Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Museums/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

History Museum

There is no Historical museum or history museum article and this seems like a gross oversight to me. I'm a student and can't take on the task at the moment, but will help out if someone else takes charge. --Gimme danger (talk) 11:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Is it too general to have an article? I'm not really sure. As it is, Art museum is a mess. How do you think such an article should work? TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 15:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's too general. The outline for general museum articles (history museum, art museum, museum, etc.) would be as follows.

1. Definition - this wouldn't be the section title and maybe this would be covered in the intro
2. Theory, describing basically what type of museum aims to do and what experts say about it. Like this section might have information about the concerns of curators, exhibit design and things like that.
3. Types (with sub sections covering various types, like living museums, ship museums, historic houses etc.)
4. History - This would probably be the bulk of the article. To me, the history of the idea of a museum is the most interesting thing about it. This section would cover firsts, development of museums and museum-like institutions in various world cultures, etc.

Of course, this order may not be ideal. Eventually, basic museum articles (Museum) would probably be summary articles linking to main articles like History of museums and such. The biggest problem that general articles pose, in my mind, is example creep. General articles should only have description of really historically important museums, firsts and things like that, but shouldn't include a long list of museums, like "art museum" currently does. --Gimme danger (talk) 16:58, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Class and Importance update for template

Since we have added importance to the template and a functional bot to summarize, is this our current Template for the Project:

{{Wiki Project Museums
|class=List/Stub/Start/B/GA/A/FA
|importance=Top/High/Medium/Low/None
<!----- CLASS-B REVIEW ----->
<!-- 1. It is suitably referenced, and all major points are appropriately cited. -->
|B-Class-1=yes/no
<!-- 2. It reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain major omissions or inaccuracies. -->
|B-Class-2=yes/no
<!-- 3. It has a defined structure, including a lead section and one or more sections of content. -->
|B-Class-3=yes/no
<!-- 4. It is free from major grammatical errors, and not needing cleanup per [[WP:MOS]]. -->
|B-Class-4=yes/no
<!-- 5. It contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams. -->
|B-Class-5=yes/no
}}

Does the bot perform any other function than summarizing the class/importance matrix?

Do we have criteria for the Top/High/Medium/Low/None importances?

Thanks,LanceBarber (talk) 20:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the bot performs any other functions but I'm not an expert. The importance criteria are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Museums/Assessment but probably still need tweaking.— Rod ^talk 20:26, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Museum Ships

I'm an active member with WP:MILHIST and WP:SHIPS and will be glad to tag all instances of museum ships I know of. Looking forward to working with y'all. -MBK₀₀₄ 15:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 18:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome. I've already identified 4 FAs and 1 GA on top of what you had already, plus numerous well-written ship articles. -MBK₀₀₄ 18:56, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

One thing I should bring up, according to the MOS, all names of ships should be italicized whenever possible, so take that into account when linking. If you have questions, I can point you to some specialized templates developed by WP:SHIPS to expedite this purpose. -MBK₀₀₄ 17:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Would you mind? I think having them here is a good reference, or listing it in the guidelines that RodW started in his sandbox, that way it's at hand for anyone who might be working on a museum ship TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 17:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Sure, here's what I can remember off the top of my head: {{USS}}, {{USNS}}, {{USCGC}}, {{HMS}}, {{HMAS}}, {{HMCS}}, {{MS}}, {{MV}}, {{SS}}, {{warship}} and {{sclass}}. These are intricate templates which reduce the amount of wikicode required to italicize the names of ships and provide a variety of ways to display the links. -MBK₀₀₄ 18:12, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's some more: {{RMS}}, {{GTS}}, {{HSC}}, and {{USAT}}. -MBK₀₀₄ 18:36, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

And yet another one: {{sclass2}} -MBK₀₀₄ 20:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Question: Do we tag both the individual ship and the article on the museum if they exist? The reason being is that an external editor just removed the tag from Vasa (ship) stating that the tag belongs on the museum's article, which I've just tagged. -MBK₀₀₄ 21:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I would say just the museum article when there are separate articles, as that is the article that falls within the scope of this wikiproject. However others such as SS Great Britain just have one article which covers the ship & museum.— Rod ^talk 21:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I'll go back through the ships I've tagged and weed out the ones with the museum articles. Also, don't forget to italicize ship names as I've stated above. -MBK₀₀₄ 21:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I've completed that job, we lost a few FAs, and the corresponding articles on the museum proper are only stubs. -MBK₀₀₄ 18:36, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm the 'external editor' in question. The Vasa (ship) is a ship in the Vasa Museum. In contrast to 'regular' museum ships where visitors can go on board the ship, the Vasa ship is not accessible to visitors -- it can only be studied from the galleries in the museum. Vasa (ship) is about the history of the ship and not the museum. Additionally, there are at least three other historical ships forming part of the museum (to my knowledge without articles on Wikipedia). Lastly, just a note - the Vasa Museum is the most visited museum in Sweden, so I'm not sure I agree with "Importance=Low" tag (might be my Swedish POV).

