Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Minnesota/Archive 3

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[edit] Today's featured article

I added may 11th as the requested date here Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests#Minnesota_.28May_11.29, since that is the date MN joined the union (149 years ago!) and I tried to link more items. -Ravedave (Adopt a State) 22:57, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox

Some humorless editor got mad because he thought the {{User en-us-mn}} userbox was too POV and changed it to "This user can speak North Central English." I've restored the old one to {{User:Sable232/User en-us-mn}} if anyone is interested. --Sable232 02:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Heck, I decided to be bold and re-redirect the old title to mine. I should have restored it there, but I didn't want to deal with it becoming an issue. --Sable232 21:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Cities, Minneapolis

Hello. Minneapolis, Minnesota is progressing. A week or two ago it needed 50 or more citations. Today something less than 20. When those are done, unless someone here advises otherwise I will try to request GA. If you feel like commenting on the article's talk page there are recent requests for feedback 1) on the use of templates and 2) on the splits to daughter articles. The order of sections and the daughter plan are derived from Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cities#Article_structure_example_for_a_U.S._City which allows for city-specific additions, in this case (and of course they may change in the future) "Arts and media", "Religion, charity and health" and a calendar of city events. Best wishes. -Susanlesch 05:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Thanks to each and every person who edited Minneapolis, we just entered peer review. Sorry to spam you but maybe some people who read this page will be interested. -Susanlesch 21:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks to Ravedave and Gopherbacker and other people who helped, and to Elkman and Appraiser who are contributing to a new child article. I think I will close peer review and request FA tomorrow morning after a round of copyediting tonight. Anyone who wishes to help with that, the more the merrier. -Susanlesch 01:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Because we have new population figures again today and a request to look at the demographics summary, I am holding off a just a bit before FAC. Things are going pretty well despite an unpleasant exchange with an editor and I'd like to thank everyone who is contributing time and edits. -Susanlesch 15:28, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Nominated Minneapolis for FAC today, thanks to every editor and to those who have been maintaining it since GA review. Editing and help is welcome at Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates#Minneapolis.2C_Minnesota. -Susanlesch 18:47, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  • There is no shortage of barnstars; if you know of anyone I missed please share the wealth. Congrats and thanks. -Susanlesch 05:15, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minnesota on the front page!

Raul654 has said that Minnesota will be featured on May 11th, so lets try and make it FA+ by then as well as getting all the surrounding articles up to shape. -Ravedave 02:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Ravedave, thank you for the plan for the Minnesota front page day, and for adding Minneapolis as the WikiProject Minnesota "Article of the Week" Current Project. But Minneapolis is up for GA right now and stability is a criterion. How do you propose to reconcile those two goals? I made an accidental edit last night otherwise had planned to not touch the article until it is evaluated. Also a note, I added a to do list for FA just now (to what was suggested by others and is all done now for GAC). -Susanlesch 09:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
    • WP:IGNORE :) Minnesota went through much change while up for FA. The stability requirement is in regards to people not edit warring over material and is not intended to prevent the article from being improved. -Ravedave 00:46, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Ignore will work, thank you. -Susanlesch 03:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minnesota Vikings seasons

I have created a Minnesota Vikings seasons list which is up for WP:FL nomination and I was hoping that some people from WikiProject Minnesota, especially sports fans, could review it and leave comments here, especially if improvements are necessary. Thanks! RyguyMN 05:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of Minnesota state parks

This article has been revamped to include a table listing of Minnesota's 71 state parks. The table is used in List of Pennsylvania state parks, which is a Wikipedia:Featured list. I'm currently filling in park details and hopefully this list will reach FL status one day. RyguyMN 14:55, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Threatened article

Many Point Scout Camp is being nominated for a merge. --evrik (talk) 17:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New articles

Dear Wikipedians, a list of possible Minnesota-related articles found by bot is available at User:AlexNewArtBot/MinnesotaSearchResult. Colchicum 14:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I have added a section with a workflow to the page. Thank you! -Ravedave 02:39, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WPMN template

