It's apparently a contributing property in the Perryville Historic District. The nomination document says, "Elmwood Academy, built as a residence by J. A. Burton, circa 1850, served as a hospital during the Battle of Perryville. From 1891 to 1925 Elmwood Academy, a private co-educational school, was housed there." That seems to match information in the article. Ntsimp (talk) 22:25, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
To Furicorn, yes to what Ntsimp says, and there are more bits about Elmwood at other spots in the document and its accompanying photos. It wouldn't have been very easy to find, as there was not yet a Perryville Historic District article until just now (i just created it). It now has full reference to the NRHP document with its accompanying photos including two of Elmwood. Copy-paste-able reference: <ref name=nrhpdoc>{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=73000792}}|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Perryville Historic District / Perryville |publisher=[[National Park Service]]|author=Maurice Harmon |date=June 1, 1973 |accessdate=September 17, 2017}} With {{NRHP url|id=73000792|photos=y|title=12 photos and a map}}.</ref>
The Elmwood Inn is in fact one of the most significant of the 55 contributing buildings in the NRHP district, and it is correct to state that it was listed on the National Register in 1973. I may add a bit to the Elmwood Inn article, including a contributing building NRHP infobox to convey some of this. --doncram01:20, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
@Ntsimp and Doncram: Thank you both for taking a look. The NRHP pages seem so well maintained I was surprised to find one without the standard info, so I'm glad you all put it on. -Furicorn (talk) 09:13, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
Issue #1: The property is in the NRIS database twice; once as "pending/listed" (#72001632) and once as an actual listing (#07000383). Strangely, the current infobox contains the earlier NRIS number, but the later listing date. I think the appropriate thing to do here is to go with the later listing and change everything to conform to that, as the earlier one was likely never actually completed. Comments?
Issue #2: The property name also seems to be ambiguous. A state of Michigan historical marker lists it as "Davenport House" (the current article title and listing name), but the NRIS has it as "Bauer Manor" for the first listing (#72001632) and "Davenport Hotel" for the second (#07000383). Of the three, it seems like "Bauer Manor" is more common (see this news article), so I think the appropriate thing to do here is to move the article to "Bauer Manor" (already a redirect), and then retitle the infobox and county list with "Davenport Hotel" as the official name on the Register. Comments?
Can the county listings be updated? I've read that one has been added in my city, Brunswick, Glynn County, Georgia - I think it is the Dixville HD or something like that. I want to photograph it, but I don't even know where it is. Bubba73You talkin' to me?02:18, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
It looks like all the listings are up to date, but the NPS hasn't posted the weekly listings for last week yet; they're supposed to go out on Friday, but they often aren't posted on time. Though if you're referring to this district, it was only added to the state register so far. TheCatalyst31Reaction•Creation02:35, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
There is a large block of text in the lead here that was added two months ago by a SPA regarding how this placed became listed. It should probably be removed as copyvio/plagiarism/unsourced. If someone can substantiate any of it in the NRHP nomination then maybe something can be salvaged. I started a section over on the article talk page. MB01:31, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
Architectural categories at Commons
There's some variation by states in the architectural categories at Commons, and I'd like to get it straightened out, so that the category structures are uniform for all states. I'd like to ask if anyone here has strong opinions about what structure should be used.
The issue is how we should handle "Category:Victorian architecture in $STATE", and whether other categories, including "Italianate architecture in $STATE" and "Queen Anne architecture in $STATE" should be subcategories thereof. In some states, e.g. Alabama, "Italianate" and "Victorian" come under "by style", with "Queen Anne" under "Victorian". In others, e.g. Nebraska, "Queen Anne" and "Victorian" are under "by style", with "Italianate" under "Victorian". In still others, e.g. Ohio, "QA", "Victorian", and "Italianate" are all directly under "by style", and "Italianate" recurs under "Victorian". In "Architecture of the United States by style", "Italianate", "Victorian", and "QA" are all under "by style"; and then "QA" and "Italianate" recur under "Victorian". Clearly, this is a mess, and needs to be standardized and brought into conformity with Commons:COM:OVERCAT.
My own preference would be to keep "QA" and "Italianate" directly under "by style", both since users might not think to look for such categories inside "Victorian", and because "Victorian" strikes me as more a temporal category than a stylistic one—if, for instance, I win the lottery tomorrow, I could decide to build myself an Italianate mansion, but it'd seem strange to call it Victorian. However, in a number of nom forms I've seen "Victorian" used to describe houses that I'd personally be inclined to call Queen Anne, so we might want to keep it as a style category, parallel to QA and Italianate.
Thoughts on this? There are a number of people in this WikiProject who know architecture much better than I, and are more qualified to comment. I'd like to get some kind of consensus, or at least no well-founded opposition, before I embark on a mass recategorization campaign. Ammodramus (talk) 23:24, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
Ammo, I don't know the answer to your question, but have had similar questions myself. I hope my thoughts may help clarify, but if they confuse, please just ignore them. "Queen Anne" is especially troubling. Technically it should be "Queen Anne Revival" since Queen Anne died about 1710. But the styles vary in different places - so "Queen Anne" and "Queen Anne Revival" in the UK are very different styles and "Queen Anne" (with or without revival) is quite different in the US, and are somewhat different in California and New Jersey. The Eastlake-Stick style might be two different styles but usually isn't divided anymore, and I think of it as Post-Victorian more than Victorian. Italianate at least doesn't mean "Italian" but more like "inspired by the Italian" so can be any time period. Same with "Gothic Revival". Since Gothic Revival and Italianate were 2 of the top styles in the US during Victoria's reign in the UK, these are also troubling. Perhaps, perhaps, all these styles could be substyles of "Victorian eclectic", at least in the US. But trying to get a consistent worldwide naming system would be beyond my powers! Smallbones(smalltalk)15:52, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Yes, "Victorian" is problematic. One big issue is that people seem to think of it as including a massive range of styles, including the ones you mention and some others, and the phrase is routinely used by people who know nothing of "Queen Anne" or "Edwardian", including when they're describing buildings that definitely postdate the Victorian period. I never use any "Victorian" categories when categorising my own uploads, and recategorising "Victorian" buildings into their proper styles would be helpful. Nyttend (talk) 02:53, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
Not as much response here as I'd hoped for. I thought about mooting this at WikiProject Architecture, but there appears to be very little activity at their talk page, so I don't think I'd find much help there.
I agree with Nyttend: It'd be good for buildings currently categorized as "Victorian" to be recategorized properly. Unfortunately, I'm not competent to do that. When I catgorize by architectural style, I have to rely on the sources: chiefly, nom forms. When the sources call a building's style "Victorian", I don't assign a style category at all.
My plan is to pull all the various style subcategories—QA, Italianate, Shingle Style, etc.—out of "Victorian", so that they'll come directly under "Architecture of $PLACE by style". I won't eliminate the "Victorian architecture" categories, but will treat them as though Victorian were a style of its own, parallel to the others.
I'll only do this within the United States: among other things, as Smallbones pointed out, what we'd call Queen Anne architecture isn't at all like what the British were building during the Augustan period. I'm also not going to touch Wikipedia categorization, but people who work more than I do with the WP category system might want to take a look at the architectural-style categories there. Ammodramus (talk) 15:47, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
Still a stub? If someone could take a look and see if this article is still a stub, or what improvement it needs that would be great. Thanks. MrBill3 (talk) 16:04, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
It's short, less than 1000 prose bytes (per this script)). Considering the length of the National Register nomination form, it is clear that more can be written about it. I judge that adequately sourced subjects should have at least 1500 prose bytes before being considered Start level. Tell us more about its setting, more about its excavation history, and more about why what was found was significant. Magic♪piano16:32, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate your clear and specific suggestions. Very nice and helpful (especially in the all too often contentious world of WP editing). I have gone through the application and added most of what you suggested. It resulted in a significant expansion of the article. I am hoping to find some more information about the significance and importance of the artifacts from the museums. I have taken the bold step of removing the stub tag. Best. MrBill3 (talk) 16:41, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
The byte count notwithstanding, I think that it is clearly better than a stub. Look at the descriptions at Wikipedia:WikiProject_National_Register_of_Historic_Places/Assessment#Quality_scale and the examples for stub and start. I suggest making a couple of sections. (Well, I just did that - change them if you see a better way.) And it seems to be a lot more than 1000 bytes of text to me - a quick count of the number of lines and the number of charcters per line puts it close to 4,000 characters. Bubba73You talkin' to me?20:21, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Both were due to errors with the refnum. The Kemper Street HD was missing the leading zero, while the cemetery was missing the refnum completely. They're both updated now. 25or6to4 (talk) 00:12, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
99.05% illustrated in Pennsylvania
The most recent update at the progress page gives the following numbers
Pennsylvania 3,372 total sites 3,340 sites illustrated 99.1%
which is something I'd never thought I'd see! Congrats should go to @Nyttend, Ruhrfisch, and Gerry D:, Roy at Commons and many, many others. Don't worry, it's impossible to catch up to Washington DC (100%) or Massachusetts (99.6%). There are 32 PA sites left, but half or more are destroyed, address restricted, or otherwise inaccessible. The remainder are spread across the state, 1 or 2 in about 15 counties. It's a pretty big state with lots of mountains, so I doubt we'll get those soon, but if somebody is in Allegheny County outside of Pittsburgh, there are 3 sites, Centre County (2 sites), and Franklin County (2 sites) that should be accessible.
{{NRHP row
|pos=84
|refnum=100001635
|type=HD
|article=Twin Bridges Rural Historic District
|name=Twin Bridges Rural Historic District
|address=Roughly bounded by Creek & Bullock Rds.,Beverly Farm, Big Bend & Hill Girt Farms Estates, Brandywine Cr.
|city=[[Pennsbury Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania|Pennsbury Township]]
|county=[[Chester County, Pennsylvania]]
|date=2017-09-18
|image=TWIN BRIDGES RURAL HISTORIC DISTRICT, SOUTH CHESTER CTY, PENNA.jpg
|lat=39.860046
|lon=-75.598414
|description=Extends into [[Pennsbury Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania|Pennsbury Township, Chester County]]
}}
Thanks @Smallbones: and congratulations to all involved! The Twin Bridges listings look correct to me. Where could I see a list of places that still need photos? I could try to make it to Centre County. I also wonder about "fair use" of the NRHP photos for the destroyed sites (like covered bridges from the PennDOT survey). Ruhrfisch><>°°21:10, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
The NHRP Thomas Creighton School was moved about six months ago to Universal Creighton Charter School, the name of a charter school currently operating in the building. Since the article is on the historic building (known as Thomas Creighton School) and has virtual no information about the charter school, shouldn't the article retain the NHRP name? MB05:10, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
A viewpoint from WP:WPSCH here. If this school wasn't on the NRHP, it's likely it would not have an article here. Also, I can't help but have that Spidy-sense feeling that the page move was corporate motivated. I'd endorse strongly moving it back. John from Idegon (talk) 06:06, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
Googling ("thomas creighton school") yields 1,470 hits. Googling ("universal creighton charter") produces 5,830. It doesn't seem possible to search the Philadelphia Inquirer website directly, but doing a Google advanced search for those two phrases, restricting results to the Inquirer website (philly.com), produces one hit for "thomas creighton school", and four for "universal creighton charter". Searching the Philadelphia Tribune and Philadelphia Weekly sites turns up no occurrences of either phrase.
I haven't looked for overlap (sites that use both phrases), nor have I attempted to assess the quality of the coverage; but the raw Google numbers at least suggest that the Universal Creighton name should be preferred, under WP:COMMONNAME. Ammodramus (talk) 13:23, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
I think this is a conflation of two independent topics. "Thomas Creighton School" is the historic building with a nearly 100-year old history notable for being on the NRHP. It had a stub which could be greatly expanded. "Universal Creighton Charter School" is an organization, a K-8 charter school that is currently using the building. If someone finds it notable, there could be a separate article on the organization. This is one of eight charter schools operated by the "Universal Companies Family of Schools" which is part of "Universal Companies" ([1]). Per normal handling of secondary schools, they are covered in an article about their "district" or governing authority. I can't find an article on Universal Companies, but if one is ever written then that is where this school should be covered. The current article's title is of a non-notable topic and has usurped a notable article. MB14:26, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
Umm, this page was in no way a corporate move. It was based on the modern, common name of the school. And I don't see how it's a conflation of two topics. Although two different institutions have been there, it's still just one building. The NRHP designation was largely based on its architectural qualities, which didn't change just because it housed a charter school. "Thomas Creighton School" and "Universal Creighton Charter School" are really both just educational organizations; I don't see why you would regard them differently. The building only used the old name because that's what the organization that used it was called. kennethaw88 • talk07:16, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
It still remains that the subject "Universal Creighton Charter School" is not a notable subject. The school is NOT the building. The building is what is notable, NOT the school. The school could move next fall (hypothetical) and it would still be some variation of Universal Charter School. And it would remain as non notable as it is now. The building, tho, would remain where it is, and remain notable.
You can say this isn't a corporate thing but you'd be wrong. What's to say that the reason the ghits are higher for the school's name isn't because that's what it's called here? Internet marketing and SEO are real things. Somewhere earlier this year a discussion was had about how there is a book or a website that instructs bed and breakfast owners to try to get the article on the historic house they are in moved to the name of their inn. I've seen those hack pieces. At least they haven't done that here.
Article naming conventions are guidelines. We as editors need to apply them with responsibility. I do not think that a lot of editors realize how powerful Wikipedia is. And with great power comes great responsibility. English Wikipedia is the 5th most visited website in the entire world. 3 of the four more visited websites are search engines, with varying amounts of editorial content. That means that we, along with Facebook, are the main drivers of link juice. The right title on a Wikipedia article can be worth millions of dollars in sales. Essentially, we are giving the naming rights for this valuable asset (the article title) over to a commercial entity that has little to no interest in the historical nature of the building. The tall building in Chicago with all the setbacks is the Sears Tower, that big stadium in Dallas is the Cotton Bowl, and the building under discussion here is the Thomas Creighton School. John from Idegon (talk) 11:05, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm afraid that I have to disagree with J from I's conflation argument. It seems entirely reasonable to discuss a building's past and current occupants in an article that's primarily about the building; and it's entirely reasonable to discuss any interesting aspects of an organization's physical plant in an article about the organization. If, for instance, the occupant of the building were Universal Creighton Charter High School (which, per WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, would presumably be notable), it'd seem strange and wrong to create separate articles for the building and the academic institution.
