Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Massachusetts/Salem Witch Trials Task Force

Welcome to the Salem Witch Trials Task Force talk page!

Undo of "Dormant" Tag

Today I removed the tag stating that there is "Nobody in Here Anymore".

I show up Here about once a month, and I still use wikipedia and have been really very unhappy about what is occuring to our articles.

There is a group of Revisionists annonymously stripping info from our articles.

I find this offensive, and believe it is VANDALISM !

If you're changing an article at least sign your changes. That will allow a greater chance for the truth to become a part of this through intellectual discussion. Here we have been the victim of sockpuppets.

Trying to bury the witchcraft trials under the sign of the cross and using anonymous tags to do it is just a continuation of what occured in 1692.

John5Russell3Finley (talk) 18:24, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

There is a question regarding whether the inforamtion removed is from the article itself, or from the talk page. Removal of verifiable information from an article is vandalism, removal of the banner of a group which has been counted as inactive is not. For a group to be functional, it is generally required that the group demonstrate some degree of activity on its project page or talk page. Seemingly, this group has had very little activity of late. Under such circumstances, it is considered reasonable to remove the banner of the inactive group, particularly if another, more active, group covers the same subject matter. One person who edits about once a month is not grounds to say that a group is active. Several groups have been "merged" into more active projects on this basis, particularly if the banner of the other group includes a link to the inactive group. Personally, I have not seen that this group has sufficient activity to indicate that it is active as a group, and this subject is honestly small enough and sufficiently clearly related to another group, WP:CALVINISM, considering the people involved were all Calvinists and that Calvinism was clearly involved, that it makes some sense to reduce the banner clutter. Of course, if a given topic either is sufficiently unique or large enough for a separate "bookkeeping" project to assist in keeping track of those articles, then in general that can accomplished through the use of the single relevant banner, if it is available. Considering that this project has shown remarkably little activity, including no responses to comments posted here recently, barring this one, including my own proposal above, I personally have to consider whether the group demonstrates sufficient activity to really qualify as an active group, and such activity is the primary factor involved. John Carter (talk) 15:13, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Since this is a task force, it might be well if it had a WikiProject to belong to, and WP:Calvinism would seem to be a good candidate. Rich Farmbrough, 19:53, 23 July 2010 (UTC).

Recent Changes

Today I began Clean Up work on the Task Force Page.

I removed some stuff that looked like it might be intended to cause trouble.

Recently this task force has been criticised for innaction. So I took the title coordinator because the position was vacant, and I do not really wish to replace anyone, Yet. However, my computer skills date from the days of basic 4.1, and although I have been a contributor since 2001, I have never been able to keep up with all the constant changes in the way things get done.

With the help of the other members we should at least be able to stem the decline.

We need skilled members to take an interest here.

Not All the requested articles have been written yet.

Vandalism from Sock Puppets has been more than I can handle, without more help.

I hope that together we can fix things without offending people so much that we again have troubles here.

Please be aware that I often do not spend much time on the computer. In the past I tended to check in here about once every month, and if someone posted to my talk page I tended respond within a week or sometimes longer. I will make an effort to improve on this, however it is possible that if you post something here I may not post a reply on the same day. John5Russell3Finley (talk) 20:31, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

A few ideas. The Star Wars project regularly makes a roll call to determine if people are active, which assists in knowing who is still even irregularly active, as opposed to completely retired. Such knowledge might be helpful here. There is also a recent changes function which can be set up to display the most recent changes to all articles related to this topic, which might be useful in dealing with vandalism. It could be set up on the project page for greater ease of access. And, personally, I really think starting articles about the various works which have been written about this subject would be very useful. Any work which has had multiple reviews or other discussion outside of itself could potentially have a separate article, which could go into more elaborate detail regarding the theories expounded therein. I know JSTOR has several reviews on books related to this subject, hundreds of them. Other sources would, presumably, have more reviews. John Carter (talk) 15:14, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not going to comment about what I think is badly done, as I have made my thoughts known in the appropriate venue. However, there is here a place to set policy:

1) We do not forcibly retire members of our group. That is both unfriendly and contrary to the wiki spirit. You do not have to edit within a set period of time to be our friend here. If you put your name on our page as a member of our group and have not put some sort of notice of retirement on your personal page we will not cast you out just because "you didn't show up to Sunday meeting". Those involved in this project will understand what I mean here.

