Is AARoads notable enough for a Wikipedia article?

[Dirt Roads]

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).

Agreed.  The problem is that article facts cited to primary sources tend to be original research, which is explicitly forbidden per WP:NOR.

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.

[formulanone]

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).

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).

Agreed.  The problem is that article facts cited to primary sources tend to be original research, which is explicitly forbidden per WP:NOR.

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.

[J N Winkler]

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).

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.

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 (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.

[rschen7754]

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.

[rschen7754]

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.

[1995hoo]

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).

[JoePCool14]

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.

[Roadgeekteen]

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

[moabdave]

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.

[bugo]

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.

[Rothman]

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.

[Max Rockatansky]

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

[Rothman]

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?

[bugo]

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.

[Bruce]

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 (significant coverage in reliable sources) and topic-specific ones, like the musician notability guidelines. From a quick search, I'm not seeing how Scott meets either set of guidelines.

[LilianaUwU]

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.

[kphoger]

I'm not seeing how Scott meets either set of guidelines.

Nazelrod? 

[bugo]

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.

[Rothman]

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.

[Molandfreak]

I quit editing for now because a township government website wasn't considered reliable enough to be used as a source...

[rschen7754]

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.

[bulldog1979]

I quit editing for now because a township government website 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?

[moabdave]

I quit editing for now because a township government website 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.

[JayhawkCO]

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.

[bugo]

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 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.