is a misrepresentation of historical fact. There is no relation of the modern anti-smoking camping with the Nazis. Yes true the Nazis initiated once world's strongest anti-tobacco movement, but that has no relation with the modern anti-tobacco movement. This prisonplanet article is written in a manner to refute the present day health care concerns by saying it a Nazi method ignoring several historical facts. The prisonplanet source is written from a pro-tobacco POV by diminishing the anti-tobacco campaign and labeling the anti-smoking movement as Nazi method. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 08:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I really should note that this is well outside any of my expertise. It sounds to me like you have a carefully considered opinion of the source, and are exercising exactly the sort of editorial judgment that WP:RS advises. I am definitely willing to accept that an article and publication that present a questionable analysis may still provide valuable supporting facts that may be used in derivative works like an encyclopedia. My advice would be to be bold, but be prepared to present your case in detail if somebody questions the fact or the source. Thanks for asking, it's an interesting question -- sorry I can't be more definite! (Out of curiosity, what led you to ask me? I don't think I've done any editing on related topics.) -Pete (talk) 08:15, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 3RR warning

Pete, you've crossed the line at Neil Goldschmidt. Although the other party are making tendentious edits, please find another solution to this edit war. (For example, I'd be curious to see what an RFC on Squeakbox's claim that "when a 30 something man abuses sexually a 14 year old girl we at wikipedia call this what it is commonly called, ie child sexual abuse" is policy. I suspect not.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I'm not going to worry about WP:3RR, because I believe WP:BLP is more important in this case. Thogugh I think you're right, RFC will probably be necessary. -Pete (talk) 18:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

What happened to 2RR-limit Pete? In the future, you can just ask for help. —EncMstr (talk) 23:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Attack warning

Your attack on me I can deal with, your attack on illiterate people I will not tolerate. There are simply no excuses for your arrogant and bad behaviour in this regard, please desist from your provocations. You may think you are here to ahve fun but actuially we are here to build an encyclopedic project and when you make comments attacking the people we are here to help I have difficulty assuming good faith. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:37, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Pete made one comment that can be seen as snarky: "If so, you need to work on your reading skills." Though saying that was probably ill-advised, it appears to me he is referring to reading comprehension and not actual illiteracy. I think you're reading too much into his comment. A personal attack would be more like: "You don't know what you're talking about, you illiterate so-and-so," and I don't think anyone is implying that. I know Pete knows very well that this is an encyclopedia project and he's not just here to play games and have fun, and he's certainly not arrogant. I realize it's hard to assume good faith during a series of contentious edits, but please remember that y'all were posting in the wee hours of the morning (on the west coast of the U.S. anyway) and maybe everyone was a little sleep deprived. Please don't escalate the personal attack part of the dispute over this article and concentrate on working things out in the RFC. Katr67 (talk) 20:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Squeakbox, I am sorry. I am sure your reading skills are just fine, and I have nothing against the illiterate either. Katr is correct, I felt that in this particular case, you did not read or comprehend the comment you were responding to thoroughly; but me making the leap to questioning your general abilities was entirely inappropriate, and I regret it. -Pete (talk) 21:33, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is something messed up here?

Or has something been moved? I was looking for some good description of "how Wikipedia works", and went to Wiki success stories to find something. So far, so good - but at the end of that page there is a link to WPT:ORE#.22no_free_image.22_images and I was pretty shocked at where I found myself - I reached a page that indeed has that address, but the page itself is titled "Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon"!! I suspect that the link should be to this page, but I can't figure out how WikiProject Oregon's Talk page came to be named "no free image"!) - Martha (talk) 04:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

You've found a complicated one! There's three things going on here. First, "WPT:ORE" is a shortcut (AKA redirect) for "Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon". Second, the "#" mark indicates a specific section header on the page (the header "no free image" images). Third, that particular discussion has since been archived! So, the page you mentioned should be updated to link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Oregon/archive5#.22no_free_image.22_images (or to the equivalent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WPT:ORE/archive5#.22no_free_image.22_images ). Got all that??! -Pete (talk)

That's actually about what I figured. I updated it (had to create an identity to do it! wasn't realy to do that, but...the sacrifices one makes!) — but I had to use this for a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Oregon/archive5#.22no_free_image.22_images — the abbreviated one works from within wikipedia, but apparently not from outside! Something else to learn.... — Martha (talk) 04:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A is for Apple at COTW

Hello again to those of the WikiProject we call Oregon. Time for another edition of Collaboration of the Week. Last week there was some good improvements to Music of Oregon and Phil Knight, great job everyone. This week, by request is the Applegate Trail, which is short enough to easily conjure up a DYK. Then, I’m trying something a little different, with the Portland State stuff. We included the two high profile schools during Civil War week last year, so now its time for the younger sibling that gets no respect to get some attention. After all, it is the largest college in the state. Feel free to help with whatever aspects you like, though to help with some ideas I added some to the article talk page. Click here to opt out of these messages, or click here to make a suggestion for a future COTW. Nana na na, hey hey hey, goouud byeeee. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:03, 7 June 2008 (UTC)