2) We are not interested in harassing members of our group. Many of us lead bussy lives and it is sometimes all we can do not to let fly a mean word at people who do thoughtless things here. When members of our group are ready to help and have the time we need to be willing to welcome their best efforts and provide a place to discuss them.

Needs Attention Section

We need people to work on this area.

What I have so far for the revision of the "template" ? is this:

Articles Needing Attention

Requested articles

Bartholomew Gendey • Sarah Bishop (Salem) • Mary Black (Salem) • John DeRich • Lydia Dustin (Salem) • Mary English (Salem) • Phillip English (Salem) • Thomas Farrar, Sr. • Elizabeth Hart (Salem) • William Hobbs (Salem) • John Indian • Margaret Jacobs (Salem) • Mary Lacey Jr. • Mary Lacey Sr. • Sarah Morey • Benjamin Proctor• John Proctor, III • Sarah Proctor • William Proctor (Salem) • Margaret Scott (Salem Trials)

Expansion or Cleanup needed

A Break with Charity • George Burroughs • Giles Corey • Martha Corey • Jonathan Corwin • Thomas Danforth • Rebecca Eames •Ann Foster • Dorcas Good • Sarah Good • John Hale • John Hathorne • Mercy Lewis • Rebecca Nurse • Betty Parris • Samuel Parris • Elizabeth Proctor • John Proctor • Ann Putnam, Jr. • Wilmot Redd • Nathaniel Saltonstall • Samuel Sewall • Roger Toothaker • Mary Walcott • Mary Warren • John Willard • Samuel Willard • Abigail Williams • The Witch House• 1692 • The Crucible (1957 film) • The Crucible (1996 film) • Tituba • William Stoughton

I'm inclined to pay less attention to the Clean up articles until after we finnish adding the Requested articles. Perhaps the Cleanup articles and the Expansion needed articles could be combined ? Until I get all of the articles looked at and rated I will keep a temporary version of the list here. Partly this is due to the way the one on the page is structured. I think this one could be easier to edit while working on the articles. My plan is to occasionally replace the one on the page with the current form of this one, but I won't do that until I have examined all of the articles in the list. John5Russell3Finley (talk) 20:09, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Margaret Scott (Salem)

Does Anyone have any ideas on this ? I don't get the point to having a redirect from an empty article. I think we need to remove the redirect and add some biographical info. I would support this even if it only makes it a stub. John5Russell3Finley (talk) 02:15, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

It provides a better link for the disambiguation page that is probably at Margaret Scott. Creating stubs has pros and cons. Rich Farmbrough, 19:15, 23 July 2010 (UTC).

seems useless to me, especially given that it defeats the purpose of the template John5Russell3Finley (talk) 21:20, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

use of numerical suffixes for identification

I suggest that for purposes of identification of Early New England residents (viz.: especially those listed in the reconstructed New England Vital Records Book Series) that we try as much as possible to avoid using the designation Jr. and other numerical suffixes unless actually citing the source from which we derive it at each use of it for the individual. There have been several misuses that have lead to unnecessary arguments and much confusion. John5Russell3Finley (talk) 20:23, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Salem witch trials reassessment

I have initiated a Good Article reassessment of Salem witch trials. I have reviewed it and placed the article on hold awaiting any improvements. If there has not been any response or significant improvement within a reasonable amount of time, it will be delisted. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 21:39, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Clearly there is a flaw here in our way of doing things. Yes, Our major article predates some newly adopted guidelines. However this thing shouldn't have come around to bite us in the butt like it has. I am not planning on doing any major rewriting on our major article here. I personally am opposed to all this running around throwing stones from people who are actually capable of doing themselves what I am less capable of doing than they are. You want in line cites than put them in yourself. John5Russell3Finley (talk) 18:28, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• I have no intention of arguing the correctness of the reassessment. I am following our guidelines, as listed at WP:GAR. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 18:41, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Notability?

