User talk:Bgwhite/Archive 1

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Welcome

Welcome!
Hello and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. The following links will help you begin editing on Wikipedia:

Please bear these points in mind while editing Wikipedia:

The Wikipedia Tutorial is a good place to start learning about Wikipedia. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and discussion pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~ (the software will replace them with your signature and the date). Again, welcome! Jezhotwells (talk) 21:42, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

File permission problem with File:Chestefield Idaho Meeting House.JPG

Thanks for uploading File:Chestefield Idaho Meeting House.JPG. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file agreed to license it under the given license.

If you created this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either

  • make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
  • Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here.

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Nyttend (talk) 15:45, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

File permission problem with File:Chesterfield Idaho Ira Call Cabin.jpg

Thanks for uploading File:Chesterfield Idaho Ira Call Cabin.jpg. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file agreed to license it under the given license.

If you created this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either

  • make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
  • Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here.

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Nyttend (talk) 15:45, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

File permission problem with File:Chesterfield Idaho Denmark Jensen House.JPG

Thanks for uploading File:Chesterfield Idaho Denmark Jensen House.JPG. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file agreed to license it under the given license.

If you created this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either

  • make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
  • Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here.

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Nyttend (talk) 15:45, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

South Jordan

{{User:Chzz/tb|Feedback on South Jordan, Utah}} 00:55, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I've added more stuff  Chzz  ►  01:54, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I have promoted South Jordan, Utah to a B-class article, because I feel that it currently meets the requirements of that class, as defined in WP:ASSESS. Congratulations.  Chzz  ►  05:33, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
P.S. The discussion on my talk is now archived, User_talk:Chzz/Archive_19#Feedback_on_South_Jordan.2C_Utah  Chzz  ►  07:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Harvard II

You have new messages
You have new messages
Hello, Bgwhite. You have new messages at Chzz's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{user:chzz/tb}} template.    File:Ico specie.png

 Chzz  ►  14:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

South Jordan sourcing

Glad to help. Maybe it's just the terminology that's confusing. You've already used quite a bit of inline sourcing in the article. "Inline" refers to the positioning in the text itself. Clicking on the reference number takes a reader to the related note, which should cite an external (external to Wikipedia) reliable source (as defined by WP:RS). So rather than being two different things, inline citations to external sources are two parts of a single thing. Does that make sense, or am I misunderstanding your question? Finetooth (talk) 02:02, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah, looking again at the review, I see that my comments on the two sections in question were a bit too brief. I've added explanatory notes saying that I wasn't doubting your sources; I was noting that some paragraphs and claims have no cited sources. Finetooth (talk) 02:08, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes, you need inline citations to external reliable sources for supporting claims in any Wikipedia article. The wikilinks to other Wikipedia articles are useful to readers, but they are not the same as external sources. Wikipedia is not a reliable external source; one part (article) of itself can't be a source for another part (another article) of itself. WP:RS says, "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." It's fine to read other Wikipedia articles for background information and to comb their reference sections for reliable external sources. However, if you plan to cite any of those sources, you should read them first to ascertain what is truly relevant to the article you are writing. Those sources may have useful information that other editors did not think important for their purposes; those sources may mention other sources that you'll find helpful but which might have been irrelevant to another article and hence not mentioned or cited directly. You have to do your own research, in other words, and make judgments about what's important enough to include. Please ping me again if this is still unclear. Finetooth (talk) 03:50, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Here's a more succinct explanation from WP:CIRCULAR: "Articles and posts on Wikipedia, or on websites that mirror its content, should not be used as sources, as this would amount to Wikipedia citing itself, a self-reference." Finetooth (talk) 03:59, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't normally look over the changes to the pages I've reviewed at PR. If you nominate the article for GA at some point, the process will be more formal, and the reviewer will no doubt check corrections before promoting or not promoting. PR is pretty informal. I'd be happy to answer questions, though, if you have any. Finetooth (talk) 23:18, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

South Jordan

I've never tried to promote anything to FA, but my suggestion would be to read WP:WIAFA. Basically, it's stricter than GA. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 18:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Survey

A new user asked for help in getting some Wikipedians to complete this survey - anonymous, and only for research. If you have a few spare minutes, perhaps you could complete it. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  06:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

help with Chesterfield Idaho page

You have new messages
You have new messages
Hello, Bgwhite. You have new messages at Chzz's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{user:chzz/tb}} template.    File:Ico specie.png

 Chzz  ►  03:04, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Now archived, User_talk:Chzz/Archive_20#help_with_Chesterfield_Idaho_page  Chzz  ►  12:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, thanks, i just checked and i did receive the Chesterfield NRHP documents by email. Will use them to add to the article later, have to run now. Thanks! --doncram (talk) 18:04, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Jordan RIver PR

