Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chicago/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Archive 1
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Welcome to WikiProject Chicago! This page is about the Chicago article and its ongoing improvement. Please feel free to post any suggestions or concerns here. For a list of this project's main objectives, see the Main Page. New members, please add your name to the Members list. --Gpyoung 6 July 2005 05:00 (UTC)

Contents

Discussions

Has anyone considered starting a Google Group for WikiProject Chicago? As far as I can tell, there seem to be at least three different places where discussion on the Chicago article is taking place:

This makes just the act of following discussion about the Chicago article page very confusing for me, personally, and I have no idea how to contribute because I don't understand what the current plans for the article are. I think viewing discussions in a threaded environment like a Google Group forum would make things a lot less confusing for anyone interested in contributing.

Ideally, I would think that the WikiProject Chicago page should only provide status visibility for the project: it should only include definitive information about the project's purpose, who's doing what, and where the project is headed--no discussions or proposals. If no one's interested in having a Google Groups forum, then at the very least, I think there should be no discussions or proposals on the main WikiProject Chicago page, and that there should be some discernable way to figure out what kind of discussion goes on the Chicago discussion page versus the WikiProject Chicago page.

In any case, I'm pretty new to all this myself so maybe everything I just said is completely off. It's just my first impression.

- varmaa 23 October 2005

Just passing through, but shouldn't this project be part of WikiProject Illinois, or at least connected up to it in some way? Deirdre 23:15, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Where to Start?

So, where should we go from here? First of all, we need more active members. Secondly, IMO the most important thing for this project to do is bring the Chicago page up to featured article status, but how do we go about doing that? Any Suggestions? --Gpyoung 7 July 2005 03:39 (UTC)

First, the Chicago article was actually nominated for featured article status before. Also, see the criteria for featured articles and the featured geography and places. I think the article needs to be really well written, factual, well-organized, and concise. It is not really any of these right now.
We're going to need more people working on this project though. -- BMIComp (talk) 9 July 2005 07:54 (UTC)
Agreed 100%-Chicago needs major work. If we are going to re-write or at least re-organize it, then we should use WikiProject:Cities, which has become the Wikipedia standard, as a guide. And yes, we NEED more people. Does anyone have any ideas on on how we can be a bit more agressive in recruiting/advertising the project while still following Wikipedias rules? I have already put a template on the Chicago page and a handfull of other ones, but it doesnt seem to be working, --Gpyoung 9 July 2005 16:21 (UTC)
Maybe we should start asking users who seem to make a positive contribution to the chicago article if they would like to be part of it in their talk pages, or is that too aggressive? -- BMIComp (talk)
No, i think thats just the kind of thing we need-good idea. Maybe we could also make a member template for user pages. --Gpyoung 9 July 2005 16:58 (UTC)
This is just my opinoin, but I think some of the sections in the chicago article are a bit bloated (like the history for example). We need to make it shorter so it is more of a summary and move the rest of it to a subpage. Thoughts? -- BMIComp (talk) 19:41, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
Well, more then being bloated, the article is disorganized. I think the use of sub categories is warrented in an article that size. What we need to do is weed out the fluff and then sort all of the real information into a couple smaller sub-categories.
--Gpyoung talk 22:06, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

I'll add info on the original geography of Chicago. Just give me a few days. Peaceman 23:14, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Landmarks

I took a moment and added some of the more popular (official) landmarks. However, what qualifies as a landmark? Is the sears tower a landmark? Or does a landmark imply a historical status? -- BMIComp (talk) 9 July 2005 07:54 (UTC)

I think the State of Illinois has an official definition of a landmark (like buckingham fountain), but I wouldnt be opposed to looking at it more liberally and including things like the Sears Tower that arnt officially recognized. Maybe split the list into two sub-parts: Historical Landmarks and something like Notable Sites. --Gpyoung 9 July 2005 16:21 (UTC)
I think that's a great idea (splitting the lists), otherwise anyone who loves any paticular site will add it as a Landmark (I know I've done this). I'm getting ready to leave for dinner so I can't work on it now but I just found this link to the LPCI. Perhaps we should start our search there. Jasenlee 23:43, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
Just found this Chicago_Landmark Jasenlee 02:34, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Article To-Do List

