Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 28

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NRHP town name issues in CT

There's a discussion and some disagreement now at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Connecticut#NRHP town name issues about recent edits to NRHP list-articles for Connecticut and how to move forward. It would help to have perspective of other editors. doncram (talk) 21:41, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

NHL photo contest

From the NHL program:

Dear Photographers & Friends,

We are proud to announce that the 10th Annual NHL Photo Contest has launched. The deadline for entries will be September 4, 2009. Each year, we receive hundreds of photographs from across the country that celebrate the history and culture of our nation. As a result of the contest, our photo collection, public awareness and relationships with the stewards of the National Historic Landmarks have grown substantially. Last year, entries came in from over 26 states and one American Territory, and over 2,000 calendars were distributed.

Thank you for joining us in past years to recognize our Nation's National Historic Landmarks. We hope you will join us again in 2009 to celebrate our 10th year. Please encourage NHL stewards, colleagues, visitors, and friends to participate.

For more information on the contest, including a printable flier, please visit: http://www.nps.gov/nero/nhlphoto/

Last year, about 5-6 of us submitted pics, and, well, we didn't win. Your experience may vary! doncram (talk) 02:31, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

eligible but not listed

How to handle properties that are recorded with the National Register as being eligible, but not listed due to owner objection or otherwise? For example, i was doing Scottish Rite Cathedral (Pasadena, California) today, which has an infobox available in Elkman's infobox generator, if you click the checkbox for delisted properties (really means any other status than listed, i believe). Currently the infobox for this one shows it in NRHP blue and with a listing date, while it is not listed in fact. Also, i see the topic brought up here for a recent listing. Put in a separate table, like delisted ones, below the county table of current listings? If so, what color might work? Need to adjust template:infobox nrhp to allow a recognized eligible but not listed date? Factually, these are situations where the place is architecturally or otherwise just as significant, and just as well documented in an NRHP application, as another place for which some corporate lawyer wasn't around to ixnay the listing. doncram (talk) 06:14, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Technically properties identified "Determined Eligible" and "Determined Eligible Owner Objection" are not listed on the NRHP. However, they are afforded the same protections as NRHP listing under Section 106. There are several properties identified this way, with many listed in the NRIS under the Determinations of Eligibility search function. Maybe they should be separate? Maybe they should not be bothered with at all? Einbierbitte (talk) 21:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
My strong instinct is to note the status in the text, but NOT putting any infobox, much less the navigation template (personally I,m completely opposed to the inclusion of it on every single damn NRHP property to begin with, but I'm not going to get the trend reversed...). The data is useful, but an infobox would be severely misleading IMHO. Circeus (talk) 01:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I agree. I don't think an infobox should be included on eligible but not listed sites. This is an NRHP infobox.. not a "possibly NRHP but not really because the owner objected" infobox. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 02:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I certainly agree that eligible-but-not-listed ones should not be included in geographic lists of NRHP listings. I am kind of attracted to drawing the line for WikiProject NRHP as you three seem to be suggesting: that no we will not modify and use the NRHP infobox on those places merely deemed eligible, and that further we will not add tables of them below tables of listed ones, in the geographic lists (as we do for delisted properties), and to take it further, no we don't want to include these in NRHP categories or to put the WikiProject NRHP banner on their talk pages. Is that further than you all mean?
But, perhaps the National Register of Historic Places article should be developed to include some discussion about these. And, Einbierbitte, what Determinations of Eligibility search function are you referring to? I see no such thing at, say, the main NRIS search webpage at http://www.nr.nps.gov/. doncram (talk) 08:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't think we need to bother with anything that is not listed. Doncram, you can find the DOE's from the NRIS main page by clicking on "Agency". Einbierbitte (talk) 17:34, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

References

I'm curious about the references to the "National Register Information System" I'm seeing on Hawaii-related articles like Edgar and Lucy Henriques House. They seem to go directly to http://www.nr.nps.gov/. Is there a way to link to static property entries, or is this the best we can do? I've tried to do some fact-checking on these references and can't find a thing. Can someone help me? Viriditas (talk) 12:16, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I checked some of my articles, and seem guilty of it too. I think it comes from grabbing and stuffing an ifobox template from another article, and then just changing the info inside but not the citation. Agree that NRIS is not very useful. The good news is that it seems more and more of the actual nomination forms are being digitized and available at the newer"Focus" site. The nomination forms are a great source (including more good sources), and there are some photos too, but they are all black and white and generally not very interesting to look at. See Imiola Church for example of one that has both citations. Actually I see both nris and focus seem to be down at the moment – let us hope this is due to another batch of digitized nominations in there coming on-line soon. Oddly, right now the actual "pdfhost" seems to be up, so you can view the individual nomination forms. For example, the Henriques house at http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/84000202.pdf Aloha, W Nowicki (talk) 18:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
why would you copy the infobox from another article, why not generate a new one specific to your given NRHP site, using Elkman's infobox generator? doncram (talk)
Sadly, there is no way to link to a static page. You can't get everything by typing an entry because some information is only accessible by downloading the entire database, which is quite possible but also quite large. Elkman's infobox generator (which we use for most new entries) has to link to the NRIS, since it would be prohibitively difficult to have it link to a separate Focus page for each listing that had one finished, but I'm sure that it's a good idea to replace simple NRIS citations with a link to the FOCUS page if one exists. Nyttend (talk) 00:02, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Yes to what Nyttend says, but if by the Focus page, what is meant is the NRHP application, that will serve for many details but the it is probably appropriate to still keep the overall NRIS reference. To document the NRHP listing date, for example. Although some application documents may later get the NRHP listing date stamped upon them, that is probably not an appropriate source, while the official NRHP database is the proper source for the NRHP listing dates. doncram (talk) 00:19, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
How about helping walk me through one of these? Take for example, Edgar and Lucy Henriques House. I want to help Joel Bradshaw prep this for DYK, but I can't check the references because the primary citation goes to http://www.nr.nps.gov/. That's really not helpful. So, what is the next step? Looking above, I should visit http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov. Well, it's 404. Now what? If I'm the DYK reviewer, how the heck am I supposed to verify a hook based on NRIS? Viriditas (talk) 08:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Viriditas, you are doing a good job and in fact there is some reason for concern about the sourcing. In that article the whole first paragraph and one later sentence appear to be entirely supported by NRIS as a source, and it is not in fact accurate to assert NRIS is the source for all of that. Additional sourcing should be added, in my view (but i am not evaluating whether there is sourced stuff later, which is summarized in the lede). The apparently-NRIS sourced passages are:

