Roads Go Ever On

[Peter Damian]

Unfortunately, the road articles are constrained by Wikipedia policy. They'd be a good deal more interesting if they weren't. NPOV says they can't even note scenic portions of road unless someone else has given them an Official Verifiable Stamp Of Scenicness, as that would be Original Research and therefore Bad And Wrong.

What you are saying is that fundamentally Roads are a poor match for wikipedia.

As I mentioned in the post just above, roads are not a fundamentally poor match for an encyclopedia per se. It's just that there is no overall editorial policy for roads, because Wikipedia is just a random collection of people who turned up to 'edit', and call themselves 'editors'. A real editor would set a policy. What are the criteria for including a road? Policy about what the articles shouldn't be e.g. WP:NOTGOOGLEMAPS. Stuff you would have to consider, such as effect on communities, history, use, and so on.

Lack of editorial direction is the fundamental problem of Wikipedia. The roads articles are a glaring symptom.

What you are saying is that fundamentally Roads are a poor match for wikipedia.

Good point, well made, and, with apologies to present company, the wikipedia roads writers are not the guys you'd want writing them, or deciding which ones should be written.

Correct.

[Hex]

No, the Road_to_… (T-H-L) movies have more going on, podner.

The only reference in that article is to... a page on H2G2.

[Hex]

The roads are a bee-eye-itch my friend, but they're the only fuckin' roads I know

[Jim]

Oh, the best post in this thread was this:

I laughed for ages:

PD, you're a genius.

A1198 road (T-H-L), by E. J. Thribb (17½ miles from Royston)

The A1198 is a road
In Cambridgeshire, England,
Following the route of Ermine Street
Between the A505
At Royston, Hertfordshire
And Godmanchester, near Huntingdon.

This road was designated
As a major road
During road classification in 1921,
And originally
Carried the number A14.

When the M11 motorway was completed,
Traffic was encouraged
To follow the new motorway
And the Via Devana
(Then the A604, now the modern A14 road)
Instead.

By 1991, most of the former A14
Was renumbered as the A1198,
With a short section of the route
From Huntingdon to Alconbury
Being renumbered
As a spur
Of the A604.

In August 2010,
Cambridgeshire County Council announced
The reduction of the road's speed limit
From NSL
(60 mph)
To 50 mph
In areas
Where concern was raised
Over the safety of traffic.

[thekohser]

"scenicness", Peter Damian?

[lilburne]

"scenicness", Peter Damian?

Should be scenicisity at the very least?

[iii]

Unfortunately, the road articles are constrained by Wikipedia policy. They'd be a good deal more interesting if they weren't. NPOV says they can't even note scenic portions of road unless someone else has given them an Official Verifiable Stamp Of Scenicness, as that would be Original Research and therefore Bad And Wrong.

A good case could be made for deleting most of the articles about roads according to certain Wikipedia policies. The only reason that this won't happen is because Road Warriors would complain bitterly and confusingly in the discussions that Wikipedians require. The incumbent awfulness is the story of most of Wikipedia content whether it be related to video games, popular culture, or devotional literature (all legitimate topics but all treated at Wikipedia in asinine ways).

[Peter Damian]

"scenicness", Peter Damian?

I missed the scare quotes.

Unfortunately, the road articles are constrained by Wikipedia policy. They'd be a good deal more interesting if they weren't. NPOV says they can't even note scenic portions of road unless someone else has given them an Official Verifiable Stamp Of Scenicness, as that would be Original Research and therefore Bad And Wrong.

[eagle]

A good case could be made for deleting most of the articles about roads according to certain Wikipedia policies. The only reason that this won't happen is because Road Warriors would complain bitterly and confusingly in the discussions that Wikipedians require. The incumbent awfulness is the story of most of Wikipedia content whether it be related to video games, popular culture, or devotional literature (all legitimate topics but all treated at Wikipedia in asinine ways).

This brings us back to the start of this thread: Rschen7754 and his USRD have amassed inordinate political power within Wikipedia. viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4356 He even publishes an ArbCom voters guide each year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rschen7754/ACE2014 He is constantly pushing for Wikiproject autonomy and is pro-"walled garden."