  • I overhauled this page and expanded what was already there and added several new sections. Please let us know if you were expecting more. Shoffman11 22:41, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Fox River Also needs info!!
  • Chicago Marathon — I'm not a runner, but I believe this can be a featured article by next year's. :-) --Rob 19:02, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Template for Chicago

This is an outline that was proposed on the Chicago talk page awhile ago. It seems a little long to me, but its a good start towards making the article more in-depth. I think we can also revise it to include more Chicago-specific topics (ie. Under Law and Government-a sub section about machine politics since Chicago is (sadly) pretty well known for that)

  • History
This needs to read less like a timeline. The chicago fire needs to be expanded on a bit, as it destroyed the whole city. -- BMIComp (talk)
Agreed-History section is a lot of nothing-Expand Important events ----Gpyoung talk 00:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
Agree in principle but as a minor technicality the chicago fire didn't actually destroy the whole city. It certainly left major parts of it in ruins but much of the early neighborhood growth on the North, West and South side was a direct result of the fire. Many of the neighborhoods existed then but population and industry was concentrated in the loop. Maybe I'm being too picky. Jasenlee 21:29, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Law and government
    • Crime (proposed)
Mafia. Gangsters, Al Capone.. St. Valentine's Day Massacre -- BMIComp (talk)
Can this even be included under History? We can break crime up into current crime rate ect. and Historical Mob crime ----Gpyoung talk 00:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Social & Contemporary Issues (proposed)
  • Environment (proposed)
    • Geography
    • Climate
    • Bodies of water
    • Agriculture (proposed)
Is there much agriculture in the city itself? -- BMIComp (talk)
Nope-I would lose this one ----Gpyoung talk 00:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
I would suggest that while the Chicago article probably doesn't warrant a traditional Agriculture section we should consider the many Farmer Markets that operate around the city. Perhaps something like this would belong in a different section. Thoughts? Jasenlee 21:29, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
Chicago is the center of trading for futures and options in the US. It's history has been infuenced greatly by agriculture. "Hog butcher to the world" Kalmia 01:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Flora (proposed)
    • Maps (proposed)
I just dont see how Maps has to do with enviornment ----Gpyoung talk 00:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Urban Area
    • Suburbs
  • Economy
    • Major industries and products
    • Taxes
  • Demographics
Many of the subs just seem to be stats-i dont think they need their own subs ----Gpyoung talk 00:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Households
    • Age
    • Income
    • Demolingustics (proposed)
  • Education (proposed)
    • Public education (proposed)
    • Private education (proposed)
    • Charter schools (proposed)
    • Libraries (proposed)
    • Colleges & universities
  • Communications and media
  • Arts & culture
    • Museums & Galleries (proposed)
    • Zoos (proposed)
    • Aquariums (proposed)
    • Cultural Centers (proposed)
    • Buildings & Landmarks (proposed)
    • Music (proposed)
    • Film & TV (proposed)
    • Theater & Stage (proposed)
    • Folklore (proposed)
    • Cuisine (proposed)
    • Parades & Holidays (proposed)
  • Sports
    • College (proposed)
    • Professional
    • Stadiums (proposed)
This section should fit into the college and professional ones-talk about stadiums w/ the teams ----Gpyoung talk 00:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Health & medicine
  • Transportation
I would get rid of both of these and make this section more about CTA and roads/highways ----Gpyoung talk 00:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
I wouldn't because I think other items like Taxis or Airports are significant and would in my opinion be appropriate under a Transportation section. Jasenlee 21:29, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
    • Public Transportation (New Proposed)
    • Roads and Highways (New Proposed)
There is already Streets and highways of Chicago; is this not enough? Kelly Martin 03:34, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
I agree, perhaps the person who added this didn't see that section. Jasenlee 21:29, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
    • Traffic (New Proposed)
What is this one about? Traffic volumes in the city? Red-light camera manamgent? CDOT? :-) I vote to merge this into Public Transportation. --Rob 16:46, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
    • Taxis (proposed)
    • Bicylcing (proposed)
  • Tourism and recreation
    • Events & Festivals (proposed)
    • Shopping (proposed)
    • Attractions
  • Infrastructure (proposed)
    • Utilities (proposed)
  • Religion (proposed)-I would think that this whole section can go under People and Culture ----Gpyoung talk 00:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Notable houses of worship (proposed)
  • Sources and further reading (proposed)