The Edgar and Lucy Henriques House at 20 Old Pali Place in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi was built in 1904 for the Henriques couple, who had married in 1898. Edgar Henriques was a businessman who had arrived in Hawaiʻi from New York in 1896. Lucy was of high-born Hawaiian aliʻi heritage, descended from Isaac Davis, a British seaman who served as advisor to Kamehameha I in dealing with foreigners and in conquering the other islands. Lucy's aunt, Lucy Kaopauli Kalanikiekie Peabody, built the house for the couple and also lived there herself until her death in 1928. It stands as one of the best-preserved and few surviving examples of a grand "kamaaina" dwelling from the end of the 19th century, with a covered porte-cochere and wraparound lanai; a splendid, wide-open interior; and large doors and windows that could easily be opened to tropical breezes. Its architect was Thomas Gill, father of Thomas P. Gill, and it was listed on the Hawaiʻi and National Register of Historic Places in 1984.[1]

and

Edgar and Lucy had a large collection of Hawaiian cultural artifacts, which are now in the Bernice P. Bishop Museum.[1]

Although NRIS is apparently not available now to check directly, you can see what is available from NRIS by using User:Elkman's query service at infobox generator. Elkman's query is based on his download of the entire NRIS database, which the NPS last refreshed in downloadable form in March 2009. In NRHP articles, we have customarily credited NRIS without mention of Elkman as being the intermediary source. Search on "Henriques" and "HI" to see what is provided. It yields, on the left: 

Name: Edgar and Lucy Henriques House
Location: 20 Old Pali Pl.
Honolulu, HI
Year of construction: 1904
Date added: November 01, 1984
Governing body: Private
Architect: Gill,Thomas
Architecture: Kamaaina
Other names:
Historic function: domestic
Historic subfunction: single dwelling; secondary structure
Building is listed for architectural criteria

and it yields on the right a draft infobox and other elements for a new article: 

{{Infobox_nrhp | name =Edgar and Lucy Henriques House
  | nrhp_type = 
  | image = 
  | caption = 
  | location= 20 Old Pali Pl., [[Honolulu, Hawaii]]
  | lat_degrees = 21
  | lat_minutes = 21
  | lat_seconds = 9
  | lat_direction = N
  | long_degrees = 157
  | long_minutes = 49
  | long_seconds = 44
  | long_direction = W
  | locmapin = Hawaii
  | area =
  | built =1904
  | architect= Gill,Thomas
  | architecture= Kamaaina
  | added = November 01, 1984
  | governing_body = Private
  | refnum=84000202
<ref name="nris">{{cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2009-03-13|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service}}</ref>
}}
The infobox is NOT enough for a standalone article.  You need to enter some more information about where the property is located, its history, and why this property is notable.  In other words, don't use this infobox generator to create one-sentence stubs.
== References ==

{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Henriques, Edgar and Lucy, House}}
{{National Register of Historic Places}}

[[Category:National Register of Historic Places in Hawaii]]
[[Category:1904 architecture]]

{{Hawaii-NRHP-stub}}

It does confirm some facts in the first paragraph, such as the name of the architect, but not the relationship between the architect and his father/son, etc., and not many more details there. In general, you could run the Elkman search tool to see what NRIS has. Actually, Elkman's output includes some elements not available in the NPS's own interface. Also, another private source which also downloaded and mirrors the public domain NRIS data is http://nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com. Hope this helps. doncram (talk) 09:05, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Addendum: The NRHP nomination document for Henriques House may have been the actual source for much of that specific info in the article, but it is not footnoted. W Nowicki, above, pointed out that the NRHP nomination document is available at http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/84000202.pdf. The PDF Focus search interface is 404 error right now, but the hard urls to documents are still available, if you known the URL. A footnote to NRIS refers to the database, essentially just the limited fields above which go into the NRHP infobox, while a footnote to the NRHP application document should give title of the document, author(s) of the document from Section 11, date of preparation of the document, and should link in the available photos and so on. There are several examples of references for NRHP application documents written up in wp:NRHPmos. If this 5 page PDF document, authored by Thelma Johanos and dated in August 1, 1984 is Joel Bradshaw's source, that should be footnoted in the article where relevant. And, certainly material from the NRHP document should be added to the article if it is not in already. Also, a link to the corresponding photos PDF document that is probably also available should be included as part of the NRHP application document footnote. doncram (talk) 09:23, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Right, that's why I was confused. Thanks for helping me out. I'm going to try and work my way through this. If I run into any problems, I'll let you know. Viriditas (talk) 12:01, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Photos

