User talk:Sbmeirow/Archive/2010

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I hope you enjoy editing and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Feel free to write a note on the bottom of {my talk page if you want to get in touch with me. Again, welcome! Nutput7777777 (talk) 22:36, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Starting new articles

Sorry, there aren't any templates to help you, but there are good procedures. First off, you need to have reliable sources. One good starting place is the GNIS; you can find their database at http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic. When you cite the GNIS, don't simply copy/paste the URL. Instead, type <ref>{{gnis|#####}}</ref>, replacing the # characters with the entry's feature ID. Look at the record for Antelope for an example — the feature ID is 477249, which you can find in the "ID" line above the "Name" line, right at the top of the page. The GNIS can give you coordinates, the elevation, and occasionally other data. Another good source is DeLorme's Atlas and Gazetteer series of atlases; their Kansas edition (which I own) has all the roads in the state (yes, even the dirt roads in the countryside) marked, plus lots of other geographical data. You may want to consult with your local historical or geneaological society to see if they have a history book specifically about Marion County; county histories are great sources if you can find them. I've looked at Google Books, but unfortunately they don't have any such books online. Finally, please remember to include a references section with the {{reflist}}, the county navbox, and categories. Feel free to ask me if you have other questions. Nyttend (talk) 21:56, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

How to reference printed documents not on the internet

You don't need to use ISBNs; you simply need standard publication data. See the way I've cited a publication of the county historical society at Holy Rosary Catholic Church (St. Marys, Ohio), citation #3. Nyttend (talk) 02:52, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Peabody, Kansas

About the notable people — the only one with an article whom I removed was Dennis Franchione; both the source and his article say only that he coached at the Peabody schools, and people can coach in one community while living in another. Moreover, we don't list people without articles, unless they very clearly pass WP:BIO; state legislators explicitly pass WP:BIO, so they're an exception, but TV reporters don't, so they aren't. As far as the cemeteries: Wikipedia is not a cemetery directory, so we shouldn't list every single nearby place, especially when they're never going to qualify for articles themselves. Please don't include coordinates and comments on getting in, because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, rather than a how-to guide for finding places. As well, please don't use Find A Grave; the GNIS is much more official, and as a USGS site, it can be depended on much more frequently. Nyttend (talk) 19:38, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

By the way, please read WP:USCITY, which will give you guidance on writing community articles. Nyttend (talk) 19:39, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

That's a valid reference; the problem with the others wasn't that they were invalid, but that they didn't speak to him living there. We don't generally add the references to the notable natives and residents section; simply add to his article the fact that he lived in Peabody and then add him to the notable natives and residents section. Nyttend (talk) 20:44, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I've gotten on you too much. We have a policy page called "Please do not bite the newcomers", but we longtime editors too often ignore it. Please feel free to ask me if you're confused or uncertain about guidelines or policies, and if you're curious if help pages exist on a topic, please ask me or post a request for help at the Help Desk. Nyttend (talk) 22:34, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Your series of questions

I'm going to try to answer these questions separately; if the answers aren't sufficient, please tell me. Nyttend (talk) 01:59, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Empty sections

It's really not a good idea to include section headers with nothing underneath them except an expand template; a section is supposed to include information about the topic, so we generally don't have sections with no content. Instead, it would likely be best to place an {{expand}} template at the top of the article.

Coords

Please look at the link produced by GR1 — it eventually takes you to this file, which only includes municipalities and census-designated places. Communities such as Aulne aren't either one, so you need to go with the GNIS; simply follow the procedure I spelled out in the "Starting new articles" section above, because the GNIS provides coords.

Cities

Finally, please remember that unincorporated communities aren't cities, and all cities are incorporated. Nyttend (talk) 01:59, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Pilsen, Kansas

I am part of the WikiProject Catholicism. Fr. Emil Kapaun of Pilsen, Kansas is up for canonization. I noticed a redlink for Pilsen, Kansas and decided to start an article even though I am not from Kansas although I have visited there. I thought Pilsen, Kansas was important enough to do an article because of the pilgrimages to Fr. Kapaun's home parish. I hope this will help you as to the reason why I started the Pilsen, Kansas article in the first place-Thank you-RFD (talk) 12:23, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to WikiProject Kansas!

