Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 53

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I'm done with the Upper Peninsula

Michigan's Upper Peninsula has 15 counties and 309 listings. I've been amusing myself by plugging through them, both with articles and images (with other people contributing substantially, of course). The area is about 80% illustrated, with half the counties fully illustrated and the rest nearly so; most of the missing images are in Iron County.

All but 4 of the 309 total listings are accounted for with an article. Seventy-one of those are in the "group article" Iron County MRA; the rest have stand-alone articles. These are mostly start-class, with a few stubs and a few C-class articles thrown in. For the four listings without an article, I couldn't find enough information to justify writing an article. However, I did put a short summary on the NRHP county list page for all 309 properties, including those four.

Here's a summary table:

Upper Peninsula listings

County	Total listings	Image	AR Image	No Image	Summary	Individual Article	Group Article	No Article
Gogebic	10	7		3	10	10
Ontonagon	5	5			5	5
Iron	79	45		34	79	8	71
Houghton	38	38			38	38
Keweenaw	34	34			34	34
Baraga	8	6	1	1	8	8
Dickinson	7	4	3		7	4		3
Marquette	34	30		4	34	34
Menominee	11	11			11	11
Delta	15	10	3	2	15	15
Alger	13	13			13	13
Schoolcraft	5	5			5	5
Luce	1	1			1	1
Mackinac	24	17	4	3	24	24
Chippewa	25	20	1	4	25	24		1
TOTAL	309	246	12	51	309	234	71	4

So in conclusion...yay me? I'm reasonably proud of writing these articles, although my main purpose was to learn about the interesting history of the area. Andrew Jameson (talk) 11:49, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Amen—yay you! This kind of progress is exciting; it's exactly the sort of thing we ought to be encouraging around here. Good show. Ntsimp (talk) 12:37, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Bravo! Any Iron County UPers around here to finish the whole thing off? Smallbones (talk) 12:45, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

You've done a great job with both articles and high quality images, Andrew! When I drove to the UP I saw that you had already photographed almost everything in my path, except when I got far off the main path in Houghton County. And a big thank you for not just putting up quick stub articles with almost no content in them like I continue to see others do - you did it right by spending the time to write a real article. Royalbroil 13:16, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Very nice indeed, maybe it would be possible to get some of the list to featured list status? Multichill (talk) 19:59, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Please check presentation

I'm giving a 20 minute presentation at Wikimania and have made a slide show

of How to work with WP:NRHP. Given the time, I already have too much content in the slides (and too many of my own pix :-o ), but I'd love to hear what to take out or re-word.

Any help appreciated.

Smallbones (talk) 01:26, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

On slide 2 you say "is arm", should be "is an arm". Also, would mention the problem with the official site and how one should use elkman's site to get the shell of an initial article page and talk page. PumpkinSky talk 01:02, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Hey, how did the presentation go? It seems to have happened today. Was anybody from the U.S. government there, like any of the National Register staff? Your presentation looked good, anyhow, hope it was well received. --doncram 19:31, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Did you upload it to Commons Smallbones? Multichill (talk) 20:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I thought the presentation went quite well. I didn't upload to Commons, I don't know that the links are supported with one of our file types, but it is publicly available and cc-by-3.0 at How to work with WP:NRHP and is also at http://wikilovesmonuments.us/contest/ Smallbones (talk) 20:07, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

There's a YouTube video of it now, just the first 20 minutes. Smallbones (talk) 14:02, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/St. Boniface Cemetery, Wrought-Iron Cross Site

Please have a look. I do not feel myself qualified enough.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:02, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up on this issue, Yaroslav. I tried to put in some reasonable comments, but to my surprise there seems to be an edit war at the core of this AfD nomination that has resulted in a surprising conclusion: no consensus for the statement "NRHP listing is enough to satisfy Wikipedia's notability guidelines". I hope the resulting damage to the reputation of this NRHP Wikiproject is limited to North Dakota! Jane (talk) 09:04, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's quite that bad yet. It seems to me that there's more of a tug-of-war over whether geolocating implies that each location needs its own article. Mangoe (talk) 12:58, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

It could go beyond "geolocating," and end the blanket NRHP notability assumption. I will give an example. Please do not get into a lengthy discussion about the example. Every analogy is imperfect.

One (not me) could make the argument that we don't need about 75 articles on Three-Decker Buildings in Worcester (See National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester, Massachusetts). Many are among the 86 Three-Deckers on the Worcester Three-Decker TR. Most seem to be from a February 09, 1990 batch of listings. Looking at a few of these articles shows that they are two sentences, an infobox, and maybe a photo. One (not me) could say we need one really good article and a list. The individual pages could all be referred to the list. All the arguments about geolocating, lack of individual notability, predictions of the articles never being expanded, etc., can apply to Worcester Three-Deckers.

On the other hand, one can make a good article on a group of NRHP listings. For example, see Boundary Markers of the Original District of Columbia. This is an article with many individual listed sites. The article does not give the NRHP reference number, exact day of listing, geocoordinates, or infobox. People could argue both ways on whether this is preferred to individual articles. It is like arguing whether Cherry Garcia® or Chunky Monkey® is the better tasting ice cream!

Let's think carefully about the notability issue. KudzuVine (talk) 16:37, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Notability is always about sources, right? Certain topics traditionally get a presumption of notability, but this can be overcome if the sources are shown not to exist. I've read a good share of the NRHP nomination forms for Utah sites by now, and while most of them have a bibliography section that IMHO establishes notability, there are some that don't. I'll come right out and say it: not every NRHP-listed property meets the criteria of notability to have its own Wikipedia article. No big deal. We can handle that, can't we? Ntsimp (talk) 18:29, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

We have to maintain a strong presumption that every NRHP site is notable. On the other hand even if the NE #7 boundary stone in DC is notable enough for its own article, it may be much more convenient to readers if it is presented as part of the article with the other 39 stones, since much of the information is overlapping. Sometimes it just isn't a question of notability. Not knowing much about the Worchester 3-deckers, I'd guess they all are individually notable. There are inconsistencies in the way the NRHP lists sites into historic districts, TRs, and even dozens of statues spread out all over Washington, DC listed as only 2 separate sites (Revolutionary and Civil War era statues). I think we can work our way through these using good judgement. As far as 75 (or more) crosses, listed in 14 (or more) cemeteries, I'd think 14 articles on the cemeteries would be a good starting solution. Smallbones (talk) 19:21, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

It's unclear to me how the cemeteries in question were selected for articles since there is no list of cemeteries in the nomination form linked to in the articles ([1]), which gives a list of towns and counties(all or part of twenty-odd of the latter). Mangoe (talk) 21:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Interesting question. Seeing that each of these articles includes an infobox that lists a NRHP ID number, I imagine that the articles were developed by describing the details entered in the NRIS database. Additionally, it appears that the MPS (which is presumably named in NRIS) was scraped in order to be able to add statements like 'In other iron cross sites the work can be traced to specific "German-Russian blacksmiths in central North Dakota" who developed individual styles in their crosses and whose "work was known for miles around them".' --Orlady (talk) 21:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd guess using the nrhp.focus.nps.gov website and searching with search term Wrought-Iron Cross Site. Doncram might answer that. --Matthiasb (talk) 23:58, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

As you can see from my current agenda at my userpage, or from my contributions, I am creating articles on List of RHPs in ND. I created one Grand Forks county iron cross site last year. Noticing others, and finding the corresponding MPS document (listed at wp:MPS, I found it efficient to create all the ones having "iron cross" in their names together. If i had created them one-by-one as I arrived upon them working county-by-county, like others have developed some other state lists, no one would have noticed. And I also would have been less likely to get in uniform categories and use of the MPS reference. --doncram 00:10, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Matthiasb, I suspect you're wrong. Focus should reveal that, but it's really crummy a lot of the time; I'm often searching for sites that I know exist (sometimes copy/pasting information from NRIS!), and it still tells me that there's nothing — even though sometimes I simply request a list of all the sites in a county that has plenty of listings. Nyttend (talk) 00:17, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Speaking generally (i.e., not specifically about the wrought iron crosses), there was some discussion about inherent notability a year or so ago: Are all NRHP buildings inherently notable ENOUGH to justify a stand alone article?. Majority opinion at the time was that nearly all NRHP sites are notable, but not necessarily all sites are notable. For me, the dividing line for inherent notability comes between individually nominated sites and those nominated as part of an MPS. Anything individually nominated is inherently notable; properties nominated as part of an MPS are likely notable, but not necessarily automatically notable. As an example of NRHP properties that I think are not individually notable, see the Iron County MRA. It's unlikely that most of the private houses on that MPS are truly notable; the information on them appears to come from a single source and I doubt they would individually pass Wikipedia's notability threshold. (Which isn't to say nothing on that MPS is individually notable; I suspect a determined local historian could make a notability case for many or most of the structures.) Andrew Jameson (talk) 11:18, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

architects, builders, engineers articles needed

At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Architects2009a is a working list of 900 NRIS spellings for persons who are architects, builders, or engineers. Help connecting to pre-existing articles, help identifying states in which persons work, or help creating new articles where needed, would be appreciated. This relates to 0 articles in Category:NRHP architects, 0 articles in Category:NRHP builders, 0 articles in Category:NRHP engineers.

I've started a lot of these articles. In the past i encountered one or two cases where another editor was just about to start one that I did. If you had plans or want to make plans to create a given architect's article, please say so in the comments/other column! --doncram 04:50, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Blue pic of Hardin County Courthouse (Ohio) by editor Nyttend, designed by Richards, McCarty & Bulford

I could use some verbal support here, and/or at Template talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places#architect=, builder=, engineer= parameters, about this effort being central or at least helpful to the purposes of this WikiProject.

For one example, Richards, McCarty & Bulford started today by me. Starting this article enables the firm to be linked from 4 pre-existing and at least 13 future articles, and supporting clear identification now as an architect rather than as a builder or an engineer or anything else. The 4 pre-existing NRHP place articles used 3 variations of the firm's name (misspelling of McCarty as McCarthy; misspelling of Richards as Richard), and all 4 are are now finally linked for reader's ease (to this new article). The pre-existing articles, now improved by these links, were: Carnegie Public Library (Anderson, Indiana), Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Lassen Hotel (Wichita, Kansas), and Hardin County Courthouse (Ohio). There are currently 13 other NRHP-listed places which are red-links and whose articles will naturally link here. Creating the architect article now provides for the NRHP place articles to be more immediately connected, better articles from the get-go.

Also, creating architect-builder-engineer articles provides for improvements/corrections to existing articles, such as corrections of spellings and such as corrections of identifications of architect vs. other types. Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Peter, Rhinebeck, New York, for example, is an article corrected by me today where a builder named McCarty was misidentified in an infobox as an architect, since 2009. I really really don't fault the article's creator at all about this, because the initial 2009 article was clearly a great contribution, but we can be systematic about improving use of the NRIS database now by applying ourselves to the architect vs. builder vs. engineer vs. other distinctions. The first, best thing to do, IMO, is to start articles about the most common names given in NRIS's architect/builder/engineer field.

There have been previous disputes regarding use of NRIS and inaccurate information in NRIS; this is a systematic effort to permanently, non-rancorously resolve these issues. I know that creating bio articles is not everyone's cup of tea. But again I would appreciate some mild statements of support for this to be done within this wikiproject, even if you don't want to do it yourself. Sincerely, --doncram 18:32, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think this activity is certainly very important and much appreciated.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:35, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Relevant categories?

I imagine this has been discussed before, but has the project considered constructing categories for years in which sites are added to, or removed from, the Register? Are these years even relevant? Would it be helpful to group additions and removals by year together? If these categories would be useful, I'd be happy to assist with their construction (Category:2007 additions to the National Register of Historic Places, for example?). If years or addition/removal are not importance or encyclopedic, I understand. --Another Believer _(Talk) 16:26, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I've thought of the same thing but never gotten around to doing anything about it. The year of being listed on the NR is sufficiently defining for categorisation standards (for most NR-listed places, it's the only reason that they pass WP:N), since it's just another type of creation/recognition that is frequently a basis for categorisation. I believe that it would be helpful to be able to group additions for a single year and am thus willing to support your proposal, although I'd suggest "Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in [year]" and "Delisted..." for the names. Each year's category would appropriately be made a subcategory for that year's US establishments category, such as Category:1978 establishments in the United States, which already contains at least one NR-listed article that is included because of its historic designation. If we gain consensus for these categories, a bot request would be simple: it could look for the year given in the infobox and add the appropriate category. As far as boundary increases and other things that aren't exactly new listings, I believe that we could overlook them, since it would be confusing to have multiple "Listed in [year]" categories (with the exception of sites like the Gramelspacher-Gutzweiler House, which was listed, delisted, and relisted) and not particularly helpful to have another category for the boundary increase. Nyttend (talk) 17:49, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for replying. I agree with your thoughts. I was not sure if the categories needed to begin with the year or not; your suggestion seems appropriate. No need to include boundary increases, or have multiple "List in [year]" categories unless they were listed, delisted, then relisted as you mentioned. I'd be happy to set up categories by year (assuming NRHP members like this proposal). Bot-assisted categorization would be great, though I know nothing about bot programming or the approval process. --Another Believer _(Talk) 18:31, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

If others agree, the course to take would be to go to WP:BOTR, file a request, point here for consensus supporting the categories, and you're done. Your request would need to specify the desired names for the categories, the code to be placed on each category (since we might as well request that the bot create them), the method by which the bot should to find the year to add (simply use the year that appears in the "added" parameter of {{Infobox nrhp}}, as long as only one year was given), and any other related tasks. Perhaps you could request that the bot also add a hidden maintenance category, something like "NRHP articles with ambiguous listing year category", to pages that either (1) are in a "National Register of Historic Places in [place]" or "[building type] on the National Register of Historic Places in [place]" category, but don't have an infobox, or (2) either have the infobox but lack a year that the bot could use or have the infobox but have multiple years, such as boundary increases and places that were delisted and later relisted. Nyttend (talk) 01:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we need a bot request; I'm pretty sure we can do this using the infobox itself. I'll try to work something up shortly.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 12:23, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Dudemanfellabra's willingness to program this into the nrhp infobox is great, better than 38,000 edits in articles manually adding the categories. But, would such categories really be of reader interest or encyclopedic importance? I don't feel strongly about it, but I think not, personally. Another Believer, opening this discussion, doesn't really argue for them. Nyttend's view above is supporting, but is it just faint agreement along the lines that it is just technically possible? There do already exist extensive categories for NRHP listings by geography and by various types (bridges, churches/other places of religious nature, etc.), which seem more plausibly of interest to at least some readers, to me. Also I would like for there to be some way for readers to navigate among NRHP architects, NRHP builders, NRHP engineers, perhaps, if suitable wording could be worked out (not easy, apparent in recent CFD). But does anyone strongly feel that year-of-NRHP listing would be of reader interest? Or would such categories be of administrative interest for us, in some way? I am not categorically opposed, Nyttend or others if you want to do this, but I don't observe really positive interest either. I don't really get how Wikipedia works in deciding what categories are worthwhile vs. not-worthwhile, actually. --doncram 12:59, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I personally would find the categories useful. I think they'd give insight into the activity of the NRHP organization itself over time. Or maybe insight into which properties are "most" notable (i.e. which ones already have articles because someone out there took the time to create it).

Usefulness aside, I've come up with a way to auto-categorize the year categories; it's in the sandbox. If |added= is set to something other than a date, an error is triggered, and the article is put in Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup, an established error-catching category that is currently used for catching infoboxes without refnums, as well as other things I believe. If |added= is set to a date (and |nocat=, which disables ALL automatic categorization in the infobox, is not set to some non-empty value), Category:Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in YYYY is added to the article.

The only downside to this that I can immediately see is that many editors like to include citations in the |added= field, the most common citation being {{NRISref}}. This auto-categorization doesn't like the citation being there and would trigger an error. That means the cleanup category would blow up overnight. This could be remedied by making a new parameter, possibly |added_ref=, and bot-moving the citation into there. Or we could just move the citation to somewhere else in the infobox/article.

Because my method would also require a bot (unless someone can get around the citation problem?), it may be desirable to just go with the bot first. My method, though, would automatically categorize all future NRHP articles, even those created by people that haven't read this thread. The single bot run now wouldn't.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 13:27, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Dudemanfellabra. Perhaps we should hit the pause button on implementation and first address doncram's comment. I find myself curious about other sites listed for a particular year, but I DO want to make sure there is a need for these categories and/or obtain consensus that year categories are encyclopedic/valuable. I don't want to overcategorize, but when I glance at categories for a given NRHP site I would love to see (among other categories): year established, year added to the Register, year delisted from the Register, year demolished, etc. I realize this scenario is not applicable to many sites, but my point is that providing a lifespan for the site is relevant. I would like to obtain feedback from other contributors before moving forward with a bot request.

Dudemanfellabra, I like the idea of incorporating the "added" parameter. I have no problem with manually integrating the parameter over time, but you would know better than I the amount of difficulty the project would face trying to clean up the errors. For the record, I am also not opposed to creating the categories myself and having them available for contributors to add to articles manually over time (in other words, leaving out the automation process). I have zero experience using bots and know nothing about which tasks are worth having them perform. I am just used to adding other NRHP categories manually and expected to do the same for "year listed/delisted" categories. --Another Believer _(Talk) 18:37, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I concur with the proposed categorization.--Pubdog (talk) 20:40, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Nyttend, you stated the following above: "Each year's category would appropriately be made a subcategory for that year's US establishments category, such as Category:1978 establishments in the United States..." -- I do not think this is correct, or perhaps I am misunderstanding. The category "Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978" would not be a subcategory of "1978 establishments in the United States", as the site was not established then... it was probably established much sooner. Right? --Another Believer _(Talk) 21:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Category:Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 should be a subcategory of Category:1978 establishments in the United States because the historic site designation was established in 1978. If we create these categories, the fact that they'll refer specifically to the designation instead of to the subject thereof means that we should ignore the year when the subject of the designation was established. Responding to Doncram above — this should not be a maintenance category or otherwise a project category. I don't see how this set of categories would be particularly helpful for any purposes except that of reading the article and trying to find other places given the same designation in the same year, which (unlike categories for architects of NR properties) is both relevant to the reader and a defining topic for the subject of the article. Nyttend (talk) 17:56, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Any other thoughts? --Another Believer _(Talk) 16:26, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

To keep the discussion going...I still see no specific strong support. Editor Dudemanfellabra's willingness to help technically is commendable, but about the usefulness D gives only mild support ("I personally would find the categories useful. I think they'd give insight into the activity of the NRHP organization itself over time. Or maybe insight into which properties are "most" notable (i.e. which ones already have articles because someone out there took the time to create it).") Those insights could be obtained by a couple of one-time custom reports out of the NRIS database addressing all of the NRHP-listed properties, which any one of several database programmers present could provide. I do agree that such reports could potentially be useful to add to the National Register of Historic Places article. But "Wikipedia is not a Computer" perhaps should be asserted; any partial report of totals of NRHP listings by year based on how many currently have wikipedia articles would be entirely useless and not reportable in mainspace. Reasons for support are not explained by editor Pubdog's "!vote" above.

