Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Iowa/Archive 1

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[edit] Projects

Cool digs. I've often wondered why there was no WikiProject Iowa. My thanks to Tim4christ17 for creating this WikiProject. Just to get the ball rolling, what major projects do you all think we need to tackle? I'm also interested in other folks' background on this project. How'd you find it? For my part, I noticed the tags on the talk page for Monti, Iowa and KCRG-TV. Firsfron of Ronchester 01:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

How about Robert D. Ray? That was only two governors ago, but the article is a stub. (Don't look at me, though. I moved to Iowa shortly after Brandstad was elected. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 04:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Or how about The Bridges of Madison County? A major novel set in Iowa, written by an Iowa author. BTW I attended UNI shortly after the book was released. The entire English department was jealous. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 05:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm mostly interested in getting Iowa Government articles up to date. Mostly the current state politicians - it's really sad that Bob Vander Plaats's article is still a stub, even though he's the GOP's Lt. Gov. candidate. I'll shortly start some organization (mostly ripping off WikiProject Biography's Politics taskforce) to deal with them at Wikipedia:WikiProject Iowa/Government. --Tim4christ17 05:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
The Government sub-page has been started, with the section on Iowa Politicians completed. This section will be our link between WikiProject Iowa and WikiProject Biography's Politician workgroup. (As Iowa Politicians will fall in both categories.) Please see this section before beginning work on Iowa Politician articles. --Tim4christ17 talk 11:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration of the week/month/whatever

It'd be nice, in addition to working on our own projects, to get a Collaboration going. May I humbly suggest that we try to get Iowa up to WP:GA status? --Tim4christ17 05:23, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Added to WP:JI. Perhaps we could add Iowa to WP:AID. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 05:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Applying {{Project Iowa}}

If you could all take some time and tag a few Iowa articles' talk pages with {{Project Iowa}}, it'd be appreciated. I've put the tag on somewhere around 1,000 articles, but there are still quite a few left. --Tim4christ17 05:39, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

You've been quite busy! I've only done about a dozen or two. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 05:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
AutoWikiBrowser could be used, if you think there may be a lot left untagged. I'll gladly volunteer. Firsfron of Ronchester 06:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I've got most of them, I think - I've been going by category. There are quite a few left in List of cities in Iowa - I've done through "D". And yes, AutoWikiBrowser would be useful...unfortunately my AWB request was denied.  :( I had been planning to use it for tagging and to create/maintain the "Recent Changes" section of the Wikiproject. --Tim4christ17 06:57, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
No problem. I can do them all with AWB in a few hours or so. I'll do them tomorrow, hopefully. Firsfron of Ronchester 07:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
That'd be great.  :) --Tim4christ17 09:44, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Dakota City thru Zwingle are complete. Whew! Even with AWB, that took a while. I'm glad you weren't forced to do it all by hand, Tim. As far as I can tell, every incorporated city's talk page is now tagged. The six unincorporated communities in Category:Unincorporated communities in Iowa are also tagged. Of course, there are hundreds of unincorporated communities without articles... Firsfron of Ronchester 04:40, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Unicorporated communities such as Farson, IA...which is in the zip code (52563) for Hedrick, IA. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 06:56, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
There's no article for Farson, Archola. Create one, and I'll happy tag it. Iowa has probably as many unincorporated towns as it does incorporated ones. Firsfron of Ronchester 09:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, Farson, Iowa exists, but there's not much to say. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 09:29, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Nice stub! :) Firsfron of Ronchester 09:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I just updated the railroad data. That railroad has switched owners so many times in the past 20 years... Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 10:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I've added the Iowa project tag to talk pages of biographies of some of "Iowa's famous sons" - Carl Van Vechten, Grant Wood, Marvin Cone, Meredith Willson, James Van Allen, Ashton Kutcher, Elijah Wood, and Nile Kinnick. Herbert Hoover had already been tagged :) --Lini 01:16, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Nice, Lini! Don't forget "Iowa's famous daughters"... there have to be some, I guess... Firsfron of Ronchester 06:49, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Like Juanita Hansen? Actually, there are a ton of. Where's that guy with the AWB again? Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 07:16, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Heh. Gimme a list, and I'll AWB all of them. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 07:40, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maytag

Not sure if I should add the banner to this one. Maytag was headquartered in Newton...but it was bought out by Whirlpool. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 05:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd do it. Tag Amana, too, while you're at it. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 06:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I did Amana Colonies, but...okay. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 07:03, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Des Moines Register

What you folks need is a dedicated announcement board. I hope I'm posting this in the right place.

