Bhamwiki talk:Messageboard

See Bhamwiki talk:Messageboard/Archive 1 for archived topics

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Technical difficulties

BhamWiki is hosted by Dreamhost.com, which came highly recommended when I signed up, but has had a difficult summer and is apparently still having issues keeping our site humming. I am willing to consider alternatives to Dreamhost if other users have strong recommendations. My own technical knowledge is paltry. --Dystopos 07:38, 20 November 2006 (PST)

I talked to a friend who runs another site I frequent and he uses GoDaddy for hosting services and doesn't have any problems. I can't vouch for anyone though. Another wiki that I foray into (Lostpedia) uses Jupiter Hosting and I have never had a problem accessing that site. --Wheresdib 14:24, 22 November 2006 (PST)

I don't know what standards to set. At least Dreamhost is responsive, communicative to the point of even being friendly. I just wish I didn't have to communicate with them so often. I guess I'll come to a decision by March when my 1 year contract is up. --Dystopos 15:31, 22 November 2006 (PST)

"Signs" category?

would this be a possible category for articles? perhaps relating to the proposed bhamwiki:architecture portal or something? i just think of all the interesting signage around town, City Federal, Redmont Hotel, that huge electric messageboard downtown, WBRC, Dixie Neon, the big C on the Cabana Building, Carraway's rotating star, the Alabama Theatre, the old Vulcan green/red torch, the old neon signs that used to adorn every church like 16th St. Baptist., etc...

good idea or no? -- User:Sagefats.

• Here's what I would do... For truly significant signs (such as the Barber's clock or the "Welcome to the Magic City" sign that was outside the terminal station) which might merit a separate article, we can make a Category:Signs. Otherwise, maybe a category, such as Category:Buildings with signage would make it too hard to distinguish noteworthy signs, like the ones you list, from your run-of-the-mill Walgreen's. With that being the case, I propose a List of notable signs as a separate article to which the other articles can be linked: e. g. "The current building is known best for the monumental 176 by 26 foot electronic [[List of notable signs|marquee]] mounted on top which displays advertising messages using an array of 1,440 incandescent bulb" (for Two North Twentieth). Also, if we collect a group of photographs of the signs, those can be collected in their own category, and/or a gallery article would be nice. Sound okay? --Dystopos 05:57, 27 November 2006 (PST)

• I like the list idea right now instead of the category. I would hate to see a bunch of national chain restaurants, drug stores and the likes show up in a category that was meant for the truly local and unusual signs. At least with the list we can put the Two North Twentieth, City Federal, WBRC, Barber's clock and the like without necessarily creating a separate article just for the sign if it is attached to a significant building. --Wheresdib 07:22, 27 November 2006 (PST)
• sounds good:) --sagefats

• I've found enough information to write an article about the sign at Terminal Station, but what should it be called? --Lkseitz 15:22, 30 November 2006 (PST)

• Good question. My first thought is "Terminal Station welcome sign", --Dystopos 16:17, 30 November 2006 (PST)

• How about "Magic City sign"? --Lkseitz 08:37, 14 December 2006 (PST)

• Works for me. Who's writing the article? --Dystopos 09:15, 14 December 2006 (PST)

• If Lee has the info to write it, he should :P --Wheresdib 09:58, 14 December 2006 (PST)

• Done. --Lkseitz 08:38, 15 December 2006 (PST)

• Looks great, thanks! When I get a chance I'll check HABS for a photo. Hard to verify that any non-governmental post-1923 published source is out of copyright. --Dystopos 10:05, 15 December 2006 (PST)

Going back to the original question posed by Sagefats, do we want to create a category or list of these signs? --Wheresdib 10:58, 15 December 2006 (PST)

• Yes, both I think. --Dystopos 07:02, 16 December 2006 (PST)

Chronological order

I've noticed an inconsistency in articles dealing with annual events. Most, I believe, list events in reverse chronological order. (That is, newest first.) Examples are Vestavia Hills Dogwood Festival and Magic City Art Connection. Others are in chronological order, such as Crawfish Boil and Rickwood Classic. I was thinking a consistent policy might be good for this issue.

