Bhamwiki talk:Messageboard/Archive 2015

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This is an archive of discussions from 2015. For other archived discussions, see Bhamwiki talk:Messageboard archives. Current discussion is at Bhamwiki talk:Messageboard. If you wish to expand on a topic here, it's best to open a new topic there and link to the prior discussion.


Statistics 2015

Red links

  • As of January 12, 2015, there are currently 42,728 wanted articles with 81,247 links to them (red links). (The majority only have one link to them.) The front page says we have about 10,666 articles, meaning we're 19.98% complete. The last time I did this (January 29, 2014), we were at 9,797 articles with 38,961 wanted ones (20.09% done). This is the first time our "percent done" has gone down since 2011. We added 6,378 red links. (Note that wanted pages represent any topic which "could" have an article, not just those that "should" or "probably will" have articles.) --Lkseitz (talk) 22:03, 12 January 2015 (PST)
    • I probably added half those red links this week on 20th Street North. --Dystopos (talk) 06:46, 13 January 2015 (PST)
      • I take comfort in the notion that at least we know more about what we don't know. --Dystopos (talk) 07:07, 13 January 2015 (PST)
        • Now we have 11,058 articles and 46,454 wanted articles. Since January 12 we've added 992 articles and 3,726 red links. So by that measure we're now 19.23% "done" (articles / articles + red links) and we're averaging 3.76 new red links for every new article. At this negative rate, we should be able to "complete" Bhamwiki sometime in the 1980s. --Dystopos (talk) 09:02, 23 June 2015 (PDT)
          • As of July 26, we're looking at 11,166 articles and 46,931 red links (19.22%) think it was the Birmingham Ironmen roster that held back my progress. --Dystopos (talk) 14:00, 26 July 2015 (PDT)

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 36, up from 34 on January 29, 2014. --Lkseitz (talk) 22:03, 12 January 2015 (PST)

    • 37 on June 23, 2015 --Dystopos (talk) 09:02, 23 June 2015 (PDT)

UAB template feedback

Looking for feedback on a potential UAB template, found here. In particular, I need guidance on what articles deserve inclusion within the template. --Lkseitz (talk) 23:31, 5 February 2015 (PST)

  • The content looks good. Useful template. Aesthetically, I'd use a thinner border and nix the gold. Green on white in the header and everything else default colors. That's me. --Dystopos (talk) 11:15, 6 February 2015 (PST)
    • Oh, wait, I see what I did wrong with the borders. I disagree about the gold, but am certainly open to discussion. What do you think of the version there now? All colors but the link texts are from that UAB colors page you found. Unfortunately, link colors are almost impossible to customize for a single template. --Lkseitz (talk) 08:43, 7 February 2015 (PST)

Streets in detail

As my acquisition of a couple of city directories drags our street articles into overbearing detail, It may be time to start thinking about how to organize the data better. I have a few ideas, but they're sort of redundant and sometimes contradictory. One thing I'd LIKE to do is push tenant information off into the articles about specific buildings. Sometimes we don't know when the buildings were replaced and we usually don't know when the tenants moved in and out. We also have a few articles about specific addresses. As a stop-gap we could start by splitting the articles by neighborhood, or by block (though you lose some continuity). Since the downtown district is where the detail gets crowded, we could also separate just the downtown parts of the street articles. Unless we come up with a systematic approach, I'll probably just start trying something. Probably with 2nd Avenue North. --Dystopos (talk) 21:36, 16 February 2015 (PST)

