Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 34

Motorsport venues on the National Register of Historic Places?
I see from today's fresh listings that Lime Rock Park is now on the Register. Is that the only motorsport venue besides Indianapolis Motor Speedway listed? Daniel Case (talk) 00:19, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The original road course for Road America is listed. I did take a few pictures. There are special signs at each corner and at each of the different start and finish lines used.  Royal broil  02:42, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * That was off the top of my head. I found one more - Occoneechee Speedway plus some astericks. North Wilkesboro Speedway is at the state level but not national. Soldier Field used to be listed before renovation and it had a board track plus a few NASCAR races in the 1950s.  Royal broil  02:53, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There's Watkins Glen Grand Prix Course, 1948-1952 in New York. --NE2 21:57, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Access to NYS NRHP Document Imaging Database
Hello ... much to my surprise and horror, the link to the New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO)Document Imaging Database is broken. I think they've redone the State website, so that the original link to the database is from Online Tools and there is now a disclaimer to agree to before accessing it. The consequence is that none of the links from the couple hundred or so NYS NRHP articles I've created are currently active.--Pubdog (talk) 10:06, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, we can have a bot fix them later. I'm sure they'll redirectify them at some point. There's still a link to the page from the main page you linked to, though. We'll see what happens when everything comes back online. Daniel Case (talk) 18:23, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO)Document Imaging Database is back online and all seems to be well. Sorry for my momentary panic.--Pubdog (talk) 10:28, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

NRHP nav box
Hello all: User:Niagara suggested I open up for broader discussion a question I received from User:LtPowers about the placement of county lists in the NRHP county list pages. Inspired by the fine work done on various Pennsylvania NRHP lists such as National Register of Historic Places listings in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, my overzealous nature got the best of me and I went ahead and added county links to Maryland and New York county pages. The good Lt's question was "It seems like this is a navbox, which according to guidelines should go at the bottom of articles." In response, User:Jameslwoodward responded "The Massachusetts county lists have a county navbox at the top. The Maine county lists don't have one at all. . . . ." Therefore, we have latched onto a cross-state inconsistency and seek guidance from the NRHP sages.--Pubdog (talk) 22:05, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Ack. If this is used it should be a template. And yes, it is a navbox, not a table of contents, since it links not to sections but to other articles. --NE2 22:09, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I was thinking of doing something like what is already done for Oregon. ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 22:12, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I really like what you did for Oregon. If that is how this issue can be addressed successfully, I can certainly go back and create templates for New York and Maryland and revise the county lists accordingly.--Pubdog (talk) 10:08, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The Oregon template looks very good. I might, though, do it exactly as it is and then add a break and a second list (within the template) that had the cities in alpha order -- in Oregon it's only Portland, but in Massachusetts there must be a dozen or more cities and towns that have separate lists -- or maybe something else. Definitely worth experimenting a little. . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs)  13:17, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Similar topic, but with the state specific template (for instance the Oregon one under discussion), any objections to using them to replace the generic National Register of Historic Places one on individual listings within those states. As in any objections to me replacing the national one with the Oregon one on all Oregon NHRP articles? Aboutmovies (talk) 07:53, 26 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I suppose it couldn't do any harm to use a state-specific template instead. I also went ahead and created a Pennsylvania template. ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 16:36, 26 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I could go either way. If both templates are used, then there's no need for the links in the first row of the Oregon template (to Keeper of the Register and things like that).  If only one is used, then a few of the more useful links from the national template should be added to the state templates.  Powers T 17:40, 26 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I really like this idea, so I went ahead and created an Alabama template. Unlike the others that have already been done, however, I listed the cities separately. It seems to me that the city entries get visually lost when included under "Lists by county." Altairisfar talk  20:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm really concerned about all this concern for uniformity and consistency. What is appropriate for Alabama may not be for Massachusetts. Look at United States National Register of Historic Places listings. It has both types for the 50 states etc. The list at the top works very well for the states which don't have large numbers of counties, such as the New England states. I find these very easy to use. Templates at the bottom are much less easy to use. IMHO, the ideal list would allow easy navigation vertically as well as horizontally, in other words, from a county list it would be easy to go to the state list or to go directly to other county lists in the same state. clariosophic (talk) 21:44, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Historic bridges web site
I stumbled across this web site today as I was trying to come up with geocode coordinates for the Meramec River U.S. Bridge - J421 (new listing in St. Louis County, MO). Any objections to adding it to the "Other useful links" section of the main project page? --sanfranman59 (talk) 00:49, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * i have no objections, only a caveat: the information there may or may not be reliable. I just looked at the listings in my home county and found them flawed. For larger bridges and buildings I have found Structurae a good place for reliable data. clariosophic (talk) 22:00, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Effectively demolished?
This is probably an old question -- forgive me.