JFI's determination to keep WP from being hijacked for marketing or promotional purposes is laudable, but seems to be carried too far, to the point of "If an edit benefits a commercial entity, we're opposed to it". Let's look at a hypothetical in which the profit motive is presumably absent. A building is constructed for the public Jefferson Davis High School, and under that name is listed in the NRHP. Subsequent to the listing, the high school moves across town, and its name is changed to Medgar Evers H.S. A public middle school moves into the old building, under the name West Central M.S. What name do we use for the article on the historic building? Davis High no longer exists; Evers High is miles away. If a local resident wants to look up the history of that middle school with the big Corinthian columns, do we expect them to know that it used to be Davis, and to type that name into WP's search box; or do we do what seems like the sensible thing, and give the article the building's current name? If that's what we'd do for a non-commercial entity, is there a good reason for treating commercial entities otherwise? Ammodramus (talk) 13:49, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Earlier today, I came back from a road trip to the New York Tri-State area for some pictures that include both NRHP and non-NRHP sites. Among the sites I've wanted to get pics of for a long time was the mythical "Satan House," in North Massapequa, New York. Moreinfohere. Now before any of you get bent out of shape, I've never believed any of the tales of devil worship, human sacrifice, and all that junk, and I know that the owner of the place just wanted a nice red brick house. But to my surprise when I took my pic of the place, I noticed an NRHP plaque by the door, which I didn't capture. If this house has never been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, can anybody figure out why the plaque was there? ---------User:DanTD (talk) 04:03, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
Here's the house.
Perhaps it's a contributing property to an historic district? I've come across lots of buildings in HDs with NRHP plaques that aren't individually listed on the NRHP. --sanfranman59 (talk) 21:00, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
There's only one historic district in Oyster Bay (the town containing North Massapequa), which isn't anywhere near this building. There also don't seem to be possibly overlapping districts in Hempstead, the next town west. One question to ask Dan: are you sure it was an NRHP plaque, and not a similar-looking plaque (i.e. did you get close enough to actually read it)? Magic♪piano21:17, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
It's also possible the plaque was just put there without actual designation. Anyone can buy one [2] for example is a cheap version. MB03:10, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Long time, no see, NRHP project. It's been quite a while since I've actively edited out here. I visited the United States National Register of Historic Places listings page and it looks like the state counts there are out of date. Is that page no longer being maintained? Just wondering. I'm wondering if it's worthwhile endeavor to take the time to update it? I know, WP:BOLD. But I don't want to waste my time with something that's not of interest to the project. --sanfranman59 (talk) 20:50, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
It certainly doesn't look like its been getting updated with any regularity. It's another one of those things that cries out for automation. Magic♪piano21:32, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
FWIW, I've updated the US page to reflect the current totals in the state tables. Ah, this brought back memories of the tedious work involved in keeping these pages up to date. You're right, MP, it sure seems like a bot could take care of keeping the US table in sync with the state tables. --sanfranman59 (talk) 01:42, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Expect to update New York a lot for the next month or so, because I have plenty from Suffolk and Nassau Counties on Long Island coming, as I've had for more than a week. I also have at least two contributing properties to the Garrison Landing Historic District, and at least one extra Yonkers Post Office image coming as well, but you people already have a gallery for the latter. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 12:31, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Where does the conflicting info come from? There usually isn't much disagreement about historical owners - it's either listed in the nomination form or it's too complicated to be of interest to most folks, or maybe just unknown. I wouldn't worry about the current owners - that can change frequently and nobody updates it for the NRHP. Maybe you could do title searches at the county courthouse? Didn't think so. Smallbones(smalltalk)03:48, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
National Register of Historic Places listings in Fairfield County, Ohio - #2 John Artz Farmhouse - I think I got to this location, but the house I saw there didn't look like the one in the county listing. I looked around in that area quite a bit, but didn't find it. Is there a way to check to see if the photo in the county listing is the correct house?
Bryn Mawr is the house near the road. I fixed the coordintates.
Central Ohio Lunatic Asylum seems to be the same as Columbus State Hospital - the aerial photo seems to match the map drawn in the NRHP form. I redirected and added a NRHP info box, but only a few of the fields.
The John Artz Farmhouse photo is the correct house. The coordinates seem to be way off. I changed the coordinates to the one from the UTM in the form and they didn't match. I searched for the address and it seems to match those coordinates (changed). Bubba73You talkin' to me?03:18, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
I hate that the I.P. editor, who is evidently quite an experienced Wikipedia editor, is choosing to edit without a regular account. It undermines our normal communication system, and IMHO it would be more okay to disregard them and/or treat them harshly, e.g. by blocking the I.P. address permanently if they appear to edit war, say. I just chose to revert their edit, although I invite the I.P. editor to discuss here.
The I.P. editor does have a point, though, in their edit summary comment that the widely used NRHP template ({{National Register of Historic Places}}) is "non-bi-directional". This has been brought up here at wt:NRHP before. If i recall correctly some policy/guideline was linked in previous discussion, but then one or a few of us commented basically that "it is our practice anyhow", and no change to our effective consensus to use it was made. --Doncram (talk) 21:23, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Categorization of districts using Template:Infobox NRHP
According to Template:Infobox NRHP/doc#Districts, {{Infobox NRHP}} causes articles about historical districts to be autocategorized based on the locmapin parameter; and when this parameter isn't present, it causes the articles to be categorized in Category:Historic districts in the United States. This is undesireable - both based on WP:Categorization#Categorization using templates, which says that it is recommended that articles not be placed in ordinary content categories using templates in this way; and by the fact that many of these articles have the nocat parameter, which overrides this categorization.
I propose a two-step solution: First, we use AWB to explicitly add these articles to the categories they're in (AWB is smart enough not to add a second explicit categorization); once we're done with that, we remove the automatic categorization from the template. Does anyone oppose this idea? עוד מישהוOd Mishehu15:15, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
The problem has been noted numerous times before about specific articles, with the "solution" in each case being to use the "nocat" parameter. I support a campaign to fix the underlying problem, as you suggest. --Doncram (talk) 21:38, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Category:Historic district contributing properties in Portland, Oregon?
Disambiguation links on pages tagged by this wikiproject
Wikipedia has many thousands of wikilinks which point to disambiguation pages. It would be useful to readers if these links directed them to the specific pages of interest, rather than making them search through a list. Members of WikiProject Disambiguation have been working on this and the total number is now below 20,000 for the first time. Some of these links require specialist knowledge of the topics concerned and therefore it would be great if you could help in your area of expertise.
Yep. That was it. I had to find out by looking up a site that was geotagged incorrectly in Upper Manhattan (and I found another on Long Island, BTW). ---------User:DanTD (talk) 05:14, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
Way back in what is today Talk Archive #50, there was a thread titled "Listings owned by unexpected notable people?" about WikiPhotographers who have run into trouble when trying to take pictures of sites that turned out to be owned by famous people. I haven't run into anything that fantastic, but I did have instances where permission has been an issue. The former Bellport Academy, is a house that I had questioned a tree trimming crew about, and they said I needed permission from the owner. I never got back to that house, but I wouldn't mind trying it again. On the opposite shore of Long Island back in September 2015, I was able to snap a pic or two of the Town Doctors' House and Site in Southold, New York, and got hassled by some people repairing the house across the street. I explained why I was taking the picture, and asked if they were familiar with it's NRHP status, and they guy told me he didn't care. I told him I did, finished my pictures, and I was off. Last November on the other hand, was a completely different story. I found the James Benjamin Homestead hidden behind some trees on New York State Route 24 in Flanders, New York, and asked somebody working on the house if this was the place. He said yes, and invited me to park my car in his dirt driveway, in a really hard part to get the car into. Getting into the place requires a small SUV, or an ATV, or a dirt bike. Not only did he invite me to take pictures, but offered to let me take pictures of the interior (I declined). He told me he was a descendant of one of the original owners and was the only person trying to fix the place up. I told him I hoped the pictures would help in the restoration of the place. I'd like to see if exposure of his house in Wikipedia has had an impact on the process of the restoration, but I think the winter months will put a damper on this. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 22:45, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
Some times it is as bad as this
Interesting - you will get different reactions. If something like the school is visible from public property, then you should be OK. Of course, I've had to use a telephoto lens several times and often I've had to shoot between bushes and trees to get a shot. Bubba73You talkin' to me?02:05, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
I ran across this article today. Completely unreferenced, yet with a claim that it is "registered with the National Register of Historic Places." It's in the Category:National Register of Historic Places in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but it may just be a contributing property. Just mentioning in case anyone wants to look into this further. I found a 9/16 news article that said it had "contributing" status, but a school wanted to have that revoked (by Santa Fe city) so they could make significant modifications. Not sure of its current status. Regardless, the article needs cleanup. MB02:10, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm just wondering if anybody has used the <gallery mode=slideshow> feature documented in Help:Gallery_tag#Syntax I just noticed, for the first time, one use of it at List of cities in Pennsylvania and it looks like it could make our pages with tables a bit more interesting. I don't have specific examples of what I'd like to do, so I thought I'd better ask here before I even experiment, are there any known downsides to this? BTW it's been available since about July, 2016.
My basic idea though would be to put some pix highlights *above* the table on long lists, so that people might have a better idea where to start looking. Smallbones(smalltalk)19:52, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
But the name on the NRHP nomination is "Duluth Public Library", so we shouldn't stray too far from that. So DPL (historic) or DPL (1902 building) or similar. MB16:10, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for those additions. I don't have a strong attachment to any particular title, so if there was a consensus to change, I'd be cool with it (but maybe not during its time on the mainpage in DYK). Chris857 (talk) 04:42, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
In March of 2016, a SPA added about 4k to the article. It is unreferenced and written in a narrative tone and I suspect was copied from somewhere else (but I haven't found from where with a quick google search). It should probably be deleted or at least tagged. Any other thoughts? MB01:53, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
When I suspect such things, I type distinctive looking phrases (in quote marks, to reduce hits) into Google or other search engine, and see what sort of non-WP-mirror sites turn up. Magic♪piano23:02, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
1. Report by Herman J. Heikkenen, Architectural Research Files, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. See also Cary Carson and Carl R. Lounsbury, The Chesapeake House: Architectural Investigation by Colonial Williamsburg, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013
2. See report in files, Department of Architectural Research, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
So it all apparently came from the Colonial WIlliamsburg Foundation. Reading the article, it seems to me to be a cut and paste. But I can't be sure without accesses to these research files. MB03:26, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Hey, I don't think there should be any negative tagging of the article for copyvio or plagiarism. It is sourced, as you indicate. It was apparently written by intelligent/educated people who quite likely wrote appropriately, and IMHO there's no reason to assume it has copied passages. This strikes me like recent Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of caves of Maryland, where assertion of copyvio based on similar (scant) evidence was disproven when the main source document was found. And this is like many cases where NRHP documents were used by new editors, appropriately. Though I will grant there are many cases where NRHP documents have been copied from, this just seems learned and intelligent, more like NRHP articles where it turned out the editor did fine. I think assuming Good Faith here is appropriate. How about tagging for more specific inline citations, or for general reference improvement, instead? --Doncram (talk) 21:35, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
The big block of text appeared in a single edit, and is the only edit ever made to any article by this contributor. This is an indication that the editor may not be familiar with policy on editing and sourcing. The source given is "Report by Herman J. Heikkenen, Architectural Research Files, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation" which may not be published - therefore may not be a RS. I found a CWF search engine, but can't located anything by Heikkenen. There is also a "see also" in the ref to a published book. That would be a RS, but I can't tell exactly what is going on. The text in question in not written in encyclopedic tone, and reads to me like a narrative (e.g. "widely spaced plaster lath, while uncommon in the period, is nevertheless frequently discovered on the Shore, most recently at Grape Valley (1742), nearby in Birdsnest.") That is why I suspect is was copied directly. It is at the least lacking context in this article (what "shore", when is "most recently", etc.) Another odd things is the placement of the references. There is one after the first sentence added (Trees were cut...) and another at the end. The second ref is completely insufficient ("See report in files"). I suspect these refs were just copied with the text. The tag says the text may have been copied and pasted. I certainly could be wrong but believe I have a strong case to believe otherwise. MB04:41, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Texas deletion nomination
Have posted a deletion request [4] for some Texas NRHP images that were pulled from nomination files. If you have a moment, go over take a second look over these for me. Thanks. 25or6to4 (talk) 17:09, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Prow house photo request
I have new article almost done on the Prow house (a house with a forward projection like the prow of a ship) and would like to include a photo of a modern prow house, such as these:
I can't find a useable one online, so just wondering if anyone can take a photo. I would have to drive a couple of hours to find one of these. MB02:57, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Anybody can take and upload a photo, as long as they own the copyright (the usual case when you take a photo) or can find a freely licensed (or public domain) photo. In fact we encourage it. Usually folks upload the photos at Commons and license them CC-BY-SA. There are a few common sense rules to follow, e.g. don't trespass or photograph through an open window. If you're driving a couple of hours, I'd check out the coords *and* address on Google Maps just to make sure you can find it. Sometimes the coords are a bit off, or the address gets renumbered or the street name changes. Best of luck. Smallbones(smalltalk)03:39, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood me. I was asking if it would be convenient for anyone else to take a photo of such a house because it's not for me - I would have to drive several hours and I'm not going to do that just to add a photo to an article, I spend too much time here already. MB03:56, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I didn't know the term before, but your Google images search link is pretty self-explanatory. I think it is possible there exist some modern-style Frank Lloyd Wright houses which might be termed that, because he did design houses with a lot of glass that way, though I don't specifically recall any one out of the many NRHP-listed ones. I'll keep an eye out for any non-historic ones, anywhere. Glad you're creating/developing the architectectural style article on the topic, that's great. --Doncram (talk) 05:32, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
On the other hand, maybe FLW would abhor them, i dunno. Scanning List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, the Jorgnine Boomer House pic at right here is the most prow-like that I see, but I don't know if it matters that the prow is formed from eaves, not from shape of the windows themselves. There was some FLW-designed work in Wisconsin, maybe, which had tall south-facing windows that perhaps went up to a point, which i can't find. --Doncram (talk) 05:41, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
There is another NRHP FLW prow house, Willits House, but that is flat-fronted. Since searching the web primarily finds the contemporary version, I would still like to add a photo of that kind - like the Google images search shows. There is practically no references to these prow houses except plans for sale and a few blogs by people who built/live in them. MB15:46, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Normandie Hotel, prime example of Streamline Moderne, even with the ocean liner Normandie's sign
Ah, interesting on that Willits House that it is the side wings that are considered prow-like, and those are horizontal or tapering down to a point, i.e. consistent with Prairie Style, not pointing up. Some FLW churches look like "prow churches", could that be a thing? Certainly there are a lot of ship-like modern churches though I don't know if anyone terms them that way. Perhaps your article could mention/link to Streamline Moderne which is explicitly about the nautical look, though emphasis on rounding rather than being pointy. :) --Doncram (talk) 18:46, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
I don't know of any list - they are just private residences. I know I have seen some hours away from me in the mountains. (I have found a few, by searching for sale/rent real estate listings, in: Machiasport, Maine, Alaska (fly-in only), Durango, Co., Lake Lanier, Georgia, Murphy, NC, a giant one near Boston, an island in New Hampshire, Blue Ridge, Georgia, Pocono Lake, PA, Colville, Washington, Lake Ariel PA, Port Orford OR, Mineral Bluff, GA.) The article is now at Prow house. MB05:58, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I've been working on moving toward agreement with the recommendations of MOS:DASH, and find that a lot of the historic places named for two people (or two streets or similar) have hyphens where en dashes would be preferred. I moved and edited about a thousand of these already, and have done a search to find out how many more there might be. I compiled a list at User:Dicklyon/Houses, and have been going through it verifying, removing the false search hits and dups, unrelated cases, etc. I could use some more eyeballs on it, if anyone wants to look, comment, help, whatever. Dicklyon (talk) 04:29, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Hi, i see that is a list of all existing articles (blue-links), most or all in Wikiproject NRHP, with hyphens in their titles. I myself don't really have any much opinion on when titles should use an en-dash vs. a hyphen. Are there really no cases when hyphens are preferred? If not, then all can be moved to the dash version of title.