/ Raven in Orbit (talk) 21:55, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense. Also, looking at the article on the museum, those other ships do have articles here. -MBK₀₀₄ 22:04, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for contributing, Raven. We're still trying to decide how to assess some articles in terms of importance. It's a new project so the standards are still evolving. Being totally unfamiliar with the museum, I can't judge importance but your input is very welcome. And MBK, will do my best to remember itals, thanks for posting the links TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 00:15, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I developed a List of U.S. National Historic Landmark ships and shipwrecks. This list covers 128 ships and shipwrecks, many or most of which are museums or are within museums, and I believe this covers a large fraction of all museum ships in the United States. I mean for this to be used like a checklist for checking Wikiproject Museum coverage. If you'd like to check some of them, please feel free to use the column available to note museum assocations. I started by adding notes in that column regarding about a dozen ships that are associated with several maritime museums, and adding those museums to this wikiproject. doncram (talk) 17:51, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

To Do- tasks & admin

I have started to add tasks to the project "To Do" list particularly where I come across articles with cleanup, verify & similar tags - feel free to add others (& to remove them once they have been sorted). I've also started to add references etc to Museum & added some comments on the Talk page about what is still needed - further comments & contributions welcome.— Rod ^talk 14:32, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that link, I'll add there instead of the random comments I made here at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Museums#Focus Articles TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 19:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The To-do list of requests is a small fraction of the hundreds of museums that need articles. I could probably come up with 3 or 4 dozen just in Colorado. I suggest move the "request list for museum articles" to its Talk OR a create a Division "project" Article under this WP, OR for now ,a temporary section for museum article requests. The Requests section of the To-do List should be for "to-do's" for the details of this WP, creating bots for reports... Adding Importance parameters and bots for our WP template... create priority scheme for the requested articles, including collaboration for Featured Articles... etc. Thanks, LanceBarber (talk) 19:52, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, that was part of why I removed a chunk from the 'articles to create' section, there's far too much. Perhaps a "Museums Article Creation" Task Force could be created for that? I know I've been living in the NYC museums and wavered between cleaning up existing articles in the Category and adding those missing (or redlinked) from the list. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 20:41, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

OK I've used the requests section for articles which need to be created with other projects - but I agree there are hundreds (if not thousands) which still need doing - is it worth listing them somewhere either by type/topic or country? There seem to be thousands that need infoboxes etc so I shall stop adding them as well.— Rod ^talk 20:45, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I think by country makes sense, but that's personal opinion. I've created Wikipedia:WikiProject Museums/Requested Articles which I think could work for our project. Feel free to change, etc. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 21:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent for clarity), I'm also going to add those listed at Wikipedia:Requested articles/Culture and fine arts#Museums to [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Museums/Requested Articles]] that are relevant. I'm not entirely sure that camel beauty pageants are within our scope. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 23:44, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Requested

Wow! Rod, you're a museum database. I've been working a lot on NYC Museums but I'm going to expand my scope and tackle some that you've listed there. Broaden my horizons and learn something too. Plus I need a break from the museums I know. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 14:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Expansion

Blofeld of SPECTRE has been able to help a lot with the redlinks on the requested articles page and the result is Wikipedia:WikiProject Museums/Requests for Expansion. Stubs are easier to work with then a daunting list of red links. I'm moving the blue links from creation to expansion, but both places are good ones to look. As of now, I've "failed" in my goal, I created another NYC stub rather than an non-US museum. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 17:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

The automated article creation process is good & has made a lot of stubs, but some of the titles are too general, as an overview articles for a "museum type" may be required. These may need to be made more specific ? by moving/renaming with the inclusion of the city eg:

• Agricultural Museum, Cairo
• Child Museum, Cairo
• Geology Museum, Cairo
• Marine Museum, Hurghada
• Postal Museum, Cairo

Any thoughts?— Rod ^talk 19:28, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry didn't see this. I think we'll probably need to use the main ones and then make disambigs if we ever get to making overview articles, as someone suggested above for History museum. I think we need to work out there what the best idea for those large articles is to make them more than a dicdef but less than a list of random and unsourced information *cough*Art museum*cough*. ANy thoughts on what these overviews need to include? I need to think on that some more TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 15:41, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I've outlined what I think overviews should include here. I could definitely use some input there; I'm sure that I'm biased towards the theoretical. --Gimme danger (talk) 15:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Importance of museum orgs

specifically Association of Children's Museums, which came up today, but these exist worldwide. I'm guessing they're all probably mid importance. Any thoughts on that? It's not an accrediting body, although some may be. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 18:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

SuggestBot

I was pleasantly surprised when SuggestBot's recent suggestions for me were museum related. Hopefully that will continue. I really think that in less than a month we've all done a very good job! TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 16:44, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Requesting review

hey, i've been working on National Museum of Beirut a while now and I've developed it from a stub to the current article, it was hard finding references yet I submitted to requests for feedback page and i was encouraged to get a review, can anyone help? thanks in advance for your opinion. talk to me :) Eli+ 18:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest going to WP:Peer review. If you still need help in a month, I could probably do something, but I'm pretty much swamped now. --Gimme danger (talk) 23:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Children's Museums - Categories

I've really been trying to clean up Category:Children's museums (CM so as not to wear out my fingers) as it's not well organized at all and many aren't categorized. At the moment the sub-cats we have are:

• CM (includes worldwide)
• CM in the US
  • CM in California
  • CM in New York
  • CM in New York City (may be consolidated with the above)
  • CM in New England
  • CM in the Midwest
• CM in the UK
• CM in Canada

Any thoughts on further classification. Where I'm finding references to museums that don't exist, I'm creating stubs -- some Canadian ones so far which led to that sub-cat. I don;t know that broader cats i.e. CM in Europe/South America are particularly meaningful but the smaller categories are likely to be cats of one, so I don't know that those are viable. Thoughts? TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 15:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Also a starting point for the Children's museums that still need to be created, http://www.childrensmuseums.org/visit/us_members.htm TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 18:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

peer review request Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery

We haven't really set up a peer review system yet but could I ask others to take a look at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery & offer any advice or edits as I'd like to get this one, which is local to me, up to GA level.— Rod ^talk 21:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Would be happy to if you don't mind waiting until the weekend -- it's late here and I have an early meeting . Want to look at it properly TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 03:48, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah this was never supposed to take me this long. What's the GA policy/guideline on red links -- I can't find one. In my personal opinion, it stands out showing 'incomplete', but that may be just me. I'm also happy to do up some stubs to solve that 'problem' otherwise I think it's good. Minor points/questions:

• "The 1872/1877 Museum building was gutted by fire following a bomb hit on the night" - is there a clearer way to say this and identify this building. I had to re-read it a couple of times to understand it precisely because I wasn't sure why were were them talking about a 1940 event.
• I think the "Collection" section is laid out very well, it's clear and easy to read, but what do you think about giving the History section some sub-headers? I ask because it presents as a rather dense block of test.

