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new NRHP-specific architecture categories

I recently created Category:Early Commercial architecture and Category:Late Victorian architecture and perhaps others to correspond to category terms frequently used in NRIS. I am not sure exactly what they mean. Whether these are NRHP-specific jargon or not is not yet clear. But even if these terms are NRHP-specific jargon, short articles at Early Commercial architecture and Late Victorian architecture are worthwhile, I believe, because there are hundreds of places given these categories by the National Park Service. BTW, I noticed Category:Greek Revival architecture in the United States being split out by state recently by Nyttend, i think, which is helpful. These 3 NRHP-standard architecture categories are not automatically added by Elkman's draft article generator. Are there others? --doncram (talk) 18:35, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Three more might be: Category:Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals architecture, Category:Second Renaissance Revival architecture, Category:Mission/Spanish Revival architecture corresponding to short articles Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals architecture, Second Renaissance Revival architecture, Mission/Spanish Revival architecture (currently redlinks). These have appeared multiple times in List of Elks buildings and List of Knights of Pythias buildings which i've been developing. --doncram (talk) 19:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

  • I like wikifying the architecture styles in the infoboxes. Not sure how many may already have specific categories, but these are the styles I've most commonly seen:
Beaux-arts
Bungalow
Bungalow/Craftsman
Carpenter Gothic
Classical Revival
Colonial Revival
Craftsman
Gothic
Gothic Revival
Greek Revival
International style
Italian Renaissance Revival
Italianate
Late Gothic Revival
Mediterranean Revival
Mission
Mission/Spanish Revival
Moderne
Moorish Revival
Prairie School
Queen Anne
Renaissance
Renaissance Revival
Romanesque
Romanesque Revival
Second Empire
Shingle Style
Spanish Revival
Stick-Eastlake
Tudor Revival
Frame Vernacular
Masonry Vernacular
Victorian
Exotic Revival
Late 19th And Early 20th Century American Movements
Hope this helps. --Ebyabe (talk) 22:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Some of the above were pipelinks. Checking with no pipelinks, and trying some variations, and checking for categories: :Beaux-Arts architecture; Category:Beaux-Arts architecture
Beaux Arts architecture; Category:Beaux Arts architecture
American Craftsman architecture; Category:American Craftsman architecture
Bungalow architecture; Category:Bungalow architecture
Bungalow/Craftsman architecture; Category:Bungalow/Craftsman architecture
Carpenter Gothic architecture; Category:Carpenter Gothic architecture
Classical Revival architecture; Category:Classical Revival architecture
Colonial Revival architecture; Category:Colonial Revival architecture
Craftsman architecture; Category:Craftsman architecture
Exotic Revival architecture; Category:Exotic Revival architecture
Gothic architecture; Category:Gothic architecture
Gothic Revival architecture; Category:Gothic Revival architecture
Greek Revival architecture; Category:Greek Revival architecture
International style architecture; Category:International style architecture
International architecture; Category:International architecture
Italian Renaissance Revival architecture; Category:Italian Renaissance Revival architecture
Italianate architecture; Category:Italianate architecture
Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals architecture; Category:Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals architecture
I've created stub article and begun a new category for above. --doncram (talk) 20:48, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
Late 19th and Early 20th Century American Movements architecture; Category:Late 19th and Early 20th Century American Movements architecture
I've created stub article and begun a new category for these. --doncram (talk) 20:45, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Late Gothic Revival architecture; Category:Late Gothic Revival architecture
Has newish separate article, and new category. --doncram (talk) 20:45, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Late Victorian architecture; Category:Late Victorian architecture
Article name is a redirect to Victorian architecture i think; Category has just 4 NRHP items which perhaps should all be called Late Victorian Revival architecture instead, i am not sure. I think that possibly any U.S. places are not really Victorian, they are all Victorian Revival. Or, if they were during reign of Queen Victoria in England, can they be Late Victorian? I dunno if these should be reclassified. Could be addressed in a combo RFD. Would be useful to get a complete list of NRHP-listed places where NRIS gives each of these architectural identifiers. --doncram (talk) 20:56, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Mediterranean Revival architecture (bluelink); Category:Mediterranean Revival architecture (redlink)
There is a Category:Mediterranean Revival style architecture which IMO should be renamed to be Category:Mediterranean Revival architecture. I'll open an RFD after collecting up other changes like this. --doncram (talk) 20:45, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Mission Revival architecture; Category:Mission Revival architecture
Mission/Spanish Revival Style architecture; Category:Mission/Spanish Revival architecture
Moderne architecture; Category:Moderne architecture
Streamline Moderne architecture not the same as Moderne!; Category:Streamline Moderne architecture
Moorish Revival architecture; Category:Moorish Revival architecture
Prairie School architecture; Category:Prairie School architecture
Queen Anne architecture; Category:Queen Anne architecture
Renaissance architecture; Category:Renaissance architecture
Renaissance Revival architecture; Category:Renaissance Revival architecture
Richardsonian Romanesque architecture; Category:Richardsonian Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture; Category:Romanesque architecture
Romanesque Revival architecture; Category:Romanesque Revival architecture
Second Empire architecture; Category:Second Empire architecture
Second Renaissance Revival architecture; Category:Second Renaissance Revival architecture
I've created stub article and category for the above. --doncram (talk) 20:48, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
Shingle Style architecture; Category:Shingle Style architecture
Spanish Colonial Revival architecture; Category:Spanish Colonial Revival architecture
Stick-Eastlake architecture; Category:Stick-Eastlake architecture
Stick/Eastlake architecture; Category:Stick/Eastlake architecture
Tudor Revival architecture; Category:Tudor Revival architecture
Victorian architecture; Category:Victorian architecture
Frame Vernacular; Category:Frame Vernacular architecture
Masonry Vernacular; Category:Masonry Vernacular architecture
--doncram (talk) 01:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
PamD offers a suggestion that maybe one or all of the new architectural styles articles could be combined in a single NRHP-specific architectural styles article, perhaps Architectural style (National Register of Historic Places), like there is a NRHP property types article at Property type (National Register of Historic Places). I could go along with that, with redirects from the separate articles i've been starting recently, probably, but I think the separate categories are needed. --doncram (talk) 20:48, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

List of Grange Hall buildings, and similar lists

FYI, i've been developing new list-articles covering about 600 NRHP-listed places and other notable places:

This is not everyone's cup of tea, i am sure, but i think these are useful contributions. In the process, as part of developing coordinates info for the list-articles, i've been starting articles. Creating the articles seems to head off AFDs and debate about whether these list-articles will ever be fleshed out, so seems well worthwhile to me for that reason alone. This has generated good development to some articles, as local editors notice and provide corrections. KudzuVine helped by providing a good number of photos. The overall effort also seems to create actual new knowledge: e.g., no one could now claim that Grange Halls are only in the midwest or only in New England, because now you can see a Wikipedia article with linked Google map that visually documents their presence across the northern half of the continental U.S. Please consider adding to the list-articles or checking their coverage of places in your own local areas of interest! --doncram (talk) 22:36, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I could use help on getting any one, or all, of the table-ized ones to be sortable by state then by town or village. The town/state column just sorts by town, instead. These lists are unlike almost all other NRHP list-articles, which are all single-state. Help! :) --Doncram
Why do you get to do all the fun stuff? BTW are you an Odd Fellow? Smallbones (talk) 18:29, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for commenting. Nah, not formally an Odd Fellow. I do feel it is a privilege to be able to contribute relatively freely to wikipedia, specifically, to be able right now to identify gaps and fill them with articles like these. Having followed recent/ongoing RFC about lists, i do think these will all withstand policy/guideline/notability review, and they represent upgrades from disambiguation pages (which are lowest level list-articles by one perspective in the RFC). Browsing the NRHP disambiguation pages prompts more ideas. Other lists like this would include:
There's an existing good tabulated list system of U.S. Federal courthouse buildings; a List of county courthouses could be useful.
Some but not all of the following, which each have multiple associated disambiguation pages, already are list-articles:
Those that already have articles could possibly be improved by adding the NRHP-listed places in organized tables, too. --doncram (talk) 17:49, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

New York Post Office articles

Just thought I'd let the New York NRHP vols know I've completed the remaining stubs with OPRHP refs for the U.S. Post Offices. Many thanks to Larry Gobrecht at OPRHP for writing such great NRHP forms for these cool buildings! Many are also illustrated with images, so enjoy.--Pubdog (talk) 19:07, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Minimal Traditional