I wonder, are there year-by-year categories for Olympics medal recipients, for Nobel prize-winners, or perhaps more directly relevant, for World Heritage Site listings by the United Nations' committee on that? --doncram 20:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Since you asked me to comment here I will. Categories should be defining for the subject. I don't see how when a district was listed is in any way defining. It's more a matter of when someone got the nomination approved and the application was submitted. If the application was submitted in 2011 and approved on January 2, 2012, this proposal would place it in 2012. Why is 2012 notable for the district? Vegaswikian (talk) 06:06, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Help with abbreviated lists and GeoGroupTemplate

Hi all: Yesterday I prepared a photos needed list on Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Allegany County, New York. Later, I removed some entries that originally needed photos because I subsequently found photos for them. They are: South Street Historic District (Cuba, New York) (16), Main Street Historic District (Cuba, New York) (12), McKinney Stables of Empire City Farms (13), and Friendship Free Library (11). For some strange reason, when I generate the Google or Bing maps from the Talk page, these entries continue to appear on the map. This did not happen to me when I did something similar with Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Chautauqua County, New York. Any ideas why these "ghost" entries continue to appear on the Allegany map and what I may be doing wrong? Thanks in advance.--Pubdog (talk) 09:49, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The coordinates tool is hosted on the toolserver, so the problem is there, not with anything you did. It appears the default action of the link is to use any caches that were created recently (presumably to minimize bandwidth). This default behavior is controlled by the parameter "usecache"; the tool uses a cache if the parameter value is set to 1. To keep the tool from using this cache, I removed that parameter and requeried, thus creating a new kml file. Works fine for me now. I'm not sure how often the cache is reset, but if you manually want to reset it after a recent edit, just remove that parameter from the Google Maps URL when it opens, and everything should work from then on.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 10:46, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Dudemanfellabra for that info, and thanks Pubdog for asking. I have been stuck amidst splitting out a downtown St. Louis list from the too-big List of RHPs in St. Louis, because I could not get the maps to update. I see now that, to get a Bing map to work, removing the "%26usecache%3D1" string from the end of the URL also works. This information is worth putting into the FAQ (is it at wp:NRHPfaq or wp:nrhpFAQ?), since the question has seemed relevant for >1 persons! Thanks. --doncram 13:28, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Added. And for future reference, Doncram, usually shortcuts are all upper case.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 14:12, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Another simple way to do it — generate your map, and then simply truncate the URL by removing &usecache=1 from the end. This will force it to forget about the cache and to use the current version of the page. Nyttend (talk)

...Is this not exactly what Doncram and I said?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 03:10, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to all for your helpful advice and insight.--Pubdog (talk) 09:46, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Oops, you're right. I was reading too fast and got lost in the explanation of what was happening, so I overlooked your explanation of how to resolve it. Nyttend (talk) 00:15, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

You guys have solved a mystery that has been plaguing me for a long time. I should have asked! Some comments:

• toolserver is having some problems that may make this difficult for the next few weeks. see Wikipedia:VPT#Toolserver_replag
• I know that at least a few folks keep personal lists like this in their sandboxes. Unless there is something very special they are doing with those lists, I'll suggest everybody just put them on the regular list talk page, like Pubdog did above. That way there won't be duplication and anybody can use the list.
• Does anybody have a FAST way to make one of these lists? I usually just search for the text "image=" to highlight the entries with pix. It's not that slow, but...
• When Multichill put in the new table format (that looks just like the old table format) he promised some quicky search features. He's definitely very busy right now with Wikipedia Loves Monuments, but if he or any body else has a quicky answer to what these are, I'd love to see some in action. BTW at Wikmania he (?) told me that 43% of NRHP sites have photos, so I do believe there are some of these features that we haven't been using.
• I noticed that Pubdog borrowed and improved some of my text for the "photos needed" lists. I'll suggest one more improvement as a "standard" (if anybody needs a standard) (section heading) "Photos needed - not necessarily complete or accurate 07/26/12" (text) This is just an aid for finding unphotographed sites. Do not add photos here, rather add the photos on the article page and remove the photographed listings on this page."
• While I don't recommend this as a project priority (please concentrate on taking pix and writing articles!), having some more of these "photos needed" lists would be helpful for the upcoming Wikipedia Loves Monuments - United States (WLM-US) photo contest, that will run Sept 1- Sept 30. BTW, we are very likely to get a ton of photos in September. Please do remember that one of the main purposes is to recruit new editors and photographers to Wikipedia (not just to WP:NRHP), and that we were all newbies once. If anybody sees anything that is or threatens to be disruptive that is related to WLM-US, please contact me right away (more on WLM-US soon)

Smallbones (talk) 17:16, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Response to your first statement — my own personal lists would be irrelevant. My lists include all sites that I've not photographed myself, including ones that other Wikipedians (or HABS, Flickr photographers, etc.) have already photographed. As well, my Ohio lists include lists of articles that need to be written and expanded. I'm rather surprised that we've hit 43%; Indiana's mostly done (I've visited over 75% of sites myself), but there are so many states with virtually nothing. Nyttend (talk) 04:15, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Google Earth

Has anyone else noticed that Google Earth now shows geocoded redlinks from county lists? This seems extremely useful for scouting photographs, though the first one I noticed was several miles from where it should have been, the fault of the NPS database. Acroterion (talk) 15:47, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

This sounds very interesting. Could you give some detail on the mechanics involved? I haven't used Google Earth for trip planning, using Google Maps and Bing instead. (One quick problem, though I generally prefer GM over Bing for most things, the GM pointers disappear when I print them from toolserver, so I'm stuck with Bing). Perhaps tools for trip-planning could be explored here more generally - maybe there are other folks as ignorant as I am on this. For example, does anybody use mobile devices for trip-planning or site finding? Two tips - I do save maps in pdf form on my laptop to take with me during driving trips. That way I don't have to be at a hotspot to see a relevant map with all the details I want. I also copy the text from the "photos needed" lists and save them on the laptop. When I print all this on paper, a lot of it just gets trashed, bent, crumpled, etc. Smallbones (talk) 17:28, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

What I see in Google Earth are links to articles as usual, along with links to lists, preceded by # to distinguish them. At first I thought it was purely for image links, but there are redlinked imageless notes too (well, actually it's a link to the list with the first image int he list pictured: looks like some refinement is needed). I have the Commons geodata enabled ("Geodata from Wikimedia Commons/Complete Wikipedia layers/English), which despite the Commons inference, is clearly looking at WP. It quite clearly shows up discrepancies betwen refined article positions and list positions that haven't been adjusted. As to its portability, I'm not sure how much use it'll be unless you're online while out in the field. See this link on dewiki (in English) [2]. Acroterion (talk) 20:52, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not getting this in Google Maps. Is it a feature only with Google Earth, or are you able to find these spots marked on Maps as well? Between my intentional lack of smartphone and my love for paper (which is better for listing the spots I've photographed in order), I don't expect to use this. As far as the PDFs — I've downloaded all Indiana PDFs and all PDFs for the parts of Pennsylvania that I'm most likely to visit (Ohio doesn't have them downloadable), and I'll get them for portions of Illinois, Kentucky, and West Virginia (if I remember; I forgot to get the ones for Milton in Trimble County, KY last weekend, and the addresses given are woefully generic) when I visit there. Nyttend (talk) 04:21, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

It's just Earth as far as I can tell, and I don't know if it's available for the mobile app. I'll do some experiments. !Acroterion (talk)

It works on the mobile app, but you have to be zoomed in very closely to see them. There has to be some way to make an app specifically for NRHP sites. We already have the coordinate info. Teemu08 (talk) 15:58, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

On the road

Absolutely. My HTC EVO V 4G has a big screen and Google Maps and I'm constantly stopping in a shady place to see whether any [W] marks are nearby. Divert slighty, snap a pic or three (sometimes without stopping pedalling) and go on to the next [W]. My pre-planning tends to be cursory and I often go off-plan and anyway don't print or carry paper maps. GM burns up the phone battery pretty fast, too. Yeah, the ability to bring up a list article in the Wikipedia Android app and easily see a map of its locations, or especially of a category of located but unphotographed articles, would be a splendid feature addition. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:27, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

WLM-US, issues for "Old hands"

Wiki Loves Monuments - United States (WLM-US) is a photo contest that will concentrate on NRHP sites and will run during the entire month of September. There are likely issues that current members of this project will be interested in, that are not immediately relevant to somebody who is entirely new to the project, so I'll put in a "WLM-US General Information" section below. Some possible information of interest to the "old hands"

• Last year WLM was only run in Europe and got 169,000 photos, likely since it was well advertised on the Wikipedia banner. I have only the roughest idea of how many photos WLM-US will get but
  • 10,000 to 150,000 new photos seem possible
  • Many will be for already photographed sites, or multiple pix of the same site
  • There may be something like 5,000 photographers involved, most new to WP:NRHP
  • With this many new photographers involved there may be some mistakes made, e.g. in adding pix to the tables. Please just remember that everybody was a newby once!
• Please review the text at Commons and our website http://wikilovesmonuments.us/
• A special button will be added to the county tables for easy upload to Commons. This button will take all the information about the site in the list and automatically add it to the description of the photo and put the proper category on the pic. This seems so convenient that we will probably want to continue with it in a modified form after the contest, but we can discuss that in a couple of months. Of course you can still use the old methods of uploading to Commons.
• We're still searching for a few members of the jury who will award the "Best Picture - US" award and the 9 runners up who will have their photos entered into the international contest. The ideal juror would be an accomplished photographer, and be knowledgable about architecture and Wikipedia, but 2 out of 3 ain't bad. If you have any suggestions, please put them on my talk page. We promise to have a great jury!
  • We are committed to having the jurors only judge 500 culled photos, so that we don't overwhelm them, and so that we can get only the best possible jurors.
  • Normal methods of community selection or !voting probably won't work (or will have to be greatly modified) to cull the potentially large number of photos down to 500. Self-nomination will be the first step (or open nomination for the unlikely case that there are too few photos nominated). We have a fairly good multi-step plan still being worked out for the intermediate culling, but if anybody has a great tested method please let us know at the talk page of Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments 2012 in the United States
• Our little test run of the WP:NRHP photo contest last fall was fun, but this will be completely different simply because of the size.
  • I'd like to have some of the same or new categories for contests listed and essentially judged the same way as we did last year.
  • To keep things simple, low-key and to keep from being overwhelmed with entries, I think barnstars are still the best prizes for "WP:NRHP special contests"
  • We should probably limit the number of special contests, just to make sure they don't become a problem. My favorites were the most previously unphotographed sites taken, and the roadtrip distances (as long as everybody knows that Google maps can give different distances at different times!) State sub-contests might be allowed. Is somebody interested in organizing this? I'll likely pass on organizing it myself because of time constraints (but I do think they were a lot more FUN than WLM will be!)
• One rule I previously didn't understand very well - the old pix you've got sitting in your files are eligible for the contest, as long as you upload them in September. So search those files and get your best pix ready to upload. I really didn't want to encourage folks to hoard their pix until September, but now I understand the reasoning behind this rule: the contest upload form is meant to be as easy and as streamlined as possible so as not to discourage newbies. Adding a layer of complexity (what date did you take those pix on?) would go against the general philosophy, and Multichill's programming has worked in the past. So get those old files ready...
• Did I mention we're going to have a really dynamite jury! (Details in about 10 days).

Smallbones (talk) 02:32, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

• Note also that all photos which are not in the lists will land here, and my experience from the previous year WLM is that one needs quite some manpower to place them in the lists.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:33, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

  Good overview Smallbones, I did change the first line. The name is Wiki Loves Monuments, not Wikipedia Loves Monuments. I added the direct upload link, but I was reverted. I leave it up to you guys to fix this. Multichill (talk) 19:32, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

use of upload-assisting pic in NRHP lists

Simple image of a generic monument site

• The WLM program seems very beneficial to development of wikipedia's NRHP areas. I assume that almost all WikiProject NRHP members should support this. Thank you Smallbones and Multichill for your taking the lead on this. Especially making the photo-uploading process easy seems to be very important aspect of the WLM program. I note some disagreement which I don't understand, however, in edit summaries at template:NRHP_row edit history. There is some claim of something being "thoroughly unprofessional" which seems extremely over-stated. I don't even understand what is being complained about. Is someone's complaint about the simplified castle-top image at {{UploadCampaignLink}}, as a simple image of a monument? I think that image is fine, there's nothing wrong with that. I am restoring the photo-uploading feature to the NRHP row template now. If someone could explain a problem and suggest an alternative civilly, please do so. I would grant that the image of a monument is a bit European-centric perhaps, because castles are common monuments in Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe, and are less common monument types in the U.S. But this image is fine, even nice to suggest a commonality of U.S. historic sites with monuments across the Pond, and I don't have a better suggestion at all. Thanks again Multichill for your work. --doncram 22:50, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I'll say the pic is at least ok and just slightly Eurocentric. If anybody has a better suggestion, please just put it here. It will have to look like "this is not a real photo - it's an upload button" - is that what's thought to be unprofessional? Please just clarify or give us alternatives. Thanks. Smallbones (talk) 23:13, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

The problem is the image itself — we add a cutesy little piece of clip art and expect it to look professional? Please read the nutshell tag at Wikipedia:Image placeholders. A simple image with text such as "Please contribute your picture" would be substantially better, but project-wide consensus is against the entire concept. Nyttend (talk) 01:11, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

(EC)I'm simply unaware of this "project-wide consensus". Multichill and I have put a half-dozen notes on this page since January about WLM-US and I can't remember a thing. More below. Smallbones (talk) 01:28, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

This is a specific month-long program, during which it is hoped that thousands of non-regular contributors will come and contribute photos. Anything to make it easier and work better is good. The "consensus" referred to by Nyttend was about a different situation, which is now a long time ago, and could be revisited. For now, though, please let us use the device. The continued use of the upload image after the WLM program could be discussed after it is over. I am afraid WikiProject NRHP is plenty capable of being horribly unfriendly to new users; please do let's try to be friendly to new users and to experienced editors trying to do Good Things like run this program. --doncram 01:19, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

OK - it's not a WP:NRHP consensus, but an old "Wikipedia consensus". I'd say the consensus now regarding WLM is that these placeholders can be used in the contest. But let's just get a better pic.

This part of the county list template will allow newbies to upload new pix very easily - just find the right row in the table, click the castle, and all the info is already entered into the upload form. This is an important part of WLM-US. It could probably be removed until a couple of days before Sept. 1 when the contest begins, but maybe it's best to leave it and test it a bit before then. It also gives new folks an idea of what the contest will look like.

• WLM is an international contest with 35 countries signed up this year. Not to brag or anything - but the US contest will obviously be the best in its 1st year!
• WLM is important in attracting new editors and photographers to Wikipedia, which is an important part in the Foundations Strategic Plan
• WLM-US will contribute thousands of photos of previously unphotographed sites
• It will likely bring many new photographers to WP:NRHP, who will continue working here.
• Thousands of readers will see our work, even if they don't participate directly in the project

So I hope everybody can see that there are a lot of benefits to the contest. There will be a few new things to deal with, like the castle pix. I hope folks here don't mind too much. Please let me know if you see any problem's coming up. Smallbones (talk) 01:32, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Unless you obtain consensus at a broad community forum, you can't just ignore a widescale community discussion that deprecated all placeholder images. Please read the link that I furnished you; you're casting the project into disrepute by making us thumb our noses at everyone else. Nyttend (talk) 02:37, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I hope I'm not casting WP:NRHP into disrepute. I'll ask everybody to chip in here and give your opinion. Just to briefly restate my position WLM is a huge project that reflects a multi-lingual consensus on the use of placeholders in the contest, Wikipedia:Image placeholders seems to be quite out-of-date, and the contest will only last a month. All we might need is a new picture for the placeholder. Smallbones (talk) 03:03, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with Nyttend about what casts this wikiproject into disrepute. We could take a poll on that, but a poll among the surviving battle-scarred NRHP editors would be a skewed sample. I'm afraid most arriving new editors, hoping to simply upload pics and add a little bit about their local history, are often/usually driven away from here by unpleasantness, such as this discussion and the behavior at the template.  :(

Nyttend refers to having given a link to a previous community-wide discusssion. Nyttend, do you mean Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders which is reached by a link from Wikipedia:Image placeholders. That was a 2008 discussion about a different matter, namely about the imposition of a generic male image placeholder or a generic female image placeholder into every article for every living person, every BLP. I don't recall commenting in that discussion back then, but I would have opposed the imposition of those images because they were like negative tags being added to thousands of articles, including well-crafted, polished, even featured articles. For many/most articles there would be little prospect that the device would assist in obtaining an actual photo. Here, the situation is different; this is about publicly known houses and other photograph-able sites which are potentially easily accessed by thousands of persons during a big campaign. The articles affected are about 2,000 WikiProject NRHP list-articles. Nyttend, who helped "table-ize" many hundreds of them in a big campaign several years ago with me and some others, should be somewhat "entitled", should have some say about the appearance of the tables, for that past effort, but should not have dictatorial control. Nyttend has not agreed the problem is just about what image is used, but, Nyttend, how about just agreeing, please, to suggest a different image? Overall though, I think it is unreasonable to simply block this good effort to enable new editors to upload pics more easily. I observe that Nyttend has 4 times reverted on the template over several days and commented only rather tersely in edit summaries and here. I'll watch here for a while, then restore the template again. If Nyttend reverts that, would another editor please revert Nyttend? I don't agree that Nyttend speaks for a community consensus about image uploading in WikiProject NRHP lists. It would be helpful if some other WikiProject NRHP editors would please comment. --doncram 11:59, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to put the upload button back into the template so people can see it in the tables and try it out on an actual upload. See [3] for how it looks in a row in isolation. I'll also be actively asking members of WP:NRHP to comment. I don't think it's a matter of battle scarred veterans or general unfriendliness in the project, just - some folks don't like the picture and some folks want to be an active part of WLM. There is a deadline here, Sept. 1 or a few days earlier so that we can triple check how the uploader is working, otherwise we may have to drop out (or limp along somehow) of WLM. The uploader is a key part of WLM. Smallbones (talk) 12:19, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I contacted 17 editors whose names I see most commonly on this page or in WP:NRHP in general. Sorry if I forgot anybody. The reason for this is to get quick feedback from key folks on what is a key part of WLM-US. If we eliminate the uploader, the US is at best hamstrung in participating in WLM, and might have to drop out completely, and I'm sorry, but there is a deadline (before Sept. 1). All views from any editor welcome. Smallbones (talk) 12:57, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm in favor of an upload button, and I'm fine with the castellated thingy (I suppose a domey thingy might be more US-centric, but can't get worried about it). As I've said elsewhere, anything we can do to make it easier for new users to see their work immediately, properly formatted and visibly useful, is good. Have I mentioned how much I detest WP's UI and its intimidating effect on new users? The tables are a hugely valuable resource and they represent years of hard work, but they can be even more intimidating for new users and they're easy to break with well-intentioned newbie edits. Since the uploads can be tagged as they're made, it should be reasonably easy to patrol them. Acroterion (talk) 14:39, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

One other difference between this matter and the 2008 BLP image discussion was that the 2008 discussion actually included use of the image for quite some time, allowing for data to be collected and discussed. It was asserted in 2008 that 450 pictures were uploaded, .9% of the articles affected, and that benefit was weighed against costs (parties disagreed). Here, there is no way to prove in advance whether use of the uploader will enhance uploading during the upcoming BLM period or not, without simply trying it. We could try using it in some states but not others, perhaps? But, was an uploader image like this used in the previous WLM campaign last year in Europe? I think it was used, and the WLM campaign was widely believed to be successful.

Another possible issue is whether to use the uploader image in NRHP rows about Address restricted archeological sites. Others including Nyttend perhaps may disagree, but I don't think it is good to promote such uploading, especially as many of these sites were NRHP-listed on condition that their locations would not be identified. Many thousand new editors may know of local archeological sites and could be encouraged inappropriately to identify their locations by photos. This issue can be addressed by continuing/expanding use of the "Address restricted" image for such sites, pre-empting the uploader image. --doncram 12:50, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I think the castle-like logo (aka File:Missing-monuments-image.svg) is too vague to use, even if it is OK with "the rules" (whatever they may be). If a new reader sees that, it does little (in my mind at least) to tell them that an image is needed AND that they can click here to upload an image. Since I made the original Adress restricted logo, I tried something similar for use here. What do you think? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 14:33, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

P.S. The new logo I made is the same shape and size and background color as the Address Restricted logo. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 14:44, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I love it. If I were to be picky, I'd say it looks like the borders of the letters are a little fuzzy. I'd like to see how it looks and how it works in the tables. Would anybody mind if I put it in the template, if for only 2-3 days, so that we can see it in action? Smallbones (talk) 15:03, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the tweak. Smallbones (talk) 21:21, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Why not just use a blank image? All the benefit of an image, without actually seeing anything. You would just need to let participants know that, for their convienence, clicking the empty area where they want their photo to go leads to the upload form. As I understand it, the image is only for WLM and would be removed afterwards. Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 15:42, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I have a different issue to bring up. We're putting the upload graphic into the template for images that don't have an image yet. What if someone wants to upload a new and/or better picture of a site that already has a picture? For instance, some of the pics are the old HABS images, which may get new more recent pictures. Where would someone just coming into the project click then? They're going to think "oh there's already a picture, guess they don't need mine...". I think a better option would be a separate column next to the image column with a "upload here" image or maybe a button instead. And I personally much prefer the castle image over the text image. I knew exactly what it meant when I saw it. 25or6to4 (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

• My experience from the previous year is that the uploaders will upload all pictures they have does not matter what, but actual inclusion of the pictures into the lists and/or articles will be done by dedicated editors following the uploads.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:08, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
  • It will only be slightly more difficult to upload a new image where an old one already exists. We'll cover that in detail at http://wikilovesmonuments.us/ Smallbones (talk) 16:16, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
    • OK, the website helps clarify some things and helps a bunch. 25or6to4 (talk) 16:29, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I've now had my chance to upload a couple of pix with this tool - it works pretty smoothly, allows you to do everything you can do without it, including multiple pix. I'd thought that it would automatically insert the pic into the table (for missing pix) but it doesn't, and thinking about it, that's a good idea. To change the castle place-holder would take an extra step or two with templates, which is beyond me, but I'm sure it can be done. I'll encourage everybody to try it, uploading a pic or two, and let us know what you think. Then if there is a consensus to remove it, temporarily or permanently - through Sept 30 (which would really mess up WLM-US), then I'll bow to the wisdom of the project. Smallbones (talk) 18:29, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I'm going to have to side with Nyttend on this.

All of us participating in this discussion are, of course, WP editors. We're naturally inclined to see things from an editor's perspective. In particular, we're inclined to put a heavy emphasis on the recruiting of new editors.

However, I'm afraid that we're not giving adequate consideration to the needs and wants of the great majority of Wikipedia's users: the people who come here to read an article, and have no particular desire to edit. Ultimately, those are the people we're editing for. Our object is to produce attractive, well-organized pages full of useful unbiased information for consumption by those millions of non-editors.

To me, the WLM graphic detracts from this. It's like a noisy banner ad on a news website. It makes it a bit harder to concentrate on the information that one's trying to get from a page, and makes one want to seek one's information elsewhere.

Of course, sometimes it's necessary to run house ads. The question is whether increasing WLM participation is a cause important enough to make this one of those cases.

