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June 30 email deadline for 2008 NPS NHL photo contest

From NHL website, "Submissions for the 2008 Imaging our National Heritage NHL Photo Contest are now being accepted. The entry deadline is June 30, 2008. For further information on the photo contest and how to obtain a copy of the 2008 NHL calendar (planner), please click http://www.nps.gov/nero/nhlphoto/ here."

There are National, Intermountain, Pacific West, Southeast, Northeast, Midwest and Honorable mention winner photos from 2007 posted there. 6 categories, with main winner and honorable mention winner in each one, so 12 awards. doncram (talk) 17:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that any wikipedian's pics are eligible, as long as you took the pic and/or hold copyright. Your having submitted your pic to Commons under Creative Commons or GFDL should not be a problem, as you still own copyright and can convey it to the Federal government. Or if you released your pic into the public domain that should also be okay. The contest rule relevant is: "All entries become the property of the National Park Service and will not be returned to entrant. Submission of an entry shall constitute the grant of a non-exclusive, royalty free license to the National Park Service to reproduce and utilize the photograph submitted for any governmental purpose, including but not limited to publication on the Internet and/or use as part of interpretive publications."
Don, thanks very much for the heads-up! I am definitely going to enter this ... maybe with every NHL photo I've done, including some I haven't uploaded yet from Massachusetts. I think this is my best possibility, as it isn't the usual oblique photo of a building or monument. I will also see if I can persuade the guy who took this featured picture of Grand Central Terminal to enter it. It would be nice to have a Wikipedia-originating entry recognized, and an FP's already received some level of recognition.

As for licensing, I'd follow the example of the Grand Central pic and multilicense any contributions submitted as entries in this contest as GFDL/CC-BY-2.5 or later. That allows (as I've discovered this week when this picture I took got picked to be used in an earth-science textbook) maximum possible reuse, which is of course the idea behind free content. Daniel Case (talk) 21:46, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

There were just 125 submissions nation-wide, last year. Which are our best pics that might be submitted???? doncram (talk) 17:25, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
How many top pics in NHL articles are your own? Please let me know at Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/PhotoCreditsForNHLsByState. Or check what i have tallied for you there. Pls. focus on right-hand column there. doncram (talk) 05:50, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Ugh! I would never have made it anyhow. ----DanTD (talk) 22:25, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, I e-mailed ten of mine, and got back undeliverable messages b/c of lack of storage. In other words, the mailbox is full, as I feared at this point. But now I can start putting together a photo CD (or CDs) to snailmail for next year. :) --Ebyabe (talk) 02:32, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads up! But, you can cut a CD now, and send it by postal mail. Just get a postmark by tomorrow, it doesn't need to be there tomorrow. I don't know about submitting 10 tho, maybe u should save 5 for next year? You may be mostly competing against urself, in the Southeast region if that's where all ur pics are from. Anyhow, thanks for the word. doncram (talk) 02:59, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Deadline extended! At the NHL page: "The deadline to submit your photos for the 2008 NHL Photo Contest has been extended to Monday, July 7th!" doncram (talk) 07:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Happy 4th of July!

This was posted elsewhere by Jeffpw, a Youtube video with many an NHL depiction or theme: I made this as my birthday present to America. I hope you enjoy it. (posted elsewhere by Jeffpw)

Yours in recycling, doncram (talk) 19:32, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

  • The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
  • The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
  • A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge

San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:15, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Octagon house

Not a new article but I've been doing a substantial expansion on Octagon house. I would appreciate any comments whether on readability, content or technical matters. This is my first full size edit so probably some of what I've done isn't technically correct. I've done a lot of fact checking but some of that may not be apparent from the referencing. I'm not sure if the article should be under the NRHP banner, since it deals with many listed places but is general, and also deals with some aspects that are not NRHP. Again, feedback would be appreciated. ProfDEH (talk) 15:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

  • The lead should be expanded per WP:LEAD.
  • Format the references per WP:CITE/ES.
  • For the images in "Record drawings", consider using a gallery at Help:Gallery.
  • The article certainly needs more references.

