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U.S. Roads Project‑class

This page is within the scope of the U.S. Roads WikiProject, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to state highways and other major roads in the United States. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.U.S. RoadsWikipedia:WikiProject U.S. RoadsTemplate:WikiProject U.S. RoadsU.S. road transport Project This page does not require a rating on the project's quality scale.

Centralized discussion for the U.S. Roads WikiProject Shortcut WT:USRD If you would like to discuss the standards for route junction lists, please use WT:RJL, If you would like to request a map, please use WP:USRD/MTF/R, If you would like to request a route marker (shield), please use WP:USRD/S/R, For all other comments or concerns, please post below. Archives: Index, 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21 · 22 · 23 · 24 · 25 IH: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 • US: 1 · 2 · 3 • USAT: 1 • USRD/STDS: 1 • USRD/A: 1 • USRD/NT: 1 States: AL: 1 • CA: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 • CT: 1 • FL: 1 · 2 • GA: 1 • IL: 1 · 2 • IN: 1 • IA: 1 • KS: 1 · 2 · 3 • KY: 1 • LA: 1 • MD: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 • MA: 1 • MI: 1 · 2 • MN: 1 · 2 • MO: 1 • NV: 1 • NJ: 1 · 2 • NY: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 • NC: 1 • OH: 1 • OK: 1 OR: 1 PA: 1 · 2 • RI: 1 • SC: 1 • TN: 1 • TX: 1 · 2 • UT: 1 • VT: 1 • VA: 1 • WA: 1 · 2 • WV: 1 • WI: 1

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Ten years of USRD (and our 2015 goals)

Well, it's hard to believe, but 2015 will mark 10 years of the USRD project. To this end, there are three conversations that I want to start at this time.

Long-term vision

Our last major vision planning was in 2012, when we gained some new editors, deployed KMLs and Lua, expanded to other WMF wikis, and consolidated into one nationwide project.

One thing that comes to mind is that we need new editors. We need people to do both the stub->start and KML improvements, to do the heavy lifting of writing FAs, to do reviewing at all venues (GAN, ACR, FAC, and now FLC), and to maintain our template infrastructure and our project space pages locally and on other wikis. A lot of our more "experienced" editors are going to be hitting the 10 year mark this next year, and we need to raise up the next generation of road editors.

Speaking for myself, I haven't been around as much as I wanted to be this year, both due to real-life matters, and due to other Wikimedia responsibilities. While I am reevaluating what other Wikimedia responsibilities I will continue with next year, I know that I won't be around as much as I used to be as I continue into my mid-twenties (as is the story of many editors who started when they were teenagers, finished college, and are now coming into this next stage of their lives). Some others of us are starting to come into similar situations as well.

So, all this to say... as we come up on 10 years, where do we want to be as a project 3-5 years from now? --Rschen7754 04:45, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I say we need to continue to improve the quality of our articles with more GAs and FAs and less stubs. In addition, we should make sure to create any missing road articles and continue to fill gaps in coverage. Also, we should continue to give the lists and overview articles attention to bring them up to high-quality (which is evidenced by our FL goal this year). Dough4872 02:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I've played guinea pig on this, but Michigan State Trunkline Highway System and List of Interstate Highways in Michigan give good templates for taking articles on systems and lists on subsystems through the process. Hopefully soon, Michigan Heritage Route will give a template of a combined article/list as well as a template for dealing with scenic byways. At least in that respect, I would encourage other editors to start tackling the equivalent articles for their states.

Another thing we should do is start mentoring existing editors as well as recruiting potential new editors. I'm thinking we should commit to creating workshops. These could be something in depth based on Scott5114's "how to write a road article FA" page. We should break the stages of writing a quality road article into separate workshops, and then go in depth with each topic. They could run each quarter in the newsletter. Maybe issue 1's workshop is "how to start an article by writing the RD and creating the RJL." The next topic could then be "how to write the history section" along with "best practices in referencing". The last topic could be related to navigating the various assessment processes and polishing an article. We could do a separate workshops related to finding sources. In short, we have years of collective knowledge that we should put together in easily digestible form for new editors to consult. Imzadi 1979 → 03:39, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea of setting aside a feature in the newsletter as a tool to encourage new editors or mentor current editors to improve project articles. Dough4872 04:12, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

A lot of our articles on more important roads are lacking. Obviously US 66, but even I-95, I-5, etc. The problem is, there's no easy fix for this. Writing that sort of article is hard; Interstate 8 took me a year off-and-on, and I'm still not done with it. --Rschen7754 05:48, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah I agree we should give our national-detail articles on Interstates and U.S. Routes more attention. The key to doing this though would be a bottom-up approach in creating and/or improving the state-detail articles first and then do the national article. I know we are trying this approach with the US 66 goal, but we should look into working on the other roads as well such as I-95, I-80, and US 1. Giving more variety in national-detail articles to work on may better encourage long-time and new editors alike in improving the state-detail pages and then getting to the national article. Dough4872 01:32, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Rather than pay lip service like Dough, on national articles we should tag every state in the banner even if there is a state-detail article. That way, our precious WikiWork scores can be preserved by actually giving a shit about the national articles. By and large, if there is a S-D article, those states are represented poorly in the national article. I'm guilty of it and I don't think anyone else who's been around here for a while can honestly say they're not. –Fredddie™ 01:42, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

The key to improving a national detail article is to split up the work by state, as most editors are comfortable editing in a certain part of the country. This way, we will not burden a single editor to have to know the resources and history for 10 or 15 different states for the longer Interstates and U.S. Routes. We should try to recruit editors from across the country so every region is represented by an editor who is willing to work on road articles in a certain state or states. Dough4872 02:54, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't disagree; however, that's not happening. Tagging the national articles for every state would create the sense of urgency that's needed. –Fredddie™ 03:09, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

This might be a good concept, but I'm not sure it'd work in practice. This is for two reasons.

1. We obviously don't have editors for all of the lower 48 states. It might be lazy of us to not want to work outside our home states/regions, but the plain truth is that not many of our primary editors do. So, while we could each work on the part of the national articles that concern our states, it wouldn't do much because most of the national articles would probably end up with unfinished sections (mostly History, I'd expect). If there are states for which we don't have editors, and our editors aren't willing to step outside our comfort zones and work on the parts of the articles from outside our home states, then we won't get anything accomplished.
2. I feel like we would respond to the sense of urgency in a different way than originally intended. By that I mean that instead of working on the national articles, we'd probably just put more work into articles in our own states. This would just artificially raise the WikiWork of states which don't have active editors because nobody would work on these articles in response to the WikiWork being raised after the taggings.

