Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bridges and Tunnels/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

U.S. National Bridge Inventory

I have a copy of the National Bridge Inventory, but it is difficult and time consuming to translate their format into usable data. After several failed attempts, I was finally able to get everything in Oregon converted to something comprehendible. If you have a copy and would like instructions on how to translate it, let me know. If you would like the data for a particular state, ask me very nicely. Cacophony 08:36, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

See also this link http://nationalbridges.com/ which might be another way to get at the data. Dunno how long it's been up or whether it will stay but I found it useful... ++Lar: t/c 00:08, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Bridge Categorization

Many bridges are beset with many different views on how they should be categorized. The issue of category duplications has been discussed for many months at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization. I am hoping that you can take a look at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Updating_the_section_on_category_duplications. Thanks. -- Samuel Wantman 09:09, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I followed the link and it is somewhat difficult to see the forrest for the trees. I'll comment on the Talk:Cats page, but it doesn't look like anything near a consensus has been determined. I'll go through the archives for more direction but my goal is to get rid of categories that have 1-5 article in them. I really think that each bridge should belong to Cat:<bridge type (Cat:Suspension bridges), Cat:<bridge location by state> (Cat:Bridges in Oregon), and if applicable Cat:<Toll roads by state> (Cat:Toll roads in Oregon). From my experience those seem like the most meaningful categories (from the standpoint of the category page itself, it makes the articles have a lot of categories). Cacophony 17:49, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

I am not really sure what the order that categories should appear, but I have been changing pages when the category:bridges completed by year. I think that it is most logical for the categories to appear in the following order:

• Cat:Bridge type (example Cat:Arch bridges)
• Cat:Toll bridge by location (example Cat:Toll bridges in NY
• Cat:Bridge by location (example Cat:Bridges in OR
• Cat:Bridge by year of completion (example Cat:Bridges completed in 1910)

Cacophony 01:04, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Another thing that might be of value is a category containing bridges that span a certain river, such as Category:Bridges that span the Willamette River or something as such. Of course I am not sure how many categories there should be for one bridge, but this would be another way to look at bridges that isn't covered right now. Cacophony 05:26, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The best way is going to be just the river category, like Category:Columbia River. Some bridges already use this. Cacophony 20:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Example

Continuing the conversation... what about bridges between states? I'll take the Great River Bridge over the Mississippi River as an example, since I haven't done that page yet. As I understand it, it belongs in the following general categories:

1. Cable-stayed bridges
2. Bridges in Iowa
3. Bridges in Illinois
4. Mississippi River
5. optional Des Moines County, Iowa
6. optional Henderson County, Illinois
7. Any city-related categories in the future, like Burlington, Iowa

If it were a toll bridge, it would have two more categories. Is that right? —Rob 19:33, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Over-categorizing (from User talk:Cacophony#Over-categorizing)

Hi. You reverted my changes to Sunshine Skyway Bridge saying it should be in both Category:Toll bridges in Florida and Category:Bridges in Florida. By that logic, you should also include it in Category:Toll bridges (which is also underpopulated) and Category:Toll roads in Florida. Saying the category is underpopulated isn't a reason to list it in multiple places — that's a reason to get rid of the category and merge it into its parent.

Including in a category and that category's parent goes against the policy in Wikipedia:Categorization. Wikipedia:Categorization#Creating subcategories: A good general rule is that articles should be placed in the most specific categories they reasonably fit in. For example, Queen Elizabeth should not be listed directly under People, but 'Category:Monarchs of the United Kingdom' might be a good place for her. We know that all Queens of the United Kingdom qualify as Famous Britons and as Royalty, and all of those folks qualify as People Wikipedia:Categorization#When to use categories: An article should not be in both a category and its subcategory, for example Microsoft Office is in Category:Microsoft software, so should not also be in Category:Software. wknight94 11:39, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

First of all, I would prefer if this conversation took place on the Wikiproject talk page related to Bridge Categorization. As you can see above, I am very familiar with the Wikipedia pages related to Categorization and have commented on such talk pages. I somewhat agree with your reasoning, but when you create categories with one or two articles, it makes the categorization meaningless. It would be like your above example, if you were to create a category called Category:Monarchs of the United Kingdom named Elizabeth. Some categories are just too specific to have any value. With your scheme things are broken up too much. This has become particularly troublesome for the east coast bridges. Where does it end, Category:Toll suspension bridges in Broward County, Florida. Part of Wikiproject:Bridges is going to be fixing this problem so that categorization of the east coast bridges has meaning and value. Cacophony 17:24, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about the misplaced conversation — I didn't know this was here... Well, if you don't think Category:Toll roads in Florida is of any value, shall I go ahead and Cfd it? Basically, I was trying to get it out of Category:Orphaned categories and deleting suits me fine!  :) wknight94 18:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it should be Cfd at this point because I think there are some people that want the toll bridges by state category. There is even a Category:Toll bridges in New York City, which I find to be too specific. I think that should be on a list, or a template, and that categories should be more broad. I think the true value of Category:Bridges in New York lies in displaying all the bridges in New York that have articles written. In such a case, the sub categories convolute the data. Lists allow for additional information to be included, such as what body or water it spans, the order in terms of north/south or east/west. I guess I do appreciate the value of the toll bridge categories, I just hate how they ruin the bridge by state categories. Possibly over categorization is the answer? Cacophony 03:18, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Based on the recent discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization and the new guidelines for categorization, some reorganizing should take place. Specific to this project is the inclusion of articles within categories that before were split amongst subcategories. For instance the articles in Category:Bridges in New York City should be contained in Category:Bridges in New York explicitly, not via subcategorization. The huge upside to this is the ability to see all the bridges in New York while browsing the Category:Bridges in New York, the negative side is that many articles will contain seemingly very similar categories (like the NYC example will contain both Bridges in NYC and Bridges in NY. Bridges in NYC will remain a subcategory of Bridges in NY. At this point the Cat:Bridges by State categories are the biggest category that should contain individual articles. Based on the sheer numbers, Cat:Bridges in the U.S. should contain only subcategories for individual states. I will put these guidelines on the main project page here shortly. Thanks, Cacophony 20:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Toll bridges

At first I really disliked the useage of the toll bridge categories, but now I see their value. I think that category should be parallel to bridge type categories (such as Cat:Suspension brides), and bridge location categories (such as Cat:Bridges in California). Cacophony 00:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Toll bridges and categorization

This has been an on-going problem. The project page says:

The article should be included in the category for the type of bridge that it is (example Category:Suspension bridges). It should also contain a category based on location, such as Category:Bridges in New York...

A problem arises when the bridge is put in the Toll bridge category. These toll bridge categories are listed as subcategories of the location category. For example, there is Category:Toll bridges in New York City which is a subcategory of Category:Bridges in New York City. In my way of thinking, the toll bridges of NYC should be listed in BOTH categories. I see the toll bridge subcategory as being a related subcategory, but not really part of the hierarchy of bridges by location. I've been discussing this for months and months at Wikipedia:Categorization, and there is conversation about this very topic right now. The problem is that the previous policy says that articles should not be in both subcategories and their parent category. I think there are some good reasons why this should happen sometimes, and this is one of them. -- Samuel Wantman 09:11, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. But I have been accused of overcategorisation so... ++Lar 14:10, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Infobox BridgeSpecificWithMap

Hello, I took the liberty of adding this Infobox to the Williamsburg Bridge article. I think the structure of this article is much cleaner now. However I could not find any info on the vertical clearance. Is there a specific reason this Infobox isn't more widely used? I was just about to apply it to the Brooklyn Bridge article. There are some nice Crossection schemes for the NY bridges, could be interesting to incorporate them into the template as well. --Dschwen 10:47, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I, for one, think that the vertical clearance should be removed. The only time that it is relevant is when you are driving an oversized load over the bridge. It also leaves some confusion about the difference between vertical clearance and clearance below. Other books and such refer to the clerance below as vertical clearance (and the width between the main spans as horizontal clearance). The vertical clearance of the roadway is included in the National Bridge Inventory Data. Cacophony 18:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Floating bridges

Floating bridge redirects to pontoon bridge, but are all floating bridges pontoon bridges? -- Kjkolb 06:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