Is there a reason why there is no article for the "Minimal Traditional" style? It's not uncommon to see it listed in historic district nomination forms. I can create an article for it, but I wanted to make sure it's not just a synonym or close derivative of another style. Bms4880 (talk) 15:45, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with that term, but if you are encountering it repeatedly in NRHP documents, even if they are all in one local region, I would support your creating an article for it, presumably at Minimal Traditional architecture, or creating a useful redirect from that name, and also support your creating corresponding category Category:Minimal Traditional architecture. Per PamD's suggestion and discussion at #new NRHP-specific architecture categories (currently above), I started up Architectural style (National Register of Historic Places) article to cover the lesser known / maybe idiosyncratic architectural style terms used in NRHP listings. This type could exist as a section there, if not a standalone article. It would be useful to get reports out of NRIS of how many occurences of each architectural types there are, and what is a list of the places of each type. Elkman has previously provided similar reports, like for all buildings by a given architect. --doncram (talk) 16:10, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I'd guess that it means vernacular architecture, which certainly relates to the "traditional" and might be considered "minimal" in that no overt or academic "architectural features" are usually included. It's probably overstating it that vernacular is "...a building designed by an amateur without any training in design," but if these buildings fit that description, then I'd be sure that "minimal traditional" is the same as "vernacular". Smallbones (talk) 19:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I found this document about the architecture of houses in Delray Beach, Florida. It states that "Minimal Traditional was coined to describe the transition that occurs in residential design from the period just before World War II through the 1950s." ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 20:03, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
It's a transitional style between Tudor Revival and Ranch. They usually look small and plain, but seem bigger on the inside. A search on Wikipedia brought up just 11 hits, which may explain why there is no article. Bms4880 (talk) 20:36, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

I was surprised when I googled "minimal traditional architecture" to get over 3,000,000 hits - from the top 3 "This style is the Plain Jane of 20th century American residential architecture" [1] and "(in the 1930s and 1940s) It was the basic American home, with well-built, simple cabinetry and closet space without frills or ornamentation." [2] I think this fits with both Niagara's Delray Beach source, and in a general way with "vernacular."
BTW www.oldhouseweb.com lists about 85 styles including "Italilanate Octagon" "Chateauesque" "manufactured housing" and "shed" as well as just about everything you've heard of before as a style. I won't say that their descriptions are very sophisticated, but they are basic and easily understood. www.antiquehome.org only lists about 20 styles. Some of these styles may just be real estate sales terms, but it should start anybody out for a rough-draft answer on just about any style. Smallbones (talk) 20:46, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

United States Post Office (Phoenix, Arizona)

I have imported the GSA text on this building, and leave the rest to the capable hands of this project. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:55, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

With all due respect to the GSA, I think the following in the article is just wrong. "Material on this page was initially produced by the U.S. General Services Administration, an agency of the United States government, and is reproduced with the express permission of that agency. All works derived from this material must credit the U.S. General Services Administration." In particular the "must credit" part. It's my understanding that GSA is part of the Federal government and thus the material can't be copyrighted. It's not our place to tell Wikipedia readers who they must credit for public domain material. Of course we should be polite to the GSA, but am I missing something? Smallbones (talk) 03:50, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Before I started wholesale copying of GSA materials, I called to ask whether the material was indeed in the public domain. During the course of the discussion, the GSA representative with whom I spoke requested some form of attribution, and I agreed to provide it. Crediting the GSA is really not about avoiding copyright infringement, but about avoiding plagiarism - just because the material is in the public domain doesn't mean we should carry on as though we wrote it ourselves. bd2412 T 04:45, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Agreed on the plagiarism part. But the "must credit" is incompatible with public domain status. Public domain means that anybody can do anything they like with the material, and it is not up to Wikipedia to tell folks otherwise or try to put any limits whatsoever on the material. I've removed the "must credit" sentence. BTW, the GSA website has some incredible material of interest to this project. I'll suggest editors start at Public Buildings Heritage Program. Smallbones (talk) 17:51, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

FYI

An NRHP article that I wrote is currently WP:TFA. upstateNYer 14:40, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

That was regarding Oakwood Cemetery (Troy, New York), which was Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 16, 2010. I noticed it, and it was great to see it on the Wikipedia main page! --doncram (talk) 16:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

NRHP list categorization

An editor has been changing categories for NRHP-list articles from "Name County, State" to "Buildings and structures in Name County, State". Noticing this had already been raised at the editor's Talk page, I reverted 15 such edits in Vermont and New Hampshire. Could others watch and rollback such edits? At the editor's talk page, i suggest further discussion here. --doncram (talk) 16:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Find a Grave - concerning mass removals

A discussion is being held at the Village pump (misc) concerning the merits/problems of using FindAGrave. Mass removals have been suggested. You are invited to join in the discussion.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 21:07, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I have just moved Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/GSA federal building links to this project's space from my user space, per Doncram's suggestion. The list (which is presently a bit more than one-third finished) contains links to General Services Administration pages on historically significant U.S. federal buildings. This material is in the public domain, and much of it is article-ready, meaning that it can just be copied and pasted here, with appropriate attribution to avoid charges of plagiarism. I have created an attribution template, {{GSA building|foo}}, where "foo" may be replaced by the three or four digit number appearing after the last backslash in the GSA web address for the page. Cheers! bd2412 T 18:25, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

NRHP infoboxes are not articles -- please include basic information in the article text, too

Excuse me for making a comment that is a bit of a rant, but I don't think I can communicate this effectively without ranting a bit...

Participants in this WikiProject are justifiably proud of the NRHP infoboxes, but this pride seems to have led to an irritating habit of omitting significant information from the body of the article.

All too often I encounter stub articles that read something like this:

The Aloysius Q. Poindexter House is a Greek Revival home located at 123 Main Street that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 1, 1983.[1]

What's wrong with this article, you ask? OK, I'll tell you: Where on this green earth is 123 Main Street? (Is it in Timbuktu or Kalamazoo -- or perhaps Topeka?)

Please don't assume that Wikipedia readers have fully digested your infobox before looking at your article text. As a native speaker of English, I (and, I suspect, many readers of English Wikipedia) am accustomed to reading from left to right, so I start reading on the left, where the first (and in this hypothetical case, only) sentence of the article begins. I get really irritated when I try to read an article that omits basic information, such as the name of the city (or even the state and country) where a place is located. Maybe people whose first language is Arabic or Hebrew are accustomed to looking at the upper right first, and finding the infobox that contains this information, but that's not me.

Wikipedia guidance indicates that infoboxes are supposed to augment and summarize the article contents, not substitute for the text. Help:Infobox states:

Infobox templates are like fact sheets, or sidebars, in magazine articles. They quickly summarize important points in an easy-to-read format. However, they are not "statistics" tables in that they are only supposed to summarize material from an article—the information should still be present in the main text.

That Help page also points out that some infobox contents may be inaccessible to people using assistive technology.

Please don't treat infoboxes as substitutes for text. Include basic information about your topic (city, state, date of construction, etc.), in the text of the article, not just in the infobox.

