Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 24

Coordinators' working group
Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. &mdash; Delievered by §hepBot  ( Disable )  on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Nomination forms US-GOV-PD?
In some articles the descriptions and/or the history of the historic places are to some extent taken word by word from the NRHP nomination forms. (One example is Boxhill (Louisville).) Are these forms considered to be in the public domain? I doubt this, since the person preparing the form seems not to be a worker of the NPS or any other agency of the Federal government and is rather working as an architect or for the local historical society which nominates the property. --Matthiasb (talk) 11:40, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that they are not US-GOV-PD - they are not work for hire, nor, as you point out, are they typically work of government employees. Ruhrfisch  &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 16:43, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I've posted at Talk:Boxhill (Louisville) and at Template talk:Did you know, will try to help in figuring this one out. As i note in those postings, the 3 photos in the article also may not be PD, because not all photos at NPS websites are PD. doncram (talk) 04:48, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Could someone else please comment at Talk:Boxhill (Louisville)? I seem to have insulted the new editor.  I do feel bad about it, although I tried to explain some of my difficulty in dealing with a situation like this.  It is often dicey dealing with new editors over issues of sourcing and public domain stuff, especially as wikipedia policy is not entirely clear. doncram (talk) 20:12, 23 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I just had an edit conflict with Orlady, but her response was so much nicer than mine I did not retype mine (about an FAC held up while permission was obtained for use of NRHP photos). My question is, should we contact the NRHP and ask them to clarify the new web page designation of material (especially photos) as "Public Domain"? If they now believe the materials really are PD, then that frees up a lot of material for use here. If they do not, then perhaps they will add a disclaimer (that we can link to in such cases). Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 21:54, 23 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe we all feel that new user's pain regarding issues of copyright and public domain -- that empathy is the perspective from which I wrote that response. Doncram's statement that Wikipedia policy "is not entirely clear" is true, and it probably understates the situation. Ruhrfisch's suggestion to contact the Keeper of the NRHP is an excellent one. --Orlady (talk) 22:02, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * This is not a new user's confusion about copyright, I understand what the public domain is, and what I found was represented by the NPS as public domain. Then there are Wikipedians saying "Well, there's a chance they could have not really meant that... better flag it all as copyright violations even though the NPS site claims it's public domain." I don't understand why anyone would not be frustrated. Getting clarification from the NPS is a good idea if people are really worried about this. Wikipedians making copyright claims on behalf of the NPS's legal department isn't. --Miss Communication (talk) 00:53, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The uncertainty stems from the fact that the NRHP forms and photos are not filled out or taken by federal employees and are not paid for by the federal government, so they are not US government work for hire in that sense. I do not know that there is any part of the form that says materials submitted in this application become property of the US Government / public domain either. There is also not a clear, explicit detailed statement on the NRHP website that the meterials are public domain (beyond those two words), as there is for HAER work. I am the main author of an article on a bridge formerly on the NRHP - the FAC passed earlier this month, but was delayed about a week until the one NRHP photo in the article was released into the public domain by its author, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. See Featured article candidates/Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3 if you are interested. I will close by saying that unfortunately Wikipedia gets a fair amount of material that are copyright violations and this sometimes makes more experienced users a bit fast to jump on the possible copyvio bandwagon. Apologies again to Miss Communication (and love your user name) Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 04:38, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

