Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Massachusetts/Salem Witch Trials Task Force/Archive 4

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Undo of "Dormant" Tag
Today I removed the tag stating that there is "Nobody in Here Anymore".

I show up Here about once a month, and I still use wikipedia and have been really very unhappy about what is occuring to our articles.

There is a group of Revisionists annonymously stripping info from our articles.

I find this offensive, and believe it is VANDALISM !

If you're changing an article at least sign your changes. That will allow a greater chance for the truth to become a part of this through intellectual discussion. Here we have been the victim of sockpuppets.

Trying to bury the witchcraft trials under the sign of the cross and using anonymous tags to do it is just a continuation of what occured in 1692.

John5Russell3Finley (talk) 18:24, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a question regarding whether the inforamtion removed is from the article itself, or from the talk page. Removal of verifiable information from an article is vandalism, removal of the banner of a group which has been counted as inactive is not. For a group to be functional, it is generally required that the group demonstrate some degree of activity on its project page or talk page. Seemingly, this group has had very little activity of late. Under such circumstances, it is considered reasonable to remove the banner of the inactive group, particularly if another, more active, group covers the same subject matter. One person who edits about once a month is not grounds to say that a group is active. Several groups have been "merged" into more active projects on this basis, particularly if the banner of the other group includes a link to the inactive group. Personally, I have not seen that this group has sufficient activity to indicate that it is active as a group, and this subject is honestly small enough and sufficiently clearly related to another group, WP:CALVINISM, considering the people involved were all Calvinists and that Calvinism was clearly involved, that it makes some sense to reduce the banner clutter. Of course, if a given topic either is sufficiently unique or large enough for a separate "bookkeeping" project to assist in keeping track of those articles, then in general that can accomplished through the use of the single relevant banner, if it is available. Considering that this project has shown remarkably little activity, including no responses to comments posted here recently, barring this one, including my own proposal above, I personally have to consider whether the group demonstrates sufficient activity to really qualify as an active group, and such activity is the primary factor involved. John Carter (talk) 15:13, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Since this is a task force, it might be well if it had a WikiProject to belong to, and WP:Calvinism would seem to be a good candidate. Rich Farmbrough, 19:53, 23 July 2010 (UTC).

Recent Changes
Today I began Clean Up work on the Task Force Page.

I removed some stuff that looked like it might be intended to cause trouble.

Recently this task force has been criticised for innaction. So I took the title coordinator because the position was vacant, and I do not really wish to replace anyone, Yet. However, my computer skills date from the days of basic 4.1, and although I have been a contributor since 2001, I have never been able to keep up with all the constant changes in the way things get done.

With the help of the other members we should at least be able to stem the decline.

We need skilled members to take an interest here.

Not All the requested articles have been written yet.

Vandalism from Sock Puppets has been more than I can handle, without more help.

I hope that together we can fix things without offending people so much that we again have troubles here.

Please be aware that I often do not spend much time on the computer. In the past I tended to check in here about once every month, and if someone posted to my talk page I tended respond within a week or sometimes longer. I will make an effort to improve on this, however it is possible that if you post something here I may not post a reply on the same day. John5Russell3Finley (talk) 20:31, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * A few ideas. The Star Wars project regularly makes a roll call to determine if people are active, which assists in knowing who is still even irregularly active, as opposed to completely retired. Such knowledge might be helpful here. There is also a recent changes function which can be set up to display the most recent changes to all articles related to this topic, which might be useful in dealing with vandalism. It could be set up on the project page for greater ease of access. And, personally, I really think starting articles about the various works which have been written about this subject would be very useful. Any work which has had multiple reviews or other discussion outside of itself could potentially have a separate article, which could go into more elaborate detail regarding the theories expounded therein. I know JSTOR has several reviews on books related to this subject, hundreds of them. Other sources would, presumably, have more reviews. John Carter (talk) 15:14, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Needs Attention Section
We need people to work on this area.

What I have so far for the revision of the "template" ? is this:

Articles Needing Attention

Requested articles

Bartholomew Gendey • Sarah Bishop • Mary Black (Salem) • John DeRich • Lydia Dustin • Mary English • Phillip English (Salem)  • Thomas Farrar, Sr. • William Griggs • Elizabeth Hart (Salem) • William Hobbs (Salem) • John Indian • Margaret Jacobs • Mary Lacey Jr. • Mary Lacey Sr. • Sarah Morey • Benjamin Proctor• John Proctor, III • Sarah Proctor • William Proctor (Salem)   • Margaret Scott (Salem)

Expansion or Cleanup needed

A Break with Charity • George Burroughs • Giles Corey • Martha Corey • Jonathan Corwin • Thomas Danforth • Rebecca Eames •Ann Foster • Dorcas Good • Sarah Good • John Hale • John Hathorne • Mercy Lewis • Rebecca Nurse • Betty Parris • Samuel Parris • Elizabeth Proctor •  John Proctor • Ann Putnam, Jr. • Wilmot Redd • Nathaniel Saltonstall • Samuel Sewall • Roger Toothaker •  Mary Walcott • Mary Warren • John Willard  •  Samuel Willard • Abigail Williams • The Witch House•  1692 •  The Crucible (1957 film) • The Crucible (1996 film) •  Tituba •  William Stoughton

I'm inclined to pay less attention to the Clean up articles until after we finnish adding the Requested articles. Perhaps the Cleanup articles and the Expansion needed articles could be combined ? Until I get all of the articles looked at and rated I will keep a temporary version of the list here. Partly this is due to the way the one on the page is structured. I think this one could be easier to edit while working on the articles. My plan is to occasionally replace the one on the page with the current form of this one, but I won't do that until I have examined all of the articles in the list. John5Russell3Finley (talk) 20:09, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Margaret Scott (Salem)
Does Anyone have any ideas on this ? I don't get the point to having a redirect from an empty article. I think we need to remove the redirect and add some biographical info. I would support this even if it only makes it a stub. John5Russell3Finley (talk) 02:15, 2 June 2010 (UTC)


 * It provides a better link for the disambiguation page that is probably at Margaret Scott. Creating stubs has pros and cons. Rich Farmbrough, 19:15, 23 July 2010 (UTC).

seems useless to me, especially given that it defeats the purpose of the template John5Russell3Finley (talk) 21:20, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

use of numerical suffixes for identification
I suggest that for purposes of identification of Early New England residents (viz.: especially those listed in the reconstructed New England Vital Records Book Series) that we try as much as possible to avoid using the designation Jr. and other numerical suffixes unless actually citing the source from which we derive it at each use of it for the individual. There have been several misuses that have lead to unnecessary arguments and much confusion. John5Russell3Finley (talk) 20:23, 19 July 2010 (UTC)