User talk:MikeVdP

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Hello, MikeVdP, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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Re: deletion of Ironstone Vineyards

Hi, I deleted Ironstone Vineyards because articles that don't assert significance can be deleted at any time - see WP:CSD#A7. All the page said was "The Ironstone Vineyards are a family-owned vineyard in historic Murphys, California in the midst of the Sierra Nevada mountains." Feel free to re-create it as long as it claims significance (and it's preferable to include sources). Or I can restore it on a subpage of yours if you want. Spellcast (talk) 05:25, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Ironstone Vineyards

A tag has been placed on Ironstone Vineyards, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G11 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article seems to be blatant advertising which only promotes a company, product, group, service or person and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become an encyclopedia article. Please read our the guidelines on spam as well as the Wikipedia:Business' FAQ for more information.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 06:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Ironstone Vineyards

Hey. First, thank you for improving this page. I just wanted to give you a heads-up on references. If you take a look at this edit, you can see how I turned your links into references. I use the <ref></ref> tags, and inside that, I use one of the templates listed at WP:CIT. References can be a bit daunting at first, but I encourage you to read about them and use them in your editing. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 17:48, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Ironstone's Crown Jewel

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Ironstone's Crown Jewel, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process because of the following concern:

Non-notable rock. Sources given are not reliable. Fails WP:RS, WP:N, WP:V.

All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised because, even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 18:05, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I responded on the Ironstone's Crown Jewel talk page. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 06:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

File:Drake's Cove, Drakes Bay, California, 1579.JPG

Looking into the file (named in heading) I feel confused, as depicted maps appear upside down. Not only depending on what direction is given for North, even map text is upside down. But leading text outside maps appears right way. Will you consider rearranging map, or would that be a "historic forgery"? TorSch (talk) 21:30, 14 June 2012 (UTC) (TorSch of no.wiki)

map update

The top map from Hondius is as it was printed. That map more or less has south to the top. The bottom map is from a topo map which originally had north up, so the text is inverted. A new version could be created. I'll see when I get a chance to work on this.MikeVdP (talk) 19:37, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

New Albion

Hello MikeVdP, I responded to your comments on the talk page here. There are definitely some legitimate concerns about including that material but I don't really know anything about the subject so all I can really do is discuss generally accepted Wikipedia practices with regard to the content. I left some open questions in my comments that need to be addressed by people more familiar with the topic. Hope that helps. SQGibbon (talk) 19:40, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Let's see what other editors have to say. MikeVdP (talk) 19:34, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Other New Albion Ideas

Hello again. I just glanced at your article Other New Albion ideas. Here's the thing, the points that made some of those ideas inappropriate for the New Albion article make them inappropriate for this article (and all of Wikipedia). We always require independent, objective, reliable sources for all claims in all articles regardless of the subject matter. So, for example, if the Gitzen theory is not appropriate for the New Albion article because it's a self-published source then it should not be included here as well. Given that, if you have another reliable source that discusses all these fringe theories in some kind of significant detail then you can include them here with some explanatory text. I hope this makes sense. SQGibbon (talk) 06:46, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I took this to the Talk page on Other New Albion ideas. Input welcome!MikeVdP (talk) 16:25, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

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June 2013

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Theories on the location of New Albion

Hi, I cannot see a relevant discussion on the article talk page? GiantSnowman 16:44, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

You need to use WP:RM to propose a new name. GiantSnowman 08:06, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

File permission problem with File:Drake's Cove, Drakes Bay, California, 1579.JPG

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May 2014

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Formal mediation has been requested

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Request for mediation rejected

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Proposed deletion of List of all National Historic Landmarks

The article List of all National Historic Landmarks has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

indiscriminate list with zero references nor links

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Windsor historical landmarks article

Hey, MikeVdP, your new article Windsor historical landmarks came up in my notifications, I think because it linked to an article i originally created. Hey, I notice also that you created Monroe District (Santa Rosa, California), whose deletion nomination I opposed and believe I was influential in saving it.

But, about Windsor historical landmarks, what are you thinking? As noted by others, it is largely copied by you from this WHS Downtown Walking Tour document. You just cannot do that, it is apparently a gross violation of copyright, don't you agree?

I have myself mostly worked on historic site articles and lists, and I have supported many editors arriving and developing lists of local historic landmarks (often within the framework of wp:HSITES WikiProject Historic sites, which I co-started). And Windsor's official landmarks is a valid topic for a Wikipedia list-article. But you cannot just copy. There are automated processes looking for copying. I predict that the entire thing will be deleted from Wikipedia soon, and I think that would be the right outcome, to wipe it out, despite the fundamental validity of the topic. I would be interested and willing to help in starting over though, if you would agree to cooperate and avoid both plagiarism (not giving adequate credit for content or wording, can often be fixed by using explicit quoting and citing sources) and copyright violation (about unfair/illegal amounts of copying that is theft of someone else's property). I hope you are willing to be concerned about such problems, and that you don't want to proceed by copying more stuff which will surely all get deleted relatively quickly.

Let me know if you'd be interested in cooperating, and/or please comment or ask questions. I will watchlist here, but contact me directly at my Talk page if I seem not to have noticed a comment here. sincerely, --Doncram (talk) 11:14, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

P.S. I wonder if you believe that the walking tour document is in the public domain (so copying it would not be copyright violation), because it does not show an obvious copyright statement, or because it may be a work produced by a government? Works by U.S. Federal employees usually are automatically in the public domain, but that is not the case for works by state or local governments. --Doncram (talk) 11:19, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Our goal is to make historic sites easy to find to the public, particularly by residents and tourists. Since cities/towns have established landmark programs, it is good make these available. Some are hidden away on city/town websites. Some are only available on paper copies. I'm sure the Windsor Historical Society would gladly release their write-up as the walking tour to the public domain. Is there a form to do so? The neatest part of these Wikipedia lists is the mapping feature. Of course, links within and outside Wikipedia encourage research and learning. I have people around the county who will be working on getting photos, too. Thanks!MikeVdP (talk) 16:15, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

By "our goal", if you mean Wikipedia historic sites editors' goal, sure. But it is usually NOT easy to get third parties to release copyright on documents, in part because you would have to get various persons to establish authority, to make decisions, to do work of preparing releases and participating in correspondence, etc., for little/no clear benefit to them. They have already published, apparently, two documents, making info available to the world, which you/we have to work with. There are guidelines/instructions about how to arrange for such, though, which you could find by browsing around or asking at the Tea House(?), which would involve getting the owner of the material to correspond with specialized volunteers in the wp:OTRS service.

But here I honestly think they should not release copyright for you just to copy their stuff into Wikipedia. It would be better for them and Wikipedia readers if the Wikipedia article is a separate, different thing citing their documents properly (and perhaps driving traffic to their webpages) and using summaries in your own words, although perhaps including short explicit quotes at times if the source's wording is really wonderful in some way that you want to credit and share (probably not appropriate here.. if it was an article about a poet's works then surely it would be necessary to quote some of their words, but this type of material is generic/business-like). Or you could put into quotes some dubious assertion in the source, where it would be proper to highlight the fact that the assertion is the source's, rather than putting it into the voice of Wikipedia as if it is an accepted true fact. Hopefully you would be adding value by providing coordinates and new photographs and other information that you can create. In my opinion, Wikipedia pages should not be mere copies of other stuff, but rather should provide new value and complement, not attempt to substitute for, the sources. --Doncram (talk) 20:19, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Is it that the description was taken from the government document that creates the copyright concerns? I could certainly write my own summaries. Thanks.MikeVdP (talk) 16:48, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

For a town's list of designated historic sites, database/directory-type information such as name of site, date of designation, site number, address will generally not be copyrightable... the general copyright law precedent is that a telephone directory has no originality/creativity and is not copyrightable. The descriptions, yes, and the intro text assuming that you copied that, are violations of copyright though. As a rule of thumb, any sequence of 5 or 6 words cannot be copied, though some long phrases or very standard sequences of words which cannot be rewritten into other words easily would be okay. --Doncram (talk) 20:19, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I ripped out content which was not supported by sources (i.e. almost all of the content) out of Sonoma County Historical Society list of landmarks and List of historical landmarks in Healdsburg, California. Have you created any other similar lists? I'll look for any and remove their content too.

