Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-08-09/WikiProject report

Welcome to another issue of the WikiProject Report, highlighting the ways Wikipedians coordinate their efforts to make Wikipedia better. In this issue, we're interviewing prolific contributor Mitchazenia about WikiProject New York State routes.

New York State routes is a very successful small WikiProject. In under a year and a half, the vast majority of New York State routes have gained articles, and inroads have begun to be made on getting them to featured quality. Indeed, it has recently reached its "breakthrough" point, with the project's first five featured articles all have been achieved in the last two months, as well as a featured list and a featured topic. One of the many fine editors in that project, Mitchazenia has kindly agreed to take time out of his content work to be interviewed for this issue of The Signpost.

Before we begin, tell us a bit about yourself.

Mitchazenia: I am a user who started in November 2005, with the username of HurricaneCraze32, which implied that I was active with hurricanes. After some time with the project, around 2007, I moved off the hurricane scene and into U.S. Roads, mainly New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I started working hard with the roads, I sort of moved on, raising GAs and a few As over time. Anyway, the project now dominates all US Roads projects in FAs, As, and GAs.

Tell us about WikiProject New York Roads.

Mitchazenia: WikiProject New York State Routes was created in February 2006. It was originally to just include Interstates, State Routes, and U.S. Routes. The project, over a couple months began to gain more editors, and articles, with at least 2 articles being created a day. The project, as of today, mainly serves the same three, with two new additions, State reference routes, and county routes, the latter of which defies the project's name. There used to be a sister project, New York County Routes, which covered the county routes, but that was disbanded in July 2007 for the lack of need, as most articles were gone.

What happened to the County Routes?

Mitchazenia: They were deleted because most of them did not reach the notability standard, and were forever stubs.

About what percent of roads are now covered, and how many are FAs and GAs?

Mitchazenia: 5 Featured Articles, 3 A-class, 55 Good Articles, 1 Featured List, and 1 Featured Topic. That will probably change by the time it comes out.

How many roads are covered by the project?

Mitchazenia: I believe as of August 4, there were so far 680 roads that were covered by the project.

What achievements within the project are you most proud of?

Mitchazenia: New York State Route 174's Featured Article debacle, with which I spent months arguing getting the article up to Featured Article status. Another would be New York State Route 343, which is currently a candidate for FA. This one has also taken a long time, and I really enjoy working on it.

Finally, what would you say to someone considering joining this project?

Mitchazenia: The project needs your help, there's only 136 stubs left, and we need more members to speedy clean them up. The articles then can move on to be the best on Wikipedia. We just need the help, but, its mainly up to you.