Wikipedia

[drumguy8800]

The Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com)'s Dallas page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas) is pretty danged crappy, especially when compared to, say, Houston's page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas). This is not an attempt to show up Houston in any way, but rather, come up to par.

As many of you know, the Wikipedia is a user-editable (anyone, no account required, can edit it instantaneously) encyclopedia.

If anyone has any facts/tidbits/changes to make on the page.. please let me know what you would like to place on there and where you would like for it to be placed. New headers can be added if needed.

What I really need: If anyone has any good pictures of Dallas that they don't mind being displayed on the site, please let me know. I need to be either sent a link or e-mailed the image file. More information on Wikipedia's image use policy here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_use_policy).

Specifically, I want a good picture of pedestrians on main street, a DART station (maybe mockingbird), a greenspace picture, a White Rock picture, a comprehensive skyline shot, and a shot of night life.

Thanks.

[texman]

I love wikipedia. I do all my research on it (or atleast start though until it takes me offsite). I didn't think Dallas' page was that bad. It mentioned TRP redevelopment and such.

[RobertB]

The last time I edited information on the Dallas page, it was to mention that Jack In The Box got its start in Oak Cliff. Turns out my long-held belief was wrong -- that Jack In The Box was a California outfit, but their first Dallas location was in OC. Well, at least we have 7-11...

I see what you mean about pictures, though. Shouldn't the picture of the Las Colinas Mustangs be in, say, the Irving article?

[The Great Hizzy!]

Yep. I want to say it was started in an Orange County suburb (not sure, though).

[Golden Eagle]

You can thank me for the OKC page.

[drumguy8800]

This is the funniest (and most bothersome) thing ever: http://wikitravel.org/en/Dallas

[aceplace]

This is the funniest (and most bothersome) thing ever: http://wikitravel.org/en/DallasI agree, Drummy. You should modify the article to get rid of the asinine disparagements, add more downtown features such as Reunion Tower and the Dallas World Aquarium, and mention more districts like Deep Ellum and the Bishop Arts District.

[hamiltonpl]

Those b!tches.

[St-T]

I love the restaurant recomendations of BBQ and TexMex... whatever!

[Columbus Civil]

"Mi Cocina" Arguably the best Tex-Mex in Dallas.

oh my :(

[drumguy8800]

I seriously would

LOVE SOME PICTURES

...

In the meantime, I've expanded the neighborhood list for Dallas, fixed some errors, and added a Downtown, Dallas page. I'll add other neighborhood pages. But, ya know, it would be cool if I had some pictures to put on them.

[drumguy8800]

Well, I went ahead and added my own pictures.

Oh well.

Lots of them.

Now the article has 10 pictures/images instead of like. 4. Hmm.

Also I made a layout for neighborhood pages. I did Downtown Dallas a while back but I added pictures and edited it tonight. thennnn I did a Main Street one.

Anyone who's bored/feeling kind enough can go in and edit their own neighborhood..

[drumguy8800]

Last night I added a Dallas neighborhood template here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Dallas which can be added to the bottom of an Dallas neighborhood article by typing {{Dallas}}.

I made a new Arts District page, added information to the DISD page, added a picture and information to the Booker T Page, added a Nasher Sculpture Center picture to the page.. then created starter pages for a lot of the main areas in Dallas like Uptown and North Dallas.

Anyone, feel free to add.

[drumguy8800]

Here I am, talking to myself again..

Redid the template so that it has more divisions, pretty much exactly like Houston's, just with different colors. We had one, they made a better one, I copied it.

Anyone, feel free to visit the Dallas page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas,_Texas .. it's in the middle, somewhere.. and if you see any problems (with where an area should be placed) *please* let me know.

Also added pictures to the West End and Victory Pages, someone else used some of my Park Cities pictures and put them up on those pages, and I added the city-information boxes to both of those cities. I suppose those city-information boxes would be a great thing to add to any suburb of Dallas.

Next project would be to create the DFW Metro template..

[gc]

Good stuff drummy

[aceplace]

Here I am, talking to myself again..

Redid the template so that it has more divisions, pretty much exactly like Houston's, just with different colors. We had one, they made a better one, I copied it.