Can I upload photos from this site to Wikipedia? Viriditas (talk) 12:31, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Sadly, no. I corresponded directly with the Park Service on this exact subject a couple of weeks ago, and while the site claims they're public domain, the Park Service has no authority to make such an assertion without a release from the authors. They have no such releases, so everything may be assumed to be copyrighted. You would have to approach the original photographer for permission, not the NPS.
"We had originally thought this default would be appropriate for photographs but have since found out it is apparently the responsibility of the user to verify whether or not a photograph is in the public domain before using it. We have never requested releases. This makes it quite difficult on your end to use these images." National Register Information System Reference Desk, National Park Service
So no, we can't use the images here as they're not free. Acroterion (talk) 12:45, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for the response. Viriditas (talk) 12:51, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Denver

National Register of Historic Places listings in Denver, Colorado has 283 listings, approximately 85 of which have pictures; as Denverjeffrey has said, "This page takes forever to load". Could we have advice at the talk page on how to split the list? Nyttend (talk) 20:42, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Using List of neighborhoods in Denver possibly? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

DYK question on reliability of NRHP noms as sources

Over at T:TDYK, I am having a devil of a time with Awadewit, who apparently doesn't understand that NRHP noms are indeed third-party proof of notability despite plenty of same having gone through DYK before with only the nomination as the article source (this started over that). I have added other sources to both articles, but she seems not to understand the NRHP nomination process and keeps asking for other sources like peer-reviewed academic journals (as if you would be able to find this sort of thing for churches in small towns distant from large cities).

This really bothers me (nor is it the first, or even second, time she's driven people nuts with what I feel to be an unnecessarily restrictive reading of our sourcing policies). I am not reviewing any DYK noms until this is resolved; I have asked that she not review any of mine that are still pending, and if these two noms (St. Paul's (Zion's) Lutheran Church and Village Diner) are rejected on these grounds I won't be submitting any more hooks to DYK from this project or anything else. Which I really think would be a loss. Daniel Case (talk) 04:10, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I added 2 refs to the Diner article. APK (If You Wanna) 05:10, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Agreed; my (limited) experience with DYKs gave me the impression that the backlog was so long the reviewers were trying to pick nits to get people to give up. Looks like yours are at least moving long. For some reason they like articles on pop music albums but not historic buldings. I was lucky enough to find a book written by the founder of Haili Church but of course that is not always available. I also check to see if there is a web site for the current occupant (e.g. still used by a congregation or other organization), and add a "Today" section. Of course the NRHP docs are more rigorously reviewed than web sites, but many younger people evidently have more comfort with them. Some of the nominations were written 30 years ago so there could have been more news since then. So also check newspaper archives, state registries, guidebooks, local historical societies, etc. for recent news. W Nowicki (talk) 23:38, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
The Village Diner one has been approved and moved to prep area Template:Did you know/Preparation area 1 already. I commented in the St. Paul's DYK discussion that the negative, onesource tagging seems harsh permalink. Daniel, I hope this goes through and that you do put up more DYKs. I don't think it is necessary to add any more sources than one great NRHP application document, in most cases an impressively well-researched document. doncram (talk) 01:09, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

List of United States federal courthouses

I figured having a list would be a good basis to see what we have and what we need. Please help fill it up. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:56, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

NRHP NPS Focus site

NPS Focus now has a lot more states and territories with scans of NRHP nomination forms available. They don't include any with "address restricted", you have to order redacted copies separately. By my count, so far AK has some (but not all - keep an eye on this one), DE has all, GU has all, HI has all, NV has all, UT has all, VI has all, and WY has all. I may have missed some. It may be a good idea to keep an eye on this site and add to the list. NPS plans to include the scans of the multiple cover (MPS, MRA, TR) documentation to NPS Focus at some point. Those scans are still available at the NRIS site. Einbierbitte (talk) 00:24, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Good to know! By the way, MPS documents are not available any longer. URL links to any MPS document still work, but there is no way to learn the URL if you do not already have it. The NRIS search screen for them does not work in any browser. MPS documents can only be obtained by request, for the moment. I have been told they should be added to the Focus system in one or two weeks time though. doncram (talk) 00:44, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the update on the MPS documents. For nominations online, you can add the US Minor Islands of Wake and Midway to the list. Einbierbitte (talk) 17:58, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Notice of RFC: NRHP historic districts vs. villages

RFC opened at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Connecticut#rfc: NRHP historic districts vs. villages — In the absence of evidence of substantial overlap, and of consensus decisions for mergers, must NRHP-listed historic districts be merged to articles on neighborhoods, villages, towns that may contain them? doncram (talk) 02:58, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Carpenter School No. 1