Otherwise like I said, very good. Sorry it took so long TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 16:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Edgar Allan Poe Cottage

Anyone up for a look see on this article? A couple of us have worked on it and I'd really like to try for GA on it. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 14:38, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Infobox Width

anyone know how to fix it? I never thought of it as an issue until I saw it juxtaposed with the NHRP one here and the width disparity bothers me. Suggestions? Thoughts? TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 00:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Peer Review of Louvre

Just wanted to let y'all know that Louvre is up for Peer Review here. Please add comments or improve the article if you can. --Gimme danger (talk) 09:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Museum Stubs: List in Progress

I'm trying to make a list to include on the project page, but I know I don't even know the half of them. So far I've found:

• {{Museum-stub}}
• {{US-museum-stub}}

• {{US-rail-museum-stub}}
• {{Florida-museum-stub}}

{{UK-museum-stub}}

• {{Australia-museum-stub}}
• {{Korea-museum-stub}}
• {{Aerospace-museum-stub}}
• {{Greece-museum-stub}}

Feel free to add others. Are there others we need? Talk to_Cari^{the Busy Bee} 14:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Wellcome collection

I started an article on the Wellcome Collection in London which only opened June 2007. It's still fairly sparse, could use input from anyone who may be interested. Incidentally this is a very interesting place and probably not very well known yet - worth a visit (which might inspire a contribution?). ProfDEH (talk) 09:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal of List of museums in Seoul

User:Badagnani suggests to merge List of museums in Seoul into List of museums in South Korea. The two lists are incomplete and still miss many entries on the lists. South Korea list misses more than 200 museums and Seoul list about at least 30 university museums and art galleries, so I don't think the merge proposal is appropriate, but any input on this is appreiciated. Thanks.--Appletrees (talk) 02:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, it doesn't seem like the best solution. I'll go comment there and notify Bloefeld, who helped us with some of those. Thanks for the heads up _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 04:18, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The telephone numbers are inappropriate and are usually discouraged throughout Wikipedia pages. WP:DIRECTORY #3 forbids 'em. A sortable table might be a useful way to organize it. Noroton (talk) 05:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, telephone numbers, hours and admission prices need to go. I've removed on sight but am in no way ahead of them. _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 20:48, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Deletion Discussions

After a discussion, Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Museums and libraries was created and I transcluded it onto the main project page here. To add new AfDs, please follow the directions there. _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 00:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

and I'm happy* to announce it works. Not happy an article has been brought to AfD, but happy adding an article works with the transclusion _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 20:47, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

notability and museums

are museums inherently notable? If not, what do they require to be notable? This comes from working through List of museums in New York and specifically a discussion that came up at Science Discovery Center of Oneonta. I think most museums, even itty bitty local museums have some sourcing so it shouldn't be too much of a problem but there are some where it's rather bare. Thoughts? _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 16:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to imagine a museum could be set up and actually operate without having enough coverage in at least the local media to meet the standards of WP:ORG or WP:N. I think there may be a few cases where we may find it very difficult to find the sources, but, frankly, we should assume the sources are there in the case of something that calls itself a museum. When the museum sets itself up and opens to the public it is assured of local media coverage that would describe the place in detail. At some point a new development will create another story with plenty of detail. Even closing down the museum will create a detailed story. I think this is the best definition of "inherently notable" there is, and high schools, school districts, hospitals and some other institutions share the same trait. Noroton (talk) 04:06, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I've salvaged a number of seemingly difficult ones including Southwest Dairy Museum (only link I could find easily}, although others including Sterling McCall Old Car Museum didn't make it. I tend to agree with you, but I think we're preaching to the choir here on notability _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 20:33, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

How is it possible that this museum is of low importance? who does the rating? How did you come to this conclusion? A million visitors each year (in the 4 most important Spanish museums list), from many countries including USA... a milestone building by Frank Ghery... Guggenheim label on it... international press appraisal... and it is LOW?? Oh dear!David (talk) 06:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

People have differing opinions, there's no set-in-stone criteria for high, medium and low. Feel free to change it if you don't agree. Someone may also have been doing a number at the same time _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 12:29, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Recent Bot Work

After this discussion at the [[WP:BOTREQ|the bot requests] page, the following have been tagged for us:

• in Category:Unassessed-Class Museums articles, User:Stepshep had his bot assess the articles that were assessed for other projects and or had the {{stub}} tag within the article. As a result the cat is down to ~200 articles, which is refreshing, I'm going to keep at those to get them done. He also removed the project banner from Category:Châteaux in France, which were tagged by accident in the massive run. Been a great help for us. _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 17:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Clean-up categorization

After my request], User: B. Wolterding ran a list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Museums/Cleanup listing of project related articles that needed clean-up, as well as the type of clean-up they need. I'm working through the articles that SuggestBot gave me, but I'll have a look see at this list soon. In the mean time, feel free ;) _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 14:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Peer Review: Museum of the Rockies

