AARoads Forum

I don't think it is, especially since the more popular Minecraft Forum doesn't have one, but there's a shot. Keep in mind that the forum is not the only part of AARoads. AARoads is currently mentioned in a single sentence of the roadgeek article on Wikipedia, although that article is not US-specific.

We have at least 4 Wikipedia admins here and several experienced non-admin members. This helps with creating an article, although not with notability.

I can think of two or possibly three events where our forum affected the outside world, excluding the recent anti-kernals12 video which isn't notable enough:
1. Ken Jennings' 7 posts while researching things for writing the book Maphead.
2. That time we found out where a photo of a specific album cover was taken (East Hartford).
3 (questionable): US 20's quoted length being wrong for decades due to "3365" including alternate routes.
4. Rothman personally deciding that I-81 Business is going to be a thing in Syracuse.

I also believe 1995hoo has appeared in news articles, but that's just "same person as a forum member", not part of the forum itself.

Yes I am.

Why is this a question? Yes, anything can be a Wikipedia article. It just depends on the time one puts into it. I'm sure Alps will be honored if you atarted to create the article for him.

Certainly it could, the page and forum have been online long enough to justify it.

Me and my many other wikipedia accounts will help on the article!  :-D

Quote from: 1 on December 26, 2022, 08:26:08 AM
I don't think it is, especially since the more popular Minecraft Forum doesn't have one, but there's a shot. Keep in mind that the forum is not the only part of AARoads. AARoads is currently mentioned in a single sentence of the roadgeek article on Wikipedia, although that article is not US-specific.

We have at least 4 Wikipedia admins here and several experienced non-admin members. This helps with creating an article, although not with notability.

I can think of two or possibly three events where our forum affected the outside world, excluding the recent anti-kernals12 video which isn't notable enough:
1. Ken Jennings' 7 posts while researching things for writing the book Maphead.
2. That time we found out where a photo of a specific album cover was taken (East Hartford).
3 (questionable): US 20's quoted length being wrong for decades due to "3365" including alternate routes.
4. Rothman personally deciding that I-81 Business is going to be a thing in Syracuse.

I also believe 1995hoo has appeared in news articles, but that's just "same person as a forum member", not part of the forum itself.

4. Deciphering US 66's early endpoints in the Los Angeles area

Maybe it's the stroke recovery talking, but since I am responsible for #2, #3 and a major contributor to #4, maybe I should get a Wikipedia article.  :):):)

no

Quote from: Mapmikey on December 26, 2022, 12:41:05 PM

Quote from: 1 on December 26, 2022, 08:26:08 AM
I don't think it is, especially since the more popular Minecraft Forum doesn't have one, but there's a shot. Keep in mind that the forum is not the only part of AARoads. AARoads is currently mentioned in a single sentence of the roadgeek article on Wikipedia, although that article is not US-specific.

We have at least 4 Wikipedia admins here and several experienced non-admin members. This helps with creating an article, although not with notability.

I can think of two or possibly three events where our forum affected the outside world, excluding the recent anti-kernals12 video which isn't notable enough:
1. Ken Jennings' 7 posts while researching things for writing the book Maphead.
2. That time we found out where a photo of a specific album cover was taken (East Hartford).
3 (questionable): US 20's quoted length being wrong for decades due to "3365" including alternate routes.
4. Rothman personally deciding that I-81 Business is going to be a thing in Syracuse.

I also believe 1995hoo has appeared in news articles, but that's just "same person as a forum member", not part of the forum itself.

4. Deciphering US 66's early endpoints in the Los Angeles area

Maybe it's the stroke recovery talking, but since I am responsible for #2, #3 and a major contributor to #4, maybe I should get a Wikipedia article.  :):):)

Amusingly I did point out the erroneous US 66 western endpoint history to someone on this forum that does edit Wikipedia pages. Obviously I hold a bias given I was also part sorting that whole mess out.  Does that mean Gribblenation ought to get an article stub?

I've written a few Wikipedia articles and edited several more, though it's been a while. All it takes is someone willing to put in the work for the page. I don't think there is a problem regarding justification giving that it's been used as a reference or at least those here have enough knowledge and have documented a lot of highway material, both current events and historic. I wouldn't consider the forum itself worth the effort but as part of a more encompassing page for all AA Roads. I'm sure there's more than enough for a decent page.

Without going into details I would not recommend doing this at this time.

Quote from: rschen7754 on December 26, 2022, 03:59:56 PM
Without going into details I would not recommend doing this at this time.

Found the vagueposter.

Quote from: Rothman on December 26, 2022, 04:28:05 PM

Quote from: rschen7754 on December 26, 2022, 03:59:56 PM
Without going into details I would not recommend doing this at this time.

Found the vagueposter.

I am not sure exactly what I can say, but given the current internal politics of the site I think that an article would be deleted and it might encourage others to get more road articles deleted. Thus, I would advise against it.

(Disclosure: I am an English Wikipedia admin)

Quote from: rschen7754 on December 26, 2022, 04:32:17 PM

Quote from: Rothman on December 26, 2022, 04:28:05 PM

Quote from: rschen7754 on December 26, 2022, 03:59:56 PM
Without going into details I would not recommend doing this at this time.

Found the vagueposter.

I am not sure exactly what I can say, but given the current internal politics of the site I think that an article would be deleted and it might encourage others to get more road articles deleted. Thus, I would advise against it.

That seems extreme given it would be a page devoted to an obscure website.

Quote from: jeffandnicole on December 26, 2022, 11:06:55 AM
Why is this a question? Yes, anything can be a Wikipedia article. It just depends on the time one puts into it.

That's not true at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2022_December_26

Quote from: Rothman on December 26, 2022, 04:33:30 PM

Quote from: rschen7754 on December 26, 2022, 04:32:17 PM

Quote from: Rothman on December 26, 2022, 04:28:05 PM

Quote from: rschen7754 on December 26, 2022, 03:59:56 PM
Without going into details I would not recommend doing this at this time.

Found the vagueposter.

I am not sure exactly what I can say, but given the current internal politics of the site I think that an article would be deleted and it might encourage others to get more road articles deleted. Thus, I would advise against it.

That seems extreme given it would be a page devoted to an obscure website.

Speaking as a Wikipedia admin...it is extreme and also accurate.

rschen has a tendency to play it far too safe on this kind of thing, and I don't care as much about my admin rights there as I think he does, so I'll just come out and say it: there is currently a slow-moving campaign on Wikipedia to delete all of the road content. Some people view it as trivial, useless fluff, the same as entries for obscure Pokémon. So they want to purge the site of all of the road content to...I don't really understand why. Make the encyclopedia more pure, I guess? But they're willing to do things like willfully misinterpret or outright change the policies on proper sourcing and things like that to ensure that they get their way.

Even if the content is deleted from Wikipedia proper, it's not likely to disappear entirely, because open licenses and so on. However, the whole ordeal has a lot of the Wikipedia roads editors stressed out and some are ready to walk away from the Wikipedia brand over it.

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 26, 2022, 04:37:37 PM

Quote from: Rothman on December 26, 2022, 04:33:30 PM

Quote from: rschen7754 on December 26, 2022, 04:32:17 PM

Quote from: Rothman on December 26, 2022, 04:28:05 PM

Quote from: rschen7754 on December 26, 2022, 03:59:56 PM
Without going into details I would not recommend doing this at this time.

Found the vagueposter.

I am not sure exactly what I can say, but given the current internal politics of the site I think that an article would be deleted and it might encourage others to get more road articles deleted. Thus, I would advise against it.

That seems extreme given it would be a page devoted to an obscure website.

Speaking as a Wikipedia admin...it is extreme and also accurate.

rschen has a tendency to play it far too safe on this kind of thing, and I don't care as much about my admin rights there as I think he does, so I'll just come out and say it: there is currently a slow-moving campaign on Wikipedia to delete all of the road content. Some people view it as trivial, useless fluff, the same as entries for obscure Pokémon. So they want to purge the site of all of the road content to...I don't really understand why. Make the encyclopedia more pure, I guess? But they're willing to do things like willfully misinterpret or outright change the policies on proper sourcing and things like that to ensure that they get their way.

Even if the content is deleted from Wikipedia proper, it's not likely to disappear entirely, because open licenses and so on. However, the whole ordeal has a lot of the Wikipedia roads editors stressed out and some are ready to walk away from the Wikipedia brand over it.

It seems kind of ridiculous to make it all-or-nothing. I-90 deserves an article under any circumstances, even if something like MN 286 doesn't.

^^^

See, I'm of the opinion that every state-maintained highway probably deserves a dedicated page aside from some limited exceptions.  If a highway has a trackable history, to me it has merit.

Quote from: rschen7754 on December 26, 2022, 04:32:17 PM

Quote from: Rothman on December 26, 2022, 04:28:05 PM

Quote from: rschen7754 on December 26, 2022, 03:59:56 PM
Without going into details I would not recommend doing this at this time.

Found the vagueposter.

I am not sure exactly what I can say, but given the current internal politics of the site I think that an article would be deleted and it might encourage others to get more road articles deleted. Thus, I would advise against it.

(Disclosure: I am an English Wikipedia admin)

"Internal politics"  really is one of those things that screams to me that I was on the right track abandoning editing Wikipedia road articles a long time ago.  I really don't get what a lot of guys get out of doing Wikipedia edits when you could be doing your own thing with way less rules hanging over you. 

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 26, 2022, 04:57:37 PM
"Internal politics"  really is one of those things that screams to me that I was on the right track abandoning editing Wikipedia road articles a long time ago.  I really don't get what a lot of guys get out of doing Wikipedia edits when you could be doing your own thing with way less rules hanging over you. 

It does have its benefits and drawbacks. Benefits include the fact that the Wikipedia brand name will always bring you readers, and if your work is good enough it may well be exhibited on the front page where thousands of people will read it. (I've had two of my articles featured in this way.) And within the little project of roadgeeks, there's opportunity for collaboration, which is fun. (You don't necessarily have to make your own shields, maps, or even photos for an article; there's usually someone who is happy to do that for you.)

But the drawback is indeed All The Rules, and the people from the larger Wikipedia community who Don't Get The Roads Thing and try to make life rough for the roads editors for no real reason.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 26, 2022, 04:57:37 PM
^^^

See, I'm of the opinion that every state-maintained highway probably deserves a dedicated page aside from some limited exceptions.  If a highway has a trackable history, to me it has merit.

Quote from: rschen7754 on December 26, 2022, 04:32:17 PM

Quote from: Rothman on December 26, 2022, 04:28:05 PM

Quote from: rschen7754 on December 26, 2022, 03:59:56 PM
Without going into details I would not recommend doing this at this time.

Found the vagueposter.

I am not sure exactly what I can say, but given the current internal politics of the site I think that an article would be deleted and it might encourage others to get more road articles deleted. Thus, I would advise against it.

(Disclosure: I am an English Wikipedia admin)

"Internal politics"  really is one of those things that screams to me that I was on the right track abandoning editing Wikipedia road articles a long time ago.  I really don't get what a lot of guys get out of doing Wikipedia edits when you could be doing your own thing with way less rules hanging over you. 

Same here, but including both road and non-road articles on WP.

Edit

If I do edit WP I aim for "malicious compliance", i.e. tagging articles with "citation needed" or "original research" or similar where necessary. Then when others object because they want the article to be featured or something, I cite the WP policy that you need a consensus to remove those tags. Sometimes the editors choose to remove the content if they can't find a reference, which is an acceptable outcome.

