Wikipedia talk:Notability (highways)/Archive 01

message: Do we really have a problem which requires another guideline?  This seems like just more WP:CREEP. --Kevin Murray 21:31, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The purpose of this guideline is to solve two problems.  There are a lot of editors who still think that state highways aren't notable.  If there's a consensus-approved guideline to point to, it can save a lot of time at AfD.  Secondly, there have recently been a few editors at the various roads WikiProjects now creating articles on county highways, which aren't notable.  Thus the purpose of this page is to find a happy medium between the two extremes that everyone at WP:USRD and Wikipedia as a whole can agree on. -- NORTH talk 21:36, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Can you demonstrate some AfD examples where the current guidelines have failed?  The rules so far seem rather arbitrary and non-WP. --Kevin Murray 23:43, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:USRD/P. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:04, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

text: To clarify, Common outcomes states that highways are notable.  Presumably, this means "state highways", as I've never seen anything higher than a state highway make it to AfD, and there's no clear consensus regarding county highways (or at least, there wasn't until recently).  The WP:USRD/P page Rschen cites shows that even though this has been listed as a common outcome for quite some time, state highways are still sent to AfD relatively frequently, but usually closed as keep, and always at least defaulting to keep. -- NORTH talk 06:46, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

message: Kevin Murray started this page off wondering if it was instruction creep.  While I think that it's important to have a notability guideline for roads/highways, we should remember that this page is a notability guideline, and not a style guideline.  The information on  tags and anchors should probably go on one of the WikiProject pages. -- NORTH talk 21:57, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Instruction creep

message: The biggest issue is that articles can only be written where significant reliable source material exists to write an article about.  Generally, roads that are part of a national highway system (Interstate or US roads in the U.S. for example) WILL have this source material, and Generally, secondary or county numbered roads won't.  However, the existance of this guideline should never imply that it trumps Wikipedia policies like WP:NOT, or that articles that will never be more than stubs should be encouraged to be created; or conversely that articles with copious source material should be deleted.  There are some problems I see:
# Some interstates, especially the very short ones (I-395 in Baltimore, I-189 in Vermont, the I-x75's in Tampa Bay come to mind) are essentially long exit ramps that for some reason got their own interstate number.  There is little more than a single paragraph to ever be written about roads like these; they likely may be better served as part of a list article like List of short Interstate Highways or something like that.
# Some secondary numbered roads are VERY notable in that local press coverage on them is extensive, they are long and heavily traveled, etc. etc.  The XX00 series in Virginia (Fairfax County Parkway, Franconia Springfield Parkway, Prince William Parkway all come to mind) are ostensibly tertiary routes, as 4-digit routes (generally, in Virginia, 4-digit routes are cul-de-sacs, neighborhood streets, etc.) but they are major public works projects, have copious coverage, and can support full articles.
The best principle, as always is CAN extensive, reliable source material be found on articles.  I propose the following guidelines as indicating that the source material is probably there:
#If the road is a limited access freeway with at least one full interchange along its length, it is probably notable, regardless of what authority maintains it, or what number convention it falls under (or even if it is unnumbered).
#If the road is a major artierial road that is used as a major commuter route, or connector to the above, then it is probably notable, again regardless of numbering or anything else.
#If the construction, maintenance, or existance of the road has been the source of community controversy, or otherwise part of the public discourse(i.e. press) in its community, then it is ALWAYS notable, even if it was never completed, or indeed even built (Boston's Inner Loop, for example).  Even if cancelled, many of these projects have VOLUMES of source material to draw from.
#If the road is historically significant, such that historical source material exists about it, it is probably notable.  Such obvious examples are the Lincoln Highway, Route 66, the Dixie Trail, the Boston Post Road.
#Roads where the ONLY reliable source material upon which to base an article are listings in route logs, lines on a map, or otherwise trivial source material are generally not notable (see WP:NOT a directory) and should be merged into a list article, such as List of Delaware state highways or something.  Within those list article, actually notable roads can be wikilinked, while non-notable roads can be left unlinked, for cases where the article will contain no extra information beyond what is reported in the list.  Examples of this include the short interstates I listed above, state highways that avoid major communities, county routes, secondary routes, etc...
Any kind of road I missed above?  What do you all think? --Jayron32|talk|contribs 20:16, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Interstates should always have a separate article. The same is true with (nonbannered) U.S. Routes. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:57, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If any reliable source (i.e. maps, routelogs) can be deviated, it is notable.  Sources such as these can be easily turned into text.  Articles such as these are not anything mentioned in WP:NOT. V60 干什么？ · VDemolitions · VRoads (路) 04:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, WP:NOT clearly states that wikipedia is NOT A DIRECTORY.  If all an article is is a list of simple facts about a roads mileage and intersections, then the article is simply a directory entry from a route log.  Articles need prose, and prose needs to come from other sources of prose.  Even converting directory information into prose does not make it an article.  I could also write: "John Doe lives at the adsress of 123 Elm Street.  This home is located in the city of Anywhere, USA.  The zip code for Anywhere is 97865.  John Doe can be reached by phone at (999)123-4567."  If this is the ONLY reliable information about John Doe printed in any source, it doesn't make John Doe notable, and as such he does not merit an article.  Likewise, writing "Route 23 is 38 miles long.  It's northern termini is in Anywhere and its southern termini is in Sometown.  Route 23 has intersections with three other numbered routes: I-42 in Thistown, US-68 in Thattown, and SR-99 in Anothertown."  If this is ALL the information we have about Route 23 in reliable sources, how can we build an article out of it?  Making a telephone book entry into prose does not make a person notable, and making a routelog entry into prose does not make a road notable.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 19:07, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

