Is AARoads notable enough for a Wikipedia article?

[rschen7754]

All I'm getting from this is that Wikipedia is broken.

If you're going to say some article isn't "notable," then from where else are people going to get the information from?  Even if it is an insignificant route in boondocky Wyoming, that insignificance shouldn't determine notability, but how the unique and reliable the information provided should, which is a pretty low threshold even if maps are what provide the information (and that's said as someone who doesn't consider maps totally reliable historical documents).

County routes (except NJ's 500 routes) were already deemed not notable even under the old system; the same is true with the UK's B routes. Wikipedia can't include absolutely everything. I believe SABRE has a wiki with the UK's B routes, and US county routes are generally on a "list of county routes in X County, Y State" page on Wikipedia rather than having one page per county route.

I don't see why Wikipedia couldn't have everything.

I think the upside of starting over is that new rules can be put in place so that the new wiki is able to include a lot more information.

To add to what I said earlier - I don't think that we're going to include every single last unsigned county route as a separate article. There becomes a point where there's too many roads and not enough information.

But generally we consider primary state routes to be notable. On Wikipedia, there's no guarantee that will continue to be the case in the future.

[bulldog1979]

All I'm getting from this is that Wikipedia is broken.

If you're going to say some article isn't "notable," then from where else are people going to get the information from?  Even if it is an insignificant route in boondocky Wyoming, that insignificance shouldn't determine notability, but how the unique and reliable the information provided should, which is a pretty low threshold even if maps are what provide the information (and that's said as someone who doesn't consider maps totally reliable historical documents).

Notability is Wikipedia speak for significance. It also means that someone else has taken note of the topic to write about it. That other people have deemed it noteworthy.

We've had two dueling standards at work to determine that concept an apply it in practice. Highway articles in general have worked under a Subject Notability Guideline called WP:GEOROAD that says that highways with national- or state-/provincial-level designations are typically notable. Sadly, that word "typically" in there has started to cause trouble. There are other SNGs, but they're starting to be watered down from guidelines of their own to applications of the other method.

Most topics fall under the General Notability Guideline (GNG), which says "A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." A group of editors is strictly applying that guideline to all individual article topics. In short, Michigan's State Trunkline Highway System may easily meet GNG, but to them, that doesn't matter when deciding if an article on M-28 or M-212 should exist. If M-212 doesn't have "significant coverage" and if that coverage isn''t "independent of the subject", then they think that we shouldn't have an article on it. (Fortunately, M-212's status as the shortest signed state highway gets it some news articles.) So MDOT sources, strictly speaking, don't contribute to the assessment of notability, and yes, they're trying to discount inclusion on a map as contributing to notability.

Forking to a new Wiki saves all of the articles in their current states for now and allows them to be expanded and improved without this new deletion pressure. Perhaps the pendulum will swing back toward a more inclusionist view in the future.

[Molandfreak]

All I'm getting from this is that Wikipedia is broken.

If you're going to say some article isn't "notable," then from where else are people going to get the information from?  Even if it is an insignificant route in boondocky Wyoming, that insignificance shouldn't determine notability, but how the unique and reliable the information provided should, which is a pretty low threshold even if maps are what provide the information (and that's said as someone who doesn't consider maps totally reliable historical documents).

County routes (except NJ's 500 routes) were already deemed not notable even under the old system; the same is true with the UK's B routes. Wikipedia can't include absolutely everything. I believe SABRE has a wiki with the UK's B routes, and US county routes are generally on a "list of county routes in X County, Y State" page on Wikipedia rather than having one page per county route.

I don't see why Wikipedia couldn't have everything.

I think the upside of starting over is that new rules can be put in place so that the new wiki is able to include a lot more information.

To add to what I said earlier - I don't think that we're going to include every single last unsigned county route as a separate article. There becomes a point where there's too many roads and not enough information.

But generally we consider primary state routes to be notable. On Wikipedia, there's no guarantee that will continue to be the case in the future.