Those are my comments for now :) Gary King (talk) 16:43, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it certainly can be included in WP:NRHP, as well as WP:Architecture and whatever else. It's fine that it covers houses that are not NRHPs too; it certainly does cover a bunch of NRHPs. About comments, it's fine to ask here as you have, but coincidentally I have been thinking we should use the Peer Review system more. For this one, would you mind opening a Peer Review request? That also brings it to the attention of some very skilled reviewers / copyeditors, too. If you would, just follow easy instructions at Wikipedia:Peer review and leave a note here that the peer review is open. doncram (talk) 16:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for comments so far. Will take note, esp. on the lead section. May not have much access to the internet for the next 2 weeks so I will defer peer review until I get back and can give it proper attention. ProfDEH (talk) 20:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
American vs, British English: Since this is mostly about a U.S. topic, it would be better to use American English, e.g. timber frame is not current American usage, while wood or wooden frame is. clariosophic (talk) 08:59, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal for National Landmark, Spiegel Grove

Someone (not me) has proposed merging NHL Spiegel Grove with Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center. Please comment on the talk pages. clariosophic (talk) 09:08, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Can I get some opinions? (Formatting idea for List of Registered Historic Places in Detroit, Michigan)

I've been amusing myself this summer by slowly going through the redlinks and required pictures for NRHP properties in Detroit. I've found it handy to order the properties geographically (as I've done here: User:Andrew Jameson/NRHP) so that I can visit places that are close to each other and not miss things I didn't realize were in the area. Detroit's spoke system of streets makes this ordering natural and convenient.

It strikes me that this would actually be a good feature to include on the main list page in some form or another. I could do a few differet thing:

There are advantages and disadvantages to each, which I can ennumerate, but I don't want to bore people with a lengthy posting (but I can, on request). And I know the be BOLD rule, but I really don't want to spend hours on this and have someone point out why it's a dumb idea for some reason I haven't considered.

So. Comments? Andrew Jameson (talk) 16:07, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Your sandbox version certainly is colorful and informative. My personal preference though, for consistency within the project, would be to use List of Registered Historic Places in Detroit, Michigan, replacing the "city" column with a "neighborhood" column. The table could then be sorted on that column as needed for explorers.--Appraiser (talk) 13:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
That's good feedback; I'd like to follow precedent when possible. User:Sanfranman59 pointed out to me that SF and LA lists use that technique so it seems sensible and I like the sort function. I'm leaning, however, toward using "proximity to main thoroughfares" as a sorting criteria rather than "neighborhoods," because that seems more natural to me, given the distribution of sites in Detroit. Andrew Jameson (talk) 13:32, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
In the RHPs in LA and RHPs in Chicago examples, there were neighborhood partitions of the city available, which could be used to identify a named neighborhood for each RHP. For Detroit, is a comprehensive partition available? If so, I also think using that would be preferred, to avoid "Original Research".
I see there is a Neighborhoods in Detroit, Michigan article which describes named neighhborhoods though it does not provide a comprehensive partition of the city. Maps are available at City of Detroit official maps site which provide partitions of the city into 23 or so numbered wards and into 6 broad police precincts. But the Wards look gerrymandered and it would be weird to use ward numbers to describe areas, i don't know if even Detroit natives would know the wards. Here is one map there that shows the radial avenues and also the freeways, with the city partitioned into 10 city-defined, numbered Neighborhood Clusters: Neighborhood Clusters map of Detroit. Most of Detroit's RHPs would be in cluster 4, though, when you compare that to the Google map of RHPs ("Map of all coordinates" in the List of Registered Historic Places in Detroit, Michigan article. Hmm, Andrew Jameson's approach has some advantages.... doncram (talk) 15:42, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Jefferson City (Amtrak station); Yay or Nay for NRHP?

I just found out that the historic looking Jefferson City (Amtrak station) is part of a complex of historic buildings that includes the Lohman's Landing Building. Of the three buildings in this complex, the Lohman's Landing Building is the only one that has an NRHP listing. So should the station still be listed as a contributing property? ----DanTD (talk) 15:25, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The RHP Lohman's Landing Building deserves an article. Jefferson City (Amtrak station) has an article. The two articles can link to each other and each can mention the complex of three buildings if that complex is relevant. If the complex does not have a name and is not an officially designated historic district, then offhand it doesn't sound like the complex needs to be a separate article. Does this help? Otherwise i don't exactly understand the question. doncram (talk) 15:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
The RHP and the Amtrak station are both part of the complex, but only the Lohman's Landing Building is an RHP. And yes, the complex does have a name; "Jefferson Landing State Historic Site." ----DanTD (talk) 20:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Combined lighthouse/NRHP infobox

