Talk:History of Pittsburgh/Archive 1

Good luck with all that, Citizendium!

I deleted the substance of this article and put in a delete banner, per Wikipedia import guidance found in CZ:Introduction to CZ for Wikipedians. My intent had been to contribute a Wikipedia article I'd worked on for more than a year and find an "editor", but no expert wants to do the work. Per below, you can see that I made a good faith effort to find such an editor. Professors who previously told me they thought Wikipedia was a waste of time do not necessarily appear to be inclined to donate work to CZ. Tom Cool 17:41, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

OK, so maybe I overreacted a bit to CZ:Introduction to CZ for Wikipedians. Now that we have an editor (Richard Jensen), maybe now we can start the process of improving this article. I'm back in the game, in any case. Tom Cool 20:14, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

and welcome! Nancy Sculerati 20:19, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

Origins of this article

This is a Wikipedia import. I was the main contributor to this article. I developed the maps and found, scanned or imported all the images. They are all licensed appropriately, either public domain, GNU or Creative Commons Share-Alike.

I am not a professional historian. My family has deep roots in Pittsburgh. My paternal gggg-grandfather, Augustine Moore, signed the petition for the erection of Allegheny County. My maternal ggg-grandfather, William Alston, helped to build the second Courthouse and several early bridges, such as the first Ninth Street bridge. So my understanding of Pittsburgh history has grown out of my research as a family historian. In the Citizendium project, my role is more appropriately that of "author." I hope that a professional historian will assume the role of "editor" and I and others will be able to work under his or her supervision to improve this article. Tom Cool 10:52, 1 March 2007 (CST)

Recruiting letter - no takers so far

From: wiki@tomcool.us

To: wiki@tomcool.us davin@pitt.edu paquin@pitt.edu lag1@pitt.edu greenwal@pitt.edu ekmuller@pitt.edu dick@pitt.edu red1@pitt.edu ruck439019@aol.com troesken@pitt.edu troesken@pitt.edu Hounshell@andrew.cmu.edu dwmiller@cmu.edu thunter@andrew.cmu.edu jt03@andrew.cmu.edu hunterjean@duq.edu blatz@duq.edu mayer@duq.edu rlpearson@duq.edu rishelj@duq.edu gsnider@pointpark.edu krourke@pointpark.edu info@carnegielibrary.org frskariot@hswp.org library@hswp.org

Sent: 01 Mar '07 20:07

Subject: Re: "History of Pittsburgh" article in Wikipedia

Dear professors and researchers,

In previous emails, I solicited your help on a Wikipedia article about Pittsburgh. Several of you responded by saying that Wikipedia is a waste of time, due to its amateurish nature.

One of Wikipedia's founders, Larry Sanger, agrees with that view. He has started an alternative encyclopedia led by academic experts, Citizendium. The "recruitment letter" is quoted below.

Do you think that an expert-led wiki is more promising than the "wisdom of crowds" Wikipedia?

Would you be interested in contributing as an "editor" (credentialed expert) to Citizendium?

I've copied over the "History of Pittsburgh" article to:

http://pilot.citizendium.org/wiki/History_of_Pittsburgh

Warm regards, Tom Cool

Dear colleagues,

We're starting an expert-led alternative to Wikipedia. We feel this is badly needed. And we want your help!

Many people have a love-hate relationship with Wikipedia. On the one hand, they love the free availability of huge amounts of information. On the other hand, they hate its amateurish quality.

So, over the past few years we've seen many calls by experts to descend upon Wikipedia and whip articles in a certain area into shape. But when experts do that, though, they tend to get beaten back by an anarchical and somewhat insular Wikipedia community.

Other groups have proposed, and started, competing expert-led wiki encyclopedias, with very limited success. It's quite hard to start a successful wiki. There is a serious hurdle to clear: critical mass. If people don't see enough other people working on the wiki, they don't have an incentive to work on it themselves.