About a way forward, how about develop Windsor historical landmarks using sources, properly. I ripped out all the descriptions from that list, after verifying the first two were just copied text strings. What is your source about officially designated historic sites in the town? It is not the walking tour document, and I don't see any subpage of the Town's own webpage system. --Doncram (talk) 02:52, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Wow! That's harsh. There are many references on that Sonoma County Historical Society list of landmarks page. I have the original documents and if you think a reference is missing, let us know. These articles have been getting lots of use and really make Wikipedia a useful encyclopedia. On the Sonoma County Historical Society, I can actually add a reference to the Board of Directors' actions in establishing the list. In Windsor historical landmarks, OK, rip out the descriptions. You could see I was working on them. I do see that the choices of the columns varies quite a bit around Wikipedia. Some combine city and coord. Some combine address and coord. APNs also seem to get different treatment. If you have a reference for best practices on that, please pass it along. All of these are being developed. I'll restore the SCHS page and add a number of the references you seem to be asking for. I'm not trying to be hard-headed about this, just trying to get good, workable tools out there. Stay safeMikeVdP (talk) 03:14, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

About your having "original documents", perhaps it would help a lot towards bringing me on board, if you would email copies (you can select "email this user" on my User page. If I did see actual documents, I would be inclined to actually help directly. But currently I honestly do not believe you, that there exists the designation you claim. Yeah, maybe this is indeed harsh. I have myself not liked being on the receiving end of harsh judgments. But you did put a lot of stuff into Wikipedia without adequate support.

You just restored a table with "many references", mostly to Find-a-grave. Could you please show me one reference, anywhere, supporting the idea that there is such a thing as a "Sonoma County Historical Society Historic Landmark"???? But, I was suggesting you apply your attention to one list, the Windsor one, because that is where we started.

About guidance on best practice in creating historic sites lists, well, there does exist a lot of practice. California-based editor User:Cbl62 is one source for you. He was the main developer (and I helped a bit here and there) a long time ago in developing a comprehensive system of lists of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Landmarks, which happens to do a great job using color coding to indicate which of these sites are also listed on higher level (state and national) historic registries. It would help a lot if you identified a model (that system or another) for what you hope to do for Sonoma County stuff. There does exist a WikiProject, wp:HSITES, which I co-created, which should advise, although it is not very active at all.

on the color coding and listings, what's best practice for a place that has a city landmark designation, a California Historical Landmark Number AND is a National Historic Landmark? Should the entries be consolidated to a single entry even if the legal boundaries are somewhat different? Then color code to the highest designation? I'd sure like to find a way to have the geogroup use different indicators and/or colors for different types of locations.MikeVdP (talk) 07:13, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Cbl62 and I and all the NRHP editors have used, on a given site's article, the infobox corresponding to the highest level designation. And in list-articles, used color code for the given row of its highest designation.

In cases when there are overlapping boundaries of town vs. state vs. NRHP historic districts, I would say usually there would be just one article, with explanation of the overlapping. About individual sites, say the local listing only covers the historic main farmhouse but the NRHP listing covers the ruins of stone barns as well, it really makes sense to have only one article. But the "combo" article should certainly have, in bold in the lede, each of the official names, so readers can see this is indeed the article that covers whichever item in whichever list they are reading down through. --Doncram (talk) 17:44, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

It would be great, indeed, if GeoGroup had that color-coding functionality for use as you suggest, but I am pretty sure it still does not. I am sure the feature has been discussed in the past, but it maybe it is technically difficult to program or something. You could inquire at template talk:GeoGroup or in whatever is the geographic info systems type Wikiproject where the programmers might be. --Doncram (talk) 17:44, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

By the way, I have no idea what you mean by "APN". There is no possible meaning given at disambiguation page APN, by the way. --Doncram (talk) 03:33, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I see in the Windsor that you have explained "APN" means, to you at least, "Assessor's Parcel Number". By the way, in my view that is less useful than a landmark listing number of some type of historic landmark designation. Any property has one or more "APN"s, it does not establish that the property is historic. --Doncram (talk) 17:44, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

requirement to quote or to reword completely differently

I see in above that you asserted you had partly edited the Windsor historical landmarks article's descriptions. You did add some instances of reference to the walking tour source, that was good to do. But when I compare your version of text, reworded by you, to original source text, I see that your changes did not suffice. There is guidance in Wikipedia about how much change is needed: please see Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. You need to completely reword. My own best advice, to avoid "too close paraphrasing", is, first, do NOT copy from the source and then try to edit that, because in practice it is really hard to make "enough" change. Your inserting a word or two here or there is not enough. Instead look at what the source says, then in a blank space write from scratch. You will find what you write to be quite different, that you cannot memorize and re-spit out the same wording.

More specifically:

About the first item, "Bell Ranch House":

• Walking tour source text: "A large two story residence designed with the influence of Greek revival architecture."

• Your revised text: "Large, two story 1880 residence with the influence of Greek revival architecture."

That shares a 10-word string, and is not different enough, besides the fact you introduced apparent error, stating 1880 construction when source says 1860.

• What I changed it to: "House reflecting Greek Revival influence, built in 1880." (which was wrong in the date, until i just fixed that to 1860, but is different enough in wording)

About the second item, "Old Windsor Community Methodist Church":

• From the walking tour source: "The church was in constant use from 1898 to 1959 when a new building was constructed."

• Your revised text: "The second Methodist Church in Windsor, in constant use from 1898 to 1959."
  • Not different enough, shares a 7 word text string.

• What I changed it to: "Church built in 1898 in an adaptation--in wood--of Richardsonian Romanesque style; in use to 1959." (different enough)

Based on this, I feel confirmed in my decision to have deleted all other descriptions, towards truly starting over. I hope this is helpful. Please feel free to consult others, perhaps by inquiring at Wikipedia talk:Close paraphrasing, or at wp:Teahouse. --Doncram (talk) 04:30, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

OK, happy to get "more" rewritten. The text, it turns out, comes from official Sonoma County government documents. In 1992, the Town of Windsor was incorporated out of unincorporated County property. The new Town of Windsor Council, reportedly (but I don't yet have the formal documents) adopted the exact language to turn County Landmarks into Town of Windsor Landmarks. We'll work to get this right. Is there a deadline on this? ThanksMikeVdP (talk) 05:36, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I have looked before (years ago) for the {{cite...}} template to use for meeting minutes and private correspondence. Any leads will be appreciated.MikeVdP (talk) 06:49, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I believe that meeting minutes of city councils, of government committees, of school boards, etc. which are reliably available, either by being published or available at least upon request, are okay to use as sources, can be cited. The town council resolution designating a property to be X Town Historical Landmark is in the minutes, which can/should be cited unless there's a more convenient summary booklet or whatever to cite instead. {{cite report}} looks like it is for somewhat more formal published reports, but maybe it could be used for meeting minutes. You could review wp:RS (about Reliable Sources) and perhaps ask at its Talk page, I dunno. There is wp:RSN, the Reliable Sources Noticeboard but that might be more for having disputes than asking for advice, I am not sure.