Now, this is a very rough list. It needs to be consolidated and revised, but I think step one for the Chicago article is reorganizing it and this is a good start. Add any section-sepcific comments directly to the list and feel free to add to it or move things around. --Gpyoung 9 July 2005 17:09 (UTC)

I agree that this is a rough list but I think that we should always keep a living version of it as over time I've used it as inspiration on topics to write about. Many times it has spawned a bit of colorful research and has given me ideas for other sub articles. I suspect it will/does the same for others. Perhaps members of this project can develop a voting process for anytime one of these new sections is promoted to the main article? Jasenlee 23:47, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Chicago Lead Picture Vote

A vote will be held on whether to change the lead picture at the top of the Chicago InfoBox tonight at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chicago/PictureVote. The voting will be open for 24 hours from the posting of this notice on the Chicago talk page. Please come and voice your opinion. An explanation to why this vote is needed is also included on the voting page. Thanks, --Gpyoung talk 21:22, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Self page

I'm not really sure if this is worthy enough to make this discussion page, but just for the curious I have made a self page: User:Dralwik/Chicago of aerial views of the city and metropolitan area. Dralwik 23:00, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

My improvements

I've been slowly improving some chicago-related articles for the past four months so I figure I'd join the project to maybe attract other members to help. My work is mainly concerned with both the 77 community areas of chicago as well as the neighborhoods within them.

— oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 23:46, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Ahh yes, Superdawg, very nice. =) -- BMIComp (talk) 01:47, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
But, remember, no ketchup on that dog! Dralwik 02:04, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Chicago Biking

I started the Bicycling in Chicago article, but it needs to be reformatted, needs a picture or two (i'll try to get some this weekend), etc. Once it's looking better we can link it from the Chicago article and maybe even add a summary to it. -- BMIComp (talk) 03:31, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I also added some pictures to the Notable citizens of Chicago. Edit at will! -- BMIComp (talk) 04:02, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Added some parks to the parks page too. -- BMIComp (talk) 04:31, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Organized Crime in Chicago - Timeline and People. We need to add a summary of chicago organized crime though. -- BMIComp (talk, HOWS MY DRIVING) 19:44, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Regions of Chicagoland

Chicagoland is divided up into 10 counties in three states. There are many many suburbs, towns, and cities that do not have any maps to show their location, and furthermore there is no standardized infobox. An attempt is shown here. I wish to create a general infobox for a municipality within Chicagoland. Chicago is the exception since it is divided into community areas which have a standardized infobox. Here are the things I think we should include in the infobox. Let me know what you all think.

Founded Type i.e city, town, village, etc... Population Mayor Government Type Per Capita Income Median House Value Total Area Assessed Property Tax Rate Web site

— oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 17:57, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

I think your Template: Chicagoland municipality is great and is useful when comparing various Chicagoland cities and villages. I would help by adding it to the articles. HollyAm 21:15, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Great! Don't worry about the image in the template, I'll take care of adding that. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 21:26, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

Chicago-related stub categories

Hi - don't know whether your project is aware of it, but there are three stub categories that are probably useful for you to know about. The most obvious of these is {{Chicago-stub}}, which lists stub articles in Category:Chicago-related stubs.

The other two stub templates and categories are {{US-struct-stub}} (Category:US buildings and structures stubs) and {{Illinois-geo-stub}} (Category:Illinois geography stubs) (This second one is new and the category is still being filled). In both of these cases, can I please ask you not to move articles out of these categories and into the Chicago one, but rather - if you wish to add them to the Chicago stub category - to double-stub them (i.e., add a second template). The reason for this is that many editors like to edit based on geography or on buildings, so it's handy for the articles to be where these editors can readily find them as well.

I hope these stub types are helpful for your project! Grutness...wha? 11:29, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Hi! I'm wondering about the Chicagoland page. Northwest Indiana, comprised of Lake and Porter counties, is generally included in Chicagoland as they share an economy time zone. Yet, Porter County is not listed and my attempts to correct this have been removed. Chicagoland, Chicago_suburbs_(Indiana). Thanks. User:HAL9triple0