I'm trying to put together a modified lighthouse infobox that has NRHP material in it. Please see User:Mangoe/Point Judith Light for a sample. Mangoe (talk) 03:35, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that this may be a good solution and better than using two separate infoboxes, with the following reservations: 1) it does not deal directly with the article naming issue--the title on the page should be compliant with WP:MOS by using the most commonly recognized and unambiguous name; 2) the NRHP section should have a field for the official name of the facility in that context, just as the lighthouse section does; and, 3) based on other discussions of infoboxes, it seems that some of them have some functionality within their projects, such as placing the article on lists and such--do you or any others know if that is an issue with either the lighthouse of NRHP projects? With regard to the articles, perhaps there should be a standard format for lighthouse articles (and articles about other Aids to Navigation) with a section that includes the current technical information and whatever else fits there best.--Hjal (talk) 19:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I can certainly put in a slot for the "resource name". What is "official" is a running problem, given that the USCG and the NPS both call these things "Light" and not "Lighthouse".
We in the lighthouse project have manually categorized the U.S. lights by state. I can try to reinsert the code that automates this for NRHP boxes. I'm not sure I understand your "standard format" suggestion, as almost all of them put the technical data in the infobox; the rest of the article then typically has a "lead/history/references" structure. Mangoe (talk) 00:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
It is very nice of you to create the combined infobox draft and ask for comments here. A good model is the combined Ship / NRHP infobox in use at USS Pampanito (SS-383). Ships infoboxes are pretty modular now; they were able to just allow the whole regular NRHP infobox to be included. That allows for the official NRHP program name for the site to be shown, at the top of the NRHP section. NRHP names for ships are different than WP:SHIPS names, it seems. In WP:NRHP, we mostly use the official NRHP name, which sometimes is "Light Station". Perhaps what is designated a Registered Historic Place is actually larger than just the lighthouse, but it usually would be appropriate to keep one article, and one combined infobox, rather than making one article about the lighthouse only and one about the light station including other buildings and whatever else. In some cases the NRHP is also designated a National Historic Landmark, sometimes with a slightly different name. In such cases we mostly then use the NHL name instead.
In your example infobox, I don't see where the overall title of the infobox is set. Perhaps it is a copy of the article title? That is not necessary. In my view, you could use a WP:LIGHTHOUSES-style title at the top of the infobox, allowing it to be different from the article title which should be a common name, and may often be allowed to be adjusted for local preferences. But the official USCG or whatever name that WP:LIGHTHOUSES thinks best, should appear in the infobox. And let the NRHP name also be there, at the top of the NRHP section, as it appears in the USS Pampanito article.
I don't think it is necessary to code in NRHP categories, especially as those are evolving somewhat. I think manual coding of NRHP categories is fine for lighthouse articles; others may differ?
For lighthouses, as for ships, it is appropriate for NRHP section to be last, as obviously the lighthouse came first, and was eventually recognized by NRHP program later. Sparser than normal NRHP infoboxes are appropriate: where fields like location or date built are clearly redundant to info above, those can be blanked out in the NRHP infobox.
Thanks again for managing this along! doncram (talk) 01:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
I may be speaking out of turn on this, but I don't think we have distinguished between the station as a whole and the light itself. We have for instance discussed the construction and removal of keeper's houses, but in general there aren't a lot of cases I've found where the house remained but the tower was demolished, and I'm not sure whether any of these few were designated historic places.
I like the structure of the ships' box and will attempt to replicate it tomorrow. Mangoe (talk) 03:18, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for working on this combined infobox. I'd like to see a location map at the bottom of the box. It's interesting to look at the map and see that a navigational aid would have been indicated at that location.--Appraiser (talk) 14:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Mangoe commented elsewhere "I've left off the locator map, for now, .... A lot of lighthouse articles have decimal degrees rather than DMS, and I wasn't sure how that would work with the locator map stuff." Maybe the locator map will just come in with the full NRHP infobox, modular-style. But, decimal vs. Degrees-Minutes-Second format of available coordinates should not be a reason to leave it out. It is easy to convert any one set of coordinates, see the converter link available within wp:NRHPMOS. It would be nice if the NRHP and NRHP2 infoboxes could be made to accept decimal coordinates, but currently one can get a map by manually converting decimal to DMS and entering it into the NRHP or NRHP2 infoboxes' DMS-type fields. I agree that locations of lighthouses would often be interesting to see on a map.
By the way, we need to modify the NRHP template so that it, like NRHP2, will not attempt to supply a map when coordinates are provided but locmapin is set to blank. Currently, NRHPs in Puerto Rico, Marianas etc display errors when NRHP infobox is used and coords are included, because the box tries to display them on a continental USA map and it blows up, and there is no way to turn the map off. doncram (talk) 16:35, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

doncram (talk) 16:35, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think an excellent example of how to do this is at {{infobox religious building}}, which has an optional section for NRHP stuff. Daniel Case (talk) 15:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Informal list of things to do

I started a list of Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/NRHP articles needing attention. Most of the entries thus far are NHLs, but feel free to add any NRHP articles that need attention. Also, please fix any that interest you (but strikout, rather than delete the entries until the identifier can check the solutions). Thanks.--Appraiser (talk) 14:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

