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Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 22

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Latest comment: 15 years ago by Doncram in topic Update to infoboxes NRHP2 and NRHP

NHLs: add nine subtract one

Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

The Weekly list has the nine new NHLs listed, including their designation dates. Also on the list is the withdrawal of one NHL and its removal from the NRHP:

NEW YORK, NEW YORK COUNTY, Mills, Florence, House, 220 W. 135th St., New York, 76001244, NHL WITHDRAWAL OF DESIGNATION/REMOVED, 1/16/09

So, I guess we have to use the new "delisted" infobox. Einbierbitte (talk) 17:47, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The Mills House should also be removed from National Register of Historic Places listings in Manhattan above 110th Street. I've seen some lists that have a second table with former NRHP listings. Should that be a standard? That makes sense to me, but I'm not sure where we'd find a centralized list of sites that have been removed over the years. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources has such a list. Do other states or the NPS? --sanfranman59 (talk) 23:19, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
I'll remove Florence Mills House to a separate lower table now in the Manhattan list-table, as I did already for it within List of NHLs in NYC. Yes, i think that should be a standard, although no one has tried to write it into our wp:NRHPMOS guidelines. I think you missed most or all of the discussion at #Delisted property guidelines above. Elkman demonstrated he can count the removed properties and that there are >1500 of them, although I don't think he has yet been asked to generate lists of them by state and county out of the NRIS data. (I'll ask at his talk page, if he doesn't comment here first.) I think the consensus is that we should add tables of former NRHP listings into the list-articles of NRHPs. I myself am not aware of any other state having a list of the delisted properties, although for New York State I believe the individual properties would have original nomination documents and perhaps delisting documents available, that you could find if you knew which property names to look for in their system. It should be helpful to have Virginia's list of delistings, to compare to what Elkman can generate for the state based on the NRIS database, to get some feedback about the quality of the NRIS database applicable for other states. doncram (talk) 23:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
When I made the bridge lists, I put delisted bridges at the end of the table with a note in the "listed" column and a gray background. --NE2 03:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Nomenclature changes needed

Latest comment: 15 years ago26 comments3 people in discussion

I have been reminded that the invalid "Registered Historic Places" terminology still appears in a few places. New names are needed for the following (there may be others):

Earlier discussion did not reach agreement on this one. Almost any conceivable name is either cumbersome or ambiguous (or both). The elements in the category all have names in the form "National Register of Historic Places listings in Alabama." Possibilities for the category name include:
  1. Lists by state of properties on the National Register of Historic Places (introduces the word "properties," which we have thus far avoided in these titles)
  2. Lists by state of National Register of Historic Places listings (combines "lists" and "listings", which is cumbersome and confusing)
  3. National Register of Historic Places listings by state (fails to indicate that this is a category of lists)
I beg to differ. There's the word "list" in it ... I think it would surprise few readers to find it contained, ultimately, the county-by-county list articles we've compiled. Daniel Case (talk) 20:44, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
As it happens, this existing category ONLY contains lists by state, which is a very appropriate scope for it to have. All those county-by-county list articles are (1) linked from the state lists and (2) already in existing categories such as Category:National Register of Historic Places in Alabama. IMO, it really wouldn't be helpful to try to put thousands of county-level lists into a single huge national-level category. --Orlady (talk) 23:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
  1. Lists of National Register of Historic Places listings by state (seriously awkward)
  2. [New suggestion by Orlady, 29 January]: National Register of Historic Places lists by state

comment I am reprising a comment that was sectioned off below. Rather than lists "by state", I think you need a category that includes lists of RHPs in a given city, or county, or other geographic area. Note, there are more NRHP listings in New York City and in some other cities and counties than appear in many whole states. I also wonder if the category name can be chosen to include lists of RHPs that are ships, such as List of NHL ships, and other lists of RHPs. Rather than only lists by state. And what about the corresponding lists for U.S. territories and associated states. And what about Washington, D.C., which has more NRHP listings than many states. So i think the category of lists "by state" is not that helpful. I suggest, for discussion, Lists of National Register of Historic Places listings as a pretty generic one to have, and Lists of National Register of Historic Places listings by geographical area to hold all the county, city, and state-wide list-articles. doncram (talk) 22:56, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