I have been watching working on User:AlexNewArtBot/MinnesotaSearchResult, and I am coming across lots of biography articles. What should the criteria be for adding the WP:MN template to a biography? There are many people that played for the vikings with biographies, but I have been skipping them as they are probably best under the sports wikiproject. What about people born in Minnesota? Should everyone born in MN get the WP:MN template? This is an example: John Donald Robb was born in MN, but is best known as an being from New Mexico. -Ravedave 17:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I think we should all add it if we would consider the article to be mid, high, or top-level importance for MN. And any member of the project should add it if it's a state-related topic that the individual plans to work on, even if it's low- or sub-low-importance. I have added it to all U.S. Senators and Representatives from MN for example. If someone is crazy about the Gophers or Vikings and wants to add it to those, feel free. But don't bother if you're not interested in working on them. --Appraiser 20:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Portal:Minnesota - Suggest a biography

I stumbled on the Minnesota Portal last night and realized at least the selected biographies section had not been updated since it was created in December. So I added a fresh bio for Hubert Humphrey and created a suggestion page to update this monthly hopefully, and also an archive page to list all bios that have been featured. I copied this procedure from the Music Portal but if you think the suggestion process is too clunky or cumbersome, please feel free to change it. Also, feel free to suggest a new biography to be featured next month....and I will do my best to help keep it up to date. :) Cricket02 16:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FA nominee

Bradley Joseph is currently a Featured Article candidate. Any suggestions for improvement would be appreciated. Cricket02 17:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggest adding a Noticeboard to the Project

Kind of like this one: Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/Noticeboard. Might help with organization of articles in need of improvement or attention.... just an idea. Cricket02 17:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC) Cricket02 17:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Knute Nelson

I'm working, section by section, to expand the article on Knute Nelson. I have quite a ways to go - have just finished the section on the campaign for his first senatorial term. Any edits are welcome. This could become a featured article candidate somewhere down the road, and it's interesting stuff. --Leifern 03:43, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD for Bottineau Boulevard

There is currently an AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bottineau Boulevard regarding the Bottineau Boulevard project, a proposed transitway through the northwest suburbs of the metro area. (Oddly enough, someone put the AfD notice on the article in the beginning, then someone else removed it citing vandalism.)

The AfD has been listed for several days and was relisted because there was no consensus. Personally, I don't have a strong opinion on the article, though I think the busway is still in the planning stages and hasn't had a final route picked yet. In any case, anyone with suggestions should probably weigh in at the AfD discussion. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 13:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Elkman, it looks like there may be some bad-faith editing going on in Template:Twin_Cities_Transit and a number of articles linked to it. I detailed some of the problems on MegaHL90's talk page. Some of the articles linked from the transit article are completely unsourced (Google searches turn up only the articles themselves). Additionally, some reasonable-looking edits were marked by MegaHL90 as 'Vandalism'. Finally, unless MegaHL90 comes up with some citations, a couple more articles may need to be deleted or at least renamed.
As an aside, I don't have any problem with transit corridors having articles -- if there had been Wikipedia in the 1970's, the article for the Hiawatha Corridor might have been interesting, even though LRT took another couple decades to come to fruition. -- Afiler 01:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
User:Afiler: you should copy your comment here to weigh in. Thanks. --Appraiser 13:55, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minnesota Vikings

I'm currently working on the Minnesota Vikings team article and hoping to bring it to GA status. It still needs quite a bit of work with citations and copyedits. Anyone who wishes to partake in the cleanup or leave feedback would be appreciated! Thanks. RyguyMN 00:48, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Camp coldwater

The Camp Coldwater article was recently discovered to be a copyvio. Any help in re-writing it would be appreciated. -Ravedave 16:45, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recently improved MN articles

A class at the U has been working on wikipedia. Several of the students chose Minnesota topics to cover. They did a pretty dang good job making the articles, but they all could use some tweaking to get them to GA or near GA status.

The list:


[edit] Class at the U... Buffalo Ridge Article

Hello,

I am one of the students who is writing a wikipedia page for my English Comp class at the U. I decided to write it on Buffalo Ridge after attending the wind farm there last year with my high school. I feel like my article is getting pretty good but I am wondering what you all think about it and if you have any suggestions about what I could add to it. Also my teacher wants us to experience wikipedia to the fullest so if any of you feel like adding to the article you are more than welcome too! I also am curious about the geography of the area and kind of what Buffalo Ridge was many years ago and if Native Americans lived on it. If you can help me out in any way please comment on my talk page or my article Buffalo Ridge. Thanks! 1013-christi 18:52, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possibly useful map

