Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennessee/Chattanooga

WikiProject Chattanooga

Heads-up, I've founded Wikipedia:WikiProject Chattanooga. - Patricknoddy^{TALK (reply here)}^|^HISTORY 11:32, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe we have enough participants for a completely separate project from the Wikiproject TN. Further, I think we benefit from involvement from within the broader TN community. Qmax 13:29, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Concur. The TN project itself is pretty small as it is. - BillCJ 03:26, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just as a matter of record here, the MfD for WP:CHA resulted in a "delete". All articles tagged for WP:CHA have been retagged for Tennessee, and I believe the related pages and templates should be redirected or otherwise gone as well. -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 04:19, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing articles with corporate histories or books

Corporate histories paid for by or published by the companies they're written about may be good starting points for articles, but should not be used as primary or only sources since they don't meet the neutral point of view policy and are considered self-published books. Flowanda 03:38, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

First off, self-published books are only a problem with regards to NPOV insofar as they effect notability, and that's why one should be careful. While I recognize that a corporate history is likely to be considered self-published, there's no explicit wiki policy stating or implying to that end, nor is there one implying that they don't meet NPOV. Your overall concern with corporate histories is still a good one, but you don't have to make stuff up to make your point. Qmax 11:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Notability is only one of the reasons why self-published books are not considered reliable sources for wikipedia articles; a book commissioned by and paid for a company about itself, no matter how well-intentioned or thorough, is going to raise questions about point of view, especially when used as significant or sole sources on an article about the company or or used to defend the addition or removal of potentially contentious content. As the guidelines state: "if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so."

When used as a source for specific content, the book's relationship to the company should be clearly identified, again, per the wikipedia guidelines that I will quote in whole: "Material from self-published sources and sources of questionable reliability may be used in articles about themselves, so long as: it is relevant to their notability; it is not contentious; it is not unduly self-serving; it does not involve claims about third parties, or about events not directly related to the subject; there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it."

As to the books being self published, Provident, ANB, UTC and Baylor, for example, are all listed on Amazon as the publishers of their own books.

I was not disputing the use of these books, especially as external resources or citing them for basic facts, but pointing out that they should be one source among many. However, having to go to such great lengths to defend myself against statements related to lying or intentional misinterpretation continues to raise serious flags that these articles can be written and edited without bias, conflict of interest or with the participation of a great number of editors. Flowanda 22:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Again, you basic point has been taken, even without your "going to great lengths". Please AGF that intelligent editors can understand how to use self-published sources correctly, and wait until said editors actually violate NPOV before jumping on their case. We can all probably cite examples of independent sources (esp newspapers) who have got basic information wrong, so having independent sources is not a gurantee of accurracy. Hopefully we can can consider this issue "hashed out" at this point, and move on. - BillCJ 23:06, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you BillCJ. There's good work to be done! Qmax 23:53, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Chattanooga article improvement

Although it may be more appropriate to discuss improvements to the Chattanooga page on its talk page, I'm wondering if creating the subject headings here (with frequent links/updates on the Chattanooga talk page) would make the entire project more cohesive and active. There's been discussion about improvements (the intro, organizations and yesterday's biz talk), and I think more editors might get involved if there were specific agreed-upon to-dos (for instance, add Allied Arts programs, Chattanooga's environmental history and industry, Southside and other neighborhood revitalization, scooter gangs, etc.), feedback from submitting the article for review (or whatever it's called). What do you think? Flowanda 22:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks anyway; I think I found the answers I needed by researching the city projects pages. Just didn't want to make edits or add content to the Chattanooga sections that might be affected/edited/deleted/etc. by this project. Flowanda 02:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hospital articles

An editor I work with on aircraft ariticles has given me the opportunity to work on an article for the company he works for, as he won't write it due to conflict of interest. He works for an EMS subsidiary of the company, which prompted me to look up Erlanger LifeForce on Wiki. While I wasn't surprised to see there was not an article on LifeForce, I was stunned to fined that there were no articles on Erlanger or any of the other hospitals in Chattanooga.

I have several aircraft sandboxes I'm working on getting up to article quality, and then will work on my friend's company article. I'm hoping the experience doing an article on an EMS company will help me in trying to do one on LifeForce. However, I think that at this point pages on the area hospitals are beyond both my knowledge and time.

If someone else would like to tackle this, I'll try to help out in any way I can. - BillCJ 07:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tennessee River Rescue

Should this be an article? I think it is pretty significant since it's done some good & has been around for 20 years. --Tholcomb (talk) 05:12, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]