Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon/Introductions

If you're new to the project, or even if you're not, feel free to put something here about your interests relating to Oregon, the general geographic regions you'd like to cover (strictly optional), and other Wikipedia-related skills you have. No need to sign, just link your user name in the header.

Valfontis
Hiya, I've been a member of WP:ORE since June 2006 and spend way too much time here. I became interested in Wikipedia when my work in the real world led me to discover U.S. cities without articles, since every time I came across a community I hadn't heard of, I would Google it and that page came up a lot. I figured there were plenty of other people who when they hear about a place go look it up on the Internet, and a project was born. My long-term goal is to complete the list of small town articles, but I keep getting distracted by various other Oregon geography, history and biography subjects and various grammar emergencies. As a WikiGnome, I like to keep things around the project organized by finding and tagging articles and categories with WP:ORE tags and linking articles to one another (building the web is one of the most exciting aspects of this project for me). I was born and raised in Oregon and have lived here for 38 years (I also spent some time in Olympia, Washington, so I know a little about that area as well), all of that in the Willamette Valley, so for original research purposes, I know quite a lot about the Eugene and Salem areas and have some knowledge of Portland. Most famously around the project, I have a copy of Oregon Geographic Names, so I can check on the history of place names by request (though you may have to bug me about it a couple times). I also have a bit of insight into the inner workings of state government and quite a bit of knowledge about proofreading and copyediting. I have a thing for small towns and registered historic buildings, but I'm interested in all things Oregon. If I can help with any project-related matters, or any other Wikipedia stuff, let me know.

EncMstr
I've lived exclusively in Oregon, unless one counts a total of three years traveling—about half outside North America. Besides travel, I have a number of intense hobbies (see my user page), including casual photography: I welcome Oregon-specific photo requests at least partially as an excuse to travel (not that any will be Featured Photos, but great for thumbnails). I'm particularly interested in Oregon geography, geology, wildlife, and natural places. I shy away from history and biography, but found Barlow Road and Joel Palmer surprisingly interesting subjects to collaborate on. Many of the questions about wikitables I answer at help talk:table, and seem to have some passion for citation formatting. I've worked for decades as a general computer geek&trade;, and am enthusiastic about solving complex, seemingly impossible problems. Just ask, and I'll help however I can.

Pete Forsyth (talk to me)
I've been around since late 2005 or so, though it took me a while to make an account and sign up for this project. I am very excited about this online collaboration stuff, and have really enjoyed working with other "WPOR" folks to improve the records about our state. I've lived in Portland since 1991. I'm very interested in the Columbia River and its various impacts on economy, environment, culture etc.; I've also done a lot of work on Oregon government, politicians, and history. I spend a lot of time tracking down and/or formatting citations, and also improving low-quality images. The albatross hanging around my neck is List of Oregon ballot measures, which I'd like to get to a fairly complete state at some point in my lifetime. (EncMstr and others have been a big help on that one.) Also, I'd like to take what I've learned here at the old encyclopedia, and find a way to apply it in the "real world" at some point; in spite of well-publicized flame wars, I think some excellent collaboration happens at Wikipedia, and I'm hopeful that can be applied in the not-so-techy world. Oh yeah, I'm a computer geek too, but I try not to be ;) -Pete (talk) 04:39, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Peregrine Fisher
I've been doing WP since 2005, but I became addicted in 2006 and now I edit a bit less. I'm 34 and have lived in Oregon my whole life. I now live near 82nd avenue in Portland, although I don't have a digital camera for taking picture of P-town. I'm from Southern Oregon, and most of my Oregon edits go towards Cave Junction, Oregon (where I grew up) and related articles. I'm pretty good with tables and citations, but am willing to help with basically anything if you ask me. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:44, 29 December 2007 (UTC) I am willing to do some research and add one reference related to any Oregon topic that any editor requests. So please request one on my tak page. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Awotter
Grew up an Army brat, first lived in Eugene for grades 4 and 5 when my folks got their Masters degrees. Attended the U for a year and a half, then moved to Washington state. Lived in Seattle until 2000 and then abandoned the rat race with my wife to move to Salem. My aunts, uncle and grandmother all moved here from Nebraska after visiting us. My first real editing was on Rogue Ales and I created the Mo's article. I've been going to Mo's west at Otter Rock almost from the time it opened and always have the chowder and garlic bread.