This came up once, so I emailed the people at the NRHP a couple years back, I'll dig up the emails if they'll help. What they told me was that the photographs are NOT public domain, that the individual who took the photographs retains copyright over them. When I followed up and asked about the text of the nomination forms he thought it was funny that I would even ask. He had never had the question, as no one has ever tried to assert copyright over the information in the nomination forms, making them, effectively public domain. I forget his exact wording but he conjectured that it would be unlikely that the material in the nomination forms would even qualify for copyright. IvoShandor (talk) 05:19, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * As a side note I would say that regardless of Wikipedia's fogginess of policy it is intellectually dishonest to copy something word for word without noting its source. Of course copyright violations and plagarising are two different beasts. Either way, just note the source and that should cover all the bases. Usually, even if something is PD I reword it, just because. Just my thoughts on the issue.--IvoShandor (talk) 05:23, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I did note the source, though... and still was told it was a copyright violation. That's interesting about the photos... but you'd think they'd realize they should stop listing them as public domain if they don't consider them public domain. --Miss Communication (talk) 13:27, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Could you point at the site that says that? If you wouldn't mind, was it just a blanket "this website is public domain" kind of thing or more specific? We should notify them if there is something erroneous on their sites, sometimes there is quite a bit of disconnect between the web designers, the content producers, and the bureaucracy that oversees them.--IvoShandor (talk) 13:42, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Basically, I think we should do whatever we can to get them to clarify the copyright of their material. Wikipedia is visible enough that if we contact them, especially as a group, they are likely to react favorably, especially considering our purpose. Then we won't have to worry about this discussion coming up every year or so. --IvoShandor (talk) 13:46, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * As I've said before, if you go to their search page, search for "winkworth" (the estate in question), it clearly says "Restrictions: Public domain" in the field describing the two PDF documents I used. --Miss Communication (talk) 19:46, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Just for comparison, see what the Historic American Building Survey website says here. It may be that the web designer means something with "Public Domain" other than copyright status (for example, there may be an internal network that can access records not available to the public). Has anyone contacted the Keeper of the Register? If not, does anyone want to volunteer? Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 19:55, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well maybe by "Louisville" they meant "Oklahoma City" but it's bizarre to base decisions on guesses about errors people might have made. When a federal government employee says "public domain" I'm pretty sure they know what it means. As you people feel the page is in error... you're free to contact whoever. But it seems like we should default to what the page actually says in the meantime... although the groupthink is clearly against me here. --Miss Communication (talk) 19:58, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I found a page on the NPS site that mentions ownership and the copyright status of things on it (I'll leave the decipering to someone else). I'm not quite sure why one would want to copy text from the nomination forms. I doubt one would be able to get an A for turning in a paper for a class that was copied from a public domain source. Also, most of the historical info in the forms is taken from other sources and is cited on the forms (why not use those as sources). I remember watching a similar discussion at WP:DYK over whether or not word-for-word copying of info from DANFS (a public domain source on U.S. naval ships) was allowed (not sure how it turned out, though, but it could be a precedent). --​​ ​​D.B. talk • contribs 21:00, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * These aren't school papers, where your goal is to show your knowledge of the topic, and copying would thus be problematic. Why do people keep comparing these to school papers? Why do I keep responding when it's clear people will just continue inventing new objections until I leave or recant my heretical ways and swear allegience to this Wikiproject? --Miss Communication (talk) 21:20, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * As a side note, how could the -nomination form- even be a reliable source, as they are put together by people without any assurance of being correct or not. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:04, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * So is every book, website and newspaper article that isn't peer-reviewed... which is probably 99% of the citations on Wikipedia. The objection brigade continues though! --Miss Communication (talk) 21:17, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If its not peer reviewed or has an editorial board that checks for errors, then chances are it is not a reliable source and shouldn't be here. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:03, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The nomination forms ARE reviewed. They are reviewed by the SHPO staff - there are both historians and archaeologists on SHPO staff. Then it goes before whatever board each state has. There it goes through public hearings. Only then does the SHPO sign off before it even gets to the NPS. Once at the NPS it's reviewed again. Then it gets published in the Federal Register for more public comment. Only after all that does the Keeper (or a designee) sign off. Einbierbitte (talk) 22:35, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There has been factually inaccurate matters in the forms many times and many problems. The forms themselves cannot be considered reliable. -No- application form can be considered a reliable source. Publication does not mean reliable nor factual. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:04, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * This is nonsensical to go on about. The nomination forms are obviously to be believed on some factual matters, and the nomination + the approval of the nomination add up to saying that authorities have deemed a property to be historically significant.  Also, the nomination forms have been shown to sometimes include some exageration and/or are not reliable on some matters.  That's not what this discussion section was opened to discuss, it was about some good questions about matters not well stated in wikipedia guidelines, about the use of nomination forms in articles up for DYK and otherwise.  It is lousy how poor the state of wikipedia guidelines are, frankly, 1) that DYK policy is not more clear (although it is well established in precedent, it is not stated clearly in guidelines that a new editor can be pointed to), 2) that the draft guideline at wp:plagiarism goes too far in "welcoming" public domain material (when it is obviously not generally true), and 3) that wp:NRHP does not have a well-stated guideline for new editors about their writing of their first NRHP article.  All these deficiencies are pointed out well by the new editor who is legitimately frustrated by this discussion.  Ottava, could you help chime in, speaking for DYK, at Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism where I have begun trying to get the "PD paste-ins are welcome" message stricken or revised? doncram (talk) 01:16, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Doncram, the applications are deemed a "primary source". Primary sources cannot be deemed reliable sources. They can be used when needing to discuss the primary source, but should never be taken as reliable. Only third party objective sources can be reliable sources, and only peer reviewed can be reliable sources. By the way, I've filled some out before in order to meet the National Register requirements for many military bases. I definitely wouldn't trust what I wrote as a reliable source. What my boss may have written afterward and published is a different matter. : ) Ottava Rima (talk) 15:22, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Not all primary sources are considered unreliable; all US municipalities use the template to derive primary source data from the Census Bureau, and I think we can assume that the Census Bureau is reliable when it says that a certain community had so many residents, so many families, etc. at the 2000 census.  Anyway, these aren't self-published: they're approved by the Register.  Unless you're going to argue that the Register doesn't know what to trust, there's no reason to argue that we shouldn't trust that on which the Register depends.  Nyttend (talk) 16:37, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "Wikipedia articles[1] should use reliable, third-party, published sources." Notice that "reliable source" includes "third-party". All primary sources are considered the same regardless of "reliability". Ottava Rima (talk) 17:00, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Quoting from WP:PRIMARY:"Our policy: Primary sources that have been reliably published (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." Nyttend (talk) 18:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, with care is the important emphasis. :) You must make it certain that you need to quote the primary source, that you address it as the primary source, and you aren't claiming it is truth or making interpretations of it. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:29, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Do we say that the Census Bureau said that there were so many people in such-and-such-a-town, etc., in 2000? No, we say that there were so many people in such-and-such-a-town in 2000.  Do we say that the Ohio law says that municipalities with at least 5,000 people are cities?  No, we say that Ohio municipalities with at least 5,000 people are cities and then cite the Ohio Revised Code.  Making interpretations is another thing, to be sure, but we can clearly assume the truth of at least some primary sources.  Whether or not these forms are that type of source is a different question, to be sure, but we shouldn't dispute all primary sources in this way.   Nyttend (talk) 17:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Coming late to this discussion, I've had some of the same concerns about the NR forms that Ottava's expressed. I've seen obvious errors, boosterism, sloppy research, confused genealogy, rumor and misinformation. On the other hand, I've seen meticulous, professional research, solid sourcing and excellent documentation. The answer is, it depends. Where I've been unsure about the usefulness of the noms, I've stuck to three-line stubs that state what, when and where and little else. Other noms contain enough for a B-class article (at least for content) and have references for further research. This conversation appears to be hung up on primary vs. secondary sourcing. Most of the noms are compiled from primary sources, i.e. public records, interviews or informal histories. I would argue that the noms are reviewed secondary sources of highly variable quality, in both production and review. In that they are no different from most other published sources, and represent a step up from many of the sources I see around the wiki. I would rather have an article that is sourced to an NRHP nom than no article at all. If a book was published on the subject, that's wonderful, but there are only a handful of such works, and many of those were published by the local garden or historical society, and aren't subject to even as much review as the NRHP noms. You work with what you have. If you doubt a fact, leave it out.