Hi Sbmeirow/Archive! Welcome to the Kansas WikiProject! Please jump right in! If you have any questions, post a note on the project talk page or ask someone on the member list. ilamb94 (talk) 05:46, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Lincoln Center, Kansas

Actually, Lincoln Center is the correct name: the Census Bureau recognises that as the official name, as does its GNIS feature record. We don't have New York City at "The Big Apple" or Gann, Ohio at "Brinkhaven, Ohio", even though both of these situations are common names or nicknames for these communities. Nyttend (talk) 00:06, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I understand, but such sources often aren't the best for determining official names — maps don't specialise in official names, and municipal websites may present their subjects in a way other than the official way if it's somehow more appealing or more popular. For a similar situation, I'm constantly having to revert someone who insists that one Ohio community is a city (partly because the municipal website says so), even though I've provided sources to show that Ohio law says that communities with its population are villages. Please note that I'm not saying that you're going to begin a revert war; I'm just trying to provide an example of a municipal website making a factual error. Nyttend (talk) 00:32, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

County templates

No problem :-) The way we normally go is municipalities, minor civil divisions, unincorporated communities, and non-governmental versions of minor civil divisions; if there are any ghost towns, they generally go at the end. Kansas doesn't have any of these last ones, so let me point you to {{Marshall County, Minnesota}}, which has all five types of communities. In Minnesota, an unorganized territory is a part of a county that's not in a township; as you can see by looking at the article for the one in Marshall County, not much happens there. Nyttend (talk) 11:15, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

And about the beauty pageant winners — I'd advise against including them unless they already have articles, which is the same standard that we use for almost everyone. A few categories of people, such as professional athletes and those who have held statewide or national political office, are pretty much inherently notable, but state beauty pageant winners don't really fall into those categories. Sorry that I didn't respond before, but I was gone at a church event without much Internet access when you originally left it, and I was just about to get offline when you left the one last night.

Clay Center, Kansas

I appreciate you adding the map to the article about Clay Center, Kansas. I have traveled there before and will travel there again soon, so I was watching the article. You have been more active as a member of WikiProject Kansas than I have been as a member of WikiProject Minnesota. Keep up the good work. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:45, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Digital Visual Interface

Why did you undo my edit showing that DVI theoretically allows unlimited resolutions? Section 2.2.2.1 of the DVI specification at http://www.ddwg.org/lib/dvi_10.pdf states that dual-link operation has no specified maximum speed. This can be found on page 13 of said document. I thought that the whole specification was cited for the Digital Visual Interface article in the references section. Therefore, resolutions beyond 4 megapixels could be delivered. I mentioned the eye pattern stuff because I felt that stuff like barely-conforming cables and video cards cost-engineered to output a signal adequately only up to 165Mhz operation could degrade the signal enough that such extreme resolution applications could fail. Jesse Viviano (talk) 22:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• I had to edit the above post to fix a spelling error. I am sorry about this. Jesse Viviano (talk) 00:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

PocketBook Reader

Thanks for editing PocketBook Reader page. Please come back any time. I moved your links to above to avoid External links' overload. Dictionaries seem to be pre-installed. Brainsteinko (talk) 05:54, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Wichita, Kansas

Hi. Please check out the B-class criteria linked in the project header. I've restored the C-class because it does not meet the criteria for B-class. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 02:53, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Hiawatha, Iowa

FYI the Hiawatha, Iowa mayor red link was a leftover from before I started expanding the article and I agree it could be removed. Is it common practice to add the {{Commons}} and the {{Portal box}} to all articles ? If so what are the steps, do you do a search at Commons before you insert the template ? I understand about the portal.I have only been editing a little over a month. Did you look at the hidden wikicode in the Notable people section ? If you did what is your opinion ? --RifeIdeas Talk 06:52, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Response to Multiple Topics