That's very helpful. I'm all for transferring other remaining tasks listed in the wp:NHL progress checklist over to here. The point of the NHL drive that concluded on July 4 was to fix them all up, but there were just too many issues like these to resolve by that date. This format, organized by type of issue/attention required, is more helpful than the by-state listing within the July 4 column over in the NHL progress main table, which was only meant to be temporary and is not a friendly format for a checklist. doncram (talk) 15:06, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I didn't realize that wp:NHL progress had so much detail. Perhaps there's redundancy here. Well, anyway, I don't want to exclude non-NHL NRHP sites that we come across, since eventually the NHL problems will be diminished. Feel free to add to the to-do list with whatever problems you know about.--Appraiser (talk) 15:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm all for eventually combining the two sets of lists into Appraiser's type of list. I have still been working off the Progress lists, and would like to keep them around a couple/few more weeks if no one minds, since I know where I'm at with them (and I have to admit that I like the little green checkmark I get to use when I'm done with something). I plan to finish the date format conversions, and probably add the NHL summary references where necessary over that time. Then the stuff to move to the other list will be a little more manageable. I do find a list of one sort or another helpful when I'm wandering aimlessly about Wikiworld wondering what to do next. Lvklock (talk) 03:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't mind keeping both lists going. A couple of other categories of issues I've thought of:
  • Lists of NHLs that have blanks or near-blanks in the description columns. Now that most articles exist, descriptions should be easy.
  • Naked (text-only) articles tagged with "HABS photo available". Hopefully someone will get enthused about uploading these to Commons.--Appraiser (talk) 15:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
I like them both. KudzuVine is really good at HABS pics, maybe once there's a list going we should make sure he's aware of it. Descriptions are another thing I don't mind doing. I went thru NHLs in NY to be sure all descriptions were supported by the articles and kinda got a rythm going, so that'd be a list I'd tackle at some point if no one else got to it first. Lvklock (talk) 15:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, KudzuVine has been very efficient at uploading HABS pics to commons, including cropping HABS borders and including photographer credits, etc. I believe KudzuVine has tried finding and uploading HABS pics for all of the state NHL lists, but some of those lists were incomplete when KudzuVine visited. Going forward, I would be happy to add notes of HABS pic available to this list instead of to the state NHL list-articles. doncram (talk) 16:23, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Look of the NRHP new listings page

Here. Interesting, the changes they've made. Hmmm... --Ebyabe (talk) 00:56, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I started stub Sea Call Farm article to describe the first weekly featured property in the new format. However, the Sea Cliff Farm is not listed in the week's regular listings document, so REFNUM and date of listing are not available. It is as if it is featured, but it is not itself a NRHP-listed property. doncram (talk) 01:25, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
I think "The farm is a farm" is my favorite thing I've read today;) Murderbike (talk) 05:39, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and I found it in the list from the June 20th update. The ref is 08000530, and it was listed June 12th. Murderbike (talk) 05:45, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! :) doncram (talk) 12:57, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
The new featured property from this week's list was actually listed this week. Einbierbitte (talk) 21:33, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! Help out poor St. Francis City Park stub here. :) doncram (talk) 00:36, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Debtors' prisons (of all things...)

I wrote up an article on the debtors' prison in Accomac, Virginia, which you can see here - I'm not quite ready to go live with it yet. So far as I know, it's one of only three such structures on the Register - is there a way to check on others? I've already done the basic database search, which reveals that the one in Worham is listed as a RHP in its own right. My chief concern is regarding buildings like the one in Tappahannock, which is listed as part of a historic district and not on its own. Is there any way to do a search of contributing properties to historic districts, short of rooting through each nominating form individually? I only found out about that third one through an HABS search, but they list none outside of the three of which I'm aware. --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 14:34, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup bot

A resourceful contributer, User:B. Wolterding, has built a bot to help us identify articles with problems. The listing is here.--Appraiser (talk) 13:55, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

OT: WP performance

Is it just me or are others finding that WP is particularly slow the last couple of weeks? Just wondering ... --Sanfranman59 (talk) 20:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I've gotten frequent "Database locked" messages.--Appraiser (talk) 21:03, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Same here ... and it seems to me that the response time has degraded also. I have this recurring nightmare of trying to sign on to WP and getting a message that they've folded their tent and gone the way of the Edsel. After all the hours we've put into this thing, that would truly be a kick to the nether regions. --Sanfranman59 (talk) 01:11, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Uncategorized