• I would say that yes, a pontoon is required to make a bridge float. Cacophony 03:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Not to be pedantic (er, oops!) but a pontoon is sealed, as a defining characteristic, right?. It's possible, supposedly, to build a bridge on top of hulls (which are open at the top) rather than pontoons, I seem to recall reading of some ancient army doing that with boats somewhere. Also if you used enough timber the bridge itself would float even if it had no air tight compartments, right? I agree that 99+% of floating bridges would be pontoon, though! ++Lar 01:55, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I was think of a more restricted definition of "pontoon" than the pontoon article gives. I was using it to refer to rigid watertight chambers with air in them. This would exclude bridges made of wood that floats, bridges that rest on foam blocks and bridges that rest on flexible bladders. The pontoon article definition includes lightweight materials, so that would include everything except the hull type bridge Lar mentioned. However, a bridge of this type has been added to the article as a pontoon bridge. Dongjin Bridge - "It is 400 metres long, made up of wooden planks placed on around 100 wooden boats linked together with iron chains." Wooden bridges are also included in the article, though the liberal definition of pontoon we have may allow them to be called pontoon bridges. Anyway, I think the article name should be changed to "floating bridge" and that "pontoon bridge" should redirect to it. The article could mention at the top that almost all floating bridges are pontoon bridges (with bolding of both terms). -- Kjkolb 17:06, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Agree with all points you raise, esp with using the more restrictive pontoon definition. Be bold, go for it! A simple move should do the trick. (added bullets to make the indent and authorship clearer) ++Lar: t/c 18:46, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
    • It has to be done by an admin because floating bridge has already been created. I'll put a move request on it later, and you can vote support, if you want to. -- Kjkolb 19:37, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Helping out

Hi... My first career choice as a child was to be a bridge engineer, like my childhood hero David B. Steinman... I still think bridges are cool. I'm a wikinovice, but I'd like to help out, at least to the extent of trying to make sure my edits improve and move articles in the direction the project consensus suggests is the right direction. But I'm not sure I have the time to be a full project member so I won't sign the front page, doesn't seem right. But take this as an expression of support, anyway. The project page is on my watchlist...

I spent some time on Steinman's article and then did 2 brand new bridge articles so far, and welcome comments and feedback: Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge (because Steinman designed it) and Poughkeepsie Bridge (because it had a lot of red links and because you could see it from my house sometimes, on a clear day). I have another bridge article User:Lar/Kingston-Port Ewen Suspension Bridge in my user pages that I'm not ready to share yet, it needs a lot of work. Material on that bridge is hard to come by though, relative to some of the others, it's not in structurae.de I don't think (I tried under Rondout bridge too). Cacophony, if you could share info from the CD on that one, I'd be very appreciative ++Lar 01:51, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the help! Feel free to sign up on the front page. The list and project itself are very informal, just basically a place for us bridge nuts to talk about things. We still need input as to how articles should look, how to categorize, etc. I will work on deciphering the New York bridge data from the CD. Cacophony 02:13, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

A bit of a long time followup... Kingston-Port Ewen Suspension Bridge went live today, using data Cacophony supplied. I found Structurae and Bridgemeister entries for it after all. It would be nice to score a pic, but my searches in HAER, where I usually go, came up empty. ++Lar: t/c 20:55, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Maps

Is there anyone that could help me learn how to make good maps? TIGER is a great map generator, but I lack the Photoshop skills necessary to edit them how I want to. Cacophony 02:13, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

What is it you want to do? For example this TIGER map is of the Kingston-Port Ewen Suspension bridge location. What's wrong with it as is? Is it that you would want to highlight the bridge in a different color? I don't have Photoshop, I use PaintShop Pro (because that's what I have), but I would just get out a (one pixel?) paintbrush tool and zoom in and color the black line of "Wurts Street" where it crosses the Rondout a different color. (that's what we are supposed to do to highlight bridges, right? I wasn't clear on that) Then save the image and upload it here, I guess... BTW thanks for the TIGER ref, I was wondering where to get maps because all the ones in the template:Geolinks-US-streetscale are copyrighted images... Hmm, wonder if that template should include TIGER too? ++Lar 03:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Good example. I think it is better zoomed out a bit. The road should be labeled, that is easy to add. A cleaner label on the city (nicer looking font, without the pushpin visible). Maybe the road highlighted red and the bridge red with yellow outline? I don't know, what do you think? Also a small state map in one of the corners that has a dot indicating where in the state the bridge is located. Something like this range with the just the state boundaries labeled, and the states themselves labeled NY, CT, etc. Maybe even zoomed out this far? The map on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge infobox is good, but there is room for improvement. And then it would be nice to have an image of a river that displays all of the bridges that cross it. I was really impressed with the little map on Template:Chicagoland. Maps have the potential to show a lot of information about the bridge. If there were only more hours in the day!!! Cacophony 04:28, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Some musings here...The example is a relatively small bridge, but historically notable (for two reasons, it was a bridge that Steinman cut his teeth on, and it completed an important highway on the W side of the hudson). Except at a really small zoom, it's lost... the Roundout is not a big river, although the bridge crosses well above water level so spans a bit of valley on both sides. The red road in the map at the zoom I gave is actually NOT the bridge I want to do the article on! That's a much newer and more pedestrian 4 lane highway bridge. So right there are a couple of problems to think about... I agree that a map that gives enough context to be useful would be good, but for this particular bridge, it might be too much zoom out (if the infobox has only one map in it, I mean)... and second what color to mark? I like red too (but we have to watch out for Red-Green colorblindness, the most common kind) but in this case, marking the bridge in red would be confusing. Unless there is a way to get an alternate color scheme from TIGER where all roads are black or something? (yes I'd definitely leave the pushpin off! that was just from my searching and forgetting to turn it off before copying the link). Like I said, some musings. A way to produce these maps quickly and easily without requireing a lot of esoteric graphic/editing knowledge would be goodness because a lot of them are needed, presumably. Hope that all made sense! PS thanks for the libre fast way into Tiger. So far I have been getting coordinates by using google, I know that user interface pretty well by now and can get coords fast, usually. Well, except where it's confused about where things are and the area is too rural to figure out towns easily, so Libre ought to be a big improvement.++Lar 05:54, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Bridge lists

I have been thinking about moving the list of bridges on swing bridge, bascule bridge, lift bridge and such to List of swing bridges, List of bascule bridges, List of lift bridges so that the articles about the bridge types aren't dwarfed by the list of such bridges. Of course all of those bridges that don't yet exist could also be added to List of bridges in the United States. Cacophony 21:42, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Devil's advocate for a sec, please forgive: Maybe "list of notable (mumble) bridges" ???? Or is every single lift bridge notable? Chicago has dozens. (they are all cool, I hope to build a model of a slice of the river with several, someday, but notable?) Or maybe categories instead of lists? I guess I am a fan of categories, they seem more self maintaining. I am also a fan of things being in more than one category (so that the bridges/toll bridges thing would have been resolved by having ALL bridges in NY in the Bridges in NY category, including Toll Bridges so that you could walk the two trees independently) Or is notable obviously implied and therefore not necessary in the name? In either case I agree that the articles themselves should not have big lists (see Industrial Archaeology for where I think that lists may have gone a bit crazy)...++Lar

I think the model for articles should be Suspension bridge. The article includes the beginning of the information on the List of largest suspension bridges and also has a list of notable suspension bridges. The list of notables gets frequent questionable additions. We should set some standards for what makes a bridge notable. Such as being the first, a technological breakthrough, involved in an historic event, iconic (like the Golden Gate or London Bridge), or something similar. Whatever the reason it should be stated and verifiable. The list of largest or longest should be fairly short in the article about the bridge type, yet comprehensive at the linked list.

BTW, I'm still working on trying to come up with a consensus about categorization. The policy had been flipping back and forth in recent weeks. I modified the current policy to reflect the lack of consensus. It now states that there are different view on this issue and both ways of categorizing are currently in practice. Until this is resolved, I don't see the point in putting much effort into recatagorizing articles. -- Samuel Wantman 08:17, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it may be prudent to wait a bit. As a strong proponent of meshes rather than trees when it comes to categorization I want to put my oar in... gotta go find where the discussion is most prevalent. But what does your feeling imply about the list proposal? (I agree on setting standards for bridge notability, and further, there ought to be two tiers, one that determines if it gets an article at all, and one that determines if it's notable enough for a mention in the "type of bridge" article) ++Lar 16:54, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Structurae.de

I rely heavily on this site for a starting point for the bridge articles I've done so far (and I expect some of the rest of you do too). This page speaks to licensing images. They have some good ones, and for non US bridges, it's hard to come by better, or so it seems. Has anyone already done a blanket contact? I was thinking that it might be a good thing to do before peppering Nicolas with individual requests... some of the images may not be licensable to WP, but maybe some are... thoughts? PS I'm pretty pumped that I just released the Sky Ride article... ++Lar 04:50, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I normally try to link to Structurae.de, or use the links that structurae contains. The informataion provided is normally limited to just the specs. I haven't really looked at many images there, most of the ones that I have seen are from the National Historic Engineering Record, which are public domain. Bridgemeister.com has a lot of information on suspension bridges in particular. Cacophony 18:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I happened across a structurae image that had been marked for deletion and decided to make direct contact with the editor. His reply is not encouraging and does not allow an appropriate licence Wikipedia can use. Of course linking is possible. here is his reply:

Unless someone gets the photographer's permission directly, definitely no permission to use this image, Image:Boynebridge.jpg or any other structurae.de images, by e-mail from editor of web site: dated March 29 2006:

I am very unhappy with the use of images taken from Structurae for publication in Wikipedia without notification to Structurae or permission by the photographer which happens much too often on Wikipedia. The copyright notice says specifically that for publications the permission is required. Wikipedia is a publication. I will not release my own images to Wikipedia as I earn money from the sale to publishers for example. That is how I finance Structurae in addition to advertising. And I cannot release images for which I am not the photographer. The information I have on Structurae is generally available for free, but copying from Structurae is still a violation of copyright (either my own or someone else's or even both).