Where do I begin! I am a wiki editing newbie (10/22/2010) I also am bold and get hit with the occasional don't do that message, all have been constructive except a recently one that I strongly disagreed with so I started a conversation at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/US Guideline#References for Notable people which BTW I just added a new concept I thought of today in the subsection Citation needed tags. this is also where I got the basis for my NOTICE in the wikicode although I expanded it. Check out the Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/US Guideline also (if you haven't already). I have also started what I call a NULIFY wikicode tag <!--NULLIFIED xxxxx NULLIFIED per NOTICE above--> with the xxxxx being the name and description of the Notable person. That way if someone comes back to add the name again they can see why the name has been removed from the article. I also have made it a practice to make the descriptions of Notable people more concise and add the (born-died) after their name.

I have been centering text in population tables and picture titles for a while, I think it is more attractive, You can also add the name of the city in the {{ Historical populations }} or {{ USCensusPop }} by using |title = Beaconsfield<br>Historical Populations and you can shift the table tothe left side of the page with |align = left leaving it blank instead of inserting left will keep it on the default right side ( if you did not know).

I have started today adding the Commons and Portal templates to cities I edit, I like the see also concept if it is already established per your reasoning., and thanks for your information about Commons. I have been totally frustrated with my 3 unsuccessful "attempts" at uploading images. I think I need an "upload for dummies" step by step instruction manual. I have had to resort to having someone else upload (always successful, no copyright problems) after I have given them the flicker hyper link (the only place I have tried to upload from).

My mentor (picture uploader) when I asked how to – just went ahead and set up a separate all inclusive watch list (two days ago) for me using a list already established called "List of cities in Iowa" 900+ entries. It works great although I do not know how he did it and will have to get back to him to learn how it all works. What I do know he made a new subpage for me called User:RifeIdeas/List of Cities in Iowa in which he copied the entire list from "List of cities in Iowa" and pasted it in there minus the search code. I am almost sure I could also add by copy and paste the "List of counties of Iowa" or any other list to that same page. This way my "watch list" can be limited to just my most prized patrols. The intra wiki link is on my talk page just above your message Multiple Topics, I also have it as a link in my favorites bar, here is the link http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChangesLinked&limit=250&target=User%3ARifeIdeas%2FList_of_Cities_in_Iowa
I enjoyed the new knowledge I received from my interaction with you. being new at this if you have any other insights feel free to post on my talk page now or in the future.--RifeIdeas Talk 21:40, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Welda, Kansas

Hello Sbmeirow, and thanks for patrolling new pages! I am just letting you know that I contested the speedy deletion of Welda, Kansas, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: The reason given is not a valid speedy deletion criterion. You may wish to review the Criteria for Speedy Deletion before tagging further pages. Thank you. ǝɥʇM0N0^farewell 03:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Census tables

I now patrol all Iowa cities and have to ask again why are you shortening the population tables from the full facts available (up to 15 census) to just the last 3 or so census? Example Monticello, Iowa. If you think it is because they visually look to large for the article, I say that is not enough of a reason as the articles will only grow not shrink.(my goal) You are just making more work for anyone who comes behind you and develops the article or will not be restored to full length as an assumption that the community may have a short census history. I ask you to go back and restore all the tables you have shortened (at least in Iowa).--RifeIdeas Talk 15:25, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I moved your other comment to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sbmeirow/HowToUploadPhotosToWikipedia

I shortened it because the census table was almost as long as the stub article. I've been wondering if we should have a maximum number of years on the census tables until articles are more expanded, like maybe back to 1970 or even 1950 should be more than enough until the article gets expanded with more text. We could move the data to the user talk section so it could quickly be added back later, just a thought. I have a friend that lives in that town and one in Hopkington, thus is why I edited them, you can see some of my older edits last summer. I'll leave the census tables alone on Iowa article edits. Sbmeirow (talk) 19:17, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Marion High School (Kansas)

