Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Issues/Issue003

The U.S. Roads WikiProject Newsletter

[edit] Introduction

We're getting into the "swing" of creating and delivering this newsletter. The past two weeks have been influential on the development of the project, and there are some important stories in this edition.

However, there is an important issue facing all of the U.S. Roads projects: an issue that holds more power to destroy the road articles than any XFD process, naming convention debate, or any such process.

Hope you enjoy.

[edit] Inactivity?

By Rschen7754, Vishwin60 & TwinsMetsFan

Ever since the conclusion of WP:RFAR/HWY and WP:SRNC, many of the U.S. Roads articles and projects have slowly fallen apart. This has been discussed several times on the IRC channel, and we have determined that the cause is due to many users leaving the highways project. Some projects do not even have one active user maintaining the project. The few that are left are overburdened with the maintenance of the articles that were largely ignored due to the vicious discussions at WP:SRNC for the majority of 2006. Thus, we need users to return to the highways project quickly to help us out.

[edit] List of problems that the U.S. Roads articles are facing

• Ridge Route was ignored during its entire first week of FARC.
• According to the Wikipedia Signpost, there is one featured article for every 1310 articles on the English Wikipedia. Unfortunately, there is only one article for the 6054+ U.S. Road articles on Wikipedia.
• The Kentucky project has had three routeboxes for several months now. Attempts to correspond with this project regarding this disturbing development have gone unanswered. Finally, an experienced U.S. Roads editor has taken over for this project.
• It is estimated that half to two-thirds of the USRD state highway projects are inactive.
• There are over 150 broken routeboxes at WP:CASH that have been broken for at least a month. Why haven't they been fixed? The people responsible for fixing them has been bogged down with other Wikipedia work, trying to fix other highways projects.
• It is estimated that over half of the U.S. Roads editors are now inactive.
• Nevada State Route 401 was nominated for deletion in September 2005. It has not been altered since.
• The cleanup categories for the Interstate and U.S. Route WikiProjects contain a combined total of over 100 articles, many of which have been tagged for several months.

[edit] A visual summary of the state of U.S. Roads articles

Sources: Nevada State Route 401, Category:Interstate articles needing work, Category:U.S. route articles needing work, User:Rschen7754/Routeboxca2, WP:KYSH, Ridge Route, Signpost

[edit] Project news

• The exit list guide has been changed slightly. Please visit the page to view the changes.
• New state highway subprojects are currently discouraged. We don't want to start new projects before we get the current ones fixed.

[edit] Article Improvement Drive

The current U.S. Roads Article Improvement Drive articles are
U.S. Route 40 (improvement) and U.S. Route 191 (expansion).
Last collaborations were: Interstate 88 (east) and Nevada State Route 401.
CAST YOUR VOTE for the next articles

[edit] Deletion debates

An archive of all previous debates.

Active

List of highways numbered 888 is currently at AFD. Comments can be made at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of highways numbered 888.

Closed

At AFD, four road-related articles were retained. Rhode Island Route 11, Rhode Island Route 142 and Rhode Island Route 403, nominated in an AFD for Route 11, were kept after the nomination was withdrawn on February 27. Route 11 and Route 142 were redirected to Rhode Island Route 121 while Route 403 was kept as-is. Later, a lack of consensus in an AFD for Newark Airport Interchange (closed on March 8) allowed the article to remain.

No categories went to CFD in the past two weeks.

At TFD, the templates mnclink and mnclist, two templates designed exclusively for use on Minnesota state highways, were deleted. After upgrades to the MediaWiki software allowed the "Pipe Trick" to be used with commas, the first template, which did the same, became obsolete. The same argument was applied to the second template.

[edit] Member news

Let's give these new users a welcome!

• Arkyan joined WP:USRD on March 5.

[edit] Featured subproject: New York

In this issue, we shine a light on the New York State Routes WikiProject, created on 12 February 2006. This project has been a pioneer in the U.S. Road standards since its birth. Its editors have strived to maintain high standards that are fully compliant with WP:USRD, including a compliant infobox, junction list, and more. Here's to continued success!

Know of a subproject that has gone above and beyond the call of duty? Nominate it at WP:USRD/NEWS. Please note: projects cannot be nominated more than once a year.

[edit] Featured member: Scott5114

Scott5114↗ has been a Wikipedia editor since May 5, 2005. He currently has over 5150 edits and is a member of the WP:USRD, WP:IH, WP:USH, and WP:KSSH projects. He is also the founder of WP:OKSH.

Scott5114 is a frequent IRC participant, and he has been influential in nation-wide policy discussions. Also, he has created good quality articles related to roads here and even a few at the Spanish Wikipedia. He was also an important force in getting Kansas Turnpike up to Good Article quality.

Thank you, Scott5114, for your continued hard work!

Nominations are being taken currently at WP:USRD/NEWS for the next featured member. The editors cannot be nominated at this time, and you may only be nominated once a year.

[edit] Article Improvement Drive

By TwinsMetsFan and Rschen7754

The swell in road-related deletion debates has resulted in the establishment of an Article Improvement Drive dedicated to U.S. roads. Every other week, two articles will be selected (one for expansion, one for improvement) as the AID articles for that two week period. The ultimate goal is to improve the articles to the point where they can be considered for Featured Article status. Nominations for articles and votes for the articles are continually accepted at WP:USRD/AID.

A period of two weeks was selected because due to the lack of activity, one week was not enough time to improve the articles. Furthermore, few have voted to choose articles, and a two-week period was thus needed to pick the correct article. Please help us in our efforts to improve the quality of U.S. Road articles across the board!

Sources: WP:USRD/AID

[edit] Good and Featured Articles

By Rschen7754 & Vishwin60

We've got good and bad news this week to report to you in the area of good and featured articles.

Unfortunately, Ridge Route did get defeatured due to inactivity. However, there are plans to at least restore this article to GA quality.

However, Interstate 476 passed a GA this week. Interstate 476 is a 132 mile long Interstate Highway that travels between Interstate 95 near Chester, Pennsylvania and Interstate 81 near Scranton, Pennsylvania, serving as the primary north-south Interstate corridor through eastern Pennsylvania.

Interstate 290 (Illinois) may potentially undergo a nomination for GA. If it passes, it will be the fifth GA from U.S. Roads. California State Route 37, a current Good Article, was a Featured Article candidate as well, but has failed.

In response to peer reviews and such, a highways-specific peer review has been created at WikiProject Highways/Peer review. By the creation of this, a separate highways-specific "Path to a featured article" has been created, and can be seen at the peer review page.

Sources: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Ridge Route/archive1, Interstate 476, California State Route 37, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/California State Route 37, Wikipedia:Peer review/Interstate 290 (Illinois), Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/Peer review

[edit] From the Editors

So you've read about the problems... now become part of the solution! Become active in highways again. Let's save the articles from being inactive and destroyed.

As always, your feedback on the content and format of this newsletter is greatly desired. With your help, we can make the newsletter better and more informative! Don't be afraid to comment!

Lastly, remember that this is your newsletter and you can be involved in the creation of the next issue released on March 24. Any and all contributions are welcome. Simply let yourself be known to any of the undersigned, or just start editing!

[edit] Contributors to this Issue

• Rschen7754 (Editor, Distributor)
• Vishwin60 (Editor, Distributor)
• TwinsMetsFan (editor, distributor)