It's also a handful of people springing up out of nowhere and deciding that road articles don't meet the verification policy. Suddenly they decided that you can't use maps as sources for *anything* without much of a discussion. We've fought back, but it's tiring trying to defend something that has been fine until recently.

Wikipedia has a huge amount of road articles. I haven't heard anything about removing them. Several of the articles selected for possible deletion include a lot of unsourced articles and others featuring obscure people. Things that look important like the 2014 World Cup Awards duplicate info found in other articles. I seriously doubt they're going to remove all the road articles; that sounds more like some new urbanist wacko plot with a few overloud squeaky transit wheels. Does anyone seriously think Wikipedia is going to remove an article about US 66 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_66) or the Trans-Canada Highway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Canada_Highway)?

I could see them removing a lot of the individual highway pages. I doubt a page needs to be devoted to WI 108 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Highway_108). I wouldn't be surprised to see several pages combined into a more omnibus highway page where several highways of lesser significance (e.g., WI 101-110) are combined into one page.

But I'm not interested in writing a AA Roads page myself. Like others, I don't want the hassle.

Conflict of Interest would mean we really shouldn't create the article. If there's more popular hobby websites and forums that didn't make the cut, then it's a no-go.

It sounds to me like keeping roads content on Wikipedia should take higher priority than having an entry for the AARoads forum.

Many people still view Wikipedia as a half-accurate info site where the entries should be taken with a grain of salt.  If there's internal political issues, then it's not the issues that will make Wikipedia worse, it's the internal politicians that are fighting amongst themselves and don't give two shits about the general population.

Quote from: skluth on December 26, 2022, 06:29:07 PM
Wikipedia has a huge amount of road articles. I haven't heard anything about removing them. [...] Does anyone seriously think Wikipedia is going to remove an article about US 66 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_66) or the Trans-Canada Highway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Canada_Highway)?

I could see them removing a lot of the individual highway pages. I doubt a page needs to be devoted to WI 108 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Highway_108). I wouldn't be surprised to see several pages combined into a more omnibus highway page where several highways of lesser significance (e.g., WI 101-110) are combined into one page.

The problem is that for a lot of minor highways, having length and location data on Wikipedia is the most accessible way of finding that data. Suppose I live in Wisconsin and I need a 108 for the lowest-route number game here, so I need to know whether WI 108 is close to me. Looking it up on Wikipedia is going to be way faster than digging around in whatever WisDOT route log system exists (if there is one–Oklahoma doesn't have anything like that because internally roads are categorized by control section number). Google Maps will sometimes reveal at least the location with a search, but it's hit or miss. Some states still have roadgeek-maintained route logs available, but even at the zenith of roadgeek websites not all states had one.

Given this, a system of "important highways are OK, but minor highways get deleted" is apt to lead to the important highways having no maintainers, since many of the people who currently do the maintaining would find that "compromise" unacceptable, and would just walk out.

Quote from: 1 on December 26, 2022, 08:26:08 AM
I don't think it is...

The English Wikipedia requires article subjects to be notable, and the golden rule on that is the General Notability Guideline (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:GNG), which says a subject is notable if there is "significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject". I can break that down into the three prongs, but suffice it to say, unless there are a bunch of news articles about the website, chapters in books discussing, etc., an article on the website will not be feasible.

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 26, 2022, 07:26:34 PM

Quote from: skluth on December 26, 2022, 06:29:07 PM
Wikipedia has a huge amount of road articles. I haven't heard anything about removing them. [...] Does anyone seriously think Wikipedia is going to remove an article about US 66 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_66) or the Trans-Canada Highway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Canada_Highway)?

I could see them removing a lot of the individual highway pages. I doubt a page needs to be devoted to WI 108 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Highway_108). I wouldn't be surprised to see several pages combined into a more omnibus highway page where several highways of lesser significance (e.g., WI 101-110) are combined into one page.

The problem is that for a lot of minor highways, having length and location data on Wikipedia is the most accessible way of finding that data. Suppose I live in Wisconsin and I need a 108 for the lowest-route number game here, so I need to know whether WI 108 is close to me. Looking it up on Wikipedia is going to be way faster than digging around in whatever WisDOT route log system exists (if there is one–Oklahoma doesn't have anything like that because internally roads are categorized by control section number). Google Maps will sometimes reveal at least the location with a search, but it's hit or miss. Some states still have roadgeek-maintained route logs available, but even at the zenith of roadgeek websites not all states had one.

Given this, a system of "important highways are OK, but minor highways get deleted" is apt to lead to the important highways having no maintainers, since many of the people who currently do the maintaining would find that "compromise" unacceptable, and would just walk out.

15-20 years ago, I would have understood that under the conditions and brevity of the project, Wikipedia would have not needed an entry for say, Alabama State Route 151. For a fledgling "free" project with a need for a lot of storage and huge server demands at a premium, it would be costly. But it should have a record for Interstate 95, US Route 20, or Lincoln Highway, then it would need one for all of the same class for comparison. And the same goes for anything with a semblance of notability; if this is included, you should have that. Likewise for just about anything meeting the same criteria, even if there's not 50 sources for the less-well-known article's subject. But there's not quite the same access demand for minor articles; it might be taking up space, but unless there's a sudden increase in Notability or fame, those particular minor articles aren't being fetched as often to make that much of a difference. Provided the same guidelines are met for inclusion as a more popular article, it shouldn't be ignored on that premise alone.

I've started a few non-road articles which receive a human edit about once a year...and they're allowed to stay. The road community is far more expressive in editing and maintaining its work than...say, the average article on a second-tier racing car which may or may not have run in a now-defunct series. One of the reasons I believe they're permitted is that results, specifications, and function speak largely for themselves; they're not works of art in the sense that public opinion colors their purpose inside the meritocracy of organized competition. A road article is largely the same; public perception would not alter its function and its specifications, especially it is that written and codified into public law. In that case, why not permit them? The purpose of Wikipedia was to let the fans and experts give their expertise, and to permit an equal measure of peer review in return.

Quote from: J N Winkler on December 26, 2022, 07:06:20 PM
It sounds to me like keeping roads content on Wikipedia should take higher priority than having an entry for the AARoads forum.

I certainly agree with this. I've used Wikipedia here and there to find road-related information (often related to a State Highway) that would often be much harder to find without it.

Funnily enough, 15 years ago, the prevailing mantra was "Wikipedia Is Not Paper". It was generally believed that the more articles the better, since that got the site readers, and thus the thinking was it would result in more editors. The 1,000,000th article was a cause for much celebration.

Now it seems like things are going in the opposite direction and a lot of the more pop-culture-y stuff has been shuffled off to smaller wikis. The fact that many of these wikis are hosted by the for-profit Fandom, Inc., founded by Jimmy Wales, could be salient to those who are more conspiracy-minded.

Quote from: webny99 on December 26, 2022, 08:25:43 PM

Quote from: J N Winkler on December 26, 2022, 07:06:20 PM
It sounds to me like keeping roads content on Wikipedia should take higher priority than having an entry for the AARoads forum.

I certainly agree with this. I've used Wikipedia here and there to find road-related information (often related to a State Highway) that would often be much harder to find without it.

Well, the good news is that a road wiki of some form or fashion will certainly always exist. It's just a question of whether it will be on Wikipedia or...aanother place.

Quote from: webny99 on December 26, 2022, 08:25:43 PM

Quote from: J N Winkler on December 26, 2022, 07:06:20 PM
It sounds to me like keeping roads content on Wikipedia should take higher priority than having an entry for the AARoads forum.

I certainly agree with this. I've used Wikipedia here and there to find road-related information (often related to a State Highway) that would often be much harder to find without it.

I second this. The idea of purging road content from Wikipedia is utterly repulsing and appalling to me. I would want to do whatever possible to keep road content on Wikipedia, as it is too valuable and significant to go without. With that said, it is now evident an AARoads Forum page (on Wikipedia) is probably most certainly discouraged at this time, as apparently some internal site conspirators even think roads as an entire category of being are "useless." I apologize as this site "campaign" hit a nerve with me, but was eye-opening so I can savior all the road content on Wikipedia while it is still here, incase god forbid it disappears. With our hobby and immense interest being so far off the mainstream, it is obviously very common and no surprise at this point to see people perplexed (at least at first, if they're unfamiliar) with the whole world of roadgeekery. So confused people I have seen, yes, but never before have I really seen such a toxic movement so antagonizing and vindictive to roadgeekery itself. That is quite scary, and it is my sincere hope it subsides soon. [/rant]  :eyebrow:

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 26, 2022, 08:33:01 PM
Well, the good news is that a road wiki of some form or fashion will certainly always exist. It's just a question of whether it will be on Wikipedia or...aanother place.

Considering the variety of fandom/hobby wikis out there....I think an argument could be made that a decent portion of the roadgeek-flavored content could be moved to a non-Wikipedia wiki.

My preference would be for it to remain on Wikipedia, and I would find it logically inconsistent for roadgeek content to be removed, while extensive information related to planespotting, transit-geeking, or various television or fictional literature is retained.....but if there were a general move to push some hobbyist fluff to alternate venues, it would be consistent for roadgeek content to follow that trend.

Quote from: skluth on December 26, 2022, 06:29:07 PM
Wikipedia has a huge amount of road articles. I haven't heard anything about removing them. Several of the articles selected for possible deletion include a lot of unsourced articles and others featuring obscure people. Things that look important like the 2014 World Cup Awards duplicate info found in other articles. I seriously doubt they're going to remove all the road articles; that sounds more like some new urbanist wacko plot with a few overloud squeaky transit wheels. Does anyone seriously think Wikipedia is going to remove an article about US 66 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_66) or the Trans-Canada Highway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Canada_Highway)?

I could see them removing a lot of the individual highway pages. I doubt a page needs to be devoted to WI 108 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Highway_108). I wouldn't be surprised to see several pages combined into a more omnibus highway page where several highways of lesser significance (e.g., WI 101-110) are combined into one page.

But I'm not interested in writing a AA Roads page myself. Like others, I don't want the hassle.

It's one of those things where we won't know if they are going to be successful until it is too late. What I can categorically say is that in over 15 years of editing (almost all of them as an admin) I have never seen so many determined people believing so many convincing misinterpretations of policy while holding significant positions of power.

There are other advantages of Wikipedia, namely the infrastructure - there are thousands of our articles that have been translated into other languages, and thousands of articles on other large Wikipedias that have yet to be translated into English. Plus a large base of photos and shields to use. At some point of course, the advantages are outweighed by the disadvantages and I know that is something we are each working through on our own.

As far as the secrecy (i.e. why this was not mentioned beforehand) - it's not just the policy on Wikipedia against canvassing on external sites for support, but I am hesitant to disclose our strategy on a publicly accessible forum.

Unlike the kind found in the real world, WP:CANVASS is rather useless as an art medium or as shelter when camping.

I'm one of those who has long been skeptical of Wiki, so honestly I don't see the point in having an entry for this forum there.

But I have to ask, given a widespread perception of the overall socio-political leanings of Wiki as an institution -- is it possible the anti-roads attitude that has been mentioned is part of a larger anti-car, pro-transit, anti-fossil-fuel agenda?

Since I have no knowledge of the internal workings of Wiki, and some of you do, that's why I ask. But after reading some of these posts, I get the feeling that Wiki is some sort of secret society -- what happens in Wiki stays in Wiki. Why else would one be reticent to discuss those things here?

Quote from: hbelkins on December 27, 2022, 12:22:28 AM
I'm one of those who has long been skeptical of Wiki, so honestly I don't see the point in having an entry for this forum there.

