Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Alabama/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

State Park articles in danger

Take a look through the articles at List of Alabama state parks and you'll find that fully half of them are one-line stubs offering little more than a placeholder and a blue link. One of them was already lost to an unchallenged prod tag and I just fixed up the Rickwood Caverns State Park article so I could pull the prod tag off that one. I fear that some ambitious deletionist will find this pocket of sub-standard work and we'll lose more of these articles. If a few other editors could jump in here and tackle the one-liners to bring them up to at least a couple of paragraphs with references and some assertion of notability it would be greatly appreciated. I'll do a few more but I can't tackle them all by myself. - Dravecky (talk) 00:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've added an infobox (mostly blank), link to the specific Alabama State Parks site, and appropriate template to all of the articles. I've added a few words to a couple of them, too, but this is just a start. Again, I encourage anybody with a few minutes to add a little something to any or all of these articles. - Dravecky (talk) 03:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

It looks like our state parks are receiving the same amount of attention in Wikipedia as they do in reality. Just being a little facetious... I'll see if I can help out tomorrow. Altairisfar_talk 05:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I've finished expanding Bladon Springs State Park from a two-line stub and I've recreated the Roland Cooper State Park article. Also expanded Chickasaw State Park (Alabama), Gulf State Park, & Meaher State Park. Altairisfar_talk 19:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

O.K., now Cheaha State Park has been expanded from a one-liner, also worked on Oak Mountain State Park. These others need expanding from one or two-liners also, I'm leaving them for anyone else who cares enough to do it: Wind Creek State Park, Paul M. Grist State Park, Lakepoint State Park, Frank Jackson State Park, Florala State Park, Chewacla State Park, Chattahoochee State Park, and Blue Springs State Park. Altairisfar_talk 08:50, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Alabama Cooperative Extension System

ACES-wikiman (talk · contribs), an employee of ACES and an extensive editor to the ACES page, would like some outside views on the neutrality of the article now that the WP:COI issues have been pointed out. Collectonian (talk · contribs) believes it needs a good copy edit, but I haven't had a chance to read the article and will not likely have time in the coming days. If anybody is looking for an Alabama article to lend a hand on, ACES-wikiman would appreciate your help on this one. - auburnpilot talk 15:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

University of North Alabama

One other page in which I have had a major involvement is the University of North Alabama page. It is now one of the top 15 largest pages among Alabama-related pages, though it's still listed in the start category page. I would appreciate someone assessing this article anew. Needless to say, it has progressed far beyond the start category. ACES-wikiman (talk) 20:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Project page

I was wondering if anyone has any objections to placing our project templates into tables to enhance readability on the project page. I've been working on it at my sandbox. If no one is opposed to that aspect of my proposal, I've been thinking about the best method to use for the stub templates. Should they be left as text or box them. Let me know. Thanks. Altairisfar_talk 23:04, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

No objects to placing the templates within a box on the project page, but I believe the standard format for stub templates is plain text, rather than a boxed template. - auburnpilot talk 23:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I had browsed the other states after working on it and the ones I saw all had them as text, so text it is. I'll wait a while and see if anyone else has any input before implementing. Thanks. Altairisfar_talk 23:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

New template being implemented

FYI. A new template, {{Alabama counties}}, has been created and is being added Alabama articles. It appears to be a version of {{Alabama}} but is being added to the the county seat articles (example Linden, Alabama), where no template other than the individual county template existed prior to its addition. This doesn't seem to be common practice elsewhere among the states. Altairisfar_talk 21:41, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Assessment Request: Magnolia Springs, Alabama

Hello! I added a great deal of information, including citations, to the Magnolia Springs, Alabama article. Can someone please assess it? I trust the stub class will be removed after the review. Any other contributions are most welcome. A little mollusk (talk) 21:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Hurricane Camille GA Sweeps Review: On Hold

