Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Wasco County, Oregon

Changes by Nyttend of 2010-09-09

I have several concerns regarding Nyttend's edits today, which I detail below and regarding which I have invited Nyttend to a discussion. —Ipoellet (talk) 19:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

All of my changes are attempts to get this list toward a standard format that's followed by most or all other state lists; they're attempts to correct deviations from the standard, rather than being deviations from a standard. Nyttend (talk) 20:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Everyone seems to have had their say by now, so I'm going to propose a conclusion to this particular discussion. If no one objects by tomorrow or so, then I'll implement this conclusion in the article. (Note that points 1, 2, and 5 were discussed at here, and I have already implemented the results of that discussion in this Wasco County article.)

• Retain Nyttend's new NRIS-based descriptions for Barlow Road and Columbia River Highway, but add new in-cell references since the default reference for the column is OPRD. (I may change the word flow for stylistic reasons only.)
• Retain Nyttend's preferred use of "Address restricted", but add a footnote clarifying the purpose of the restriction.
• Informed by the discussion at Washington County, delete the "approx" note with regard to the coordinates for the those HDs that are not linear in nature. Re-insert the "approx" for the linear districts (Barlow Road and Columbia River Highway) until such time as we come up with a more satisfactory way of describing these districts than single coorinate points.

Copacetic? —Ipoellet (talk) 17:54, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I generally support that. See my comment below, in this edit, about address restrictions though. --doncram (talk) 18:22, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Done, except that I have left Doncram's suggestions (regarding breaking out the address restricted sites into a separate table) for a later edit. — Ipoellet (talk) 21:16, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

(1) Column header change from "Site name" to "Landmark name".
See my reasoning at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Washington County, Oregon.

(2) Deletion of inline citations in individual cells throughout
See my reasoning at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Washington County, Oregon.

(3) Provision of more detailed information regarding the location of linear historic districts
The new information Nyttend has provided is good (e.g. for Barlow Road), I like it. BUT it is unreferenced. The previous information in those cells was derived from the sources provided in the column headers. When new information is provided in the cells that is different from the stated source, it needs to be cited in the cell.

The source is the NRIS. Is not all location information derived from the NRIS? If not, we have a much bigger problem here. Nyttend (talk) 20:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

(4) For certain sites, deletion of location information given in favor of "Address Restricted"
Yes, "address restricted" is what is stated on the NRIS, but with adequately cited sources, which the previously-given set of approximate coordinates had, there should be no problem with filing in information from another source. I feel that it's desirable to have coordinates listed for each table row in order to fully populate the maps generated when clicking the "Map of all coordinates" links in the box toward the bottom of the article. If the concern is that Wikipedia shouldn't be leading looters to these sites, then that's not a problem. The coordinates that were given were sufficiently approximate (e.g. Google Earth's coordinates for the whole town of Mosier) as to be useless to someone trying to actually gain physical access to the site. Further, that certain information is restricted by the NPS/SHPO (and why it is) was fully explained in a footnote that was deleted. I can't see any good reason to dumb the cell contents down to "address restricted".