I requested a peer review of the article and would appreciate any input. :) _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 16:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Museum Mile, London

For information Museum Mile, London (which includes the Wellcome Collection — see above) is being discussed re possible deletion if anyone wish to contribute to the discussion and/or vote. — Jonathan Bowen (talk) 19:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

thanks, I also added it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Museums and libraries _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 19:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Nominated Louvre to FAC

Hello everyone, I nominated the Louvre article to FAC. Please feel free to take a look at the article or leave a comment on the FAC page! Thanks! Lazulilasher (talk) 20:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I would like to nominate the [Florida Museum of Natural History] to this FAC. If you all agree let me know. I worked very hard on it. Bill 02:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtc69789 (talk • contribs)

People categories need cleanup

We have three categories which seem to overlap: Category:Museologists, Category:Museum people, Category:Museum occupations. They should probably be merged.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:05, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

These are distinct. Category:Museologists are academics who undertake museum studies, Category:Museum people is a general umbrella category for people associated with museums in any way and Category:Museum occupations is like other matching "occupations" category for article on museum-related occupations and categories of people who actually work in museums. It could do with tidying, especially Category:Museologists — I will have a go! I hope this helps with clarification. — Jonathan Bowen (talk) 12:26, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Museum of Papermaking in Duszniki-Zdrój

Please correct Museum of Papermaking in Duszniki-Zdrój. THX :) -- Grzegorz Wysocki (talk) 13:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC) (PL Wiki)

looked quickly, I've added WikiProject tags and am happy to look at it more in-depth later. _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 14:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
• The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
• A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

A discussion

An important discussion on " Should WikiProjects get prior approval of other WikiProjects (Descendant or Related or any ) to tag articles that overlaps their scope ? " is open here . We welcome you to participate and give your valuable opinions. -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - , member of WikiProject Council. 14:36, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

WP Template

Y'all's WikiProject Talk Template has a problem; anything rated C is said to be a Category, not a C-class article. That might require fixing.--Bedford ^Pray 01:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I don't have a clue how to do it. I don't know that we have any C-Class, could that be the reason? TCari ^{My travels} 02:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Someone recently did a redo of WP Louisville's; maybe something similar?--Bedford ^Pray 02:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Know it's been quiet here...and List of museums

I've been off-Wiki a bit but am slowly making my way back and delving back into article creation. I'm not really working off a priority list at the moment, but playing around with List of museums and its redlinks. I know it needs organizational work but in the mean time, I'm trying to turn red blue. Anyone else interested? TravellingCari 04:25, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

A question regarding photos

Hey all. I am not terribly familiar with the policies regarding copywrites and personal photographs taken at museums. I have several photographs of exhibits and art work from various museums around the world that were taken by myself with my camera. Can I upload these to wikipedia?Nrswanson (talk) 18:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Not a clue, but I'm going to ask Giggy, who I understand is a wiz in all things images. I had this issue with Colonnade Row, when I found out I couldn't use a pic of the sign I'd taken. TravellingCari 20:36, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for investigating.Nrswanson (talk) 20:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Would you be able to upload them? It depends. If the artworks are still copyrighted, you can't upload as your photos are derivative works of the original artwork. If the artworks are now in the public domain, as per {{PD-Art}}, then you can upload your photos and add that template. If you've read that template and aren't sure as to the status of your photos, giving some more detail (what's it a photo of? Who's the original artist?) here would help. —Giggy 00:07, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

NYC Cultural Institutions

This has been cross posted to Museums, National Register of Historic Places and NYC as it has relevance to both and I don't think enough eyes are on the article. Anyone want to weigh in at this discussion err currently post about fixing that list. I'm not debating the existence of the list, but rather its usefulness. It's currently, as my boss would say, "a crazy salad" and needs to be broken down. Much as we like to be comprehensive, I don't think we can list everything vaguely cultural in NYC on one list, nor should we try. Am open to suggestions. Thoughts? Please weigh in at that discussion for the sake of keeping everything in one place. TravellingCari 22:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Over the past few months I've added a fair amount of content to the LACMA article, trying to build up the collections information. If people could take a look and review, that would be great. I would like to get this article up to good or featured article status. any comments really appreciated.Minnaert (talk) 02:53, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I left some quick feedback on the talk page. I think you're well on the way. TravellingCari 19:35, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

thanks for the comments, much appreciated. Minnaert (talk) 15:53, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

European Museum of the Year Award winners

anyone want to help turn red links blue? They're notable, it's just a question of whether the name matches here and adding some basic info, I think. TravellingCari 14:49, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Woodsboro, Maryland museum

How does this project deal with small museums such as the one in Woodsboro, Maryland? Should it get its own article or be a section in the town's article? LA (T) @ 01:41, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

What's the museum's name? Woodsboro Museum isn't a promising search and if those results are true, then I'd leave it in the town for the time being. Of course if it has another name, and this search seems to show some in the area (not familiar with the region so I'm not sure it's accurate), then there may be enough information from which to create a stub. I'm happy to look into it further. Thanks for the note. TravellingCari 02:04, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the name is The Woodsboro Museum, however I haven't been into it yet. The history is somewhat recent. It is also very very tiny. (It would probably fit in my house.) Prior to the space being the museum, it was the Woodsboro post office. (If that tid bit weren't from my personal observation, I would already have added it.) So, when I get the itch to add it (and maybe taking a picture of the entrance), I will go and visit it and add it to the Woodsboro, Maryland article. It is in the same building which houses the Woodsboro Bank, which is far more notable. Thanks for the information.