Best regards,

Nicolas Janberg

Editor of structurae

===============================================================

www.structurae.de / www.structurae.net / www.structurae.info

structurae - International Database and Gallery of Structures

A product of Nicolas Janberg ICS (Internet Content Services).

Joh.-P.-Melchior-Str. 40 / 40885 Ratingen / Germany

Tel: +49-(0)2102-558910 Fax: +49-(0)2102-558911

I tried my best with a polite e-mail, so, in the future any image use will require making contact directly with the photographer or getting someone local to take a photo and give us an usable licence. ww2censor 13:59, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Bridge Components

I was rooting around in bridge articles and ran across the term "Orthotropic". A quick search of articles found half a dozen refs to it but no article for it. So I wrote one... Orthotropic deck, along with the disambig (Orthotropic is a materials property as well). Comments on the article welcomed but the reason I mention it is this, are bridge components within the remit of this project? Some other ones I could think of that might be worthy of articles, or of addition of bridge related material (or maybe not?)... some may already exist:

• counterweights
• pin joint
• Towers
• anchorages
• Abutments
• falsework
• caisson

(forgot to sign this topic because I added two topics at once... ++Lar: t/c 01:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I will see if I have time to take a look at the Orthotropic deck article, the very first sentence is entirely misleading to the extent of being incorrect.Kvetner 00:07, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I have now gone ahead and revised the page - I guess we should discuss here if anyone disagrees with my changes. It was actually quite difficult to write as it presupposes an understanding of various other bits of terminology e.g. deck, stiffener etc, none of which are defined elsewhere on Wikipedia. Clearly something to return to when time permits!Kvetner 20:49, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I've added some material for bridge parapets which is relevant here. We could also add bridge material to:

• bearings
• bridge deck
• pier (it is an intermediate support to a bridge superstructure as well as a walkway extending into water)
• pylon (it is a support for bridge cables as well as electricity cables)
• web (refers only to I-beams but channel-section and box beams also have webs)
• flange

Any other suggestions? --Kvetner 12:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Neat toys

Those of you interested in truss design should get a copy of the program here if you don't already have it West Point Military Academy bridge contest design software... I can get below 220K fairly easily but 150K is really hard!

PS happy new year, fellow Bridge Project members... my involvement may go down soon as I'm going back to work (back on the road) soon. ++Lar: t/c 00:46, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Template_talk:Infobox_Bridge#Option_vs_required

People may want to consider participating in this discussion. It may be a tempest in a teapot really, but I'm thinking many parms should remain optional although I strongly feel every effort should be made to fill in as many as possible, there are scenarios where you just don't know (what date/year exactly did a roman aqueduct open?), for just about any parm you care to name. So showing all the parms in <noinclude> tagging encourages people to fill them in, but having them optional means the box looks good (all the boxes look a LOT better now since User:Cacophony made just about everything optional, this is about making the last few things optional too...). I'm not totally sure user:Netoholic gets what I am driving at. or maybe I'm the one that's confused. Anyway, put your oar in if you want! Thanks! ++Lar: t/c 16:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Stub tagging

A number of the types of bridge articles have {{architecture-stub}} (I noticed this when looking at weigh bridge which had {{arch-stub}} instead. Assuming the former stub tag was wanted, I changed it but my question is, are bridge type stub articles actually architecture stubs? Without going into the whole stub type creation (there is controversy around how many stub types to have as I understand it...) is architecture the best fit? what do you think.... ++Lar: t/c 21:48, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I feel there are a sufficient number of notable bridges in the world to have {{bridge-stub}} exist. My personal opinion on the controversy is one stub per WikiProject, as WikiProjects need to have some sort of organizational tool to assist their projects. —Rob 18:43, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually our stub is {{bridge-struct-stub}}. There was a bit of confusion with stubs related to the card game. The bridge stubs are a subcategory of Category:Buildings and structures stubs which is a subcategory of Category:Buildings and structures which is under Category:Architecture. My opinion is that all of the structure/architecture related stubs should be replaced by the bridge-struct-stub. I also leave the geographical stub along, for instance on City Island Bridge I added the bridge stub in addition to {{NYC-stub}}. I do remember being slightly confused when adding the bridge stub to some bridges in Asia that contailed {{asia-struct-stub}}. I think I left those alone, resulting in 3 stubs on some articles. I would rather err on the side of too many stubs (3 tops?) because it increases the chance that someone from another project will expand the article. Cacophony 20:28, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I just went to the first article I spotted in category:Architecture stubs that was a bridge, thinking I'd do a little stub augmenting (I agree about adding rather than replacing). It's a bridge type: Beam bridge... {{bridge-struct-stub}} says "This article about a specific bridge is a stub. ". I'm thinking maybe to redefine the stub to say: "This article about a specific bridge, or bridge type is a stub. " (bolded being what would be added) so it fits that article and other type articles. If no one objects and I don't get busy tomorrow I'll do that and maybe walk the category to find some candidates and change them. However, the downside of adding instead of replacing is that you have to visit each article to see if it has both stubs... is there a way to do set intersections or set differences of "what links here" to find which have one but not the other? Thoughts? ++Lar: t/c 21:14, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

SOLUTION AT HAND:

Use "{{bridge-type-stub}}", displayed as:

- Leonard G. 15:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Mississippi River Bridges

Whoever's working these pages... good stuff. I'm sticking to a general template as laid down by the Eads Bridge page, and adding the infoboxes as I get around to them / know them. Being able to browse by bridge upstream and downstream is of great help, a good idea, and I'm considering creating Illinois River templates because of it. Couple things...

1. I'm adding road shields as appropriate. See Bayview Bridge, Great River Bridge for examples.
2. The resource at http://iowahwypix.tripod.com/bridges/ is invaluable. Cite responsibly in references sections where it applies.
3. There seems to be some naming issues with bridges in the Quad Cities area. Are we doing official names as the Wikipedia article name, the common name, or taking it on a case-by-case basis? I could go for any of the above.
4. The template at the bottom of the page is located at Template:Bridges_of_the_Mississippi_River.
5. The category these pages are being lumped into is Category:Mississippi River bridges. That talk page contains articles that need to be created.

Thanks! —Rob (talk) 04:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

New articles board

Why don't we start a notice board for announcing new articles on bridges? We may take one of the following boards as an example: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle_Ages/New_Articles, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/New_articles, Wikipedia:New articles (Aircraft). --Ghirla | talk 10:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Of these, Aircraft seems the most organised. What would the intended audience be? What sort of information would they seek? How frequently should it be updated? Should people update as they write, and if so how do you handle people writing bridge articles that are not in the project or don't know about it? Do we have enough articles that it's worth the work? These are not naysaying questions but do need answering, IMHO, to make it work.++Lar: t/c 14:32, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, the purpose of Wikipedia:New articles by topic seems to be the same. Say, I occasionally write new articles on bridges or discover them scanning through Special:Newpages. I could have announced them for other members of the project to take a look/correct/improve. --Ghirla | talk 16:08, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

What's the difference between...

...a cantilever bridge and a truss bridge?

If it's just that cantilevers tend to have a more complex upper truss structure, I have a lot of miscategorized bridges on the Mississippi River. :-)

Also, the Murray Baker Bridge is marked as a truss, when it should be a cantilever. See [1].