Personally, I prefer to read things in chronological order (oldest first). It would also require less changes over time in regards to bolding the first instance of a term in the article. It also makes it easier to scan for the first year a sub-event was held, assuming it's in bold text. I can see the point of saying that over time some people will only want to read the most recent information each time they visit, but it seems to me that would primarily apply to us hard-core editors, not the average web surfer. Other opinions? --Lkseitz 08:37, 14 December 2006 (PST)

• As you have discovered, I am of two minds on the subject. As long as the organization of the article is apparent, I still don't have a strong preference. Ultimately, I think the best thing is for an overall article to discuss major developments over time. So subject headings like "First years", "Peak years", with individual occurrences incorporated into the text, would probably be the sign of a mature article. In that case, the order would probably follow a historical chronology and individual years might merit their own articles to document more trivial aspects. (Like the City Stages articles). --Dystopos 09:09, 14 December 2006 (PST)

Parentheses for disambiguation

Well, this is embarrassing. I've changed an article name from "Parkway Drive Trussville" to "Parkway Drive (Trussville)". I thought it was more encyclopedia-ish and helps distinguish that "Trussville" is not part of the street's name but its location. Looking at the talk page, I see I proposed the non-parenthesized version in the first place. IIRC, I was merely following Dystopos' lead from a couple other places. What do others think about this change? Is it a good thing? Unneccessary?

Incidentally, this came from my expanding the U.S. Highway 78 article a bit. I decided if the individual road names of U.S. Highway 31 were going to get their own articles, Parkway Drive (Leeds) should too. Previously the Parkway Drive disambiguation page just pointed to Highway 78 for the portion in Leeds. --Lkseitz 10:01, 9 January 2007 (PST)

• My lead will typically take you down a circular path. I don't have any direction on this issue at the moment. Let's keep thinking about individual cases. --Dystopos 11:59, 9 January 2007 (PST)

Thursday March 15

• Anyone who is free for dinner on Thursday, March 15 is welcome to join me in celebrating the 1st anniversary of BhamWiki. Location to be determined (I'm leaning toward Chez Fon Fon). Note: we can move it to the weekend (16th, 17th or 18th) if more folks will be able to come.--Dystopos 13:31, 9 January 2007 (PST)

• I want to make plans to be there, even if it's on Thursday. Right now, I'm thinking of using Friday to go around taking pictures for some of the articles I've written. I'm not picky about the where, I just need to know a definite when so I can schedule time off. Who else is coming? --Lkseitz 06:57, 18 January 2007 (PST)

• So far it's just us. If you want to go ahead and schedule the time off, we can cast the date in stone. --Dystopos 07:45, 18 January 2007 (PST)

• I should be able to show up on just about any night. The only other meetings I have during the week is a monthly meeting and I normally organize it, so I have control of it. I didn't see this earlier but I should be able to make it. I have never been to Chez Fon Fon so I hope Dystopos is buying! :-P --Wheresdib 10:30, 18 January 2007 (PST)

• That depends on the turnout. I'll at least spring for wine. --Dystopos 11:56, 18 January 2007 (PST)

• I will be there. I have scheduled time off on March 16th and plan to leave work a little early on the 15th. I probably won't be able to make it before 6:00 p.m., though. --Lkseitz 08:43, 20 February 2007 (PST)

• I will send out an email this week to all registered editors who have contributed to more than one article, and maybe some cool ones that haven't. --Dystopos 10:01, 20 February 2007 (PST)

Succession boxes and interims

Okay, help me out with this. I've recently discovered Edna Snow acted as interim superintendent of Homewood City Schools before Michael Gross (1978–1985), after Robert F. Bumpus (1985–1991), and probably between the two. (But see Talk:Edna Snow for more on that.). Because I don't know who was superintendent immediately before or after these two men, I've added her name, marked as "interim," in the succession boxes on these two men's pages for now. I also have succession boxes for these two stints on Ms. Snow's page. That's a short term solution.

In the long term, what do we do about people who filled a position while a search for a permanent replacement was conducted? Does it depend on the length of the interim? For example, Andy Craig will likely have been interim superintendent for over a year by the time a permanent Hoover Superintendent is found. Or do such people merely get a succession box during the active period they hold the position and we remove it and take them out of the link chain once a permanent replacement is found?

The scenarios for Snow are this. Let's presume she was interim superintendent between Gross and Bumpus.

1. She gets succession boxes as interim superintendent each time.
   1. Gross' and Bumpus' succession boxes both show her as interim both before and after them, meaning the user has to keep track of which row of succession boxes to use on her page to continue through the chain.
   2. Gross' and Bumpus' succession boxes only list the non-interim holders (each other), meaning Snow's are not part of the chain but are still handy for quick reference at the bottom of her article.
2. Snow doesn't get succession boxes as interim superintendent, but of course that information is noted in her entry. She doesn't appear in the boxes on Gross' or Bumpus' entries.

