Talk:White Stag sign

Stashing links about White Stag here for now

Because the stag on the sign is all their fault, some info for the much-needed Oregon article White Stag (company). Why should Jantzen have all the fun? (info from blogs obviously needs follow up with reliable sources and firewalled articles may need library research--sorry if any of these are repeats)

• Blog post about Picasso (yes, that one) designing for White Stag
• And a follow-up post
• Harold Hirsch, founder of White Stag, and Portland civic leader, 1990 obit in NYT
• http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-17008337.html
• http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-177304100.html
• http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-97535868.html
• http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-20212434.html
• Oregon Historical Society is the best source so far
• http://www.vintagefashionguild.org/content/view/308/121/
• http://fuzzylizzie.bravejournal.com/entry/36035
• http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/d/dhhcc/bios/whitestag.html
• http://www.thetribonline.com/news/story.php?story_id=27301
• Here's the lady responsible for "Rudolph"
• http://vintageclothesline.blogspot.com/2006/05/vintage-sportswear-labels-still-around.html
• http://www.vintageskiworld.com/White_Stag_Medium_Ski_Wax_p/wax-white-stag-med.htm
• http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-118555729.html
• http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19900707&slug=1080933
• http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/article?f=/c/a/2007/02/18/MNOPPENHEI28.DTL
• http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM1DJ6_White_Stag_Portland_Oregon
• Google Books
• http://www.heritageaspen.org/tipchp6.html
• http://outofourmindsdesigns.com/4theboys2.html
• Google Books
• http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/meier___frank.html

Katr67 (talk) 21:00, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I read that the cut-off-looking "g" is a nod to the typography of the White Stag logo (it's on their labels that way, so it's not a matter of not enough room on the sign). Slightly inaccurate and misspelled info here. Here is the White Satin sign, and here is the White Stag sign. Katr67 (talk) 21:11, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Not much to go on, eh Katr? </sarcasm> Certainly the sign is about more than Made in Oregon, so thanks for finding it. In fact, I wonder if calling it "the made in oregon sign" is even correct. tedder (talk) 22:20, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I put in some redirects from White Stag sign, which is what it was called prior to '97, and White Satin Sugar sign which I'm sure it was also called. I think the name is fine for now, until they change the wording again. Done with my expansions now; it suffers from the lack of online references thanks to our pals at the O.--Esprqii (talk) 22:29, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Worth a DYK nomination?

What say? YBG (talk) 05:44, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Definitely...I had some other tweaks I wanted to try to make today that might lead to a good hook. --Esprqii (talk) 15:21, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Move of page

I just renamed the article ("moved the page") from Made in Oregon sign to White Stag sign, after adding photos showing the sign's previous wording. I'd been contemplating doing that for a few months, but felt it couldn't be done until at least one pre-1998-wording photo was available. I had slides of that, but had no convenient way to digitize them until a few days ago, when I finally got around to buying a film scanner. However, the availability of "White Stag" photos was not reason enough all by itself to rename the article. Here are the factors that I feel support the page move:
(1) The sign's wording is set to be changed in mid-2010 and will no longer read "Made in Oregon".
(2) Of the three wordings displayed between 1941 and 2010, "White Stag" lasted by far the longest (38 years versus 18 years and 12-13 years).
(3) The sign was officially listed as the "White Stag Sign" when designated an historical landmark by the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission in 1978, and as far as I can determine, it continues to be listed under that name, for example see here and here. In that last one, scroll down to "List of Portland Historic Landmarks"; the October 2009 list (an Excel file) linked there lists the sign (only) as the "White Stag Sign".
(4) Graphically, the sign has featured a leaping stag for more than 50 years. Even during its 13 years as the "Made in Oregon" sign it still had a deer, or stag, on it, and that design element will remain after the planned 2010 changes.
(5) The sign sits atop the historic White Stag Building, so it will always retain some degree of affiliation (current, not purely historic) with the name "White Stag" for that reason. Its affiliation with Made in Oregon will become purely historic after 2010.

Regarding the planned new wording: "Portland Oregon sign" (with or without a comma) is such a vague name that it seems very unlikely ever to become the common name for the sign after the lettering is changed in 2010.