That's my 2¢. I don't think it's a bad idea, but I don't think many of us would be up to working outside our comfort zones a lot; I know I wouldn't. TCN7JM 04:10, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, I did also mean the national articles, but even most of our state-detail articles for IH and USH routes are generally pretty horrible. --Rschen7754 05:43, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Shifting the national articles into the WikiWork of the state task forces, where they currently are not counted because of state-detail articles, won't change much of anything. WW figures will change, and nothing else will happen. I lack the ability to do all but the basic, online-only research into highways in most other states, and I'm not alone in that situation. (Many editors lack access to some of the databases I can use, so they're in even more limited situations.) The national articles on the Interstates and US Highways that pass through Michigan would deal with 27 other states' segments because each interstate highway is administered separately from state to state. I don't have the time nor money to invest that that type of research on my own, which is why we have the rest of the WikiProject to assist. Most of our research material will be specific to a single state, no matter what we do. That's why we need to cultivate and recruit interested editors for a wider range of states. The purported "sense of urgency" will not develop if the WW numbers are adjusted. Imzadi 1979 → 07:36, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Refocusing

Coming back to this discussion after a few days... I feel like there's this tension between what we "should" be working on and what we actually are interested in working on. The reason I feel that the US 66 goal is failing is because while it's our most popular article, nobody really is interested in tackling the monolith; we'd rather do articles in our own states because that's what we know.

So the question is, how do we overcome this? Is there a way to reconcile the two and find a happy medium? --Rschen7754 04:31, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I say that we need to do nationwide recruiting and make sure all 50 states have at least one interested editor. Therefore, the editors can improve the state highway and state-detail Interstate and U.S. Route articles in their respective state(s) and help contribute to improving the national-level article with the detail from the state(s) they are interested in. I feel that will probably be our best approach to improving the national-level articles as no single editor can handle the resources from multiple states across the country for some of the longer routes. Dough4872 05:54, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Let's say we do some active recruiting and get 35 new editors at once, which is not an unreasonable number in order to have one editor for every state. Most of those new editors are going to need some sort of training, probably six months worth. That's a significant investment of time and energy from the rest of us just to get these new editors up to snuff. This also assumes everybody will get along, which is not even the case now with USRD editors. Anyway, this is a lengthy reply to a non-answer of Rschen's question.

@Rschen7754: I think you said the right word to describe US 66 - monolith. Right now we have nine monolithic articles and Kansas, which is so short compared to the rest. I think it would be easier if we broke down the US 66 articles by tasks. First we all do the KMLs since they're easy. Then someone could create maps. Then we do the junction lists. Then route descriptions. Then histories. Then summarize everything into the main US 66 article. If enough of us work on everything, we could probably bypass ACR and go straight to FAC since those of us who review there had been working on it. –Fredddie™ 12:43, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

But are the KMLs even easy? The one for U.S. Route 80 in California was annoying. --Rschen7754 14:10, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I was talking relative ease; we certainly have no shortage of editors who can make KMLs. But you do make a valid point, having a large pool of KML creators does not necessarily mean we have a large pool of people who can correctly interpret old maps and photographs in order to make accurate KMLs. –Fredddie™ 16:03, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

You said most of those editors would need some sort of training, I would like to be trained, most of the time I want to help, but don't really know how. TheWombatGuru (talk) 19:40, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

The easiest way to be trained is to just write something, describe going from Point A to Point B. It doesn't have to be an entire route description or history section, a paragraph is fine. Just be descriptive and succinct at the same time. Once you feel you have something, ask someone on this page to look it over. A good number of us who watch this page have GAN and/or FAC experience, so we kinda know what reviewers are looking for. –Fredddie™ 19:57, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

WP:HWY/IRC is a good way to get instantaneous feedback as well. --Rschen7754 03:36, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

2014 goals

Another question that should be asked is how to handle the remainder of our 2014 goals. So far, we have not made much progress on either US 66 or the featured lists, and are a significant ways off from finishing the B-class goal, with only 2 months remaining. What should we do about this? --Rschen7754 04:45, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Due to the stalled progress this year with many editors being inactive or barely active, maybe extend these goals into 2015. We could make a last-minute push to get the B-class goal done (like we did with some of our stub reduction goals in the past), but the US 66 and FL goals are unrealistically attainable at this point as no editors seem to be willing to improve the US 66 articles and improving lists and getting them through FLC takes some time that 2 months will not be enough for. Dough4872 02:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I do wonder if we should just cut our losses and replace the 2014 goals with the 2015 goals once they are ready to go, so we don't lose that much productivity. Many of them will be the same anyway... --Rschen7754 06:02, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I tried to improve some US 66 articles. I rewrote the lead of U.S. Route 66 in California, and I've also started converting the Route description into prose. Could someone give their opinion on my writing style? I've not really done any writing in this project, so feedback would be welcome. TheWombatGuru (talk) 21:15, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I converted it entirely to prose, do you think it could become C-class? It has the big three, and the route description has the good format now. TheWombatGuru (talk) 22:14, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it is C-class now. It probably needs a lot more stuff for B-class though. The best place to start is finding sources and adding the relevant information, and citing it. Of course, the sources have to be reliable (WP:RS). Usually most of our stuff comes from newspaper articles and maps, but in the case of US 66 there are several books written about it, so you may want to check a library. --Rschen7754 03:57, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

I popped onto US Route 66 to add a few citations, and can probably manage a few more. You might want to consider asking the Today's article for improvement project for help if it's a simple question of grabbing lots of sources and doing donkey work. Ritchie333 16:58, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

A couple hundred US66 landmarks are on the US National Register of Historic Places, maintained by the National Parks Service. There is usually documentation of the "historic context" which served as the basis to get these places on the historic register which is WP:RS. K7L (talk) 04:19, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

2015 goals

With both of the above subsections in mind, what should be our goals for 2015? --Rschen7754 04:45, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Have some ambition? –Fredddie™ 01:44, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I say maybe finish our goals for 2014 (which we barely made any progress on) in addition to recruiting new editors. Dough4872 02:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