During many routine browsings through my time on WP, I noticed there are hundreds of uncategorized NRHP articles. They are missing place-specific categories. Just look at List of Registered Historic Places in Fall River, Massachusetts. Only a few of listed articles are categorized under Category:Fall River, Massachusetts. Is there any possibility to assign a bot to do needed work? - Darwinek (talk) 10:29, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Those articles were created, mostly by Swampyank, using output from the Elkman NRHP infobox generator. The standard output, and these articles, include category "Registered Historic Places in Massachusetts" so the articles are not entirely uncategorized, but your point that a more specific geographic location would be helpful is valid. Elkman has been very responsive about revising the generator. I think it would not be feasible to program it to include town-specific categories, for two reasons: 1) many, perhaps most towns do not have categories; and 2) the NRIS town field is not high quality: it often includes the "nearest" town or the town that once was nearest, and often uses a historical name of a location that may at best be an unincorporated area. However, I think it should be possible for it to include a county category, such as "Category:Bristol County, Massachusetts" for the Fall River ones. I tried to manually add county categories to many NHL articles that i created. In other cases than here, the county category is the narrowest category available and is the most appropriate. The Elkman output could even include a hidden comment advising editors to try a more specific location category. If it included a county category, that would also serve the purpose of clarifying why the generator produces multiple entries sometimes, as for long canals that span several counties, where a separate entry is produced for each county but currently is identical to all the other entries. doncram (talk) 18:22, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I think the county level category would be a great addition to the output since most (all?) counties in the United States have a country. City level categories would be much harder to add, but county level can't be that hard. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:55, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I can look into adding a county level category -- that probably won't be too difficult. As far as adding categories for towns or cities is concerned, sometimes cities have their own categories, or even a hierarchy of categories where one may be most specific. In Minneapolis, we have:
There are other categories, as well. I don't know how easily that sort of thing could be programmed into the infobox generator, and it might not be worth the effort unless there were a task such as creating 70 churches in Boston. I'd be willing to think about any proposals, though.
I was also thinking about automatically categorizing articles based on their architectural style, in case a building is listed for its architectural notability. Basilica of Saint Mary could be automatically categorized into Category:Classical Revival architecture, for example. Any thoughts on this? --Elkman (Elkspeak) 19:18, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
For those National Register properties with articles that identify an architectural style, automatic categorizing would be nice. However, it should be recognized that many will not be categorizable that way. Not every historic property is a building, and many of the properties that are buildings have no identifiable architectural style category other than possibly Category:Vernacular architecture. --Orlady (talk) 19:53, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I think just separating them into county levels would suffice; as we've said, city and lower level would be a bit harder and probably not worth the effort. I think Darwinek originally was talking about categorizing them as Category:COUNTYNAME, STATE and not Category:Registered Historic Places in COUNTYNAME, STATE. Just clearing that up if there's any confusion. I would support categorizing them into architectural styles as well (e.g. Category:Classical Revival architecture) if the style is listed. I've also seen Appraiser categorizing some articles as like Category:YEARBUILT architecture (e.g. Threefoot Building is in Category:1929 architecture). This sounds like it would be easy to add in as well with the built paramater. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:09, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I think county levels would suffice and would be helpful. About architectural styles and about built dates, I don't think the NRIS data is all that clean. I note numerous differences between what manually coded NRHP infoboxes show, vs. what Elkman generator NRHP infoboxes show for architectural style. Also, manytimes the NRIS shows an "other" or "Unknown" which is obviously not helpful. About built dates, the NRIS date reported is sometimes not the built date, but rather the date of significance, like that someone historically important bought the house or moved into it. I think it is one thing to let the NRHP infobox show an imperfect date like that with an incorrect "Built/founded" label, but worse to hard code that into a category of buildings built in a certain year. Some human intervention is needed, hence it should not be programmed in based on the imperfect/strange NRIS data, in my view. doncram (talk) 22:28, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
About a bot to cleanup the existing articles, perhaps someone else could comment. How does one request that? doncram (talk) 18:22, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Bot requests to make a request for the bot; one of the regulars may be willing to create it for you. If you think you might be willing to create your own, see Wikipedia:Creating a bot.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:55, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I create county-level cats when I've created enough articles on RHPs in a particular county that it's swelling that county's category. So far, I've created only two this way: Category:Registered Historic Places in Orange County, New York and Category:Registered Historic Places in Ulster County, New York, both as part of overall reorgs of those counties' categories. I may be doing another one for Westchester County soon, too.

Whenever I get around to making enough Dutchess County-related articles (NRHPs and otherwise) that I decide to split up that category, I will likely be faced with the issue of creating not just a Dutchess County RHP cat but subcats for Poughkeepsie (90 or so listings, and for all I know there could be more), and maybe Rhinebeck (which includes Rhinecliff) and Hyde Park due to the many listings there. Daniel Case (talk) 19:30, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I think Darwinek originally was talking about categorizing them as Category:COUNTYNAME, STATE and not Category:Registered Historic Places in COUNTYNAME, STATE. Just clearing that up if there's any confusion. The reason that this was proposed is that most counties in the United States have categories already. Many (most?) counties, however, don't have a category for all the RHPs in them (i.e. Category:Registered Historic Places in Lauderdale County, Mississippi). --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:09, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
In Darwinek's original request, he said that sites in List of Registered Historic Places in Fall River, Massachusetts are missing the Category:Fall River, Massachusetts. This would be easy to fix with Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser, since they are are linked from the same List Article.--Appraiser (talk) 20:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Sayler's Creek Battlefield