This difference should be addressed in one of the two articles on this type of bridge, if not both. Thanks! —Rob (talk) 21:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it needs definition... I had always thought it had to do with how things get built... cantilevers are built with use of balance, not falsework. See the Tappan Zee construction pics (in the NYCROADS article linked)for a great pic of the partially built sections "reaching toward" each other. (but of course there are falsework towers there that were temporary... go figure) Trusses use falsework or get floated out. But there's also some factor of how the loads analyse. Cantilevers have a lot of compression in their lower members and tension in their uppers. But if you use the West Point bridge gadget I was hyping and play around with ordinary trusses you'll see the same compression and tension, just not as much. Another thing to consider is that some cantilevers (Quebec Bridge, the Firth of Forth Railway Bridge) have suspended truss sections in the center meaning the cantilevers built out to a certain distance, and then to span the gap they floated out a truss, hoisted it up and it either hangs from the ends of the cantilevers rather than participating in the overall truss the way a continuous truss does, or they forced the cantilevers apart a bit to get the center truss in... FWIW the Gateway Arch in St Louis is sometimes called a cantilever arch because it was built the same way till almost the end. NOTE!!!! this is all from memory, NOT sourced, not verified, just interesting info, hope it helps... ++Lar: t/c 23:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Hutsonville Bridge

Just did this one... would like input on how I did it. It's an obscure bridge, now demolished. I ran across it looking up stuff at this site: Historic Bridges of the Midwest (which I parenthetically recommend as a good source of obscure stuff). I decided to write it up because it's a David B. Steinman (I may have remarked how I'm a fanboy...) and because it is an example of a Self-anchored suspension bridge. The question is... there was a lot of controversy around tearing it down, apparently, so how did I do in retaining WP:NPOV? Also there were a LOT of pics available (as well as a great set of scans of the engineering drawings at the HAER site), I decided to focus on the self anchoring part as the most significant bit to illustrate. Comments? (I'm off to put it up for WP:DYK...) ++Lar: t/c 22:33, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Coraopolis Bridge

I was trying to do the Three Sisters (Pittsburgh) and got bogged down, trying to write an article that covers 3 bridges AND their predecessors at once is a lot... this bridge got moved in 1927 (it's the third Sixth Street Bridge, whereas the present Self-anchored suspension bridge is the fourth) instead of torn down, so kind of a neat story! Not too many bridges get moved! Can anyone take a look and see what they think? I'd love some comment on it! It uses a lot of HAER material... the article probably needs editing down more than expansion. ++Lar: t/c 05:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

pghbridges.com

I created the referenced article, at least partly to see if there is a way of documenting good reference sites that works for Wikipedia, meeting the needs of readers and of project workers. Very shortly after its creation it got put up on AfD. Most of the discussion has went on here: Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Pghbridges.com I would like to ask members of this project to take a look and see what they think. In particular, even if the article is not considered suitable for articlespace, should it and other similar material be put into a subpage of the project, to collect information about good bridge reference sites? (if so, suggest a move rather than delete). Right now the article is crufted up with a lot of crud relating to how notable the site is, which, ironically enough, has been voiced as a criticism in and of itself. None of that crud would stay if it were moved. ++Lar: t/c 20:20, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Thanks a lot! Gflores ^Talk 17:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, my limited understanding is that you're working from the top down and we should identify the highest quality articles first. I think that marking the articles with the Category:Wikipedia good articles would be the best place to start. What about a poll for everyone to rank the pages? I know, I'm thinking like 3 years ahead. Cacophony 06:21, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for responding, I have added three GA rail bridges to our bridges table, please feel free to add your own choices to the table. A ranking poll is not so far off as you think, though! There are plans afoot to introduce a user ranking, rather like that used on Amazon - this was supposed to be tested late last year, but we're still waiting. However I think expert (i.e., WikiProject) peer review is more reliable (WP1.0 will probably use both). If you want to get something started, you might consider creating a worklist such as that used by theChemicals or Medicine WikiProjects. With the Chemicals list, potential A-Class articles are peer-reviewed here. Start small, and grow it from there? Cheers, Walkerma 08:35, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Locator map technique

I wonder if this technique (as seen here, of many places: Arches National Park) would be of any use at all to this project? It would be an addition to the map references given, and maybe instead of being for the whole US (or europe or whatever) the locator would be to a more regional map?... what I find significant is the use of the red dot which is NOT embedded in the background image but is put at a specific location somehow... ++Lar: t/c 02:31, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of largest suspension bridges

I've nominated List of largest suspension bridges to be a featured list. It has been getting opposition because of the 100 or so bridges, the bottom of the list is mostly red links. I would appreciate comments and support if you feel it worthy. -- Samuel Wantman 07:32, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I've renominated this list after creating lots of stubs on missing bridges. -- Samuel Wantman 07:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Beam vs. girder vs. plate girder

I was going to start the article on Girder bridge, including the photo Image:GirderBridge.jpg (really not the best, but I have it in my collection). However, I'm trying to figure out what the difference is between a girder bridge and a plate girder bridge. The plate girder bridge article makes it sound like any bridge built on I-beams is a plate girder bridge -- but it also says that it's used most often for railroads. The beam bridge article says that a beam bridge can be made of I-beams as well. The taxonomy illustration in the main Bridge article doesn't even mention girder bridges at all -- just beam, plate girder, and box girder bridges. This article explains what a girder bridge is, but doesn't tell me the difference between that and a plate girder bridge. This article at trainweb.org shows the difference between through and deck plate girder bridges... but it doesn't tell me what a plain old girder bridge is. Finally, this article shows the construction of a highway girder bridge being built in a test lab to determine its deflection characteristics. All interesting, but I'm still confused. Any clarification out there? --Elkman - ^(talk) 03:37, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

• This article from McGraw-Hill AccessScience makes it sound like plate girders are fabricated from steel plates that are welded or bolted to each other, and they're built to specifications based on the size of the bridge. In contrast, hot-roller girders produced at steel mills are built in a range of standardized sizes, and they have limitations on their size. Plate girders can be produced with greater depths than hot-rolled girders. I suppose that clarifies things somewhat, but it's hard to identify a girder bridge without carefully checking the way the steel was put together. And concrete? No idea. --Elkman - ^(talk) 18:52, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Seems to me that (steel) beam girder and plate girder are subtypes of girder, and you've spotted the difference, Beam is rolled into shape (with continuous cross section) and plate is fabbed into whatever complex arbitrary shape desired. I've seen fabbed beams but not that often. Concrete can be much more complex because of arbitrary shapes, but many concrete bridges use precast beams, or cast in place beam/arch sorts of constructions. ++Lar: t/c 19:32, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

A 'beam' is a structural member that works primarily in bending. This means that all trusses, girders, plate girders etc are beams. The key difference here is simply that between a rolled section girder (rolled as a single cross-section) and a plate girder (made up from plates, normally flat, welded, riveted or bolted together). In my experience, the term 'plate girder' is used normally to describe I-section beams, I've never seen it used for any other shape. In general, most I-section beams greater than a metre in depth are likely to be plate girders, and it's increasingly common to see girders smaller than that fabricated from plate as well, now that automated welding has reduced the fabrication cost.Kvetner 00:15, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I've started the article on Girder bridge, based in large part on a Montana Department of Transportation bridge design manual (cited). I think at some point, we'll want to look at the bridge taxonomic chart to indicate that a girder bridge is a supertype of the rolled steel girder, plate girder, and concrete girder types. Also, the plate girder bridge article should probably be revised to indicate that plate girders aren't only used on railroads -- fabricated plate girders are used on a number of highway bridges as well, but just underneath the deck. --Elkman - ^(talk) 19:03, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes not even beneath. I've seen deck girder bridges, complete with webs and intermediate ribs, used on highways. One beef I have with the article as written is that it suggests that plate girders have a uniform cross section, which often is not the case, they have ribs and webs too. good work on the article though! ++Lar: t/c 19:21, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I've made some changes to the Girder bridge article in response to what you mentioned above. The references from the Montana Department of Transportation are probably good references for this, though I'm not a civil engineer. (I try to be WP:CIVIL, though.) Or were you suggesting that some changes need to be made to Plate girder bridge? --Elkman - ^(talk) 02:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The Entrance Bridge

I recently completed this page as part of my development of The Entrance, New South Wales. Photo Coming Soon as well as a little bit more info. Hope the WikiProject like it. Todd661 11:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Volunteer for infoboxes

A month or so ago I took a passing interest in some historic RR bridges in Maryland. I recently noticed the bridge infobox. I presume there are some nuances to using the box that I do not know, and (as I have no longterm interest in bridges) have no need to learn. If someone would like to add infoboxes to my 5-6 bridge articles, please leave a note on my talk page. — Eoghanacht ^talk 17:39, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Bridge image list dispute

I raised this issue on the Bridge talk page, but received no response. After a few weeks more frustration at having topics such as balsa wood bridges mixed in with major architectural features, I went ahead and made my proposed changes. They were reverted within a few hours. Still the only person who has weighed in on the issue is the one that did the revert, so I'm asking for some help in forming an agreement on this. I have no problem with leaving it as is if that is the agreement, but a consensus of one resolves nothing. So please add your opinion and let's at least get some discussion going on it. --IntrigueBlue 10:37, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll reply on the bridge talk page. Cacophony 17:19, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Category:Arch bridges