I've been working on the List of Mississippi Landmarks on and off for the past few months, and I've come across a problem. Many of the members of the MS Landmark list overlap with NRHP properties in the state, in which case I use NRHP infoboxes for these articles and add the USMS designation using the "other1" feature of Infobox nrhp. Well, Carpenter School No. 1 (a poor article at the moment) is a Mississippi Landmark, and there is a source from an area newspaper saying it is listed on the NRHP. I can't find it anywhere in the online database or in Elkman's infobox generator. I thought that maybe it had been delisted or something, but I don't know how to search for those properties. Can anyone confirm that this is/was listed on the NRHP, or is this just a mistake by the newspaper? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:28, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Is it, perhaps, part of a Historic District? With a little research, it looks like the school is within the boundaries of the Upriver Residential District (Roughly bounded by Pine (now MLK?), Monroe, Elm-Bishop, and Ridge-Maple Sts.) Andrew Jameson (talk) 12:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Ah, I didn't think about contributing properties.. it may be. After a little Googling, this page says there are 391 contributing buildings to the district and 98 non-contributing. The only problem now is.... how do we find out which category Carpenter School is in? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:00, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Also, does anyone know if this image of the school would be under any copyright? It's a work of the state government and not federal, so I don't know if I can use it or not. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 23:46, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
From the Cooper Postcard Collection general info page: Rights Management: The postcards in the Forrest Lamar Cooper Postcard Collection are in the public domain and therefore free of copyright or other use restrictions. MDAH asks that each image used in a presentation, display, or publication be accompanied by the following credit statement: Credit: Courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Andrew Jameson (talk) 12:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Ah ok thanks! That's awesome! The image is now uploaded at File:Carpenter School Postcard.jpg and is displayed on the article. I haven't yet started to edit the text of the article (which is horrendous and I think was created by an IP) because I'd like to get an infobox on there first. If the building is part of that district, I'd like to use the NRHP infobox, but if it's not I have another infobox I want to use. Does anyone know how to find like a list of all contributing properties to a single district? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
They are listed in the NRHP application for the district. doncram (talk) 06:20, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Ah, I think I remember you or someone else telling me how to get those, but I forgot. If I remember correctly, though, I could only get it like by mail or something.. a hard copy.. I would rather have a digital version if at all possible. Can someone tell me how to obtain this? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 07:01, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
You can send an email to "nr_reference (at) nps.gov". I think that if you ask, they can scan it and send a PDF. I was able to get PDFs of some nominations. Einbierbitte (talk) 17:37, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Email sent. Hopefully I'll get a response in the next week or so. I also asked about all the Historic districts in Meridian, Mississippi, so maybe I'll be able to expand that article a little more! Thanks for the help guys! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:38, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Turns out the school is a contributing property to the district. I now have the nomination forms :). I added an infobox to the article, and I'll hopefully be able to clean it up a bit.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 06:28, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like they were able to send you a scan. Einbierbitte (talk) 17:48, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
Yea, I asked for the nom forms of about 10 or 11 places (all of the others being in my hometown of Meridian, MS). They sent five of the the forms (the only ones that had been digitized) in TIFF format, though, page by page. The others will be coming to my home address in 2-3 weeks apparently. For the digitized forms, I had to use Preview to convert the files from TIFFs to PDFs, but then I was just left with a bunch of single page PDFs, so I used a script for Automator to combine the PDFs into one seamless document. I was told that I could upload these pdfs to any site I wanted to under Fair Use, but I don't really know where to upload them.. I don't have a website or anything, and according to the NPS, it could be 3-5 years before they finish digitizing all the forms (I was told that the ones added before 1985 have now all be digitized.. just some of them haven't been uploaded to the NPS Focus site). In those 3-5 years, I would like for other people to see the same thing I'm seeing, so I kind of wanted to upload them to a semi-temporary server, but I don't know where to look. Any suggestions?
Upriver Residential District will soon be uploaded to the Focus site because, at 50 pages, their servers would kick the attachments back because of either size restraints or maximum number of attachments (I got 20 of its 50 pages). So that one I don't have to worry about, but I'd like to upload these Meridian forms somewhere. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:00, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
Correction: I now have all the district's pdfs, along with pictures of many of them. Apparently NRHP just got a new batch of the digitized nominations, so these were included. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

about uploading NRHP documents

Dudemanfellabra asked me to comment. I do see some problems with uploading NRHP application documents in general, and am not sure this would be good to start doing. If the NRHP application document included photos or diagrams as part of the document, where the copyright for the photos has not been transfered to the NPS, then it would in fact be a copyright violation, i.e. illegal to upload them. Note, the NPS labels all documents available in its NPS Focus server as "public domain" while they know that many/most are not, and they have several times corroborated that their label is incorrect, in side emails. It does not change the copyright status of a document or photo whose copyright is held by someone else, if the NPS incorrectly seems to claim it is public domain.

If there are no included photos, or if the photos are taken by a Federal employee and are therefore believed to be in the public domain, or if the accompanying photos are in a separate document which is not uploaded, then I still think there may be copyright problems in some or all cases, but I am not sure. For example, an NRHP application document written by a private consultant for a property owner may still be copyrighted by the consultant or by the owner, depending on their contract. They give use of that document to the NPS, which is allowed to post it at its own website. But they did not release it to wikipedia. Perhaps others could comment?

Also there are practical matters of whether we want to begin a duplicative system of uploaded NRHP documents, given that the NPS and many states are already providing some NRHP documents. Perhaps it is better to encourage those Federal and state efforts along, by increasing demand for the documents. Referring to the documents in articles about Meridian indirectly increases public demand for the documents, and would likely eventually generate some public requests to the state and to Feds for copies of the documents.

For NRHP documents that I have received by email from the NPS, I have only ever shared those by email to other NRHP editors. doncram (talk) 18:38, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

From an email between the NRHP and me:
While he does acknowledge that these documents may be the work of others, he says they are available under Fair Use. The pictures and text are in separate documents, so the text could be uploaded without the pictures if necessary (though the pictures are kind of encompassed in the above statement in my opinion). It seems to me that even if the copyright is held by a third party, it can still be uploaded and distributed, so long as no profit is made and the original copyright holder is credited. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:55, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
Fair use is not sufficient permission to justify Wikipedia republishing this content. --Orlady (talk) 19:03, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
I didn't say I was going to upload them to Wikipedia.. I would upload them to an outside server and link to them in the citations. I just wanted to know if that was possible. I know Wikipedia's copyright laws are way too strict to even attempt to upload them here haha. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:09, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
At least one Meridian NRHP document, a February 1979 MPS document that is posted by the NPS, was written by Jody Cook, Architectural Historian / Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Meridian Field Office / Meridian City Hall-Box 1430 / Meridian, MS 39301, and it gives a phone number too. Perhaps all the documents you are interested in could be released into the public domain by staff at the Meridian Field Office, if it still exists, or by state-level staff. Then it would be legal for you to post them at some private server. You could use the Wikipedia wp:OTRS service to establish that the documents have been released, which would at the same time establish that you could include photos and longer-than-fair-use quotes from them into wikipedia. The OTRS process is a confidential correspondence process with outside parties that verifies their emails and their statements of intent to release materials. There are standard forms / language that can be used. Would this be an option for you? doncram (talk) 19:44, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
Hmm.. I didn't think about that. I don't think the Meridian Field Office still exists, though (or at least I don't know about it). I'm pretty acquainted with the organizations in the city, especially the governmental ones, but there's a possibility it still exists. More likely than not, I would have to go to the state-level to try to get them released. If all else fails, I'll just wait until the NRHP uploads the documents (They still haven't uploaded Upriver Residential District, though.. not very snappy apparently). Thanks for the info! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:50, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