We should roll the US 66 goal over, but refocus it slightly. If we can recruit new editors, and mentor them, we could and should shine some attention on the US 66 suite of articles. If we gain some traction on the highway articles, we might attract some attention on the non-road related articles. Maybe we could organize a "Wiki Loves the Mother Road" cross-wikiproject event to improve photography and content of the various articles. That might require some prizes, so maybe someone could liaison with AASHTO or various DOTs or tourism departments to get some swag. Imzadi 1979 → 03:39, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I would like to help out with the road section of Misplaced Pages. I am collecting images for New Mexico roads. I have a goal of making start pages for all New Mexico State routes. Unfortunately, I haven't done any hardcore editing. Does anyone have a guide on how to do basic editing...specifically for roads? I also could help with route 66 as I live an hour south of it (I-40) in New Mexico... I just need some help getting started and knowing best practices for editing and what is needed for quality articles. I have programming experience...if there is a list of markup commands somewhere...that would be most helpful. Swithich (talk) 21:48, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Welcome! Be sure to check out the USRD new editor guide. After that, just pick an article and mimic the style. We have a core group of editors who are fairly vigilant, so we'll let you know if something is amiss. –Fredddie™ 22:51, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I feel that we should at least adjust the 2014 goals / add something new rather than rolling everything over completely untouched; it would be a hard sell. --Rschen7754 05:49, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

I feel like I have to agree on the ambition problem. Some of us haven't been intentionally inactive (computer fail) but there seems to be a lot less interest in the last 4 months or so. Mitch32 18:06, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I think it's been a combination of burnout and a "perfect storm" of real-life commitments that have kept many of our primary editors away. --Rschen7754 18:23, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I remember before summer happened I was very determined on creating KMLs for all the articles in Nebraska. Turns out it doesn't take very long to get burned out, even of simpler tasks like that. TCN7JM 14:23, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

What about something like this? Some sort of usual content-related goals, but there are constraints as to the editors. For example, say the goal was getting 100 GAs, we would say that 10% had to be from a "new editor". --Rschen7754 21:38, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea, but my question is, how are we going to define a "new editor"? Dough4872 01:32, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

My problem with this is exactly how much do we push it? How many "new editors" do we even have? If we push 10% of 100 GAs from new un-established editors, we'll be complaining in a year's time about their burnout. Mitch32 01:44, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree that "new editor" is really murky. Would an established MILHIST editor who wanted to edit Alaska Highway count as a new editor? –Fredddie™ 01:49, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about this one. Along with the vagueness problems mentioned above, we don't seem to recruit very many new editors (hell, I can think of just two or three in the 2+ years since I joined), and even if we do, there's no guarantee their focus is on content work. My focus was (and still is) almost solely on KMLs and the occasional GA/ACR review...when I'm active, that is. TCN7JM 14:23, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I think that we should keep the US 66 goal, but reform it or subdivide it so that it's more appealing to work on. Like, maybe we work on the KMLs, RJLs, and RDs and bring everything up to C-class one year and finish the job the next, or divide it by states, or something like that. Right now, we have an impossible task that nobody wants to do because 1) one person can't do it all and 2) if one person works on California, let's say, there's no guarantee that the other states will be done by anybody and on December 31, the goal still fails. --Rschen7754 03:44, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I think a US 66 goal broken down into manageable pieces is a good idea for next year. However, I still think we should also have a general article improvement goal such as reducing stubs or getting a certain number of articles to B-class (like we did this year). In addition, we should also give attention to the lists as well as fixing up other national-detail Interstate and U.S. Route articles. Dough4872 03:51, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what to do about the featured lists. ACR is completely stuck, and even in our good times we can barely get 12 articles through there. FLC also tends to be super slow as well. If that goal continues into 2015, it needs to be adjusted. --Rschen7754 04:06, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Instead of aiming for featured lists a simpler goal may be to make sure all lists are using the routelist row templates. Dough4872 04:51, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

That's technically an objective, and I think it needs to be on that list. Speaking of our objectives, where are we on those? -happy5214 11:25, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

How about this as a goal: Getting at least one article to FA-class in every state, File:Map_of_USRD_by_best_article.svg shows us that there are still states without an FA-class article. Or maybe a featured topic goal? TheWombatGuru (talk) 21:44, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

The day we get a South Carolina FA...—CycloneIsaac (Talk) 22:50, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

It would be easier to get a Missouri or Nebraska FA. That way, there would be one huge blob of FA blue instead of two. –Fredddie™ 00:27, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

There's also the idea that comes up with WP:USRD/CONN and File:USRD FA map.png: get the various FAs to intereconnect on the map. (Of note is that Michigan and Ontario connect via Interstate 69 in Michigan and Ontario Highway 402 now, and we should also note that the map is missing the most recent FAs.) Imzadi 1979 → 01:47, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea of trying to interconnect FAs by either states or highways. Perhaps a simpler idea for the former may be to make sure every state has at least one GA. Dough4872 02:36, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

As far as the FL goal, I don't think 12 FLs is very attainable, because let's face it: neither ACR nor FLC can handle that strain. I would rather do something like converting everything to templates, or a certain percentage. As far as the concerns regarding it being an objective, we did something similar for 2012 as a goal and it worked really well. --Rschen7754 06:04, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I think a template conversion drive goal is more realistic and attainable than a FL drive. Dough4872 03:04, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

We have about 940 GAs; what if we made a goal to get 1000 GAs by the end of 2015? Or is that too low, considering that we've done over 100 in a year before? --Rschen7754 03:06, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

60 GA's isn't that hard to attain, depending on how many editors send articles to GAN and how fast they get reviewed there. We could make it more challenging by reducing the time to get the goal to, say, 6 months. Dough4872 03:08, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Maybe 100 GAs and 10 ACRs? I'm trying to use the number 10 in it somehow. --Rschen7754 03:34, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

We could try that. I'm just worried about the pace of ACR as we do not have enough reviewers and those that we have would be stretched if we clog the venue with articles. Dough4872 03:41, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Just an idea: How about getting the class of all articles, or a specified number, in the list of popular pages to at least C, these are the pages people are most interested in, so it would be nice to make them into nice articles. TheWombatGuru (talk) 14:17, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

That's possible as well, though there are the other issues with hard articles as stated above. --Rschen7754 19:59, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I like this idea. However, one complication is that the content of WP:USRD/PP is updated every so often (once a month?), so some articles on the list when we start the year will not be on the list in February--there'd have to be some way of dealing with the changes, or narrowing down the list... -- LJ ↗ 09:02, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we could fix it at the (insert number) most popular articles throughout 2014. If it makes any difference, I was experimenting with some advanced WikiWork metrics a while back. They can be found here. I'm always looking for ways to improve the metrics to better show where we should concentrate our limited editor efforts. -happy5214 11:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps c:COM:USRD and d:WD:USRD should have their own set of goals, as not everyone at USRD works at those two projects... --Rschen7754 19:59, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with giving COM:USRD some goals, specifically in regard to maps and shields. One goal is to make sure all shields are properly licensed. Dough4872 01:14, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