About private correspondence, like between yourself and a town historian say, offhand I think that is not useable in Wikipedia because it is not "reliable" in the sense it is not available anywhere for others to also find and verify the legitimacy of how it has been used as a source. "Private" means not public, means not published...we can only work with published material except for, sometimes wp:Primary sources like what might be available in a public library's old "clippings files" of miscellaneous stuff filed in folders (where the specific folder might be identified, and another Wikipedia editor could conceivably visit or inquire to the same library to get access to the same unpublished but available clippings. If the "private correspondence" seems like really valuable stuff, it might be transformed into something citable say if the town historian might be able to publish something easily, i.e. to create a subpage to an existing webpage, or to create a PDF pamphlet ... like the Windsor walking tour....which can be published/released online.

You have emailed a document to me (with "Historical sites / structures in the Windsor area" at the top) which I gather you feel is a compendium of sorts of one local historical society. But it is not labelled as a publication, it has no author or date of preparation, there is no indication of its completeness, there is not even a letterhead or other self-identification as being a product of any local historical society. This seems too draft-like, too unofficial to be citable/useable. I believe you if you say you got it from the President or whichever person in the historical society, and I would believe it was intended by him/her to be their most current version at the time it was sent to you, but it actually might have been the old version since replaced, or it might have known-to-them errors which haven't been fixed, etc. I see it an opening parenthesis before some or all of the assessor parcel numbers it provides, but no closing parenthesis; that is one indication to me that it is an incomplete, unapproved, not final product. Also it is a Word document which you or I could edit, it is not locked down in PDF format to be some specific dated version that could be cited. It is simply not citeable (sp?) at all so cannot be used at all, IMHO.

And, also, by the way, it does not anywhere provide an official proper noun term such as "Windsor Historical Landmarks" and it does not provide listing numbers and dates that would have been provided if the town had officially designated them by specific town board resolutions or similar. Now I do not believe that Windsor has a formal historic landmarks program (while I do believe that Sonoma County has one in the form of a series of county board resolutions). This appears to me, instead, to be a completely informal list by someone of some places which seem sort of historic, not necessarily much better than what I might generate myself by driving around my town one day and conducting a drive-by type initial survey (which is a valid thing for a local government or historical society to do, as a start towards more formally identifying places worthy of more recognition and some degree of protection).

Hope these comments help. --Doncram (talk) 17:23, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Mike, you've got to exercise more discipline in your edits. That is, don't cut and past from article to article. Such edits only create unencyclopedic messes. The list of Sonoma County History Society landmarks is an example. Is each item in the list on the Society's listing? If so, you've got to provide a reference for each item. Please, the WP:BURDEN is on the editor who wants to add material in an article. "All content must be verifiable." That means you must show the Historical Society has designated each item in the list. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 20:44, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

moves to Draft space

You've stated that you're working on these articles. I have said, and meant it, that I would help develop if I had documents to work from. Somewhere, responding to my questions regarding one of these, you asked "is there a deadline". You might or might not be aware that's an expression, that there exist essays Wikipedia:There is no deadline and Wikipedia:There is a deadline which have often been cited in deletion processes. My view here: about long term development here, no, but in the short term, yes; meaning that for now the drafts or whatever they are, are okay to be in Draft space, but they are too rough and unsupported to be in mainspace.

For the three articles in question now:

1. Windsor historical landmarks
2. List of historical landmarks in Healdsburg, California
3. Sonoma County Historical Society list of landmarks

there are fundamental, basic problems of sourcing, and basic factual questions. Currently I do not believe that these are even "things", i.e. I do not believe there is a proper noun Windsor Historical Landmark program, nor a Healdsburg Historical Landmarks program, nor a Sonoma County Historical Society Landmarks program. I did some searching, do not find existence of those, and you have not provided any sourcing. All three might be developed to be legitimate list-articles eventually. They might be saved if documents of local historical societies are found and turn out to suffice. The third one could be converted to be about the Sonoma County Historic Landmarks program, which is a legitimate thing. But it is not okay just to put random lists of random old places in one locale or another into Wikipedia, where "old enough" or "historic enough" is just randomly determined by you or me. There has to exist coverage about the set of places (i think a relevant guideline is wp:STANDALONELIST).

For now I want to move them to Draft and allow you and I and perhaps others to work on them. If/when you believe one is sufficiently improved, I'd ask that you submit it through the wp:AFC process, which brings uninvolved editors in to comment and decide whether to promote a draft to mainspace or not. I'll pause for possible discussion, then either a) go ahead and make those moves, or b) open wp:AFD processes for a formal deletion discussion to happen which I predict would result in the same outcomes. --Doncram (talk) 17:28, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

For Healdsburg, reference 1 is (and has been) the City's official document identifying its Designated Historic Structures. That does include two districts. That really shows that the sites were chosen, evaluated and adopted by the official City of Healdsburg. If you think the article should be named "Healdsburg Designated Historic Structures," that would be OK. If an official Healdsburg City document isn't enough, what is? Thanks.MikeVdP (talk) 19:16, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for continuing to discuss. Here you are referring to "HD Historic District Overlay / Excerpts from Land Use Code Chapter 20.12, Article III / Last Updated: November 12, 2019". That is a government document, but it conveys nothing about historic nature of any sites, so there is essentially nothing to say in Wikipedia from this. At most the existence of the document could be mentioned in a footnote in the Wikipedia article about Healdsburg, but its existence does not justify listing out its contents in Wikipedia. There is no text giving history of the program or stating its purposes or explaining anything about the history being preserved; it would certainly help to have newspaper articles about the program, say.

The second reference now in the article itemizes some properties that have been covered in a "survey". Note that is way less than useful for anything. Elsewhere you called my attention to coverage of Petaluma's program; Petaluma had a survey which seemed to have identified sites which potentially could be nominated/described/listed later. Here, I assume similar: based on drive-by pseudo-expert opinions, certain properties were assessed to be old/interesting architecturally perhaps. If when actual history could be established, they would be candidates for creation of proper documentation in official text and photos, and for listing in a program. --Doncram (talk) 18:53, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

For Windsor, clearly, the list is accepted by the Windsor Historical Society. They are "digging" to get the official documents where the sites were moved from County jurisdiction to Town of Windsor jurisdiction when the Town of Windsor was incorporated. That may be delayed since people can't get into Town or County paper documents. If that has to go to draft in the mean time, that could be OK.MikeVdP (talk) 19:19, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I see you've now added a substantial document, which I will look at. I think it is about a government program, not a program of the Windsor Historical Society. --Doncram (talk) 18:53, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

For Sonoma County Historical Society, the list was established about January 2019. There was a formal resolution. The Board of Directors has been asked to provide a copy of that resolution. The Board has been following the status of this monthly for two years now. The Board will be looking at this at its coming Zoom meeting.MikeVdP (talk) 19:21, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

You can try to convince me otherwise, but I sorta don't care if the county historical society creates a private, unpublished tally of the historic designations made by actual governments. Why not cover the government programs in Wikipedia; i am not sure covering a local nonprofit/private/whatever's relisting of them adds anything substantial. Also, about whatever they might produce as a source, for Wikipedia we are supposed to prefer secondary or tertiary sources over primary ones, but some informal unpublished tally had jolly well better add some value and appear to be reliable and fixed and so on, for me to be interested. There is a complete lack of any known news coverage about any of these things. If the historical society's product appears substantial enough for local journalists to write about ti, that would help, but if it is just substantial in their/your minds, I am skeptical. --Doncram (talk) 18:53, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Heads up on move or AfD

Mike, I've been thinking about different courses of action for the SCHS list article. They are (were):

1. Ask for a deletion from Wikipedia. Why? We already have

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Sonoma County, California
• California Historical Landmarks in Sonoma County, California
• Sonoma County Historic Landmarks and Districts
• List of cemeteries in Sonoma County, California
• List of historical landmarks in Healdsburg, California
• Sonoma (city) historic landmarks
• Santa Rosa historic landmarks
• List of historic landmarks in Petaluma
• Windsor historical landmarks

The Historical Society list article does not comport with WP:Notability. That is, Historical Society's list itself is not notable as an article because it is source material and WP:NOTMIRROR says "Wikipedia articles are not merely collections of: 3. ... other source material ... that are useful only when presented with their original, unmodified wording." So once you provide the list in a form that is accessible to readers the SCHS list becomes the source material as a reference. Such an article would be deleted because it does not comply with policy.