To me, it isn't. There are other, less obtrusive, approaches that we could take to recruiting photographers for the NRHP project, e.g. notes directed at new editors in our geographic areas (which is how Nyttend recruited me, 3 years and 9,758 photos ago).

Such approaches won't produce new photographers as quickly, but there'll probably be fewer problems with their photos—I'm afraid that WLM will produce lots of misidentified shots from new participants who don't share this WikiProject's passion for obsessive checking of every detail, and lots of graphics that've been downloaded by well-meaning editors without regard for their copyright status. Between that and the negative impact on the typical user's WP experience from an obtrusive graphic, I think we'd be better off leaving it out of our list articles. Ammodramus (talk) 19:33, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks , Ammodramus for your opinion. I (almost) always love your approach :-). I'll just ask that we try this once for 30 days and see what happens. Smallbones (talk) 21:21, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Convenience break

Image Kaldari created for this. --Multichill (talk) 20:08, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

WLM logo at Commons which appears in the uploading process, compatible with castle upload pic

I'll suggest the two new pix might look better in gray than in the bright colors. Smallbones (talk) 21:21, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Ammodramus, that's an awfully negative view about potential new contributors. I would hope that we could accomodate a mix of skill levels / attention levels of some new contributors for a one month period, plus a necessary preceding shake-down period. And I think several here might be overly optimistic about how important or well-viewed or good the current list-articles are. Frankly, the lists are awfully barren, few having any descriptions, few well developed, and who out there gives a darn? So, why not give it a try.

It is clear from this debate that it is necessary to put the image and procedures in place now, to avoid dispute on September 1 and delay/contention while the WLM program is going on. --doncram 20:22, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I fail to see any substantive difference between a redlink and the proposed placeholder. Both are there to indicate a missing component that someone may feel welcome to contribute. While in recent years some folks have taken against redlinks, I note that the county lists are littered with them. Why are placeholders different, and why are they bad if they encourage the creation/uploading of useful content? So far all I see is an aesthetic and procedural argument. While I have some sympathy for the latter parts of Ammodramus's argument concerning location checking, possible copyvios and the like, those are problems that we face every day and seem to me to be manageable as long as such contributions are flagged or logged in some manner so they can be reviewed. Acroterion (talk) 22:12, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm coming out of my Wiki-cave to enthusiastically support this project participating in the WLM photo drive and the inclusion of the upload button in the city/county/state lists. I am not persuaded by Nyttend's argument that this is in violation of Wikipedia precedent. If I'm understanding this correctly, for now, all that's being proposed is that we modify the 'NRHP row' template until the photo drive is done at the end of September. This seems to me like an ideal way to test the utility of such a feature. If a consensus develops that it's creating problems of some kind, we can always just turn it off. Nor do I agree with Ammodramus that the an upload graphic necessarily detracts from the look of our rather spartan lists or that it makes it "harder to concentrate on the information". To my eye, the image looks nothing at all like a banner ad. It's certainly not selling anything. My vote is for the "Upload photo" image by Kaldari. --sanfranman59 (talk) 22:28, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I am also in favor of trying this for a month - I see an informative image as different than just a placeholder, so I am not sure the precedent applies. I like Kaldari's image best too, though I guess some of our younger users will not recognize the film cartridge (or that it at least has the colors of Kodak). Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 00:21, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to add my support to Acroterion's suggestion re. a review process for WLM photos. I'm afraid that while we'll see some valuable contributions, we'll also see a number of misidentified sites and copyvios.

The latter seems likely to be a real problem. Of course, the idea behind WLM is that people will upload their own photos. However, I'm afraid that we'll also get submissions from people with a very casual attitude toward copyright law. I see this quite often with text edits on my watchlist: somebody copies and pastes material from a newspaper article or a historical-society website, without regard to the copyright status of the source.

Text copyvios can be fairly easy to detect: a copied piece of text usually doesn't read like it was written specifically for the article, and a Google search for a distinctive phrase will often turn up the source. Unfortunately, I don't know of an analogous way to spot questionably-sourced images and check up on them.

I'm afraid that we're going to wind up with lots of photos in Commons that shouldn't be there: photos from copyrighted historical-society websites, for instance. Commons has the initial page that asks whether the user has the right to the photo, and the this-is-my-own-work checkbox; but I fear that a certain number of users will zip through that, regarding it as something like terms-of-service boilerplate. Ammodramus (talk) 14:12, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I share some of the same concerns, but there are a couple of steps that will help avoid problems. The rules clearly state that the photograph must be taken by the uploader. I'll make this doubly clear at http://wikilovesmonuments.us/rules/ in a bit. I'll also suggest that folks not experienced on Wikipedia not insert their photos in the tables or the articles, but rather rely on Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Unused images (which Ymblanter mentioned a couple of times above but is kinda hidden), where the photos will be automatically sent and we can check out the photos before inserting. Of course, I cannot insist on this - Wikipedia says this is the encyclopedia that anybody can edit. Also we are supposed to assume good faith, especially for new editors!

I'd guess that indications of copyrighted photos are as easy to find as indications of copyrighted text. For example, look in the metadata for the date the photo was taken. If there is no date it's likely from a website rather than a modern camera. Other clues are professional looking photos with very low resolution, or photos that are obviously old.

Smallbones (talk) 20:34, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

This discussion is continued at Template talk:NRHP row#Edit war Smallbones (talk) 22:09, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

It seems that this discussion was previously continued at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Image_placeholders without telling us about it. Smallbones (talk) 12:03, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I think this is over. It appears now that Wikipedia:Image placeholders is simply not a guideline or anything of the sort and never was. Smallbones (talk) 16:17, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Closed by Kaldari--Ymblanter (talk) 19:08, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Checking for copyvios

Ammodramus has suggested that we make a concerted effort to check for copyright violations on the incoming photos from WLM-US. He'll take Nebraska, I'll take Pennsylvania. Should we make a list on a separate page of who's going to check which state? I'll also ask some of the WLM organizers to pitch in on this effort. The obvious place to start is on the page Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Unused images. Does anybody know if there is an easy way to break this down into states? Perhaps a bot? There should also be a separate sub-category for unused pix that we don't want to use, e.g. if there is a better one currently being used. Any suggestions appreciated. Smallbones (talk) 18:21, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Based on the experience of the last two years I don't think copyright violations are a big problem. We clearly advertise that people are only allowed to submit pictures they have taken themselves so I don't think it's going to be a problem this year either. I would be extremely happy if people help out with the unused images pages like Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Unused images so images get added to the lists as fast as possible. Multichill (talk) 19:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

But is there an easy way to separate them into states, so that we can handle them more easily, and put the unused pix that we don't want to use in a special place, so that they don't keep coming back to us like a plug nickel? Smallbones (talk) 19:38, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Aren't the WLM photos all supposed to go into the relevant "NRHP in..." lists? It seems that the easiest approach would be to have those list articles on our watchlists; that was how I planned to check up on new Nebraska entries. I think I'm already watching the state list and all the separate county lists.

I'd thought that for photos by new editors, I'd check the metadata, and perhaps also Google for sites where a user with a casual approach to copyright might've found a photo to poach. Any other suggestions for copyvio detection? Ammodramus (talk) 00:35, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

• I would bet that people who are going to be copyright violators aren't going to do it through WLM-US. That being said, if there's a watchlist, I'll help out.--GrapedApe (talk) 02:10, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

NRHP infobox and county lists

I am not a template builder, nor am I knowledgeable on the guidelines for infobox use. Having just filled in the "See also" sections to add the list link for the example county, it occurred to me that if every article is part of such a list, and every article has the infobox, then could the list link be part of the box? Would it be possible or practicable to alter the NRHP infobox to include the link to the county list? I am thinking of fields in the box being filled in to generate something like this on a separate line at the bottom:

All New London county listings

Perhaps two fields could be used, county and state, and then the template would then fill in blanks as "National Register of Historic Places listings for {field1:county}, {field2:state}" to create the link itself with whatever pipe text was desired.

I saw this format for county listings. Nothing seems to have happened, though. What I am suggesting would not put all the listings on the page as links, though; just attaching the county list link to the infobox. 71.234.215.133 (talk) 06:13, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I think I've seen a few NRHP articles with county NRHP templates at the bottom of the article and that's ok with me - I wouldn't want it in the infobox though. Most NRHP articles seem to have a US NRHP template at the bottom. That makes switching between state lists a snap, but I don't do that very often. Mostly, I like a state NRHP template at the bottom of articles, such as is on most Pennsylvania articles. It makes switching between counties a snap, which I do reasonably often. Smallbones (talk) 01:58, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Elkman tool

How can one update the categories that come up when using the Elkman tool? There are a few that have been renamed or deleted in CfD but attempts to notify User:Elkman were ignored. Here are the categories:

• Category:Late Victorian architecture in the United States was merged into Category:Victorian architecture in the United States but articles should be more appropriatley added to the respective subcategory within Category:Victorian architecture in the United States by state.
• Category:Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals architecture in the United States was deleted per CfD.
• Category:National Register of Historic Places in Washington (U.S. state) is now Category:National Register of Historic Places in Washington (state)
• Category:Gothic Revival architecture in Washington (U.S. state) is now Category:Gothic Revival architecture in Washington (state)

People who use the tool tend to just copy and paste and don't see or check for the red-linked categories leaving it for what basically becomes maintenance cleanup. Thanks. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars^{Talk to me} 08:07, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

• • It looks like ElkMan has checked out. The best bet might be to set as many old cats as redirects so that bots can fix the cats later. Just a thought.--GrapedApe (talk) 12:37, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
    • I didn't see any notifications on my talk page. I haven't been doing a lot of editing on Wikipedia lately, so I'm not always paying attention. I'll fix those categories when I get time to do so, or if I ever remember to do them. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 15:48, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
      • Thanks. It was a few months ago when I notified you (see User talk:Elkman/Archive17#Deleted NRHP-related categories), and I should have said my messages went unnoticed rather than ignored. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars^{Talk to me} 19:38, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
        • Ah, yes, that was right around the time when I was having a major fiasco with an online costuming forum because they felt I was doing shoddy work. So, Wikipedia wasn't on my mind in early February. Anyway, I've made the changes listed above, although I think there's a new category for Late 19th and Early 20th Century Architecture. It worked when I tested it, anyway. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 00:52, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
          • The Elkman Rises!--GrapedApe (talk) 11:46, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Templates nominated for deletion

Template:WINRHPDate and Template:National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin topnav have been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the templates' entry on the Templates for discussion page. DH85868993 (talk) 10:26, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Buttons and misc on WLM-US

There have been other suggestions as far as the upload button. Please see the example at User:SarahStierch/California Historical Landmarks in Alameda County, California (for the buttons only, of course). I'll suggest we take a look at this type of button on the actual lists for a few days and keep it if folks like it. One thing that is different is that it allows the automated uploading for any site, not just those without photos in the list. Another suggestion is just to put a small column (maybe 50px) next to the photo column. I like the first one best, but let's try it first before deciding.

There is a page at Commons Commons:Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments 2012 in the United States/Get Started that is meant to introduce newbies to the contest and to finding the NRHP listings. Please review this and clarify it or add simple text. There could be all sorts of technical stuff added, but this is meant as a way to get newbies started.

The page Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Unused images will be important for reviewing the new photos for copyright violations and checking which new photos should go into the lists. It's a bit clunky now and I'll see if I can get people to redesign it to meet our needs better. As I understand it, there is a bot which searches our tables for sites without photos and records their registration numbers, then it searches for photos in Commons that have those registration numbers, and puts them on the page. Great in theory, but I end up not wanting to put many of them in the lists, but not wanting to remove the registration numbers as well. I'm pretty sure we can make this work better. There will be lots of photos on this list. Please do help screen and place these pix. Smallbones (talk) 16:54, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Smallbones, thanks for dropping a line on my talk page at Commons. I LOVE seeing the option on the above link to upload images for NRHP sites that have already been photographed. I imagine using the upload tool will make uploading images much easier, perhaps by automatically including NRHP numbers and pre-filled descriptions, adding images to WLM categories, etc. I am glad my feedback was well-received. I am already taking photographs on a daily basis and look forward to finally being able to upload them as part of the WLM contest. Keep up the wonderful work you are doing re: WLM! --Another Believer _(Talk) 01:43, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Here is a link to the other question I had, which was whether or not it would be helpful to add WLM subcategories for each U.S. state? I did not know if NRHP buttons could automatically add uploaded images to these subcategories. (Or perhaps this is not helpful. Just thought I would offer the suggestion.) --Another Believer _(Talk) 01:57, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The slim new style button, which shows up on all rows is now working. I've checked a dozen county lists and List of RHPs in IL and it seems to work ok. Please do check a list or 2, and if anybody sees any problems leave me a note or send an e-mail. All feedback welcome. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:19, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Massive listing approaching...

Just FYI, The July 28 pending list has 180 listing being added to the register, 159 of which are archaeological sites in Carbon County, Utah alone at Nine Mile Canyon. Anyone have a fast way these can be added and hidden until they get listed (if they ever do?) 25or6to4 (talk) 20:30, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park

Merge discussion for Knob Creek Farm

An article that you have been involved in editing, Knob Creek Farm , has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:13, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

WLM-US jury

Carol M. Highsmith

I am very pleased to announce the jury for the 2012 Wiki Loves Monuments.

• Carol M. Highsmith specializes in capturing America with her camera. Her collection at the Library of Congress is one of six featured photographic collections alongside those of Mathew Brady, Dorothea Lange, and the Historic American Building Survey. It has over 20,000 photos that she has donated to the public domain. She plans to document every U.S. state over the next 15 years and donate over 100,000 images to the Library of Congress during her lifetime. Full bio

• Heather Moran is the photographer and archivist of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) where she photographs and works to digitize the Muni collection. She has worked to make the collection available online through the SFMTA Online gallery, Flickr, and Historypin. She is co-creator of "Treasures from the Muni Archive," a city walking tour with site-specific historic images posted on bus shelters, open areas and store windows which are linked by QR codes to Historypin which includes additional images of each location.

Prelinger

• Rick Prelinger is an archivist, teacher, writer, lecturer and filmmaker. He is the founder and President of the Prelinger Archives, co-founder of the Prelinger Library in San Francisco, and Board President of the Internet Archive. The core collections of the Prelinger Archives, including over 48,000 films, were acquired by the Library of Congress in 2002. Many of these films can currently be viewed on the Internet Archive. Full CV

• Daniel Case has been a Wikipedia editor since 2005, and is now an Administrator. He has focused on WikiProject:NRHP, photographing and writing articles about historic sites including those in in New York's Hudson Valley, and Aspen, Colorado, as well as sites in the country of Jordan. He has worked as a journalist, and wrote a weekly feature on local landmarks. He also wrote and illustrated "AMC's Best Day Hikes Near New York City."

• Howard Cheng, Administrator at both Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons who works on the "Picture of the Day," and "On this Day..." features on Wikipedia's main page.

• Daniel Schwen, Administrator on Wikimedia Commons and contributor of numerous Featured Pictures. He develops and maintains gadgets (WikiMiniAtlas) and bots (GPS,Quality Images) and is active in geographic coordinates project. In real life he works in a laboratory in Los Alamos, NM.

David Shankbone

• David Shankbone, one of Wikipedia's most influential photographers, whose photos appear in over 5,000 Wikipedia articles in 200 languages. These include pictures of Shimon Peres, Woody Allen, Madonna, Walter Mosley, and Salman Rushdie. His work as a writer for Wikinews was reviewed by the Columbia Review of Journalism Review.

Smallbones (talk) 22:52, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

A template to retrieve detail pages from the NRHP.

I've asked at Template talk:NRISref for a template to retrieve the detail page for an NRHP entry. There is a template for Canadian historic places at Template:CRHP. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:08, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to new contributors in Wikipedia Loves Monuments (WLM) program

Welcome, any new contributors in WLM program, who find your way here! Please feel free to comment and ask questions here!

Kudos to all old-timers, for all we've done over 5 years to get the network of NRHP articles in wikipedia set up and refined and looking really pretty good, ready for a bigtime WLM campaign now. I think the new and refined image-upload system looks great! Credit to Multichill and Smallbones and perhaps others for developing it just recently. It builds on what Multichill and others have done in WLM in Europe and elsewhere last year. But huge credit for the state of our NRHP geographical-based list-article system is deserved by many others here. We have some nice individual articles and have accomplished a great amount of coverage in starter-level articles about individual NRHP places and districts. But the system of list-articles, ready for photos that WLM can add, is IMO perhaps the main, best product of our collective work so far. It's looking good, methinks! Thanks to all for building, and i hope this WLM period goes well. Hope lots of new contributors find their way here, and hope that we can welcome them and encourage some to stay. Cheers, --doncram 22:07, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is a pretty friendly group of folks here, who have done a lot of work to make WP:NRHP one of the best cooperative projects on Wikipedia. We take a lot of pride in the work we do documenting sites on the National Register of Historic Places. Sometimes we can be a bit grumpy if you don't do everything exactly right :-o but folks remember that everybody was a newbie once. So feel free to ask questions here, especially about NRHP sites, how the tables are laid out, writing up articles, photo tips, etc.

A couple of other websites to remember are wikilovesmonuments.us, for general information, and Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments 2012 in the United States/Get Started. For questions specifically about the WLM-US photo contest, please see Commons talk:Wiki Loves Monuments 2012 in the United States/Get Started

Enjoy!

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:41, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I can't read that site, because it keeps dying on me. Of course I've been having trouble with my internet connection since yesterday, so this could be my computer. --DanTD 13:23, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The site's working now. I'm also working on a weak connection over the weekend so can't say for sure if it's stayed up, but think it has. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:00, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Heads-up re refnum issue in some lists

I posted a message on Multichill's talk page about a problem that I stumbled across while updating the Cheshire County, NH list yesterday. Follow this link for more details, but in a nutshell, it appears that the BotMultichillT bot made errors in assigning refnums to rows in some tables. --sanfranman59 (talk) 21:43, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

NRHP addresses in Jefferson County, Florida are bogus

I'm working on an article on U.S. Route 90 in Florida which includes some NRHP sites in Monticello, and many of the addresses given on the list, as well as the coordinates don't match each other. Neither Google Maps, nor the list of NRHP sites are showing correct addresses. Monticello High School (Florida) is listed as being at "425 West Washington Street" (which is part of US 90), but the coordinates show it as being in the vicinity of 653-659 Walnut Street. The school is nowhere near either locations. The same goes for sites off of US 90, like the Palmer-Perkins House; No sign of it at "625 West Palmer Mill Road" or the boundary increase towards "185 West Washington Street." What the hell is going on? --DanTD 13:19, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

• I am not sure about the Florida situation, but for many states the coordinates are just not accurate enough. For the NRHP listings I started articles myself or those I considerably expanded I always checked the coordinates (starting from Google Earth), and in many cases I had to correct them in the lists/articles.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:20, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I can't even find any of these places by looking in the vicinities of where they're supposed to be. I've considered asking User:Ebyabe, since he took the pics of the high school, but he has taken quite a lot of pictures, so I don't know how much he remembers from these trips. --DanTD 14:40, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

As Ymblanter says, the coordinates listed in NRHP are not always accurate (maybe one or two streets over or off by several blocks, in urban areas), and are sometimes spectacularly inaccurate (I once found a US Post Office geolocated in the middle of Massachusetts Bay). You also have to be aware that mapping applications like Google Maps are not always precise in geolocating addresses, that the addresses of buildings sometimes change (never mind that the buildings themselves can also be moved or demolished), and that buildings (especially public ones like schools) can be repurposed. Correctly updating geocoordinates and addresses is a somewhat tedious process (taking as much as several minutes per listing), which can be complicated if NRHP papers are not (yet) available for a listing. I try to correct addresses in the pages here when my field work shows they've changed, but not everyone who takes photos does so.

Finding public buildings via official web sites and public records shouldn't be tricky. As far as Monticello High School (Florida) is concerned, there is a large plot just east of the geocoordinate given in that article. Asking Google Maps "What's here?" says it is occupied by the "Monticello Superintendant School". This may well be the listed building (which is probably no longer Monticello's current high school), which would be confirmed by comparing a street view to Ebyabe's pictures and/or pictures in the NPS or Florida databases, if available. Magic♪piano 15:36, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, so it's the southwest corner of West Washington and South Water Street. A little closer to the vicinity than I expected, and from the description of the article it seemed more like it was being re-used as a local art museum. --DanTD 17:43, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Having spent a great deal of time tweaking geocode coords in our lists over the years, it seems to me that those on the East Coast and the earliest listed sites are the most likely to have errant coordinates. I think there may be reasons for this. I seem to recall a discussion somewhere indicating that there was a change at some point in the standards used for determining coordinates (perhaps it has to do with which map projection is used?). Whenever I update a list, I'm in the habit of exporting the coordinates to a .kml file and importing them into Google Earth to confirm that they all fall within the boundaries of the geographic area (be it neighborhood, city, county or state). But this only identifies fairly extreme errors. For lists where I've provided photos, I always try to confirm that the coordinates are accurate. I've also found that Google Earth and Google Maps don't always provide an accurate location for an address. Sometime, they don't provide a location at all. I often go to either Bing Maps or MapQuest to find sites. --sanfranman59 (talk) 23:11, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

WLM Android App from WMF

Download the app by scanning the QR code with an Android phone

A pretty amazing smartphone app is now available in final release form at

• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikipedia.wlm

at no cost from the WikiMedia Foundation.