Anyone, feel free to visit the Dallas page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas,_Texas .. it's in the middle, somewhere.. and if you see any problems (with where an area should be placed) *please* let me know.
Drummy, something has to be done about the crime rate reference. The article says The overall crime rate in Dallas has been ranked as being 1st in the country for large cities from 1998 to 2003. Since Washington DC, Atlanta and Detroit are commonly believed to be large cities, the reader would reasonably assume Dallas has a higher crime rate than those cities. And that's not the case.

Dallas should be compared to the inner-city municipalities of the 10 or 15 largest metro areas. Not to the small-metro San Antonios and Phoenixes.

Also, categorizing municipalities by size is meaningless. It has no relationship to criminality. You categorize cities by demographics, such as inner-city, inner suburban, newer suburban, things like that.

In fact, there is no reason to even address the issue. A tourist or business traveler has a very low probability of being a victim of a violent crime. There is no reason to be afraid to walk around the West End or down McKinney. The information is inflammatory, derogatory to the city, and very unrealistic.

As has been discussed, the difference in crime rates between two cities does not predict the difference in crime. A city can have a higher crime rate but be less dangerous. A high crime rate may mean that police are identifying and solving more crimes, and the citizens are reporting more crimes to the police. It could also mean that the daytime population figures are higher than the resident population.

Take a look at the Wikipedia article for the city that's supposed to have the #2 and #3 crime rate. Is the statistic mentioned?

[drumguy8800]

Crime

The overall crime rate in Dallas has been ranked as being 1st in the country for large cities† from 1998 to 2003. Despite the fact that most of the city's neighborhoods are relatively immune to most violent crime, areas surrounding the city's expressways and some run-down apartment complexes have very high rates of violent crime. The violent crime rate in Dallas has been rated as the highest in the nation† since 1998. In 1995, there were 276 murders. The usual murder total for Dallas ranges from 240-245, with a record 407 murders back in 1992.

†These numbers reflect only United States cities with populations over 1 million. To see a list of these cities, go here. Before Detroit's drop below 1 million inhabitants, its crime rate was higher than Dallas'. Many cities, including Baltimore, Denver, Atlanta, San Francisco, etc are below 1 million in population (while their metropolitan population is massive), and certainly, there are higher crime rate in some sub-1 million-population cities. The numbers in this article then, may or may not reflect the actual relative "safety" of the city compared to other major cities.

I edited and replaced with that.
If you have anything else to add, let me know.

[drumguy8800]

I created the {{Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex}} (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Dallas/Fort_Worth_Metroplex) template for all cities within the DFW Metroplex.. I've also "upgraded" a lot of cities in the area by moving primary information into boxes at the top right like has been done with other "worth-editing" cities on the wikipedia. Here's an example using the DeSoto, Texas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeSoto,_Texas) page. You'll also see on the right, beneath the big gray box, is the {{Dallas suburb}} (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Dallas_suburb) template that I created last night.. it shows adjacent cities and their relative positions.

Also added images to the Uptown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uptown, Dallas) page, the Cityplace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cityplace, Dallas, Texas) page, the Cityplace Tower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cityplace Tower) page, the "The Mondrian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The Mondrian)" page, the Victory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory, Dallas, Texas)" page, and I created a small placeholder page for The W Dallas Victory Hotel and Residences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_Dallas_Victory_Hotel_and_Residences). I also put what schools were in Uptown.. and I added an entire list of schools to the CFBISD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrollton-Farmers_Branch_Independent_School_District) page.

[aceplace]

I edited and replaced with that.
If you have anything else to add, let me know.Thanks, Drummy

[antoinekhuu]

How about a representative pic for each neighborhoods in the Districts and communities sections,Central Expressway pics and Terminal D pics to shine up the Dallas page.
And maybe mentioning that there is a dinosaur named after Dallas and adding a link to forum.dallasmetropolis.com ;)

[drumguy8800]

This is awful of me, but I submitted my own picture to the Featured Picture Candidate section of wikipedia..?

I'm not sure if that's even allowed.. but a quick "find" for the words "your own [picture]" returned nothing, so I did it anyway.

If anyone here has an account at wikipedia, be sure and vote? ;)

The picture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:04070501l.jpg).

