Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Issues/Volume01/Issue12

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Introduction
Do you like the new look? This is courtesy of TwinsMetsFan and JohnnyAlbert10.

Our hopes are to resume normal publication every two weeks.

In this issue, the WikiProject templates receive upgrades, the stub template system is redesigned, and we update the inactivity situation. Also, we have a record number of state updates this month, with four projects providing reports. Thanks to all the states (and the individual users) who filed updates.


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 * In this issue

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 * Featured story

WikiProject template system revamped

 * By Master son

The templates of U.S. Roads WikiProject continue to undergo renovation. The U.S. Roads Talk page banner template was upgraded and now serves as a universal template for all U.S. Road Wikiprojects. It has a host of new parameters as follows: This is in addition to the parameters used for fitting into banner shells and tagging for assessment.
 * state: use the 2-letter postal abbreviation to indicate which state the article applies to (all 50 states are included - the appropriate WikiProject will be shown if it exists) For Interstates and U.S. Routes use "state=Interstate" and "state=US".  Omitting this parameter brings up the default U.S. Roads display.  (This parameter makes all of the U.S. Roads Subprojects banners obsolete)
 * attention:setting this to "yes" alerts the editor that the project requires attention (replaces the old clean-up templates)
 * photo: set this parameter to "yes" to alert the editor that any properly licensed photo of the route should be added.
 * hasshield: set this parameter to "no" to alert the editor that one or more shields are missing from the article.
 * merge: set this parameter to "yes" to alert the editor that a proposal to merge this article with another has been made.
 * needs-infobox: set this parameter to "yes" to alert the editor that no infobox exists on the article.
 * hasmap: set to "no" to notify the editor that the article requires a map of the route. Set to yes when a map has been added. Set to "NA" if no map is required. (replaces the "mapneeded" and "map" parameters)
 * Mapdetails: when the hasmap parameter is set to "no" use this parameter to fill in any details about what is needed on the map.
 * PUSRD-SA: used to indicate which month and year the article was featured as the Portal's selected article.

Documentation has been included on the template to help with the setup on a talk page. see the template page for more information.


 * Sources: Template:U.S. Roads WikiProject, Template:U.S. Roads WikiProject/doc


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Project news

 * Nominations and votes are needed for October's selected article and selected picture.
 * The creation of new state highway subprojects are strongly discouraged. Instead, consider helping to fix the four projects currently demoted to task forces - Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, and Alabama.
 * Portal:U.S. Roads has been redone.
 * Interstate 15 in Arizona and U.S. Route 50 became Good Articles.
 * Alaska's naming convention was changed from State Route to Alaska Route.

 The current U.S. Roads Article Improvement Drive article is Interstate 79. Last collaboration was: Interstate 35. Join the contest to receive a barnstar!
 * Article Improvement Drive


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Deletion debates

 * An archive of all previous debates.

An AFD took place to successfully delete Dover Bluff Road
 * Closed

An SFD took place to discuss California-county-route-stub as part of the stub cleanup, but was kept due to the presence of the WikiProject.

A TFD took place to successfully delete the FEUS template.

An AFD took place to successfully redirect Evergreen Way (Everett) to Washington State Route 99.


 * Ongoing

a CFD is underway to discuss the renaming of the State Highway Categories


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Featured member: Rschen7754
Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) has been a Wikipedia editor since March 13, 2005, and ever since, he has played a major role in the growth of USRD. With an edit count at 26,000, Rschen7754 has kept USRD clean from trash and vandalism as an admin. Rschen7754 is very influential during debates and major discussions that can affect the project. He has worked hard to maintain WP:CASH, WP:WASH, and many other subprojects.

Thank you, Rschen7754, for all of your hard work!


 * Know of an editor who goes the extra mile? Nominate him or her at WP:USRD/NEWS for the next issue. Editors can only be nominated once a year.


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WP:MOSH

 * By Scott5114

Missouri has been one of the more-inactive projects in recent months. Its heyday was before many of the project standards were adopted, including maps and intersection tables. Recently, an effort to modernize the project has gotten underway. Browse boxes, previously missing on the majority of articles, have since been implemented on all active routes. Some GIF shields were still in use; these have been replaced by the new-generation SVG shields. Currently, old-style cutout shields (used to denote decommissioned routes) in PNG format are being replaced with more accurate SVG shields.

WP:NJSCR

 * By Mitchazenia

New Jersey's state and county route project has become unusually inactive. Formerly a well-worked on project, the project's articles are in some ways, "decaying". By the chart I created on my userpage, out of at least 200 articles, about 3/4 are stubs and 2 articles are GA's. Ever since User:Northenglish left, the project has had less attention and most articles are being ignored, thus staying as the stub/start articles they are.

WP:NYSR

 * By TwinsMetsFan

History has been added and reliably referenced for several state routes, primarily NY 18, NY 47, and NY 104, over the past few weeks. Also, pictures for several routes in upstate New York are now available on the Wikimedia Commons; see Category:State highways in New York. More pictures will be available in the coming weeks. Finally, an article for the Troup-Howell Bridge in Rochester, featured in the last edition of the newsletter, has been started.

All articles on parkways in New York are also in the process of being cleaned up to current NYSR and WP:ELG standards.

WP:WIH

 * By Master son

The process of adding maps to Wisconsin highway articles has begun. So far three maps have been created and implemented on WIS 29, WIS 30, and I-794. The maps have been add to Commons:Category:Road Maps of Wisconsin and, like most other maps - created using Quantum GIS and saved as PNG files. More maps will be added in the upcoming weeks.

A new article, Kettle Moraine Scenic Drive, was featured on the main page in a Did you know hook on August 27, 2007.


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 * News
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Inactivity report

 * By Rschen7754

Back in Issue 3 we posted a report about the inactivity of U.S. Roads. Six months later, there have been improvements; however, there are still problems. Currently, nearly 3/4 of all USRD articles are stubs, for example.

A visual summary of the state of U.S. Roads articles

 * Sources: WP:USRD/A/QS


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Stub template changes continue

 * By Master son

U.S. Roads has collaborated with WikiProject Stub Sorting to make additional changes to the U.S. Roads Stub sorting system and templates to further help sort stub articles.

All remaining state stub templates have been created and will upmerge into categories sorted by regions. The four categories are:


 * Category:Northeastern United States road stubs (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont)
 * Category: Midwestern United States road stubs (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin)
 * Category: Southern United States road stubs (Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia)
 * Category: Western United States road stubs (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming)

The states with enough stubs for their own categories have been included as subcategories within these categories - WikiProject Stub Sorting has criteria for creating such categories. For a list of all available stub templates - see WP:USRD/STUB


 * Sources: WP:USRD/STUB, WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals


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From the editors
'''Be part of the turnaround... now become part of the solution! Become active in highways again. Let's save the articles from being inactive and destroyed.'''

The editors of the newsletter would like to hear from you, the reader. What do you like about the current format? What should be changed? Removed? Added? Your comments are needed.

Our guess is that publication will resume every other week for the next few months. However, this is not definite at this point.

Lastly, remember that this is your newsletter and you can be involved in the creation of the next issue released on September 15. Any and all contributions are welcome. Simply let yourself be known to any of the undersigned, or just start editing!
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Contributors to this issue

 * Rschen7754 (editor, substitute distributor)
 * Master son (editor)
 * TwinsMetsFan (editor)
 * JohnnyAlbert10 (editor)
 * Mitchazenia (contributor)
 * Scott5114 (contributor)


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