But I have to ask, given a widespread perception of the overall socio-political leanings of Wiki as an institution -- is it possible the anti-roads attitude that has been mentioned is part of a larger anti-car, pro-transit, anti-fossil-fuel agenda?

Since I have no knowledge of the internal workings of Wiki, and some of you do, that's why I ask. But after reading some of these posts, I get the feeling that Wiki is some sort of secret society -- what happens in Wiki stays in Wiki. Why else would one be reticent to discuss those things here?

Maybe, but even as pro-road as I am I've never been one that supported holding back if there are obvious racial/socioeconomic consequences of building the road that the sources state.

Or perhaps (most of, I realize some in this forum are probably young enough) Gen Z doesn't see maps in the same way and they think that it is some sort of complex tool that has no objective meaning.

Wikipedia has long had its own forums, IRC channels, etc. which tend to consume editors' time, though I personally have been a fan of AARoads since the mid-2000s.

If I see an article go up about AARoads, there's a good chance I'll nominate it for speedy deletion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlpsRoads
please make this

Quote from: hbelkins on December 27, 2022, 12:22:28 AM
I'm one of those who has long been skeptical of Wiki, so honestly I don't see the point in having an entry for this forum there.

But I have to ask, given a widespread perception of the overall socio-political leanings of Wiki as an institution -- is it possible the anti-roads attitude that has been mentioned is part of a larger anti-car, pro-transit, anti-fossil-fuel agenda?

Since I have no knowledge of the internal workings of Wiki, and some of you do, that's why I ask. But after reading some of these posts, I get the feeling that Wiki is some sort of secret society -- what happens in Wiki stays in Wiki. Why else would one be reticent to discuss those things here?

A wiki is just a type of software. So this post reads as "I get the feeling that Spreadsheet is some sort of secret society" or "I'm one of those who has long been skeptical of Website" or "given a widespread perception of the overall socio-political leanings of Database as an institution" or "I have no knowledge of the internal workings of Word Processor".

There are no socio-political leanings of Wikipedia. You can include anything you want as long as you have a citation to "reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Other than that, Wikipedia has a policy of maintaining a neutral point of view. You can disbelieve that all you like, but given how much grief the community gives you for even stating a road is scenic (that's an opinion and thus does not maintain neutral point of view), I find it hard to believe that a  "socio-political leaning" exists (unless, of course, you've just run out of things to be upset about and have to invent a new one).

There is no man behind the curtain here. This has to do with people with policy boners. You know, like a cashier that won't let you take 11 items through the 10 items or less line even when you're the only one in the store. Or cops that write you a ticket for 51 in a 50. Or a boss that writes you up for clocking in at 9:01.

As for the question of "Why would one be reticent to discuss those things here?", it's because of the canvassing policy. In the early days of Wikipedia, it was commonplace that if an article for Foo was up for deletion, its author would go to the Foo fan forum and recruit everyone to mob Wikipedia with votes to keep the article for reasons having to do mostly with how much they liked Foo and not whether having an article about Foo was within the bounds of Wikipedia policy. The canvassing policy provides a means to exclude such comments from consideration.

As with all other Wikipedia policies, if you can catch your opponent violating the canvassing policy, you can then go and raise hell on the admin noticeboard and rope everyone into a timewasting discussion about your conduct–which of course means that your opponent can't use that time to change things to their liking. I think rschen's probably being a little overly cautious not wanting to discuss things here, but in so doing he's trying to avoid any unwarranted accusations that he's recruiting people to get involved in discussions on-wiki.

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 12:48:06 AM

Quote from: hbelkins on December 27, 2022, 12:22:28 AM
I'm one of those who has long been skeptical of Wiki, so honestly I don't see the point in having an entry for this forum there.

But I have to ask, given a widespread perception of the overall socio-political leanings of Wiki as an institution -- is it possible the anti-roads attitude that has been mentioned is part of a larger anti-car, pro-transit, anti-fossil-fuel agenda?

Since I have no knowledge of the internal workings of Wiki, and some of you do, that's why I ask. But after reading some of these posts, I get the feeling that Wiki is some sort of secret society -- what happens in Wiki stays in Wiki. Why else would one be reticent to discuss those things here?

A wiki is just a type of software. So this post reads as "I get the feeling that Spreadsheet is some sort of secret society" or "I'm one of those who has long been skeptical of Website" or "given a widespread perception of the overall socio-political leanings of Database as an institution" or "I have no knowledge of the internal workings of Word Processor".

There are no socio-political leanings of Wikipedia. You can include anything you want as long as you have a citation to "reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Other than that, Wikipedia has a policy of maintaining a neutral point of view. You can disbelieve that all you like, but given how much grief the community gives you for even stating a road is scenic (that's an opinion and thus does not maintain neutral point of view), I find it hard to believe that a  "socio-political leaning" exists (unless, of course, you've just run out of things to be upset about and have to invent a new one).

There is no man behind the curtain here. This has to do with people with policy boners. You know, like a cashier that won't let you take 11 items through the 10 items or less line even when you're the only one in the store. Or cops that write you a ticket for 51 in a 50. Or a boss that writes you up for clocking in at 9:01.

As for the question of "Why would one be reticent to discuss those things here?", it's because of the canvassing policy. In the early days of Wikipedia, it was commonplace that if an article for Foo was up for deletion, its author would go to the Foo fan forum and recruit everyone to mob Wikipedia with votes to keep the article for reasons having to do mostly with how much they liked Foo and not whether having an article about Foo was within the bounds of Wikipedia policy. The canvassing policy provides a means to exclude such comments from consideration.

As with all other Wikipedia policies, if you can catch your opponent violating the canvassing policy, you can then go and raise hell on the admin noticeboard and rope everyone into a timewasting discussion about your conduct–which of course means that your opponent can't use that time to change things to their liking. I think rschen's probably being a little overly cautious not wanting to discuss things here, but in so doing he's trying to avoid any unwarranted accusations that he's recruiting people to get involved in discussions on-wiki.

A lot of it is that, but I'd also rather not reveal strategy or contingency plans on a public website for fear of showing our entire deck of cards to those who are causing all these issues. (I'd rather not be playing this game of chess, but unfortunately that is what it is right now).

Quote from: hbelkins on December 27, 2022, 12:22:28 AM
But I have to ask, given a widespread perception of the overall socio-political leanings of Wiki as an institution -- is it possible the anti-roads attitude that has been mentioned is part of a larger anti-car, pro-transit, anti-fossil-fuel agenda?

Almost certainly not. In addition to what Scott said above, Wikipedia also has an article for basically every transit station in existence. These same types of people also would want to get rid of those.

Why people want to remove well-sourced content that they don’t find interesting, I have no idea. I don’t give a shit about a lot of what’s on Wikipedia and I might think some of it is a waste of time, but if people want to maintain that stuff and can source it, why would I reject those contributions? More power to them.

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 12:48:06 AM
There are no socio-political leanings of Wikipedia. You can include anything you want as long as you have a citation to "reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Other than that, Wikipedia has a policy of maintaining a neutral point of view. You can disbelieve that all you like, but given how much grief the community gives you for even stating a road is scenic (that's an opinion and thus does not maintain neutral point of view), I find it hard to believe that a  "socio-political leaning" exists (unless, of course, you've just run out of things to be upset about and have to invent a new one).

I am actually not sure I entirely agree with that statement. Any writing anywhere will be skewed to some degree by the personal views of the author(s). Stating a road is scenic as an opinion is simple to deal with because it’s easy to check and see if other people or published sources have said the same thing. Obviously a neutral point of view is the goal, but teasing out every last ounce of implicit bias is hard to pull off. Wiki does a good job at it but it is very difficult to eliminate completely.

Quote from: US 89 on December 27, 2022, 01:32:55 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 12:48:06 AM
There are no socio-political leanings of Wikipedia. You can include anything you want as long as you have a citation to "reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Other than that, Wikipedia has a policy of maintaining a neutral point of view. You can disbelieve that all you like, but given how much grief the community gives you for even stating a road is scenic (that's an opinion and thus does not maintain neutral point of view), I find it hard to believe that a  "socio-political leaning" exists (unless, of course, you've just run out of things to be upset about and have to invent a new one).

I am actually not sure I entirely agree with that statement. Any writing anywhere will be skewed to some degree by the personal views of the author(s). Stating a road is scenic as an opinion is simple to deal with because it's easy to check and see if other people or published sources have said the same thing. Obviously a neutral point of view is the goal, but teasing out every last ounce of implicit bias is hard to pull off. Wiki does a good job at it but it is very difficult to eliminate completely.

I would say that a number of administrators are pretty outspokenly of a certain political viewpoint, given some recent internal events that I have noticed (unrelated to roads). However, that's not to say that they all are. (I know that political discussion is frowned upon here). I am not aware that this bias has necessarily extended to content, given the level of scrutiny of page histories by everyone, including anonymous/IP editors.

That being said, the English Wikipedia editor base does consist of Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as some assorted editors from other countries, which does add to the political diversity.

FWIW, there's also a number of train articles that have been deleted in recent purges of low-quality content. And bus coverage gets trimmed for being fancruft (and rightly so).

As for the other discussions about why articles are getting purged: it's true that Wikipedia would have no issue hosting all those extra pages on their server space. But there's limited capacity in what volunteer editors can monitor and maintain without stretching themselves impossibly thin. At any given time, there's only a few thousand active editors and 6 million+ articles. I've come across several long-unnoticed hoaxes that have persisted and disseminated into the wider Internet, which can cause a fun cycle called citogenesis (where Wikipedia will cite another website that sourced inaccurate information from a Wikipedia hoax).

There is absolutely bias on Wikipedia. The idea of Wikipedia itself isn't inherently biased, but if the majority of people running it are, then it becomes biased in practice. Compare the opening sections for Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Whether you like one or the other (or neither), there is a clear difference in the tone of these two articles. I don't think Wikipedia should hold a monopoly on information. I like Wikipedia, but I also hate Wikipedia, especially in its beyond obnoxious calls for donations. And I never use Wikipedia for political information.

---

AARoads probably doesn't deserve or need its own article. I think we're almost all in consensus of that. That doesn't mean AARoads isn't a useful website though.

Now, I think there's credence to the idea of branching road information onto its own wiki-style site. If it's well-written and comprehensive enough, and has a good brand (i.e., name), it can become the go-to source for highway information. To me, the gold standard of independent wikis has always been the Minecraft Wiki. Everyone in the community knows about it, there's a solid base of people helping to maintain it, and the information is high quality. I think an independent road wiki could be quite successful, if there's enough volunteers to maintain it.

Quote from: Bruce on December 27, 2022, 01:58:35 AM
But there's limited capacity in what volunteer editors can monitor and maintain without stretching themselves impossibly thin. At any given time, there's only a few thousand active editors and 6 million+ articles.

This is part of why WP needs to focus on editor retention IMO. There's an essay on WP that I've seen several times, "there is no justice", basically saying that treating different editors fairly for the same thing will not be done on WP, ostensibly because decisions are made based on "what's best for the encyclopedia". But the problem is that those people aren't considering that unfair treatment drives away editors which is obviously not good for the encyclopedia.

I have no idea why WP hesitates to adopt solutions that actually work in real life. Such as policy that can be cited, precedent that is adhered to unless the community clearly determines that it should be changed, etc

I perceive a definite anti-US bias pervading a lot of Wikipedia, too. I recently saw an edit summary that was meant to say "De Americanization" (though it was misspelled).

There are some people there who are experts on all the policies and know all the ins and outs of the various rules, many of which are things most people will never have encountered and don't know about, and who will then want to lecture you if you violate one of them.