The app will link your smartphone directly to lists and articles on NRHP sites, show good maps of the sites and give you directions, connect you to Commons, and let you take a photo at an NRHP site with your smartphone and directly upload it to Commons with the registration number automatically attached. As far as I can tell, about the only thing it won't do is let you insert the photo you just took into the table or article and dance a jig with you.

That said, I'm a total newbie with smartphones and apps, and almost never use the camera in my phone. I decided I needed some practice with it, went to a local site, and got a couple of remarkably bad photos (see:File:Please do not block the driveway.jpeg). Don't worry, I'll get better with a bit of practice. It's likely my lack of experience with apps, and typing with my big thumbs on a small screen, but my only serious problem is that I was unable to connect directly to Commons from the phone, so I couldn't upload directly.

I'd love to hear others' reactions. Even if you only use it for the map, the app will be revolutionary.

Also, please see the WikiMedia Blog

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:34, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Trying it out now. Seems to work pretty well. It identified NRHP near me with nice, big markers and indicated whether or not there was a picture. Teemu08 (talk) 17:40, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Nice ... but Teemu, how do you know if there's a picture or not? All I see is markers. --sanfranman59 (talk) 21:33, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

If you go to "Browse by campaign - United States - Pennsylvania _ Adams County" List view, you'll essentially see our county list for Adams County Pennsylvania, with a link to the article and the photo right next to it. If you then click list view, map view you'll get the map. Likely other ways to get into it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:02, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

On the map there should be 2 different colors of markers - with and without photos - but if the scale is too large the markers overlap and give strange looking "markers". Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:08, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Got it ... very cool. (but what I see on my Android is "Browse Countries" ... I'm guessing that's what you meant?) ... Now if I could only get my year-old Motorola Atrix 4G (AT&T) not to practically grind to a halt and kill the battery in about an hour when I turn on background data ... grrrr! --sanfranman59 (talk) 22:21, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

First impressions

First, a bit about my long-standing major use of smartphone in Wikiphotography. I go out to the suburbs, turn on my HTC EVO V 4G, and bring up the built in Google Maps with Wikipedia layer. A blue wedge shows my location and black, boxed [W] symbols show the nearby articles. I tap the nearest ones to see whether the articles already have pictures. I unfold my bike and hop on, if that's not how I got there, and pedal from one [W] to the next, snapping them with my GPS camera. Sometimes I actually get off the bike rather than settle for pedal-by shooting. For example if there's time and no signpost identifying the target, I dismount to pull out the smartphone for an establishing shot, since its GPS is more reliable than the GPS built into the real camera which usually gets better pictures. This lets me mix and match photo and EXIF data on the home computer.

This morning, tired from yesterday's 50 mile (80 km) ride, I installed the new WLM app for a quick look, and immediately got both good and bad impressions. First thing I noticed was, no response to Android's Menu and Search buttons. Mildly disappointing. The two ways to find targets are:

1. GPS
2. Browse countries

Each has disadvantages compared to the mighty search options of Google Maps. The GPS method only works if the phone knows where it is; I see no way to choose a place and list targets in order of nearness to that place. The country menu obviously must go into a long list of countries, leading to a list of "Regions" which in my case is two levels of long lists to reach New York County. This leads to a much longer list of local monuments, or in my country National Registered Historic Places. This list can only be sorted by name, or by "Address" which in my county puts 1026- Fifth Avenue next to 105 E 22nd Street, which is unhelpful. Better for this county if it could also sort by Latitude, or in another county such as Suffolk by Longitude.

However the proximity sort is indeed useful, especially in familiar territory where I already know whether the item is ahead of me or behind. Better yet, if it included a bearing, either by degrees or by boxing the compass. Each item has a link for "directions" which is actually a link to the Google Maps that comes with all Android phones. Excellent. One thing that has always bothered me about both the Wikipedia mobile verison and the official Wikipedia app is, neither can do that.

Each item has a button to bring up the Full Article. Sometimes this is most useful. However, it's always the Desktop View, which is often a bad idea on this tiny screen. There should be three buttons, one each for Desktop, Mobile, and Offical app version. Or one button bringing up a tiny menu for that. The Wikipedia official app ought also to have a button for opening the WLM app going to this target.

The map view is the star of the show, for me. That it doesn't recognize pinch and spread to zoom is odd, and a minor nuisance. I don't yet understand the blue dots scattered on the map; probably a little more study will clarify it. The difference between targets already having pictures and not, I failed to find at first, but that's because I am sitting in the inner city where almost all the fish have been caught. A few zooms and pans brought me to the suburbs where there's a red for picture present and gray for where I ought to go fishing.

Anyway, I expect this app to be useful when hunting targets on the road. Whether it will displace my method of working directly from Google Maps, awaits a day of road testing. Probably do that this Sunday, when I must visit semi-suburban Jamaica in the morning and will have afternoon free for wandering.

For many, the star of the show may be the uploading feature. Not so, for me, partly because I like better the pictures that come from my real camera and especially I like editing before uploading. Searching my Android Gallery for a suitable picture, I found last week's shot of the home of the somewhat famous Elizabeth Cady Stanton, taken to be sure of good GPS for the better picture made by my real camera. Upload was simple and quick, and the image name was automatically constructed from the name of the Wikipedia article and the filename my camera phone gave it. What disappointed me was, the geotagged location was not instantly extracted and shown, as Commons uploads usually are. Also it automaticaly received the national NRHP category rather than the appropriate Bergen County or at least State of New Jersey NRHP cat. Having got to the upload button through the State and County submenus, I would expect that information to trickle into the picture description.

The failure of the upload mechanism to provide some expected services is not a terrible thing. After all, thousands of Commons uploads every day don't indicate either a geotag or a country. I'll fuss with the program some more and might find more good things to go with the pleasure of seeing a map with red pins for picture present and gray for absent. Jim.henderson (talk) 23:36, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

PS: Ah. A few hours later, a Commons bot extracted EXIF and made a geotag template, putting my picture on various maps about Wikipedia and Commons. It's only slightly less convenient than if this were done upon upload. Also I forgot to mention a minor nuisance in dealing with lists. If I tap on a target item in the middle of a long list to get a quick understanding, then return to the list, it returns to the top of the list and makes me scroll down to where I was looking. It ought to let me resume immediately where I left off. Further studies will probably lead to further pleasures and conveniences, and to further minor annoyances. Jim.henderson (talk) 09:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

PPS: I wonder if I'm reviewing in the wrong page. Anyway yesterday morning I did a field trial in Jamaica, Queens. I turned on the phone to find a bank branch, and walked down Jamaica Avenue with the WLM app onscreen. Quickly I figured out the mystery of the blue disks surrounded by interrupted circles. They are for groups of targets that the app thinks are too close to show individually. They merge or separate with the zoom setting, and turn yellow for more than ten.

Several targets on these few blocks have their coords misplaced by a city block or more but I found two and used the snap and upload feature, which works neatly apart from the silly words about Commons "working its magic". Unfolding the bike after my purchase, I pedalled around South Jamaica and points west using both Google Maps and WLM, but GM no longer had the ability to link from its brief Wikipedia description to the Wikipedia article. I don't know whether WLM had something to do with that failure.

The big problem with WLM came at 2 PM when the phone shut down for lack of power. It seems the program is a battery hog; normally I can use GM for at least six hours. This left me starved of target information while returning to Manhattan, so I used a route through residential and industrial areas where historic buildings are scarce. I was intending to buy a spare battery anyway; this problem makes it more urgent.

Google Earth's inability to connect to Wikipedia articles began when I installed the WLM app. At home after recharge I uninstalled WLM but GM did not regain this ability. I am left with the suspection that WLM broke my phone, or rather broke this useful Google Earth / Wikipedia feature. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:18, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

WLM-US starts at midnight

and goes for exactly 1 month and 6 hours, ending on Monday, October 1, 12:01am Hawaiian Standard Time (6:01 am New York Time). Actually, I suppose most people will be going to a ball game, fireworks, or the beach for the next three days and relaxing. But if you want to get started on the contest, just click the upload link in the tables and everything should be done for you, except putting the photo into the list or article. If you don't want to use the upload button and just upload the old way, just include the template {{Wiki Loves Monuments 2012|us}} in the file and you'll be part of the contest. For the Best Photo contest you can nominate any of your photos, or any of anybody else's photos in the Commons category "Catagory:Images from Wiki Loves Monuments 2012 in the United States", by just adding the category "Category:WLM 2012 United States Nominated"

Finally, please look every once in a while at the page Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Unused images where you can find those photo which can fill a gap in one of our tables. Please check these photos for indications of copyright violations, put them in the county lists, or nominate them for best picture. As things get rolling we may have a couple hundred of these photos coming in everyday. The page is refreshed with new pics once a day about 5 p.m.

Enjoy the 3 day weekend!

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:57, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Union Baptist Church (New Bedford, Massachusetts) pic added by editor Faolin today

The counter for photos added ran up from 3,900 or so when i noticed it earlier today, to 4,912 now! Did it start at zero at midnight? I notice pics being added to articles on my watchlist.... --doncram 18:04, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The category contains 215 files. There cound be also Flickr submissions which did noy yet made it to the category, but I doubt that they are 4700 in a day.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:25, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

It's at 5464 right now. :) The US WLM category you point to has 305 images now. Hmm, is 0 the number in that catogory, updating? Not sure how to get the continuously updating category count to display here for a commons category. --doncram 18:50, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The 5501 number on the site now is the world-wide WLM total, i.e with 30 other countries. Our number is 249 now. I switched the number to the US one on the site, but somebody switched it back. I'll probably be able to have both on there (I'm a bit slow with Wordpress). BTW, I'm not really sure how our total will compare to the world-wide number, but I'm guessing 5% is really low. They've had more daylight so far today, and not everybody's on a 3 day holiday. My guess is we'll have 25-30% of the total. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:56, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

It was changed back to show the U.S. specific total, I guess, which is now 2,036. The international total at http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ is now 19,560. More than 2,000 U.S. pics now is great, here, but WLM sure seems like quite a big deal, overseas. :) --doncram 16:31, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Purposely unused images

I encountered an image that was no better than existing ones. With the unused images, what is the category for the images that are duplicates of ones on the county lists? Images that were reviewed and are purposely going to not be added to the state/county lists (and checked to see if they belong in the listing's article)? Royalbroil 13:40, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

• If I understand the question correctly, the best thing is to create a specific category for the NRHP listing (on Commons) and to move all images related to this listing into that category.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:44, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I think the wrong refnumber gets used sometimes, or a separately listed building is also listed as part of a historic district. If there really is a picture already in the county list, then new pictures of that site should not show up in the list (sometimes delayed by a day). Still the bad pennies keep on coming back. I know it's not a good solution, but commenting out the refnum will stop the problem for an individual pic. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:32, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Where are WLM-US photos coming from?

Wow! There are just too many to look through. Going through the first two or three pages I count 33 states plus Washington, D.C. Is there any automated way to find out which states, if any, aren't represented yet? Ntsimp (talk) 16:52, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I also noticed that some photos are entered before september 1....should those be filtered out?.......Pvmoutside (talk) 17:34, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

This should be technically impossible, since the upload wizard only started running on Sep. 1. Could you may be show an example?--Ymblanter (talk) 17:36, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I note that the date assigned to a picture in the infobox on its page is (correctly) that from the image metadata -- the pictures may have been taken before September 1 and uploaded after (I know those I've uploaded with the wizard have this property, since I took a series on the 31st). Magic♪piano 17:43, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I've uploaded some from 2008 that I came across in my files: the upload date is what counts, not the date taken. Acroterion (talk) 17:44, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Conservation and Collections Care Proposal

I have recently submitted a new WikiProject proposal that ties-in closely with WikiProject National Register of Historic Places. The proposed project is WikiProject Conservation and Collections Care which, if approved, will aim to create new articles, as well as to gather existing articles, concerning conservation and collection care at museums, libraries, historic locations, archives, and other relevant sites into a collaborative project. Although the scope of this project would be much smaller than that of WikiProject National Register of Historic Places, preventive collection care and preservation of historical locations are still closely aligned. Therefore I am writing to your group to inform you of my decision to request a WikiProject group, as well as to inquire if a collaboration might be an option. Given the connection between the two projects, and my own inexperience with starting a WikiProject, I am open to suggestions, collaborations, and advice from a well-established group such as your own. Thank you.-AngelKelley (talk) 02:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Help needed

A confusion has taken place between a historic church and an active one in the same town. Please help at Talk:Felton Presbyterian Church. Thundersnow (talk) 09:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Nomination/Screening tool up and running

If you'd like to help screen the entries in the WLM-US photo contest, you may now use this well-tested tool

• Reviewing tool

It may very occasionally stop working, likely due to a high server load, but just close it down and try a few seconds later with no harm done. It may also behave strangely as the last dozen or so unreviewed photos are reached. Please just stop reviewing at that point.

You are asked to screen the photos according to the following criteria:

• Technical excellence of the photograph
• Originality and creativity
• Encyclopedic value for Wikipedia

and are given three choices

• "Nominate" (include for further consideration)
• "Decline for nomination" (don't include for further consideration), or
• "Don't know" (do nothing except go on to the next photo)

Since we have so many photos submitted (I guestimate 50,000 will be submitted) and we have to short-list just 500 for the jury, you should be very selective. There will likely be a second selection round, including a voting procedure, so if we have a preliminary short-list of 5,000, I'll be satisfied.

The judging criteria seem straightforward enough, but different folks may have slightly different interpretations. Please use your best judgement, but I'll include my interpretation here just in case you want some help.

• Technical excellence - is the light right, or it is washed-out or enveloped in shadows in places? is it sharp? does an overview cut off parts of the building? is it unintentionally distorted? tilted? does it let telephone wires, cars, people or trees distract from the subject? Does it just plain look good?
• Creativity - does the photo just grab you or make you think about the subject in a new way?
• Encyclopedia value - would you put it in a county list or article?

Of course a really good photo can break all the rules and should still be considered.

BTW, this tool is fun to use and is even addictive. Please try it for 10 minutes!

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:06, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

• I'm getting a lot of duplicates of pictures that I've already rejected (same filename). I've rejected the same picture five times now. Teemu08 (talk) 18:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

We've very quickly gotten down to the last of the unreviewed list. some in that list have been categorized by accident as both reviewed and unreviewed, which messes up the system. I'll review the last 28 by hand and hopefully eliminate the problem. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:01, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for this, Smallbones. Just so I'm clear, this tool is only to nominate photos for further consideration for prizes in the WLM-US contest, right (with a target of nominating somewhere around 10% or less)? If I click "Decline for nomination", it doesn't mean that the photo shouldn't be used in a county list or article, does it? Does this have any relation to what shows up in Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Unused images? I'm not clear about how photos end up in that list. --sanfranman59 (talk) 23:16, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The Reviewing tool is only for finding the best photos to pass on to the jury for the Best Picture contest. I don't really want to say what proportion should be nominated - we'll find a way to deal with whatever proportion are nominated - but 10% would definitely work.

Placing photos in the county lists or in articles is another matter, and as always depends on our judgement and expertise. The bot that MultiChill runs to populate the page Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Unused images just matches up the "missing images" on the county list pages and "unused images" that have just come in by the refnum (sometimes multiple new images per refnum). Thus you can go to this page, evaluate which is the best image (if there are multiple images for that refnum), or if the single image for that refnum is usable. Click the refnum beneath the image and it takes you to the county list, where you can add it. If you run into an image on the "unused" page that has a problem - e.g. copyright, wrong site, or otherwise unusable - please try to take care of the problem. As a last resort you might comment out the refnum on the photo file, otherwise the photo may show up on the same page tomorrow.

The bot runs once a day - at about 5am - and repopulates the page everyday, up to 400 images.

Hope this helps,

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:58, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

BTW if the review tool doesn't seem to be working, it's likely that all the images have been reviewed. You might check Commons:Category:Images_from_Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012_in_the_United_States to see if this is the case. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:06, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Commons category and automatic categorization

Hi everyone, I'm working on the automatic categorization bot. It takes files from the base category (Commons:Category:National Register of Historic Places in your case) and moves it to a more suitable category (for example Commons:Category:National Register of Historic Places in Navajo County, Arizona). The category is added based on the article about the listing or the list it's being used in (for example National Register of Historic Places listings in Alameda County, California). I noticed that about 2400 lists don't yet link to Commons. I'm running a bot now to add links where a matching category exists (example). Anyone who wants to help out with creating the missing categories and the missing links here when the bot is done? Multichill (talk) 18:18, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a good thing to do, I guess. You are creating new geo-based NRHP categories over at Commons, and adding links to those categories from the geo-based NRHP list-articles. But I'm not sure what the bot is doing vs. what needs to be done manually. Where exactly can we help? Just watch for redlink categories in NRHP list-articles, and click on them to go create the categories? Or is there some list of the redlinks? I do often notice editor Vegaswikian and some others removing redlink categories from articles, using AWB or some other semi-automated edit tool. Perhaps they can find the redlinks and do this easily? --doncram 13:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The bot moves images on Commons from the category "NRHP listings" into the category "NRHP listings in County XXZ". It can not do anything else. We should move the pictures to the lists and the articles, and also manually add thematic categories (such as Churches in County XXZ, or Churches in town YZZ).--Ymblanter (talk) 13:47, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The bot fixed about 2000 lists. These are the remaining 148 pages that still need {{Commons category}} added to it. Most of the time the bot couldn't find something because it's a sublist or the name doesn't match with Commons. Would be nice if people could help. Just mark the pages with {{Done}} if you done some. Multichill (talk) 19:44, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Eastern_Chester_County,_Pennsylvania
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_northern_New_Castle_County,_Delaware
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_at_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Downtown_Louisville,_Kentucky  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Napa_County,_California  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Anchorage,_Kentucky
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Portland,_Louisville,_Kentucky
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Louisville's_West_End
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Hoonah–Angoon_Census_Area,_Alaska
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Prince_of_Wales_–_Hyder_Census_Area,_Alaska
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Valdez–Cordova_Census_Area,_Alaska
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Yukon–Koyukuk_Census_Area,_Alaska
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Yakutat,_Alaska
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_East_Hampton_(town),_New_York
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Southampton_(town),_New_York
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Huntington_(town),_New_York
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Shelter_Island_(town),_New_York
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Southold_(town),_New_York
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Riverhead_(town),_New_York
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Center_City,_Philadelphia
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_St._James_Parish,_Louisiana
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_St._Landry_Parish,_Louisiana
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_St._Martin_Parish,_Louisiana
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_St._Mary_Parish,_Louisiana
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_St._Tammany_Parish,_Louisiana
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Brookhaven_(town),_New_York
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_North_Philadelphia
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Smithtown_(town),_New_York
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Islip_(town),_New_York
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Babylon_(town),_New_York
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_on_the_island_of_Hawaii
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_northern_Puerto_Rico
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_southern_Puerto_Rico
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_metropolitan_San_Juan,_Puerto_Rico
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_St._Louis_north_and_west_of_downtown
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_St._Louis_south_and_west_of_downtown
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Northeast_Philadelphia
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Northwest_Philadelphia
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_South_Philadelphia
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Southwest_Philadelphia
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Hempstead_(town),_New_York
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_North_Hempstead_(town),_New_York
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Oyster_Bay_(town),_New_York
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Center_Township,_Marion_County,_Indiana
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Union_County,_Kentucky
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_western_Cincinnati,_Ohio
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_northern_Cincinnati,_Ohio
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_eastern_Cincinnati,_Ohio
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Milwaukee,_Wisconsin
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Downtown_Davenport,_Iowa
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_east_Davenport,_Iowa
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_west_Davenport,_Iowa
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Grand_Teton_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Yellowstone_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Glacier_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Mount_Rainier_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Grand_Canyon_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Death_Valley_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Olympic_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Sequoia-Kings_Canyon_National_Parks  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Joshua_Tree_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Lassen_Volcanic_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Crater_Lake_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Rocky_Mountain_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Arches_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Great_Basin_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_North_Cascades_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Canyonlands_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Capitol_Reef_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Acadia_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Big_Bend_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Biscayne_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Channel_Islands_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Cuyahoga_Valley_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Carlsbad_Caverns_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Everglades_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Guadalupe_Mountains_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Great_Smoky_Mountains_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Hawaii_Volcanoes_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Isle_Royale_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Denali_National_Park_and_Preserve  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Virgin_Islands_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Voyageurs_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Wind_Cave_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Dinosaur_National_Monument  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Colorado_National_Monument  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Petrified_Forest_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Organ_Pipe_Cactus_National_Monument  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Shenandoah_National_Park  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Big_Cypress_National_Preserve  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Devils_Tower_National_Monument  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Cape_Cod_National_Seashore  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Lava_Beds_National_Monument  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_New_River_Gorge_National_River  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Apostle_Islands_National_Lakeshore  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Bighorn_Canyon_National_Recreation_Area  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Cumberland_Island_National_Seashore  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Sleeping_Bear_Dunes_National_Lakeshore  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_western_Washington,_D.C.
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_the_upper_NW_Quadrant_of_Washington,_D._C.
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_central_Washington,_D.C.
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Richland_County,_Wisconsin  Done
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_downtown_Houston,_Texas
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_southern_New_Castle_County,_Delaware
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Downtown_and_Midtown_Detroit,_Michigan
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Jackson_County,_Missouri:_Kansas_City_other
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Closter,_New_Jersey
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Franklin_Lakes,_New_Jersey
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Ridgewood,_New_Jersey
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Saddle_River,_New_Jersey
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_The_Highlands,_Louisville,_Kentucky
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Old_Louisville,_Kentucky
• National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Downtown_and_Downtown_West_St._Louis

All done except National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_at_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States. Not sure what to do with that one. Thanks for helping out here. Multichill (talk) 13:57, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Newbie rescue

We need to stay on the lookout for enthusiastic new users trying to create articles with their uploaded photos and getting smacked with a deletion tag: an example is User talk:Joangrayphotography, and I'm sure there are more. I've rescued one of her article attempts, but don't have time to research enough for a stub: help would be appreciated, and encouragement to those who could be bitten would be beneficial. Acroterion (talk) 18:49, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Acroterion. It's true that Wikipedia can be a hard place to edit when you first start and that newbies are often bit. Thanks for noticing this particular case. I've added some material to the one article, but there are 3 more to go.