Esprqii
I guess I'm the token Californicator around here. I moved to Oregon in 2001, and beginning in November 2006, tried to establish my WP:OR creds first by adding articles for Old Dead Guys and Gals to the List of United States Representatives from Oregon, until I was obsoleted by a bot. (It will happen to all of us some day...) These days, I've been working on people in the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame. I welcome help in getting articles for all those folks, and am happy to edit articles on those and any Oregon sports-related topic as I try to increase my knowledge of sports in the state. I am a Blazer season ticket holder, and as a card-carrying platypus, I strive to keep UO and OSU sports articles neutral in tone.

Aboutmovies (talk)
Native Oregonian, and except for three years in Seattle, have spent all of my 32 years in Orygun. Though an OSU alum, I’ve been a Duck Football fan since long before college. On Wiki, been here since October 2006, and focus on history and law stuff, though dabble in most everything. I try to keep the project moving forward (no I do not own a Toyota) by updating the Collaboration of the Week, handing out lots of WikiLove, and keeping a high profile for the project by nominating lots of Did You Knows? to be featured on the main page. I also seem to be the resident assessment person, and via my access to lots of non-free WP:RS can often track down good sources for citation when needed.

Duff (Talk)
I moved to Christmas Valley, Oregon from Covina, California in 2006, which is when I joined WikiProject Oregon to learn more about my new home state. To my surprise, there was no page for my town, so I (whoohoo) created a stub for my community which I then benignly neglected. I grow organic vegetables, fruits, trees, La Mancha goats, turkeys, and chickens on a small permaculture farm here in eastern Oregon, central Oregon, or southern Oregon, depending on where YOU live. Anyhow, it's the Oregon Outback. I've worked on several different areas of Wiki over the years, especially picky little copyediting things, but I'm most focused now on Oregon, Native Americans, and anything related to plants. I experienced a prolonged wrestling match with Wikipedia over my ethical use of TOR, where I learned much and which led to my choosing to take a hiatus for a while from Wikipedia to focus on farming and bookkeeping. I've since chosen my fights more carefully and glad to be back to do some good in this circle.

Little Mountain 5 (Talk to me here)
I've lived in Medford, Oregon since 1997 (I lived in Santa Clarita, California before that). I know a lot about southern Oregon. A long-time Wikipedia reader, I finally decided to join in January 2008. My strong point is geography, and I will try to improve Oregon related geography articles. I enjoy sports, especially football, and think that Portland should have a professional team. See you around!

Aplaceicallhome
Born in Southern Oregon 20 years ago, lived here all of my life. I am mostly interested in sports in Oregon, such as University or Oregon sports, Southern Oregon University sports, hockey, baseball, etc.

Hux
Hi, I'm a new transplant to Oregon, having grown up in the UK, moved to the US in 2000, left in 2005 to roam the mountains of Central Asia, and returned a few months ago to put down some roots here in Stumptown. I'm a general Computer Guy by trade (sysadmin, web designer, fixer of stuff, etc.) and have been messing with computers ever since I got one of these at the age of ten. I'm also a lapsed musician (guitar, drums), movie lover, and have over the last year or so been developing a keen interest in copyright law as a result of the sweeping technological changes in the music and movie industry. On Wikipedia I tend to roam more or less randomly, making copy editing and stylistic improvements, and while I tend to pay closer attention to articles relating to Kyrgyzstan I'm otherwise relatively unfocused. I'd like to change that and spend more time on articles relating to my new home state. So now you know!

