Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Iowa/Archive 1

Projects
Cool digs. I've often wondered why there was no WikiProject Iowa. My thanks to Tim4christ17 for creating this WikiProject. Just to get the ball rolling, what major projects do you all think we need to tackle? I'm also interested in other folks' background on this project. How'd you find it? For my part, I noticed the tags on the talk page for Monti, Iowa and KCRG-TV. Firsfron of Ronchester 01:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

How about Robert D. Ray? That was only two governors ago, but the article is a stub. (Don't look at me, though. I moved to Iowa shortly after Brandstad was elected. Arch O. La  Grigory Deepdelver  04:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Or how about The Bridges of Madison County? A major novel set in Iowa, written by an Iowa author. BTW I attended UNI shortly after the book was released. The entire English department was jealous. Arch O. La  Grigory Deepdelver  05:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm mostly interested in getting Iowa Government articles up to date. Mostly the current state politicians - it's really sad that Bob Vander Plaats's article is still a stub, even though he's the GOP's Lt. Gov. candidate.   I'll shortly start some organization (mostly ripping off WikiProject Biography's Politics taskforce) to deal with them at WikiProject Iowa/Government.  --Tim4christ17 05:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The Government sub-page has been started, with the section on Iowa Politicians completed.  This section will be our link between WikiProject Iowa and WikiProject Biography's Politician workgroup.  (As Iowa Politicians will fall in both categories.)  Please see this section before beginning work on Iowa Politician articles. --Tim4christ17 talk 11:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration of the week/month/whatever
It'd be nice, in addition to working on our own projects, to get a Collaboration going. May I humbly suggest that we try to get Iowa up to WP:GA status? --Tim4christ17 05:23, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Added to WP:JI. Perhaps we could add Iowa to WP:AID. Arch O. La  Grigory Deepdelver  05:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Applying Project Iowa
If you could all take some time and tag a few Iowa articles' talk pages with Project Iowa, it'd be appreciated. I've put the tag on somewhere around 1,000 articles, but there are still quite a few left. --Tim4christ17 05:39, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You've been quite busy! I've only done about a dozen or two. Arch O. La  Grigory Deepdelver  05:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * AutoWikiBrowser could be used, if you think there may be a lot left untagged. I'll gladly volunteer. Firsfron of Ronchester  06:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I've got most of them, I think - I've been going by category. There are quite a few left in List of cities in Iowa - I've done through "D".   And yes, AutoWikiBrowser would be useful...unfortunately my AWB request was denied.  :(   I had been planning to use it for tagging and to create/maintain the "Recent Changes" section of the Wikiproject.  --Tim4christ17 06:57, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * No problem. I can do them all with AWB in a few hours or so. I'll do them tomorrow, hopefully. Firsfron of Ronchester  07:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * That'd be great. :)  --Tim4christ17 09:44, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Dakota City thru Zwingle are complete. Whew! Even with AWB, that took a while. I'm glad you weren't forced to do it all by hand, Tim. As far as I can tell, every incorporated city's talk page is now tagged. The six unincorporated communities in Category:Unincorporated communities in Iowa are also tagged. Of course, there are hundreds of unincorporated communities without articles... Firsfron of Ronchester  04:40, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Unicorporated communities such as Farson, IA...which is in the zip code (52563) for Hedrick, IA. Arch O. La  Grigory Deepdelver  06:56, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * There's no article for Farson, Archola. Create one, and I'll happy tag it. Iowa has probably as many unincorporated towns as it does incorporated ones. Firsfron of Ronchester  09:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, Farson, Iowa exists, but there's not much to say. Arch O. La  Grigory Deepdelver  09:29, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Nice stub! :) Firsfron of Ronchester  09:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I just updated the railroad data. That railroad has switched owners so many times in the past 20 years... Arch O. La  Grigory Deepdelver  10:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I've added the Iowa project tag to talk pages of biographies of some of "Iowa's famous sons" - Carl Van Vechten, Grant Wood, Marvin Cone, Meredith Willson, James Van Allen, Ashton Kutcher, Elijah Wood, and Nile Kinnick. Herbert Hoover had already been tagged :) --Lini 01:16, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Nice, Lini! Don't forget "Iowa's famous daughters"... there have to be some, I guess... Firsfron of Ronchester  06:49, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Like Juanita Hansen? Actually, there are a ton of People from Iowa. Where's that guy with the AWB again? Arch O. La  Grigory Deepdelver  07:16, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Heh. Gimme a list, and I'll AWB all of them. :) Firsfron of Ronchester  07:40, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Maytag
Not sure if I should add the banner to this one. Maytag was headquartered in Newton...but it was bought out by Whirlpool. Arch O. La  Grigory Deepdelver  05:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd do it. Tag Amana, too, while you're at it. :) Firsfron of Ronchester  06:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I did Amana Colonies, but...okay. Arch O. La  Grigory Deepdelver  07:03, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Des Moines Register
What you folks need is a dedicated announcement board. I hope I'm posting this in the right place.

