Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Maryland/Archive2

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[edit] Newsletter

I've been thinking about starting a newsletter for the project. It will mostly contain the same kind of news that's in the message that's being sent out to everyone. If anyone has any comments or is interested in helping out, post here.-Jeff (talk) 05:30, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Unknown-importance Maryland articles sorting

I am currently sorting through Unknown-importance Maryland articles. Towns are going in High-importance Maryland articles since the locations in Maryland are very important in my opinion. Suburbs are going in Mid-importance Maryland articles.

I am currently up to R and may go further this morning. I am hoping that this suits the rest of the project members, since I haven't found the criteria that is being used to assess articles. If I get done with that and still feel up to doing more sorting, schools will more than likely end up in Low-importance Maryland articles.

I cleaned out Unassessed Maryland articles earlier into mostly Stub-Class Maryland articles but some went to Start-Class Maryland articles. There are two items left in Unassessed Maryland articles, but those are just the templates used. I could substring the use of the templates in the examples to remove the categories.

I cleaned up the project template documentation. Also, I altered a few of the stub templates by adding Flag of Maryland.svg to them just to give them a closer connection to this project. I also created two more stub categories: Maryland newspaper stubs and Maryland radio station stubs. I think that Maryland may have the most stub categories of all of the U.S. states. I haven't checked.

If I categorized the articles wrongly, you can yell at me on my talk page. - LA @ 09:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Related WikiProjects (On project page)

This section needs to be moved down, it runs into the infobox on the right, unless I'm the only one with the problem. Half the text in the section and in the infobox are garbled over top of each other and unreadable. I'm not one to just stand back and complain leaving someone else with the task, I'll fix the problem (unless someone beats me to it) if I'm not the only one having these results. I just didn't want to go ahead and do it without asking first.

--DP67 (talk/contribs) 05:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't see the described garbling and unreadability for this section via my Firefox 2.0 web browser running under Mac OS X, with scripting allowed for en.wikipedia.org. My guess is that it is browser dependent. —Adavidb 07:43, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Wire

I notice that you guys recently tagged The Wire as falling under your mandate. There's a number of pages related to the show that you might be interested in:

  • David Simon - creator of the show who was born in D.C. but grew up in Silver Spring, MD and writes non-fiction and television set in Baltimore, MD
  • Ed Burns - Simon's chief writing partner, an ex-BPD homicide police, Baltimore public school teacher, and television writer
  • Rafael Alvarez - Baltimore native and writer for The Wire who has gone on to write and produce TV in LA
  • William F. Zorzi - writer for The Wire who had a long career as a political journalist for the Baltimore Sun
  • Joy Lusco - writer for The Wire and one-time Baltimore resident who has produced independant and documentary films set in the city.
  • David Mills - University of Maryland graduate, Emmy-award winning writer and television producer.
  • The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood - a book by Simon and Burns about drug dealing and addiction in West Baltimore
  • The Corner - a Emmy-award winning mini-series based on the book and still set in Baltimore
  • Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets - Simon's first book about the BPD homicide department
  • Homicide: Life on the Street - Long running NBC cop drama set in Baltimore and based on the book
  • Barry Levinson - academy award winning director from Baltimore who was a producer for Homicide
  • John Waters another succesful film director from Baltimore - I believe several of his films are set there
  • Jay Landsman - an ex-BPD homicide police who has also worked for Maryland county police and appears on The Wire
  • Robert F. Chew - a Baltimore actor who plays Proposition Joe on The Wire
  • James Ransone - Baltimore native and film and television actor
  • Lance Reddick - Baltimore born actor who stars in The Wire as Cedric Daniels and will soon appear in Lost
  • Clayton LeBouef - Local Baltimore actor
  • Erik Todd Dellums - Local Baltimore actor
  • Ed Norris - former chief of police in Baltimore, indicted felon, radio talk-show host and actor on The Wire
  • Kurt Schmoke - former mayor of Baltimore and actor on The Wire
  • List of The Wire episodes - self explanatory, also links to an article for each episode which might be considered to fall under your mandate as they are all set in Baltimore
  • List of characters from The Wire - as above, also many characters have their own pages including all of the starring cast

--Opark 77 12:42, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Film and television task force

