Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lighthouses

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	WikipediaWikiProject Lighthouses is part of WikiProject Lighthouses, a WikiProject related to lighthouses and other water navigational aids worldwide. It may include the lighthouses infobox. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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[edit] Stub sorting

I went ahead and sorted out a lot of stubby articles on American lighthouses, and added them to the lighthouse stub category. I also, when I have a little free time, will be writing up a few more articles on keepers/engineers/terminology and the like so that we can have a shot of getting a "pharology-stub" template to use. I think there are enough articles not relating to particular lighthouses that such a stub would be very useful. --AlbertHerring 18:01, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I've also gone and stubbed the non-American articles as well. --AlbertHerring 19:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a wonderful film from the [Swedish Film Institute]http://www.sfi.se/sfi/smpage.fwx?page=5673 called lighthouses.

OK, I have written, all told, some 50 articles for the subject, most of which are stubs. I really don't have the time I'd like right now to write more comprehensive entries, but I've tried to get as broad as start as possible. Any thoughts? --AlbertHerring 08:22, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I've now counted 61 stubs in the {{lighthouse-stub}} category pertaining either to lighthouse terminology or to notable people connected with lighthouses. This should be enough to create the {{pharology-stub}} category again, although it might do with renaming. The trouble is, I can't think of a good, all-inclusive name for the category besides "pharology"; any ideas? I also think it's time to suggest a geographical split of US lighthouses from the category - I'll add some more stubs today and see what comes up.

I hope I'm not being too intrusive with this - I'm just a huge lighthouse buff and rather overeager to get to work on this project. And I have a lot of questions, I'm afraid - sorry to become a bit of a nuisance. --AlbertHerring 18:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology

One other thing I have noticed while stubbing articles for this project is that there seems to be no consensus regarding terminology for articles; some articles are titled "such-and-such lighthouse" while others are titled "such-and-such light"; some are also "such-and-such light station". I think there ought to be some agreement regarding what titles articles should bear - is there one, and am I missing something here? Or should we go ahead and decide now? --AlbertHerring 08:22, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

You may want to read the discussion in Talk:Lighthouses in the United States. The consensus for United States is that it should be called "Light" Skapur 11:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I figured it might have come up, thanks. --AlbertHerring 19:22, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What makes a person important enough to have an article?

I've been looking over some back issues of Lighthouse Digest looking for article ideas, and have come across a number of articles about particular keepers: Emily Fish, Eben Emerson, Kate Moore, and Roberta Boyd, to name a few. Their chief claim to fame seems to be that they were a.) lighthouse keepers, and b.) some of them saved a few lives during their careers. Are these criteria enough for inclusion in Wikipedia? Currently the only keepers I've added in have been those for whom Coast Guard buoytenders were named; other than them I've only added articles for a couple of keepers who I felt were important for other reasons.

I guess my biggest question here is, what should be the standard for importance in writing articles about lighthouse keepers? Is being a keeper enough to have an article, or should there be more information? --AlbertHerring 07:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Were they noteworthy or newsworthy in their own time? See Wikipedia:Notability (people) for more guidance Skapur 12:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Well...Emerson and Boyd were written up and honored for their heroics in saving lives, Fish seems to have been fairly popular as a socialite in her area, and Moore was written up in one or two of the New York papers for a human interest story. Thing is, a lot of people saved a lot of lives during the ninteenth century, and a lot of them were written up for it in their local newspapers. Is that enough notability, locally and historically, for an article? --AlbertHerring 17:37, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I would say yes. The very fact that you know about them meets the criteria of enduring historical record and heroically savings many lives is (in my opinion) a widely recognized contribution as specifiied in the guidelines: The person made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specific field (see also Wikipedia:Notability#Don't delete historical persons based on modern tests.) Skapur 20:36, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, all four added, plus a new one that I found last night. Thanks for the input! --AlbertHerring 21:20, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology, part 2

As per the discussion here - "light" or "light station"? I wrote the article under the name "Baltimore Light". It was changed because the Coast Guard's official designation is "Baltimore Light Station". So which do we use? Do we continue to go for "light" or use "light station"? Or do we discriminate - "light" when referring to the tower, "light station" when referring to the whole thing? --AlbertHerring 01:39, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The person who changed the name is plain simple WRONG. The Coast Guard calls it a light and not a Light station. See see http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/history/WEBLIGHTHOUSES/LHMD.html and page 77 of District 5 Lights list at http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/pubs/LightLists/V2COMPLETE.PDF. In this particular case, the National Park service runs it and calls it Baltimore Light Station even though the Coast Guard still calls it Baltimore Light. In the National register of Historical places it is called a Light Station, see http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/MD/Anne+Arundel/state.html --- Skapur 02:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Shall I go ahead then and ask for improperly named articles to be renamed? --AlbertHerring 01:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contacting others

I've been thinking...do you think it might be a good idea to contact Russ Rowlett of the Lighthouse Database and the folks at Lighthouse Digest and let them know about this project? It might help to drum up some support and interest for the cause.