Rant over. --Orlady (talk) 03:12, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I concur 100%. I personally can't fathom why it's so difficult for some stub-creators to state why the property is on the Register. It's an extra sentence or two. Bms4880 (talk) 19:56, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
I don't necessarily want to hear what prompted this particular rant, but note the example given is hypothetical. It could be that Orlady, working recently helpfully at Talk:List of Masonic buildings, is coming across perfunctorily started articles indexed by List of Masonic buildings, which were created mostly by me. I created them to address a different problem, namely the attempted deletion of redlinks for these items amidst other contention, and the related confusion this caused for many editors being drawn in. If i left out a location statement for one or more of those (which I don't think i did), i dunno if i would really care. Adding location information is an easy refinement to the text, and creating the articles as stubs ended the other confusion. In general a stub is more than nothing, and it is a positive step if it does not cause more work for some other reason.
To address the stated particular point of Orlady's rant, one approach would be to seek refinement of the NRHP infobox/article generator, to help ensure that NRHP editors won't start new articles that lack the basic statement of where a place is located. Location info is given in the Elkman-generator suggested infobox; it could easily also be included as an automatic, suggested statement in the body of a new article. In new articles i have created recently based first or only upon NRIS information, i have also been working in "Historic subfunction" usage, e.g. to state that a place like Camden Masonic Temple "was used historically as a meeting hall, as a specialty store, as a department store, as a professional building, and as a multiple dwelling." I have been writing out stuff like that which could also be suggested automatically by the generator. Editor Elkman doesn't watch here routinely, but has responded helpfully, recently, to some requests that I made on other refinements of output from Elkman's system. You could try asking.
By the way, one stub i just created (after the above comments by O and B) is Old U.S. Customshouse and Post Office and Fireproof Storage Company Warehouse. It has no less than nine list-articles, dab pages, or redirect pages linking to it. I created it to help settle confusion in getting the names and links coordinated, given multiple editors pushing different namings using "United States" or "U.S.", addressed by an RFC, and other confusion. I don't particularly know why the place was NRHP-listed. Creating the short stub article, though, cuts through all sorts of confusion and ensures links are kept from all associated list-articles and dab pages, no matter what the outcome of any naming decision. Any help developing the article would be appreciated, but I am not likely to devote further attention to it now. --doncram (talk) 21:44, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
Your comment makes me think of a Carly Simon song, Doncram. My statement wasn't about you. It also wasn't about articles on Masonic buildings. There are several contributors to this WikiProject who have a pattern of creating articles that omit basic information from the text. You have never touched the particular article that precipitated my comment. However, if you recognize yourself in my comment and work, then my comment probably has done some good because it will remind you to double-check your new stubs for this kind of omission. --Orlady (talk) 22:26, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
Okay, good, well there is a lot of past stuff about creating stubs or not, and if i didn't wonder i bet other editors would have. I do suggest working on the Elkman generator refinement, as it could help in creating about 50,000 articles going forward. I am myself aware of other editors creating articles using the generator, that could be better if the generator were refined. --doncram (talk) 23:04, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
I hope you're not suggesting that I should undertake to edit the Elkman generator. I've never used it, and I'm only vaguely aware of what it does. (Actually, I am only aware that it generated infoboxes. I didn't know that it generates stub articles.) Improving it is a project for someone who uses it. --Orlady (talk) 01:03, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
You are commenting about other editors who do use the infobox/article generator. You want the body of articles to include a location statement. The easy way to get all such other editors on board, would be to make it easy for them by including a drafted location statement already, in the infobox/article generated output. I was suggesting you request that Elkman update the generator to do that. Currently the generator output includes a suggested infobox plus a suggested body of article (which has to be changed by editor) plus suggested categories plus a suggested Talk page with banners and photo request. If the suggested body of article was expanded to include a few suggested sentences based on name, location, and historic subfunction fields, that would tend to solve the problem you noted. Also, by the way, for states where the NRHP documents are available on-line at the NPS, the generator could include drafted references for them. That would also help towards developing better-than-minimal stub articles more quickly. This is more of a programmer's-type answer to your question, than is perhaps your preference. --doncram (talk) 11:32, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Well, you could do what I've done to some degree at WP:USCJ, which is to create stub articles in project space (or in my case, to copy bare-bones public domain building descriptions into project space) and move them to mainspace once sufficient work has been done on them. bd2412 T 21:50, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
My point is that the stub article in mainspace is a help. We can then go on from that, and ask is it a place that should be listed on List of United States federal courthouses in Kentucky (part of nice system developed mostly by BD2412), which is not yet one of the list-articles that links to it, but i think it possibly should be added there. More development is almost always better, but existence of an article already is something and is part of eliminating issues of inconsistent naming. A draft in userspace or project space does not help in fixing the naming. --doncram (talk) 22:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
I see your point. Perhaps you could redirect the redlink titles to a list covering the topic until the articles are written? That would keep them from getting deleted from disambig pages, at least. bd2412 T 22:41, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
Nice idea, but no: redirects to a list or other article in project or user or Talk space would cause more problems. As cross-space redirects, they would be immediately attacked and deleted by automated processes. There's not currently any much pressure about NRHP-related redlinks on dab pages, by the way, meaning no one is deleting them as far as i know. (An editor who was deleting them agreed to a compromise which seems to be working.) A while back an editor (BD2412) changed a bunch of redlinked NRHP names on U.S. Post Office, U.S. Post Office and Courthouse, and other dab pages; I am still working to remedy the confusion/inconsistent links caused. I am not complaining; BD2412's edits were well-meant and it was talked out civilly in an RFC. As i stated at the RFC and elsewhere, I do feel that just starting stub articles for them all, first at their NRHP names, is a help now towards getting their names all resolved satisfactorily. --doncram (talk) 23:04, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
I was not talking about cross-namespace redirects. I meant that you could redirect the redlinks to a mainspace list that mentions the subject of the link. bd2412 T 00:10, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
This is maybe a tangent, but I tried to think about this suggestion, and I don't see how the naming resolution would be accomplished. Say there were a few name variations, and then each of them would be redirected to a location like "List of U.S. Post Offices#Kentucky". That doesn't indicate to any future editor what the naming decision was, what is the preferred name to use when starting the article. When an article is started at any one of the redirects, all the others would have to be changed. If the naming decision is conveyed by having the non-preferred ones redirect to the preferred article name (which is set to redirect to the list location for the moment), that wouldn't work either: as double redirects all the others would be automatically changed to redirect to the list-location too. I don't see how any tentative naming solution is conveyed, if the article is not just started at some name. And it is natural to have specific naming suggestions discussed at the Talk page of the article, so it seems simplest just to start the article, and to get all redirects aimed at it, and to provide the Talk page where further possible changes can be considered together and kept. At this point i don't get any other idea. --doncram (talk) 11:32, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Stubs are necessarily imperfect because they are — well — stubs. I don't think anyone is criticizing the practice of creating stubs that iron out confusion among multiple names/name formats for the same topic, or for any other good reason. Orlady's "rant" should probably be taken as a "gentle reminder" about some points of information that are needed in the body text of any article, especially when the presence of an infobox makes clear that the information is available and known. Of course, this being Wikipedia, anyone can edit the text to add such information points in if they feel they're necessary....
I would, however, be cautious about applying too literally the bit Orlady quoted from Help:Infobox: There are data fields in infoboxes that can muddy or unnecessarily complicate prose text (the NRHP refnum, for example). It seems to me the best way to apply the general principle of Help:Infobox is to make sure the text of the article would stand on its own if the infobox were to disappear tomorrow (continuing the example, the refnum really isn't absolutely essential to an understanding of a historic house, even if it can add dimension for some readers). A city and state do seem necessary to make the text meaningful, though. — Ipoellet (talk) 01:04, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

(BTW, is it just me, or do Help:Infobox and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes) appear to be transposed? The Help article gives a lot of stylistic guidance, while the MOS article is mostly how-to stuff. Or am I crazy? — Ipoellet (talk) 01:04, 25 October 2010 (UTC))
Of course it is better to write full blown articles than stubs. We can all take Orlady's suggestion as a gentle reminder. Nevertheless stubs have always been accepted at Wikipedia and always will be. Given a nearly infinite number of articles to write there will always be a trade-off between length and number of articles written. As far as I can tell the general Wikipedia attitude toward this is "Different strokes for different folks" or "we're all doing what we can." If Orlady is really ranting rather than giving us all a gentle reminder, all I can say is -You're right - WP:SOFIXIT. Smallbones (talk) 02:50, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm not objecting to stubs, per se. I just happen to think that if you are going to create a stub about a house, church, neighborhood, archeological site, monument, or suchlike, the text of the article ought to include fundamental information like where it is. I have seen dozens of NRHP stub articles that don't even indicate that their topic is somewhere in the United States, much less what city and state it is in, although they may contain details like street address and the middle name of the original owner. --Orlady (talk) 03:17, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Response from Elkman about the infobox generator

The infobox generator that I wrote was never meant to generate complete articles. It was meant to extract enough information from the National Register database so someone could create the mechanics of the infobox, and so they could get basic location information, architectural categories, and the like. It's up to the individual author to do some research on the subject and to demonstrate why the topic is notable. In other words, tell a story about the property -- don't just put up an infobox with a few sentences of text.

For example, to the right is what my infobox generator will tell you about the Seventh Street Improvement Arches.

Seventh Street Improvement Arches
WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 46 is located in Minnesota
WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 46
Nearest citySt. Paul, Minnesota
Coordinates44°57′24″N 93°4′37″W / 44.95667°N 93.07694°W / 44.95667; -93.07694
Area0.9 acres (0.36 ha)
Built1884
ArchitectTruesdell,William Albert; Et al.
Architectural styleStone-arch bridge
MPSMinnesota Masonry-Arch Highway Bridges MPS
NRHP reference No.89001828<ref name="nris">{{cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2009-03-13|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service}}</ref>
Added to NRHPNovember 06, 1989

What is the significance? What makes this article worth reading? Well, when I first read about this bridge on the Minnesota Historical Society web site, it piqued my interest, because it's a very rare type of bridge. It's very technically demanding because of the unusual stone cutting in its design, and it attracted attention in the engineering press at the time. (By the way, I was interested in these bridges and reading up on them well before I joined Wikipedia.)

My point is that while the infobox generator can give you some of the basics to start an article, it can't generate complete articles. That's not the point of the thing, and it never was the point. And I realize that people don't always want to write full-blown fully-researched articles on their first shot, but it would be nice to have a little more in the start of an article than two sentences and an infobox.

