Talk:Alamogordo, New Mexico

Fastest man on earth?

Fastest man on earth? Or is it supposed to read "Fattest"? People have gone faster than the speed mentioned, and it mentions deceleration and the resulting weight. I recall reading mention of him before as experiencing the highest acceleration/deceleration ever (at least doing so and surviving), so that would make him weigh more than anyone else for the duration. --Fitzhugh 07:07, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Gs don't add inches. Coloneldoctor (talk) 06:01, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Atari section

The Atari section is confusing at best and horribly written. Dump it or fix it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.129.189.225 (talk) 19:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Removed, this article is about the city and not about the video game industry. Postoak (talk) 00:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I added a link to the Atari video game burial in the See Also section. phfor (talk) 12:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I've taken the link back out; it's not really a statement about Alamogordo, so is irrelevant and doesn't belong in this article. --Uncia (talk) 13:59, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Restructuring this article per WP:USCITY

I've started restructuring this article per the WikiProject Cities/Guideline in WP:USCITY. About half of the recommended sections currently have no content, so I have left those out for the time being. Some other sections are obviously incomplete. We need much more content, so feel free to contribute it! Also place in this section any comments on the restructuring. Thanks! --Uncia (talk) 20:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll help out where I can. I think the history section (and several other sections) really doesn't need subheadings. Also, let's get rid of the Atari section! Postoak (talk) 00:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

We now have all the top-level sections recommended by WP:USCITY, except for Sister cities (Alamogordo has no sister cities so I have left that out). However Economy and Infrastructure are very incomplete. I will dig up more information for these and add it. The rest of the sections are not bad, I think, but the narrative flow is a little ragged and there are probably important items that have been left out. The article weighs in at 37 kilobytes right now. --Uncia (talk) 18:46, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I've plumped up Economy and Infrastructure with additional data. I would rate the current article as "more or less complete". It weighs in at 55 KB. The narrative is still a little ragged, and there are probably still things that are missing. I've listed the article under the New Articles section of WP:WikiProject New Mexico in the hopes that it will attract some reviewers and polishers. --Uncia (talk) 02:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Question from Boadicaea - NOR

Was the White Sands National Monument addition to Points of Interest removed because I forgot to sign? And the absolutely objective and verifiable misery of painting the "A"? Boadicaea (talk) 02:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Your additions were not removed; please look again. However, Wikipedia discourages "original research", that is, reporting things based on your own experience and observation rather than cited from published sources. Please see the policy at WP:NOR. Thanks. --Uncia (talk) 13:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Picture

I removed the picture, that is not a picture of the town that is a picture of a motel called the Satellite Inn. It's unfair to provide free advertising to a motel. And if it's an old picture and that motel isn't there anymore it's wrong to provide such an outdated picture. There must be someone in the town who will take a free picture of the town 63.26.80.187 (talk) 23:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)eric

It's actually a photo of north White Sands Boulevard, and the motel is still there. I've reverted your edit. There are a number of photos of Alamogordo on Wikimedia Commons (see the link at the bottom of the article); one of those might be better than the photo you deleted. Also, please add new talk page sections at the bottom, not the top - you can use the "new section" button to do this automatically. Thanks. --Uncia (talk) 23:50, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

First atomic test site

Apart from the fact that the sentence reads as if the device had been detonated in downtown Alamogordo, Trinity Site is about 50 miles from Alamogordo - as the crow flies. Using public roads, it's probably more like 100 miles, because you have to drive all around White Sands Missile Range, and also Trinity Site is only accessible twice a year these days, on the first Saturdays of April and June, respectively.--Cancun771 (talk) 23:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I have removed this bit from the lede. Remember that on Wikipedia you are encouraged to be bold and make changes yourself. --Uncia (talk) 15:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Preparing for peer review

I'm preparing this article for peer review. As a first step I'm attempting to fix up everthing flagged by the automated peer reviewer. --Uncia (talk) 14:27, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I have deleted the Other topics section. WP:USCITY allows this section for special needs, but deprecates its use for lists of miscellaneous information. The old Other topics section had list of Points of interest (i.e., tourist attractions) and a list of Nearby towns and cities with routes for getting there. Neither subject is mentioned in WP:USCITY, and to me seems more suited to WikiTravel (which in fact contains this information) than to the encyclopedia. --Uncia (talk) 03:13, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I have deleted the section References in popular culture. Such lists are contentious; see some proposed guidelines at WP:POPCULTURE. The particular references that were in this section were to works that either made a passing reference to Alamogordo, or presented a fictionalized version of it. In either case they were not things that you would read or view to learn about Alamogordo, so I think they are not encyclopedic and so should not be included. If any of them had portrayed a realistic Alamogordo, it would have been a harder decision. --Uncia (talk) 04:50, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