[Flameau]

Amidst the homosexual and mental retardation insults made by others - Peter Damian is on the right course. I ask: What part of the roads articles are harming any of you? It may be esoteric, it may be boring as fuck to you, but the roads group has gone to the limit in detail and structure while the lot of you complain about all the other shitty articles over in the "Crap Articles" thread. It is easy to complain and point the finger, but if Wikipedia is neither macro nor micro - Roads has gone to the upper limit in detail and depth when the rest of Wikipedia struggles to get beyond stubs on world figures, major businesses and almost any aspect you wish to delve into.

The desire to remove topics and par them down because it is not to your liking appears to be one of immaturity. The lack of page views and niche interest could be applied to numerous "classics" and other subjects - are the very same reasons many school libraries are purging their classics. Say what you want about "notability" - it is a fool's argument that is based on a person's perceptions instead of the ability to detail an article. Stand alone or not - those against some of the road system would not be satisfied with unified pages and hence the real aim is the removal of the content.

Seems to me that this is political and petty. For each "crap article" found and uncovered should be improved and addressed to Wikipedia directly through TAFI or some other venue. Roads stands out because out of the sea of undeveloped and ill-managed pages, it has extended to the limits the depth of Wikipedia coverage on a niche topic. If every project was like roads - Wikipedia wouldn't have 1.5+ million stubs and millions of as-of-yet uncreated pages on notable subjects. But whatever - I don't see much content work being done by the dissenters.

[Peter Damian]

The desire to remove topics and par them down because it is not to your liking appears to be one of immaturity.

I don't follow that. "I wrote a long letter because I did not have time to write a short one" is a mature thought. Beginners tend to write long and rambling discursive essays, without any sense of organisation or how to trim the fat. Every good editor knows this. Why is it 'immaturity'?

[DanMurphy]

What part of the roads articles are harming any of you?

Wrong, and frankly immature, question.

OCD types without the wit or inclination to see the forest make terrible writers of general reference works - probably the worst possible cohort. There is also the problem with an ever-expanding array of unwatched and unmaintained articles filled with errors, hoaxes, outdated claims, and terrible writing that are collectively more destructive to knowledge and education than the opposite.

The terrible standards at Wikipedia are deep, systemic, and are harmful to anyone who relies on their fake encyclopedia. The road articles - the chaos, the stupidity, the inability to even consider putting a brake on volume to address quality - are a wonderful example of what that dump is all about.

[Flameau]

Wikipedia needs better management tools. It needs a way of maintaining and preserving developed content against hoaxes, errors and degradation. I'd like to see some errors and hoaxes found in the Roads articles and see how they compare to other topics. Books are not foolproof and ultimately and even the most well-intentioned editors insert errors by mistake. I'm not a member of the roads group, but it is a project that will most benefit from future management tools.

[lilburne]

Wikipedia needs better management tools. It needs a way of maintaining and preserving developed content against hoaxes, errors and degradation. I'd like to see some errors and hoaxes found in the Roads articles and see how they compare to other topics. Books are not foolproof and ultimately and even the most well-intentioned editors insert errors by mistake. I'm not a member of the roads group, but it is a project that will most benefit from future management tools.

What is being illustrated here is that the 'Road' articles, unless one considers that listing [road-number nnn] goes from [aaa] to [bbb] by way of [ccc] as sufficient, are hopeless as encyclopedic content. That more could be said about any stretch of highway, and in a better ways too. Essentially the 'Road' articles are little more than formalistic scrapings from geographical gazettes. See Fosse Way (T-H-L) as an example of what is wrong. That the 'Road' articles are thought to be 'not bad' or 'better than the rest' is indicative of its defenders having no concept of what makes a general purpose reference work.

[Vigilant]

Actually, Flameau makes the larger point quite eloquently, albeit unintentionally.

Given that the Roads wikiproject is utterly, utterly broken yet is vastly better than most sections of wikipedia, we may infer that the vast bulk of wikipedia is even more utterly broken than most people think.

Well done.

[thekohser]

...but the roads group has gone to the limit in detail and structure...

...Roads has gone to the upper limit in detail and depth...

...it has extended to the limits the depth of Wikipedia coverage...

Is Flameau perhaps awakening some sort of terrorist sleeper cell with coded messages that drone on, repeating a kind of "trigger phrase" or something?

[Vigilant]

...but the roads group has gone to the limit in detail and structure...

...Roads has gone to the upper limit in detail and depth...