I am, however, opposed to copying verbatim, as rewriting forces the editor to consider the subject with greater care, and I'm not convinced that the noms are really public domain. Images that accompany them certainly are not..  Acroterion  (talk)  20:49, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

CatScan tool and identifying old NRHP articles which need NRHP infobox update
In a conversation with User:The Anome, I asked about how wp:NRHPers might possibly identify all the NRHP articles in a state like Tennessee which don't yet have coordinates identified. These would mostly be articles that need an update of the NRHP infobox using Elkman's tool. Older NRHP pages often do not include coordinates. The Anome replied: "CatScan is your friend here: try this CatScan search, which I believe will do what you want in a more direct way, by finding only those articles that do not transclude the coordinate-link-producing coord template either directly or indirectly, regardless of whether I have tagged them with coord missing. You can adapt the parameters, and the output format, to suit your needs. -- The Anome (talk) 01:50, 1 March 2009 (UTC)"  Ain't this neat? I am going to try it on the New York State NRHP articles. doncram (talk) 02:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

*cough*
I'll try this again. Can someone tell me what "DR" means in regards to the Infobox generator? Example: search for #73002307.  APK  How you durrin?  03:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I have tried to find these codes also. Without any luck. However, I will tell you that based on my own observations if you are using the website www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com, you need to be aware that they list properties that were given a file number by the Department of the Interior, but did not actually make the list due to either an "owner's objection" (DO) as in Ashworth Brothers Mill (#83004609), or were determined eligible by the State Historic commission, but denied by the feds (DR) as in The Hiker (#83004857). I discovered these issues after finding a guide book in a local library explaining this.--Marcbela (talk) 16:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ahh, ok. Thanks.  APK  How you durrin?  19:40, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

If DR is from the National Park Service, it means 'DATE RECEIVED/PENDING NOMINATION' 24.181.239.60 (talk) 21:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

A quandary
Going through National Register of Historic Places listings in Douglas County, Nebraska I noticed that there is a combined listing for two ships named U.S.S. HAZARD and U.S.S. MARLIN, added in 1979 and a seperate listing for the USS HAZARD (AM-240) designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986. It does not appear the USS Marlin was made a NHL at that time though. Currently both entries link to an article for each respective ship. I think there should be a combined listing for both ships as the 1979 NHRP listing, but how to handle the case of one being a NHL and not the other?--Marcbela (talk) 15:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Although I can't offer a canonical answer, I ran into the same issue with the Fisher and New Center Buildings. The two were added as a pair in 1980, with the Fisher Building being elevated to NHL status in 1989.  I wrote an article on the New Center Building as a standalone (a Fisher Building article already existed) and added an article on the pair, focusing on the similarities between the buildings that, presumably, led to them being listed as a pair in the first place.  In the Fisher and New Center Buildings, I included the NHL designation in the infobox, on the premise that even though the 1980 designation was not for Landmark status, half the article was about the Fisher Building, which does have Landmark status, and it made sense to so note in the article.  (I'll note I don't feel strongly about this, so I'm fine with another approach; just laying this out as precedent.) Andrew Jameson (talk) 17:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Workflow summary? (and Freebase coordination)
Is there are good summary someplace of the workflow or data pipeline that begins with the NPS database and ends with "finished" Wikipedia articles? Is it entirely a manual process other than the infobox generator? How is the weekly NPS list processed/integrated into the end result?

Also, I'm working on getting the NPS database loaded into Freebase which should provide a more structured view than Wikipedia, but something a little easier to access than the NPS database. The stuff that's loaded so far is at http://usnris.freebase.com/home and the stuff I'm working on is at http://usnris.sandbox-freebase.com/home For the time being, I'm mostly concentrating on annotating things which already have a Freebase topic (many of which are derived from WP articles). It's got a little bit richer set of data than the WP infoboxes, but much of its the same. After I finish loading the geo data, I'll probably circle back around and create entries for things down to at least the State level of significance (ie International, National, and State). Not sure whether I'll go all the way to the Local level, but I probably will. The entries link back to the National Park Service scanned applications, but the NPS has only scanned a few states.