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria and I'm specifically going over all of the "Meteorology and atmospheric sciences" articles. I have reviewed Hurricane Camille and believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have left this message at this WikiProject's talk page so that any interested members can assist in helping the article keep its GA status. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed, and I'll leave the article on hold for seven days for them to be fixed. I have left messages on the talk pages of the main contributors of the article along with other WikiProjects. Please consider helping address the several points that I listed on the talk page of the article, which shouldn't take too long to fix if multiple editors assist in the workload. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 23:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

FAR nomination

Ku Klux Klan has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 23:30, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

So has To Kill a Mockingbird. --Dystopos (talk) 04:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

To Kill a Mockingbird is a candidate to be FA. KKK is already FA is under review to determine if it still FA quality. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 04:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Okay right. All the bureaucracy is way over my head. --Dystopos (talk) 15:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. It's sometimes over my head. Or maybe my northern accent.  :) OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 16:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Natalee Holloway is currently nominated for featured status (Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Natalee Holloway). Any comments would be appreciated. - auburnpilot talk 03:49, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

George Petrie was not a football

I'm looking for a better title for George Petrie (American football). Please drop by the talk page and weigh in. Thanks, and War Eagle. -- Rob C. alias Alarob 19:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

List of counties in Alabama

Myself and a group of other editors are working to bring List of counties in Alabama to Featured List standard. Hopefully, you'd agree that the article is pretty close. The main thing holding it back is the lack of a few references in the lead section. Could people here take two minutes to have a quick look, and see if the can use their specialist knowledge of Alabama to help provide those remaining few citations? Every little helps. Tompw (talk) (review) 13:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

United States Space & Rocket Center and Space Camp

I am looking for help editing these two articles. Both have been marked as having multiple issues, including advert status for Space Camp. The camp article had been previously marked as advert, undergone revision and status subsequently removed (20:58, 7 February 2008). Crkey (talk) 14:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Cheaha trail maps nowhere to be found

Searching the web for hours has not uncovered Cheaha hiking trail maps, except for many whole sites dedicated to the Pinhoti trail. Wiki would be a great place to post this info, even beter if it could be linked from a legimate source within a .gov site. Unfortunately it appears the goverments site lacks any maps in this case. 66.245.98.121 (talk) 22:17, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Massively updated "Mobile Bay Jubilee" article

I just finished a more-or-less ground-up rewrite of the Mobile Bay Jubilee article. I think it looks pretty nice. I also added a self-made map of jubilee locations (small version, huge version) that someone may find helpful for other articles related to the jubilee, or to Mobile Bay. Regards. Cadastral (Talk) 12:30, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Excellent job, Cadastral! That article was badly in need of attention and you handled it with aplomb. Вasil | talk 13:30, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Both the rewrite and graphic look great! Altairisfar_talk 14:15, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words. It was fun to research. Re-reading the article, I see that it still has the expected rough-edges and snags... but I've been staring at it for far too long to make any sense of it. If anyone would like to clean-up, add, amend, abrogate, condense or expand... please do. I think there's a strong base now, but it's far from polished. Regards. Cadastral (Talk) 19:53, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Satyr

Have you replaced User:SatyrTN's User:SatyrBot? We at WP:CHICAGO are looking for a replacement since he is no longer active. Please respond at my talk page.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 18:41, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, there are no other bots that cover the same tasks. - auburnpilot talk 18:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Alexander City - source of name?

The Alexander City article failed to answer the question that caused me to look up the article: how did Alexander City, Alabama get its name? The article says it was incorporated as "Youngsville," but does not explain the change. The 1873 entry in the timeline which makes up the history section contains an error-- incongruous words and error of spacing. Maybe the information was supposed to be there.