...it has extended to the limits the depth of Wikipedia coverage...

Is Flameau perhaps awakening some sort of terrorist sleeper cell with coded messages that drone on, repeating a kind of "trigger phrase" or something?

Lack of a diverse vocabulary is not to be mocked as harshly as employing faulty logic.

[Johnny Au]

Steeles Avenue (T-H-L) in Ontario has a list of scenery and attractions (complete with photos) along the route.

[eagle]

I don't see much content work being done by the dissenters.

Perhaps they would be doing content work if they had not been banned or blocked due to the abusive exercise of power by Rschen and his USRD friends.

I suggest Flameau go back and reread this thread which gives several exampled of fully developed articles on some notable road construction controversies that were deleted because they did not fit the USRD template and USRD could not conceive of them existing outside its template.

[eagle]

Steeles Avenue (T-H-L) in Ontario has a list of scenery and attractions (complete with photos) along the route.

Yes, but in the United States, we tried to have a separate Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Streets (T-H-L) to save such articles from the USRD mold. As Kumioko has noted, "as far as I know these are 2 seperate projects and USRD has, on more than one occassion, vehemently stated that they have nothing to do with Streets."

Plesae watch the following pages for WP:AFD (some are already in AFD, others are likely soon):

Southwest Boulevard (Kansas City)
Prospect Avenue (Kansas City, Missouri)
Main Street (Kansas City)
Gillham Road
Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard
Armour Boulevard
Vine Street, Kansas City
Grand Boulevard (Kansas City, Missouri)
Southwest Trafficway
Truman Road
Volker Boulevard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... tiple_AFDs

[Hex]

Seems to me that this is political and petty. For each "crap article" found and uncovered should be improved and addressed to Wikipedia directly through TAFI or some other venue. Roads stands out because out of the sea of undeveloped and ill-managed pages, it has extended to the limits the depth of Wikipedia coverage on a niche topic. If every project was like roads - Wikipedia wouldn't have 1.5+ million stubs and millions of as-of-yet uncreated pages on notable subjects. But whatever - I don't see much content work being done by the dissenters.

"SOFIXIT", even when rephrased in such a verbose fashion, is not an argument that holds water in this forum.

[iii]

It may be esoteric, it may be boring as fuck to you, but the roads group has gone to the limit in detail and structure while the lot of you complain about all the other shitty articles over in the "Crap Articles" thread. It is easy to complain and point the finger, but if Wikipedia is neither macro nor micro - Roads has gone to the upper limit in detail and depth when the rest of Wikipedia struggles to get beyond stubs on world figures, major businesses and almost any aspect you wish to delve into.

"Roads" most certainly has not gone to the upper limit in detail and depth. It has gone to the upper limit in pedantic rambling about ephemera and pabulum. "Roads" has cemented a place of high praise for itself by amassing a collection of Wikipedia's trophies -- a worthless means of assessment. This thread is a better assessment of the problems with "Roads" than anything that has occurred in Wikipedia with regards to the problem.

[iii]

Steeles Avenue (T-H-L) in Ontario has a list of scenery and attractions (complete with photos) along the route.

Not to mention this brilliant prose:

The road is served predominantly by TTC bus routes 53 Steeles East and 60 Steeles West. Both routes turn away from Steeles upon approaching Yonge Street. There are several routes serving the portions of the road, including 7 Bathurst, 17B and 17C Birchmount, 25 Don Mills, 35A, 35B and 35C Jane, 37B Islington, 41A and 41B Keele, 43A Kennedy, 51 Leslie, 57 Midland, 97B, 97C and 97F Yonge, 98A and 98C Willowdale-Senlac, 105C Dufferin North, 117A and 117B Alness, 165, 165D and 165F Weston Road North, 191B and 191C Highway 27 Rocket, and 195 Jane Rocket. York Region Transit routes that run along Steeles include 3 (York University), 10, 88, 12, and 27 (Highway 27).

Because verbal descriptions of transit maps are so encyclopedic.

[iii]

Yes, but in the United States, we tried to have a separate Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Streets (T-H-L) to save such articles from the USRD mold. As Kumioko has noted, "as far as I know these are 2 seperate projects and USRD has, on more than one occassion, vehemently stated that they have nothing to do with Streets."