text: It will actually turn out that, at least for the U.S., the roads that would be considered notable under Jayron32's criteria would be essentially the same as the roads in the Interstate, U.S. and primary state highway classes. While many people seem to frown upon using classes of objects as criteria for notability, using classes of objects is a convenient and easy to check against method of determining notability. There usually is a reason why states assigned numbers to certain routes and not to others (usually either current or historical importance), and with enough research, one can obtain sufficient resources to write decent articles about most of them. These guidelines are just a convenient way to determine notability without knowing too much about the road. Of course, as in any article, all road articles should still state why they are notable. --Polaron | Talk 04:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is more important than stating why they are notable.  Claims which indicate notability need to be referenced to reliable sources.  The statement that "all X are likely to be notable because many X are the subjects of extensive writing in reliable sources" is NOT THE SAME as saying "All X are always notable".  This guideline needs to be clearer that the first statement is what it means, and not the second.  Sometimes, "X" is not notable; and sometimes "not-X" is notable.  The only class of roads that are always notable are the class of roads which are written about extensively in reliable sources.  If a road does not belong to that class, then it does not merit an article.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 19:07, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: State highways always have reliable sources that can be attributed to them.  They are, but not limited to maps and route logs.  Obviously, there are historical maps that can supplement the history section, and there are also newspaper articles.  In this case, every state highway is notable no matter what. V60 干什么？ · VDemolitions · VRoads (路) 23:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Looks CREEPy to me. How about we go with "A subject is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial..." and leave it at that? If you're right, and that is true of all state highways, they're all notable. If you're not, this is instruction creep trying to make them something you're not. I'm not convinced they are myself, most state highway articles that I've seen cite pretty trivial coverage, and they also seem to run afoul of WP:LOCAL, many are solely of local interest. I'm also not impressed with "precedent" outcomes, to be blunt, the last time I saw a road AfD, Wikiproject Highways was out in force with a "newsletter" to aggressively canvass its members, and amazingly enough, soon as that came out, there were a ton of keeps. This will have to go through the same evolution schools did-the beginning will be "ALL X are notable!" vs. "Barely any X are notable, what are you talking about!". In the end, most people will realize the answer's somewhere in the middle-not every school (or stretch of numbered pavement) is notable, but a pretty good number of them are. It still comes down to the same old question-"Well, has it actually been noted?" Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:54, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your logic seems to be faulty.  In the roads/highways case, if somebody takes the time to research historical and current info about the highway in question, it is notable.  As NORTH said, "there are likely to be reliable sources to supplement the article, even if they haven't been found yet.  That being said, this can only be applied to state highways a vast majority, but not all, of the time.  That's why this guideline admits that there will be exceptions to the rule, and minor state highways are best placed in a list article, rather than individual articles." V60 干什么？ · VDemolitions · VRoads (路) 15:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