74.171.113.129 (talk) 18:26, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I removed the history section in its entirety, as it was a copyright violation. As far as I can tell, and Ask Foy said the same, the origin of the name "Alexander City" is not know. The city website doesn't mention the transition from Youngsville, and I can't find any other mention of the name change. - auburnpilot talk 18:44, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Kinnucan's AfD

In case anyone doesn't watch Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Alabama: I have opened an AfD on that article. Aleta ^Sing 16:52, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I didn't even know Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Alabama existed, but I had Kinnucan's on my watchlist. I spotted the speedy, and did a quick search for new sources, but came up with nothing. I'm going to do a little more searching this afternoon, before commenting at the AfD (went ahead and made a comment). Thanks for the note, - auburnpilot talk 16:56, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Sipsey River article

This one seriously needs an update. The river is described as a "swampy low-lying river, " which is pretty far from accurate, at least above Smith Dam!! A. Ballentine / Huntsville, AL —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.73.17.241 (talk) 16:20, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Grapico Sales Company

Grapico Sales Company in Roanoke, Alabama is listed as an active company. I can't find any other info on the internet about them. Are they still selling Grapico? If possible, please locate an address and phone number. Thanks. Bebestbe (talk) 17:58, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Improvements necessary to keep Rosa Parks as a Featured Article

As with most articles promoted so long ago, this article does not currently meet the Featured article criteria. I would like to work with this article's contributors and the related WikiProjects to bring this article up to the current standards. Please don't take this as an insult to the article, as it is well-written and there shouldn't be a lot of work necessary. The concerns I have at this point are:

1. Verifiability - Much of the article is unreferenced. This included statistics and quotations, both of which need to be cited with reliable sources.
2. Lead section - The lead does not currently summarize all of the key points of the article, and it should be 3 to 4 paragraphs long.
3. Consistent citations - The references are missing important information. At minimum, they should include a title, publisher, url, and accessdate. If a publication date and/or author is listed, this information should be included as well. Wikipedia:Citing sources gives information of how to use the {{cite web}} template, which helps to keep things consistent.
4. Images - Fair use rationales need to be provided for all images that are covered by copyright. In addition, I don't believe that the Montgomery Advertiser picture can be included under Fair Use terms, as the article does not specifically discuss the newspaper itself.

These are the most important things that need some work for now. This is a very important article, viewed by an average of 3,500 people every day, so it would be great to make it as good as possible. I would like to get this up to the current standards without going through a Featured Article review, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 20:11, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 777 of the articles assigned to this project, or 14.0%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 18 June 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subsribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:34, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
• The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
• A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 22:24, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Monroeville writer

Cynthia Tucker is a noted african american journalist who hails form Monroeville, Alabama. I do not understand how she was left out of the article about Monroeville. She currently writes a column for the Atlanta Journal Constition that is syndicated all across the country. She also makes guest appearance on many national talk shows such as Face the Nation. She has also won the Pulitzer prize for journalism/commentary in 2007. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.249.114.11 (talk) 13:17, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is written by the public at large and is a work in progress. When you find such omissions, feel free to correct them yourself. I've remedied that particular oversight, however. Cheers. Altairisfar_talk 14:48, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Grapico

I just posted a detailed article on Grapico that you might find interesting. Best. Bebestbe (talk) 07:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Marion Military Institute

Is this picture relevant to Marion Military Institute? Axl (talk) 09:24, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• 

Good Article Candidates

I have listed two articles in the TODO box which are currently B class and are getting close to GA review. The Alabama article came close in March and some specific suggestions are on the article's talk page. The Mobile article, like Alabama needs some expansion and some sourcing. These are the two articles I know about and there are probably more. Please list them so we can all work together and get the project some GA, and eventually FA, articles.

