Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Issues/Volume02/Issue04

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Introduction
Unfortunately, after the arbitration case closed, USRD's activity level went down, and the newsletter got ignored.

To get back onto a somewhat regular schedule, this newsletter will cover only events that happened in April. The next newsletter will talk about events in early May (it is really close to the publication for this newsletter, but as one of the coordinating editors will be abroad after that, the publication deadline got adjusted).

In this issue
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 * Featured story
 * Featured story

Arbitration case closes

 * By Imzadi1979

ArbCom is over!

That's the biggest news affection USRD over the last several months. The case was closed 2008-04-07 with no formal enforcement measures enacted. The Arbitration Committee's decision was enacted, "in light of the hope that editors will act of their own volition and take with them a more in-depth understanding of the issues, principles, and the disputes themselves, for future benefit and to avoid the need for more formal responses."

The case was requested by several parties after 3 Requests for Comment about user NE2 and at least one rejected attempt at mediation through the Mediation Cabal. The unresolved issues from these RFCs centered around consensus debates concerning the issues discussed at WP:USRD. The largest issue cited was the debate over the usage of words for former highways and highway designations. Issues from the ArbCom also impacted WP:Good Articles. A temporary injunction was put in place to bar editing of the USRD project page beyond normal usage. Until the resolution of the case, USRD project scope was to remain fixed and project tags were not to be removed from disputed articles. Evidence was provided and debated throughout the course of the case, even during the voting phase.

A motion was offered at one point to dismiss the case during voting, however the Arbitration Committee did reach a number of findings concerning the usage of consensus and the nature of wikiprojects. The proposed remedies passed by the Committee were limited to counseling editors over editorial conflicts and establishing previous consensus. The closing of the case removed the restrictions on the project page and project tags.

''Source:
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 * State and national updates
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Leaderboard
I'm not quite the comedian that Scott is, so sorry if this is a bit dull. Quite a few states have gotten rid of all of their stubs, such as Michigan and Arizona. The Michigan relative WikiWork continues to drop quickly. Out of nowhere have come Arizona and Iowa, and they have knocked California and New Jersey off the leaderboard. But don't say goodbye to California, it will definitely be back...

Of note is that now all of the top 5 states have below a 4.0 relative WikiWork.

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 May 4, 2008!

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

Here are the stats for the national projects.


 * *plus one featured list

Statistics are derived from this version of the state stats table table. 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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Arizona
Although there is not a specific subproject dedicated to Arizona highways, the state has had all of its articles expanded beyond stubs. It also has Interstate 15 in Arizona at A-Class review, and Interstate 40 in Arizona is currently nominated to become a Good Article.

WP:MSHP
Michigan recently completed stub expansion. With a few articles left to create, there are no current stubs. There is a proposal to create WP:MICH, Michigan County Highways as a task force devoted to the county-designated highway system and any notable county roads like Brockway Mountain Drive. Two articles have been expanded out of the List of Michigan County-Designated Highways for C-66 and H-58 as examples for the MICH proposal.

WP:NVSH
U.S. Route 50 in Nevada became the project's first GA, passing on April 12th.

WP:NYSR
New York State Route 174 became the project's first Featured Article, passing on April 19th. NY is now the first project to have 30 articles reach Good Article status, with #30, New York State Route 210, passing on April 20.

WP:TXSH
Interstate 37 became the project's first "A-Class" article and Texas State Highway 211 became the projects third good article in addition to the aforementioned Interstate 37 and Texas State Highway 151.

WP:UTSH
As mentioned before, Interstate 70 in Utah became the project's first Featured Article. Utah State Route 128 became the project's second GA passing on March 30th. Also, re-promotion of the project is up for debate at the USRD Subprojects page.


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Project news

 * Nominations and votes are needed for May'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, Kansas, Louisiana, Nevada, South Carolina, and Utah.
 * Utah is proposed for promotion.
 * There are only 85 articles above Good Article status within the scope of WikiProject U.S. Roads, only 0.87% of all assessed articles. Meanwhile, there are about 6100 stubs - almost two-thirds of all assessed articles. Please help improve the articles!


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Deletion debates

 * An archive of all previous debates.


 * Articles for deletion
 * Wrong-way concurrency closed as merge (accompanying list was deleted)
 * St. Louis County Road 7 deleted.
 * Nebraska Spur 10A kept.


 * Templates for deletion
 * Template:WA State Roads is currently being discussed.


 * Miscellany for deletion
 * Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/New article notes deleted.


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 * News
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USRD gets a couplet of Featured Articles

 * By Mitchazenia

During the month of April, User:Mitchazenia and User:Davemeistermoab (this month's Featured member), both produced 2 new Featured Articles for USRD. The first was New York State Route 174, which passed on April 19 after 12 days of constant arguing and supporting. Route 174 became the New York subproject's first Featured Article and the 5th nationwide. The second addition was Interstate 70 in Utah, which passed until the very end with supports. There was one oppose, by TonyTheTiger, about the map in the infobox. This, coming from a simultaneous failed FAC of New York State Route 28, started a conversation located on the project's Maps Task Force talk page. Although, I-70 still passed and became the 6th nationwide Featured Article at the beginning of May.

Congratulations from the newsletter editors to the editors who help produce the 5th and 6th Featured Article to USRD.


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Featured member: Davemeistermoab
Dave (talk) has been a Wikipedia editor since 2006-01-16. He has nearly 2500 edits and has lately contributed much to the highways IRC channel and to USRD, including A-class reviews. In addition to this, he has been responsible for a FA, a few A class articles and GAs, as well as turning around the Utah highways project and for many contributions to the states of Nevada and Arizona.

Thank you, Davemeistermoab, 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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The Road to Chicago
All WP:USRD editors are invited to join roads enthusiasts from around North America for the first ever Chicagoland Roads Gathering, a two-day event taking place on Friday, June 13 and Saturday, June 14, 2008. The base of operations for the weekend will be the Downers Grove area (JCT I-355 and I-88). Events will be taking place starting at around 10:00 AM CDT each day in this area. We will be taking a couple of tours over the weekend, highlighting a number of projects that have been completed or are in progress throughout the Chicagoland vicinity, including the I-355 extension, the Dan Ryan Expressway (re-build completed in fall 2007), the I-80/94/294/IL 394 interchange (reconstruction completed in the first half of 2007) and much more! The Newberry Library, and its extensive map collection, will be featured. Saturday will feature a trip up to Milwaukee to see the Marquette Interchange, which is nearing completion after several years, and other road tidbits from southeastern Wisconsin and northeastern Illinois. The evenings will include stops at some Chicago staples like Navy Pier and Ed Debevec's.

Gatherings of roads enthusiasts have been taking place for nearly a decade now, and this is the first one to take place in the Windy City. For those of you who might be interested in attending, whether for both days, or one or the other, there are several lodging options in the Downers Grove area that might be worth a look. Efforts are being made to ensure maximum enjoyment, while keeping any associated costs minimized. If you would be interested in learning more about the Chicagoland Roads Gathering, or if you would like to RSVP for the event, place contact editor DanTheMan474. So there can be a general headcount for specific events within the weekend, interested people are asked to contact DanTheMan474 by May 31.
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From the editors
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 May 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

 * Imzadi1979 (editor)
 * Mitchazenia (editor)
 * Rschen7754 (editor)
 * DanTheMan474 (contributor)
 * Davemeistermoab (contributor)
 * Holderca1 (contributor)
 * CountyLemonade (contributor)
 * }