2. Create a List of historical landmarks in Sonoma County, California article. This would be easy because we take the table you created and give it a new title via a WP:MOVE. Easy to do, but the bullet list (above) of similar articles gets longer and less useful to WP readers.

3. Recommend a WP:MERGE. E.g., combine the ±10 articles into one Historic places in Sonoma County, California article. Harder to do, but it has very real potential to become a Good or Featured article.

BUT as I was composing this note I come across Sonoma County landmarks. It seems we already have an article which/that covers all the bases. Shouldn't this be the "be all and end all" article about SC landmarks?

Thanks, – S. Rich (talk) 03:18, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

The Sonoma County Landmarks (actually there are two versions and one should be deleted) are the landmarks established by the County of Sonoma only. It is a subset of the SCHS list which includes sites within cities (which the County does not address) and NHL and CHL entries.

The duplicate entries are Sonoma County landmarks (delete) and Sonoma County Historic Landmarks and Districts (retain) Both have the 1 to 192 entries which are a subset of the SCHS list.

The SCHS list seeks to establish a comprehensive, "one stop" place to see all the landmarks and noted historic sites in the County. That's the goal of the SCHS which created the list starting two years ago. Adding this to Wikipedia is a recent effort.

The issue of comprehensive lists is discussed on the talk page for Sonoma County Historical Society list of landmarks. Note that List of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments in Downtown Los Angeles is the type of comprehensive list which combines the sites among several different designating agencies. Maybe you can weigh in on the idea of comprehensive lists on that talk page. It seems unworkable that a researcher or visitor to Sonoma County should go to nearly ten articles to find the information and still have no ready way to see an overall map. I haven't found anything that says, for example, a National Historic Landmark can only be shown in one table throughout Wikipedia. Thanks.MikeVdP (talk) 05:15, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Mike, I'll give you my best shot for reorganizing your hodgepodge of articles. Prepare four different list articles: 1. List of nationally-recognized historic landmarks in Sonoma County, California. 2. List of state-recognized historic landmarks in Sonoma County, California. 3. List of county-recognized historic landmarks in Sonoma County, California. 4. List of locally-recognized historic landmarks in Sonoma County, California. When a landmark is on more than one list you add a footnote the the particular listing that says "Also listed as a National/whatever landmark". Also look at WP:TNTTNT. With 12 different articles covering only four topics you've got an interesting editing challenge. – S. Rich (talk) 02:18, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

My attention was called back to here just now by User:Srich32977's comment at Talk:Sonoma County Historic Landmarks and Districts. Srich32977, I think your suggestion here is roughly compatible with what I have said at Talk:Sonoma County Historical Society list of landmarks#Comprehensive lists (and note that MikeVdP did try to direct you to consider discussion on that Talk page, though I only just expanded my remarks there). But yikes / please do not create any more list-articles generating more duplications. The higher level landmarks' list-articles already do exist. And the general approach should be as I outline there in 3 steps. Any possible combined comprehensive list of all landmarks in Sonoma County recognized by local or higher levels should only be created as a last step, as a result of a merger proposal (which might or might not make sense, because it might be too big, for example). --Doncram (talk) 02:43, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

There is more discussion on the specific article's talk page. The national programs are the NHL and National Register programs. Those have "lives of their own" beyond this work. I doubt that there's interest in doing a national consolidation on this. The CHL (California) program also seems to have a life of its own. The County program does, currently, stand alone. The five cities' programs could be consolidated to one Sonoma County Cities' Landmarks. Right now they are five separate articles. And, the cemeteries have their own listings -- started as the Sonoma County element on the California cemeteries article. An editor moved that to its own article. (See the talk on the California cemeteries article.

That may address the different contributors to Sonoma County history. But, what about the SCHS List of Historical Landmarks which seeks to offer the comprehensive list the way List of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments in Downtown Los Angeles does? Discuss with Doncram (see above). Thanks.MikeVdP (talk) 02:52, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure we do not want to consolidate NHL, National Register, Cal Historical Landmarks into any Sonoma County page. Their relationships up the chain on each of those groups is pretty well set. I haven't touched those pages.MikeVdP (talk) 02:56, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I just opened AFD on one of the 3 list-articles i addressed in discussion further above. And I am about ready to open AFD about the "SCHS List of Historical Landmarks", assuming you mean Sonoma County Historical Society list of landmarks. Do see my comments at its Talk page, about how development of comprehensive lists should work (and did work for the Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments lists' development). Need to complete comprehensive coverage of lowest level landmark (perhaps divided into multiple local area list-articles if necessary as was case for Los Angeles), including mentions of higher level designations in same area. Then maybe possibly later merge multiple local areas together. But don't start with a too-ambitious list of everything, which is hard to evaluate. And, I have just requested by email that MikeVdP please send whatever is their SCHS document, which I have not seen, and about which I am skeptical. I'll pause for reply about that. Thanks, --Doncram (talk) 03:07, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, MikeVdP, for emailing. The document sent is a one-page January 18, 2021 resolution of the Sonoma County Historical Society. It states that a Sonoma County Historical Society (SCHS} List of Historical Landmarks program was initiated in January 2019, but does not itself include any list of sites. This resolution expands (or creates) a List by decree that the List now is to include all NHLs, NRHPs, CHLs, city and town sites that have been designated by any government, and it is to include sites designated by certain other organizations, and it is to include all cemeteries in the county.

Were any sites designated before this resolution? (Could that be linked or be provided by email?)

Do you have any big list from them... I thought you were working from a list from them (could that be linked or provided by email please?)

Does the SCHS have any standards, any documentation forms and requirements, that have been used to nominate properties for SCHS listing? Those would be part of trying to establish that SCHS listing is something substantial. But the fact that the SCHS states that it accepts any new or old cemetery for it to make a designation about, is not helpful. Note the NRHP program, for example, definitely has standards about cemeteries; it will generally accept classic rural cemeteries which reflect that specific landscape architectural style, but not just any cemetery in a rural area, and it certainly requires extensive _history_, i.e. story-telling / documentation. It is not enough to say "that looks old", there must be substantial information about each artifact (whether building, or object such as a statue, or cemetery, or what). An old building or other item is not a historical site if it does not evoke history, if it cannot be appreciated as being an artifact of something worth remembering, if there is not documentation establishing what is to be remembered / evoked by this artifact.