For Wikidata it might be hard; software developments may change our priorities. Maybe a goal for every 3 months or something like that... --Rschen7754 04:46, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

What about a stub drive? Now, I know it's not as exciting as it used to be, but it *does* get new editors involved. And I know that the stubs remaining aren't as easy as the ones already done... but, it's been over 2 years since the last stub drive, and we've gained a few hundred stubs, at least. --Rschen7754 04:46, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Since there are less (and harder) stubs left in fewer parts of the country, maybe a WikiWork drive would work better. That way articles can be improved across all assessment classes in all states. Dough4872 05:21, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I also like this. Would we be looking for an overall project WikiWork reduction, or maybe some combination of project & modest reduction in state/task force WW numbers? -- LJ ↗ 09:02, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

We could go either way. We could try to get the overall USRD WikiWork below a certain level or try to get a certain number of states' WikiWork below a certain level. Dough4872 01:21, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, we should probably start deciding what the goals will be this week... in a few days I'll try and figure out what the top 4-5 are and then we can narrow it down. --Rschen7754 02:21, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I think it would help if there were some 3rd level headers inserted. This whole thing is a bit tl;dr now. –Fredddie™ 03:16, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

2015 goals: narrowing it down

Okay, here were the ideas that received some level of support. Thoughts? In a few days I'll come back and propose a set of goals and we can do some final discussion, so that we have goals before the newsletter comes out... --Rschen7754 06:32, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

US 66, but splitting it into more motivating subgoals and only doing some in 2015

I agree US 66 should get some attention in improvement, but I think we should combine it with the popular pages goal listed below. Dough4872 01:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I think I support combining it with all popular pages more than I support it on its own. TCN7JM 19:52, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Concur with combining into popular pages goal. -- LJ ↗ 01:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Concur with popular pages - per Ljthefro TheWombatGuru (talk) 22:02, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support breaking US 66 goal down into manageable parts and not popular pages in general. –Fredddie™ 22:28, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Conversion to routelist templates

Connecting our FAs and/or GAs

100 GAs and 10 ACRs

Focusing on popular pages

I agree we should give our articles on our more important highways (such as I-80, I-95, US 1, and US 66) along with list and highway system articles more attention. The US 66 goal discussed above should be rolled into the popular pages goal, with the concepts proposed for the US 66 goal expanded to include other important highways as to provide a more national drive for improving important roads. Dough4872 01:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support I think we should take a snapshot of the November page (since that has the least fluctuation due to the summer travel season) and say that we will make a quantifiable improvement to articles on the list. --Rschen7754 02:48, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Regarding this goal, I don't think using WP:USRD/PP is the best idea since some of the articles like M-102 (Michigan highway) are only popular because of pop culture not necessarily having to do with the road itself. I would rather the "popular pages" goal focus on the cross-country Interstates and U.S. Routes and highway system articles and lists as those are truly the most important articles to our project and quite frankly should get the attention. Dough4872 03:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, then why not call it what it is? And what about routes that don't fit into those categories, like California State Route 1? --Rschen7754 03:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I say we shift the focus from "popular pages" to "important articles", since I feel the latter represents our flagship articles rather than ones that are significant because of pop culture. Dough4872 04:07, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, what is "important"? --Rschen7754 04:09, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I would say the articles in Category:Top-importance U.S. road transport articles are definitely important along with major Interstate highways (ending in 0 or 5) and major U.S. Routes (ending in 0 or 1 along with select others like US 6 and US 66). In addition, auto trails like Lincoln Highway would be considered fairly important to our project as well. Dough4872 04:13, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I think our popular pages should be our most important, no matter what causes their popularity. Regardless of how they got popular, they still get the most page views, and they should probably be worked on first. Besides, the definition of important could vary from person to person. TCN7JM 19:48, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

• I'd support this, but I'm not exactly sure what the goal is here. TCN7JM 19:48, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
• I'd tentatively support, with a more defined framework. -- LJ ↗ 01:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
• Concur with US 66 - These are the pages that are read by most people, so it's important to improve these because people will probably want to keep on reading if they start at a good written article. TheWombatGuru (talk) 22:02, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
• The problem with this is often the popular pages do not follow the pattern that users are comfortable with following. This is why no work on US 66 has been done; much of US 66's coverage in media focuses on buildings and landmarks along the route, a topic which is outside the comfort zone of most USRD members. Other articles fall in a geographic area which is not the wheelhouse of any editor. I am all in favor of focusing on popular pages, but we need to solve these root problems before we have a realistic chance of making any progress on this point. —Scott5114↗ 22:09, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Extra thought: Perhaps we could mitigate the geographic problem by having a goal of bringing the 5 most popular pages for each task force as of November 2014 to at least B-class status. —Scott5114↗ 22:12, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
    • Well, it wouldn't necessarily be "all" of the popular pages, it could be half or so... --Rschen7754 06:53, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose for 2015 per Scott5114's first bullet point. –Fredddie™ 22:28, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
• Comment - This goal will not work using WP:USRD/PP because those articles are generally starkly different to write because of pop culture influence and the focus on attractions as a major part of the route. I think refactoring the goal in improving major Interstate and U.S. Route articles will work better as those are easier to write and follow our basic "3-section" formula. The only problem with this idea is we need to have editors willing to work in states they are not necessarily familiar with or otherwise recruit editors who are comfortable with those states, as most of these routes span multiple states. Dough4872 01:23, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Another possible issue is that most of the ones on the list are in states on the coasts (in the most populated areas of the country) while the Midwest is largely ignored. --Rschen7754 06:02, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
    • While I personally think we should not pursue this goal this year, working on the national Interstate and U.S. Highway articles would work twofold, since a good chunk of them are on the PP list already. The other reason is that they mostly suck , so any attention is good. We have an embarrassing number of county road lists on the PP list, but that's neither here nor there. –Fredddie™ 13:11, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
• Comment—I'm on the fence here. In general, our project does need to eventually get the US 66 article cleaned up. We can't dispute that. I like the idea of trying to get the top 5 for each state improved.

