Roads Go Ever On

[Scott5114]

You know, there's always this tired accusation of USRD being a "cabal" or a "walled garden" floating around here, but I never really see any evidence spelled out that we have done anything outright harmful. Sure, we draft and enforce standards to make our articles consistent—but don't editors of traditional encyclopedias do that? There were some really stupid edit wars in the project's past (over banal things the general public couldn't care less about, like disambiguation schemes and talk page tagging), but there has not been anything anywhere near that disruptive since then. Now USRD is just a group of editors that work on articles. There are people who collect FAs and GAs, but that's hardly unique to USRD. So...what's the fuss?

[Kelly Martin]

You know, there's always this tired accusation of USRD being a "cabal" or a "walled garden" floating around here, but I never really see any evidence spelled out that we have done anything outright harmful. Sure, we draft and enforce standards to make our articles consistent—but don't editors of traditional encyclopedias do that? There were some really stupid edit wars in the project's past (over banal things the general public couldn't care less about, like disambiguation schemes and talk page tagging), but there has not been anything anywhere near that disruptive since then. Now USRD is just a group of editors that work on articles. There are people who collect FAs and GAs, but that's hardly unique to USRD. So...what's the fuss?

The US Roads people are a group of editors who have their own internal structure and community separate and distinct from that of the main project, and not readily manipulated by the Machiavellian powermongers that run the broader project. For these powermongers, that which cannot be controlled must be destroyed, or at least decried. And so it is. Also, SPUI.

There are actually a number of legitimate issues with the Roads project (for example, there's loads and loads of "original research" going on there and a great deal of nonneutral authorship), but for the most part it's an example of how Wikipedia does something right. Most of the problem is the simple fact that roadgeeks are perceived by Wikipedians generally as anorak-wearing freaks, somewhere in the vicinity of furries and women on the totem pole of "people to make fun of for kicks". Remember, you're mostly dealing with teenaged boys (mentally if not physically) here.

[Abd]

The US Roads people are a group of editors who have their own internal structure and community separate and distinct from that of the main project, and not readily manipulated by the Machiavellian powermongers that run the broader project. For these powermongers, that which cannot be controlled must be destroyed, or at least decried. And so it is. Also, SPUI.

There are actually a number of legitimate issues with the Roads project (for example, there's loads and loads of "original research" going on there and a great deal of nonneutral authorship), but for the most part it's an example of how Wikipedia does something right. Most of the problem is the simple fact that roadgeeks are perceived by Wikipedians generally as anorak-wearing freaks, somewhere in the vicinity of furries and women on the totem pole of "people to make fun of for kicks". Remember, you're mostly dealing with teenaged boys (mentally if not physically) here.

Ah, Kelly Martin, the voice of experience. Always a pleasure. Occasionally, they are subteen.

No OR is a necessary policy for a publicly edited project. The solution would be, not to eliminate Original Research, but to shove it off to a WMF project that allows it while maintaining neutrality policy. I.e., Wikiversity or Wikivoyage. The latter might be just the ticket. Then that content is linked through "sister wiki" templates.

[EricBarbour]

Also, SPUI.

I looked at SPUI quite closely, and damn, that poor guy needs some kind of medication.
Wikipedia is not an ADHD drug yet people use it as such.

[Kelly Martin]

Also, SPUI.

I looked at SPUI quite closely, and damn, that poor guy needs some kind of medication.
Wikipedia is not an ADHD drug yet people use it as such.

This is what I wrote to the Arbcom back in 2006 when they were debating what to do about him after the "pedophilia userbox wheel war".

I've been evangelizing on IRC about how to handle SPUI for some time now. Basically SPUI is a continuous breaching experiment -- he is constantly testing the limits of our collective patience. He is going to do this; that is the nature of SPUI. The problem is that banning him -- or any sort of long term block -- will just encourage him to try to subvert the system in less obvious ways. It is my opinion that we'd rather have SPUI editing as SPUI rather than as an army of SPUIsocks, which I firmly believe is what would happen if he ever gets blocked (and remains blocked) for an extended time. And we all know how hard it can be to deal with that sort of thing.

Fortunately, one thing about SPUI is that he stops when he finds the boundary. So really all that need be done to manage SPUI is to "smack him on the nose with a newspaper": give him a short (3 hours to 1 week, depending on circumstances) whenever he goes too far. He seems to accept short blocks in good grace (he knows what he's doing, after all) and after his blocks clear he almost always goes back to his usual editing, which, by and large, is productive and useful.

Psychim complained to me today that if we only block him for a short time when he does these things, then SPUI will have won. This is the real problem here: admins who see this as a contest. Too many people are now trying to "beat SPUI" and that has resulted in a great deal of misbegotten vehemence toward him as a person, rather than at his individual actions. (This is also a large part of the problem with the highway naming case, actually; a number of people opposing him there seem to be opposing his position simply because he's SPUI, and not because of any substantial fault with the position he takes on the substantive issue. The ArbCom should be giving those people a firm rap on the knuckles for making it a dispute of personality instead of a dispute over policy, but I have little hope that that is what you'll actually do in that case.) Many of our admins have decided that he is a troll (and, to an extent, he is, but he's a manageable troll who happens to be useful), and as a result they no longer give him any semblance of good faith even when he is trying to contribute in good faith. To be fair, SPUI brings this on himself by being so tendentious in his breaching experiments, but that doesn't excuse people from treating with him fairly the rest of the time.