I will be glad to take a look at it again but it may take me a few days. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 03:16, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I made some more comments on the PR. It looks better but still needs some work. I saw the chinchilla picture originally as an act of vandalism in the Laura Chinchilla article (that version was later deleted as a duplicate of the Commons image). About the same time I learned how to make a page for people editing my talk page and thought the image was funny and the chinchillas were cute, so I used it. Do not own any of them, but they are very cute. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 16:09, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Jordan River (Utah)/GA1

Hi, I have reviewed the article you nominated for GA at Talk:Jordan River (Utah)/GA1. I enjoyed the article very much and only have a few comments for you to address. Best wishes, Xtzou (Talk) 21:41, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Peer review - Jordan River (Utah)

Thank you for contacting me, I'd be more than happy to start a really thorough peer review. And of course, for a US article I'll make sure to leave all of the pesky Canadian extra "U"s out of things like colour, neighbour, and harbour! I make a point of saying to editors "I've got a few irons in the fire, blah blah, might take a few days" when I do PRs, but it usually ends up that I review them within a day or two. I'll try to get started on it later tonight. Looking forward to working with you! Jhfortier (talk) 20:51, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Comments on FA

Hello Bgwhite. I just wanted to let you know that I'm following the FA review of Jordan River, and I now understand what you meant when you said they can be ego destroying. I'd honestly never looked at an FA review before, and didn't understand quite what was involved in the process. In all, I think you're doing really well in complying with their suggestions, and I hope you get FA status for the article. Best of luck! Jhfortier (talk) 06:39, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

From what I understand, a lot of the 'status' symbols on Wikipedia (FAs, adminship) are rather political -- I've made a point of just staying the heck out of most of that stuff. What's most important, I think, is that the Jordan River article is well-sourced, reasonably well-written, and very informative for anyone who wants to learn more about it. Although FA is a great badge for the article, and a recognition of your hard work, I'd say it's a pretty useful thing the way it is now. Just my two cents worth! As always, if you need another review in the future, just holler. It's been really lovely working with you. Jhfortier (talk) 06:29, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

List of Governors of Utah

Hey Bgwhite. There seems to be a lot debate over the format of your List of Governors of Utah nomination at FLC. I'd recommend you withdraw the nomination and work on it with those who are discussing such large format changes before renominating? Just a suggestion, as right now, it won't be promoted. What do you think? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, will be commencing a a two-month trial at approximately 23:00, 2010 June 15 (UTC).

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under flagged protection. Flagged protection is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:04, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Jordan River

I just noticed that you'd responded to my query about the new map and the locked Google doc, and I saw that Sandy had just closed the nom and that Kmusser had weighed in with further suggestions about the map. Please don't be upset by the closing or take it personally. The article is very good, and it's clear you have put a lot of effort into it. I would characterize it as nearly FA, and I think you can use the suggestions from the FAC to improve it to FA quality. I will be glad to continue to help, if you like, and I'm sure others will too. You can ping me on my talk page at any time, and further discussion about details could easily continue on the article's talk page. If this were my article, I would just keep working on it until the reviewers seemed satisfied, and then I'd re-nominate sometime after the two-week minimum. By the way, I agree with Shannon1 that the new watershed map (when finished) should go into the geobox and an image should go in the geobox too. Finetooth (talk) 20:03, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

That all sounds good except for the "godfather" part. I make no such claim for myself. :-) I'll take a look right now at the map, but I thought I'd better say that I don't think it would be good to add more comments to the FAC page since it's officially closed. A bot will complete the archiving process, but that may take a while. WP:FAC/ar has details. Finetooth (talk) 21:48, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry to hear about your father. I was wondering why you had gone silent, and now I know. I'll look again at the article later today or tomorrow (Friday) and post a note to the article's talk page to avoid cluttering your user page. I haven't looked at the Jordan River article since we last exchanged notes, and I'm not sure where it stands. The newspaper article you sent the link to is interesting, though the news is sad. Streams are in trouble in many places. Finetooth (talk) 22:48, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
My deepest sympathies on your loss too - saw what you wrote on Finetooth's talk page. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 02:34, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Jordan River dam image

Yes. I posted a note about this image to the article's talk page. I'm glad to see that the USGS really did publish this first so it is indeed free. And yes, you will need to remove the writing that the historical society added to the face of the image. I looked for Flikr images of the Jordan River in Utah and found some, but no suitable ones were licensed as free. In a real pinch, it's possible to write to a photographer whose image on Flikr you would like to use and ask him or her to re-license as cc-by-sa with no restrictions on derivatives or commercial use. I think the USGS image looks pretty good in the geobox, but you could put anything you like in there and use the USGS image elsewhere. Finetooth (talk) 20:59, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