Are we interesting making special note of buildings that have been so radically changed that they would no longer qualify for listing? I have in mind There must be many others. Should they be de-listed? Should we create a category? Or is there already a procedure? . . . . Jim. . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 16:42, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Quincy Police Station see 442 Southern Artery for a pre-listing photo. The pediment and frieze are still there, but certainly the whole dignified symmetry of the facade is gone.
 * Edwin W. Marsh House see 17 Marsh Street for a pre-listing photo. While raising the roof, they removed all the Greek Revival detail described in the article accompanying the cited photo.


 * I don't think it's up to us to determine when a building has been radically altered enough to warrant being delisted from the National Register. If something is obvious from a set of before-and-after photographs, we can mention that it's been remodeled and altered from its original appearance, but it's really up to the SHPO and/or National Register to make the call on whether it's been delisted.  (We can't do original research here.)
 * On the other hand, if a structure has clearly been demolished, then it's a pretty safe bet that it'll be delisted. For example, I went out to find Bridge L-3040 on a country road in Scott County, Minnesota, only to find a new, modern bridge in its place.  It turned out that the county had to replace the old, historic bridge (which was the oldest extant stone arch highway bridge in Minnesota) because heavy farm trucks were crushing it out of existence.  So, I decided not to even start an article on it.  --Elkman (Elkspeak) 17:03, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not suggesting that we could have any role in actually determining delistings -- but in these times of tight government budgets, those of us who are taking and working with photos of NRHP sites may be the only eyes actually looking at them in this light -- I'm just wondering if we might keep a list of sites that we could offer to the SHPOs or the NPS with the suggestion that they take a look at them. . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 23:06, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:NRIS issues has sections for demolished-but-still-listed; perhaps we could add a bigtime-modified section to that? Nyttend (talk) 19:24, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

"City or town" locations that are not actually cities or towns
I am periodically annoyed by the fact that the NRHP lists here include entries under "City or Town" for places that are not actually either "cities" or "towns", and that in some cases do not even appear to be real places. This in information comes from NRIS, but if it's not real, I don't think it needs to be faithfully preserved in Wikipedia.

Some examples:
 * Post Oak Springs Christian Church was listed as being in Post Oak, Tennessee. Long ago I changed that to Rockwood, Tennessee, having never heard of a place called Post Oak (although it's allegedly not real far from where I live) and having been unsuccessful in locating Post Oak on maps or verifying its existence in web searches (actually, web searches will bring up a map of "Post Oak, TN", but the map is of a place in a completely different part of the state). It is not a GNIS populated place. GNIS does lists a "Post Oak Farms" as a populated place in the right general area, but the dot on the map is in a wooded area. The NRHP nom form suggests to me that this might once have been an historical place name for the surroundings of the church, but I think that "Rockwood" is a much more informative entry in the location field for this church.
 * Wildwood, Tennessee is identified as the "City or Town" for a couple of properties in Blount County. It turns up as a GNIS populated place, but I can't find any other indication that this is the name of a place in Blount County, much less a city or town there. As with Post Oak, web searches for this place bring up maps from some other part of the state, along with hits on terms like "Church in the Wildwood".
 * Binfield, Tennessee is listed as the city/town location for another property in Blount County. Although I've never heard of it and the satellite photos do not suggest that it is a "place" any more, this one seems to have some reality to it -- it's a GNIS populated place, it's a former post office location, and when I Google "Binfield, TN," the map that I get is a map of the right place.