Generally put, SPUI is a valuable contributor who is also a low-level annoyance, and our admin corps is not good at managing people like that, because their operational mindset is one of combat instead of one of management. Whenever he goes outside the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, he should be promptly given a short block (from a few hours to a few days, at the longest) with a clear and polite message as to what he did to get blocked. Hauling him before a firing squad for what would otherwise be minor offenses just riles him up more and allows him to start his usual campaigns (which is also why I think short blocks are a good idea; he doesn't have time to build a campaign against the block if it's only for a few hours). Conversely, NOT blocking him for minor offenses encourages him to commit more major offenses (remember, he's seeking limits, and he will continue to probe until he finds the actual limit). Also, Hhe knows that long (and especially indefinite) blocks won't stick anyway.

[EricBarbour]

And he's still grinding today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/NE2

I'm still waiting for someone to explain, with reasonable coherence, why road articles on Wikipedia are so attractive to people with obvious Asperger's. They are incapable of social behaviour, and cannot collaborate effectively. Yet as with the hurricane articles, "Aspies" completely dominate this one area.

[Kelly Martin]

And he's still grinding today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/NE2

I'm still waiting for someone to explain, with reasonable coherence, why road articles on Wikipedia are so attractive to people with obvious Asperger's. They are incapable of social behaviour, and cannot collaborate effectively. Yet as with the hurricane articles, "Aspies" completely dominate this one area.

I doubt SPUI is Aspie. I've talked to him (online) and it's very obvious that he is not impaired in any way in understanding human social interactions (which is a hallmark of Asperger's syndrome); if anything, he is a keen observer of them and his sharp understanding of them is crucial to his trolling behavior. He may well have other mental health issues, but really in my experience he's a fairly nice guy who seems to enjoy jerking people's chains from time to time.

Wikipedia is an obvious pastime for persons with Asperger's, except for the fact that Wikipedia is also stuffed full of sociopaths looking for targets, which the Aspies conveniently provide. Also, I've noticed that the road people actually do collaborate fairly well, but it took quite a while to establish the (fairly rigid) framework for that to happen. 2004 through 2006 were marked with some fairly ugly infighting within the road project because they could not agree on that framework, but those issues are largely now worked out (to some extent, with long knives and banhammers) and everyone now participating seems largely content to operate within that framework, and they do a fairly good job of it. It can be hard when an outsider tries to jump in, though, as edits that fail to comport with the agreed-upon rules (which are actually fairly well documented if you know where to look, but of course most outsiders don't) will be mercilessly eradicated. Also, many of the roadies participate in other online projects, forums, and groups and thus interact with each other through those channels as well.

[EricBarbour]

Thanks, will make note of this.

[eagle]

The problem is that U.S. roads involves more than just the type of facts collected by road geeks. There are social, environmental and legal implications of road building projects. A balanced Wikipedia article should include those topics rather than being limited to pro-road construction cheerleading.

For example, Maryland Route 200 (T-H-L). This is now a medium length (93,542 bytes), plain vanilla article that gives a very brief outline of the decades of environmental litigation and political wrangling that forged the current road. (The road was a central issue in an election for Maryland Governor.) At one time, a detailed article was available on Wikipedia. There was a comprehensive article on the Intercounty Connector (T-H-L). However, once Maryland announced a number for the road, US Roads wanted to rename the article. This was opposed because the interested non-USRoads editors feared that US Roads would take jurisdiction and squeeze the article into their cookie cutter formula. So SchuminWeb (T-C-L) spun off 45,665 bytes into a separate article Opposition to Maryland Route 200 (T-H-L) and 31,290 bytes into a History of Maryland Route 200 (T-H-L) on July 24, 2009. Rschen reacted:

All three articles are awful. Please see WP:USRD/STDS for how this article is supposed to look. There are way too many quotes, which is the main reason behind the unreasonable length of the article. --Rschen7754 (T C) 02:46, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

The US Roads folks merged it back in March 2011 and September 2011, respectively.

Another example is Interstate 81 in New York (T-H-L). There are a number of controversies about this route including how it crossed the Onondaga Indian Reservation south of Syracuse. At one point, a lane was added to the portion on the reservation for trucks who had difficulty climbing a long hill. The project prompted extensive sit-in protests at the construction site and became a symbol for Native American rights advocates. Another time, the planned reconstruction of I-81 through downtown Syracuse brought concerns about the sociological impacts of an elevated highway dividing neighborhoods in Syracuse. Pcwarden1990 (T-C-L), an undergraduate Syracuse University student in the Public Policy Initiative, wrote on this subject as his class assignment. Interstate 81 controversy in Syracuse, New York (T-H-L)link He was savaged by the USRoads clique, and his article was merged into Interstate 81 in New York (T-H-L)

I just would like to clarify that this article is still in the works. I understand that it is not a great article in its current condition, however I have been advised to continue edits a page until an article is a finished product. TwinsMetsFan if you could please stop your unhelpful remarks on my article I would appreciate it. If you still desire to downplay the article at least give some advice on how to improve it since I am clearly a newcomer.-Pcwarden1990

I'm sorry, but the subject of the article is poorly scoped. --Rschen7754 06:36, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

So instead of an admin defending a student newbie trying to do his class assignment, Rschen was leading the assault.