It seems like a number of the articles covered by this taskforce are not notable. Take John Alden (sailor) as an example: I see someone who was involved in a church, accused of a crime and fled and a sailor. Where is the notability? Does it pass WP:GNG?--TM 17:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

The United States Constitution's establishment clause is one HUGE but certainly not the only reason that the history and the events and persons involved therein are notable. These events and persons resulted in the form of government that the UN is currently trying to force upon the world. Any analysis of the current situation between the US and the Moslem nations, Califate, etal. groups trying to preserve a religious basis for morality is easier when the facts about one of the most fundamental and deeply formative incidents in the history of the United States of America are fully understood. Read the Federalist Papers ... etal. literature justifying our refusal to allow for a state religion in the US. Not having the total package of facts is the kind of thing that allows us to consider putting ourselves back under some form of tyrany. John5Russell3Finley (talk) 18:12, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow. What you just said has nothing to do with this. I am not saying that the Salem Witch Trials are not notable, I am saying that a number of the sub-articles on people are not notable. If I don't get another response, I will take some of the least notable articles to AfD for a wider opinion.--TM 18:43, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Notability has to be demonstrated as per WP:N, which is I believe what Namiba is referring to. The Federalist Papers and other documents are completely irrelevant to this matter. John Carter (talk) 18:45, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

The reason that people in this matter need to be understood as individuals is that this was for more than a century explained as a conflict between individuals over the estates of their relatives. That may have been an oversimplification, but it is to some degree quite true. Recent scholarship is in flux. See the recent discussion of the Bishops and their current TAG articles. If you do not like American History, then of course you will not be interested in knowing who did what. However, who did what is what makes history understandable. The problem with removing these "smaller articles" is that in several cases the information has disapeared from where it once was on the web, and to some degree it was allowed to disapear because it is now on wikipedia. We at wikipedia have a responsability to the community we serve. Just because you or your friends do not like the people who built the American Culture and whose efforts were to a great degree responsible for the present world order does not mean that you should be allowed to remove content that is useful to other people. Much of the helpful info has been stripped from articles which were at one time quite nice, see what was once the article on John Alden, it had lots of good info, and it is now just a shell of what it was once. You wanna poll all the 5-23 year old globalists the majority will likely say this is OK, but it is not OK. This stuff was good content, and for what ever reason you folks had you removed it. That is sad. And it is no longer findable on the web for the average human because it was once on the web, it was put on wikipedia, and in dependence on this it was allowed to disapear from where it once was, and is now not in the article in any form other than in the article's history archives....accessible only with a lot of effort and only to the really skilled wikipeapia user who has large amounts of free time. You broke it, you bought it, now maintain the content.John5Russell3Finley (talk) 21:42, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I honestly cannot see how the above comment, for all its length, even remotely addresses the matter of the subject's notability as per our guidelines of WP:N. There is always the option of creating a list of people involved in the Salem Witch Trials which could include individual sections on the persons involved, in a way similar to Martyrs of Córdoba. If the articles cannot be developed to a sufficient length to merit individual articles, making such a single page, with redirects from the merged pages, always remains an option. John Carter (talk) 22:31, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

List of people of the Salem Witch Trials exists, but it a list with few details.--TM 23:38, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Any individual is always free to propose merger of articles, or propose deletion with the intent to merge content, or anything else they feel is reasonable given the existing circumstances. John Carter (talk) 00:25, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

That is obviously true. I posted the list to show that something already exists, but I don't see a strong way to merge the contents onto that particular list. Other ideas? Perhaps List of minor people of the Salem Witch Trials?--TM 01:45, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I myself have serious reservations about the existing list, as it is wildly unfocused in my opinion. I hate to say this, but virtually everyone alive in Salem at the time could, potentially, probably be included in that list as it now exists. I would think that it could easily be broken up into separate, more managable lists, each with a bit clearer focus, and that a List of individuals accused at the Salem Witch Trials is probably one of the more immediately obvious ones. John Carter (talk) 15:36, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

That seems like a very reasonable solution. Lets proceed with that if no others comment in the next few days.--TM 16:26, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Halloween Season (2010)

Happy Holidays to all those who celebrate the 4 seasons !

As usual this season we are experiencing the usual flurry of hyperactivity ! This year we have more than the usual, since some merry maker decided that they didn't like our biggest article and now we are having to cope with a GA review.