John W. Gallivan

Thanks for your input on my article on Jack Gallivan. After incorporating your suggestions, I have moved it out of user space into main space. Thanks again.--Thelema12 (talk) 04:48, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with the citations. --Thelema12 (talk) 04:28, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

re

Thanks for the kind words. :) I've gone through several phases over my last six years of editing, and one of my earliest phases was obsessively making those somewhat awesome tables for the congressional delegations. I sadly haven't really touched them in about five years, though. The governor list thing is something I started about two and a half years ago, slowly working my way through them. :) I'll take a look at Utah's; due to its young history and small size, it shouldn't be too difficult. (Virginia was a killer, in every way. Not just because it's one of the oldest 13 states, and not just because it used to be proportionally big; so were New York and Pennsylvania. But it was the only large state that seceded, making the civil war split the most complicated of them all.) --Golbez (talk) 21:34, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll take a look at Washington, and you take a look at Florida and see if anything else needs doing before I throw it to the wolves. --Golbez (talk) 06:13, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
As for the other offices table, case by case. List of Governors of Colorado, for example, would make no sense whatsoever to include the congressional columns. In the end, we may get rid of them, but right now only on the obvious cases. I think Florida counts. --Golbez (talk) 00:38, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
And as for '(territorial)', etc... I'm starting to wonder if we even need that term column. It's redundant to the main table... --Golbez (talk) 00:56, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
"All 14 governors was an H or an S" Take a look: [1] Only eight represented the state of Florida in either the House or Senate (and that's what the congressional columns are for, Florida only), and six of those did only that and no other office, leading to a lopsided table - the top half is all other offices and almost no congressional, the bottom half is all congressional and then a giant empty cell. Combining congressional with other offices made, at the very least, aesthetic sense. Incidentally, your version contained some errors: [2], you mark Call as being in the House when he was only a territorial delegate (technically a member of the House but needs clarification), you mark Branch as representing Florida in both (he didn't), and you mark Marvin and Broward as being Senators, when they never took their seat and therefore should not be marked as such. (Though I did omit Graham's asterisk) --Golbez (talk) 05:15, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps confusion over the congressional column is another reason to work to omit it. :) It goes with the intro that says "Congressmen represented Florida unless otherwise noted." Can't note in the column, so I was hoping people would assume the column meant that state. --Golbez (talk) 05:56, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Congrats

Congratulations on the FA star for Jordan River (Utah). I was very pleased to see that it made it on this go-round. Finetooth (talk) 04:46, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind words. I was glad to help, and I hope you continue to add interesting articles to the encyclopedia. As to the "significant" bit, if I had been a truly significant contributor, my support would have constituted a conflict of interest at FAC. I thought about this before supporting and decided that, nope, it wasn't that significant. I feel certain that you can improve other articles to FA with no help whatsoever from me. Finetooth (talk) 05:35, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Hey I just saw this, hooray! congrats, klaxons, etc etc! Also thanks for all the info about a river I never really knew anything about. Pfly (talk) 08:51, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

re Utah delegations

Why did you change the map? The new one has District 3 randomly colored in, and the old one helped illustrate the delegation, while the current one does not. --Golbez (talk) 18:47, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

re Infobox

It's not that I hate infoboxes. But that one being on the List of Governors of Alaska is necessarily temporary; eventually, hopefully soon, there will be an article on the office itself, whereupon the infobox can move to its proper home. An infobox should exist only in one place, so if there's a main article, it should be there and not on the list article.

I'm using Firefox too, and what happened was, {stack} moved them as far right as it could - but it only got as far as the edge of the infobox, so they weren't flush with the right. Using a div float right ignores the infobox, floating around it. Maybe it's the different resolution we're running at. --Golbez (talk) 20:31, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

No problems that I've noticed so far. I keep an extremely vigilant eye on the 100% completed lists alphabetically (in other words, everything in the alphabet up to Florida; I ignore the ones after that once they're done until I get back to them, because PA, NY, etc. were done with the old version of the template and I don't care to look at them at the moment. I'll get around to them again eventually to review and make sure they're up to my standards. =p) and apart from the image issue in Alaska and an errant Arkansaw fix, it seems fine.
And yes, that means the next one is Georgia, and I'm not looking forward to what will be the first state in my oeuvre that was both a colony and Confederate. Gonna be long and complicated. --Golbez (talk) 21:35, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

PhpGedView

I think you've had plenty of time now to see that I had discussed the tags on the talk page moments before you reverted them, so I've gone ahead and restored the tags. --Ronz (talk) 00:28, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Um, under 45 minutes is not plenty of time and leaving a couple of wikilinks is not discussing. Bgwhite (talk) 04:09, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I left you the simple message above noting that you had removed the tags within seconds of my discussing them on the article talk page. I'd assumed that you saw the tags but not the related comments. Now that you've removed the tags again after responding to my comments, I'm at a loss as to what you think such tags are for. --Ronz (talk) 16:13, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Sheesh! With this sort of nonsense overkill going on over a simple message, Wikipedia is on my 'don't go there' list! Pfblair (talk) 05:13, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Venus in the Cloister