Oh, the second search you did had a link to Maryland At a Glance - Museums - Frederick County. Some may be worth including in either the Frederick County, Maryland article or in their own articles. Some are already on the list of museums in Maryland.

I don't know what made me suddenly interested in this. LA (T) @ 08:08, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Ooh a picture would be great and I'll dig around to see what I can find. Maybe the building has some significance and within that article its history as the post office, use as a bank and museum could be covered. It sounds like it could well be a historic building. The interest bug is a fun one, isn't it? :) I haven't looked much at any of the museum articles or lists in the region, but I will try to. My stomping grounds prove to be a bit distracting. TravellingCari 04:35, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't go into super research mode just yet. I just checked two phone books, it is not listed in either. It may already be a defunct museum. LA (T) @ 05:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Museums

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

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Interesting list, although some aren't really museums. I'm going to have a look-see to address the crucial issues. Who wants to help? There are some here I've touched, but I'm totally unfamiliar with others. TravellingCari 15:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Historic house museums cat refine

Category:Historic house museums is/was a mess with the only child cats being Category:Historic house museums in the United States and Category:Historic house museums in Italy. Not particularly helpful. I have been and will continue to be going through the parent cat and putting them in the child cats where needed. In the process, the US cat, especially along the east coast where we preserve our houses, is getting insane so I'm starting to do it by state. If anyone wants to help, feel free. I'll be going offline in about an hour for the remainder of the weekend. TravellingCari 15:26, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Multple museum templates nomed for deletion

Hi, I've nominated several museum-related templates for deletion at TFD. Please comment. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 00:46, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Article Alerts

B. Wolterding has created a bot called ArticleAlertbot (talk · contribs) that gives alerts to different WikiProjects, based on the project's talk page banner. Your project was interested in a bot like this one per comments on the talk page. An example of a report is here. Instructions on how to add your project are here. Alerts should be generated daily. Any feedback is appreciated, and should go here. LegoK^ontribsT^alkM 01:43, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

FYI: New articles

A bot has been set up, which looks through the new Wikipedia articles and picks up those that are likely related to museums. The search results are available at User:AlexNewArtBot/MuseumsSearchResult and are normally updated on a daily basis. Colchicum (talk) 00:08, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

DuSable Museum of African American History

is currently a Good Article Nominee if there's anything anyone wants to add. I'm not involved with the nom, but saw it across my watchlist. StarM 22:00, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

This might be interesting for people in this project

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Loves Art - several museums are already signed up dm (talk) 00:22, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for USS Texas (BB-35) now open

The A-Class review for USS Texas (BB-35) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 06:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Loves Art

I suspect many in this group will find the Wikipedia Loves Art to be an interesting monthlong project to help out with... dm (talk) 12:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for USS Missouri (BB-63) now open

The peer review for USS Missouri (BB-63) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 23:20, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Welsh Industrial and Maritime Museum

A museum that was controversially closed in 1997 for the site to be redeveloped. Article is sorely needed. Mjroots (talk) 11:50, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:04, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

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Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:26, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Request article review - Imperial War Museum

Hello all. For the past few months I've been quietly improving the article on the Imperial War Museum and would like to request other editors have a look at it now, and provide feedback. Thanks to all. IxK85 (talk) 20:49, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Bruce Castle peer review

Bruce Castle is currently up for peer review. This is a somewhat unusual article in that, while as far as I know it covers the subject as comprehensively (within reason) as possible, there are large gaps where sources don't exist, so ideally I'd like any issues that can be fixed, fixed before it goes to any potential FAC. – iridescent 17:34, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Satellite museums

Is there any policy or concensus on satellite museums. The North Carolina Museum of History has some smaller musuems that are physically seperate from the main museum in Raleigh but part of the museum system. Should these articles be seperate by rule or should they be merged into the main article, particularly if short.--RadioFan2 (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Good question. Don't think we've come up with any consensus and it's not likely one guideline will apply to all situations as each is probably different. If they're not independently notable they probably could be merged but I think most museums have coverage sufficient to warrant a stub. That may be personal bias. StarM 00:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

L. Ron Hubbard House

A new article I tagged with your project. APK thinks he's ready for his closeup 20:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Ceramics museums, and museums disambiguation pages

I just created disambiguation page Museum of Ceramics with a bunch of red-links to articles needed for some of the museums that show up in Google searching on "Ceramics Museum" and/or on "Museum of Ceramics".

Also, I've found it very useful in supporting another wikiproject, wp:NRHP, for it to have a template class type and a corresponding separate category for disambiguation pages that include NRHP articles (and perhaps non-NRHP articles as well). The NRHP wikiproject template allows for "class=dab" or "class=disambiguation", and if that is indicated it puts the Talk page into Category:Disambig-Class National Register of Historic Places articles. Perhaps it would help for WikiProject Museums to do similarly. I see that currently, anyhow, "class=dab" just puts a disambiguation page into "class=NA", instead, by my trying it at Talk:Museum of Ceramics. doncram (talk) 21:36, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation

This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Aradale Mental Hospital

For some reason there's a WP Museums box on the discussion page. Aradale isn't a museum, nor are there any plans to make it a museum AFAIK. J Ward is a museum, but was really only administratively part of Aradale - they aren't co-located and functioned semi independently Shelbypark (talk) 06:33, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

was bot tagged, probably because the article is categorised as Category:Prison museums in Australia. I have removed the WP Museum banner based on your comment. Thanks for the heads up StarM 16:44, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Article title for names of museums not in English