If anyone has suggestions or wants to talk about coordinating, feel free to contact me on gmail. The account there (and most places) is tfmorris. 24.181.239.60 (talk) 21:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I see that the Freebase version has copied in the article texts we have written here in wikipedia. In each article on Freebase, it links back to wikipedia article but also offers users there the opportunity to edit a different version at Freebase.  It is pretty impressive that all our work can be scooped up that way, and the interface doesn't look bad.  But offhand, I don't see what the Freebase version offers that is different or superior in any substantial way.  I'd be happy to learn more though.  Also, about the Freebase version, I am not sure whether or not it complies with the GFDL licensing requirement for use of Wikipedia material.  It might be in violation with our GFDL licensing.  Can anyone else tell? doncram (talk) 03:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I've responded to this over at WT:Freebase (database) but to answer the specific NRHP stuff: Freebase extracts information from *all* of Wikipedia, not just NRHP, and we've been doing so for some years. There's a presentation from one of our internal developers here that explains what we do.  What tfmorris (one of our community members) recently did was to load data from the USNRIS website and reconcile it against the topics (articles) Freebase already had.  To the best of our knowledge, we are in full compliance with the GFDL, and we've had ongoing conversations with the Wikimedia Foundation (who are just a few blocks from us here in SF) and they know what we're doing, so I certainly hope that if there's any concern, they'd let us know! --Skud (talk) 18:03, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I neither work for, nor represent, Freebase (and don't see where I implied that I did). My work is based on the same public domain government data that was used to create the infobox generator that everyone here uses, but my work was done entirely independently.24.181.239.60 (talk) 19:01, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * To respond to Tfmorris's perhaps taking offense. Tfmorris's link to http://usnris.freebase.com/home works by the way, but  the "sandbox" link does not work for me (erhaps permissions are set for only Freebase logged in users to access it?).  The link Tfmorris provided introduced me for the first time to Freebase.  It shows that Freebase has extracted the wikipedia articles.  The number of its topics, about 20,000 corresponds roughly to the number of NRHP articles in wikipedia, not to the 85,000 or so NRIS records on NRHP sites, suggesting that Freebase is mainly exploiting our work in wikipedia rather than accomplishing some independent effort.  The link shows at least one photo (Dmadeo's photo of Lightship Nantucket) which upon deeper examination (being discussed over at Talk:Freebase (database) appears to me to be not in compliance with Dmadeo's release of that photo under GFDL license.  I imagine that you have photos of mine, too.  One or two clicks anywhere on the link you provide brings me to wikipedia text, some that i have written myself.  Your request here at wt:NRHP is within a few days of Skud's comments at Talk:Freebase (database) in which Skud self-identifies as a staff member of Freebase.  I think it's reasonable for me to have conjectured Tfmorris may also have affiliation with Freebase, although I take it that is as a volunteer, is that correct?  Not being familiar with Freebase, I don't know how to interpret that.  Does Freebase actually have volunteers interested in historic sites?  I don't yet see why anyone interested in historic sites would choose to contribute time at Freebase, in lieu of participating in wikipedia.  The request itself is highly unusual, and reads like it is from a programmer type person working for Freebase who wants to understand how to extract our stuff more efficiently or whatever.  So forgive me, but I at first associated some negative stuff with Tfmorris's posting here.
 * Still, I don't know what to think about Freebase yet, because it may be a good thing in the way that Google is, which gives our work greater reach. Also, Freebase might be willing to make changes that address some of its problems.  But, for the moment, I am not inspired to volunteer for Freebase to point out the errors in its coverage of NRHP sites.  Freebase is in fact a commercial venture that reserves the right to run advertisements and to otherwise use wikipedia material to its advantage.  I would probably be willing, for financial compensation, to find more and to detail general deficiencies or possible specific deficiencies in Tfmorris's merging of public domain NRIS data with the wikipedia and commons information.  I will offer, for free, that I do observe some misunderstandings and errors, and I project that there must be other types of errors that I am not going to dig for now.  I do think it is a concern for wikipedia and wp:NRHP in particular that Freebase is displaying our work, perhaps not in compliance with licensing requirements. doncram (talk) 00:53, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Gee, why would I be "possibly" offended just for being described as a liar and a scofflaw, while simultaneously being the subject of an extortion attempt?

Don - would I have to pay you to get you to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Civility#Assume_good_faith or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats ?

