Talk:Mardi Gras in Mobile

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Contents 1 Stub with sources 2 Images 3 Unsourced slang 4 Other issues 5 Fair use rationale for Image:Doubloon.jpg 6 Needs more clean-up 7 Needs more images and text 8 Top vanity-box and markup 9 Barely appropriate pictures and Wikipedia:NPOV issues reguarding Hurricane Katrina 10 Spelling from sources 11 Massive article now

[edit] Stub with sources

19-February-2007: I have thrown this article together in a few hours, as some sort of documented information about Mardi Gras, with reliable source footnotes. I apologize for the haphazard appearance, but I had only a few hours to document the extensive research and combine the information. A book could be written.... -Wikid77 16:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I have expanded the article, double in size, to include "Legal restrictions" such as on noise, masks/gloves or fireworks, and began a long section about "Mystic societies" to broaden the scope, adding reliable source footnotes. Again, it has been a rush job, but at least there are many citations on facts. -Wikid77 21:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images

19-February-2007: There are few pictures of Mobile in the article, yet. I hope to add more soon. -Wikid77 16:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I added an image similar to the Mobile Mardi Gras flag. However, photographs from Mobile parades would be good to have, as well, being sure to keep faces private. -Wikid77 21:25, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

24-March-2007: Near the new parade photos, I have re-added the Mardi-Gras flag-style image, removed as "redundant" in this article which did not exist 5 weeks ago after 305 years of Mobile history. Several images have been moved to Wikimedia Commons to avoid auto-deletion by Wiki-psycho bots trying to save 4 or 50 kilobytes (when many 5-megabyte blurred photos exist: "too mank kooks spoil the broth"). In fact, 4 small images in the "Mardi Gras in Mobile" article had been axed twice (the world is chock-full of, even registered users); those images were re-added, as placeholders with other linked images. It has been a battle to keep/expand the article illustrations (more at: WP:vandal/psychosis). -Wikid77 07:52, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unsourced slang

24-February-2007: As a popular topic, information about Mardi Gras in Mobile (or festivals in general) might slide into unsourced, folksy, slang writing. This article began as a formal, sourced, encyclopedic document and should be checked for adherence to Wikipedia rules for writing articles. There are other festival articles full of anecdotal notions, so it is understandable that some would also treat this article in a similar manner, or as a trendy insider's tips to Mardi Gras. While it is fine to add some unsourced information, any folksy/slang phrases should be reworded immediately, and references should be added within a few days of adding text. Questionable, unsourced phrases should be tagged with "{{fact}}" and then, if they are not defended with source notes after a few days, those phrases should be deleted, only re-adding at a later time with reliable sources. Also see: Wikipedia:Guide_to_layout. -Wikid77 15:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other issues

24-March-2007: Post untitled issues here. -Wikid77

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Doubloon.jpg

Image:Doubloon.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 01:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Needs more clean-up

I did a little clean-up per WP:MOS and removed the repetitive photos as per WP:MOS as they detract from the text rather than enhance it in my opinion. I would suggest a gallery instead of so many images imbedded in the text. There were two references (formerly ref name=wNOLA/ & ref name=F2007mon/) which only included the ref name=EXAMPLE code only and no reference text, making me wonder if they were possibly cut and pasted from another article without the original references? Maybe New Orleans Mardi Gras? Since they did not actually reference anything I removed them for clarity. Their prior locations do need references. As a Mobilian, I'm just trying to make this a better article, no intent to offend anyone. Altairisfar 06:05, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Needs more images and text

14-Nov-2007: I have restored the images that seemed repetitive: they are similar to others, but also, they function as placeholders for future images to replace them, providing more diversity. To a Mobilian, the images might seem excessive; however, remember that to an outsider, all this is probably quite new. With the popularity of You Tube, the trend to add more visual style, rather than less, is the way of the future. Several wiki pages link to video clips as well as showing images. There is much to illustrate: the article doesn't even show the location of Mobile, in relative terms, while a map noting the distance between both Mobile & New Orleans should probably be added. Many more images would be an improvement, but also as America's oldest Mardi Gras (roughly 100 years longer than New Orleans), more historical text is needed, with extra reliable sources. Also, the Spanish period needs more coverage, IMHO. -Wikid77 23:37, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Top vanity-box and markup

16-Nov-2007: Several different people have come to this article, and rather than adding any substantial new, sourced information, have mainly flagged the article with one of those holier-than-thou vanity boxes, "I, the self-righteous, proclaim this article, above all, defective!!!" They're not to blame for the tendency to throw a vanity-box over an article: many people have some strong opinions and given a soap-box (or vanity-box), rant they will.

After working on 10,000 articles, I realize those top-billed judgmental boxes are too tempting and typically become vanity-boxes, more than help the situation. I would eliminate most vanity-boxes, except in protected mode, and direct people to flag subsections of an article, not the top attention-getter. We've seen articles flagged by vanity-boxes for 2 years, with little improvement. Vanity-boxes are not the solution: many areas of Wikipedia are staffed by skeleton crews, with just a handful of people writing those articles. It is important to work with them, not simply cast judgments. Contact prior editors and determine when they might have time to help with rewrites.