I recently split this into two categories. Can an expert look at it and check that this is the best way to split it, and that I used the best terms? Thanks. --SPUI (T - C) 22:56, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

• There are a couple I'm wondering about. Seventh Street Improvement Arches doesn't have a bridge deck as an integral part of the structure. Instead, the bridges support several feet of earth fill, and then the road is built on top of that. Also, the main span of the Robert Street Bridge is a rainbow arch bridge -- part of the arch is below the deck, and part of it is above the deck. (I think this is what a rainbow arch bridge means, anyway.) Actually, now that I've checked, Robert Street Bridge is located in both categories. I guess that's what happens when you have such a complex bridge. They're both interesting bridges, and both are products of complex engineering work. --Elkman 23:28, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
  • These aren't terms that are used in the UK, or at least I haven't come across them in my career. We tend to categorise arch bridges by material (e.g. a masonry arch bridge) and/or by construction (a tied arch bridge), i.e. the location of the deck is dictated by the form of the bridge. Is this the way it works in the US? Leithp 06:50, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I've seen the term "tied arch bridge" used in the US as well. For example, the existing Wakota Bridge is a tied-arch bridge. This link from mrdbridges.com mentions tied arch bridges. Historic Bridges of the Midwest also lists tied-arch bridges. As far as types of materials go, most of the bridges I've done articles on have been reinforced concrete, except for the Stone Arch Bridge in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota (made of stone, as the name implies). I think this points out that there could be multiple classifications for arch bridges, based on where the deck and arch(es) are located, as well as the construction material. --Elkman 15:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
      • If I were to create a categorisation system, then I would tend to use material and design as my basis. Categorising by location of deck isn't something I've come across, but seems reasonable. As you say, multiple classifications would be the way to go. Leithp 14:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Categorization of bridges named after people

It seems that, like people, bridges should be named and categorized by the last name of the person it was named after, thus the William H. Natcher Bridge would be categorized under N. I suspect that people call this the "Natcher Bridge" and the article should probably be moved to Natcher Bridge, if in fact that is what people call it. Wikipedia naming conventions call for using the name most commonly used instead of the official name. I suspect this means that many bridge articles are misnamed, except the few where the first name is commonly used, like the George Washington Bridge. So how should the GWB be categorized, under G or W? Any ideas about all this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SamuelWantman (talk • contribs) 05:42, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that last name is the more typical way to categorise. I'm not sure that people call bridges by just their last names a lot but I think it is still how i would suggest categorising anyway. ++Lar: t/c 11:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

PS I don't support moving the article to a shorter name though... Just create a redirect from Natcher Bridge to William H. Natcher Bridge. ++Lar: t/c 11:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Template guidelines

I'm moving some of the links from the project page here. ITemplate:Infobox Bridge seems to be the go-to version. Cacophony 07:03, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

• Template:bridge (depreciated)
• Template:bridge2 (depreciated)
• Template:bridge3 (depreciated)
• Template:Infobox BridgeSpecificWithMap (deprecated and deleted)
• Template:Infobox Bridge (the map is optional)

The last infobox is currently in use at San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge. Additional bay area bridges need appropriate maps, and location maps would be useful for all specific bridges. The maps should generally be at a regional or city level. Note that the "connects" is not intended to specifiy cities or neighborhoods for those bridges carrying regional traffic such as SFOBB or GGB, while city specific (or even neighborhood) would be appropriate in other cases - e.g. High Street Bridge, connecting East Oakland (a neighborhood, not a city) and the city of Alameda Leonard G. 20:22, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Note: there is as of this writing some cleanup that could be done to replace redirects of Template:bridge with direct imbeds of {{Infobox_Bridge}}... see Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Infobox_Bridge for some fixup candidates. ++Lar: t/c 15:19, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting reading

I was looking at the National Register of Historic Places database, and I found some information about bridges that were submitted as part of a multiple property submission. A few of these make for interesting background reading on bridge development and the evolution of bridge architecture:

• Minnesota Masonry-Arch Highway Bridges
• Iron and Steel Bridges in Minnesota
• Reinforced Concrete Highway Bridges in Minnesota

The articles list Minnesota bridges, but they also cover the development of bridge types (especially the reinforced concrete bridge article). --Elkman - (Elkspeak) 13:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Bridge engineers

In the course of creating a new stub article for the great German bridge engineer Fritz Leonhardt I also went through the category Bridge Engineers and added several notable people who weren't on it. There's probably plenty of scope for expansion though, as there are many other great engineers not yet on Wikipedia. Some of these omissions are pretty incredible! I suggest a list here for possible articles, feel free to add further suggestions:

• Ferdinand Arnodin - transporter bridge pioneer
• Captain Samuel Brown - suspension bridge pioneer
• Franz Dischinger - developer of the modern cable-stay bridge
• James Finley - suspension bridge pioneer
• Ulrich Finsterwalder - cable-stay and post-tensioning pioneer
• Riccardo Morandi - ditto Kvetner 19:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Category:Vertical lift bridges

Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 October 12#Category:Vertical lift bridges is in need of an expert to clarify whether a lift bridge, with no qualifying adjectives, is always a vertical lift bridge. Thank you. --NE2 09:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

On a related question, would a table bridge be considered a subtype of the vertical lift bridge? --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 14:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

A submersible bridge also lifts vertically - Leonard G. 15:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The vertical lift bridge article has been updated and renamed to match Category:Vertical lift bridges; I've included a reference to the table bridge on the main article. There are a few specific bridges referred to in the article which would merit a write-up, and given the length it may be appropriate for someone to produce a separate List of vertical lift bridges article. Or get rid of most of them if they are adequately covered by the category page (the problem being it gives no clue as to which are more notable - perhaps just cut down the list and rename it as 'notable vertical lift bridges'?) --Kvetner 08:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

James River Bridge

Please comment at Wikipedia:Peer review/James River Bridge/archive1. Thank you. --NE2 19:59, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Guthrie rolling bridge

I recently came across the article on Guthrie rolling bridges, and am wondering if perhaps it should be merged into retractable bridge. I will leave it as is for now, but would appreciate it if someone could explain a bit more clearly what it involves and if such a merge would be appropriate. --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 05:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

From the description it clearly seems to fit the category of retractable bridges. I'll have a look when at home for other examples that may be similar. However, I'd suggest keeping it as a separate article, there's enough information to justify this, and just tidy things up so it's clear on the Guthrie rolling bridge and retractable bridge pages that the Guthrie is one example of the type. The retractable bridge article is very short but I'm sure we could expand it with other non-Guthrie bridges. Where do floating retractable bridges fit for example (of which there are quite a few) - this would seem the right place for them?

While looking at this I had a read of the rolling bridge article - I don't like the practice of making such one-off structures a "type" (much the same is true of the tilt bridge article) as it seems fairly unlikely that these bridge types will ever be frequently re-used, particularly the rolling bridge which is exceptionally uneconomic and likely to be a maintenance nightmare later in its life.

And while I'm feeling critical, can we try to be more accurate when describing who 'constructed' or 'designed' a bridge? Thomas Heatherwick didn't construct the rolling bridge, it was built by Littlehampton Welding and designed by SKM Anthony Hunt. This seems to be a common failing on many Wikipedia bridge entries where only the architect is identified as the designer. Perhaps it would be worth considering an updated infobox that has entries for designer(s) and builder(s)? --Kvetner 08:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely. Besides, such articles tend to (or should) contain exactly the same information as the bridge article itself. At best, we need redirects - something which I see you've already been busy with. The same should probably be done with tilt bridge, as you mentioned. --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 17:02, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Guthrie rolling bridge now updated to clarify that it is a type of retractable bridge; retractable bridge updated to include various relevant examples and to cross-refer the Guthrie rolling bridge; and rolling bridge updated to cover the designers and builders and tidy up a couple of minor points. --- Kvetner 22:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I added the article on the Guthrie patent rolling bridge. I've only come across these devices associated with the Palmerston forts, so am not sure of their relevence to rolling bridges as a general design. I suspect they are also of only historical interest, as in most forts I've looked at they have been replaced with perminant structures, presumambly because the rolling bridge was not suitable for the vehicular traffic that accessed these forts in their later years. The cross links to rolling bridges are helpfull, thanks, but please retain the seperate article as it ties in with the articles on Palmerston Forts. If anyone has more information on the Guthrie design, I'd love to expand the article, especially with a sketch or photo.--Shoka 20:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

• User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory 2,
• User:Badbilltucker/Philosophy and religion Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Sports Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory/United States, (note: This page will be retitled to more accurately reflect its contents)
• User:Badbilltucker/History and society directory, and
• User:Badbilltucker/Science directory

