First Wikipedia article for a highway

[Molandfreak]

And yet, absolute crap like this hasn't even had an RfD yet...

[LilianaUwU]

And yet, absolute crap like this hasn't even had an RfD yet...

Hold my beer.

[Rothman]

The fundraiser by Wikipedia for the first time stimulated a negative reaction with me due to their stance on road articles.  I really don't understand their asinine position that secondary sources are better than primary.

[rschen7754]

The fundraiser by Wikipedia for the first time stimulated a negative reaction with me due to their stance on road articles.  I really don't understand their asinine position that secondary sources are better than primary.

There are also some significant concerns with the fundraising, as mentioned at this community RFC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_196#RfC_on_the_banners_for_the_December_2022_fundraising_campaign

[Scott5114]

I will say this. I would be in favor of deleting a lot of city street articles, just because usually all the sources talk about buildings or famous people on that street and not the street itself.

I would hazard a guess that that's because most city streets are not all that interesting, nor that long, in and of themselves.

Some people like that sort of coverage, though, and that's why we spun the U.S. Streets project off of USRD when we were on Wikipedia.

[Max Rockatansky]

One I'm surprised doesn't have an article is Lighthouse Avenue on the Monterey Peninsula.  It is mentioned in at least five other Wikipedia articles.  Figured at least the tunnel would merit a standalone page.

[Scott5114]

The fundraiser by Wikipedia for the first time stimulated a negative reaction with me due to their stance on road articles.  I really don't understand their asinine position that secondary sources are better than primary.

It makes some degree of sense for some subjects, like history or the hard sciences, where the primary source is likely to contain some degree of bias or conjecture. You wouldn't want to use the diary of a soldier as a source in an article, because while it's great for seeing what it was like through his eyes, he wasn't necessarily able to see what was going on at the scale of the battle or the war, and he's going to be biased toward his own side. Filtering that through a professional historian with the expertise to review several of those primary sources and synthesize them into a discussion of the whole can lead to a higher-quality source. Same thing with the sciences, since in many subjects there's no way for a layperson to tell when a scientist is spouting nonsense or fabricating data—it helps to use a trained scientist commenting on the paper to rely on when writing an article.

The problem is that this is an absolute uniform policy which isn't eschewed in topic areas where it makes no sense, and roads is one of those topic areas.

[freebrickproductions]

The fundraiser by Wikipedia for the first time stimulated a negative reaction with me due to their stance on road articles.  I really don't understand their asinine position that secondary sources are better than primary.

It makes some degree of sense for some subjects, like history or the hard sciences, where the primary source is likely to contain some degree of bias or conjecture. You wouldn't want to use the diary of a soldier as a source in an article, because while it's great for seeing what it was like through his eyes, he wasn't necessarily able to see what was going on at the scale of the battle or the war, and he's going to be biased toward his own side. Filtering that through a professional historian with the expertise to review several of those primary sources and synthesize them into a discussion of the whole can lead to a higher-quality source. Same thing with the sciences, since in many subjects there's no way for a layperson to tell when a scientist is spouting nonsense or fabricating data—it helps to use a trained scientist commenting on the paper to rely on when writing an article.

The problem is that this is an absolute uniform policy which isn't eschewed in topic areas where it makes no sense, and roads is one of those topic areas.

I believe articles for people also have strict notability guidelines, so that way they can prevent any random Joe Smith from writing an article about themselves.

That being said, while allowing exceptions for certain subjects would be a good idea, and can see why some people would be hesitant to do so, even if their hesitancy would likely come from a slippery slope fallacy. ("If we allow relaxed standards for X, what's going to stop Y from getting the same relaxed standards?")

[vdeane]

That being said, while allowing exceptions for certain subjects would be a good idea, and can see why some people would be hesitant to do so, even if their hesitancy would likely come from a slippery slope fallacy. ("If we allow relaxed standards for X, what's going to stop Y from getting the same relaxed standards?")

Especially since IMO "slippery slope" isn't really a fallacy.  Making small changes to get one's foot in the door and pave the way for larger changes is one of the tried and true ways politicians and advocacy groups bring about larger change.

[Scott5114]

That being said, while allowing exceptions for certain subjects would be a good idea, and can see why some people would be hesitant to do so, even if their hesitancy would likely come from a slippery slope fallacy. ("If we allow relaxed standards for X, what's going to stop Y from getting the same relaxed standards?")

That's the thing, roads did have an exception to the general notability policy, for ten years; it was called WP:GEOROAD.

It's just that now they're rolling back the exception because The General Notability Policy Must Rule All.

[Chris]

Eventually, if things go on the way they have, enough content will get deleted from Wikipedia that Google will have no choice but to return AARW results.

They Dutch road enthusiast community has maintained its own road wiki since 2007. The content was not copied from Wikipedia, but created from scratch.