Another sympathetic editor emerge on the I-81 article Peter for I-81 Challenge (T-C-L), which Rschen blocked for "a spam user name."

[TungstenCarbide]

And he's still grinding today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/NE2

There's something wrong with him. http://en.wikichecker.com/user/?t=NE2&l=30000

This is what I wrote to the Arbcom back in 2006 when they were debating what to do about him after the "pedophilia userbox wheel war"...

SPUI could be hilarious. After long, knock down dragged out fights at ani leading up to a ban, he'd come back as User:Sockenpuppe, or something equally ridiculous, and deliver a few final licks.

[Kelly Martin]

This is what I wrote to the Arbcom back in 2006 when they were debating what to do about him after the "pedophilia userbox wheel war"...

SPUI could be hilarious. After long, knock down dragged out fights at ani leading up to a ban, he'd come back as User:Sockenpuppe, or something equally ridiculous, and deliver a few final licks.

Indeed. I admit that I had, and still have, a soft spot for SPUI. He knew that they could never effectively ban him, and he got as much fun out of poking the bunny as he did out of actually editing the road articles. Wikipedia's administrative culture is exceedingly reactive, and once you've figured out what makes them do what, it's extremely easy to get them to dance in all sorts of amusing ways by pushing their very obvious buttons, something that SPUI was very good at.

[Kelly Martin]

The problem is that U.S. roads involves more than just the type of facts collected by road geeks. There are social, environmental and legal implications of road building projects. A balanced Wikipedia article should include those topics rather than being limited to pro-road construction cheerleading.

This is one of the areas where there are problems, and indeed the major nonneutral issue that comes up repeatedly with the roads project is the general belief that "more is better" when it comes to roads. Articles about cancelled projects often come across as wistful.

Another problem is that the roadgeeks have idiosyncratic terminology that they and they alone use for certain features road features (often features that nobody else would care about). Wikipedia tends to use these unofficial fandom terms in lieu of the official terms used by highway authorities and professional traffic engineers, because the roadgeeks know better than the professionals in this regard. In some cases the term is one made up by the roadgeeks for something that nobody else cares about. A good example of this Concurrency_(road) (T-H-L), an extensive article for something that nobody outside of the road fandom cares about. Especially note the section on "wrong-way concurrencies". Virtually all of this article is original research.

[Vigilant]

Who reads these roads articles except the road cabal?

Do they imagine that there are real, live people who go to wikipedia to read road articles?

There are few projects that have as much navel gazing, mutual masturbation activity as the roads project.

They usually ask, "Buh..buh...buh what harm are we doing??"
That's not the question.

"What good are you?" is what should be asked.

[Stierlitz]

Who reads these roads articles except the road cabal?

Do they imagine that there are real, live people who go to wikipedia to read road articles?

There are few projects that have as much navel gazing, mutual masturbation activity as the roads project.

They usually ask, "Buh..buh...buh what harm are we doing??"
That's not the question.

"What good are you?" is what should be asked.

It might be useful to civil engineering students and newbie traffic engineers. At least it has nothing to do with Japanese animation, comic books, or card games with Pokemon on them.

[Cedric]

There are actually a number of legitimate issues with the Roads project (for example, there's loads and loads of "original research" going on there and a great deal of nonneutral authorship), but for the most part it's an example of how Wikipedia does something right. Most of the problem is the simple fact that roadgeeks are perceived by Wikipedians generally as anorak-wearing freaks, somewhere in the vicinity of furries and women on the totem pole of "people to make fun of for kicks". Remember, you're mostly dealing with teenaged boys (mentally if not physically) here.

Essentially correct. The obsessiveness, legalism and general weirdness of the roadsters make them a convenient target for derision and mockery, even in a freak-haven like Wikipedia. Every freak needs a freak more freaky than they are to look down upon, I suppose.

Who reads these roads articles except the road cabal?

Do they imagine that there are real, live people who go to wikipedia to read road articles?

There are few projects that have as much navel gazing, mutual masturbation activity as the roads project.

They usually ask, "Buh..buh...buh what harm are we doing??"
That's not the question.

"What good are you?" is what should be asked.

And this is the other reason that the freakyness of the roadsters is tolerated: no one other than the roadsters really gives a shit about Wikipedia's road articles. It isn't as if anyone expects these articles to be a replacement for, or a useful adjunct to, a AAA TripTik or a decent road atlas. Indeed, the roadsters themselves glory in the uselessness of their articles. Vigilant is right; the whole roads "WikiProject" is nothing more than a big wank. This small group of obsessives are simply writing for one another, not for the public.

As for Mr. Chen, I agree with Eric-- he's not really worthy of much notice. I am all too aware of his abusive "my way or the highway" nature, having had a brief encounter with him several years ago, but this alone merits no attention. This is Wikipedia after all; abusive admins are part of the general landscape. If Chen ever manages to live up to his true Hasten The Day potential, then we will have something to talk about.

