Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Newsroom/Issue17

Issue 17 (12/15/2007)
Publication deadline: 12 PM Pacific-3 PM Eastern on December 15.

Please sign up for what you want to write. Have it done by the publication deadline.

Introduction

 * Editor:  T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats

In 2008, All Roads Will Lead Road Enthusiasts to Chicago!

 * Editor: User:DanTheMan474

Roadfans, I need your help. Following the success of the first U.S. National Roads Meet in 2006 in Pittsburgh (see http://www.millenniumhwy.net/National_Meet_Events/National_Meet_Events.html for some details and pictures from the gathering), I am already beginning the process of laying the groundwork for the first ever North American Roads Gathering! While there has been many a roads meet in parts of the U.S. and Canada for the last decade or so, along with various Wikipedia editor meet-ups here and there, apart from the Pittsburgh gathering there has never been a dedicated weekend-long event to highlight the many Projects and Roads that help to improve a region's mobility.

The 2008 North American Roads Gathering will be taking place in an area that has not yet had any sort of roads gathering: Greater Chicagoland. Many projects have taken place there in the last couple of years: the recently completed $1B Dan Ryan (I-90/94) rebuild; the recently completed I-80/94/294/IL 394 interchange rebuild (in conjunction w/ the new SPUI at US 6/IL 83); the soon-to-be-opened I-355 extension from I-55 south to I-80; plus in nearby Milwaukee, the Marquette interchange (I-43/94/794/US 41) re-build, and much more.

A weekend has already been selected for the event: June 13-15, 2008. We would start with lunch on Friday, with a goal of visiting the Newberry Library (http://www.newberry.org), and viewing one of the largest map collections one has ever seen. Between Friday and concluding with lunch on Sunday, we would incorporate a couple of different tours around the region. Also in the evenings, we might plan some side events to check out what Chicago has to offer...Navy Pier, maybe a White Sox game, and much more. If you have never been to a roads gathering, by the way, you will be in for what promises to be a fun time.

I would like to get a preliminary idea at this time of who might be interested in participating in the event, along with taking any thoughts or suggestions you may have for the gathering; whether there is something you wanted to know more about on the highways out there, or something in Chicago that you have wanted to do (when it comes to the evening gatherings). Over the next couple of months, I will take a look at the suggestions and we will start to put things into place from there.

If you would like to contribute to the planning of the event, or would even like to be directly involved in organizing something as a part of it, please contact me via my Talk Page. Thanks in advance for your input. I hope to see some of you next year for the 2008 North American Roads Meet in the Chicago!

Feature 2
Update on wikiwork levels (relative, total; also amount of articles by class) across the project and states? -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 14:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Editor:

Feature 3
Subproject report (new projects for TN and LA, also complete inactivity in the other four task forces)? -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 14:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Editor: Rschen7754 (T C)

Project news
Probably can be reused, just proofread.

State updates
Write the updates below.

Leaderboard
In this issue, we introduce a new regular feature for the USRD newsletter, a listing of the top ten projects by Ω. So without further ado, the leaderboard for December 15, 2007:

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

Here are the statistics for the national projects.

If your favorite project isn't listed, you can find it at WikiProject U.S. Roads/Assessment/Subprojects. Congratulations to Alaska, New York, North Carolina, California, Connecticut, Oregon, Alabama, Oklahoma, Kansas, and New Jersey on their achievements! These ten projects are leading the way to USRD's future.

WP:CASH
Currently, there has been a drive to improve California articles. History sections have been added and revised, entire routes (such as 3,4, 7, and I-8) have been improved, and many maps have been added to Southern California routes. CA is 5th in the nation in terms of Wikiwork, which is excellent considering that it includes WP:CACR as well. --Rschen7754 (T C) 19:57, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:NYSR
All articles within the scope of NYSR were recently reassessed for quality as part of the efforts to improve all B-Class articles, resulting in the demotion of roughly 70 articles by at least one level on the quality scale. To help reduce the now overwhelming number of stubs and starts, an Article Improvement Drive dedicated to NYSR was established. The first collaboration, New York State Route 22, was extremely successful; work continues on a two-article, two-week collaboration dedicated to Interstate 90 in New York and the New York State Thruway as of press time.

Two articles, New York State Route 146 and New York State Route 306, were promoted to Good Articles. -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 14:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:NJSCR
After 6 months from being delisted at Good articles, New Jersey Route 18 is back at Good article nominations.Mitch32contribs 03:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:OKSH
Oklahoma articles are slowly but surely being brought up to the B-class standard. Work is progressing county-by-county, with all routes that pass through each county being upgraded to B-class before proceeding to the next. As more of the state is covered, this will become easier and easier due to the spillover between counties. The project is starting with McClain County (ODOT County #44), which currently has 1 GA, 11 B, 2 starts, no stubs, and one as-yet unwritten article. The next county will be Adair County (#1), which has 2 B, 1 start, 1 stub, and one needed article. Thereafter, work will continue in alphabetical order/ascending county number. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 07:57, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:PASH
Pennsylvania route articles are currently in the process of going from stubs to Start-class. Pennsylvania currently has 400 stubs as articles. The project is working on improving these articles to Start-class level. Pennsylvania has 82 Start-class articles and 56 B-class articles. Also, Pennsylvania has 4 GA-class articles (the third most of the subprojects) and 3 A-class articles, the most of all subprojects. Pennsylvania currently does not have any FA-class articles.

In other news, JA10 created List of Minor Routes in Pennsylvania in September for state routes that are 1 to 10 miles in length. Quadrant routes are not a part of this list. User:PYLrulz has helped out with the process of creating this list also. --Son (talk) 20:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:WIH
Efforts are now underway to clean up Wisconsin highway articles. Articles will be restructured to firmly comply with various USRD policies. For example, Exit lists and Infobox Junction lists are being redone using jct. Articles will be expanded or combined into a list depending on how much information is available about the routes. The first article to receive an expansion was Interstate 794 which - despite being de-stubbed - still needs further history research and copyediting. Wisconsin has currently 159 stubs. A few articles may be submitted for GA review later next month. —  master son T - C 00:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Deletion debates

 * Compiler: NASCAR Fan24

last updated: 19:58, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Proposed deletion (PROD)
 * County Route 4 (Columbia County, New York) - Expired prod
 * Images and media for deletion (IFD)
 * Image:Washington State Route 531 map.png - Deleted
 * Articles for deletion (AFD)
 * Bear Valley Road (Mojave Desert region, California) - Ongoing

Featured member

 * Editor:

Nomination for current member

 * The following is an archived roads featured member nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page, on WT:USRD, or another applicable discussion page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the featured member nomination was support Rob 哦，是吗？ (review O) 05:29, 13 December 2007 (GMT)
 * Lpangelrob - longtime USRD editor that, surprisingly, hasn't been nominated yet. Recently, he took I-355 to A-Class, but his body of work spans much more than that. This honor is long overdue. -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 14:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support great hardworking user who has dedication to improve articles. — J A 10  Talk • Contribs 22:57, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - same as nominator.Mitch32contribs 23:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support per all.  N F 24 (radio me!) 23:23, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Support per nom,. --Rschen7754 (T C) 00:00, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The above is an archived roads featured member nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page, on WT:USRD, or another applicable discussion page. No further edits should be made to this section.