About NRHP redlinks involving hyphens, I do appreciate, Dicklyon, your continuing cooperation with Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Hyphens vs. dashes issues, a worklist which tracks when redlinks have been altered, to avoid situations where creation of duplicate articles would be likely. I have revisited that worklist from time to time and done moves or created redirects where an article had been created at either the hyphen or dash version of title, so the worklist has been helping I think. --Doncram (talk) 05:24, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
I've now added the proposed target links, which are mostly red. There are a few blue ones, which in some cases means I moved them once before and then moved them back on learning that it was a compound surname, not two names joined. This is the important distinction that hyphen versus dash conveys, that we want to preserve. So I'll take those out of the list of proposed moves. Dicklyon (talk) 20:30, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
I've pruned about 20 of those (a bit over 1%). I suspect there may still be 1% or so that could be removed. Close enough? Dicklyon (talk) 04:12, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
And I dealt with all the ones with "Company" in them, leaving hyphen when it's in a company name, moving a few others. Now down to 1796 items. Dicklyon (talk) 06:33, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
I have removed a few that looked like false positives. I just don't see how you're going to be able to tell, without manual inspection, whether "Jones-Smith House" is named for two people named Jones and Smith or one person named Jones-Smith. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:51, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, that's 4 good catches I had missed. On the general two-name case, yes, one has to look. I've done that after moving, usually, in post-move cleanup edits, and moved back when needed, so the move summary says what I found. In my experience, it's below 1% of cases (fewer than 10, I think, out of the 1200 I moved last year). So yes, there might be some errors generated if we bulk move these, but then we can patch up in post-move cleanup when such things get noticed. Dicklyon (talk) 18:54, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
I took out Wright-Dalton-Bell-Anchor Department Store Building after seeing "famous W.D.B.A. Store Co." in a caption in the nom form. I didn't realize before that it was one company, and I was guessing it was a succession of owners of the department store building. This kind of thing is more common in buildings and misc than in houses, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 03:05, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I have removed another 19 false positives and moved 7 more to a "Questionable" list that may need further research. This is in addition to the 12 or so that I removed earlier, and I am not looking at each article, only at article names that look suspicious to my logical mind (total scanning time: about 20 minutes). I don't think this list is ready for bot action yet, given the high false positive rate (over 2% just in my quick scans). The list currently has 1,754 pages on it, including a number of pages that are not related to NRHP. Given the high false positive rate thus far and the need for manual inspection at some point, I think it makes more sense to do the manual inspection first and then get a bot to move a list of validated articles.
I don't mean to sound negative. Thanks for taking on this otherwise thankless task. I just think that the manual step should come before the bot actions. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:56, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
OK, so we start going through the list, moving titles to different sections as we go? Or just go ahead and do the moves manually, and keep a list of exceptions to not move? Maybe there's not much point going for a bot? Dicklyon (talk) 01:28, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
What about Millard-McCarty House and other cases where the existing articles are "NRIS-only", which are often "sub-stub" articles where you can't tell from the articles anything much to determine if hyphen or dash is appropriate. If you could make a sub-list of those by use of any convenient tool, I for one would be willing to engage in a campaign to develop them by adding NRHP nomination document references where those are available, etc. By the way, while there were more than 10,000 NRIS-only articles at one point, now there are only about 2,300, of which fewer than 1,474 are short ones that really are NRIS-only (as opposed to having references formatted as external links, say). A campaign on the hyphen ones would redirect my efforts a bit right now, but i don't mind.) Hmm, perhaps such a list can be extracted by searching for hyphens within User:NationalRegisterBot/Substubs#Tagged NRIS-only. Then the decisions made about shifting to dash or not could be better made. --Doncram (talk) 05:36, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
Okay, right, for this Florida one and many others you might be able to sort out such facts quickly to make your determination, but the article doesn't yet reflect those facts. (In this case you can also get the facts by clicking on the NRHP reference number in the infobox to get to NPGallery for Millard-McCarty House which links to the NRHP nomination document, where you can find out that first owner Millard was the first postmaster of Hialeah, and that later owner McCarty was mayor of Miami Springs.) Offhand I think it is better to document the relevant facts in the article before moving the article title from hyphen to dash, else the "dash" in the article name is effectively unsourced. It seems not right to proceed with hundreds of effectively unsourced changes to articles. To me it would seem appropriate to enforce a rule that related article improvements supporting dash names must be made before the articles get moved. This wouldn't be a huge obstacle. --Doncram (talk) 06:15, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
Could do it that way; but it would mean leaving it wrong for more years or forever, I expect, as it would take a lot more time per article. I've mostly been looking at refs for indications, but not adding info to articles as I go. Dicklyon (talk) 06:18, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, but if you just make the moves, and if the dash-appropriateness really should be documented, then it would be leaving the articles "wrong" for even longer. It seems wasteful to pay attention to facts and then discard/forget the information. I just fixed one article, Wooldridge-Rose House, to justify using a dash, and doing that does take some time. But some delay is not a problem and this Wikiproject has worked through many bigger worklists before.
Hmm, maybe as a compromise the moves could proceed, but some kind of cleanup template could/should be added to each article. The template would put the article into a cleanup category, and could be set to display a notice that documentation of dash-appropriateness is needed, or perhaps it should not display anything. In the past I have supported another kind of undocumented change in NRHP articles, that of freely fixing latitude-longitude coordinates, because there were so many changes to made, and no one knew that the {{coord}} template did support a way to record sources, and not recording anything was easier, but now I think that it was a mistake not to require a level of sourcing or tagging for those. The coordinate sourcing is now a big mess: one can't tell if coordinates have been improved/verified to be correct or not, in most cases. Whatever is done should make it easier, not harder, to get all the articles improved as they should be. --Doncram (talk) 06:53, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
Good ideas. I'm willing to slow down now and proceed with any plan you suggest, since you know a lot more about this area and I'm just picking nits. Dicklyon (talk) 01:41, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Here's what I did with the "questionable" ones that Jonesey95 listed:
Benedum-Trees Building —> Benedum–Trees Building -- Moved; Mike Benedum and Joe Trees each had offices in the building; also a company named for them jointly, but more as partners than as a unified name, it appears to me.
Not sure if this is useful information, but according to Williston-Immanuel (the successor church), the Williston-West Church was formed in 1970 from the merger of the Williston Church and the West Church. Andrew Jameson (talk) 20:17, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Burlington Community Swimming Pools and Bathhouse
88°15′35″W / 42.68222°N 88.25972°W / 42.68222; -88.25972 Built 1965 Built by Zinzow Construction Company Architect Carl Iverson Architectural style Modern movement
2 KB (129 words) - 11:29, 24 July 2017
Yet on that page this does not appear and this was in its place:
Burlington Community Swimming Pools and Bathhouse in Burlington, Wisconsin, is a historic property that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 23, 2013.
The property, located at 394 Amanda Street, consists of a swimming pool and bathhouse that were privately built in 1965.[1] It was listed on the National Register as an "excellent example of contemporary style architecture," including the use of prestressed and precast concrete structural members manufactured in the local area.[2] It was designed by Carl Iverson.[1]
What you're missing is called an infobox. It's that box on the right with the photo and map in it. That's where the mention of Zinzow appears. Ntsimp (talk) 15:14, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
I ran across Rossiter-Little House which claims it is a listed NRHP. I looked why then it is an orphan, and it turns out to just be a contributing property of Sparta Historic District (Sparta, Georgia), which itself doesn't have an article. The house is apparently the oldest house in Sparta, and may or may not be notable. But there apparently are some sources that mention it. My question is, is there a consensus on whether a contributing property should have a NRHP infobox and be in the category "NRHP in location"? MB20:58, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
Actually, I see now in the template documentation that it is meant to be used for contributing properties, but with special fields like "partof". MB21:18, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
The infobox is designed for use by properties that are only contributing properties, since there are plenty of notable properties that aren't listed separately. Use nrhp_type=cp and partof=[[district it's a part of]]. Magic♪piano23:51, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
I have some questions about designations of NHRP/NHL/NHS/NHP and how many apply simultaneously. Please see the article TP. MB01:46, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
It's no longer a "national historic site" since the name change in 2009, but the other three designations are all concurrently valid. -McGhiever (talk) 03:19, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
This article was created last month about a Philadelphia B&B that claims it is on the NRHP. I doubt this is true, and the ref given is just the NPS home page. It also claims it is the only "lodging located within Independence National Historical Park". The ref for this is says this B&B is "adjacent" to part of the park, and looking a google maps confirms it is outside the park. The article was created by the now blocked User:Thomasbondhoussebandb, and continued by the SPA Martha129 who is also likely associated with the B&B. Although it made it though AFC, I don't see proof this is notable and I believe this is a promotional article, written entirely to benefit this business and making overstated "historic" claims to find a way into the encyclopedia. I intend to take this to AFD but of course welcome other opinions. MB05:34, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Yes, that look right. Although the article only gives boundaries for the Old City neighborhood and not specific boundaries of the NRHP district, which may not be the same. But it probably is within the NRHP district. That doesn't change my view on notability - needs more coverage than that. MB14:48, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
The article says something about it being a "Philadelphia Landmark" - is that true? Is that even a correct designation? (A brief Google search indicates otherwise.)
I removed the claim it is a "Philadelphia Landmark" because that was unsourced and I couldn't find anything by searching either. I found nothing to indicate Philly has its own official designation of landmarks. MB17:09, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
It should be listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. Our article about PRHP is very incomplete and leaves out at least 1,000 buildings on it. There's also a PHMC historical marker right next to it (see Google Maps) which I'll look up. The NPS promotes this area as "America's Most Historic Square Mile" (you know, like William Penn, the 1st and 2nd Continental Congresses, Benjamin Franklin, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Capital of the US 1790-1800, 1st and 2nd Banks of the United States, etc.) so there was certainly a lot of history going on right around it. Smallbones(smalltalk)05:06, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
How long should the description be in county listings?
I tend to agree - there are several county lists that have extensive comments that distort the table framework and I'll suggest keeping the comments short. If more is needed it should be in the article. At only 41 words, the example you give is fairly tame, but still unwieldy. Smallbones(smalltalk)04:24, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
I looked at National Register of Historic Places listings in Ramsey County, Minnesota to see how long the description was for the F. Scott Fitzgerald House. Some of the descriptions in the Ramsey County list are about as long as the description for Andalusia. I don't think the Ramsey County list is too excessive. Maybe the description for Andalusia in the Baldwin County list could be shortened, but it just stands out because no other entries have substantive descriptions. It might be a good opportunity for someone to write those descriptions. --Elkman(Elkspeak)16:10, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
With my screen settings, the Andalusia one is 19 lines long whereas the longest one in Ramsey county are about eight lines long. Nineteen lines messes up the look of the table and all of that description is in the article about it. Bubba73You talkin' to me?23:56, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
NRHP documents unavailable?
It's not just me, is it, encountering NRHP PDF documents being unavailable? There isn't some NPS slow-down for any deliberate reason, either is there? For example, this link to the NPS Focus page for a site works okay, but it links to text PDF file which yields just a blank screen using Chrome browser. Using Microsoft Edge browser I can further see that the document should be 8 pages long, but it still shows as a blank. --Doncram (talk) 21:00, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
I've been playing around a little bit with the infobox generator and the database, since I'm between jobs at the moment. I didn't even realize until recently that it was generating location coordinates in the wrong format. So, I've fixed the bug. I've done some other code cleanup, so let me know if anything isn't working right.
I'm also going to play around with some other stuff, like writing a query API and writing a front end in AngularJS. That's mainly for my own professional development.
Also, I downloaded the newest NRHP database, which covers up to the end of 2014. That's still kind of stale, but I think it's newer than what I currently have loaded. Should I spend some time to load the newer NRHP database? --Elkman(Elkspeak)21:05, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
various requests for infobox generator
Hi, I don't want to offend by providing feedback that might not be welcomed, coming from me, but I don't see any other feedback being provided, so here goes, at risk of TLDR, oh well.
0. Update to 2014 NRIS (while perhaps keeping 2010 NRIS still available, see below) Please do!
1. Architect/builder/engineer search: I use the http://elkman.net/nrhp/querybyarchitect.php search interface to respond to requests like User talk:Doncram#Edwin A. Keeble where another user is developing a page on an architect/builder/engineer. It would be really great to be able to search on NRIS data up through 2014, rather than just up through 2010. Also the recent change has stopped the search altogether, it currently yields a "Fatal error". There's no good substitute for this tool; Googling on "NRHP site name" and "nationalregisterofhistoricplaces", say, doesn't work nearly as well.
