Bhamwiki talk:Messageboard

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Revision as of 06:41, 16 March 2008 by Lkseitz (talk | contribs) (→‎results?: Photo, my 2 cents)
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Jefferson County Maps

Look what I found via Wikipedia today! --Lkseitz 14:14, 9 June 2007 (PDT)

  • That's sweet stuff. I was able to download an editable .svg file and prettify it up in inkscape and photshop as an experiment. More work than I would undertake all at once, but it gives you an idea of what can be done. --Dystopos 21:54, 9 June 2007 (PDT)
    • Impressive! And far beyond my skills. --Lkseitz 10:49, 11 June 2007 (PDT)

Defunct landmarks and institutions

I was wondering if we should have an encompassing upper-level category for Category:Demolished buildings, Category:Former parks, Category:Defunct periodicals, and so on. In other words, a category for buildings, sites, institutions, and things that no longer exist. (We have one for people. It's called Category:People by year of death.) Something that would make it easy to navigate through "things that aren't there any more." I can't think of an all-encompassing name for it. It would probably break down into "Former landmarks" and "Defunct institutions", though. --Lkseitz 10:49, 11 June 2007 (PDT)

  • I wonder if you wouldn't just pop them into Category:History until something more specific becomes evident. --Dystopos 12:08, 11 June 2007 (PDT)

Infobox City

  • I've created another Infobox template, this time for cities and towns. You can see an example of it in use on the Homewood page. I thought I'd solicit feedback before sticking it on more pages. --Lkseitz 21:01, 25 July 2007 (PDT)
    • Let's try it out on Vestavia Hills with the seal centered top and the map filling space at the bottom. --Dystopos 06:38, 26 July 2007 (PDT)
      • Done. (What do you think?) And I learned something, so now the image attribute is optional on the school infobox template. So if any articles weren't using it because it lacked an image, that's no longer an issue. Speaking of the school infobox, should we add to it the background colors used in the city one? --Lkseitz 09:15, 26 July 2007 (PDT)
        • Looks pretty cool to me. Good work. Generally I prefer only the subtlest coloration. Let's stick with less is more for now. --Dystopos 11:24, 26 July 2007 (PDT)

Birmingham Barons

Another day, another template, for which I welcome feedback. Working on this template led me to do clean up of the Birmingham Barons article. It seems to be largely copied from Wikipedia. As such, it has some disambiguation on certain names. I'm wondering if any of this disambiguation is necessary on BhamWiki or if the links can be changed to just the names. The list follows:

  • Good observation. I'd nix the disambiguation until we find it necessary. --Dystopos 08:20, 23 August 2007 (PDT)
    • Thanks for updating the template. I've updated the Barons entry. --Lkseitz 11:58, 23 August 2007 (PDT)

Photo sources

Relocated to Bhamwiki:References#Images.

Civil Rights movement link

  • I was linking "civil rights" in the Temple Emanu-El article and discovered something; we've linked "Civil rights movement," "Civil Rights movement," and "Civil Rights Movement" in almost equal numbers. (See the Special:Wantedpages page and turn it up to the top 500.) Maybe we should create a stub with the "correct" capitalization so our links in the future will be consistent? --Lkseitz 06:59, 14 October 2007 (PDT)
  • Sounds good. Which one is correct? I think we got here because I keep thinking different things at different times. Wikipedia uses "civil rights movement" to discuss various movements, and "African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)", to discuss a particular one. "Civil Rights Act of 1964" would be capitalized as a title, but generally in texts, "civil rights movement" seems most common. I tend to go with "civil rights movement" in text, and "Civil rights movement" as the title. What do you think? --Dystopos 08:15, 14 October 2007 (PDT)
  • I was hoping you'd make an executive decision, because I'm on the fence as to which is correct. I searched the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute web site for "civil rights movement" and discovered they're not consistent either. I listen to the Grammar Girl podcast, and her episode on "Capitalizing Proper Nouns" makes me think that, since we're discussing a specific time period, all three words should be capitalized. In other words, we're typically using "Civil Rights Movement" as shorthand for Wikipedia's "African-American Civil Rights Movement." --Lkseitz 07:00, 15 October 2007 (PDT)
  • I am going to agree with Lee. "Civil Rights Movement" seems to be the best usage, not only to show it was significant but also an actual movement. You would capitalize "Civil War" when referring to the war that took place from 1861 to 1865 in America, even though there are lots of "civil wars" and "civil rights movements". --Wheresdib 07:30, 15 October 2007 (PDT)
  • As opposed to the "War of Northern Aggression." I agree, captitalize each word. Someone pick one for all of us. --MacroAlan 08:28, 15 October 2007 (PDT)
  • Looks like we have two fence-sitters and two actual votes. Therefore we'll go with Civil Rights Movement. Now... who's going to start writing the article? --Dystopos 10:03, 15 October 2007 (PDT)
  • Well since I started this mess, I've created a stub for it. I don't know that I'll have time to do more than that any time soon. --Lkseitz 11:07, 15 October 2007 (PDT)
I've expanded the stub. As our coverage of the movement increases, we can expand the article to put things into context. --Dystopos 15:20, 23 October 2007 (PDT)

Linking

I've noticed a lot of in-line external links to national artists showing up in the Taste of 4th Avenue Jazz Festival article and others. Links in articles which point to topics BhamWiki should cover are best created as internal links (in double brackets). In my thinking, external links are best reserved for the "External links" section which links to more information on the article topic as a whole. I understand that there are exceptions, and I can see that having a direct link to an artist who will never be profiled here does some service to the reader. I guess I'm not sure that BhamWiki needs to be responsible for selecting the most appropriate sites to link to. Any other thoughts? --Dystopos 06:58, 29 October 2007 (PDT)

"Random page" time!