If you want to try and extort money from Metaweb/Freebase, leave me out of it. Sorry to have encroached on your own personal little corner of Wikipedia. I'll update the main NRHP page when my work is done.24.181.239.60 (talk) 19:31, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, there's the pot calling the kettle black.....extortion? Come on.  Just because a user who's volunteering time for a non-profit organization chooses not to answer questions for someone else volunteering for a commercial enterprise hardly rises to the level of extortion.  And I'd also go so far as to say that Assuming Good Faith both doesn't mean one has to agree with you and that it works both ways.  Now, I personally don't much care what freebase is doing, but I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to help.  As no one else on the wikiproject has offered to help, I guess they wouldn't either.  Similarly, I wouldn't bother arguing about it either, as Wikipedia seems not to have a problem with it.  Perhaps inquiries about the legality would be better directed to the Wikipedia staff....maybe they have some kind of answer about the GFDL on pictures (of which I have many in NRHP articles, myself) being shared by Freebase. Lvklock (talk) 20:53, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

clarification on photo policy
Some clarification on photo policy from the National Register, perhaps including removal of that phrase "public domain" within the PDF Focus database field for "restrictions", is coming out soon, fyi. This was mentioned to me in passing, not in response to any specific request from me. Perhaps others have contacted the NPS directly given recent discussion, or just the recent discussion was noticed by the NPS. I am hoping the clarification/changes won't go too far in the opposite direction. doncram (talk) 00:50, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Geotagging of historic sites
I've just been informed by User:Doncram that my tagging archeological sites with coord missing using User:The Anomebot2, part of the WikiProject Geographical coordinates process for soliciting the addition of geographical coordinates to articles, might not be helpful in some cases. I'm afraid I hadn't considered the possibility of places which need their locations kept secret when working on bot-tagging these articles. I'm currently looking for a technical solution to this. Perhaps we could have a special invisible tag for places which need their locations kept secret, with a name like coords not wanted, or a centralized blacklist of such articles? -- The Anome (talk) 02:05, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The National Register's NRIS database shows "location restricted" for the address and/or coordinates of many archeological sites. There have been several discussions previously here at wt:NRHP about what our obligation is.  In some cases, while once the site was not generally known, it has since become widely known, in some cases being opened to the public as part of a park.  Of course for these now-very-public ones coordinates can be added.  But, as a general matter, I think for all the ones marked "location restricted", at least, wikipedia should not actively call for people to add coordinates.  My general impression is that there will be between 1,000 and 2,000 sites nation-wide. A list of such sites might be obtained from the National Register directly, perhaps first by requesting at nr_reference at nps.gov, or perhaps approaching via another means.  Or, Elkman, who already has downloaded a version of the NRIS database, might be able to provide a report from his database.  What's needed to control the bot, and/or what can it take account of?  Many of the NRHP sites have an NRHP infobox with the unique NRHP reference number, a number that would be the best, unambiguous identification for sites not to be tagged for coordinates, if the bot can exclude those.  I believe that the Nrhpbot, which generated article stubs in Ohio during 2007, was able to check first for the prior existence of articles containing such reference numbers.  Also, the NRHP program names for the sites will often be the name of the wikipedia article, or otherwise appear in the article. doncram (talk) 07:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, at http://www.nr.nps.gov/nrdown1.htm, there is indication that NRIS staff can provide a customized download report, and/or the NRIS database (probably the April 2008 version) can be downloaded in its entirety. doncram (talk) 07:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Many of us have run into this before. I'm starting to think that perhaps for address restricted sites, we should put in the coordinates of the "nearest city"  It allows a rough approximation of the site, without encouraging treasure hunting. dm (talk) 13:44, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That would be lying - if we don't have coordinates, we shouldn't give ones we know to be wrong. --NE2 14:07, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey, Dmadeo was not suggesting lying. They could be labelled clearly as "Vicinity of ___" or "Approximate location, given address restriction, of ___" or "Nearest city to ___, given address restriction" or some other wording like that.  It is not a bad idea, to put in coordinates that would work for showing a rough location in a state-wide map appearing in an NHRP infobox, for example.  By the way, Dm has done a tactful, nice job with taking and adding pics "in the vicinity of" restricted-address archeological sites that are NY NHLs, Wards Point Archeological Site and Fort Corchaug Archeological Site.