It turns out that the Bing.com maps have labels on all of three of these places (along with many other "places" that I can testify do not actually correspond to anything you could find on the ground), but most sources do not -- and (based on my observations) I don't trust Bing as a reliable source on the existence of a place (at least not in this part of Tennessee). I wonder whether "City or Town" is the right heading for a list that contains names of places like Post Oak, Wildwood and Binfield that are decidedly not "cities" or "towns". Regardless of what the heading is, I think there need to be some criteria on when it's acceptable to remove the name of a non-city from that column and replace it with the name of a place that is recognizable to the modern world. I'd like to declare that places like "Post Oak" and "Wildwood" should not be listed as the city or town in a property location field, but I guess it would be OK to keep "Binfield" because it was once a postal city.

Has anyone else wrestled with this kind of situation -- or have ideas on criteria to be used to decide whether a place is sufficiently real to be identified as a property location? --Orlady (talk) 18:04, 29 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Sometimes, the maps show historical towns or settlements that existed at one point or another. I have seen that here in Portage County, Ohio on several occaisions.  Small towns that barely existed at a given point still show up on many detailed maps, but there is nothing on the ground that would indicate a settlement is there other than an intersection or maybe a sign or two with the name.  I always try to find what jurisdiction the listing is actually in, whether it be a township/town or an incorporated place like a city or village and list the nearest population center.  Where townships do not exist (like in the western US) the jurisdiction would be the county listed with the nearest populated center (CDP or actual city). --JonRidinger (talk) 18:22, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Your comment brings up the point that this problem doesn't arise in states (like Ohio) that use townships (or other minor civil divisions) statewide. In contrast, Tennessee doesn't have minor civil divisions, and about 45% of the state's population of and a much larger fraction of its land area are not in incorporated municipalities. Naming both the county and the nearest actual populated place would make a lot of sense, but often the place named on the NRHP form seems to be the nearest named dot that someone found on a map. --Orlady (talk) 02:47, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I totally agree. I think here we need to just use common sense.  If the listed city/town doesn't exist I wouldn't use it if there isn't a Wikipedia article to reference where it actually was (if an article does exist like the ghost towns below, I say use it) or especially if the name has been transferred somewhere else.  In the chart I'd just use the county, state, and possibly near city/town.  Shouldn't be hard to find a map online to reference.  I'm definitely someone who likes using the actual local jurisdiction and in many states, the local jurisdiction is simply the county. --JonRidinger (talk) 04:19, 30 October 2009 (UTC)


 * On the other hand, I made this edit to change the "City or Town" for two properties on a list to the actual ghost towns where they are located, since we have articles on the ghost towns themselves. That makes sense to me; I hope others agree. Ntsimp (talk) 19:51, 29 October 2009 (UTC)


 * There are many, many cases where the thing in question isn't even remotely in any settlement; to take a fairly extreme case, the Sandy Point Light is listed as being in "Skidmore, MD", which is a GRIS-hallucinated spot on the opposite side of Sandy Point State Park from the lighthouse; the park itself is listed as being in "Sandy Point", which is another non-existent town (Google maps places it as being a farmhouse on the eastern shore). The actual location of the lighthouse is in the Chesapeake Bay on the north side of the bay bridge. The impression I get is that somewhere along the line the city field became required data, even though there are lots of cases (e.g., probably 90% of the lighthouses) where there is no town and never has been and never will be and (in a lot of cases) never could be.


