Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Newsroom/Issue4-1

Issue 1 (Winter 2011)
Publication deadline: 12 p.m. Pacific-3 p.m. Eastern on January 11, 2011.

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Introduction

 * Editor:

The Year in Review

 * Editors: –Fredddie™ and Imzadi1979

2010 by the numbers
The year 2010 started out with 29 FAs, 18 As and 373 GAs under our scope. We had 5903 Stub-Class articles, with a goal to reduce that to 2967 by year's end. In January, the FAC for M-28 Business (Ishpeming–Negaunee, Michigan) closed to start the year with a newly minted FA. Later in the year, a second FA, Capitol Loop, would be added to the roster. Our portal, Portal:U.S. Roads, was upgraded to Featured Portal status, and our first Featured Sound was added. The sound file is a clip of a speech given by President Eisenhower expressing the needs for a "new road program" that later became the Interstate Highway System. USRD now has Featured Articles, Lists, Topics, Pictures, Portal and Sound, or at least one of every featured content type.

Our ACR process saw some interesting firsts over the year. Ontario Highway 401 was nominated for review through the USRD ACR process because CRWP at the time lacked a counterpart. Floydian withdrew the nomination over a lack of patience with a forum that has not been historically known for its speed. He nominated the article at FAC where it was subsequently not promoted. In the future, the revitalized CRWP will be starting its own ACR process, modeled on ours, with assistance from USRD editors to complete the reviews. Another first was the "drive-by" nomination of Eisenhower Tunnel. The ACR nomination procedures were updated as a result to clarify that only major contributors to an article should nominate it at ACR, a restriction that FAC imposes. A total of five articles were promoted through the process, three of which are now at FAC.

As 2010 drew to a close, there were 31 FAs, 22 As, 466 GAs for the project. We had 4524 Stubs listed on the leaderboard. Each states' articles were audited over the course of the summer, and unassessed or misassessed articles had their ratings corrected, increasing the stub counts. Additional articles were created over the course of the year that also increased the counts. We had a net decrease of 1432 Stub-Class articles over the course of the 2010 drive, short of the goal, but still a remarkable achievement all the same.

New goal for 2011
With the success of the 2010 stub reduction drive, the project has embarked on a new goal for 2011. It was originally going to be a reduction of 2000 stubs, but suggested adding 11 stubs to the goal. 2011 stubs for 2011. suggested a snappy title: 2011: A De-Stubbing Odyssey. Add in a hilarious poster by, and the project was off.

There are a number of areas where you can help reduce the number of stub-class articles. These numbers are as of the January 10, 2011, update. Ω is the relative wikiwork score, which shows at what level is the average article for that state.
 * Puerto Rico only has 8 articles above Stub-class, while having 88 stubs. (Ω 5.896)
 * Georgia has 281 stubs.(Ω 5.879)
 * Arkansas has 204 stubs.(Ω 5.813)
 * Missouri has 181 stubs. (Ω 5.707)

Improving half of these articles will lower our total by 380 stubs.


 * New York has 718 articles, of which 31 are stubs and 126 are starts. (Ω 3.560)
 * Texas has 646 articles, of which 349 are stubs. (Ω 5.125)
 * Pennsylvania has 560 articles, of which 280 are stubs. (Ω 5.093)
 * Ohio has 539 articles, of which 304 are stubs. (Ω 5.317)

These states show that improving a handful of articles won't affect the relative wikiwork score too much. When improving articles, try to make sure they have a route description, adequate coverage of the route's history, and a route junction list. These three parts to an article constitute a C-class article.

Royal Award Conferred

 * Editor: Imzadi1979

USRD recently received an award for the project itself. The Triple Crown Awards (TC) are given to editors that successfully nominate articles at DYK, Good Articles and any of the forms of Featured Content like Featured Articles. Once a project has five members that receive a TC, the project itself can receive an award. The only limitation is that all of the articles or content nominated for an editor need to be within the project's scope. SMasters conferred the award on December 16, rewarding the efforts of Mitchazenia, NE2, Scott5114, Moabdave (formerly known as Davemeistermoab), Imzadi1979, Holderca1, Algorerhythms and Rschen7754. The latter two received their first TC in the process. USRD is only the third project to earn its own TC, after the Australia and The Simpsons wikiprojects.

Admrboltz and Juliancolton are other project members with TCs, but they do not have a complete set of content using only USRD articles at this time. Admrboltz will be eligible to be included in the project TC list should Interstate 80 Business (West Wendover, Nevada – Wendover, Utah) pass its FAC. Juliancolton will become eligible if he nominates a USRD article for DYK. Additionally, Fredddie will be eligible if U.S. Route 30 in Iowa passes its FAC. As of this writing, neither FAC has closed. Additional project members will be added to the roster for the award as they meet the qualifications of the TC project.