But, whatever standards I would want to set for SCHS don't matter, if SCHS designations are described as a group and in detail by reliable sources, so that SCHS designated sites meet wp:GNG, then it could be covered in Wikipedia. I have not seen any local newspaper articles or any other coverage which would tend to establish GNG though. Maybe SCHS listings could become newsworthy / coverage-worthy at some future date though. --Doncram (talk) 03:46, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

P.S. Right how though I can't think of any list of designations by any local historical society which is itself independent of governments having been established to be Wikipedia-notable. There are some U.S. states which have a state historical society that functions as the state's official department of historic preservation, so their designations are the state's designations, but that is different. And there are local historical societies which have published books, sometimes through Arcadia Publishing's program, which are legitimate sources and sometimes might have enough info to justify a separate Wikipedia article about a given building, even if that building is not officially designated as a historic site by any government. That is different too; here I do not yet know of any publication-quality historic documentation produced by SCHS. --Doncram (talk) 03:55, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Nomination of List of historical landmarks in Healdsburg, California for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of historical landmarks in Healdsburg, California is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of historical landmarks in Healdsburg, California until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

Ping also User:Srich32977. Doncram (talk) 02:59, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi, this to follow up on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of historical landmarks in Healdsburg, California which has been closed "Delete". Following up per your request at my Talk page, where you stated/asked:

Is it Wikipedia policy that historic landmark buildings and districts in Healdsburg cannot be included on Wikipedia? There seem to be many international, federal, state, county and city designations and the listings for most do appear on Wikipedia articles. What makes Healdsburg (uniquely?) worthy of being cut?

MikeVdP, my apology that Wikipedia deletion processes, and my usage of them here, may seem opaque or unhelpful. Or, honestly, that my usage might come across as patronizing or dismissive of you, which I perceive that it could, but which I do not mean. An AFD is kind of a rough tool, a hammer, but it can/should get across certain realities, getting through where polite discussion fails. It is also partly random, but this time I agree with the consensus, you need to read what other editors said there.

On this, my deletion nomination was towards removing the article from mainspace (although moving to Draftspace would have been okay by me) on basis that it did not meet Wikipedia standards. Paraphrasing from what I've said in the other AFD: as far as I could tell, it did not provide, and I myself could not otherwise find, documentation of what, if any, places in or near Healdsburg, within Sonoma County, have been designated local landmarks by the city of Healdsburg. You had cited two Healdsburg planning department documents, which I questioned on basis they only indirectly referenced landmarks, and did not specifically document the landmarking; one seemed to me to just establish that various places had been "surveyed", which can be far from landmarking. (See Petaluma's list... Petaluma is clear about surveying many places first, then later landmarking some.)

I grant that I did see you making progress at its Talk page, by your adding to the draft table there, about seven(?) citations to specific off-line city council resolutions, which are legitimate sources although off-line, and I believe you that they did establish the city did landmark those places. And I see you mentioned that late in the AFD and it was not acknowledged there, and seems not to have affected anyone's views there. However, as far as I know, there still is no information available, much less good sourcing, about why on earth any of those have any historic merit, why they would be landmarked by the city council, what are descriptive facts about them and how do or how can they serve like artifacts in a museum to convey about history. And no coverage in local or regional newspapers or any other perspective about them, has been published anywhere that i/we know of, so far. So in my view it is not appropriate to have a Wikipedia article yet, on basis there is essentially nothing to say to Wikipedia readers. On basis of fact that some landmarking resolutions have been passed, it can be said in the Healdsburg article that the city has a historical landmarking program. Maybe on basis of the planning documents, it can be said the landmarking program affects future building/land use decisions. But i wouldn't say more than that.

I do fundamentally believe that local landmarking programs, and the sites landmarked, are going to be worth covering in Wikipedia. Like you, I appreciate publicizing about such programs, and communicating to the public about actual historic sites in their midst. My own long participation in Wikiepdia has mainly been about providing access to locals about their historic sites. But IMO the Healdsburg table was not ready, did not meet basic requirements for support. And, even for higher-level designations such as NRHP listings, the fact of listing is not enough to make an article (or a list-article in this case); for a small but significant percentage of NRHP-listed places there is not enough info available, and likely there will not be in any known timeframe (e.g. because the NRHP nomination document is so insufficient, or the site is address-restricted and little will ever be made public, or because the topic is better covered in a group with similar others, to justify having an article.

By the way there have been long debates among WikiProject NRHP editors about when NRHP historic sites articles should be created, when it is established well enough that sources should exist, or when a certain standard of article quality is met. It is arguable that to participate in the project, editors should make sure their new articles meet a common standard, partly as a matter of providing incentive/reward=publication for editors to do a decent job. And partly to avoid undermining the whole system of Wikipedia historic sites articles, by ensuring that readers aren't just encountering unsatisfactory placeholders. Some editors strongly dislike assertions that a placeholder-type article "will attract" further development, will provide a decent start. They want to see a decent start, including statement of significance / explanation of historic merit, as well as substantial descriptive info, all attributed to verifiable, reliable sources. The Healdsburg list did not meet that. I myself would set a lower standard than most other "regular" NRHP editors, and I was myself hurt by past disputes, but I do agree that some standard of quality is good to have for regular members to abide by.

How go forward? I suggest starting over in Draftspace, and using the wp:AFC Articles for Creation program. When a draft is reasonably good, "submit" it for review and promotion to mainspace. Accept the consensus of AFC editors (a different, non-involved group of nice people) about what is good enough or not, accept their directions to develop more.

Oddly, I am myself under an editing restriction where I am basically not allowed to create new articles in mainspace (due to some past disagreements, some unfairness in my view), so I myself basically only use the AFC process. It's a decent process though, not much of a problem, as I pretty much understand what AFC editors as a group are going to require. You don't yet have that perspective. I suggest you voluntarily abide by AFC process and learn from it.

About why this list-article, not Windsor historical landmarks say, well that one benefits from having actual documentation in form of supporting documents, about the historic merits of the sites, given to the city council there. Other list-articles comparable to this one can get AFDd in the future, too.

About the actual article and Talk page with table that was all deleted, you can request to get copies. Also, FYI there exists an appeal process called "deletion review" to dispute an AFD decision, but that would not help you here. Ping User:Srich32977, too. I would like for you to stay involved, and not be discouraged, and involve others too from your local groups, but with success in finding and using good sources. I would like to help develop Sonoma area stuff too. --Doncram (talk) 18:37, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Feel free to weigh-in favorably on Draft:Healdsburg Historic Structures and Districts. With a reference to the code for each entry, this should be well-documented. MikeVdP (talk) 21:23, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, that is pretty clearly better, but as I have noted at its Talk page there are fundamental questions and issues, many the same as in the AFD subject article. That is a draft which can be improved. You have already "submitted" it to AFC for accepting into mainspace. I appreciate your accepting to some degree my request to use AFC process, but I would prefer it if you would withdraw the submission for now, until questions and issues can be resolved. --Doncram (talk) 05:26, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Nomination of Sonoma County Historical Society list of landmarks for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Sonoma County Historical Society list of landmarks is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sonoma County Historical Society list of landmarks until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

Doncram (talk) 00:31, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi again. Note in this edit at the AFD discussion, I modified your own remarks. I meant to be helpful, to format them with a leading, bolded "Keep", and to indent them properly. User:Srich32977, in a previous edit, I did that also to your remarks, reformatting to add a leading, bolded "Delete" label. To both of you, Wikipedia's interfaces do not enforce it, but formatting in this way is standard and facilitates others' participation in the AFD. I do expect there will be others "!voting" (that means "not-voting", with use of exclamation point as in C-language or some other computer-speak terms, because the AFD process is supposedly not one of voting). Also, it enables you and others to see your AFD !voting records, e.g. go to wp:AFDSTATS and see mine. For what it is worth, for me you can see a report about the last 500 AFDs i have participated in, and that in these I have a record of more than 80 percent agreement between my !votes and actual final decisions. You might note I rarely make deletion nominations, and I choose to participate almost only in AFDs where I will !vote "Keep" ... I am an wp:INCLUSIONIST. Srich32977 has 196 or so AFD participations, and is more of a wp:DELETIONIST perhaps For MikeVdP's record, see AFDSTATS about MikeVdP (which right at this moment shows no usable info about 2 AFDs he has commented in, but which shortly will show show more coherent reporting i hope).