[Kelly Martin]

It might be useful to civil engineering students and newbie traffic engineers.

I don't see how. Very few of the roadgeek articles discuss actual traffic engineering issues in any meaningful detail. They're just dry recitations of mainly obvious facts about specific roads along with articles about the terminology that roadgeeks have themselves concocted in their obsession with the topic. At most it would provide a traffic engineer with trivia that they can insert into a term paper for the momentary amusement of their instructors.

I've learned more about actual traffic engineering reading through a small selection of the public proposals made by and to the Chicago Department of Transportation than I ever have from any of Wikipedia's voluminous roadgeek content.

[Scott5114]

Indeed, the roadsters themselves glory in the uselessness of their articles.

To my knowledge, the user essay you have linked to was written by a user who does not actively write road articles. Rather, from the tone of the essay, he comes across as being against their existence.

Another problem is that the roadgeeks have idiosyncratic terminology that they and they alone use for certain features road features (often features that nobody else would care about). Wikipedia tends to use these unofficial fandom terms in lieu of the official terms used by highway authorities and professional traffic engineers, because the roadgeeks know better than the professionals in this regard. In some cases the term is one made up by the roadgeeks for something that nobody else cares about. A good example of this Concurrency_(road) (T-H-L), an extensive article for something that nobody outside of the road fandom cares about. Especially note the section on "wrong-way concurrencies". Virtually all of this article is original research.

Part of the problem here is that in the United States, the majority of transportation work happens at the state level. That means that each state transportation agency tends to develop its own terminology for some things. Concurrency is a particularly visible example of this; various state transport agencies refer to them as "commons" (Minnesota), "follow routes" (Oklahoma), concurrencies, overlaps...we can either choose to select one jargon term and use it consistently or use whatever the particular state's official jargon is. Many times the agency jargon is further obfuscated because it depends on the methods by which the agency inventories its routes, which can become extremely arcane.

The concurrency concept in particular tends to get hammered into the ground a lot more than other terms because they are necessary to provide route continuity but are often very badly understood by the general public. (By the way, the "fandom" term for this is "multiplex", which we consciously phased out in favor of "concurrency" due to its higher usage by transportation officials.) As for the state of the concurrency article, it suffers from the fact of being a broad, top-level article, which is a known weakness of USRD; editors tend to prefer to focus on smaller, state-level chunks of particular highways in the hopes that their efforts there will percolate upward and be summarized in the broader articles eventually.

[Hex]

As for the state of the concurrency article, it suffers from the fact of being a broad, top-level article, which is a known weakness of USRD...

No, it suffers from being the result of desperate-for-an-article syndrome, technically known as chronic synthesis disorder.

I'll copy here what I just put on its talk page.

Most of this article is recitation of facts from primary sources - the references section is about 50% composed of maps, for God's sake. The section about regional examples is not only uncited, but only carries {{cn}} tags for similar facts (road blah in Scotland coexists with other road blah), not for the parts that really need citations ("it is common...", "most...", "usually..."). That speaks volumes.

This article should be burned to the ground and rebuilt in a policy-compliant way if it's to exist at all.

[Cedric]

Indeed, the roadsters themselves glory in the uselessness of their articles.

To my knowledge, the user essay you have linked to was written by a user who does not actively write road articles. Rather, from the tone of the essay, he comes across as being against their existence.

A brief glance at Triadian's contribution history easily disproves this. He was a quite active contributor to road articles and about as wiki-wanky as most USRD editors are until July 2010. He then drastically cut back and stopped contributing a little over one year later.

I wouldn't bother wishing his essay into the cornfield if I were you. I saved screenshots of it and the history years ago and again just this morning (it has been on the USRD/Essays page for over five years now). We will see to it that it is lovingly curated; right alongside Roy's LinkedIn profile.

[Kumioko]

Who reads these roads articles except the road cabal?

Do they imagine that there are real, live people who go to wikipedia to read road articles?

There are few projects that have as much navel gazing, mutual masturbation activity as the roads project.

They usually ask, "Buh..buh...buh what harm are we doing??"
That's not the question.

"What good are you?" is what should be asked.

For once I agree with Vigilant. Althought the roads project does seem to churn out a fair number of GA's, when we look into it closer its just roadies that approve them. So one roads contributor submits it and another promotes it to GA. Its the same 5 or 6 charachters repeating the cycle over and over. Many of them are very short and the project has historically been very aggressive against other editors outside the project who dare edit one of their articles. God forbid they add a US Roads project owned article to another project. Article ownership, assumption of bad faith and on wiki harassment are all core value of the project.

[Kelly Martin]

Part of the problem here is that in the United States, the majority of transportation work happens at the state level. That means that each state transportation agency tends to develop its own terminology for some things. Concurrency is a particularly visible example of this; various state transport agencies refer to them as "commons" (Minnesota), "follow routes" (Oklahoma), concurrencies, overlaps...we can either choose to select one jargon term and use it consistently or use whatever the particular state's official jargon is. Many times the agency jargon is further obfuscated because it depends on the methods by which the agency inventories its routes, which can become extremely arcane.