I know there will be special cases, but I wanted others thoughts on this. --Lkseitz 15:09, 1 February 2007 (PST)

• You might want to see how Wikipedia has handled it. I suspect that even people who serve for a day would show up in the succession box. In the cases where someone has served in between so many, though, I might be tempted to leave the succession box off that particular page and let it be explained in the text. --Dystopos 15:11, 1 February 2007 (PST)

• I can't find a Wikipedia policy on it and my attempts to find some examples have not panned out. Any suggestions for examples? I tried CEOs of Time Warner, Toys R Us, and Wal-Mart. The U.S. Presidents have nice succession box examples, but I can't think of any "interim" candidates. --Lkseitz 10:33, 2 February 2007 (PST)

• Looking around, I see that Mike Price is fully accounted for in the Alabama Head Football Coach succession boxes. So are Scarborough, Ontario Mayor Ken Morrish and Omaha interim Mayor Richard Cunningham (even though he's a red link). I think it's best to generally include interims in the succession box, but where, as in Snow's case, that would just stack up a bunch of boxes, we could make the editorial decision to streamline somehow. --Dystopos 11:53, 2 February 2007 (PST)

Iron Bowl stubs

• I will continue the Iron Bowl stubs next week. I don't want a mere stub to be the 1800th article and I probably should do actual work for once ;-). Of course, if anyone feels compelled to write one or some, here's a great resource: [1]. The information is very similar to the webpage I was using yesterday but was published in the Mobile Press-Register. --Wheresdib 13:29, 2 February 2007 (PST)

• Make sure that 1,800th is a good one :) --Dystopos 14:14, 2 February 2007 (PST)

• Please be sure to look at the articles I've written (or stolen) on these football games, teams, and coaches. I am not a football fan so I could be completely messing things up. --Wheresdib 14:15, 20 February 2007 (PST)

The Beatles?

As I was reading the wikipedia entry on the Beatles, I found this little tidbit: "...In an interview with British reporter Maureen Cleave, [John] Lennon had offered his opinion that Christianity was dying and that the Beatles were "more popular than Christ now." Afterwards, a radio station in Birmingham, Alabama, ran a story on burning Beatles records, in what was considered to be a joke. However, many people affiliated with rural churches in the American South started taking the suggestion seriously. Towns across the United States and South Africa started to burn Beatles records in protest." Does anyone know what radio station made that announcement? --Wheresdib 11:16, 26 February 2007 (PST)

I'm not sure, but it appears it might have been Tommy Charles of WAQY (scroll down to Birmingham Radio: 1966). --Lkseitz 11:38, 26 February 2007 (PST)

• WAQY-AM, there's a small paragraph on it in the article on Tommy Charles --Dystopos 11:40, 26 February 2007 (PST)

• Wow, you learn something new every day. I remember vaguely the "bigger than Jesus" quote but didn't realize that it was Birmingham that led the "ban the Beatles" drive. How silly. --Wheresdib 12:00, 26 February 2007 (PST)

Articles on tangential topics

• This conversation makes me wonder about someday creating articles for BhamWiki about mostly-unrelated subjects which basically boil down to lists of all connections between the city and that topic. (Not too unlike our articles about years). So in this case, we'd have an article at The Beatles and then it would have a brief introduction and then go into the WAQY stuff and Timothy Leary's "Come Together" campaign, etc. .. Any thoughts? --Dystopos 12:19, 26 February 2007 (PST)

• I really like that idea. Somehow tying it all together would make sense. I personally didn't care for the Timothy Leary article since it didn't really focus on Birmingham, but if we could tie it all (and a Beatles article) together, in a way that it makes sense to the unintiated reader, that would be awesome. And it would be a great way of showing off BhamWiki, because that info isn't readily available, all in one place, right now. And that's what this site is all about, at least IMHO. --Wheresdib 12:31, 26 February 2007 (PST)

• Re: Timothy Leary: Those are hard articles to work on. I think it's important to have them so we can "show off" a bit and highlight our connections to bigger figures and events, but it's always an issue of proportion. I like to keep the basic summary and the important facts intact (Leary's publications, Terrell Owens' receiving numbers, etc) but try also to winnow down the amount of detail about completely unrelated parts of their lives. I think the Michael Jordan article is a better example, but that's only because I had a source with plenty of detail. So the process of improving those articles can cut both ways. As we add local info we keep stripping out the stuff that Wikipedia covers better. Also, you'll notice I have some things like Civil War and Works Progress Administration redlinked in numerous articles in anticipation of some kind of article about the impact of those events in the Birmingham District. --Dystopos 12:47, 26 February 2007 (PST)

Examples

• Skewed too much away from Birmingham: Carl Lewis, Timothy Leary
• Well-balanced: Michael Jordan, Walker Percy

direct linking to Wikipedia?