I made a locator map for Minnesota. Similar ones are in use in infoboxes in state park articles (for example Itasca State Park) or city articles (for example Elmwood, Louisiana). I hope this is useful, Ruhrfisch 02:03, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minneapolis-St. Paul

Minneapolis-St. Paul is linked from the Minnesota main page entry which will go up on the 11th, and its in pretty bad shape. Can it be near GA by the end of this week? -Ravedave 02:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't think so. It is almost completely uncited. Interesting but needs a ton of work on references. -Susanlesch 01:23, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help with Minneapolis-St. Paul

Would someone who knows kindly take a look at Minneapolis-Saint Paul and see if 1) the map in the infobox is of the right thing, and if the lead paragraph is right? I got confused earlier today thinking "16th" was equivalent in two places. The page seems to be doing quadruple duty, for the Metropolitan Council and as an urbanized area in List of United States urban areas, a metropolitan statistical area in United States metropolitan area, and part of a combination of metropolitan and micropolitan areas in a Combined Statistical Area. Is that right or still confused? Thank you. -Susanlesch 01:32, 10 May 2007 (UTC) P.S. I added this template (and updated the name of the other template). -Susanlesch 01:37, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The map is showing the metropolitan statistical area. I'm still trying to find info on the rest. I find the US Census site to be somewhat cumbersome! HeirloomGardener 02:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for replying! I redid the table in the first section "The region" based on what I can figure out and will check back in a couple hours. The lead (prose) is what needs work I would guess but am not sure. -Susanlesch 02:47, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
It looks like the rankings are right. I'll have to look at the rest later. HeirloomGardener 02:59, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Good. I copied the "The region" the table to Template:MinneapolisSaintPaulInfobox and if that looks all right with luck that can take the place of Template:Infobox Metropolitan Area. Does still Minneapolis-Saint Paul look all right now? We had trouble with a right floated div yesterday. -Susanlesch 05:50, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Front page reminder

Reminder that the Minnesota article will be displayed starting at 7:00PM (CST) Thursday (tomorrow!) until 7:00PM (CST) Friday night. (12 to 12 UTC time). Currently the front page record for edits is Nintendo Wii with over 700. :) -Ravedave 03:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

As a neighbor of you guys (I live three miles from the border) and as a member of WikiProject North Dakota, I want to congratulate you on making it all the way to the front page. You should be very proud! --MatthewUND(talk) 05:37, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
As someone who is not a part of WPMN, might I suggest you archive a portion of this talk page? Long talk pages filled with old messages can be rather confusing and hard to navigate. Just a suggestion. --MatthewUND(talk) 05:39, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mill District, Minneapolis is ripe for its own article?

I wanted to run this by the people here: Thanks to fairly recent developments (the past 5 years), I think the Mill District is ripe for its own article. Right now it's commented on within the Downtown East, Minneapolis article, however I think it's done a lot (Mill City Museum, Mill Ruins Park, Guthrie Theater and the new MacPhail Center; all the condos on what were the Metrodome lots) to significantly break itself from being the old "worn down mills next to the Metrodome" as they were when I first moved to the Twin Cities. The City of Minneapolis appears to recognize it as such here, and the local press has started to differentiate the neighborhoods, including a recent feature article in the Strib. It really struck me when I was taking photos from a high perch this weekend and took photos of Downtown East (the Metrodome area) and the Mill District. I think the two are distinguishable, and like the work done around the Downtown Los Angeles articles (see its subdistricts), I think the same can be done here. So, if this is something to be done, would the Mill District be put as a subdistrict of Downtown East, or of Downtown Minneapolis? I'd assume the latter. Also, would it be the "Mill District" or the city's "Historic Mill District" (which the media generally doesn't use). Would there be any opposition for me to be bold and jump in with this new article? --Bobak 18:27, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I think it could make a really good new article. Some of the topics could include the historic buildings within the district, like the ones you've listed as well as Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company Elevator A, North Star Woolen Mill, and others. The article could explain historic preservation and reuse, as well as new development and the planning process for the area. As far as a name for it goes, I'm not sure about it yet. It has an official name of Saint Anthony Falls Historic District in the National Register of Historic Places, but new structures don't fall under the list of contributing properties. From a standpoint of the residential development around the area, I'm not sure where the city neighborhood boundaries go. There might be other Mill Districts around the country, too. How about calling the new article "Minneapolis Mill District"? --Elkman (Elkspeak) 19:29, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Chiming in. What an interesting photo Bobak just added to Downtown East, Minneapolis. A nice comparison with the old West Side Milling District image in the commons. You experts probably already have them, but in case the links help you name an article, the city links the mills in Downtown East and in a Historic Mills District. -Susanlesch 20:07, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