Quote appearing on multiple pages questioned for accuracy

A quote from a 130-year-old footnote has been questioned for accuracy by an anonymous editor at Talk:Ann Glover#List of persons executed for witchcraft. I have removed the quote from that article as it seemingly contradicts many other reliable sources, however it also can be found on several other New England witch-hunting articles:

• Ann Hibbins
• Alse Young
• Margaret Jones (Puritan midwife)
• Salem witchcraft trials

Perhaps a better source can be found? Or maybe it should simply be removed? —Mrwojo (talk) 23:45, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

If it is innacurate and of great age then perhaps after removing it from the places that cite it there should be a note made of it on the Salem Witchcraft Trials page as to its innacuracy and the correct number and where the correct number can be found. These old bits of innacurate stuff can be a real problem...John5Russell3Finley (talk) 20:51, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

However, if it is just a disagreement between sources I think it might be a good idea to note the discreapacy in the discussion section of each article perhaps with a request for others to do a search for better sources ? John5Russell3Finley (talk) 20:58, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I looked into this a bit further. On p. 137 of the quoted book the author describes the Mary Parsons case in more detail. It seems like describing her as being "executed for witchcraft" is imprecise, where the undisputed claim could be stated as "accused of witchcraft and sentenced to hang for murder". —Mrwojo (talk) 00:55, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Remove or clarify section on earlier executions

I propose that this :

"Earlier executions for witchcraft in New England Historian Clarence F. Jewett included a list of other people executed in New England in The Memorial History of Boston: Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts 1630–1880 (Ticknor and Company, 1881). He wrote,

The following is the list of the 12 persons who were executed for witchcraft in New England before 1692, when 24 other persons were executed at Salem, whose names are well known. It is possible that the list is not complete ; but I have included all of which I have any knowledge, and with such details as to names and dates as could be ascertained : — 1647, — "Woman of Windsor," Connecticut (name unknown)[later identified as Alice Young], at Hartford. 1648, — Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, at Boston. 1648,— Mary Johnson, at Hartford. 1650? — Henry Lake's wife, of Dorchester. 1650?—Mrs. Kendall, of Cambridge. 1651, — Mary Parsons, of Springfield, at Boston. 1651, — Goodwife Bassett, at Fairfield, Conn. 1653,—Goodwife Knap, at Hartford. 1656, — Ann Hibbins, at Boston. 1662, — Goodman Greensmith, at Hartford. 1662,— Goodwife Greensmith, at Hartford. 1688,— Goody Glover, at Boston."[6]"

should be removed or clarified.

The reason that this entry should be removed or clarified is that it contains false information: "— Mary Parsons, of Springfield, at Boston. 1651," This information is false.There were two Mary parsons of Springfield who were accused of being witches, they were Mary Bliss who married Joseph Parsons, and Mary Lewis who married Hugh Parsons. Both women were accused and acquitted of witchcraft. Mary (Lewis) Parsons however still faced the charge of murdering her child and would have been executed but died in prison before it could be carried out. No one named Mary Parsons was ever executed for witchcraft. For the above mentioned reasons this entry should be removed or changed, since it is spreads false information. - Ken — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.80.105.174 (talk) 03:01, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposed changes to project scope and talk page

I have recently started discussion about possibly changing both the scope of this particularly project and the use of a separate talk page for it here and here. Input from any interested editors is very welcome and encouraged, particularly from any editors who believe that perhaps WikiProject Massachusetts might be a "better" alternative. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 22:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC) Am I really to understand that you are again trying to merge this with some sort of discussion about the christian religion ? John5Russell3Finley (talk) 14:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I find your ongoing inability to act in accord with [{WP:AGF]] and other guidelines disturbing. First, I have never thought that this group should be about the Christian religion, and have never said as much. The purpose of a group is to bring the greatest number of editors possible to the purpose of development of the material. This group has been, basically, inactive. There are a number of reference and other books about the subject, and, whether you as an individual choose to believe it or not, basically all those involved were Christians. No project takes a clear POV position, although you seem to be incapable of understanding that. And, by the way, I realize you may be an infrequent editor, but it is customary to separate out your own comments to prevent run-on comments such as your own comment above. John Carter (talk) 21:43, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Reading the bickering between you 2 over the years had me cracking up!!! 35 articles? Is this a taskforce or a category? – Lionel ^(talk) 12:35, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Good question actually. As a general principle for wikipedia, we want about 100 articles for a task force/work group. This group is still rather short of that. While there are rare cases, like Wikipedia:WikiProject Kylie Minogue, which apparently have sufficient activity to make such reasonable, I am not sure that the one GA produced by this group is indicative of anywhere near the same level of interest. That is one of the primary reasons that I have proposed the group's scope be expanded to cover "western witchcraft", or the allegations of witchcraft in the Western, Christian, world, as indicated in the material I linked to initially. As indicated there, I think a lot of those related articles are relevant to this topic as well, and the expanded scope might help draw a bit more attention of a few more editors to this topic. John Carter (talk) 21:07, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Expanding the scope makes a lot of sense. But will you-know-who go along? Is there a way to expand the scope without him knowing? (Just kidding)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the SWT victims were not witches, yet you-know-who is an advocate of the dark arts. Seems he would be more interested in bona fide witches. – Lionel ^(talk) 04:20, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree, there do seem to be long-term issues of POV regarding at least one editor who seems uniquely interested in this topic. Also, I should note that in the Christianity and Military History project, coordinators are elected, not self-appointed. It occurs to me, that, possibly, individuals who might be interested in working on the topic might not be interested in perhaps working with, well, certain editors. I know that I myself would likely have added my name as a member were it not for the presence of one other editor. John Carter (talk) 19:26, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion to add this Project to the Supported projects list of WikiProject United States