2. Coord call format for individual articles: Within the coord template call, the new usage of name=SITENAME|region:US_type:landmark instead of display=inline,title is not actually an improvement for use of the NRHP infobox in individual site articles. I don't think it was a longstanding bug at all, which is a good thing!
2a. The display=inline,title provides for the coordinates to display both at top right of article and in the infobox, in all or almost all existing NRHP articles. I'm used to it and think there's some merit to keeping it the same in new articles. If anyone thinks the display at the top right should be dropped in all articles, there should probably be an RFC to decide that with input from many editors; I don't think it helps to make new articles different for now. In any new articles with multiple NRHP infoboxes, it is easy to drop the ",title" where needed. "Inline display" is the default; "display=inline" would do the same as leaving it out.
2b. The name=SITENAME|region:US_type:landmark doesn't help in individual NRHP site articles and should not be added to new ones, IMHO. If it was worth adding for some reason I don't know about, that should also be subject of an RFC and then bot request to change all existing articles if necessary. It doesn't matter a lot but I think the string should not be added, just for uniformity, for keeping it simple say for any future bot editing.
3. Coord call format for list-articles: The "name=SITENAME" would have helped during original construction of the NRHP county list-articles, so that the {{GeoGroup}} call on a list-article page would give proper labels, but the county list-articles are all done. In new rows for new listings in 2018, the editors involved are hand-creating those fields. The "name=SITENAME" string would help any semi-custom tool like was provided in the past for someone to make multiple list-articles for NRHP-listed bridges, say.
4. When coordinates not available: The new system puts in zeroes, i.e. {{coord|0|0|0|N|0|0|0|W|}} That is a help for the editor creating a new article, who can add real coordinates from the county list-article or from Google satellite view or wherever. I checked display in an article and having {{coord|0|0|0|N|0|0|0|W|}} does not cause any horrible display problems. Thanks for this change, it makes it easier to add.
5. Various minor changes:
5a.When coordinates include single digits. This is minor, but it would help if zeroes could be pre-pended for single digits, to improve what is displayed and/or save manual editing to add the zeroes. Like {{coord|36|01|24|N|87|01|22|W|}} is preferred, rather than {{coord|36|1|24|N|87|1|22|W|}}.
5b. Area: Could area be displayed with conversion to hectares, please, as in {{convert|12|acre|ha}} rather than {{convert|12|acre}}? I and some others are editing this manually in existing articles.
6. Noting source for coordinates: I'd appreciate if the current NRIS data could include source:NRIS2010a for the current NRIS data, or source:NRIS2014a for a new version of coordinates data. Like how ""source:GNIS" is mentioned as good practice at Template:Coord#Source:S. This would enable AutoWikiBrowser usage or bot or other programming to support coordinates improvement in the future. This could enable wp:NRHPPROGRESS to report on counts of improved/verified vs. unimproved coordinates by county, etc. The practice hasn't much been adopted yet, but identifying source:YOURUSERNAME is what I've been recommending people do, to show that conscious thought has been put into improving the coordinates based on Google maps or whatever. A program in the future could find and fix missmatches between coordinates for the same site in individual site articles vs. county list-article coordinates vs. other list-articles like NRHP bridges or Masonic buildings, to be resolved in favor of choices by accredited editors rather than usage of unimproved NRIS2010a coordinates. So, for example, the new Zion Brick Missionary Church at first included {{coord|37|29|56|N|87|28|46|W|display=inline,title,source:NRIS2010a}}, but it turned out I could work out better coords using Google satellite view, and I changed that to {{coord|37.499186|N|87.479442|W|display=inline,title,source:Doncram}}. I'm counting on a future bot updating the county list-article coordinates to mine. And later a program can report on all the "source:Doncram" items say, or better report on the NRIS2010a ones in a given county which probably could be improved, etc. Some fancy future interactive tool allowing us to see alternative coordinates posted into Google satellite view might even be possible, to assist choosing between alternative coordinates for the same place. Bottom line now: It would be a big help to get the NRIS2010a or NRIS2014a automatically put into newly generated infoboxes.
7. Keeping NRIS2010a data available and/or delivering it in a database:
7a. To support future coordinate improvement by a bot programmer, could you make available on your website a copy of your current NRIS2010a coordinates file (with sitename and refnum and other pertinent identifiers)? This would allow someone to determine whether it is merely NRIS2010a vs. changed (and presumably improved) coordinates. I personally never found the NRIS coordinates file to merge in with other NRIS2010a data. If you could make this available I and perhaps others would try to recruit bot programmers to use it in new ways.
7b. Presumably the new NRIS2014 database will have different coordinates for many sites, and hopefully it will have implemented various other corrections where typos in names have been fixed per wp:NRIS info issues-listed errors, etc. It could be helpful for NRHP editors to still have access to the current NRIS2010 system, in order to look up, for any given site, what the old info was, e.g. to determine that Wikipedia's article's coordinates came from there, or to determine whether the NPS did implement a requested change in NRIS, etc. It would really help morale for editors trying to get NPS to make changes, if we could actually see whether past requests were implemented. It could be really important in cutting through confusion, say when corresponding with an NPS or SHPO staff person. Could you possibly please leave the current NRIS2010a access system up, to enable such lookups, while directing most editors to a new NRIS2014 query system?
I hope this helps, though it is also possible my writing all this out is TLDR and wasn't worthwhile, if others don't ask for the same things. Others, please comment! --Doncram (talk) 22:46, 20 February 2018 (UTC) --01:09, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
Responses to requests
I'll answer these in order:
0. I'll see about keeping both the 2010 and 2014 databases available at the same time. This will take a little more work, but just a little.
1. I fixed the fatal error when searching by architect (or searching by a lot of other common things). I'll look into having the NRHP 2010 and NRHP 2014 databases available simultaneously.
2. The longstanding bug was that the infobox generator was using deprecated parameters "latitude" and "longitude". When I updated my code, it's possible that I removed or changed a couple things in the coordinate display that should be back in there. I intend to make the updated behavior reflect the same as the old behavior in respect to coordinates, except for things that need to be fixed.
2a. I've re-added "display=inline,title" to infobox coordinates.
2b. I'll look into revising "region:US_type:landmark".
3. Since the county list articles are pretty much done at this point, I'm not sure what the request is here or what I should do to address it.
4. Actually, I don't like displaying zero coordinates; that's a bug. I replaced the top lines to say "Address restricted or otherwise unavailable".
5a. I've added leading zeroes to numbers less than 10, like {{coord|43|51|58|N|95|07|00|W|name=Cottonwood County Courthouse|region:US_type:landmark|display=inline,title}}.
5b. I'll look into the convert template for area.
6. I'll look into adding a source for coordinates. I might need to research a good way to get this to work.
7a and 7b. I'll look into keeping a copy of the NRHP 2010 database along with the NRHP 2014 database. I know there are some structural changes in the 2014 tables and I'd have to make sure that the coordinate data is available.
Your suggestions are welcome in the spirit of making these tools more useful. Some of them will take longer and I'll have to work them into my time availability. --Elkman(Elkspeak)19:07, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
Well, I guess it'll have to be added to the list. The one thing I did find though is a listing from September 2017 for the "Michigan Avenue Bridge (Tampa, Florida)" whose address is listed as "Columbus Dr. over the Hillsborough River." Now I happen to have two images of the Columbus Drive bridge, but the only "Michigan Avenue" I can find is a street in a trailer park off of Nebraska Avenue south of East Fletcher Avenue. This must've been an old name, like "Lafayette Street." Oh, well. I guess I'm going to have to add the new info to the gallery. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 15:54, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
I note the retirement of Edson Beall, who was in charge of the Weekly List at the NPS. When I worked in CRM, I had numerous contacts with Edson, both by email and by phone. I found him to be extremely helpful and professional and I, for one, wish him well in his retirement. Einbierbitte (talk) 02:11, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
So I have the general impression from other discussions that it is held that all NRHP listed places are considered notable. But then I look at articles like House at 209-211 S. Ninth Street and I must really ask, is this the situation? And if so, why and how was this decided, and does it apply to other identical registers? For example Iceland's cultural heritage sites and protected buildings. Related reading:[6][7][8][9][10]. Prince of Thieves (talk) 10:16, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
A building like the one you mention is typically listed for its local significance, often as a distinctive architectural specimen or as a good/rare example of an architectural trend within the community. Obviously, national registers of different countries have differing criteria for inclusion (and differing levels of protection upon listing), but the consensus reached in previous discussions has been that inclusion in any such register confers notability.
The building you mention was significant as the only example in the city of a Victorian-era duplex cottage, with a particularly nice period porch. America's architectural heritage includes a great many vernacular buildings that are modest; they were built in large numbers but are now comparatively rare due to demolition or alteration. If Terre Haute once had dozens (or more) of these buildings, the one left arguably ought to be notable. Magic♪piano14:00, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm not a big fan of empty lot (or replacement building) pictures either, especially in lists, since they don't show the thing that was listed. The main issue around using photos from the nominations is one of copyright; this one is probably usable under a {{PD-US-1978-89}} license (it was taken by a municipal employee in 1981, and there is no evidence of claimed copyright status). Magic♪piano15:44, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
Hey, the photo was uploaded with claim that it was taken by an unnamed National Park Service employee, i.e. a Federal employee, which would support it being in the public domain and usable. But that's not correct. It was likely taken by Alan Goebes (author of MPS document covering it or another municipal employee, of the Div. of Historic Preservation and Archaeology of Terre Haute's Dept. of Redevelopment.
If the building no longer exists (not asserted in current article), can't a "fair use" claim for use in the individual article at least be made on basis that it no longer exists and no replacement is likely to emerge, and no harm to any copyright holder is likely (i.e. the usual fair use arguments). The photo would have to be uploaded to Wikipedia, where fair use claims are allowed, but should not be kept on Commons, which has stricter requirement that photos must be available for wider public use without restriction. I am not sure if the fair use claim can be used to justify its usage in the corresponding list-article, but I think not. Also, if there is a photo of a vacant lot available, IMO that should be used in the article (but not in the infobox) to support an assertion that the house no longer exists, at least not in that location. --Doncram (talk) 18:44, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
(e.c.) P.S. I am not familiar with the argument suggested by Magicpiano ("The main issue around using photos from the nominations is one of copyright; this one is probably usable under a {{PD-US-1978-89}} license (it was taken by a municipal employee in 1981, and there is no evidence of claimed copyright status)"). But if that works that would be better than the fair use claim approach. --Doncram (talk) 18:51, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
@Doncram: To be fair I don't know who took it, and if it requires re-uploading with a complex copyright template based on fair use, then someone more knowledgeable about images than me would have to deal with it. Also the original image is still there in the article, but under the infobox. Prince of Thieves (talk) 18:50, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
@Bubba73: You could also leave the cemetery infobox in place and embed two NRHP infoboxes, one for each historic designation. You have to add "|nrhp = " to the bottom of the cemetery infobox (under "findagraveid") and begin the first NRHP infobox on that same line. By doing it this way it would appear as one infobox and the information pertinent to the cemetery infobox would remain. Farragutful (talk) 23:31, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
That sounds like the best option. I hope I can do it correctly. I'm leaving on a short trip tomorrow (will capture some NRHP photos), so it will have to wait until I get back. Bubba73You talkin' to me?00:41, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
@Bubba73: I should have also mentioned that on the NRHP infoboxes you need to add "|embed = yes" otherwise they will not work. I usually place it toward the top of the infobox, although I doubt it matters. Farragutful (talk) 15:54, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Supposedly fake site?
While adding unused images to National Register of Historic Places listings in Conway County, Arkansas, I came across this photo, which alleges in the title and description that Grotto, Petit Jean No. 8 is a modern fake that tricked archaeologists into putting it on the NRHP. I wasn't able to verify this, though I couldn't find a ton of sources in the first place, and it wouldn't be the first time a questionable archaeological site made it onto the NRHP. What exactly should we do about an image title (and description) that's making unsourced claims about a site? I'm inclined to say we should move it to a more neutral title, even though it would be contradicting the photographer. TheCatalyst31Reaction•Creation01:57, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Donald Higgins, the claimed uploader, is apparently a reasonably well respected amateur archaeologist with a long-standing interest in Petit Jean rock art. It's unclear to me if anyone other than Higgins is propagating this claim, or has accepted it. (See e.g. Encyclopedia of Arkansas entry on Petit Jean rock art, authored by Higgins, referencing a journal article he published.) The Commons image is the number one Google hit for "petit jean fake pictograph". Magic♪piano13:59, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
"A site in the Seven Hollows area, known as 3CN129, is not ancient at all but only dates to circa 1970, according to witness information. An image of a human and an animal were fingerpainted by hikers using streambed clay [...]" is the specific claim of fakery, and is clearly what is depicted in the photo referenced above (and in the SHPO summary photo). If the claim is to be propagated here in text, it should be explicitly attributed to Higgins. Magic♪piano17:10, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
NRHP progress
The wp:NRHPPROGRESS report shows that Wikipedia coverage of NRHP items has passed (barely) 70%, with 64,677 articles vs. 92,386 listings. The rate of new article creations has to be over that percentage of new NRHP listings for that to stick. Also the number of "NRIS-only" articles has dropped from over 10,000 to just 2,081 currently (about 2.25%). All U.S. states and territories, and almost all counties or county-equivalents, have surpassed 20% "quality rating" (combo measure of %articled, %illustrated, %Start-level). --Doncram (talk) 04:21, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
I'd like to bring recent edits to this article to WP:NRHP's attention. These edits essentially remove this article from the scope of this project, but I'd like participants to weigh in here. See also: Draft:Corvallis Arts Center. I've notified WikiProject Oregon of these changes as well. ---Another Believer(Talk)20:00, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
It seems fine to me that the NRHP-listed historic building gets split out to new separate Corvallis Arts Center building. It has been theirs for 60 years or so already! I added a bit to the draft split out article. Could someone with admin tools please move Draft:Corvallis Arts Center over the redirect now at Corvallis Arts Center, accepting it / cutting short the AFC process. Then the situation can be tidied up by better linking from the church article. [done] --Doncram (talk) 21:26, 30 March 2018 (UTC) --23:07, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Yup. Add the parameter |module = to infobox lighthouse. Add the Infobox NRHP there. Add the parameter |embed =yes to the NRHP infobox. That's all there is to it. John from Idegon (talk) 18:45, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
At Peshtigo Reef Light I deleted a "duplicate photo" diff but then went back to check if the infobox pic was exactly the same photo. Guess what? The same pic appeared in the infobox, but had no code in the infobox template. It looks like the pic just appears by itself! I've run into something similar with magically appearing links to a company website. It took awhile to find the solution to that one. It appeared via a hidden template from Wikidata and you can do something like put a parameter in the company infobox like " | website=no display" (sorry doing this from memory).