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Alabama

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Big steel companies

As companies that have been important in Alabama, especially in the Birmingham, Alabama area for a long time, and continue to be important, there need to be articles on these "big steel" companies:

the U.S. Pipe and Foundary Company

the American Cast Iron Pipe Company

note that these have both made cast iron and steel pipes for various large civil engineering and petroleum engineering projects for a long time, no matter what their names say.74.249.82.221 (talk) 23:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• I moved this from the project page as it more properly belongs here. - Dravecky (talk) 01:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Alabama

Hello All,

I used to work with the www.EncyclopediaofAlabama.org, actually I still do contract work for them. We launched our site publicly almost a month ago and I have been exploring ways to reference our articles in relevant Wiki articles. It seems that I cannot add an external link to our project because that constitutes 'spam'. However, several of my previously rejected articles (articles that a Wiki bot removed the link) now have the link reinstated, I'm guessing by the author. So, here are a few questions I have for someone more familiar with the Wiki world;

1. . As a non-profit, educational project why are we considered spam? How can I get around being blocked?
2. . Is there some form or process I can undergo in order to be granted an exception from these automated spamming restrictions?
3. . As I mentioned, several of the links that were automatically deleted are now back. If I post an external link, and WIki bots take them down, does the author of that article still get a notification as to what I was trying to do? If this is the case, do you think most authors would be happy to support our external link?

I would be most appreciative of any advice.

Justin from the EOA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 22star (talk • contribs) 15:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

• Justin, The label "spam" is clearly overkill. Given Wikipedia's visibility in search results, it is a frequent target of actual spam. When an unregistered or new user makes a number of new external links, it triggers automated scripts to revert the additions. (In my opinion, that process is much too ham-fisted and undermines WP policies on collaboration, but my objections have not made an impact.)

There are, however, some considerations which recommend against blanketing articles with EofA links, even when they are relevant. First off, the policy on external links is pretty strict. The preference in the case of a resource like EofA is for a Wikipedia author to incorporate the relevant information and cite EofA as a reference rather than just link to it (See WP:EL). The other consideration is that, since you are involved with the project yourself, your actions fall under suspicion with regard to the policy on Conflicts of Interest (WP:COI).

Probably the best way to proceed would be to suggest EofA as a resource on article talk pages rather than adding at an external link directly in the articles. You can also use this project page to interact with editors who frequently contribute to Alabama-related articles. You might not get much feedback or see much progress, but that is a perfectly-recommended way to contribute without triggering spam-bots. On the other hand, if you are so inclined, putting in the work to go in and improve WP articles with information cited from EofA, would (I expect) be highly appreciated. --Dystopos (talk) 19:18, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Dystopos on how you should proceed. And BTW- the Encyclopedia of Alabama article was just tagged for notability and lack of references, but all is taken care of now as I have added three independent sources. Altairisfar_talk 19:25, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

• All, thanks for the suggestions. I totally agree that I should not be the one adding the external links, but I would like to draw attention to the project -- bringing this up in the talk page is a great idea. I will also try to recruit some manpower to add additional information to the articles. -- Justin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 22star (talk • contribs) 20:47, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Why is there an article on West Mobile and article requests

And why does it not have any sources. Especially considering that in this area, there is a difference of opinion on what constitutes "West Mobile", which the article does not reflect. Many people who live in the area that the article calls "West Mobile" do not really consider themselves to be a part of it, because the current definition would include Spring Hill, and anyone who has actually lived in Spring Hill knows we don't consider ourselves a part of West Mobile. The article in question currently says we are a part of it. Also, when people look for houses in "West Mobile", it typically means they are looking for homes in neighborhoods that provide a certain kind of lifestyle.

People outside the city limits usually use the term to refer to their area with exclusion, people who live east of I-65 generally use it to refer to everything west of I-65, not making a distinction for the city limit line (which was Cody Road until a year ago). The paper at one time made the distinction between "West Mobile" and "West Mobile County" and it no longer does that, and in the scope of all of the annexation debates, there have actually emerged differences which suggest that you cannot count parts of the city as the same with areas not in the city, there actually is a difference at the Cody line.

Because they don't do the kind of demographic studies I need to prove it, I could never put it up on here because this kind of information is the kind of information is not included in the census, but if you're from here, you know it. I also argue that this article should not be up without more information and more clarification because "West Mobile" has in the past been a pejorative term, especially in political debates, and has at times been used to create division between sections of the city.