Finally, if you want to get into my work queue, you'll either need to tell me that I've got a bug in my code, or you'll have to wait until I'm interested in editing Wikipedia again. Since I've developed other interests, I've been too busy to edit Wikipedia, and I've largely lost interest. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 00:36, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

NRHP infobox coordinates

I've been checking the infobox coordinates on Google Street View, and they've fairly consistently been off 3 or 4 seconds to the east. Is this a problem with the data, or Street View, or what? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:30, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

If memory serves, this has been noticed in the past. I believe the error is in the data, though relating to Street View, it may also be due to that being a series of photos, so there are small gaps. --Ebyabe (talk) 02:16, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
NRIS coordinates are from the NRHP applications, which i think always required coordinates to be entered, from 1966 beginning of NRHP program. In many cases, coordinates were precisely measured locations traced out on old U.S. Geological Survey quadrant maps, copies included in some applications. However in 1985 or 1988 or so, there was a nation-wide / world-wide datum adjustment of all geographic coordinates, to the current system used by Google/Bing/everyone. It changed coordinates in the U.S. especially at the four corners, so all the measures off of old system are now off. Only the area near Chicago was unchanged. All the older NRHP-submitted coordinates in state of Washington would be off by the same shift. Newer submitted coordinates would more often be perfectly accurate. There are some outright typos / other extreme errors in coordinates also included in NRIS. Coordinates for historic districts or plantations or other large properties are often at a calculated geocenter of the cornerpoints of the area, when pointing to the main plantation house, say, would be better. In general, the NRIS coordinates are pretty good, they usually get you to the right area. The National Park Service has done some geo-coding to get better coordinates that are available in some Google Earth layer, better coordinates than are in NRIS (which the infobox generator relies upon). We welcome corrections of coordinates, hoping that you'll add a comment as to your basis, but we do not actively collect reports of these, unlike other types of errors that we collect in the wp:NRIS info issues reporting system. (That's from memory; i've written this up before but i don't see it in wp:NRHPhelp, where i'll adapt this now.) Hope this helps. --doncram (talk) 02:43, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, thought I had seen something like that before, but I couldn't remember the details. Thanks for the detailed response! For the most part, I've only made corrections when I could verify that the building I was looking at in Street View matched the pictures/descriptions in the article, and I got the coordinates freshly from Geolocator@Freeside, instead of picking them out of Google Maps' Link URLs.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to help with WikiProject United States

Hello, WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 46! We are looking for editors to join WikiProject United States, an outreach effort which aims to support development of United States related articles in Wikipedia. We thought you might be interested, and hope that you will join us. Thanks!!!

--Kumioko (talk) 15:05, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

page-title

What's your convention regarding page-titles? somebody just created Masur Museum of Art, but the thing is officially listed as Masur House (redirect made by yours truly)? G'ahead and move it of that's how it's normally done. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 00:10, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

At least I run into this kind of thing reasonably often. Since I do other projects besides NRHP, my approach is to use the infobox title exactly as listed in the NRHP, but follow the general Wikipedia rules and use the most common and modern name for the article title with a redirect as you have done. An analogy might be a biobox that spells out a person's full name while the article title might omit their middle name if that is more common. In this case, the only issue would be that more than one independent source would be nice (listing the same one in both references and external links as this article does should be avoided). Just my opinion, others might differ. W Nowicki (talk) 17:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion to Merge 4 project with Wikipedia:WikiProject United States

It has been suggested that 4 inactive or defunct United States related Wikiprojects be merged into Wikipedia:WikiProject United States due to long states of inactivity. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States#Close out some Inactive/nonfunctional US related WikiProjects. --Kumioko (talk) 16:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

numbering format improvement for summary tally tables

I think this is an improvement. Using template:sort, it removes display of numbers for "duplicates" rows and for subtotal and total rows, in summary tally tables that appear in state-level NRHP list-articles. And the table is still sortable by that column. --doncram (talk) 15:36, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. At first appearance, I was thoroughly opposed to it, but then I realised that you hadn't simply removed the line numbers. Since we only need line numbers to sort everything properly, it's good to hide them and streamline the appearance. Nyttend (talk) 21:33, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:20, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to show the page in Wikipedia like WolterBot did?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:50, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
No, it's not, at least currently. You're not the only one asking about this, so it's possible I will add this feature in the future. Svick (talk)

Invitation to participation!

Hello!

As you may be aware, the Wikimedia Foundation is gearing up for our annual fundraiser. We want to hit our goal and hit it as soon as possible, so that we can focus on Wikipedia's tenth anniversary on January 15 and our new project: Contributions. I'm posting across these Wikiprojects to engage you, the community, to work to build Wikipedia by finance but also by content. We seek donations not only financially, but by collaboration in building content. You can find more information in Philippe Beaudette's memo to the communities here.

Visit the Contribution project page and the Fundraising page to find out how you can help us support and spread free knowledge. Keegan, Wikimedia Fundraiser 2010 (talk) 05:44, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

"Address restricted" and pictures

Is this too revealing?

Returning to a subject we've discussed before ...

I recently brought National Register of Historic Places listings in Genesee County, New York to fully-illustrated status with a picture of the Morganville Pottery Factory Site. This is an archaeological site, and thus it is "address restricted".

However, I was able to get this picture in June simply driving around Morganville, a small unincorporated hamlet with not much in the way of streets, until I found the site, marked by a locally-placed marker.

Whenever I get the rest of the materials I'd like to write the history of the place, I won't be giving a site description the way I usually do (and I may put an inline comment in the article asking that others not). But what do people think about including the picture?

In favor of including it, I'd point to the marker and the fact that it's not exactly a site that would be on the list next to, say, Valley of the Kings, for bootleg treasure hunters (A site with Native American significance, I'd be more circumspect about). And that "address restricted" is often something of a formality anyway (Montgomery Place is officially "address restricted", yet it has its own website and gives regular tours to the public). I also think that Morganville is a small enough place that anyone just walking into the field with shovels and digging will doubtless attract a lot of local attention.

Against doing so, I suppose it's possible to point out that the location could be identified by looking for the barns behind it in aerial photos on Google Earth or Bing (Anyone wanting to do so is advised to send me your coordinated guess via email rather than posting it publicly). I couldn't shoot that picture without them.

Thoughts? Daniel Case (talk) 14:41, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Glad you brought this up again. I have just been comparing concerns about disclosures in a few places. There are editors who deliberately or accidentally are disclosing information that should not be disclosed. Where the line should be drawn is not crystal clear. But I particularly dislike to see cases where an accidental disclosure by the National Register is being used to justify our trumpeting of location information that is pretty clearly not publicly known. In the past, there was accidental disclosure of some coordinates info by the National Register in the NRIS database and associated files, which has been addressed by removing the info from the last 2009 release of NRIS. There may be other info that they should be removed. Errors like that, which betray the trust of archeologists and others, should not be capitalized upon by us. wikipedia editors' disclosure of archeological sites is a concern of staff at the National Register and at least some state historic site offices. I think we should not disregard their concern. And I think most NRHP editors don't want to be causing harm, but our collective actions are causing harm.
There really needs to be a high-level Wikipedia policy created about archeological site disclosures. I think more harm is likely done by what we are doing, than harm is done by any unsourced BLP articles, which has received a lot more attention. A policy has to be reasonable and involve some process for identifying that locations are truly publicly known for some/many "Address restricted" sites. Much discussion about specific sites should be confidential. Perhaps specific discussion should/could happen somehow within the OTRS system? Also some steps would be simple, like our removing archeological sites from our NRHP list-tables (moving them to text lists or to abbreviated tables), so that their empty location and coordinates cells and photo spaces don't scream for every reader to fill in the info that they happen to know but which should not be shared. --doncram (talk) 16:01, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
I think most of the "address restricted" archaeological sites (that I'm familiar with) are of the not-very-identifiable sort, that a photo isn't going to help any vandals locate them. Precise coordinates are of course a different matter. But you make a good point that some locations are already publicly known. For example, National Register of Historic Places listings in Emery County, Utah has five "Address Restricted" sites, but the county publishes a tourist brochure with maps, directions, and photos for all five. Ntsimp (talk) 16:26, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
It would help if we knew more about who we're defending the sites against. I suspect that our main concern should be casual weekend looters; if we're able to find the location of a site by digging through publicly available information, then serious practitioners of five-finger archaeology would probably be able to do likewise.
The contents of a site probably matter, too. As User:Daniel Case suggested, a site that will only yield charred corncobs and discolored dirt is less likely to be visited by looters than one that offers the promise of gold funerary masks. Right now, for example, I'm working on an expansion of Pike-Pawnee Village Site; and I'm going to be very careful not to give away the location (should I discover it), since medals have been recovered from the site. I'd be less cautious if the best a looter could hope for was teepee rings or postholes.
I don't think it would be a good idea to include a line in an article asking people not to disclose the location. That, I fear, would only be taken as a challenge by some readers; and even if they didn't post the location on WP, it'd wind up on robmygrave.com or the like. I'd say: leave the location out, watch the article, revert edits that added the coordinates, and privately ask the editor not to de-revert them.
--Ammodramus (talk) 17:27, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
The photo is not too revealing, especially considering there is a historical marker that mentions excavations took place there. As long as the image is a broad view of the area, you're not doing any harm. For archaeological sites, I would suggest using either a historical image (perhaps its appearance on an old map), a photograph of the excavation work taking place, or a photograph of an artifact excavated from the site (such artifacts can often be found at a nearby museum). Bms4880 (talk) 17:46, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
I think part of the problem is a blind classification on the part of the NPS, putting all archeological sites into the restricted category. The absurdity is illustrated by L'Hermitage Slave Village Archeological Site which is featured, pictured, located and promoted on the NPS website for Monocacy National Battlefield and which was the subject of an article in the Washington Post, yet is classified as restricted. Mummy Cave also comes to mind - a fully-excavated, well-publicized archeological site, in which nothing now remains, and which was featured on an award-winning poster by the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office, yet which remains "address restricted." There are very valid concerns about pot hunters and disturbance of artifacts for the vast majority of site. For places that are completely obvious and which are the subject of publicity originating from state or federal agencies, I don't think we nee to concern ourselves to any great extent, except to exercise normal editorial discretion where we see the potential for harm. Acroterion (talk) 17:59, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Not all archaeological sites are address-restricted; for example, Forks of the Ohio in Pittsburgh is a significant site that has its address given. What's more, there are non-archaeological sites whose addresses are restricted, such as several round barns in northwestern Ohio that I've visited, or the Eli Nichols Farm in Coshocton County, Ohio. Nyttend (talk) 20:17, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Landmark name Image Date listed Location City or Town Summary
17 Cope's Bridge March 7, 1985 Strasburg Road (Pennsylvania Route 162) west of its junction with Creek Road and east of Marshallton
39°57′31.9″N 75°39′19.3″W / 39.958861°N 75.655361°W / 39.958861; -75.655361 (Cope's Bridge)[1] 		West Bradford Township
  1. ^ Location derived from its NRHP nomination form; the NRIS lists the site as "Address Restricted"