So the magic infobox pic may be coming from Wikidata, which may explain why there were 2 identical photos in the article. 2 questions
Am I missing something else?
Do we want Wikidata to start putting photos in infoboxes automatically? (I'd say no)
That explanation seemed so bizarre to me that I had to go back and check it out again. Sure enough, it now seems even more bizarre. The photo was taken and inserted into the body of the article in June 2015. But in earlier versions going back to the start of the article in 2012, the exact same photo now appears in the infobox. Smallbones(smalltalk)21:44, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm no expert in this area, but more and more templates are drawing information from Wikidata. Infobox Lighthouse includes code such as "image = invoke:WikidataIB". I believe some get the coords from there too. MB17:26, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
OK, that explains it. Looking at the Template:Infobox lighthouse, if you put "| fetchwikidata =" in the infobox template and leave it blank after the equals sign then the photo disappears. But if you don't, the photo appears automatically. I don't think we want to do this with the NRHP infobox, do we? That would mean that to select the infobox photo, we'd have to learn to all edit wikidata. Smallbones(smalltalk)20:39, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
This has been a complaint of mine for some time. Templates are hard enough for experienced editors to parse without having Wikidata involved. "The encyclopedia anybody can edit" will become "the encyclopedia anybody can edit if they understand Wikidata processes." I've had to ask WD people to fix vandalism that was transcluded here, and I really don't like that. Acroterion(talk)20:47, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
@Acroterion: For me, the worst is seeing bare links in an article that cannot be easily fixed because they've been transcluded from Wikidata. I mean, I get the point behind using it...and to a certain degree I think it can be a useful tool for better information integration. But I'm afraid it's turning into one of those things that we've seen before, where all the emendations and new ideas run away with it until it becomes so complicated that nobody can understand it. I'm much more in favor of simplicity. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa.21:07, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
It's hard to edit, and it's a ripe vehicle for hard-to-correct vandalism. It seems to me that WD's scope has crept to the point that it's a negative influence on Wikipedia, rather than a tool for efficient coordination of connected projects or for data extraction. It's sort of a coder's paradise. Acroterion(talk)21:13, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict × 1) Maybe something needs to be added to templates and other places to make it clear the data comes from Wikidata in all instances where that is the case? I know I've hunted around trying to find where some info is coming from, spending more than an hour in some cases, only to finally discover it's from Wikidata. It's great that info can be consolidated like that, but we need to know where the data is coming from so we can fix problems. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 21:14, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
@Acroterion:Well...my take is a bit more nuanced on it. Largely because I've spent a lot of time lately working on biographical articles, and Wikidata has its uses there. Same with science articles, as I understand - it provides a jumping-off point to present varied sources of data for consideration. What I'm afraid has happened is a sort of "oooh, what does this button do?" mentality that leads to the creation of ever-more complex toys that leave us Luddites in the dust. Also, there's the fact that Wikidata is so new; a lot of us, like me, have been on Wikipedia for over a dozen years at this point, and were attracted to it because of its simplicity.
@Nihonjoe: seems to have a good idea, i.e. put a note in eery infobox that it affect. But it needs 1 more thing before I'd consider accepting it for the NRHP infobox: a short, simple explanation with a simple example, perhaps on a subpage here, on how to find and edit the appropriate Wikidata page. Smallbones(smalltalk)22:49, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
@Smallbones and Ser Amantio di Nicolao: I've seen a little Wikidata logo next to data in some infoboxes, though I couldn't tell you which. Perhaps we should have that next to any data that comes from there, or at least have the logo appear once in the infobox to clue us in. The little logo usually links directly to the Wikidata page about the topic. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 22:56, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
It's not that hard to make corrections to the Wikidata stuff for an article. In the tools menu (under "What links here") you should see "Wikidata item". Click on that and the rest should be self-explanatory. I've made fixes to coordinates that were wrong, deleted photos that were not the right subject, etc. I believe NRHP articles already have images in Wikidata - WD pulled the photo from the article. I guess that if we were to change the photo in the article to a better one, the WD photo would have to be updated manually.MB00:19, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Magically appearing coordinates, conflicting: at Slate Creek Bridge, coordinates perhaps coming from wikidata appear in the Bridges infobox, which has an embedded NRHP infobox with slightly different and more accurate coordinates. Both sets of coordinates display at top of page, obscuring each other. Can Wikidata be shut down from appearing in Bridges infoboxes?
I don't think anything from Wikidata should be allowed to interfere. We are Wikipedia volunteers, don't want to have to clean up Wikidata's messes and bad info. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia you can edit. Wikidata is not. --Doncram (talk) 17:40, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
The Landmark for Peace Memorial in Indianapolis was recently designated as the Kennedy-King National Commemorative Site. As far as I can tell, this is only the second National Commemorative Site to be named, the first being the Charleston National Commemorative Site in Arkansas, which does not have an article yet. I assume that such articles should use the Infobox NRHP template, but I don't see an nrhp_type for the commemorative sites. Can someone configure it? Indyguy (talk) 02:37, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Elkman infobox generator request for NRHP text and photos links and reference
This one may be an oddity, but it would be incredibly helpful if the Elkman NRHP infobox generator would include links to the expected text and photos locations, and if it would directly include a fully formed reference. Currently the generator includes only a link to the expected NPS Focus page, which is okay to link to but is not actually ever helpful for referencing anything in the article. (Technically, the NPS Focus page for a relatively new NRHP listing can be helpful as a source, if the item is not in the available NRIS source, i.e. if there is no NRIS2010a info available, i.e. if the item would not appear in Elkman's generator anyhow.)
<ref name=nrhpdoc>{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=}}|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: |publisher=[[National Park Service]]|author= |date= |accessdate=January , 2018}} With {{NRHP url|id=|photos=y|title=photos}}.</ref>
For this example, what could be filled out automatically (using REFNUM, NRHP NAME, CURRENTDATE) is:
<ref name=nrhpdoc>{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=83002554}}|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Middlesboro Downtown Commercial District |publisher=[[National Park Service]]|author= |date= |accessdate=April 7, 2018}} With {{NRHP url|id=83002554|photos=y|title}}.</ref>
For many cases, there are alternative names for the place, which would be good to add after a "/" after the given NRHP name.
That leaves it to the article editor to change "Inventory/Nomination" to "Registration" if that's what appears in the document title, to describe the photos (e.g. to change "photos" to "34 photos from 1985", to give the document author and preparation date, and maybe more but all those refinements are less important than getting the basic links in.
User:Elkman, could you possibly please consider adding these? By the way, I would strongly suggest just programming it to work for all states, not just the ones where we already know such documents are available under such links.
There are still 2,000 "NRIS-only" articles which need references like these. There are 750 in Florida alone. And there are many more future articles (20,000 or so?) and many existing articles (20,000 or so?) which happen to have some other reference(s) but not the NRHP document text and photos at all, and many more existing articles (10,000 or so?) with the NRHP document text but not the NRHP photos. It is maddening to try, and impossible to achieve, to get allany? current NRHP article creators to routinely include references to both the text and photos. Elkman, you could really help a lot if you would help editors get this stuff in. --Doncram (talk) 00:04, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
I'll look into doing that. I haven't had a lot of time to work on the generator, but I'm finishing up loading the 2014 database and adding radio buttons to select 2014 vs. 2010. --Elkman(Elkspeak)05:05, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Done Here's an example of the reference text I added: Optional reference text:
<ref name="nrhpdoc">{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=13000897}}|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Gish Farmhouses |publisher=[[National Park Service]]|author= |date= |accessdate=April 09, 2018}} With {{NRHP url|id=13000897|photos=y|title=accompanying pictures}}</ref> --Elkman(Elkspeak)17:49, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
I've seen many photos from the Historic American Building Survey (HABS) in Commons. Many of these are HRHP sites. Has someone made an effort to get all of the HABS photos into Commons? (My guess is that they have.) Many of these no longer exist or are inaccessible. I see them in articles and county listings - are we taking full advantage of them? (I got a book of the Georgia ones a few days ago.) Bubba73You talkin' to me?02:16, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
As an additional idea, it might be useful to have a HABS/HAER field in the NRHP infobox to give the HABS/HAER Number and link to the LOC documentation. Andrew Jameson (talk) 08:32, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
There are customizable fields in {{Infobox NRHP}} which could handle HABS or HAER info:
designated_other1_name=Historic American Buildings Survey
To answer a specific question, yes, there has been a systematic uploading of HABS/HAER images. They are often minimally categorized by geography, and their sheer numbers (we're talking hundreds of thousands of images) mean there is a lot of work to do on them in Commons in sorting them into useful subcategories (see just about any large city's building categories). Magic♪piano14:29, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Yes. In the past couple years I've sorted many hundreds of HABS/HAER, mostly New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Lately, however, more of my attention has gone to the postcards of the Detroit Publishing Co. which are fewer and prettier though not as thoroughly descriptive. Commons has millions of pictures that are uncategorized or only very roughly, for example as showing "boats" or "soldiers" or "blue" or "restaurants". Jim.henderson (talk) 21:42, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
New format
User:Doncram: Would you mind explaining the format that you want here and making sure everyone understands? I apologize if I am the only one who is struggling a little bit. I will do my best to get used to it...Zigzig20s (talk) 09:55, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
This is about my requesting usage of full NRHP document reference as in: <ref name=nrhpdoc>{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=REFNUM}}|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: NAME|publisher=[[National Park Service]]|author= |date= |accessdate=CURRENTDATE}} With {{NRHP url|id=REFNUM|photos=y|title=photos}}.</ref>, about which I am asking Elkman above to build into the NRHP infobox generator, but about which I have separately, previously suggested to multiple editors. --Doncram (talk) 20:15, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Hi, Zigzig20s you are not at all alone. I really do appreciate your starting new NRHP articles any way you want, and I appreciate your wanting to comply with my further separate request that you try to create full NRHP document references including links to photos. I have suggested that to others, who have maybe tried some too but then chose to proceed with further articles not including photo links. I think it is okay for me to make such a request, but it is also okay for them and you not to. If I was really complaining that others don't do what I do in this respect; others could complain that I don't do what they do. E.g. I spend more effort in building good links to NRHP document and photos because I believe that serves readers who might then choose to follow those links; other editors can legitimately choose to spend their volunteer effort in writing more in the Wikipedia article. What is possibly a legitimate basis to complain is if some editors are hurting other editors by causing more work for them later, like if it is harder later to add photo links than it would be upfront. I could sort of argue that it feels unrewarding to follow other editors and fix what they do, but they could say the same about other different aspects of expanding articles.
The best solution would be for User:Elkman to make programming changes that make it easy for editors to include the NRHP photos, so you and others will simply want to, but that would only address NRHPs listed by mid-2010 or by some date in 2014, depending on what Elkman can get done. --Doncram (talk) 20:15, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Maybe it would be helpful if anyone else could comment about why they do NRHP referencing however they do. And any requests they have. --Doncram (talk) 20:21, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Hi User:Doncram: I haven't created a single article about a listed building since you asked me to use this new format, because it seems too complicated. No one has responded here either. I am more than happy to comply if there is a way to understand the new format and use it widely, or (even better) if it could come up with the elkman infobox creator, but otherwise I feel it would be better for the encyclopedia if I resumed the creation of articles and others changed the format later, don't you? (By the way, the DYK just got approved!).Zigzig20s (talk) 12:39, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
Oh, User:Zigzig20s, while the change was acknowledged maybe in a different discussion here, you don't know yet then that Elkman did modify the NRHP infobox generator so it now includes a reference as I was requesting. Please do try creating a new article using it, which I believe you do use. Notice the generator includes a passage like
Optional reference text: <ref name="nrhpdoc">{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=84001941}}|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Buck-Mercer House |publisher=[[National Park Service]]|author= |date= |accessdate=April 19, 2018}} With {{NRHP url|id=84001941|photos=y|title=accompanying pictures}}</ref>
It would be good to refine the reference if you feel inspired, e.g. perhaps to add the date of the document or perhaps to change from "accompanying pictures" to "accompanying five photos from 1975" or whatever, but that could be regarded as extra.
In most states, for most NRHPs, that should usually be a fully formed reference including link to PDF document and PDF photos. Hopefully this makes it easy. --Doncram (talk) 20:43, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
But to be clear, again there is no requirement that an editor includes an NRHP document reference in a new article. There have been many thousands of articles by many editors created without them. I think it is okay if another editor like me asks one to try to include a NRHP reference, though, especially if it is fairly well automated. But you totally don't have to, and if it seems complicated, just skip it. To skip it means you have to go out of your way to delete the suggested reference now, if you are copy-pasting from the infobox generator. Which is happening: at least one editor creating new articles is completely deleting it, I notice. Whatever. --Doncram (talk)
Argh, well, I thought you were editing recently in states where it would work better, but then you go and start Clements Hall, in Texas, for which the NRHP reference just links to "file not available" type message at NPS. Texas is one of the states where NPS for the most part does not have NRHP documents online. For Texas, we can get the NRHP documents differently. I just added to the Clements Hall article, adding National Archives Catalog copy of the NRHP document. And added reference for the Thematic Resources/Multiple Property Submission document (which does happen to be available from the NPS, and was linked from the infobox). Zigzig20s, what you did was perfectly fine as a try, but can you possibly please try in OK, TN, KY, LA or other states? :) --Doncram (talk) 23:56, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
I'd like to do the listed buildings on the SMU campus because there's great potential to expand them with the professors who taught there, etc. Do you mind fixing them once I've created them please? And I would like to do Dallas, a city that I am interested. But I must also finish Tennessee, yes.Zigzig20s (talk) 23:59, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
As you see I have revised at your new SMU NRHP for Snider Hall, too. On one level, sure, I am happy to collaborate anywhere usually. But you can't just lay in the NRHP reference without then checking it. If it doesn't work (and it won't work in Texas) then you have to delete it, please. You can't leave bad stuff in place for others to fix, though I personally think it is okay/good to lay in stuff and see if it works, while I am actively editing an article. About the interesting Georgian Revival SMU cluster, let's talk elsewhere... maybe you could make a short worklist of them at my or your Talk page. --Doncram (talk) 00:16, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
An editor added a section to Noblit-Lytle House suggesting it had been demolished, but there isn't a single reference, and I can't find one on Google News. Should it be removed until they are able to add an RS?Zigzig20s (talk) 19:47, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
While not an NHRP site, the Ventura Pier has been designated as a Ventura Historic Landmark. Does anyone know how I can make Ventura Historic Landmark a valid designation in the "infobox designation list"? Right now, it displays as "Invalid designation". Thanks. Cbl62 (talk) 13:23, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
IMHO the city, county, and national lists are enough and I'd hope we won't accidentally add another level. The (A ?) problem is that there are multiple official and semi- and un- official lists. I don't mind articles about historical buildings (whether they're on a list or not), but more than 3 dueling lists is too many for me. Smallbones(smalltalk)21:26, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
In the list, the increase refnum should be added after the original one, separated by a comma. I usually add a note about the increase to the description field as well. Magic♪piano01:50, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
I think all refnums ought to be included in the county list-article, but I also thought the second and third ones all got deleted in the past. Did they get deleted when the list-articles were converted over to use template:NRHP row? Hmm, I do see that the template:NRHP row documentation does allow for multiple refnums. --Doncram (talk) 00:02, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
This 2011 version of Shelby County list-article included multiple refnums for a couple items, which got lost later. What I meant was as much about the increase dates being lost, as about refnums. Refnums were not included in original development of all the list-articles, but multiple dates were, and were all lost AFAIK. If there is a consensus that multiples should be included again that would be good to know. --Doncram (talk) 00:23, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
NRHP 2014 database loaded
I have loaded the 2014 National Register database onto my web site, and I have updated the infobox generator and its corresponding scripts to include buttons to select either the 2014 or 2010 version of the database for queries. I've done plenty of testing in my staging environment to make sure that all of the queries still work, but in case there are any issues, I'd like to know about them and fix them. Feel free to ping me here or on my talk page if you have any questions or problems.