Regarding coverage of roads on Wikipedia, to some extent I think a lot of road articles suffer from the same problem that a lot of other articles often have–too much trivial minute detail, which is always an issue on Wikipedia generally.

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 12:48:06 AM
There are no socio-political leanings of Wikipedia. You can include anything you want as long as you have a citation to "reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Other than that, Wikipedia has a policy of maintaining a neutral point of view. You can disbelieve that all you like, but given how much grief the community gives you for even stating a road is scenic (that's an opinion and thus does not maintain neutral point of view), I find it hard to believe that a  "socio-political leaning" exists (unless, of course, you've just run out of things to be upset about and have to invent a new one).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedia

I want to believe you on this, but some researchers have done the legwork that confirms there is a slight leftward bias that does more move neutral as the page goes through more revisions.

Now, those leanings aren't built into wikipedia, it just appears that the contributors are more likely to have such leanings until enough people contribute and start to drown them out.

Quote from: SectorZ on December 27, 2022, 11:50:47 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 12:48:06 AM
There are no socio-political leanings of Wikipedia. You can include anything you want as long as you have a citation to "reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Other than that, Wikipedia has a policy of maintaining a neutral point of view. You can disbelieve that all you like, but given how much grief the community gives you for even stating a road is scenic (that's an opinion and thus does not maintain neutral point of view), I find it hard to believe that a  "socio-political leaning" exists (unless, of course, you've just run out of things to be upset about and have to invent a new one).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedia

I want to believe you on this, but some researchers have done the legwork that confirms there is a slight leftward bias that does more move neutral as the page goes through more revisions.

Now, those leanings aren't built into wikipedia, it just appears that the contributors are more likely to have such leanings until enough people contribute and start to drown them out.

Also, certain articles end up marked as "protected" which prevents anyone from trying to balance, correct, or remove biased claims or statements. For me, it's the subtlety of the bias throughout.

Aren't there enough people on here who can make this happen? I know one in particular on here is and I'm sure there are more than him.

Quote from: roadman65 on December 27, 2022, 12:07:39 PM
Aren't there enough people on here who can make this happen? I know one in particular on here is and I'm sure there are more than him.

I mean, I could go back to editing Wikipedia articles.  Trouble is that I really don't want to do things by committee or be restricted on how much content I can add.  For example, the blog I did on CA 1 in Big Sur has 597 images (about half are historic images).  Something even a fraction of that size would never fly on Wikipedia.

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 12:48:06 AM

A wiki is just a type of software. So this post reads as "I get the feeling that Spreadsheet is some sort of secret society" or "I'm one of those who has long been skeptical of Website" or "given a widespread perception of the overall socio-political leanings of Database as an institution" or "I have no knowledge of the internal workings of Word Processor".

Actually, I've heard this argument before, which is why I capitalized Wiki.

Some may not realize it, or want to admit it, but "Wiki" has become a synonym for "Wikipedia," the same as "Q-tip" has for "cotton swab" or "Band-Aid" for "small adhesive bandage."

Quote from: hbelkins on December 27, 2022, 12:34:53 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 12:48:06 AM

A wiki is just a type of software. So this post reads as "I get the feeling that Spreadsheet is some sort of secret society" or "I'm one of those who has long been skeptical of Website" or "given a widespread perception of the overall socio-political leanings of Database as an institution" or "I have no knowledge of the internal workings of Word Processor".

Actually, I've heard this argument before, which is why I capitalized Wiki.

Some may not realize it, or want to admit it, but "Wiki" has become a synonym for "Wikipedia," the same as "Q-tip" has for "cotton swab" or "Band-Aid" for "small adhesive bandage."

I'm not so sure.  At least amongst those that have perused both wikis and Wikipedia, the two are not synonyms.

I'm certainly aware of resources (such as MoDOT's EPG) that are wikis but not Wikipedia.

And while I can see the arguments for moving fan material from Wikipedia to wikis specific to each fandom, there are counterarguments as well.  Availability over time tends to be less stable, and the editorial POV tends to retreat into the fandom.  When I am new to a given franchise, I prefer to read about it first on Wikipedia because it answers the questions of "What is this?" "Could it be good?" "Why should I care?" "What has the critical response been like?" by applying criteria of notability and neutrality that, at least in theory, apply to everything equally.  If I decide I'm interested in whatever it is, then I can go to the fan sites and wade through the squee.

No road articles about a state highway or above are in any real danger of being deleted from Wikipedia. The mass-tagging and section blanking efforts are extremely small and being done by a handful of users who have since scaled back their efforts to only removing material cited to fan sites.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 27, 2022, 12:11:44 PM

Quote from: roadman65 on December 27, 2022, 12:07:39 PM
Aren’t there enough people on here who can make this happen? I know one in particular on here is and I’m sure there are more than him.

I mean, I could go back to editing Wikipedia articles.  Trouble is that I really don’t want to do things by committee or be restricted on how much content I can add.  For example, the blog I did on CA 1 in Big Sur has 597 images (about half are historic images).  Something even a fraction of that size would never fly on Wikipedia.

All I know is a certain troll on here is capable of starting an Wiki article and there are other AARoads users trolls or not, that have the power to start articles.

Hey if someone was able to post a rumor on Wiki that Chelsea Clinton married into the George Soros family, why won’t Wiki let someone start an AARoads page?

Quote from: hbelkins on December 27, 2022, 12:34:53 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 12:48:06 AM

A wiki is just a type of software. So this post reads as "I get the feeling that Spreadsheet is some sort of secret society" or "I'm one of those who has long been skeptical of Website" or "given a widespread perception of the overall socio-political leanings of Database as an institution" or "I have no knowledge of the internal workings of Word Processor".

Actually, I've heard this argument before, which is why I capitalized Wiki.

Some may not realize it, or want to admit it, but "Wiki" has become a synonym for "Wikipedia," the same as "Q-tip" has for "cotton swab" or "Band-Aid" for "small adhesive bandage."

You're wrong. Sorry.

Only use the two of them as synonyms if you want everyone to think you don't know what you're talking about.

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 26, 2022, 08:33:01 PM
Funnily enough, 15 years ago, the prevailing mantra was "Wikipedia Is Not Paper". It was generally believed that the more articles the better, since that got the site readers, and thus the thinking was it would result in more editors. The 1,000,000th article was a cause for much celebration.

Now it seems like things are going in the opposite direction and a lot of the more pop-culture-y stuff has been shuffled off to smaller wikis. The fact that many of these wikis are hosted by the for-profit Fandom, Inc., founded by Jimmy Wales, could be salient to those who are more conspiracy-minded.

Quote from: webny99 on December 26, 2022, 08:25:43 PM

Quote from: J N Winkler on December 26, 2022, 07:06:20 PM
It sounds to me like keeping roads content on Wikipedia should take higher priority than having an entry for the AARoads forum.

I certainly agree with this. I've used Wikipedia here and there to find road-related information (often related to a State Highway) that would often be much harder to find without it.

Well, the good news is that a road wiki of some form or fashion will certainly always exist. It's just a question of whether it will be on Wikipedia or...aanother place.

The thing about most of the mass deletions/mergers (or at least the ones I'm aware of) is that there was a shift in attitude towards content that was written during a fad. Unlike other fandoms that have come and gone from Wikipedia, roads and other transportation networks have demonstrable real-world relevancy that seems to be accepted by most Wikipedia editors.

The thing I don't like about Wikipedia that is never going to change is because of the facts that DOT-published content varies so much from agency to agency, and sometimes changes happen without being published, the content is always going to be lopsided and incomplete.

Quote from: Molandfreak on December 27, 2022, 05:13:56 PM
The thing I don't like about Wikipedia that is never going to change is because of the facts that DOT-published content varies so much from agency to agency, and sometimes changes happen without being published, the content is always going to be lopsided and incomplete.

There's newspapers and old maps, too, which can supplement the DOT sources.

The real challenge in wiki road content is that a good chunk of becoming a good editor is learning the universe of sources that exists for a certain state. Where to get mileage info, where to get historic info, where to get historic maps. Because, as you mention, the published content varies so much from state to state, you have to relearn all of this any time you edit an article in a new state. So most editors focus on their home state, meaning that some states never get any attention because nobody who cares about that state has ever bothered to work on the project.

Quote from: 1995hoo on December 27, 2022, 11:39:22 AM
I perceive a definite anti-US bias pervading a lot of Wikipedia, too. I recently saw an edit summary that was meant to say "De Americanization" (though it was misspelled).

There are some people there who are experts on all the policies and know all the ins and outs of the various rules, many of which are things most people will never have encountered and don't know about, and who will then want to lecture you if you violate one of them.

Regarding coverage of roads on Wikipedia, to some extent I think a lot of road articles suffer from the same problem that a lot of other articles often have–too much trivial minute detail, which is always an issue on Wikipedia generally.

I'm not so sure about that. Two of the most recent targets were an urban road in South Africa and a state highway in Karnataka, India. It is harder to find sources about roads in developing countries, especially with the latter since the main language is Kannada.

I met Alex, the forum owner, and he will not use Wiki for info. He uses SLD and state provided info such as state webpages and even reliable map sources to find accurate mileages for roads.

I have used Texas https://www.dot.state.tx.us/tpp/hwy/sh/sh0006.htm to find out info I need on Lone Star Highways helpful.

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 05:21:08 PM

Quote from: Molandfreak on December 27, 2022, 05:13:56 PM
The thing I don't like about Wikipedia that is never going to change is because of the facts that DOT-published content varies so much from agency to agency, and sometimes changes happen without being published, the content is always going to be lopsided and incomplete.

There's newspapers and old maps, too, which can supplement the DOT sources.

The real challenge in wiki road content is that a good chunk of becoming a good editor is learning the universe of sources that exists for a certain state. Where to get mileage info, where to get historic info, where to get historic maps. Because, as you mention, the published content varies so much from state to state, you have to relearn all of this any time you edit an article in a new state. So most editors focus on their home state, meaning that some states never get any attention because nobody who cares about that state has ever bothered to work on the project.

Which is why Wikipedia for roads is so useful. Even if you don't want to cite it directly, it will usually have links to the official route logs or historic maps without having to spend an hour or more trying to figure out how those work in different states. I am probably more familiar with Utah's road reference pages, resolutions, documentation, old maps, and general state highway system than most other road people...but drop me in some other random state and I could be completely clueless. Wiki is a good starting point if I need to learn something in a state I don't know much about.

Quote from: US 89 on December 27, 2022, 06:43:29 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 05:21:08 PM

Quote from: Molandfreak on December 27, 2022, 05:13:56 PM
The thing I don't like about Wikipedia that is never going to change is because of the facts that DOT-published content varies so much from agency to agency, and sometimes changes happen without being published, the content is always going to be lopsided and incomplete.

There's newspapers and old maps, too, which can supplement the DOT sources.

The real challenge in wiki road content is that a good chunk of becoming a good editor is learning the universe of sources that exists for a certain state. Where to get mileage info, where to get historic info, where to get historic maps. Because, as you mention, the published content varies so much from state to state, you have to relearn all of this any time you edit an article in a new state. So most editors focus on their home state, meaning that some states never get any attention because nobody who cares about that state has ever bothered to work on the project.

Which is why Wikipedia for roads is so useful. Even if you don't want to cite it directly, it will usually have links to the official route logs or historic maps without having to spend an hour or more trying to figure out how those work in different states. I am probably more familiar with Utah's road reference pages, resolutions, documentation, old maps, and general state highway system than most other road people...but drop me in some other random state and I could be completely clueless. Wiki is a good starting point if I need to learn something in a state I don't know much about.