Ean5533
Howdy. I'm a born-n-raised Oregonian, living just outside Portland in small towns like Beavercreek, Oregon and Molalla, Oregon for most of my life. As of March 7, 2008 I'm in my 4th year of school at Rochester Institute of Technology (New York) in the Medical Informatics program. I have every intention of moving back to Oregon after I finish my grad degree next year, probably back to Portland. I also plan on diving into Oregon-related 'pedia pages and improving them very soon!

Micahbrwn
I'm a native of Portland, Oregon... leaving the Beaver State for five years for college. While I did live in Washington, DC (hereafter referred to as The Other Washington), my heart never left. I never could become a DC-ite at heart. So anyway, I just joined this WikiProject! Can't promise I'll be doing major renovations, but every little bit helps, yeah? Out of curiosity, is there a banner/infobox I can add to my Member page, attesting to the fact that I'm a member of this Wikiproject (as other Wikiprojects have)?

Zaui (talk)
I've been active with Wikipedia since December 2005 and with WP:ORE since July 2007. My wife is an Oregon native (grew up in Salem), so I've had family ties in Oregon since 1987. I identify as a WikiSloth and edit in fits of activity followed by periods of not much. I started the Oregon Portal and, thanks to the efforts of many here, watched it take off to featured portal status. My wife and I take lots of photos (been shooting digital since August 2003), some of them I upload to commons (yes, those are my two daughters in the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center photo) and sometimes I start something just so I have somewhere to display them, such as List of Oregon covered bridges - I put that skeleton together and watched others grow some meat on it. As a family, we make an annual trip from Utah to Oregon for a week at the coast on Lincoln Beach (yes, more of my photos there) and have driven most of the east-west routes across the state. Feel free to ask if you need a photo, I may have one and just need to upload it.

Cacophony
I started editing Wikipedia in the summer of 2004 creating new articles and doing gnomish stuff. My favorite wiki-activities back then were browsing random and new pages. Shortly thereafter I started editing articles about Oregon and the Northwest. I think I created most of the articles on bridges in Portland (heck, maybe even Oregon). Due the job I had at the time I was able to travel all around Oregon and get many photographs. This turned into an all out hobby with now thousands of dollars invested in prosumer level camera gear. Although I now have a desk job I still travel throughout the northwest frequently. Lately I haven't been creating many articles ore making any major revisions, I still check my watchlist daily, read articles frequently, and make gnomish edits on a semi-daily basis. I would say that right now my biggest focus is on adding citations. Cheers!

Orygun
Was born/raised in Oregon; have lived in Portland, Salem, Eugene, Dufur, Estacada, Sisters, Lakeview, and Redmond. While remaining an Oregon resident, I've also lived in AL, CA, DC, IL, MA, OH, TX, VA, WA, and overseas. Am now back home in Central Oregon. Am interested in Oregon geography and wide range of history topics including places, events, and biographies; am also interested in some areas of art, business, and education plus many military related subjects. I like to write original articles—i.e. turn red-ink entries into blue. For me, it’s much easier to research/organize/write comprehensive new article than to insert small bits of info into existing entries. In any case, I enjoy being part of wiki-Oregon team!

Steven Walling
I'm originally from Vancouver, Washington, which is just across the Columbia river from Portland, and is considered part of the Portland Metro area. For the last three years I've lived in the heart of Southeast Portland, and now consider myself a fully fledged Oregonian. The majority of my contributions on Wikipedia are unrelated to Oregon, but I am especially passionate about local, face-to-face organization of Wikimedians and wiki folks of all sorts. It is easy to miss how strong the wiki community is in Oregon, and that we are (because of Ward's efforts) the birthplace of wiki.

ScottFish
Hey everyone, I grew up in the Beaverton Area for the last 25 years and have watched the Tanasbourne area grow from a field to what it is now. I'm currently working in the Sylvan Heights area and live in Northwest Downtown Portland near NW 23rd. As I network even more in the area I'm meeting a lot of really interesting people and businesses and I find that Wikipedia could use some additional information on some of the entries related to Oregon. I met Ward Cunningham a few months ago at the Aboutus.org office and that sparked my Wiki interest! Lastly... Go Beavers!