 * That reminds me, there's a similar issue about reqphoto "photos wanted" tags on Talk pages of articles. Could the blacklist approach could also be used to restrict use of reqphoto? doncram (talk) 20:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ouch! Certainly was not suggesting lying, just putting the coords as close as the NRHP was willing to do.  IIRC, one of the geo pages suggests using less and less digits to reflect less and less accuracy.  I was thinking along those lines. dm (talk) 00:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, when the coordinates show up next to the title, there's nothing saying "these aren't the real coordinates", so it would seem to be lying. What's the point, anyway? If you want to know approximately where it is, you read the article and see what the nearest city is, then click the link to get its coordinates. --NE2 02:07, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If the coordinates were put into the latitude degrees, minutes, seconds, etc. fields of the NRHP infobox in an article about the archeological site, then yes it would not be possible to identify the location as something different, in our current NRHP infobox. The NRHP infobox is not set up to handle this complication.  If the coordinates were added into a separate place in the article, they could be named to describe it as "____ City, closest city identified by NRHP to the ____ Archeological Site".  Just as we have name labels for all the coordinates in county-wide list-articles of NRHPs.  But, I tend to agree that putting such labelled coords might not be worth it.  And reprogramming the NRHP infobox to somehow allow a clarifying label, so that a state map could be displayed that would show the approximate location, properly labelled, also doesn't sound easy.  But it might not be worth doing, or at least it would not be a top priority infobox update for me, relative to other upgrades possible.  It's an idea worth noting though, and perhaps it would be more easily implemented by someone else.  Ebyabe has had some success creating maps of Florida NHLs and so on, with labels displaying, I recall. doncram (talk) 02:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There are 4550 sites in the National Register database that have the "Address Restricted" flag. (Actually, I think there are a few whose address says "Address Restricted" but the restriction code isn't set.)  I can come up with either a list or a query against the NRIS database that provides a list of these sites.  I can provide it in a format that works well with Anomebot, if that would help.  There might be a few locations missed if someone writes an article that has a different title from what's in the NRIS.  For example, there's the article Hennepin (shipwreck), whose name is listed in the NRIS as "HENNEPIN Self-unloading Steamship (Shipwreck)".  It shouldn't be a problem for me to write a list of the sites that have the restriction code; I'm just thinking more of the coding and pattern matching that has to go into the bot.  --Elkman (Elkspeak) 14:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem: just bang the entries into User:The Anome/coord missing blacklist in the obvious format. But please see Dschwen's comment below: it would be a shame to overdo this in cases where the location is actually not hidden at all in real life. -- The Anome (talk) 19:16, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Update: there's no need to do the above: I've now generated the list myself. -- The Anome (talk) 12:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Then I think all 4550 flagged as address restricted ones should be blacklisted that way, plus all the others where the NRIS data entry persons put it into the location field. This is not a problem to omit the "coordinates missing" tag in the articles about places that are no longer in fact restricted in practice.  The articles do fine without the tag!  (Actually, i personally don't really like the tag in any articles, but that's a different matter.)  And the absence of a "missing" tag obviously does not prevent someone from adding coordinates to an article. doncram (talk) 20:22, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I myself don't have a problem with giving locations for sites that have verified location information, even if they really are archaeological sites, etc. After all, if it's already published online with a reliable source, what's the problem if we republish it?  That being said, I do agree that automated geotagging for such sites is a bad idea, since for a few sites the NRIS gives coords anyway: adding coords without a human-included note (my typical one being "Location derived from ____; the NRIS lists it as 'Address Restricted'", given in a footnote) makes it look like the NRIS was the source.  We need to make sure that these sites, if tagged, are tagged after we make sure that it's from a reliable source, and we need to cite that reliable source along with the coords.  Nyttend (talk) 15:55, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry but this is a bogus issue. I visited one of those restricted sites myself last summer. Turns out that while the location is withheld in the database, there are roadsigns leading the way, there is a visitor parking lot, and the place is marked on the official Illinois highway map, and it is marked in the Terrain view of Google Maps. So neither do I understand the fuss about citing reliable sources. If I had my GPS device on site, I could have used those coordinates as well. Now don't start with WP:NOR! --Dschwen 17:21, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it would be fine for you to add coords to the corresponding article for that one. I'm just saying, don't put "missing coords" tags into articles where available centralized info says that the location should not be disclosed, even if that accidentally covers some situations where in fact the location is protected well enough and could be disclosed.  It is a matter of not adding spurious tags to 5,000 articles where the location info is not likely to be forthcoming anytime soon, for most, and showing some respect for the archeologists and the National Park Service and the many people who do care about the unprotected sites. doncram (talk) 20:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There's a judgement call here which if you've been to the site or there's reliable sources indicating its public knowledge, that's great! A lot can change since the original NRHP submission.    