 * I'm inclined to report reality rather than what's on the form. If it isn't in a town, don't give the town name. I'm not as sure what to do about places that have ceased to exist or which have disappeared into large settlements. Mangoe (talk) 20:05, 29 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe that what the NRHP nom form asks for is the nearest city, and that it indicates whether the property is located "in" the named place or just near it. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia NRHP tables don't make this distinction, with the result that lighthouses, barns, and mountain cabins are listed as "in" some real or hallucinated nearby city. --Orlady (talk) 02:47, 30 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think they have to be reviewed on a case by case basis. Former or present postal status is important. I have a a book on the history of Florida post offices which I find invaluable. Some discontinued post office/place names have all but disappeared from the map and are only found in the names of old churches or cemeteries. One that's near where I live has been divided into one incorporated town and 2 CDPs, with only a church, its cemetery and one short street remaining to remember the name. I have found problems with the naming of CDPs, many of which bear little relation to reality and seemed to have been dreamed up by bureaucrats. South Beach, Florida, which is nowhere near Miami Beach. In Sumter County, South Carolina, where I used to live, there is a post office and longtime settlement named Wedgefield, South Carolina. A stone's throw south of it is the CDP of Wedgewood, South Carolina, which apparently is a new subdivision which gets its mail from Wedgefield. I tried to merge the CDP into Wedgefield, but was reverted by an editor who felt the CDP name was sacrosanct, even though Wedgefield has a larger population that Wedgewood. In Massachusetts, another state in which I live, the Census Bureau does not seem to believe that towns are really towns and not midwestern townships. The New England village concept is completely unfathomable to the bureaucrats: if it's in a city, they leave it alone, but if it's in a town, they make it a CDP. clariosophic (talk) 22:43, 29 October 2009 (UTC)


 * More confusion is caused by sites located in national parks. Some sites in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are listed under Gatlinburg, even though they are sometimes a half-hour drive from Gatlinburg, and locals wouldn't consider them in the Gatlinburg vicinity.  Bms4880 (talk) 23:41, 29 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, those are misleading. Similarly, the NRIS listings for Cumberland Gap identify 3 cities (one each in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia). Middlesboro is a good choice, as it is both close and fairly large. The Tennessee city named is Harrogate, which seems odd since the town of Cumberland Gap is closer, and Harrogate was not incorporated at the time of the NRHP listing. It's not particularly near any populated place in Virginia, though, and it was clearly a stretch to find a Virginia "city" to list on the form. The "city" named is a place called Gibson Station, which isn't documented in Wikipedia and isn't on any map I've seen, although it might be the same as the place called "Gibson Mill" on the Bing.com map. --Orlady (talk) 02:47, 30 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The "city" or "town" apparently has a lot to do with locals vs. non-locals. Regarding the places Orlady mentioned, for instance, Blount Countians would consider the Trundle Barn to be located in Wildwood, but people from outside the county would probably group it with the larger city of Maryville.  Bms4880 (talk) 23:41, 29 October 2009 (UTC)


 * One issue I have with "city or town" is that elsewhere Wikipedia is persnickety about use of those words, which typically have legal definitions. For example, in Tennessee, both names denote incorporated municipalities (with no actual difference between a "city" and a "town"). When Wikipedians are vigilant about preventing the use of these words to describe unincorporated places in other articles, it seems uncharacteristically sloppy of us to use these words as the heading for an NRHP-table column in which the entries include unincorporated communities, ghost towns, and "places" that seem to exist only as long-forgotten names on old maps.
 * My second issue with the example "cities or towns" has been my suspicion that some of these places are mere figments of someone's imagination (and almost totally useless as guidance for people wanting information on where an NRHP property is located). Your awareness of Wildwood as a local place name in Blount County tells me that it's not as imaginary a place as I suspected. I also discovered that the Blount County article contains a map whose caption identified both Wildwood and Binfield as "townships" (astonishing information in a state that doesn't have townships). It turns out that these names are used by the Census Bureau to designate census county divisions in the county (I've edited that image caption). --Orlady (talk) 02:47, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

(out) I am also annoyed by the NRHP listing of town on occasion - for example Buttonwood Covered Bridge is in Jackson Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania and townships are legally incorporated municipalities in Pennsylvania. The NRHP lists it as being in "Liberty, Pennsylvania" which is its post office, but this is the borough of Liberty in adjoining Tioga County (or perhaps Liberty Township). SO the NRHP town listing is for a real community, but in a different county! Ruhrfisch ><> &deg; &deg; 22:52, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
 * When I put Kansas into tables, a year or more ago now, I changed the default header to "Community", but since every other state had "City or Town", I never extended that format to other states. I can't remember for sure, but I think that some New England lists have a column of "Municipality" rather than "City or Town", which is especially appropriate because much of New England has had that column changed (via reliable sources, such as USGS maps) to reflect the actual municipality in which the listed property is located.  I'm not sure what to say for properties in most states, but for all states in which everything is incorporated (aside from anomalies such as the former road district in Pennsylvania), I believe that it would be best to change all of their columns to "Municipality".  Nyttend (talk) 04:59, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