  • There's definitely a lot to write about with regard to new uses for old buildings in this area. I just looked at Downtown East, Minneapolis and the external links above, and think the existing article could be greatly expanded to cover the new material. The geographic boundaries are correct and the article is hardly bursting from size. A new article could always be spun off later if necessary. But when deciding how to proceed, remember that the Pillsbury "A" Mill will soon be residential too (with ~five new buildings in the complex), so names like Historic Mill District may end up being too unspecific down the road. For now I'd expand the existing article. BTW the two pictures above in the same article would be super.--Appraiser 20:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I think the Pillsbury "A" Mill (the complex is now going to be called "East Bank Mills") can be generally considered a part of the St. Anthony Main / Nordeast neighborhood. I know when they generally cut the neighborhoods for description they let the Nordeast stretch along the banks of the Mississippi but not back into Marcy-Holmes. I thought it was interesting that the city's page didn't include the Pillsbury A in its designated potions of Historic Mill District. I think I'll go ahead a take a swipe at a separate, Mills District, Minneapolis article (that should mention that all the mills are not in the district, and that they used to stretch down (and on) Nicollet Island); please feel free to add to is or eventually determine it should be merged back into Downtown East. I'm also going to upload pictures of the more general Downtown East neighborhood (Metrodome/HCMC/etc). Please, everyone help out :-) --Bobak 21:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Chiming in again. Please wait. There are numerous names for this and I don't see consensus here. I for one would vote for expanding Downtown East. -Susanlesch 21:54, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I can contribute some material toward the history of the Mills District, since I have a few books and journal articles that have this information. I don't want to make it as verbose as History of Minneapolis, Minnesota, though -- that article got longer than I planned it to be. (That isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, I guess.) --Elkman (Elkspeak) 22:12, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

In order to better differentiate the articles, I took two extra photos I had from this weekend and tried blending them together to show the entire width of the Downtown East neighborhood (swapping out the photo of the Mill District which I moved to just the Mill District article. --Bobak 22:38, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured topics

I just read about these now and I'm wondering how close Minnesota could be to becoming a featured topic? Has this ever been discussed? Gopher backer 02:50, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I think that's a great idea, but I think all articles in the Top category should be at least GA. We have some work to go yet.--Appraiser 13:27, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bud Grant

I've redone the article related to Bud Grant, the long-time head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, and was looking to get some feedback on additional copyediting needed to nominate it for GA. It uses an extensive amount of sources. Thanks! RyguyMN 06:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome sign

I've uploaded a new photo of a large Minnesota welcome sign to the commons. Perhaps it will be useful for some article or in this project. Jonathunder 17:38, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I tried it out on Minnesota. At least this one can be read. Kablammo 17:45, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I like it. -Ravedave 17:56, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of lakes

Does it makes sense for List of lakes in Minnesota to exist? I sort of see that page as being futile. If all 10k+ lakes are listed the page will be un-useable. It seems to be a target for vandalism and I am not sure it is more useful than Category:Lakes_of_Minnesota. Opinions? -Ravedave 17:56, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I say no. To take one example: There are 50 lakes named "Rice Lake", and a dozen others with a variant of that name. A category will be enough. Kablammo 18:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
  • A compromise might be a "List of Minnesota Lakes over 100 acres". That would cut down on the number.--Appraiser 20:45, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines, such as classifying the most notable lakes by size or by some other criteria. For example, lakes that have a lot of recreational use or that are well-known within a metropolitan area, like Lake Calhoun, would be more notable than lakes that aren't that prominent, like Pickerel Lake in Lilydale. There's still a lot of ambiguity in that criteria, though. There's a Lakes WikiProject at Wikipedia:WikiProject Lakes that might have an opinion. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 22:06, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MN Governors

While working on the List of Governors of Minnesota, I discovered that a number of the individual articles on the state's governors contain text lifted straight from the Minnesota Historical Society's website [1]. I'm going to start going through each article and remove the copyrighted text and do some general cleanup. Any help/suggestions would be appreciated. --Gopherbone 19:47, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