Plesae watch the following pages for WP:AFD (some are already in AFD, others are likely soon):

Southwest Boulevard (Kansas City)
Prospect Avenue (Kansas City, Missouri)
Main Street (Kansas City)
Gillham Road
Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard
Armour Boulevard
Vine Street, Kansas City
Grand Boulevard (Kansas City, Missouri)
Southwest Trafficway
Truman Road
Volker Boulevard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... tiple_AFDs

Well, that's just precious. I note that Wikipedia has no article on Farish Street (T-H-L) in Jackson which was one of the largest African American business districts in Jim-Crow era Mississippi. It's not as though there aren't a ton of sources about this.

[Poetlister]

with apologies to present company, the wikipedia roads writers, in general, may not be the guys you'd want writing them, or deciding which ones should be written.

That can be said of quite a few topics. It's one of the main reasons that Wikipedia isn't nearly as good as it ought to be.

[Kelly Martin]

The problem is that, in some cases, the topics of these articles really do enter into the area of broader politics or other matters beyond simple roadgeekdom, and the existing style guidelines for roads articles don't really permit those infrequent but serious discussions, which in some cases might be more really "notable" than the content of the cookie-cutter article the roadgeeks prefer, to be included. To the extent that happens, the roads projects could really and legitimately be seen as being an impediment to building a real encyclopedia, given their somewhat arbitrary content guidelines. I suppose it could be possible that at some point other editors might take the roads guidelines to broader attention, probably in a political season, and it would be interesting to see the results of such broader discussion.

The Roads project is aggressively adverse to any discussion of the politics or other history of a road other than changes to its routing or number or something. They delete such content, ostensibly because "it doesn't fit the template" but really because they don't care about it. It's hard enough to convince them to keep cultural content related to Route 66 in that article.

There was one incident (which I'm sure we've covered here) where a road in, I believe, Maryland (edit: yes, Maryland Route 200, which eagle mentioned already) was subject to a lengthy political dispute lasting years. Wikipedia has an actually good article about the dispute, but when the road was finally routed and built, the USRD project took over the article and junked all the content about the politics of the dispute and reduced the article to the standard bland USRD content and fought off all efforts to reintroduce the only interesting thing about the road, which was the history of the dispute. USRD coverage of the political disputes over the routing of proposed roads is also weak, because their members do not understand politics (or even understand why someone would not want a road near them).

[Vigilant]

Reminds me of Johnny Canal

https://screen.yahoo.com/johnny-canal-000000884.html

[JCM]

The thing which I guess really, really, really surprises me about this topic is, maybe, that people seem to actually look at some of it. Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Popular pages (T-H-L) shows several pages getting 300 hits a day or so, and evidently about 5 or 6 hundred that get at least 50 a day. Granted, compared to, for instance, Wikipedia:WikiProject Buddhism/Popular pages (T-H-L), some of those numbers are still low, but there does seem to be at least a bit of interest in the topics anyone, and, maybe, support for the content as it exists for some of the pages. A lot of that, of course, may well be due to roadgeeks admiring their own work.

[Jim]

Reminds me of Johnny Canal

https://screen.yahoo.com/johnny-canal-000000884.html

I love that clip. I've seen it linked here before, but it never gets old.

[Jim]

A lot of that, of course, may well be due to roadgeeks admiring their own work.

That's perceptive. I'd say "Most of that".

[Vigilant]

Bad Ira, NO cookie!
Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_Greyhound_routes (T-H-L)

Keep (but improve). I don't feel super-strongly about this, and I hesitate to take a position opposite the emerging consensus, but an up-to-date list of intercity bus routes strikes me as a valuable thing for us to have. In addition, keeping such a list would parallel the numerous articles and lists we have listing the cities and routes served by every passenger airline and every passenger railroad, certainly in the United States and to the best of our ability worldwide. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:15, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Have you looked at that article?

Just the first page...no links, just a giant list of unencyclopedic garbage.