We always should seek to provide as precise of information as possible: by giving coords for a nearby community, we're saying that the site is there. Such a statement is simply wrong, unless by coincidence the coords given happen to be on top of the archaeological site. If we have a specific location, we should cite a source and indicate that, with coords; if we have a partial location (e.g. the Ufferman Site at National Register of Historic Places listings in Delaware County, Ohio), we should cite a source and indicate that, but since we don't have coords, we shouldn't add that; if we have no location at all, we should say that, and not attempt to provide information. Please look at the Pennsylvania lists; I've been able to find locations for all of the address-restricted sites, and because of my work, there's not a single Pennsylvania site that appears in its lists as "Address Restricted". Your practice, on the other hand, is one not followed by any lists in any other state as far as I know. Nyttend (talk) 20:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. What I've done is attempt to provide material for an extension of Wikipedia data into web resources beyond the Wikimedia projects (i.e. the "map of all coordinates" links). You make a very cogent counterargument that such an attempt conflicts with the core editorial goals for these list articles, which I respect. I am willing to go with your approach, although I'd also be interested in hearing how other editors would strike the balance between the two goals I just outlined. HOWEVER, I have two caveats: (a) The "address restricted" locution is undescriptive and leaves the reader wanting as to why – the footnotes that were previously used in this article addressed that situation and should be retained in some fashion. (b) I haven't looked at the Pennsylvania lists you mention so as to avoid sitting in judgement, but in general I think we should be very careful about publishing specific location data for these "address restricted" sites. The address is restricted for a very good reason: these archaeological sites often are subject to looting and pillaging that can diminish or destroy their historic value. Often, like at the Ufferman Site, the location information is already visibly published so that re-publishing the information on Wikipedia offers no additional threat. But there are also plenty of cases where an editor can (as I have) figure out the location, but adding the information to Wikipedia would "let the cat out of the bag" and should not be done. I hope this is a principle we all keep squarely in mind. —Ipoellet (talk) 06:29, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Ipoellet's concern. I agree that locations of specific places which are now very publicly known, e.g. as when specifically now open to the public, can now be shown in wikipedia. But calling for locations by having these places listed in NRHP list-article tables that have a location column is itself a problem, as it tends to bring forward private knowledge that should probably stay private in many cases. I have in mind one specific Oregon or Washington case where a local editor posted the exact coordinates of a completely unpublicized and unprotected place. In general i think we should work privately with state SHPO offices towards identifying places that are now truly public, and take care not to reveal locations that SHPO officials do not choose to reveal. This would in general be consistent with archaeologists who listed these places, and we should respect their wishes even if we can find verifiable information in publications that the same archaeologists believed were obscure. I find Nyttend's cumulative actions on Pennsylvania address restricted places (in which I perceive he has revealed a lot of locations) as, in general, troubling, but I see no easy remedy. Revealing archeological sites is not banned by Wikipedia policy, though perhaps it should be. --doncram (talk) 18:22, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Doncram- To clarify, when you speak of how even having these "address restricted" sites in a table with a location column at all is a problem, are you suggesting that you would like to find a way to remove them from the table? If so, I'm somewhat sympathetic to that impulse, though it would be difficult to pull off in a clean and encyclopedic way. —Ipoellet (talk) 19:50, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually i appreciate a chance to talk about this. I am not the only person concerned in general about this, but I was the main person involved in some correspondence with NRHP staff and at least one state SHPO who are in fact concerned about what we post in wikipedia about address restricted sites. And, about a year ago, I was the main person interacting with/educating the nice wikipedian editor who was then adding "coordinates needed" templates to all the NRHP articles. After discussion, he assisted in removing that from all the address restricted ones, and then later chose to drop all NRHP ones from his bot runs which regularly add them to other articles. But, more generally I think it would be best to remove all the address restricted ones from our list-tables, though they could still be listed on the same page (either in a non-tabulated list section, or in a differently formatted table), so as not to call for location information in the location column and to call for photos. In a few cases we are able to get photos of artifacts from sites, but for the most part the photo column is calling for editors to get a photo of the site. There's an NRHP Wikiproject informal "fully illustrated lists" friendly competition at wp:NRHP which provides mild pressure towards getting them, but the general problem is just that local wikipedians tend to want to fill out their list-articles. In general i think we should remove the sucking sound of those holes in the list-articles. I have mentioned this idea but not generally heard much sharing of this concern. --doncram (talk) 21:24, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

(5) Deletion of "vicinity" where it appears in the "City or Town" column
See my reasoning at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Washington County, Oregon.

(6) Deletion of "approx." with regard to coordinates for historic districts
For the Barlow Road and the Columbia River Highway, two lengthy linear districts, the reduction of their location to a single point coordinate without qualification as "approximate" is simply misleading. Other HDs may be close enough to points for me to defer to other editors' discretion, but not the linear districts. See also my reasoning at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Washington County, Oregon.

Nationwide, we indicate district locations with individual points; as long as the coords land in the district, that's sufficient. It works for users in the other states; there's no reason that it won't work here, and standardisation is important. Nyttend (talk) 20:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Some other "standard" approach would be good, like perhaps identifying both end points and at least one middle point for linear districts. --doncram (talk) 18:22, 16 September 2010 (UTC)