I took a brief look at the Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(use_English) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) to try to figure out if names of museums should be translated or not. It appears they should be but I wanted to ask at the project site first. In particular, National Museum of Natural History (Santiago, Chile) has been translated to English when the actual name is "Museo Nacional de Historia Natural" whereas the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Santiago, Chile) was not translated. This inconsistency raised the question for me. I wanted to fix it but I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing before I make an edit. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:26, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

This general topic came up recently at wt:HSITES. The example of Musee d'Orsay vs. "Orsay Museum" was given, for which the French language name is the one known in English and should be used, rather than some bad, non-used translation. I think that using the non-English language for historic sites, museums, or other places should often be done. The two naming convention guidelines you point out (thanks, i wasn't aware of them) aren't against that. The second one states "When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it." So, conversely, if there is not a widely accepted English name, then I think we should stick with the non-English language official name of the place. doncram (talk) 20:04, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep there are other inconsistencies as was discussed when the project was first getting kicked off. I think a lot are easily recogniably in their home language i.e. Louvre, La Scala but might be utterly unknown in English. Also the translation of Narodni Museum leads to some ambiguity where it might not be if it were under its proper name -- many countries have national museums. StarM 00:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Following the precedents already set, to at the least bring things under the same style, I have decided that in the case of Chile's museums to use the Spanish for the article title, introduce the Museum in the English translation in the intro sentence and then give the translation in Spanish. Redirects are used for the English names. This topic is probably important enough that there should be firm guildlines written up and put on your project's page perhaps. Thanks for the help. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:23, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Very good point, going to put it on my to do list since I forget how to edit the project's StarM 01:18, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

The Science Museum At Wroughton (Formerly Science Museum Swindon)

A posting to let everyone know that the latest edits and change of title on this page have been made by me as 'someone who works for the company' - as Senior Curator at The Science Museum at Wroughton.(Merlin of Marlborough (talk) 08:07, 29 May 2009 (UTC))

Thanks, those look like great clarification. The article is at The Science Museum at Wroughton for anyone looking. Merlin, there's a small pilot in developing of how to help museum staff improve their own articles. I'm going to poke the person working on it if you're interested in helping with the museum's article. StarM 01:10, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

2009 U.S. Holocaust Museum shooting

I don't know if this article is under your project's scope (since it's not about the actual museum), but I've tagged it anyway. If it's not under the project's scope, feel free to remove the banner. APK lives in a very, very Mad World 19:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Ex-projects - use of appropriate museum category?

Hi. if a project disappears, do you just uncategorize it, or do you have some kind of ex-museum-project cat or something? The reason I am asking is this: National Sports Hall of Fame which is categorized as "Stub-Class Museums articles" and "Unknown-importance Museums articles" and, as the project is pretty much dead or at least soon to be so, I am not sure that it should be either, or both, or none, or what. I changed it from "proposed building projects" to "unbuilt" (or words to that effect), but I'm not sure if there's a museum equivalent. Your advice would be appreciated. Thanks and best wishes, DBaK (talk) 16:22, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

There is a "defunct museum" category and sub categories it might fit into dm (talk) 01:13, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the reply. I've categorized the article as a "defunct US museum". I have to confess that I am a little confused about the relationship between cats on the article and cats on the talk page, and how some cats are added by direct editing and others by project boxes, the latter in particular being a mysterious area to me. Furthermore, I am not sure that others' effort in teaching me about all this, or mine in learning it, would be rewarded by the quantity and quality of its results! So I have not fiddled with any of the existing stuff, but merely added the defunct category to those already there. I'l leave it to wiser editors to sort out what, if anything, needs to be done with the other stuff. I think for now I've done what I can to try to improve the article to a reasonable point, where it pretty much reflects the projects' status as far as I can understand it from available sources, and I should probably stop fiddling with it now! Thanks again for your help, Best wishes DBaK (talk) 10:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Museum at Bethel Woods

There's a discussion at this article's talk page regarding a possible merge. I was the creator simply because it was a redlink and have no preference one way or another. Would like more input. StarM 01:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposed guidelines page

A proposed guidelines page needs editing, comment and/or review. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Museums/Guideline. SriMesh | talk 04:58, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Art museum category vs Art museums and galleries category

A while ago, I went through List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City and fixed all of the categories in Category:Art museums in Manhattan Category:Art museums in New York County, New York and changed Category:Art museums and galleries in New York City to be just pointers to the Museums and to the Art Galleries, much cleaner and more accurate imho. As I move up the chain to the national level, everything is bundled under Category:Art museums and galleries in the United States which imho has the same problem. Before I start off on a long quest, I thought I'd reach out for other comments. I see a pretty clear distinction between museums and galleries. Thoughts? dm (talk) 06:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I think you're right dm, museums-at least as far as I know them-tend to be far wider-reaching in scope. Also they're often non-profits (501 c(3) in the US) whereas galleries may be commercial, offfering products for sale. I'm not sure how true that holds outside the US, and I can see some ones where name may complicate things, i.e. National Gallery of Australia, but I think what you've done is good. StarM 23:36, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Its true I think. In Greece for example there is a huge difference between museums and galleries. A museum is exactly what everyone has in his mind. But Galleries in Greece are small, usually one or two rooms private spaces where excibitions of young artists are presented. Usually as StarM said correctly galleries are commercial and try to sale art..I am not 100% for the rest of Europe but I think that this is happening in many countries (Germany, France). I think that your decision was right. Good thought.--Thaliapap (talk) 08:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. More than the term "gallery" in the official name, the distinction between non-profit/educational and commercial makes the difference. --RPD (talk) 16:29, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Yep - and to second Thaliapap, I've seen the same hold in Japan, Spain, the Czech Republic and Italy so it seems to be a fairly common difference, if not exactly worldwide. StarM 19:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'm working my way through New York State now... dm (talk) 23:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