I have to say that I have extremely mixed feelings on this. 90% of the problem is that the NRHP shows extreme bureaucratic incompetence in listing some places, e.g. Cope's Bridge above, as "address restricted", when there is absolutely no reason to do so. The bridge built on what was one of the main roads of Pennsylvania has been open to public traffic (above and below) since about 1805, together with details on its funding, construction and maintenance costs, etc.

Besides initial errors of classification, they don't update these classifications, or correct their errors, so how do they expect people to take "address restricted" at face value? This type of thing, combined with their Focus Fiasco web site, makes me think that they are not at all interested in getting accurate information out to the public, but rather are just filling out forms and collecting paychecks.

Now that I've got that off my chest, I have to say that we do have responsibility, even if they are incompetent. If even 1% of the sites they list truly should be "address restricted" and we give the address, then we have caused some major damage. The question is how best to prevent that damage - while allowing a totally harmless photo like Daniel's to be added routinely.

  • First, somebody should inform the NRHP that in cases of true potential damage to archeological sites they should inform the Wikimedia Foundation, and they can remove the offending photos/addresses by "office action." Neither the Foundation nor likely the NRHP would be overwhelmingly happy about this as an ultimate solution, however. If the NRHP presented Cope's Bridge to the Foundation for this type of action, they would be justifiably laughed at.
  • Second, we should have some sort of clearly stated guideline, rule, or policy within the project for including AR photos, addresses, and coords. This might include a single editor (I'll nominate both doncram and Nyttend, who might represent extremes on this project) who can make secret decisions with the backing of the project members, and be available to NRHP folks.
  • Third (extremely minor) - let make sure that "address restricted" sites don't count against Fully Illustrated Lists (my pet peeve).

Smallbones (talk) 19:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Uhh, secret decisions? Do you mean decisions that are made secretly or decisions about secret things? I view suppression of information that's reliably sourced as censorship (policy link); of course we shouldn't include location information if it's not sourced, but as long as we have a good source, we're only repeating what's already been published. Take my article on the Sugar Grove Petroglyphs for an example: archaeologist James L. Swauger published the precise geographical coordinates for the site in his Rock Art of the Upper Ohio Valley. Overall — the location of any specific place is quite relevant to an article about it, so we can't remove coordinates or photographs on grounds of irrelevancy, and I can't see how it's consistent with "Wikipedia is not censored" to remove relevant, sourced information from an article for the reasons advanced above. Nyttend (talk) 20:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
You are perfectly correct about the above proposal being a type of censorship, but as with anything the no censorship rule has some limitations, e.g. the big flareup about kiddyporn on commons recently. It's an extreme hypothetical case, but consider the following: A reliable regional newspaper (say the Akron Beacon-Journal) accidentally publishes the address of a remarkable new archeological site, and then immediately removes the information from its website based on a request from the archeologist involved, but can't remove the information from the printed newspaper. An Akron reader publishes the info on Wikipedia, despite the protest of the American Archeological Association who says that the site will be looted. The info is reliably sourced, should it be removed from Wikipedia? I'd say yes, asap. Principles are wonderful, but they can cause damage if taken too seriously - we have a rule for this type of thing WP:IAR.
My point is only that there is some type of information that you'd be willing to censor, and other archeological sites otherwise safe from looting falls into that category for me. I agree mostly with you about publishing info on most AR sites. Daniel C's restraint is very commendable, but in the internet age it seems quite old-fashioned in its way. Smallbones (talk) 20:28, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
To me, it's a common sense thing. If the location is easily accessible to the public and/or marked (like the aforementioned Morganville Pottery Factory Site), pictures are OK. If not, not. Maybe that's overly simplistic, but I'm a simple person. :)
Seriously, though, I think the concern is revealing sites to potential looters, which is a valid worry. But those type of sites are usually (a) not readily accessible to the public and/or (b) on private property. We shouldn't be breaking any trespassing laws to get photos, naturally.
There is an option I've mentioned before, which is to get photos of artifacts from such sites. One would have to contact the appropriate museums or archaeological societies to get permission. The worse they could do is say no. I would think at least some of them would be glad of the interest. Maybe that's Polly-Anna-ish, but I like to see the world that way, doncha know. --Ebyabe (talk) 00:22, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all the input. I get the idea that it's OK. I think I might contact the Rochester Museum and Science Center or the Genesee County Historical Society and see what they think as well. Daniel Case (talk) 02:28, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