The Des Moines Register published an article about Iowa coverage in Wikipedia on September 20. Please review it and make corrections to the Wikipedia articles they mentioned, if necessary. Not exactly much to be proud of, at this point. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I saw the same story (it was on the front page, as a matter of fact) and was going to say the same thing. The POV rant that they quoted from the Hawarden article has been removed, but I'll agree that there's still a lot of work to be done. Seriously, a dentist and a mechanic are notable natives of Sergeant Bluff? --Iowahwyman 17:41, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nothing on CIETC

I typed in CIETC and got no results. There is nothing about CIETC but there is a damn overlong page on Slashdot trolling phenomena! What gives? If you live in Iowa it's very unlikely that he haven't endlessly heard of CIETC. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamv88 (talk • contribs)

Simple - Iowa's pages have been largely neglected by Wikipedians - which is why we recently created WikiProject Iowa. --Tim4christ17 talk 13:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm working on a stub for CIETC at User:Teddythetank/CIETC. Feel free to make useful contributions to it. I will admit upfront that I haven't been following the news on this scandal (i.e. I rarely get a chance to read the Register in Ames). --Ted 19:26, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Invitation to new WikiProject

A new WikiProject has been started, and may be of interest to members here. It is WikiProject National Register of Historic Places. It covers all listings on the Register, in all states and territories. Should you be so inclined, please feel free to join. And spread the word to any other interested parties. -Ebyabe 19:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Iowa

I've noticed that our main article, Iowa, is a fairly poor one. It might be a good idea if everyone in the project would commit to fix some part of the page. The contribution wouldn't have to be a large one, but every little bit counts

I'm going to start working on the Government section of the article after finals are done - this corresponds to my work on the pages pertaining to the Iowa General Assembly. I'll also check through for weasel words, typos, and start marking unsourced statements. --Tim4christ17 talk 19:09, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] isn't Shelby in Shelby County?

I posted a message on its page and I always thought it was in Shelby County? It's listed as Pottawottamie County and I thought it was north of 80, which more or less means it's not in Pottawottamie County. DandyDan2007 13:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Carter Lake

I created an article for Carter Lake, the lake (Carter Lake (lake)). If one types in Carter Lake, one is redirected to Carter Lake, Iowa. I would like it if someone could create a disambiguation page for the two. DandyDan2007 22:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. --Iowahwyman 23:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] J. Roger Porter

I found his article on WP:DEAD. I think he'd be a great biography subject, but I don't care enough about him. Maybe you folks do. YechielMan 05:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NRHP project related collaboration

Check out the new WikiProject National Register of Historic Places Frank Lloyd Wright Collaboration. An effort to expand Wikipedia's coverage of Registered Historic Places designed by this most important architect.

To join the collaboration or help out you can visit the collaboration subpage or the collaboration talk page.

Cross project participation is being highly encouraged, sign up today, as Frank Lloyd Wright designed a number of important buildings in Iowa. IvoShandor 03:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article threatened

I've removed the merge tags - no consensus to merge. --Tim4christ17 talk 21:53, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New articles

Dear Wikipedians, a list of possible Iowa-related articles found by bot is available at User:AlexNewArtBot/IowaSearchResult. Colchicum 14:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Awesome! I'll get right on tagging the Iowa articles with {{Project Iowa}} and categorizing any appropriate stubs. Thanks! --Tim4christ17 talk 21:49, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possibly useful map

I made a locator map for Iowa. Similar ones are in use in infoboxes in state park articles (for example Ricketts Glen State Park) or city articles (for example Elmwood, Louisiana). I hope this is useful, Ruhrfisch 02:01, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help on the Congressional Districts for Iowa

I have been updating the pages for the 5 Congressional Districts Iowa has, along with the 6-11 districts that are no longer in existance. I was wondering if my pages could be added to the WikiProject Iowa? I feel like they all could be expanded, but more noteably the 6-11 districts. Since they are defunct, I'm not sure what to put there and would like some help deciding on that.

If you visit my pages (here is the first district, you can access the rest of them through that page), you will notice I have set up tables to show all the past United States Representatives from the state of Iowa for each individual district. Right now they only go back to 1920 because the government source I am using only goes back to 1920. I will be adding representatives prior to 1920 eventually, it will just take a little more digging. If anyone would like to help on that, it would be greatly appreciated. --Ivalum21 19:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Any page related to Iowa is part of the Wikiproject - and any editor interested in them may consider himself/herself to be part of the project as well.  :) If you wish to mark the articles as part of the project feel free to use the template {{Project Iowa|class=|importance=|government=}}. If you wish to signify your membership in the project, feel free to add yourself to the members section of the project and possibly apply the membership userbox to your user page.
As my primary focus is on current state legislators, I'm afraid I don't have time to help out on your project presently. I will however do some style-editing if you wish - and I encourage other editors who have extra time on their hands to help with your important project.
Also, if you want ideas for articles on obsolete congressional districts, the articles in this category may be of some help. --Tim4christ17 talk 20:21, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for assessment: Burlington, Iowa

Over the past few months, I have added a lot of information to the article on Burlington, Iowa. Would someone from WikiProject Iowa mind assessing it? I think it has improved enough to enter the B-class. I'd do it myself, but grading myself just doesn't feel fair. -- Mookie89 08:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)