Bhamwiki talk:Messageboard

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It's almost March!

  • Time to get together again. What are we in the mood for? Pizza? Quiet evening? Less live music, maybe? --Dystopos (talk) 15:38, 26 February 2017 (PST)
    • I know I've been away for a while but as usual I'll swing by wherever you decide to do it. --Wheresdib (talk) 11:20, 27 February 2017 (PST)
    • I'm afraid I have plans the weekend March 18-19 and probably the following weekend. But I'm no longer as active as I was, either, so don't feel the need to plan around me. --Lkseitz (talk) 06:06, 1 March 2017 (PST)
  • Okay then. One night in the coming weeks I will stake out one of the larger tables at Cantina (Pepper Place) and provide chips, guacamole, and encouraging reflections on the state of the wiki to anyone who can stand to come sit with me. Let me know if a particular evening interests you. If not, I'll pick and let you know. --Dystopos (talk) 06:59, 1 March 2017 (PST)

Sayerton

The McWane Center has display of "quack medicines." A couple were from the Birmingham area, including one from Sayerton. It appears we don't currently have any information on this former community north of North Birmingham. Maybe Robert Matthews would consider researching it as they apparently (used to?) hold a town reunion in Gardendale? --Lkseitz (talk) 12:37, 19 January 2018 (PST)

  • I've heard of Sayerton, but don't know much about it and have never researched it. If I have a chance to get by the Gardendale Historical Society museum sometime in the next few weeks, I'll see what I can find on it. Robert Matthews (talk) 13:44, 19 January 2018 (PST)

Birmingham Historical Society digital collection

FYI, select Birmingham Historical Society publications are being digitally archived at the Alabama Department of Archives & History[1]. (Or, as their newsletter puts it, http://digital.archives.alabama.gov > Alabama Genealogy and History Publications > Birmingham Historical Society.) --Lkseitz (talk) 12:43, 19 January 2018 (PST)

  • That's pretty awesome. I saw the notice in the newsletter, but hadn't checked it out yet. --Dystopos (talk) 13:56, 19 January 2018 (PST)

Costa & Head plans for 3rd Ave N & 19th St

I'm pretty sure I made a comment on a Talk page somewhere about Costa & Head's plans for blocking off streets at night around the old theater district. But now I can't find it. Can anyone help me out? I have an addendum. --Lkseitz (talk) 05:57, 23 January 2018 (PST)

Guess who's back?

That's right, it's me. I've accepted a different position with the same employer which should free up some time in my busy schedule. And I'm back downtown, so I'm excited to start filling in some gaps for all the new stores and restaurants that have popped up in the last almost 5 years. See you all soon! --Wheresdib (talk) 12:59, 25 January 2018 (PST)

Shoe Repair note

This is crazy. I keep looking for things on Bhamwiki I remember writing or reading and can't find them. Sometimes I spell it wrong ("Top Golf" instead of "TopGolf" [created a redirect]). Sometimes I didn't look in the right place (that bit about 3rd & 19th above). Now I remember working on a story about a shoe repair place that I thought was Homewood Shoe Hospital, which you can see doesn't exist as of this writing. I remember writing -- I thought on a Talk page -- about how someone had bought up a bunch of similar domain names such that it was extremely hard to tell which was the correct one to list on the page. But now I can't find it. Maybe it was a different business? --Lkseitz (talk) 04:09, 9 February 2018 (PST)

  • I can't find anything like what you're describing. Is it possible you worked on it offline? --Dystopos (talk) 06:47, 9 February 2018 (PST)
    • Maybe, but I could have sworn it was something I posted. I checked my e-mails to you and didn't find anything there either. I just wondered if there was any chance we lost some articles at some point? Although I did a quick check of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine to see if they had such a page archive and they didn't. The problem being there's a few different URL variations it could be under and I probably didn't hit them all. If it's something I did offline, I may never find it. --Lkseitz (talk) 21:37, 9 February 2018 (PST)
      • There was one point where we lost some uploaded images, but I don't think it affected the SQL database. --Dystopos (talk) 08:23, 10 February 2018 (PST)

Statistics 2018

Articles/files

  • We have 12,989 articles and 5,955 uploaded files on Bhamwiki right now.
  • That's 0.46 illustrations per article, or 1 image for every 2.18 articles.

Page edits

Over 12 years, we're still averaging right around 33 page edits per day and 3.88 edits per page.

Red links

  • As of March 2, 2018, there are 59,844 wanted articles with who knows how many links to them (red links). We have about 12,989 articles, so we're now 17.83% complete. Two years ago (May 2016), we were about 18.86% done. Our "percent done" continues to track backwards as we've added more red links than articles. (Note that wanted pages represent any topic which "could" have an article, not just those that "should" or "probably will" have articles.) This phenomenon is (still) probably best explained by my use of City Directories to populate street articles with abundant red links.

Users

We have a total of 500 registered users, of whom 233 have made at least one edit, and 4 have made edits in the 30 days (between February 1 and March 2, 2018).

