Talk:Bozeman, Montana/Archive 1

Undated comments
Actually The Gallatin County area or Bozeman area, was home to the Crow Indians.

2005
t might not be a bad idea to point out that Bozeman is the location of Montana State University. And citing Bozeman's connection to Bob Pirsig (who taught at MSU) and his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance might not be bad either.
 * Added the MSU reference but I don't have any idea who Bob Pirsig is. Why don't you add him and a description about his accomplishments under the notables section. Revmachine21 14:26, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Mess!
The opening paragraph was crowded and disorganized -- as is the rest of the article from what I'm seeing. I'd like to point out some of the problems I'm seeing here.

It is not appropriate to cite web sources for every single fact on the page - only the ones that are not readily verifiable should be. Census data and geographic information are easy to verify. More subjective claims such as being the "fastest-growing city in the state" should have a source (in verfying that claim, I discovered that it was Gallatin County that was the fastest-growing, and corrected the error.

It's generally frowned upon to take extensive excerpts from any source, regardless of their nature. The Lewis and Clark journals are in the public domain, but their usefulness here is unclear - one can more easily be informed of the various rivers and mountain passes with a direct approach.

The entire history lacks focus, simply one trivial anecdote to the next -- as if lifted from a travel guide (and that doesn't seem to be far from the truth, with the profuse links to web sources). An oddball court case in the early 1900s is all that happened in Bozeman in the 20th century? Something clearly needs to be done to widen the perspective here.

And finally, though external links are far too common throughout the article, the final list at the end is also too extensive. Many, such as the one for the ski resort, border on linkspam. External links should be confined to major civic organizations like city offices, schools, and newspapers -- and even then, only the ones that do not have Wikipedia articles of their own.

I will attempt to improve the article as much as I can, but it is important that all of us work together to create the best piece possible. -Alexwcovington (talk) 12:20, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Ski area link comment
Per the "link spam" comment:

I think it might be interesting to note that the Bridger Bowl ski area is a not-for-profit operation that is owned and run by the community. If it is ever sold, the proceeds will go to Montana State University.

The picture showing the location of Bozeman is incorrect. The red dot is not even in Montana.

I originally added the item about Bridger Bowl. Bridger is the more convenient ski hill to Bozeman. If that turned into a link.... I wasn't paying attention. Perhaps someone from Big Sky made the edit. I'm just a skier. In any event, Big Sky is not only comparably not convenient (twice the distance of Bridger), but the only road to Big Sky is one of, if not the, most dangerous roads with the highest number of fatalities each year (single lane each direction, high speed, twisty canyon, bad conditions, all of the trucks going btwn Bozeman and Yellowstone and Idaho.) Locals ski Bridger and are able to get a few runs in without missing too much of a day's work.

Sarah Vowell
Her name is in red, as though there isn't a wiki on her. There darn well better be, and there is. As well, there is indeed a link to the The Incredibles wiki, which is here. I know she isn't a native daughter, nor a current resident, but she did spend her formative years here. --Coryma 03:44, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Indeed, her mom babysat my kid in the 80's when Sarah was in high school!  Montanabw (talk) 22:29, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Bozeman Area Photo's
I am working on a site that contains many photos of the Bozeman area. Such as campus, highlight area, bridgers, etc. I was wondering if this would be something of interest here? Please let me know. The site is here: Mjwest10 05:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Bozeman Transportation
I added a section describing the transportation system in Bozeman. If anyone has any suggestions to it I'm just learning so feel free to give me advice. Thanks. Mjwest10 (talk) 02:08, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

What are the policies on what is considered link spam?
I attempted to add a link to a local news site, New West Bozeman, which was removed. There are other news sources listed in the links at the end of the article, and we are a legitimate news source. Is there a way to get our link added to the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.45.5.139 (talk) 17:16, August 28, 2007 (UTC)


 * As the person who removed your link, I should probably reply. In general, it's Wikipedia's policy to substantially limit the number of external links in any given article; otherwise, articles on popular subjects (such as Bozeman) would soon be overrun with literally hundreds of links, many placed there only for advertising purposes ... and that's simply not the purpose of an encyclopedia.