This situation is likely to come up again with WLM-US going on. One of the key goals of WLM is to attract new photographers and editors. The success of the contest, to my mind, will be measured by how well we treat the newcomers. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:28, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Lincoln Memorial

Copying here to get more feedback Multichill (talk) 21:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC) In what list page is the Lincoln Memorial? It has id 66000030 and I can't find it. Multichill (talk) 14:58, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

No clue, the reference is here. West Potomac Park has it's own number as a historic district. SarahStierch (talk) 16:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Weird, I can't find it in any of the Washingthon DC lists. Multichill (talk) 21:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

None of the lists link to the article.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:36, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Was bold and added it to central DC. Doesn't seem to be a reason why it shouldn't be included. Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 23:40, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you I dug up this list and it's on it. After your edit it's no longer missing, but some other listings might be. Multichill (talk) 09:38, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Fixed all of the "A"-states; if you get a chance to update "NRHP missing.txt", it should reflect that. Most of the time, the wrong refnum was, for whatever reason, added to a listing; 3, so far, were actually missing from the lists, several more were refnums for boundary increases (and their appears to be no way fix that with the current method of displaying more than one refnum). Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 00:04, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Note, one of the three listing additions you added, the Oates House in Henry Co. Alabama, is still listed as "DR - Pending" in the NRHP's Access database, but has a clear "listed" listing on the 3/24/89 weekly listing. I also found that a good chuck of the missing numbers are district boundary increases. Would adding a separate template line to add the extra numbers be an option? 25or6to4 (talk) 11:44, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the Lincoln Memorial discussion, it bears mentioning that not all NHLs are listed on the National Register. We've had some discussion of this in the past (here and here, for two places). Here's the disclaimer that's at the bottom of the White House page of the Washington DC NRHP travel itinerary: "The White House, U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Capitol, and related buildings and grounds are legally exempted from listing in the National Register of Historic Places, according to the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966." However, since the Lincoln Memorial is in the NRIS database, I don't think it's "exempt". I'm guessing it got lost in the shuffle in either 2009 or 2011 when the geographic boundaries of the lists were revised. --sanfranman59 (talk) 23:31, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

one-third of the way through

Thanks for all the help with the WLM-US photo contest. All the work reviewing, placing pictures in articles and lists, and helping newbies has been spread out among many folks. I apologize if there has been any disruption to the usual work of the project.

We're now one-third of the way through, and for the first year, I think it is going very well. It will almost certainly go forward again next year. I'd like to get a RfC (or whatever the proper form is) going right after the results are in in late October. That way we can take care of any issues regarding quality vs. quantity, buttons, etc. WP:NRHP cannot own the contest - it is too important to Wikipedia as a whole - recruiting new editors and photographers, and fostering international cooperation - for any project to own the competition. But I would like to make sure that all our concerns are taken care of, and put the mark of WP:NRHP on the contest.

BTW - the one way that everybody can help out is to upload photos. We should have some of the best photos, and likely many of us have archives of photos that we were going to upload when we have the time. Now would be a great time to take the time to do this.

Thanks again, and all the best, Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:57, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Picture quality scale

Bad WLM pic

Good WLM pic

These, taken a couple hours and miles (km) apart, may not be the extremes of bad and good photos uploaded in the past week but they illustrate the existence of a range. Besides this month's evaluation for the awarding for a few prizes, is someone planning to walk through the various NRHP County lists and assess old pix and new as good, bad or middling so we can beg for better ones instead of just having a status of present or absent? Jim.henderson (talk) 10:24, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

It's a good question Jim. But I think it might open up a whole can of worms. As far as I know, nobody has ever gone around on an organized basis, saying "this photo is not good enough." When I started taking photos for this project, I was deathly afraid somebody would come around and say "why do you bother uploading these lousy photos?" But of course nobody did, and I hope the project is better off for it, not scaring me away (I'd never taken anything more than family snapshots at the time, and some, I have to admit, were not great photos).

I don't know how a quality scale would work - but if we try one, it needs lots of discussion first. I'd guess a self-evaluation, by either the photographer or uploader might not be too bad, say 1-5, but anything else would be horrendously controversial. The current practice of posting pix in lists, as I understand it, is *almost* "first come, first served" - since many folks concentrate on previously unphotographed sites. Formalizing that would be clearly against Wikipedia's basic rules however, since anybody can edit Wikipedia and there is no ownership of articles, or even photo slots on lists.

A more positive way of looking at it is that people tend to avoid putting up their photos in a previously occupied spot, unless they think their pic is clearly head and shoulders better than the other one. Good way to avoid edit wars and adjust for bias. Generally good in my opinion.

Most of this is completely different than the current photo contest. We've got 6,000 photos in 9 days and only the top 10 during the month will be given an award. Quality will be recognized, but it's going to be a different type of quality than shows up regularly in the lists. For somebody to get a pic in the top 10, the photo is really going to have to distinguish itself from the others - just jump out at you. Composition, color, originality are likely going to be much more important than usual. I'd love to be able to give well over 1,000 prizes just for the photos uploaded so far. Maybe that's the way to go - have some sort of regular recognition of good NRHP photos on a regular basis.

Hope this helps. BTW, everybody is encouraged to jump in on the WLM-US photo reviewing. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:15, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

• Encouragement

Crop, tilt, shade can alleviate ugliness

Sometimes I flinch at the infobox image of an old article and ask, "What idiot sent that miserable picture?" Oh, that was me. Assessment would be on a scale as in Wikipedia:Assessment for articles, with ABC for those that don't qualify as an elite prize candidate. As with articles, it would be a slow process. One could complicate the system with factor grades for artisticness, repairability, relevance to article, and other criteria but a simple C grade would invite others to see the bad photo as an opportunity. Not much reason to grade orphan images unless they are golden finds. A few times I have seen my photo replaced by a rival's that to my eye was less explanatory or, once or twice, less pretty and, after seething a bit, shrugged and went on to other pictures. Whenever I replace a pic with mine that I see as better, I at least check the old one's description and add a bit if that seems likely to bolster its findability. Jim.henderson (talk) 20:11, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

• My 2c. Note that I am not a professional photographer, and if the scale gets introduced, my pictures would probably fall somewhere in the middle:

  Since the pictures are hosted on Commons, I think just for technical reasons this scale should be on Commons. They have already quality images and featured images, and I do not think we can add much to their evaluation in terms of quality. What we can add though is the evaluation in terms of usefulness for the project (and the usefulness is smth which is measured in Wikipedia, not on Commons).

  Replacing the pictures in articles and lists is a very sensitive issue. As I already privately discussed with Smallbones, I had negative personal experience last year, when I participated in WLM-2011 and one day went to take pictures of a city one hour from my place. (You know, Europe is different from the US, and in one day one can easily take pictures of several hundred monuments). I postprocessed them and started adding to the lists, and then somebody who happened to travel to the same city on the same day, replaced a couple of dozens of my pictures with theirs. They clearly acted in good faith, thinking that the their pictures were superior (I was taking the facades from the side, and they were taking them upfront, which makes some distortions but then tha facade occupies the whole picture), but that was very demotivating for me, up to the point I did not want to go anywhere else to take new pictures. In addition, may users (incidentally, including myself) just on purpose upload their pictures only if the analogs are missing or are clearly inferior. This is why I uploaded all the pictures I took in the US in spring, and there was nothing left for WLM. I second Smallbones: It would be good to have a policy when and why pictures can be replaced in the lists/articles, but as soon as we have no policy, the pictures should only be replaced if either they are head and shoulders above the existing ones in terms of the quality, or if they illustrate the article better (like a global view replaces a detail of the facade), or if the previousl picture is wrongly attributed (illustrates a wrong article).--Ymblanter (talk) 15:41, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

A daunting experience. It surely isn't the quality of my pictures that has given them a better survival rate in articles; mostly it's the relative obscurity of the targets. Oh, sorry I haven't got back right away but my only good camera died yesterday and I've been doing quick research for a purchase later today in time for tomorrow's Wikipedia:Wikipedia Takes Manhattan event. Amateurish in everything, that's me. Yes, most who read the NRHP talk aren't looking for prizes in this month's contest, hence aren't shooting the spectacular targets that are already well covered. Many of us are going out every week or anyway many times per year looking for targets, especially those not covered or badly covered, rather than trying to top someone else's already good work.

Yes, routine ratings are a different and duller business than choosing only the best dozen out of thousands, but to my mind it's a more important business. For example, the WLM app shows different symbols for items having and lacking a picture; what it needs is a few symbols for good, bad and middling pictures so it can guide me and others to replace any that are as bad as the ones I've been using to illustrate this thread. That can't happen when the articles are using unrated pictures, but nobody's rating them. This is an even more subjective process than rating articles, and to my mind more important.

Articles (apart from FA and other elite ones) are rated by the various Projects, including the NRHP one, because few editors feel competent to tackle anything larger than the purview of a Project. Picture ratings, I think, have just as much reason to follow this pattern. Historic building pictures, medical pictures, bird pictures, gear diagrams etc should all be rated by the Projects that handle the articles that use them. Unused pictures, which are the great majority of those in Commons, are far less urgent than ones that appear in articles. Whether such an effort should be coordinated in Commons or in a particluarly concerned language Wikipedia, I am less sure, but ratings for pictures used in a NRHP article should be associated with the article. That way, a smartphone app or automatically produced paper map or other easily portable method can show a local map of articles and monuments, with appropriate quality symbols. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jim.henderson (talk • contribs) 14:13, 14 September 2012

In memorium Jack Boucher

It was sad to hear of the passing of Jack Boucher, who was a (sometimes "the") photographer for the Historic American Buildings Survey for almost 50 years. See Remembering Jack Boucher. There are almost 17,000 of his photos online in the HABS collection at the Library of Congress, all public domain. Commons has several thousand of these, though it's hard to tell exactly how many as the cataloging is incomplete. He's said that over 50,000 of his photos are in the LOC.

His article here is fairly incomplete. With news of his passing there will likely be better sources, so we may be able to improve it. BTW User:Jack E. Boucher made a few brief and modest additions to the article several years back.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:59, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Preservation in Mississippi has a photograph of Jack and information from the NPS Facebook page. His own work will stay with us. Thanks, Jack. KudzuVine (talk) 00:24, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Manually adding photos to WLM-US

Everything seems to be working pretty much as planned on the photo contest - no major explosions in any case. One thing I haven't done properly is letting editors know how to enter the contest without using the upload button. Note that if you use the upload button you are automatically entered and the refnum will also be automatically included.

But if you prefer another method of uploading, you are free to use it for the contest. Just enter {{Wiki Loves Monuments 2012|us}} as you upload, or edit any file you've uploaded since 12:01 Sept 1, 2012 and add the template and you will be entered. Using the template rather than adding the category directly allows us to track the international totals as well as the US total.

We would encourage you to add the refnum as well, but it is NOT required. (We may have to track it down if your photo is selected one of the top 10 best pictures in the WLM-US contest, so that you can enter the International finals for WLM.)

Also, to nominate your photos (or anybody else's) to the Best Photo contest, just add

[[Category:WLM 2012 United States nominated]] and

[[Category:WLM 2012 United States reviewed]]

to the file. We figure that all the editors here are the best folks to judge which are the photos most likely to win the Best Photo contest, so please do look through the new photos at Commons:Category:Images from Wiki Loves Monuments 2012 in the United States and nominate the ones you think are best. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:05, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I think you mean {{Wiki Loves Monuments 2012|us}} for the template, no? Jeffrey Beall (talk) 23:27, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone understand the subcategories there? Commons:Category:WLM 2012 United States reviewed says they've "been declined for award consideration", and although that category has more files than Commons:Category:WLM 2012 United States nominated, they have some files in common. I don't get it. Ntsimp (talk) 16:04, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Both categories are included for the nominated photos Commons:Category:WLM 2012 United States nominated and Commons:Category:WLM 2012 United States reviewed (I had it wrong earlier) Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:40, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Then shouldn't the number of reviewed plus the number of unreviewed equal the total in the main category? Or are there about 100 files that aren't tagged as either reviewed or unreviewed? Ntsimp (talk) 21:44, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, I've figured it out and cleaned up the problem. Those of us who upload manually need to be sure and include Commons:Category:WLM 2012 United States unreviewed as well as {{Wiki Loves Monuments 2012|us}}, so the counts are correct. Oh, by the way, It's Over 9000!!! Ntsimp (talk) 20:15, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Photos of historic districts

It seems to me that when we post pictures for NRHP historic districts, they should be of structures that are actually contributing properties per the nomination forms. However, I often come across photos in our lists and in articles about individual properties where the subject is not a contributing property or where it's unclear because the description of the photo isn't detailed enough. I'm guessing that many (most?) people just look at the district boundary description and take pictures of any buildings that fall within the boundaries. With the WLM effort, I'm sure that there will be many, many photos identified as of historic districts. Do we assume that the photographer has researched which structures are contributing properties and blindly accept the photos? --sanfranman59 (talk) 18:49, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

To wit ... the first few photos currently on Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Unused images are of historic districts ... [4], [5] & [6]. The latter 2 photos raise a related question ... do we want to accept photos of signs as photos of historic districts when they are almost certainly not contributing properties? --sanfranman59 (talk) 18:59, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Good question SFman. I don't think we've had any guidelines on this in the past - perhaps none were needed. With some new folks coming in perhaps we could be more explicit. Let me just say that I'd "never" put a pic of a sign in for any site or HD (just thought of one exception - yes this one is copyright compliant), but I've seen a few in the lists. I've tried to put a few things in at wikilovesmonuments.us (it got deleted) and on the get started 2 page. If anybody would like to further strengthen these, why not come up with some guidance here and I'll move it over to the proper WLM-US pages. Requiring Contributing structures however is probably not possible as that information is not readily available for all HDs. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:49, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

BTW a nominating/reviewing tool is in the last stages of itself being reviewed and should be available tomorrow for heavy-duty use. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:49, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem with this is that the descriptions of HDs in the Register are very vague. "Roughly bounded by ...." ... well, to the average user, what does that mean? Sometimes you can figure it out, but not always. I know at least a few of my early HD photos are of buildings that, once I saw the nom forms, turned out not to be in the district at all. Daniel Case (talk) 03:22, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Right you are, Daniel. Even apart from the vagueness of "roughly bounded by", you can't go by the boundary descriptions in the NPS announcements to determine which specific structures are contributing properties in the historic district. IMHO, we shouldn't include photos in our NRHP lists and articles about historic districts unless they're of contributing properties. With the NPS making more and more nomination forms available online and the rest available upon request, it seems to me that this should be our standard. --sanfranman59 (talk) 23:53, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I've pretty much had to guess since I started. It seems like the Florida NRHPs are going to be the last to be digitized by the gummit, so I've only been able to see the nom forms for new listings. I've found local resources for some of the HDs (like in St. Augustine), but not as many as I'd like. Which is why I take photos of multiple buildings in HDs, so if some aren't contributing properties, at least I'll have some that are. Put a picture in the infobox, and a link in the article to Commons. Like these. Which is a good idea anyway, since that way you can see the architectural variety and such. Whenever they get around to digitizing Florida, I can check the 200+ HDs to confirm my estimations. --‖ Ebyabe ^talk - Health and Welfare ‖ 14:55, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't have the same excuse, since nearly all the Utah forms are digitized. But I dove in adding photos to the lists before knowing much about the NRHP; in particular, I didn't know about "contributing properties". So most of my HD photos to date have been just a section of street or an old-looking building inside the described boundaries. But I'm working on fixing that now. Ntsimp (talk) 16:02, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, a good photo of a street with an assortment of buildings isn't a bad idea. I kind of do the same thing. You learn more about historic architecture through sheer osmosis, one of those "travel broadens the mind" things. I didn't know much about contributing properties either. Which is why I used to yell at NRHP plaques in historic districts, saying a building was on the Register, when it clearly wasn't. But it was, as a contributing property. That's another way to determine contributing property status. And if the local historical society offices are open when you're passing through, they might be able to help. --‖ Ebyabe ^talk - Repel All Boarders ‖ 16:48, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The NPS will send you all the nomination forms you want upon request (I can't remember whether or not they limit the number you can request at a time). Instructions for doing so can be found on our project's Resources page. I was able to get forms for all of the HDs in San Francisco in PDF form via secure FTP. The turn-around was surprisingly fast. I received an email with FTP instructions less than 72 hours after I submitted my request. I don't know if they're available in electronic form in all jurisdictions. --sanfranman59 (talk) 16:39, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Conflicting instructions for nominating photos for NRHP

According to http://wikilovesmonuments.us/judging/, you nominate your own photos for the contest. However, it seems that nomination is also done by people here using the review script. Which is it then? Are you supposed to nominate your own photos or wait for others to nominate them using the script? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:04, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Every photo will be reviewed for nomination. Or, if you would like to nominate your own photos, you may. So the answer is "either." Nominate your own, or wait for somebody else to nominate it. The only thing I ask is that you be realistic about nominating you own photos. If everybody nominated all of their own photos, then we'd just have to do another round of screening before sending the photos to the jury. There are 9,000 photos so far - about 1,100 have been nominated. We'll only be sending 500 to the jury, so that they will have time to properly consider the best photos. If you'd like to join in on the reviewing just click here.

Hope this helps.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:13, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Can we nominate photos from someone who is not a Wikipedian? Nicholas T on Flickr takes great photos and almost always publishes them under a free licence - his photo File:Coplay Cement Company Kilns in Saylor Park.jpg is of a NRHP site, and was uploaded to Flickr and then to Commons this month by Gerry D. Is it eligible? I started to nominate it, then undid the edit as I read the rules as it had to be uploaded by the photographer. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:55, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

That is a nice photo! Unfortunately, I read the rules the same way you did. "Photos must be taken and uploaded by you." I guess the idea is that if you are entered into a contest you should know about it! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:22, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

loads of pictures- don't know whether they are needed

Hey Everyone, I just came back from a month long visit to the states (Rockport MA, Boston MA, Denver CO, Idaho Springs/Mt. Evans CO, Seattle WA, Chicago IL, New York NY). Unaware that this contest exists- I still took loads of pictures, from various famous and non famous places. but looking through the lists of needed pictures, I couldn't find anything that is requested. It could be that I took pictures of random unfamous places you have no use for, or that those pictures already exist, or that I don't know whether the picture I took is something needed.

