Talk:Norman, Oklahoma/archive

climate

I am curious as to where the climate data was obtained, particularly in regard to average temperatures. All high temperature averages appear to be 2-3 degrees above what the National Weather Service provides as its climatological observations for Norman. That data can be viewed here: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/climate/getrecords.php?id=okc&mo=jul&type=tm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Imobannon (talk • contribs) 03:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

As indicated in the climate table's caption, the data came from www.weather.com. Go to that site, search for Norman, OK, then click on the averages button and then make sure you are viewing the monthly averages for the year. I do not know where weather.com gets their data. I used that site for source data because all of the cities' wikipedia pages that I researched were using it (OKC, Dallas, etc.). If you want to update the table and references to call out NWS data instead go for it. Okguy (talk) 07:32, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

notable residents

I have not researched what makes a good "Notable Residents" section, tho' I probably should. I think that the standards should be 1) that we only include people that have their own Wikipedia entries and 2) that we write a short description of the person in the list, i.e. "OU football player, 1961-1964" or the like.

Also, should it be Norman natives (i.e. James Garner) or current residents (i.e. Nadia Comaneci) or both? --plaws (talk) 21:34, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I would say both. -kotra (talk) 05:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Should Ed Harris be listed? (see his Wikipedia entry for the Norman connection).BenA (talk) 16:11, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Probably. Thanks for adding him. -kotra (talk) 05:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Probably not. Are we seriously going to list every person with an iota of fame that ever lived in Norman for however brief a time? --plaws (talk) 15:19, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a common debate, and is unlikely to be resolved here. However, other college towns like Eugene, Oregon and Ithaca, New York also include those who only attended a local college in their lists of notable residents. So, in the interest of consistency if nothing else, I think living somewhere for more than a couple months qualifies you as a resident for the purposes of Wikipedia. So I'd keep Ed Harris. On the whole, not a big deal either way though. -kotra (talk) 20:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

How about this: Former OU Students? That would separate out the most flagrant silliness. --plaws (talk) 20:51, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Removed reference to "the well known guitarist for People Zoo, Eli Wilson" having been born in 1993 makes him all of 15 and google doesn't seem to think either he or his band is "well known." I think James Garner has earned a note; I do not think Eli Wilson has. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.234.132.30 (talk) 09:12, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I had removed the notable residents section when I revamped the page, but I notice that it is back today. Do we really want to do that? Honestly I find the section kind of embarrassing... but maybe that's just me. Side-note: I modeled the page revamp after several major cities' pages and none had a notable residents page. Okguy (talk) 07:16, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

The more I think about this section the more I dislike it. First, there is nothing of substance in the section it is just a list of names. Secondly, if you follow the links to each individual's wikipedia pages, you'll find that only one of the people was born in Norman, only one currently lives here, and only two lived here for any substantial time. All of the rest of them were not born here, did not die here, do not currently live here, and did not attend school here. I just don't really see the point to a section that's only intent is to claim notoriety of anyone famous who has even remotely passed through town. In addition there are no references in the section and the capitalization of the title is incorrect. Honestly everything about the section makes me want to remove it all. Okguy (talk) 07:45, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Dean Blevins

Somebody needs to get on the ball and write an article about him. He's certainly notable enough for one and I'm surprised there isn't already one for him. I may do a stub for him later, but lately I haven't had the energy for much wiki. -- Qaddosh|^talk|contribs 17:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Weitzenhoffer collection

I flagged the overview section because it describes the Weitzenhoffer collection as the "single most important collection of French Impressionism ever given to an American public university." The citation given just links to some website spouting the OU spin. The reality is that this is what the schools says, not any art critics. A more objective assessment is needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bustedstuff104 (talk • contribs) 22:55, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The University of Oklahoma has advertised the Weitzenhoffer Collection as "the single most important collection of French Impressionism ever given to an American public university" for years. It is a statement open to litigation as pergery and has yet to be contested. If it can be prooven that a more substancial gift has been made, site it and correct the passage. Otherwise, the persisting nature of the statement from an institution that has multiple competitors who would certainly have an interest in defeating the statement should act to give it a great deal of credibility. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wils4581 (talk • contribs) 00:10, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). (OK, this template is a bit much, but really, you could just tone it down :) --plaws (talk) 20:54, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Notice of Pending Change