break in AR discussion

I recently came across something similar with Caughnawaga Indian Village Site. In that case, it is co-located with the Kateri Tekakwitha and Mohawk Caughnawaga Indian National Shrine or The National Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha. The website for the Shrine makes it clear that the archaeological site is a part of their property and describes it in some detail. Two illustrations I have for Niagara County, New York are for Lewiston Mound and Lower Landing Archeological District. In the case of the former, it is located on the grounds of the Earl W. Brydges Artpark State Park, clearly marked with big signs and arrows. For the latter, those who know the area know where the Lewiston landing is; it's quite obvious, so a general picture of the area is appropriate. Note that the New York State OPRHP does not post nomination forms for archaeological sites, although you can often find cites to academic articles about them if searching for their names on the web. A final example is the National Archives Archeological Site (College Park, Maryland); I work there, know the area and think a picture of the building is more appropriate than a picture of the neighboring woods where the site is actually located. Therefore, given your experience with the Morganville Pottery Factory Site and the experiences I note here, I believe it will be difficult to have a global policy for such sites.--Pubdog (talk) 20:40, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Generally, I see the problem here not as one where Wikipedia editors are digging up otherwise secret and impossible-to-find information and publishing it — nobody here is playing Indiana Jones and then blogging about it. The actual danger is that a large number of editors taking a large number of individually small and well-intentioned actions are accumulating in an easily-accessible location (Wikipedia) information that the "bad guys" would otherwise not pursue because it's too much work. My point in saying this is with regard to the original question about the photo of Morganville Pottery Factory Site: a roadside sign may indicate that the site is not secret per se, but the sign was a relatively harmless release of information as long as it was available only to casual passers-by and not placed on the internet. Publishing it in a Wikipedia article greatly expands its accessibility to potential looters/vandals in a way that wasn't an issue before: now the "bad guys" can know before they get off the couch that they only need to go out and look for the sign. I do NOT believe the photo should be included in the article.
At a higher level, we are dealing with the intersection of Wikipedia with a much larger, multi-layered problem. Looting and vandalism of archaeological and historic sites is an ongoing issue with a number of actors: professional looters, casual pot-hunters, intoxicated yahoos out to spraypaint over irreplacable resources. Nothing we do here is going to solve the larger problem — we can only hope not to make it worse. We can have the most impact with regard to the pot-hunters and vandals: people relatively unlikely to go out and do the sort of research we do on their own. But even with the pros, who will be far better than us at ID'ing the location of sensitive sites, we can at least avoid offering ourselves up as an unpaid workforce.
The comments above identify a large number of cases where nothing we publish is going to make it significantly easier for anyone to locate the site. But there are others, like Morganville, where the case is not nearly so clear-cut or obvious from the surface facts. I would love to say that editors should have the discretion to distinguish between cases where location information is already highly public, and cases where it's not, and let discussion and consensus play the cop. Daniel Case initiating this discussion is the exemplar of the ideal way to use wikimechanisms to address these issues in a specific case. But to me that approach has three major shortcomings: (a) Daniel Case's responsible approach is probably the exception rather than the rule, (b) sensitive information will often be sitting there in an article available to "bad guys" while discussions are under way, and (c) it doesn't take account of the reasoning by which the NRHP restricted the location information in the first place (which reasoning won't always be faulty). In the end, I'd prefer to see us break toward not publishing location information on AR sites except in the few most absolutely obvious cases.
Doncram outlines above a partial approach to this problem that we have previously discussed: break out AR sites in a list into a separate section/table where they are stripped of photos and location details. As a "pilot project", I have implemented my take on this approach at National Register of Historic Places listings in Wasco County, Oregon. Unfortunately, this approach does not address at all the issue of how to distinguish when it may be okay to leave an AR site in the main table. Also, Ebyabe suggests carefully selecting harmless subjects for photos, but I worry that having a whole bunch of vacant table cells in the meantime will only encourage editors less conscientious than those participating in this discussion to go out and get photos without regard to what harm the photos may do when published. So I agree with Doncram that the image column should probably also be stripped out. Anyhow, any comments on the Wasco County prototype will be welcome. — Ipoellet (talk) 21:50, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
I think a specific policy can be administered through the confidential correspondence system of wikipedia/wikimedia, wp:OTRS, where the "publicness" of specific sites could be considered. In such a correspondence process, evidence in the form of small local obscure mentions, or accidental releases of specific info, might be ruled insufficient for justifying location information. National and state officers could be consulted confidentially to verify the public or non-public status of sites. This is a correspondence process that would have to be done confidentially, to work. The public discussion, as here, of one particular site, permanently creates a public record that is hard to hide. --doncram (talk) 21:03, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Ipoellet comments elsewhere, and i copy in full to here:

Following on our conversation of a couple weeks ago about Wikipedia's potential for inappropriately releasing information that could endanger NRHP "address restricted" sites, I have attempted to implement a couple of the principles we discussed in an article. What I did was take the 2 "address restricted" sites in National Register of Historic Places listings in Wasco County, Oregon and break them into a separate table with some explanatory lead-in prose, but without the columns for image or address. Ideally, I hope the prose will both explain to readers what's going on and help suppress the impulse in editors to disclose undue details. Anyhow, have a look at what I did and let me know if you think this approach is an improvement on where we are. — Ipoellet (talk) 20:47, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the Wasco County treatment seems very appropriate and good as a default treatment, and I would recommend similar treatment for other NRHP articles. What do others think? --doncram (talk) 21:03, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

It's a reasonable partial solution, and I might even help implement it, after discussion, if I thought it would be implemented in a reasonable way. Two issues that would obviously come up are 1) should we remove addresses and pictures already added to AR sites? I say no - it wouldn't accomplish the stated goals, and 2) could AR sites be removed by us from the lower table and added back in to the regular table? I say yes, after careful consideration by editors and possibly discussions on this page.
The only complete solution would be to have the NRHP release a credible list of Address Restricted sites - which I suspect they are incapable of doing. Once they list it as AR - it has to stay as AR forever, whether the original listing was a mistake, or whether the situation has drastically changed. See above for numerous examples of this. Smallbones (talk) 21:33, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
The NRHP and the relevant state SHPO offices can indeed provide updated AR status information, and correspond promptly and professionally as needed. I have corresponded with several different officials previously. The impetus for the last NRIS database release, in March 2009, was specifically to update address restricted info, which was cleaned up considerably by NRHP staff, in response to pressure relating to the "coordinates needed" tagging by wikipedia bot, which was for a while exacerbating the problem of our Wikipedia system calling for editors to add inappropriate info. This was in conjunction with the bot programmer also consulting the NRIS data and pointing out problems, e.g. where coordinates were accidentally released for sites labelled Address Restricted, or where the AR tag in the NRIS database was wrong. I believe all the problems noted then were addressed. Apparently there are remaining other problems. Certainly there are many places where the original listing was Address Restricted, where that is no longer justified. Those would all be the subject of correspondence leading to NRIS status changes and our proceeding or not with displaying locations. --doncram (talk) 21:52, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
Joseph T. Rothrock House
I'm not clear on what you are proposing - is it 1) yes; and 2) no on the issues I brought up above? i.e. just trust the NRHP as if they provided credible info on address restricted sites? I'm sorry, but I can't ignore the obvious mistakes that go on forever without being corrected. If the many examples above aren't enough, 1 more: The Joseph T. Rothrock House in West Chester, PA. It's in the middle of town, now in the middle of an NRHP Historic District, with a Pennsylvania State Historic Marker right in front of the house since 1952, the Pennsylvania State Historic Site (AskRegis) gives the complete nomination with the address on it, and the nomination photo showing the state marker in front of the house. The owner now has his own sign in front of the house stating "Joseph Rothrock Manor" in big letters. But I just checked Focus and they still have it as address restricted. Reading the nomination form, I think I can identify the source of NRHPs error, that they made in entering the form in the database. Is there any reason to remove this address from Wikipedia? No way! Smallbones (talk) 00:22, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
About 1) i think we could/should remove coordinates information in some cases which i know about, where it seems that an editor has capitalized upon accidental release of information that was never supposed to be released, and where it is possible that all the mirror sites have not picked it up and/or that they will copy the updated articles sans the confidential information. In some/many cases, i think we present the info to the state/national NRHP staff and they have to accept that the info is public. Note, you never contacted the state office or the national NRHP staff to request that they update the info, did you? We really would have their attention on all the data quality issues, like about houses that have been demolished, too, if it was all connected to the revelation or not of address restricted stuff. That is the one major real concern they have about us. We need to have a Wikipedia policy that we will abide by Address Restricted labelling by them, unless we show that a place is in fact publicly revealed otherwise. We need to have a process where we say we think 10 places are now public and they get a chance to contact the archeologists or the state staff who get a chance to say yes they are public, or no omigod that one is a terribly sensitive place and it should not be revealed. I am in this general NRHP game out of interest in the historic preservation; i don't want to be part of a project that actually is causing harm. About 2) yes i agree AR sites could/should get removed and moved up, upon verification of public status and confirmation in a correspondence process. Also there needs to be a variation where an AR row gets a photo of an artifact from it, while it stays AR. --doncram (talk) 01:44, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
I would bet a lot of money that in some cases where one of us has found a location, some archeologist will be horrified. It could lead them to thrash a state office, or to have a sign removed. Certainly some people should really get in trouble. I am myself pretty horrified at the lax computer security of one state SHPO. I have, myself, tons of restricted address information that i should not have been able to get. In a proper process, with some general agreement here, i would represent the Wikipedia editors' case about both our seriousness about keeping private stuff private, and our need for their being responsive about what is or isn't private, and I would go for their attention at the highest levels. I have not felt deputized before about correcting NRIS info in the wp:NRIS info issues system, i have just acted on my own without any anger or demanding nature, so far. But our revealing stuff, and their revealing stuff, makes me angry, and I would use that. --doncram (talk) 01:55, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
I think that there should be a two fold policy. 1) If the only source for an address of an "address restricted" property is the NRHP or a state historic office or an improperly redacted copy of a NRHP form, then we should not include the coordinates or address here. 2) If, on the other hand, there are multiple reliable sources unrelated to the NRHP that identify the site, I have no problem listing the site's address here (and giving refs for the sources used). As an example, the Canfield Island Site is an archeological site and seems to be address restricted - see the NRHP form where "not for publication" is checked on Location. However, it is clearly identified on websites for its local chapter of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology and a local college's archology program. Although it was private property when it was listed on the NRHP, today it is a public park with a trail that has many markers showing the history and archeology of the site. There is a Native American pow-wow held there each summer which gets news coverage, and the Audubon Society recommends it as a place to go birding. Whether the NRHP likes it or not, this cat it out of the bag and its address and photos should be included here. I will also say that I have censored things I learned (rare biological specimens that are found in places I have written about), but there were also not multiple reliable sources for these - it is not just archeology sites that can be looted or raided. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 03:39, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

It might help if you could give an example of damage done. I know that would be difficult on a talk page without possibly causing further damage, but that just emphasizes the difficulties of putting in any sort of reasonable policy. Part of the above bothers me, in that it assumes that we should act as "public servants" rather than just as "interested citizens" and that it is our fault when the NRHP accidentally releases information and it ends up here. Aren't they the paid public servants?