There may or may not be reasons for creating those additional categories, but my purpose in posting this proposal was not to discuss new categories. The problem is that there is an existing category, Category:Lists of Registered Historic Places by state, with a name that uses an invalid term. That category needs a new name, and I believe a new name can be determined without talking about the possible creation of other categories about other topics. --Orlady (talk) 23:18, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Okay, to clarify, I suggest Lists of National Register of Historic Places listings by geographical area to REPLACE the Category:Lists of Registered Historic Places by state, not as a NEW one, if that is an important distinction to you. Since, as you point out, this will have to go to CfD eventually, why not discuss all the improvements necessary to this category name up front, rather than going for a change that will have to be fixed again. By the way, the existing category name was more useful in the past, when all the state lists of RHPs were in fact single-page list-articles of all the RHPs in each state. Since then, most of these state list-articles have been divided up into multiple list-articles organized for the most part by geographic areas (counties and cities and districts of cities). I think it is highly appropriate to discuss here, now, whether Lists of NRHP listings by geographic areas would suffice, or whether there needs to be a set of new categories that would serve the purpose of categorizing the county-, city-, territory-, city-district- and other types of geographical areas covered by our expanded set of list-articles. doncram (talk) 23:38, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
There may be merit in creating a meta-category for "lists by geographic area" that you suggest, but logic and Wikipedia convention indicate that it should be in addition to, not in place of, the existing list of lists by state. The meta-category you propose would be analogous to Category:History of the United States by location, which includes Category:History of the United States by state, Category:Histories of cities in the United States, and Category:Histories of non-state political divisions of the United States, among others. Just as "History by location" includes "History by state", a category for "lists by geographic area" would include the "Lists by state" as a component. This type of categorization question is one for which WP:CfD is useful, as it deals with the naming of categories in general, and not the specific idiosyncrasies of the NRHP. --Orlady (talk) 04:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't think there are yet thousands of them, but we do need a category for the county and other types of geographical areas or jurisdictions or whatever they should be called. If there is that, then yes, i see that a "by state" subset could be a valid subcategory, covering exactly the 50 state list articles and not D.C. or any other non-state. It seems less satisfactory to have a "by county" subset, because that would not ever be a complete set; it appears there will never be a list-article for every county. I suppose create one for "geographical areas" generally, and put all those into it, to be subdivided later if the category is felt to be too large. doncram (talk) 04:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Regarding DC: The NRHP is not the only topic with "by state" subdivisions, and consistency requires that individual Wikiprojects not make unilateral decisions on matters that apply across large parts of the encyclopedia. I think you will find that the District of Columbia is typically part of the other "by state" categories and lists (for example, see Category:Disasters in the United States by state). It is not actually a state, but no benefit would be gained from omitting it.
Regarding the numbers of geographic categories: At this time I believe there are more than 1000 "by location" lists for the NRHP, counting 50 states, DC, several insular areas, numerous county lists, some city lists, and a few lists for sub-city areas. It's easy to imagine that the number will soon grow to multiple thousands. I can't imagine what value anyone would derive from a single mega category with an alphabetical collection of lists for (for example), Washington state, Washington DC, and every Washington County in the United States. The hierarchical arrangement in which the country is divided into states and states are divided into counties (and sometimes other types of regions) works well elsewhere and need not be altered for the National Register. --Orlady (talk) 14:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Okay, well, like i said already, i don't think there are more than 1,000 yet. But it's an empirical question, which could be answered by visiting them and putting them into a category or categories where they could be counted, if it's important. So what is your point about how they should be organized? You would suggest: Lists of NRHP listings by geographical area with subcategory Lists of NRHP listings by state and what else? Perhaps a bunch of "within state" subcategories? That would be fine by me. "List of NRHP listings within New York" would get about 70-80 now, Massachusetts would get about 40, and a number of other states would have more than 10. List of NRHP listings within newly table-ized Hawaii would get just 1, now, as would most states that are not yet table-ized. My guess is the average would be less than 20 per state currently, totalling fewer than 1,000, although it would be close. Relatedly, most of the geo lists are "rated" as class=List, and the Wikipedia 1.0 tally table at wp:NRHP shows 826 of class=List currently. doncram (talk) 16:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
As it happens, I have no interest in creating a meta-category for "Lists by geographic area." This was your idea, not mine. As you may recall, my purpose in starting this discussion was to find replacements for a few existing category names that use invalid terminology. As for your idea about creating lists, I did comment, "There may be merit in creating a meta-category for "lists by geographic area" that you suggest, but logic and Wikipedia convention indicate that it should be in addition to, not in place of, the existing list of lists by state" and I pointed you to Category:History of the United States by location as an example to look at. --Orlady (talk) 03:48, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
Okay, thank you for clarifying. I'll open a separate discussion section about this topic, to separate it from how you have conceived what this discussion should be limited to. doncram (talk) 05:00, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
I lost track of the status of discussion on this one.
I noticed this category for the first time today. I'm not convinced that the category is appropriate. Assuming it is retained, its name has multiple problems, including the unnecessary and non-MOS inclusion of "(U.S.A.)". Also, as worded, it indicates that people are buried in the National Register, which would be an interesting trick. The best possibility I see for this one is:
  1. Burials at properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places
This is the clearest name, but I have problems with this category to begin with as a trivial intersection. If a single tomb is listed itself, then we can have a category for that. But I doubt this category is significant ... people don't say "Hey, let's bury Auntie there! It's on the National Register of Historic Places!" Daniel Case (talk) 15:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
I also have been bothered by this category. Last night I created Category:Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places, which I think could "replace" this category (or at least fill the perceived need its creator was responding to) and is a more significant categorization. (I was amazed to see how many articles exist about cemeteries on the NRHP, and I know I haven't found them all yet.) --Orlady (talk) 16:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for doing this; I have meant to create this badly-needed one for some time now. (Perhaps we can put it in a higher topical cat along with another one we should have Category:Monuments and memorials on the National Register of Historic Places, that would be named "National Register of Historic Places listings of memorial function", or something like that. Daniel Case (talk) 20:44, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Since "National Register of Historic Places" is a singular noun, this needs to be renamed. Possibilities include:
  1. Properties formerly listed on the National Register of Historic Places
  2. Former National Register of Historic Places listings
This one bugs me, since (1) not everything on the NRHP is a "place" and (2) it's the "National Register of Historic Places", not the "United States National Register of Historic Places." I'd like to rename it to simply:
  1. Category:National Register of Historic Places images. --Orlady (talk) 20:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Please indicate your preferences for new names, using the numbers above (or add your own proposals)
Support 1, but I'm open to other suggestions. --Orlady (talk) 21:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Support 1 --Orlady (talk) 21:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Support 2 --Orlady (talk) 21:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Support 1 --Orlady (talk) 21:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Section break inserted for ease in page navigation