I reverted your changes because the odd spellings are in quotes from an older style of English. Funnily enough this is the second time this month I've had to do that... Kenilworth Terrace (talk) 16:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I apologize for making the error. My policy is not to revert misspelling in quotations.
I was using AWB to look for misspellings of "it self". AWB is a cool tool that I started using to correct all my dumb mistakes. When I don't feel like working on an article, I use AWB to correct mistakes on other articles.
When using AWB, the user doesn't see the past history of the article, so the user doesn't know what the history comments say. As two of us have made the mistake on the article, you may want to add the sic template. When AWB encounters a sic template, AWB alerts the user to be extra careful in making edits... there are correct textual errors in the article that shouldn't be changed. Bgwhite (talk) 06:19, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
I understand -- thanks for that. Kenilworth Terrace (talk) 16:28, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

re changes

I noticed 'term of office' had been added to some governor tables, and realized that made sense, since they actually do have a set term, though it can end prematurely, whereas territorial governors serve at the feds' leisure, so 'took office' made more sense. I dunno. It's a minor thing.

I also added prose to the 'higher offices' tables and removed the tiny text about the symbols, removed '(territorial)' et.al. from the lower tables as being redundant, and decided to cap italicized entries in the table; while I personally think "vacant" etc. looks better, I think people prefer having it "Vacant". --Golbez (talk) 12:47, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The only time I've seen such citations is in articles I've helped make featured, and I've never heard any complaints. :) I got the formatting from [3], taking that style for citing the U.S. Constitution and simply adapting it for others. --Golbez (talk) 12:12, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Bgwhite. You have new messages at Dabomb87's talk page.
Message added 14:02, 26 August 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Non-free files in your user space

Hey there Bgwhite, thank you for your contributions. I am a bot, alerting you that non-free files are not allowed in user or talk space. I removed some files I found on User:Bgwhite/Sandbox. In the future, please refrain from adding fair-use files to your user-space drafts or your talk page.

  • See a log of files removed today here.

Thank you, -- DASHBot (talk) 05:01, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Bgwhite. You have new messages at Courcelles's talk page.
Message added 12:13, 1 September 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Talkback

Hello, Bgwhite. You have new messages at Dabomb87's talk page.
Message added 22:12, 2 September 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

re tag/ref

I saw on List of Governors of New York you added a lot of {{#tag:ref|...|group="note"}} tags where there were no citations. Those are only needed if there are nested <ref> tags. Otherwise, a simple <ref group="note">...</ref> is sufficient and desirable. --Golbez (talk) 18:42, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Main page apperance

Hello! This is a note to let the main editors of this article know that it will be appearing as the main page featured article on November 22, 2010. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 22, 2010. If you think that it is necessary to change the main date, you can request it with the featured article director, Raul654 (talk · contribs). If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :D Thanks! TbhotchTalk C. 07:01, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Rubber rabbitbrush along Jordan River Parkway near Salt Lake City, Utah

The Jordan River is a stream, about 51 miles (82 km) long, in the U.S. state of Utah. Regulated by pumps at its headwaters at Utah Lake, it flows northward through the Salt Lake Valley and empties into the Great Salt Lake. Four of Utah's five largest cities—Salt Lake City, West Valley City, West Jordan and Sandy—border the river. More than a million people live in the Jordan Subbasin, which is the part of the Jordan River watershed that lies within Salt Lake and Davis counties. During the Pleistocene, the area was part of Lake Bonneville. Members of the Desert Archaic Culture were the earliest known inhabitants of the region; an archaeological site found along the river dates back 3,000 years. Mormon pioneers led by Brigham Young were the first European-American settlers, arriving in July 1847 and establishing farms and settlements along the river and its tributaries. The growing population, needing water for drinking, irrigation, and industrial use in an arid climate, dug ditches and canals, built dams, and installed pumps to create a highly regulated river. (more...)

