Wikipedia talk:WikiProject North Dakota/Archive2

"People from..." question
I have a question pertaining to how we list ND people in categories. When we list someone in one of the city-specific categories like Category:People from Grand Forks, North Dakota, should we leave it at that or should we also list them in the main Category:People from North Dakota category also? I've never really known how I should handle that. --Matth e w UND (talk) 08:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I should mention that I personally like having a person in both the main and the subcategory. --Matth e w UND (talk) 08:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd have to say both for now. If the main category gets too large we can start pulling out some of the less significant people. -- AlexWCovington  (talk) 20:38, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * If Category:People from Grand Forks, North Dakota is a sub-category of Category:People from North Dakota, standard convention dictates that the person should just be listed in the city-specific category, since by the category tree, they are automatically included (even though they are under another category directory) in the main category.
 * Simplifying (I think I confused myself there!), just in the city-specific category.... NDCompuGeek 22:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I basically agree with what you're saying, NDCompuGeek. However, I've seen it done both ways for other states. The thing is, I'm thinking if we take all of those people away from the main category, we are going to end up with a very skimpy main category and very big subcategories. I'm just not sure. Another thing...for categories like Category:North Dakota musicians, I think the people listed in their should almost certainly also be listed in the main category as well. I see these occupation-type-categories almost more as a type of "overlay" than a subcategory. I guess this is like how we are doing Category:North Dakota politicians...we have them (for the most part) in both the occupation category/overlay and the main ND category. --Matth e w UND (talk) 23:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, hows about a check of ideas then?
 * For categorizing people by location, they should go into as specific a category as possible ("People from north 16th street in Minot, North Dakota", for a slightly facetious category). This may create large sub-categories with a relatively small main category, but by the categorial conventions, this is fine.
 * For categorizing people by occupation, again they should go into as specific a category as possible, but in addition to the location category ("North Dakota musicians who play the tuba on the corner of 16th street in Minot", same facetious categorization). This way, the individual is categorized both by location and occupation.
 * I think this is a good summary, but whaddya think? - NDCompuGeek 03:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I think #1 makes good sense and that's pretty much what we have going right now. I used to think that everybody should be in the main category and in more specific location categories, but I now see that is a bit redundant. I need a little clarification about #2 though. For instance, are you saying that somebody like Johnny Lang (for example) should go into Category:People from Fargo, North Dakota and Category:North Dakota musicians, or are you saying he should just go into one category called Category:Musicians from Fargo, North Dakota? I personally think it would be a little too much to have occupation specific subcategories for each location category. They wouldn't ever have many articles in them...just how many people would ever end up in Category:Artists from Minot, North Dakota for instance? I'm not sure if that's what you're saying or not. Also, I don't think that is really something you find in other state's categories so I'm not sure we should be doing that here. I'm all for using specific location categories, but I'm not too hot on having occupation subcategories for each of those location categories. It seems best to me to lump all musicians, artists, writers, etc into statewide categories. --Matthew UND (talk) 05:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, what I meant was that the more detailed category method should always be used. If there is an article about a musician from Fargo, then that person should be categorized in "People from Fargo" AND "Musicians from Fargo" - if that is as detailed as it gets.  Another for instance is our current governor John Hoeven.  He was born in Bismarck, worked in Minot, and is now based in Bismarck.  That would put him in the following categories: "People from Bismarck", "People from Minot", and "Governors of North Dakota".


 * I guess an easy way to think of it is that you want to clump people together in as many categories as possible to find others of the same interest. Where they are from, what they do, and any significance they have should have categories for them.  Sometimes a category (like the aforementioned "Musicians from Fargo") contains both "where" and "what" someone does, but this, I have found, is the exception.  Always try and keep category trees clean, easy to follow, and very useable.