What I find odd about Wikipedia related to California specifically is that the editors seem to have completely avoided the California Highways & Public Works publication.  Those have exacting dates on most of the major State Highway development in California.  It's incredibly rare to see an instance of a CHPW reference.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 27, 2022, 06:48:56 PM

Quote from: US 89 on December 27, 2022, 06:43:29 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 05:21:08 PM

Quote from: Molandfreak on December 27, 2022, 05:13:56 PM
The thing I don't like about Wikipedia that is never going to change is because of the facts that DOT-published content varies so much from agency to agency, and sometimes changes happen without being published, the content is always going to be lopsided and incomplete.

There's newspapers and old maps, too, which can supplement the DOT sources.

The real challenge in wiki road content is that a good chunk of becoming a good editor is learning the universe of sources that exists for a certain state. Where to get mileage info, where to get historic info, where to get historic maps. Because, as you mention, the published content varies so much from state to state, you have to relearn all of this any time you edit an article in a new state. So most editors focus on their home state, meaning that some states never get any attention because nobody who cares about that state has ever bothered to work on the project.

Which is why Wikipedia for roads is so useful. Even if you don't want to cite it directly, it will usually have links to the official route logs or historic maps without having to spend an hour or more trying to figure out how those work in different states. I am probably more familiar with Utah's road reference pages, resolutions, documentation, old maps, and general state highway system than most other road people...but drop me in some other random state and I could be completely clueless. Wiki is a good starting point if I need to learn something in a state I don't know much about.

What I find odd about Wikipedia related to California specifically is that the editors seem to have completely avoided the California Highways & Public Works publication.  Those have exacting dates on most of the major State Highway development in California.  It's incredibly rare to see an instance of a CHPW reference.

I wrote most of the San Diego articles but I did not find out about CHPW until after I had written them. I did go back and try and add it in some instances. I can't speak for the other articles.

I also did upload one volume to Wikisource to start transcription but that project stalled. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/California_Highways_and_Public_Works_Journal

That being said, I suspect that nowadays it might be considered as suspect by the same group causing all the issues since it is a government document and thus a "primary source".

Quote from: rschen7754 on December 27, 2022, 08:20:58 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 27, 2022, 06:48:56 PM

Quote from: US 89 on December 27, 2022, 06:43:29 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 05:21:08 PM

Quote from: Molandfreak on December 27, 2022, 05:13:56 PM
The thing I don't like about Wikipedia that is never going to change is because of the facts that DOT-published content varies so much from agency to agency, and sometimes changes happen without being published, the content is always going to be lopsided and incomplete.

There's newspapers and old maps, too, which can supplement the DOT sources.

The real challenge in wiki road content is that a good chunk of becoming a good editor is learning the universe of sources that exists for a certain state. Where to get mileage info, where to get historic info, where to get historic maps. Because, as you mention, the published content varies so much from state to state, you have to relearn all of this any time you edit an article in a new state. So most editors focus on their home state, meaning that some states never get any attention because nobody who cares about that state has ever bothered to work on the project.

Which is why Wikipedia for roads is so useful. Even if you don't want to cite it directly, it will usually have links to the official route logs or historic maps without having to spend an hour or more trying to figure out how those work in different states. I am probably more familiar with Utah's road reference pages, resolutions, documentation, old maps, and general state highway system than most other road people...but drop me in some other random state and I could be completely clueless. Wiki is a good starting point if I need to learn something in a state I don't know much about.

What I find odd about Wikipedia related to California specifically is that the editors seem to have completely avoided the California Highways & Public Works publication.  Those have exacting dates on most of the major State Highway development in California.  It's incredibly rare to see an instance of a CHPW reference.

I wrote most of the San Diego articles but I did not find out about CHPW until after I had written them. I did go back and try and add it in some instances. I can't speak for the other articles.

I also did upload one volume to Wikisource to start transcription but that project stalled. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/California_Highways_and_Public_Works_Journal

That being said, I suspect that nowadays it might be considered as suspect by the same group causing all the issues since it is a government document and thus a "primary source".

You're the only person I've encountered so far for California that has done substantial work for any roads in California (and thank you for the reliable references).  The scannable versions of the CHPWs didn't really emerge until a couple years back, I've found myself having to update older Gribblenation articles when time permits.  I do try to make the hyperlinks and public document images easy for anyone reading to grab/save/use elsewhere.  I was gifted an almost complete physical set of CHPWs right around when they were beginning to appear online. 

I also don't really recall seeing any AASHTO database references now that I think about. 

The AASHTO database is tricky to cite because there's no real way to express the way that it works in Wikipedia citation format. Here, you see a lot of citations of the format "Go to the AASHTO database, search for X, and it's in the document titled Y" because it's hard to get a permanent URL from the database. If you try to cite something that way on Wikipedia, someone will murder you and set you on fire while you celebrate your birthday.

Therein lies something I think we have the advantage.  I can't practically hyperlink anything from AASHTO, but I can insert image scans.

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 08:34:17 PM
The AASHTO database is tricky to cite because there's no real way to express the way that it works in Wikipedia citation format. Here, you see a lot of citations of the format "Go to the AASHTO database, search for X, and it's in the document titled Y" because it's hard to get a permanent URL from the database. If you try to cite something that way on Wikipedia, someone will murder you and set you on fire while you celebrate your birthday.

The good thing about the AASHTO Special Committee reports is that we've put them on Wikimedia Commons, fully indexed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:USRD/AASHTO) them on Wikipedia and started transcribing them on Wikisource.

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 08:34:17 PM
The AASHTO database is tricky to cite because there's no real way to express the way that it works in Wikipedia citation format. Here, you see a lot of citations of the format "Go to the AASHTO database, search for X, and it's in the document titled Y" because it's hard to get a permanent URL from the database. If you try to cite something that way on Wikipedia, someone will murder you and set you on fire while you celebrate your birthday.

It's biblical to murder someone during a birthday party–but only if it's someone else's birthday party.  (This is an interesting bit of trivia I discovered a couple of years ago.  The only two birthday celebrations mentioned in the Bible were the occasion of the death of innocent people.)

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 08:34:17 PM
The AASHTO database is tricky to cite because there's no real way to express the way that it works in Wikipedia citation format. Here, you see a lot of citations of the format "Go to the AASHTO database, search for X, and it's in the document titled Y" because it's hard to get a permanent URL from the database. If you try to cite something that way on Wikipedia, someone will murder you and set you on fire while you celebrate your birthday.

And yet it's understandably okay to use a citation for a page in a published book which may no longer exist in any library.

Never underestimate the power of laziness.

Quote from: formulanone on December 28, 2022, 10:49:51 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 08:34:17 PM
The AASHTO database is tricky to cite because there's no real way to express the way that it works in Wikipedia citation format. Here, you see a lot of citations of the format "Go to the AASHTO database, search for X, and it's in the document titled Y" because it's hard to get a permanent URL from the database. If you try to cite something that way on Wikipedia, someone will murder you and set you on fire while you celebrate your birthday.

And yet it's understandably okay to use a citation for a page in a published book which may no longer exist in any library.

Never underestimate the power of laziness.

Library of Congress

There is nothing stopping anyone from writing a new article about anything. Getting an account is as simple as applying for one. You just have to follow the rules. There's even a guide on the left side of every page to help should you desire to write a page on, for example, Alanland. (There are actual wiki articles (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwij45uF2pz8AhXZNEQIHb2rD1cQFnoECBgQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmicronations.wiki%2Fwiki%2FKingdom_of_Alanland&usg=AOvVaw2HqkcfHUJ9U3g21XtpcsmB) on an Alanland (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwij45uF2pz8AhXZNEQIHb2rD1cQFnoECAsQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fquindaropedia.fandom.com%2Fwiki%2FAlanland&usg=AOvVaw1sYbezzAPrF67KiyfTzP4l), but not in Wikipedia. AARoads Alanland is not the only Alanland in existence.) Documentation is a pain in the ass, but it's the only way to keep articles intellectually honest. It's hard to write without opinions, and many can't or refuse to do it.

Wikipedia isn't hard as long as you have the facts. Worried about a URL not staying around? The internet also has this cool repository called the Wayback Machine (https://archive.org/web/) where you can archive anything. The group I was working with on writing articles essentially required us to archive everything for documentation because web pages often disappear. But there is nothing stopping anyone from creating an AA Roads page. Someone else may mark it for deletion. But if the page is well-documented and looks to be significant enough (which IMO is a judgment call but I'm not privy to inner Wikipedia circles), you'll have started a new page.

Quote from: skluth on December 28, 2022, 11:29:00 AM
AARoads Alanland is not the only Alanland in existence.

Of course not.  The legend started with this guy (https://micronations.wiki/wiki/Esperantist_Republic_of_Alanland).

I have edited Wikipedia in the past and have cited facts to construction plans sets without getting caught, though this is discouraged (if not banned outright) as they are primary sources.

Wait, what's wrong with "primary sources"? Normally in the context of research, a "primary source" (the original text) is better than a "secondary source" (such as an encyclopedia or treatise or similar that may summarize what the primary source said).

Quote from: 1995hoo on December 28, 2022, 12:21:31 PM
Wait, what's wrong with "primary sources"?

This is what I'm wondering too.

Quote from: 1995hoo on December 28, 2022, 12:21:31 PMWait, what's wrong with "primary sources"? Normally in the context of research, a "primary source" (the original text) is better than a "secondary source" (such as an encyclopedia or treatise or similar that may summarize what the primary source said).

Agreed.  The problem is that article facts cited to primary sources tend to be original research, which is explicitly forbidden per WP:NOR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research).

Quote from: 1995hoo on December 28, 2022, 12:21:31 PMWait, what's wrong with "primary sources"? Normally in the context of research, a "primary source" (the original text) is better than a "secondary source" (such as an encyclopedia or treatise or similar that may summarize what the primary source said).

Quote from: J N Winkler on December 28, 2022, 12:38:49 PM
Agreed.  The problem is that article facts cited to primary sources tend to be original research, which is explicitly forbidden per WP:NOR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research).

Indeed, the concept of "original research" needs to be scrutinized (or discouraged), but it is a misnomer that "primary sources" are synonymous with "original research".  I recently wrote a biographical article that referenced a bunch of primary sources, but none of those sources were mine.  One of the purposes of the article was to point out that the main primary source (an obituary) had a number of factual errors.  The true story was more fascinating than the published one, but difficult to pull together.  Hence the flip side, my article was considered as original research but since I was never the primary source of information (and had collected evidence refuting some of the primary sources), the article did not violate the "original research" principle.

Quote from: Rothman on December 28, 2022, 11:07:02 AM

Quote from: formulanone on December 28, 2022, 10:49:51 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 08:34:17 PM
The AASHTO database is tricky to cite because there's no real way to express the way that it works in Wikipedia citation format. Here, you see a lot of citations of the format "Go to the AASHTO database, search for X, and it's in the document titled Y" because it's hard to get a permanent URL from the database. If you try to cite something that way on Wikipedia, someone will murder you and set you on fire while you celebrate your birthday.

And yet it's understandably okay to use a citation for a page in a published book which may no longer exist in any library.

Never underestimate the power of laziness.

Library of Congress

I don't believe it has everything ever published with an ISBN (though they liked to tell us that in elementary school library hour).

Quote from: Dirt Roads on December 28, 2022, 01:22:41 PM

Quote from: 1995hoo on December 28, 2022, 12:21:31 PMWait, what's wrong with "primary sources"? Normally in the context of research, a "primary source" (the original text) is better than a "secondary source" (such as an encyclopedia or treatise or similar that may summarize what the primary source said).