Ironically, it would improve Wikipedia's article on concurrency to include the foregoing paragraph in the article. But really this is an article about a fandom concept, invented by obsessive-compulsives to document something they have (in their obsessive attention to detail) observed and which, by and large, nobody else (except a couple of state highway departments, and even them apparently only in passing) cares very much about.

The problem, however, is that roadgeeks have a compulsive need to establish "road continuity". Nobody who is not obsessive-compulsive cares about "road continuity". All they care about is "how do I get from St. Louis to Detroit?" and "Who is responsible for fixing the pothole at 38th and Main?" The numbering of state and especially county highways is an administrative mechanism for managing funding. In my home county there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of numbered highways, but virtually none of them are signed (and when some of them actually were signed a few years ago it caused a political firestorm); the numbers are only used on paperwork for allocating funding. Wikipedia actually has articles on several of them, but does not mention their county-assigned highway numbers because the road geeks don't know what they are (the documents that set them out are generally not available via the internet, and can only be obtained by visiting dusty municipal file rooms).

[Hex]

This is too good; now some dude at the talk page is trying to argue that secondary sourcing requirements don't apply because it's a geographic article.

[thekohser]

Who reads these roads articles except the road cabal?

To give an idea of how popular these articles are, my hypothesis is that the more traveled the road, the more viewed its article. Let's see...

Virginia State Route 8 gets about 4 page views per day.




US Route 58 (which crosses Virginia State Route 8) gets about 31 page views per day.




Interstate 85 (which crosses US Route 58) gets about 118 page views per day.




Therefore, it seems to me that the tiny state roads are barely worth having a Wikipedia article, receiving about as much page traffic as Wikipedia's spam article about Eksen Research (T-H-L). Then again, Eksen Research has been plunked into Wikipedia since 2010, and nobody's ever questioned whether it's hurting anybody, so who gives a care about Virginia State Route 8?

[Vigilant]

so who gives a care about Virginia State Route 8?

Unh! UNH! UNGGHGHGHGH!!!!

Road Cabal!!

[Abd]

This is too good; now some dude at the talk page is trying to argue that secondary sourcing requirements don't apply because it's a geographic article.

I looked. Yup. It's a face-palm discussion because both sides appear to have an agenda and pick policies and arguments to support their side, not seeking consensus.

One user considered the article was Original Research because maps are primary source. Not so, was the reply, the are secondary or tertiary sources, which is true but entirely misses the point.

The point is that those sources, primary or secondary, don't say what the article says. In order to derive what the article says, one must do some sort of original research. With respect to what is put in the article, the map is a primary source, it is raw information from which someone synthesizes conclusions.

But wait, what is the *purpose* of requiring secondary sources? There are two purposes, and they are only arguing one of them, verifiability. The other purpose of requiring secondary sources is *notability,* and there's the rub. This is where the real conflict is.

So Hwy A and Hwy B share some roadway for a while. Okay, so effing what? Who cares? If the fact is found in a reliable secondary source, that means a publisher, paying the bills, spent space on it, creating confirmation not so much of the fact but of notability.

The roadies care just as fans care about the fantasy world of, say, some comic book series. They want to report the facts about fictional characters, and, hey, it's verifiable, just read the damn story, and it's true, and .... is it encyclopedic?

Wikipedia never definitively answered this question from first principles, and, instead, punted: if it's covered in reliable secondary sources, it's notable. Unless, of course, the author is "fringe" and managed to delude a mainstream peer-reviewed journal editor (and the reviewers) or we don't like the conclusions, but that's another story, and it only applies where a faction has taken a major POV stand.

I hated the allegation of "fancruft" in AfDs because it was so uncivilly dismissive of the interests of real people.

To my mind, the real "sum of all human knowledge" would actually allow all knowledge but it would be layered. My inclusionist friends and I used to talk about "junkyard space,* where legal but non-notable articles would be moved instead of being deleted. (In my day, a junkyard was a place to search for damaged but still usable items.) Another version of this was Pure Wiki Deletion, i.e, blanking, see WP:PWD (T-H-L). (it would work with present software, but would work better with some tweaks).

The project would have layers, the true bottom layer would be deleted content, only visible to administrators, being illegal in some way, and the top layer would be a summary -- brief -- encyclopedia with very high inclusion standards, with the junkyard space as the bottom publicly visible layer, and probably several layers in between, maybe more. Instead of being Keep/Delete, the debate would be Promote/Demote.

The layers immediately below the top layer would include detail on pages on the top layer.

Wikipedia never defined the target audience, there are general purpose encyclopedias. Is that Wikipedia? Someone should have told Mathsci that writing articles on mathematics that were unreadable for non-mathematicians was, then, not a great idea. When a mathematician came along with an ability to explain the concepts in ordinary language, he hated it. It wasn't precise. And it was probably synthesis, as well, since to translate is to synthesize, very often.

Ah, a vast array of issues were created from what seemed like a simple concept, and the Wikipedia community charged ahead, assuming that consensus could solve every problem. They were right, but ... they didn't understand consensus, which has classically meant something very different from what Wikipedia cobbed together.

