Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Issues/Volume01/Issue13

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Introduction
We're mostly back from our long summer. Wikipedia work has resumed for a few of us and continues for others.

In this issue, members of USRD come close to creating the two millionth Wikipedia article, WP:USRD is redone, and a proposal to merge articles on U.S. Route bannered routes is unveiled.


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 * In this issue

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 * Featured story

U.S. road editors attempt to achieve the two millionth Wikipedia article

 * By Rschen7754

Late on the night of September 9, 2007, users TwinsMetsFan, JohnnyAlbert10, Scott5114 and Rschen7754 were attempting to create the two millionth Wikipedia article for the project. Towards 4 AM EDT, the rush began.

It was unclear to tell which was the 2Mth article at first. However, even though El Hormiguero won the title, U.S. Roads came very close to obtaining it. Here were a list of U.S. Roads articles created to attempt this:


 * New York State Route 631 created (1999989)
 * Pennsylvania Route 924 created (1999992)
 * Oklahoma State Highway 116 created (1999996)
 * New York State Route 598 created (2000023)
 * K-3 (Kansas highway) created (2000024)
 * New York State Route 825 created (2000029)
 * Oklahoma State Highway 113 created (2000030)
 * New York State Route 329 created (2000047)
 * New York State Route 365A created (2000052)
 * New York State Route 961F created (2000058)
 * Washington State Route 260 created (2000062)
 * Washington State Route 263 created (2000066)
 * Washington State Route 261 created (2000070)
 * Washington State Route 262 created (2000075)
 * Washington State Route 282 created (2000082)

Even though we were not successful, this was a fun time for all involved. We can always try for three millionth.


 * Sources: http://wintermaple.com/wiki-madness.html


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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.

 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.

A CFD to rename all state highway categories closed with most of the proposals being carried out.
 * Closed

A portion of the Kentucky state highway list was sent to AFD.
 * Ongoing


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Featured member: Polaron
Polaron | Talk has been a Wikipedia editor since October 18, 2005. Within the roads realm, Polaron has helped to flesh out the history of many routes, including U.S. Route 9 in New York, which became a Good Article in no small part due to its impressive history. He has also been a key editor in the effort to "unlock" the history of state routes in New York and beyond, including NY 47, NY 9N and NY 30. Additionally, Polaron is a leading contributor to WP:CTSH and has performed an immeasurable amount of work on various road-related articles. Outside of USRD, Polaron keeps watch over various articles relating to population, helping to keep them reliable.

Thank you, Polaron, 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:NYSR

 * By TwinsMetsFan

The drive to clean up all parkway articles to NYSR and WP:ELG standards came to a successful conclusion soon after the release of the last issue. A similar drive is now underway to refurbish all existing state route articles and state-detail ( in New York) articles, as well as add history to select routes. Also, as featured in the last issue, Category:State highways in New York is now loaded with pictures of routes in upstate New York, with more being added as time permits.

Of interest to editors of NYSR is a proposal to change both a long-standing practice of the project and the article structure. See WT:NYSR for more details.

Finally, an entry from New York State Route 20SY, a new article, was featured on the Main Page in a Did you know? hook on September 13.


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 * News
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WikiProject page revamped

 * By Rschen7754

The WP:USRD project page has been redone. The aging Project U.S. Roads template was replaced by WikiProject U.S. Roads/nav and WikiProject U.S. Roads/news. A Manual of Style subpage was created. Finally, some of the remnants of the "shell-project" days of USRD were removed. Much thanks to Master son for carrying these changes out to make WP:USRD a modern project page.
 * Sources: WP:USRD


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Bannered U.S. Routes merged

 * By JohnnyAlbert10 and TwinsMetsFan

Last week, a proposal was brought up to merge stub bannered route articles into lists composed of every bannered route for a specific route. Instead of one infobox, the list would have numerous small infoboxes, conveying the essentials of each bannered route. The infoboxes would then be accompanied by information about each particular bannered route. Although the idea was relatively well-received, and has been implemented for at least two routes, some issues remain, such as the proper location to merge bannered routes if its parent has only one bannered route.

