Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 47

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tranches and rotation of maintenance for NRHP articles

I'd be interested in rotating out of the maintenance stuff i do on NRHP-related disambiguation pages and list-articles in some parts of the country that i watchlist. I wonder sometimes if Sanfranman59 or Nyttend or others with a lot of NRHP list-articles on their watchlists would also like to rotate out. I've thought that we could split up NRHP material by geographic areas and allow an annual or other periodic changeover, like WikiProject Military History does, but maybe not with its formal elections process. One technical difficulty is that it might be hard to transfer responsibility to a new volunteer, who might not take on a full watchlist that you have built up.

For addressing Biography of Living Persons issues, a new innovation has come up: "tranches" of articles to watch. See User:Tony Sidaway/Living people/tranches. A volunteer can take on a swath of listed articles to watch, easily. This method, with a bot run, could be used to set up NRHP watchlists that could be divvied up differently and rotated. --doncram (talk) 16:04, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Aside

(this was a subsection within "Please change the standard citation to omit the link" --doncram (talk) 18:32, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
In the above "There are 36,000 articles in WikiProject NRHP now though," answers a question I've had for a long time - What percentage of NRHP sites have articles? The 36,000 may be a bit high for NRHP sites, as there are a few non-site articles in the Project. The number of sites is about 84,000 (?), which would give 3/7ths or about 42%. It seems high - maybe all the county lists make a big difference (2,000 or -2.5% ???).

The other long time question I have is how many of the sites are illustrated. This number could be more or less than the number of articles, since many sites are only illustrated on the county list articles, and not all articles are illustrated. Any idea on how to get this percentage? Smallbones (talk) 19:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

The number of articles is 36,420 plus any without wikiproject NRHP banner, minus 3,147 disambiguation pages, minus 2,274 list-articles, minus some other types, in color-coded assessment table at Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places#Collaboration and review. But, there's no easy way to get number of illustrated articles. I manually counted up 2,059 pics for 5,140 New York state articles, in table at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in New York#NYS articles status, as of 1/2/2010, and the percentage is perhaps up to 50% by now. NYS is the biggest state but has Pubdog and Daniel Case and Lvklock and DanTD and others adding pics, including Dmadeo who completed out List of NHLs in NYC as one of the first big fully illustrated lists while back, so its percentage is relatively high. --doncram (talk) 00:41, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

That brings a question to my mind too. Is being on the NRHP list alone enough to warrant notability? I have to say I am more of an inclusionist and tend to follow the mantra that most things are interesting to someone but I am curious of the historical determinations. --Kumioko (talk) 19:50, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

This has been discussed before, most recently at the Village Pump here. Every NRHP nomination form I've ever seen has a list of sources that I believe would satisfy the GNG. So if you can find enough to say about a property, any of them could have its own article. Ntsimp (talk) 20:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks and no problem, I figured that was probably the answer but I wasnt sure. --Kumioko (talk) 20:42, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Fully illustrated and Address Restricted

I know it's rather vain, but I like to finish fully-illustrated lists. See National Register of Historic Places listings in Gloucester County, New Jersey, with 1 missing photo.

We had an extensive discussion recently about Address Restricted sites and photos of them, but I didn't understand the advice on this matter as being practical or specific.

I don't know that this is an archeological site - in fact New Jersey makes learning anything about their sites difficult to find anything about - but it is AR. Should I list this county as fully illustrated? Smallbones (talk) 18:53, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

If I might make a suggestion: whether or not lists with unphotographed Address Restricted sites "count" as fully illustrated, IF the concensus is, in general, not to photograph AR sites, someone should make a little 100X100 "Address Restricted" image to go in place of the photo. I think that would be more visually appealing than leaving it blank or, as Smallbones did, graying the space out, because it would make the image column look continuous. It has the added benefit of filling in all the listings with an appropriate image, so the list "feels" fully illustrated, even if it technically isn't. Andrew Jameson (talk) 21:18, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I made such an image - see the upper right corner - and will be glad to tweak it as suggested. I also added it to a sample list sp you can see how it looks there. If people like it, I will upload the tweaked version on Commons and delete this version. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:37, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