[Boredkid]

You know that there are two sites for dallas right?

[drumguy8800]

Where is there another Dallas site? You might have clicked 'downtown' and it might've taken you to the 'downtown dallas' article.. which is a completely separate, and intentional, entity.

[Fobulous]

This is awful of me, but I submitted my own picture to the Featured Picture Candidate section of wikipedia..?

I'm not sure if that's even allowed.. but a quick "find" for the words "your own [picture]" returned nothing, so I did it anyway.

If anyone here has an account at wikipedia, be sure and vote? ;)

The picture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:04070501l.jpg).
Personally, i think that picture didn't show the true magnificent of DTD.. the buildings there are just alittle lacking..

[mikedsjr]

Nice shot of the grass. People can see we have green grass.

That is what you wanted to show them since the skyline is out of focus. Right? Either that or the ant colonies around town are really advanced.

[frankchitown]

I think is a good photo (the grass sure is green), but find it odd to be placed under the architecture section. IMO all those satellite photos should be replaced with some of Ninja's artwork. His pics should be all over the Dallas page.

[RobertB]

Argh. The anti-transit folks are at it again at the DART Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Area_Rapid_Transit). This time, though, it's a logged in user, so I'm not as comfortable simply reverting the changes. But it looks like transit-baiting to me. Just a bunch of "these are common criticisms" with no citation other than a link to DART's financials, and no comparison to other transit agencies' figures.

Criticism of DART

Many residents within the areas served by DART have raised criticisms of the agency. One common criticism is that the expense of the system, both in economic and opportunity costs, is not worth the results. Critics of DART often point to the fact that the agency perennially has an operating loss of over $300 million, leaving the rest of the money to be raised via taxation and bond issuances backed by the member governments' power of taxation. From 2002-2004, DART's annual operating losses were approximately $349 million, $368 million, and $344 million, respectively.
It doesn't help that the guy's talk page is full of messages about images being deleted due to copyright violations, indicating that he may have some trouble playing well with others.

[sogod]

Haha, so when you state any negative facts about DART you are are anti-transit are you ;)

Its just one little blurb at the bottom of the page, and I have to say I think the link/citation makes sense in context. I think the article is still quite neutral.

I love the trains and hate the busses, does that make me anti-transit too?

[incrediculous]

Sogood, I don't know whether you're anti-transit or not. But the commentary appended to the DART wikipedia entry is blatant transit-baiting. There's no substance to the criticism.

That DART runs an operational loss, and is subsidized by the government, isn't a valid criticism. Operational losses are expected. It's how it's supposed to be. It wouldn't be an appropriate criticism to cite operational losses on TxDot's wikipedia page, or Texas Tech University's page, or the Department of Homeland Security's page.

I tried to log-in yesterday to remove the baiting commentary, but I seem to have lost my log-in. Maybe I'll do it tonight.

[RobertB]

Here we go again. I've reverted this crap twice in a week.

Criticism of DART

Some people have raised criticisms of the agency. One common criticism is that the expense of the system is not worth the results. Another is that the government's using its power of taxation to subsidize its unprofitable transit operation effectively eliminates any possible creation of private light rail transit companies. Supporters of DART acknowledge that these are common criticisms of government-operated transit operations.

Operating Losses

Critics often point to the fact that the agency perennially has an operating loss (fares and advertisement revenues collected less operating expenses) of over $300 million and that its main source of income is local tax revenue rather than passenger fares. While income sources differ between government-operated transit systems, all North American government-operated transit systems generate some income from a source other than fares, and all have operating losses.

From 2002-2004, DART's annual operating losses were approximately $349 million, $368 million, and $344 million, respectively. For the agency to remain solvent, these losses were covered via local tax collections and federal grants. In 2004, DART even had a $63 million surplus thanks to these collections. DART has said the surplus from 2004 and any future surpluses will go toward the construction of new capital facilities, including rail extensions [1], but critics argue that given that DART's operating losses have only grown as the size of the agency has grown, DART's planned expansions will likely only increase the size of its annual operating loss.
If he keeps it up, I'll have to call in the calvary -- the Wikipedia admins. Judging from the comments on the article's talk page, I'll have a receptive forum. Meanwhile, if he comes back before I see him, please feel free to swing the Stick of Reversion as you see fit.