On the other hand, there are numerous cases where sensitive archaeological sites are looted and destroyed when its precise location became known.  We should not encourage this behaviour. dm (talk) 00:47, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Dschwen, forgive me if you already understand this :-) but in this case, "address restricted" simply means that the Register's database doesn't give the location. It doesn't mean that you're not allowed to go there.  Earlier today, I found that one "address restricted" site (Iyatayet Site) had its location given by another National Park Service website, complete with pictures!  That's what I mean about needing the reliable sources: if we know that it's published elsewhere reliably, such as with your state highway maps, I think it would be a matter of minor censorship if we decided not to publish what is already public knowledge.  For that reason I opposed (and apparently everyone else does now, too) the idea of automatic tagging: as humans we can evaluate a source, and we can know if it's reasonable to post the location.  Nyttend (talk) 16:49, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd be very suprised if the NRHP don't have addresses for every site: if they don't know where the sites are, at least privately, how can they actually identify them? And if they know the addresses, why bother to have two databases, one private and one public, unless there's some administrative reason to do so? Has anyone asked the NRHP for their take on this? -- The Anome (talk) 17:04, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course the Federal NRHP program and the state departments of historical stuff all do know exactly where these sites are. Their exact boundaries are specified in the NRHP application documents and process.  The NRHP is a legal program that offers tax advantages and grant eligibility and other benefits for specified legal property parcels.  Archeological districts that are listed may include scattered legal parcels, only some of which may have later become publicly known, and these parcels are exactly known and specified.  By the way, you can request copies, for free, of any NRHP documents.  For these ones, the NRHP will send you copies that have been redacted of location information. doncram (talk) 18:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Technical discussion
As I've said above, I completely accept the argument for security-by-obscurity in this case. I've now downloaded the entire NRHP database, and, as far as I can see from parsing PROPMAIN.DBF (which is in the DETAILS.EXE self-extracting zipfile), there are 88412 records in the database, of which 5089 contain the string "restricted", all in various variations on "Address Restricted", "Address Information Restricted", "Restricted Address", as well as in typos like "Addess Restricted", "Addriess Restricted" and so on.

I'll compare the records in my bot-tagging logs against the names of those 5089 restricted-address records. More soon. -- The Anome (talk) 12:02, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking this seriously and for taking such effective action. It sounds to me that you are mainly using the names of wikipedia articles to exclude from the tagging.  Since article names can change for punctuation preferences or to use local common names, perhaps we also do need additional abilities to run this right, implementing the other approach that you suggested, too.  That would include allowing us to see the list of excluded wikipedia articles, and the ability to give an article a hidden tag identifying it as part of the restricted address set.  Looking forward to your followup. doncram (talk) 18:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe the National Park Service uses the coordinates for geocenter of the county containing the restricted site for their Google Earth files if that helps folks decide what they'd like to do. 24.181.239.60 (talk) 21:25, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Google Earth based Geo-coded NRHP locations from NPS
I note the above comment about NPS using county geocenters for the address restricted sites in a county. That could be misleading if we used those in wikipedia. I'm not sure if we could label those adequately clearly, and am also not sure how they are labelled/appear in Google Earth.

An NPS rep also pointed me to http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/Download.html for the improved version of NRHP locations data. This reflects a lot of location corrections from a geo-coding project, especially for NRHP sites which are buildings that have a street address. I believe this is different than the NRIS coordinates provided in/with the NRIS database, reflected in our NRHP infoboxes via Elkman's nifty system. Not sure what can be done with this. Has anyone been using either the download or the Google Earth source for locations to put into NRHP articles? Can any Google Earth user tell whether it is possible to transfer NRHP locations from Google Earth to wikipedia, in any way? doncram (talk) 19:05, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Maryland is done
Stubs for all articles under National Register of Historic Places listings in Maryland are done.--Pubdog (talk) 01:28, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Awesome work over just four months time for pubdog. Nyttend and others helped too, but it was mostly pubdog.  I think that each stub now includes NRHP infobox, NRIS reference, reference to the Maryland Historical Association page that exists for each site, and a few sentences describing the place and its importance.  Plus photo by Pubdog for many.  Great job! :) doncram (talk) 18:28, 3 March 2009 (UTC) P.S. In case anyone is competing, I think this puts List of RHPs in MD way out in the lead for state NRHP list-articles, for standard achieved in all articles, for completeness, for highest average article quality.  It would be hard to match this for any other state that doesn't have an extensive web system at the state's own archives department.  SC and VA would be other candidates to develop like this.
 * Thanks very much Doncram ... my pleasure. Hope to get more pix in the coming months.--Pubdog (talk) 01:28, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the credit; I really didn't do much of anything besides improving the list tables a little bit. Pubdog's work outshines mine enough that I think mine doesn't need to be mentioned :-) Great job!  Nyttend (talk) 12:55, 6 March 2009 (UTC)