This is nit-picky, but I'd prefer a non-white background--light gray would be fine, or some reasonable pastel--so that the image visually fills the box it's in. Take a look at the other images in National Register of Historic Places listings in Gloucester County, New Jersey; there's a white one- or two-pixel space between the image and the table border which would be nice to mimic. (edit: Looking really close, the table background isn't quite the pure white of the image, so technically there is a small border, but the colors are so close on my monitor that I can't tell the difference without looking really obliquely.) (And thanks for leaping on my suggestion. Yay cooperation! :) Andrew Jameson (talk) 21:56, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - I have added a light grey background. Is this better? Please nitpick away ;-) I originally tried putting the words on a red circle with a diagonal slash, but that looked silly. May have to WP:BYC to see the new version. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 22:11, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Nitpicking - I'd prefer a lighter shade of gray, smaller letters, and 100w x 80h. My reasoning is that the "AR picture" should jump out at you a bit less - part of the Great AR Debate was that our blank spaces jump out at editors and make folks want to fill them. A little subtler "AR picture" should do the trick. BTW, I am far from arguing that all AR sites should have this - but if they are subject to looting or just impossible to get info on, this seems the best way. And my original question (vain as it may be): Does it "count" as a fully-illustrated list? Smallbones (talk) 22:44, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely, yes, it counts! --doncram (talk) 23:05, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree it counts. I made the AR image lighter grey, with smaller letters, and only 100 by 80 pixels. Is it OK or does it need more tweaks? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 00:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I like it, and I agree with pretty much everything else said above. Andrew Jameson (talk) 01:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Like it. Ego properly soothed. I've listed Gloucester County on the FI list as:

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Gloucester County, New Jersey: 31 listings + 1 AR, November 2010

BTW totaled up the FI list and there are exactly 100 counties (or other geographical areas) and 3120 pix on all these lists. Smallbones (talk) 01:11, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

(out) The image is on Commons now. I had to rename it as File:Address restricted.PNG‎, as there was already a file named File:Address Restricted.png. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:46, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, team! :) Have to look thru the Florida lists to see which ones can be considered "fully illustrated" now. Next month, prolly, after my photo roadtripping binge of late will have settled down. And the pics resulting therefrom have all been sorted, uploaded, categorized, and so on. Allons-y! --Ebyabe (talk) 06:42, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank, Ruhrfisch; I'm looking forward to doing my fully-illustrated dance for some Nebraska counties that've hung up on AR sites.

Could I suggest, though, that we not use the AR graphic too freely? I'd propose that it not be used unless and until a serious effort has been made to get a photo for the site. Otherwise, photographers like Smallbones and I, who get an ego-boost from adding a county to the fully-illustrated list, might be tempted to skip some sites that we might otherwise be able to track down and photograph. Ammodramus (talk) 23:06, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Here i disagree. I'd rather put the AR graphic everywhere it applies, and remove the implicit call for local photographers to search for and reveal the locations of the address restricted places. Only if there is positive documentation that an archeological site is publicly revealed, documentation which meets a pretty good standard (e.g. state SHPO says the place is publicly known), should we remove the AR graphic. Use it freely, remove it rarely. --doncram (talk) 23:17, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Applying the AR graphic by default would place it on a great many non-archaeological sites. Too-free use of the AR graphic removes much of the incentive for WP photographers (at least for shallow, ego-driven photographers such as I) to find and photograph sites that really shouldn't be address-restricted at all. Ammodramus (talk) 01:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

How about - for archeological sites - apply the graphic freely, remove rarely; for obviously non-archeological sites apply rarely, remove freely; where it's unclear apply if there is no good info after a good search for sources, use your judgement in removing. Smallbones (talk) 02:06, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Is there a list of NRHP articles that still need to be created?

I noticed on the NRHP that there appears to be 85,822 properties listed on the website but only about 36000 have articles in WP. Is there a list or something somewhere that shows which ones still need to be created? --Kumioko (talk) 18:34, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Look at the red links on the state, county, or other geographical lists, e.g. National Register of Historic Places listings in Nebraska, National Register of Historic Places listings in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, National Register of Historic Places listings in Northwest Philadelphia.

Smallbones (talk) 18:52, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Im building a list of US related articles that need to be created and adding it to the WPUS page. If you take a look in a couple days there should be a bunch there. --Kumioko (talk) 18:58, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I have a question regarding these missing articles. If a way could be devised to create these articles in an automated or semi automated fashion (they would probably only be stubs though) would that be of interest to the project. To create 50K articles manually over time (assuminng that all NRHP articles are notable that is) will take a long time and after looking at the fairly consistent structure of the content of the NRHP site I think this might be possible. This would allow at least something to be said about them and allow others to expand on them. --Kumioko (talk) 19:23, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

There was an attempt to do that (see User:NrhpBot); I believe it wasn't a great success. I'm personally opposed to the mass creation of stubs (IMO a redlink is a greater to incentive to write an article than a stub is). ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 20:04, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, the problem with red links is that most users wont create one (or cant) but if a stub for something exists they are much more apt to jump in and edit it or expand it. Based on the conversation developing below though I am less inclined to think its able to be done. --Kumioko (talk) 20:09, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Template:NRHP-PD and NRHP PD material

I noticed the following dated from this summer Template:NRHP-PD which gives

which would be useful if we were copying anything directly from the NRHP to avoid plagiarism problems. I'm just wondering whether there is any useful information that can be copied directly from the NRHP that is public domain?