I intend to edit the overview section and remove the dispute header. I have found substantial evidence corroborating the statement on the art collection, including:

http://www.frenchculture.org/spip.php?article453

http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4582&Itemid=705

http://oudaily.com/news/2006/aug/23/art-museum-drawing-national-attention/

http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature157.htm

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4182/is_20040326/ai_n10161049

At least five independent websites and one architectural periodical (Architecture Digest) make reference to the $50 million Weitzenhoffer collection as "the most important" donation of French artwork to a public museum ever.

This notice is fair warning that I intend to revise the section and add appropriate references. If you disagree, speak now or forever hold your peace. Okguy (talk) 06:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I finally got around to updating the overview section and making it more neutral. Okguy (talk) 19:40, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Business Section

I revamped the business section quite a bit because it had no citations and some of its statements were unverifiable. I ensured that everything posted in this section is now backed up by articles and/or reliable websites such as the Norman Chamber of Commerce.

I hope folks can keep the University North Park section up to date as that project grows!

• One thing I need help on is that I cite the same Norman Transcript article twice in two different locations ("Business Coming to University North Park") but each one appears as a seperate cite (currently references #17 and #18). How can I get both of these pointing to just #17? -- Okguy (talk) 21:24, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

This looks good, thanks for adding the citations. I've combined the two citations, see here for how I did it (basically you just use the same "name=" attribute for both citations). -kotra (talk) 21:44, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Aaah. Hey thanks, I don't think I would have been able to figure that one out myself. -- Okguy (talk) 05:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Elevation

The lowest point in the city limits is the junction of SE 180th street and the little river. It is ~970 feet above sea level, and is located at 35.203880N, 97.177350W. The highest point in the city is a hill on the east side of town which has a new suburb on it. It is ~1245 feet above sea level, an is located at 35.212660N, 97.390000W. This data is from Google Earth, and US Geological survey maps. Could somebody please add this info to the article?DrunkDriver (talk) 03:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Restructuring the Page / Major Page Revision

So I've been looking at the Wiki's for Dallas, Boston, San Fran, and Los Angeles to see what big cities are putting on their pages, and have also been looking at medium-sized city's pages such as Huntington Beach, CA, San Mateo, CA, and Santa Clara, CA. I chose these cities because all are known to be fairly tech savvy and I figured should have decent wiki content. I can't help but feel the Norman page could be improved for clarity by following some examples from some of these other wikis.

I am thinking about reorganizing some of the sections into similar order of these other pages. I'm also thinking about going out and taking more pictures around town and posting them in the wiki. In addition to that, I think we need more information on the history of Norman as well as the governance structure. I think we should include more hard data such as maps, census data and climate data.

I would like to give Campus Corner its own section and expand that a lot. Also there are several sections that seem redundant to me with respect to OU and meteorological discussions. I think this is just because of the growth of the page over time. It looks to me like a very good outline was put in place and it has just organically grown.

I have mixed feelings on the 'famous people from here' section, but I guess a lot of city wiki's are doing this now.

If you are a frequent visitor to this page I just wanted to get some feedback from you on this. Also if you have suggestions of your own that would be interesting to see?