  I like the idea of trying to clean up all of the various national-detail articles the best though. As has been said, many of them are on the PP list, and they all kinda suck. It shouldn't be hard to get the RDs and RJLs hammered into shape. The RJL for a national IH/USH article that has subarticles is just a variation on a bulleted list, so they're even easier to do than a full RJL table. History sections might be more difficult since that would really require the ability to summarize the most major details out of the state-detail articles, or the option to research the major changes for the whole route. That said, as long as we could pinpoint when the highway was created, any major extensions or truncations, that should be enough for a national History. Imzadi 1979 → 00:54, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

  • What if we de-started (brought to C-class or better) all of the IH and USH articles on all primary routes? (usually 2-digit routes, plus the oddballs like 101) --Rschen7754 04:02, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
    • That could work as that would assure all our important I and US route articles have a complete structure with a RD, History, and junction list table or bulleted list of junctions. Dough4872 04:23, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Or how about this: IH and USH have separately calculated WikiWorks - so we just aim to get those to a specific number. For IH, maybe 3.75-3.8 (currently at 4.0), and for USH, 3.9-4.0 (currently at 4.168). The state-detail articles are pretty important too, and are generally not very good quality right now. --Rschen7754 06:25, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
    • We need to create a page or spreadsheet which shows the status of each state detail article, organized by route. (So all of the assessments of the s/ds of US 1, then the s/ds of US 2...) Find the routes with the greatest number of highly assessed s/d pages, and anyone can summarize those into a national article, even someone who doesn't live nearby. Boom. You have your IH/USH improvement. —Scott5114↗ 09:13, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
    • We do have User:TCN7JM/2-DISDAL which shows the assessments of the national and state-detail primary Interstate articles along with the completeness of the big three sections. The list may be outdated and incomplete but does serve as a good model of how we should keep track of the quality of our primary Interstate and U.S. Route articles. We should move that list into project space and complete and update it in addition to doing a similar list for the primary U.S. Routes. Dough4872 23:17, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
      • Bump; any other thoughts? (User:TCN7JM, could we move this page?) --Rschen7754 06:13, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
        • Yes, but please keep the redirect. TCN7JM 13:27, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Reaching a certain WikiWork

Clear support for 1000 or 1010 (1010 was what we wrote in the newsletter). --Rschen7754 17:02, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This sounds like a good metric-based goal that can work to provide for overall improvement of articles across all assessment classes in all states. Dough4872 01:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Between this one and the 100 GAs and 10 ACRs one, I like this one better, as it rewards other improvement within the project that doesn't necessarily amount to a GA or an A-Class article. What WikiWork were we thinking, though? Is 4.350 realistic? TCN7JM 20:03, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I think 4.35 might be able to work as a projectwide goal. Another idea, which could go in conjunction with the projectwide goal, may be to try to get a certain number of states below a certain WikiWork. For example, we could try to get 5 states below 4.0 or some other arbitrary number. Dough4872 01:24, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Support This seems like a solid goal. Without running any numbers, 4.35 almost seems too easy--but I'm probably wrong on that. With this kind of goal, I'd probably at least make a personal goal for reduction on Nevada articles for myself to keep motivated. -- LJ ↗ 01:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

So far this year, we've dropped from 4.400 on January 1 to 4.384. Then again, our activity has been way down this year, so that drop of 0.016 is probably lower than normal. TCN7JM 01:47, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I would say 4.3 to 4.35, and I support this one. --Rschen7754 05:10, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Support - It's definitely important to improve the wikiwork, and new editors can easily help with this goal. TheWombatGuru (talk) 22:02, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support How about 4.333? –Fredddie™ 22:28, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

  4.333 is too easy; however, 4.250 might be too challenging. –Fredddie™ 22:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

  4.300? Mitch32 23:20, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

  4.314? --Rschen7754 02:50, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

  We could even turn this on its head. Rather than go for a certain WW, we could aim to reduce our WW by 1000/1500/2000 classes. –Fredddie™ 03:31, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

  1000 classes would contain the number 10, and would bring us to ~4.296 - that gets my vote. --Rschen7754 08:00, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

  Yeah let's go for 1000 classes. Dough4872 01:28, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support 1,010 classes—that allows us to get classes through FAC, ACR, GAN or stub expansion, so editors from all over the project can contribute in their various ways. The number also plays off our 10th anniversary nicely. Imzadi 1979 → 00:32, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Equal preference with 1000 classes, for me. --Rschen7754 06:26, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Rest areas in exit lists

I noticed that two welcome center were added to the Interstate 95 in Pennsylvania exit list. I thought it was against policy to include rest areas and welcome centers in exit lists unless they were service plazas located along toll roads. I know Pennsylvania Turnpike has its service plazas included in the exit list. I was wondering whether or not we should include rest areas and welcome centers in the exit lists of non-tolled freeways. Dough4872 02:19, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I have same issue in Interstate 95 in South Carolina; I've tried removing it, but it comes back... and I gave up. --WashuOtaku (talk) 03:22, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

If you can cite a policy, please do. Personally, I'd put it in the route description. But maybe we should ping the user who added it to I-95 PA (DanTD) and ask him. –Fredddie™ 04:13, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:RJL states that service areas (which seems to imply the rest areas on toll roads that have food and gas) should be included in exit lists, with the inclusion limited to notable uses if there are a lot. However, RJL seems to be vague about rest areas and welcome centers. Dough4872 04:23, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

RJL is not a policy (your word, not mine). –Fredddie™ 04:28, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Whatever the term is, we should come up with a way in whether or not rest areas should be included in exit lists, regardless of service.s offered. Dough4872 04:35, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't entirely sure what the policy was on this, but I saw it in Interstate 75 in Florida, and I thought I'd swipe it for Interstate 95 in Pennsylvania since they were the only two rest areas along I-95 within the state. I've also seen them on Delaware Turnpike and Interstate 95 in Maryland. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 04:40, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

The Interstate 95 in Delaware article includes the Delaware Welcome Center in the exit list because it is a service plaza on a toll road. The Interstate 95 in Maryland article does not include the two service plazas on the JFK Highway or the rest areas in Howard County in the exit list but does have a subsection describing them. RJL calls for toll roads to have subsections for service areas but does not call for subsections for rest areas in non-toll road articles. We should probably come up with an addition to RJL on whether or not we should have subsections and/or exit list inclusion for rest areas and welcome centers on non-toll roads. Dough4872 04:55, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