NRHP bot request

Hi, does anyone have an easy way to capture all the NRHP categories, for use in stating a bot request? The bot would scour all the relevant NRHP categories to add the WikiProject NRHP banner, where it is lacking. However, the list of categories needs to be stated and reviewed to exclude categories that may include some non-NRHP articles.

I started to draft the bot request at Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Botrequest2, but there must be a better way to capture the categories than how I have started out (cutting and pasting tediously from Category:National Register of Historic Places by state). Help! doncram (talk) 06:20, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Bot request fully drafted at Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Botrequest2. Any review/comments/suggestions would be appreciated, before i submit this! doncram (talk) 04:48, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Another list question

Archeological Sites at Kawela is tagged as a stub. Does NRHHP consider this a list? Viriditas (talk)

I changed the NRHP banner assessment to change it from class=stub to class=list. There's a stub template in the article. It is a stubby list, with very little upfront explanation, so i do think the stub template, with its implicit call for expansion seems broadly appropriate to me. But pls. feel free to remove that, if it is not appropriate. Thanks! doncram (talk) 06:00, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
It's fine. I just wanted to make sure. Thanks! Viriditas (talk) 09:01, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Unassessed articles

I've noticed that the AnomieBOT's been going around putting project tags on articles with NRHP categories, which is good, but we'll need to manually weed out those which were erroneously tagged in the original categorization. A lot of individual buildings in historic districts are implied to be individually listed when they're contributing buildings to a district. This brings up a question: shouldn't we have a (small) template for major contributing buildings in a historic district that merit their own articles? Acroterion (talk) 13:23, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Could you point to some examples? FYI, the bot is adding banners wherever an article is directly in a basic NRHP category, like "NRHPs in Virginia", but the bot is not adding banners to articles that are merely in historic district categories like Category:The Pentagon or Cetegory:Historic districts in Virginia, which were excluded from the bot request deliberately. However, if a CP article uses the NRHP infobox, then i think the infobox puts it into a basic NRHP category, and therefore the bot does add the NRHP wikiproject banner. Is that not what should be done? doncram (talk) 14:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm attributing the wrong thing to the bot, but in any case, there are a number of articles where the original editor may not have understood the difference between a stand-alone listing and an HD; Lark Theater was the example I had in mind, which is part of the Larkspur Downtown Historic District, and is clearly a major contributing structure. The article contains a tag indicating it's on the NRHP, when it is not. It seems to me that there ought to be a template associated with major contributing features within an HD, providing a link back to the parent article with a few details. Acroterion (talk) 16:30, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
I just revised the text in that Lark Theater article to try to clarify it is a contributing structure but not NRHP-listed. The link to the parent HD should best be done, IMO, by adding an NRHP infobox with the recently developed improvements for contributing properties (specifically to include clear link to the parent HD). Not sure if the improvements have been implemented all the way though, or are just in the testcases stage still (see Template talk:Infobox nrhp. The NRHP banner was added by an editor, and i think it is appropriate to keep (or a modified banner, if a CP-variation is designed). doncram (talk) 17:08, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
No, the changes have not been implemented because no one wants to respond on the talk page.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:22, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
:) Well, now implementation only awaits an administrator to make the switch. doncram (talk) 22:47, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Acroterion for switching in the updated nrhp infobox! I just used it to demo a new-style NRHP CP infobox in Lark Theater article. It links to the parent HD article, within the infobox, and is clear that the refnum given is the parent HD's one. How does that look? doncram (talk) 03:47, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Notice how cleverly I asked a question whose answer was already implemented, providing I had the wits to realize that and to make the switch. Acroterion (talk) 03:50, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

Please see Talk:Clarksville Historic District (disambiguation)#Requested move. doncram (talk) 20:25, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

NRHP infobox needing cleanup, cleanup drive

Speaking of clever, Dudemanfellabra inserted coding for a hidden category into the latest NRHP infobox version update, to identify infoboxes needing cleanup of two kinds. They are in Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup. Dudemanfellabra has fixed some already, bringing it down from 1,460 to start with. There were 1,438 in the category on June 30 when i wrote this; there are 56 articles remaining now.

Could some other editors help out, so Dudemanfellabra doesn't have to do it all? Cleanup is most efficiently done using wp:AWB, which can present you with one article after another in this cleanup category. But AWB requires using MicroSoft Internet Explorer, and I believe Dudeman does not have that, so actually it is easier for other editors to do the cleanup.

The cleanup involves some legacy items, removing use of the "designated=" field which has been used to indicate NHL status. Now that should be done differently. (Also if NHL footnote to the NPS page on a given NHL or NHLD is not present, I think it would be very relevant and helpful to add or re-add this footnote in this pass. I thought we put the NHL webpages in, in NHL development and cleanup drive ending about a year ago.)