NRHP photos question/proposals
I've opened the discussion on NRHP photos at Media_copyright_questions and hope that you'll comment there. Smallbones (talk) 17:03, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Reformat the overall NHL list?
I've made a proposal to reformat the overall list of NHLs, but after several days there is no comment. Would you please offer an opinion at Talk:List of U.S. National Historic Landmarks by state, section header "Reworking the duplications"? Nyttend (talk) 19:27, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

User:AnomieBOT
User:AnomieBOT has been moving references that are within templates, including infoboxes, outside of them. That means that if the reference is named and is used elsewhere in the article, the info for the ref is moved from the infobox to the other usage. See this edit for example. I think this is terrible, especially for NRHP articles, because there is always a reference for the property within our infobox. Should we tell this bot to stop? Reywas92 Talk 22:39, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see any harm resulting from the change. The reference is still cited in the infobox, as well as in the article. --Orlady (talk) 21:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I see harm and no benefit. It means that an editor who updates an infobox is going to have to go into the text of the article and either update or eliminate the reference. As Elkman improves his tool for NRHP infoboxes, I often change out the infobox, keeping any changes from NRIS, but discarding everything else (I've done this more than fifty times in the last two weeks). Similarly, I generate lighthouse infoboxes in an Excel spreadsheet, including at least one and often two or three references. If the bot moves the references out of the infobox, this will require more editing to do an update. It seems to me that the infobox is a great place for the primary references for the article, as it is a package that can easily be changed or updated.  Let's get this bot stopped.. . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs)  01:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Um, you do realize that it will only do this if the two references are identical, right? It has nothing to do with being in the infobox. There is no point having the same details twice. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:54, 8 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The bot is disruptive and should be stopped. It defeats the purpose of the infobox, which is "... to present certain summary or overview information about the subject." WP:IBX. By design, therefore most, if not all of the info in the infobox is repeated in the article proper. clariosophic (talk) 13:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Again, it doesn't remove the reference or any other information. You are totally misunderstanding what the bot does.  If there are two identical references it picks one and names it & refers to the second by name only.  This is standard and proper practice for human editors, and there is no reason it shouldn't be automated.  All if does is remove some of the hidden clutter.  the article, including infobox, is 100% identical to the reader. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:52, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know about this thread, ThaddeusB. As noted above, the change in question is not removing anything from the article. If an infobox is edited to no longer recognize a parameter (for example, as was done here) and that parameter contains the instance of a ref with the body, the instances in the article text will be broken and the change in question fixes it. If the parameter is still recognized, then the change will result in absolutely no change to the output to the reader. But if the consensus of the project is that refs should be left inside this infobox, all that is needed is to ask and I can do the exact same thing I did for Graphic novel list at the request of members of that project. Anomie⚔ 03:36, 9 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Help. We may have a misunderstanding here. I've been to User:AnomieBOT and I can't figure out its behavior with respect to references. The explanation above which refers to parameters being removed from infoboxes isn't relevant here -- the NRHP infobox is used in thousands of articles and I'd be very surprised if any parameters are ever removed.


 * Is it:


 * 1) If a named ref is defined in an infobox and then used by name only later, it moves the definition of the ref to the later use?
 * 2) If there are two refs with the same definition, it leaves only the one outside the infobox?
 * 3) Something else?
 * I object strongly to (1) for the reasons above and below. (2) fixes an error, which is good.  I'd rather have it leave the ref in the infobox, but I don't feel strongly.


 * Can we have (a) a hold on its use in Lighthouse and NRHP infoboxes until we get a consensus and (b) a pointer to an explanation of why this is a thing worth doing? I think I can say that so far we have three NRHP Project members opposed and one neutral. (I've left a note on the Lighthouse Project talk page to come here and comment.)