If I can "vote" here, I'm all for removing regular rest areas from toll-free highways. I can go with service areas on toll roads. Welcome centers, I'd drop as well. Imzadi 1979 → 05:33, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Interstate 80 in Iowa#Services shows how you can work rest areas into an article. –Fredddie™ 05:40, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I think that sets a good example of how rest areas and welcome centers can be covered in a road article as we should not neglect mentioning them at all. However, it may be overkill to include rest areas in an exit list as there may be a large number of them on a particular stretch of highway that it can be overburdening. Service areas on toll roads, however, should be included in both the Services section and exit list due to the special nature of them. Dough4872 05:44, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I have used that Iowa page as an example and revised both I-95 in SC and NC. I also included weigh stations because that too is a service for commercial vehicles. --WashuOtaku (talk) 21:47, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with including them, and have seen no valid arguments against them here. There are few enough that they won't overwhelm the list unless there are even fewer interchanges. {{jctrestarea}} (a redirect to jctbridge) works perfectly. --NE2 06:59, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe it's because I'm from the West Coast, but I don't see an issue with adding rest areas either; most of the CA IH articles have them. --Rschen7754 05:35, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I prefer that we not put rest areas in exit lists. If we do put them in exit lists, we should limit them to service areas (food and fuel). Also, because the exit list has a quantitative function, can we require that they only be included if we have a mileage point for the service area?  VC  13:14, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Only if we require that we can't add a newly-opened interchange until it gets added to the mileage sources... (in other words, hell no) --NE2 13:39, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm seeing mixed opinions on this manner. Do you think we should take a straw poll to decide how rest areas should be handled in prose and exit list and whatever gets the most votes be implemented into WP:USRD/STDS? Dough4872 22:09, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Great, another thing to edit war over. --NE2 22:28, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

If we incorporate a standard regarding rest areas there would be no need for edit warring, which is actually more of a threat right now with no standard. Dough4872 22:40, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Except for the IPs and random editors who add random stuff to our infoboxes (5-10 jct limit anyone?) and RJLs already. --Rschen7754 22:44, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, here is a straw poll of options:

Subsection for rest areas and inclusion of rest areas in exit lists

1. Meh, I see no harm with mentioning the rest areas as they are an essential feature of the road. Dough4872 22:56, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
2. Duh, they fit perfectly in the exit list. If there's nothing to say about them, there's no need for a separate section. --NE2 07:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
3. See my rationale below Dave (talk) 03:07, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Subsection for rest areas and no inclusion of rest areas in exit lists

1. If I have to choose one of these options, it would be this one. Not because I proffered this exact scenario earlier, but because most Interstate rest areas are unremarkable. Here in Iowa, the eastbound and westbound rest areas are not across from each other, so there would be 18 additional entries on I-80's exit list, which is not optimal. Also, I disagree with Dough's assessment that they are essential features of the roadway. –Fredddie™ 23:17, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
2. If it is to be noted, best have its own subsection than litter in the exit list, especially where rest areas on freeways don't line-up at the same mile marker. --WashuOtaku (talk) 00:35, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
3. I prefer that articles talk about unremarkable Interstate rest areas in their own section (if there is enough worthwhile information) or as part of the Route description rather than distract from more important elements contained in an exit list.  VC  01:42, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
4. I am not opposed to the first option, but I lean towards this one. Mitch32 18:34, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

No subsection for rest areas and inclusion of rest areas in exit lists

1. Not much to write about most rest areas, and percentagewise, it's not that much to add to the RJL. --Rschen7754 00:45, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
2. Interesting that rest area opponents call attention to highways in the eastern parts of the country. Along rural Interstates in the West, gas stations and convenience stores can be few and far between and often closed at night. People traveling along rural Interstates in the West's more desolate areas tend to develop a new appreciation for rest areas when they really need to go to the bathroom. I can see why Easterners would consider them unimportant, but the "cluttering" argument doesn't work for me compared to all the non-notable urban city streets that are always listed. I like welcome centers if for no better reason than the free maps. They're usually located near state lines meaning that they would likely be listed twice at most on any state-detail exit list. Fortguy (talk) 04:30, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

No subsection for rest areas and no inclusion of rest areas in exit lists

Other (please specify)

Feel free to add any more options I may have missed. Dough4872 22:56, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I could support either of the above 3 options depending on the situation. I think it would be futile to attempt to not put service areas in the junction list and prose sections, regardless of my personal opinion they are not notable enough for prose (having a McDonald's on a turnpike is not a notable thing IMHO). Also most rest areas are simple structures that would not pass any threshold of notability by themselves. Yet, they are critical to making a highway "user friendly" and their mention in an exit list could provide value for a handful of scenarios (I'm thinking of a person preparing for a road trip with a medical condition for example). With that said, there are a minority of rest areas that were built to take advantage of a scenic or historical situation, some to the point that their location is too close to another rest or service area to provide any other value. But yet, these rest areas would pass a notability test (and some even have independent articles), as they are part of whatever historical or scenic place they are serving. These should be mentioned in both prose and list form IMHO. Some examples for discussion:

• Tie Fork Rest Area - A simple rest area but with quite a history
• Interstate 70 in Utah - Rest/View areas are thoroughly covered, and make up the majority of the exits on this stretch through uninhabited terrain. Dave (talk) 03:07, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Since consensus seems to be mixed, other than mentioning that rest areas should be covered in some form, do you think we should do a runoff and vote for the top two options? Dough4872 18:19, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

That's not how consensus works. --NE2 18:30, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 December 29#Category:Multi-State Routes --NE2 05:41, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Portal DYK

Just a reminder we need some DYK suggestions for Portal:U.S. Roads, see Portal:U.S. Roads/Did you know/Recommend. Dough4872 02:18, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

"Missing" state-detail pages

These currently extant routes redirect to the main article, but other states on the same route do not.

--NE2 16:05, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

US 191 goes through Idaho? Aha, past tense. –Fredddie™ 20:40, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Oops. --NE2 21:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Indiana resource

I just read about https://newspapers.library.in.gov/, which is a newspaper archive covering the years 1840 to 1922. If anybody wants to sift through it, I'm sure there are articles on the formation, implementation, etc. of the original state highway system, the details of which could be incorporated into a History section on List of State Roads in Indiana. Mapsax (talk) 18:10, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

MS 548 & MS 844

• Mississippi Highway 548
• Mississippi Highway 844

These two article were both created and promoted to GA status within the past week (they were listed as "Engineering and technology good article" for GA nomination). They are 0.3mi and 6.5mi respectively and both articles are very short. It doesn't seem like they meet the notability guidelines, but there would be a conflict of interest if I nominated them for deletion, so perhaps someone here can have a look and judge these. AHeneen (talk) 14:06, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Time and again state highways are notable per WP:USRD/NT and WP:ROADOUTCOMES. However, some shorter state highways can be merged into a list, such as List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile (2–699). MS 844 may be a candidate to merge into a list if Mississippi has enough highways that are less than one mile in length. Dough4872 14:22, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Err...I meant to say that they don't meet the criteria for a stand-alone article and need to be in a list. However, these are secondary state roads and Misplaced Pages:USRD/NT says: "Secondary state highways and county highways that are part of a statewide system...may or may not be sufficiently notable to merit a unique article. Highways that have very little to say about them (i.e. those that are extremely short and have no historical significance) are better suited to a list.'" And says: "Most numbered roadways are acceptable if they can be described beyond the route itself." These articles basically just describe a short route with a history section that says the highway appeared on a map in XXXX and was paved in XXXX. There's nothing notable about them. AHeneen (talk) 14:55, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

"MS is not included as a part of the National Highway System (NHS), a network of highways identified as being most important for the economy, mobility and defense of the nation." Whoa, really? Bloody padding.