Also the cleanup is now to break out parent HD information clearly in articles about contributing properties. What exactly needs to be done though, Dudeman could you please elaborate? doncram (talk) 17:25, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

If there is already a "nrhp_type =nhld" or "nrhp_type=nhl" field in the article, then just editing "designated =" to show "designated_nrhp_type= May 15, 1975" may be all that is required. I just changed Boley Historic District that way, in this edit. If there are more designations present then it is necessary to add a nrhp_type2, nrhp_type3, etc. and be careful to use type2, type3 numbers in the corresponding date fields. doncram (talk) 17:33, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I cleaned up a few more, but am skipping the ones where the issue is CP treatment, for now. doncram (talk) 18:02, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I think indication of NHL status has just been lost in perhaps hundreds of NHL articles' infoboxes (and hence they are also dropped from NHL categories). These are all within the cleanup category, and can be fixed, if attention is paid. For example, "Augusta Downtown Historic District" in this recent version now shows no NHLD status. However its infobox coding with "designated=" previously sufficed to identify it as an NHL. The latest nrhp infobox update (or perhaps an earlier update) has changed the interpretation, ignoring the fact that "designated=" on its own indicated NHL status. For this one, there was "nrhp_type=hd". To fix, need to add "nrhp_type2=nhld" and change "designated=" to "designated_nrhp_type2=". doncram (talk) 18:23, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I've been going through and just cleaning up the infobox in general. If there is uneven spacing on all the lines, I fix that; if dates are linked, I remove the links; if the NRIS reference is not on the "added" date, I move it up there (usually from the refnum); and of course I'm changing "designated=" to "designated_nrhp_type=".
About the CP thing, I've been searching for the refnum in the CP's infobox in the NRIS database, and if it shows up a district name instead of the article's name, I simply change "refnum=" to "partof_refnum=" and add "partof=districtname", where districtname is the name of the district with that given refnum. Also, some people tend to include the district name in the area= field of the infobox, so I remove it when I find it. Sometimes people include the district name on the added date, so I remove that as well.
So like I said, there's not really a formula for what I'm doing; I'm just simply cleaning up all the infoboxes to the best of my ability when I come across them haha. I would actually prefer to have just one or two or three people working on this that know what they're doing, so we don't step on each other's toes. There was a drive a few months ago that was supposed to do this same exact thing, and this is like picking up the slack of that drive, so I would rather handle most of it, so that I know it all gets done. I'm not saying you guys can't do it, but I know if I do it, it gets done right. That said, anyone that will help (but agree to do it exactly like I've been doing it) is more than welcome. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Please stop and discuss! These edits look like they are introducing errors. For example Appomattox Court House National Historical Park ruins, just edited, now shows a 1989 NRHP listing date for parent HD, but the parent refnum suggests it was listed in 1966, and the parent HD article states it was listed in 1966. What does the 1989 date describe, and what is its actual source (just NRIS, generically, is indicated)? It must be established whether the place is NRHP-listed separately and also included in a NHP or a NRHP HD or what. What wikipedia articles and sources need to be consulted before revising these CP properties is not immediately clear. Could we slow down and discuss a few cases explicitly here.

Also, I take issue with changing "Architect=unknown" to "Architect= " in another article, where the site is listed for its architecture, photo shows architectural design is major, and it is relevant to state that the architect is unknown. doncram (talk) 18:42, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Look, God dammit chill. There you go exaggerating again. Hundreds of articles? Really? I only edited 71 articles... and Augusta Downtown was the only one that I can remember that had an nrhp_type other than NHL or NHLD. No worries. Also, you don't have to have an nrhp_type2. Just change "hd" to "nhld". If it's a National Historic Landmark District, of course it's going to be a Historic District, so it's not needed. NHLD was meant to combine NHL and HD, so it's all that's needed.
Appomattox Court House had the 1989 listing date already. I didn't change anything on the article. If there were errors before I was there, there are still errors there. I didn't introduce any of the errors. (and btw, that article was edited last night dude..) I searched the refnum given, like I said above, which showed the district. I also searched for the ruins, and they didn't show up, so I assumed they weren't individually listed.
Don't you be a jerk. I said "I think indication of NHL status has just been lost in perhaps hundreds of NHL articles' infoboxes (and hence they are also dropped from NHL categories)", which included qualifying "I think" and "perhaps". What i was pointing out was not your editing one specific article, but the infobox coding change which would have affected all articles using "designated=" coding. Which used to be how NHLs were indicated for the infobox, and which was implemented in hundreds of articles. In a previous infobox cleanup drive, we may or may not have attempted to change all the NHL ones to use the nrhp_type=nhl, i am not right at the moment recalling exactly what was or wasn't done. I do recall that some ways of doing things that you didn't yourself like, were grandfathered in, and I am concerned that the old treatment was grandfathered, but then silently eradicated, which could indeed have affected hundreds of articles. Or it might not have, but each of your recent edits that I have browsed seems to be showing apparent problems in articles. So, don't be a jerk about this, and i will try not to as well. doncram (talk) 19:01, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