I don't mind that as long as the old listicle model for county road articles is still acceptable.

[vdeane]

Wikipedia can't include absolutely everything.

I seem to recall Wikipedia being advertised as the encyclopedia for everything back in the day.  After all, it's not like a print encyclopedia where shelf space is a consideration, or the ability of people to sift through all the topics sorted in alphabetical order.  There's no technical reason why they couldn't.  I wonder what changed.

All I'm getting from this is that Wikipedia is broken.

If you're going to say some article isn't "notable," then from where else are people going to get the information from?  Even if it is an insignificant route in boondocky Wyoming, that insignificance shouldn't determine notability, but how the unique and reliable the information provided should, which is a pretty low threshold even if maps are what provide the information (and that's said as someone who doesn't consider maps totally reliable historical documents).

Agreed.  At some point, Wikipedia seems to have gone from caring about the usefulness to the end user to the inner circle of "elite" contributors lording over everyone else for the sake of it.

Just got an email that AARoads was starting a gazetteer of road-related material since Wikipedia is no longer reliably accepting articles that are notable as part of a series. What a travesty. It's just becoming an elitist cesspool where casual editing isn't appreciated if the goal is anything less than creating a terribly bloated featured article. I never thought it would get to this point.

I noticed last week that a lot of Alabama State Routes are suddenly labeled:

"The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for geographic features."

Alabama Route 5 isn't some stub article; it's backed by at least 3-4 different sources. It's also a 198-mile route. Either you want a ridiculous amount of information (read: tedious) or you want it to be relatively simple, yet backed up by some facts. So what is it supposed to be if information from a state-created source is not acceptable?

Claiming reading map is "original research" is akin to saying reading a book is original research. Full stop.

I'm not the most prolific editor, but I'm going to withdraw my support if this keeps up. I will personally now reduce the amount of Creative Commons photos I'll grant to them, since the subject matter is apparently "not notable". They obviously still have access to about 25,000 images; though I will reconsider if the photos themselves assist in the notability of articles (though this seems...not likely).

(yeah, this is the weakest and most pathetic threat I've ever made in my life)

Exactly.  If they still allow news articles, books, etc. to be cities but not maps, it proves that they're just a bunch of hypocrites who only care about power and nothing else.

[Max Rockatansky]

Wikipedia definitely billed itself as the "encyclopedia of everything."   I recall that tagline when was making pages/edits when the site was new. 

[Molandfreak]

The problem with including everything is a lot of intricate details can be added to an article without pushback from content curators, if every detail is considered worthy of inclusion. Archives of the article for Tara Teng show how an article can be overly inflated when content restrictions are essentially lifted.

But there is a better balance that doesn't involve deleting every article or interesting detail under the sun, which seems to be the direction Wikipedia is heading.

[vdeane]

The problem with including everything is a lot of intricate details can be added to an article without pushback from content curators, if every detail is considered worthy of inclusion. Archives of the article for Tara Teng show how an article can be overly inflated when content restrictions are essentially lifted.

But there is a better balance that doesn't involve deleting every article or interesting detail under the sun, which seems to be the direction Wikipedia is heading.

Hmm...

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Neelix

Who reduced the scope of the article?  Tuvok?

[hbelkins]

Just got an email that AARoads was starting a gazetteer of road-related material since Wikipedia is no longer reliably accepting articles that are notable as part of a series. What a travesty. It's just becoming an elitist cesspool where casual editing isn't appreciated if the goal is anything less than creating a terribly bloated featured article. I never thought it would get to this point.

This is true. Our wiki is not yet ready for prime-time, however. We'll make an official announcement when it is.

In the meantime, if anyone with wiki experience would like to take part in the early setup and policy discussions, please PM me to request access.

I've been grabbing a lot of California and Arizona highway references off Wikipedia.  They probably won't disappear overnight but I figure I might as well try to preserve what I can on GN.