USRD busy at work at FAC

 * Editor: Dough4872

In recent weeks, several USRD members have sent articles to WP:FAC. As of January 11, there are currently three USRD articles at FAC. On December 9, U.S. Route 30 in Iowa was sent to FAC by Fredddie, the first FA nomination for both Fredddie and Iowa task force. Later, on December 27, Admrboltz sent Interstate 80 Business (West Wendover, Nevada – Wendover, Utah) to FAC, which is the first signed Interstate business route and second overall to be sent to the venue. If it passes, it will be the first successful FA for Admrboltz and the third featured contribution including two featured lists. Most recently, on January 8, Imzadi1979 sent M-6 (Michigan highway) to FAC, the sixth article sent to the venue by Imzadi1979. In addition to these three articles, a fourth article was sent to FAC by a USRD editor. On December 9, the same day Fredddie sent U.S. Route 30 in Iowa to FAC, Moabdave sent Thistle, Utah to FAC for a second time. Moabdave has gotten four USRD articles to FA, and if the Thistle article passes, it will be the fifth FA and first non-USRD FA. This is the first time four USRD members have sent articles to FAC as well as the first time three USRD articles are at USRD. All four editors would appreciate reviews for their nominations.

Project news

 * Editor:

Be sure to look through Article Alerts and WT:USRD.

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

Currently, efforts are being made to ensure that every California state highway article has a route description. This will help to even out the article quality across the board and help California to regain its standing in terms of road article quality across the nation.
 * California

Not much has changed in Michigan. More GAs and Bs, less Cs. Michigan Highway System was the first article on a state's system to reach and pass GA. Some non-project editors are pitching in their photo talents by adding addition pictures from various areas in the state.
 * Michigan

Minnesota has jumped up the leaderboard, entering the top ten. The number of Start-class articles has dropped below 40, and in the next month that number should drop into the teens. Minnesota now has more C-class articles than any state but New York, so the next year will hopefully see those brought up to B or above. Now that the Minnesota Digital Library has, with two exceptions, made available online every official state map from 1923 to the present, it will be possible to have most articles referenced only to official sources.
 * Minnesota

In the early part of November, all of Nebraska's remaining stubs were upgraded to start-class articles through the addition of a route description and junction list to every article.  Dough 48  72  19:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Nebraska

At the beginning of 2011 with the new stub drive, the remainder of New Jersey's articles were destubbed through either expansion or merging. The majority of the remaining stubs were 500-series county routes, which all had route descriptions added.  Dough 48  72  03:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * New Jersey


 * Utah
 * Written by

Not much has occurred project wise, however Interstate 80 Business (West Wendover, Nevada – Wendover, Utah) successfully passed its A-Class review, and is currently a Featured Article Canidate. has been busy as well, ridding route descriptions of pesky unsigned legislative designations, such as Utah State Route 1 (I-15). Work is being done to finish the remaining redlinked articles as well.


 * Washington
 * Written by and

Since the last writing, through the efforts of and returning editor, the Washington State Highways project has jumped up the leaderboard, and is under 4.000. The following articles have been promoted to GA since the last newsletter: SR 11, SR 22, SR 168, SR 174, SR 220, SR 221, SR 223, SR 224, SR 225, SR 231, SR 251, SR 290, SR 410, SR 433, SR 506, SR 510, SR 702, & SR 903. The project's first Good Topic, Washington State Route 22(topic), was promoted on December 12 through the efforts of Admrboltz, the GA reviewers, and the Good Topic Candidates supporters. A destubbing effort has begun, and the project is below 40 stubs statewide at the time of writing.

Leaderboard and stub count

 * Editor: –Fredddie™

In the last three months, more progress was made to improve the project's articles. Two states pushed below the 4.0 barrier. Here's a look at the top ten as of the January 10, 2011, update. States in italics are task forces. Unlinked states have no project.

In the top ten, Michigan stays at the top while New York, Utah, and New Jersey traded places. Washington and Minnesota both came from far behind to end at 7 and 8, respectively. Iowa stays at 9 and Arizona rounds out the bunch at ten. Check out WP:USRD/A/S for current stats, updated daily.

Here's a look at the project as a whole.

The project gained four A-class articles and 38 Good Articles, but most importantly, the project dropped 453 stubs. Check out the section above for details about the new stub-reduction goal.

Selected article/picture from portal
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