[mdunlap1]

Blah blah blah...

<b>Lyle Lanley</b>: The name's Lanley. Lyle Lanley. And I come before you good people tonight with an idea. Probably the greatest... Aw, it's not for you. It's more of a Shelbyville idea.
<b>Quimby:</b> Now wait just a minute! We're twice as smart as the people of Shelbyville! Just tell us your idea and we'll vote for it!
<b>Lyle Lanley:</b> All right, I tell you what I'll do. I'll show you my idea! I give you the Springfield Monorail! I've sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and by gum, it put them on the map!

http://www.synergizedsolutions.com/simpsons/pictures/others/lyle.gif

[drumguy8800]

In an attempt to bring the Dallas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas, Texas) article up to Featured Article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:FA) status, the entire Dallas article could really use some beefing up. The idea behind most major city articles that attain FA status is tons of sub-articles with brief summaries at the main article. The current collaboration is History of Dallas, Texas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History of Dallas, Texas).

I made up arbritrary names for different "eras" in Dallas history.. I could really use an expert (Lakewooder, Clipper, whoever) to help out. If you don't feel like dealing with the wikipedia editing, I could at least really use some massive blocks of historical text to prune into an article..

As a side note, the History of New York City (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History of New York City) article is the model we wanna go for here. Ultimatey, each era should have its own subpage..

[drumguy8800]

For those who don't even want to go look at the article, at least review this:
# 1 Territorial Period (1500s-1840)
# 2 Settlement (1841-1856)

* 2.1 La Reunion

# 3 Early Existance (1856-1873)
# 4 Industrial Period (1874-1929)

* 4.1 Turn of the century

# 5 Oil Period (1930-1960)
# 6 Real Estate Boom (1961-1984)
# 7 Recession (1985-1996)
# 8 Modern Period (1996-2006)

certainly there have to be some good monumental turning points that we can chop the city's history up with. The x.1 things are subsections within each. the turn of the century thing will probably end up getting removed next edit.. but la reunion should stay. i would like to have plenty of x.1s and x.2s etc in each thing..

[drumguy8800]

A few things that need to be added to the main article are

I) Infrastructure
A) Utilities
B) Health and Medicine

II) Government and Politics
A) History of it
B) Organization of it
C) Criticisms, praises

Sections in need of major expansion
I) Culture
A) Arts
B) Events
C) Media

II) Architecture
Though this might end up getting coupled with "arts"..

[gc]

Wow drummy. You are keeping yourself busy. Good work.

[mgd323]

I was surprised that the page lacked any culinary info; Dean, Pyles, Frozen Margaritas, most restraurants per capita, etc.

[gc]

^ Good points.

[tennreb]

double post

[tennreb]

The Dallas page on Wikitravel could use some work too. It's at http://wikitravel.org/en/Dallas . I've been working on the Oxford, MS page at http://wikitravel.org/en/Oxford_(Mississippi) .
Feel free to steal some ideas. The Chattanooga page is a great one emulate.

[drumguy8800]

The Oxford page is impressive, tennreb. One thing you might consider is common image widths.. a lot are very little and the one at top is unreasonably large.

Today I expanded the Arts section quite a bit.. added reasons why deep ellum, arts district, bishop arts district, and the cedars are important to the local art scene.

that is a good idea to add some of the local culinary scene into culture. I would love a reference for most-restaurants-per-capita..

[Lakewooder]

Thanks for working on this drummy!

You might try:

http://www.dallashistory.org/

http://www.watermelon-kid.com/adventures.htm

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~jwheat/index.html

http://dallasheritage.net/

Or email:

'dpayne@smu.edu'

Darwin Payne has written several books and articles about the history of Dallas

[mgd323]

"Most Restaurants per Capita" :confused:

I googled "Dallas Most Restaurants per Capita". Found some sites saying as much, found some saying we have 4 times more than NY, and some saying almost as many as NY...who knows at this point. On second thought who cares about titles ("Camelot's a silly place")...I don't know that it's specific enough to really take pride in. I think the quality of our culinary delights is more than enough to be proud; spouting a stat like that kind of sounds like bragging about the largest ball of string :) .