I apologize for not coming here sooner but I just learned about this taskforce a couple days ago when WikiProject Massachusetts and several Massachusetts related projects were added to the supported projects list for WikiProject United States. Although it looks like the project has had some activity it seems as though the project is also looking to other projects for some assistance. Since most of the other Massachusetts related projects have already been added I think it would be appropriate to add this one as well. Of course you can still be supported by other projects as well, since the scope of the project could fall under multiple venues. I also noticed that there were quite a few articles in the scope of the project that were yet to be tagged. As I can see there are about 120 articles total that could fall under the scope of the project as it is now and more if it were to be expanded to something else like New England Witch trials, etc. Please let me know if you have any questions. --Kumioko (talk) 19:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Category:People of the Salem witch trials - 76 articles
• Category:Salem witch trials stubs - 28 articles
• Category:Salem witch trials - 22 articles
• Category:Alleged witches - Several under here that apply to the Salem Witch Trials
• Category:Salem, Massachusetts - Several under here that apply to the Salem Witch Trials --Kumioko (talk) 19:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

A major reason this project has had so great a backlog of work is that this taskgroup and its accompanying group of articles is unusually prone to harassment and vandalism. I think we could accomplish our tasks and goals if we got some new active members. Most of our members have been harassed away (our founder was harassed out of wikipedia). So, if you see work to be done please add your name to the list of members and Please commence working. Every time I try to do anything major I get attacked. It is not a lack of work to do rather it is that we are not being allowed to do our work. Any assistance in helping to get our job done will be very welcome. John5Russell3Finley (talk) 00:59, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

So just so I am clear, what kind of harassment are you talking about? And should I be clear in assuming that you do not wish me to ad this Projct/taskforce to the supported projects list of WikiProject United States? --Kumioko (talk)

I am okay to be added with WikiProject United States. Since there are 35 articles within the scope, I have a feeling this task force is very too narrow. JJ98 (Talk / Contributions) 01:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Clearly if you want to help and if the adding to it will help then certainly add it. John5Russell3Finley (talk) 15:57, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I think i'll certainly increase the visibility of the articles and the project. --Kumioko (talk) 17:17, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I am almost certain any sort of connection to some other group would increase the visibility of the subject. WikiProject Massachusetts, and by extension WikiProject United States, would be one option. Alternately, as the subject is an instance of Christian opposition/oppression/violence against witchcraft, it might also make sense to expand it to include other articles relating to Christianity and witchcraft. I would have no objection to seeing it added to the US Project, or expanded to cover all articles relating to witchcraft and Christiaity and expanded into the Christianity WikiProject as a subtopic. I also believe that any allegations of misconduct against others are more appropriate to noticeboards, where they can be checked by uninvolved parties, than by clearly involved parties here. John Carter (talk) 22:08, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

There's no reason why it can't be added to those projects as well, also WikiProject History would be an option. As for allegations of misconduct, as I mentioned earlier I just noticed this project a few days ago so I'm not familiar enough with the project to comment. Given the nature of the subject though I could speculate that some would find it against their good (insert your favorite religion here) values. --Kumioko (talk) 22:40, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