Well we need to draw the line somewhere. If we keep adding counties to the current nine, what's to stop even more counties to be added until we end up with something like 15 counties? Even more distressing is that there isn't an official boundary designation. Maybe we should put this to vote? — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 23:05, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
I agree that there has to be a line drawn somewhere and Chicagoland cannot extend any farther then it already is, but I do believe that Porter country is part of the region. Some Wikipedia articles say it is and others say no, but personally I would have to say yes, Porter county is Chicagoland. I would not be opposed to putting it to vote if it is really needed though. --Gpyoung talk 23:13, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
I have no problem including Porter county if we can draw the line at 10 counties. Whether or not we want to put this to vote and lock in the 10 counties is fine with me. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 23:19, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
I think part of the problem is that metropolitan areas have been revised by the government over time. This page seems to indicate that the metropolitan area is now called Chicago-Naperville-Joliet but was called Chicago-Gary-Kenosha prior to 2003. Perhaps something on this page can help with the definition dilemma. May not be time for a vote yet. HollyAm 00:14, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
On this list scroll down to Chicago in the C's and you'll find the U.S. Census Bureau's definition of the Chicago MSA. Maybe that could be the springboard from deciding the definiton of Chicagoland. Dralwik 02:09, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Township/County question

I was wondering if any of you could weigh in on this with any expertise. As we know a municipality may span more than one county. Some municipalities may even lay in four different counties. I was wondering how this is handled. Do we say that that muni is part of multiple counties, or is the muni officially part of just one county? Also, this question also applies to townships. I'm fairly sure that muni's always identify with just one township, but i'm not that sure about counties. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 21:39, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

I know Steger, Illinois is part of both Cook County and Will County; the two parts have different taxes, so I would guess the town has official affiliations with both counties. Bloom Township is also in both Cook and Will. I'm not sure about the relationship between municipalities and townships, however. 00:30, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
I've seen many websites that show certain munis have explicit affiliations with certain townships. I know that Berwyn even broke off and formed their own township. As for now, I am going to ignore the fact that some munis lie in mutliple townships and try to find their exact affiliation until someone who knows the explicit answer says different. — oo64eva (Alex) (U | T | C) @ 00:47, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Usually one would say that a municipality "lies within" This County and That County. Given the relative unimportance of townships in Illinois except for school districts, they would not frequently be mentioned in an article about a municipality.Southloopguy 02:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I've found out that Chicago doesn't lay in any townships! The city or county or whatever the proper governmental body is has abolished the townships within the city limits. Dralwik 02:06, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
A city, town or village can be located in more than one township. RE: the previous post, What townships formerly made up what is now Chicago?
Off the top of my head, a number of what are now community neighborhoods in Chicago were once towns, like Jefferson Park. A bit of research should turn up more. I'm not really up to doing that this week, but I will be doing some work along this line while working on the neighborhood stubs, so that they at least have something. I'll have more time for this next week - but if time opens up I'll work on it - I'll put it on my 'to do'.
Townships are not so unimportant in Illinois; not only school districts, but catchment areas (e.g. for CMHCs), general assistance, and EMS networks are controlled/defined by them. They also span multiple counties, e.g. Niles Township, which includes Niles, Skokie, Morton Grove, etc. spans Cook and Lake counties. Most of the articles about municipalities in Illinois aren't nearly in depth enough to warrant explanation of what township they belong to; it's not a common geographical reference like counties are, and we don't have a whole lot of info on, for example, the CHiPs hospital in Niles township and its referring hospitals. siafu 00:51, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

This map from the Encyclopedia of Chicago shows the former townships of Chicago and the date each was annexed. --- Dralwik|Have a Chat My "Great Project"

Regarding the recent Featured Article Nomination

Someone has changed the picture back to the old one, which I support because voting was supposed to end August 13 according to the vote page. Also, in my opinion, I do not think the article should have been nominated for FAC without giving prior notice so that everyone could make sure that the article is just the way we want it; or we should have had a recent discussion about what still needs to be done, if anything. This WikiProject is about collaboration and is less than a month old; we should have given it more time before nominating (IMO). HollyAm 12:38, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Chicago COTW

Hi, I have started a page for a possible "Chicago Collaboration of the Week". I think an organized improvment effort like this will help us to direct our efforts and fix some of those stub articles and red links. Let me know what you think. --Gpyoung talk 00:36, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

The Chicago COTW has been recently marked as inactive - just a heads up, in case anyone wants to revive it. - AKeen 17:31, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
I will revive it if people seem intested in doing the projects. Thoughts?--Twintone 16:52, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Deep Tunnel

I couldn't find any article on this Chicago topic. Rmhermen 13:54, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

Then you should create one or add it to the Requested Articles list.