Greyhound Lines and its subsidiaries offer intercity bus service within the United States, Canada, and Mexico. As of 2015, service is offered along the timetable listed below.[1]
Contents

1 Routes
2 Timetable listings
3 000-099
4 100-199
5 200-299
6 300-399
7 400-499
8 500-599
9 600-699
10 References
Routes[edit]
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
Greyhound has Maintenance Centers (also referred to as hubs) in the United States located in Atlanta, Atlantic City, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Richmond (VA), and St. Louis. Canadian hubs are located in Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg. Greyhound designates the following U.S. cities as "focus cities": Albuquerque, Amarillo, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Detroit, El Paso, Houston, Las Vegas, Memphis, Mobile, Nashville, Orlando, Phoenix, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Tampa, and Washington D.C. Canadian "focus cities" include Dawson Creek, Kamloops, Kelowna, Montreal, Niagara Falls, Prince George, and Sudbury.
Greyhound does not serve the states of North Dakota, or South Dakota in the continental United States nor the provinces and territories of New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, and Prince Edward Island in Canada.[2]
Atlanta–St. Louis
Atlanta–Detroit
Atlanta–Cincinnati
Atlanta–Cleveland
Atlanta–Savannah
Chicago–Atlanta
Chicago–Cleveland
Chicago–Los Angeles
Chicago–Memphis
Chicago–Minneapolis
Chicago–St. Louis
Dallas–Houston
Dallas–Laredo
Dallas–Kansas City
Dallas–Chicago
Dallas–Detroit
Dallas–Richmond
Dallas–Atlanta
Denver–New York
Denver–Portland
Denver–Reno
Denver–Las Vegas
Denver–Dallas
Denver–El Paso
Houston–Austin
Houston–Orlando
Los Angeles–Dallas
Los Angeles–Phoenix
Los Angeles–Las Vegas
Los Angeles–San Diego
Los Angeles–Mexicali
Los Angeles–El Paso
Los Angeles–San Francisco
Los Angeles-Sacramento
Los Angeles-Palmdale
Los Angeles-Vancouver
New York-Atlanta
New York-Chicago
New York-Detroit
New York-Indianapolis
New York-Los Angeles
New York-Miami
New York–St. Louis
Richmond-Atlanta
Richmond-Detroit
Richmond-Dallas
Richmond-Miami
Richmond-Orlando
Richmond-Tampa
Salt Lake City-Las Vegas
Salt Lake City-Reno
St. Louis-Los Angeles
San Antonio-El Paso
San Francisco-Arcata
San Francisco-Reno
San Francisco-Sacramento
Seattle-Portland
Seattle-Vancouver, BC
Seattle-Missoula
Seattle-Stanfield
Tucson-Phoenix
Washington-Chicago

What's next, the white pages as an article??

[Poetlister]

I'm sure there's a policy specifically against articles like that. It's lunatic to compete with Greyhound's own web site.

[Vigilant]

I'm sure there's a policy specifically against articles like that. It's lunatic to compete with Greyhound's own web site.

And try to stay in sync with...

[Carcharoth]

Sadly, this is one of the threads that I found more interesting than some of the others...

I had hoped the thread might be about these articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Goes_Ever_On
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_ ... _On_(song)

But of course it was about road articles.

Anyway, if you think Wikipedia is bad, you can always find even more detail on the specialist wikis, as I found out when I stumbled across the UK one:

http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/
http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/inde ... =Main_Page

I'm never sure whether specialist wikis fill a gap that Wikipedia doesn't cover, or whether they are sometimes populated by people who wouldn't touch Wikipedia with a barge-pole. They do seem to prove the rule that the first and last thing you need is a community of active editors. Without that, things degrade fairly quickly.

I was reminded of obsessive editing and detail about transport today when I was reading about Denver International Airport (one of the few airports in the USA that I've actually been to):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_In ... al_Airport

Actually, it's not that bad an article (you can find out how the artist who created the airport's Mustang sculpture died; and you are told about the proposed "landside people mover system"; and the 'Conspiracies and controversy' section is clearly not to be missed). But I started to lose the will to live when I clicked through to read about its automated transit system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_In ... sit_System

Highlights include:

"With two separate voices, the stations are configured so that one voice delivers information for trains on one side of the platform, while the other voice delivers information for the other side. The trains are configured so that the voice alternates between each of the train's four cars, so that one voice is installed on the first and third cars, while the other voice is installed on the second and fourth cars. Mayor Hancock's voice delivers the "Welcome to Denver" greeting regardless of which voice is installed on the individual car. Each of the announcements is preceded by its own individual sound effect. There are even separate sound effects for the same message, depending on which voice delivers it. The exception to this is the message that announces that the doors are closing, which always has the same sound effect since it is a warning message."

