Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Newsroom/Issue2-3

Issue 3 (03/15/2008)
Publication deadline: 12 PM Pacific-3 PM Eastern on March 15.

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

Introduction

 * Editor:

Another rambling apology about arbitration --Rschen7754 (T C) 06:11, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Feature 1

 * Editor:''Seddon69

USRD has seen marathon discussions about neologisms, exit lists and now this month it came the turn of Project Scope. As a result of the still ongoing case at ArbCom, it was suggested to discuss changing the project scope ready for when any sanctions had been finalized and finished with. The first suggestion was by Imzadi1979, which as summed up by Scott5114 was “the sum of all its subprojects.” At first this idea seemed to go down well with members but the problem of how WikiProject U.S. Streets would fit into this new scope soon became apparent. Suggestions to solve this problem included having USST become a subproject of USRD, leaving state projects decide whether they wish to include streets and having overlap between USRD and USST. Polls, compromises and not even informal mediation from User:Kirill_Lokshin, an arbitrator, managed to help the situation as people had different opinions with different issues and no common ground could be reached. In the end Rschen7754 suggested that for the mean time, this issue be left to settle and dealt with at a later date. This issue will surely come up again in the future but we shall all have to wait and see if the outcome is any better.

Sources: USRD Talk Page, Archive 12

Feature 2

 * Editor:

Start and stub --Rschen7754 (T C) 06:11, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Feature 3

 * Editor:Imzadi1979

USRD's A-Class Review process has received an update. As discussed at the ACR talk page, promotion to A-Class will now require 4 net support votes. This includes the article's nominator. The idea behind the change was to require sufficient reviews of each nominated article. As before, any editor is welcome, and even encouraged, to participate in the reviews. Currently New Jersey Route 18, Interstate 70 in Utah, M-35 (Michigan highway), M-28 (Michigan highway) and New York State Route 174 are up for review.

Source: ACR talk page

Feature 4

 * Editor:''Imzadi1979

We would like to congratulate WikiPedia and USRD's newest Triple Crown recipients. Today just before press time, TCs were bestowed on Mitchazenia, NE2 and Holderca1. A TC is awarded to an editor who is credited with a DYK, GA and and some kind of feature content like a feature article or feature list. These three editors give USRD 4 TCs in total, joining Scott5114. If a fifth editor from USRD earns one, USRD as a project will be eligible to receive a special project Triple Crown. Congratulations to all the editors on a job well done!

Source: WP:CROWN

Project news
Probably can be reused, just proofread.

State updates
Write the updates below. If signatures are present, remove them before adding to the newsletter.


 * WP:CASH - A few articles have been moved to GA. However, some starts were demoted to stubs, although the new assessment criteria will improve CA's standing nationwide.


 * WP:CTSH - Connecticut Route 190 became the state's first good article, which was promoted on February 27, after 38 days at WP:GAN. SVG shields have also been created and incorporated in the state highway articles thanks to Mr. Matté. Articles for all current, signed routes have now been created.


 * WP:KSSH - Kansas Turnpike, the project's only FA, is up for nomination as April 7's Today's Featured Article.


 * WP:MSHP - M-35 (Michigan highway) became the first good article passing on 2008-02-27 with M-28 (Michigan highway) passing hours later on 2008-02-28. The MSHP wikiwork has dropped from 929 to 797 since the last newsletter update. Thanks to all project editors for their continued hard work. MSHP has two articles pending at ACR and only 6 stub articles remaining at press time.


 * WP:NJSCR - Palisades Interstate Parkway is at Good article nominees. After a recent improvement drive by Users Mitchazenia, Keiryn and Juliancolton, the project has reached 40 B-class articles.


 * WP:NVSH - There is one Good Article nominee for NV, U.S. Route 50 in Nevada, which, if passed, would be the state's first GA.


 * WP:NYSR - The NYSR Article Improvement Drive continues to deliver results as a total of nine articles have now been improved through the collaboration since its inception in late November 2007. The current collaboration at press time is New York State Route 394. In other news, New York State Route 22, the first AID collaboration, became the first A-Class article produced by NYSR after being promoted through the A-Class review process. Also, Vermont Route 17 became the project's first Good Article on March 16, becoming the first state line crosser in NY to become a GA.


 * WP:OKSH - OKSH's county-by-county drive has continued, and the first county is nearly complete: Adair County (ODOT County #1) has had all four of its existing articles expanded to B-Class, and is awaiting the creation of U.S. Route 59 in Oklahoma (which is progressing through a collaboration of Scott5114 and Mitch) for the county to be considered completed. The next county to be targeted will be Alfalfa County (#2), which currently has 2 B, 3 Start, no stubs, and one unwritten article. Also, earlier this week, Oklahoma dipped below 100 stubs for the second time in project history.


 * WP:TXSH - List of Interstate Highways in Texas became not just the projects first featured list, but USRD's as well on March 6. Texas State Highway 151 became the project's first Good Article passing on February 29.  In addition, Interstate 37 has been nominated for Good Article status.  This is part of an overall quality drive by the project to improve its articles.


 * WP:UTSH - Interstate 70 in Utah is at USRD's A-class review and Utah State Route 128 is at Good article nominees.


 * WP:VTSH - Vermont Route 17 became the project's first Good Article on March 16.


 * WP:WASH - Interstate 5 in Washington is at peer review after failing its Good Article nomination.

Leaderboard

 * Editor: Scott5114

For the first time in a while, our leaderboard has a lot of the same states as last month. A few states have even managed to hang on to the same position for a month. Michigan, of course, is still #1 with their ridiculous Ω of 3.590, Alaska is still #5, and New Jersey is hanging onto the 8 spot. A few states have swapped places, too. Connecticut and New York flip-flopped, with New York reclaiming second place and Connecticut moving down to third. California and Oklahoma also switched places, with California falling to 10th and Oklahoma taking CA's spot at sixth.

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 March 16, 2008!

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

Here are the stats for the national projects.


 * *plus one featured list

State this month, we'll also take a look at the stats for territories, commonwealths, and districts:

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!

Deletion debates

 * Compiler: Xenon54

As of 11:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC): No current deletion debates.
 * Older debates
 * Redirects for discussion
 * Riverside Drive (San Bernardino, California) → California State Route 60 was deleted. (discussion)


 * Templates for deletion
 * Template:CAFES and Template:CAScenic were both deleted.

Coming and going

 * Compiler:

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 Stratosphere 哦，是吗？ (О кириллицей) 03:38, 15 March 2008 (GMT)

I'd like to nominate Stratosphere for this distinction. He's the mapmaker extraordinaire, and the driving force to eliminating the former trunkline stub articles at WP:MSHP. --Imzadi1979 (talk) 06:00, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Support. Excellent user - surprised he hasn't been featured already. --Rschen7754 (T C) 06:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Probably because he was inactive for a while. -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 06:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
 * A slam dunk support. -- T M F Let's Go Mets - Stats 06:17, 13 March 2008 (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. 

Featured member: Stratosphere
Stratosphere (talk) has been a Wikipedia editor since 2005-11-02. He is the founder of Michigan state highways and the Maps Task Force and has over 3000 edits. He has been instrumental in the article-improvement drive at MSHP, most recently updating the former trunkline articles and expanding them to B-Class. He is USRD's cartographer extraordinaire creating many of the maps for the roads articles, including all of Michigan's maps. He has also participated on IRC with article reassessments in other state projects.

Thank you, Stratosphere, 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.