If you're serious about sorting out better category names, I think it is premature to start voting. The way that most systematic approaches towards consensus work, as i understand them, is to have discussion and brainstorming and other earlier phases. Voting is just one technique that can be used later in a process which is sometimes helpful.

About the lists of Registered Historic Places categories, by the way, i think you need a category that includes lists of RHPs in a given city, or lists of RHPs that are ships, and other lists of RHPs. Rather than only lists by state. And what about the corresponding lists for U.S. territories and associated states. And what about Washington, D.C. So i think the category of lists by state is not that helpful. doncram (talk) 05:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Doncram, I'm surprised that you have already forgotten that we had MONTHS of often-painful discussion of the nomenclature for various NRHP list articles and categories, mostly last summer and fall. Those discussions (for example, this series) resulted in renaming numerous list articles and categories. I personally tagged hundreds of categories for renaming. These are a few leftover odds and ends that did not get renamed at that time, in some instances because there was no consensus on wording for the names. My intent in posting here was to reopen discussion on these specific items in order to reach consensus on those specific items. It would be a waste of everyone's time to restart the entire discussion of naming.
When I arranged the above section, I did not intend to make this into a vote, but rather I wanted to provide some structure for people's comments. If there is no longer any interest in discussing these names here, I will take some proposals to WP:CfD. --Orlady (talk) 03:47, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Orlady, I may be misunderstanding your intent, but I think your edits here seem misleading in several ways. First, you opened a discussion section with section title Nomenclature changes needed. I chose to respond, I think fairly enough, by questioning whether you actually wanted to have discussion. And, I provided a start to some discussion about content, pointing out a gap in the categories for covering list-articles listing ships. You could have just responded by discussing that.
But instead, in this edit, you inserted a subsection title Request for discussion before "voting" above my comment, which has the effect of changing the meaning of my comment. It has the appearance of making me look snarky, i think, as if I was perhaps derisively referring to "voting" in quotes, and my calling for discussion. To be clear, I didn't bring up the idea of voting, you had referred to voting, in your previous edit descriptions "added another option and a vote" and "added "vote" area", and then later it was you putting voting in quotes in that way in the subsection title. To lessen the likelihood of future misunderstandings between you and me, I'd like to ask you please to refrain from inserting discussion subsection titles in places that appear to label or change my own writing. I am just being a little sensitive perhaps, due to past misunderstandings.
Then your following response, you suggest that what it has been construed i was asking for is something that would be a waste of everyone's time. And you threaten to take it all to CfD. I don't know if you are trying to be funny or sarcastic or what, about suggesting that i would not remember the previous discussions. I do agree with you that those discussions were "often-painful". I think that what made those discussions painful was the way that that people spoke to each other, and I think/hope we should do better than that now.
Anyhow, I don't get what you were looking for here from the beginning, do you want to have discussion of your category suggestions or not? And, what about the lists of ships. doncram (talk) 19:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Before dealing with the rest of your concerns, please be advised that I have changed my inserted section heading to "Section break inserted for ease in page navigation," since that is an accurate description of my purpose in breaking your comment off into a separate section. Originally I did not use that type of title, but instead attempted to summarize the main thrust of your comment, because I believe that (for the benefit of all discussion participants) whenever possible headings should be descriptive of the content. It never occurred to me that someone could be offended by the other heading that I chose. --Orlady (talk) 19:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Ironic that you would respond to my complaint about your inserting section titles before my comments, by your inserting a (different) section title before my comments. Although I appreciate your trying to respond, and this revised section title is relatively benign. Thanks. doncram (talk) 23:26, 31 January 2009 (UTC) P.S. I don't know what you are talking about below, which does not respond to what I said. For example, I had no objection to "Nomenclature changes needed" as a discussion section title.
As for the substance of your comments, the reason I called this section "Nomenclature changes needed" is that it has been firmly established that the nomenclature in "Registered Historic Place" and "Registered Historic Places" is invalid and needs to be changed. Thus, I believe I was correct in saying that "nomenclature changes' are "needed." The reason why some of these categories were not renamed back in October/November is that we could not come to agreement on good category names that would incorporate the correct nomenclature.
A couple of the category names that I listed here do not use the invalid "RHP" terminology, but they refer to NRHP topics in other erroneous/invalid ways. To be specific, (1) there is no such thing as the "National Register of Historic Places (U.S.A.)", (2) the National Register of Historic Places is not a place "at" which anything can exist or happen (including, but not limited to, burial of human remains), (3) "places" is not a correct noun to describe entities listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and (4) National Register of Historic Places is a singular noun referring to the Register, not a plural noun referring to places. As I see it, category names that make these errors are instances of categories that need new names to fix invalid nomenclature.
The standard way to propose changes in category names at Wikipedia is to take them to WP:Categories for discussion (aka CfD). Given the high level of activity in this Wikiproject and the expertise here, however, it makes sense to discuss proposals here before taking them to CfD. This is why I started this discussion here. My comment about taking these proposals to CfD was simply "If there is no longer any interest in discussing these names here, I will take some proposals to WP:CfD." I don't see that as a threat; I simply said if people aren't interested in discussing this here any more, I'll take it to CfD for discussion. Note: Regardless of the outcome of any discussion here, any proposals would need to go to CfD, and additional discussion will occur at CfD.
As for ships, I am not aware of any ship-related categories that include incorrect terminology for an NRHP topic, so I don't see a need to propose new names for any ship-related categories. (If I am wrong, please kindly identify the categories that need new names.) I have the impression that there has been agreement that it is accepted practice to create categories with names in the general form of "Warehouses on the National Register of Historic Places." If disagreement exists over what to call the listed items (for example, "Ships" or something like "Properties of maritime function"), that's a subject for a separate discussion. (Aside: In looking to see if there are any ship-related categories needing renaming, I found some additional problem category names, such as Category:Registered Historic Districts in Illinois, which turns out to be about historic districts on the NRHP, not a special designation by the State of Illinois. Since we have not yet had a general discussion of correct nomenclature for historic districts, I'm not adding those categories to this discussion.) --Orlady (talk) 21:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Article name and missing bridge questions