It gets better:

"The most noticeable change made to the messages themselves was the reference to the concourse stations. The original audio announced "Please hold on. This train is approaching Concourse A," where it now says "Hold on please. We are approaching the station for all 'A' Gates." Station signage was also changed to reflect this. This change was made since some people found the term "concourse" confusing. Some information regarding Baggage Claim monitors in the Terminal station also caused confusion and needed to be removed from the messages, since the monitors themselves were removed from the station years prior."

I dunno, maybe it is a US thing? Are audio announcements and getting local celebrities to record them something big over there? Maybe they are trying to make up for the previous 12 years?

"The original audio had been used on the system since the airport's opening in 1995 and remained unchanged for 12 years, primarily due to the status of being a public art installation."

[JCM]

Sadly, this is one of the threads that I found more interesting than some of the others...

I had hoped the thread might be about these articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Goes_Ever_On
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_ ... _On_(song)

But of course it was about road articles.

Anyway, if you think Wikipedia is bad, you can always find even more detail on the specialist wikis, as I found out when I stumbled across the UK one:

http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/
http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/inde ... =Main_Page

I'm never sure whether specialist wikis fill a gap that Wikipedia doesn't cover, or whether they are sometimes populated by people who wouldn't touch Wikipedia with a barge-pole. They do seem to prove the rule that the first and last thing you need is a community of active editors. Without that, things degrade fairly quickly.

I was reminded of obsessive editing and detail about transport today when I was reading about Denver International Airport (one of the few airports in the USA that I've actually been to):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_In ... al_Airport

Actually, it's not that bad an article (you can find out how the artist who created the airport's Mustang sculpture died; and you are told about the proposed "landside people mover system"; and the 'Conspiracies and controversy' section is clearly not to be missed). But I started to lose the will to live when I clicked through to read about its automated transit system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_In ... sit_System

Highlights include:

"With two separate voices, the stations are configured so that one voice delivers information for trains on one side of the platform, while the other voice delivers information for the other side. The trains are configured so that the voice alternates between each of the train's four cars, so that one voice is installed on the first and third cars, while the other voice is installed on the second and fourth cars. Mayor Hancock's voice delivers the "Welcome to Denver" greeting regardless of which voice is installed on the individual car. Each of the announcements is preceded by its own individual sound effect. There are even separate sound effects for the same message, depending on which voice delivers it. The exception to this is the message that announces that the doors are closing, which always has the same sound effect since it is a warning message."

It gets better:

"The most noticeable change made to the messages themselves was the reference to the concourse stations. The original audio announced "Please hold on. This train is approaching Concourse A," where it now says "Hold on please. We are approaching the station for all 'A' Gates." Station signage was also changed to reflect this. This change was made since some people found the term "concourse" confusing. Some information regarding Baggage Claim monitors in the Terminal station also caused confusion and needed to be removed from the messages, since the monitors themselves were removed from the station years prior."

I dunno, maybe it is a US thing? Are audio announcements and getting local celebrities to record them something big over there? Maybe they are trying to make up for the previous 12 years?

"The original audio had been used on the system since the airport's opening in 1995 and remained unchanged for 12 years, primarily due to the status of being a public art installation."

And I remember a few years ago just avoiding being stranded there for about a week because one of the last flights out over a Christmas break was the one I had been scheduled to leave on several hours earlier. The prospect of eating nothing more substantial than peanut butter and crackers for about a week still makes me cringe.

[Ming]

I'm sure there's a policy specifically against articles like that. It's lunatic to compete with Greyhound's own web site.

There is such a policy, and it is relentlessly ignored.

[eppur si muove]

I had hoped the thread might be about these articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Goes_Ever_On
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_ ... _On_(song)

Well, with your username, you would.

[Jim]

I had hoped the thread might be about these articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Goes_Ever_On
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_ ... _On_(song)

I dunno, I'm torn.

The freeway becomes a highway at Via Mercado in Rancho San Diego. SR 94 continues through Rancho San Diego by turning southeast at the Jamacha Road and Campo Road intersection, where SR 54 and CR S17 turn northeast. As Campo Road, SR 94 crosses the Sweetwater River before entering a less-developed area, winding through the communities of Jamul, Dulzura and intersecting the north end of SR 188 north of Tecate. After passing through the communities of Potrero, Campo, and the Campo Indian Reservation, SR 94 continues east onto old US 80 briefly before turning north on Ribbonwood Road west of Boulevard. The route ends by connecting to I-8 near Manzanita.