One caveat is that the 2014 database doesn't contain the geolocated coordinates, so properties added after 2010 won't have locations. (But, if anyone finds a way to get those locations, I'll look into loading them.) There's also a 2017 spreadsheet of properties that the NPS published, although it doesn't contain as much data as the previous databases had. I'll see if I can load that.
I'm looking into a way to scrape coordinates, names, and other data from PDF nomination files. This is still experimental, but if I can make this work, it'll be a very neat thing. --Elkman(Elkspeak)17:11, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Wow, it looks great. Including the NRHP nomination document reference with photos link will be hugely helpful, thank you for that! I will comment more later. One tiny glitch, as for this laying in of the drafted reference into Henry Sherry House article, is that the "accessdate=April 09, 2018" shows a display error within the {{cite web}} ...what's needed is to strip off the leading zero from the day number, to make it "April 9, 2018". (Actually maybe not everyone will see the display error, but it puts the article into hidden Category:CS1 errors: dates and looks bad in my account, which is enabled for display of CS1 errors.) --Doncram (talk) 21:13, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
User:Elkman, the NRHP infobox generator stuff has been working great, thanks so much. A couple gnits:
You are calling this a 2014 version of database, yet it includes "<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2013a}}</ref>. Should that be "2014a" then? And for the record do you have a more specific version date, e.g. the last listing date included, which could be noted at template:NRISref and otherwise understood?--Doncram (talk) 19:12, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Oh, hmm, template:NRISref documentation shows "2013a: Database released November 2013, with changes up to September 30, 2014." I don't see who edited that. Okay if that is what is meant. --Doncram (talk) 19:18, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
About the link to NRHP nomination and photos, i.e. message like "NRHP nomination and photos are probably at http://focus.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/79000956", the link given is not working right now (though that might be fixed by NPS, per my request about URLs in a discussion section below). Oddly, the corresponding link from the refnum in the infobox at Dr. Nathan Gaither House does work. It goes instead to https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/79000956. Perhaps you could update from "https://focus.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/79000956" format to use the npgallery format? Which correspondence that I quote below mentions is a permanent change, to use npgallery and not focus. This is not an emergency if the NPS fixes their server to again support the "legacy links", but why not use directly what they suggest now. --Doncram (talk) 19:12, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
I do still wonder if you could please include "source:NRIS2013a" in coordinates, where "NRIS2013a" can be taken to mean what NRIS coords data you are using, right after the actual coordinates given, as in
| coordinates = {{coord|39|08|12|N|77|11|57|W|source:NRIS2013a|region:US_type:landmark|name=Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory|display=inline,title}}
rather than
| coordinates = {{coord|39|08|12|N|77|11|57|W|region:US_type:landmark|name=Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory|display=inline,title}}
This would support User:ProprioMe OW and me and perhaps some others' longterm effort to identify which coordinates have been confirmed or improved by Wikipedia editors, vs. which are less likely to be accurate, as covered in some previous discussion sections. My request is not that you take on any big effort to actually improve the coordinates data yourself, but rather just to help out in setting a precedent that we can/should provide attribution and focus on improving unattributed coords. By the way, when I create articles I check the coordinates in the corresponding county list-article and use those if they are available where NRIS2013a coords are not, or if they are different, as I trust that NRHP editors adding the items to the list-articles are exercising good care. Then in a new article, I would change the "source:" field to indicate something different than "NRIS2013a". --Doncram (talk) 19:12, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Also where your NRIS2013a data does not include coordinates (which is fine, as we often/usually have coordinates figured out some other way), could you possibly please include a commented out line for the coordinates, as in:
to make it easier for an editor like me to put in coords (probably copy-pasting from the county list-article).
Also, unless you are making a judgment that the default should be not to display a map, and not to use the USA option, could you please include the equivalent of:
| locmapin = Kentucky#USA
By the way "| locmapin = Washington" seems to work fine without requiring "(state)". On the other hand, I don't mind if you are exercising judgment that the default should be otherwise. But even then you might include just a blank entry:
Also where the NRHP reference is now included (thanks for that!) the current intro is:
Optional reference text:
but there have been a case or two where the reference didn't work and editor(s) have pasted it in then not checked it, so I wonder if you could modify the intro to something like:
Optional reference text (please confirm this works and consider modifying as appropriate to describe the linked text and photos, or please delete it; don't leave a bad reference.):
I put in a request to npgallery@nps.gov just now, to ask that links to NRHP documents be fixed again. For the record, this last happened January 31, 2017, according to my correspondence then, which included their "We are attempting to keep the legacy links working and they should redirect to the new ones. Clearly we missed a step in our testing and will work to get the redirects working again as soon as possible."
Perhaps it could be helpful for someone else to understand how it was fixed then, with followup message (lightly edited): "the links should work now. It was just an IIS setting that saw the 'pdf' extension and didn't like it when we updated the site on Friday, but I just now switched it back. / We consider the focus.nps.gov url to be legacy now to our system, which is now called NPGallery, and just at the end of December we switched from http to https for all our links as a government requirement. / The pdf host links actually referred to a directory that was just an online file server. That site was shut down and now the links redirect to https:npgallery.nps.gov which uses code and a database to resolve the rest of the url to a file residing on the server. The link you are shown is the generic link to the pdf but there are more specialized links that do still use the reference number instead of a GUID. https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/00001069_text and the corresponding
https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/00001069_photos instead of http://focus.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/NRHP/Photos/00001069.pdf."
--Doncram (talk) 17:58, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
If there is a template editor in the house, the urls at {{NRHP url/core}} should probably be altered to use "npgallery" instead of "focus", and https instead of http, considering the legacy status of focus.nps.gov and the predominant change to secure connections. Magic♪piano18:11, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
When you come to a conclusion that is more definitive than should probably be altered (emphasis mine), ping me.
Well, here's what I know. The URLs the template currently produces (for example this one) yield secure connection failures when accessed on recent versions Firefox. Changing "focus" to "npgallery" results in a successful access. Note also that the template only produces http URLs, so a redirect to https was returned. My "probably" should be interpreted as seeking consensus, since this shouldn't be considered an entirely trivial change. Magic♪piano18:26, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
I'd agree with Magicpiano and Doncram. The NRHP url should be changed asap as it's used in a great number of references in NRHP articles. No need to use legacy urls that could suddenly cease to work. The best format to use IMHO would be https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/<id>(_text|_photos), as Doncram post suggested. I've made a few tests and it seems to work pretty everywhere in place of an NRHP url. — ProprioMe OW (talk) 21:15, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
I agree with this change too; Chrome also has connection issues with the old URLs, so between that and Firefox the links won't work for at least half of our readers (according to this at least). The format Doncram proposed seems like the way to go here. TheCatalyst31Reaction•Creation23:45, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
No reply from NPS to my inquiry/request, so far.
Based on comments here, it seems worth trying to fix entirely on our end, if we can. Here's a ping: Trappist the monk, if you are able to, could you please go ahead? :)
For, Hargis House, say, where there is call to {{NRHP url|id=95001518}}, please make that unwrap as
Hopefully keeping the treatment of "title=" field working as it has been, and so on. None of the links are working now, so I think this can just be done directly in the template, i.e. without experimenting in a sandbox or otherwise testing, just try rolling something out, I suggest. --Doncram (talk) 01:10, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
{{NRHP url/core}} also supports {{NHLS url}}. Is {{NHLS url}} also broken and does the same fix apply?
Changed. It will take a while for all of the pages that use these templates to trickle through the job queue so when you find a link still pointing to focus.nps.gov, your first action should be to null edit the page.
Just now the "legacy links" started working again. I first noticed that the links like NRHP nomination and photos are probably at http://focus.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/76000910 from Elkman's NRHP infobox generator started working, i.e. that I didn't need to replace "focus" by "npgallery" to get to the NPGallery page. It is fine and good that we have possibly/probably more fundamental links now. And, I am glad that NPS did whatever, for sake of links to their pages from Wikipedia and from outside wikipedia, too. Fighting link rot everywhere is good. --Doncram (talk) 22:03, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
More delisting success
I previously shared my story here of having contacted the Utah SHPO in 2014 about demolished properties still listed on the NRHP. I gave them a list of 10, and they said they would work on them. The first two were delisted in June 2015, and now the other eight are finally done; they were among the 11 Utah delistings from 26 March 2018. If you are annoyed about properties that no longer exist but are still on the Register, you should drop a line to the appropriate SHPO. It worked for me, eventually. Ntsimp (talk) 04:07, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
If they were listed once, they must have been historic and there could be Wikipedia articles about them, regardless of whether they're still standing or not.Zigzig20s (talk) 09:53, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Ntsimp is not saying otherwise, and I think we all probably agree that once notable, always notable. It does happen to be the case that the National Park Service tends not to provide NRHP nomination documents for delisted properties, though we should perhaps pressure them to retain them / produce them after the fact. So it can become more difficult to cover a delisted historic resource. --Doncram (talk) 23:31, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
The wp:NRIS info issues system has accumulated many editors' notices about properties demolished but still listed. A state-by-state effort could be based on what we have there. It is meticulous and probably rather complete in many states. In Kentucky, there are none noted, despite the apparent demolition or other removal being documented by photos of empty sites; I suspect the NRHP editor-photographers were just exhausted by how many there were, and didn't see the value of recording (though they did in fact contribute info/document a lot by their photos). Based on my editing a lot of Kentucky articles recently, I think maybe Kentucky is the worst state of all, having a very large number of listings that were done in huge numbers early on, to a relatively low standard of documentation and implicit commitment for preservation, with listing done at low cost on basis of local/state inventory forms. There are swathes of listings elsewhere that are pretty low-quality, information-wise, such as in some MPS/TR/MRA groupings, but Kentucky seems to have more routinely old and/or low-quality listings than anywhere else, AFAICT. --Doncram (talk) 00:05, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
I've had similar success in the past getting demolished properties in Florida delisted by reporting them to the state historic preservation department. That seems to be the best way, as they can report the changes officially up the chain to the national level. --‖ Ebyabetalk - Opposites Attract ‖ 17:46, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Hello. Are we sure that every building in every county appears on our lists please? Is there a way to double-check? Please ping me when you reply. Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 23:31, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
User:Zigzig20s, there are definitely some errors. WikiProject NRHP editors who created the list-articles and who have developed them/maintained them over many years have perhaps made a few errors that are "our fault", but mainly it's a hard job making sense of the National Park Service's information. We have to make an operational definition of what is listed on the NRHP for our purposes. We largely go with national-level sources, rather than what states say, i.e. to mostly accept NRIS (but we have usually noted in wp:NRIS info issues when what we present differs from NRIS). And we update by cumulative announcements in official Weekly listings. But the NPS doesn't fully cooperate. For example, one would think that any change in listing status should be announced in a new weekly listing, but someone found out (reported in archives of this page) that the NPS sometimes has amended an old weekly listing to fix an error on their part, and we have no way to tell that there's been such a change. There have been cases where a state and the NPS would say a site is listed, but at most we can find a record of filing of NRHP document as pending or similar (no different than other records which died without leading to a listing), without any official record of the site being actually listed. Hopefully when we figure out a discrepancy like that and chose to diverge from NRIS+WeeklyListings then it would get noted into wp:NRIS info issues. I or others could go into more sources of discrepancy. But perhaps it would be more productive to consider the specifics of the site(s) whose status you have reason to question. --Doncram (talk) 13:59, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
User:Zigzig20s, a starting point to check any individual county's list-article would be to run a search specifying the state and county in the NPS's NPGallery system, at https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/BasicSearch/. That draws from a hopefully relatively current version of their NRIS database. For Tennessee's Williamson County, a moderately complex county, say, that generates 140 records. While our List of RHPs in Williamson has 135 entries. I'm not going to do a complete reconciliation, but theirs includes some duplicates for boundary increases, and it includes Stokely Davis House, which ours lists among 13 items in a "Former listings" section because I think apparently there was a Weekly listings announcement of change of status as of July 15, 2015. Aside: hmm, we have an error, although not a list-article one, in that the individual article does not show it as formerly listed, it shows as if it is currently listed. Maybe our records at wp:NRIS info issues TN would help sort out differences, too, e.g. to point out if there were any items listed in NRIS in the wrong county (as is the case for Marion Forks Guard Station, in Oregon, which showed up in a 2009-2010 reconciliation of Oregon state info vs. Wikipedia/NPS info). --Doncram (talk) 18:51, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. I am having a hard time double-checking the listings with their website. When I look for a city, it shows me results for the entire state.Zigzig20s (talk) 16:24, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
Elkman tool and coordinates
It was explained to me that the coordinates that come with the Elkman tool automatically are not necessarily correct. Is there a way to fix this please? Where does the error come from? Could the editor who created the tool fix this problem please? Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 09:20, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
I'd say (unfortunately) not, as the error that comes in those coords is due to UTM easting/northing in the form not being precise (in most cases) or totally wrong (found several of them which were badly mismatched or even misread at the time the form has been digitized).