Latest comment: 15 years ago13 comments5 people in discussion

I am working on an article about a Multiple Property Submission (MPS), Highway Bridges Owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Transportation (currently here). Most of the NRHP form is online here. I have two questions about this article that I would appreciate feedback / help on.

First, it was a Thematic Resource listing (a precursor to the MPS) and the full name seems to be "Highway Bridges Owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Transportation, TR". Should that be the article name too? That is should I include the TR in the article title? The name I have is from NRHP form for Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3, but different variations are used elsewhere - which is the correct version?

Second, on page 10 of the online documentation here, there is the "Mifflin Road Bridge", a Metal Arch bridge in Allegheny County listed as Survey number MA-5, that I cannot find anywhere else. I have tried searching the Allegheny County listings for bridges at ARCH, I have used Elkman's generator, I have Googled "Mifflin Road Bridge" and cannot find it. Several of the other bridges have had name changes, some have been removed from the Register after they were destroyed. My guess is that both happened here, but if anyone could help me with this, I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 21:27, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the Mifflin Road Bridge may have been replaced by the Glenwood Bridge. This PDF mentions a Mifflin Road Bridge on PA 885. The one major bridge on that route is the Glenwood Bridge which, according to the article, replaced a bridge built 1894.
As for the name, I almost think "TR" should be spelled out in the title. --​​​​D.B.talk•contribs 21:56, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
You may find http://www.dot.state.pa.us/Internet/Bureaus/pdPlanRes.nsf/infoBPRHistoricCountyMaps useful - the pre-1990 or so maps show the legislative route (LR) numbers. I suspect 02376 is actually a typo for 376, which is PA 885 between Clairton and Pittsburgh. It's probably not the Glenwood Bridge, which was replaced in the 1960s, and wasn't a metal arch. Was it actually added to the NRHP? --NE2 22:30, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
There is a bridge here on Mifflin Road that is roughly the correct length and could have replaced it. --​​​​D.B.talk•contribs 23:31, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
I think it is a bit open now about what to do about Multiple Property Submissions / TRs, etc. I recently started adding lists of the available ones to a couple state list articles, e.g. List of RHPs in MN and List of RHPs in PA. One thing that can be done is to footnote the individual NRHPs in a given list-article which are part of one MPS, as I have done recently in List of RHPs in Syracuse for its many houses designed by one architect and covered in one MPS. But Elkman pointed out in Minnesota that some of the MPS's just cover what became one NRHP district, and certainly there is not a need for a separate article on the MPS in such a case. Other MPS's are focused on evaluating all the potentially NRHP-eligible sites in a given county, and would seem to be relevant for the specific county article and for the county table in a state-wide list of NRHP properties, but not deserving of a separate article on the MPS itself. Also, I am wondering if there should be a separate article on MPS's that cover multiple sites, whether they span county lines or not. After all, an MPS or TR is just a one-time study, a stack of paper, not more meritorious than many other books and other sources, that probably is not itself wikipedia-notable. Perhaps the Syracuse architect MPS should just be covered in a good article about the architect, and the city list-article, and the individual NRHP sites, rather than having a separate article about the MPS study itself. So, about Highway bridges in Pennsylvania, should the article be about all highway bridges in Pennsylvania, with extensive use of the MPS document? Rather than about only the dated document, and the bridges that it happened to cover? I ask these questions because notability of MPSs has been on my mind; i am sure that your developing this one article will be valuable and could perhaps show a different way out. doncram (talk) 23:33, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
I also know you are aware of List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania, which probably covers some but not all of the MPS ones, and probably covers some others not covered in the MPS. Does wikipedia even need this? What about having one list of bridges in Pennsylvania (the wikipedia-notable ones). There is a Pennsylvania section of List of Bridges in the United States which should perhaps be a separate list-article covering all the NRHP ones (all notable), and all the other MPS-covered ones that you deem notable, and more modern notable bridges. I'm just not sure what serves wikipedia readers best. doncram (talk) 23:59, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks everyone. I looked and the MPS form itself does not list the bridge in the back with the others added to the NRHP, so I am starting to think it was not listed. To be honest, I think every bridge on this MPS is also listed at the List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania article. Would it make more sense to add a sortable column there listing the different MPS? The problem is that it is so large that is slow to load and a bit unwieldy already. I am also working on another TR: Covered Bridges of Bradford, Sullivan and Lycoming Counties, with the hope that it could be part of a Featured Topic. My limited experience is that the MPS document goes into more detail, especially on overarching relationships among the individual listings. Do others think MPS articles are notable? Ruhrfisch ><>°° 04:52, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