 * I removed your specific link because the site in question contains a substantial amount of advertising, and because most of the news articles it aggregated were only indirectly related to Bozeman. For more information on general Wikipedia policies related to links see External_links. Pitamakan 17:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate your reply. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.45.5.139 (talk) 17:45, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Employment app controversy
I question if the bit on the employment application controversy needs to be here, seeing as how it lasted about a week. If this was the first city in the world to do it or something equally notable (and verifiable), I could see it staying. But otherwise, it seems a silly and transient "brain fart" on the part of the city and has, like gas, now passed... Montanabw (talk) 22:27, 13 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. I live here and its not on anyone's radar.--Mike Cline (talk) 12:19, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Whoever kept adding it back each time I deleted it, would you folks care to weigh in here?  Montanabw (talk) 03:02, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It is absolutely notable. When you removed it you wrote that it "Unless globally notable, why keep." So I added The Guardian (United Kingdom), CBC (Canada), and The Wall Street Journal (USA - national) as sources as examples, showing it is notable globally. That said, it probably doesn't need to be its own section, but seeing that this put the City of Bozeman, an American town of 30,000 people, in newspapers across the world, it needs to remain. - Epson291 (talk) 03:11, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, this wasn't just exclusive to the English speaking world. Just for an example, Calcalist (here) (Israel) and Der Spiegel (here)  (Germany), two of the most important newspapers in those two countries wrote about Bozeman and this story. A Google search for "Bozeman Facebook" yields 661,000 results, with most of them appearing to be about the controversy, a controversy which the city of Bozeman is responsible for. If this had been a company that asked for this type of information, and yielded in the same amount of controversy, it would most likely meet the guidlines for inclusion on it's respective article as well. - Epson291 (talk) 03:28, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, the person who organized this has been fired, the news cycle is over, can we delete it now? After all, we now have killer Grizzly bears to worry about... ;-)    Montanabw (talk) 20:46, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I live here and its not on anyone's radar.--Mike Cline (talk) 21:36, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * So how long to we wait for those who care to weigh in further before we finally pitch the darn thing?   Montanabw (talk) 02:09, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Contrary to the previous poster, the instigator of the policy hasn't been fired, she's merely been demoted. The fight continues!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.237.217.110 (talk) 05:26, 12 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, fired from her position, call it a demotion, potayto, potahto. The point is WP:RECENT.  The thing is old news.  Now that they caught the bad mama Grizzly bear, that's old news too.  Now we have escaped fugitives from Arizona to worry about.  Except that they left Yellowstone for Glacier.  Unless they are in Arkansas...  :-P   Montanabw (talk) 16:05, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Nelson Story, Cattle and Bozeman
Regarding the statement "In 1866, Nelson Story arrived with 3,000 head of longhorn cattle, eluding both Native Americans and the U.S. Army, who tried to turn Story back for safety reasons. Those cattle formed the first herd in Montana's cattle industry.", I believe that John Francis Grant and others were running sizeable herds in (at least) the Deer Lodge valley from the 1850's onward. In 1863 Capt. James Fisk described Grant's herd as numbering "four thousand head of cattle and two or three thousand ponies" (See Virginia Lee Speck's Masters Thesis - MSU 1946, pp. 119-120) Jwilsonjwilson (talk) 22:43, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Please see my comments on your talk page: User talk:Jwilsonjwilson --Mike Cline (talk) 23:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The statement on Nelson Story may be a wee bit exaggerated, but he did bring the first herd up from Texas, no question there. Johnny Grant did not settle in the Deer Lodge Valley until 1859.  He was mostly running a trading post, swapping out healthy cattle for trail-worn ones, which is far from being a true cattleman.  