This has led to the 'Wegenwiki' (Road's Wiki) being in the top 5 results on Google for many relevant searches.

A large majority of the articles are also sourced pretty well, which could help with SEO.

The Dutch road forum on the other hand, is almost invisible on Google, despite being large and active. I almost never get forum results on Google (except for Reddit recently) and I think Google has deranked internet forums from search results. You can only find it when searching for some very specific things.

[hotdogPi]

I think Google has deranked internet forums from search results

When did this happen? Our forum seems to rank fairly high.

[Chris]

I search for highway information a lot for our Wiki (every day) and I cannot recall having ever found the AAroads forum in the results.

And by that I don't mean a search for 'aaroads forum', obviously you can find it that way. But when performing a search for highway-related information. For example I just tried a search for 'I-26 expansion' and the AAroads forum doesn't show up in any of at least the first 5 pages in Google. The same is true for 'I-26 Asheville project', where the forum doesn't pop up, but the AARW does appear at the 5th page of results.

The AAroads website and interstate-guide pop up frequently, but not the forum.

The same is true for Dutch or German searches on Google. I'm also on the Highways & Autobahns forum of Skyscrapercity and I never get results from that forum either.

[Max Rockatansky]

The forum appears fourth in the Google results history for Alanland.

[vdeane]

I think Google has deranked internet forums from search results

When did this happen? Our forum seems to rank fairly high.

Quite a while ago - maybe even a decade at this point.  It's unfortunate, because there are many searches where seeing what real people are posting matters more than getting a bunch of news articles.  It's to the point where many of my searches now append site:reedit.com to the end.  It would be nice to have a wider well to draw from, but I don't know the relevant forums most of the time, while I do know Reddit.

[LilianaUwU]

It's to the point where many of my searches now append site:reddit.com to the end.

Do you really want to read the opinion of redditors, though?

[english si]

The forum appears fourth in the Google results history for Alanland.

[hbelkins]

The forum appears fourth in the Google results history for Alanland.

I hesitate to search for the first three results.

[Max Rockatansky]

The forum appears fourth in the Google results history for Alanland.

I hesitate to search for the first three results.

Various wiki pages.  Apparently several dudes named Alan have laid claim their own version of Alanland.

[LilianaUwU]

The forum appears fourth in the Google results history for Alanland.

I hesitate to search for the first three results.

Various wiki pages.  Apparently several dudes named Alan have laid claim their own version of Alanland.

For what it's worth, the full name of the infamous one is the Esperantist Republic of Alanland.

[vdeane]

It's to the point where many of my searches now append site:reddit.com to the end.

Do you really want to read the opinion of redditors, though?

Why not?  I actually have a few subreddits I check every day, even though I don't have an account.  It's a good supplement for local news (honestly some days it seems like a better source than the local stations on TV) and fandom-related discussion (I'm sure forums still exist somewhere, but good luck finding them).  And, of course, random queries about random subjects for which the comments of regular people is more appropriate than the news/blog/product sites that Google favors these days.

[LilianaUwU]

It's to the point where many of my searches now append site:reddit.com to the end.

Do you really want to read the opinion of redditors, though?

Why not?

Let's just say a loud minority of redditors have... a reputation.

[Max Rockatansky]

It's to the point where many of my searches now append site:reddit.com to the end.

Do you really want to read the opinion of redditors, though?

Why not?

Let's just say a loud minority of redditors have... a reputation.

K12 was enough of a Reddit sample to affirm that the site was not for me.  Nobody on this forum has said anything regarding Reddit I ever took as a ringing endorsement. 

[vdeane]

It's to the point where many of my searches now append site:reddit.com to the end.

Do you really want to read the opinion of redditors, though?

Why not?

Let's just say a loud minority of redditors have... a reputation.

K12 was enough of a Reddit sample to affirm that the site was not for me.  Nobody on this forum has said anything regarding Reddit I ever took as a ringing endorsement. 

Every subreddit has its own culture.  I don't think I've ever spent time on the subs K12 was in.  But he might not be representative, given that he got banned from there.

[Max Rockatansky]

It's to the point where many of my searches now append site:reddit.com to the end.

Do you really want to read the opinion of redditors, though?

Why not?

Let's just say a loud minority of redditors have... a reputation.

K12 was enough of a Reddit sample to affirm that the site was not for me.  Nobody on this forum has said anything regarding Reddit I ever took as a ringing endorsement. 

Every subreddit has its own culture.  I don't think I've ever spent time on the subs K12 was in.  But he might not be representative, given that he got banned from there.

Regardless, the one common element I've always heard about was the general toxicity.  I've heard similar things from a great many people on this forum about places like Twitter also.  Why add social media stuff to my plate that seems to not do much but make others miserable?