Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Issues/Volume02/Issue01

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Introduction
Unfortunately, during the holidays, an arbitration case sprung up.

As this newsletter aims to stay neutral, there is no story about it in this newsletter. If you are interested, you may read about it for yourself without a potentially biased editor trying to sway you to one side.

Since arbitration has been on many editors' minds, this newsletter is shorter. We apologize for the inconvenience.

In this issue
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 * Featured story
 * Featured story

B-class audit shows stunning results

 * By Rschen7754

During the course of this week, all the B-class articles were reviewed. Unfortunately, 98 B class articles were determined to be below the B class standard because they were missing a route description, history, or junction / exit list. This shows us as a project that although our WikiWork has decreased, we need to do more work, as there are serious issues of article quality that remain at the U.S. Roads WikiProject.


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 * State and national updates
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Leaderboard
Wow, what a difference a month makes! A lot of big changes have taken place that have affected the standings. Firstly, it was discovered that Alabama, which was ranked #7 last month, had a lot of untagged articles; they were tagged, causing Alabama's Ω to shoot up, so that task force isn't on this month's Leaderboard. Secondly, we began generating statistics for the states with no WikiProject (there were a few of those already). A lot of states without project have only a few articles (D.C. only has a few routes period), so only a few high-end articles can bring their stats up...and we certainly see that this month. Lastly, Rschen7754 conducted an audit of all USRD B-Class articles, demoting those that aren't up to snuff. This means a lot of established states lost ground. So the Leaderboard we have this month is vastly different.

If you're unfamiliar with the WikiWork statistics, you can find more information about them at WP:USRD/A/WW. So ladies and gentlemen, here it comes! Your USRD Leaderboard for January 19, 2008!

States in parenthesis have no project. States listed in italics are task forces.

Here are the stats for the national projects.

As always, if your favorite state isn't listed here, you can find it at WikiProject U.S. Roads/Assessment/States. Congrats to the editors at the ten states above for their hard work! Keep it up!


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WP:CASH
California is currently fourth in the nation in terms of article quality. In addition to this, California State Route 275 has become a GA.

WP:ILSR
Interstate 155 was recently rated as a Good article and Interstate 355 is now being reviewed as a WP:FA featured article candidate. If you have suggestions for the article and would like to review it, see the Comment page.

WP:NJSCR
The recently GA passed New Jersey Route 18 is at A-class review.

WP:NYSR
After recent reassessment, NY is back up to 150 B-class and New York State Route 22 and New York State Route 59 became Good Articles. New York Route 22 is also at A-class review. New York State Route 174's GAN is at reassessment.

WP:OKSH
Oklahoma State Highway 9 passed GA on January 8. However, the articles on SH-3, SH-18, and SH-33 were dropped down to Start-class as a result of the B-Class audit.

WP:PASH
PA State Highways got its next Good Article with Pennsylvania Route 73 passing on January 14.

WP:WIH
Several Wisconsin Highway articles underwent expansions during the previous month. Some of the most prominent expansions included stubs such as WIS 23, WIS 24, WIS 25 and WIS 26. US 18 and US 2 were also created. US 8 received a similar expansion.


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Project news

 * Nominations and votes are needed for February's selected article and selected picture.
 * The creation of new state highway subprojects are strongly discouraged. Instead, consider helping to fix the five projects currently demoted to task forces - Alabama, Louisiana, Nevada, South Carolina, and Utah.
 * California County Routes is proposed for demotion.
 * There are only 36 articles above Good Article status within the scope of WikiProject U.S. Roads, only 0.4% of all assessed articles. Meanwhile, there are about 6500 stubs - almost three-quarters of all assessed articles. Please help improve the articles!
 * The following articles are currently being peer-reviewed at WP:HWY/PR:
 * M-28 (Michigan highway)
 * List of numbered highways in Tennessee
 * Pennsylvania Route 73
 * Interstate 70 in Utah
 * Utah State Route 128
 * U.S. Route 491
 * WP:USRD/AID is proposed to be changed, see the talk page for info.

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.

At Articles for deletion:
 * Closed
 * Los Alamitos Curve (closed as Delete)
 * Haverford Avenue (closed as Delete)
 * Walnut Street (Philadelphia) (closed as Keep)
 * Broad Street (Red Bank, New Jersey) (closed as Merge)
 * La Gloria Road (closed as Delete)
 * Southwest Boulevard (closed as Delete)

Others:
 * Image:MaineRoute9A.GIF (closed as Delete)
 * Template:St. Thomas roads (closed as Speedy Delete)
 * Template:Roads in Washington, DC suburbs (closed as Delete)
 * United States Numbered Highway articles by quality statistics and related pages (closed as Delete)
 * Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Interstate Highways/Routebox Legend (closed as Delete)


 * Ongoing
 * Category:Roads in the Susquehanna Valley area


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Featured member: Edit Centric
Edit Centric (talk) has been a Wikipedia editor since June 11 2006. With nearly 2,000 edits, he has been an important editor in the WP:CASH project, as well as in giving input in various discussions related to USRD, on and off wiki. This editor is enthusiastic about what he does at Wikipedia.

Thank you, Edit Centric, 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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Coming and going
This month, we bid a fond farewell to JohnnyAlbert10, who announced on IRC that he will, at least temporarily, be retiring from Wikipedia in order to focus on his studies and new job. Johnny was a frequent contributor to WP:PASH and his contributions will be missed.

However, an old hand to USRD, Northenglish, has returned to edit again. Northenglish has already contributed to several discussions throughout the project since his return. North's states of interest were Washington and New Jersey.

Other users new to the project this month include sf46, Alexfusco5, ClarkCT, Rocketmaniac, Taliesin Duomo, thomprod, Trulystand700, Standard Writer, Taraden Roads, Panicaddiction, and Juliancolton. We would like to extend a warm welcome to these new users and encourage older users to take the time out to offer help should they need it.
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From the editors
We expect that the next issue will be more of a normal issue; this issue was written to prevent too long of an interval from going by between newsletters.

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 February 16. 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

 * Mitchazenia (editor, distributor)
 * Rschen7754 (editor)
 * Master son (contributor)
 * NASCAR Fan24 (contributor)
 * Scott5114 (contributor)
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