Talk:Framingham, Massachusetts/Archive 1

Archive 1

Framingham Heart Study

What's the Framingham Longitudinal Study? AJD 13:27, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It'll be one of the studies of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in the population of Framingham which are used worldwide to help set public health policies and to inform medical trreatment of coronary artery disease. Midgley 22:38, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The article refers to " the Framingham Heart Study at Framingham State College", but it actually has nothing to do with Framingham State. The Heart Study is serious medical research, and Framingham State doesn't have a medical school. The study is actually run by the NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), which contracts with Boston University to operate it. I'd make the appropriate changes myself, but I have little direct knowledge of the study and I think someone with better information should do it.

In search of editors

I'm a reporter for Boston Globe writing a story about Wiki entries for local cities and towns. Interested to talk to contributors to this article. On deadline. Please contact me at thomascaywood@yahoo.com by Sunday, Sept. 17. Thanks! Thomas

The story is "Answering Wikipedia's call to fill in the blanks." Nice reporting, Thomas! <>< tbc 23:01, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Family Guy???

So there are like six sentences about the town's history under the History heading, and two of them are devoted to an episode of some dumb, canceled cartoon? I don't think that has any place in a brief synopsis of Framingham's history. You would never see something like that in an encyclopedia. I bet a Family Guy fan felt compelled to add that. I guess this isn't a hugely important page any way, and I don't live in Framingham, but that's my opinion. Deadcorpse 22:34, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I used to live in Framingham. Believe me; the Family Guy reference is pretty much the most interesting that's happened there, ever. --Marco Passarani 00:25, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Marco Passarani is right. I have lived in Framingham. It's a very boring town. The four most interesting things are Christa Mcaullife's affiliation to this town, the Framingham Heart Study, Bill Clinton's signing of the IASA in Framingham High School, and Family Guy references. Also, Family Guy isn't cancelled. Armyrifle 23:24, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Christa McAuliffe

Can a smaller picture of her be found? On my screen at least (Firefox) it's enormous and takes over the entire page, and even in IE it's way too big for the article. I'm honestly not good enough with Wiki yet to be sure any pictures I find don't violate copyright, or I would change it myself. RaCha'ar 18:58, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

is that better? Dmharvey 19:16, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Much, thank you! RaCha'ar 18:54, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

As a note re: the library....

First of all, it's a subjective issue as to why it was voted down, and without a source, it really shouldn't be in the article (especially since "many South Framingham town meeting members" is weselly in the extreme - without sources, how do you know that the North side members were wholly in favor of it?

As I heard it, the branch library in Saxonville was closed (which somebody might want to note was the McAuliffe Branch Library), and then the town government decided they wanted to build a new one. I'm sure the plan was voted down as being ridiculous (the same way the town closed a few of the schools years ago, and then discovered there were too many students, so they had to reopen them), because there was a perfectly usable building already available. In short, the town created the issue it then sat down to "solve". MSJapan 22:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, the McAuliffe branch library in Saxonville is not closed and never has been. As of this week it is still open and busy with no plans to close it. [November 5, 2006]

Two Separate Communities

The article was rewritten recently and this section was torn apart. I had fleshed that section out to show how the community was divided through various ways- Financial, demographics etc. I am going to revert it the previous version by me if no one objects. Jerem43 11:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about your section reorg. I've done quite of bit of work standardizing city and town articles in the State of Massachusetts with appropriate section titles and organization. I've reordered the sections here again, but have not edited your added sections to the article. Let me know how it reads now.--Dalmatian Mommy 17:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

No problem. I have reworked the rest of the article so that it was properly referenced, better organized and read better. I will not touch the layout as you state that it is now more standardized. I removed the Transportation Stub and expanded the section.

Jerem43 23:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Guidance on placing entries related to social services

I tried to add an entry in the section on Framingham economy which was removed. I'm new to this so I'd like to get guidance on why my material was unacceptable.

Framingham has been economically devastated by the social service industry for many years. The imapcts are not only huge, but have been documented in detail. In fact, I was part of a committee of Town Meeting formed to perform this very investigation.

I have no problem abiding with a defined set of rules (in fact I'm big on rules), but I do need help in understanding why what I wrote was problematic. Stevenworr 18:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The reason I stated that the first edit was reversing Vandalism was because of the wording, I believed it to be a statement pushing an anti-immigration belief. After I read the rest of your entries, I removed them because they were a violation of the Wikipedia Manual of Style.