Congratulations

Congrats on the above. As I said a few months ago, I was glad to help, though you are the one who deserves the kudos. I hope you are working on other articles. The Virgin River is quite interesting, but its article is only "start" class. There's one for you, in case you have a lot of time on your hands. :-) Finetooth (talk) 00:48, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Farnsworth & Tomblin

Under the earlier West Virginia Constitution, the governship was filled upon death, resignation or removal from office. However, under the current West Virginia Constitution (article #7, section 16) the office of Governor remains vacant until the next gubernatorial inauguration (which follows the next gubernatorial election or special gubernatorial election). The State Constitution has the finaly say. GoodDay (talk) 05:41, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Moved discussion to relevant talk page. Bgwhite (talk) 06:16, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Utah Territory's At-large congressional district

I'm going to guess you are fairly new and don't yet know how to find similar pages to review. In that light, take a look at these:
New Mexico Territory's At-large congressional district
Wyoming Territory's At-large congressional district
Montana Territory's At-large congressional district
Colorado Territory's At-large congressional district
Oklahoma Territory's At-large congressional district

I could go on and on. Every United States Territorial page has it's own distinct information and is not linked to a page with additional information. There are loads of things for you to do on Wikipedia. Let me know if you need some suggestions.....Pvmoutside (talk) 16:28, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

For removing the somewhat silly mentions of unsourced courtesy titles. older ≠ wiser 12:34, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Charles E. Laughton

Hi! Thanks for creating a new article. However, the article you have written does not currently cite and sources. Please add some to the article, so that the information in it can be verified. Thanks, Brambleclawx 22:26, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Bgwhite. You have new messages at Dabomb87's talk page.
Message added 22:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

List of Oregon state symbols

The symbols you added to the list are not official symbols, as they were not adopted by the state. Feel free to add an "Unofficial symbols" section above or below "Unsuccessful proposals" if you wish to introduce information about other symbols related to Oregon that are not official. --Another Believer (Talk) 21:30, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The previous three FL symbol lists have the nickname and slogan. Nickname and slogan were not mentioned in FLC as needed to be add or removed. They are on Lists of United States state insignia. I see nowhere that shouldn't be added, only they should be added where I added them. I listed the nickname year as "traditional", as to know it is not a law. I can also list slogan as not a law. They do not have to go into a separate section.
I could not find A reference that stated medowlark was state bird in all states given. The link was broken anyway, so I removed it. Should I have removed the entire statement instead?
Thanks for deleting ALL the changes I made. Bgwhite (talk) 00:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
You are welcome to take this discussion to the talk page for List of Oregon state symbols or the WikiProject Oregon talk page so that we can get additional feedback from other editors. Following is the Oregon list's first sentence: "The U.S. state of Oregon has 25 official emblems, as designated by the Oregon State Legislature." Adding unofficial symbols changes the entire dynamic of this list. I have no problem with unofficial symbols being incorporated into an "Unofficial symbols" section, but adding them to an official list is inappropriate in my opinion. For another FL list with unofficial symbols, see List of Washington state symbols. --Another Believer (Talk) 01:06, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
(By the way, I just saw your comment on Dabomb's talk page. I appreciate your kind words, and please do not take this as an attack on your work. I strongly believe that your contributions are in good faith, and I'd be happy to work with you on state symbols lists if you are interested. Like Dabomb said, the Oregon and Washington lists were promoted more recently--frankly the other lists could be updated to reflect newer preferences and for the sake of consistency.) Also, your edits are saved in the article's history so we can pull information from your past contributions if need be. You can view details about the state symbols "project" I am working on by clicking on the "Projects" tab on my profile. --Another Believer (Talk) 01:09, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
I went ahead and added unofficial symbols to the section at the bottom of the list, similar to the Washington list. If you wish to expand to add additional unofficial symbols, feel free to add to the list or let me know! --Another Believer (Talk) 02:08, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
Maryland, Indiana and Kentucky symbols were on a list to be fixed up or deleted. One had been done and I did the other two and made all three follow the same format... I try to fix and bring up to current standards a minimum of two FL articles before I submit an article for FLC. This time around was Indiana Symbols and congressional delegations from Indiana. I moved to Oregon symbols to make a consistent look. When you said, "Single, sortable table preferred (see FLC)", I thought you meant one of the unwritten rules of FL candidacy and not Oregon's actually FLC....that is why I asked Dabomb.
I personally like the multiple tables as it is "easier" to digest on the eyes than a single table. But, the single table won out in Oregon's FLC, that's why I didn't dispute it. I think any unofficial symbols should go into a separate table and not in a paragraph... I haven't found a state's nickname or slogan to be official for any state and some states have more unofficial symbols. Indiana has 4 and Utah has atleast 3. Indiana and Utah have symbols that were passed by legislative resolution and not into law... I guess that is not official. I just submitted Governors of Washington to FLC (it's just above your 4958th Grammy article on the FL candidacy list). My next plan was Utah's symbols and Governors of Oregon. I was planning on doing more symbol lists, so I'd be glad to help you out in any was on the symbol lists. Bgwhite (talk) 21:36, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
In my opinion, the three lists you just mentioned need improvement to reach the standards of the Oregon and Washington lists (that is completely independent of the fact that I promoted those two lists to FL status--they simply contain more facts, stronger leads, more references, etc). I think that a single table is more appropriate as it can be sorted and the order of sections seem somewhat arbitrary by making some symbols more important than others. Also, I believe it is crucial to separate official and unofficial symbols. I have no problem with having a table for the "Unofficial symbols" section--it just happens that the Oregon and Washington lists only have a couple so it was easier to construct prose than tables. I know nothing about Governors lists, but I believe some have been promoted to FL status so it is probably worth examining those. Hopefully I will get around to improving the Maryland, Kentucky and Indiana symbols lists. In the meantime (just to make the FLC nomination process easier and for the sake of consistency) I would mimic the Oregon and Washington symbols lists since they have been promoted much more recently than the other three. --Another Believer (Talk) 21:50, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
I'll bring up MD, IN, and KY to same format as OR. However, I'm an extremely horrible writer, so you should definitely copy-edit and add any missing prose. (I added the descriptions to the symbols... the writing would probably make any English teacher cry.) If Governor of Washington passes FLC, it will be my 3rd FL governor list. I think that makes 24 FL governor lists overall. I brought up 10-15 to current standards... so I've been at it for a bit. I work under a "benevolent dictator" whose been at the Governor lists for a few years. 22:48, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
Hah! Forgive me for not knowing that you had already worked on so many FL lists. As for the official vs. unofficial lists, I would say that if a state legislative body has formally adopted a symbol then it is official. Different states may adopt symbols differently. I would just always try to state how states were adopted (by resolution, state legislature, etc. Unofficial symbols would be those not adopted by a legislative body but just well-known. I hope that helps! I try to include an "Unsuccessful proposals" section as well to provide additional historical perspective, and because sometimes there are interesting "battles" over getting particular symbols to be adopted. Best of luck with the symbols lists (feel free to use the OR and WA lists as much as possible) and governors lists! --Another Believer (Talk) 03:31, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Ralph Butler