ZehnKatzen (Samuel John Klein) (Talk To Me!)
My name is Samuel John Klein; I just prefer to be called Sam. A native Oregonian, I was born in Silverton and have lived in Silverton, Salem, Portland, Corvallis, and, for a very short time, in Albany. My family has deep roots in Oregon, the Klein side going back several generations in the Silverton area. So, naturally, I left it to come to Portland. I consider the entire Willamette Valley north of Corvallis my hometown, though I am quite proud to be a Portlander.

I love Oregon history, Oregon geography, and Oregon photos. I am positively obsessive about street signs, street blades, postal address systems, and street naming systems (this is one reason I love Portland so much). I adore Oregon city layouts and love maps and will draw one on request. I remember Tom McCall, Bob Straub, and Victor Atiyeh. I was raised on Ramblin' Rod and survived the Silverton and Salem Public schools.

I am currently a po' old desperately-unemployed graphic designer. My blog, The ZehnKatzen Times tries to be a designer blog but is more a designer's blog, as it also tends to take in subjects which interest me outside of typography and design.

I am a bit weak on my research skills, but am willing to bring my "A" game however I can. Samuel John Klein, designer, illustrator, artist - Portland Oregon (talk) 05:51, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Eaglecap Backpack
Hey all, I've been using Wikipedia for several years now and have became frustrated with the lack of info it has regarding the Eagle Cap Wilderness. In my opinion the ECW is the best part of Oregon. I've been updating that page a bit and have been working on making a page for every lake in the ECW. I'm a student at EOU, studing PPE (Politics, Philosophy, Economics) and Geology. In my free time I like to backpack (obviously), hunt, fish, and snowboard.

Sylvia A (talk)
I'm from San Francisco (Esprqii, another Ca******ian) and have always been interested in local history. Now I live in St John's (Portland) and am interested in St John's local history - and those of Portland and Oregon in general. So now I would like to contribute to the content I've been using. Being ignorant, the best way I can see to contribute is to clean up, edit, merge, clarify, and so on as needed. I'm good at that, having been an information designer in a previous life.

Uoregonduckman (talk)
Hello all, I live in Eugene, and attend the University of Oregon. I am involved in politics in our wonderful state, and hope to pursue a career in that field in the future. I've been a member of wikipedia for a while now, but havn't ever been super active. I usually do most of my edits without being signed in, and then remember it after I'm done (that's what happened today, in fact). That's all I guess. I'm not too interesting.

John2165 (talk)
I am an long time enthusiast of Detroit Lake, Oregon. I am a member of the Federal Lakes Recreation Committee for Detroit Lake. A non profit group dedicated to promoting recreation in the Detroit Lake Area. (FLRCDL)  I have spent an extensive amount of time photographing Detroit Lake during all seasons. Share Detroit Lake Pictures in Panoramio I have constructed a Post in Google Earth showing the various amenities and hazards associated with Detroit Lake. Detroit Lake in Google Earth. You must download kmz attachment to use in your GE program. We are creating a brochure that will show Detroit Lake using GE images to educate boaters how to safely navigate and enjoy Detroit Lake. We will have this brochure available for free later this spring. We hope you will come early and stay late. Detroit Lake is an amazing place. John2165 (talk) 20:20, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The Grand Rans
Howdy. I am a high school student in La Grande. I am a relatively new Wikipedian (my 1-year Wikipedia anniversary was yesterday, and that seems longer than it is because I have not made many edits). I am interested primarily in the eastern (more than) half of the state, having lived most of my intellectually competent life here in the "outback". However, I also have been to often, know some about, have lived in, am interested in, and love the other side of the state. I have been editing mostly Oregon articles from the beginning, and even contributed to the project discussion a few times, and now I have finally decided to join the project. One major reason is that my half of the state seems underrepresented at times. I am by no means an expert on any subject, but I know some about many subjects. The Grand Rans (talk) 02:22, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