So, any suggestions on what I should do? Most pictures I know where they were taken, plus the GPS on my phone could help. ThanksDrorzm (talk) 23:53, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I do. Snapping a whole lot of pix of interesting buildings with geotags is easy. Harder part is, check for nearby articles or NRHP items that have no pictures or only bad ones, and upload all those and some others that I like and hope someone else will find a use for in Wikipedia. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:38, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Drorzm. It's hard to respond without seeing your photos. I dunno, would it be easy to display them in a Flickr or other website system where it is easier to upload than it is to upload to Commons? Honestly I don't know if you could post some easily and point us to them to discuss more specifically. Maybe you have some of value for town/city articles? But, it is also not surprising that if you took pics of what looked interesting in many places, you would entirely miss the pretty obscure National Register-listed historic places which are missing photos. Many of them are dumpy shacks not worth a pic, but where it turns out some guy invented a better plow, or something else happened. Also, though, new pics are often helpful, even when we already have a pic. Most NRHP places really deserve multiple pics, like closeups of details or different angles. --doncram 00:42, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

While for the purposes of the current contest they would need to be of NRHP properties, general images of places are always needed to describe the places, and some may be valuable for illustrating particular elements or prominent places that just aren't on a historic register. Large portions of the places you mention are historic districts and an image from within a district would be an entirely valid contender: Idaho Springs, for example, is pretty much all an NRHP district. Large swaths of New York and Boston are also historic districts. We could also use images of prominent non-historic buildings. As Jim says above, go for it and upload what seems reasonable or interesting, and as Doncram says, just because there's already an image doesn't mean that another one would be unwelcome.. Acroterion (talk) 00:44, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, I've been convinced that uploading the images, will do some good to some people. Now comes a stupid question- how do I make sure they do not vanish in the massive void of unlinked data. Assuming some pictures are yet of no use to anyone, or I don't know which editor that is, how can I make sure that the lucky editor can find my specific picture when he finally does want an image of that weird house on the random street.Drorzm (talk) 23:26, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Coords and cats. This is one of the majority of Commons pictures that are orphans. It already has coordinates, so it will show on category maps. someone who wanted to make it more findable would add categories having to do with snow, brick buildings, an architectural style category or two, window styles, shape and condition of stairs, estimated construction date, and anything else you can think of. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:16, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Second making sure images are categorized (as copiously as possible). (I usually have a second window next to the upload where I do category lookups when I upload pictures.) Also please provide detailed descriptions (assuming you have them) to describe what's in the pictures. There's nothing more frustrating than seeing a photo of a place but not being able to determine whether it depicts something of note (like a listed district or property) because someone just described it as "a picture of <place>". Magic♪piano 00:39, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I just want to echo Jim.henderson's and Magicpiano's points. Coords, cats and as detailed a description as possible that includes at a minimum what the subject of the photo is (John Smith House) and where it is (street address, city/town and/or county, state). If you think the subject of the photo is listed on the NRHP, place it in appropriate NRHP-related categories (e.g. National Register of Historic Places in Marin County, California, Houses listed on the National Register of Historic Places in California, etc.) I spend a good deal of time trying to categorize photos on Commons and it's unfortunate how many are uploaded with very little or no information about what's in the photo and where it's located. --sanfranman59 (talk) 17:41, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

When looking for an illustration for something that is in a particular place, I always look in Google Maps for roundels in the neighborhood. Splendid thing about coords is, they don't require the uploader to guess at the cats and words that a later user will think to search for. Of course you should also do the guessing. Jim.henderson (talk) 19:57, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Help for a newbie

Someone who knows the neighborhood care to look into User:D R Geddy-Lamb/sandbox? Jim.henderson (talk) 19:57, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I left a message on his talk page on how to get an nrhp ionfobox from Elkman for "White Hall." KudzuVine (talk) 00:16, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Brow Monument NRHP documentation

This thread was continued from Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#Pdf documentation from National Register of Historic places - what to do with it (thread there is done, discussion continues here)

hi.

it has been suggested that i contact you to see if a certain set of NRHP pdfs are or are not in the public domain.

I will give you the entire thread of this conversation just so I don't leave anything out. I apologize for doing it in maybe a more cumbersome way than it should be done.

For what it's worth, from your description of the NRHP nom, it sounds like that particular one is public domain. You may wish to solicit more opinions and help at en:WT:NRHP/en:WP:NRHP on the English Wikipedia. The distinctions between Commons and Wikipedia policies can be difficult to parse, and the NRHP project is more apt to give a full response over there. Acroterion (talk) 19:09, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

here's the previous range of questions and answers

Hi,

I posted this question over at wikipedia teahouse but figured i might as well ask here because it's possible that the solution to my problem will lie in loading the information i have to Commons.

while working on my article on Brow Monument [7] it was suggested that I contact the national register people to see if they had the nomination papers for the monument. they finally got back to me with 23 pages of pdf documentation. This is all very interesting stuff that includes old photos and maps and the nomination information itself. However, all of it is on an in-house server in Washington DC to which the public does not/can not have easy access. it took me over a week to get the files. Any suggestions as to how to handle this pile of information? I believe that the article includes most of the pertinent data (but i'll look over the pdfs to see if there is something missing) but I think the pdfs are extremely useful to anyone wanting to do serious research It is all department of Interior documentation so there should be no problem of it being in the public domain.Abearfellow (talk) 23:23, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

• If it is, indeed, all public domain, then the PDF can be posted to Commons. However, NRHP nominations often contain a lot of documents (and photos) by people completely unconnected to the federal government who prepared the nomination. Are you sure that isn't the case? - Jmabel ! talk 01:00, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

hello. thanks for the response. I believe that the 23 pages are in the public domain but, obviously, that needs to be confirmed by you. If it makes sense, I would be willing to upload the PDFs to Commons with the understanding that they can be rejected and deleted if you find they are not public domain. my reasoning that they are is that the nomination is done on the National Park Service nomination form. It was prepared by two archeologists who list their organization (section 11) as the Kaibab National Forest. the topo map and drawing (pages 14, 15 have no citations on the pages) the 8 black and white photographs of the site are cited with a photographer's name and the information that the negatives are at the Kaibab National Forest office in Williams, Az. Being a photographer, my understanding is that the inclusion of where the negatives are indicates who owns the photographs - thus they are owned by the National Forest Service and should be considered public domain (just my opinion). Please advise as to how you would like me to proceed. I would love to include these as links to the article. If that is not possible, I will merely reference them in the article so that readers of the article can go request them from the NRHP. thanks again bpolkAbearfellow (talk) 18:06, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

NRHP docs have to be approached with caution, since any authors or photographers who are not on the federal payroll make it non-public domain. The Park Service is in the process of placing all NRHP nominating docs on their servers, but haven't gotten to Arizona yet. There's no reason you can't reference the docs you have in hand as you would for any print source, and when they are finally available on the NRHP Focus site they can be linked. I will note that the great majority of NRHP noms aren't public domain, despite being on a federal form, and the Park Service has confirmed this to me directly when asked. General policy at the NRHP wikiproject on enwiki is to avoid using nomination documents for images and text, only as sources: you might want to check in there (en:WT:NRHP). Acroterion (talk) 18:29, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

thanks much. i will reference them in the article and let people go get them themselves. i'll keep the NRHP site on my list of things to check should they ever show up in pure public domain. Abearfellow (talk) 18:50, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Good to see you here and good job on the Brow Monument and Brow Monument Trail article. Acroterion (talk) 19:59, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

For some reason there was no license on one of the pix and it got deleted, so I replaced it in the infobox. Just make sure that there is a tag in the file at Commons of {{self|cc-by-sa-3.0}}

As far as the question of whether NRHP photos and documents should be public domain, that's more of a political question, but I think it is obvious that they should be. While it's not always obvious that they generally aren't public domain - the NRHP gets a release from the nominator that the NRHP can do anything they want with the pix and nomination forms, and the nom (and pix) are a public record - Wikipedia is very careful about copyrights. The NRHP could, if they wanted, just change the release to "the nomination form and accompanying photos must be released to the public domain", but they don't. Wikipedia is not the place for politics, so I won't say anything about writing to your congressman and senators. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:58, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

So, any concensus as to whether I should just upload the pages, cite them as dept. of interior documents and let the copyright people accept or reject them? i have the sense that this is a grey area and probably the only way to find out is to just do it. bpolkAbearfellow (talk) 18:55, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Unless you can prove that the documents in question were written / prepared specifically by federal government employees (which would make it in the public domain), please do NOT upload the documents here or on Commons. Almost all NRHP documents were written by people who were not US government employees, which means that they are copyrighted by the authors. Are these authors likely to complain if the documents are posted here? No, but Wikipedia makes a point of not hosting things unless we can prove they are PD. Hope this helps, and thanks for you work on the Bow Monument article. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

okie dokie bpolkAbearfellow (talk) 20:28, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

BTW, I checked with a nomination author once, and he said that his documents were considered work-for-hire, and therefore copyrighted by the state, rather than him, but the same argument applies. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:07, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

WLM copyvio

I'm afraid that one of the recent WLM photos appears to be a copyvio. This photo of the Park School in Omaha appears to be identical, down to the framing, the clouds, and the parked cars in the foreground, to this photo at the Nebraska State Historical Society's National Register Sites in Douglas County website.

Could someone suggest what to do in this situation? I haven't dealt with possible copyvios at Commons before, and the help page is less than helpful.

Note that the editor's submitted a number of other photos, mostly in Utah. It'd probably be a good idea for someone who knows Utah resources better than I do to check up on some of them, as well. Ammodramus (talk) 13:37, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I've just opened the question at the commons user talk page. From the camera-specific detail information available in other contributed pics (such as File:218 N,. Main, Payson 3.JPG ), I am guessing the user did take and contribute the Utah pics on his own. And maybe just has an association with that school over in Nebraska and wanted to see it documented in wikipedia. Help moving the issue along at the commons user talk page, if/when there is a response by the user, would be appreciated. Maybe we could wait for a response before hammering the talk page with negative notices, I hope. --doncram 14:35, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

All of the Utah ones have legit-looking metadata, while the Nebraska one has none. I find that encouraging. Ntsimp (talk) 14:51, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The editor in question uploaded another Omaha photo, which appeared to have legitimate metadata and which didn't match anything that I could find on Google Images. No photo of that particular building at the NSHS Douglas County website. Suspect that it's OK. Ammodramus (talk) 16:53, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I have tagged the Park School image for deletion as a copyvio. The image can be re-uploaded once ownership is determined. Commons is one of the places where it is better to seek permission rather than forgiveness: if you need forgiveness, you will still need the permission.  Thundersnow  20:40, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Altered images

File:US Bureau of Reclamation Project Office Building 2012-09-16 11-16-25.jpg

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Project Office Building

File:Methodist Episcopal Church of Montrose 2012-09-16 10-41-33.jpg

Methodist Episcopal Church of Montrose

File:Thomas B- Townsend House 2012-09-16 09-13-01.jpg

Thomas B. Townsend House

What is to be done with altered images? Do they get placed in the lists, or do they have their NRHP tag removed so they stop popping up?

• File:Methodist Episcopal Church of Montrose 2012-09-16 10-41-33.jpg
• File:Thomas B- Townsend House 2012-09-16 09-13-01.jpg
• File:US Bureau of Reclamation Project Office Building 2012-09-16 11-16-25.jpg

 Thundersnow  10:06, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I say use them in lists and articles. I like them! And, I think some wikiproject NRHP regulars here do some color enhancing and other alterations, too. --doncram 12:18, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't see a place for these in the articles or lists: they're altered beyond reasonable encyclopedic value. For my own part I try to stick to perspective correction, sharpening and a modest amount of contrast and color correction or enhancement to express the subject faithfully in an attractive image. The images in question are attractive (a nice job, in fact), but aren't very useful for the encyclopedia, which would be better served by less impressionistic, more prosaic images of what's actually there. Acroterion (talk) 12:30, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

They look like Kinkade paintings and, at the very least, should not be used in any articles. They're even worse than Instagram photos--GrapedApe (talk) 12:32, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Hey, let's not anyone express anything too strongly, and do let's try to consider what actual policies and guidelines apply, too, okay?

Truthfully, that was me being circumspect. Here's what I really think: they look like hell, and I think they violate some combination of WP:OR/WP:V, because they do not accurately reflect what the buildings look like. They are an amateurish and artistic (only in the loosest sense) impression of the location, and have no place in an encyclopedia.--GrapedApe (talk) 22:25, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The Manual of Style, in the section Pertinence, says, "Images are primarily meant to inform readers by providing visual information. Consequently, images should look like what they are meant to illustrate, even if they are not provably authentic images." (emphasis in original) Crop, tilt, sharpen, unwarp, etc... all are tools to make a camera image more closely match what eyes would see. What I am seeing in these images distorts reality even more than a camera lens, and should not be used.  Thundersnow  07:00, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Thundersnow speaks the truth.--GrapedApe (talk) 01:41, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Personally I don't see why drawings, paintings, other created images could not be used in articles, where there is no copyright issue. It doesn't come up much, because none of us have been drawing and contributing images, though I've thought of contributing some, and works by other artists are usually not public domain. I've asked an artist who sells paintings of remote railway bridges in the southwest, who considered contributing one but did not come through with it.

Anyhow, I started up a Thomas B. Townsend House article to use the picture, and I think the picture adds nicely. That it is an image of the correct place can be verified by consulting with the NRHP nom's 1980 black and white photos. While I agree that "traditional" other photos would add to the article, too, this is the only photo available that can be included. So I think for now, for these photo(s) at least, that we should simply include them and go on. If this leads to complications later, well, we can deal with them later. --doncram 13:44, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that this Wikiproject NRHP has an astounding but proven ability to be negative and awful to newcomers and to experienced editors, too. IMO we oughta be a bit more open. Consider Methodist Episcopal Church of Montrose article now with its striking pic, and compare to this version, the best we could do since the article was created in 2008. It's way better, and some local photographer might be encouraged to contribute more pics, maybe both of artistic nature and of more specifically representational nature, too. --doncram 14:01, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm as eager to welcome new users as anyone, but I don't think it's negative and awful to ask that factual, legible images be uploaded and used in articles. It would be different if a famous-and-out-of-copyright artist had done a notable picture of the place, but Wikipedia isn't a webhost for artwork displays. Acroterion (talk) 14:17, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with both Acroterion and Doncram. The pictures are remarkable in their own way, but they are not encyclopedic, and should not be used unless we don't have anything better. Drawings, paintings, etc. can be used in articles and lists and may add something that a photo could not (e.g. a historical view). We use HABS drawings all the time, but I'd consider them a lot more encyclopedic.

The remarkable thing about these photos is that they are taken with a cell phone. I believe the altering is actually an easy-to-use feature of an app. Just hit the van go button, and voila. If anybody has specific info on this, I'd love to hear it. While the photos appear to be amazingly creative and original the first time you see one - I think it is the programmer's creativity, not the photographer's. After seeing a dozen of these, the effect will get old real quick.

BTW, an issue mentioned above is occasionally mentioned on the international WLM organizers list. It's super-extreme version is that editing photos is somehow "unnatural" and should be strongly discouraged. I think everything that a camera does is unnatural, and that a small amount of editing is required for most pix to get something that looks fairly natural. I edit well over 90% of my pix - first for "tilt" - somehow I never get that quite right when I'm taking the photo, then I usually crop it just a bit. The most common problems I see in photos here - other than very minor tilt - is that features of the building are hidden in the shadow. Many times this is easily corrected with editing. Color adjustments are probably more controversial, but I think many of our photos need a small bit of this. I would warn that automatic "enhancement" in some editing programs tend to overdo this, e.g. the grass is always to green.

In short, these photos not encyclopedic, drawing painting, etc. are welcome additions to articles and lists, and light editing should be encouraged. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:34, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, i am sorry if my statement seemed too strong. Acroterion has indeed been welcoming, e.g. per the newbie rescue discussion item further above, and I think of GrapedApe as one of the salient victims of unfriendly treatment from this wikiproject, when GrapedApe, who was already an experienced editor, began adding NRHP pages. I am glad to see GrapedApe still coming around. Just, we should really try to make a decent starting experience for new persons. It's really important to avoid deleting all of a person's pages, or publicly deciding to use none of a person's photos, or hammering their Talk page with negative messages. By the way, WikiProject Oregon has done a great job absorbing new editors, including one or two whose initial work was really not to the liking of longterm members. I watched them not saying a single negative word, and finding nice things to say only, in one case that was probably very trying. Which led to that person becoming a good contributing member. In this wikiproject, I think we have not been disciplined enough, we have not been polite enough, we have not valued the development of community enough (including that we have not adequately countered those who are very willing to scoff at ideas of community), for both new and old members. And the temptation to create and impose new bureaucratic rules, in objection to something new which might or might turn out to lead to any big problems, especially if it might turn off some new person, should really be resisted.

Are we doing enough to welcome the WLM newbies? Most WLM contributors don't have wikipedia pages, and are contributing over at Commons, seemingly out of reach. Should we be making "welcome" statements over at their Commons talk pages, and inviting them to consider joining here? Has anyone ever given a welcome-to-NRHP message to any new constributor over at Commons? I myself scarcely ever edit over at Commons. I fear we are not connecting at all with most of them, and many are likely getting only negative bot-type messages at Commons and/or here. --doncram 18:22, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

"Are we doing enough to welcome the WLM newbies?" Probably not. Particularly if user accounts are being created over at Commons and the user doesn't move over to WP, which would automatically create an account here: the distinction between Commons and WP is not apparent or comprehensible to most people. What does WLM/Europe do?

I have the same (or a similar) app on my phonecam: I played with it a bit, was amused, and ignored it afterwards, except for the HDR feature that compensates to some degree for the phonecam's shortcomings, but I've not had an opportunity or reason to use it for WP activities. Acroterion (talk) 20:27, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm trying to be the anti-bot over at Commons but could definitely use some help. A canned "Welcome to WP:NRHP" probably wouldn't be much help though. Some users do have real problems with our rules that can be overcome. But you might only realize how difficult our rules have become until you try to explain everything in detail to a newby. The best way to find problems is by using the reviewing tool.

I'm intrigued by the editing/creativity question. The international contest (and thus the US contest) does encourage creativity and originality. The basic photo over here however is pretty much the type of thing that would appear in a newspaper (call it "reportage"). Reportage is good here, but a little originality never hurts either. I'd be interested in hearing some reactions to the following photos:

• File:Hancock over Water Tower.jpg
• File:Times Square 2010 1.JPG,
• File:The Plaza New York.jpg, and my own attempt at humor
• File:Up and Over.JPG Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:01, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

For my own part I dislike over-processed photos like the Hancock image, but am in favor of creative points of view and thoughtful composition and lighting. Ideally, we should have a just-the-facts depiction that covers the encyclopedic aspect and then augment with interesting images that are less concerned with straightforward depiction. There will be objections from the images-aren't-decoration crowd, but one of these days WP's going to need to move into the 21st century with its layout and graphics, and creative images will be needed for that. I'd personally get bored with planting myself at a small angle to the front of a building and getting the whole thing in: there's much to be said for creating a sense of the place and for a wow factor, which is entirely possible in an encyclopedic setting. The last image gives a pretty good feeling of how it feels to stand under Gateway Arch, for instance. The Times Square image is appealing as an image, but is perhaps hard to justify for the encyclopedia. The Plaza image gives a sense of place, though perhaps with too much processing and alteration for my taste. I think there's a balance to be struck between encyclopedic purpose and having engaging images, whose tension is seen in the FP debates on Commons. Acroterion (talk) 21:47, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes. There's no use making a rule from a matter of principle here. Heavy processing can be good, bad, ugly, informative, whatever. The question has to be handled case by case. Yes, in many cases the work is done with far more aggressiveness than thought. Same is true for some of the simplest, straightforwardest snapshots. In other cases aggressive, thoughtful HDR work can produce excellent results. It's all about the result. Jim.henderson (talk) 22:58, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

HDR can be extremely useful, particularly in interiors, as the image above shows, and in cases like north-facing buildings, where regular photography yields a shadowed facade and a blown sky. We're seriously short of interior views, for a lot of practical reasons like access difficulties and the demanding technical requirements for a good image. In the long run there'll need to be more emphasis on getting quality images of difficult subjects, which will require a lot of processing. I try to avoid making an image look overtly processed, but everyone's mileage may vary, and few images (even in wet-film days) require no manipulation. Acroterion (talk) 00:52, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

being awful

Speaking of people probably being awful, the Methodist Episcopal Church of Montrose article was just stripped down by administrator Nyttend using the revdel tool I think, or another admin tool, with an edit summary in the deletion log about removing unambiguous copyvio. I can't see what was removed, but i think it was probably an explicit quote that I probably put in with full credit to the NRHP nomination document reference, a reference which I know I had added and which is now gone. The article looked way better, I thought, and was willing to assert publicly here. Until it was just trashed. I suppose it is possible that reasonable people can disagree about what length of short quote is acceptable. But I am pretty sure that it was not an unambiguous copyright violation. I don't appreciate the administrative intervention. Could someone provide a copy of what was deleted, here, or email it to me? --doncram 20:40, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The nom form is available in NPS Focus --sanfranman59 (talk) 20:59, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Local society = national?

116 Sullivan Street uses the NRHP box, but I cannot find any listing for it except on the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission. Does being on that list automatically confer national status to a site, or is the article just using the wrong box? If it is the wrong box, which one should be used instead (if any)?  Thundersnow  04:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Likely the wrong box. Elkman's tool doesn't recognize the name, not on the NYC lists. Nothing obvious from a Google search. Being on the NYC list is impressive, but not the same thing as being listed on the NRHP. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:52, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't get its infobox put into Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup because it put a number for the refnum. That does not make it right because it is not on the NRHP. It could use the Historic sites infobox. KudzuVine (talk) 14:32, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Fixed with infobox historic sites with designation of NYCL. NRHP templates and categories removed. KudzuVine (talk) 16:34, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

{{Infobox historic site}} was what I was looking for, thank you.  Thundersnow  23:29, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

They have arrived

164 new archaeological areas in Nine Mile Canyon were added to the register this week. This should be fun. Teemu08 (talk) 16:26, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Dang! Just when the Utah list was almost 50% illustrated. I'm kidding; I love Nine Mile Canyon and welcome the new listings. Ntsimp (talk) 16:34, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that I can come up with a relatively quick way of adding all of these by copying the Carbon and Duchesne lists out to Excel or Word and manipulating the information there. I'll give it a go in the next few days. --sanfranman59 (talk) 20:03, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

These new listings give the city/town as "Price vicinity" same as the others, which I had changed to Wellington since you have to go through Wellington to get to Nine Mile from Price (original research, I know). I would recommend using Wellington for the new ones, but whatever the consensus is they should be consistent. Ntsimp (talk) 20:11, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Done. A couple of wrinkles:

• They included a leading 0 in front of the 3-digit site numbers this time whereas they did not when they added the other Nine Mile Canyon sites in 2009 (e.g. 42Cb0144 rather than 42Cb144). I ordered them in our tables by significant digits. So 42Cb0144 is between 42Cb52 and 42Cb145 rather than at the top of the list as it would be if the list were sorted in alphanumeric order by name (i.e. 42Cb0144 sorts before 42Cb31). I don't feel strongly about this, so if there's consensus that it should be handled differently, I'd have no objection.
• One of the sites listed in 2009 as in Carbon County has a Duchesne County site number (42Dc706). So the NPS apparently either made an error in the site number or in the county designation. I'm guessing that it's the latter and that listing belongs in the Duchesne County list. Should we move it? --sanfranman59 (talk) 00:40, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree that leading zeros are not significant. I've always assumed that site 42Dc706 was originally recorded in the wrong county (easy to do in a canyon right on the county line before GPS), then listed correctly on the NRHP, but I've never been able to confirm this. Ntsimp (talk) 01:56, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Historical markers?