Here are some of the specifics:

1. They were not NPOV, that is they did not have a Neutral Point of View. Your entries appeared to advocating one political point of view regarding immigration and social services.;
2. The way your statements were phrased gave the impression you were using the article as a soapbox;
3. You used both inflammatory wording and peacock terms that gave the impression of bias, In addition, the data regarding the amount of housing that is 40b was presented in such a way that it also gave the impression being biased;
4. There is a lack of proper, verifiable citation. You used the terms "well documented" and "The generally accepted ...", even though something may be well documented or generally accepted does not mean it is factual. Examples like alien abductions are well documented, cigarette companies have copious documentation that shows their products have no link to issues like cancer and emphysema and it was once generally accepted that people of African descent were inferior to people of European decent. In all those examples there is signifigant, provable evidence that they are false claims. I am not saying that your entries were false or racist, just that they are questionable because you failed to properly cite them using verifiable and reliable sources. Putting it bluntly: Prove it and prove it properly. The immigration figures I used were from documents published by the Town of Framingham and other government bodies, where did your information come from? Who provided it? Private advocacy groups, such as CCFILE, are not a good source of data because they are inherently not neutral, they want to prove their point and can interpret data to show their PoV. It is best to use a source that is disinterested, such as the GAO or other non-partisan body.

When writing about such issues, try to do so in such a way that simply presents the facts. People can infer what they want from the data. Please go back and read how you presented your data, try looking at it from a NPOV. The information presents how the town resolves issues that confront it and is important to the history of the town, but is really in need of cleanup.

Instead of saying:

Since the mid-80's, Framingham was targeted by the agencies to escalate more and more programs in the town, to provide tenement housing for their clients, and to steadily take more and more tax generating properties off the books in the name of being a non-profit. The situation got so bad that one day back in 2000?, it was discovered that the largest of the agencies, SMOC...

try saying this:

Beginning in 1980s, social service agencies began expanding operations in Framingham. These agencies purchased several properties in the town to provide housing and services, such as methadone treatment, for their clients, thus removing the properties from the town tax rolls. In 2000, it was discovered that one such group, the private, non-profit social agency South Middlesex Opportunities Council (abbreviated as SMOC), had been engaged in unethical behavior in regards to its dealings with the town...

The latter can be considered encyclopedic while the former (your original text) represents the examples I listed above (IMO).

In regards to the structure of the Town Government, I misread the original information and your change was appropriate.

I hope this helps you in the future.

Jerem43 22:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

PS, please use this forum or a member's discussion page to discuss issues like this, don't directly email another member/editor.

Many thanks for your comments. I appreciate the effort you put into them. Very helpful. :-) Stevenworr 22:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Looking for direction on restructuring data in "9 Two separate communities"

This section bothers me somewhat. There's a lot about it that is based on attitude or opinion. Certainly it lacks corroboration. At worst it fuels disagreement and reduces community.

The town of Framingham is frequently seen as two distinct communities, divided by Route 9, which passes east-to-west through the middle of the town. South Framingham includes Downtown Framingham (the town government seat), Coburnville, Lokerville and Salem End Road. North Framingham includes the neighborhoods of Nobscot, Pinefield, Ridgefield and Saxonville plus Framingham Center (the physical center of town, featuring the town commons).

The only thing of value is that Rt9 runs through it. The rest is a rehash of material that either is or should be in the previous section Framingham,_Massachusetts#The_Villages

The next section 9.1 Framingham,_Massachusetts#Retail_and_Business should be moved to section 8 Framingham,_Massachusetts#Economy.

Sections 9.2 9.3 Housing and Demographics should go up as well. Housing should be a new section between 4 Demographics and 5 Government (or after gov?)

The next subsection Government really has nothing to do with government. It's more about where municipal facilities are located. I'm not really sure what it's value here is, but it's not about government and it's not about any divide between the town. In addition, the last paragraph seems to make it sound like the Hatfields and the McCoys where athletic competition has an atmosphere of bitterness to it. The fact is that today Framingham HS is the 6th biggest in the State with 6000 students.

There are a few "southern" people who quietly gripe about the "northside" but this material is too touchy feely for me to feel good about.