As far as helping readers, a grandstanding top-rant is not the way: try flagging individual sentences with {{fact}} "citation needed" or "disputed" or even use the superscript tags "^xxx" to add a particular pertinent comment: ^{[sources disagree as to the date]}. The vanity-boxes just clutter the article, with few details to really warn readers what to question as they read.

Many vanity-box templates allow adding the keyword parameter "section|" for the tag to be placed within a more limited section, rather than demanding attention as a top-billed rant. Consider the grandstanding vanity-boxes to be a management flaw, not a reason to hate people: if managers knew better, they wouldn't have gone down that dead-end vanity road. Remember, Wikipedia is also an interesting long-term study in failed management concepts and error-prone software designs, as well as a repository of knowledge. Learn from those mistakes and improve. -Wikid77 06:50, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I understand that you have have done much hard work on this article, there is no intent to be self-rightous or to offend(though obviously I did). I do understand that it's difficult to take criticism without being offended, I've been there, done that(very recently in fact, it took me a while to stop being offended and see what was valid in their criticism). Everyone has different opinions but if it is to be in Wikipedia, it should adhere to Wikipedia's content policies. If this article is to become a better class of article it should adhere to those policies:

• Wikipedia:Verifiability= Many of the references cited do not verify the material. One of the many instances: "The histories of Mobile (founded 1702)^[1] and New Orleans" points to "New Orleans & Mardi Gras History Timeline" (event list), Mardi Gras Digest, 2005, webpage: MG-time as the reference source, but if you check the reference it does not state anything about Mobile's founding in 1702. This one reference, even if you do not question it's validity as a source(since it is about New Orleans Mardi Gras) for an article on Mobile's Mardi Gras, is used 24 times and only verifies the material cited about 2/3 of the time. I also would question using "Louisiana Timeline: Year 1699" (events for March 2-3), Encyclopedia Louisiana, September 2000, webpage: EnLou-year1699; or "NOLA.com : Mardi Gras : About Carnival" (history), New OrleansNet LLC, 2007, webpage: www-NOLA-mardigras-history for an article on Mobile's Mardi Gras as many statements in the article at present discuss N.O. and N.O. Mardi Gras, there are already at least 3 articles on Wikipedia that concern New Orleans and it's Mardi Gras. There is much more out there that is reliable and speaks specifically to Mobile's Mardi Gras, there is a long-standing Mardi Gras rivalry between the two cities and much of what's on the internet is a little biased. I would suggest more published sources.
• Wikipedia:No original research= Much of this article is not referenced at all, too many instances to add fact tags to.
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources= www.squidoo.com is not considered a reliable source.
• Wikipedia:Image use policy= Articles may get ugly and difficult to read if there are too many images crammed onto a page with relatively little text. They should enhance an article, not distract from it.

All of that said, I think that overall the article is good, just a little confusing even to a person with intimate knowledge of the subject. Altairisfar (talk) 23:06, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

07-Dec-2007: Over the past 3 weeks, I have added additional source-footnotes to the article, citing sources about "school holidays" or Mobile's society balls, etc. I also lowered unref-tags to just individual sections to better pinpoint uncited areas, warning the readers in a focused manner:

• Of course, it is not necessary to put a ref-tag footnote on every sentence, and much of the article's text can be verified by reading sources fully and checking for supporting facts: there are now over 128 footnotes in the article, and some readers have complained that the text is "over-referenced" not under. Either opinion does not require a top vanity-box to voice those opinions, so I have removed the top-tag "{{articleissues| refimprove=November 2007}}" as recommended above, while using the smaller unref-tags in limited sections.
• Also, I reduced the size of some images to 280px width (from 300px) to better support outside websites, which agree in preferring smaller images to fit their page formats.
• As to reliability of sources, I consider the source (and the subject): this article is largely about partying, not brain surgery, and I take a lenient stance about source "Mardi Gras Digest" (which has remained stable all year BTW); however, for expanding "Basal cell carcinoma" I cited medical encyclopedias.
• I am not "offended" by people having alternate viewpoints or opinions about the article. As I strongly emphasized above, the issue is top-level vanity-boxes: I have not suggested that issues or complaints be suppressed, just focused with tags in limited areas (as stated above).
• The term "skeleton crew" is intended to emphasize the way most Wikipedia articles get improved: in the case of this article, that skeleton crew has been me, but I still hope and encourage others to add ref-tag source footnotes; yet, the reality is that I'm probably the only one to have added sources to this article during the past 10 months.

Also, I am not offended by other people's complaints, but please understand that complaints are conflicting: if one person adds a top-box about "too few" sources, another wants to proclaim the article has "too many" footnotes; if one person wants to reduce the images displayed, another person wants more illustrations; etc. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions, and I hope you now see my viewpoints about this one article in the mix, while I am expanding 9,999 other articles (or more). Thanks. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:33, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Barely appropriate pictures and Wikipedia:NPOV issues reguarding Hurricane Katrina

1) Are the pictures illustrating regional maps necessary in an article about Mardi Gras? They seem to clutter up the article without giving any meaningful information for the article itself.