Okguy (talk) 18:39, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I think most of the changes you propose sound good, but how are you using city wikis as a basis? In general, other wikis usually have content that is not suitable for Wikipedia, so it all depends on how you approach it. Could you link to these wikis so we know which you are referring to? Some cities, like Boston, have several city wikis set up by different organizations. -kotra (talk) 17:06, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I think he's referring to different cities' articles here on Wikipedia, not entirely separate wiki sites. I have no problems with your recommendations. I'm also not a fan of Famous People sections; that could be covered with a category (i.e. Category:People from Norman, Oklahoma). When I get more time, I'll do a comparison of my own against like-sized cities on Wikipedia. Obviously, good places to start would be here and here. If you're in the area, I know OU has some material on the history of Norman. This book on Google Books has the first chapter or two available for free which might have some material on early Norman. Good luck!↔NMajdan•talk 20:05, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I think you're right, I misunderstood. Wiki tends to mean entire websites though ("Wikipedia is a wiki"), just to clarify. -kotra (talk) 18:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Yep, you guys got it. Thanks for the link to that book, there's a lot of great information in there. I plan on hitting up the library this weekend and seeing if I can get more information on the founding of Norman. Also if it ever stops raining I plan on taking a few pictures around town. If I get serious about this I might set up a temporary Wikipedia page to make the changes to rather than toying with the live page. Okguy (talk) 06:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so I have a gigantic overhaul of the Norman page almost ready to go (I've been working offline). How are we going to do this? Shall I just update the page, or create a dummy page somewhere first? Okguy (talk) 03:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Go for it.—NMajdan•talk 15:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I've finally completed the update. Take a look and let me know what you think! Okguy (talk) 21:40, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Please note that since I marked the main page's revisions as a major revision it looks like Wikipedia excludes them from the diff listing on a watchpage. I pretty much changed everything, so you'll want to review it all. Okguy (talk) 21:46, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I've been doing some more beefing-up to the recent page restructure. Today I added an "External Links" section and moved all the outbound web references that were in the Community Events section there. This is in better keeping with Wikipedia's style guides. I also revamped the Community Events section (it had been just a list of events; I've added some detail). I'm thinking the Neighborhoods section needs some more content... I'll try to tackle it next unless someone else beats me to it. Okguy (talk) 19:38, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

SWeNT

Is SweNT really that significant to Norman's economy that it has to be singled out over many other businesses in Norman? Does it really deserve a whole paragraph? Wilsonbond (talk) 20:35, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I picked SWeNT as an example for the discussion on high-tech businesses in Norman because it has been featured in many national publications. I think I first became aware of the company via an article in Wired Magazine. I really can't think of another tech company in Norman that has had that kind of visibility lately? Thoughts? Okguy (talk) 07:14, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Bombing

I'm not sure that the reference to the 2005 suicide has much relevance to Norman, OK in general anymore. Anyone else care to voice an opinion on this? --jackohare 01:08, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. --Jabogan 23:45, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it's just fine in the See also section, I wouldn't want to see it in the opening paragraph or anything. -- nae'blis _(talk) 00:41, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. However, I am surprised that there are not other articles on past criminal events that have taken place in Norman. That would also fit nicely in the "See Also" and put the event in context

I think focasing on "news of the month" stories is silly for this type of article.

pornstars in Norman??

I deleted the reference to two supposed pornstars from Norman.

Add them back! What do you have against porn stars?

I agree with deletion. Such information has little relivence to the city.

Poor east side

I removed the part about the east side being poorer and older, specifically poorer. I thought it painted that area in a very unflattering light, and it failed to take into account the large growth in development/housing from NE 12th east that is clearly middle class and above. There are plenty of areas on the westside where poor people live, and thus I feel it is was an unwelcomed and inappropriate generalization.

• Agreed. --jackohare 16:14, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

 Also agreed. Norman (save a couple low income apartment complexes) has no "poor" district.

Wikimedia?

Why do we have a notice about content in Wikimedia Commons when there is none and doesn't seem to have ever been any? --Soonercary 05:11, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Good question. We might want to go ahead and create the page over on Wikimedia cause I know there are plenty of pictures of the OU campus which is in Norman.--NMajdan•talk 12:00, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Minor POV edit

Removed weasel words in the history section.--68.97.2.180 01:02, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone know John Wayne Morris?

"nation's 4th largest retail site" ?

"Currently the nation's 4th largest retail site..." - I think there is alot of speculation about future plans for that area. Are there any credible sources to help expand on this topic? I say this because Norman is certainly no shopping mecca.