I'm curious as to where Ralph Butler's death date came from. Any more information? There seems to be virtually nothing about him online. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:16, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Crap, forgot to give the reference. I just put the reference in the article. Double crap, put the date in the metadata tag and not the article itself.... I've correct about 75 "living" tag on article talk pages, I think it is time to stop. Death date was in a few other papers under Google news archive. That was about all I could find about him. Bgwhite (talk) 08:28, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
Better than nothing! Thanks - gives us something to work on, at least. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
You're probably more Welsh than I am - I only live 200 yards inside the border, and I was born and have lived most of my life in England (but, going back a few generations, most of my ancestors were Welsh). Hope you make it over here / down here / across here one day! Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:48, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Re:List of Indiana state symbols

Hey, thanks for working on the Maryland and Kentucky lists, no hard feeling on the changes to the Indiana one. I'm usually a stickler for consistency across articles, but it does get quite sticky when two FLs have different formats, as you saw. I'm not too concerned about these ones being the same as the Oregon list, though. Really, I don't think state symbols are the kind of thing that people would sort, so I don't see the need for a single table. Also, since the pie seems to be the only unofficial symbol, I wouldn't want to split it that way. And on the FLC for the congressional delegations list, someone mentioned the background colors. While the governors lists have a narrow column to show party, these have so many that it seems cluttered. I prefer the full backgrounds, but I won't change it back if you like it this way. Reywas92Talk 02:35, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

No hard feelings on my part either. I actually prefer how Indiana is done over Oregon... It's easier on my eyes and easier to find info. In my opinion, I've only found a very few instances where sorting absolutely should be done and almost all are on very longs lists. I'll take Utah Symbols to FL after Washington's Governors works its way thru FLC and hopefully the mighty consensus can figure out what to do. Technically, most state nicknames and slogans are not official symbols.... However, if doing a multi-table format like Indiana's, unofficial symbols shouldn't be slit up. But, I would mention in the description cell that pie is unofficial, not a law, and was only a simple resolution. I've gotten used to the narrow, colored column to show parties, so I'm not one to ask if it seems cluttered or not. For some colorblind people, red colors can show up as black.... If you have black text with a red background, you can't see the text. Here is a link that explains it better than I ever could. In the Senate table, I couldn't figure out how to split a congressional term between two Senators (not Representatives). Example, James Noble dies and Robert Hanna takes his seat in the 22nd Congress. I could figure for some, but not others. I had same problem with the old colored background style too. Bgwhite (talk) 06:50, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Referencing Leogrande - a tutorial?