With regard to Wikipedia's naming conventions, a strong case could be made that "White Stag sign" is not currently the most common name by which the sign is known. However, it was the most common name for a very long time (nearly 40 years), and therefore remains a familiar name to anyone who lived in or near Portland during those years (which includes many current and former residents, and excludes mainly only people under 30). In any event, that argument really only supports delaying the page move, because the same factors will – in conjunction with the wording change planned for 2010 – soon mean the sign is no longer being called the "Made in Oregon sign" by most people. My feeling was the article would have required renaming within just two or three months from now, and there was no good reason to wait. SJ Morg (talk) 08:03, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

You've convinced me. Nice work. —EncMstr (talk) 15:33, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Me too. Definitely the common name of the sign. tedder (talk) 15:51, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

So, I sort of disagree. I had been thinking about what the sign will be called after the city takes possession and there's just no way of knowing. I think your assertion that the "Portland Oregon sign" will never catch on remains to be seen. People have a pretty short memory about these kinds of things; witness when the University of Oregon wanted to change the wording and everyone got upset that the ancient landmark Made in Oregon sign would be changed. I think it would be hard to disprove that the sign is not now most commonly called the "Made in Oregon sign."

I would have preferred to keep the page as it was until the wording actually changed. At that point, we would have a better idea what the media, and popular culture, would call it. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if people still call it the "Made in Oregon sign" or the "Old Made in Oregon sign." I would frankly be surprised if people go back to the old name. Your change does have some validity given the historical "official" landmark name, and the fact that it is somewhat descriptive (there is a white stag on it) but I disagree that from a common name perspective it is the best name. Time will tell. --Esprqii (talk) 16:56, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

This means nothing, but longtimers in the Portland area that I know, know the sign as the "white stag" sign, not "made in Oregon". How should we resolve the "best" name to use for the article? Google hits? Oregonian article names/hits? tedder (talk) 17:03, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

There's no best way to do it. I don't generally like deferring to "what oldtimers call it" as a rule since then we'd have articles called Multnomah Stadium and East 39th Avenue. Progress people! But in this case, since the wording is changing and we will have to call it something--I'm OK with the change purely on the historical basis. I do think it would have been better to wait until the wording changed. I would like to revisit the issue once some kind of public consciousness sets in. --Esprqii (talk) 18:16, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Yep, it'll definitely need revisiting. I've sent my crystal ball in for repairs, otherwise I'd use it The original name or longest-used name has some merits- that's what we use for old houses, for instance. When Eric Ladd bought the Jacob Kamm House it didn't become the Eric Ladd House. But that's a convention for homes that doesn't apply here. Guess we'll know in a few months, eh? tedder (talk) 18:23, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Right, except of course most historical houses don't have lots of press coverage and a completely different wording labeled across it. Maybe we should start a pool on what the thing will be called in a year. I see the librul media is already calling it the "soon to be 'Portland Oregon' sign". I just reports 'em folks. It will be interesting since there is also a well-known "Portland" sign on the Paramount Theater, I mean, the Schnitz... (which itself used to be the Paramount sign) so... --Esprqii (talk) 18:44, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Good comments. Hope I didn't tick anybody off too badly. I agree that no one can really know what "most" people will be calling the sign a year or two from now. After the lettering is changed, some will undoubtedly continue to call it the "Made in Oregon sign", at least for awhile, but it seems likely that some other name will emerge eventually as the most common one. But what? The "big Portland Oregon neon sign"? Rather unwieldy. Without those qualifiers, the planned new wording (which I'm fine with) is too vague to become the new common name. It'll be interesting to see what develops. SJ Morg (talk) 22:54, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Not ticked at all. You're probably right that no consensus name will ever emerge. Let's just watch it and add as many useful redirects as we can as things go along. --Esprqii (talk) 23:02, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Reply to one idea by tedder: I don't think Google hits would be an accurate method of judging what the most common name is, since search results of Internet content will be heavily weighted towards the late 1990s and on, due to the Internet's coming of age at that time (see FUTON bias). Even Oregonian/Oregonlive hits would be affected that way, as the site may have run four different online versions of effectively the same article, in different sections, which would result in more hits. SJ Morg (talk) 23:11, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

(moving left) I agree, no worries on changing the name. Might have been better to post here to talk about it, but you can always retroactively claim that you were being bold. We're Oregon, after all. tedder (talk) 23:16, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Exactly, I was totally tolerant of the boldness. Also I think it would be fine to redirect Made in Oregon back to the company; since there is a hatnote at the top of that article, readers should be able to get to the right place fairly easily. It's just a little confusing to have it go to the White Stag article. I was going to do that but it got lengthy to explain in the edit summary. We really need to write the White Stag company article, with all the great refs Katr put above. --Esprqii (talk) 23:27, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

It's a Wonderful Nose

More info for expansion:

http://www.oregonlive.com/history/2015/12/white_stag_signss_red_nose_was.html

Valfontis (talk) 00:21, 16 December 2015 (UTC)