  • I think we should spend some time looking at the pages that are on BhamWiki and making sure there are no typos, glaring errors, tense issues and other problems. If you click on "Random page" to the left, in the "navigation" box [1] it will pop up a page for you to look at. I've come across some pages, especially ones that were added early on, that refer to things that will happen in the future, when in fact that date has come to pass. --Wheresdib 07:43, 4 January 2008 (PST)
  • A capital idea. One might also search for the terms "will" or "scheduled" to ferret out such anachronisms. --Dystopos 08:17, 4 January 2008 (PST)

New Category for articles with outdated statements?

  • Over the last few days, I've come across several articles that have outdated information (i.e., "the complex is scheduled to open in Fall 2007" etc) that I can't verify if it came to fruition or not. I would like to mark those in some way so I (or someone) can follow up on those statements. Would it be ok for me to create a "Articles with outdated information" category or something to that effect? --Wheresdib 20:51, 18 January 2008 (PST)
  • I'm not sure. I guess my preference would be to assemble a list without cluttering the categories section of the article. --Dystopos 21:28, 18 January 2008 (PST)
  • OK, that's fine with me. I wasn't sure how to proceed. I love working from lists but hate having to manually maintain them, LOL. --Wheresdib 06:33, 19 January 2008 (PST)
  • While I agree maintenance categories can clutter an article's categories to unusefulness, I doubt we'd reach ever reach that point here. I think a single "outdated" category could be useful, much in the way of the stubs category is. It's also a lot easier to apply a template to an article that would insert a notice and the "outdated" category than it is to maintain a list. That's my two cents. --Lkseitz 12:53, 21 January 2008 (PST)
  • That was sorta my thought to begin with. I started a list somewhere. --Wheresdib 13:00, 21 January 2008 (PST)
  • Has the "stubs" category proven to be very useful? --Dystopos 13:11, 21 January 2008 (PST)
  • That's a tough call. Maybe it is useful for generating interest in those who aren't signed up to create an account and edit that article. But for me, a regular editor, I don't think I've ever looked at the category "stubs". I still don't see why a single category called "Outdated", or whatever, is a big deal, but hey this is your baby, and my list is fine with me. Get another 10 or 15 regular contributors/editors, then we'll see. But between the three core contributors we have now, it's manageable since I am pretty sure you nor Lee haven't any burning desire to check on those type articles. I am not complaining at all, just making a statement. --Wheresdib 14:37, 21 January 2008 (PST)
  • It's your baby too. No one is obligated to abide by my stated preferences as long as they continue to abide by the User Agreement. --Dystopos 14:57, 21 January 2008 (PST)
  • The problem with the stubs category is, at least for me, most of the things I put in it are there because I'm unable to find any further information on the Internet. Not from lack of research. --Lkseitz 06:47, 23 January 2008 (PST)

Blizzard of 2008

  • What, no Blizzard of 2008 article? What did we get, like maybe 2 inches of snow, on a Saturday? (Completely joking, of course) --Wheresdib 08:12, 22 January 2008 (PST)

2nd Anniversary Party

BhamWiki turns 2 on March 15. I'm hoping some of you will join me for a celebratory dinner and casual brainstorming session. The tentative plan is to meet at Cosmo's Pizza in 5 Points at around 7:00 on Saturday the 15th. Let me know if you expect to come and if there are a lot, I'll make sure we have a reserved table. --Dystopos 08:13, 26 February 2008 (PST)

  • I'm asking the wife right now! If so, I'd probably have my 7 yr old with us, unless I talked my mom in to keeping him. --Wheresdib 08:41, 26 February 2008 (PST)
  • I think we can accommodate a 7 year old. As long as he likes pizza. --Dystopos 08:42, 26 February 2008 (PST)
  • I'll try to be there, if I don't book a gig. --Rreach 12:22, 26 February 2008
  • Barring unforseen complications, I should be there. --Lkseitz 10:20, 6 March 2008 (PST)

update

  • So far it looks like a decent group. I'm excited. I'll bring a couple of door prizes, too. --Dystopos 19:11, 27 February 2008 (PST)
  • In addition to pizza, chocolate mousse, beer, door prizes and great conversation, I will make a report on the status of the project and share some exciting ideas about the future. --Dystopos 15:34, 10 March 2008 (PDT)
  • I compiled some suggestions about parking at 5 Points South here. --Dystopos 14:56, 11 March 2008 (PDT)

results?

Photo from anniversary dinner
  • So how did it go tonight? I hate that I missed it but I passed out around 4:30 and didn't wake up until around 8. This time change really kicked my butt this past week. I was watching the NASCAR race and apparently it lulled me to sleep. Oh well :( --Wheresdib 20:04, 15 March 2008 (PDT)
  • I had a good time. Users Dre, Gt9606a, Lkseitz, and BPL were there and we talked about Birmingham and media and stuff. The pizza was good, but damned if I didn't forget to order mousse. So I'll have to go back. --Dystopos 21:56, 15 March 2008 (PDT)
  • I enjoyed it, too, although I felt a little out of the loop because I've given up following the Birmingham news sites of late. And I also realized this morning, just before I uploaded the above photo, that we didn't get any mousse. --Lkseitz 04:41, 16 March 2008 (PDT)

Policy update

Server change

  • Dreamhost has moved our MySQL server once more. (The new server name is "bagheera") So far the site's feeling much snappier to me. Let me know if you can feel the difference. --Dystopos 10:15, 5 March 2008 (PST)

Yahoo! maps

  • Yahoo! maps (maps.yahoo.com) now has neighborhood data for Birmingham, visible at closer zoom levels. It's missing some labels and there appear to be some errors, but it might be useful to us. --Dystopos 13:57, 6 March 2008 (PST)
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