extransit
From Alaska, currently studying engineering at Oregon State University (class of 2014) in Corvallis, Oregon. extransit (talk) 04:37, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Jsayre64
I'm one of the newest members of WP:ORE. I've been on Wikipedia since June 9, 2010 and I joined this project on July 23, 2010. I haven't really made major accomplishments for WP:ORE yet. Instead I like fixing the little things. I recently started following the the redlinks list and have created just a handful of articles on interesting topics listed there. I'm mainly interested in geography-related articles, and I enjoy having Oregon Geographic Names at hand. I also feel fairly knowledgeable about Wikipedia image copyright rules. I can answer most image questions.

Finn-jd-john
Hi everybody, my name's Finn. I live between Corvallis and Albany, across the road from the Calapooia River. I think my main point of usefulness to you all is going to be as a contact with access to the Valley Library at Oregon State University.

By day I'm an instructor in New Media Communications at Oregon State; by night, I scrounge for interesting stories about Oregon history for "Offbeat Oregon History," a weekly newspaper column I write and send out to about 80 small community newspapers in the state. (I don't charge them for it. Hey, I do this for fun, not for money. The minute you start cashing checks, stuff stops being fun.)

I got into editing Wikipedia entries after finding a minor factual error on the page about Herbert Hoover. It was one of those things that almost nobody would give two hoots about, but a serious Hoover scholar (I guess I can call myself that) just couldn't ignore. So I set up an account and changed it ... since then, Wikipedia has just sort of gradually sucked me in.

I love researching stuff and the best thing about my job is the fact that I get access to the best library in the state -- Valley Library at OSU. If you need help researching something, please get in touch and I'll help if I can. If you're in Corvallis and need help drinking coffee, well, I can help with that too!

Oh, and one other thing ... I'm always on the prowl for good story ideas. Let me know if you have one.

akendall
Hi there! I'm Adam, and I'm from Oregon. I grew up in Oregon City, lived in Eugene for four years while I attended the University of Oregon, and most recently lived and worked in Portland as an Internal Auditor for Umpqua Bank (an Oregon company). Now I'm in China (Oregonians can escape, you know), but planning to return to Oregon eventually.

I was a member of this WikiProject back in 2007, but got busy with work and didn't do much editing. I'm back now, and still interested in Oregon-related topics. I have a copy of Oregon Geographic Names and love to look at it (though I didn't tote it to China). I'm mostly interested in de-redlinking Oregon geography articles, Oregon history, and early Portland (I live in a circa 1905 house in NE). If anyone has ideas for articles or areas that need help, let me know!

-Adam

User:Cataobh
Hi, I'm Laurie. I live in Seattle but grew up in Oregon and have a house on the north coast which I get to as often as possible. Both sides of my family have been in Oregon for more than a hundred years. My main interest is history, especially of Washington, Tillamook, and Clatsop counties. I'm still learning my way around, and so far have just made some additions and corrections, but I do have some new articles in mind.

Popegrutch
Hello. I fully expect to drop into "inactive" almost as soon as I join, but I was invited and I thought I'd give it a try. I'm neither a native nor an expert on Oregon, although I've lived in Portland on and off since 1992 (I estimate that if you subtract the "off" periods, it adds up to maybe twelve years). I'm interested in Oregon libraries, archives, and higher education, and have a certain amount of firsthand knowledge about Portland's 90s culture and subcultures.

User:Apdxguy
Hello, I've been a PDX resident for close to a decade, but my interests go beyond the Metro boundary and are varied. I'm not an expert in any particular area but I have a willingness to learn and I'm hoping to use Wikipedia contributions as an excuse to expand my knowledge.

Gaabib
I live in Portland, I've also lived in LA and DC, and have been on wiki for a few years but just did small edits and additions on random articles. I love wikipedia and the chance it gives everyone to learn so much.