A critical difference is does the "gallery" have a permanent collection (i.e., it is an art "museum") or is it for temporary exhibitions only. Most of the former are non-commercial, most of the latter are commercial, but not exclusively so. It is a permanent collect that distinguishes a museum from other institutions. — Jonathan Bowen (talk) 16:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Jpbowen's point has helped as I've worked through the states dm (talk) 00:22, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Mark Twain House GA Sweeps: On Hold

I have reviewed Mark Twain House for GA Sweeps to determine if it still qualifies as a Good Article. In reviewing the article I have found several issues, which I have detailed here. Since the article falls under the scope of this project, I figured you would be interested in contributing to further improve the article. Please comment there to help the article maintain its GA status. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 07:36, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Is a Zoo a museum? Is an Aquarium?

I've been seeing a lot of zoos and aquariums tagged as museums. So far I've been removing the tags after ensuring they have Category:Zoos or Category:Aquaria Thoughts? dm (talk) 00:24, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Definitely agreed and that was more or less the original consensus of the then active editors here. Haven't seen anything else that indicated consensus changed. Not sure if others otside the project feel they belong here. StarM 00:28, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Over-Categorization of Museums in Small States

Delaware now has 24 museum articles: 23 museums and a 1 list. To group these 24 articles, we now have 24 Delaware-specific museum cats. That's a ration of 1:1. Now, I don't question the need for you city slickers out in New York and California to have a bunch of museum cats.

But for those of us in smaller population states, this is slicing and dicing our articles in ways that are not productive. If you look at the List of museums in Delaware, there are certainly future articles that could be added but most of these are art or local history museums. There will only ever be one article in the Category:Sports museums in Delaware. Ditto with the aerospace cat.

I suspect what what's happening is that one looks at national aerospace museum cat and eradicates all "loose" articles so that everything looks symetrical with just state sub-categories. But most readers come into these cats from a local article. The navigation from the individual articles should trump having symetrical national cats IMHO.

Let's get specific: the only sports museum in Delaware is the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame so that is the only article that will ever exist. The cats that make sense to me would be Category:Museums in Delaware and Category:Sports museums in the United States. Instead, it's in its own cat (Category:Sports museums in Delaware) which will forever be a 1-article cat. That cat is in the same two larger cats I proposed above for the article.

From a reader perspective, this means one has to make an extra click to get to the same two cats with no added benefit. And, when one gets to the Delaware museums not a single museum article is listed because Delaware now has a dozen 1-article cats.

Dmadeo and I have already discussed but I was curious if editors in New Hampshire, Oklahoma and South Dakota had similar concerns.RevelationDirect (talk) 05:03, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I took a second look at Category:Museums in Delaware and agree, we could prune that back a bit. I went through and reduced it down to 13 "type" categories from 16. The other eight categories RevelationDirect refers to are city and county cats, including the "by city" and "by county". I believe every museum should have at least a "type" category at the state level and a "location" category at the best granularity, either city or county. This way it ties into all the other city or county based information. I dont think this is a "city slicker" point of view. dm (talk) 05:33, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the point about "museums in delaware" not having a single article except List of museums in Delaware, that's correct. That should be the only article. dm (talk) 05:36, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

The duplicate categorization rule will come into play here. This is more of a background concern for me though.RevelationDirect (talk) 14:12, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that rule is exactly why the List of museums in Delaware article should be one of the very few articles which are in Category:Museums in Delaware. The museums should be under the city or county subcategories. Even Delaware has three counties. dm (talk) 15:40, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking that rule suggested otherwise because a museum might not fit nicely into a subject matter category. But, you're right, they would all fit into the 3-county geography sub-cats so the List article would be the only one loose in the general state cat. We have concensus there.

You both make good points. I think there are two relevant questions: parallel structuere and use to reader. Parallel structure says that we should have/strive to have the same cats across topics/regions, regardless of whether there's a need. I.e. it would look weird to have, for example, sports museums in MD and PA and have DE "Missing". Reader use says, well there's one, there's never going to be more than one (or at least not one in horizon) so it makes sense to just leave it in Museums in DE, Sports Museums in America. I don't know which is better, and I'm not certain that there is one answer to that. I'm certainly coming from city slicker POV where I sometimes think we could have "art museums by 10 block radius: MoMA, American Folk Art Museum, Museum of Arts and Design Museum of Television and Radio, etc. StarM 05:41, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Let's say me and my friends from Montana, Vermont and the 5 other states with a population under a millon, set up museum cats we think work for us. Then we go in and apply that same standard to New York for the sake of consistency and standaridization. That means you can't have a Jewish Museum cat. (Wyoming has no need for it so neither do you.) And, the hundreds of art museums in New York can't have any sub-categories. (1 art museum cat is plenty for Alaska so you'll have to make do with that even if it creates a huge cat.) Presumably, you would push back and say that our well-intentioned standardization reflects regional bias and is harming the New York categorization scheme without a concensus.RevelationDirect (talk) 15:18, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

This isnt a cabal, we're all friends here, right? My first pass is to put Museums into whatever categories they should be, based on who they are. Potato museum in Idaho -> Food museums in Idaho. It's not based on some cabal's definition of appropriate museum types, in fact, if you go take a look at what I've done, it's usually to keep whatever other editors have done, just moved it to the state rather than the national level. My second pass is to put museums into either counties or cities based on (again), what they are. There are exceptions, Category:Museums in the Greater Los Angeles Area which ties together a few counties or in Georgia, Category:Museums in the Atlanta metropolitan area where 28 counties are grouped together. Twenty-eight. It boggles the mind.