But it comes down to what practical measure can we take. I suggest that 1st the NRHP send us a list of AR information that should be removed - perhaps thru OTRS - and then we should be able to get that info to 2-3 administrators (in this project) who can assess the REQUEST. If they request Cope's Bridge or Rothrock House info be removed, I'd say forget that nonsense. If they can do that reasonably, then I suggest we put all undisclosed archeological sites into the Wasco County format, and then discuss here (while disclosing as little info on the sites as possible) whenever a site should go into the AR (lower) list, or be raised to the regular (upper) list. But it does really depend on them giving us good information - and frankly, I'm skeptical. Smallbones (talk) 03:44, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

My problem with Smallbones's "paid public servants"/"interested citizens" dichotomy is twofold. First, just because we have paid public servants doesn't mean that responsible interested citizens (which I believe we all are) should simply wash their hands in the matter. As responsible citizens we should actively refrain from re-publishing even previously-released location information if we have any doubt that doing so might have the potential to cause additional harm. My second issue is that we're talking about the NPS here, not the NSA. It's patently obvious that the NPS does not have all the capabilities to keep information secret that the NSA does, nor would we ever, ever want the NPS to behave in the same way about information that the NSA does. Thus, some information will necessarily leak through that shouldn't, and it's up to us as responsible interested citizens to help fill in the gaps.
So, here's my strawman suggestion for a conservative process to approach AR sites:
  1. By default, all sites that are listed in the NRIS/NPS Focus as "address restricted" should be placed in the "lower table" in the Wasco County format, including those that may already have had images/location information published on Wikipedia. (I.e. yes to Smallbones's first question.)
  2. The NPS/SHPO should not have to initiate an additional, positive request to withhold location information from lists or articles. They have already done so by marking those listings "address restricted", after all.
  3. As long as a site is in the "lower table", images (except of artifacts or similar images that don't display the site) and location details should be withheld from other articles beyond just the NRHP lists.
  4. Listings may be transfered from the "lower table" to the "upper table" if location information for that site is already widely public, but only on specific request by an editor and discussion of that listing here or in a similar WikiProject NRHP forum, or confidential review by a committee as Smallbones suggests. (I.e. yes to Smallbones's second question.) (Follow-on problem: How do we hold such a discussion without releasing sensitive information in the course of the discussion? Is it even possible?)
  5. The specific standards/criteria to apply (in #4 above) to determine when location information is sufficiently public to move a listing to the "upper table" have yet to be defined, but should include at least (a) a specific contact to the NPS/SHPO to allow them the opportunity to make a case that we should not publish location information, and (b) the idea that some low-visibilty prior public disclosures of location information may not necessarily be sufficient to justify a higher-visibility release of information on Wikipedia.
Thoughts? — Ipoellet (talk) 18:00, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposed Interim Guidelines

I don't want to hold this up, but I do see major problems occurring if we try a blanket censorship policy based on NRHP's outdated/incompetent "address restricted" (AR) list. The suggestion that this project impose censorship on articles outside this project is an obvious no-go. There are many things that we do seem to agree on as minimal steps to take, so I propose these below, for comment, but also for immediate (though reversible) implementation. Stricter guidelines/policies might be implemented later, but will take a lot of discussion and work and possibly changing Wikipedia's more general rules. I also give a to-do list of things that need to be accomplished before a permanent guideline is implemented.

  1. The Wasco County format should be implemented for all NRHP county lists, placing "address restricted" archeological listings on the lower list if multiple, unquestionably reliable sources do not disclose the address of the site.
  2. Listings may be elevated to the upper table if multiple, unquestionably reliable sources disclose the address, and the elevation is accompanied by a notice on this page.

To-do list

  • Find out how the OTRS process would work if we say that the NRHP can request that address information should be deleted.
  • Find out if we can somehow get a confidential or limited access discussion page for these matters.
  • Discuss with other projects, and at general Wikipedia rule-making forums, how our actions (e.g. censorship) will be viewed.

Comments, addenda, and initial implementation welcome.

Smallbones (talk) 19:03, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

To-do-list seems reasonable. User:Howcheng is one past NRHP contributor who is very qualified with OTRS experience who could advise on whether/how OTRS could be used. I've invited Howcheng to comment here.
Our process has to be reasonable. We would use some kind of triage process, and work tentatively to start. At one extreme we'd step in to use administrative tools, including perhaps wp:oversight(?) (which i think Daniel Case does?), to squelch location info and photos in just a few cases where the non-publicness, non-availability of location info is known pretty well, i.e. where damage is highly likely (i.e. damage to actual sites and/or to our credibility with NRHP and concerned others). At another extreme we'd push a set of obviously public places which are still AR-classified in NRIS, and demand/expect updating in those obvious cases. Then work towards the middle.
About getting wider community input, this is a natural issue for WikiProject Historic sites (wp:HSITES) world-wide, and some proposal should be put to Village Pump or other general proposal area. This is like Wikipedia policy for Biographical info on Living People (BLP), or like Copyright issues or Plagiarism issues, but there's a guideline/policy gap here. I think doing the right thing by filling the gap with a reasonable policy/procedure would be appreciated, generally, though a general process can be expected to bring in some extremist views. --doncram (talk) 04:18, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I would view the potential policy as analogous to the biographies of living persons policy, which can be summed up as "do no harm." We draw the line at personal information, regardless of how well-sourced such information might be. Note that much content that violates BLP isn't oversighted unless it rises to extreme levels. These days rev/del is most often used, although I'd venture that current revdel policy doesn't support this particular use. Acroterion (talk) 18:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Does someone want to be bold and draft a guideline, following the format of the BLP policy? I suppose it would get shortcuts like wp:AddressRestrictions or wp:ArcheologicalSites, and be located at Wikipedia:Archeological sites. It should use template proposed to describe it, to start, as "The following is a proposed Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption."
Also, I've posted notice of this discussion at wt:HSITES and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Archaeology. --doncram (talk) 20:35, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I have never heard of the "address restricted" (AR) list. Is this an issue particular to the US? If I found the information from the UK and posted it on wp what sort of sanction would be needed? In the UK publicly funded bodies such as English Heritage and the County archaeological services have as part of their remit, increasing public knowledge and understanding about heritage sites and I am not aware of any sites being restricted in this way. Although I can understand a desire for sites not to be damaged by unqualified exploration, I would think that if the information is already in the public domain, from reliable sources, then any censorship by/of wikipedia would be inappropriate. There are sites which are secret because of national security and therefore not included on Ordnance Survey maps but wikipedia has articles about them - I can imagine some people arguing for censorship in these cases as being more important that archaeological sites.— Rod talk 20:44, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