2) The section about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is more of a rant about news coverage disparaties and very little to do with Mardi Gras. In addition, as a resident, I can tell you that yes, Mobile Downtown flooded faster... but also emptied faster with less long term damage and a quicker recovery. And does anybody honestly expect Mobile to get near the same news coverage of New Orleans after Katrina?

This article seems to have some good points, but needs a lot of work. --Donovan Ravenhull (talk) 09:37, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

30-Nov-2007: I had added those maps about Alabama history to help illustrate that Mardi Gras in Mobile spanned the 300 years while Mobile changed control from French, to British, to Spanish, to American rule, affecting the customary celebration activities. It is interesting to see a point of view questioning if "maps necessary" whereas the intent was to add more text to tie the maps into the surrounding explanation. I'm not sure why some people dislike maps and images so much, with the opinion that the solution is to remove "excess" images rather than add more text for balance.

The section about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is about exactly that. It contains the term "national news media" in one phrase, hardly a rant about news coverage. That section mentions the "parade route" and "celebration" using the words "flood" or "flooded" 4 times, and addresses Mardi Gras attendance. Nowhere does the article state that Mobile received too little news coverage, but rather, New Orleans received negative publicity giving the impression that Mardi Gras would be hindered by damage in New Orleans, but it wasn't hindered. Downtown Mobile flooded not only faster, but deeper, with several feet of water, whereas New Orleans downtown received less than a foot of water. I'm not sure why the one phrase "national news media" has triggered the viewpoint of being a "rant" with "little to do" about Mardi Gras. Perhaps the section should be expanded to somewhat rant more about the parade-route flooding, so that it won't be seen as a one-phrase "news-coverage rant" compared to all the added text about the parade route. However, I was concerned that ranting about Mobile's flood might give readers a negative impression, "Oh no, Mobile's parade routes were covered with sewage mud like ALL of New Orleans" (both phrases untrue). On balance, the best approach might be to add more about cleanup in Mobile, with rain and streetsweepers washing the parade-route streets. Anyway, the Katrina-aftermath text does not violate WP:NPOV, but apparently can be severely misinterpreted by some, and could be expanded to emphasize non-news issues. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:03, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

• 28-Dec-2007: As proposed above, I added Katrina battleship Alabama flood-text +source to exceed talk about news coverage, noting Mobile was flooded with bay water (not city sewage). Also, I reduced large images from 300px to only 280px to lessen the impact of the many images. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:48, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling from sources

28-Dec-2007: Over the past 10 months of creating/expanding this article, I must emphasize that the subject is basically about partying and, as might be expected, the source documents contain many misspelled words. I have noticed the following particular spellings:

• La Louisiane - For 10 months in the article, the spelling had been "Louisianne" yet French websites show "La Louisiane" as the state name, with the old colony now given the French title "La Louisiane français" (with lowercase "f");

• Cowbellion - A few sources show "Cowbellian" while 90% use the "o" ending as "Cowbellion de Rakin Society"; Google also says, "Did you mean Cowbellion?"

• Michael Krafft - A few sources show one "f" as "Kraft" but many sources use the double-f as "Krafft" which seems reasonable as a Dutch name.

• Strikers Independent Society - A few sources use the apostrophe "Striker's" while most sources have shown "Strikers" all year.

Again, the subject of Mardi Gras is basically about partying, so I haven't been too concerned about the spellings all year. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:48, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Massive article now

28-Dec-2007: When I first created the article, I noted that "a book could be written" spanning the 300-year history. I had hoped more people would expand sub-articles, but it didn't happen. Now I clearly realize that, in 2007, Wikipedia was written by relatively tiny "skeleton crews" of volunteers, so it will take a special effort to expand Mobile's mystic societies into sub-articles, to reduce the size of the main article ("Mardi Gras in Mobile"). I obviously had only limited hours all year to deal with the many thousands of articles I modified.

Only just today, I noticed that back in February 2007, I dated the talk-topics as "2006" which is quite indicative of how little time we've had to improve Wikipedia (or re-read to correct our own discussions). I see wiki-burnout as mainly caused by some people's severe attitudes towards others. One desperate editor even replied to me about being surprised to receive a "pleasant" user-talk message, having become mortified when seeing "You have new messages" and dreading the typical contents. Belligerent editors are a real problem, and people must curb their tongues, while others prepare to face opinions and vitriol of the barbaric savages out there in the real world. It is important to develop coping skills to deflect the growing anger (and remember, "A gentleman never loses his temper with the servants"). Also, stand strong against "wiki-terrorism" with people deliberately trolling and hacking articles to perpetuate the "Wikpedia is a total joke" perceptions of the broader public. Have strength to keep creating new articles, as warranted. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

• Now I have corrected the 5 dates in the topics above that referred to the wrong day or wrong year ("2006" fixed as "2007"). -Wikid77 (talk) 11:40, 28 December 2007 (UTC)