I saw this Oregon project and I thought it would be fun to contribute so here I am. I was born in Portland, my parents, their parents and their parents were from Eastern Oregon. I grew up on stories of Oregon history, such as my mother's hometown of Huntington, currently a crumbling little hamlet, starved by the re-routing of the railroad, but once an infamous center of sin and wild west depravity - my grandfather always said that gunslingers shot down the church a visiting minister tried to build - and was tamed only by the intervention of the Governor and state militia. I worked in the theaters in downtown Portland and I remember the old "colored" balconies, with their plain wooden benches, which were no longer used but still upstairs above the auditoriums in the '80s.

I want to help document places that are disappearing in our state and our history before they're forgotten. I'm really interested in forgotten state history and places and things people try to forget because times have changed. I love how many place names we have with the word "cannibal" in them. I'd like to know the stories behind those and I've been going nuts for years as I'm sure I remember a tiny (9 people?), old town somewhere in Eastern Oregon called Asshole by its original founder, the last I heard there was a movement to change the name but the remaining residents were fighting it and I haven't been able to find anything on it for years and I'd love to find that story.

I hope I can add something to this project.

User:Redtitan
I live in Southwest Washington, am a proud Northwesterner/Cascadian, and a big fan of Oregon. I'm also a climate geek, and have been spending a lot of time updating various cities and towns throughout the western United States with climate data from the Western Regional Climate Center site. I've developed an excel spreadsheet which allows me to rapidly take data from the site, and generate weatherboxes, which I then add to pages lacking that information.

I think I've already added data from the WRCC to all towns in Oregon currently lacking climate info on their webpage (I've just finished Alaska and WA state). I'm also a big fan of the Köppen climate classification system, and have added and corrected some classifications there. Oregon is a pretty fun place as far as climate - a lot of variability, and awesomely, it's home to a few places with the hyper-rare Csc climate!

Most of my work is already finished for the state (just finished the last few places today actually), but mainly wanted to say hi and assist where my future help might be needed.

Terrickisaiah555 (talk)
Hey everyone, another native born Oregonian here. I've been a technologist for many years, however, I am just now recently getting started with editing here. Some of my goals include contributing to and linking the information between the different projects of wikimedia and other popular opensource linked data services including OpenStreetMap. Looking forward to seeing the progress of this project move forward and helping where I can!

Art to Tech (Talk)
I aim to increase content about Oregon's women, indigenous people, and others who are less represented, to counter the lack of this history in schools. For example, I updated the Garibaldi, Oregon entry (I was visiting) to include information about the Tillamook people (the region's original inhabitants), the impact of Captain Robert Gray's arrival, the indigenous displacement to Hobsonville, and recent kerfluffle about the Robert Gray statue. I have also contributed to Black Lives Matter art in Portland, Oregon and created a page for Lynn Peterson (American politician).

I've lived in Portland's inner east side for 30+ years, and have been organizing information and building digital communities for almost that long.

SouthParkFan65
I live just outside of Grants Pass, and I've had an interest in wikis since I was 8. I love the feeling I get knowing that my edits contribute to a greater project. I am primarily interested in counties and Oregon's appearances in popular culture. I will try to contribute when I'm not too busy with school or work.

Harimauhobbes
Hi all! I'm a sixth-generation Oregonian with family from all over the state, including Coos Bay, Clackamas, Scappoose, Brookings, Eugene, and Portland. I'm originally from Washington County and have the most knowledge about that area as well as the history of people of color in Oregon, and anything about the Oregon Legislature. I most recently updated the Wikipedia page of the current state legislature with the interim appointments and district maps!

ArwenSL1
Hello. I live on my families farm in the Willamette Valley. Currently we produce grass seed and other specialty seeds. The fifth generation of our family is now working on this farm. I'm interested in improving Agriculture in Oregon pages on Wikipedia. I would also like to expand other Oregon pages too like the Oregon Department of Agriculture and add a page for the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences and the OSU Ag Hall of Fame.