  • Well, we knew the tenant information would get unwieldy eventually. I presume you're only talking about splitting the locations part of the article and leaving the main article intact? I really think each street should have a comprehensive article to outline its history and route, even if it doesn't detail all locations along the street (like the highway articles). And I agree whatever we do for downtown may not carry over everywhere, particularly suburban streets. Articles on addresses seem suitable when the building doesn't have a name. Hmm, but does that mean redirects from each address to a building for consistency? --Lkseitz (talk) 23:06, 16 February 2015 (PST)
    • Yes, we'd still have a main article about the whole run of a street, but split the locations down where they're too unwieldy. Downtown, if it's not the only place this makes sense, is at least the priority, so "2nd Avenue North in the City Center" may become an article name if I'm not missing something better. As for buildings and addresses, there are a lot of times that can get messy, as a building may span several "natural" addresses. In the old days you'd just send mail to "Room 234, Watts Building" or whatever, but then the address would represent just the entrance. And sometimes the entrance would move, or the owner would decide that 2200 sounds nicer than 2206. There's just lots of ways that addresses and buildings slip past each other. And somehow there used to be an 1846 2nd Avenue when the "natural" scheme would have stopped at 1830. Reality is inconsistent. --Dystopos (talk) 09:23, 17 February 2015 (PST)
      • Yes, addresses are messy. I'm still unclear how Lyric Hot Dogs and Superior Furniture both used 1808 3rd Avenue North. But then, the Alabama Theatre and Goldstein's Furs both were using 1811 for a while due to a typo or misreading of an address. And then there's all those lovely ½ addresses for the 2nd floors once upon a time. But if someone wants to work their way down the block, having 1811 3rd Avenue North redirect to Alabama Theatre might be helpful. By the way, I'm jealous; how does one acquire old city directories? Ebay? --Lkseitz (talk) 20:55, 17 February 2015 (PST)
        • In this case, one trades in a gift certificate for a pile of money to Jim Reed, and then waits for Mr. Reed to dig one out of his storage facility. If you thought Reed Books WAS his storage facility, you are, like I was, mistaken. --Dystopos (talk) 12:41, 22 February 2015 (PST)
  • [UPDATE]: See 1st Avenue North (Downtown) for a trial solution. --Dystopos (talk) 08:41, 23 June 2015 (PDT)

March 15

For a while I was trying to get to New Orleans for "Super Sunday", but the hotels are a bit too pricy. Upshot is I should be in town the weekend of the 13-14-15 of March. Any thoughts about where to meet? Do we have more babies than editors now? Chuck E. Cheese's? --21:37, 16 February 2015 (PST) [edited Dystopos (talk) 09:17, 17 February 2015 (PST)]

  • I don't currently see anything special on the calendar March 14–15, but I should verify against the work calendar. --Lkseitz (talk) 22:55, 16 February 2015 (PST)
    • I forgot to mark this on my calendar and now have other commitments this weekend. But given it's this weekend and nothing's been planned, I'm guessing it's not happening this weekend? --Lkseitz (talk) 05:55, 11 March 2015 (PDT)
      • I expect not. Maybe we can meet up at a Barons game this season? --Dystopos (talk) 11:43, 11 March 2015 (PDT)

Stats

Between March 15, 2006 and March 8, 2015 Bhamwiki.com fulfilled 113,959,397 successful requests for information in its database, an average of 34,747 per day. There were 83,253,710 successful requests to render pages; an average of 25,383 per day. In all, our server has transferred 2.39 terabytes of data, an average of 763.82 megabytes per day. --Dystopos (talk) 05:57, 15 March 2015 (PDT)

Commas with Jr. & Sr.

Earlier this year, Grammar Girl covered the use of commas with name suffixes like "Jr" and "Sr." The bottom line is that most style guides say not to include one. I don't know if we want to adopt that officially or not, but it would make the lists of births and deaths for the context portion of the year pages a little easier to parse. --Lkseitz (talk) 05:14, 23 June 2015 (PDT)

  • Seems reasonable. I'll see if I can get used to it. Englishrules.com cites conflicting style guides and summarizes, "[s]o, if you are a traditionalist, use the commas; if you are progressive, don't. As with many matters of grammar and punctuation, the most important thing is to be consistent." That's one thing we'll probably never be so long as I'm contributing. (Garner’s Modern American Usage, sounds like an interesting read.) --Dystopos (talk) 08:36, 23 June 2015 (PDT)
    • It does require redirects and the repair thereof. Work, work, work. --Dystopos (talk) 14:35, 23 June 2015 (PDT)
      • I don't know that I'm going to make a special effort to change all the existing entries. I was thinking more of a "going forward" policy. I'm all for consistency, as you know, but I agree we'll never have it 100%. I'm hoping we'll find most of the Jr/Sr articles have a full set of redirects for the various combinations of commas/no commas and periods/no periods. --Lkseitz (talk) 05:28, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
        • If not, they should. So it's about the same amount of work, work, work. --Dystopos (talk) 06:59, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
          • And unfortunately I'm 100% wrong about those redirects already existing. Sorry. --Lkseitz (talk) 07:24, 12 September 2015 (PDT)

Illustration

  • We currently show 5,122 files illustrating our 11,166 articles. That's 0.46 illustrations per article, or 1 image for every 2.18 articles. --Dystopos (talk) 14:03, 26 July 2015 (PDT)