There's definitely a completeness issue - just because it's not on state maps from 1967 to 1998 doesn't mean it didn't exist. --NE2 17:08, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

As an aside, there is no more worthless sentence in a road article than the National Highway System sentence. Especially if it's not in the system as is the case here. –Fredddie™ 18:08, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

IMHO, what's going on here is well-meaning editors would like to get a GA notch on the belt (because of a contest, or just desire to make a name in Misplaced Pages) so they pick the low hanging fruit, which for road articles means a short highway in a single state. Sadly in Misplaced Pages as in business as in most things metrics drive behavior. Although I see the motivation value in the article rankings and contests I'd like to see them improved to encourage the right behavior. Although it would be impossible to have a sliding scale at wikipedia wide efforts (such as GAC etc.) for USRD contests I'd like to see a sliding scale. IMO getting U.S. Route 66 up to B class is worth far more to the project than getting a lowly 2mi state route up to GA class. Dave (talk) 18:25, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

@Moabdave: I take a bit of issue with your comments. I've tried to keep my work well rounded, and I know others do the same. My first GAs and FAs were on M-35 (significant history in the connection with Henry Ford) and M-28 (longest highway of its type in the state). I've also ended up writing articles on some very short highways as a means to the end of providing a complete treatment of the system, like Interstate 375 (Michigan) or the Capitol Loop. I don't participate in WikiCup or USRDCup, etc. Rather, my goal has been to get every article on a highway in Michigan up to GA level, to take all of the lists to FL, and to take as many articles as warrant to the FA level. I agree that US 66 should have a better article that it does, but I don't live near the highway nor do I have much of a personal interest in it. The shorter articles are easier to write (duh!), and they provide a good opportunity for newer editors to cut their teeth on learning wikitext formatting, MOS guidelines and proper research/citation techniques. However, too many editors have failed to transition to working on longer articles as well, sometimes being driven off by this attitude that shorter highways make bad writing topics, even though we still need those articles for well-rounded coverage. Imzadi 1979 → 21:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

No offense intended. I didn't mean to imply we shouldn't be working to improve coverage of minor highways, only that I'd prefer the systems of merit and recognition give a bigger prize to higher priority articles. As an added point, I'd also prefer to discourage "drive by" GAC reviews.Dave (talk) 02:58, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't have much more to add than what Imzadi said. My approach has been to alternate between one short article and one long article. I am moving from the south to the north in the state of California, and my goal is to cover every article, both the short ones and the long ones. That being said, California is "blessed" with an overabundance of sources, so even a short route can have significant info (California State Route 282 for example). --Rschen7754 03:26, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

@AHeneen: I take a slightly different opinion here than some of my colleagues. Using my home state as an example, we have Michigan State Trunkline Highway System, an indisputably notable topic unto itself. However, per WP:SIZE, that article cannot include all of the information on the system, so we spin off List of Interstate Highways in Michigan. Even then, we cannot include all of the information a proper treatment of each Interstate Highway in the state would require, so we spin off Interstate 69 in Michigan and its brethren. The same goes for List of U.S. Highways in Michigan and U.S. Route 2 in Michigan, List of state trunklines in Michigan and M-1 (Michigan highway), and Pure Michigan Byway. So far, I think we'd all be in agreement that each of these articles and lists form a proper hierarchy from the system down to the individual highway, and that each example is more than notable and therefore worthy of inclusion in the encyclopedia.

Here's where I start to differ in my opinion. We have cases in Michigan of highways that have very little history. They weren't controversial (like M-6), they haven't existed for almost a century with various reroutings, extensions or truncations (like M-28), they aren't especially scenic (like M-22), nor do they have cultural or historical significance (like M-1). Maybe it's a case where the highway just isn't that long, or it's located in a rural area, so we get cases like M-67. There's too much content on M-67 to up-merge it into the list, as we would lose the entire route description and most of the history section to avoid undue weight in the table. It would take a fundamental shift in consensus to merge that article into some sort of list of some kind, and if we deleted this article, we'd leave a hole in our complete coverage of the State Trunkline Highway System.

Lastly, AHeneen, your two Mississippi examples are not secondary state highways, not as the quoted guideline uses the term nor as the articles are currently written. Some states, like Montana, have different signage to indicate that a highway is secondary. Texas has several classifications that would qualify as secondary, such as their Farm/Ranch to Market Roads, their State Highway Loops/Spurs, their Park Roads or their Recreational Roads, all of which are distinct from their primary State Highways. From the way the two Mississippi articles are written, they're just short state highways, without any primary–secondary distinction applied by the state. When this distinction is not applied by the state, we've defaulted to the "state highway = keep" outcome at AfD; an outcome that doesn't preclude merging them someplace, but you'll need to nominate that alternate location. Imzadi 1979 → 21:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't object to the articles' existence (though 844 is in some ways a secondary highway, and most routes in that range should probably be part of a list). --NE2 23:41, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