 * As I said above, it makes the editor's job harder, because updating the infobox and its references will no longer require simply replacing the whole infobox, but also deleting the body of the reference somewhere else in the article, leaving only there. What was a trivial cut and paste (which could be done with AWB) adds a search through the article for the obsolete ref. If I saw any advantage, I might change my mind, but it doesn't affect readers, only editors, and as far as I can tell only makes our life harder.. . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs)  13:10, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've added Infobox nrhp and Infobox Lighthouse to the bot's skip list pending your discussion. If the discussion results in either or both wanting to be removed from the skip list, drop a note at User talk:AnomieBOT.
 * It is your item #1. The reason it is worth doing is as above; for example, when "orientation" was removed from Infobox adult female it broke around 40 articles which this change fixed. I haven't tracked things to have more examples of this change fixing things, besides that I've noticed it has a few times. In the case of the NRHP infobox, the bot is attracted by some other reference error in the page and applies that fix as something that may fix the issue (or if it doesn't, may prevent it in the future). I'm not sure what the deal is with your AWB example, is it that "Foo's Register of Lighthouses 2009" is being replaced by "Foo's Register of Lighthouses 2010"? In which case, shouldn't the information in the body of the article also be checked anyway for any updates needed from the 2010 edition, instead of blindly replacing the 2009? Anomie⚔ 13:30, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

@Jameslwoodward: In the German WP we started to use the new feature of the MediaWiki, as can bee seen in de:U.S. Post Office Hoosick Falls. Actually the references text is collected within the tags at the end of the article. This has two advantages: first, it keeps the source more readable/editable and second, if an editor is modifying the text and changing a references statement by either accidentally or willingly deleting or modifying the reference link it won't affect the remaining paragraphs which refer to this not. But I don't know if there's a consensus to include the references this way in the English WP either. --Matthiasb (talk) 15:01, 9 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I think one of the reasons there is this reaction here is that lighthouse and NRHP articles are mostly relatively short -- we have 11,000 of the former and 80,000 of the latter to write and maintain and far too few editors doing the work. As a result, there's a certain production line mentality -- anything that costs keystrokes has to be weighed against its advantages. The NRHP infobox is used more 20,000 times -- I can't imagine a change of the sort User:Anomie describes above.


 * A lighthouse infobox will typically have one, two, or three of the following references in the infobox:
 * The USCG Light List if it's a light that is currently in use
 * The USCG History site in any case
 * A third party site for additional information
 * see, for example Mount Desert Light.
 * If I come along and update the article, I know exactly where the references will be and I don't have to check several places in the article. (This is particularly true in my case, because I generate the infobox, including the correct refs, in Excel, so the whole thing is a paste-in).
 * In the case of an NHRP infobox, the Elkman tool generates the infobox, including the reference, for us. Since he updates the tool and what's included in it, once or twice a year, and the underlying database changes, this is an ongoing process, and, again, the bot change makes a paste-in into a paste-in and then remove the original definition.
 * In both cases, we certainly check any other uses of the reference in the article, but in almost all cases we are adding information, not changing it, so that's not a problem.


 * I must say I really like User:Matthiasb's suggestion for exactly the reasons he puts forth. Is it legitimate to use it here? If so I'll start, and this whole argument goes away. (I haven't forgotten that the Elkman tool puts the ref in the infobox -- but that would have several solutions of which simply having to do another cut and paste would be the worst.) It also means that you can't edit only a section if there's a reference in it, but I don't do that anyway because the preview doesn't show it.. . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs)  16:01, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can do that. See WP:LDR. Anomie⚔ 16:18, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"Protected areas"
A user Hmains (talk) has been putting the NRHP listings in Hawaii into "Protected areas" categories. Is this correct? Acording to the article Protected area this only applies to environmental protection (perhaps combined with cultural), not historical "protection". That is, even though some states or communities might have requirements for historical preservation based on NRHP listings status, say, when getting a bulding permit,I do not theink that they all would qualify by any means. For example, privately owned (or even government owned, for that matter) buildings or churches I do not think would be "Protected" by this definition. He also added all botanical gardens, but that is another issue. Should we go ahead and take them out, unless they are an actual park or nature preserve of some kind? W Nowicki (talk) 17:43, 7 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I think this is inappropriate. National Register listings have no actual government protection, unless they are protected by some other other designation.
 * However, it is very possible that other NRHP wikiproject members believe that National Register listings belong in this classification. --Orlady (talk) 21:58, 7 November 2009 (UTC)