Should I just go take a stab at it? Or should someone else try? Do I have a point? I'm still new but please don't pull any punches.

Stevenworr 20:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Using embedded web links vs. reference lists

I've reverted some of the edits to embedded web links, and used particularly in the Education Section. References are really used to cite a source of information that you used to write a section in your own words. Embedded web links can be used for website links that are external to Wikipedia. The purpose of embedded links is to make it easy for someone to follow a link to a site with further info. It's just one click away. Take a look at other city and town articles in MA and look at their format. Or check out this help page: Wikipedia:External links.

If there were a descriptive paragraph about a school, I could understand using the reference format, but essentially, we are linking to the school's "official site" for the purpose of giving the reader further information, which would be cumbersome to add to the article. In this case, we've only made a list. --Dalmatian Mommy 19:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Lists and article length

I just noticed this at the top of the edit page:

 This page is 55 kilobytes long. It may be appropriate to split this article into smaller, more specific articles.
 See Wikipedia:Article size.

Thus I have amended my original discussion entry

Hello all... I know that we are trying to expand this article so that it is as comprehensive as possible, but... It seems to be turning into a list of lists. We should step back and come up with a comprehensive plan as to what needs to be done with the article.

A first suggestion is to take out some of the information related to the town but not directly pertinent to the article on the town and put them in a separate article. For instance the list of Places of Worship in the town should be on its own page with a {{main|List of Framingham Places of Worship}} reference tag. We could then add pertinent info as to type of faith the place serves, founding information and maybe a little history.

Others that should be moved include:

1. National Register of Historic Places
2. Town Government Boards
3. Healthcare
4. Utilites

Also we need to improve the ==See also== section, So I am going to start in that one.

Any opinions??

Jerem43 19:52, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I made some changes to the article to keep it under the 50 Kb range. There are now four sub-articles on Education, History, Government and Religion. These articles will need to be fleshed out so there will be a more comlete picture of the town., so let's get goin' boiz and gurlz!

I made a new link box on the bottom of the page, how does it look? Steven, could you get a copy of the seal the town is using on the police cruisers an dpw trucks? It would look a whole lot better than the one that is on the page currently.

Jerem43 08:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Map request

A map showing features of interest, like the various neighborhoods, business districts, and major routes, would be helpful. -- Beland 23:33, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Mass Pike shield.png

The image Image:Mass Pike shield.png is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --02:24, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Villages and Route 9

The reference to a "beetleback" in Framingham Center is wrong. The term "beetleback" was applied to the junction of Speen St and Route 9, not the reworking of the Center. That intersection in the Center is completely different from the "beetleback," which really applies only to that single intersection (Route 9 at Speen St). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.68.134.1 (talk) 20:58, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

A beetleback is any type of raised intersection where one primary road is depressed under another with exit ramps installed. Both are beetleback interchanges. --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 21:07, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

No, the name was invented for the Rte 9/Speen intersection, and was popularized by a local newspaper to refer to that specific intersection. It is not a generic term used elsewhere. The intersection of Rte 9 and Edgell/Main in Framingham Center lacks the specific characteristic that led to the name (the big Speen St loop). The only generic use (other than the dorsal view of a coleopteron) is an old term describing a type of car body. Unless you can cite a source for a generic definition such as the one you give, the word gets replaced. 139.68.134.1 (talk) 21:11, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

That's what I thought. Makewater (talk) 14:13, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

No, the South Middlesex News did not create the name. It was used by the engineers who designed the intersection. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 19:13, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Inserting Pictures of Time capsule

I am trying to insert a paragraph about the Time Capsules at downtown Framingham Memorial Building. Link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framingham,_Massachusetts#Downtown_and_South_Framingham

I could not embed the pictures. Any suggestion are welcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bygmark (talk • contribs) 21:33, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Brian Williams really from Framingham?

Is Brian Williams actually from Framingham? There is no mention of Framingham on his page. Is it possibly vandalism? Chris (talk) 23:31, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I decided to find this out for myself. As it turns out, Brian's father is from Framingham, not the man himself.  Done I took him off the list. Chris (talk) 19:19, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Shopping areas

Have we got enough information abotu the Route 9 shopping malls, etc? 98.118.62.140 (talk) 22:21, 7 October 2011 (UTC)