Do images of only historical plaques get tagged with the site's NRIS # on Commons? I am sorting through the unnumbered images and am seeing a lot of plaques, both attached to buildings and free standing. I was of the opinion that plaques and markers are modern additions and should not be numbered, but I cannot find anything saying one way or the other.

• Example plaque: File:1914 Nueces County Courthouse marker.jpg
• Plaque on site: File:1914 Nueces County Courthouse 3.jpg (NRIS# 76002055)
• Site location: National Register of Historic Places listings in Nueces County, Texas
• Template on Commons: Template:NRHP

 Thundersnow  01:26, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I doubt we have a rule on this, but my general feeling toward plaques and signs is pretty negative. When in doubt use anything other than a sign. Many could be copyright violations (but not in Pennsylvania, thanks to Ruhrfisch!). The "Plaque on site" example is ok to me because it actually includes a photo of the courthouse, but frankly it would be better without the plaque. In a few places it actually is the plaque that's the subject, rather than a building, e.g. geographical coordinate markers, but these are probably the exception that proves the rule. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:18, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Which did not answer my question: do the plaques get tagged with the NRHP/NRIS number? ErfgoedBot is scanning the Commons categories "National Register of Historic Places in" whatever county, and placing unnumbered images in a list for humans to work on.WARNING: page is graphics intensive! My first example above is just the plaque. Should I number the plaque images with their site's number?  Thundersnow  03:26, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Reviewing WLM-US photos this week

Wiki Loves Monuments ends in a week (6 am Eastern Daylight Time, Monday, October 1, 2012). If uploads follow Europe's example, almost half of the total uploads will happen this week.

Please help with reviewing the photos using the

• Reviewing tool

The most important time for reviewing might be Sunday night and Monday morning, in order to complete the reviews in a reasonable time so that we can move on to further judging of the pix.

Any help appreciated.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 12:09, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

After seeing how many editors are tagging their not-the-best photos as "nominated" straight from upload (one user has over 200 photos "nominated" that way), I wondered how many photos were not being reviewed at all, or that qualified for the drive but were never tagged (happened to me). I will leave those kinds of decisions and complications to editors with better control over their blood pressure. Good luck to them.  Thundersnow  23:45, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Allowing folks to self-nominate was probably not the best decision, but it's in the current rules. There will be a second round of reviewing, and if there are photos that shouldn't have been nominated, I think they will be very easy to spot. About 15% of all submitted photos have been nominated (about 2,000 now) and we have to get it down to well below 5% (500) to send to the official jury. I think it's best at this point to limit the reviewing to experienced editors from WP:NRHP, and the 2nd review will likely start next Monday afternoon. If you'd like to help in the 2nd review, please send me an e-mail via my talkpage. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:14, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

example

I think the False positives are not a problem, you'll kick them out next round. The False negatives are the big problem I think. With every picture only being looked at by one person some will've been under valuated and should deserve a nomination, I think 3 pairs of eyes would pick out some more potential winners. My experience with the 12.000 pictures batches is that some jury members only got like 10% of the final top 30 in their nominations (others got up to 50%). This means that because of different tastes people are very likely to not nominate the possible winner when they see it. But looking closer to that picture might nominate it, and even convince the jury to make it a winner. Basvb (talk) 11:24, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmm I need to give an example offcourse, the picture to the right would have a good chance making it to the final 500 or even 100 pictures but hasn't been nominated (offcourse taste differs so finding a good example everybody will agree on is hard). (some other examples: 1, 2, 3, 4a or 4b, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13) Offcourse you will look at those and disagree on some, it would be weird if I'd selected 14 pictures which should be at the best 100, but I believe some of those 13 will/should be there, I obtained these pictures by looking at circa 1000 pictures, clicking on around 50 of them I liked, the other 40 were allready nominated, but these 13, around 20%, weren't. (I did not yet nominate them, so if you agree please do so). Mvg, Basvb (talk) 11:31, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Kicking out the false positives is a wonderful idea except some users are adding the nomination after their images fails review. There is nothing to stop these unscrupulous editors from re-adding the nomination tag after the second round, either. I can only hope that the next rounds are handled via email, or that all WLM contributions are locked so only those with special tools can edit them, or some other way that is secure from disruption and/or fudging.

I tried reviewing a couple of times. Both times my first consideration was "utility", which is the last on the list of things to look for. My priorities are too different to make a good judge. I hope all of the reviewers find their diamond in the rough and take some joy from the process, though.  Thundersnow  13:57, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

My resignation letter

In a classic "straw that broke the camel's back" move, I've decided I no longer want to associate myself with this project--maybe even Wikipedia all together. I loved it when Doncram wasn't here for that ages-long block. Hardly any contention among members.. everyone did their own thing and everyone got along.. no shitty stubs being created en masse for people to argue over and try to delete.. so peaceful.

I've largely avoided Doncram since he's returned from his block, but we've just had an encounter over at the Resources subpage. This episode is most decidedly nothing big, but after about four full years of editing with Doncram, I've just hit a point where I'm tired of dealing with the guy. Everything he says and does I just want to scream at the top of my lungs at him, so I've decided I should just stay away. This has been a long time in the making, so one shouldn't make too much out of the incident in question. It's more of an overarching thing that has gradually pissed me off more and more.

Doncram shows no regard for a large portion of project members who think his plethora of minimal sub-stubs are an embarrassment to the project and should never have been created without any research. He treats the project and all of Wikipedia as his personal sandbox, doing things his way, then ignoring others who disagree. He has shown in several instances (including this one) that he completely ignores well-established guidelines and procedures, all the while somehow insisting that a large majority of editors are equally as unobservant and incompetent as he is. He seems not to grasp the idea of reading, analyzing, and interpreting information critically but rather sticks to an at-a-glance mentality wherein he misses the point of almost everything. He seems to ignore any and all attempts to make something concise or presentable to the average reader/editor, instead electing to turn the entire encyclopedia into "may or may not"s, "please correct this if I'm wrong"s, and "WeE NEeD Ur HaLPz cUz WIiRz 2 LaZY 2 lUK tHinGZ uP DURR"s. (I admit, that last one may have been a fabrication.)

It's people like him that give Wikipedia its negative connotation in academia. I personally think the encyclopedia would be much better off if he were permanently banned from editing, but there isn't one single event that one can point to and say "there, that's it.. you're blocked for that." Instead, several editors have had several less-than-pleasurable experiences with him and eventually left the project or stopped editing all together. You can add me to this tally, as I don't plan on editing here until Doncram is gone for good.

Good luck in your efforts, project members and visitors, and please continue to develop quality material. I've tried over the years to make everything I produce be presentable, and I've tried to tidy up this project a bit and make it more streamlined, but the satisfaction I used to get from doing this has slowly been eaten away by the negative feelings I have developed toward this lone editor. I realize that this is quite a blatant personal attack, and it may be grounds for blocking me, but so be it. You can consider this my indefinite resignation letter.

Sincerely, --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:14, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you feel that way in general. And i am sorry for being a bit contentious at that Resources page just now; I think we both could have handled it better with some discussion at its Talk page, where i think i was a bit short with you partly as a function of what seems like a pretty-long history of back-and-forth over too many matters for me, too.

Wikipedia and WikiProject NRHP need many kinds of editors and contributions. Editors providing small numbers of really great articles are certainly needed, but we also need coverage of topics that would not get covered within the next 50 years if their articles are not just started. I am proud of the work I have done and am doing, including currently working on developing articles about NRHP architects, builders, and engineers. This last project has created thousands of links between articles, identified and corrected hundreds of typos and other errors about names, and enriched many "substubs" created by others besides me. Dudemanfellabra, you have done a lot for this NRHP project and for the HSITES project that we worked together in starting. Thanks, --doncram 22:38, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Standard colors

The lists use color to distinguish NHLs and HDs from regular NRHP listings, but I was surprised to discover that a property that is a National Historic Landmark District—that is, both NHL and HD—uses the regular color. My memory says it wasn't always this way, but I got lost chasing down the history of the relevant templates. Do we want to keep it that way, or would it make sense to change the color? Ntsimp (talk) 12:12, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your attention to this! It seems there was an edit in 2011 that changed the color for NHLDs from its "Dark Turquoise" hue, at the {{NHLD color}} template. The edit might have been intended to change wording in the template, not change the color; it looks like a mistake. I just edited there and think i restored the previous, different color. All the color templates are found within Category:Historical Site color templates. Thanks!

We could do with a complete change of all the colors sometime, just for variety. The blue shades were chosen arbitrarily a long time ago; how about we going with a palette of pastel colors? --doncram 12:31, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I've always found the shades of turquoise a bit jarring, and the distinctions between hues are lost unless they're juxtaposed (the fact that nobody noticed the problem above for so long is confirmation that the distinctions aren't distinct enough). Acroterion (talk) 12:39, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, i was only looking at List of NHLs in NY, an NHL list that does not use the NRHP row template now used in almost all NRHP lists. Actually, it looks like the relatively new {{NRHP row}} may fail to recognize NHLD color. It may apply NRHP color to every row? This is a problem. Again i would be happy for the color palette to be changed to make the distinctions better, but the distinctions have been working fine within the 50+ NHL lists. --doncram 12:41, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The performance of the bot converting NRHP lists to use NRHP row template was discussed by Sanfranman59 and Multichill at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 51#Bot not converting NHS and other less common NRHP types? in December 2011, though it might have been good to follow up on the assurance then that the bot would address those properly. There was a lot going on then, though. It's fine that it took a while to notice this problem within the NRHP lists that have so few NHLDs (as opposed to the NHL lists where a color error would have been obvious). --doncram 13:19, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Ntsimp, what exactly are you noticing that is wrong? Cobblestone Historic District, as one example NHLD, appears with distinct NHLD color in National Register of Historic Places listings in Orleans County, New York (which uses the NRHP row template), and also appears with distinct NHLD color in List of NHLs in NY (which does not use NRHP row). The individual article's NRHP infobox fails to show the distinct NHLD color, however, which seems to be a problem, perhaps with {{infobox nrhp}}? Where is the problem exactly that you see, Ntsimp? --doncram 13:32, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, your edit seems to have fixed it. There are three NHLDs in National Register of Historic Places listings in Salt Lake City, Utah, and their color is now correct. But I think there is another issue here. The edit you reverted was changing {{NHLD color}} to use a centrally-located template, at {{designation/color}}. The dark turquoise was taken off of that one with this edit, whose edit summary seems to say the dark turquoise is not considered accessible. Ntsimp (talk) 13:39, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The full color system that we have been using for national-level historic designations in the U.S. is given at Wikipedia:NRHP colors legend. I see that the colors were sometime implemented into the {{Designation/colour}} template, probably by editor Dudemanfellabra, which is a comprehensive template supporting WikiProject Historic sites. The colors for U.S. designations need to stay matched to what our legend gives, and what the individual color templates give, not diverge to some other color scheme! And a change in color scheme could be justified, but it should probably be discussed somewhere! Thanks Ntsimp for finding that edit by editor Kaldari from August 11, 2012, which changed NHLD color, NHR color, and NHS color all to the color of NHL color, and without changing the corresponding legend. That seems not right to do! And i see that edit changed colors for many other countries designations, too. There is mention in one following edit summary there of a Talk page request, but there is no Talk page to the template. I see no discussion at wt:HSITES either. I'll ask that editor to comment here. --doncram 20:37, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The only colors that I changed were the ones that were not in compliance with the accessibility guidelines. In particular we had blue link text on blue backgrounds which were difficult to read (even with perfect eyesight). I don't care what colors are used as long as they comply with the guidelines. Here are some sample colors that comply: Template:Designation#Color_selection. I didn't know about Wikipedia:NRHP colors legend. Sorry about not updating that. Kaldari (talk) 20:57, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Doncram asked me to comment here. I was the editor that initially created the {{Designation}} template and came up with most of the colors (not the US designation ones, mind you--they were here long before me). The need for the template arose out of a long story:

{{Infobox NRHP}} has been around for years, probably about as long as this project has been alive and longer than I've been on Wikipedia. When I joined in 2008, Infobox NRHP was pretty bare and didn't have nearly as many features as it has now. At that time, several members of the project expressed the desire to upgrade the infobox to be able to incorporate other NPS designations like NHL, NHS, and the others mentioned above, and consensus was formed that we should add colored bars associated with these designations. I'm not sure when the color palette was chosen, but I believe it was before that discussion had even begun. Anyway, the infobox went through several changes in the following months/years, and somewhere along the way the idea of adding not just NPS but other non-national designations was expressed. The infobox was expanded again, and stayed that way for a bit. Then, people around the encyclopedia were wondering how to handle historic sites that were listed on some state or local register but not on the NRHP. WP:HSITES was formed at this time (though it seems dead now), and several candidate infoboxes came forth, but the one that eventually won out among them all was {{Infobox historic site}}. This infobox was designed to included colored bars similar to those in use in the NRHP infobox that corresponded to non-NPS designations.

Now the way these bars were incorporated into the infoboxes was kind of clunky and required the use of about 5 different parameters to get right at the time. On top of that, anyone could come in and make up their own designation and color scheme and just kind of do whatever they wanted. So what ended up happening is that there were like 2-3 different "standards" going on at once for the same designation (I believe New York City Landmarks was one of the main ones). Seeing this, members of WP:HSITES got together and decided to make a single template that would hold color schemes, banner text, links, etc., all in one place---enter Template:Designation. The template started out only being used for Infobox historic site, but it became popular enough that eventually it was incorporated into Infobox NRHP as well.

Now I had been very active during this whole progression, so I (and a few others) were there to oversee this entire progression, making sure everything was cross-referenced and all the i's were dotted. After a while, though, I began to get busy in real life (graduating college, applying for grad schools, other life worries), so I went inactive on Wikipedia for an extended period of time, only checking every now and then. While I was gone, some user expressed accessibility concerns about the colors in Template:Designation, just as Kaldari is now. There was a long discussion in which I was only partially involved, but the end result turned into Infobox historic site being modified to use borders around bars rather than background colors, and text colors (which were originally part of Template:Designation) were all stripped. This system is still in use in {{Infobox historic site}}.

Now, over summer--again while I was relatively inactive--Kaldari et al had the above discussion which was predicated on the fact that list at Template:Designation#Supported designations (which wasn't updated when Infobox historic site was changed to the border format) was unreadable, in part because of the aforementioned removal of text colors. To remedy this perceived problem (which wasn't actually a problem anymore, after having been resolved by the border solution), Kaldari changed many of the long-accepted colors so that they would function "correctly" as background colors.

Now here we are today. Infobox NRHP (and the NRHP row template, which came later) still use background colors. Infobox historic site uses borders. The color selection we had before worked as border colors but not as background colors. The way I see it, we have three options:

1. Keep the accessibility-compliant colors and change the long-accepted NRHP color palette.
2. Change Infobox NRHP and the NRHP row template to use borders rather than backgrounds and restore the old color palette.
3. Make two different templates, one for border colors and one for background colors. There appears to be a Template:Designation/colour2 that was created out of this last conversation, so this option may be the easiest of the three to implement.

I may be able to find the time to do option 1 or 2, but I'm very busy now with grad school, so it's unlikely they will happen fast. Someone else is more than welcome to do them, though, if they can code well.

I just wanted to catch everyone up and "pass the torch", if you will, because I no longer have as much time to devote to this, though I'll still be checking in occasionally. Good luck! Sorry for the long post!--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:29, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Dudemanfellabra for filling us in. I don't understand it all. Out of what you say, though, it jumps out to me that the problem was not a problem at all. I just requested the August 11 edit be undone with respect to U.S. historic sites, by edit protected request here. I am certainly open to some color change being considered, or suggestion of option 1 or 2 or 3, but that will take some discussion i guess. The distinctions in 2000+ list-articles need to be restored now, so that the articles convey what they are supposed to convey. --doncram 01:52, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Dudemanfellabra correctly speculated that Template:Designation/colour2 was specifically created so that Template:Designation list would use the former colours for its borders, rather than the post-August soft pastels. It would be very simple to have other templates that use borders, such as Template:Infobox historic site, use Template:Designation/colour2 (the old colours) instead of Template:Designation/colour (the new colours). --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:42, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

The idea that we are actually conveying useful distinctions with these colors is a bit of a stretch. There are 22 different U.S. historical designations (so far). Do we really think that someone is going to recognize the meaning of that many different colors? The only time I've actually found Infobox colors useful is when they are limited to 3 or 4 colors. For example, I can remember that brown means "live album", blue means "studio album", and silver means "soundtrack". There's no way I'm ever going to remember 22 different historic designation colors though, and even if I could remember them, what's the chance that I could recognize them all accurately? Why don't we just use 3 colors for the U.S.:

• Light blue for U.S. national lists
• Gold for U.S. state lists
• Light green for U.S. municipal lists

This would actually allow us to convey useful information with the colors that was easy to recognize and remember. Kaldari (talk) 03:08, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but I work with Mississippi Landmarks, and going to some new MS article and seeing a purple bar (or border for non-NRHP sites) in the infobox instantly lets me know this place is on the MS list. The same is true when I see the darker blue for National Historic Landmarks. I imagine the same is true for many other designations for different people as well. In other words, if you look at this from the perspective of someone interested only in a handful of designations, the colors are very helpful in distinguishing them. From a global viewpoint, however, your proposal may make more sense. What if we kept the NRHP/NPS designation color scheme how it has been for years and then for the other designations like MS landmarks, NYC Landmarks, etc. we should stick to the pastel color palette you linked to above. It's ok for some designations to have the same color, as long as there is no chance of overlap (i.e. a National Monument in Ireland will never be a California Historical Landmark). When a new designation is added, simply pick the color that "fits" best.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 16:31, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Pinging to keep this from being archived. This is not resolved; the edits needed to restore color differences have not been done. --doncram 13:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Two articles, same site

• Walton Grange 1454-Former Armory
• Walton Grange No. 1454-Former Armory

I believe the first one is the correct name, although the NRHP site is currently down. If someone has links to the listing's online .PDFs to check?  Thundersnow  15:47, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Nice catch. I redirected the later-created second one (created by me) to the first-created one. But the correct name to use is the second name, so i started Talk:Walton Grange 1454-Former Armory#Requested move. If someone could just make the move, please do. The real NRHP listing name includes the number sign character "#", which cannot be used in wikipedia article titles. So spell out "No.", instead, as done in other NRHP-listed places named "Fire Station #11", and the like. Thanks. --doncram 18:05, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Also not resolved. Comments needed at the move request, or simply someone to implement/close the move. --doncram 13:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

WLM-US uploading done

Wiki Loves Monuments - United States is now over, at least as far as the entries for the contest goes. Screening for the best photo contest (BPC) will soon begin again.

2,013 photographers uploaded at least one photo, totaling 22,133 photographs in the US. Exactly 30 photographers each contributed 100 or more photos in the US. We are still placing photos in our county lists (Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Unused images hasn't been populated for a few days), but about 4,500 photos were for sites that were not previously photographed for our lists. As an incredible coincidence, that should bring us to within a couple 0.1% (either way) of 50% of all sites having photos! That's up from about 44% at the start of August.

For WLM worldwide, 15,006 photographers contributed 360,652 photos in 36 countries, which makes this, by far, the world’s largest photo contest.

The photos and photographers were incredibly diverse - coming from some areas where I think we've been weak - Alaska, Hawaii, the South West spring to mind - as well as tons from places we've photographed many times, e.g. I never want to see another photo of the Washington Monument, ever again. There seem to be more interior photos than we usually have, and more from historic districts. The key number for me is the 2,013 photographers. If only 10% of them continued to casually contribute a few photos here and there, or if only 1% became hard-core serious WP:NRHP photographers, we'd soon be awash in photos. May I ask that folks here take any steps they see as necessary to contributing to that outcome. At least, please don't bite the newbies!

There are now 3,649 files nominated for the BPC from the 22,133 submitted (16.5%). All have now been reviewed, but I'd guess a quarter of them were self-nominated. (See discussion of false positives and false negatives above). We're waiting for access to a new software screener/voter from WLM-IL, which looks good, but if it doesn't perform in tests, we may go back to the old reviewer. In any case, we've got until October 10 to get a well screened 500 photos to the jury, who will then come up with the winners before October 28.

Some places for stats [8], [9]

I've disabled and removed the upload button. At some point in the near future, we should discuss whether we want it permanently. I think it worked very well for the contest where it was, but is too prominent or big for permanent placement there. Maybe in the description column, or maybe just for sites that don't have photos yet. Or perhaps a smaller button.