Hi Sbmeirow. Thank you for your contribution of a new school page to Wikipedia. please now go to WP:WPSCHOOLS to see how you can make it even better Thanks. Happy editing!--Kudpung (talk) 10:22, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Hillsboro High School (Kansas)

Hi Sbmeirow. Thank you for yet another new new school page for Wikipedia. Please now go to WP:WPSCHOOLS and if you get stuck on anything don't hesitate to ask us at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools or to ask me on my talk page. --Kudpung (talk) 10:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

New schools

Hi, That's great! We have over 320 registered members on the schools project but the project is all but dead and I'm having to do all the work myself. New school pages arrive here at the rate of about 30 - 40 a day and we need all the help we can get - do consider joining the project if you have time ;) Cheers, --Kudpung (talk) 11:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

FactFinder

Thanks for the note — I can't imagine that I would have found this page by myself. Did you see the WP:HD response by Teratornis? Web pages can be archived, and we can file a bot request for the links to be changed to the archived versions of the pages. Nyttend (talk) 19:22, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Marion High School

Greetings Sbmeirow! I just reverted some changes you made to this article, and wanted to explain why.

First, per WP:MOSFLAG, flags should never be used in infoboxes. As a rule of thumb, miniflags get overused quite a bit on WP, and undoubtedly you saw them in articles that no one has gotten around to removing them from yet. It is an honest mistake.

Per guidelines on what not to include in school articles, administrative staff (at least beneath superintendent and principal) should not be listed in an article, unless they somehow meet the general notability guidelines. The same guideline also spells out that phone numbers, fax numbers, etc should not be included. This is also delineated in the more general WP:NOT policy, as this information is not considered encyclopedic, and is more likely to be found on a school's website.

I re-established the school URL in the infobox in order to widen out the infobox. The infobox is designed to be widened a bit. You may notice that many of the labels are bunched up unless the infobox is spread out a little. As long as the URL isn't too long, this works very nicely.

If you are looking for some suggestions on where to go next with this article, I strongly encourage you to check out the general tips on writing school articles. I wish you the best of luck! LonelyBeacon (talk) 04:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Just...Just what

In your edit to the Stephens City, Virginia article you asked "just...just what" to "just south of Stephens City". The term "just" when talking about location means "really close to". I hear it primarily used in the South. Not really used outside that area. I don't mind the edit of the picture tag, it clears up any confusion anyone might have had, but I thought I would let you know on the "just" term. :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:00, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm very aware what "just" meant in that context, but I was more of poking at people to not use that slang in wikipedia, just like I poke at people that use the more recent phrase "just saying" in blogs, or people pronouncing Illinois incorrectly sounding like noise. Another big problem is that much of the young population butchers the english language because of the way they speak or text each other, then it carries over to their written english, which is a fail. Sbmeirow (talk) 22:17, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha. I do "write as I talk", which sometimes comes back to bite me in the backside. My writing on the Stephens City, Virginia article has actually helped me speak more clearly and using less regional "slang". Though I do, sometimes, get a "just south of" in there. It is force of habit. :) Take Care....Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:20, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry Christmas 2010

Happy Holidays to everyone. Thanks for all the help in 2010. I can't give out physical gifts, so here are some ebooks :-)

• A Christmas Carol; Charles Dickens; Chapman & Hall; 1843. (Online HTML eBook)
• Wikipedia : The Missing Manual; John Broughton; O'Reilly Media; 312 pages; 2008; ISBN 9780596515164. (Download 30MB PDF eBook) (Online HTML eBook)
  
• Kansas : A Cyclopedia of State History, Embracing Events, Institutions, Industries, Counties, Cities, Towns, Prominent Persons, Etc; 3 Volumes; Frank W. Blackmar; Standard Publishing Co; 944 / 955 / 824 pages; 1912. (Volume1 - Download 54MB PDF eBook), (Volume2 - Download 53MB PDF eBook), (Volume3 - Download 33MB PDF eBook)
  