My only objection would be to the History WikiProject, because of the broad, almost ungovernable, width of scope of that project as is. However, there is as I remember a US History WikiProject, which might be a bit managable. John Carter (talk) 23:13, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Yep thats a project too. --Kumioko (talk) 23:17, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I am going to add this task force to the WPUS banner under Massachusetts and I was wondering something. Is it ok to replace the banner on the related articles with WPUS/Mass/Salem Witch trials or would you prefer I add it as a joint project leaving the banner in place. If you want an example I can provide that as well. Either way I would suggest combining the article banner and non article banner into one template. If you need help with that please let me know. --Kumioko (talk) 18:37, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

For myself, if the US banner displays the task force ID, I can't see an objection to using only the one banner. But that is, of course, only one opinion. John Carter (talk) 18:46, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I added it to the sandbox of WPUS initially. So here is what it would like like with this projects banner.

--Kumioko (talk) 19:13, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It looks OK, guess you could link in the requested articles clean up requests (supra.) into the to do section at bottom of template ? John5Russell3Finley (talk) 13:38, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Building blocks for possible articles:

Sarah Bishop wife of Edward 3

The following is an extract of what was at an earlier date a part of the article on Edward Bishop 3.

I would like to suggest we begin a stub on Sarah Bishop based on this and am putting this here because we had an edit war about it and I would like not to have an edit war about it this time.

Edward Jr. and his wife Sarah (not to be confused with her step-mother, Sarah Averill Wildes who was also accused of witchcraft and h[anged]), were sent to the Boston prison. Their property was confiscated but was redeemed by their son Samuel for ten pounds. Edward Jr. and Sarah were able to escape from prison after nine months.[4] Although they initially returned to Salem after the hysteria had subsided, they eventually moved to Rehoboth, Massachusetts where Edward Jr. ran an inn until his death in 1711. Edward III eventually married Susannah Putnam, a relative of the Putnams who were among the accusers at the Salem Witchcraft trials. The Source for the footnote is stated as Upham v 2 p 136 (which I have yet to check).

Further ref: Boyer Paul, Stephen Nissenbaum, Account of Edward Bishop--Cases of Edward and Sarah Bishop: The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak of 1692, Benjamin Ray, The University of Virginia, appears to be (in 2008) an online book. (also not checked yet).

John5Russell3Finley (talk) 23:21, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Please add additional comments bellow. Perhaps, if possible, maybe, we could put together an actual text here, then cut and paste the article in place ? John5Russell3Finley (talk) 15:02, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Martha Carrier

This was once a stub but disapeared some time ago and would need losts of expanding before it could reapear as an article:

Martha Carrier

Accused during Salem witch trials

"Martha Carrier was indicted for bewitching certain persons, according to the form usual in such cases, pleading not guilty to her indictments.", quote from The Trial of Martha Carrier by Cotton Mather.

Carrier was one of the few people who were accused and hanged for being or accused being a witch during the 1692 Salem witch trials.

Carrier was a mother to several children, who frankly and fully confessed to being witches themselves due to only their mother made them so.

Please add more info John5Russell3Finley (talk) 18:43, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Discussion to remove the Automatically assessed logic from the WikiProject United States template

Greetings, there is a discussion regarding removal of the logic used to populate Automatically assessed article categories from Template:WikiProject United States. Most of the categories (over 220 Wikipedia wide) were deleted in February 2013 because they were empty. These categories were previously populated by a bot that hasn't run since 2011 and the categories aren't used. Removal of this uneeded/unused logic will greatly reduce the size and complexity of the WikiProject United States template. Any comments or questions are encouraged here. Kumioko (talk) 18:43, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Lest there is any confusion for people who don't speak the same language, the words "logic used to populate Automatically assessed article categories" refer to the feature that was supposed to allow this WikiProject's template to "inherit" class and importance ratings from other WikiProjects. Kumioko says that there are no longer any bots performing the function that formerly copied those ratings. --Orlady (talk) 23:17, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Any current drafts?

Hi, I am wondering if there's any current drafts of the numerous articles that still need to be created. I started a small one for Philip English in my sandbox; I'd like to get Mary done as well, and there are still quite a lot of people left who need biographies. Is there anywhere to keep drafts for collaboration on improving them to a good enough status to be posted as articles? La Ovo (talk) 04:41, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

you may be able to add a section to the taskforce page John5Russell3Finley (talk) 12:56, 30 October 2023 (UTC)