Jasenlee 02:31, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

I was hoping that it was under some official name that I didn't know. Rmhermen 23:46, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
I have created this and made it a priority. It is under the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan, which may be subject to renaming since most everyone knows it as Deep Tunnel. However, that's not the name of the project. :-) As it is, Deep Tunnel, Deep Tunnel Project, and any other variations which I stumble upon will redirect to Tunnel and Reservoir Plan. --Rob 16:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, and I guess Milwaukee has their own Deep Tunnel project. So I'd leave it as TARP for now. --Rob 19:59, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

A picture of the tunnel that I could use without copyright concerns would be nice. Are state websites copyright-free? --Rob 19:56, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Marina Towers

I have a perfectly lovely photo of the Marina Towers that needs an article. Someone, please help! Kelly Martin 02:12, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Chicago area meetup

I've finally decided on a place for the first Wikipedia meetup in Chicago: 2 p.m. at Saturday, October 15th at Cafe Iberico, a tapas bar in the River North neighborhood of Chicago at 739 N. La Salle Drive. They have parking available and are 0.3 mile from the Chicago stop of the CTA Red Line. See their website for parking information; for transit planning use the RTA trip planner with a destination address of "739 N. La Salle Dr." Cafe Iberico has vegetarian selections for those who are so inclined (sorry, they're not very vegan-friendly, I'm afraid). The food is excellent and the environment very suitable for an informal gathering. Do check their webpage for any additional questions, or ask me. They typically cost typically costs between $10 and $15 per person; I'm willing to cover for anyone for whom this is too much (as long as we don't get too many people).

Please let me know before Saturday, October 8th (by email or on my talk page) if you're planning on coming so I can make the appropriate reservations. See you there! Oh, and please share this invitation with anyone you know of in the Chicago area who I've missed. Kelly Martin 19:53, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Image request

Hi, I'm not sure how practical my request is, but I was hoping that someone from this wikiproject might be able to provide an image Stinson Memorial Library in Anna, Illinois or any other Chicago buildings designed by Walter Burley Griffin. The article is WikiProject Canberra's current featured article workup project. Many thanks.--nixie 12:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

user box created

Use this: {{User WPChicago}}

To get:

Image:Municipal Flag of Chicago - userbox.svg This user is a member of WikiProject Chicago.


Please feel free to move this notice if it should be on the project page instead of here.


A userbox already exists... the code is {{ChicagoWikiProject-Member}}.

Jasenlee 02:51, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

The Berghoff

Just thought you guys might like to know that I created an article for the soon to be closing Berghoff restaurant. I grew up going there every year before Christmas after my parents would take us to see the Christmas windows at Marshall Field's. My father, who still lives there, recently informed me that Field's is turning into a Macy's as well as telling me about the closing. Anyway, that's besides the point. I just wanted to make sure you guys knew about the article in case you wanted to improve it. I was planning to but if I don't get to it, I thought someone should... Dismas|(talk) 16:13, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

P.S. If someone could swing by there and get a photo of the sign before they take it down or something that would be great! Dismas|(talk) 17:51, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
It's only a block from my office, so I'll be happy to do it. -- DS1953 talk 18:01, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Done. See Talk:The Berghoff (restaurant). -- DS1953 talk 04:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Chicago Main Page Image

Some objections have been raised about the changing of the picture on Chicago. This was done based on theo objections from the last time Chicago was nominated as a Featured Article; many people found this image to be ugly and thought that it did not do the city justice. However, it has come to my attention that a vote was held a while back (~6 months) on whether to change to picture and they decided not to. Personally, I do not feel that this article can be elevated with this image on its header, and there are much better ones to choose from. Most of the editors who voted to keep the image are no longer active on the article, and since this Project has undertaken some major improvment work on it, I think another vote is warrented. If anyone object to this, please feel free to state your opinion. It should also be noted that an invitation to join the project was sent to everyone who was active on the article, even as far back as the time of the vote, this includes the anon who changed the picture on the new infobox template created by BMIComp and myself. I will post notice of the vote on the Chicago talk page, but I think it should be conducted here, as issues like this were the reason that WP:Chi was founded. --Gpyoung talk 20:33, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

For those who are looking, the vote is at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Chicago/PictureVote

Chicago FAC

Just to let everyone know, since the picture vote had ended, I tallied the results and changed the picture in the infobox (number #3 won). I also finally nominated Chicago as a featured article, I hope it goes well! --Gpyoung talk 18:14, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

FAC Failed

Okay my fellow Wikipedian's, the FAC failed and I think we need to redouble our efforts. I know everyone has tried really hard but let's not be too anxious. We should spend some serious time evaluating the work we have all done. Take a moment to go over all past peer reviews and make this the best city article out there. Let's get this project extremely active and build on that. Before anyone resubmits for a FAC I think we should have a vote. Agreed?