In this context it is an American issue, though there might be similar issues elsewhere. Likely not in the UK however. I can imagine public information from a reliable source being available, with 99+% of the people in this project wanting to remove the information from Wikipedia, e.g. if the NRHP requested that the info be deleted based on a real situation of archeological looting. The problem to my mind is that the NRHP hasn't been very accurate or professional in how they list AR sites, and that the basic "address restricted" designation simply isn't credible. BTW, I've stated my conflicted position several times above and now want to sit back and hear what others have to contribute. Smallbones (talk) 21:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Thanks for commenting, and good questions. In the NRHP program, the "address restriction" tool is understood upfront by property owners, archeologists, others as being permanently available to enable listing of physically unprotected sites. Otherwise archeologists or others would not agree to NRHP listing. NRHP listing provides for eligibility for historical preservation grants, and puts in place permanent requirements for various Federal agencies to get clearance before damaging a site (like for some archeological sites that are located within a Federally owned nuclear power plant or a military installation) and provides other possible benefits. Increasing public understanding sounds like a general good, but not when the archeologist or Indian tribes or whoever were promised the location info would not be revealed, and when it is professional judgment that disclosure of location would lead to physical damage. Of course many sites get protected physically later, like a fence and museum get built, and then the address restriction is inappropriate. I'm curious whether this kind of promise is only present in U.S. historic register listings. Is there any wikipedia policy about military secrets, like recipe for making atomic bombs? There's also Wikipedia:Restricted materials but that is not about military or archeological secrets. --doncram (talk) 21:22, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Nuclear weapon goes into technical detail, but nothing that isn't already nearly universally known. The WP:RS and WP:V policies tend to deal with really secret things, since if they aren't already published in a reliable source, we can't use it. If it's a real big secret, it'll just have to wait until the big story breaks concerning the lizard-people who are really running the planet. Acroterion (talk) 21:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
(ec)I'm not sure whether EH publishes lists of archeological sites that haven't received more than a cursory investigation, but pot-hunters are a global problem. The Park Service is sensitized to the issue because there are always people sneaking onto NPS-administered battlefield sites with metal detectors, or people removing artifacts from one of the dozens of full-fledged archeological monuments in the American Southwest. It's worth noting that the NPS/NRHP restricts information on sites that are on NPS-administered and private lands equally, and restricts access on NPS lands; you can't just go wandering around Mesa Verde National Park. A further category for concern - caves. Most caving clubs guard cave locations jealously for reasons of public safety and preservation of natural features or wildlife. Wikipedia would face a very hostile reception if it published precise coordinates of non-public caves. Acroterion (talk) 21:32, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
To speak to Smallbones' concerns, I think/assume that state and local staff have generally been very professional in their listing process, and use the promise of address restriction responsibly. There has not been budget / concern / interest in updating NRIS information, as shown by the several hundred of demolished buildings that we know of that are still listed. Likewise we know a lot about the now-public nature of some once-secret places, which the Federal NRHP staff simply don't know. That doesn't mean any one individual has been derelict in their personal duties though; no national level staff has been responsible for seeing to any kind of updating. If there is reason to update, like we are implicitly giving threat of revealing a whole host of locations if they don't, then I assume they would respond, though slowly. Faster if we approach the Secretary of the Interior and/or other higher-ups. Certainly there are professionals in local, state, national offices who do want to do the right thing, including to see that, for the general public good, much info is indeed to be disclosed and publicized in Wikipedia (consistent with the program to digitize and post all NRHP nomination documents). To Rod: the NRHP documents are held back for the AR ones, or only released after redacting. I think the NRHP releases vastly more info than does English Heritage. It is relatively impossible to find out if an English place is even listed. I would guess they are applying Address Restriction, in just holding back info about sensitive sites.
It should not be too easy for anyone to just check off "Address Restricted" on a form though. There is/was one state or county area where the staff was checking off AR for every private property listing (even houses that are on public roads and that they themselves publish photographs of, on a website), out of what i believe was misguided concern and the too-easy-availability of the checkoff box. However I think state-level policies and general practices do not allow that. Obviously that undermines the professional meaning given to the term by others, and obviously we/all should reject all or most of that area's AR tagging. Is it good that AR tagging is available on the form? Can't say. I am sure some places have NRHP listing because the AR tool was available; others might have been NRHP-listed even if the location was going to be disclosed. --doncram (talk) 21:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I think that all, or even a large minority, of NRHP staffer are unprofessional. Some of their results (e.g. shown above) do look unprofessional but that might be caused by things like poorly written/overly restrictive laws, bad political appointees supervising them, lack of interest from the general public, as well as budget constraints. Smallbones (talk) 01:21, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I thought I'd point out this which seems remarkably similar. ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 23:46, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed this is very interesting to look at. The proposer might have even been quoting from our discussion above (except the proposal was 9 months ago). It does show how difficult this would be to get through the wiki-system. 11 opposes to 2 supports. The proposer followed it up with Wikipedia_talk:Oversight#Proposal_for_new_.27public_interest.27_clause with a very similar result. I'll say based on this it's impossible to get this type of thing through the rule making system. Let's concentrate on what we can do here. Smallbones (talk) 01:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
I find all that profoundly discouraging. I was particularly distressed by one editor's comment that "...our mission is to convey knowledge. What is done with that knowledge is beyond our concern...." I don't demand that people come to the same conclusion as me on these issues, but I wish that they would at least care about the impact of what we do and say here. That said, Smallbones is probably correct about the likelihood of getting consensus on any sort of policy or guideline: (a) Some of those in opposition regarding vulnerable species did raise several good points that would be very difficult to satisfy, and (b) while the BLP rules rely on similar principles as what we're discussing here, the BLP effort was aided by a threat of potential legal action that is simply absent (or vastly reduced) when we're talking about orchids or shell middens. — Ipoellet (talk) 16:33, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
The relevant law in the U.S. is the Archaeological Resource Protection Act (ARPA) [3] (which should have an article). It deals with actual acts of damage or removal, but it's still an interesting read for context. Acroterion (talk) 16:44, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
I stubbed in an ARPA article. As Acroterion points out, it doesn't deal wih dissemination of location information about archaeological sites, but makes relevant reading nevertheless. It also primarily deals only with archaeological resources on federal and Indian land, leaving resources on other lands to state law (so, for instance, only one of the two AR sites in the Wasco County example would be covered by ARPA). It's completely overridden by NAGPRA when Native American human remains are involved. It does, however, provide for federal penalties for trafficking in resources excavated in violation of state laws, highlighting that the individual states will have very relevant laws of their own. ARPA's focus on federal land means it's probably more relevant in the West than the East. — Ipoellet (talk) 18:14, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
I found that proposal's discussion profoundly depressing, too. About what we can do without a policy proposal, I think we can go ahead and change the NRHP list-articles per Ipoellet's example with Wasco county, perhaps using a templated intro statement whose wording could be modified. I think that revising the list-tables would take off much of the pressure we ourselves induce, by our current list-tables, for the identification of locations of these places. We also, already, avoid the "coordinates wanted" tags, by cooperation of that bot operator.
The federal law's provisions are interesting, that it is in fact illegal for the locations of "permit-requiring" archeological resources on Federal lands to be disclosed. (page 10 of the Annotated text of ARPA from the National Park Service provided in the new article (thanks for building that, Acroterion!)) Not sure who is restricted that way. If that law applies to Wikipedia editors/servers in the U.S. then we do have the basis/need for at least a limited policy. --doncram (talk) 21:07, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
I believe the provision about disclosure on Page 10 is aimed at Federal managers, which explains their reluctance to release even obvious sites, as they might run afoul of ARPA regardless. By the way, Ipoellet made that article, and did a better job than I would have done. Acroterion (talk) 02:26, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
I've tried out a different approach to amending the list-articles at National Register of Historic Places listings in Sherman County, Oregon. I (tentatively) think I still prefer the Wasco County approach, but I thought I'd toss the alternate out for others to take shots at. — Ipoellet (talk) 20:36, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
The protection of sites goes back to the Antiquities Act of 1906. Any time you conduct a cultural resources survey or excavation on Federal or Tribal lands (usually under Section 106 of the NHPA) you need an "ARPA permit" issued by the Tribe or Federal agency whose jursidiction the land is. Einbierbitte (talk) 19:23, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

continuing

I drafted {{Restricted address section intro}} as a template for use in "Restricted listings" sections of NRHP lists. It currently takes 2 arguments, e.g. "two" and "Wasco County", and I applied it in two articles, National Register of Historic Places listings in Wasco County, Oregon and National Register of Historic Places listings in Monroe County, Indiana to start. I edited down the wording from what Ipoellet had used in the Wasco County article for use in this draft. Wording can be improved. Programming can be improved to provide appropriately different wording for cases where the number of address restricted sites is just "one". The current draft wording is:

Certain individual listings on the NRHP are archaeological sites or other sensitive areas that could be subject to looting or other damage. Consequently, the National Park Service and the State Historic Preservation Office — the authorities that oversee the NRHP and its information — sometimes choose to restrict (i.e. decline to publish or otherwise release) details regarding the locations of such sites. In order to respect this restriction, the NUMBER such listings in AREA are presented below without photos or location details.

Discuss here and/or at Template talk:Restricted address section intro, or just revise to improve this. --doncram (talk) 13:32, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The original subject heading talks about photos, and everybody keeps saying we'll leave the photos off the lists. I disagree. While it makes sense to defer to the NRHP and leave coordinates off AR listings we can't otherwise justify, I see little reason to exclude photos. Most photos aren't going to give enough context to blow a site's cover, are they? Ntsimp (talk) 16:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
These notes are in the spirit of attempting to keep the discussion all here in one place: Nyttend objected to Doncram's edits to the Monroe County list and reverted them, with the edit summary "They're just as much on the Register as any of the other 38 sites; they shouldn't be treated separately". In a continuing attempt to seek consensus, I then shaded out the image and location cells for the Monroe County AR listings, in the same manner as I previously piloted at Sherman County. I've never heard if anyone likes or dislikes the Sherman County approach. — Ipoellet (talk) 22:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
Nyttend further objected to my edits to the Monroe County list and reverted them, with the edit summary "Why? The location is not "NA", and "NA" is not a photo; it's not as if there's a policy-based reason to treat these differently". The why is because of the concerns voiced in this discussion about censorship: the "restricted" language seem to exacerbate that issue, so I tried something different. — Ipoellet (talk) 19:52, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

In case anyone is interested, here's a brief story about just one ARPA criminal case. — Ipoellet (talk) 19:42, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

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