Hi - I'd appreciate being advised on the referencing. You can contact me through www.josephpapp.com (I'd prefer to correspond via email if possible.) Thanks.Joep01 (talk) 21:58, 12 February 2011 (UTC) UPDATE: can you also help me release a photo from my own archives into the public domain so that others can use it as they see fit in editing my article or however else they want, in the media for example? Joep01 (talk) 22:06, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi - Thanks for the information you provided. I will review and use it at next opportunity, and will contact you w/ any questions. Cheers. Joep01 (talk) 18:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

First Transcontinental Railroad

Your sorting of the project tags resulted in changing the Nevada rating. If you are going to do this, you need to move the entire tag and not just a part. Also, sorting is not always desirable since some projects may consider the order important. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:11, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Yea, I goofed and forgot to move the entire tag. I do usually move it. Projects should be sorted in alphabetical order except for biography, which should always be first... It is done in alphabetical to stop projects always clamoring that they are more important than other projects. Bgwhite (talk) 21:11, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

AWB edit suggestion

I noticed you made some changes with AWB such as the ones you made to Yasha Khalili and I wanted to mention that I just had my AWB access revoked and have an ANI discussion currently about changes more significant so you might want to be careful with the edits you are making so the same doesn't happen to you. Happy editing. --Kumioko (talk) 00:55, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the head up. I just got thru reading the ANI discussion. Boy, what a mess/disaster. I come from a computer background and I highly agree with standardization. It can become a mess if everybody has their own way of doing things. Your food and drink example was perfect. The discussion also reminded me of the days of when I removed white space, replaced white space with tabs or remove non-needed stuff in web pages. It was done so the page would transfer faster over a modem. Hope you enjoy your wikibreak. Bgwhite (talk) 02:02, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Default Sorting question

Hi! Am I right that roles added to article titles as disambiguators should be dropped when creating DEFAULTSORT terms. A example will be clearer!

Currently the DEFAULTSORT in Elaine Taylor (actress) is DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Elaine (Actress), but I think this should be just DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Elaine.

Thanks VinculumMan (talk) 19:26, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

You are correct. It should be DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Elaine. Bgwhite (talk) 19:46, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Thanks - I'll fix, if you didn't already. Could you also check Edward Blount, 2nd Baron Mountjoy, did I get that one right? VinculumMan (talk) 19:52, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
You are on a roll. According to WP:PEERS, you are once again correct. Bgwhite (talk) 19:58, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Excellent! In that case I think I will log off, and go eat before I get something wrong. :-) I'll carry on plugging away during the coming week. Happy editing! VinculumMan (talk) 20:02, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I put this on VinculumMan's talk page but since you were also involved I will put it here also.

Sometimes you get lucky and one of the authors of the article is familiar with the relevant naming convention but only added the sort value on the {{DEFAULTSORT}}. The Biography banner was most probably added by a bot whose owner either did not know about |listas= or did not care.
The object of the category is to insure that each article has a sort value in {{DEFAULTSORT}}. At some point one or more of us is going to have to master Arab naming conventions and take care of all those. Happy editing! JimCubb (talk) 02:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Bgwhite. You have new messages at Lear's Fool's talk page.
Message added 13:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

  -- Lear's Fool 13:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

You have new message/s Hello. You have a new message at Lear's Fool's talk page.  -- Lear's Fool 12:46, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Hello, Bgwhite. You have new messages at Ezhiki's talk page.
Message added 16:00, 4 March 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

AWB

Hi, I've followed up on your suggestion from a few days back and successfully registered for AWB. I'm now approved, have downloaded it, and got it up and running. Looks like a very powerful tool, but also like a lot of rope (ie easy to tie oneself up in knots). Could you give me some pointers on getting started - for example, how to have AWB put in a value for listas in articles: 1. which have, say, "listas=" within a WPBiography statement 2. which have a very basic WPBiography statement, maybe just the living tag.

Thanks in advance VinculumMan (talk) 20:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Looks like something to get my teeth into. I'll try it all out over the weekend. Will shout if I get stuck and can't work it out myself. VinculumMan (talk) 07:19, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Well I made some limited progress last weekend using AWB on my home computer. No problems following your instructions, and its certainly faster with AWB, but life outside Wikipedia is a bit busy. For the moment I'm keeping it simple and working on blocks of Western first names, e.g. the Nigels, and ignoring anything that I don't understand the rules on: seems to be working, no recent complaints from others. However, it would be very useful if you could give me instructions on how to run AWB sessions looking at both the article and the discussion page for the same subject: I'll then try to get at least a a bit of work done over this coming weekend. (Incidentally, if you note that I'm still doing a few edits "manually", this is because I'm making the occasional edit from work too - SHHH! - so obviously not using AWB). Thanks in advance VinculumMan (talk) 10:36, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Re: Wand Bewossen

That's understandable: Ethiopian names are a special case, & I will probably be fixing well-intentioned edits until the day I leave Wikipedia. And I should have modified the listas= value, just as you said. -- llywrch (talk) 00:37, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