 * In other words, use both schemes: the "People from Fargo" category tree, and the "Musicians from Fargo" category tree. Trying to combine them, like you mentioned, may create some awfully small categories.  Category intersection (when two category trees meet - like the "People from..." and "Musician from...") isn't always a bad thing. Whether or not the categories are specific enough or too specific is another argument altogether....  Just my 2¢!  - NDCompuGeek 10:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think I mainly agree with what you're saying. The only thing that I'm not sure about is creating categories like Fargo artists or Minot artists. I think occupation specific categories like that for many different locations (Fargo, Minot, Bismarck, Grand Forks, etc.) are going to be very small. I'm thinking more along the lines of having categories like North Dakota musicians and North Dakota artists (which is what we have now). In the case of Johnny Lang (for example), I think he should be in People from Fargo and North Dakota musicians. I'm not too hot on dividing North Dakota musicians into many categories such as Fargo musicians, Grand Forks musicians, etc. For instance, Fargo musicians would only have about five articles and Grand Forks musicians would have about three...do numbers like that (unlikely to grow very much) warrant such narrowed down categories? North Dakota artists, North Dakota musicians, and North Dakota writers are already fairly small categories...do you really think we should break them up into location specific subcategories? If you really think more narrowed down subcategories are warranted, I guess I'll be ok with that, but I'm just not sure if it's needed. Do you know if other states have such narrowed down categories like what you're talking about? I hope you understand what I'm saying here, all this category talk is a bit confusing. As far as your comments about someone like Hoeven, I totally agree. I think it is only logical to include multiple location specific categories if people have lived in multiple locations. BTW, I'm really glad to actually have somebody on the talk page to discuss things like this with. Ever since Alex vanished, it's been fairly lonely on this talk page. --Matthew UND (talk) 22:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Bismarck State College
I'm asking people to keep a watch on the Bismarck State College article. Recently, someone calling themselves the webmaster for the college [ ] has been making edits to the article which are little more than copy-and-pastes from this page at the college's website. Anytime I try to revert the additions, the "webmaster" gets really ticked off and reverts it back to his version. He seems to think that, since he is the school's webmaster, he thus own's the school's Wikipedia article. Take a look at the messages he has left for me and those I have left for him. Perhaps some WPND editors would be interested in trying to rewrite the article and expand it in legitimate ways (not relying on copy-and-pastes from the school's website!). He doesn't seem to think I have any right to touch it... --Matthew UND (talk) 08:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Copy paste issue at Burlington, North Dakota
Hi folks,

There is a copy paste problem with Burlington, North Dakota section, in that the text has pretty much come, word-for-word from the municipal web site of Burlington, North Dakota. See Talk:Burlington, North Dakota for details. This is a very early edit of R9tgokunks, and who, I suspect, was probably operating under the commonly held belief that any work by federal, state, or municipal governments are in the public domain. Indeed, the editor even helpfully furnished the web link which made comparison straigtforward. Sadly, the public domain provision applies only to the Federal government; published works of state and municipal governments enjoy full copyright protection. There is a pretty clear need to rewrite the section; I'm hoping there may be expertise from members of this project to do just that. Unfortunately, I hail from Brooklyn, New York, and my expertise on Prospect Park seems inadequate here. Take care. — Gosgood 15:00, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for commenting on this. I think the best thing to do is to remove the material from the Burlington article until somebody gets the chance to rewrite it. --Matthew UND (talk) 20:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Lewis and Clark
Hey WPNDers, I just noticed that we have two articles about the same thing: North Dakota Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center and North Dakota Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. The second one has been around the longest and is the longer. Which spelling should we go with? --Matthew UND (talk) 06:12, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The Second, looks good! Tazz 06:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I have now made the first page into a redirect for the second. --Matthew UND (talk) 01:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

New articles
Dear Wikipedians, a list of possible North Dakota-related articles found by bot is available at User:AlexNewArtBot/NorthDakotaSearchResult. Colchicum 15:01, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * This is a fabulous tool. I'm going to add a link directly on the main WPND page. --Matthew UND (talk) 00:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

"External link" vs"External links"
Just a note to fellow WPNDers that I've recently noticed a different trend in style on Wikipedia. I used to be under the assumption that a links section should be called "External link" if it contained only one links and "External links" if it contained multiple links. However, I've been noticing lately that the trend is now to always call such a section "External links"...even if it only has one link. This goes the same for "Note"/"Notes" sections and "Reference"/"References" sections. The Manual of Style also now lists plural section headers as the preferred choice. I think this probably is a good trend because it adds uniformity and ease of updating to these list sections. Just thought I would mention this so you guys don't get confused if you see people changing "External link" to "External links" in ND pages. --Matthew UND (talk) 00:14, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

NavBox
In order to make the code for the WPND main page cleaner and easier to edit, I've spun off the "NavBox" on the top right corner of the page into a template: WikiProject North Dakota/NavBox. --Matthew UND (talk) 00:48, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Template:North Dakota State Government
I just made a new navigational template for state government. Take a look: North Dakota State Government. I just thought it would be good to make something like this. Let me know if you think it would be a good idea to add it to state government articles. --Matthew UND (talk) 03:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Newsletter?
I realize we're a relatively small project (~25 members), but with these 25 members, we are doing so much! I'd like to think that all 25 of us are active (something that most other projects can't say).... In any case, what about a newsletter to keep us abreast of the project news and what's going on with ND-related articles? This is something that I may be able to help out with, if our fearless leaders would consider authoring it... (hint-hint)! - NDCompuGeek 17:32, 13 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Not a bad idea. Still, I wonder if just posting routine updates on this talk page would be just as effective. Then again, I have a feeling that a few WPND members don't keep close tabs on this talk page. If we did put together a newsletter, what kinds of things do you think would be good to include in it? This is an interesting idea. --Matthew UND (talk) 23:17, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

←← Following the layout of other newsletters (specifically WP:MILHIST, WP:GERMANY, WP:MUSINST [a work in progress], among others), I believe the major common components are: Mind you, this is a small sampling of what's out there.... - NDCompuGeek 17:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Editor's corner
 * Project news and reminders
 * Article assessment statistics (and possibly editorial comments)
 * Current proposals and discussions
 * Awards and honors
 * Spam opt-in / opt-out notice