Wikiversity is now running more or less on the concept of layering. Material that might be controversial in mainspace, being poor quality, fringe, whatever, gets moved to user space. Wikiversity is still a mess, but every user can help clean up, and almost all the controversy that arises gets handled between the parties, with little administrative intervention. So, slowly, as this concept penetrates the community, Wikiversity is becoming organized. The same concepts handle the rare disputes over neutrality.

We have few of those, but they will increase as participation on Wikiversity broadens. Instead of You Win or I Win, we can both win, i.e., by layering the educational resources, we can have a page of high neutrality at the top, where we all can readily agree with little or no compromise (sometimes we point to the Wikipedia article, have some basic definitions) and then we have "sections" underneath where controversial material is placed. You get your section and I get mine. Others can, as well. If we lie to people, misrepresent sources, etc., and insist on it, we could run into trouble, but if we simply organize our own understanding of the topic and present it as any lecturer would (university professors have opinions!, as do students, who are allowed to express them in essays and papers!) we can do that unmolested, without fear that if some collection of users, who have no clue about the topic, show up at a deletion discussion and decide to delete, there goes all that work....

No problem with a Road Cruft Wiki. All the road trivia you can find or synthesize from sources. A straight line from town A to town B passes through C, whereas Highway N circumvents C. Amazing fact, verifiable with any map! Endless research fun! And photographs of road signs, the real signs! Almost like being there!

Or are they the real signs, or did someone photoshop them? Is alleged photographer Randy from Boise a reliable source? Never mind, that's a rude question for another day.

Is this Wikipedia? Obviously, it is. Should it be?

I don't believe in "should." It is what it is and it is not what it is not.

[Johnny Au]

Not an American road, but here is one that I have created: Vaughan Road (T-H-L) (none of the images were mine)

[SB_Johnny]

...we can either choose to select one jargon term and use it consistently or use whatever the particular state's official jargon is. Many times the agency jargon is further obfuscated because it depends on the methods by which the agency inventories its routes, which can become extremely arcane.

Not that it would be a terrible thing if Wikipedia's designated term for the things becomes the common term for the things, but do you see why it's a bit of a problem?

Wikipedia as the authoritative designator for the meaning of anything whatsoever is a scary prospect, given the mercurial nature of Wikipedians.

[Scott5114]

Part of the problem here is that in the United States, the majority of transportation work happens at the state level. That means that each state transportation agency tends to develop its own terminology for some things. Concurrency is a particularly visible example of this; various state transport agencies refer to them as "commons" (Minnesota), "follow routes" (Oklahoma), concurrencies, overlaps...we can either choose to select one jargon term and use it consistently or use whatever the particular state's official jargon is. Many times the agency jargon is further obfuscated because it depends on the methods by which the agency inventories its routes, which can become extremely arcane.

Ironically, it would improve Wikipedia's article on concurrency to include the foregoing paragraph in the article. But really this is an article about a fandom concept, invented by obsessive-compulsives to document something they have (in their obsessive attention to detail) observed and which, by and large, nobody else (except a couple of state highway departments, and even them apparently only in passing) cares very much about.

The problem, however, is that roadgeeks have a compulsive need to establish "road continuity". Nobody who is not obsessive-compulsive cares about "road continuity". All they care about is "how do I get from St. Louis to Detroit?" and "Who is responsible for fixing the pothole at 38th and Main?" The numbering of state and especially county highways is an administrative mechanism for managing funding. In my home county there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of numbered highways, but virtually none of them are signed (and when some of them actually were signed a few years ago it caused a political firestorm); the numbers are only used on paperwork for allocating funding. Wikipedia actually has articles on several of them, but does not mention their county-assigned highway numbers because the road geeks don't know what they are (the documents that set them out are generally not available via the internet, and can only be obtained by visiting dusty municipal file rooms).

I don't agree with most of this post.

Route numbering is something that most transportation agencies go to great lengths to ensure is consistent and organized. There is actually a lot more that goes on "under the hood" than most people suspect. There is an organization called the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (T-H-L) which has a special committee dealing exclusively with applications from the states for establishment, removal, and rerouting of Interstate and US routes. Federal assent must be given before any establishment or change in an Interstate designation can take place. Modifications to state routes can involve a proclamation by a statewide transportation commission (as is done in Oklahoma) or a Cabinet-level secretary in the state government (as is done in Kansas). In some states the numbering has funding implications, in others it does not—Oregon, for example, maintains two entirely separate numbering rolls, one for navigation purposes, which is presented to the public, and one for administrative purposes, which generally is not, and seldom do the two numbers coincide. Meanwhile, in some Northeastern states (Vermont in particular, but I think it happens in New York too), a state route is purely navigational and will happily route you down roads maintained by county and municipal governments. There are many instances of routes that are unnumbered or unsigned but still carried on the state highway system. Not that any of this is particularly relevant to most people, but I wanted to illustrate that by no means do the road geeks put more emphasis on these subjects than the professionals.