whew! That was a lot harder than I expected, but the article is now ready for peer review; please comment at Wikipedia:Peer review/Alamogordo, New Mexico/archive1. Thanks. --Uncia (talk) 23:36, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

book burnings in history

We should consider the 5-10 most important events in the city's history. I suspect that the book burning is not one of them. Help consider if we left something important out and if the book burning should be reduced to a few sentences, not a sub-section. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 14:57, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The book burning is significant because it is one of the few times in history that Alamogordo got international attention. The incident is important enough that it gets a panel in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's traveling exhibition "Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Nazi Book Burning". --Uncia (talk) 18:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Good, so we'll leave it in. It is almost double the size of the atomic bomb tests which seems a bit unbalanced. We'll see what we can do. Maybe tightening up the book burning writing and seeing if any facts about the atomic test is not reported but should be. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 22:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Alamogordo, New Mexico/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

GA review (see here for criteria)

Preliminary comments: I appreciate your concerns over the withdrawal of the nomination, and then resubmission. The length of time it takes to get a review has nothing (or at least little) to do with the date you submit it; it has everything to do with who picks up the article to review, and at this point there aren't enough reviewers to take care of the submissions.

• First, very interesting article and nicely done. I've made a few minor tweaks in the lead and the history. Generally, your prose is choppy, caused by repetition of the same sentence structure and the use of complicated verb construction. You might take another look, and simplify where you can. I also tweaked out "first known settlement" because this contradicts what you say later. We know there were earlier settlements, and they were "permanent" -- or as permanent as Clovis settlements were, for example. I suspect it's more reasonable to refer to the city as the present settlement.
• Second, you have some link rot, and broken links--these are marked with templates. Please fix.
• Third, in your effort to be complete, you have included many one sentence paragraphs, so that you can touch on all these topics, but there is little depth there. Is there either more you can add, or can you amalgamate them into other, related discussions?
• Fourth, your image on the Desert Dawgs has some vandalism too it. Will you deal with that, or eliminate the image?

Drop me a line on my talk page when you want me to come read the whole thing again and give you a response. Good luck improving the article. Auntieruth55 (talk) 19:07, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   choppy prose, contradictions

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   very "presentist" states that there were settlements there dating back centuries, and refers to current settlement as "first"...confusing.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   Article remained on hold for 10 days, and no effort made to deal with it.

Uncia and I are the main editors (others are welcomed). Uncia is on a long wikibreak. I am celebrating Deepavali, which in 2009 is a once in a lifetime event since it falls in the month of purattasi. I am very motivated to work on it later in the month so please allow us. Uncia nominated this for GA and I concurred. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 15:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Alamogordo, New Mexico/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Auntieruth55 (talk) 00:33, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Your chart in the economy section needs to explain what the numbers are (percentage? thousands, $?).

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Question by Auntieruth55 has been answered and improved on the chart. Looking at the reference, it is the number of people employed in each category. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 23:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Concerns

My concerns reading the article are that a lot of the information from the history section involves things that happened at Holloman AFB. As far as I know Holloman is associated with Alamogordo, but it is not part of the city. The same with the economy; Holloman isn't the largest employer in Alamogordo, it's the largest employer of Alamogordo residents. Another example is the lead: "Skiing is available in nearby Mescalero and Cloudcroft, and gambling is available at the Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort & Casino in Mescalero." This reads more like an ad than an encylcopedic entry, plus it's not about Alamogordo (if anything it should be briefly mentioned in the recreation section, not the lead). I've heard other editors refer to this as "border creep" where an article will focus on things near a particular city as opposed to within a city. My understanding is that city articles are about that specific city, generally defined by its physical borders. For larger general areas, articles about a metro- or micropolitan area can be written. Yeah, we have to include things around it because they influence it, but there is a limit how much detail. For instance, talking about the impact of Holloman on Alamogordo is of course appropriate; however, detailed events that happened at Holloman aren't totally relevant to Alamogordo. A lot of the history I'm reading here from Holloman should be at the Holloman article rather than here unless they happened within the city limits of Alamogordo. The same is true with the atomic bomb testing. It occurred some 60 miles from Alamogordo. Should it be mentioned? Sure...it affected the city, but the great majority of the details about it should be elsewhere unless they are directly related to the city of Alamogordo, not the general area. The name of the Alamogordo Test Site isn't because it was in Alamo, it's because Alamo was the nearest town of any size. --JonRidinger (talk) 01:10, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree here. One problem with extending the article about a city into the greater area is that then you end up without an article about the city itself. It makes sense to say that the city benefits economically from the Air Force Base, but details about the base itself belong in an article about whatever government entity it actually resides in, be it the county or something smaller. The test range is an even more extreme case, 60 miles away. At this point the only similarity is the name and shouldn't be included here any more than North Carolina would be included in an article about South Carolina. --Beirne (talk) 01:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)