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 20:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now put the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 23:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm wondering why the portal for WikiProject Bridges is listed as US roads. Which brings me to another important point, should we think about making a bridges portal? --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 07:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I suggest switching the portal to Transport instead, which does at least list Bridges near the bottom somewhere. Architecture would be the alternative, perhaps? Personally, I think there is plenty to do tidying up existing and missing bridge articles without creating a dedicated portal. --Kvetner 14:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Nielsen-Lohse bridges

I came across this term while searching for a bridge's type. It appears to be a valid type (see here and here, yet no page has been dedicated to it. I wonder if it is just a bridge subtype rather than a bridge type? If so, where does it belong? Jeekc 16:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

It looks like a subtype of an arch bridge to me, yet the Commons category says it's a beam bridge (not an arch bridge). I'd say it's closest to an arch bridge because the forces are transmitted through the arch. I'm not 100% sure, though. If you're interested in writing an article about Nielsen-Lohse bridges, feel free to do so, if you have any information that might help out. --Elkman - (Elkspeak) 18:17, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a subtype of the tied arch bridge where the hangers are inclined and crossing rather than vertical; it does merit an article and I've got some information on them at home so may give it a go if time permits. --Kvetner 13:58, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It would be more appropriate to make an article on the subtype “Network Arch Bridge”. The term Nielsen-Lohse Bridge comes from Japan and refers to tied arch bridges with inclined and crossing hangers. The original idea of a tied arch bridge with inclined hangers that cross each other at least twice comes from the Norwegian engineer Per Tveit. He calls this type of bridges “Network arch bridges”. He found the idea in 1955. It was brought from Europe to Japan in 1960 by Prof. Masao Naruoka. The Danish engineer O. F. Nielsen was the first to build a tied arch bridge with inclined hangers in 1926. But the hangers did not cross each other. Those bridges are Nielsen-Bridges. The German engineer H. Lohse built several bridges similar to the Saltash Bridge at late 19th century. Yet, in his bridges the tie is curved like the arch and traffic is on a third structural element hanging underneath. There is only a small similarity to the bridges called Nielsen-Lohse in Japan. There is plenty of information on the homepage of the inventor of the “Network Arch”. [2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.144.203.52 (talk • contribs)

Infobox fields

I am starting to having second thoughts about duplicating information in the Infobox and the article. Unless there isn't much info on the bridge, why not just let the users read the infobox? They almost never make for good reading in the body of the article. Cacophony 03:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Location and bridge type belongs in the body of the article, but length, age, height and such should only be included if the bridge is notable for it. --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 03:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

A general way of stating this is that if a table can clearly communicate information with a simple label it is preferable to a sentence stating the same information. -- Samuel Wantman 05:18, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

A thankyou

I wanted to thank the WikiProject Bridges team for the superb job they have done on the Bridges of the Chesapeake Bay. I was looking for info on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and got than and more; I stayed to read up on more of the bridges that formed the category. One of the pages said that the WikiProject Bridges group were responsible for creating and maintaining these excellent pages so I had to seek you out and say thanks for all your hard work in creating this resource. 195.152.54.10 13:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Category:Bridges by date nominated for deletion at CfD

This category and all its subcategories have been proposed for deletion at CfD, and the contents merged into architecture categories. Your input on this is requested here. -- Samuel Wantman 19:57, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Not anymore. Still, one useful result of all that is that now I know about a new bridge category. --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 17:10, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afriad) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 15:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Bridge Taxonomy

Seeing discrepancies in bridge type articles, where a type mentioned another as an ancestor but the latter didn't mention the former as a descendant, or vice versa, I searched for where I could find a "hierarchy" of bridge types but couldn't get any page readily (admittedly I didn't read Bridge fully -- may be I thought that's too long to read, or may be I assumed the article ended once I reached the gallery of bridges).

I happened to see the text "media:BridgeTaxonomy.jpg" and "Talk:Bridge" in a comment in the source of Beam bridge, found that Image:BridgeTaxonomy.jpg didn't exist, so googled to arrive at Image:BridgeTaxonomyBW.png, and through Talk:Bridge arrived at Image:BridgeTaxonomy.png.

Should we link one of those images from Template:BridgeTypePix so the hierarchy is more readily accessed? -- Paddu 19:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

One true bridge-type taxonomy

Image:BridgeTaxonomyBW.png and Image:BridgeTaxonomy.png have some discrepancies with each other, and Talk:Bridge#Bridge type taxonomy (proposed) has some users disagreeing with some of the links (or the absence thereof) in the two images. Can we arrive at a single consensus taxonomy by answering the following questions so all bridge-type articles could be consistent?

• Questions arising from Talk:Bridge:
  1. It looks like some people feel cable-stayed is a derivative of suspension so may be the taxonomy should reflect this (how about representing some of these relationships with dotted lines)?
  2. Inca rope is probably the same as simple suspension, so should it be removed from Image:BridgeTaxonomy.png and the taxobox at Simple suspension bridge?
  3. If moon is just a bridge style and not a bridge structure should that be mentioned in the taxonomy?
  4. Is clapper "bending and shear" only, or a mix of "compression" and "bending and shear"?
  5. Has there been original research involved in this?
• Questions arising from the differences between the 2 images:
  1. Should ford be mentioned? If so, I think we shouldn't have the "(river)" stuff which is just in the article title for disambiguation.
  2. Is step-stone an ancestor of log?
  3. Should it be suspension or suspended-deck suspension? Are there other types of suspension?
  4. Should leaf bascule, lift, submersible, retractable, swing, truss bascule, curling be mentioned in Image:BridgeTaxonomy.png or omitted in Image:BridgeTaxonomyBW.png? Are there any other bridge-types omitted in both the images?
  5. Should we have 2 images? I suppose we should just have one SVG (or at least an anti-aliased PNG) and be done with it.

-- Paddu 19:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm answering down here so as to keep the attribution clear.

• 1. The first cable-stayed bridge design was from 1784, by C T Loescher, but most of the early designs to employ stays were hybrid suspension bridges, such as the Brooklyn Bridge and Albert Bridge. Although there were a few cable-stayed bridges in the first half of the 20th century, the first widely recognised structure was the Stromsund bridge in the 1950s. So yes, I'd agree that cable-stayed bridges were historically derived from suspension bridges, rather than from box girder bridges - many cable-stayed bridges don't have box girders (and this is something I'll edit on the relevant pages when I get a moment).
  2. No opinion.
  3. No opinion.
  4. Clapper is indeed bending and shear only, as it's a very simple beam bridge. The only element in pure compression is the stone supports - and that's essentially true of any bridge that sits on supports so not especially relevant!
  5. Not sure about original research - but I haven't seen such a taxonomic diagram in any of the 80+ bridge books that I have.

For the next set of queries:

• 1. I agree that ford should remain.
  2. No opinion.
  3. I'm not sure why the suspension bridge article makes such a fuss about 'suspended-deck' terminology, I've never seen this used in the literature. Technically, you can have decks which are not suspended but still be a suspension bridge - for example, the central part of the Millennium Bridge sits on struts above the suspension cables - but these are anomalies.
  4. No opinion.
  5. No opinion. -- Kvetner 21:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Bridge Stubs

I was just wondering if there is a stub template that can be added to Mooney Mooney Bridge. I have found a few but they do not seem to be specific enough. Todd661 11:27, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Historic civil engineering landmark bridges with no articles yet

I was going through the list of Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks at the ASCE history list and comparing them to the Wikipedia articles we have. I noticed that the following bridges don't have articles yet, unless they're here under another name:

• Armour-Swift-Burlington Bridge
• Bailey Island Bridge
• Bridgeport Covered Bridge
• Bridges of Keeseville
• Bridges of Niagara
• Bunker Hill Covered Bridge
• Cabin John Aqueduct
• Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge
• Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge
• Cortland Street Drawbridge
• Duck Creek Aqueduct
• Dunlap's Creek Bridge
• Fink Deck Truss Bridge
• Fink Through Truss Bridge
• Missouri River Bridges (Chamberlain, South Dakota)
• Moseley Wrought Iron Arch Bridge
• Northampton Street Bridge
• Old Blenheim Bridge
• Ponte Maria Pia
• Salginatobel Bridge
• Second Street Bridge
• Sewall's Bridge
• Viaducto del Malleco
• Victoria Falls Bridge
• Walnut Street Bridge
• Wheeling Suspension Bridge
• Whipple Bowstring Truss Bridge
• Zhaozhou Bridge

(Actually, now that I typed in this list, some of these are showing up as blue links. I bet they aren't in Category:Historic civil engineering landmarks yet.) Since these bridges are listed as Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks, they're probably noteworthy enough to deserve articles. I'm going to work off this list as a means of creating articles, but anyone else is certainly welcome to write them. (It isn't up to me to create every article. Not by a long shot.) --Elkman 15:01, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Now-demolished bridges

There are also some bridges that were landmarks in their time but are now gone, but which heartily deserve articles. I'll list them here as and when I come across them. Only one for now but I know there are others ...