Discussion is ongoing at the time of writing. Feel free to join in.


 * Sources: WT:USRD


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 * Editorial
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Quality first: WikiWork, stubs, and improvement of the project

 * Personal essay by User:Scott5114

As Wikipedia passes the two million mark, there has been sitewide reflection on what this milestone really means to Wikipedia. Many people have realized that Wikipedia shouldn't necessarily be proud of that achievement; Wikipedia is composed of a great deal of stubs, poorly written articles, unreferenced articles, and other chaff. An analysis by User:Eagle 101 shows that only 3% of Wikipedia articles exceed the simple criteria of ten sentences and three references. This has led to a period of deletionism: fix it up or get it out. Unfortunately, USRD is a frequent target of such attempts, due to the fact that we have such a broad number of articles and that many simply don't consider having articles on all state highways the best course of action (which is a gross understatement).

Fortunately, USRD has been developing assessment tools to see how the project is faring compared to the rest of Wikipedia. Called the WikiWork statistics, these stats break down the data from the WP:1.0 class system used by most WikiProjects. The first statistic listed there is the WikiWork statistic itself, also referred to as ω. ω is obtained through a spreadsheet of the quality data combined with a formula shown on the WikiWork page. What it tells us is the number of classes we are off from the ideal status: that is, all articles being featured. At the time of writing, ω is somewhere around 42,100 (an exact measurement isn't available at the moment because of the delay between WP:1.0 bot updates).

ω gives a good idea of the magnitude of the work that's out there to be done, but it isn't terribly helpful because there are simply articles that cannot be brought up to featured article status, i.e. permastubs that can't be expanded no matter how you try. Also, if a new article is added that isn't a featured article, the number will inevitably go up. This means that we will never see $$\omega=0$$. What the metric does help with is seeing where we are in general. The relative ω statistic, or Ω, is ω divided by the number of articles. Ω is important because it can be directly compared with the Ω of other projects. USRD has many more articles than, say, the hurricane WikiProject, and its ω will be correspondingly bigger, but Ω is directly comparable for both projects. Ω is also important because it gives us an idea of the average article's status. If $$\Omega=5$$, the average article is a stub; if $$\Omega=4$$ then the average article is start-class, and so on up to the mythical 0, where all articles are featured and we can redirect our efforts into something else, like signing up for AARP and getting those sweet sweet Social Security checks.
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So let's take a look at the current Ω. At the time of writing, $$\Omega_{usrd}=4.68$$. That means, more or less, that the average article is somewhere between stub and start class. Doesn't look too good for USRD! However, if we take a look at Wikipedia as a whole, we see that $$\Omega_{wikipedia}=4.62$$ - not that much better than us. That doesn't mean we should be satisfied, however. We have the resources to bring that value closer to 4, and maybe beyond. Let's take a look at WikiProject Tropical cyclones and their statistics, where we find that they have 53 featured articles(!) and a corresponding figure of $$\Omega_{trop}=3.50$$! Their average article is halfway between start and B class - a range a whole class higher than ours!

Can we bring our statistics up to match WP:TROP? In theory, it's possible. We do have a large number of sparse states still missing most of their articles. Unfortunately, the tendency is to "write an article" consisting of "Montana State Route 0 runs from Thereville to Here City and is a hundred miles long" and slap an infobox on and call it good. Especially for routes longer than about thirty miles, the potential is there for a great article! And for editors who care about the general state of the project, adding such articles is detrimental, especially if someone from outside the project runs across it and thinks wow, those highway articles are crappy.

Now is a time in the evolution of our project that we need to stop writing new articles, but rather back up and work on expanding and improving the articles we already have. If WP:TROP can write fifty-three featured articles, why can't we?
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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.

Lastly, remember that this is your newsletter and you can be involved in the creation of the next issue released on September 29. 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)
 * TwinsMetsFan (editor)
 * JohnnyAlbert10 (editor)
 * Scott5114 (contributor)
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