 * OK, I just finished putting together the first issue of the WikiProject North Dakota Newsletter. Let me know what you think. I don't expect to be the editor just because I put the first issue together. If anybody else wants to be the editor that's fine with me. If no one else wants to, I'll be happy to do the job and put the newsletter out about once a month. Let me know what you think about the features I put in the first issue. --Matthew UND (talk) 07:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Assessment
I just completed the initial round of assessments for all pages that are a part of WPND. Now, when you look at the talk page of any North Dakota-related page, you should see an assessment within the WPND banner at the top of the page. Visit Category:North Dakota articles by quality to see how all of the pages have been assessed in the initial assessment. Visit Version 1.0 Editorial Team/North Dakota articles by quality statistics to see the breakdown of assessments. The individual assessments are based on the guidelines found at Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. Obviously, any WPND member should feel free to change individual assments if they disagree with them. This intial round of assessments was just an effort to see where we are as a project and what areas we need to work on. I should note that these assments are based on the length and quality of each article, not the importance or priority of the article's subject. Priority is a whole other way of assessing pages. We could do priority assments in the future, but that is a much more potentially biased form of assessment that would first need to be discussed. I'm glad to have this initial assessment round - which included me individually assessing over 1200 pages - completed. I have tried to assess pages fairly and accurately. --Matthew UND (talk) 23:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow - 1200 pages! Nothing like a small state to generate a lot of articles!  Gawrsh, I'm even more proud to be from North Dakota!! -  NDCompuGeek 17:21, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

"Purpose and scope"
In an effort to clarify just what WPND is for, I've rewritten the old "Scope" section. The new "Purpose and scope" section now reads:


 * The purpose of WikiProject North Dakota is to enhance and expand North Dakota-related content on Wikipedia. This includes improving both the quality and quantity of such content. Quality is improved by making appropriate additions to and revisions of existing articles. Quantity is improved by the sensible creation of new articles for worthy subjects. A list of pages currently monitored by WikiProject North Dakota can be found here.

Just like everything on WPND pages, this can be altered in any way that other WPND members see fit. Let me know if you think this sounds like a decent statement and feel free to change it if you wish. --Matthew UND (talk) 06:07, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

North Dakota portal?
I've noticed that most other (OK - a lot of other) states also have a portal to highlight "their" state. Might anyone be interested in a ND portal? I'm already babysitting a portal (Portal:United States Air Force) and am highly involved in coordinating a project (WikiProject Musical Instruments), so I don't think that I would have the time. However, if someone else was to "manage" the portal, I'm sure I could at least assist setting it up.... - NDCompuGeek 01:11, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * A newsletter and a portal? So much to do, so little time to do it in! I don't have too much experience with portals, but that is certainly a good idea. I'm still interested in the newsletter idea. I think the first thing to do with that would be to find other WikiProject newsletters so we could base our's off of what other projects have done with that idea. Do you know of any WikiProject...specifically state WikiProjects...that have newsletters we could look at? --Matthew UND (talk) 08:08, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

←← For the Newsletter question, see my reply above. As for portals, from my experience, they're basically a "one day per month" kind of thing. I'm always scanning for stuff to put into the USAF portal, but I have to update it to be ready for the monthly change-over (which, according to my calculations, only occurs once per month...:-)). Once they initial layout is set up, it's just a matter of updating, and when time allows, tweaking the layout a bit here and there.  Of course, free time is a precious commodity, I understand, thus the collaborative efforts of the project to back-up the portal.... -  NDCompuGeek 17:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Great first newsletter, Matthew... Kind of made me jealous... :-) Anyway, if you want me to go forward on the ND portal, I can start getting the framework together for the outline of the portal. In my experience (limited though it may be), the background information and "skeleton" of the portal is actually more difficult to put together correctly than the content itself.  Of course, the content is much more important, but much easier to find and insert once a good framework has been built.  Anyway, I guess I'm saying "Volunteering for duty, boss.  What's your orders?"! - NDCompuGeek 03:27, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * You liked the first newsletter? Great! Please offer any constructive criticism you can think of. I think we should try to put out a newsletter about once a month. Now that I've got the basic template set up, it should be fairly easy to make future newsletters. As far as the portal goes, I would love to see you work on that. I'm not overly familiar with portals, but you seem to be so you would be a great person to devise the ND portal in my opinion. One question, do we need to propose the portal before we go ahead and build it? --Matthew UND (talk) 05:07, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll save the comments and such for the newsletter talk page.... As for the portal, there's no proposal needed, just start building it (which I will, over the course of the next few days!).  As soon as it's ready for a private viewing, I'll let everyone know here to check it out - and to be ready for some critiques.  I honestly love feedback (positive or negative, of course preferrably positive though), so don't be afraid to let the portal "have it" once it's ready!  - NDCompuGeek 10:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I've already sneaked a peak and it's looking good so far. I'll save any more specific comments for when you actually have it completed. I'm happy that you wanted to get this up and running! --Matthew UND (talk) 22:05, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

