Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Issues/Volume01/Issue15

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Introduction
Apologies for the late delivery. Many of us are back in school / college and got busy with schoolwork.

However, many issues came up during these two weeks, including a breaking news story from the "real world."


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 * In this issue

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 * Featured story

Tunnel fire in California shuts down Interstate 5

 * By Rschen7754

Around 11 PM Pacific on October 12, 2007, two trucks collided in the truck tunnel near the interchange of Interstate 5 and California State Route 14 in the Newhall Pass interchange. A resulting fire started, soon encompassing the entire tunnel and thirty trucks and cars that were in the tunnel at the time.

Unfortunately, three people died in this accident. Interstate 5 was closed for all of Saturday. On Sunday, the northbound truck bypass was reopened. Early Monday morning, all of Interstate 5 was reopened except for the affected southbound truck tunnel, which may be closed for months.

Attempts were made to add this to the news section of the Main Page, but this failed.
 * Sources: In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates, CNN


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Project news

 * Nominations and votes are needed for November'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.
 * The scope of WP:USRD is currently being discussed. To contribute to the discussion, please visit WT:USRD.

The current U.S. Roads Article Improvement Drive article is Interstate 96. Last collaboration was: Interstate 79. Join the contest to receive a barnstar!
 * Article Improvement Drive


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Deletion debates

 * An archive of all previous debates.

CR 4 (Saratoga Co., NY) was Redirected.
 * Closed

Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Newsroom/Deadlines was Speedy Deleted.

Interstate 495 (North Carolina) was closed as delete.

Proposed Interstate Highways was closed as Keep.

Category:Derivative highway designations was Deleted.

Category:County-designated highways in Michigan was Deleted.
 * Ongoing

Brockway Mountain Drive is ongoing.


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Featured member: Zzyzx11
Zzyzx11 (Talk) has been a Wikipedia editor since February 2, 2005. He is one of the editors who has been here the longest. Lately, Zzyzx11 has been doing much work with CASH and ELG, incorporating exit lists and junctions tables into California State Route articles. In addition to this, he is a leading administrator Wikipedia-wide, doing a lot of work to fight vandalism and to keep Wikipedia maintained.

Thank you, Zzyzx11, 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:IH
All Interstate Highway articles have been cleaned to standards. Many need expansion, however.

WP:USH
All three-digit U.S. Route articles have been cleaned to standards. Like the Interstate Highway articles above, most U.S. Route articles need expansion.

WP:CASH
The WP:CASH completion list backlog was cleared on 01:53, 11 October, 2007 (UTC). Thanks to all that made WP:CASH the first WP:USRD subproject with a completed redirect list!

WP:NJSCR
New Jersey Route 55 failed its Good Article Review, failing in everything but stability and images.

WP:NYSR
An effort to improve the quality of articles on "high-priority" routes (those over 100 miles) in New York has begun. Interestingly, despite the length of the roads, most of the articles are at start-class or lower.

In other news, an article now exists for every active New York state route, either as a standalone article or as part of the minor routes page. Thanks to all who helped make this possible.


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 * News
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Exit list guide gets a makeover

 * By TwinsMetsFan

The Manual of Style page for designing exit lists, known within USRD as the "exit list guide", was recently revamped to become both more global in nature and more specific regarding how to handle certain situations that may arise. The changes were made following a pair of lengthy discussions on the talk page that touched on both layout and coverage, as well as threatened the guide's status as a guideline.

In the first change, a section was added to handle the inclusion of proposed or former interchanges. In the case of proposed interchanges, the exit should only be included if planning for the interchange reached the construction phase. Additionally, the speculation of future interchange numbers are now prohibited through an application of the no original research policy. There was no consensus on whether to add shading to interchanges that are not opened; however, a guideline was added to the guide that permits its usage if desired. A second section was also added for the formatting of interchanges spread across multiple exits. The full text of it, as well as the proposed/former interchange section, can be found on the ELG.

The second change dealt with the coverage of the guide. Due to the origin of the guide as a subpage of WP:IH, and later WP:USRD, the guide exhibited a heavy bias toward U.S. roadways, a point that was brought up shortly after it was moved to a subpage of the Manual of Style. However, no action was taken until recently, when the bias began to bring the page's status as a guideline into question. In response, the text of the page was made country-neutral and examples of expressways from around the world were added to the page.

Discussion on the changes is welcomed at WT:ELG.


 * Sources: Manual of Style (exit lists) and page history, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (exit lists) and archives


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Ohio stub deletions

 * By JohnnyAlbert10

In the first week of October, many Ohio state highway articles were deleted. They were deleted for their lack of context and no infoboxes. A discussion was held on WT:OHSH to determine the reason for the deletions and consensus agreed on the deletions of the articles. It was also suggested that the articles could be redirected if Wikipedians didn't like the red links.

It was discussed on WT:USRD that many of those stubs were in jeopardy of being deleted. The stubs were described as "sub-stubs" or below a normal stub, with no lead and lacked content. Some users proposed to merge the stubs into a "minor routes" list to reduce the number of stub articles and reduce the number of deletions.


 * Sources: WT:OHSH discussion and WT:USRD archive


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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 November 17. 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

 * O (editor, distributor)
 * Rschen7754 (editor)
 * TwinsMetsFan (editor)
 * JohnnyAlbert10 (editor)
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