• Lansdowne Bridge over the Indus, the longest cantilever bridge when built (and the ugliest!) -- Kvetner 13:58, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Bibliography

Is it appropriate to have a bibliography section in a bridge article - a list of books, comprehensive articles, technical papers, etc. written about the bridge? - Charles 02:36, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I think inline citations are the most useful, but there are other acceptable ways to attribute sources. Cacophony 07:15, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Archiving

I note that an automatic archiving has been added to this page; do people find this helpful? It's nice to get rid of old threads, but I think there were still several useful discussions to pursue. Perhaps some of this material - landmarks that could be edited; articles on bridge engineers; etc can be moved to the main Wikiproject page from this discussion page if they merit a more permanent home? -- Kvetner 22:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I've moved the section on articles on bridge engineers (and updated it) from the archive onto the main Wikiproject page. -- Kvetner 10:53, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of the auto-archiving. I didn't think the page was too long by any means. Cacophony 07:06, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Name Change?

I am curious. The Maumee River Crossing is officially known as the Veterans' Glass City Skyway, as the article even states in the first sentence. Shouldn't the article be moved to Veterans' Glass City Skyway as this is the official name? Currently VGCS redirects to MRC. Thanks. Polypmaster 00:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The applicable guidelines state that articles should use the name most commonly known in English. If that is the "Maumee River Crossing" then the article is correctly named. -- Samuel Wantman 01:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Well actually i am not sure which it is. I know that was the original name of the project before it was named, but now that they gave it an official name I am not sure which is more common. I will look into it. Polypmaster 03:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes you may not know what the public will call a bridge until after it has been open a couple of years. The politicians may name it one thing, but that may not matter to the locals. - Charles 02:36, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I am involved in a dispute over whether two bridges in the same location can be in the same article. I wonder if there is an established approach to bridges which have been rebuilt to replace an old one which failed - for example if they are to be in the same article then should the article be named after the old bridge, new bridge or after its location? Please let me know what you think at Talk:Koror-Babeldaob Bridge. Many thanks, Phonemonkey 07:11, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

There is another famous bridge where this happened. You are probably familiar with the video of this failure and may know it as Galloping Gertie. This article contains mostly information about the fallen bridge, some information about the replacement bridge (built upon the columns of the first) and a little information about a third parallel bridge now under construction. In this instance, the fallen bridge is probably more famous than the replacement, as the debris in the water below is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. I hope this helps. - Charles 22:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Bridge failures category

Should we create a category for bridge failures? A failure is not always a disaster but there have been many of them...

I vote yes. The first Tacoma Narrows Bridge that fell during a wind storm is on the National Register of Historic Places. So bridge failures are an important part of history. - Charles 02:36, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Oops, I posted before I looked. There is a category for Engineering Failures. And one for Bridge Disasters is listed as a sub-category, which probably isn't right for the reason you give. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse was an engineering failure, while the Sunshine Skyway Bridge collapse was a man-made disaster when a ship failed to set anchor. Are there enough of each, diasters vs. failures, to warrant separation? Remember that frequently there is more than one cause that brings about a failure, look at the Angers Bridge where there is both man-made disaster (nobody knew back then to design for resonance of that many soldiers) and engineering failure (lack of maintenance). - Charles 23:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I say no. A disaster doesn't need to be an event that kills or injures anyone - it could be an economic disaster, and pretty much any failure of a bridge is such. I think separate lists would be unhelpful to readers - better to amend the current title to Bridge Failures and Disasters perhaps? -- Kvetner 08:08, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there are enough articles to warrant dividing the already meager bridge disasters category. Cacophony 07:06, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Irrespective of the number of articles, it would be wrong to put Category:Bridge disasters under Category:Engineering failures since cases like the Sunshine Skyway Bridge collapse aren't engineering failures. The options are:

1. Categorise Category:Bridge disasters under Category:Man-made disasters and add Category:Engineering failures to those and only those articles under Category:Bridge disasters which are really engineering failures.
2. Categorise Category:Bridge disasters under Category:Man-made disasters, create a category Category:Bridge engineering failures under both Category:Engineering failures and Category:Bridge disasters, and replace Category:Bridge disasters with Category:Bridge engineering failures in those and only those articles under Category:Bridge disasters which are really engineering failures.

I'm inclined towards the second option since I intuitively feel that improves clarity, and because I feel the number of "bridge disaster" articles will grow significantly. -- Paddu 22:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree. I think there will be endless debate about what is a "man made disaster" and what's an "engineering failure". Bridges are routinely designed to withstand unlikely but catastrophic events. In the case of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, I would regard it as an engineering failure - it should have been designed to withstand ship collision, as most bridges over the sea or major rivers are. Was the Tacoma Narrows collapse a disaster or a bridge engineering failure - to me it was both. -- Kvetner 11:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Is a bridge being blown up by bombs also an engineering failure?

Even if you don't want to debate about what is an engineering failure, you would have to put Category:Bridge disasters under Category:Man-made disasters instead of Category:Engineering failures.

Also note that if there is no consensus about whether a bridge disaster was an engineering failure, we can put only a Category:Bridge disasters and mention engineering failures only in cases where there is consensus. No need to debate endlessly. [We can never have all the possible categories that somebody would think of in an article, only those which are accepted by a consensus.] -- Paddu 23:05, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Kvetner, just to clarify... All engineering failures worth an article are considered disasters (whether fatal to lives or just economic or whatever). Category:Engineering failures is under Category:Man-made disasters and I am not questioning that. -- Paddu 23:12, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

On bombing, few if any bridges are designed to resist it, so I would regard it as a disaster but not an engineering failure. But if you look at the current list of bridge disasters, the vast majority are engineering failures: Tacoma, Dee Bridge, Tay Bridge, Sunshine Skyway, the various box girder collapses, all the early suspension bridge collapses etc. I think if you go down your proposed route pretty much every article will just end up in both Category:Bridge disasters and also Category:Bridge engineering failures. I see that as somewhat redundant and unlikely to assist readers. But it would be good to hear other views. -- Kvetner 11:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

A parent category of a category added to an article should NEVER be added to it. There is no redundancy if you just add Category:Bridge engineering failures, which would be a subcategory of Category:Engineering failures as well as Category:Bridge disasters.

If you think we don't have any articles about "bridge disasters that are not engineering failures" and are not going to have any in the near future, delete (or at least depopulate) Category:Bridge disasters and have only Category:Bridge engineering failures. In other words, rename Category:Bridge disasters to Category:Bridge engineering failures.

If in the future we have an article on a bridge disaster where it isn't clear whether or not that is an engineering failure, we could add that article to Category:Bridge disasters.

A first step on the way to either options proposed by me is to categorise Category:Bridge disasters under Category:Man-made disasters for now, which I would like to do ASAP since the phrase "bridge disaster" doesn't imply an engineering failure and causes all the disaster vs. failure confusion expressed by others above. -- Paddu 20:36, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I would not consider the Sunshine Skyway to be an engineering failure. I am confident it was designed to the level of ship collision standard for bridges at the time of construction. Engineering like this is a balance of risk versus cost.

Consider the wooden utility poles that line every city street that you drive down. There is a risk that you hit one in a car accident and die. However, the spacing of the poles, the speed you drive on city streets, the curb that it sits behind, and other factors help reduce this risk to a small level that the cost of burying the electric and phone lines is too great to eliminate the final amount of risk (and even then the risk would translate to fire hydrants, mailboxes, etc.).

The current design code for ship collision, the AASHTO Guide Specification, has three methods to use depending on the importance of the bridge structure: deterministic, risk analysis, or cost benefit analysis. So even a bridge designed today could see a collision that exceeds its design. So my point is that if the engineer designed for and met the level of risk required at the time of design, why would an event that exceeds that risk be an engineering failure?

If you consider the Skyway an engineering failure, would you consider the World Trade Center to be an engineering failure because it wasn't designed for the fire caused by a loaded Boeing 767, only for the impact force of a 707.

To me the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse was an engineering failure. In this instance, designers were continuing to push the limits of suspension bridge design by making the deck sections more and more slender until, WHAM, nature told them they went too far. This web page says it best: it was not a failure of the designer of Tacoma Narrows, but of the entire bridge engineering profession. The failure was that engineers did not realize that the same forces that would lift a plane into the sky would lift a bridge vertically. (Look at this page, too.) The knowledge existed, but it was beyond their reach to tie the information together. After the Tacaoma Narrows collapse, older bridges were retrofitted to reduce their risk for the same type of failure.