• The Story of the Marking of the Santa Fe Trail by the Daughters of the American Revolution in Kansas and the State of Kansas; Almira Cordry; Crane Co; 164 pages; 1915. (Download 4MB PDF eBook)
  

• Sbmeirow • Talk • 18:54, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Cimarron Redoubt

Just curious why you say that this article is Start class — is it really "An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete and, most notably, lacks adequate reliable sources."? Nyttend (talk) 01:00, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Probably because I was in a hurry and noticed it length was short. I just thought it was overly short compared to other B class articles, but then again it might be hard to expand this out. I set it back. I've come across numerous city articles that have a class or importance obviously set too high, so sometimes I just get in the fast habit of changing things. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 01:42, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

FactFinder

Please note that the FactFinder thing may not be difficult to fix: most of our links to the Factfinder use {{GR|2}}, so a single edit to a template will be able to fix 99.99% of the links. Nyttend (talk) 01:00, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! • Sbmeirow • Talk • 01:42, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Further reading

I'm sorry: I hadn't noticed that there were formatting issues because of the move. Wikipedia standard layout puts references above further reading; the point of a further reading section is to give readers an idea of where they can look for more information, and it's standard not to include citations in such a section. I'm confused about your reasoning for using the references as you suggest — why can't you simply add inline references to digital books that you'd like to use as references? Anything in the further reading section is strictly being used as background reading at the present time; if you want to use it to support something in the article, it should be removed from that section at the same time as it's put into an inline citation. I can't reply more than this, because I don't understand all of what you've said; sorry that I'm confused. Finally, about the templates: it's probably not a good idea, since these templates wouldn't be much used. Citation templates in general have come under fire in recent months, since they're difficult to use if you don't know what you're doing, and many people aren't happy about the increasing number of citation templates.

That all being said, have a happy Christmas :-) Nyttend (talk) 13:47, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! My family's celebration is a week away yet (don't know why; I didn't do the scheduling), so today I'm instead going to be taking advantage of free parking in downtown Columbus, Ohio and getting a bunch of pictures of historic sites. Nyttend (talk) 16:45, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

No complaints about your Internet connexion speed; after you made the final edit to my talk page just now, there was exactly one copy of the new section :-) I really don't think this is a good idea, for one simple reason — readers (including me) appreciate having all of the references together, and it's a bit confusing to have the references separated. I don't understand what you believe to be the benefits of formatting the references like this; could you help me understand better? Finally, I'm confused what you mean about "Please leave ALL comments in chat for Peabody, Kansas article" — what do you mean by "comments in chat"? Sorry that I have to make you explain so much. Nyttend (talk) 01:22, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm the newbie, by chat I meant the discusion section for the Peabody, Kansas article, or is that not the correct place to discuss something? Maybe that is not how people prefer to do it? • Sbmeirow • Talk • 01:35, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

What I was trying to accomplish was to group all the books together, similar to the "Further Reading" section. The NRHP grouping was an experiment and I wouldn't be heart-broken to see them go back to the old style. I noticed some heated arguments over in the community portal and other places, but it was about duplication of books in both the references and further reading section. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 01:35, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

An alternate thing that I tried, which is trivial to change, was to move the reference books to a new section called "BOOKS" immediately above the reference section, which I liked better, but since it didn't meet the USCITY guideline thus I didn't do it initially. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 01:35, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Ahh, you mean Talk:Peabody, Kansas? That's always the best place to discuss changes to a single article. The term you wanted was "talk page" or "discussion page". Thanks for the help. Nyttend (talk) 01:43, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

TUSC token a513c889650ab4d3a2eefac4cd6cd5a6

Token for TUSC account!

TUSC token 171b95a178090101dc67a9f671fd2a4e

Token for TUSC account!

Warnings