The obvious question is whether the nomination forms are PD. I'd argue that the are since they are administrative rulings of the government. The principle is essentially the same as for why court cases can't be copyrighted. The nominations themselves ARE the National Register, and the National Register itself is a Federal government document that everybody has the right to access, copy, etc. Nevertheless, I've tried this argument before regarding photos in the NRHP and it has been rejected here. (Are photos somehow different?) The counterargument was that the photos were produced by individuals who had copyright before they submitted them to the NRHP. Does the same reasoning apply to the written government form (the nomination)?

Before anybody goes and tries to copy a nomination directly, I have to say that this would in general make for an awful article. Too much editing would be needed to make for a readable article. But in some cases it could be useful, particularly info from summaries. I'll put a particular case below, which some may think muddies the water for the general issue. Smallbones (talk) 19:16, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Typically all works legal or otherwise generated by the US government are freely usable. However I think it is very bad form and just plain lazy to copy paste information from any site, even government for use in WP. As far as the images go, IMO if they are displayed on the NRHP site then they should fall under the Govt distribution clause unless stated explicity otherwise or are works done by an artist not working for the gov (such as paintings or statues). Im not a lawyer though. --Kumioko (talk) 19:23, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec)"Generated by" might be controversial here, and I dont know about the "Govt distribution clause." There has been (and probably should be!) fairly direct copying from the General Services Administration site, with proper attribution and good editing to put it in our format. I support this copying in that it gets a very good article up and running right away, and provides a platform for further writing, editing, photos, etc. that Wikipedia can be very good at. The key to avoiding bad form is the attribution - which is what the above template is all about. Smallbones (talk) 19:45, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Specific example - the Dorrance Mansion is covered fairly well at http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/delaware/dor.htm which at first glance appears to be a NRHP website. No such luck - it is done by a consortium or some such - of which the NRHP is the leader. So no direct copying with attribution - which could easily get rid of dozens of red links if all the material from that website could be used. It turns out that the site's article on the Dorrance Mansion is just a summary of the nomination form - done by an intern AT a local college, not a NRHP intern FROM a local college. My biggest problem with using the material from that website is that I would be plagiarizing the Nomination form (word-for-word in most paragraphs). If the material was PD i wouldn't have that problem (there were other problems, however, such as the accuracy of her summary). Smallbones (talk) 19:45, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

In general consensus has been to avoid using either text or images. Both are in many cases prepared by private individuals, consultants or state officials who are not working for the Federal government either as employees or as contractors. Therefore, regardless of what's posted by the NPS in the fine print at the bottom of the screen, their work is not PD because the NPS has no authority to waive their rights. I've made specific inquiry to the NPS about images, and their answer is that it's the responsibility of the end user to determine copyright/public domain status, and that it is very unlikely that material posted at NPS Focus can be used in a free-content environment; the same condition would certainly apply to text. Acroterion _(talk) 19:34, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Interesting thanks for clearing that up for me. --Kumioko (talk) 19:43, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Which would mean that the template is essentially useless - it implies PD material where there is essentially none.!?

I came to a similar conclusions back when this template was created (see Archive 41). Send it to WP:TFD maybe? ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 19:58, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Note that nomination forms completed by federal employees (this is often the case with listings located within national parks) are in the public domain. But I agree, it's poor style to merely copy text from a nomination form. Bms4880 (talk) 19:59, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Just to be clear - I don't think that articles such as United States Post Office and Courthouse (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), which is taken with attribution from the GSA website, are in any way "poor style." We could use many more of these articles and have a link to the source at Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/GSA federal building links. We should understand that we've got over 50,000 articles to go - see above thread - and can use all PD sources available to us. One similar situation involved copying the PD biographies of all US Congressmen, that was done a long time ago on Wikipedia. I find those copies to be an invaluable resource from time to time, and note that many of these bios have now been much improved. To the extent that we can use PD sources - I think we should, at least as a start to articles. Copying a NRHP nomination verbatim, however, would certainly be bad form - if only because they are nearly unreadable to a general audience. Smallbones (talk) 22:13, 17 November 2010 (UTC)