Quote from: J N Winkler on December 28, 2022, 12:38:49 PM
Agreed.  The problem is that article facts cited to primary sources tend to be original research, which is explicitly forbidden per WP:NOR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research).

Indeed, the concept of "original research" needs to be scrutinized (or discouraged), but it is a misnomer that "primary sources" are synonymous with "original research".  I recently wrote a biographical article that referenced a bunch of primary sources, but none of those sources were mine.  One of the purposes of the article was to point out that the main primary source (an obituary) had a number of factual errors.  The true story was more fascinating than the published one, but difficult to pull together.  Hence the flip side, my article was considered as original research but since I was never the primary source of information (and had collected evidence refuting some of the primary sources), the article did not violate the "original research" principle.

I think the point of "original research" was to eliminate something that you couldn't prove, was spurious, or claims because that you tossed a coin 100 times and always got heads, that you could now edit the page and claim that type of coin only has heads.

Quote from: formulanone on December 28, 2022, 06:15:21 PM

Quote from: Rothman on December 28, 2022, 11:07:02 AMLibrary of Congress

I don't believe it has everything ever published with an ISBN (though they liked to tell us that in elementary school library hour).

The LOC has no involvement in issuing ISBNs.  Authors who self-publish are also not required to apply for an ISBN or to submit their works to the LOC, though both are considered advisable, the first for sales discovery and the second for issuance of a LCCN.  For publishers, an obligation to supply copies of every work they publish arises from participation in the Cataloging in Publication program (https://www.loc.gov/publish/cip/faqs/).

There can also be tiers of copyright deposit libraries.  In the UK, for example, anyone who publishes a print work (even an author who self-publishes) must supply a copy of it to the British Library within one month of the day of publication (per the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003), but the other five copyright deposit libraries (https://www.bl.uk/legal-deposit/about-legal-deposit) (which include the national libraries in Scotland and Wales as well as the Bodleian in Oxford, Cambridge University Library, and the library at Trinity College, Dublin) each receive only an option to request a copy that they must exercise in writing within one year of publication.

The guaranteed availability of at least a deposit copy of any published work in a copyright deposit library hinges on it not being deaccessioned or destroyed in a disaster of some kind.  I've heard of legal compulsions on authors and publishers to supply, but not on libraries to keep, and storage is a costly burden.  The Bodleian used to have a large book warehouse near the village of Nuneham Courtenay (a few miles southeast of Oxford proper) where most of the popular fiction--which is typically of low demand for serious scholarly research--was kept.  For a time a large portion of the collections were stored at the Osney Mead industrial estate, which is in a low-lying part of Oxford susceptible to flooding from the River Thames.

There's a lot of things that have been said. Because an encyclopedia is generally a tertiary source, most sources used are supposed to be secondary sources (at least 1 step removed from the event), though primary sources can be used at certain points. Also, secondary sources are required to prove notability. So the purists would strictly enforce this.

They want to declare that maps are primary sources (which shows little understanding of how maps are made) - thus killing notability - and separately, say that drawing any textual conclusion from them by ordinary reading of a map is original research (thus leaving no sources that can accurately describe the road as it is today, which would certainly cripple most road articles). This also has a disproportionate effect on roads in non-Western countries where quite often people are too lazy to look for sources before nominating for deletion - that is, if the newspaper archives are even digitized.

But in all actuality (with credit to bulldog1979 for the argument) - most newspaper articles are primary sources too. So if they want to be consistent, there's a lot of non-road articles that probably have to be deleted as well.

Sources affiliated with the subject in question (i.e. state DOTs) might also be called into question as being primary sources (usually) and also not being independent. I personally would never question such sources (well, outside Russia and China perhaps) but the purists might.

I am concerned that Wikipedia is so worried about overciting things that they are producing a product that is unreadable and unusable - not just in roads, but I have also seen this in areas like CBS reality TV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadgeek does briefly mention the AARoads forum. It is cited to a Washington Post article, though it is paywalled and I can't see it.

Quote from: rschen7754 on January 01, 2023, 03:26:04 PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadgeek does briefly mention the AARoads forum. It is cited to a Washington Post article, though it is paywalled and I can't see it.

That article mentions me (by username).

Quote from: rschen7754 on January 01, 2023, 03:26:04 PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadgeek does briefly mention the AARoads forum. It is cited to a Washington Post article, though it is paywalled and I can't see it.

If you look the article up in the Web Archive, it's available.

What forums do have a wikipedia page? The bigger railroad.net does not appear to have one.

Fascinating discussion. If I can add my $.02. I used to say Wikipedia is a bit like the Space Station MIR. Any objective observer would look at the amount of duct tape and bailing wire holding this messy conglomerate together, not to mention the dysfunctional governing body in charge, and conclude it should have crashed into earth years ago. Thanks to the devotion of anonymous people who care about its mission, it's not only still spinning, but has a record of success that is impossible to ignore.  IMHO it's a resource worth fighting for.

My observation: If an article is in a crappy state (and crappy could mean biased, poorly written, full of tangents or trivia, whatever), it tends to attract crappy drive-by "fixes" that actually make it worse. Once an article is cleaned up and in reasonably good shape  that tends to command a bit of respect. With just a bit of maintenance the article will remain in good shape for quite a while.

Regarding bias: It's been my experience articles that are even slightly controversial have a group of editors who guard those articles. If you add content that agrees with their way of thinking, they will accept it at face value. You could even insert an unsourced hoax and it could last years unchecked. It is possible to add content that is against the guardians' way of thinking, and even change the tone of the article. However for that to last, it must be a near-perfect edit, with reliable sources and following all of Wikipedia's guidelines. Otherwise, it's likely to be undone.  However, once you have established credibility with the "guardians," you can make changes that won't be questioned. IMHO, that is where those that complain about bias in Wikipedia come from. They see a horrible article that is biased and attempt to "correct it." They become frustrated when their changes are reverted. However, their corrections simply re-biased the article towards a different POV, both before and after sucked. While this situation is unfortunate and non-ideal, its frankly better than most other sources of information. The norm for information repositories is editorial control is centralized. The editor's point of view will ultimately, even if subtly, filter down to all content.

My concern for wikipedia's future: When the Encyclopedia was universally perceived to be not-yet-complete,  even crappy content was seen as preferable to strict adherence to policy. Now that the site is "mature", we have new generations of editors who think policy compliance is more important than content. This is causing a lot of needless tension and frankly wasting a lot of contributor's time. But I'm not yet convinced the situation is hopeless. That pendulum can always swing back.

What I love about wikipedia is the community. I like working on articles, but I don't have an artistic bone in my body. Yet if I work on an article, someone who does have artistic talents will see my work, and add their contributions to the article. This is not only common, it's the norm. It truly is an amazing community of volunteers.

No. It's a backwater website with a small web forum, when web forums are dying off. It isn't even the most notable road website out there.

Quote from: bugo on April 12, 2023, 02:25:37 PM
No. It's a backwater website with a small web forum, when web forums are dying off. It isn't even the most notable road website out there.

You keep bugoing, bugo.

Out curiosity, what is being claimed to be more notable as a general catch-all road website?

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 12, 2023, 06:47:54 PM
Out curiosity, what is being claimed to be more notable as a general catch-all road website?

Wasn't bugo the one behind creating AARoads' ugly sister?  The site that looked like this one but promised less stringent moderation?  And it went phtbbbbbbt in short order?

Wikipedia is really spotty and inconsistent about the subjects that have articles. For example. Kellii Scott, drummer for legendary alternative band Failure, doesn't have an article. He is aware of this, and doesn't understand it either.

Quote from: bugo on April 12, 2023, 08:02:20 PM
Wikipedia is really spotty and inconsistent about the subjects that have articles. For example. Kellii Scott, drummer for legendary alternative band Failure, doesn't have an article. He is aware of this, and doesn't understand it either.

There are policies like the general notability guideline (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#General_notability_guideline) (significant coverage in reliable sources) and topic-specific ones, like the musician notability guidelines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(music)). From a quick search, I'm not seeing how Scott meets either set of guidelines.

I wanted to make a joke about the people who are anal about original research, but if I did, they'd tag it as OR.

Quote from: Bruce on April 13, 2023, 03:55:37 AM
I'm not seeing how Scott meets either set of guidelines.

Nazelrod?  :)

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 12:48:06 AM
There are no socio-political leanings of Wikipedia. You can include anything you want as long as you have a citation to "reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Other than that, Wikipedia has a policy of maintaining a neutral point of view. You can disbelieve that all you like, but given how much grief the community gives you for even stating a road is scenic (that's an opinion and thus does not maintain neutral point of view), I find it hard to believe that a  "socio-political leaning" exists (unless, of course, you've just run out of things to be upset about and have to invent a new one).

This isn't true, or at least isn't true all the time, in my experience. I've read plenty of articles with an obvious slant. I read an article a year or two ago that claimed that something happened because of racism or some other -ism when in reality it happened for another reason. I edited the article to remove the bias, and the edit was reverted. Besides, every single person on Earth has biases. It might not be an organized bias, but it is shaped by individual personal viewpoints.

If Wiki removes the road articles, I'm going to drop it from my regular website rotation. There is no reason to remove these articles. If there are articles for obscure Star Wars characters. then US 630 deserves one too (There is no article for US 630, an original 1926 US route; it redirects you to a bannered routes of US 95 page.

Quote from: bugo on April 13, 2023, 11:21:43 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 27, 2022, 12:48:06 AM
There are no socio-political leanings of Wikipedia. You can include anything you want as long as you have a citation to "reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Other than that, Wikipedia has a policy of maintaining a neutral point of view. You can disbelieve that all you like, but given how much grief the community gives you for even stating a road is scenic (that's an opinion and thus does not maintain neutral point of view), I find it hard to believe that a  "socio-political leaning" exists (unless, of course, you've just run out of things to be upset about and have to invent a new one).

This isn't true, or at least isn't true all the time, in my experience. I've read plenty of articles with an obvious slant. I read an article a year or two ago that claimed that something happened because of racism or some other -ism when in reality it happened for another reason. I edited the article to remove the bias, and the edit was reverted.

Sounds like you were wrong and reverted based upon the sources cited.

I quit editing for now because a township government website (https://www.chisagolaketownship.com/contacts) wasn't considered reliable enough to be used as a source...

There seem to be crackdowns in some areas, but not others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Survey_(Olympian_draftification) is where they are trying to get rid of less notable athletes.

Other things I have seen make me really wonder where the site is going - whether it will survive or whether it will slowly decline.

Quote from: Molandfreak on April 13, 2023, 01:18:41 PM
I quit editing for now because a township government website (https://www.chisagolaketownship.com/contacts) wasn't considered reliable enough to be used as a source...

Maybe there was just a better option for a source, even if the underlying information was correct?

Quote from: Molandfreak on April 13, 2023, 01:18:41 PM
I quit editing for now because a township government website (https://www.chisagolaketownship.com/contacts) wasn't considered reliable enough to be used as a source...

You really have to have a thick skin to edit Wikipedia, at least until you learn the "unwritten rules" around there. And yes bickering about which source is better, is a common argument. Just don't take it personally.

Quote from: bugo on April 12, 2023, 08:02:20 PM
Wikipedia is really spotty and inconsistent about the subjects that have articles. For example. Kellii Scott, drummer for legendary alternative band Failure, doesn't have an article. He is aware of this, and doesn't understand it either.

I think our definition of the word "legendary" is likely different.