So, what exception do you think Delaware should fit into? That it's museums should have "type" categories at the "national level"? Or that it's "location" categories should be at the "state level"? Or both? dm (talk) 15:40, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Agree w Dmadeo here - it's about figuring out what works best - there is no hard and fast rule. Personally, I don't like the categories system on wikipedia in general - has nothing to do with museums or how one editor or another is doing them because it's so broken. There's an old bot list of all the subcats that fall under Category:Museums for example, and it's mind boggling. I agree with what Dmadeo has done so far and I think the reason it works, in general, is as s/he said above, she continues with what has existed, just tweaks as needed. In many cases a national X museums cat is too unwieldly but there may be cases where it's appropriate. Niche categories aren't bad on the whole, they need tobe looked at case by case, which is what's happening now. StarM 15:48, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Dmadeo, you're right, my last post was a little snarky. You'e made a ton of constructive edits and have have made a lot more contributions to the museum and NRHP articles than I have. And, StarM, I agree with you as well. The cat structure is already so messed up, it's difficult to know where to start to fix it and its difficult to judge what works or doesn't. Let me think this through and then come back with some more constructive and specific suggestions.RevelationDirect (talk) 16:27, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll do the same. I have an idea that might work, but I need to think it through a little more. Unfortunately, I'll be going on holiday from this Thursday, so it may be a while before I can return to this. StarM 17:02, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Quilting museum cats

I obviously care a lot about the Delaware museums but I could care less about quilting or any musuems set up to celebrate making comforters. That may make it a good way to understand our different thought processes here without me going overboard.

The national quilting museum cat only had one article in it, a museum in California. I just added museums from Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, and Nebraska for a total of 5 articles.

Here's the thing, that single museum was in a subcat just for quilting museums in California. So what do we do with these 4 new articles? Why?RevelationDirect (talk) 03:24, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll go first. California is unlikely to ever get enough articles to justify a Quilting Museums in California cat, so it's an obvious violation of WP:OC#SMALL and should be removed. No subcats should be created for the other 4 states for the same reason: no state is likely to ever grow these cats beyond 1 or 2 articles. So I would put the 5 articles "loose" in the national cat.RevelationDirect (talk) 03:24, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I think I agree with you in this case. There are not likely ever to be "too many" quilting museums to warrant dividing the cat. However, and this goes to what I mentioned above about broken category system, if a museum has exhibit on quilts, does that mean it's a quilt museum or are "quilt museums" only for those named quilt museum? I ask because I'm tinking again of the American Folk Art Museum which has extensive exhibits on quits. If those museums "count" then there may be enough to justify a cat. Bedtime here, catch yp with you all tomorrow StarM 04:19, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Whether a museum has to be focused on a subject to be included as a cat is an interesting questions. I can think of a number of museums that have tertiary interests. But let's say we include all textile and folk art museums that have a permanent gallery or section on quilts. We're talking the cat grows to maybe 15 or 20 nationwide. I think it still works as an example.RevelationDirect (talk) 12:59, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I'd put these all in "folk art museums" and not specialize into "quilting", but I would still keep it at the state level. I think we all agree there's room for disagreement here in the "should there be a single entry "type" category at the state level?'" I think it's a judgement call and it's possible I've been too aggressive on one end. I'm going to continue marching through the states, but I'll try to include Category:Quilt museums in the United States where appropriate. Is there any concern about the city/county categories? dm (talk) 05:11, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I think there is defintely a continuum here. The Category:School districts in the United States Virgin Islands exists, not because that cat will every be large, but because every other US Jurisdiction has one so people will look for it. I agree with that. And, if 48 states need an Art Museum sub-cat, sorry Wyoming you're just stuck with it. But I think the current practice of not allowing any loose articles in national museum cats goes way too far though and creates WP:OC#SMALL without a concensus to do so. My example was really meant to flush out how you would handle the state-level groupings in a rather small category though. Assuming we do keep the Quilting cat Dmadeo, should the California Quilting Museum sub-cat stay or go in your opinion?RevelationDirect (talk) 12:59, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

BTW: When you quote a rule, I have to go read it again and sure enough, you *could* read WP:OC#SMALL and interpret this as a "large overall accepted sub-categorization scheme", that is if we decided it was. I'm not necessarily arguing for this (see below), but that caveat could cover only state level "type" articles if we all agreed. dm (talk) 02:15, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. Ultimately, all of the overcategorization guidelines are worthless because they don't lay out a minimum number of articles per cat. I know an article is an orphan if it has fewer than 3 article links. Overcategorization is in the eye of the beholder.RevelationDirect (talk) 03:43, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I think we're all on the same set of pages, in that I agree that lots of single article state "type" cats doesnt help and you agree sometimes, a single article cat is the right thing to do. So I'll continue to charge through the states (and anyone who wants to help is more than welcome). Let's agree though that we should *not* be using Category:Quilt museums, but instead either Category:Quilt museums in the United States or Category:Quilt museums in California I'll try to do my best and I'm sure people will come along and resort the few edge cases. The vast majority will be fine though. dm (talk) 02:11, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. We have more a difference in emphasis than anything fundamental. RevelationDirect (talk) 03:43, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

As I go through the state, sometimes what I suspect will be a one article cat Category:Law museums in Illinois turns into something rather more. So, as I go through the state, I tend to err on the side of overinclusiveness, then at the end of the state, unwind the worst examples. As far as county/city goes though, I always push to that level. dm (talk) 03:57, 17 July 2009 (UTC)