Anyway, I've listed some sites below since you asked.

http://www.weather.com/activities/travel/businesstraveler/nutshell/dal_dg.html

http://www.visitdallas.com/media/press_releases.php?id=87&category=5440

http://city.skyteam.com/city-guide-dallas.html

[drumguy8800]

Thanks, lakewooder. the dallashistory.org has already been a great help. the information on it allowed me to expand the History of Dallas, Texas (1839-1856) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History of Dallas, Texas (1839-1856)) section of the history page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History of Dallas, Texas) into a full blown article. also let me add small articles on Bird's Foot and John Neely Bryan..

I had to summarize the full article to a smaller one for the history page, which is wikipedia policy, though i really just chopped off less-important sections of sentences. I'd appreciate someone checking the copy of both.. and adding whatever.

thanks mgd323, as well.. those are all great sources

[drumguy8800]

Hmm, I did a really big expansion of the John Neely Bryan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John Neely Bryan) article and I learned a lot I never knew.. like he went to california during the gold rush, he went insane when he was older.. etc.

Also, I just added the History of Dallas, Texas (1856-1873) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History of Dallas, Texas (1856-1873)) article and I learned a lot about Dallas. If no one has ever heard of the fire of 1860 in Dallas, it sort of shocked me.. it was of course around the time when there were rumblings of secession and abolition and the like.. and someone (or something accidentally) set fire to a store, which ended up growing and burning the majority of the business district of Dallas. white pro-abolitionists were evicted, some african americans were hung, and every slave in the city was ordered to be whipped. The rest of its all pretty interesting.. im glad I'm writing (or at least altering from the handbook) these articles.. it teaches you a lot.

[frankchitown]

Cool stuff...thanks for all the hard work you're doing on wikipedia, its looking good

[mdunlap1]

This picture from the Victory Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Park#Future) entry at Wikipedia could use an update from someone who has a more recent photo of the W.

The photo now is from January 2005.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a2/01220506l.jpg/250px-01220506l.jpg

[drumguy8800]

^ I added that yesterday. Someone can get me a newwer one to go with it or I can get one today ...

[drumguy8800]

Anyone know stuff about Libraries in Dallas? That is, beyond libraries in the Dallas Public Library System. I have that and the UT Southwestern Library listed at Libraries of Dallas, Texas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libraries_of_Dallas%2C_Texas). I'd hope there are more.. that would include any collection of books, I suppose, doesn't necessarily have to be called a "library".

Also looking for ways to expand Culture of Dallas, Texas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Dallas%2C_Texas). Most notably I need information on events, large and small. Sections on the page include:

* 1 People
* 2 Arts
* 3 Media
* 4 Religion
* 5 Events
* 6 Architecture

"People" can mean notable people or the demographia of the city as a whole.

[RobertB]

drum, I noticed that you got dogpiled over "metrification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Drumguy8800#Please_stop_the_metrificatio n_of_US_articles)". While I agree with their point, it sure seems like they all jumped on you at once! This seems to be an increasing tendency on Wikipedia... I got slammed for suggesting that the US Highways were fine like they were and didn't need to be changed to "US Routes".

There may be an excuse for the declining civility... if I focused on more than just a selected few articles, I'd get tired of the vandalism and POV edits and I'd tend to snap at folks, too. Still, I think a quick look at your record could have assured them that you have no agenda and were just trying to follow a standard method. Illegitimi non carborundum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegitimi_non_carborundum).

[drumguy8800]

Anyone have pictures of Dallas in the snow...? Or Dallas in a torrent of rain...? Or Dallas on a clearly sweltering day...?

I need images for the climate of Dallas. The images should at least have something to tell that they are in fact in Dallas.. not just like snowmen in the front yard. A good example would be Rantanamo's photos of Turtle Creek in the snow.

The images would need to be released under the GFDL.. basically if you never plan on making a profit on them or publishing them somewhere you shouldn't worry about releasing rights to them. I upload tons at smaller file sizes and the exposure has earned me upwards of $450 from people finding them, wanting HQ images for profitable reasons, and paying me for usage rights.

pleaaaaase. :).