Enter the very person who conceived of Wikipedia and got it off the ground in its first year, a Ph.D. philosopher named Larry Sanger. Basically, Larry said: "Enough is enough. We can do better than this."

So the co-founder of Wikipedia is leading the construction of a newer, more mature, expert-led, but still dynamic wiki encyclopedia project, called the Citizendium (sit-ih-ZEN-dee-um), or "the Citizens' Compendium."

http://www.citizendium.org/

It will combine robust public participation with gentle expert guidance and more carefully enforced standards. It has begun life as a fully independent branch (a "fork") of Wikipedia. That means you can edit--or replace--all of those articles you hated on Wikipedia. But we expect it to take on a life of its own and, perhaps, to become the flagship of a new set of responsibly-managed free knowledge projects.

But will it achieve critical mass? There is already excellent evidence that it will. In the first ten days of the pilot project, over 110 Ph.D.-level editors in many fields from around the world activated accounts on the pilot project wiki. There were over 250 total activated accounts in that time, and over 200 articles under development. There were 450 subscribers to Citizendium-L, the main project mailing list, and 1,871 posts to the project forums.

And that's all without reaching out to mailing lists and professional associations. Most academics haven't heard about the Citizendium yet. We think that when they do, many of them will become strong supporters.

We are in the process of organizing discipline-specific editorial groups devoted to organizing Citizendium's work. We hope you will join us soon in the Computers Workgroup.

In the meanwhile, if you'd like to sign up to join the pilot project--as an editor *or* a rank-and-file author--then please apply here:

http://www.citizendium.org/cfa.html

Let's show the world what is possible when strong collaboration is gently led by real experts. More importantly, if there are large quantities of information about computers available online, let's make sure it's of high quality.

---

Original Message-------

From: wiki@tomcool.us

Subject: Re: "History of Pittsburgh" article in Wikipedia

Sent: 09 May '06 01:39

Dear Professors and Researchers,

I've finished writing the history of Pittsburgh article in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Pittsburgh

Nothing in Wikipedia is ever final. I hope that you will help improve the article either personally, or by encouraging your students to contribute.

Warm regards

Tom Cool

-------Original Message-------
From: wiki@tomcool.us
Subject: "History of Pittsburgh" article in Wikipedia
Sent: 12 Apr '06 02:32

Dear Professors and Researchers,

I am helping to expand the "History of Pittsburgh" article in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Pittsburgh

Wikipedia is the most visited reference site on the world wide web, and the number 17 site overall.  Unfortunately, its History of Pittsburgh article was lacking, both relative to what the Steel City deserves, and relative to similar articles for other cities.

I would like to ask for your help in improving the article.  Please take a minute to visit the site and decide whether you would like to help.

You can help by:
1) editing the article yourself (the beauty of immediacy)
2) forwarding this email to someone you think would be interested
3) asking your students to lend a hand
4) giving me notes that I will incorporate
5) identifying any images in the public domain that would help illustrate the article

Thank you for your kind attention.

Sincerely
Thomas Cool
CDR, USN (ret.)

help with article

I can help with the article. It's pretty solid right now. First suggestion is to split into two parts (Indians and whites, so to speak). Richard Jensen 18:33, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

Verifying that wikipedias Tomcool did create 287 <dead link> of the of the 425 total edits on the wikipedia page with the bulk of the body his words. I think that should allow you to use the CZ Live category as you have and agree that you are one step closer to completing the CZ:Approval Process. --Matt Innis (Talk) 21:00, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

Tomcool mostly responsible for WP article.

let's split article at 1800

2 article will be more useful--one on pre-1800 is not about the village but its location & roles of empires & Indians fighting over it. Any expansion of this topic is awkward now because the village already overshadowed the steel capital. OK?? Richard Jensen 23:38, 20 April 2007 (CDT)

OK I split it (and split the bibliography, and added a few items to bibliography part 1). I think both halves will grow in size and they have little in common, Richard Jensen 09:04, 24 April 2007 (CDT)