Also as a cultural term, "West Mobile" was traditionally a term that referred to areas of the city that had been annexed in 1956, that were predominantly to almost completely white, where residents tended to use the public schools and did not make hardly any use of the private schools, and where the people were "New Mobile" (representative of the demographics of Mobile from World War II and beyond) as opposed to the eastern half of the city which at that time had demographics that were "Old Mobile" (representative of the demographics prior to World War II), and where there was more of a reliance on the private schools, and which well, was not entirely white, and where people did live in integrated neighborhoods, until all of the black militant movements like NOW came along.

This was an accurate description of the situation until the late 70's when people who had lived in the eastern half of Mobile began moving west because of white flight, and people who lived in the western part of the city began leaving the city altogether because of taxes at first, then because they didn't like the city government, and now because the city has a black mayor and they think it's "turning black"

You can look up the demographics of any public school in this area, and you will see that not a single school is more than 55% white. One of the key hallmarks of "West Mobile" is that it is a place where whites use the public schools. This is no longer the case in the sections between Cody and 65, and, if you'll look at the census results that will be coming out I think in a few years, it will show that the black population in this area has shown a marked increase. "West Mobile" as a term, also meant an area that had a large white lower middle class population. That population is no longer there. Those neighborhoods were all along Pleasant Valley, University and Azalea and if you have driven through them lately, those neighborhoods are now majority black, as are the most of the neighborhoods off of Moffett Road, and many of the wealthier areas that were all white a decade ago are now more than 30% black. You can be in one of the whitest, wealthy areas, and when the schools buses come in the majority of getting on them will be black, meaning that they violate the basic rule of "West Mobile" in terms of use of public schools

By contrast, if you pull up the demographics on schools immediately west of the city limits, be it Baker, be it Causey, be it that other school they just built, you'll find that these schools are more than 75% white. The people who made up "West Mobile" have left the city, and the people who now live in the western sections are people who lived in midtown a generation ago, who thought the blacks were taking over, and so they built subdivisions in that part of town where all the houses were designed to look like the Creoles and Victorians that are the hallmark of Midtown.

To be blunt, the people who live west of 65 and east of Cody now are all Midtown transplants, acting no differently than they did 30 years ago when they were in Midtown, with the exception of Spring Hill, and to use the same term to apply to them that was used to apply to the people who now live past Snow Rd is an inappropriate misappopriation of the term

And as I said before, the key thing that differentiates the area immediately in town from that outside is that whites in town don't use traditional public schools. A study in the paper a few years ago found that at the city's public high schools that had any reasonable white student body, most of them were in advanced programs, and not in traditional public schooling program. If not that, they were in magnet schools, which you have to test into.

Having spoke my peace on that and because I am not internet savvy, I was wondering if any of the following articles could be made:

Spring Hill deserves it's own article, because it actually is a distinct community in the city, and was actually a distinct community before it was annexed. I would also like to see articles on our mayors like the mayors of cities that are smaller than us have gotten. I also think there needs to be an article on the 1906 hurricane, because it wiped out several towns and actually changed the course of the bay, and I think that our mystic societies need articles on them the way that New Orleans articles get.

I also think that there should be an article on Mayor Langan and one on John LeFlore, because these two men are responsible for what modern Mobile is today.

Finally, having seen that actual roads in places have gotten their own articles, I certainly think that some of our major thoroughfares are certainly deserving of articles, and I think that Fort Conde Village also deserves an article, as does Spanish Alley.

At the very least, Mobile deserves as much attention on here as I see Charleston gets, their article is twice as long as ours.