There's a little displacement which is tied to latitude and can maybe be calculated, but i've found main errors are generally due to coords being taken imprecisely (for example due to bad maps or not worrying about last digits when writing them down). Conversion from manually written UTM coordinates to decimal lat/lon cannot be easily "fixed" (you can double check UTM to DMS conversion with an online converter like this one). What one gets from Elkman tool is exactly what it is stated in NRIS. Most of the time (when one is lucky) coords are off by just several hundred yards. Also satellite imagery can be imprecise (worst case i've found was about 30 yd east displacement, in Sitka, Alaska area on Google imagery).
This main issue with giving precise location for NRHP structures is why we're trying to separate uncheked NRIS coords from corrected/checked ones by "sourcing" them. There are a couple of discussion here about sourcing coordinates. Adding NRIS version when we use just what NRIS says, and another tag, like our username, if we better them by looking, for example, at satellite imagery, street view and/or other sources. - ProprioMe OW (talk) 10:01, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
User:ProprioMe OW, perhaps you attribute more blame than is due to the NRHP nominators. Many carefully measured out coordinates on old U.S. Geological Survey maps, but then the whole coordinate system was shifted, relative to modern Google maps etc. So places in Louisiana once accurately located will be off by 25 meters, say. This is noted at wp:NRHPHELP#Coordinates issues. --Doncram (talk) 01:41, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
"Many carefully measured out coordinates" - but I think that a lot of them just picked a point near there. (Also there are outright errors.) And that map shows ~30 meters in my area, whereas I commonly see errors of about 200 meters in N/S. Bubba73You talkin' to me?05:22, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Didn't mean at all to blame nominators (which most surely did the best they could in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s), but if the error was only due to wp:NRHPHELP#Coordinates issues then post-1983 measurements should be perfect or have a far better accuracy (or maybe the error could be due to people still using pre-1983 maps for taking measures? portable non-military GPS devices were of course still far to come, i think they were still using just theodolites until at least the first 1990s). I've found displacements to be pretty widespread and cover oftenly serveral hundred meters. Out of curiosity, I've recently found a 3 misread as a 5 inside the NRHP form (and it wasn't one of the last ciphers! The real building was kilometers away from what the form and therefore the NRIS database was saying - it took me quite a lot of time to figure it out and find the real item). In two words, the issue I was pointing out is that I fear there's no easy way to "fix" things up, even being able to account for wp:NRHPHELP#Coordinates issues in a lat/lon/year corrective function. Should some way be found i'd be the first one to ask for its widespread usage in coord templates and similar (imagine a NAD27, NAD83, WGS84 etc. - standards are quite a lot - tag with some kind of automatic correction+conversion feature) - ProprioMe OW (talk) 08:00, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Shorter summary: the error is in the underlying database, not the tool. Reasons for the errors are many, varied, and historical, and are not frequently fixed, since that requires a bureaucratic process to accomplish. (Which is also why demolished properties persist on the register.) Magic♪piano14:58, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
I'd say use NRIS coordinates if you don't want to improve them (a bad placement is still better than no position at all) . Someone else will eventually take care of improving those values in the future. - ProprioMe OW (talk) 15:12, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
When creating new articles you can check/use the coordinates at the corresponding county list-article. Any big errors in original NRIS coordinates have already been fixed, and coordinates have been found for recent listings that the Elkman tool doesn't cover.
It is a fair question whether the Elkman tool could be updated to reflect the best info we have (the coordinates in the county list-articles). User:Elkman, if we got a spreadsheet/database created by bot from the county list-articles, could/would you use that instead of the NRIS coordinates data that you do use? This would avoid re-introduction of known-to-be bad info. --Doncram (talk) 01:41, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.
Portals are being redesigned.
The new design features are being applied to existing portals.
At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.
Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.
Ah... columns may be a frequent feature, but are not necessary... check out the gallery of examples at the colonial revival article. Blueboar (talk) 23:06, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Situation: NRHP property #02000774 is a Heinz factory complex of 11 buildings, listed in NRIS as "Heinz, H.J., Company" (ie "H.J. Heinz Company"), and it is surprisingly not a historic district. We have an article for it at H. J. Heinz Company building (to avoid the name of the actual company), but this is poor because it isn't one building. The nomination document variously uses "H.J. Heinz Company buildings", "Heinz plant", "H.J. Heinz Company Complex", "Heinz factory complex", "Heinz Manufacturing facility", "Heinz complex".
Additionally, we have Heinz Lofts, a residential development and Pittsburgh Landmark consisting of 5 of the factory buildings.
I plan to merge the two existing articles, and have a substantial expansion drafted. But, I need some guidance on what to name the article. "H.J. Heinz Company Complex" is the only proper noun that seems satisfactory enough, but it is only used once in the nomination. Chris857 (talk) 04:01, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
It was listed in 2014. I have noticed that the Elkman tool does not work for fairly recent listings. Not sure why.Zigzig20s (talk) 03:32, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Ugh, kind of, when I look at President's House, a mixed list of houses of nations' presidents and of university presidents. [Which i am responsible for having developed as a dab quite a long time ago / there's no fault to anyone else here.] There is a pretty good model alternative in list-article List of governors' residences in the United States (mostly official residences but also some notable unofficial ones), which complements disambiguation page Governor's House. I suppose there needs to be "President's House" as a disambiguation page, but what's really needed are two list-articles:
List of presidential residences (or some broader title?) listing top residences/houses of presidents, premiers, prime ministers, supreme dictators, etc., in each nation. I am not sure but I think this doesn't yet exist. [It is Official residence, which lists houses of head of state for each country world-wide. Perhaps could be improved a lot.] There is largish Category:Presidential residences which includes 13(?) official ones for the United States including historic ones such as the Octagon House in D.C., and numerous presidential palaces of other countries. All to be included in larger Category:Official residences by country.
You can request a copy by email from the NPS. nr_reference(at)nps.gov Give the property name, county and state, MPS or TR (if applicable), reference number. Einbierbitte (talk) 20:23, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Duplicates drive
There are only about 77 redlinks remaining for articles that span two or more NRHP list-articles. One way these can be seen is in Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Progress/Duplicates. I suggest it is time to push and create articles for all of them now. Their being redlinks messes up understanding of footnotes in the NRHP list-article system. And whenever an article is created about one of them, by an editor looking at just one list-article, the new creation is prone to having errors of omission. The Elkman NRHP infobox generator will suggest just one county category, and it might or might not indirectly hint there are other counties involved by displaying multiple copies of infoboxes (which seems to work differently now than it used to, in that sometimes now there are multiple copies and sometimes not). It is simplest now just to create them all and be done with it, rather than try to change any system of prompts. I will plug along with this but would be happy if others would join in too.
By the way, this will lead me to create a few archeological district articles which I would not otherwise start, as sources may be short. For some I'll end up finding sources, like happened for just-created Guffey Butte–Black Butte Archeological District, which spans four Idaho counties. For any "NRIS-only" ones I end up creating, though, I will fix up 10 other articles, say, of that type. (Well, i would be doing that anyhow. There are currently 1,183 (which updates occasionally) in Category:All articles sourced only to NRIS. Hmm that shows 2,024 right now, while I thought it would be just under 2,000, which is what wp:NRHPPROGRESS shows. Whatever the current number, it has been dropping steadily.) --Doncram (talk) 02:50, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Good, glad no one has had a cow. Done through California so far. One could use sources with trivial mentions in order to keep an article (e.g. this out of "NRIS-only" status, but I'd prefer not to. --Doncram (talk) 18:15, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
For the archaeological districts and other sites that don't have easily accessible forms online, you should be able to get forms with the location information redacted by emailing nr_reference@nps.gov and asking for them. Note that it may take a little while to get a response. TheCatalyst31Reaction•Creation13:02, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Noted, good point. Actually it has been mostly bridges and parkways and irrigation ditches and others for which NRHP docs are available. And NRIS-only total count is down to 1,997 right now, a bit more than the 1,974 showing in NRHPPROGRESS, presumably because there must be "NRIS-only" tags on a few contributing building articles or others that are not individually NRHP-listed. --Doncram (talk) 14:33, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
I believe there are also a few NRIS-only tags on delisted properties, particularly ones that were still listed back when we first started tagging NRIS-only articles. TheCatalyst31Reaction•Creation23:04, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, yes, that makes sense, they are probably almost all delisted ones. There wouldn't be many articles created only from NRIS for merely contributing buildings, although "NRIS-only" tag could get applied if an NRHP CP infobox was used and if sources were listed only as external links, not made into inline citations. There are now 1,979 in the category and 1,952 in the NRHPPROGRESS report. With "Duplicates" done through Minnesota now, I'll continue on and do most but not necessarily all of the remaining ones, and I probably won't report back here any more. Thank you to anyone else who has done any of these. --Doncram (talk) 14:25, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
LOL. Hey, NPS does not usually have documents for Texas. It probably has them for National Historic Landmark sites, but not usually otherwise. See wp:NRHPHELPTX about options. The National Archives has all of Texas done, but it is slow. Apparently one can get many if not all NRHP docs from the Texas Historical Commission somehow; User talk:Bryanrutherford0 has been successful with that. I think Texas and Michigan may be the two states where you have to go to National Archives to get the docs. --Doncram (talk) 17:12, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
I know I asked a question about notability related to these a while back. Now, another question.
As preface, I'm currently in the middle of a photo tour through central Virginia and its environs (got some great NRHP captures to upload in a week or so). One thing I've noticed is that a number of central Virginia counties have begun developing their own historic marker schemes in addition to those created by the state. Thus far, I've seen examples from Charles City County, Henrico County, Goochland County, and Powhatan County, in addition to those from Fairfax and Arlington Counties in the north.
I'm wondering if it might not be worthwhile to start a list of sub-state entities in the US which have historical marker programs, with the goal of eventually creating articles with lists of sites. Even if the sites themselves aren't inherently notable enough for standalone articles, I don't see why we wouldn't be able to compile at least some sort of list, at least as a starting point for potential further expansion. I'm bringing it up here because I think this is the WikiProject most nearly interested in the question.
I think that sounds interesting/worthwhile. Most markers in such programs, about a historic but long-gone one-room schoolhouse or a shopping plaza on a battlefield or the demolished site where someone inventor once lived or whatever, are often depressing; to me they can just emphasize that something cool was lost and there is no meaningful artifact evoking the historic scene. While the National Register is only recognizing surviving meaningful artifacts. So I am not personally very motivated to document historic markers. But, the existence of a county program or whatever is indeed an effort to recognize history stuff, and a list of such programs or even a list-article for each program that itemizes all of its markers is certainly notable, IMO. Though not an article for each marker. List-articles of either type, or other coverage in this area, would fall naturally under WikiProject Historic sites, which also covers local historic site designation programs anywhere in the world. --Doncram (talk)
I ran into township historical markers this winter, which look almost exactly like the famous Pennsylvania state historical markers. See File:Lewis Tannery Marple DelCo PA.jpg. I can't get a list of them from the township office or the adjacent library - but how many Marple Township historical markers can there be? PA does have an extensive list here of their historical markers. Start at List of Pennsylvania state historical markers. I get the general feeling that these lists have not been all that successful. One reason is that the signs (after 1976) are presumed to be copyrighted - but who wants a photo of a sign anyway? Other reasons, some inaccessible documentation, signs placed a couple of miles from the real site, signs giving info on otherwise barely known people or obscure events (political influence?). Multiple signs for the same event see e.g. Brandywine Battlefield signs at List of Pennsylvania state historical markers in Delaware County, ...
I added "citation needed" tags and asked the new-in-2016 contributor "DenizenofBD" to make contact. Unfortunately the contributions were back in 2016 and it is doubtful they will receive this message. However they may respond to the tags in the article eventually, or find the posting now at the Talk page. I think it appears the contributor was clearly well-meaning and trying to contribute conscientiously, with their identifying some info as "according to family lore" or the like, which could be fine. Even NRHP documents include statements about family lore, or "according to tradition", which I often repeat as that in mainspace articles. It would be better of course to have explicit sourcing to the family documents or whatever sources they were referring to, as the documentation that they asserted in an edit summary was available. If you want to remove the text rather than just leave it tagged, then I hope you could move it to the Talk page for discussion, i.e. making it more feasible for the contributor or anyone else associated with them to find it eventually and make contact again. --Doncram (talk) 19:32, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
Muslim cemetery in North Dakota new listing
One of the more interesting new NRHP listings lately is Assyrian Muslim Cemetery, just added to North Dakota NRHP wikipedia listings by Magicpiano, and new stub article started by me towards keeping ND fully "articled". I think it is the oldest Muslim cemetery in the United States. Maybe the NRHP document is online, I am not sure, but the place has been covered before in the New York Times and other sources. Develop for DYK, anyone? --Doncram (talk) 05:07, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Also, checking the talk page for {{reqphoto}} - I remove like two dozen from Kansas City NRHP articles that already had photos. Chris857 (talk) 18:25, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
"Address restricted" images and statistics
I have made some changes to (my copy of) the scripts that do statistics on NRHP lists and the WP:NRHPPROGRESS page. Some of the changes I believe address buggy behavior with respect to whether or not buttons show up. Dudemanfellabra's NRHPstats.js is used to show statistics on individual lists. I have modified my version of the script to exclude "Address restricted" images from the "number illustrated" count, since (IMHO of course) such images are not actually illustrative.
WP:NRHPPROGRESS is updated by User:Dudemanfellabra/UpdateNRHPProgress.js. I have modified my version of the script to hopefully address the buggy appearance (or not) of the update button. I have also modified it to count the number of "Address restricted" images, although this information only currently appears in the web developer's console. When I ran the script today, there were 881 such images, which is a little over 1% of the total number of images to date. This was lower than I expected.