Quote from: skluth on December 28, 2022, 11:29:00 AM
Wikipedia isn't hard as long as you have the facts. Worried about a URL not staying around? The internet also has this cool repository called the Wayback Machine (https://archive.org/web/) where you can archive anything.

No. The Internet Archive isn't even close to being complete. For example, the archives for the late, lamented bridgehunter.com are incomplete, and most pictures are missing. And it won't archive "anything", only certain sites.

Quote from: bugo on April 15, 2023, 01:22:56 PM

Quote from: Rothman on April 12, 2023, 07:07:03 PM
Wasn't bugo the one behind creating AARoads' ugly sister?  The site that looked like this one but promised less stringent moderation?  And it went phtbbbbbbt in short order?

I was one of the original founders of AAroads, but A and A pushed me out without even having the courtesy to tell me. One day, I happened to go to the website and noticed that it said AAroads: Copyright by AN and AF with no mention of me. I don't know why or when they decided to get rid of me, but I suspect this was their plan all along.

So, you weren't the one behind the attempted rival to AARoads?  Those were good times.

Quote from: Rothman on April 13, 2023, 11:30:38 AM
Sounds like you were wrong and reverted based upon the sources cited.

Sounds like you are making an uneducated guess based on nothing but your biases towards some forum members. The truth was that the tone and bias of the article was slanted, and instead of stating facts it stated a biased opinion, and I removed one phrase in an order to get rid of some of the bias. It was reverted. If you're going to make statements like that when you don't know what you're talking about, you need to quit doing it.

Quote from: bugo on April 15, 2023, 01:51:36 PM

Quote from: Rothman on April 13, 2023, 11:30:38 AM
Sounds like you were wrong and reverted based upon the sources cited.

Sounds like you are making an uneducated guess based on nothing but your biases towards some forum members. The truth was that the tone and bias of the article was slanted, and instead of stating facts it stated a biased opinion, and I removed one phrase in an order to get rid of some of the bias. It was reverted. If you're going to make statements like that when you don't know what you're talking about, you need to quit doing it.

No, I am removing the bias from your assertions about what happened.

Quote from: Rothman on April 15, 2023, 01:53:57 PM
No, I am removing the bias from your assertions about what happened.

No, you are making claims that are just guesses and are not based on reality.

Quote from: bugo on April 15, 2023, 01:55:29 PM

Quote from: Rothman on April 15, 2023, 01:53:57 PM
No, I am removing the bias from your assertions about what happened.

No, you are making claims that are just guesses and are not based on reality.

I was basing them on the information you provided.  So...I guess you did not describe reality?

Ah, it was you behind "biproads."  Heh.  Funny you dodged that in your previous response.  Embarrassed?

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=16595.msg2163939.msg#2163939

Quote from: Rothman on April 15, 2023, 01:58:32 PM
Ah, it was you behind "biproads."  Heh.  Funny you dodged that in your previous response.  Embarrassed?

Oh, that. I thought you were talking about this site. biproads.com was an elaborate troll. If it were anything else, don't you think it would still exist?

Quote from: bugo on April 15, 2023, 03:22:23 PM

Quote from: Rothman on April 15, 2023, 01:58:32 PM
Ah, it was you behind "biproads."  Heh.  Funny you dodged that in your previous response.  Embarrassed?

Oh, that. I thought you were talking about this site. biproads.com was an elaborate troll. If it were anything else, don't you think it would still exist?

Oh, for Pete's sake...Whatever helps you sleep at night.

Quote from: Rothman on April 12, 2023, 07:07:03 PM
Wasn't bugo the one behind creating AARoads' ugly sister?  The site that looked like this one but promised less stringent moderation?  And it went phtbbbbbbt in short order?

Quote from: bugo on April 15, 2023, 03:22:23 PM
I thought you were talking about this site.

Work on your reading comprehension.

Quote from: kphoger on April 15, 2023, 08:15:56 PM

Quote from: Rothman on April 12, 2023, 07:07:03 PM
Wasn't bugo the one behind creating AARoads' ugly sister?  The site that looked like this one but promised less stringent moderation?  And it went phtbbbbbbt in short order?

Quote from: bugo on April 15, 2023, 03:22:23 PM
I thought you were talking about this site.

Work on your reading comprehension.

I think he read what I had written perfectly and decided to respond the way he did deliberately.

AARoads.com ranks pretty high on the list of sites being used to train AI, according to this Washington Post article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/ai-chatbot-learning/).

QuoteTech companies have grown secretive about what they feed the AI. So The Washington Post set out to analyze one of these data sets to fully reveal the types of proprietary, personal, and often offensive websites that go into an AI's training data.
...
To look inside this black box, we analyzed Google's C4 data set, a massive snapshot of the contents of 15 million websites that have been used to instruct some high-profile English-language AIs, called large language models, including Google's T5 and Facebook's LLaMA. (OpenAI does not disclose what datasets it uses to train the models backing its popular chatbot, ChatGPT)

The Post worked with researchers at the Allen Institute for AI on this investigation and categorized the websites using data from Similarweb, a web analytics company. About a third of the websites could not be categorized, mostly because they no longer appear on the internet. Those are not shown.

Out of 15 million unique domains, a rank of #1,667 is pretty elite territory.

(https://i.imgur.com/n24D7tW.png)

Well, I guess we'd better start hunting for and deleting any posts we don't want people to find when using ChatGPT...

Quote from: kphoger on April 20, 2023, 10:43:13 AM
Well, I guess we'd better start hunting for and deleting any posts we don't want people to find when using ChatGPT...

I can't wait until AI says "because it bips" as an answer.

For scale of how unusual that seems, at another forum I participate in which has over 300,000 members over 20 years, was ranked around 17,000th. But it probably means that we have lots of data that can't be found anywhere else (or it defaults to the crawling with first two letters of the English alphabet a lot).

Travelmapping.net was around 9 millionth.

edit: my blog made the list, at around 7 million. It has about 10 posts in it.

Quote from: kphoger on April 20, 2023, 10:43:13 AM
Well, I guess we'd better start hunting for and deleting any posts we don't want people to find when using ChatGPT...

Which ones wouldn't we want people to find?

Quote from: Rothman on April 20, 2023, 12:38:41 PM

Quote from: kphoger on April 20, 2023, 10:43:13 AM
Well, I guess we'd better start hunting for and deleting any posts we don't want people to find when using ChatGPT...

Which ones wouldn't we want people to find?

The ones that reveal potentially embarrassing information about you if someone were to put "Compose a biography of ____ ____?" into the bot, I suppose.

Who knows if it crawls the entire domain or not? It may well have just been crawling the parts of the site Alex maintains. I know if I was building a project like this, I would explicitly avoid incorporating forums and things like that into the dataset, because there's generally no value in indexing things like MMM or HighwayStar's rants about Baltimore or Poiponen's weird ideas or whatever else.

But then that's the problem with ChatGPT, isn't it? That we don't know for sure what data is in it and what isn't? Funny how the company is called OpenAI but they don't actually open source any of their stuff...

So if a chat bot starts associating road stuff with Sault Sainte John Madden we'll know the reason?

I'm going to be extremely amused if ChatGPT or some other chat bot goes on a multi-paragraph rant about how we need to build the Hypotenuse, or how speed limits need to be 37.69 miles an hour exactly, when asking it a simple question.

It's like Discord, using messages sent on their system to do the same thing. All they'll end up with is "uwu", ",,,,,,,,", and "poggers" from their bot. No matter how hard they try, their sampling source is just... not the sort of one you'd use for anything.

Quote from: kphoger on April 20, 2023, 10:43:13 AM
Well, I guess we'd better start hunting for and deleting any posts we don't want people to find when using ChatGPT...

MMM was weeks ahead of his time

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'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.

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 23, 2023, 05:30:42 PM
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.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 23, 2023, 05:33:51 PM
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.

I probably should note that some of the DOTs are equally making preservation difficult given how much of their content has been removed.  ADOT in particular purged a crap load of information from easily accessible places on the internet.  I've been encountering this problem as of late given I had a back log of Arizona blogs to write up.  I always tend to worry the same thing will eventually happen to the AASHTO database.  At least I have physical copies of the CHPWs and California Highway Bulletin if those disappear online.

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 23, 2023, 05:30:42 PM
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.

They'll allow a stub if it's about one of their favored subjects. Geography is not one of them.

I find that a lot of energy that these newer editors put in is for utterly useless policy debates and purges rather than trying to contribute constructively. Some of the biggest anti-road voices haven't even written a regular article from scratch in years.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 23, 2023, 06:14:43 PM
I probably should note that some of the DOTs are equally making preservation difficult given how much of their content has been removed.  ADOT in particular purged a crap load of information from easily accessible places on the internet.  I've been encountering this problem as of late given I had a back log of Arizona blogs to write up.  I always tend to worry the same thing will eventually happen to the AASHTO database.  At least I have physical copies of the CHPWs and California Highway Bulletin if those disappear online.

The Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive is very helpful, but it doesn't get every last link on DOT websites. I try to save what I can, but there's gaps going back to the early 2000s.

Quote from: Scott5114 on June 23, 2023, 05:59:58 PM

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 23, 2023, 05:30:42 PM
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.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 23, 2023, 05:33:51 PM
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?"

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 23, 2023, 07:52:49 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on June 23, 2023, 05:59:58 PM

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 23, 2023, 05:30:42 PM
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.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 23, 2023, 05:33:51 PM
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?"

One of the first discussions that will have to take place: what to name the articles.

Wow.  Between this, the Reddit blackout, and shows being removed from Paramount+, content removal and fragmentation seems to be a theme of this month.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 23, 2023, 06:14:43 PM
I probably should note that some of the DOTs are equally making preservation difficult given how much of their content has been removed.  ADOT in particular purged a crap load of information from easily accessible places on the internet.  I've been encountering this problem as of late given I had a back log of Arizona blogs to write up.  I always tend to worry the same thing will eventually happen to the AASHTO database.  At least I have physical copies of the CHPWs and California Highway Bulletin if those disappear online.

Separate from the wiki, at times I have thought that there should be some sort of online vault that stores this material indefinitely. Given that not every state is a PD state though, I am not sure that it could be accessible publicly.

Quote from: vdeane on June 23, 2023, 10:04:55 PM
the Reddit blackout

The most pathetic "protest"  of all time. What a joke lol

Quote from: thspfc on June 24, 2023, 12:27:07 PM

Quote from: vdeane on June 23, 2023, 10:04:55 PM
the Reddit blackout

The most pathetic "protest"  of all time. What a joke lol

I still don't even have a firm understanding of what Reddit even is.  As an outside observer it just seems to be a place where misery comes to congregate.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 24, 2023, 01:35:31 PM

Quote from: thspfc on June 24, 2023, 12:27:07 PM

Quote from: vdeane on June 23, 2023, 10:04:55 PM
the Reddit blackout

The most pathetic "protest"  of all time. What a joke lol

I still don't even have a firm understanding of what Reddit even is.  As an outside observer it just seems to be a place where misery comes to congregate.

It's basically what replaced internet forums for most discussion topics (at least for those of us who don't want to migrate to proper social media like Facebook/Instagram/Tik Tok or chat like Discord).  Especially since Google now de-emphasizes forums and other user-based internet things, so if you want to search something on Google and not get news or product results, pretty much to get regular people discussing things reliably is to append "site:reddit.com" to the search query.

Quote from: vdeane on June 24, 2023, 03:55:56 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 24, 2023, 01:35:31 PM

Quote from: thspfc on June 24, 2023, 12:27:07 PM

Quote from: vdeane on June 23, 2023, 10:04:55 PM
the Reddit blackout

The most pathetic "protest"  of all time. What a joke lol

I still don't even have a firm understanding of what Reddit even is.  As an outside observer it just seems to be a place where misery comes to congregate.