I do agree that we need categorization that reduces chance for disagreement over whether the disaster is natural or an engineering failure. - SCgatorFan 16:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Even if the Sunshine Skyway bridge was designed to ship collision to the standard current at the time, this would not prevent it being an engineering failure. Tacoma Narrows was designed to the standards of its time; the Millennium Bridge (London) was designed to the standards of its time; but both were engineering failures. Your point about wooden utility poles makes the same point - my own firm is currently designing utility supports out of latticework so that the risk of a fatal collision is much reduced - what was yesterday's acceptable risk or standard practice is seen as inaequate by today's designer. The World Trade Center collapse is similarly arguable - the NIST report has been contested and its exoneration of the design is not accepted by all engineers.

The point is that even these seemingly clear-cut cases are all arguable, and I think the same will be true of a large number of articles involved here. -- Kvetner 22:03, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say we would not have any articles about "bridge disasters that are not engineering failures". I said the majority would be both. I don't believe a Category:Bridge engineering failures would be better than the status quo - if you read back, I said I'd be happy with the status quo, or if change were supported, with a new category Category:Bridge disasters and failures. At the moment though, you need to find more support for your proposal before making any change at all. -- Kvetner 16:28, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

You say it is arguable whether a bridge disaster is an engineering failure or not but still want "bridge disasters" to be under "engineering failures" as if all bridge disasters are engineering failures, contradicting yourself. I'm going ahead with categorising bridge disasters under man-made disasters since it is obvious to all of us here that not all bridge disasters are engineering failures. If anybody wants a specific category for bridges under "engineering failures", call that something other than "bridge disasters". -- Paddu 04:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I have enough support already to categorise "bridge disasters" under "man-made disasters" (i.e. the first step). You yourself have said that the majority of these incidents are disasters.

You still seem to be arguing about "both". Please read more about "parent categories" in Wikipedia. If X is under Category:Y, X is deemed to be under all the parent categories of Category:Y and hence these need not be added to X separately. There is no way something could be a "bridge engineering failure" but not a "bridge disaster". The latter is a parent of the former. It is obvious that either something could be a "bridge engineering failure" or it could be both. Since we don't want to have a separate category for "bridge engineering failures" for now, we should just put all the articles under Category:Bridge disasters, which is what has been done. -- Paddu 04:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I am finding this discussion increasingly difficult because you seem intent on suggesting I am arguing things that I am not. I did not suggest bridge disasters should be under engineering failures - I say we should keep the status quo unless there is consensus for change. So far that consensus is just you, and I intend to revert any changes you make until you demonstrate wider support, or indeed any support at all. You do not need to be patronising about parent categories - I understand the point perfectly well. You suggest there is no way something could be a bridge engineering failure but not a bridge disaster, but the Millennium Bridge is an example of precisely that, again demonstrating that the distinctions you make are artificial and unhelpful. -- Kvetner 07:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Our categorisation scheme puts "engineering failures" under "man-made disasters". If you say there can be engineering failures that aren't disasters, we should have a wider discussion to rethink whether "engineering failures" should be a sub-cat of "man-made disasters".

I've asked the question if it is appropriate to have "engineering failures" as a sub-cat of "man-made disasters" at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disaster management#Bridge disasters categorisation. Not sure if that page has a "wide enough" audience, though. -- Paddu 20:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Since you had said disasters need not necessarily result in loss of life and could be e.g., economic disasters, I thought there was no opposition to the statement "all engineering failures are disasters". -- Paddu 19:52, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

As this discussion is in danger of departing from WP:CIVIL I will note that I am somewhat supportive of your reclassification of "bridge disasters" out of "engineering failures" into "man-made disasters" - however I have reverted it as I would expect you to await consensus here before going ahead and unilaterally making a change where there has been a clear dispute.

I would say you seem to be determined to revert whatever I do, even if you agree with it. That is just a bad-faith edit, to revert something you agree with just because I proposed something else that you didn't agree with.

I have made a clear proposal to change the category "Bridge disasters" to "Bridge disasters and failures" - while you going ahead and changing what you like in the absence of any consensus doesn't prevent this outcome, it shows precisely where the "bad faith" lies.

I think you should resolve your other suggestion (creation of "bridge engineering failures" as a sub-category of "engineering failures") first (which I don't support) so that we can see what the end result will be before making any changes.

That doesn't have support now, so I'm not bothered about that.

It may be appropriate to call for a brief vote on the affected category talk pages - with a pointer back to this discussion.

It is almost always inappropriate to call for a vote. m:polls are evil.

It is also almost always appropriate to seek consensus first when your edits have been disputed, but you seem less interested in that one.

It seems to me that the two issues can be separated, but I would still prefer a change to a "bridge disasters and failures" category, which could be a sub-cat of both "man-made disasters" and "engineering failures", for the reasons already explained - to avoid pointless debates about what is a failure, what a disaster, and what is both.

Again, please read about parent categories. It doesn't make sense to have a category be an explicit sub-cat of both "engineering failures" and its parent "man-made disasters". It should be a sub-cat of only one of them.

I suggest you read Wikipedia:Categorization#Categories do not form a tree where it states clearly that "Each Wikipedia article can appear in more than one category, and each category can appear in more than one parent category." You will find examples of that throughout Wikipedia. If it is a problem in this instance it is only because "engineering failures" is an inappropriate sub-cat of "man-made disasters" - as already noted, there are clearly examples of failure which are not disasters.

I would also ask that you address my other point - how do these changes benefit the readers?

The change I made does benefit the readers since otherwise they will think we are suggesting all bridge disasters are engineering failures, which would either have them confused about what we are trying to say, or decide that our categorisation is flawed. As a reader, I found it flawed to categorise bridge disasters under engineering failures, so I expressed my view for categorising it under man-made disasters, irrespective of what other categories may be introduced.

My suggested scheme makes clear that failures and disasters are both of interest, that it is difficult always to disentangle them, and creates a home where interested readers can find more examples of both. That seems more pragmatically useful to me than expecting surgically precise categorisation.

The other suggested change, to have a category for "bridge engineering failures" would benefit the readers, as opposed to having "bridge disasters" as well as "engineering failures" in most of these articles, since we would be able to have clear categorisation without listing too many categories in article pages. If you choose that we do neither, I'm OK with it. If the number of articles grows, smaller categories would eventually be created.

As argued repeatedly above, you would not have clear categorisation because there will be disputes over what is a failure and what isn't - we've already had some here just in the course of trying to clarify things. Again to refer you back to the page I noted above about categorisation: "Multiple categorization schemes co-exist simultaneously." There is no need for everything to be subdivided precisely.

Categorisation for the sake of it is in my view a distraction from improving the articles themselves, many of which would benefit from further work.

I can't contribute towards improving the articles themselves as I don't know much about the topic. Hence I'm helping with what I can, i.e. categorisation. Those knowledgeable in the topic might be able to devote time towards improving the articles rather than categorisation. That's perfectly OK.

I find it disappointing that you see the need to make changes in an area that you know little about, especially given that you can't be bothered to seek a consensus amongst those who are active in this area when your proposals are disputed. It seems to me that the problem is with the "engineering failures" and "man-made disasters" categories, and that the position of bridges within this is something of a red herring. However I will have to bow out as I feel this discussion is going in circles and benefitting our fellow Wikipedians far too little. This whole discussion has been something of a disaster, or perhaps a failure?

I would suggest vote on 3 options:

• rename "bridge disasters" to "bridge disasters and failures"
• if rejected, move "bridge disasters" to "man-made disasters" and out of "engineering failures"
• create "bridge engineering failures" as a sub-cat of "engineering failures" -- Kvetner 08:16, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Again, polls are evil. -- Paddu 19:27, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I would refer you to WP:CON where their use in trying to elicit consensus is discussed. So far this discussion has just been you, me and a couple of others, with no clear views expressed other than us too (apologies if someone has and I missed it). -- Kvetner 20:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm certainly a late entry into this, as I've been responding to disaster in my community in the last few weeks. I see this thread as a question of how we define Disaster? I lean toward a definition with three criteria: events which "overwhelm the local emergency response capability", "active threat of loss to life, property, or environment", and "are relatively unexpected". For me, all 3 must be true to be a disaster. I believe disasters should be labeled by object, and categorized by cause, with the effect (loss) being the element of the event that makes it worth recording. A lot of structural failures are expensive, but the event does not overwelm the local emergency response capability neither in terms of financial loss nor lives. Sorry if that muddies the water, but its seems to me that the provided definition might lead to crystalization of concensus. --Parradoxx 16:06, 25 May 2007 (UTC)