 * According to this, the legal protections for NRHP listings are limited to federally-funded projects, which would be too insignificant to consider it a protected area. Bms4880 (talk) 23:30, 7 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed. In Quincy, MA, which has an active Historical Society with offices and paid staff, finishing up "fully-illustrated" has found about five percent of the NRHP sites either demolished or changed beyond recognition.  I expect to see the same in Boston. Given that the average site has been on the Register maybe twenty years, that strikes me offhand as no different than the rate of tear-down of all sites, maybe more. Certainly not "protected" in any meaningful sense.


 * A caution, though. State and local laws differ.  It is entirely possible that Hawaii protects listed properties. Perhaps the editor in question should justify his/her choice? . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs)  11:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * There are three possibilities — either Hawaii doesn't protect sites more than the federal government does, or some counties do and some don't (counties are the only level of government in Hawaii below the state), or all properties are protected by the state and/or by all counties. Regardless of which it is, individual articles shouldn't be in any protected areas category (unless they're protected for non-NRHP reasons, like the Puuhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park) — this type of categorisation should be applied to the NRHP categories.  If all counties or the state protect them, the entire NRHP category should be a subcategory of protected areas; if some counties protect them but not others, individual county categories should be subcategories of protected areas; and if none are governmentally protected, no categories should be.  Unless we have evidence that they're protected by state or county governments, the categories shouldn't be placed in protected areas subcategories.  Nyttend (talk) 21:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for discussion, I think we are resolved. W Nowicki (talk) 18:17, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of City and Town Hall
I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found some concerns with the referencing which you can see at Talk:City and Town Hall/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 21:55, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Illinois Traction System Mackinaw Depot
I redirected this to an existing article section that covers it; someone may want to split it out and expand it. --NE2 16:26, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Newlin Mill Complex
The Newlin Mill is the first NRHP article that I've started and would appreciate any help you may offer. The linked video of an operating 1704 gristmill may be especially interesting. I'd like to put it directly into the article (i.e. like an image), but suppose that I'd have to get the mill foundation to release it with a free license. They let anybody download it, but I suppose that is not good enough for Wikipedia. Is it possible to use a video under "fair use"? Smallbones (talk) 16:39, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The foundation will likely have to release the video under a free-use license before it can be displayed in a Wikipedia article. It may be possible to display it under fair use, but I'm pretty sure the foundation's fair use terms have to be clearly stated on the website.  Bms4880 (talk) 20:35, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


 * It's theoretically possible, but not in this case, since anyone could go there and make their own video. --NE2 21:53, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

NRHP Official Website is broken again
Well, once again the official website for the NRHP is broken. And this time, it includes the version that Orlady told me about in this thread. DanTD (talk) 00:20, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Colonel Robert A. Smith Monument
There's a problem with the image in the article. It has no source given so the license given cannot be proved, hecne I guess the image will be deleted soon. I tried to locate the image within the google image search but to no success. I guess there are to possibilites: either it was found somewhere on the LOC website or it was taken out of the Civil War monuments in Kentucky MPS nomination and likely is not PD-US-Gov. The quality of the image suggests that the image is rather no HABS/HAER image. Who please could verify this? Since I did the transfer to the commons I would like to fix the issue also there. (I don't like those copyvio warnings on my talk page) --Matthiasb (talk) 16:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks like it's straight out of the NRHP nomination form (see here). It's credited to a Joseph Brent of the Kentucky Heritage Council, June 1996.  Unless KHC photographs are in the public domain, the image will likely be deleted.  Bms4880 (talk) 17:32, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of Egyptian Theatre (DeKalb, Illinois)
--Malleus Fatuorum 15:44, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Rancho Camulos
I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found some concerns with the referencing which you can see at Talk:Rancho Camulos/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 20:39, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

NRHP DAB Proposed for Deletion
Hello: Can someone look at this proposal for deletion of the dab page for the New Market Historic District. I'm not quite sure how to respond. I don't think any deletion or change is needed. Thanks in advance,--Pubdog (talk) 10:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
 * If you ask me, somebody should start writing articles for the other "New Market Historic Districts." DanTD (talk) 12:36, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Review Requested
User:SCPS70458/Francois_Cousin_House_(Slidell,_Louisiana)

I have just completed a new article and would like suggestions and feedback before I make it live. This is my second article and I am still struggling with formats, etc. I had great help on my first article and am asking for assistance again.