The concept of concurrencies is not something some geek made up one day. The concept appears in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (section 2D.29 is the first mention I can find in the 2009 edition; there might be others, and there are several diagrams), a federal publication, where they are simply called "overlapping routes". A member of the general public may not care what a concurrency is, but they are important to ensure that they get where they need to go. If I were to receive directions to go from St Louis to Detroit, it would be perfectly reasonable to be told "follow I-70 to I-69, follow that north to I-94, and go east on I-94 to Detroit". But, just across the river from St Louis, I-55 and I-70 have a concurrency. If there was no need for "route continuity", it would be perfectly reasonable for Illinois DOT to judge I-55 as the "more important" of the two routes (whether it is in this case is irrelevant to the argument), mark it as 55, and have 70 simply "disappear" for the duration. (Lest you say this is an unrealistic scenario, it occurs in Arkansas fairly frequently, although not with Interstate highways, and can make navigation incredibly frustrating.) This could make following 70 unduly difficult. Or you could do what Illinois did with I-88 and I-355, and build two freeways running parallel to each other, which is incredibly wasteful of both money and space. Instead, we have what IDOT actually did in the real world—a concurrency.

As for the concurrency article itself, I won't defend it, as I have barely touched it or looked at it. I will point out that, in my experience, giant lists of examples of any subject tend to accumulate as if by osmosis if someone is not actively monitoring them to keep them focused, since everyone wants to add their favorite local example to the list. It has all of the hallmarks of an article that has been neglected for a long time.

I would argue there is little value in including internal inventory numbers that are not displayed to the public, such as on your county roads, in the articles. Oklahoma uses a fairly complicated system of assigning "control numbers" to arbitrary segments of highway. While I have a copy of the maps of these since they are sometimes useful to reference distances and municipal boundaries, I would never insert them into a Wikipedia article, because they are, frankly, useless to anyone but ODOT and its contractors (even I couldn't tell you where control section 77-03 is, other than "somewhere in Woodward County").

[Scott5114]

...we can either choose to select one jargon term and use it consistently or use whatever the particular state's official jargon is. Many times the agency jargon is further obfuscated because it depends on the methods by which the agency inventories its routes, which can become extremely arcane.

Not that it would be a terrible thing if Wikipedia's designated term for the things becomes the common term for the things, but do you see why it's a bit of a problem?

Wikipedia as the authoritative designator for the meaning of anything whatsoever is a scary prospect, given the mercurial nature of Wikipedians.

Yes, I agree it is less than optimal. However, in a situation where there is no one prevailing term for a concept, and no meaningful controversy over the terminology, I think it leads to a better, more polished work if the editors sit down and agree to use one term consistently, so as to avoid forcing readers to learn many unfamiliar jargon synonyms for one concept.

[Hex]

This is too good; now some dude at the talk page is trying to argue that secondary sourcing requirements don't apply because it's a geographic article.

I looked. Yup. It's a face-palm discussion because both sides appear to have an agenda and pick policies and arguments to support their side, not seeking consensus.

You do know that one of those sides was me, right? My "agenda" is having articles that are based on secondary sources, which not only prevent synthesis, but demonstrate notability - as you comment - which is a position which is the result of extensive consensus over the course of the entire project.

The project would have layers, the true bottom layer would be deleted content, only visible to administrators, being illegal in some way, and the top layer would be a summary -- brief -- encyclopedia with very high inclusion standards, with the junkyard space as the bottom publicly visible layer, and probably several layers in between, maybe more. Instead of being Keep/Delete, the debate would be Promote/Demote.

I like that idea, a lot.

[Johnny Au]

What do you think of the sister projects Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada Streets (T-H-L), Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada Roads (T-H-L), and Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada Roads/Ontario (T-H-L)?

I am a member of the Canada Roads/Ontario WikiProject. There was a time when The Canadian Roadgeek (T-C-L) added in articles about minor streets in Markham, Ontario (T-H-L)

[Cedric]

What do you think of the sister projects Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada Streets (T-H-L), Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada Roads (T-H-L), and Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada Roads/Ontario (T-H-L)?

I am a member of the Canada Roads/Ontario WikiProject. There was a time when The Canadian Roadgeek (T-C-L) added in articles about minor streets in Markham, Ontario (T-H-L)

I think that the only way that I would ever develop even the mildest interest in any of these "WikiProjects" would be if Roy decides to pull a Pooty-Poot and tries to annex your territory. That would be good for a few laughs. A few, mind you.

[Poetlister]

What we need is for the WMF to get something like the Google Earth camera cars, and take loads of CC images of streets around the USA and the UK. That way, many thousands of articles could be generated.

[TungstenCarbide]

What we need is for the WMF to get something like the Google Earth camera cars, and take loads of CC images of streets around the USA and the UK. That way, many thousands of articles could be generated.

Hell yeah, bot controlled drones run by ocd aspi wikipediots. Pure gravy!

[Hex]

I am a member of the Canada Roads/Ontario WikiProject. There was a time when The Canadian Roadgeek (T-C-L) added in articles about minor streets in Markham, Ontario (T-H-L)

From my impression of the one time I was in Markham, I really can't see those of being of interest to many people.

