User:Dough4872

I have been an editor on Wikipedia for over 16 years and have heavily contributed to the articles on the site. My primary editing focus has been road articles, particularly in the United States, as roads are an area I have a strong passion in and I felt I could share my passion in improving road articles on Wikipedia. I was a longtime member of WP:USRD and the larger WP:HWY community and have worked with many editors over the years to improve articles. I have contributed to 184 Good Articles, 3 A-Class Articles, and a Featured Portal, which is only a portion of the quality content the larger community of road editors has written on Wikipedia.

However, in recent times the road articles have come under attack on Wikipedia due to sourcing and notability concerns from non-road editors who are more interested in enforcing policy than improving content. These editors have attacked the sourcing practices that road articles have used for years, particularly the use of maps as sources (especially Google Maps). In order to determine whether maps could be used as sources, an RFC on using maps as sources was held and the results were mixed. In addition, these editors have also called into question the notability standards that the road articles follow. Road articles follow the WP:SNG called WP:GEOROAD, which states that international, national, and state/provincial highways are usually notable enough for individual articles. This notability guideline is based on the long-standing practice followed by road articles on Wikipedia dating back to the early days of the site. Editors have called GEOROAD into question and argue that WP:GNG should be used for determining notability despite road articles meeting the SNG for notability. Editors have also been sending articles that pass the notability standards in GEOROAD to WP:AFD and the results are increasingly leaning in favor of merging or deleting articles about notable roads. These notability attacks are not limited to road articles either; other areas of Wikipedia are being attacked as well including sports athletes, area codes, and geographic places, to name a few.

These sourcing and notability attacks on road articles have turned Wikipedia from a hobby into a stressful job. Instead of improving articles, me and the other road editors have had to divert our attention into arguing policy with other editors and defending road articles at AFD and other venues, where it is becoming apparent that it will likely be a futile effort to keep the road articles the way they are now. I do not need my hobby to be stressful as it is starting to affect my mental health in having to argue policy and worry about content that me and other editors have spent years working on be wiped off from the site. I have other real-life stuff I need to deal with including a job, family, social life, home life, and my leisure time, and I do not need to be dealing with stress from Wikipedia on top of all that.

As a result of the recent attacks on the road articles on Wikipedia and the uncertain future on whether these articles can remain, the road editors have decided to fork the content of road articles in the United States and Canada (and possibly other countries in the future) into a new wiki called the AARoads Wiki, a wiki devoted to roads that is hosted by AARoads, one of the leading roadgeek websites in the United States. Read the final issue of The Center Line for more details about the decision to fork. Therefore, I will be shifting my editing focus to improving road articles on the AARoads Wiki. I will also continue to be active on Wikimedia Commons in adding pictures of roads and other places. Going forward, I will not be making substantial edits to Wikipedia.  Dough   4872   22:17, 27 October 2023 (UTC)



Hello, I am Dough4872, a user who lives in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. I have an interest in highways and maps.

Contributions
I have created 684 articles on Wikipedia and I have edited many other existing articles. My work on Wikipedia has focused mainly on articles about highways in Delaware, highways in Maryland, highways in New Jersey, highways in Pennsylvania, road disambiguation, and articles pertaining to the states of Delaware and Pennsylvania. 

Here are a few articles I created:


 * List of highways numbered 896 (first page I created)
 * List of highways numbered 480
 * Delaware Route 8 (first route article I created)
 * Delaware Route 15
 * Puncheon Run Connector
 * U.S. Route 13 in Delaware
 * Maryland Route 290
 * Maryland Route 309
 * U.S. Route 50 Business (Salisbury, Maryland)
 * Pennsylvania Route 332
 * Pennsylvania Route 419
 * U.S. Route 322 Business (West Chester, Pennsylvania)
 * Delaware Bicycle Route 1
 * List of BicyclePA bicycle routes
 * Willow Grove Park Mall

And many other articles similar to these...

Here are a few of the contributions I made to existing articles:


 * Added several routes, mostly in the Mid-Atlantic region, to List of bannered U.S. Routes
 * Added several highways to both List of minor Maryland state highways and List of former Maryland state highways
 * Cleanup of List of minor Maryland state highways, including addition of route navigation
 * Added infoboxes to existing highway articles
 * Added more precise information to existing highway articles, such as Delaware Route 141, U.S. Route 113, and Black Horse Pike
 * Added exit lists to Delaware Route 141, New Jersey Route 42, and Atlantic City Expressway
 * Made sure all Delaware and Maryland state route articles had referenced mileages
 * Completed and converted lists for county routes in Bergen, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Essex, Passaic, and Union Counties in New Jersey

I, along with other USRD editors, helped Portal:U.S. Roads become a featured portal.

Photos
I have taken many photos of roads and places mostly in the Mid-Atlantic region along with some other areas of the United States that I have visited. See my uploads at Wikimedia Commons for photos I have taken.

Places I have been

 * Counties I have visited
 * Highways I have clinched

Useful links

 * User:Dough4872/county-ga 2
 * User:Dough4872/NJ routes
 * User:Dough4872/topics
 * User:Dough4872/GA by number list
 * User:Dough4872/sandbox
 * User:Dough4872/sandbox2
 * User:Dough4872/sandbox3
 * User:Dough4872/sandbox4
 * User:Dough4872/sandbox5
 * User:Dough4872/sandbox6
 * User:Dough4872/sandbox7
 * User:Dough4872/sandbox8
 * User:Dough4872/sandbox9
 * User:Dough4872/sandbox10
 * User:Dough4872/sandbox11

Barnstars and awards
See User:Dough4872/Barnstars and awards.