The Des Moines Register published an article about Iowa coverage in Wikipedia on September 20. Please review it and make corrections to the Wikipedia articles they mentioned, if necessary. Not exactly much to be proud of, at this point. Thanks.&mdash;Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I saw the same story (it was on the front page, as a matter of fact) and was going to say the same thing. The POV rant that they quoted from the Hawarden article has been removed, but I'll agree that there's still a lot of work to be done. Seriously, a dentist and a mechanic are notable natives of Sergeant Bluff? --Iowahwyman 17:41, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Nothing on CIETC
I typed in CIETC and got no results. There is nothing about CIETC but there is a damn overlong page on Slashdot trolling phenomena! What gives? If you live in Iowa it's very unlikely that he haven't endlessly heard of CIETC. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamv88 (talk • contribs)
 * Simple - Iowa's pages have been largely neglected by Wikipedians - which is why we recently created WikiProject Iowa. --Tim4christ17 talk 13:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm working on a stub for CIETC at User:Teddythetank/CIETC. Feel free to make useful contributions to it. I will admit upfront that I haven't been following the news on this scandal (i.e. I rarely get a chance to read the Register in Ames). --Ted 19:26, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Invitation to new WikiProject
A new WikiProject has been started, and may be of interest to members here. It is WikiProject National Register of Historic Places. It covers all listings on the Register, in all states and territories. Should you be so inclined, please feel free to join. And spread the word to any other interested parties. -Ebyabe 19:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 19:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Iowa
I've noticed that our main article, Iowa, is a fairly poor one. It might be a good idea if everyone in the project would commit to fix some part of the page. The contribution wouldn't have to be a large one, but every little bit counts

I'm going to start working on the Government section of the article after finals are done - this corresponds to my work on the pages pertaining to the Iowa General Assembly. I'll also check through for weasel words, typos, and start marking unsourced statements. --Tim4christ17 talk 19:09, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

isn't Shelby in Shelby County?
I posted a message on its page and I always thought it was in Shelby County? It's listed as Pottawottamie County and I thought it was north of 80, which more or less means it's not in Pottawottamie County. DandyDan2007 13:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Bob Feller Farm Photo
The Feller Farmstead, a national registered historic place, is NE of Van Meter in Dallas County. There is a house and is or was a red barn. The barn may have recently collapsed, I'm not sure. I'm working on a article for this NRHP. Is there someone that has or can get a photo of the house and/or barn? Much thanks! Pumpkin Sky  talk  02:35, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Photo of Chief Wapello statue
Hello! Posting this info for any of the Iowa group wh may be within easy driving distance of Ottumwa. The large (450 lb) statue of Chief Wapello -- created originally circa 120 yrs ago -- will be on display inside the Wapello County courthouse in Otumwa for the next few weeks. This statue normally resides atop the courthouse however it was damaged by a t-storm in June 2012 and has undergone repair and restoration. That work is now complete and probably sometime in July it will return to its rooftop location five stories up. My point: Only twice before (last in the 1950s) in its history has the rather ornate statue been on ground level. This would be a most opportune time for someone to take a photo and upload to Wikipedia Commons for addition to the Chief Wapello and Wapello County articls. Statue photos get rather tricky (licensing wise) sometimes, but considering the original age I think it would qualify as Public Domain, the orginal creator being long since dead. I live in Missouri and cannot make it to Ottumwa to snap a photo, but I thought I'd alert the Iowa Wikiproject group about it in case someone wanted to take up the task. Best regards, Sector001 (talk) 07:31, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Revision of "Antoine LeClaire" article (métis trader from Iowa)
To whom it may concern,

