Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon/O-vanish

How about quoting the Big O like any other printed source -- an unadorned author, article title, page number & date? For example, Richard Rheinhard, "Yes, I am an unimaginative, Right-wing hack whom no one reads, not even other Conservatives," The Oregonian (1 April, 2007), p. 40D. -- llywrch 19:46, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Very good point. The newspaper article itself is the source. The URL is simply a convenience link to an online copy of the source. Even if the link dies, the source is still valid. --SSBohio 20:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, only just noticed this discussion! I use The Oregonian as a source in WP articles all the time, in exactly this manner. My central point here isn't that the O. is unusable in Wikipedia -- it is certainly usable in Wikipedia -- but that the Oregonian does the state of Oregon a disservice by making its stories difficult to find online, even for those willing to pay for them. -Pete (talk) 21:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

O-vanish irony (an old note from Pete's talk page)

On your User:Peteforsyth/O-vanish page, two of your links listed after "See my comments here..." are now dead. Of course, they link to Oregonian articles. Heh. Never mind, I was clicking the links that you intentionally listed as dead.

I was wondering if you had written to anyone at the Oregonian to complain about the problem, and suggest a solution a la the NYTimes archives. Since you can access older articles using their paid archives and see a free preview, I don't understand why they can't make newer articles available that way. Perhaps a friendly letter pointing out how it makes Oregon look pretty rinky-dink might get some action. I'd be happy to co-sign such an article, or participate in a letter-writing campaign to get this fixed. --Sprkee 17:46, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I have not spoken directly to Michael Arrieta-Walden, who I believe is the right target for such a letter/call. Kari Chisholm of BlueOregon has, though (see this comment.) I agree that a letter signed by several people would be a good idea. Can you work up a draft? I could probably get Kari to sign on, and maybe a few other high-profile sorts. I'd say the main points to hit are:

• rinky-dinkness (love that term!) Definitely focus on the embarassing image it gives the Oregonian, and how far it goes toward advancing the notion that they don't "get" new media.
• compare to other local sources (the Tribune, WW, and Merc all do just fine by their readers) and national sources (as you say, the NYT and many others do fine by their readers and have a viable strategy to draw revenue for old stories)
• economic development
• public safety (these two are Kari's angle)
• the general interest of providing for the dissemination of good information (tie in with Oregonian's editorial mission?)
• list a few real-world scenarios of where it causes a problem (Wikipedia, blog posts, Kari's public safety example…)

Glad to know you're interested in this, I think we should make something happen!

-Pete 01:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Who, me? You wrote it already above!

I'll try to take a crack at it at some point soon and email it to you when I do. I did discover a backdoor workaround of sorts: If you use their old archive search at http://www.oregonlive.com/search/oregonian/ you do get a list of articles with a brief summary. It seems to work even for recent articles. It's much better than their ballyhooed new! improved! search that seems mostly to search local businesses and the contents of the OregonLive blogs. --Sprkee 16:52, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Great work

Pete, great work on this. I'm not around much but pop in from time to time to look at articles and do small edits. Glad to see someone is staying on top of the latest developments. Davidpdx (talk) 03:46, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks David, it's always nice to see you 'round the wiki -- I do often notice, even if I don't say anything =) Did you catch my interview on OPB by chance? It's archived here, it's a pretty good read/listen if I may say so... http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/shows/encyclopedic-ambitions/ -Pete (talk) 04:10, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Very out of date

This essay has been out of date for at least 3 years now, it appears to me, and I've been intending to post a note here or on Pete's talk page for some time, but didn't get around to it until now. The main, lead "section" of this page, especially, mostly written in 2007, is very outdated. All Oregonian articles have remained available for free for at least 30 days (changed from 14) since late 2009 or 2010, and as far as I have observed, it is actually more common for them to remain available (in their entirety) for 2-3 years or more (!). Also, old URLs now virtually always redirect to an excerpt of the article after it becomes "archived" and no longer free. They almost never vanish without a trace anymore; I think The O. fixed that problem about 3-4 years ago. I can think of other reasons to criticize The Oregonian, but this is definitely no longer one of them. Nowadays, they appear to do better than most other big-city newspapers in this regard. SJ Morg (talk) 08:02, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the update on this. Since I'm less active on Oregon issues these days I had not noticed that it was consistently better. However, when I last checked it was their policy to delete articles (written up in their Terms of Use, or similar) after a few months, even though they didn't actively do so. Before deleting this page entirely, I'd like to check whether that is still the case - i.e., whether they have simply fallen behind on something they intend to do when they get around to it/hire a qualified intern/etc. Or whether they are actually doing better on this. Perhaps a small detail, but it seems worth checking out. -Pete (talk) 10:02, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. There's no great urgency, and I don't know that deletion of this page even needs to be considered, especially since it is linked from numerous archived talk pages. I was thinking more of an update to the main (lead) section. ... after you've had time to check it out a little more, to see whether your experience (with the O's site now) differs from mine. No rush. SJ Morg (talk) 10:32, 22 January 2014 (UTC)