Don't worry–Alex and I are already working with the Wikipedia roads regulars to ensure that this content isn't going to disappear off the Internet any time soon.

Can this wiki fix a pet peeve of mine with the US Highway System articles and either name each article "US Highway X" rather than "US Route X" or rename the keystone system article to "United States Numbered Route System" if the terminology has to be "US Route?"

"US Federal Route X." 

[1995hoo]

The problem with including everything is a lot of intricate details can be added to an article without pushback from content curators, if every detail is considered worthy of inclusion. Archives of the article for Tara Teng show how an article can be overly inflated when content restrictions are essentially lifted.

But there is a better balance that doesn't involve deleting every article or interesting detail under the sun, which seems to be the direction Wikipedia is heading.

Speed limits in the United States by jurisdiction is an example of a Wikipedia article that keeps getting loaded up with unnecessary minutia–look at the North Carolina section, in particular, where somebody seems to think it's somehow useful or important to include laundry lists of road segments with particular speed limits. That sort of thing is always a problem on Wikipedia, though–someone always feels the need to show off the extent of his knowledge by adding trivia that, while technically related to the subject, doesn't really make a useful point.

[Rothman]

The problem with including everything is a lot of intricate details can be added to an article without pushback from content curators, if every detail is considered worthy of inclusion. Archives of the article for Tara Teng show how an article can be overly inflated when content restrictions are essentially lifted.

But there is a better balance that doesn't involve deleting every article or interesting detail under the sun, which seems to be the direction Wikipedia is heading.

Speed limits in the United States by jurisdiction is an example of a Wikipedia article that keeps getting loaded up with unnecessary minutia–look at the North Carolina section, in particular, where somebody seems to think it's somehow useful or important to include laundry lists of road segments with particular speed limits. That sort of thing is always a problem on Wikipedia, though–someone always feels the need to show off the extent of his knowledge by adding trivia that, while technically related to the subject, doesn't really make a useful point.

The answer is to scroll past the information one deems irrelevant (which is different for everyone) or to reorganize the information, rather than eliminate it altogether.

[kphoger]

Wikipedia can't include absolutely everything.

I seem to recall Wikipedia being advertised as the encyclopedia for everything back in the day.  After all, it's not like a print encyclopedia where shelf space is a consideration, or the ability of people to sift through all the topics sorted in alphabetical order.  There's no technical reason why they couldn't.  I wonder what changed.

Wikipedia definitely billed itself as the "encyclopedia of everything."   I recall that tagline when was making pages/edits when the site was new. 

My thoughts exactly.  Including everything:  I thought that's what Wikipedia was supposed to be.

[Scott5114]

Most of the people who are pushing this crap were not on Wikipedia at the time it got popular and do not know what made it successful. Most of the editors who were around in the 2005-2010 era were teenagers or college students at the time, and have since taken on enough real-life responsibilities that they don't have time to babysit a website for free all day. Those that do still have the free time have gotten burned out from the whole "you're just minding your own business writing about something you enjoy and some asshole shows up out of the blue to pick a fight with you about something stupid" thing that tends to randomly occur.

It's kinda like what they say about family fortunes–generation 1 builds the empire, generation 2 maintains it because they were able to observe what generation 1 did right, generation 3 ruins it because generation 1 was out of the picture by the time they came along.

A good number of the people causing these problems are driven by achieving some vision of a Platonic ideal of what an encyclopedia should be, such that they also don't particularly care whether anyone would find such a thing useful or not.

[Bruce]

Including everything would be horrendous for readers and editors alike. There's only so much boring text one can pick through before they give up altogether; similarly, there's only so many pages one can watch and monitor for vandalism, meddling, or bad-faith actions. I'm one that supports slimming down things (such as the North Carolina speed limit list, which I just removed and replaced with a simple explanatory note).

That said, many newer editors have gone too far. The few that are still interested in creating new content to cover new topics are using that energy in all the wrong areas (such as hyperlocal landmarks).