ND counties origins
I have noticed that most of the ND counties lack information about their origins in their infoboxes (Founded - information needed). I have found that this information is easily available on the official ND state website. I thought that project participants may find it useful and fill in the infoboxes. (I cannot go over each of the over 100 counties and fill the information myself). Regrads. Qblik 04:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Meetup?
Another totally unrelated question for all of the ND WikiProject: might anyone be interested in a meet-up for NoDaks (something named "WikiNoDak" or something equally as inane)? I was thinking about Minot, but there's always something going on here and logistically it may be a bit difficult, so out of fairness to all (and to stress the fact that it's the capital), what about Bismarck? It's not too awfully far from anyone (well, anywhere in the state is within a day's driving distance, but that's another matter entirely), somewhat geographically central, on I-94 (and US-83 and a plethora of other highways and biways), and could offer some good meeting locations.... Input please? - NDCompuGeek 03:27, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Grand Forks is a Featured Article candidate
Just a note to let all WPND members know that Grand Forks, North Dakota is a current Featured Article candidate. Visit Featured article candidates/Grand Forks, North Dakota to see what people are saying and to let your voice be heard. The article has been greatly improved since it was first nominated. worked very hard on adding references to the article and deserves a ton of credit for that. I'm rather doubtful that this nomination will pass, but I think it is very likely that a future one will. The article has really been improved and, I think, now deserves FA status. --Matthew UND (talk) 05:12, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Grand Forks is now a featured article. Thank you everyone that has contributed.-- milk the cows (Talk) 20:43, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Portal
Well, the North Dakota portal is almost ready for "prime-time" public viewing. I'm having a little problem filling in the "In the news" section for this month (and probably for a few months to come), and there'll always be updates to all the monthly rotating sections (ANY and ALL suggestions are greatly appreciated). If anyone has ideas, suggestions, comments, critiques, go ahead and leave it on the portal talk page. Don't forget that this is not "my" portal, but rather "our" portal - North Dakota's portal. - NDCompuGeek 02:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Very nice work; I don't know too much about portals but I will look it over.Weatherman90 21:59, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Grand Forks FAC
Grand Forks is once again a featured article candidate. If you would like to, please take the time to vote on the matter at the Grand Forks FAC page. --Matthew UND (talk) 21:04, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

WPND's new featured article
Grand Forks, North Dakota was just granted Featured Article status! --Matthew UND (talk) 07:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I requested it to be Today's Featured Article on the home page. Thank you everyone who has contributed to this article.-- milk the cows (Talk) 22:42, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Importance criteria
I'm glad to see that now we are going to start rating the importance of ND articles, but before we start adding importance ratings to the WPND banner in every article talk page, I think we should at least briefly discuss how the aricles should be rated. I believe that is what other WPs have done before they go ahead and do all of the ratings. The quality rating isn't very controversial, but the importance rating strikes me as something that could be much more in the eye of the beholder...aka controversial. I think WPMN would be a good WP to look at first to see how they went about rating the importance of their articles. --Matthew UND (talk) 03:20, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I started up the importance criteria yesterday, and I have been rating some of the articles. If you disagree with the rating I gave, you can change it anytime. Just leave a short reason in the edit summary. There is a sample importance scale on WP:1.0/Criteria to the right of this text, although use the ratings as related to North Dakota itself, not Wikipedia as a whole.

You can look at other state Wikiprojects like MatthewUND has just stated for examples on their rating systems.-- milk the cows (Talk) 20:47, 28 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think all city articles should be rated no less than Mid. Fargo and Bismarck should be Top; GF, Minot, Dickinson, Jamestown, etc. should be High; and all other articles for smaller cities should be Mid. When considering that we should be rating subject's importance in relation to North Dakota, I think all cities deserve at least a Mid rating...no Lows. Townships, defunct towns, etc are good fits for Low. That's the only thing I have a problem with so far. --Matthew UND (talk) 21:22, 28 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Jamestown should be a "Top" at the very least. If not more.  ;-)
 * Mitchberg 14:45, 1 August 2007 (UTC) (a J-town native, yes - why do you ask?)


 * I think we also need to come up with some guidline on how to rate people. Why should Angie Dickinson be Mid, but Eric Severeid be Low? --Matthew UND (talk) 21:40, 28 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the general guideline for rating people should go something like this (although allow exceptions):
 * Mid for people who are born (or spent much of their earlier life) in ND and contributed to a major role in their fame and connection to ND.
 * Low for those not born in ND but contributed to much of their life during fame in ND, or for those born in ND but minor contributors to history.


 * It's vaguely written since I haven't really thought of it, but there should be obvious exceptions (as to anything of the rules of Wikipedia).