The article needs a page-move from a Virginia park name that is an uncommon usage, to the common name "Sayler's Creek Battlefield", which is also the NHL program name for the site. Proposal for the move at Talk:Sailor's Creek Battlefield State Park#Proposal to move to Sayler's Creek Battlefield. This is an article that i started and to which I added references and HABS photos. The odd name was an the preference of a DYK nominator, to whom i deferred at the time. It is akin to the same editor's preference to use the "War of Northern Aggression" instead of the American Civil War which was the subject of a lot of discussion, and perhaps an RfC, elsewhere, with conclusion that the common name American Civil War should be used. Perhaps since the alternate name is used in the state of Virginia's park system listing, the editor may believe that it has a southern flair. As for American Civil War, the common name should be used. An administrator's assistance will be needed, as there is a redirect in place at the preferred name. doncram (talk) 17:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that the articles involved discuss the discrepancy in naming. The state park is officially named "Sailor's Creek Battlefield State Park", and the National Park Service also uses that name in the battlefield protection program. On the other hand, "Sayler's Creek" seems to be the official name of the battle. I think there should be some more discussion on this before someone just goes ahead and renames it. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 18:18, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Copy and paste from NRHP forms?

Given that NRHP is a function of the US government, does that mean I can just do a straight copy and paste from the history section of an NRHP form? I am looking at a few lines from a very basic NRHP summary of a ship's history which would be rather difficult to deviate from in a substantive way as it contains so little information. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 01:23, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

They usually aren't written by federal government employees, so I don't know if they count as PD. Daniel Case (talk) 06:52, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
I often think a direct quote is best, when, as you describe, there is just one source available and any serious rewriting could only be very contrived. I use direct quotes more and more now, especially for archeological sites where there is very often just one very thin NPS website source (the NHL summary). doncram (talk) 19:11, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
I would have thought that any public government document is PD no matter who it was authored by. But isn't there something at the NRHP website that clarifies the status of these documents? Gatoclass (talk) 05:46, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't know where you are going with this, but I would be concerned if what you want to do would create precedent for "incorporating" the text of NRHP nomination documents into wikipedia articles, meaning copying with attribution given by a PD template rather than by specific quoting. There is a brief statement regarding this which I put into the draft wp:NRHPMOS, seeking to rule out that possibility. There was a great amount of discussion about one instance of an editor putting NRHP text (or text that was reworked from being an NRHP nomination into a related on-line book) into a wikipedia article with attribution by a PD template, now in the archives of WP:CITE and elsewhere. You will find links to those previous discussions within Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism, where very diverse discussion by that editor and others upon the proper attribution of PD texts continues. In previous discussion, some differences between NRHP documents and DANFS, which I know you are familiar with, have been noted. This may be overkill, but some quick points are:
  1. NRHP documents, while they may be good sources for some purposes, are not presented as being encyclopedic
  2. mostly they are obscure and have not received wide scrutiny. In many instances we may be the first persons ever requesting to see them. It is notable that interfaces such as the one which serves up NRHP documents for New York State sites is incredibly klunky and hard to use, and that most NRHP documents nation-wide are not accessible on-line.
  3. some material in them is clearly primary, original research. Although this may be of very high quality, such as the nominations written by architectural historian Laura Soulliere Harrison, there are guidelines in wikipedia saying primary material needs to be used with care, and certainly attributed very specifically and not "incorporated".
  4. some material is particularly eloquent (including pretty much everything that Laura Soulliere Harrison wrote) or otherwise idiosyncratic, and wording should be specifically credited by quote marks to give recognition and/or to separate from unusual phrasings.
  5. we have observed numerous errors in them. I generally believe them in their basic descriptions of a building's or ship's features. But there are a number of cases where a nominator got it wrong about what was the address of the site supposedly associated with a historically important person. There are numerous claims about a site being the oldest, the only, the whatever, which, when juxtaposed with other nominations stating the same about another site, seem a bit over-stated.
  6. they are promotional documents. Some NRHP editors who have prepared nominations themselves have commented blisteringly upon that.
For these reasons and others I personally do not think it would be good for wikipedia to allow "incorporation" of NRHP document texts into articles, or at least I cannot currently imagine how that could be managed appropriately. I hope this is helpful. If you do mean raise a policy-type discussion, I would be happy to participate constructively and to help create the appropriate forum for that. doncram (talk) 20:15, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Wrong titles for NRHP list-articles