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.

On the one hand, the former is tedious blather. On the other hand, the latter is an article predominantly consisting of copy/pasted entire poems.
I'll prefer the Tolkien, just because I generally prefer Tolkien, and I enjoy reading that poem wherever it's pasted.

[Hex]

Anyway, if you think Wikipedia is bad, you can always find even more detail on the specialist wikis, as I found out when I stumbled across the UK one:

http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/
http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/inde ... =Main_Page

I love SABRE. It's unashamedly geeky in a highly specific way without seeking to impose its topic area on a general reference work. More power to them!

I was reminded of obsessive editing and detail about transport today when I was reading about Denver International Airport (one of the few airports in the USA that I've actually been to)...

It seems natural at this point to highlight the connection to airports that's existed since even before Wikipedia: Ward Cunningham named his "wiki" invention after the Wiki Wiki Shuttle (T-H-L).

[Carcharoth]

Anyway, if you think Wikipedia is bad, you can always find even more detail on the specialist wikis, as I found out when I stumbled across the UK one:

http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/
http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/inde ... =Main_Page

I love SABRE. It's unashamedly geeky in a highly specific way without seeking to impose its topic area on a general reference work. More power to them!

It does appeal to the geek in me as well. But then the whole impetus to catalogue and record things is something that is not that uncommon in certain types. Another site, one I came across today, appears to be another way to put together a geographical resource, partly based on scavenging/geocaching:

http://www.waymarking.com/

I was reminded of obsessive editing and detail about transport today when I was reading about Denver International Airport (one of the few airports in the USA that I've actually been to)...

It seems natural at this point to highlight the connection to airports that's existed since even before Wikipedia: Ward Cunningham named his "wiki" invention after the Wiki Wiki Shuttle (T-H-L).

Good point. Just needs someone to do an art installation on that theme...

[Carcharoth]

On the one hand, the former is tedious blather. On the other hand, the latter is an article predominantly consisting of copy/pasted entire poems.
I'll prefer the Tolkien, just because I generally prefer Tolkien, and I enjoy reading that poem wherever it's pasted.

Um, yeah. I set myself up for that, didn't I?

I should go back and improve/tidy that article at some point (I did edit it nearly nine years ago). But this is getting a bit off topic now.

[Jim]

Um, yeah. I set myself up for that, didn't I?

A bit. I saw your 2006 talkpage comment.

[Moral Hazard]

The U.S. Roads WikiProject should recruit the friendly Mr. Bull from Peppa Pig.

[lilburne]

South Coast Trunk Road (T-H-L) 8 years on unreferenced drivel.

[Ritchie333]

There's a bunfight at ANI right now involving road articles, where the road geek writers and the new page patrollers are coming into direct conflict and finding out how much they disagree with each other. There are a few topic bans being floated about and somebody's suggested sanctioning Rschen7754. Popcorn, anyone?

[stedil]

Interesting back-and-forth between Rhododentrites and Levivich:

All content should be sourced--that's not debatable in my book. Also, looking at a map and writing in a Wikipedia article what the map shows is, in my view, a textbook example of OR: literally looking at a primary source (the map) and writing our own interpretation of it (what the map shows). Levivich (talk) 16:49, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

If it's verifiable, it's not OR. There are a lot of people conflating "uncited" with "OR". What is OR about "The road initially follows a course through north-west London via Harlesden, Wembley, Harrow, Northwood and Rickmansworth. During this stage, it is known as Harrow Road. It crosses the M25 at Junction 18 at Chorleywood, crossing into Buckinghamshire and then continues towards Little Chalfont and Amersham.?" I'm not saying there was no OR to be found in these diffs, but a straightforward description of what's easily verifiable just by clicking the links/databases that are already on the page is not OR. That doesn't mean it should be in the article, but the reason is unrelated to V/OR (and more about e.g. NPOV/WEIGHT, TONE, NOT, etc.). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:30, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

That's not right. There are only two options: it's either your research, or it's someone else's research. If you're not summarizing someone else's research, then it's OR. Verifiability is irrelevant. Levivich (talk) 17:35, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

there is an obvious trend across the project, dating back more than ten years, which basically "challenges" all material's verifiability. If there's really a broad consensus that policy requires all material, no matter how uncontroversial or how easily findable a source may be (and I'm not saying all of the content in question falls into "uncontroversial, with easily findable sourcing"), needs a citation to a secondary source, it's probably time for a big WP:V RfC. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:19, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Seems to boil down to a disagreement over WP:SKYBLUE (T-H-L) and WP:NOTBLUESKY (T-H-L). Is describing the contents of a map "analyzing/interpreting," or is it "summarizing," or is it "who cares?"