 * For the cities my idea should go:
 * The four major cities as top (Fargo, Bismarck, GF, Minot)
 * Cities over 10,000 people as high (or cities smaller with some significance; e.g. Medora)
 * Everything else as mid
 * Townships, defunct towns, etc. as low.


 * Media articles (newspapers, TV and radio stations) should be low, with exceptions such as KVLY-TV, KXJB-TV (due to the fact their towers are the world's tallest man made structures respectively), and the four major cities' daily newspapers, which would all be mid.


 * No one has to agree with me, it's just an idea for now.-- milk the cows (Talk) 22:56, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm quite happy with most of the ratings so far. I really think we should come up with a fairly detailed list of where things belong. Please let me know what you think about my ideas which I've listed below. Of course, there would always be a few exceptions here and there. So far, my ideas mesh pretty good with the ratings MilkTheCows has been giving out. I would also love to see the lists that other people would come up with. Here goes...

Top importance
 * North Dakota
 * "X of North Dakota" (where X = things like music, politics, geography, etc.)
 * Bismarck (capital)
 * Fargo (largest city)
 * Grand Forks and Minot (rounding out the big four)
 * Missouri River and Red River (major rivers that played a key role in ND's development)
 * UND and NDSU
 * Highly notable areas (Badlands, Teddy Roosevelt National Park)

High importance
 * Other larger cities like Jamestown, Dickinson, Williston, Mandan, West Fargo...maybe also Valley City, Wahpeton, Grafton, Devils Lake, etc.
 * Grand Forks and Minot Air Force bases
 * Prominent elected government offices (the offices...not the people)
 * Lists of prominent politicians
 * Other colleges and universities
 * Notable buildings and places such as State Capitol, Peace Garden

Mid importance
 * Counties (perhaps a few larger ones deserve a higher rating?)
 * All remaining smaller cities (at least those currently incorporated) such as Hillsboro, Lincoln, Regent...you get the picture
 * "X of Grand Forks" or "X of Bismarck"...in other words, things like "History of Grand Forks" and "Geography of Minot"
 * Prominent elected politicians such as Governors, US Senators, US Representatives (not politicians like Tax Commissioners, Secretarys of State, etc.)
 * State government departments, etc.
 * All other elected and appointed government offices (the offices...not the people)
 * Lists of less prominent politicians
 * Notable buildings and structures such as Engelstad Arena, airports, tv masts, etc.
 * Major newspapers, a few major TV stations

Low importance
 * Townships
 * Defunct cities
 * Most other politicians and government officials, past and present (a few may deserve a higher rating)
 * Most other people associated with the state (a few, such as Lawrence Welk [just one example], perhaps deserve some sort of higher rating like Mid)
 * Radio and TV stations (a few may deserve a higher rating)
 * Elections
 * Military units
 * Most buildings
 * Most organizations
 * Most sports teams

That's what I have so far. I'm sure I've forgotten plenty of other kinds of articles. What do you think about these (very rough) proposals? --Matthew UND (talk) 06:41, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Admin nomination
I'm just mentioning that I nominated Matthewund for administrator. He has contributed to much of the North Dakota-related topics on Wikipedia.-- milk the cows (Talk) 02:48, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


 * My RfA was successful...thanks to milkthecows for nominating me! --Matthew UND (talk) 07:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

MatthewUND now an administrator
I, MatthewUND, was just granted administrator status. The final tally was 100% approval. I have always thought that WPND needs to have an administrator and now that is finally reality. In this new role, I hope to be a bigger help to the Wikipedia community in general and WPND in particular. If you ever need an admin, you know where to find one! BTW, thanks to those of you who took the time to vote participate in my RfA — it is appreciated.--Matthew UND (talk) 07:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

More places
Could we put more ND cities and towns on the to-do list? I believe that many of them could be expanded with paragraphs about history and attractions. TRBUFF 18:54, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * That section of the to-do list now includes a link to the ND city category. I think that is probably better than merely listing a few random cities at a time. I think we should be using Grand Forks, North Dakota as an example article to look at when we working on other ND city articles. I say this because that article is a featured article meaning it is well structured, is very thorough yet concise, and is extremely well sourced. --Matthew UND (talk) 22:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Newsletter Revision
I believe that on the WPND Newsletter, there are two articles that do not currently exist. They are Log Cabin Museum Sheyenne, North Dakota and Spirit Lake Casino. I request that they be taken off of the newsletter to lessen confusion. Thanks, TRBUFF 15:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I disagree that newsletters which have already been delivered should be edited. For one thing, old newsletters are not meant to necessarily carry current content. Instead, I see a previously delivered newsletter as a snapshot of where the WikiProject was in that point in time. Also, I have been delivering the newsletter in such a way that the newsletter is substituted on the user talk pages. This means that, if I wanted to change something in an old newsletter, I would have to change it on about 25 user talk pages...time consuming and not worth it. I believe that all old newsletters should be kept just the way they. --Matthew UND (talk) 20:58, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Good Point. TRBUFF 21:18, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Newsletter delivery method
Do you think it is better to use transclusion or substitution when delevering the newsletter each month? So far, I've been substituting it, but I'm starting to think that transclusion might be better. Any comments regarding this? --Matthew UND (talk) 07:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Portal:North Dakota/Symbols
Portal:North Dakota/Symbols is going to be moved to List of North Dakota state symbols on August 25. If you disagree with this move, please make your comments here.-- Crzycheetah 22:49, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