WikiFactor

"WikiFactor" is a measure of a site's popularity, derived by finding which is the last page (on Special:Popularpages) to have 1000x the number of page views as the number of its ranking.

Our WikiFactor is now 46, as of 03/02/18.

Social media

  • On Facebook, 1,903 people "like" Bhamwiki, and 1,891 "follow" our posts.
  • On Twitter, 8,124 accounts "follow" Bhamwiki.
  • On Instagram, 258 accounts "follow" Bhamwiki.

March 2018

  • What's the interest in an anniversary get-together? Jim 'N Nick's for old times' sake? Pizitz Food Hall for variety? Cahaba Brewing Co. for room to run around? Is there a St Pat's parade? --Dystopos (talk) 13:13, 2 March 2018 (PST)
    • I'm going to be in Birmingham next weekend (3/10–11). I don't think I could make it back again the next. Would you and Chivon want to get together with Dorothy and me while we're there next week? Perhaps we should take this to e-mail. --Lkseitz (talk) 08:05, 3 March 2018 (PST)
      • Should be up for it. E-mail or Facebook works. --Dystopos (talk) 15:43, 3 March 2018 (PST)
        • Did you guys meet up? Happy birthday Bhamwiki! Let me know if you all get together. --Wheresdib (talk) 14:07, 15 March 2018 (PDT)
          • Yes, I'm afraid we met up a week ago since I was in town. It was just John, my wife, and me since no one else had chimed in. Sorry! --Lkseitz (talk) 06:33, 16 March 2018 (PDT)
            • Welcome to the party! We can get together whenever you like. --Dystopos (talk) 09:19, 16 March 2018 (PDT)

Bobbi-Kar/Keller

I stumbled upon this on Wikipedia today: Keller (automobile). It looks like their stay in Birmingham was short, but might be worth researching further. Noting it here in case I never get around to it. --Lkseitz (talk) 06:57, 9 November 2018 (PST)

Tommy James

I happened across this on Wikipedia on the entry for Tommy James and the Shondells:

The group continued until 1970. At a concert in Birmingham, Alabama in March of that year, an exhausted James collapsed after coming off stage from a reaction to drugs and was actually pronounced dead. He recovered and decided to move to the country to rest and recuperate, and left the band.

Unfortunately, the source cited for the first sentence is a book. The other source cited in that section doesn't actually mention anything about it happening in Birmingham. Tommy James' own Wikipedia entry actually has less detail on the incident other than mentioning it happened in March 1970. I don't have time to dig further right now, but wanted to note it in case someone else wants to chase it. --Lkseitz (talk) 09:16, 30 May 2019 (PDT)

    • This collection of WVOK "Shower of Stars" advertisements indicates that they were billed as part of the show in 1966, 1967, 1969 and 1971. They weren't billed as part of any of the three 1970 shows, though. And I haven't found much by trying to limit Google's searches to before 2010, when that tidbit was added to the Wikipedia page by User:147.31.159.125. --Dystopos (talk) 11:13, 5 July 2019 (PDT)

Statistics July 5, 2019

Articles/files

  • We have 13,806 articles and 6,270 uploaded files on Bhamwiki right now.
  • That's 0.45 illustrations per article, or 1 image for every 2.20 articles.

Page edits

Over 12 years, we're still averaging right around 32 page edits per day and 3.96 edits per page.

Red links

  • As of July 5, 2019, there are 67,487 wanted articles with who knows how many links to them (red links). We have 13,806 articles, so we're now 16.98% complete. Three years ago (May 2016), we were about 18.86% done. Our "percent done" continues to track backwards as we've added more red links than articles. (Note that wanted pages represent any topic which "could" have an article, not just those that "should" or "probably will" have articles.) This phenomenon is (still) probably best explained by my use of City Directories to populate street articles with abundant red links.

Users

We have a total of 519 registered users, of whom 243 have made at least one edit, and 5 have made edits in the 30 days (between June 5 and July 5, 2019).

WikiFactor

"WikiFactor" is a measure of a site's popularity, derived by finding which is the last page (on Special:Popularpages) to have 1000x the number of page views as the number of its ranking.

Our WikiFactor is now 54, as of 07/05/19.

Social media

  • On Facebook, 2,028 people "like" Bhamwiki, and 2,084 "follow" our posts.
  • On Twitter, 8,282 accounts "follow" Bhamwiki.
  • On Instagram, 980 accounts "follow" Bhamwiki.

https

  • I do wish you'd stop removing the "s" from "https" links. It's much safer to browse using https and there's no guarantee that a server will respond to an http call to the same page as an https one. If you don't like the lock icons it produces, there's probably a way to disable that in the MediaWiki settings. --Lkseitz (talk) 06:42, 3 August 2019 (PDT)

COVID-19 closures

Does a subcategory need to be created for businesses that closed permanently as a result of the current pandemic? I'm not sure what to call it. "2020 Coronavirus pandemic permanent closures" is a mouthful. Maybe some subset of those words. --Lkseitz (talk) 07:48, 16 May 2020 (PDT)

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