[ArmasRebane]

Interesting back-and-forth between Rhododentrites and Levivich:

All content should be sourced--that's not debatable in my book. Also, looking at a map and writing in a Wikipedia article what the map shows is, in my view, a textbook example of OR: literally looking at a primary source (the map) and writing our own interpretation of it (what the map shows). Levivich (talk) 16:49, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

If it's verifiable, it's not OR. There are a lot of people conflating "uncited" with "OR". What is OR about "The road initially follows a course through north-west London via Harlesden, Wembley, Harrow, Northwood and Rickmansworth. During this stage, it is known as Harrow Road. It crosses the M25 at Junction 18 at Chorleywood, crossing into Buckinghamshire and then continues towards Little Chalfont and Amersham.?" I'm not saying there was no OR to be found in these diffs, but a straightforward description of what's easily verifiable just by clicking the links/databases that are already on the page is not OR. That doesn't mean it should be in the article, but the reason is unrelated to V/OR (and more about e.g. NPOV/WEIGHT, TONE, NOT, etc.). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:30, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

That's not right. There are only two options: it's either your research, or it's someone else's research. If you're not summarizing someone else's research, then it's OR. Verifiability is irrelevant. Levivich (talk) 17:35, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

there is an obvious trend across the project, dating back more than ten years, which basically "challenges" all material's verifiability. If there's really a broad consensus that policy requires all material, no matter how uncontroversial or how easily findable a source may be (and I'm not saying all of the content in question falls into "uncontroversial, with easily findable sourcing"), needs a citation to a secondary source, it's probably time for a big WP:V RfC. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:19, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Seems to boil down to a disagreement over WP:SKYBLUE (T-H-L) and WP:NOTBLUESKY (T-H-L). Is describing the contents of a map "analyzing/interpreting," or is it "summarizing," or is it "who cares?"

Roads articles are the only broad class of articles on WP I've seen where "just cite Google Maps" is considered okay.

I think it's generally not an issue, but if you can't find secondary sources for the content to me that suggests that it's not actually all that important for inclusion in the first place.

[Ritchie333]

Roads articles are the only broad class of articles on WP I've seen where "just cite Google Maps" is considered okay.

I think it's generally not an issue, but if you can't find secondary sources for the content to me that suggests that it's not actually all that important for inclusion in the first place.

I agree completely, and none of the highway / street articles I've had a major hand in cite only maps. It's kind of the textbook definition of non-notability.

[Konveyor Belt]

On the other hand, who's really out there writing secondary sources about roads? Unless it's really famous and culturally significant like Broadway (Manhattan) (T-H-L), it's probably not going to get much coverage. Nobody is writing paeans about Interstate 65 (T-H-L), which has just four references, but its notability is self-evident.

Levivich, as per usual, has gotten himself on the wrong side of the argument by being a pedantic ass. If "looking at a map and writing in a Wikipedia article what the map shows is a textbook example of OR", is reading a book and writing what the book shows (without quoting) also a textbook example of OR? I certainly can't make heads or tails of the articles that get used as MEDRS sources in medicine articles, but I can understand the Wikipedia articles that get written based on them. Is rewriting the ideas in those articles into plain English OR?

Now there is something to be said that Google Maps is not a reliable source, but there are plenty of high quality maps from reputable sources to choose from.

[Ming]

Now there is something to be said that Google Maps is not a reliable source, but there are plenty of high quality maps from reputable sources to choose from.

No, there aren't; at least not this way.

GNIS and GNS are the perfect illustration of this. The majority of GNIS was compiled from 1:25000 topographic maps, or Ming should say, it was entered in a sort of in-house crowd-sourcing. The problem was that, no matter how good the maps were, figuring out what a name on the map referred to turned out to be hugely error-prone.