text: There is no rush; we can develop this into something clearer as we go along - unless of course, there is another rash of highway AFDs :) I think one problem is that many of the people who put highway articles up for AFD don't really know much about the particular highway they nominated. My guess is that most highway AFD nominations are because: (1) the article is currently a stub, and that (2) the nominator doesn't think one can find sources on highways to expand the article. As I mentioned earlier, certain routes were chosen to be numbered and signed for the public to be able to follow along for a reason (usually historical or current importance). Granted this is not always true, but we need a way to discourage people from nominating highways for AFD that they know very little about. --Polaron | Talk 16:25, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I concur with Kevin here, provided its well sourced and so forth applying WP:N, then a well sourced highway article had demonstrated that it is notable.  Also highways notability do vary by country to country, so listing every country on this proposal would just completely bloat the proposal. --Arnzy (talk • contribs) 01:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Those insignificant roads are most county routes.  State highways, on the other hand, can have multiple, independent, reliable sources that we haven't bothered to find yet. V60 干什么？ · 喝掉的酒 · 路 22:10, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The US Road project page would be a great place to list sources that editors could use, if the sources you "haven't bothered to find yet" exist. Then 10 high quality articles could be written in a given period of editing instead of 100 likely permanent stubs, which merely express connectivity between intersections, and milage. I would personally enjoy reading about the history and lore of highways I have been familiar with. Some were Indian trails, some are steeped in the history of the Civil War, or saw outlaws hold up stagecoaches, or were the sites of civil rights marches. Some had long battles to get built or paved, or were washed away by floods. If you think that WP:A quality sources exist, then please base a road article on them. I have seen a huge number of state highway articles that have remained stubs for a long time. They should not be forever above deletion when no one seems to be able to find more than directory listing quality information. Some are just little short connectors of no apparent significance other than being a tiny bit of acrage with pavement and a number. The equivalent in other countries would lack the pavement and perhaps the number. Wikipedia policies and guidelines should not be U.S.-centric, and we should have general enough guidelines that they fit a road anywhere, such as requiring substantial coverage in multiple independent and reliable sources, or perhaps other surrogates for these.  Having a number may not be enough of a guarantee that sufficient info exists for a good article. I agree with Jayron that the leaast of the state highways belong in something like List of Delaware state highways. This could be in tabular form and include milage and termini. 21:51, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagreed- the reason the stubs exist is because there is noone with local knowledge regarding the road and/or noone has bothered to edit the article. A merger into a list article is not acceptable for length and style reasons. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 22:59, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Local knowledge" does not satisfy WP:A. If "local knowledge" means someone saying "I remember the fall of '63, when the bulldozers cleared the way for the road," then that does not satisfy WP:A. If it means checking the local or regional newspaper, then I would agree it takes a while for someone to dig into those, especially pre-Google actual newspaper archives. If some little road is so unimportant that no one has ever written about it in a source satisfying WP:A then many would disagree with your assertion that it requires an encyclopedia article which just says "it exists". If no one has time to research and write a proper article, now, how do we know someone will in the foreseeable future? Better to spend time writing good articles on interesting roads people care about, than encouraging the creation of countless permastubs. Opposition to road stbs does not equal opposition to road articles in general. Edison 20:14, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Within the U.S. roads project, we are actually discouraging the creation of new stubs and encouraging improvement of existing articles. Also, what if in the guideline instead of explicitly saying state or nationally numbered roads are notable, we list criteria (like Jayron32's above) that would make a road notable, then add a note that numbered roads are more likely than not to satisfy the criteria and further examination is probably warranted when nominating a numbered state road stub for deletion. --Polaron | Talk 20:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Most of the roads articles are stubs because we haven't gotten around to fixing them yet. There are currently over 4000 stubs- if we fixed one a day (which definitely isn't happening), it would take years to get each one up to snuff... --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 22:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guideline needs a clearer direction WRT notability=existance of source materials 

message: In reply to that last post:
Some of the reliable sources that we are using now are newspaper archives, as well as historical maps (Pennsylvania Route 145).  As for stubs, articles like New Jersey Route 70 can be expanded with plenty of reliable sources, if somebody had the time to do so.  As for a road that somebody might not care about, I don't really care about New Jersey Route 35, however it recently had a bridge replaced.  Same goes with a decommissioned route, New Jersey Route 25.
* "Opposition to road stubs does not equal opposition to road articles in general."
* To be honest, about 65% of our road articles are stubbed.  Because of this, it implies that you oppose road articles in general. V60 干什么？ · 喝掉的酒 · 路 20:30, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the roads articles are stubs because we haven't gotten around to fixing them yet. There are currently over 4000 stubs- if we fixed one a day (which definitely isn't happening), it would take years to get each one up to snuff... --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 22:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Arbitrary section break

message: It would include buildings, roads, towns, villages, hamlets, bodies of water, hills, forests - any individual feature or structure existent in human or physical geography. What do you all think of this idea?
The main criterion would obviously, as with everything else, be that a subject is notable if it has been the primary focus of multiple non-trivial reliable sources. There is a lot of potential to create geography stubs, many of which are still missing encyclopedic articles and are almost always encyclopedic (unlike MySpace bands).
See also Wikipedia:Places of local interest, a rejected proposal. I'd appreciate feedback. Thanks--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 04:15, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagreed. Highways are differently classified than other geographical things. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 21:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Instead of having this... we could have a general notability for "places and structures", or geography, guideline 