  • It appears that User:Jack Cox did some of that a couple of years ago. More recently, I went through and added links to the Historical Society on any that weren't referenced. I didn't realize that they were verbatim; I just didn't want any of the articles to be tagged as "unreferenced". On any that were also members of the Minnesota House or Senate, I also added links to the legislature articles. And all U.S. House and Senate members have "bioguide" links. Many of them started out verbatim too, but I believe that site is specifically in the public domain as a product of a U.S. govt. employee. Recently many of the Governor's and Lt. Governor's pictures have been removed. It would be really cool if someone could get blanket permission from the state to use the official portraits. They should be in the public domain, I would think. --Appraiser 20:45, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I've been in contact with the Curator of Art for the Minnesota Historical Society. The MNHS is the copyright holder for the official portraits, so they are not in the public domain. However, images of paintings created before 1923 are in the public domain, so those images are already on wikipedia. I asked if MNHS had a policy regarding the use of its images on wikipedia - they don't have one. I will ask about blanket permission, but at this point they want me to purchase digital copies of the portraits ($7 each) which I could then upload. -Gopherbone 21:18, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I've also wondered about the idea of Wikipedia using images from the Minnesota Historical Society with some sort of licensing agreement, but the noncommercial use only stipulation in their copyright/license agreement will probably get in the way of that happening. Even though Wikipedia itself is nonprofit and noncommercial, its various mirrors are commercial, and in any case the result wouldn't be free in the sense of a free encyclopedia. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 22:11, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
  • So the state gave the official portraits of our Governors to MNHS, who won't let us use them for free? That just seems wrong.--Appraiser 23:02, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Flag

hey - did ya'll see this: North Star Flag?[2] Quite an improvement - and the legislature could pass a law that they all have to be made in Minnesota!

[edit] New historic PD image with several uses --help find them

click and check out the full image
click and check out the full image

While I was on an 8 hour Wikipedia photo "scavenger hunt" near my downtown apartment last weekend (the results of which I am still gradually uploading), I decided to take a photo of this excellent historic-PD watercolor located on the 4th floor of the new downtown Central Library. This watercolor was, according the posted display "Drawn and exhibited by the Twin City Rapid Transit Company", and created on "1904; revised 1916" (no doubt used in their headquarters or other such public display); I even found a little on the guy who drew it. I think it offers some potential uses, I could only take a picture of a portion of it because (1) it's huge (11'5" x 6'2") and (2) the glass in front gives off a lot of glare. So far I've just placed it in the TCRT article, does anyone see more homes for it? --Bobak 00:12, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minnesota shows on PBS

FYI - tpt is airing "Minnesota - A history of the land" right now. [3] -Ravedave 01:50, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] State parks map

I have added a State park locater map to List of Minnesota state parks, please take a glance at it if you get a chance. It was hard to place the parks with only county lines so any corrections would be appreciated. -Ravedave 04:08, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I have Quantum GIS, a mapping application that uses GIS data, and I found a data set of state park boundaries at the MnDNR Data Deli. From what I can tell, your map looks reasonably accurate, although Jay Cooke State Park and William O'Brien State Park sort of look like they're across the border in Wisconsin. I can take a closer look at the GIS map versus your map later. If you want me to render the entire map in QGIS and upload it, either for fact-checking or for another more detailed map, I can do that -- it wouldn't be too difficult. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 04:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I'll fix those two tonight, I have a spreadsheet with all the values that I create the page from. I was using an image editor to find the coordinates and it seems like it didn't work well on the far side of the X axes. I shifted most of them into the right spot but missed those two. Can you output maps that are license-able for WP? -Ravedave 18:21, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Probably, at least based on the disclaimer shown on the DNR Data Deli page (click on the License Agreement link). It says, "When these data are used in the development of digital or analog (hardcopy) products, MNDNR must be acknowledged as having contributed data to the product." It says the data must not be resold, but it doesn't say anything about commercial usage of maps based on that data. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 18:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Hrm it looks like the map would have to have its own MN DNR specific license, but I think its mostly compatible. The data deli just gives out the overlays, correct? Where would you get the map to place them on? If you end up making one but don't think its licenseable I would still be interested in seeing it.-19:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)