If the MPS provides enough documentation and historic context to give the reader a history of the topic in question, and the MPS provides more information than just a list would provide, then I think it would be useful to write an article about the MPS. For example, I did Reinforced-Concrete Highway Bridges in Minnesota MPS, because the MPS submission provides some history and some context for the development of reinforced concrete bridges. I also wrote Cuyuna Iron Range Municipally-Owned Elevated Metal Water Tanks for an MPS that covers five water towers in the Cuyuna Range. In that case, I thought an article about the MPS would be better and somewhat more complete than articles about the individual water towers, especially in tiny hamlets like Cuyuna, Minnesota and Trommald, Minnesota which have just a fraction of the population from when they were iron range boom towns. On the other hand, like I mentioned to Doncram earlier, some of the Multiple Property Submissions in Minnesota were mainly the results of countywide surveys to determine which properties in any given area were eligible. For instance, of the 32 properties in National Register of Historic Places listings in Carver County, Minnesota, 26 of them are listed in the Carver County MRA. So, my feeling is that if there's enough detail in the MPS (or MRA, or TR) to give additional information to the reader that wouldn't just be covered by a list, then we should have an article on the MPS. If the MPS is just a list, then I don't think it's necessary to create a separate article on the MPS. And, in any of the Wikipedia lists, it would be useful to have a column listing which MPS (if any) was involved. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 20:46, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
There are 20 pages of documentation in the PennDOT MPS, so I think it would be OK as its own article. Thanks, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 03:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
The MPS documents, being huge, usually provide plenty of documentation that a topic is notable. How about recasting a question here, though, as one of presentation. Should the wikipedia article be about the MPS, or about the topic? I think the latter is better. So, "Highway Bridges Owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Transportation" should be about the topic of that title, strongly documented by the MPS document. But if Pennsylvania builds or buys another bridge, the new bridge could/should be included in the article (or, if you don't want to include new ones, then set the topic and title to be about historic, old bridges only). And, "Reinforced-Concrete Highway Bridges in Minnesota" and "Cuyuna Iron Range Municipally-Owned Elevated Metal Water Tanks" are both fine as topics/articles. As is Architecture of Ward Wellington Ward, the Syracuse architect. But I think MPS and TR should not be part of the title, and the articles should be presented as being about the topics, rather than being about the one-time, dated studies. Just like we don't want to have an article about each and every book about local historic sites; the valid-for-wikipedia topics are the historic sites themselves, or the lists of the historic sites in a given area. In fact, if the article is about the MPS, then it should describe the study itself, who initiated it and worked on it, what was its timeline, etc. To adequately describe the history of a study would probably require additional sources, too, besides the final report of the study. doncram (talk) 00:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I would argue that "Reinforced-Concrete Highway Bridges in Minnesota" is not a great topic for an article, unless there's something special about the ones in Minnesota (other than collapsing). Similarly, an article about Conde McCullough's bridges should cover them all, not just those in the "Major Oregon Coast Highway Bridges MPS". --NE2 00:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I guess it is complicated. Whether or not the topic of an MPS study is wikipedia-notable as a separate article seems to me to depend partly on the configuration of other related articles and list-articles. The Cuyuna Iron Range water tanks topic seems 100% fine to me: it is a combo article that covers the 5 separately listed NRHPs, instead of having individual articles about each of those. If there were separate articles about the NRHPs, I would be less sure that the combo article is meritorious. The current Reinforced-Concrete Highway Bridges in Minnesota article, is about the combo, but there are separate articles about some of the individual ones it covers, and red-links for the rest. Its current version has a lot about the criteria for NRHP listing and so on; it seems to be more about the MPS study, and is not clearly about a wikipedia-article-noteable topic per se, currently, I think. I don't think there has ever been an AfD debate about an MPS article yet, has there? I think we should try to define some criteria about when an MPS topic is valid as an article and when it is not, maybe that is what we are doing already here. doncram (talk) 02:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I think it depends on the MPS and topic, but agree not all MPSs are inherently notable. I am not sure if the PennDOT bridges on the NRHP article is really needed in addition to the list of Pennsylvania bridges on the NRHP article, so I have stopped working on the draft. While the TR documentation does have a lot on the PennDOT NRHP bridges, it would not work as well as a general source for PennDOT bridges. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 04:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Update to infoboxes NRHP2 and NRHP