At some point, perhaps after the results are announced, we should discuss whether to do this next year, and what changes would be helpful. A lot of this depends on how much participation people here want to put in. If we don't want to coordinate this (in conjunction with other projects), then I'm sure the NY or DC chapter can find another project to coordinate it. But I don't think we'll have the option of saying "No, we'd rather there was no contest at all."

Other than help with screening (leave me an e-mail or a note on my talk if you want to help), discussing next year, and helping newbies, the only fairly big remaining task I can see would be to write up articles for sites shown by the winning photos, if they don't exist already. It would be really nice if there were well-written articles at the time of the announcement.

There are lots of folks who contributed, including Multichill, Lodewijk, and all the international WLM mafia. I'm going to leave somebody out if I try to mention everybody, so I'll just single out User:Thundersnow who placed at least 90% of the 4,000+ photos of sites not previously photographed. He accomplished a huge amount of work.

Thanks to everybody else (un-named). Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:10, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Let me echo Smallbones sentiments! I've seen a lot of terrific pics via my watchlist and it gave me a chance to go back and look at the various stubs / articles I've created over the past 4 years (gasp!). I cleaned up some infoboxes, added captions, and removed a lot of pic requests from the talk pages. A lot of fun and a great reflection of the commitment to this project. Too bad leaves were on so many trees, but as Acroterion has reminded me, the leaves and power lines are the challenge we all face. Cheers, --Pubdog (talk) 01:19, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Following one of Smallbones statistics links above, i find my way to this sorted list of the 2,013 U.S. WLM contributors. Search on your name and then click on it, and you can see your own photos contributed. Smallbones is ranked #19 in terms of number of pics, #1 was a contributor named Almonroth.

How about our posting a custom personal message at each contributor's Commons page, something like (to Smallbones): "Hi Smallbones, thanks for participating in Wikipedia Loves Monuments. Thanks for your 183 pics contributed to Commons.wikimedia.org! Amazing! I hope you'll consider continuing to contribute, and please consider editing over at en.wikipedia.org, in Wikipedia, too! Please consider joining [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NRHP WikiProject National Register of Historic Places] over on en.wikipedia.org, where many of your pics can be used in articles. --~~~~". Or something like that? --doncram 01:45, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Sounds ok to me. BTW, it's amazing what you can do by cleaning out the files and going to the nearest historic districts and cemeteries. For some reason, I used to think that we could only use 1 photo per site. Of course, you can overdo it the other way, and we had a few of these, but I don't see that as a big downside. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:40, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Accuracy review

I found a nominated image that has nothing to do with the NRHP site it supposedly shows, the Swanton house in DeKalb County, GA.. It lacks an informative description so I removed all NRHP/WLM-US information. I wanted to point out that, apparently, not all submissions have been accurately numbered. I hope checking the accuracy is part of the reviewing process. The fastest way to check for that is, copy NRIS number, search it on WP, view list and/or article; if there is a question about the list/article accuracy, a quick search at LandmarkHunter (much faster loading than the NRHP site) for the site name.  Thundersnow  04:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

A very useful tool to check on identifiers is this one. There all images and their identifiers are stated. Identifiers which do not occur in the database are marked red (also watch out for the pictures with no identifier at all.) There seems to be a problem with numbers which start with a 0 these numbers appear red but in fact are correct (well allmost all correct). This way you for example find this image (which is of a poor quality). Mvg, Basvb (talk) 19:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Misc. issues

I didn't have appropriate opportunity to partake in WLM, but I have been taking photos all along which can supplement those if necessary. I had a variety of issues with listings, and even some with photos. Some of this I've brought up before. Basically, I'm left wondering if I'm making good use of my time contributing to NRHP articles when it appears that most users are content to take bad/bogus information at face value and continue to propagate it, leaving someone like me to do the real work cleaning up these messes. I don't have much time today, so let me run through a few things. All of this pertains to Alaska listings, though I'm sure that it's hardly limited to those listings.

• The George C. Thomas Memorial Library photo needs replacement. While I appreciate that someone went throughout Fairbanks and took photos so that I didn't have to, there's obviously a lack of understanding of neutrality here. The current owner, John Reeves, is well known in Fairbanks as a supporter of political candidates, but it compromises the neutrality of the encyclopedia to see a photo of the building while it's being used as a billboard for multiple state senate candidates. I'm pretty sure there is a Jet Lowe photo of the building. If nothing else, I have a photo from last year that I can dig up when I have the time.

• uploaded the Jet Lowe HABS photo and replaced the existing photo. KudzuVine (talk) 22:57, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

• On a related note, Reeves also owned the Rose Building, and used it as a billboard for another NRHP property he formerly owned, Gold Dredge Number 8. The Rose Building was demolished over a dozen years ago. Is there any reason why I keep seeing it in the listings? Is anyone here in contact with NPS personnel, or do you just scavenge pertinent websites for material with no communication occuring?
• Individual listings which are physically in another borough/census area from the one they're listed in. For example, the Eklutna Power Plant is in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, not Anchorage. This just caught my attention by virtue of the photo which was just added; Nabesna Gold Mine Historic District is in the Valdez-Cordova Census Area, not the Fairbanks North Star Borough. I'm sure there are plenty of others which I've either long forgotten by now or I haven't bothered to verify. It actually warps the presentation of any geolinks (such as Google Maps) when there is one location way off from all the other because it's presented in a list as being somewhere other than where it ought to be. There appears to be a common problem on Wikipedia of taking PD material at face value without discernment (or common sense, for that matter), which IMO is a form of POV pushing.
• It looks like the issue with coords has been brought up before. The coords of numerous Ketchikan locations are way off. Walker-Broderick House shows a pushpin which is out in the middle of the Bering Sea, 400 miles from land and 1500-2000 miles from Ketchikan. I corrected all these once; I don't feel like doing it again and again just because people plainly aren't using common sense.
• Numerous sites which are presented on here exclusively in the context of their current museum setting, with no attempt made to take note of their original location. I've noted/corrected these as I can, but I believe that Whitney Section House needs extra attention, as it was originally located in Anchorage but is now in a museum in Mat-Su.

I'm probably bringing up a sore point, but in the vast majority of these cases, mass article creation is to blame. I see templates, sometimes I see photos, but almost always I have to click on a URL to access some other website to get the real information, because it's not in the article. I don't need for Wikipedia to be a portal to finding real information somewhere else, I'll go straight to that site instead. Do these articles honestly get created with the thought that someone else will come along and expand them? I count 109 Alaska NRHP stubs at present. I don't have time to see how many of them have languished as such or for how long.RadioKAOS (talk) 19:58, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi RadioKAOS, let me try to respond as I created a couple of the articles you refer to. I created a number of stub articles in Alaska as part of an editing drive to create articles for all the National Historic Landmarks nation-wide, back in 2008-2009. Another editor, Nyttend, may have created more Alaska articles than i did in that drive though, if I recall correctly. First of all, thank you for commenting. It's fine and good to be direct.

photo of NHL building with campaign signs

• About the photo in the National Historic Landmark George C. Thomas Memorial Library, I happen to agree that a photo without campaign billboard signs would be preferred. I don't know where/how we should indicate that in any system. For now, I personally would keep the photo in, but others may disagree?
• About demolition of Rose Building (Fairbanks, Alaska) (currently a redlink, no article): it is still listed on the NRHP apparently, and that is not our mistake at wikipedia, it is the National Register's fault. The Alaska state office should put in a removal / delisting request. Demolished properties usually are delisted and removed, but some states have been lax. What we have chosen to do is show the place listed in the corresponding list-article (because it still is listed officially) but note, preferably with documentation, that it has been demolished. I just noted the demolition, according to you in this diff in the Fairbanks North Star list-article; it would be better if we could add a source to that. Also, we track the apparent errors by the National Register in a system at wp:NRIS info issues AK where i just noted this demolition (and where we should provide a source also). Eventually we can report all these errors to the National Register and/or to Alaska state staff, and get them to make corrections, that is the idea. For now we document why we put different information into wikipedia, different than what the NRIS database says.
• About the Eklutna Power Plant location, that should be corrected and the item should be moved to the correct list article, with note explaining the apparent NRIS error at wp:NRIS info issues AK.
• About the buildings that have been moved to a museum site, I agree that their articles should pay attention to their original location too, and include coordinates of both locations. For their coverage in a borough list-article, it is probably best to use the coordinates of their current location, though, right? Whitney Section House stub article was created by me recently as part of supporting new article on Alaska Engineering Commission which previously had no wikipedia coverage.

About your general complaint, I personally think that Alaska is under-covered in Wikipedia, probably due to very few Alaska editors getting involved. There was one Alaska editor that i recall, who provided a few photos and did some editing, but who couldn't go to other Alaska locations because the state is just so big. Maybe you could make a big difference yourself, editing or working with other editors here in a drive to improve the Alaska NRHP articles. I'd be willing to work in a drive to do that. NRHP nom docs are now available for almost all of Alaska, unlike for most other states.

I also think that it is a huge service to readers to provide what i have termed a "good stub" that provides some short info and provides a link to the very good National Register nomination document, providing further reading. I do believe and hope that others will come along and develop them more. These were created with exactly that idea.

I hope others will comment with different views. --doncram 20:35, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll add just a few general comments:

• The NRHP database is imperfect. It contains errors of all sorts, including misspellings, incorrect geocoordinates, and incorrect or out-of-date addresses (I've seen all of these personally). These things often get corrected here (as you have done in some cases), but remember there are many thousands of listings, and WP is populated by volunteers who choose what to work on. It's entirely possible no one has ever verified (or been in a position to verify) these things on the listings you looked at.
• NRHP listing entries are not always updated, e.g. demolished buildings are not always or automagically delisted. This is because no one (local who would know about the demolition or other change) bothers to (or even realizes they should) inform the NPS or the state.
• If you want to correct these issues in the NRHP database, the best way is to approach either a relevant local historical society or your state historic preservation officer (probably the secretary of state or a designee) NPS link.

Thanks for helping. Magic♪piano 20:45, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Since I'm still finishing up my work and trying to get out of here: someone asked about a source regarding the Rose Building. "Historic Rose building disappears from corner" was published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on September 13, 1998 on page B1. I've not checked for this either on microfilm or whether it can be Googled. All I can tell you from the ground is that they're presently reconstructing Illinois Street over the site of it and other buildings formerly nearby.

As for other comments, I take it that correcting it from the source (in this case, the NPS) is rather futile. I was having the same problem with information emanating from the Library of Congress, both in terms of the factual accuracy and the means to provide corrections. The FNSB has a historic preservation commission, which I gather from their work relates to NRHP listings in some manner. I really don't know, though, as my available time for meetings of that sort varies wildly. If they are doing NRHP work, I'm guessing that another round of nominations is forthcoming based on what I've seen.RadioKAOS (talk) 21:42, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I've been over all the Alaska lighthouses, not bothering at the time to check them for NRHP listing. In general we have good references for locations of extant lights: either they're active and therefore on the Light List, or Kraig Anderson at LHF has coords for them. Both of these sources are, as a rule, extremely accurate as to location, and they are generally up-to-date (the LL won't tell you whether a structure has been demolished, though). In general when a lighthouse is not at its original location I've tried to include both, though sometimes one can only guess at the original site. The USCG historical pages, unfortunately, are full of errors, and have to be tested against other sources. I have been working on list articles for the various states, but I haven't had time to review all the individual articles; they could use a going-over to ensure that they are properly noted as being listed. At some point it might be a good idea to have a joint lighthouse/NRHP project to run over these. We also have many cases where the only photo is an old historical shot for the USCG pages; at some point I may or may not come up with a list of ones that need modern photos. Mangoe (talk) 22:01, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I suspect the process of updating the NRHP is more tedious than futile (we're talking government bureaucracy here). It does happen, but I think it's usually the local historic organizations (which are often involved in producing the nominations in the first place) that deal with it. I'm considering taking a number of issues I know about (mostly demolitions) to local organizations to see how willing they are to deal with them. Magic♪piano 23:09, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it gets better. Since I constantly have a million projects which run together, I decided to grab several months' worth of microfilm, the aforementioned story included. From the looks of it, John Reeves took over the building at just the right time to profit handsomely from eminent domain proceedings. The Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities bought it from him for $300,000 in 1994, then sold it for $113 and a $5,000 bond (presumably a performance bond on demolition work) in 1997, to someone who salvaged part of the wood to build another structure. The story goes on to mention the nearby coal bunkers (where the townspeople of Fairbanks purchased coal from Healy for many decades), but that's really a whole other story. Here's the fun part about the Rose Building: While a version of the coal bunkers may well soon pop up, the Rose building—formerly on the National Register of Historic Places—will soon be a memory. That right there makes me wonder what kind of tar baby I'm exposing.RadioKAOS (talk) 23:39, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I lost track of how many years the Illinois Street reconstruction was on the table, but roadwork finally began only this year. This work corrects a 50-year-old quick fix (softening the S-curve, which originally ran at 90-degree angles), which wouldn't have been corrected without tearing down some buildings. It appears that the historic preservation aspects of this road plan began in earnest in 1985 and was centered on the Rose Building, culminating with the establishment of the Illinois Street Historic District in 2001. Even then, plans had dragged on for so long, they had to nearly start all over with the assessment of historic properties. It was after that was complete that most of them were demolished, shortly before the start of road work. These were mostly the ones near the Chena River such as Samson Hardware etc. Even so, a number of others previously not considered as historic suddenly became so by crossing that threshold (50 years, as I understood it) simply on account of how long the planning had dragged out or was abandoned for stretches. Hopefully, I can be done with this for the time being and go home. Thank you for all your help.RadioKAOS (talk) 00:16, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I've managed to get several Florida NRHPs delisted. When I couldn't find something on one of my photo roadtrips, I'd research when I got home. If it had been demolished, I reported it to our state historic preservation people. I'd give them the name, link to at least one photo of the former site, and a link to an article from a newspaper about the demolition. They did the rest and a few months later, delisted. It probably depends on how each state works, but you never know until you try. --‖ Ebyabe ^talk - Repel All Boarders ‖ 23:53, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Regarding his rather minimal stubs, Doncram declares, "I do believe and hope that others will come along and develop them more."

I am inclined to doubt that these others will come along, at least during the few decades that most of us have left on this globe of sin. To test my doubt, I've just undertaken a small survey to see how quickly his NRHP stubs get expanded beyond stubhood.

I've gone through his contribution history and examined the new NRHP articles that he created from September 21 through September 30, 2010 (so just over 2 years ago). During that 10-day period, he created 55 new NRHP articles (not including dab pages, lists, page moves, and the like). Of those 55 articles, 54 are currently rated as stubs.

Based on this very limited sample, and the reasonable assumption that the time it takes for an article to be expanded beyond stubhood is exponentially distributed, I've calculated the average time that it'll take for one of these stubs to be developed to start-class or better. It's just shy of 109 years.

From my personal perspective, this means that if I can live to the age of 100, there'll still be only a 35% chance that Rackett Grange Hall No. 318 will be worth the time and effort that it takes to click on the blue link. Ammodramus (talk) 04:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I am flattered, honestly that you'd study the impact of my work during a one-month period 2 years ago, and apply statistical theory, too. It's a glass half-empty vs. glass half-full difference mostly. But I think you way over-estimate how long it will take to get NRHP nom doc references into all NRHP stub articles (perhaps best done state by state, as has largely been done for NY, MD, ND, CT, PA already) which gives substantial info worth clicking into. Many of the stubs i created then, while developing List of Grange Hall buildings that month, are in states where NRHP nom docs are now available (CA, VA, NH) and are ripe now for improvement. You also seem not to appreciate the value of starting the stubs as a means of laying out welcome mats for info to land, such as photos, which can then be bounced back up to architect articles, to community articles, to list-articles that can point to the same stubs. During September 2012 to just now, 13 photos which had been added to the Grange Hall stubs got bounced up by me to improve the Grange Hall list-article in these edits. Several were new WLM pics, some were older pics that I hadn't personally noticed getting added to the individual articles. But the existence of the individual articles attracted the additions which enabled the easy updating of the list-article right now. The "welcome mats" also enable transfer of information to the community, town, county articles that also can link to the individual articles. Ones perspective on value added from having the stub articles can change, if you look at them as feeding and being linked from multiple other directions, not just being derivatives of the county NRHP list-articles. Really i am flattered. I do notice during the same September 2010 month you were active adding many photos and creating 5 really nice archeological site articles (only 2 are rated C, other 3 are not even rated at all!, not much improved by anyone else since then, but your contributions were great). We need all kinds of contributions. And the Rackett Grange Hall No. 318 is worth clicking on, i think, in large part for the nice pic you added, but now with NRHP nom doc ref and some more info, too. :) --doncram 00:04, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

It varies a lot from state to state. There's no strong excuse for a Maryland stub, for instance, because the Maryland Historical Trust has a short article with photo for every site in the state. Delaware by contrast is heavily redlinked because the only sources seem to be NRIS and HABS, and of course HABS is pretty spotty and it seems like these days NRIS is largely lacking. There's a similar pattern for lighthouses, with some areas (the Chesapeake, New England, the Great Lakes) blessed with outsider attention, and other areas (the Gulf Coast, for instance) stuck with nothing better than the USCG state pages and Anderson, who doesn't have info on destroyed lights. Mangoe (talk) 04:52, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Mangoe --- since I created most of the Maryland stubs, they are stubs with content based on the MHT short articles. I started my wikipedia "career" with creating those stubs and, in my original naivete simply copied and pasted the MHT short articles. As you imply, these would have made "start"s, not stubs. See this link. Naturally, when I tried that I was hit with copyvio right and left. The result are the barebones stubs for most Maryland articles.--Pubdog (talk) 10:56, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll offer more extensive comments if/when I have time later. Thanks for all the help, BTW. I was told that in Alaska, NRHP listings are coordinated statewide by the Office of the State Historian, which is under the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. It's been troublesome for a while now that factual anomalies keep propagating the way they have. That would be explained by a point someone previously brought up, that being that we don't have many people locally who actively contribute to the encyclopedia. Never mind just the NRHP part of it, taking into account the whole enchilada, there is more work to do in properly presenting a picture of Alaska than I could possibly do by myself, even if I didn't have to worry about making a living and had all the time in the world for it.RadioKAOS (talk) 01:24, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Parenthetical comment to Mangoe: Delaware appears to be fully-represented on NRHP focus. Acroterion (talk) 02:13, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Alaska NRHP lighthouses

For what it's worth, the NRHP lighthouses in Alaska, per their NRHP listing names, seem to be:

• Cape Spencer Lighthouse (currently a blue-link) Done in terms of having embedded NRHP infobox, NRHP listing mention in text, and full NRHP nomination document inline reference.  Done
• Eldred Rock Lighthouse (blue)  Done
• Cape St. Elias Lighthouse (blue)  Done
• Guard Island Lighthouse (blue)  Done
• Tree Point Lighthouse (blue)  Done
• Sentinel Island Light Station (was a red-link, since redirected to previously existing article Sentinel Island Lighthouse (blue))  Done
• Cape Decision Light Station (was a red-link, since redirected)  Done
• Point Retreat Light Station (was red, since redirectedl)
• Five Finger Light Station (was red, since redirected)  Done
• Mary Island Light Station (was red, since redirected)
• Cape Hinchinbrook Light Station (was red, since redirected)

Compare to Lighthouses in the United States#Alaska.

There's just one or two needing articles. NRHP nom docs can easily be added to all of these in this short list. --doncram 22:53, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually all of these seem to point to the correct lighthouse articles; one or two are missing the NRHP infobox and a lot of them don't mention the register in the text. As you say, easy to fix. Mangoe (talk) 04:41, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, yes, there were articles already existing for all, and I had pointed those to the right places by the time you checked the links above. Glad to have the redirects confirmed by you, thanks. And now I think they all have NRHP infoboxes embedded within the lighthouse infoboxes (maybe just one was missing). And I'm plugging along in adding NRHP listing mention to text and in adding full NRHP nomination document inline reference. I'm marking those "Done" above. More editing to provide inline references to the existing text, for the other source(s) used previously, is still called for by tags on several of the articles. --doncram 19:45, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

All have NRHP nom docs now. Still have to add a little to several. --doncram 20:45, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Delaware NRHP lighthouses

As noted by Acroterion, NRHP nom docs should be available for all Delaware RHPs now, too. Delaware NRHP-listed lighthouses seem to be:

• Bellevue Range Rear Light Station
• Fourteen Foot Bank Light
• Marcus Hook Range Rear Light
• Liston Range Front Lighthouse
• Liston Range Rear Light Station (NRIS typo with "ranger" has been noted at wp:NRIS info issues DE )
• Fenwick Island Lighthouse Station
• Mispillion Lighthouse and Beacon Tower
• Port Mahon Lighthouse
• Portsville Lighthouse
• Reedy Island Range Rear Light, and

And there's Lightship WLV 539, a lightship.

To be compared to Lighthouses in the United States#Delaware. --doncram 19:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Just to clarify, Portsville Lighthouse is a folly, not an actual lighthouse. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 21:19, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I've added the redirects to the extant articles for these lights (excepting the misnamed Liston rear light. Mangoe (talk) 21:56, 8 October 2012 (UTC)