North Dakota Article Deletions
Is there anything that can be done about Jaranda's vandeta for persitance to get rid of North Dakota Sports articles? North Dakota is a small place but the people take pride in their high school annd college sports teams....Alex and Matt your the big wigs for the North Dakota project, is ther anything that can be done. I know wikipedia had it's rules, but it used to be fun working on aricles until all people have gotten picky. thanks Leopold Samsonite 04:48, 31 August 2007 (UTC)Leopold Samsonite


 * Leopold, I feel that we are kind of fighting a losing battle here. All of these articles will likely not make it though the AfD nominations. In regards to the high school sports articles, another user just suggested that we keep an article for each sport (ie North Dakota high school football), but merge all of the individual football articles into that one. That way, we would end up with just a few large articles instead of many small ones. I think that is a reasonable idea and I support it...I also think that would be the best outcome we could hope for here. In regards to the college sports articles, I'm much more inclined to try to save those. However, if worst came to worst, it would not be such a tragedy if we lost a few college sports articles in the process. I think the articles we simply must keep are UND and NDSU football, UND and NDSU basketball, UND hockey, and NDSU wrestling...those seem to be the most notable teams at both institutions. By the way, Alex and I are not "bigwigs"...there is no hierarchy of leadership within the project. Some of us are just more active (and bossy? lol) within the project than others. --Matthew UND (talk) 05:14, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I think active and bossy = big wigs, lol :D Leopold Samsonite 13:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)Leopold Samsonite

For those who haven't been following the recent AfDs, I'll fill you in on what the outcomes were. North Dakota State Bison baseball has been deleted. All of the individual ND high school sports articles have been deleted and their content moved to North Dakota High School Activities Association. I actually now think the one big NDHSAA article is much better than all of those individual articles. --Matthew UND (talk) 03:46, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead with importance criteria?
I realize we kind of put implementing the importance critera on the back burner...I thought some other WPNDers might come forward with their opinions of how the ratings should be implemented. Looks like that didn't happen. Since MilkTheCows' suggestions and my suggestions were very similar, should we go with the general rating system that I proposed (scroll up a bit to find this)? If so, we could start doing importance ratings on a much larger scale. It would be good to get this going. --Matthew UND (talk) 03:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Uff-Da Tazz 17:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Uffda what? --Matthew UND (talk) 23:29, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Who knows what he means by Uffda? All I say is to go ahead with the criteria. TRBUFF 23:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Just saying that its just some work, I guess I'm vastly lazy. I'm for it, lets get to work! Tazz 08:15, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

UND peer review
I recently started a peer review of the University of North Dakota article. Visit the UND peer review page here. This is part of an effort on my part to get the UND article listed as a Good Article and eventually a Featured Article. --Matthew UND (talk) 04:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Needed election researcher
What was the result of the special election held on July 10 1917 in the 1st US Congressional district? The best information I can find is from the New York Times archive and says that John M. Baer (Non-Partisan League) had a plurality of about 1,500 over Olger B. Burtness, Republican. I'm hoping someone knows how to find the certified election results. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 15:41, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

"Related portals"
What is the purpose of having the "Related portals" template at the end of the main WPND page? This is a WikiProject...not a portal. --Matthew UND (talk) 07:23, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

National Geographic Article Inclusion?
With all the buzz about the recent National Geographic "Emptied Prairie" article, I was wondering if it should be mentioned in the North Dakota article. Perhaps under something like "criticism" or something to that effect. Any thoughts? TRBUFF (talk) 01:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I also agree something should be said about this or at least notioned, its own section I don't know about that though. I heard about it all the way overseas from listening to AFN, they broadcast Ed Schultz of all people over here. The story was enough to make him go off on a tyraid about it. Tazz (talk) 14:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