Latest comment: 15 years ago22 comments3 people in discussion

(section title here was "Update to {{Infobox nrhp3}} allows backwards-compatibility with both Infobox nrhp2 and Infobox nrhp")

After learning a little more about coding templates, I've figured out a way to make Infobox nrhp2 backwards-compatible with Infobox nrhp. Currently, one has to choose input styles based on which infobox they use; Infobox nrhp uses nrhp_type=___ inputs, and Infobox nrhp2 uses ____=yes. This is the only major design difference in the two templates that keeps them from being backwards compatible. After a little work, I am now able to fix this, and the code can currently be viewed at {{Infobox nrhp3}}..

What I did was find a happy medium between the two templates: Infobox nrhp uses nrhp_type to display a certain designation, but can't display more than one. Infobox nrhp2 does everything that nrhp does and more but uses ___=yes to display as many designations as you like (See Manzanar for an example); in other words, it won't accept the nrhp_type input format. I combined the two by making nrhp2 accept the nrhp_type format as well as the ____=yes format. To display more than one nrhp_type, simply add a number to the end (nrhp_type2=____, nrhp_type3=____, and nrhp_type4=____). I could add more if needed, but I don't think you'll ever need more than 4 designations. Also, nrhp2 allows an editor to declare up to 3 custom declarations (seen in Manzanar, the above example).