"Ugaz" or "Ugaas" is a title; it's the Somali word for "chief" or "sultan". In both cases, the person's name is Abdulrahman; the last two names are the names of their fathers. (The naming custom can get a little tricky, but after a while it'll make sense.) Thanks for asking. -- llywrch (talk) 00:05, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Uh no. If I understand Arabic naming conventions, they would be as follows: "Ugaas Abdulrahman Muhumad Qani" would be "Ugaas Abdulrahman bin Muhumad Qani", & I believe indexed as "Abdulrahman Muhumad Qani, Ugaas"; & "Ugaz Abdulrahman bin Abd Ghani" would be "Ugaz Abdulrahman bin Abd Ghani" & indexed as "Abdulrahman bin Abd Ghani, Ugaz". Now, I'm going to warn you that I'm guessing a little here, but I'm confident that I am in the ballpark. If you want to be 100% sure, ask User:Middayexpress, who is Somali & will be able to give you a much more accurate answer. Good luck. -- llywrch (talk) 00:43, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Re:sort value

Hi Bgwhite. I was just informed [4] about what you likely meant by "sort value"; I might be able to help you after all. In a Somali context, the naming conventions of modern Somali peoples are a bit different to those found in the Arabian Peninsula. A Somali typically inherits his/her father's first name as a last name of sorts (c.f. [5]). For example, with regard to the Ugaas Abdulrahman Muhumad Qani, his own first name is "Abdulrahman"; "Muhumad" is his father's first name, and "Qani" is his grandfather's first name. So Abdulrahman's immediate family (that is, his wife and children) would be referred to as "Reer Abdulrahman" or "Abdulrahman's family". His father's family (that is, his mother, himself & his siblings) would likewise be referred to as "Reer Muhumad" or "Muhumad's family" after his father. The same would apply to his grandfather's family, his great-grandfather's family, etc. With that said, the best sort value would probably be to simply classify him under "A" for "Abdulrahman" (Ugaas is a title, so the page would probably have to be renamed first to "Abdulrahman Muhumad Qani"). This is the convention that appears to be observed throughout most other Somali categories (e.g. Category:Somalian scholars). In the case of many older Somali bios (such as that of Nur ibn Mujahid), the standard Arabic name sorting scheme that you described would be applied since many older Somalis had standard Arabic names. Hope this helps; let me know if you need anything else. Middayexpress (talk) 19:19, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Question for administrator

{{adminhelp}}

I've been doing maintenance on articles by adding/fixing listas, DEFAULTSORT, assess, Persondata, etc. Unfortunately I have to read the articles... Sometimes things are fishy and I bring up an AfD, sockpuppetry, etc. But this time, it's weird and waaaay out of my league, planet and solar system. Oh, I'm sure the topic he writes about isn't controversial at all.... Israeli/Palestinian and his tone is for only one of the sides.

  1. User:Richards1052 runs a blog called Tikun Olam (blog). He does edit the article about his blog.
  2. Richards1052's only other edits are adding references to his blog site. [6], [7], and a really egregious one [8]. It goes on and on.
  3. He has been told not to do it. (Talk:Tamir Pardo User talk:Richards1052). His response usually comes down to that he is a journalist or he has first hand knowledge.
  4. There is circumstantial evidence that sockpuppetry is going on with User:Richards1052 (edits [9]) and User:חובבשירה (edits [10]). Their edits are just too in sync with each other.

So, my questions are:

  1. Is this a case of WP:COI, WP:OR and also that blogs shouldn't be used on BLPs?
  2. Do you think sockpuppetry is going on?

If question #1 is yes, could an administrator handle whatever needs to be done. I haven't a clue on what do. Plus, with it being a Israeli/Palestinian love fest, I don't really want to get involved if I don't have to.
If sockpuppetry could be going on, I can send it to WP:SPI. Unfortunately, I sent one in yesterday that was confirmed. Bgwhite (talk) 07:03, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

  1. I do believe that Richards1052 has a COI. Editing articles that one has COI is discouraged, but not forbidden. Any uncited information added can be challenged on the talk page or by using {{citation needed}}
  2. I do not believe that Richards1052 and חובבשירה are the same person. חובבשירה has a Single unified login account and has over 17,700 edits at the Arabian Wikipedia. Even if they were the same person the accounts are not being used for abuse, so there would be nothing to report.

I hope that answers your questions. If you need any additional assistance please feel free to ask me. Alpha Quadrant talk 17:07, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

  • Note I am not an administrator.
Questions not exactly answered
  1. If the ONLY information one adds is references to your blog site, challenges everybody who removes the tags and has User:חובבשירה come back in later to add the references. Something is not right here. Challenging on talk pages or using citation needed is already not working. I was hoping to know what the next step to take is.
  2. If they are the same person, the accounts are being used for abuse. Look at User:חובבשירה edits. 99% are minor edits adding Hebrew tag. Non-minor edits are adding back in references to the blog site or re-enforcing Richards1052 views.
Bgwhite (talk) 17:23, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
I am looking into it. Alpha Quadrant talk 20:50, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Bgwhite/Archive_1&oldid=1142889051"