• OK, this whole conversation leads me to a different question. On another wiki I frequent, they have it set up to where you can direct link wikipedia articles by typing wikipedia:Article Name inside double brackets. On the page it looks like you are going to a page inside that wiki but instead it leads you to WP. Is this something you would be interested in doing? I know you like to keep BW separate from WP, but in cases like Civil War, until we can pare that down into a Birmingham-area article, you could at least reduce the redlinks. --Wheresdib 13:00, 26 February 2007 (PST)

• I'm not as horrified by red links as you are, Wheresdib. They light the way to the future!. All kidding aside, I think it's better to create a page here, even just a stub, with a link to the Wikipedia article so that we have a chance to put it into some kind of context as well as invite improvements here. A direct link might make us feel like no article was needed. (And I don't want to start linking to every [[trivia:minor concept]] that [[being (philosophy)|exists]] on [[Wikipedia:About|Wikipedia]] just because we can. (So in instances where an inline link is appropriate, we can just use the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Link#External_links external link format] --Dystopos 13:20, 26 February 2007 (PST)

• I have to agree with Dystopos on redlinks. While they can be annoying (Hey, I wanted to know more about that!), they are also useful in seeing what needs to be done. I'm working on a site with a glossary where I define certain terms. At the end of most, I include a link to a Wikipedia article. I'd say we probably need to do something similar in the "External links" section. Easily linking within Bhamwiki to Wikipedia leads to abuse and confusion by users when they leave Bhamwiki without noticing it. --Lkseitz 13:33, 26 February 2007 (PST)

• One caveat regarding linking to Wikipedia in the external links section. For articles about truly-Birmingham topics, I hope we'll exercise our GFDL rights and update our own version as appropriate and use the link in the references section. The idea is that we'll have the superior article anyway. For articles about things where Wikipedia will always be more complete (Jordan, for example) the external link is justified. --Dystopos 13:52, 26 February 2007 (PST)

• I just suggested it because sometimes the need to know about something further is needed in an article. For example, we don't want to create an article about Montgomery here, that is outside our scope, but what if someone is reading the article about the governor or other lawmakers? A link to the Wikipedia article on Montgomery would be helpful without us having to create it here. It felt strange unlinking references to the city of Auburn when Bhamwikifying the Auburn University page. I agree that every single menial word shouldn't be linked here, but I was thinking more about articles that aren't within our scope but would help with related articles. Take Timothy Leary for example. Linking some of the cities and universities mentioned would be helpful to me without actually having to read the BW article on him, then flip over to the WP article to find more. That's just my $0.02. --Wheresdib 14:30, 26 February 2007 (PST)

• I encourage you to add inline links to Wikipedia where you think they would be helpful, but I think we should stick with the normal external link format to avoid confusion. --Dystopos 14:40, 26 February 2007 (PST)

• Duly noted. --Wheresdib 14:50, 26 February 2007 (PST)

Improving search ranking

As an experiment, I entered some search terms in Google to see where BhamWiki shows up:

Term	Results page
birmingham	Not top 10
birmingham alabama	Not top 10
birmingham wiki	3
birmingham alabama wiki	4 (not main page)
wiki birmingham	5
wiki birmingham alabama	5 (not main page)

For all of these, Wikipedia's Birmingham page is in the top five results. Surely we can do better. A link from the Wikipedia page would help, but as a non-neutral party, I'm not going to add it. I might request it on the Talk page, though. We might also add the word "Alabama" a bit more (or at least higher) on the main page. This not only helps search results, but might help those unfamiliar with both the Birminghams of Alabama and England figure out which one we're talking about a bit faster. Then there's a couple things only Dystopos can do, like add a meta description tag and/or tweak the title on the main page (e.g. "BhamWiki - The Project to Document the Birmingham, Alabama District"). Of course, I don't know that anyone else cares about this, so I thought I'd toss this out and see what y'all think. --Lkseitz 09:53, 27 February 2007 (PST)