For an example of the compatibility of nrhp3 with both nrhp2 and nrhp, see User:Dudemanfellabra/Sandbox. If we can agree that it is completely backwards-compatible (I may have missed something), I would like to copy the code of nrhp3 to nrhp and convert all nrhp2 articles back to nrhp, using the nrhp_type inputs. After all instances of the ____=yes input format have been converted to nrhp_type inputs, the code for the ____=yes inputs can be removed from the code. Comments? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:18, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggested that Dudemanfellabra bring this up for discussion here now. He has done great work developing NRHP2 all along, which has allowed for good treatment of many semi-complicated articles, and this is even better to now have a possible reintegration. I think there are a couple small issues which could usefully be addressed before a conversion and rollout to all the NRHP2-using articles is done. One small but potentially thorny issue is the treatment of local designations, as appear in the Manzanar example. It'll take me a little while to dig out the old discussions to refer to, where there were differences of taste, at least, regarding presentation of the top and bottom info about California Historical Landmarks and LAHCMs. If it is okay with people here, I would like for there to be some detailed discussion here, as I see no other natural place for a discussion, and discussion which takes place here will be archived and will be found easily in the future. doncram (talk) 21:44, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
The issue is whether to allow for local designations that display in the NRHP infobox like this: "L.A. Historic-Cultural Monument #9" or like this: "L.A. Historic-Cultural Monument #9". I prefer the former, because it conveys correctly to the reader that if they click on the link they will go to an article about L.A. Historic-Cultural Monuments, while if they click on the latter they will expect to go to an article about L.A. Historic-Cultural Monument #9. The infobox would appear in an article about the place that is L.A. Historic-Cultural Monument #9, so if that whole phrase is linked, it would only be logical for it to self-link, which is not helpful to anyone. The former treatment is implemented in template:infobox local1, for example usage see Shadow Ranch. The latter treatment is implemented by current template:infobox nrhp2, for example usage see Manzanar.
Some other views are needed here, help please! Dudemanfellabra and i had come to an impasse about this in previous discussion at Template talk:Infobox nrhp2#other1, other2, other3 headers with numbers. Perhaps some previous concerns no longer apply so much, but some other views to help resolve this would be appreciated. doncram (talk) 19:29, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
I was opposed to it back then, my main erk being that having black text up there would stick out and not be uniform with all the other links, but with the addition of delisted properties (adding "Former" to the bars), there may already be black text in them, so uniformity is not really an issue anymore. I would be willing to support leaving the numbers as plain text. (--Dudemanfellabra)
Okay good, i am glad that's resolved, unless anyone else has objections. Then there is a further implementation issue, to allow the editor to choose to display the number above or not, and to display the number below or not. For some local designations like L.A. Historic-Cultural Monuments and California Historical Landmarks, the number is an integral part of the name of the site (unlike for NRHP refnums which no one uses in naming the site), and for these the number should appear above and not below. For other local designations, there may be an identifying number which is usefully displayed below, but is not part of the name and should not be displayed above. The current Manzanar article using NRHP2 shows the number both above and below, which is not helpful; it should just appear above.
To implement the options I think requires another argument to be added for each of the other designations. Currently (per tamplate:infobox NRHP documentation, there are 6 arguments for each other designation:
| designated_other1_name =
| designated_other1_link =
| designated_other1_color =
| designated_other1_date =
| designated_other1_abbr =
| designated_other1_number =
To allow editor control about displaying number above and/or below, you could replace the last one by:
| designated_other1_numberabove =
| designated_other1_numberbelow =
Or there would be other ways to program it, but you do need one more argument i think. This sounds complicated but the decision taken previously was to make these other designations general, rather than defining an option for LAHCMs and each other local type designation that might be used. doncram (talk) 22:11, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
I see what you're talking about, and I'll try to find the best way of programming this.. I'm thinking maybe a designated_other1_numberposition=____. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
As for other issues, I have a proposal for another code change: I think that instead of having all the "designated_nhl," "designated_nmem," etc. parameters, we should change it to "designated_nrhp_type," "designated_nrhp_type2," etc. for each of the 4 designations, so we only need 4 parameters. We can also include "delisted_nrhp_type," "delisted_nrhp_type2," etc. so we can account for all delistings instead of just NHL and NRHP delistings. I can move the #switch code that I used in the header bars to a separate template and streamline it for our benefit. We could then compile pretty much any NRHP template (namely NRHP color etc.) into this template and have one central template... kind of like what we're trying to do to have only one infobox. I'll work on the code and post examples later. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
For example, for NHLDs the current variables in template NRHP2 are:
| nhld =
| designated_nhld =
and you put in "yes" and the date as arguments. I appreciate being able to drop the awkward nhld=yes construction, but am not sure how the nrhp_type is supposed to work. Do you need anything more than just the date field? (If designate_nhld is a nonempty date, then display the bar above and show the date below.) I would not be able to program this myself though. doncram (talk) 22:11, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
I see in your sandbox example for Manzanar that revised NRHP2 uses nrhp_type=nhl and designated_nhl = date, which is fine. I take back my suggestion of using just a date field; i think it is a lot clearer to interpret and to explain if there is the nrhp_type argument as well, even setting aside the possibility that the NHL is known but not its date. doncram (talk) 22:29, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
I added the code that I was talking about before by making a new template: {{NRHP}}.. it can replace many templates currently in use (now the {{NRHP color}} series can be replaced by {{NRHP|color|inputcolor}} where "inputcolor" can be NRHP, NHL, NMEM, etc... any of the abbreviations. Also, this allows all of the designated_xxx parameter code to be deleted and saves tons of space. For a look at the code, see Infobox nrhp3. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
I have to see an example usage of this new NRHP template. Offhand it is necessary to keep "infobox" in the name of the template, for clarity to distinguish vs. {{National Register of Historic Places}}. doncram (talk) 22:29, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
The new code is explained at User:Dudemanfellabra/Sandbox. Look at the code to better understand the change. {{NRHP}} is not an infobox template, but rather a sort of "conversion" template. It takes inputs such as "nhl," "nmem," and "cp" and translates them into several different outputs. For instance, if you typed {{NRHP|color|nhl}}, the output would be "SkyBlue," which is the same thing {{NHL color}} returns.. by changing the second parameter in Template:NRHP to another designation (i.e. change "nhl" to "nmp"), you get a different result (i.e. DarkSalmon) that corresponds with that designation's template (i.e. {{NMP color}}). You can also get back the text that appears in the bar across the top of Infobox nrhp2. If you typed {{NRHP|text|nhl}}, the template would return [[United States|U.S.]] [[National Historic Landmark]]. Other outputs include returning the name of the article describing the designation or the abbreviation of that designation (mainly used by template:Infobox nrhp3 to be able to handle former designations). --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