Oh, and I've made a template for userpages, which can be found here. Feel free to tweak it a bit if you don't like the colors. --AlbertHerring 01:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template

I made a talk page template for this project. Feel free to alter it. Rmhermen 16:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I've appended it to the discussion page for everything under "A" and "B" in the stub category, and will attempt to do more later today when I get the chance. --AlbertHerring 18:01, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I created the template {{US-lighthouse-stub}} and the attendant category today, and will be working on another couple of stub templates (bios and terminology) later tonight. I've re-tagged a number of articles with {{US-lighthouse-stub}}, but there's still a ways to go. --AlbertHerring 01:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lightships

For articles about American lightships, what naming conventions are we going to use? Because the commonly used names (Diamond Shoals Lightship, Nantucket Lightship, etc.) are actually names of the stations - the ships themselves were given names like WLV-151. So which do we use in writing about them?

Personally, I'd save the "name" articles for lightships which have been preserved, and are now being exhibited under that name; all others I'd write up under the official designation.

Any thoughts? --AlbertHerring 18:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

We can use redirect pages to cover both conventions. --Draugen 22:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Which convention, then, do we follow for article titles, and which for redirects? --AlbertHerring 00:50, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] lighthouse stubs

Why is it necessary to label every existing article on a lighthouse as a stub? Many of these articles have been stable for months without a stub label. Look at Cape Florida Light, Carysfort Reef Light, Key West Light and Egmont Key Light. How in the world are those called 'stubs'? -- Donald Albury 02:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe because even though the articles are long, they are still unencyclopedic? In any case I have removed the stub tag from most of the larger articles. Also with Lighthouse articles it becomes difficult to follow the guidelines of WP:TRIVIA.

--- Skapur 06:10, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

If you feel that the articles are not long enough, you can use {{Expansion}}, or if there is not enough history given, {{Histinfo}}. There are also plenty of maintenance templates available. We have enough different templates available that it is not necessary to use stub templates to mean something else. IMHO, most articles on lighthouses don't need to be very long. Unless they have some particular significance above and beyond the average lighthouse, they don't need a 10,000 word article. I would also note that for many lighthouses, useful, verfiably published information is not in great abundance. I had to work hard to find what little usable information I put into some lighthouse articles. As an extreme example, try finding material published in reliable sources for expanding Volusia Bar Light. -- Donald Albury 14:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I am very sorry but I did not mean to insult you at all. You have done exemplary work in creating those articles. I am just trying to help. In the case of Volusia Bar Light, you had left the structure stub on it and I added the lighthouse stub to increase the number of people who would look at it. In the case of most of the others, I had changed lighthouse-stub to US-lighthouse-stub and I am going over them again to see if they merit a stub, expand or no tag. --- Skapur 15:37, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't apologize. I shouldn't have been so harsh earlier. I need to remind myself that I don't own the articles. -- Donald Albury 00:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory,
User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory 2,
User:Badbilltucker/Philosophy and religion Directory,
User:Badbilltucker/Sports Directory,
User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory,
User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory/United States, (note: This page will be retitled to more accurately reflect its contents)
User:Badbilltucker/History and society directory, and
User:Badbilltucker/Science 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 to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. 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 20:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now put the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 23:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ETC...