West Mobile is too much of a generic term. But removing the coordinate template, categories, and turning it into an advertisement for the Mobile Area Association of Realtors isn't the way to go either, IMO. As for the Mobile, Alabama article, the additions to it were headed as neighborhoods, but then this same new addition went on the say that Mobile has no neighborhoods and listed most of the subdivisions per the Mobile Area Association of Realtors. Look at the WikiProject Cities guideline for what should be in city articles. It is a fairly specific guideline, I've never seen a list in any of them for all of a particular city's subdivisions. Anything added to an article and any new articles have to be able to pass Wikipedia's policy of notability.

As for comparing the Charleston, South Carolina article with Mobile, the Charleston article is a B class article, meaning it has not undergone the copy editing necessary to bring it to a higher class. Mobile has passed from B to GA, meaning it is a Good Article, but still not a featured article. I think that more can be done with the Mobile article, but all of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines have to be followed with any new additions to it, that GA status can be easily lowered if they are not met. Altairisfar_talk 15:41, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Bearing in mind what Altairisfar has said, you are free to compose any articles you wish. They must however be notable and verifiable via reliable sources. Some of your comment above suggests a fair amount of original reasearch which cannot be included on Wikipedia. But by all means create your articles. JodyB _talk 17:05, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Alabama articles needing geographic coordinates

14 articles in Category:Alabama articles missing geocoordinate data do not have geographic coordinates. Coords are useful for making the article appear on Google Maps & many other mapping services; and they allow our users to click through to see the article subject location on a map. There's a short guide to on how to add geocodes to articles ... it really is very easy to do. I hope you'll take some time to ensure that Alabama is as well represented as it can be on wikipedia by fixing up the listed articles. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Good project and really pretty easy to do. Count me in! JodyB _talk 00:05, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment Guys this list is growing as the bot runs. There are now over 175 pages that do not include the coords template. Be sure to remove the missing coords template when you edit the article so it will not show up on the list. Just an idea, but take the articles beginning with the first initial of your username and move down the list from there. JodyB _talk 12:02, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I've done some of them, mainly the ones that cover subjects that I'm familiar with. I can easily get the coordinates for the rest of the articles that cover subjects on the National Register of Historic Places, we have a tool for that. Altairisfar_talk 21:19, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I've just done another round, also ones that I'm familiar with. Back down to 141! Also, a question: what coordinates should be used for things like rivers? --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 03:58, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering the same thing and also historic geographic regions that aren't well defined by modern borders, such as the Mobile District. Altairisfar_talk 04:38, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Now we're down to 25. Altairisfar_talk 06:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• My opinion is that we should not have coordinates for ambiguous "districts", using maps or text descriptions instead. For rivers, I believe Foscue's "Place Names in Alabama" gives coordinates for origins and confluences which we could adopt. --Dystopos (talk) 15:20, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I did the rivers using the USGS's Geographic Names Information System, they record the coordinates for origins and confluences also. Altairisfar_talk 15:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I felt the same way and so I asked over at the WIkiproject for Geographic Coords. I was told to basically use my judgment. I was concerned about the rather ambiguous congressional district and especially the obsolete ones. Anyway, I took their advice and did the best I could. JodyB _talk 17:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Article Alerts

As this is one of the more active state projects, I figured I'd stop by. I was wondering if you had come across this nifty bot? If you're interested we have a working model at WP:OH and are also running the separate workflows on subpages so you can see how those work out. I hope you guys might find this message useful! §hep • ¡Talk to me! 00:22, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and added this, hope that's ok. It's at the top of the Articles section. JodyB _talk 11:14, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Good, I think this should prove to be a useful tool. Altairisfar_talk 22:40, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Yep, seems like a good idea to me. - auburnpilot talk 22:46, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Waving flag

Would anybody particularly mind if I revert this edit to the project page, which added a waving flag behind the Wikipedia logo? Seems kind of odd to me, but I suppose I could be convinced otherwise. - auburnpilot talk 22:46, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I find the animation kind of distracting so I'd have no objection if it were to disappear. - Dravecky (talk) 22:48, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