That is a little bit like I did it in de:Vorlage:NRHP, if you understand German. --Matthiasb (talk) 20:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Great to have our German representative here! :) About the new code, yes, I see that is elegantly done now. Great work! Programming-wise I tend to think, still, that using a template name "NRHPconv" (short for NRHP conversion template) or something like that would be preferable to using template name "NRHP". The latter should be a redirect to template "National Register of Historic Places", in my view, and your programming trick template should use a deliberately obscure name. But if you don't want to change that i don't really care that much, it's a programming style issue only. Are you going to make the designated_other changes above? And have you looked at the issue for showing both delisted and dedesignated NHL banners and NHL listing date for Florence Mills House, mentioned at the end of #Delisted property guidelines, above? Otherwise, we are about ready to implement this. I had once talked about getting a bot to help with editing all the NRHP2-linked articles. Although i never learned how to get one of those, I have since learned how to use AutoWikiBrowser, which would provide some assistance in just editing them all individually. I think AWB can be used to edit all the articles that link to a given article, just as it can facilitate editing all the articles in a given category, although I need to check that. (Or, i could edit NRHP2 to put a temporary "category:NRHP2" into articles use the NRHP2 infobox.) There are between 1500 and 2000 articles linking to infobox NRHP2 now. That is not too many to visit using AWB to accomplish this rollout. doncram (talk) 00:38, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I agree about the template name; I'll move it shortly and create the redirect. About the designated_other thing, I was thinking adding a "designated_other1_num_position=___" with acceptable inputs "top," "bottom," and "both." This makes it possible to show the number in either position or even both while only using one input.
About the Florence Mills thing, the new format allows you to show the former nrhp and former nhl bars.. it also shows the original nhl date.. I see in the infobox code on that page there are about 98798734987 different syntaxes. This is the main reason I want to eliminate all but one syntax as quickly as possible. When there are three different infoboxes, people get them mixed up. To show the former nrhp bar, you use the deslisted=date field. Setting nrhp_type=nhl would show that it was an NHL, but since it's been delisted, you can use nrhp_type=formernhl and it will grey it out. To show when it was delisted from the nhl, use delisted_nrhp_type=date. After the merger is complete, I'll try to work on the documentation to make a lot of this more clear.
I'll work on the code a little bit later tonight and hopefully have it copied over to NRHP2 before tomorrow.. then I'll work on the documentation.. and then after all that's done and there is as little confusion as possible, we can go ahead with the AWB or bot stuff to change to the new formats. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:47, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I added in that coding you were talking about (designated other number position) and copied the code over to infobox nrhp2. I hope to have the documentation finished by the end of the day tomorrow. After I finish, you can look there to learn more about the new format(s) and capabilities. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 03:20, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Okay, great. I also tried again now, following some of your suggestions, and got Florence Mills House to show the Former NHL banner now too. But although it shows the NHL de-designation date, it still doesn't show the NHL listing date. I rather expect this is something that your documentation and/or coding simplification will clarify for me, and this is a very small issue (there are very few de-designated NHLs), so it should not delay the rollout anyhow. I'll fire up the AWB. doncram (talk) 05:35, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Documentation is finished. See Template:Infobox nrhp2/doc for an explanation of the features of the new code. As soon as we can do the AWB thing to get all the articles using this new format, I can remove the old code. If you have any questions, ask here, and if fit, I'll include an example on the documentation page. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:53, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Wow, you have done a meticulous job with the documentation as well as with your programming. It seems very clear. I am happy to start processing some of the existing NRHP2 articles using AWB, and see how it goes. That will test both the documentation and the programming. After doing a hundred or so of varied types, then probably it will be clear whether the NRHP2 code can be copied into NRHP. Then further NRHP2 edits can also change the infobox call to NRHP rather than NRHP2.
One further issue that i notice, is how historic districts are treated. The NRHP2 documentation uses "NHD" for "National Historic District", rather than "HD" which displayed I don't know what, before. I don't think "National Historic District" is a wholly accepted term. In all the other discussions about list-article titles and category names, there has been a big desire to avoid coining new terms (neologisms?). Nor is "Historic District" on its own a fully proper term, or any other term for these ones, as far as i know. I don't know if anyone else is watching this discussion here, so no one who cares may notice, knock on wood. I am happy to leave any issue about this term until later. One thing we could discuss now is, whether it is possible to put a different category into articles that are of one type vs. another. I think that must be the case. That would facilitate revisiting the NHD ones later, by AWB, if some change has to be implemented. Can you just comment on this? Thanks. doncram (talk) 22:56, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Well, to my knowledge, Historic Districts can be either state/locally-recognized or federally-recognized. The ones that are federally recognized are listed on the NRHP. The term "Historic District" exists outside the NRHP, so I think the input should be changed to "hd"; I'll go about doing this in a while. About categorization, I don't exactly understand what you're talking about; could you elaborate? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 23:45, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
What i meant was, could you easily change the code of the NRHP2 infobox, so that for NMON types only (or for any other specific type), a temporary category like "Category:NMON places having NRHP infobox" would be added to the NMON articles, and to no other articles? That would be useful in any campaign to revise all instances of that type. doncram (talk) 04:42, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) Yea it can be done. I don't see the need, though, right now. If there ever was a problem, one edit could put all those pages into a category. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:59, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Okay, thanks, and yes there is no need to do that right now. I think we are done, well enough, in discussing this update. Perhaps some more feature / programming issues will come up as the update is rolled out, but I think it will be helpful to open a separate discussion section about managing the rollout itself. I'll do that below, i suppose at #Implementing NRHP infoboxes merger. Thanks for all you've done! doncram (talk) 16:29, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
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