My suggestion is that we all start dumping tasks in the to-do section and then evaluate and prioritize them. From that point we can all start working ad-hoc or assigning tasks to specific individuals. Thoughts? Jasenlee 01:55, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I think the FAC vote was ended prematurely, as it was still active and votes were still being placed and objections acted upon. I have sent a message to Raul654 who is in charge of the Featured Articles asking him to continue the vote, as I think it was very close and there were only a few outstanding objections that were in the process of being fixed.
That aside, I do agree that our efforts have to be doubled, or even tripled. Our biggest problems were pictures. One of the more vehement complaints was that 4 or 5 images were not free and as hard as I tried, I couldn't find replacments in time (once again-ended too early). User:bmicomp has contributed some really great free images that have been inserted throughout the article, but we need more. Also, we need to interconnect the article. It was written by many different people and hence, sounds like it was written by many different people. Some minor editing should fix this fairly quickly.
As for voting before we nominate the article, I agree, although this being WikiProject Chicago and as we know first hand, voting in Chicago is never straightforward and easy, as we saw in the picture vote. I do apologize if people did not want the article nominated when it was. I was in fact the one who nominated it, however I was under the impression that the plan was to nominate it as soon as the picture vote ended.
Hope we have better luck next time. --Gpyoung talk 02:49, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
I may be able to come up with some more pictures. I'll be back in Chicago for the first 2 weeks of April this year, and I'm handy with my digital SLR camera. I also have a slew of pictures from my trip last July - what do we need?Robovski 05:52, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Sister Cities

I strongly disagree with the addition of a new sub section called Sister Cities. This was once a sub article and it has been moved into the main article. It is nothing more than a list and in my opinion doesn't qualify as sub section unless someone can create some meaningful prose. I'm going to move this to a sub article within the next 5 to 7 days unless I hear any strong and reasonable objections. Other thoughts? Jasenlee 02:32, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Rewriting history section

For the next few days at my user sandbox, I'll be rewriting the history section of the main Chicago article, and when I'm done, will splice it in. Feel free to add your own suggestions at User:Dralwik/Sandbox. I'm focusing mainly on the 20th century. Dralwik 02:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I already revised the history section, and am now using my sandbox for other things. Dralwik 04:28, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Project categories

I created a Project Categories section because to me, it seems as though there are some natural groupings in the Chicagoland template that lend themselves to being a part of a category.

Something like "Buildings in Chicago", for example.

Much like the "Project Templates" section, I would like to see it used as a resource for contributors. I've only included the categories I personally have worked with; if you would like to add your own categories, you are encouraged to do so. Thanks! --Rob 15:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Just interesting...

There is now an userbox for residents of Chicago: {{User Chicago}} that looks like this:

This user lives in or hails from Chicago.

. --- Dralwik|Have a Chat My "Great Project"

An idea for Wikiproject Chicago

Why not add school zoning information for Chicago neighborhoods?

Chicago Public Schools has a zoning tool. Punch in an address and the zoned school will appear WhisperToMe 02:14, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Stub for articles in need of expansion?

Does a stub exist for a Chicago article in need of expansion? Thanks. —Rob (talk) 23:20, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Nevermind, found it, but that needs to be listed on the project page. :-) —Rob (talk) 03:35, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Translations

Dear fellow Chicagoans.

