Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Issues/Volume01/Issue04

The U.S. Roads WikiProject Newsletter
Volume 1, Issue 4	24 March 2007	About the Newsletter
Introduction Two weeks later, we've got increased involvement at WP:USRD. Many major changes have been made, and some are described in this newsletter. Enjoy.
March 16 IRC Meeting By Vishwin60 The first official IRC meeting on the channel #wikipedia-en-roads-us occurred on March 16. All meetings are logged (see link below) for everyone's convenience, as well as a record of major discussions that occurred in the meeting. To cite the existence of WP:USRD/INNA, the browsing situation for all USRD projects was brought up. Currently, all states except for Washington browse by Interstates, U.S. Routes, and State Highways together. However, Texas has a browsing convention that breaks the logic of INNA; their browsing of Interstates, U.S. Routes, and State Highways are separate. To support this convention, one editor mentions that Texas treats Interstates, U.S. Routes, and State Highways as totally separate types of roads. However, some other editors point out that Texas is not the only state that duplicate routes (example: IH-10 and SH 10); Illinois used to have three different types of roads that share the same number: I-24, US 24, and ILL 24 (defunct, replaced with ILL 29). In Indiana, I-64 and SR 64 use the same number, and even intersect with each other. New York, on List of numbered highways in New York, mentions that U.S. Routes and Interstates have internal state route numbers, but suffixed. So as NY 15 and US 15 both have the same signed number, the internal numbers differ (NY 15 stays as RT 15, but US 15 is RT 15U). The main point of discussion, however, were road disambiguation page naming conventions. This area of discussion was quickly closed out as everyone present while it was being discussed said that the current convention was fine. Another area of discussion that was covered during the meeting was the current state of the state WikiProjects. During this discussion, Utah and Kentucky were demoted on the spot (see below). Alabama, Nevada, and South Carolina are currently prone to demotion. The reasons associated for these demotions were inactivity and many articles in the scope of those projects needing cleanup. One of those cases of serious cleanup was the infobox situation with Kentucky. This first IRC meeting was a success, although only 8 members of the project were present. Sources: March 16 meeting log
Project news Utah and Kentucky state WikiProjects were demoted during the March 16 IRC meeting. New state highway subprojects are currently discouraged. Please help fix the inactive projects! Article Improvement Drive The current U.S. Roads Article Improvement Drive articles are Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Article Improvement Drive/current (improvement) and Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Article Improvement Drive/currentstub (expansion). Last collaborations were: Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Article Improvement Drive/old and Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Article Improvement Drive/oldstub. CAST YOUR VOTE for the next articles
Deletion debates An archive of all previous debates. Active A bunch of obsolete road infoboxes were sent to TFD because they were deprecated. Closed At AFD, the disambiguation page List of highways numbered 888 has been closed with a result of keep. This debate was also the subject of a possible naming convention change of all road disambiguation pages such as this one. The naming convention was further discussed on the IRC meeting as well. No categories went to CFD in the past two weeks. Sources: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of highways numbered 888, Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 March 18#Obsolete road infoboxes
Member news Let's give these new users a welcome! JohnnyBGood joined WP:USRD on March 19.
Featured subproject: Illinois In this issue, we shine a light on the Illinois Routes WikiProject, created on 20 March 2006. This project has always been a project of organization; it has maintained an excellent structure and format, and still remains active today. Its editors have worked well with WP:USRD to conform to the new standards that have been formed. Good work, and here's to continued success! Know of a subproject that has gone above and beyond the call of duty? Nominate it at WP:USRD/NEWS. Please note: projects cannot be nominated more than once a year.
Featured member: MPD01605 MPD T / C has been a Wikipedia editor since October 19, 2005. He currently has about 2700 edits and is a member of the WP:USRD and WP:IH projects and the founder of WP:VASH. Through the many discussions he has been involved in that have been influential to USRD, MPD has been civil. He has been influential in these discussions as well as in the projects that he is a member of. Thank you, MPD, for your continued hard work! Nominations are being taken currently at WP:USRD/NEWS for the next featured member. The editors cannot be nominated at this time, and you may only be nominated once a year.
Kentucky and Utah projects demoted By Rschen7754 As mentioned above, the Kentucky and Utah projects have been demoted to task forces because of the lack of activity at these projects. For a long time, these two projects have been known more for their inactivity than their activity. Kentucky has had three routeboxes for a long time, and efforts to contact the project about this went unanswered. Utah does not have all of its articles in the proper category, and thus many Utah articles were not moved per WP:USSH for a long time. Now that both of these projects are under USRD control, major changes are taking place to fix the structure. It is hoped that these projects can be redeployed and become active and strong once again. Sources: Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Kentucky, Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Utah, Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Internet Relay Chat/Logs/2007-03-16
USRoadsSub completed: A quick look at the structural integrity of state highway WikiProjects By Rschen7754 A chart has been created with information as to the health and welfare of the state highway WikiProjects. Out of 36 projects existing, 30 have been declared as incomplete or unsatisfactory. This is primarily because the majority of the U.S. Roads articles are stubs. These are the reasons why major changes are taking place at USRD to demote inactive projects and why inactive users are being removed from the project. Our concerns are that USRD is currently decaying. Please help us to become a better and stronger WikiProject by committing to editing at least occasionally if not frequently. Sources: Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Subprojects/Status
From the Editors Be part of the turnaround... now become part of the solution! Become active in highways again. Let's save the articles from being inactive and destroyed. As always, your feedback on the content and format of this newsletter is greatly desired. With your help, we can make the newsletter better and more informative! Don't be afraid to comment! Lastly, remember that this is your newsletter and you can be involved in the creation of the next issue released near Easter. Any and all contributions are welcome. Simply let yourself be known to any of the undersigned, or just start editing!
Contributors to this Issue Rschen7754 (Editor, Distributor) Vishwin60 (Editor, Distributor) TwinsMetsFan (editor, distributor)

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