AfD for Michael Brown
This is a heads up to all WPNDers that Michael Brown (mayor) is up for deletion. --Matthew UND (talk) 04:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandalized on the Minot, ND page
Can someone please clean up the vandalized nickname on the Minot, ND page. It is on the side and the wrong nickname information says the queefed city. Please put it back to the Magic City so that it stays. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.234.211.236 (talk) 20:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Created map of North Dakota Legislative Assembly Districts
Image:Map_of_North_Dakota%27s_Legislative_Districts.svg. I've added the map to both the ND Senate and ND House of Representatives articles. I also plan on making district-level maps of each district as well for individual legislator articles.Dcmacnut (talk) 05:22, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Non-Partisan League should be moved to Nonpartisan League
The Nonpartisan League, one of the most important political organizations in North Dakota history (described in the Encyclopedia of Third Parties in America as "perhaps the most successful third party in American history"), is misspelled as "Non-Partisan League" on the Wikipedia page describing it. This hyphenated spelling was never used by the organization's founders and hasn't been used by any historians writing about it. The spelling should be corrected with a page move from Non-Partisan League to Nonpartisan League. Also, non-partisan should be changed to nonpartisan everywhere on the page, including in the Northern Lights link at the bottom of the page. I am a new Wikipedia registrant (just registered today, 5/10/08), so I would appreciate it if someone who is familiar with page editing and page moves made these changes. If anyone objects, will you please say why? I have studied the League extensively during the past several years and I'm certain this change is needed. Thanks. Rls817 (talk) 20:03, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Charlemagne Tower
Good morning! I have recently completed an overhaul of the Charlemagne Tower page here on Wikipedia, and I feel that it may fall somewhat into the scope of a North Dakota Wikiproject, as he was owner of large tracts of land in Cass and Barnes Counties in the time after the Civil War, and the town of Tower City was named for him. I could not find specific instructions for a peer review on the main project page, so I was hoping that someone may be willing to take a look at it! Thanks in advance for all your help! Bowie60 (talk) 15:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
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Articles flagged for cleanup
Currently, 1817 articles are assigned to this project, of which 170, or 9.4%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 2008-07-14.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place a template on your project page.

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Question on townships
I'm working on creating stubs for all the townships in North Dakota, including defunct townships. See Adams County, North Dakota. I have a lot of historic population data and maps to expand beyond stub status, but I'm just getting stubs created for now.

Does anyone have information on how school townships were created, and what the difference between them and civil townships would be? U.S. Census information in the early years varies decade to decade, as many counties organized townships in stages. A lot of the counties used "school townships." Some school townships became civil townships with the same name and boundaries, but other's dissolved altogether and were merged with one or more civil townships. It's not that hard from the Census reports to show the evolution. I'm just curious how to describe or incorporated these school townships into the articles.DCmacnut &lt; &gt; 02:47, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Frederick (Doc) Zahl
Hope you guys can help getting the following piece added to the Wikipedia town of Zahl's "List of people from Zahl North Dakota".

My response to the deletion tage and the info about Doc Zahl starts: This bio talks about the person that the town of Zahl was named after and town write up thast was posted/approved by Wikipedia back in March of this year. The last line of my write up reflects that the town of Zahl was named after Doc Zahl who was a notible homesteader, Sheriff, US Marshal, Mayor of Williston ND........... "At the time of Doc's death, February 10, 1918, he was operating a large cattle ranch near the town in North Dakota which bears his name."

hope you can help out

take care

-doug blaisdell / SurfBikeSki

Frederick (Doc) Zahl

Doc Zahl had come to the United States from Germany in the early spring, 1868, with his brother, Frank. Doc went on to become a buffalo hunter and the "straightest shot in the West".

In 1874 gold was discovered in the Black Hills and by the spring of 1876 adventurers where invading Dakota Territory. Doc and Frank equipped themselves with a team, wagon camp outfit and rifles, and followed a wagon train southwest to Fort Sully. Here Doc shot his first buffalo – or tried to. It was after this attempt that Doc learned about the “buffalo paunch shot” – an unspectacular but successful way to make a buffalo kill. Doc used the buffalo carcass much as the Indians did. Buffalo meat taste like beef; skins provided a shelter and blankets’ the bone marrow was cooked into a thick substance call Indian butter. It was reported by one skinner that Doc shot 127 buffalo in an hour. During the summer of 1877 the United States Army hired the Zahl brothers to rebury the soldiers who fell on the Custer battlefield or better know as the banks of the Little Big Horn. For fourteen years Doc had a stint as a sheriff in and around Morris, Minnesota, as well as an US Marshal.

The buffalo, hunted in greater numbers on both the Plains and the Southwest, were constantly on the move, their natural habits disturbed. In the summer of 1883 these great animals were expected to migrate from Canada but by the end of August the buffaloes had not returned to the Dakota Territory. By December, 1883, everyone realized that the days of the outright buffalo slaughter had ended

At the time of Doc's death, February 10, 1918, he was operating a large cattle ranch near the town in North Dakota which bears his name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SurfBikeSki (talk • contribs) 15:09, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for North Dakota
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Magic Fund (Minot) entry
Hello all. I am preparing some edits for the MAGIC Fund (Minot) entry to bring it up to date and remove what I think may be some bias. There are no citations in the article, and I'd like to give the original contributor a shot at coming up with them. The page was tagged around the beginning of Nov. for not having thorough citations/references. Will anybody look into this? Thanks! Skaf3 (talk) 01:55, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