How the hell does Bass Harbor Head Light not have an entry yet? It must be one of the most photographed and visited lights in the US. I will work on this. Also Pictures added for Cape Elizabeth Lights and Boon Island Light. Should I replace the outdated black and white pictures for Portland Breakwater Light & Spring Point Light? Or would this be considered bad form? --Dk69 05:24, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Please add an entry for any missing light. Also please free to add and/or replace any pictures. Please make sure that the pictures you add do not have any copyright. --- Safemariner 06:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

You may also want to look at the gallery button to add more pictures in the Wikipedia editor (third button from the right just above the edit area). Pictures are always appreciated. --- Safemariner 06:31, 26 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 afriad) 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 15:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Differentiation needed on Point No Point

We have two Point No Point Lights/Lighthouses. One is in Puget Sound, the other in the Chesapeake Bay. At the moment Point No Point Light is going to be the Chesapeake one, and Point No Point Lighthouse will remain the Puget Sound one. Obviously this will need to be resolved better, but in the meantime please don't move either of them until we agree on how to distinguish them. Mangoe 02:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I've come upon another problem duplication (White Shoal Light is in both Michigan and Virginia). I've decided, for lack of other input, to distinguish by state name, e.g., Point No Point Light (Washington) and Point No Point Light (Maryland). Mangoe 13:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Can we add a see also at the top of the article giving the user a link to the other lighthouse in case they came to the wrong one? Jjegers 15:18, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I've already done that-- "for the lighthouse in Puget Sound see...." etc. Mangoe 15:52, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] All Maryland Lights complete

All Maryland lights have articles with infoboxes. Please look them over and see what you think.

I'm going to attempt to produce a map which shows the locations of all listed lights, to put on the Lighthouses in the United States article under the Maryland section. If anyone has any ideas/suggestions/resources for this, please let me know.

And a warning: Do not trust text locations given for the lights, not even on the USCG website. I have found several examples with cardinal direction errors (e.g. Holland Island Bar Light is south of Holland Island, not west of it). There are also occaisional errors in the lighthousefriends coordinates. I have found verification against Google Earth and online NOAA charts very useful in checking these.

My next project is Virginia. Mangoe 21:09, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tower height vs. Focal height

I just wanted to raise awareness to a comment I raised regarding the Lighthouse Infobox. The comment can be found by following this link. Cheers! --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 22:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Status of Chesapeake Bay lighthouse articles

I'm maintaining a status chart of Chesapeake Bay lighthouse articles at User:Mangoe/Lighthouses. Mangoe 02:44, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology, part 3

I am not fully aware regarding what translation I should use in English for a Finnish word tunnusmajakka (also known as pooki in Finnish, from Swedish word båk). Basically it is an un-lit tower structure made of wood or stone, with close to similar proportions as a regular lighthouse structure. Someone suggested that I should use the word cairn, however a cairn is considered as a different type of navigational aid an is much smaller. These structures were commonly built in the 18th and 19th century around Finnish coasts, but older structures of same type still survive. There is one in Hailuoto called Keskiniemen tunnusmajakka built in 1858, I thought to translate that into English. --213.216.199.6 (talk) 10:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

One possibility is "daymark" or sea mark. "Sea mark" includes structures in the water. I'm not sure from your description if a "pooki" could be on land, but even so I think "daymark" or "sea mark" would convey the right idea. -- Donald Albury 11:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, pooki type of structures were built exclusively on land (coasts, islands, or sometimes inland at high elevations) and commonly close to the shoreline. I remember seeing a description "fixed beacon" somewhere, could this be used? --213.216.199.6 (talk) 13:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at daymark; it seems to me that these structures are exactly the sort of thing you are talking about. Mangoe (talk) 14:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't realize "daymark" now had an article. One problem I have with it is that I have seen structures in the water called "daymarks". Oh, well. -- Donald Albury 17:16, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Judging from the article, I think we are seeing one of those Brit/American differences (possibly abetted by the chartmakers trying to pin down the terms more precisely). Back in the day when I sailed on the Chesapeake, we called the sign-on-post thing a "daymark", or maybe a "daybeacon"-- the important point was that it was something you navigated by when the sun was up. We also (as the daymark article says at the bottom) referred to the differentiating patterns painted on lighthouses as their "daymarks". As for the things depicted in the daymark article: we didn't have any of those, so we didn't have a name for them. I get the impression that they are extremely rare in American waters. We did refer to "landmarks", but by them we meant things not maintained as navigational aids. Mangoe (talk) 17:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

It's been many years since I studied navigation or spent much time reading charts, but it seems to me that everything that had a light and/or a number board was a 'channel marker' or just a 'marker'. There were only two lighthouses around; the Cape Florida Lighthouse had been dark for 80 years and had no paint left at the time, and the Fowey Rocks Light was a skeletal tower and I don't remember ever getting close enough to see what colors it was painted. :-) -- Donald Albury 23:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The mentioned article has been translate, see Keskiniemi daybeacon. Not yet categorised since there seems to be no category for navigational aids other than lighthouses. —Karvo (talk) 06:33, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, daymarkers aren't lighthouses, but we should make a connection from here. Should we wait a while to see if other articles about daymarkers show up to decide how to link to them? -- Donald Albury 13:36, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