Unless one can source it, I highly doubt the authenticity of the following statement: "His father, Francois LeClaire, was French Canadian and came to the Americas with Lafayette."

The LeClaire name came to Québec (part of French North America) probably sometime in the late 1600s or early 1700s. This would have been way before the time of Lafayette and the American War of Independence in the 1770s...

The French in Québec (as well as métis further west) and the French soldiers of Lafayette who came from France are not the same... Moreover, I doubt French soldiers of Lafayette (coming from France) would have stayed and settled in Québec after the US War of Independence since at that time Québec (and all of French Canada) was ruled by the British, having officially taken it over in a 1763 treaty. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Acadien42 (talk • contribs) 17:28, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sure you've resolved this by now, but a dubious unsourced statement like this can generally be removed. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the topic, so can't help out. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Pride 2014
You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride 2014, a campaign to create and improve LGBT-related content at Wikipedia and its sister projects. The campaign will take place throughout the month of June, culminating with a multinational edit-a-thon on June 21. Meetups are being held in some cities, or you can participate remotely. All constructive edits are welcome in order to contribute to Wikipedia's mission of providing quality, accurate information. Articles within Category:LGBT in the Americas may be of particular interest. You can also upload LGBT-related images by participating in Wikimedia Commons' LGBT-related photo challenge. You are encouraged to share the results of your work here. Happy editing! -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 20:57, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Whether this is a good idea for other projects, I don't know, but I know what happened at WikiProject Iowa. Projects like this one devolve into noticeboards instead of regularly-active projects because they are on less-well-covered topics and are driven by a small number of personalities.  When I was more active, I was able to round up a few folks to get some projects done.  But our priorities diverged over time and several of us became less active on Wikipedia.  Hence, less active project.  No mystery here. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 23:43, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!


Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I put my 2¢ at WikiProject X/Stories. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 23:31, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Pride
 You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride!


 * What? Wiki Loves Pride, a campaign to document and photograph LGBT culture and history, including pride events
 * When? June 2015
 * How can you help?
 * 1.) Create or improve LGBT-related articles and showcase the results of your work here
 * 2.) Upload photographs or other media related to LGBT culture and history, including pride events, and add images to relevant Wikipedia articles; feel free to create a subpage with a gallery of your images (see examples from last year)
 * 3.) Contribute to an LGBT-related task force at another Wikimedia project (Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, Wikivoyage, etc.)

Or, view or update the current list of Tasks. This campaign is supported by the Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group, an officially recognized affiliate of the Wikimedia Foundation. Visit the group's page at Meta-Wiki for more information, or follow Wikimedia LGBT+ on Facebook. Remember, Wiki Loves Pride is about creating and improving LGBT-related content at Wikimedia projects, and content should have a neutral point of view. One does not need to identify as LGBT or any other gender or sexual minority to participate. This campaign is about adding accurate, reliable information to Wikipedia, plain and simple, and all are welcome!

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the campaign's main talk page.

Thanks, and happy editing!

User:Another Believer and User:OR drohowa

Category:Burial sites of the Maytag family
Category:Burial sites of the Maytag family, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. RevelationDirect (talk) 01:40, 15 January 2016 (UTC)