If I were to actually exclude those images from the count, the change would eventually reflect in the map rendition of the statistics. Magic♪piano16:26, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
On July 4, I removed all the remaining Address Restricted images from the Utah lists, because consistency makes sense. There has been an apparent consensus to keep the dark blue blobs in eastern Utah caused by the hundreds of Nine Mile Canyon ARs in Carbon and Duchesne counties, so I guess it's best to compare apples to apples. I know there is no consistency nationwide, however, so I look forward to something that treats all states equally. Ntsimp (talk) 18:40, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
There has been disagreement here in past discussions in wt:NRHP about our treatment of address restricted places. If you can find an obscure offline source and use that to add location info and to get a photo, for a place that was promised to be kept "address-restricted", does that help or hurt the world? And there is disagreement obvious in competing campaigns to add or remove the address restricted images. Disagreement has to do with what effect we think the wp:NRHPPROGRESS report has on editors' actions: if address-restricted images are deleted or not counted as photos, does that drive editors to go out and discover/publish info that should not be published? Or are editors who add address-restricted images perceived to be overstating their states' photo scores, and undermining good pressure for photographers to find and document the places? Do we care about responsibility for helping vandals, or is that not our job? State and national registers are at fault for not updating the address-restricted status of places that have later become public museums, etc. The main productive way forward would be to coordinate, one state at a time, with SHPO offices about updating AR status info to report now where stuff is public, and honoring their wishes to conceal info where it should be concealed. I would not dare to undertake such a coordinating effort in some states where there has been a lot of revealing already, though.
Personally I would prefer for address-restricted images to be used in list-articles to convey that we don't want to encourage sleuthing to reveal the locations. And a photo of an agricultural field, say, does not convey anything really useful to readers about the archeology there, in contrast to a photo of pottery or whatever from an archeological dig there. For what NRHPPROGRESS shows, whatever lessens pressure / incentive to reveal address restricted info there is best, IMO. Maybe reporting two percentage scores for photos, with and without address-restricted images, would lessen editors' discomfort/obsession with what they think other editors are doing? --Doncram (talk) 19:16, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
I don't particularly care about how other people choose to react to the data. If the metric is "illustrated sites", then AR images pollute the data, because they don't illustrate the site. (Feel free to propose some other metric definition.) Magic♪piano22:38, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
It depends on the situation. The reason that I think that "address restricted" should count is because of the many shipwrecks on the Great Lakes and ocean coasts that are unobtainable IMHO. Only a professional diver with underwater cameras could photograph the site in its present condition. Historic images of the ship before sinking isn't available in many cases. I agree that other "address restricted" sites shouldn't count, as long as their location is publicly available. I have researched online to confirm the location of nearby AR sites before photographing it for the list in cases where the location wasn't secret at all. Royalbroil06:03, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
It does depend on the situation, but generally where the location is not published, we should count the "address restricted" image as we have. Otherwise we are encouraging people to ferret out sensitive sites. Where they have become public, that's different. Jonathunder (talk) 12:42, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
If a property's architectural elements are, broadly speaking, not visible from a public way (like a large estate or ranch), and we don't put a "not photographable from a public way" image, does that encourage people to trespass in an attempt to get a picture? Magic♪piano20:45, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
I'll bite, though the double negatives might have confused me. For a large estate not visible from the road, we don't want to put a "not photographable image" into the NRHP infobox of the article or the county list-article (and we also don't want to put an image of a gateway or driveway that fail to depict any contributing element of the estate), because we DO want to encourage people to get a pic of the estate. There are ways to get a photo there, with or without trespassing (including asking for permission to walk on the property and take photos), and we don't imagine that having a photo, however it was obtained, will lead to any future harm. This is different from taking pictures of an address restricted archeological site, because that goes against my/our expectation what the NRHP nominators/archeologists/owners wanted/expected/were promised. It is pretty sure that we are harming someone, at least by participating in breaking the contract they understood they got from the National Register or whoever else made promises. It is possible that a photo helps archeological site get vandalized in the future. If someone wants to create some other image or text conveying that we want only a non-trespassing photo for the large estate, and indicating that it would be good contribution to get it, I would support using that. Perhaps we could designate those, and use a category to list them, and encourage people to go get those "difficult gets", even possibly asking for further documentation/proof that the photo obtained was with permission. --Doncram (talk) 23:10, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
There are ways to get meaningful images of AR sites as well, that don't compromise the site's integrity or security (for example this image or this one). It's also possible to get permission to photograph artifacts from a restricted site, or secure permission to visit it from suitable authorities. Magic♪piano01:21, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
The question seems to be whether the "Address Restricted.PNG" image counts in progress rankings, or even gets banned outright. I strongly believe it should be kept. I've been researching Minnesota's address-restricted listings for some time now and while I've confirmed the locations of some, others I can only provide educated guesses at (i.e. Original Research), and plenty of others remain completely unguessable to me beyond the township. And I happen to be a librarian, with above-average skills and access to resources. Even non-NRHP resources are usually cagey about the locations of these sites, and the resources themselves are often hard to find: there's a reason my profession refers to government reports as grey literature. If we suddenly mark all of the address-restricted listings as "unillustrated", it's just going to lead to a lot of frustration within this project. A great many of these listings are ungettable without original research (and submersibles, in the case of many shipwrecks). The best vector, as Magicpiano points out, is to track down and photograph artifacts or get permission to upload archaeologists' images. That takes time and requires goodwill from individuals and institutions committed to protecting these sites. They're not likely to accommodate us if the perception is that we blunder around with our cameras and our geotagging exposing sites to the public. The Address Restricted.PNG is a valuable placeholder that can be supplanted if images for a site can be secured through proper channels, just as a picture of a backlit building covered in scaffolding on a dreary day counts in our metrics but can and should be replaced with a better picture when possible. Not counting the Address Restricted.PNG, or banning it outright, just opens what—several thousand wounds? No, I vote for keeping the band-aids on and upgrading where possible without urgency. -McGhiever (talk) 14:42, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
Betcha can't find it. My manual counts give a total of 390 AR properties on the NRHP in Utah, with 17 photographed here so far. Except for the two I took right by publicly-posted interpretive signs, the photos are not geotagged. There's no basis for the "exposing sites" perception, and no one's proposing to change that. Frankly, I fail to see how a photo that would be useful for this project even could help a vandal locate the site. Look at the photo of Redman Village in Nine Mile Canyon. If you're familiar with Nine Mile Canyon but don't know how to find Redman Village, the picture's not going to help you do that. But the bigger issue is what to do about all of those we're realistically not going to photograph. I have gone back and forth on this issue, and at this point I just want a consensus that applies nationwide. I don't care which way it goes, but please, let's decide to count the status of all of these in the same way. Ntsimp (talk) 23:00, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
Ah, yes, I totally agree that an non-geotagged photo is no problem. I just worry that after all the hard work of locating a site and photographing it, some of us will be hard-pressed not to add the coordinates of the site or the image. -McGhiever (talk) 01:52, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
My point stands: why should restricted sites be "privileged" by getting a placeholder image, when other sites that may be equally difficult to image are not? (I also don't understand what sort of wounds are being opened by this. Editor's sensibilities?) Magic♪piano23:25, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
Well, having their addresses restricted is a privileged status... And German Wikipedia has an image for "No picture possible: object not accessible". I would totally support having one in English. As for "wounds", that was perhaps a bit of ill-chosen rhetorical flourish. I just think that if we suddenly decide to knock back our completion metrics, we lovable obsessives (myself included) are going to face a very difficult challenge that may inspire poor responses, like original research, going against the wishes of the NPS, landowners, archaeologists, and cultural heritage organizations, geotagging sites out of misguided helpfulness or completion, and a whole lot of pictures of uninteresting patches of ground (which, I submit, hardly illustrate their sites either). That's a bit of slippery slope logic, I know; my main point is that a lot of these sites are impossible or nearly impossible to illustrate. Disallowing a standard placeholder doesn't inspire better imagery, it just leaves us with an unclimbable hill. -McGhiever (talk) 01:52, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
I like the "No picture possible" placeholder as it is more informative than "Address Restricted".
Sometimes pictures are possible. I've gotten two of them and I plan to get another one Friday. They do "address restricted" for archaeological sites but sometimes you can find out where they are later. Bubba73You talkin' to me?17:11, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
I don't like this; it suggests there are no ways to get pictures of the site, which is as false as suggesting that "address restricted" sites cannot be properly imaged. Just because a property's historic elements are not visible from a public way, doesn't mean images can't be located (as opposed to taken) for it, just as with restricted sites. Wikipedia is here for the readers, not the editors; what's wrong with leaving a space blank (in a MOS/policy/guideline way, as opposed to making editors feel better)? Magic♪piano12:22, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
Weekly List for August 3 is out plus a New Website
The above article is currently displaying a script error in the infobox: "Lua error in Module:Location_map at line 418: No value was provided for longitude". Would someone please find the coordinates and enter them. Johnuniq (talk) 03:41, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
I got coordinates from LandmarkHunter (which seems to get them from the NRHP forms), put it in, and it is right on what looks like a farm, so I assume it is correct. Bubba73You talkin' to me?03:52, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
Based on Google satellite view, the coordinates now in the article point to a building which seems to be "building A" in the hand-drawn map included on page 12 of the NRHP document, based on relationship to road/driveway and pond and other structures. I have some discomfort with this identification because the sketch doesn't show an outline of building like actually there now; there is some possibility the original house is lost and the coordinates one is an all new complicated structure, or that it includes the original house. But this is the best available guesstimate for the exact building, and it is definitely within the farm area. Some other structures in the A through M labelling appear to have been lost entirely. --Doncram (talk) 00:18, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
If you know where it is then Acme Mapper is good for getting the coordinates. As you move it around, it shows the coordinates of the plus in the center. Just put that on the building and you can read off the coordinates in the lower right. Bubba73You talkin' to me?22:54, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
Hmm. Thanks for the note that this is a poor situation, but it is basically not right to put a WikiProject NRHP stamp of approval on a redirect going to an article that doesn't cover the NRHP listing. This is a reminder about a number of past cases where multiple redirects were created, when having redlinks is preferred, and the creation of the redirect itself just confuses matters, serves readers poorly, and causes work, including discussion as here. "Redlinks help the Wikipedia grow". The redirect here existed as a redirect for a long time, since 2010, while it should have been showing instead as a redlink in National Register of Historic Places listings in Southwest Portland, Oregon , the corresponding NRHP list-article. As noted by Another Believer, it is not properly covered in the current redirect target. I removed the WikiProject NRHP banner on the Talk page and I put in a SPEEDY deletion request by this edit. If the SPEEDY is not approved then I guess a a wp:MFD request for deletion is appropriate. --Doncram (talk) 01:15, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
Because you faked me out with your deleting the deletion request and your re-establishing a redirect, instead, as if you were merely edit warring to continue the bad situation. Now, you have created a stub article, I don't think that is better than having a redlink, which properly advertises the fact that we are waiting / hoping for an editor to show up and create a proper article. I think the stub article should be deleted. --Doncram (talk) 02:00, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
Okay, I started AFD. Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/South Portland Historic District. Sometime in the last year I tried an AFD to delete about 20 similar stub articles in Idaho, which failed, perhaps because the "substub" articles had been existing for several years. This is different, as it is brand new. In my opinion, we simply don't want new "substub" articles which contain nothing more than is already included in the corresponding NRHP list-article. --Doncram (talk) 02:58, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
I didn't "fake you out" or edit war -- I converted a redirect to a stub, plain and simple. The Idaho stubs were kept because the subjects are independently notable, just like this historic district. I can't really follow your reasoning, and I think nominating an article about a notable (which you've admitted) topic for deletion is a waste of editors' time. ---Another Believer(Talk)16:04, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
Hi, Trappist the monk, the URL works for me, using Microsoft Edge browser. While in Chrome browser, the pages appear blank. Hmm, it was coming up, page by page a bit slowly. I could see first several pages being a NHL registration document for something with "Naval" in its name, with author Marilynn Larew and preparation date 7/28/77. But as I kept paging down, then it has gone all blank for me. Seems not to be a general NPS problem, anyhow. There are occasional bad PDF files which could be noted at wp:NRIS info issues or corresponded about, and clearly there are differences in scanning, i.e. NHL documents in general were scanned earlier and are somewhat different in their PDF encodings, so may interact differently with browsers now. Is there a more general problem with NHL files, or is it just this one? --Doncram (talk) 21:00, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
For that specific U.S. Naval Academy file, I can get it using a NRHP url, and see the whole document. I entered the refnum into NRHP infobox generator, i.e. here, and can then click on link to http://focus.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/66000386. This yields in the infobox/draft article the reference using NRHP urls: <ref name="nrhpdoc">{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=66000386}}|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: U.S. Naval Academy |publisher=[[National Park Service]]|author= |date= |accessdate=August 27, 2018}} With {{NRHP url|id=66000386|photos=y|title=accompanying pictures}}</ref>. See PDF document in high quality and accompanying photos in high quality. By contrast, the photos via NHLS url were low quality.
There is probably a general issue here, that we have used NHLS urls in many/most of the 2000+ NHL articles, and NRHP urls which go perhaps to better quality documents are now available and would be preferred if one has to choose. But I also recall cases where the NHLS document is different/older while there is a newer update document at the NRHP url and we want both documents to be referenced. --Doncram (talk) 21:10, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
I've been to the location of Myrick's Mill in Twiggs, County, Georgia twice and not seen the old wooden mill. There is a historical marker (pictured) and also pictured is what I think might be the foundation of the old mill. It is where the old mill should be and I don't see any reason for the three concrete blocks on either side of the spillway, unless it was the foundation. This is where I think the mill should be, but I don't know for sure, and I can't determine the location precisely from the NRHP form or the website. Which photo should be used in the county listing and the article about it? Bubba73You talkin' to me?04:47, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
The nomination specifically mentions that the stilts on which the mill was built had been placed in concrete footings, which might be what you see. The listing also includes the dam and mill pond, which are in your photo. (I also recently photographed a dam and foundation of a listed but demolished mill. The mill's demolition was not a surprise.) Magic♪piano14:50, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
I added a bit to the article. I think the "possible foundation" photo should be used in county list-article and in article's infobox, because I believe you that you found what there is to photograph there, and it does show the dam and millpond which you say are contributing resources in the listing (hmm, maybe that is implied in the addendum letter with the NRHP document). Like a photo of a gate or gatehouse is okay to be used that way, _if_ it was deemed to be contributing. --Doncram (talk) 01:13, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
Done diff and image. Prince of Thieves (talk) 15:56, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
Done Here's an example of the reference text I added: Optional reference text:
<ref name="nrhpdoc">{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=13000897}}|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Gish Farmhouses |publisher=[[National Park Service]]|author= |date= |accessdate=April 09, 2018}} With {{NRHP url|id=13000897|photos=y|title=accompanying pictures}}</ref> --Elkman (Elkspeak) 17:49, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Resolved