In Finnish Wikipedia there is a category navigational aids under which the daybeacons as well as other smaller-than-lighthouse beacons are listed.~Also general descriptions are listed in that category. I would suggest that lighthouse-categories should be used for lights generally/officially considered as lighthouses, while all others (also auxiliary lights) should be categorized under "navigational aids" or "auxiliary lights and markers". —213.216.199.6 (talk) 14:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

We have Category:Navigation, but nothing under that for navigational aids other than lighthouses. I also notice that Daymark is classified as a lighthouse stub. -- Donald Albury 17:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How can I contribute to the Los Angeles Harbor Light page.

I served on the light in the early 1960's. I found little information on the Internet on L.A. light a few years ago and decided to take on the task of researching the history of the light and create a website exclusively all about the light. I spend a couple of years but only got about half way through when I had to put the project on hold. I haven't worked on it since 2004 so I removed the data at that time. I recently gave some thought to resuming the project. However, I realize that a website that I maintained would only be short term as I am getting along in age. I then found that there was one on Wikiipedia. I found some of the info came from my research that I sharred with others, which is good. I also found some info that was incorrect or was incomplete.

I have over 100 photos, some 30 pages of Word Documents (lots of raw data and resource information). I also have a PowerPoint presentation of over 70 slides.

Is there any intrest by the WikiProject Lighthouses project in my research?

Thank you. Jimbthom (talk) 00:33, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

That's great! I am working on historic sites in Los Angeles area, including the List of Registered Historic Places in Los Angeles that includes an entry on that Light. I would be very interested in talking with you and/or meeting towards using your research and photos. To reach me, please send an email to me by the email-to-me box on my User-page. doncram (talk) 22:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Shouldn't This Be Called the Light Project?

I have posted several items in the talk page on Lighthouses in the United States disagreeing with the renaming of all lighthouses in the United States to "Lights" -- despite substantial local usage referring to specific individual lighthouses as lighthouses and not lights. I was motivated after a renaming of Montauk Point Lighthouse to Montauk Point Light (even though nobody refers to it as such). If there's a concerted attempt to ignore local usage to impose a wiki order, shouldn't this project also be called the "Light Project"? Americasroof (talk) 12:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Coordination with Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places

As nearly every extant lighthouse is on the National Register of Historic Places, we have some potential conflicts. For instance, I'm looking at Bluff Point Light, which uses their infobox instead of ours. I think we need to do some sort of coordination-- maybe some way to combine the two boxes for the lights in question. Comments? Mangoe (talk) 22:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a member of either project, but several infoboxe include a few select parameters for NRHP (usually register # and date of designations as a Historic place or National Historic Landmark). That would probably be a workable compromise. Circeus (talk) 14:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

In WP:NRHP, we have discussed coordinating infoboxes with other projects, too. A way to include a full NRHP infobox within a wp:SHIPS infobox (which can be very long) was worked out recently. In shorter articles, it makes sense to use just one infobox. In some longer ship articles about certain ship museums, it seems to work better to let there be a ships infobox at one point in the article, and to include a separate NRHP infobox later in the recent history / museum status discussion. The lighthouse infobox seems simpler. A combined lighthouse-NRHP infobox, with some extra fields to allow for NRHP information, could be worked out too i am sure. Circeus is a frequent NRHP contributor, too, by the way. I have some involvement in NRHP infobox template programming; if someone here is ready to work on template programming, please leave a note on my talk page about that.

Another issue of coordination, related to this, may be the use of the NRHP program name for a site. I just noticed the discussion of lighthouse names at Point Reyes Lighthouse. In general, wp:NRHP wants to include the NRHP name for a site in the NRHP infobox, and to include mention of that name in the article as an alternative name. The NRHP name may differ from the common name for the site, which may be the article name. The NRHP program name is included in extensive NRHP nomination and other documentation available for any NRHP site. doncram (talk) 15:31, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with Point Reyes Light

We have a naming problem in that The Point Reyes Light (a local newspaper in Marin County) has co-opted then article name for the Point Reyes Lighthouse. Please see the talk page of the latter for a move proposal. Mangoe (talk) 00:18, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Categories: Non-article Lighthouses pages | WikiProject Lighthouses articles