If either of you don't like my having reformatted your remarks, you are perfectly well entitled to undo that, although I meant well. Sometimes a lot of ill-will is engendered by one editor changing another's remarks in any way. I hope this helps. --Doncram (talk) 01:25, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Grrr, I see that S. Rich was the deletion nominator at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Effects of air pollution on health in communities of color in America, which unfortunately succeeded in getting rid of a useful/important article (although it needed development). I argued eloquently/clearly IMO that it should be kept, but reason did not prevail. :( --Doncram (talk) 01:33, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

COI declaration -- suggestions

Thanks for your template COI declaration. It shows you are willing to have your feet held to the fire in this rough and tumble world of WP editing. I'll make three recommendations: 1. The only real COI you have is in the Sonoma County Historical Society list of landmarks article. You've created a red-link in the template when you posted Sonoma County Historical Society. 2. You should add the list article to the template. (And don't worry about the redlink.) 3. The comments should be moved from your user page to this talk page. (Or you can delete them altogether.) – S. Rich (talk) 02:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

round barn in/near Windsor, etc.

Mount Weske Stables pic by MikeVdP

Thanks for contributing photos, including this one of Mount Weske Stables, apparently a historic round barn (octagonal or other polygon shape, up to true circular). It's an important contribution! There are very round barns surviving or ever built in California, and this is indicated to be from the 1870s or 1880s. I have the impression the historic era of round barn construction, as an ideal, hoped-to-be-efficient type, was over mainly before it got to California, and there were very few historic ones built. I think that's the case, rather than there having been many built then lost. Anyhow, any historic round barn (or stables) is very notable! And I have believed Wikipedia has been getting close to identifying them all, in conjunction with Dale J. Travis, builder/maintainer of a vast system at http://www.dalejtravis.com/ about both historic and non-historic octagonal/round structures. He apparently didn't know of this one, I'm excited to see the pic! See it now included in List of round barns. Hopefully more info will become available about it?

Also, see Windsor Masonic Temple is now included in List of Masonic buildings in the United States#California.

FYI I've added categories over at Commons for some of the pics you've uploaded, although the categories available might not match up really well. I've also done some editing at the Petaluma and Windsor list-articles and related pages; there are some new NRHP articles. Thanks! --Doncram (talk) 03:02, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I posted the "round" barn on Facebook a few days ago. Comments came back that it is the home of Guy Fieri, the celebrity chef behind "Diners, Drive ins, and Dives." That was a surprise to me. (See Sonoma County History on Facebook.)MikeVdP (talk) 04:17, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

copyrighted photos

I wondered about a couple photos you uploaded to Commons with claim that they are your own works, mixed in with other photos that seem clearly to have been taken by you on your phone camera. Now I see that, at Talk:Windsor historical landmarks#Town Official Records, you did post a question, probably for me. You stated:"It wasn't easy to find, but the official documents are at https://www.townofwindsor.com/DocumentCenter/View/1466/Historic-Register-and-Resolutions-of-Approval?bidId= https://www.townofwindsor.com/DocumentCenter/View/1465/Historic-Register-and-Resolutions-of-Approval?bidId= (looks to be a slightly earlier version) Are photos in Town records like this subject to copyright? Can they be loaded to Wikimedia Commons? MikeVdP (talk) 00:11, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

MikeVdP, the answer is NO, you cannot do that. Photos taken by a U.S. Federal government employee are usually in the public domain, but not photos taken by town employees or used in town websites.

It's not really clear to me, just looking at some of the photos, whether or not you have uploaded copyrighted photos to Commons with incorrect claim that you had taken them. For example:

• File:Bell Ranch House, Windsor, California.jpg

Did you take that photo, or did some other photographer? (Do I have to say this?: It doesn't count for a person to take a new photo of someone else's work, and then upload the new photo claiming it is theirs. It is not.)

Have you uploaded any photos to Commons, at all, ever, that were not taken by you? Could you please answer, fully? I'm sorry to have to ask, but if there are any such, and if they are not clearly, promptly, openly addressed right now, it will be a serious problem. --Doncram (talk) 07:01, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

That photo and the others I identify as mine were, indeed, taken by me. They're snapshots. (I don't claim to be a professional or trained photographer.) They should show an iPhone, Nikon or Canon source. Yep, we're being careful about copyright. There are several folks around the county taking photos to be used and I am insisting they do their own uploads of photos they take. Nope, not using any archived photos since we can't get the photographers to upload -- many are dead and identifying the owners would be just about impossible. At least one person is uploading some early (ca. 1910) postcards that are out of copyright and so identified. Thanks!MikeVdP (talk) 18:54, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for fully responding. Good about all, including just letting some photos not be used, where copyright cannot be established clearly and/or assigned over. Thanks. --Doncram (talk) 19:06, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Links to draft articles

Please do not introduce links in actual articles to draft articles, as you did to Healdsburg, California and Sonoma County Historical Society list of landmarks. Since a draft is not yet ready for the main article space, it is not in shape for ordinary readers, and links from articles should not go to a draft. Such links are contrary to the Manual of Style. These links have been removed. Thank you. - Arjayay (talk) 10:51, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Sonoma County Historical Society has been accepted

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Your submission at Articles for creation: List of historical landmarks in Healdsburg, California has been accepted

List of historical landmarks in Healdsburg, California, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.

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Your submission at Articles for creation: Jesse Peter, Jr. (July 27)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Timtrent was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

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Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 07:41, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Hello, MikeVdP! Having an article declined at Articles for Creation can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! FiddleTimtrent FaddleTalk to me 07:41, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Jesse Peter, Jr. (August 3)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Hoary was:  The comment the reviewer left was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

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Hoary (talk) 08:20, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. Yes, Jesse Peter, Jr. and his museum are vitally intertwined. An article on the Museum (which has been suggested) would have much more about the different management, collections, etc. This focuses on Peter, Jr. and his namesake.

The "talking points" is a document issued by SRJC and distributed to Board Members and members of the Board Facilities Committee (BFC). SRJC has (intentionally?) not put this out on the internet. SRJC is apparently seeking to keep this as quiet as possible.

The letter from FIGR to SRJC is also an item it appears SRJC does not want people to see. They did not include it in the BFC or Board agenda packets -- the usual places for this type of background material -- and which is public. The document is real. It is on a private website because SRJC hasn't put it on a public website. The reference is good. We can make the actual document invisible to Wikipedia users, but I think that reduces the value of Wikipedia.

How do you prove a negative -- that is there was no outreach? How do we prove another negative -- that the FIGR letter was suppressed? Links to many sources where the letter "should have" appeared seems to be what is needed. Other ideas?