It's basically what replaced internet forums for most discussion topics (at least for those of us who don't want to migrate to proper social media like Facebook/Instagram/Tik Tok or chat like Discord).  Especially since Google now de-emphasizes forums and other user-based internet things, so if you want to search something on Google and not get news or product results, pretty much to get real people discussing things reliably is to append "site:reddit.com" to the search query.

So basically it is just a new age message bulletin board?

Edit:  It just dawned on me how much I dated myself with "bulletin board."   That was a total DOS graphics interface Prodigy Online thing.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 24, 2023, 01:35:31 PMI still don't even have a firm understanding of what Reddit even is.  As an outside observer it just seems to be a place where misery comes to congregate.

It is essentially an ad-supported successor to text-based Usenet, but with the ability to share images--it breaks down into discussion groups ("subreddits") by topic area, and in each there are threads consisting of posts with zero or more attached comments.  It also has an approval mechanism ("karma") whereby both posts and comments can be upvoted or downvoted.

Because it is very easy to create subreddits (they are a bit like Facebook groups in that regard) and for the creator of each to customize moderation arrangements, the quality of discussion can be quite high in some (e.g., r/AskHistorians (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/)) and quite low in others:  for example, there are tons of NSFW subreddits dedicated to porn and sharing nudes.  Some subreddits, like r/The_Donald (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/The_Donald) and several that became involved in the Gamergate controversy, have had to be taken out of sight when they embarrassed the otherwise difficult-to-shame Reddit company.

Karma is considered problematic in and of itself since it introduces an element of variable-interval reinforcement, which drives addiction behaviors.  It also opens the door to abuses like brigading (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_brigading) and karma farming (https://www.howtogeek.com/465411/what-is-reddit-karma-and-how-do-i-get-it/).

Because Reddit has invested very little in UI development (including accessibility) and moderator tools, there are numerous third-party apps that rely on an API Reddit provides to work around these limitations.  The current controversy concerns Reddit's decision, with very little notice as to price, to start charging for API calls.  The company is readying itself for an IPO and it is widely believed that the charging regime is designed to shut down the third-party apps altogether and thereby reassure investors that users won't be able to escape the ad pipeline.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 24, 2023, 01:35:31 PM

Quote from: thspfc on June 24, 2023, 12:27:07 PM

Quote from: vdeane on June 23, 2023, 10:04:55 PM
the Reddit blackout

The most pathetic "protest"  of all time. What a joke lol

I still don't even have a firm understanding of what Reddit even is.  As an outside observer it just seems to be a place where misery comes to congregate.

Your description wins the Internet for the Day.

Reddit hasn't managed to captivate me like other forms of social media.  I've dabbled with a few /rs on there, even those related to ongoing interests, but none have stuck.

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 23, 2023, 05:30:42 PM
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)

Quote from: formulanone on June 24, 2023, 09:32:10 PM

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 23, 2023, 05:30:42 PM
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)

Yeah, there has been a particular user who has been adding a lot of notability tags to state route articles, although there is a subject-specific notability guideline that says state highways and above are notable.

Quote from: formulanone on June 24, 2023, 09:32:10 PM
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)

I'd ask you to reconsider–the people on Wikimedia Commons have nothing to do with this (they simply like hoarding images–think of Commons as being run by a dragon who breathes JPEG artifacts instead of fire), and Commons is still going to be hosting the images that will be used to illustrate the AARoads wiki. Pretty much all of the regular roadgeek editors are migrating to AARoads, we're just still working on the foundation and framing at the moment so the house isn't livable yet.

What I predict will happen is that, since all of the road-topic regulars are moving over to AARoads to continue maintaining articles here, the copies on Wikipedia will degrade until someone eventually deletes them. Meanwhile the AARoads versions will continue to improve.

Quote from: formulanone on June 24, 2023, 09:32:10 PM
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?

FWIW, I just deleted the notability tag from the AL-5 article. I can understand why someone would think a random state-maintained spur to an oil field in Wyoming isn't a notable topic (numerous Wyoming highways are also tagged), but this is a 200-mile-long highway serving the second-largest city in Alabama and a boatload of other population centers. It's completely unreasonable to say that isn't notable.

Well, while you were talking about a potential article...I actually went and created it! Here it is, if you all want to contribute something to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARoads

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 25, 2023, 12:08:27 PM

Quote from: formulanone on June 24, 2023, 09:32:10 PM
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?

FWIW, I just deleted the notability tag from the AL-5 article. I can understand why someone would think a random state-maintained spur to an oil field in Wyoming isn't a notable topic (numerous Wyoming highways are also tagged), but this is a 200-mile-long highway serving the second-largest city in Alabama and a boatload of other population centers. It's completely unreasonable to say that isn't notable.

I get that AL 5 is not exactly a route in the wider public's consciousness (say...Interstate 5, Route 1, Ohio/Indiana Toll Roads) but I think the fact that the bulk of the sources for creating the article is based on an array of maps seems to be the biggest stumbling block for a handful of editors who do not want them included as sources. (And yet, a sentence of two about a section of the route being haunted is left in because it has a one-off internet source...?)

Weird how this all works out. I waded through the arguments for/against the inclusion of maps and there were some good arguments for (and admittedly, against) I think the overall concept of "assuming good faith" and "don't be a dick" has been forgotten because someone has a chip on their shoulder about road articles. You know, after you tackle all the petty vandalism, finding sources of information, improvement of articles, and reducing sockpuppetry...maybe then one can find articles that need adjustment; or maybe just contribute in a meaningful manner to the subjects one is knowledgeable. It seems there was some annoyance by the Againsts because they felt they were being drowned out by those who actually care to maintain them properly.

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).

Quote from: Rothman on June 25, 2023, 12:55:43 PM
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.

To be clear, I'm not against lesser-known spur highways having articles, I'm just saying I understand the argument that they shouldn't have articles better than the same argument for highways that are hundreds of miles long.

Quote from: 1 on June 25, 2023, 12:58:49 PM

Quote from: Rothman on June 25, 2023, 12:55:43 PM
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.

And I'm fine with that; there's a lot more uneven information from place to place and trying to arrange a method consistency for 3000+ counties is almost impossible. Some places sign every little gravel road, so that's even a great starting criterion for pages containing county roads.

There's also good reasons to also allow several state routes to be folded into the same page (for example: SRs 101 through 110 from the same state) if they're not incredibly notable with several different references. I think there's a bit of an imbalance because one state system might have much more documentation and editors than another, but wiki can't really "rank" one state above another for that sort of inclusion.

Quote from: KCRoadFan on June 25, 2023, 12:46:08 PM
Well, while you were talking about a potential article...I actually went and created it! Here it is, if you all want to contribute something to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARoads

And as could be predicted:

Quote
13:41, June 25, 2023 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&logid=148616049) Bbb23 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bbb23) (talk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Bbb23) | contribs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Bbb23)) deleted page AARoads (A7 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CSD#A7): Article about a website, blog, web forum, webcomic, podcast, browser game, or similar web content, which does not credibly indicate the importance or significance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CCS) of the subject)

I was expecting a quick AFD, but not a speedy deletion.

Quote from: Rothman on June 25, 2023, 12:55:43 PM
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).

It's not just roads, a lot of "fringe" topics such as US area codes, Olympians, train stations, etc. have come under fire lately. Without thought as to proper content curation, or even editor curation (i.e. treating volunteers properly).

We are discussing what levels of roads to include on the new wiki, so if you want to participate, let me or Scott know and we can get you into the wiki.

Quote from: 1 on June 25, 2023, 03:09:03 PM
I was expecting a quick AFD, but not a speedy deletion.

I got a look at what the article contained, and since it lacked any citations, a speedy deletion doesn't surprise me. If there were some sources listed, then the New Page Patrollers may have "draftified" the article (moved it to Draft:AARoads (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:AARoads)) to give the creator a chance to improve it. The NPPers see a lot of new content come through the pipeline and have to perform triage on that. No sources made that task easy for them.

Quote from: 1 on June 25, 2023, 12:58:49 PM

Quote from: Rothman on June 25, 2023, 12:55:43 PM
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.

Quote from: rschen7754 on June 25, 2023, 03:15:08 PM

Quote from: Rothman on June 25, 2023, 12:55:43 PM
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).

It's not just roads, a lot of "fringe" topics such as US area codes, Olympians, train stations, etc. have come under fire lately. Without thought as to proper content curation, or even editor curation (i.e. treating volunteers properly).

We are discussing what levels of roads to include on the new wiki, so if you want to participate, let me or Scott know and we can get you into the wiki.

Thanks for the invite, but I am a consumer of information rather than a creator.

Quote from: Rothman on June 25, 2023, 03:22:32 PM

Quote from: 1 on June 25, 2023, 12:58:49 PM

Quote from: Rothman on June 25, 2023, 12:55:43 PM
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.

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 25, 2023, 03:27:27 PM

Quote from: Rothman on June 25, 2023, 03:22:32 PM

Quote from: 1 on June 25, 2023, 12:58:49 PM

Quote from: Rothman on June 25, 2023, 12:55:43 PM
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.

Quote from: Rothman on June 25, 2023, 12:55:43 PM
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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(geographic_features)#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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#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.

Quote from: rschen7754 on June 25, 2023, 03:33:12 PM

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 25, 2023, 03:27:27 PM

Quote from: Rothman on June 25, 2023, 03:22:32 PM

Quote from: 1 on June 25, 2023, 12:58:49 PM

Quote from: Rothman on June 25, 2023, 12:55:43 PM
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.

Quote from: 1 on June 25, 2023, 12:58:49 PM
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.

Quote from: Rothman on June 25, 2023, 12:55:43 PM
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.

Quote from: formulanone on June 24, 2023, 09:32:10 PM

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 23, 2023, 05:30:42 PM
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.

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

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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tara_Teng&oldid=589362138) 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.

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 25, 2023, 05:10:09 PM
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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tara_Teng&oldid=589362138) 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...

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

Who reduced the scope of the article?  Tuvok?

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 23, 2023, 07:52:49 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on June 23, 2023, 05:59:58 PM

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 23, 2023, 05:30:42 PM
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.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 23, 2023, 05:33:51 PM
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."  :-D :-D

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 25, 2023, 05:10:09 PM
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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tara_Teng&oldid=589362138) 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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.

Quote from: 1995hoo on June 26, 2023, 10:13:40 AM

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 25, 2023, 05:10:09 PM
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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tara_Teng&oldid=589362138) 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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.

Quote from: 1 on June 25, 2023, 12:58:49 PM
Wikipedia can't include absolutely everything.

Quote from: vdeane on June 25, 2023, 04:26:40 PM
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.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 25, 2023, 04:33:37 PM
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.

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.

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).

Quote from: Bruce on June 26, 2023, 08:08:12 PM
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.

Quote from: The Wikipedia article on addition
Performing addition is one of the simplest numerical tasks to do.

Quote from: Also the Wikipedia article on addition
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.

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

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?

(https://i.imgur.com/jkKgMws.jpg)

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.

Quote from: Scott5114 on June 26, 2023, 08:16:14 PMA 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 (https://www.amazon.com/Great-Problems-Elementary-Mathematics-Dover/dp/0486613488) (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.

Quote from: J N Winkler on June 27, 2023, 02:02:13 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on June 26, 2023, 08:16:14 PMA 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 (https://www.amazon.com/Great-Problems-Elementary-Mathematics-Dover/dp/0486613488) (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 (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addition) 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.)

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

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