Architect=unknown doesn't tell a reader anything. I've been removing that and "architecture=No Style Listed", which is also junk information.
If we're going to have to sit and discuss every single article I edit, I'll just stop and move to another project.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:49, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
(ec) The Appomattox Ruins article just looks wrong now. The lead states that it is part of the NHP which was listed on the NRHP in 1989 (factually untrue, it was listed in 1966). I think this one may be an NRHP HD itself, which is also part of a NHP, but instead the infobox indicates it is a "U.S. Historic District Contributing Property". For all these ones that are parts of a NHP, perhaps a different infobox option is needed, to say that this is a "U.S. National Historic Park contributing structure" or "U.S. National Historic Park component". I think it may be factually wrong to state this is an HD contributing property. And, now looking at it, is "U.S. Historic District" a new neologism being coined? Everything is looking wrong to me now. I probably can't discuss more now though. I suggest stopping with this "cleanup" immediately, for a bit, and just working on a few examples and posting about them here, to get consensus on types of changes to be made en masse later.
After edit conflict: the architect and architecture fields have been discussed before, should be discussed again. Don't be insulted, but it would be normal process to stop and discuss several specific examples before rampaging on through this, when it turns out that "cleanup" is not so simple. doncram (talk) 18:53, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Well when cleanup is so simple, there's no need to discuss it in this level of detail. The errors you have pointed out have nothing to do with this cleanup; the errors existed before any of this was done. In fact, the Appomattox Ruins article has been wrong ever since the NRHP infobox was added. I just corrected the date now, and I also changed "hd" to "nhld" in the Augusta Downtown article. If you find errors like these, just fix them.
"U.S. Historic District" is not a neologism; it's what they are. They're called "Historic districts" by the NRHP, and since Wikipedia exists in more than the United States, "U.S." is added to specify just like "U.S. National Historic Landmark" or "U.S. National Register of Historic Places" is used.
About the contributing to NHP vs. HD thing, why don't we just remove "U.S. Historic District" from the CP bar and show simply "Contributing Property"? The new "partof" parameter can handle whether or not the CP is part of an HD, a NHP, or anything else. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:10, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I believe that "contributing property" is the correct terminology for National Register HDs -- I've never seen the term "contributing structure." However, neither term should be used when discussing elements of National Historic Parks. To be on the safe side, I think those should say simply "Part of Gitchy-Goomy National Historic Park" (where "Gitchy-Goomy" is an example).
I would endorse removing "U.S." from the "U.S. Historic District" line. All it really signifies is "historic district in the United States"... --Orlady (talk) 00:07, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
The "Tibbs-Scott House Ruin", the "Tinsley-Scott Tenant House Ruin", and others covered in Wikipedia article Appomattox Court House National Historical Park ruins are in fact "Classified Structures" listed with the National Park Service's "List of Classified Structures". Those two are indicated "Contributing" ones; historic and modern minor structures such as public bathrooms on the national park area may also be listed. Try searching here. I think the problem is that these are not Contributing Properties in an NRHP HD, so the infobox does not fit them. I believe that there is no NRHP listing or any other usage, besides as a wikipedia article title, for "Appomattox Court House National Historical Park ruins". How about, for this one, we delete the NRHP infobox. It cannot be applied to describe something that is neither an NRHP-listed place nor a contributing property. Creating some infobox for Classified Structures can be done later, if someone really wants it, but I believe that we have happened upon the only set of wikipedia articles about NPS Classified Structures, or one of a very few. Maybe it was very bad luck that the this one happened to show up in the recent Dudeman edits, which I was checking in order to compose some cleanup instructions for others, to post here. doncram (talk) 00:49, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Not using the infobox template for that article makes a great deal of sense to me. When a template starts to feel like a Procrustean bed, it's time to get rid of the template (at least for that aticle) instead of trying to make the article fit the template. --Orlady (talk) 02:12, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I agree. If they're not on the NRHP or contribute to it in any way, they shouldn't have an NRHP infobox.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 03:12, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Yikes that Procrustes guy doesn't sound nice. NRHP infobox removed from that article. Should be removed from all others covered in Template:Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, too, probably, I'll contact the main editor on that. doncram (talk) 04:26, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks User:Doug Coldwell for removing Nrhp infobox from all those cases. doncram (talk) 16:44, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Another bad luck item to encounter when trying to compose a helpful note here was Augusta Downtown Historic District, about which Dudeman and i have had side discussion. It turns out this article had errors. It was claimed in the article that it was an NHL, while the NRHP infobox did not show that, and I projected, I guess incorrectly, that the NHL status was correct and signified by the "designated=" usage in the infobox before editing. I removed the NHL claims from the article and commented at its Talk page. I couldn't remember, but suppose that the previous infobox cleanup campaign did put in NHL or NHLD into all proper articles, so it seems i was wrong in believing "designated=" meant what it used to mean. What function has been served recently by a "designated=" field? Honestly i am not now clear.
"designated" currently serves no purpose. It was in the old infobox and was used in thousands(?) of articles, so I was pretty much forced to include backwards-compatibility with it. Currently it serves the same purpose as "designated_nrhp_type", but if we can remove it from all articles, I can remove that bit of the code. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 03:12, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Okay, that's what this half of the cleanup campaign was supposed to be about. It is simple for the cases where it is obvious that the article is about a real NHL (like where an explicit NHL footnote is attached to the NHL designation date in the "designated=" field). However, the ones using "designated=" include many old articles, from before we had NHL summary webpage sourcing widely used, and from when many people thot a "National Historic District" or whatever was an NHLD, incorrectly. So, this is a chance to identify those stray articles (like the Augusta Downtown one), and remove the NHL claims in them if they are wrong (usually by checking the NPS's NHL summaries search screen here. If the NHL summary webpage is not given as a reference on the date in the article, it should be added. So this mostly NHL-specific cleanup focused on the "designated=" field should require some good attention. This kind of cleanup to find all the falsely-claiming NHL ones was the plan, i vaguely recall, many months ago.