From what I know, Mississippi has a large number of higher-numbered state highways that are short and unsigned. I think it may make sense to at least merge the ones shorter than a mile into a list entitled List of state highways in Mississippi shorter than one mile or even be more extreme and create a list for ALL routes in a certain number range that are minor. Dough4872 01:52, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm generally in favor of separate articles on highways, but 844 is short and unsigned, and that article is proof that there's not much to say about it. I'd be in favor of merging all of the unsigned/short/700-900 highways in Mississippi into one list lest we end up with 50 articles that look like that. Though that still requires that someone actually do the work of making the list; a very similar discussion happened back in August and List of unsigned state highways in Mississippi has had an AfD-inspired merge tag on it since, without the merge taking place. (And before anyone says it, I'm not volunteering.) TheCatalyst31 03:09, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Where did you get that it's unsigned? Most of the high-numbered routes have had signs posted in the past decade or so. What makes the most sense to me is a list of routes from 700 up, most of which are short spurs or connections. Here's a list of the highways (the link in the article isn't direct). --NE2 04:31, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Oops, my mistake. That's what I get for misreading the unsigned highways article; come to think of it, a good number of the "unsigned" highways in that list aren't actually unsigned either. Further proof that that article needs to be merged ASAP, really. TheCatalyst31 04:39, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I think we can possibly make a List of state highways in Mississippi (700-999) article for all the routes 700 and above as most of them are short and have little to say about them. Dough4872 04:57, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I understand the issue with size and the need to split content as an article grows too long (my last edit before starting this discussion was explaining WP:Summary style and WP:Size on an article I've been very involved in). However, these two articles should be part of a list. I disagree with what @Imzadi1979: has said above, this discussion does not necessarily apply to all short highways. The Michigan highways given as an example have history and, as noted, would consume an excessive amount of space is merged into the relevant lists. However, these two MS highways have little more to say about them than a description of the route. I don't have time to search for a good source, but List of state highways in Mississippi says "Mississippi highways 301 through 614 are secondary highways" and I don't see how rural 6.5mi & 0.33mi highways can be considered anything other than a secondary highway. WP:USRD/NT says regarding primary state highways "there are some instances where it may be better to combine articles, even when the highways are notable enough for a unique article" (these seem like good cases) and that secondary state highways "that have very little to say about them (i.e. those that are extremely short and have no historical significance) are better suited to a list" (these article say little more than describe the route). However, that is just this project's guidance and still needs to meet WP:GNG. AHeneen (talk) 22:18, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

There actually is more history: Talk:Mississippi Highway 548#History --NE2 23:46, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

NHS mentions

Would there be consensus for mass removal of the bare statement that a route is not on the NHS? --NE2 19:12, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• No, and I would oppose any mass removals. With the MAP21 additions, many articles may need to be updated to note that the highways have since been added to the NHS in some additional capacity. Imzadi 1979 → 21:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
  • So you think it's useful to say that a route is not part of the NHS? Mind if I add the same for other systems, like scenic highways? --NE2 22:10, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
• Outright removal? As much as I don't like the sentence, no, but I would strongly encourage editors to not use it going forward. –Fredddie™ 23:47, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
• I say there's no reason not to get rid of it. TCN7JM 23:47, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
• I am in favor of removing the bare statement from the articles of routes that have no NHS segments. However, once we have consensus to do it, removal is low priority; we can do it gradually or do a bot run at some point. For articles of routes that do have NHS segments (including MAP-21 and intermodal connectors), we should describe which segments of a route are NHS; the bare affirmative statement is not sufficient.  VC  00:35, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

  VC basically sums up what I was too lazy to type out in full. TCN7JM 00:41, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• I don't see anything wrong with mentioning whether or not a route has sections on the NHS. Dough4872 01:52, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• I'm not really sure about this - I've seen Caltrans documents do the same . --Rschen7754 02:26, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

  Those documents are supposed to be as specific as possible. The route description is supposed to be a summary of the progression of the route. I'm not sure this is helped by adding what the route isn't. NE2 brings up a good point that we could add other systems it isn't a part of (which the documents seem to do), but we don't. TCN7JM 03:46, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

  Well, California does mention other systems... but my point is that Caltrans seems to think it's worth it to include in their documents. --Rschen7754 03:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

  You're contradicting yourself. "It mentions other systems we don't care about but it also mentions this one system we care about, so we need to include it." TCN7JM 03:54, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

  The California articles, at least, mention the California Freeway and Expressway System and the State Scenic Highway System, and sometimes other systems. That being said, I've never seen that in other states. --Rschen7754 04:01, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

  Okay. My main issue here is still that adding what systems the route isn't in doesn't really help to describe the route -- at least not in my opinion -- which is what our standards say the route description is supposed to be. TCN7JM 04:22, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

  Exactly. It makes sense to say what is is a part of, not what it isn't (unless there's some reason that it should be). --NE2 04:31, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

  Well, it not being part of NHS means that the federal gov't didn't think it was a very significant route... which is a bit different from saying that a certain highway has no connection to the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail. --Rschen7754 04:17, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

  It not being an evacuation route means the state (or FEMA?) didn't think it was very useful for evacuation. It not being part of the scenic system means the state didn't think it was very scenic. It not being a National Scenic Byway means the feds didn't think it was very scenic. It not being part of the Whoop-de-doo Winter Maintenance Plowing Network means the county didn't think it was very important for winter travel. --NE2 04:31, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

  Yes, but the main everyday purpose of a road is to transport goods and people. --Rschen7754 04:37, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I ran the numbers on the MS 844 route description. The NHS sentence makes up almost 30% of the entire section. It's one thing to sneak the sentence into a >50KB-long article, but it's another to significantly pad an article with a single sentence. Maybe that's the litmus test. If you can only write enough about something that you have to add the NHS sentence, then it shouldn't have its own article. –Fredddie™ 02:48, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Could I just pop my head in the door and politely request you define acronyms before you use them, as for me, NHS means something very specific that has national recognition under that name, and hence reading this automatically trips my brain into thinking you're talking about ambulances. Ritchie333 09:52, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

You're on a thread of the U.S. Roads WikiProject talk page. Doesn't take that much logic to figure out which NHS on the NHS disambiguation page we're talking about. TCN7JM 09:57, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Well I'm sorry my intelligence isn't up to your required level of human supremacy, but as I mentioned the other day from Uncle Dave, the casual reader of a linked thread is not a moron, they're your wife! Ritchie333 10:02, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The nominator of Misplaced Pages:Good article reassessment/Ohio State Route 85/2 had a point

Just because something appears on the 1932 map but not the 1931 map does not mean it was created in 1932. This is a very common error. At best you can say it was created in 1931 or 1932 (if the maps are dated January 1, it might be acceptable to assume the state wouldn't create anything on New Year's Day, so it was created in 1931 - yet they might approve something effective January 1). --NE2 00:00, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you're going with this... is this supposed to be a PSA? Otherwise, {{sofixit}} exists for a reason... --Rschen7754 02:23, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

It's related to the above discussion. How do people approve so-called "good articles" that have blatant issues like this? --NE2 04:32, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

A sentence that mentions a road is not part of a system that makes up 30 percent of the Route description is a blatant issue. This common misuse of map years is not a blatant issue and is tangential to this discussion. Please start a separate discussion about map years with a clear title.  VC  13:14, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

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