message: The actual problem with this proposed guideline is that it lacks community feedback. I would therefore encourage the proponents of this page to advertise it (e.g. WP:RFC, WP:VPR) in order to get more feedback on it. By which I specifically do not mean a vote (see WP:POL). It probably needs some rewording to make it more acceptable to the community, but there is no a priori reason why we can't have a notability guideline on highways. 
Personally, I would suggest broadening the scope to include all kinds of streets, because that'd make it more practical advice to editors. >Radiant< 09:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The poll was to show that this policy has not been rejected, since one user made it his personal mission to ensure that a  tag was on there. But otherwise, agreed. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 21:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  One of the predominant proponents of this proposal, User:Northenglish has retired from WP.  It seems that there is very little support remaining.  --Kevin Murray 20:49, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Quite frankly, I've ignored this page for a while because I am sick of fighting over this dang proposal: specifically, users who hate highways and who decide that this proposal is crap. Sorry. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 22:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Since my name has been brought up, I might as well contribute.  I think the USRD people need to realize that their goals may be in conflict with the goals of Wikipedia as a whole, since whenever they try to participate in anything that involves the whole encyclopedia (i.e. official guidelines, FAC, cleanup templates), they're shocked to find that there's opposition.  They might also want to reconsider accusing others of prejudice, since that's surely not the way to get what they want. -- NORTH talk 10:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Has this policy been rejected?

message: This policy is actually still in active discussion at the above section(s).  I don't want to have to go into another revert war.  I think the reason why this keeps getting a  on it is because the people placing it there don't know much about highways or that they don't care about highways.  To me and some other people, that's just sad. V60 干什么？ · 喝掉的酒 · 路 19:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  One of the predominant proponents of this proposal, User:Northenglish has retired from WP.  It seems that there is very little support remaining.  --Kevin Murray 20:49, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Quite frankly, I've ignored this page for a while because I am sick of fighting over this dang proposal: specifically, users who hate highways and who decide that this proposal is crap. Sorry. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 22:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Since my name has been brought up, I might as well contribute.  I think the USRD people need to realize that their goals may be in conflict with the goals of Wikipedia as a whole, since whenever they try to participate in anything that involves the whole encyclopedia (i.e. official guidelines, FAC, cleanup templates), they're shocked to find that there's opposition.  They might also want to reconsider accusing others of prejudice, since that's surely not the way to get what they want. -- NORTH talk 10:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Part 2

message: I would like to add a link to a relevant essay, Wikipedia:50,000 people per street, in a "See also" section at the bottom of the page. This may be a useful starting point if we are to expand this guideline to cover city streets. --Polaron | Talk 14:52, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 02:22, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit requested

message: I'm trying to get a sense of why there is opposition to the proposal. Is it because some feel that it is redundant? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Agreement?

message: Under the proposed guidelines, some 3000+ Farm-to-market roads in Texas would no longer be eligible for inclusion in Wikipedia.  That would make a pretty fair amount of efforts in cataloging them (like this list of lists of FM/RM roads) superfluous.  That may be good or bad -- I bowed out of attempting to influence Wikipedia highway policy after getting slapped down for preferring "U.S. Highway" over "U.S. Route" (I'm over it now! Really!).  But the impact should certainly be considered.  Side note: I wonder why there isn't a road-specific Wiki out there somewhere?  If the Star Trek geeks can have one, why can't we roadgeeks?  --Robertb-dc 16:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Texas FM/RM system is a sparse system, therefore they are notable like the California County Routes and the 500-series New Jersey County Routes. V60 干什么？ · 喝掉的酒 · 路 17:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think they really are that sparse. There are probably enough notable ones for a full list, but I would think that many of them have little to say other than the termini and when it was commissioned. --NE2 17:06, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth, "sparse" would be the last word that one would use to describe the FM system in Texas.  "Ubiquitous" would be more like it.  Texas is big, but 3000+ FM roads do a pretty good job of blanketing the state -- and that's in addition to several hundred more in the SH, Loop, and Spur categories, plus US and Interstate routes.  Many of the routes are less than a mile long, and/or terminate at a county line or unnumbered road junction.  As much as I want to index every single one, I'd have to say that the 7.8 miles of FM 2860, while well-known to me, is probably not of much interest to anyone outside of southern Kaufman County, and only a local roadgeek would care that in the early 1970s, it was combined with FM 3095, a designation that now covers a road I'll probably never see in Midland County. --Robertb-dc 17:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This history can easily be covered in a table, much like list of bus routes in Manhattan. --NE2 17:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Texas Farm-To-Market roads 

message: Do we have general agreement to pass the parts of this page? Note: consensus is not unanimity, as some would have you believe. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 21:33, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Silence equals consent, so yes. V60 干什么？ · 喝掉的酒 · 路 18:34, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not yetI still see productive ongoing discussions, and stylistically we still have the same verbatim text passages occurring repeatedly in discussion of different geographical areas. This would be better consolidated under general principles. I see a lot that I like in this, as it seems to be trying to strike a balance between inclusionism and deletionism to keep articles for encyclopedic highways and have lists of minor roads.  Edison 14:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Parts, not all. V60 干什么？ · 喝掉的酒 · 路 15:15, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Consensus?