Can we split this out from the more complicated CP cleanup, by using a different temporary cleanup category in the template:infobox nrhp code? (If my change in this edit of the sandbox is okay, then all that's needed is for an admin to cut and paste from the sandbox to the main template page, following instructions in the top comment of the sandbox. This would split the cleanup into two cleanup categories.) Call this an "editprotected" request right here! doncram (talk) 03:45, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I don't think we should split them out. We have one category already made, and it's been used before, so I think it should be our "official" category for cleanup. Most of the articles in the category are of the "designated" type anyway, so you can just overlook the CP ones if you'd like. There's no need to create two completely new categories only to be used once. Let's stick with the category we already have.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:03, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Okay, feel free to revert my edit in the sandbox, i don't mind. I'll just browse in the cleanup category to find some of the NHL-type ones, and skip the CP ones, myself. doncram (talk) 04:26, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
A new issue is what should be displayed to show a property is a contributing property in a NRHP HD, vs. what should be displayed to show it is separately listed NRHP as well as being a cotributing property in a larger NRHP HD. Currently, i think they show at the top of the infobox as the same, having same colored banners reading "U.S. National Register of Historic Places" and "U.S. Historic District Contributing Property". I think they should show something different. Down below in the infobox, what shows is only subtly different. I would like for a couple specific examples to be discussed and considered, then perhaps we need for some small refinements to the new CP features in the infobox, before rolling them out everywhere. doncram (talk) 01:30, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I've noticed this too, but was willing to overlook it haha. I'm not exactly sure what should be done. One possible solution is to remove the NRHP bar on contributing properties that aren't listed individually. The way I've always rationalized forcing the NRHP bar to show up (even though many people have protested) is that all the articles on which the infobox is transcluded are listed on the National Register (otherwise, they wouldn't have the NRHP infobox). If a building/site is a contributing property, though, it isn't necessarily listed on the register itself, so the NRHP bar may not need to be shown. I could add code to check if nrhp_type = cp, and it would hide the NRHP bar unless something is set to "refnum", which would indicate that the place is individually listed because it has its own refnum.
This would have to be implemented after this drive, though, so all the "partof_refnum" vs. "refnum" business will be taken care of. Sound good to you? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 03:12, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I dunno. It is not simple to take care of the partof_refnum stuff, and then have to return to every one of these articles to check/fix other things. There are a lot of combinations that should perhaps be all shown differently (simple CP vs. separately-listed NRHP vs. plantation that is itself a NRHP HD vs. separately designated NHL) within (larger NRHP HD vs. NHLD vs. NHP vs. more). With all that, I think using explicit nrhp_types, like CP vs. NRHPandCP vs. NHLandCP vs. NHLCP, is needed, and that it would be too tricky/non-intuitive to hinge too much on whether a refnum field is empty or not. So I'm afraid this CP revised feature isn't quite ready for wide rollout all at once. It would be too complicated for me, anyhow, to tell others what to do now, vs. what to anticipate in changes later. Shouldn't we just try to get a few other editors to try out the CP features in properties where they know the facts clearly, and work out what should be improved? This is also hard to try out in cases like Downtown Augusta where the facts in the article are not completely clear. Another issue for all the CP articles is that sourcing of the assertion that a place is a CP is probably very uneven. Perhaps a CP cleanup drive should also focus on getting proper sources the CP assertion, like the NHL cleanup drive last year focused on getting the NHL summary webpage source into all the NHL articles. doncram (talk) 04:08, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) After the "partof_refnum" vs. "refnum" stuff is taken care of, we won't have to revisit every single article. A simple code update to the infobox will change all the articles automatically. The only combination that we have a problem with in the current system is a CP that is also listed but not as an NHL or other designation. To handle an NHL that is also a CP, you just make nrhp_type=nhl and nrhp_type2=cp. This goes for all other designations (other than just the generic NRHP listing). In other words, explicit nrhp_types are not necessary to handle those situations. At the most, one new nrhp_type would be necessary to handle the NRHP and CP case.... if we wanted to go that route. The method I'm proposing doesn't necessitate any new nrhp_types or any new code whatsoever. A CP that is individually listed will have its own refnum, and CPs that don't have their own refnums aren't listed (Or at least that's how it will be after the cleanup drive). Therefore, checking to see whether "refnum" has a value will tell you whether or not the CP is individually listed. The system works fine, even though you may not understand it just yet. Since it works with the current programming and requires nothing new, why not use it? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Offhand, still, what about NHLs that are contributing properties in NHLD's? I think there are a bunch of NHLs in Charleston Historic District, itself an NHLD, in South Carolina. I don't want to keep posing potential problems though, if you want to go ahead, do so. There can be another CP-focused cleanup campaign some time later. Or not. doncram (talk) 04:34, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
You do know that NHLDs are still historic districts, right? They're historic districts that have been also designated as NHLs. The contributing properties in NHLDs are still "U.S. Historic district contributing properties"... and even if you don't like that, there's a nrhp_type=nhldcp (that you actually suggested be included) that you could use in this case. It shows "U.S. National Historic Landmark District Contributing Property". For an NHL that is also a Contributing Property to an NHLD, you could use nrhp_type=nhl and nrhp_type2=nhldcp. I guess when I update the documentation for the new CP syntax, I should go back and explain what each of the nrhp_types that are available are to be used for.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:42, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, that does sound like me, to have suggested nhldcp. :) doncram (talk) 05:08, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Seems like just Dudemanfellabra and me plugging along in reducing the cleanup category. I suppose this conversation just got too complicated for anyone else to want to join in, understandably. doncram (talk) 16:44, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
I've been out of town for the 4th of July weekend, so I haven't been able to edit anything, but now that I'm back, I'll keep on going! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

AWB cleanup help on NHL ones

Notwithstanding discussion above, cleaning up the NHL ones having "designated=" or "designated =" is straightforward, and other AWB editors' help would be appreciated. I am having success running AWB in an alphabetical range in the category with Skip option set to skip articles not containing "designated=", and then making another pass looking for "designated =" ones. Out of 100 or 200 processed, i found just a couple needing NHL summary webpages, which i added. D's done. doncram (talk) 16:30, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

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