User:Adflatuss

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This user believes in civility and assuming good faith.

This user tries to do the right thing. If he makes a mistake, please let him know.

<ref>This user recognizes the importance of citing sources.

<ref>This user would like to see everyone using inline citations. Please...

This user prefers to leave redlinks, in the hope they will be filled, and has been known to fill them.

This user is a participant in WikiProject Short descriptions.

IAThis user uses the Internet Archive.

This editor is a Labutnum of the Encyclopedia and is entitled to display this Book of Knowledge with Coffee Cup Stain, Cigarette Burn, Chewed Broken Pencil, Sticky Note, Bookmark, and Note from Jimbo.

This user has been on Wikipedia for 12 years, 10 months and 9 days.

 13 This user has created 13 active articles on the English language Wikipedia.

This user has helped promote 1 good article on Wikipedia.

This user reads newspapers.

This user is interested in his local history.

This user was born and lives in the U.S. State of California.

enThis user is a native speaker of the English language.

This user is a member of WikiProject Historic Sites.

This user participates in
WikiProject Cities.

This user understands that
present moment awareness is essential to fully appreciate life.

• Barnstars and awards
• My main interests are communities and historic sites
• Pages created

Major contributions

• Salton Sea
  • An editor notified me when this article was nominated for Good article since I had recently contributed. I had tried to improve the history as the narrative was jumbled. I passionately started to piece together the history and worked to understand the role and authority of the different agencies. I have made the most edits to this article by far, probably because I was improving the content and integrating new content in. It is actually easier to start a new article than make major Improvements to one that needs it. I was hoping others would join in to improve the content that was mentioned in the review for which I neither had the expertise nor interest. Without further assistance, it didn't reach Good article status but I learned a lot about a widely misunderstood body of water.

• American Prairie Reserve
  • I became interested in the nature preserve and ended up extensively improving the article. My second most edited article.

• Port of Hueneme - Created
  • This link formerly redirected to the City of Port Hueneme. How could a significant west coast port not have an article? An Administrator moved the article over the redirect since I couldn't. I knew "copy and paste" was not recommended.

• Exide lead contamination - Created
  • I started this article in February 2016 after reading about a battery recycling plant in southeast Los Angeles County that emitted toxic metal dust over decades contaminating as many as 10,000 homes in half a dozen working-class, Latino communities near the plant. I was surprised when in March 2018, a bunch of additional sites of this company throughout the U.S. were added along with detail and citations. After getting over my shock, I realized the title could cover all these and had to rewrite the lede to fit. It probably could still use some editing to integrate the material and update the status of all of the sites.

• List of protected grasslands of North America - Created
  • I started expanding the See also section as I discovered more protected grasslands. Another editor thought I was being excessive (I was) and said, "Why don't you create a list?" So I started my first list article. I was interested in grasslands with bison so there are two lists in the article: Those with and those without bison. While up there in edit count with some of my most edited, this was just deciding on a format and then continuing to expand and update.

• Refugio oil spill
  • Major contributor and appreciated the reviewer opening my eyes to issues so the article could be expanded and fine tuned. Enjoyed working with other editors who dropped in to help make an article that was written very well, contained factually accurate and verifiable information, was broad in coverage with a neutral in point of view, and was illustrated by relevant images. I pushed it over the finish line so it could be listed as a Good article under History: North American history. I have continued to track the news and add to it.

• Destination Crenshaw - Created
  • I started this page in February 2020 when I heard about this 1.3-mile-long (2.1 km) open-air museum dedicated to preserving the history and culture of African Americans being constructed along Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles.

• United States Post Office (Berkeley, California) - Created
  • I found an interesting newspaper article about this Post office being for sale. I wanted to add it as a reference to the appropriate article but found only a redlink on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Alameda County, California. So I crafted my first article in December 2013 and learned a lot about the elements and guidelines.

• Thacher School Historic District - Created
  • Enjoyed responding to the new historic district.

Why I edit

Historians note how previous cultures leave deposits, traces, influences, legacies, or renewable forces that get interwoven into the cultures we now inhabit long after their “decline.”