I note the direction to remove Find A Grave references. Is Familysearch considered better?MikeVdP (talk) 16:55, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

If it's only "distributed to Board Members and members of the Board Facilities Committee (BFC)" and hasn't subsequently found its way to a library or onto the web where the public may consult it, then a document may not be cited. You say that "The letter from FIGR to SRJC [...] is public." In what sense of "public"? Editors here don't attempt to prove either that there was no outreach or that a letter was suppressed: such an enterprise would be what's called "original research", which isn't permitted. Instead, an editor cites reliable, independent, published sources that verify that there was no outreach or that a letter was suppressed. If such sources can't be found, then the matter goes unmentioned on Wikipedia. No, FamilySearch can't be cited either: please see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. NB the comment of mine that's reproduced above is one to which I subsequently made some revisions; please see the revised version (and a subsequent comment on pruning) in this version of the draft. Also, my comments don't supersede Timtrent's earlier comments on "bullet points"; they add to these. I don't suppose that Timtrent was writing only about what actually come with bullet points; rather, I'm pretty sure that he also meant the material that reads as if it had bullet points; as an example, "In September 1975 [...] / In April 1978, [...] / In October 1983 [...]" (in the section on the museum, and in my opinion anyway ripe for removal because about events that occurred decades after the death of the ostensible subject of the article). -- Hoary (talk) 03:03, 4 August 2021 (UTC) Corrected Hoary (talk) 05:48, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

The Talking Points and FIGR letter/resolution are documents provided by the SRJC administration under document requests. They are real documents. The cover emails are available. Even personal communications are typical good reference sources -- even if they are not in libraries. OK, where should I have learned that documents must be in libraries?

Timtrent, as far as I can see, never looked at the bullet points. I tried to ask about that. Getting no reply, I created the bullet points and waited. I sent Timtrent a message. See my Talk notes. Getting zero back, I resubmitted to see what editors think.

I can see how one article on the man and one on the Museum could work. But, the removal of the name from the Museum is really a set of votes against the man and his actions. It is his name and actions which are being denigrated, not the Museum itself.MikeVdP (talk) 04:44, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

My attention has been drawn here by the ping from Hoary, who is perfectly correct that they and I and others are unlikely to be in total agreement. That is a good thing. Being intellectual clones would render Wikipedia one dimensional. Our role as reviewers is to seek to ensure that an article will not immediately be subject to one of our deletion processes when it is accepted. That is why we push it back to the author. We want to accept articles.

We review to help new editors get drafts into the correct shape to be unlikely to face a deletion process. A side benefit is that they are also unlikely to be ripped apart after acceptance if they are "correct" in style.

Indeed I did not look at the bullet points. What I said when I reviewed it was "Please consider readability. You have not created an article. Instead you have created a list of bullet points. We have a different standard of work here. We need prose, albeit 'dull-but-worthy' prose, and your draft is very much a stilted resumé". Why would I look at the bullet points when I made it clear that bullet points are not what we need?

I did not see your talk page comments. This is not be cause I was not diligent. It is because it is very unusual that I review a draft a second time. I have noted, now, that they are present, but the draft has now been reviewed by others and it has moved past that point.

Looking at the draft today I would not accept it. The bullet points are one reason. In addition "College Multicultural Museum."[56][57][58][59][60]" is a prime example of WP:CITEKILL. Instead we need one excellent reference per fact asserted. If you are sure it is beneficial, two, and at an absolute maximum, three. A fact you assert, once verified in a reliable source, is verified. More is gilding the lily. Please choose the very best in each case of multiple referencing for a single point and either drop or repurpose the remainder.

I can confirm that "private documents", ie those on restricted circulation, are rarely acceptable as references. Those accessible to the public are not always acceptable for other reasons, but often are. Peter is deceased, thus we treat them as an entity, not a living person where special extra conditions apply. For an entity we require references from significant coverage about the topic of the article, and independent of it, in multiple secondary sources which are WP:RS please. See WP:42. Please also see WP:PRIMARY which details the limited permitted usage of primary sources and WP:SELFPUB which has clear limitations on self published sources. Providing sufficient references, ideally one per fact referred to, that meet these tough criteria is likely to allow this article to remain. Lack of them or an inability to find them is likely to mean that the topic is not suitable for inclusion, certainly today.

The draft also remains a stilted resumé and is not, yet, acceptable. Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 08:10, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

@Hoary Yes, perhaps I was not clear enough. I had thought and hoped I was since it was not really susceptible to misinterpretation. The entirety of the list of "stuff" reads as if bullet points are present, whether the • mark be present or absent. Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 08:24, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

It's not necessary for cited documents to be in libraries. (That was careless writing, for which I apologize.) They do need to be available to the public, whether via libraries or the internet, or, arguably, in some other way. The documents you're talking about appear to be what Wikipedia calls primary sources; and in order to be used at all they must be "reputably published", among other requirements. And no, unless they're published, private letters and emails are not acceptable reference sources.

It's unusual for the writer of a draft to write comments on its talk page, other than in response to another editor's comments. I now notice that you've written quite a bit on Draft talk:Jesse Peter, Jr.. It's unlikely that Timtrent would have noticed this. (You'd have nudged him to notice if you'd pinged him there in any of a variety of ways, one being "Timtrent", achieved via "{{U|Timtrent}}".) It's probable that his opinions, mine, and those of other experienced editors here will vary slightly; but it's also probable that for the most part we'll agree. If he advises you to write in one style and not in another, start by assuming that other editors will agree with him.

When you say the removal of the name from the Museum is really a set of votes against the man and his actions. It is his name and actions which are being denigrated, not the Museum itself (above), as well as what's here in the talk page, you appear to be objecting to what you see as unjust treatment. This may be acceptable in talk pages, but it isn't acceptable in articles. If newspaper columns, articles in historical journals or other sources of some stature (not mere blogs) say that he has been misrepresented, calumniated or otherwise mistreated, then this matter may be summarized and added to the appropriate article; otherwise, it may not. -- Hoary (talk) 05:48, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

To reinforce that last, any apparent bias in the article against Peter because of the removal of their name from the museum, unless cited in reliable sources can be construed as one or more of WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, WP:NPOV, WP:SOAPBOX, etc. You will gather that we may record only facts that have been reported on by others, and give citations to those reports. Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 08:18, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

OK, I see that Fiddle Faddle is Timtrent. Thanks for the notes, from both Hoary and Timtrent. I see this will take some read changes. It will take a bit, but I will get to it. I'd welcome any other writers/editors who want to work on this. It is a bit tricky on the name change because this is a recent event and has yet to be covered (except for a couple lines in the school paper) by the press, so primary sources are all that exist on this.MikeVdP (talk) 15:11, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Not at all tricky. Since there is nothing recorded in WP:42 compliant sources, the name change is not able to be part of the draft Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 21:23, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

The one news item so far is at [[1]]. This can mature as a Draft as this plays out.MikeVdP (talk) 22:34, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

An important part of such maturation is removal of what's unimportant. Arguably, a book chapter may add all sorts of odds and sods in order to provide "color" or whatever; however, this is not a book chapter but instead an encyclopedia and therefore is unconcerned about whether, for example, the biographee's dad was the oldest member of the "Independent Order of Odd Fellows". I have started the job of decluttering the draft; please continue this. -- Hoary (talk) 00:54, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Drake's Plate

Re: the footnote you added about the Pretty vs Francis attribution problem. Could you add the citation for it? I was going to edit the info into the pre-existing footnote about the confusion of the attribution, but I'd like all the necessary citation info before I do. Thanks. Endlesspumpkin (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 07:05, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

I will find it. There used to be a Wikipedia link, but the link went dead -- it was to an auction copy of a Hakluyt publication.MikeVdP (talk) 16:18, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

