User talk:Morriswa/Archives/2013/November

The Signpost: 30 October 2013

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 * EdwardsBot (talk) 22:58, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Governor's Road Improvement Program


A tag has been placed on Governor's Road Improvement Program requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G12 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article or image appears to be a clear copyright infringement. This article or image appears to be a direct copy from http://www.dot.ga.gov/Projects/programs/roadimprovement/GRIP/Pages/default.aspx. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material, and as a consequence, your addition will most likely be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. This part is crucial: say it in your own words. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing.

If the external website or image belongs to you, and you want to allow Wikipedia to use the text or image — which means allowing other people to modify it — then you must verify that externally by one of the processes explained at Donating copyrighted materials. If you are not the owner of the external website or image but have permission from that owner, see Requesting copyright permission. You might want to look at Wikipedia's policies and guidelines for more details, or ask a question here.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.  Imzadi 1979  →   17:12, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for noticing my page. I thought that the "Governor's Road Improvement Program" subject should get its own article. I copied the text from GDOT's page and tweaked the wording. I don't think that the page should be deleted. I think that a more-experienced editor should edit the page to bring it up to Wikipedia's standards. If someone could help, that would be great! Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 17:34, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Governor's Road Improvement Program and other notes
My reply on the talk page was:
 * You copied the exact contents of a state government webpage into Wikipedia, and state government works are entitled to copyright protection. The only changes you applied were some text formatting and measurement conversions. Then you tagged your own "work" with various banners. The text, and every revision containing it, needs to be deleted. You can't just "copy edit" it. Someone has to totally rewrite the content in their own words. Then every revision containing that work needs to be deleted. At this point, it's just plain easier to delete the article and start over from scratch the proper way.

The page has been deleted now. Please restart the article properly.  Imzadi 1979  →   04:40, 6 November 2013 (UTC)


 * This whole thing just smells. Plagiarizing something and then expecting us or any other editor to clean up after you is a poor way to contribute to the encyclopedia.  Obsessively tagging empty sections is just as bad.  A good rule of thumb is to not create something you're not willing to fix. –Fredddie™ 05:43, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, repeated plagiarism can get you blocked... --Rschen7754 05:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry for trying to make a page on this subject! It is my opinion that this is a very important subject for the state. I would like to get it looking great, but I'm not at all sure how to do that correctly. I apologize for "plagiarizing" the original page, but I thought that some of you guys would at least do some minor editing.
 * On a side note, I have started, on my sandbox, trying to revamp the List of numbered highways in Georgia (U.S. state) page. Let me know what you think about that. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 05:59, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Here's the problem in a couple of bullet points.
 * What you did isn't technically plagiarism. You didn't pass off another person's work as your own, per se. At a bare minimum, you tagged the article as being a copy of another page, so you sort of attributed it.
 * The bigger problem is that your article violated the copyright of the State of Georgia. Plagiarism is just unethical, but the level of copying you did was illegal.
 * To fix that, we have to erase any old revisions of the article that contain the copied content.
 * Every revision back to the first had that content, so they all had to be deleted.
 * Let's say I naïvely copy edited the article without knowing it was a copy of someone else's work.
 * The original contains: "GRIP includes 19 corridors (economic development highways) and three truck access routes for a total of 3,273 miles of roadway." and I edit that to say "There are 19 corridors and three truck access routes in the GRIP program for a total of 3,273 mi of roadway."
 * You'll notice that I rearranged the words a bit, but it's still too close to the original. Maybe you can do that with one sentence, but every sentence from a source appearing with the same sequence of ideas, and we have a bigger problem.
 * So even a copy edit is based on content we're not supposed to use, and any revisions that are still based on the original also need to be erased.
 * It's not the information that we can't use; rather it's the exact word choices, sequence of information and such that's the copyright issue. And it has to be properly attributed, preferably with footnotes, to avoid the plagiarism issue.
 * In short, we need to start fresh and so this properly, and that means deleting the existing article. It has nothing to do with whether or not the topic is worthy of an article.  Imzadi 1979  →   07:55, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Before I begin, I have to admit that I got upset with you guys. I know that what I did was wrong. And I know that it shouldn't ever be done. I just wanted to start an article about the subject. Then, I turn around, and it is deleted. What I don't understand is why the revisions have to be deleted. If a major revision had been done to not be a copy, couldn't the article (and presumably all the revisions) have stayed?
 * Anyhow, I would like to know what needs to be done to properly start an article on this topic. Any pointers you guys could give would be great. I have to work tonight and tomorrow night, so I probably won't be in the chat room. Therefore, leaving notes here would be best.
 * Also, about my other page, what do you think of it? Other than the plethora of redlinks (redirects need to be made), are there any other suggestions? The name of the original page, "List of numbered highways in Georgia (U.S. state)", suggests that it should include Interstate and U.S. highways, as well. Is that true? Or should the page be moved to "List of state routes in Georgia (U.S. state)"? If the current version should have Interstate and U.S. highways, should the Category:Interstate Highways in Georgia (U.S. state) and Category:U.S. Highways in Georgia (U.S. state) categories be added to it (after the revision is done)?
 * There are legal and liability reasons why the old revisions have to be deleted. Because any editor can revert an article back to a previous revision, if the revisions containing the copyright violations are left in the article history, someone could revert the "major revision" and restore illegal content. (Let's not beat around the bush: using content protected by a copyright without permission is against the law.) Virginia State Route 7 is an article where someone did a copy and paste from another webpage to create a history section, but unlike the GRIP article, SR 7 had revisions before that illegal content was added. The article could be reverted backwards with the intervening revisions deleted from the history. There wasn't a revision to the GRIP article that didn't contain copied content, so every previous revision had to go, and the sooner the better.
 * So what do you do going forward? Start an article from scratch using your own words. Use footnotes to properly attribute where you got your information.  Imzadi 1979  →   20:14, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay. But what would be put on the page? I have almost no knowledge of just exactly what the GRIP system covers. I'm not asking you guys to do this for me; I just honestly have no idea really where to start. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 21:54, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The page you copied is a good place to start as a resource for the information to include, but just don't copy it word for word. Put that information into your own words. Do a Google search to see what else pops up under the program. If you can't find much more though, I'd suggest that you then add the information to the Georgia Department of Transportation article, perhaps in the "Highway system" section there.  Imzadi 1979  →   01:56, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Route lists
Here is everything you need to create a route list:


 * Route list standard—describes what a finished list should look like and includes a sample list.
 * routelist top starts the list. How to use it.
 * routelist row creates a row. How to use it.
 * routelist bottom ends a row. As of right now it has no options.
 * Example lists:
 * List of Interstate Highways in Oklahoma
 * List of U.S. Highways in Oklahoma (includes a bannered route)

As for the bannered routes, just use SR 1 Bus. entry that I have corrected as an example. The links are currently incorrect, but don't worry about this—it's a template bug we're working on fixing. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 10:01, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Scott, thanks for the "steps" and help for the route lists. Also, let me know when the template(s) should be corrected. What do you think of my reformatting so far? It is a work in progress, and many redirects need to be started to take care of the red links. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 10:33, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest splitting the list into three pages: one for the Interstates, one for the US Highways and the third for plain state highways. That's the direction that most states are headed unless they don't have very many highways. Also, I would really suggest splitting the "bannered" highways into a separate table. Unless there is some need to split the list by size, I would put the former highways into the same table though.  Imzadi 1979  →   10:40, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay. I plan to leave the Interstate/U.S. highways section headings for the time being (with a note to move them to separate pages. Georgia has lots of each of the three types, so that makes sense. Should the bannered routes of all three types be listed in separate tables on their respective pages? Should there be any headings, like "Current", "Former", "Bannered", or (in the case of Georgia) "400-series routes" or "500-series routes"? What else should be done? Thank you guys for all of your help. This has been a long-time goal of mine: to get that original page reformatted and updated.
 * I just remembered: What do I do with the List of former state routes in Georgia (U.S. state) page, if the former routes are listed on the normal page? Speaking of the original page, should it be moved to "List of state routes in Georgia (U.S. state)" (or something like that)? Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 10:51, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The key thing to remember here is that the table is sortable. (i.e. if you click the arrow on, say, the "Length (mi)" column, it will sort the routes by length.) If you put in a heading, that means making a separate table, and the sorting will only sort the data that appears in the same table. Keep that in mind. Personally, I would minimize the number of headings you put in, but you might decide that it makes sense to do something like split the bannered routes into a separate table. As for the old former routes table, once it is merged it should be redirected to the new list. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 04:54, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 November 2013

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 * EdwardsBot (talk) 06:53, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

November 2013
Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=580984774 your edit] to Interstate 78 may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 ""s and 2 "[]"s and  1 "{}"s likely mistaking one for another. If you have, don't worry: just [ edit the page] again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=edit&preload=User:A930913/BBpreload&editintro=User:A930913/BBeditintro&minor=&title=User_talk:A930913&preloadtitle=BracketBot%20–%20&section=new my operator's talk page].
 * List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 02:29, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I-81 in Union Township, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, about {convert|25|mi|km  northeast of Harrisburg. Near the east end of the county, at exit 8, [
 * ] (Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike), and westbound travelers must use exit 53 northbound Pennsylvania Route 309 (PA 309}) and then westbound US 22. From exits 53

The Center Line: Fall 2013

 * —EdwardsBot (talk) 03:08, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 November 2013

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 * EdwardsBot (talk) 08:25, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 November 2013

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 * EdwardsBot (talk) 13:00, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Gatlinburg Bypass
Thank you for adding that information!!! I was afraid to put US 441 in the article because it was unsigned. Again Thank you!!! -- ACase0000 (talk) 05:57, 30 November 2013 (UTC)