Motorrad-67 has just edited List of RHPs in WI and split-out separate WI county list-articles, which I was just working on. Mororrad-67 seeks to eliminate use of term "Registered Historic Places", and suggests the term should be eliminated everywhere else as well. Although Motorrad-67's edits appear disruptive, I think that Mororrad-67 may have a valid point or two to make. Discussion at Talk:List of Registered Historic Places in Wisconsin#Wrong title for this article. doncram (talk) 17:30, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, Motorrad-67 picked up on my saying that i would post here, and posted above simultaneously. Discussion above, instead. doncram (talk) 17:32, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Milestones reached

Thomas Moran, artist of Yellowstone whose images of Yellowstone fired the imagination and helped inspire Congress to establish the National Park System in 1916.
Thomas Moran House, July 2008, photo by Americasroof
Tower Creek, Yellowstone, 1871, watercolor by Thomas Moran

As Dmadeo notes, woohoo!, another pic, of Thomas Moran's home, added to List of NHLs in NY, photo by Americasroof. And, Dmadeo has just completed a valiant job of describing all 1,000 or so (i think it is that many) NHLs in California. doncram (talk) 06:27, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Lots of delistings in MS this week .. Katrina's fault?

This Friday's update to the Register includes an awful lot of properties removed in what seems to be coastal Mississippi. I think it's not too much of a stretch to guess that these are belated effects of Hurricane Katrina ... anyone down that way know if that's the case? If so, it could be worth mentioning somewhere. Daniel Case (talk) 05:21, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I saw that, too. Since the delistings come from the Biloxi/Gulfport area, I guess it is because of Katrina. Einbierbitte (talk) 20:42, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

flickity flackity

I've uploaded 61 pictures of NRHPs and 15 NHLs onto flickr. I have about 25 more to upload, but my internet connection is screwed up right now and it takes forver to load or edit a page. I'm going to be taking a semi-wikibreak (because of my internet and RL activities I've got going on) and I encourage you guys and gals to use the pix for new articles (if you feel like filling in the gaps). I believe there are 34 NRHP photos in my set that don't have an article and a few NHL articles that need a photo. All are properly licensed and some have already been uploaded to Commons. They're not the best quality, but they'll do for now. Cheers. APK like a lollipop 02:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Are all Washington, D.C.?--Appraiser (talk) 03:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but make that 62. I can't believe I forgot to upload one of my favorite embassies. APK like a lollipop 04:44, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Brochure as source?

Can I use a brochure put out by a state park service as a source? If so, what's the correct format for a reference? Lvklock (talk) 01:48, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a fine source. Try to identify author (perhaps the park service agency), date if available otherwise give date="Undated" and then be sure to include an accessdate to indicate at least that it was found before that date. Some examples of brochures used as references are in Millersburg Ferry, Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture Historic District and John Deere House and Shop. More found by search on "registered historic place brochure". wp:Be bold! :) doncram (talk) 02:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Pageview statistics

I recently filed a bot request to run a bot to create lists of pageview statistics for WikiProjects. If anyone is interested, I can do one for this project. I've already done one for the Aviation project, you can see it here. Mr.Z-man 23:31, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd be curious to see that for this wikiproject. doncram (talk) 02:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Popular pages

Categories by topic

It has been suggested that we may be experiencing over-categorization. Some of the NRHP topical categories are:

I think the project benefits from these. Some of us think about NRHP according to geography - by state, county, or city. But others who are passionate about lighthouses, synagogues, or railroads think in terms of those groupings. Considering that we have barely begun (<20%) to write articles for all of the NRHP, I think these categories are useful to draw in Wikipedians from other areas of interest toward the goal of documenting everything notable in the encyclopedia (all NRHP). Categorization costs us little and can potentially benefit the project and the encyclopedia.--Appraiser (talk) 13:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