I started editing when I noticed some errors and gaps in local, mainly historical, information on Wikipedia. I noticed that editors had started stubs so that every entry at List:National Register of Historic Places had an article. I then found out that a great way to learn about local history is to expand those stubs. I am a newspaper reader and often come upon articles that would provide some historical information for an article.

While I am mainly interested in expanding existing articles on historical places, my List of Subpages will show the articles in draft or final that I have created. I have also contributed photos that you can see at WikiMedia Commons.

Historic preservation can be assisted by the availability of quality articles with appropriate Wikilinks and References. I have been improving articles by promoting consistency, correcting errors, putting links in articles, and adding additional information about notable and historic landmarks. My interest is to improve individual articles and provide improved access by linking articles together and making the relationships more evident for easier research. I am always happy to have other users edit my text for clarity and concision.

Photos

I also started contributing photos when needed. Several of my photos are on this page and all the photos I have contributed into the Public Domain can be viewed at WikiMedia Commons.

• Contributing to Wikipedia

Some of my favorites are historic site stubs and populated places. City articles are sometimes a list of notable residents with some folk knowledge thrown in. I especially enjoy writing after stumbling onto a surfeit of references though crafting a good article takes time.

Historic house of the Dudley family in Ventura

Ventura County Railroad serving the Port of Hueneme

• Somis, California - This article was full of unrelated but plausible text cut and pasted from other articles. Had to just about start over but the research was interesting.

Church in the Mayan Revival style

• San Miguel Chapel Site - Relatively unknown site of mission history
• Rincon Sea Level Road - symbolic of the beginning of the automotive era.
• Saticoy, California - Another small community with a rich history
• Oxnard Plain I have added a lot to this article. Also see Oxnard Area section below.

Historical Ventura

• Seaside Park is also the site of former Babe Ruth Field
• Ventura County Courthouse, Ventura Theatre, Elizabeth Bard Memorial Hospital
• Feraud General Merchandise Store, Emmanuel Franz House ‎
• Dudley House - I took the picture one morning and some added references
• Church in the Mayan Revival style This one "had to be seen" so I added a picture while expanding article
• Pierpont Inn - A historic place that had a very unencyclopedic article
• Bishop Thaddeus Amat - established Catholic cemeteries in Ventura and Oxnard

Train Stations

• Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center - When this new terminal was ready to open, I took a stub and expanded it to a fairly complete article on this dynamic, new transit center that is destined to become a local landmark. The research was interesting because each source only had a limited amount of information and the article was criticized for relying too much on primary sources.
• Downtown Ventura station, Montalvo Metrolink station, Oxnard Transit Center
• ‎Camarillo train station, Moorpark train station, Simi Valley train station, Santa Susana Depot

Oxnard Area

• Oxnard Beach Park, Mandalay State Beach, McGrath State Beach
• Berylwood - Home of Thomas R. Bard, a significant figure in local history. Both articles could use expansion.
• Women's Improvement Club of Hueneme, Opened my eyes to the important contributions made by Women's clubs to civil society

Conejo Valley

• Case Study House No. 28, Norwegian Grade

Sense of Place

• Outline of History of California
• State website also includes Points of Interest recognized by the California State historic preservation office.

I am enjoying expanding the articles that others have started from these lists. As part of county history, they often show the early days of the settlements that turned into the cities listed below. I want to better understand categories and which places are on which lists so I have organized them here for quick reference. The redlinks indicate ones that might be good to create and populate. The County and all cities are listed below but there are three other classifications and some landmarks may be associated these settlements

• Category:Census-designated places - Census Designated Places
• Category:Unincorporated communities
• Category:Populated places - USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) defines Populated Place as place or area with clustered or scattered buildings and a permanent human population (city, settlement, town, village). A populated place is usually not incorporated and by definition has no legal boundaries. However, a populated place may have a corresponding "civil" record, the legal boundaries of which may or may not coincide with the perceived populated place. (Distinct from Census and Civil classes.)
• Category:Decades in California Seems like a decade could be added to many of the historic landmarks

Articles still in user pages

• Proposed articles
• All user subpages