Talk:Spring Valley Race Riot of 1895

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Hey folks, get started talking.Rudibatzell (talk)

Good source for citations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources Jericho2911 (talk)

The background page can be simplified by having a Bureau County section where the demographics, information about Spring Valley and Princeton, and the formation of the union and immigration are included. Coffmanse (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:12, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi again everyone! Here are my notes from class on the things we should prioritize for Wednesday:
 * Focusing on organization and structure: simplifying/condensing the overall outline of the article
 * Adding Ida B. Wells and her respective church community
 * Adding content in the trial section about the trial taking place outside of Spring Valley because of the racial hierarchies of each community
 * Considering the differences between Armfield's and Waldron Merithew's arguments, specifically the idea that the government did/did not deliver justice to the African Americans
 * Expanding on the introduction section, that serves to give an overview of the timeline of the events and important people involved Coffmanse (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:24, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Hello. I have a brief suggestion for the organization of the piece. Should we have three main sections that are: Background, Riots, and Aftermath, and then move certain pieces into those three categories? Also, I feel like we could potentially get rid of the headings for the Riot section (to decrease the table of contents page). IJW27 (talk) 04:16, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with both Sarah and Isaac's suggestions. The page would look much more organized if we had less sections overall. I would suggest deleting "spread across illinois" and either making it a subsection to talk about how news of the riot reached African Americans across the state (might be a good place for Waldron Merithew's argument about the factors that led to the winning of the trial), or making the title "African American Community's Response" since that is the content of the section. We also have to work on polishing up these citations! Ramizlf (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:39, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I read the page that Eric linked her regarding citations, and I found the specific section "short citation" to explain how we can shorten the citations. It looks like what we can do to keep the citations more organized is include all the shortened citations where the current "references" list is, and change the title to "notes". Then, create a separate references section that includes the full citations for each source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ramizlf (talk • contribs) 17:14, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I added some content for the Intro and please feel free to change if needed. I also left the original first line until it is reviewed. I am running a fever so please let me know if anything i edit is wrong :) Thanks in advance. Jericho2911 (talk)

Alright, so I tried messing in my own sandbox to figure out how to add shortened citations. If you try to do it through the "cite" button it won't let you because it expects a full citation. To do shortened citations, you have to use a template called "sfn" here is a link to the page about that template. If we wanted to add shortened citations this way, we would have to go back and remove all our footnotes and replace them with a new footnote created by the template "sfn" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Sfn#cite_note-FOOTNOTESmith200725-12 here's a link to the sfn template page if you want to read more. Let me know what all of you think so we can better organize these citations! Ramizlf (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:30, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

'''I want to highlight Nicole's solution to the citation issue. I think this is the course we should pursue''' Rudibatzell (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:54, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I added some information on the demographics of Bureau County following the riot. Temporary Profile (talk) 19:57, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I think May added an intro section as well so we need to decide what parts to edit so we can get a semi final version, and to be honest I am at a bit of a loss regarding our plan for overall structure. I kind of think tomottow we should choose a few people who are kind of the final edit/say on things just so we can push for the finish... I am completely open to your thoughts and suggestions about how to best move forward. Jericho2911 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:18, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with that last point. I feel if we have a couple of moments in class to discuss some of this, it would benefit us. IJW27 (talk) 01:39, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

So, I changed what I suggested earlier and changed the section title from "Spread Across Illinois" to "African American Community's Response" because that was the content of the section. If someone wants to add more about how the info of the riot reached across illinois, then feel free to change it back. I hoped that this edit would remove a subheading and make the table of contents clearer. I also added a little bit about the arguments Waldron and Armfield make, like Professor Batzell suggested. Feel free to add more. Lastly, I practiced the shortened citations on my sandbox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ramizlf/sandbox take a look and I hope we can come on a consensus on how to clean these citations up because frankly the chaos that is the reference section right now is driving me sort of crazy. Ramizlf (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:50, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I think we can consolidate the media coverage and post-riot commentary sections, and use a single section title: "Riot Commentary." Under the "Riot Commentary" section, we can add two sub-sections: Contemporary Commentary (at the time of the riot, the section Eric wrote about the newspapers under media coverage and also the politicians), and Post-Riot Commentary with the section on the scholars. Then, the "Aftermath" section can just be deaths and arrests, rebuilding Spring Valley, Demographic information post riot, and residential life. Let me know if any of this is unclear. Coffmanse (talk)