I have been working on the Danish translations of the main article. Maybe we should put some more time into the translations of the main article? The da:Chicago article was but a stub before I started translating parts of it. It is still painfully short, but still much better than what was there before. I think more complete translations of this article would raise it's profile in Wikipedia. Does anyone else here agree with me? --OrbitOne 19:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a great idea - however I am no use with languages other than English (and some think that is questionable). The more languages the article is available in the better.Robovski 22:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
One important thing I want to have done is a translation template. A selection of the text from the article with the most important things to have in a translation. I want to have this so there is some uniformity in content between translations. So this is something you can help with Robovski. Maybe we should make it into a subproject if enough people show interest in this? --OrbitOne 23:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay. On the Danish translation, I am getting alot of Quality Control checks. I do need someone to create a translation template with all the important parts which should be translated. Thanks. --OrbitOne 13:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team cooperation

Hello. I'm a member of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing articles using these criteria, and we are are asking for your help. As you are most aware of the issues surrounding your focus area, we are wondering if you could provide us with a list of the articles that fall within the scope of your WikiProject, and that are either featured, A-class, B-class, or Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Do you have any recommendations? If you do, please post your suggestions at the listing of all active Places WikiProjects, and if you have any questions, ask me in the Work Via WikiProjects talk page or directly in my talk page. Thanks a lot! Titoxd(?!? - help us) 18:50, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Movies

I've created a category Category:Chicago films and added a few articles to it - mostly those movies that I could remember "off the top of my head".

If you recall any of the dozens if not hundreds of other movies set in or filmed in Chicago, please add them.

MattHucke(t) 13:14, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikimania 2007/Chicago

At the Wikimania page, I started a page on having the 2007 Wikimania in Chicago. Direct comments and ideas either at m:Wikimania 2007/Chicago or on my talk page. Thanks, --- Dralwik|Have a Chat My "Great Project"

Civic Footprint

I am an intern at the Center for Neighborhood Technology. I have been creating wiki entries for Chicago aldermen and recently for the Hispanic Democratic Organization, which our Civic Footprint website will link to. Civic Footprint is a website for cook county residents to learn about their civic geography. Although we have begun these articles, we think they could be stronger, so any additions or changes you would like to make would be appreciated. I do not fully understand how this wikiproject functions, but is there anyway that our project could be connected to yours? Thanks for any help you can give.

Nominate articles for Portal:United States

I've worked for the past month to update Portal:United States and keep it better maintained. Though, I think the Portal:United States would be even better with broader participation. One way to do that is instead of choosing the "selected article" myself each week, if others would nominate articles and help make decisions. (same goes for pictures, though these are stocked up through July 29) If there is anything related to Chicago (or anything else related to the U.S. - culture, music, literature, geography, history, politics, ...), please nominate. I'd also like people to weigh in on the nominations and help select what should be featured. Thanks. --Aude (talk contribs) 23:42, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Can I write this?

Can I write an article about a southeast chicago newspaper please send me a message stating If I can write it or not.Animereadabouter2 04:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Only because no one else has come forward to state this: Yes you can. Anyone can write any article. That said, anyone else can re-write your article, so be prepared to have this happen. Robovski 22:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Neighborhood naming convention

In case anyone hadn't noticed, Wikipedia:Communities strawpoll is voting on a uniform naming convention for all neighborhoods of U.S. cities. The proposition currently leading by a wide margin would entail renaming most Chicago neighborhood articles to neighborhood, Chicago, Illinois. older ≠ wiser 18:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Meetup again

I'd like to try to get a meetup going again. Maybe second or third week in September. Anybody up for one? We also need a venue. Maybe a Borders or B&N in Evanston or in the Loop. Kelly Martin (talk) 04:53, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Redirects

Due to the (much-needed) move to Chicago, several redirects were created. I have fixed most of them, but one remains. My suggestion for a collaboration is to redirect the several hundred links to Chicago, Illinois to the page at Chicago. Any help in this undertaking would be appreciated. Thanks, --- Dralwik|Have a Chat My "Great Project"

Also, Chicago, IL needs to be fixed. Chicago, IL is fixed! --- Dralwik|Have a Chat My "Great Project"
AWB to the rescue! Kelly Martin (talk) 03:44, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Note:There are 6,423 pages that link to Chicago, Illinois as of this edit. Dralwik 00:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Better photos for skyscrapers

I was looking through Category:Skyscrapers in Chicago and realized that some articles don't have photos, and of those that do many of the photos are low quality, are from a bad angle, or could just be better. I comprised a list of articles that I think could use better photos. Buildings that are under construction I marked in parenthesis with site. Perhaps we could start a Construction photographs section in those articles similar to Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago).