Only when he sold the Grant-Kohrs Ranch to Conrad Kohrs (also in 1866) was the operation truly a cattle ranch.   Montanabw (talk) 00:10, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I suppose we could go on endlessly debating precisely the proper attributes of a cattleman, tho I'm not sure I would limit participation in a "cattle industry" only to those with the proper title(s). We know that Grant personally branded many if not most of his own cattle in the annual spring roundup, at least after settling in the D.L. valley at Grantsville in 1859 (his brand being ‘G’) (See Virginia Lee Speck's Masters Thesis - MSU 1946, pp. 125). That he had a number of businesses there is little doubt (See ‘Very Close to Trouble The Johnny Grant Memior’, ed by Lyndel Meikle 1996), as did ‘cattlemen’ Con Kohrs and Granville Stuart in their times. Kohrs for instance was quite involved in placer mining and, particularly, in selling water via ditches to the miners (See ‘Conrad Kohrs an Autobiography’ ed by Conrad Kohrs Warren 1977). Each of these men had subordinates (vaquero’s, cowboys) who did most of the cattle work. I see the website www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cattle.html agrees with you on Story’s drive establishing the industry (albeit with 1000, not 3000, cattle), again without mentioning the Deer Lodge valley. They also posit as Story’s purpose the supplying of meat to the miners, which Kohrs and Peel had been doing since about 1863 with Deer Lodge valley cattle. The Ficklin expedition made a purchase of 300 cattle in the Deer Lodge valley in 1858 to feed soldiers at Camp Scott, Utah. As you noted, Johnny Grant’s main cattle occupation was for trading, 1 fat for 2 lean, although Capt. Fisk also noted that Grant supplied the miners in Bannock and Virginia City with meat (mainly via Kohrs?). After all, Grant did have to end up with something besides just more cattle. Also, there were a number of other D.L. valley ranchers (ie. cattlemen?) at that time (Tom Lavatta, Robert Dempsey et. al.), with no fences, hence the need for branding. Jwilsonjwilson (talk) 05:31, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * None of which is the point, and I am familiar with some of the works you cite, Meikle's research is particularly good. The point is basically a question of whether the statement in this article about Nelson Story is a bit overblown.  It looks to me like it does need verification and sourcing and may be a bit over-generalized.  However, there is no doubt that he conducted the first major cattle drive out of Texas.  The point at which "the industry" started (as opposed to when they were just running cows around to feed the locals) is probably hard to quantify, define or verify.  I'm going to make a little tweak to the article and see if that meets in the middle.   Montanabw (talk) 18:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I would say and have said that stating "Those cattle formed the first herd in Montana's cattle industry." is not overblown, but simply incorrect. I believe my paragraph above supports that contention. I apologize for any lack of clarity or overuse of references. 207.191.138.126 (talk) 01:41, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Um, did you read my edit to the article? I think it's fixed.   Montanabw (talk) 22:05, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Read it. Glad you agree and good statement! Sorry to take so long getting back, apologies. I guess I'll be doing my own editting now that I'm getting some idea how this works. Still like to have agreement though. Thanks for your patience. I'm writing article Montana Cattle Industry so you can critique me back (coming soon). Jwilsonjwilson (talk) 06:47, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Drop me a note on my talk page when you want a review. There's some work being done on the Montana history article too, may be worth coordinating efforts within WikiProject Montana.  May want to also drop a note there.   Montanabw (talk) 21:38, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Mike Cline is mentoring me with this and he seems well connectted to all Montana stuff. Jwilsonjwilson (talk) 18:40, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Excellent. He's a good editor, even if he's "only" a transplant!  (LOL! and noogies at Mike!)   Montanabw (talk) 20:53, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I've ripped enough MT trout lips to qualify as a local. So there!--Mike Cline (talk) 22:48, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Nah, fishing is the motivation, not the proof. SUFFERING is the proof!  Ya also gotta live here maybe 20 years or so...my spouse is also an "outastater," though after 30 years, well, maybe we can count him as a Montanan!  Kinda.  Sorta.  Staying here in the winters and not snowbirding helps ...  LOL!   Montanabw (talk) 02:33, 19 September 2010 (UTC)