In fact I'd be happy to run a films and television task force for the project as I'm fascinated by the "cottage industry" of television in and around Baltimore.--Opark 77 15:27, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Such a task force would probably have to be a joint task force of both this project and the other relevant project(s). From what I know, it's generally liked that there be at least a few hundred relevant articles to go ahead and create a new task force, given the changes to banners and such. But, personally, if the other members of this project and possibly the other relevant projects decide it's a good idea, then I would have no objections whatever. John Carter 15:38, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm split on the issue, while in addition to your list above, there are also numerous films shot in Maryland, I still don't know if there would be enough articles, and/or people interested in Maryland film and TV for a task force to be created. But if other members feel that such a task force should be created then I'm all for it.-Jeff (talk) 14:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
PS: if such a task force it created, one thing you could work on is populating the category I linked and/or creating a List of films shot in Maryland. Of course you could also work on it yourself, it all depends on if you think you need some extra help and would like to coordinate everyone's efforts in such tasks.-Jeff (talk) 14:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Maybe the best idea might be to list it on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals page, and leave a note with the other relevant projects about the existence of the new proposal? Then, if it winds up getting the suggested number of members, we'd know if it had enough interest to be viable or not. John Carter 15:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I had a look at the proposals page you suggested but it appeared to be for entirely new wikiprojects, I'll have another look tomorrow (I'm a bit pressed for time today). I've asked at wikiproject television and will ask wikiproject film for their input tomorrow also. I think 100 articles is possible from the offing, especially looking at the list of films provided above. I agree that interest would be the limiting factor for the task force.--Opark 77 01:31, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Maryland High School Athletics

I am interested in providing high school sports information to this project. I would like to contribute High School sports relatad stats/scores/records/news to "School" pages, for the high schools in my area. I have access to an enormous amount of data, that is near real time, so its growing. I would be willing to update this information regularly, if that was required, to maintain something valuable on the pages I update. I am seeking direction as to what type of information would be relevant, significant, and desired. If there is a better way to do this, I'm all ears. What I am seeking is a way to bring high school sports to light and make high school pages more robust/relevant. I would like to start in the Baltimore City region, specifically the MIAA and IAAM conferences and move out. I would also like to place an external link to each school's atheltics site or each team's athletics site should, one exist that is autonomous to the school's site. These sites often gather media coverage, so they obviously have up a volume of relevant and recent data that would likely make sense to simply post as a link. Any thoughts, desires, recommendations? Thanks for your help! Digitalsports (talk) 15:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your offer. Most of the Maryland high school pages have very little information. I would suggest taking a few of the schools at first and adding the relevant information. I say a few schools because you may find that the task could be too burdensome to maintain on a regular basis. It would not help much if you started inputting information that only you have easy access to and then, for some reason, you couldn't continue. The most extensive sports information on any high school in Maryland appears to be in the Baltimore City College and the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute articles. If I can help, let me know. Marylandstater (talk) 20:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Those are good suggestions, although the first hurdles are going to be WP:SPAM ([1]), WP:COI and Wikipedia:Username#Inappropriate_usernames (given that the user works for a company which compiles sports info/statistics as its business). There are probably good ways for this user (who has requested the username GregSkipper (talk · contribs)) to help out, but it would also be easy to trip up on various wiki policies (or existing editors assumptions of what is going on). Starting with a small number of articles and asking for feedback would be a good way to start. Having said all that, the user does show signs of wanting to learn the ropes, and so if that happens, I'm sure we can find out a way to get productive contributions out of this. Kingdon (talk) 23:45, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Definitely. Thanks. I am in the process of changing out my username. Once this is accomplished, and I think I can actually contribute, without having to endure any further redtape, I will keep you posted on my activities. I am trying to be as transparent as possible, so nothing gets misconstrued. And I'm quite open to feedback, so please don't hesitate to reach out to my talk page. Digitalsports (talk) 19:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Columbia Air Center

Does anyone have any thoughts on how [2] can be used for an article, or portion of one? Is starting Columbia Air Center the way to go? Or Cloud Club flying club? (Cloud Club II, mentioned in the article, has a web page at [3]). Or some larger article (although the closest one I found was Tuskegee Airmen which doesn't directly discuss civilian aviation at all)? I could also see discussing the site at Patuxent River Watershed Park. I don't know, I'm just finding redlinks and I'm not sure I have the time or interest in writing a huge set of articles. I was hoping to find a place to put a paragraph or two... I'm also willing to start a stub, but if so I'd rather pick one with decent prospects for attracting contributors, rather than one which is likely to be forgotton. The web page [4] would make a good external link (and has some leads for library research, like a reference to a Washington Afro-American newspaper article from August 16, 1941). Kingdon (talk) 16:38, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requested Photos

Is there any way for the to pick up the requested photos that are tagged "needs-photo=yes" in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography template if the article is also in WikiProject Maryland? A good example would be 3-time governor Samuel Ogle. Toddst1 (talk) 08:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's a way for one template to detect another's parameter unfortunately. We would have to add a needs-photo parameter to the WPMD banner. I'll go ahead and add it now.-Jeff (talk) 03:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)