No objections here, it doesn't look quite right to me either. Altairisfar_talk 22:56, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Great. I've removed it. - auburnpilot talk 16:44, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Pictures from Mobile Montgomery, Alabama

Are there any members of the project who would be able to take pictures of Agudath Israel Etz Ahayem in Mobile Montgomery? It would be much appreciated. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:08, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean in Montgomery? If it was in Mobile I would be glad to. Altairisfar_talk 05:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, you're right. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll try and make it there on Saturday, since it looks like the weather will be nice. I have to get a shot of the courthouse, too! --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 22:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, I put some photos on the article, and one more on Commons. Feel free to move or swap them out. --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 06:45, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

List of counties in Alabama

This list is very mearly upto Featured List standard. The only two things it is really lacking are references for a few statments in the lead (most already have referecnes), and some dates for people mentioned in the "etymologies" column... any help (particularly on the references) would help add the final polish this article needs. Tompw (talk) (review) 13:08, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I added the dates and some references, but I can't find a reference for splitting Jefferson county. The only useful google hits I got were just copies of Wikipedia. If anyone knows of a source for this, please add it; I think it's the only thing keeping the list from FL status. --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 05:42, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

List of National Historic Landmarks in Alabama

I've nominated List of National Historic Landmarks in Alabama as a featured list candidate. I wanted to invite our project members to review the featured list discussion going on here. Right now the discussion is quite focused on WikiProject National Register of Historic Places-related issues, it would be nice if y'all take a look and add any constructive comments, if any. The article is just as relevant, if not more, to this project as it is to the NRHP. Altairisfar_talk 20:35, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Project page

I made a few changes on the project page, mainly moving the DYK? listing to its own subpage since there are so many entries now. I did some other housekeeping and rearranging too. If anyone doesn't agree with or like the changes, feel free to revert back to the old format. Altairisfar_talk 19:24, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Courthouse Photos

I propose that photos of all Alabama county courthouses be added to their respective article, and possibly the corresponding county seat article. This would serve to beautify the article and serve as a visual representation of the county. Help is needed adding them to their respective county pages by adding the following to the County Infobox template

|ex image = courthouse image filename.jpg

|ex image cap = xxx County Courthouse in xxxx, Alabama

The following counties do not have courthouse photos. Contributors may want to cross them off once a photo is taken and uploaded. --Ichabod (talk) 19:23, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Autauga County Baldwin County Barbour County Blount County Calhoun County Cherokee County Choctaw County Conecuh County Coosa County Covington County Crenshaw County Cullman County Dale County Dallas County DeKalb County Elmore County Escambia County Etowah County Franklin County Geneva County Greene County Hale County Henry County

Jackson County Lauderdale County Lawrence County Lee County Limestone County Lowndes County Madison County Marengo County Marion County Marshall County Mobile County done Montgomery County done Morgan County Pike County Randolph County Russell County St. Clair County Sumter County Talladega County Tallapoosa County Tuscaloosa County Winston County

• I should be able to grab a shot of the Lee County courthouse sometime this week. I'll try to get out there (I believe it's in Opelika) early Saturday morning when it's still closed, and get a clear shot. - auburnpilot talk 19:03, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

• It's not the current Madison County courthouse, but NASA has a lovely photo of the previous courthouse in 1961 that might be of use: http://mix.msfc.nasa.gov/abstracts.php?p=984 - Dravecky (talk) 20:31, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I uploaded that photo to Commons, in case anyone wants to use it. --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 22:43, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• I should be able to get Montgomery County soon, and can get Madison around Christmastime if we don't already have it by then. --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 22:43, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

The bot archived this thread because it was more than 30 days old, but I'm moving it back to the talk page. Altairisfar_talk 15:06, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

OK. I finally made it out to Opelika, thanks to a bit of insomnia, and took a few shots of the courthouse and surrounding area. The images of the courthouse are on commons, within Category:Lee County Courthouse (Alabama). - auburnpilot talk 16:37, 22 January 2009 (UTC)