True. If (when!) there are articles for every listing on the NRHP, each of those categories will likely have to be subdivided, as they'll be full to overflowing. Some, like the lighthouse category, already have over 200 entries. Imho, the categories would have been created sooner or later anyway. Better sooner, as they can be added to articles as they're created. Rather than adding, say, the bridges category to hundreds or thousands of articles after they've been created. But I'm kinda pro-active crazy that way, doncha know. :) --Ebyabe (talk) 00:50, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
What about for airports? Are there enough airports or aviation-related facilities on NRHP to warrant a separate category? ----DanTD (talk) 02:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Good idea. How about "aviation-related" (includes terminals, hangars, airfields, airplanes, aviation beacons, radar installations, etc.)?--Appraiser (talk) 13:02, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
I would have created that one when I created the navigation-related one, except I don't know how many aviation-related listings are on the NRHP save Wright Brothers National Memorial. Anyone want to search the NRIS database on things like "Airport" and other aviation-related terms and tell us what they find? Daniel Case (talk) 19:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Looking at the historic function tables in the NRIS database, there are 105 buildings and structures with the function code "Transportation/Air-Related", and 76 buildings and structures with the function code "Defense/Air Facility". So, those are probably enough contributing properties to establish a category or two. A few of them are actually space related, such as the Saturn V Launch Vehicle and Saturn V Space Vehicle, as well as Launch Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center, but we can probably wing it. (Sorry.) --Elkman (Elkspeak) 19:52, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
So should it be "Aerospace-related"? --Orlady (talk) 19:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Can't the two be combined? ----DanTD (talk) 20:18, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
I think a separate "Space-related" category is better. There's enough in that last one that really aren't nor could ever be aerospace-related, like Neutral Buoyancy Space Simulator, that I really think a separate category for spaceflight-related sites is warranted. Daniel Case (talk) 04:38, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
All these categories look to me like they are U.S.-centric and/or U.S.-NRHP-centric. How are these to fit with categories of, say, historic bridges in England? How do these names fit with existing hierarchies of categories of bridges, etc? I think there is a problem sometimes in wp:NRHP getting too far forward, e.g. over-developing Lists of bridges on the NRHP to be far larger than any other List of bridges, world-wide. It's not as if only the U.S. bridges, or only the NRHP-listed ones in the U.S., are the notable ones. So some consideration in naming needs to be given to how corresponding lists and categories for other regions will fit in.
As long as you use "National Register of Historic Places" somehow, I think you'd be OK on that. Daniel Case (talk) 04:40, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Maybe it is getting to be time to create WikiProject:Historic Sites, world-wide. doncram (talk) 20:56, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Probably, but as you were saying, let's not be getting too far ahead of ourselves. Daniel Case (talk) 04:40, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I've been thinking about this for a while, i rather do think it is time to start the wikiproject on protected historic sites world-wide. Perhaps in NRHP we have gone way far down the list of potentially notable houses, bridges, etc. Like, i was just noticing that wp:Bridges's list of U.S. bridges covers just 3 bridges in Arizona, but we have 80 in Arizona on our NRHP list of bridges for the state (though few articles there yet). And we are creating articles for really obscure NRHPs when I think there must be protected sites of much higher historic importance in other countries. I would be motivated to try to figure out sources and templates and infoboxes and all that, so as to work on arguably more important places elsewhere. I do value setting up the NRHP county tables to give U.S. wikipedians places to upload their pics, but I think it would be very rewarding to set up similar structure for wikipedians in other countries too. doncram (talk) 05:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

We're not the only ones

Don: See Category:Listed buildings by function and tell me if you still have the same issue. If it's OK for the UK, it should be OK for us. Daniel Case (talk) 04:42, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

That's helpful! Maybe it is a problem there too. U.K.-centrism. Interesting that the Listed building article discusses possible new name, "Designated Structures", to replace "Listed buildings". They have awkwardness in their naming conventions too, given that Listed buildings includes bridges, monuments, piers, and other very non-building-like things.
It's good to consider how the UK historic sites are categorized, and how the US ones are being categorized, and try to plan out for our world-wide encyclopedia a category system that works for these and for recognized historic sites elsewhere. doncram (talk) 05:45, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm perfectly welcome to the idea of historic landmarks from other countries. When I created a list of railroad station named Grand Trunk Railway Station, I mentioned that in the US, some of them are on the NRHP, and I was left hanging on how they're registered in Canada. I even begged for a Canadian equivelant of the NRHP banner for the talk page. ----DanTD (talk) 12:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Parks Canada's Historic Places Initiative Canadian Register of Historic Places is relatively similar to the US National Park Service NRHP. If you need CRHP templates similar to the NRHP ones, let me know what you need and I can probably clone and modify the U.S. ones to create Canadian ones. LeheckaG (talk) 16:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the Canadian case is similar although they actually also designated historic events, as well as places. I've created/edited a few Canadian NRHP-equivalents. And I've chatted with some active Canadian wikipedians about launching a Canadian historic sites wikiproject parallel to wp:NRHP from within WikiProject Canada, and see there is a Canadian bulletin board that is the right place to discuss such. However, I think the world-wide wikiproject is needed, to expose all countries' terminologies, sources, and to create templates and starter lists, etc. With that, there may not be a need for a separate Canadian historic sites wikiproject. Anyhow, I'll start a new wikiproject proposal and announce it here and at that Canadian notice-board. doncram (talk) 16:15, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
List of heritage registers is the current Wiki overall list of historic registers in other countries. LeheckaG (talk) 16:19, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
The "Canadian register" is just a way to provide combined access to disconnected federal programs (which are nowhere as wide in scope as the American NRHP) and provincial ones. For the most part, historical designation is a provincial duty. The Quebec equivalent of the Register has twice has many classified historic monuments as the US has NHLs, and classification is actually more constraining (you can't legally make any significant alteration without approval from the Ministry of Culture). Circeus (talk) 18:24, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
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