This was a reference on the New Albion page in 2012: "The original English version of Richard Hakluyt's Famous Voyage in 1589 does not reference any specific author. The Hakluyt Society reports that Hakluyt's second edition credits Pretty for the account of Thomas Cavendish's voyage. An early French version of Famous Voyage ascribes the Drake Account to Pretty. Since then, this mis-attribution has been widely reprinted." Now, in which Haklyut publication was this explained?MikeVdP (talk) 16:42, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

from the New Albion article's talk page:

Pretty vs. Hakluyt The existing reference The Famous Voyage (to April 2011) refers to Francis Pretty: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1580Pretty-drake.html Modern History Sourcebook: Francis Pretty: Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World, 1580 Pretty seems to appear first in the French edition of The Famous Voyage: see http://www.donaldheald.com/books/books_text_01.php?cat=Voyages%20%26%20Travel&sortfield=authorLH&pg=8. Then, the the Harvard Classics series, volume XXXIII from 1910 seems to have picked up this version. Many references including those online seem to have followed from the Harvard Classics text. The original sources point to Hakluyt: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=rbdk&fileName=d027/rbdkd027.db&recNum=667 Shouldn't the reference be adjusted to point to Hakluyt? MikeVdP (talk) 16:22, 18 April 2011 (UTC) MikeVdP (talk) 17:04, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

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Concern regarding Draft:Prune Packers

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Francis Pretty

Having seen this edit of yours, do you recall which source you used to base the rather drastic change upon. It would be very much welcomed if you could add that as a reference to the current paragraph. Thanks in advance.  Wikiklaas  21:37, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

The online text from Hakluyt has been removed. I haven't been able to reestablish the source. This link shows a bookseller's information on this: Item

Le Voyage de l'illustre Seigneur et Chevalier Francois Drach Admiral D'angleterre, Alentour Du Monde; Drake, Sir Francis. (Francis Pretty)

[8],90,[1]pp. Lacks the world map, as is almost always the case. Titlepage vignette. Leaves A5 & A6 with a small, expert paper repair in lower margin, not affecting text. Twentieth century morocco bound to contemporary style, tooled and ruled in gilt, spine richly gilt Drake's Circumnavigation. The first French edition of Drake's circumnavigation, translated from the account inserted in the 1589 edition of Hakluyt's Principal Navigations. The text is traditionally attributed to Francis Pretty, though it is more likely that the information was compiled by Richard Hakluyt himself from three or more sources (see Wagner, Drake's Voyage). Wagner notes that the additional information found in this French edition but not in Hakluyt is "small but significant" and calls this "the most complete translation of all." Drake's circumnavigation was one of the most important events in maritime history, and this account must have been eagerly read by the French, who would not undertake their own circumnavigation until Bougainville's voyage in 1766. Scarce, this title was lacking from H. P. Kraus's famous Drake. European Americana 613/139; Sir Francis Drake as seen by his Contemporaries, p.60; Wagner, Spanish Southwest 9b; Wagner, Sir Francis Drake's Voyage Around the World, p.238-240; Sabin 20844; Leclerc 2743; Palau 76150. Seller Inventory # 23583

I'll dig further.MikeVdP (talk) 21:59, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

from a 2012 edit to New Albion

The following is an excerpt of an account by Richard Hakluyt:

I'm sorry to have to say this, but in fact you're doing much the same here as you did in the article: your first 'reference' is not a reference but an unsourced statement, given the form of a reference. Linking to 'Hakluyt Society' and to 'Thomas Cavendish' doesn't shed any extra light. Your second reference even attributes the complete text to Francis Pretty. And the third 'reference' is only the title of a book, and doesn't touch on the authorship of Hakluyt's sources. In the above there is only one starting point that could be helpful: the reference in the bookseller's text to Wagner. The full title of that work is: Wagner, H.R. (1926). Sir Francis Drake's Voyage Around the World, Its Aims and Achievements. The relevant pages can be found here.

Another issue is the current text in the article Francis Pretty. In the first line it reads: "...who wrote detailed accounts of two separate circumnavigation[s] of the globe..." In the paragraph you created, one of those is negated, so the two paragraphs now contradict each other. Moreover, it was not the Hakluyt Society that established the authorship of Francis Pretty to be a mis-attribution, but some researcher, possibly Henry Wagner.  Wikiklaas  14:00, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

The Francis Pretty article as of today looks OK to me. (I'm not the overall author, but added the note about The World Encompassed.)

The Hakluyt reference was in an online version by a bookseller -- which has since been removed. I haven't been able to find it elsewhere.

So, the reference to Wagner put in by Wikiklaas looks good.

The key information is that neither The World Encompassed nor The Principal Navigations (1589) are legitimately that of Pretty.

There's a 20th century set of books which was widely distributed in the USA with the wrong attribution. Since this set ended up in libraries - public and school - all over the place, the Pretty assignment to The World Encompassed became generally accepted -- in error. I'll get a copy of that and reference it.MikeVdP (talk) 03:26, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

I think that in general it is not a good idea to use bookseller's inventories as if they were reliable sources. Bookseller's inventories are written to promote the sale of books, and very often exaggerate the quality or the importance of the books they describe. The one you quoted above was only useful because it contained a reference to a reliable source. I'm quite curious what the 20th century set of books is, and hope you'll soon be able to reference it in the article. Thanks for your cooperation.  Wikiklaas  12:24, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

It was the Harvard Classics, vol. 33. I added a reference. You can adjust the reference if you'd like. MikeVdP (talk) 19:25, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Can this have been Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World, Narrative By Francis Pretty, One Of Drake's Gentlemen At Arms, 1910 edition, edited by Charles W. Eliot, published as vol. 33 in 'The Harvard Classics' by P.F. Collier & Son Company, New York, to be found here?  Wikiklaas  17:35, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes! (I must have been in the library annex looking for the copy when you posted your note!MikeVdP (talk) 19:25, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Jesse Peter, Jr. (March 31)

Your recent article submission has been rejected. If you have further questions, you can ask at the Articles for creation help desk or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help. The reason left by Clarityfiend was: This topic is not sufficiently notable for inclusion in Wikipedia. The comment the reviewer left was: His accomplishments are not significant enough to merit an article. Such coverage as there is is in local newspapers.

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Your submission at Articles for creation: Santa Rosa Junior College Multicultural Museum (March 31)

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Your submission at Articles for creation: Prune Packers has been accepted

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Your submission at Articles for creation: Camp Mather (San Francisco Recreation and Parks) (September 3)

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Greenman (talk) 20:16, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

The idea that this advertisement hit my funny bone! All the references to fires, fire closures, viruses, virus closures, smoke and such sure wouldn't go in an advertisement! We'll take a look at this.MikeVdP (talk) 19:36, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Camp Mather (San Francisco Recreation and Parks) has been accepted

Camp Mather (San Francisco Recreation and Parks), which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.

The article has been assessed as B-Class, which is recorded on its talk page. This is a fantastic rating for a new article, and places it among the top 3% of accepted submissions — major kudos to you! You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

Since you have made at least 10 edits over more than four days, you can now create articles yourself without posting a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for creation if you prefer.

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Thanks again, and happy editing!

Chumpih ^t 09:26, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Jesse Peter, Jr.

Hello, MikeVdP. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Jesse Peter".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:44, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Santa Rosa Junior College Multicultural Museum

Hello, MikeVdP. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Santa Rosa Junior College Multicultural Museum".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:44, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

I have sent you a note about a page you started

Hello, MikeVdP. Thank you for creating Camp Mather (San Francisco Recreation and Parks). User:SunDawn, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

Thanks for the article!

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with {{Re|SunDawn}}. Please remember to sign your reply with ~~~~. (Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 21:28, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! You made my day!MikeVdP (talk) 22:17, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

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