Okay citation team Sarah, Isaac, and Missy: The page with citations is has 4 main sections, background, riot and response, riot commentary, and aftermath. There are four of us, so I think it would make sense for each of us to take on one overall section? I am about to set up the backbone of the new citation format, since it has to be done in source mode. Ramizlf (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:29, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I will work on the "Riot Commentary" section. Ramizlf (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:35, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm working on the "Aftermath" section's citations now.Coffmanse (talk) 21:32, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

One more point, I believe to add the complete citation in the reference section it must be done in source mode with specific code so that it can work with the notes. If you are adding a full citation, go into source mode and you can copy the existing citation code and fill in the information accordingly. Ramizlf (talk) 00:58, 30 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Hello, I tried putting in the citations for some of the first paragraph of the Background section, but it didn't show up in the Notes section. Do we have to make a new "Notes" section to get the citations seen on the page? IJW27 (talk) 01:57, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, I can do the Background section. IJW27 (talk) 02:02, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, I typed up the first response without understanding what you had done Nicole. I'm looking for the citation code now.IJW27 (talk) 02:06, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Figured it out!IJW27 (talk) 02:14, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry Isaac that I didn't get to your question sooner! I had the problem too where it wouldn't show up, but once I published the changes it would show up. Glad you were able to figure it out! Ramizlf (talk) 03:39, 30 January 2020 (UTC)


 * So for footnote 7 in the Background section, the code says this: < ref name=":1" />. (ref name = 1") Does that refer to Felix Armfield's article, the first article in the reference section?IJW27 (talk) 16:43, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if you were able to figure the issue with #7 out Isaac but I think that was some sort of error. I went back and found that evidence on page 185 of armfield's article so I deleted that code that says "ref" and replaced it with the code for sfn, but you could probably do this through visual editing by adding the sfn template. If you see that anywhere else I would go back and look for the evidence in the texts and fix that code, I have no idea why wikipedia generated that. I noticed this issue as well in citation #9, where the code says ref name 2. I would delete that code and replace it with a new citation using the sfn template or sfn code. I believe this info comes from the Lynch Law Must go article, so just make a new citation with those page numbers using sfn. Ramizlf (talk)
 * Thanks Nicole! I did that and it worked well.IJW27 (talk) 20:32, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, so now I have a question about the references and links. Can we have the sfn citations link to the references section in the code? I deleted some ref code from the Background section (but I saved all of it on a Word doc because I have a feeling we'll have to use it again). Where can I put that code now? Just in the references section at the bottom of the article, or as part of the sfn citation code? Hope that question makes sense.IJW27 (talk) 20:48, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry I missed class today everyone. I do not know what was discussed but by the looks of it there is at least one team. I am open to help out if someone would point me in a needed direction. Please let me know. Jericho2911 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:10, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi Eric, we just divided into teams, one that would work on polishing up the introduction, one that would work on fixing citations to shorten them, and one team to help edit the article to make it more concise/fix grammar/correct quotes. I guess you could help on either team you'd like! I believe you contributed to the introduction, so maybe you would want to work on condensing that into a few sentences instead of several paragraphs. Ramizlf (talk)

I finished the citations of both the Riot and Response section and the Aftermath section. However, in the Riot and Response section, citations 14 and 17 are missing - I'm not sure where the person who wrote it got the information from. Whoever wrote that, could you check to see which articles you used and add a shortened footnote with that information? Coffmanse (talk) 22:24, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Citations added!Ramizlf (talk) 02:56, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi everyone, I added some more links to the article. Someone else might want to look over the article and see if there is anything else we can link.MJVH2097 (talk) 22:40, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Would adding some images be a good idea? Temporary Profile (talk) 00:19, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

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