Thank you --SCPS70458 (talk) 18:58, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Architectural Photography Tutorial
After answering two requests for photo advice from members of the Project (which I'm happy to do), I decided to summarize them in a short tutorial on the ins and outs of architectural photography. . . . . Jim. . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 19:00, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Loading speed of our longer lists
We've had several discussions of this at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Boston, Massachusetts and are working on it there. I've noticed loads well above ten seconds on several other similar pages. I'm running Firefox v3.5.5 on a Comcast.net cable that speakeasy.net says is currently running at around 9,000kbps.

I decided to do a test -- and got the following results -- each version run five times with page cache cleared after each set. Each load was onto a new, blank, Firefox tab. Timing was by hand.

There are 265 calls to the coord template in the Boston list, so the twelve seconds suggests that each call takes 45 milliseconds, a long, long, time these days.

This begs for a faster of version of coord written for our exact needs. The existing template is highly versatile, but passes a lot of parameters and has a lot of internal switches, all of which add up. I'd like to see a template we could use in maybe a couple of dozen lists, all of our slower pages. I've done a lot of programming in many different languages, but I think this is beyond me, particularly as it gets into placing the hooks for Google and others to grab data.

So, is any of our number up to this? If not, is it appropriate to put a request on Template talk:Coord?. . . . Jim. . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 14:05, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Nice bit of invesitigating. I'd bring up on the talk page or even at WP:COORD. It's possible some other projects might benefit from a smaller, simpler template (sorta Coord lite). ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 02:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know what the correct procedure is here, but I agree this is a nice bit of investigation. Kudos.  Andrew Jameson (talk) 14:43, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know whether anybody else cares, but I like decimal coords vs dms. (Would anybody prefer to be using pounds, shillings, and pence these days?)  Also, the bing vs. google map plotting seems to be slower than the old only google choice (just an impression).  I prefer google alone. Smallbones (talk) 15:34, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I tried decimal degrees (as you see) because it needs four fewer parameters and a little less math, but, as I expected, there's no discernible efficiency difference.


 * I'm a navigator, so I use degrees and decimal minutes (d m.mmm) regularly (a minute of latitude is close enough to a nautical mile to be identical for practical purposes). No one uses seconds in navigation anymore, except on old charts. I wouldn't object to switching, except that the NRHP database is in dms and that would mean our changing every coord. Elkman could certainly do the math in his tool, but still I'd rather see it one way than two.. . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs)  15:58, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, the NRHP database is in UTM, so I already have to do math to convert from UTM to degrees/minutes/seconds. I could change it from DMS to degrees and decimal minutes.  --Elkman (Elkspeak) 16:25, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Peer review before FAC
Oakwood Cemetery (Troy, New York) was promoted to GA today and I'd like to bring it to FAC soon. Before that, I'd like the blessing of this project. Would a couple members be interested in going through the article now that it is at GA status and peer review (as if we were at FAC, preferably)? Thanks in advance.  upstate NYer  22:06, 29 November 2009 (UTC)


 * It looks good to me. They might complain about the galleries, but that's the only thing that stands out.  I personally think the galleries help illustrate the various sections (especially the sculpture section), but some Wikipedians are fascist when comes to galleries.  Bms4880 (talk) 21:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm a big fan of the use of galleries in this particular article as a way to display the character of the place. Any other comments?  upstate NYer  00:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I concur. IMHO, the featured photo should contain a most recent pic of the main facade and galleries any ancillary photos. Old pics from HABS should be relegated to galleries if an equivalent more recent photo is available.  I think I used the Gallery feature quite effectively at Bowie Railroad Buildings.--Pubdog (talk) 23:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
 * BTW I think your article Oakwood Cemetery (Troy, New York) is outstanding!--Pubdog (talk) 23:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)