Is anyone interested in taking some of these photos? If we get several volunteers we could split them up between us and get them done quite quickly. Or are there suggestions for additional buildings to be added to this list, or for some to be taken off? Or does nobody really care? Jtrost (T | C | #) 22:32, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll be downtown Tuesday and have a few hours to spare, as well as having access to a nice 8 megapixel digital SLR. I'll grab pictures of those buildings which I can walk to, clean 'em up, post them, and report back on what I was able to get. At the very least I should be able to grab the Thompson Center, Klucynski, Marina City, and NBC Tower. - seinman 03:07, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Great. I've started to photograph buildings that I pass throughout the day. Jtrost (T | C | #) 17:00, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Golden Nugget Pancake House up for deletion

Is this worth saving? Opinions wanted. Zagalejo 17:03, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd say so - and I did. Robovski 22:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 19:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

New CHICOTW

I have changed the CHICOTW article which seems to have been unchanged for months. I am willing to continue to oversee selection if people are interested in nominating and editting articles. TonyTheTiger 21:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Chicago Collaboration of the Week?

I was thinking that it might be helpful to start a "Chicago Collaboration of the Week" (or maybe two weeks like the United States Collaboration of the Week). We have a great list of red links and fairly important sub articles (ie. Community Areas of Chicago has to potential to be an excellent article because of the cities great diversity) and it might behoove us to start coordinating work on them. Of course, we are all still working on Chicago, but there is more to be done then just that. I will start a page for the Chicago(land?) Collaboration of the Week and we could hold a discussion there and decide if we want to do this. --Gpyoung talk 20:35, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

This page is believed to be inactive for sometime now. Is this an abandoned idea?--Twintone 16:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
I have changed the collaboration and am awaiting editorial assistance. I will monitor. TonyTheTiger 01:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

CHICOTW vs. CHICOTM

It is uncertain how many wikipedians are interested this project as it seems inactive. As such very modest amounts of edits have occurred on the CHICOTW. It is likely that this will be converted to a monthly collaboration. If anyone has an article they would like to nominate for the collaboration go to the collaboration page. TonyTheTiger 19:30, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Meetup

I am once again going to bring up the idea of a meetup. My preference is to have one somewhere around Davis Street in Evanston, as we seem to have had more interest from the north than from the south, but this is obviously not set in stone. In any case, the location should be convenient to public transit both for those lacking vehicles and especially for those likely to be visiting from out of town. Kelly Martin (talk) 18:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Wait, why would we meetup in the suburbs if this is a project for improving chicago? I mean, I know this is probably a group comprised fairly heavily of you suburbanites, but what sense is it that we make our ways to Evanston instead of somewhere acctually in the place we're trying to wiki? Solutus 01:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

We held the last meetup in River North, but attendance was poor. The last time we discussed a location, a northside location was preferred because most of the interested parties were in the near north suburbs, far north suburbs, or Wisconsin. Evanston (and specifically near Davis Street) was favorable because (a) good access to mass transit as well as Amtrak commuter service (b) decently good access to road transit. The meetup is intended to be a meeting of persons in the Chicago area who are interested in Wikipedia, and not specifically a meeting for people interested in editing Chicago-related topics. Kelly Martin (talk) 01:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


Are there still meetups going on?? Ishmael Rufus 19:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Scope

How strongly do people here feel about suburban topics? I live in the suburbs (Niles) and take my camera almost everywhere; as a result, I'm constantly getting new pictures of various things but mostly in the near north suburbs (Niles, Skokie, Evanston, etc.). I don't get into the city as often, and when I do I often can't stop to take pictures because it's so much harder to park in the city.

I will make an effort to photograph the COTW when I can (although I don't think I'll be able to make it down to Intelligentsia this week). Anyway, if anybody wants north suburban photos for north suburban topics, I'm game. Kelly Martin (talk) 18:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Suburban topics should hold seperate wikis of their own. The suburbs of Chicago are not part of Chicago, and from my personal experience, are totally different from the city itself in most respects. Solutus 01:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that we recommend deleting the articles on the various suburbs that already exist and merging them into Chicago; that would be silly. Rather, I'm asking whether a suburban article is in scope for the collaboration of the week. Kelly Martin (talk) 01:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
That sounds cool, I'd definately support that. We have a really cool history, albeit unfortunate, of our suburban sprawl and how quickly its expanding and everything. Maybe we should look at making different independant articles such as one for all the north suburbs, one for the sound, one for the southwest, etc. Much like how we have the sides of the city laid out, detailing which neighborhoods belong to which side. Solutus 15:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps North Shore (Chicago) would be one to try. -- DS1953 talk 03:49, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)