North Dakota articles needing geographic coordinates
 articles in Category:North Dakota articles missing geocoordinate data do not have geographic coordinates. Coords are useful for making the article appear on Google Maps & many other mapping services; and they allow our users to click through to see the article subject location on a map. There's a short guide to on how to add geocodes to articles ... it really is very easy to do. I hope you'll take some time to ensure that North Dakota is as well represented as it can be on wikipedia by fixing up the listed articles. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:36, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Magic Fund (Minot) again
I've made some updates and additions to the MAGIC Fund article that I thought you all in Project North Dakota might like to look over. I will continue to tighten and edit the page, but please feel free to help out! As I mentioned above, some of the original info I was not able to find citations for. If I hear nothing in the next week or so I will start deleting some of the uncited info that seems bias. Feel free to contact me through my talk page or on the MAGIC Fund discussion page. Thanks! Skaf3 (talk) 04:30, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Requested move notification
I have requested the move of Empire Builder to Empire Builder (Amtrak). Reasons given at the talk page. Mjroots (talk) 14:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Milestone Announcements
I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 (t, c) 22:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group
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KXJB, KVLY, Valley News Live
Just wondering what the reasoning is for wanting to merge KXJB-TV and KVLY-TV's articles? Similar news sharing operations are in effext all over the country and none of those are being or have been merged. KXJB and KVLY are two seperate entities that need to have thier own pages. Should KXJB for example get sold to a new owner who chooses to end the LMA with KVLY, Valley News Live would no longer suit as an accurate article for the two stations.

For that, I recommend that KXJB-TV and KVLY-TV's articles be left as is and not merged into one collective article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Igod92 (talk • contribs) 16:43, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation
This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:52, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

The Fort Mandan Article
The article states that Fort Mandan "was located above the beginning passage of the Snake River". I've never heard of such a river in North Dakota (I live in NY State), and searched around a little on Google and couldn't find it. Is there such a river?

DougP1 (talk) 12:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Wounded Knee Massacre
Why is this part of the North Dakota Project when it took place in South Dakota? Vettrock (talk) 12:46, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I've added WP South Dakota that article. That appears to have been an oversight. But listing it under North Dakota is probably appropriate. The 7th Calvary that carried out the massacre was garrisoned at Fort Abraham Lincoln in North Dakota, but the defeat of Custer at Big Horn, which many historians credit as the trigger for the massacre, happened with both states were part of Dakota Territory. Since the history of Wounded Knee is tied to North Dakota, it's probably OK that it's part of both projects even though the actual event happened in South Dakota. Just my opinion.DCmacnut &lt; &gt; 14:20, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Courthouse Photos
I propose that photos of all North Dakota county courthouses be added to their respective article, and possibly the corresponding county seat article. This would serve to beautify the article and serve as a visual representation of the county. Help is needed adding them to their respective county pages by adding the following to the County Infobox template


 * ex image     =   courthouse image filename.jpg


 * ex image cap =   xxx County Courthouse in xxxx, North Dakota

The following counties do not have courthouse photos. Contributors may want to cross them off once a photo is taken and uploaded. --Ichabod (talk) 03:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

photo request near Bismarck
Someone is requesting a photo of a rare power line intersection located about 40 mi ENE of Bismarck at Talk:High-voltage direct current. [Maps] Since it is unlikely anyone here would notice the request, I am posting here, especially since this is the most likely group able to take a photo. Thanks. —EncMstr (talk) 16:24, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Done today. --Wtshymanski (talk) 02:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)



Hi-res public domain county atlases
For anyone interested, the Library of Congress has high-resolution scanned atlases of the following counties. Includes detailed images for each township, town, village, and city in the counties.DCmacnut &lt; &gt; 20:23, 14 October 2009 (UTC)


 * (public domain because it was published between 1923 and 1966 and copyright was not renewed)

WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Problem with locator map of New Town?
I was contacted by someone off Wikipedia who is concerned that the locator map of New Town, ND "is nowhere near correct." I told him that I saw nothing wrong with the map, since it matches the Census maps off which it was based. But I said I would come here for a second opinion. Could someone take a look?DCmacnut &lt; &gt; 19:18, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Never-mind. The person responded back saying he was reading the map wrong.DCmacnut &lt; &gt; 21:42, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Weisser Academy of Arithmetic (Hazen, ND) has been nominated for deletion
The article for the Weisser Academy of Arithmetic states that the Academy is in Hazen, ND. I have nominated the article for deletion because I suspect it is a hoax. Please join in the discussion at Articles for deletion/Weisser Academy of Arithmetic. You are probably the group of Wikipedians best equipped to determine whether or not this article should be deleted. Thanks. --Susfele (talk) 14:00, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

New article in project's scope
The article Mid-June 2010 tornado outbreak has been placed under WikiProject Minnesota as a result of the high impact to the state. Any editors from this wikiproject interested in helping with the article are welcome to do so. Thanks, Ks0stm (T•C•G) 16:13, 18 June 2010 (UTC)