[Scott5114]

Including everything would be horrendous for readers and editors alike. There's only so much boring text one can pick through before they give up altogether [...]

A good example of are the math articles, which I think may be the most useless set of articles on the entire site. They seem to exist solely to show off how much math instruction the authors have taken, as opposed to imparting any useful information to someone who knows little enough about math that they're looking it up in an encyclopedia.

Performing addition is one of the simplest numerical tasks to do.

A common construction of the set of real numbers is the Dedekind completion of the set of rational numbers. A real number is defined to be a Dedekind cut of rationals: a non-empty set of rationals that is closed downward and has no greatest element. The sum of real numbers a and b is defined element by element:

    Define

Unfortunately, dealing with multiplication of Dedekind cuts is a time-consuming case-by-case process similar to the addition of signed integers. Another approach is the metric completion of the rational numbers. A real number is essentially defined to be the limit of a Cauchy sequence of rationals, lim a_n.

[Rothman]

One person's boring text is found captivating by another.

[kphoger]

I suppose it depends on what the phrase "a complete encyclopedia" originally meant.  Did that mean an encyclopedia with everything?  Or was it imagined to be complete without having everything?  Maybe, as long as the number of articles exceeded 100,000, they figured that would be complete enough?

[Max Rockatansky]

I would imagine in 2001 the definition of complete was pretty literal.  That's at least how I saw it when I first viewed the site.

[J N Winkler]

A good example of are the math articles, which I think may be the most useless set of articles on the entire site. They seem to exist solely to show off how much math instruction the authors have taken, as opposed to imparting any useful information to someone who knows little enough about math that they're looking it up in an encyclopedia.

Speaking as someone who actually has a BS in math, I tend to see the Wikipedia math articles as illustrating the difficulties of writing about science for a popular audience.  Especially with the subject matter of advanced undergraduate courses such as topology, number theory, or partial differential equations, you have to lay a foundation in order for the reader to experience an "ah ha" moment when you lay out a theorem or other result, and that is very hard to do within the scope of a brief article.

Heinrich Dörrie's 100 Great Problems of Elementary Mathematics (a copy of which I have on my shelf) similarly demonstrates the challenge:  it's useful as long as you don't expect more than a synopsis of the proofs that underlie important results such as the impossibility of squaring the circle.

Given that Wikipedia is in many ways a "community of communities," I also have to wonder who is editing the math articles.  Some subject areas attract significant attention from trained and credentialed professionals (e.g., there are physicians who edit medical articles), while others don't.

[formulanone]

A good example of are the math articles, which I think may be the most useless set of articles on the entire site. They seem to exist solely to show off how much math instruction the authors have taken, as opposed to imparting any useful information to someone who knows little enough about math that they're looking it up in an encyclopedia.

Speaking as someone who actually has a BS in math, I tend to see the Wikipedia math articles as illustrating the difficulties of writing about science for a popular audience.  Especially with the subject matter of advanced undergraduate courses such as topology, number theory, or partial differential equations, you have to lay a foundation in order for the reader to experience an "ah ha" moment when you lay out a theorem or other result, and that is very hard to do within the scope of a brief article.

Heinrich Dörrie's 100 Great Problems of Elementary Mathematics (a copy of which I have on my shelf) similarly demonstrates the challenge:  it's useful as long as you don't expect more than a synopsis of the proofs that underlie important results such as the impossibility of squaring the circle.

Given that Wikipedia is in many ways a "community of communities," I also have to wonder who is editing the math articles.  Some subject areas attract significant attention from trained and credentialed professionals (e.g., there are physicians who edit medical articles), while others don't.

I go to Simple Wikipedia for the math stuff.

Though there are more complicated articles... https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_rule

(I haven't used calculus in about 25 years, about the time math turned into blah-blah-blah in my head.)

[rschen7754]

There is an important announcement about the new wiki at https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=33767.0.

[Scott5114]

Well, it ain't an article, but... https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q122416045