[Johnny Au]

I am a member of the Canada Roads/Ontario WikiProject. There was a time when The Canadian Roadgeek (T-C-L) added in articles about minor streets in Markham, Ontario (T-H-L)

From my impression of the one time I was in Markham, I really can't see those of being of interest to many people.

What do you expect from a suburban municipality?

[eagle]

I believe that there must be some point to draw the line as to what is a notable road. Having an "state route" number assigned should not determine notability.

WP:USRD/NTstates, "The fact that the road has been adopted into a major network of highways is the result of a road's notability, not the cause. Well before the article is nominated for Good Article the article should explain what makes this road notable. Specifically, the article should answer the question, "why was this road built in the first place?", and "why are the taxpayers asked to keep spending money to keep the road maintained?" If the article does not answer the question of why does this road exist, that is grounds for deletion of the article." It also suggests, "Highways that have very little to say about them (i.e. those that are extremely short and have no historical significance) are better suited to a list."

Wyoming Highway 74 is a 0.13 mile-long portion of Bridge Street that crossed the North Platte River in Saratoga, Wyoming. It is unsigned, so that drivers who use the road do not know its number. A Google search could not locate reliable sources covering it (other than primary sources from WDOT or "fan" sites.) So, I have placed a notability tag on the article.
Wyoming Highway 14 is a 0.36 mile-long entrance road that connects WYO 130 with the Laramie airport. I could not find reliable secondary sources with a Google search.
Louisiana Highway 3220 is a 0.22 mile-long road across a bridge over Bayou Lafourche. I could not find reliable secondary sources with a Google search. One of the three external links in the article is dead. In January 2011, the article was viewed 28 times.[55]
Louisiana Highway 3285 is a 0.80 mile-long road that was previously called "Spur Louisiana Highway 16." I could not find reliable secondary sources with a Google search. One of the three external links in the article is dead. In January 2011, the article was viewed 74 times.[56]
Pennsylvania Route 760 is a 5.5 mile-long road that has sourcing problems. Most of the information comes from Penn DOT maps and exit number lists. So I tagged it with {{Primary sources}}. I agree that Google Maps is a secondary source. However, the article also contains statements such as "The road enters Hermitage and passes a mix of woods and industrial establishments." and "The PA 760 trailblazers were installed in May 2010." which are so specific as to require a source, but none is provided. Hence, I added {{fact}} tags.

There are a lot of US Road articles that are of questionable notability that have received at least GA status if not Class A status from fellow USRoad geeks. If you look at the various insular games played by US Roads, it really has become a "walled garden."

[Hex]

There are a lot of US Road articles that are of questionable notability that have received at least GA status if not Class A status from fellow USRoad geeks. If you look at the various insular games played by US Roads, it really has become a "walled garden."

More like a circle jerk.

[Bottled_Spider]

There are a lot of US Road articles that are of questionable notability that have received at least GA status if not Class A status from fellow USRoad geeks. If you look at the various insular games played by US Roads, it really has become a "walled garden."

More like a circle jerk.

Some brave soul should try re-directing all those "road" articles to this for a couple of weeks or so. Just to see what happens.

[EricBarbour]

More like a circle jerk.

Dry humping, no orgasms.

[Poetlister]

British roads get articles too, even South Circular Road (T-H-L) which is little more than a collection of suburban streets linked by road signs. MRSC (T-C-L) is often found editing these articles.

[Jim]

The concept appears in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (section 2D.29 is the first mention I can find in the 2009 edition; there might be others, and there are several diagrams)

I bet you're brilliant at Mornington Crescent...

[Hex]

More like a circle jerk.

Dry humping, no orgasms.

[eagle]

I'm going to guess it was Montana Secondary Highway 503 (T-H-L)?

How can this article meet any reasonable notability guideline? It is "12.166 miles long" (making it more notable than a 12.165 mile-long highway?) and until 2002 was a gravel road that is still so infrequently used that "wildlife crossings should be expected at all times as animals search for food and water."

More wikignomes will fight over the wording of this article than people will drive upon the actual road.

Since it is a part of the American Redoubt (T-H-L), perhaps the local residents will greet you with machine gun fire if a Wikipedian actually goes out there to take a photo of the signs along the road.

[eppur si muove]

The Brits are slacking. B-roads are probably the equivalent to state secondaries, but the slackers have only articles on two roads in this subsetB roads in Zone 8 of the Great Britain numbering scheme (T-H-L) and the list may not even be complete.

[Peryglus]

The Brits are slacking. B-roads are probably the equivalent to state secondaries, but the slackers have only articles on two roads in this subset and the list may not even be complete.

Two articles? You mean secondary highways 317, 323, 326, 391, 486, 487 and 503?

[eppur si muove]

The Brits are slacking. B-roads are probably the equivalent to state secondaries, but the slackers have only articles on two roads in this subset and the list may not even be complete.

Two articles? You mean secondary highways 317, 323, 326, 391, 486, 487 and 503?

Sorry I forgot to insert an article link. (Got no sleep last night.) Now fixed (the article not the sleep).

[Peryglus]

Those do not have articles because the B-roads are generally not considered notable enough for standalone articles; see discussions like this:Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/B1079_road (T-H-L) . There are probably Wikipedians willing to create them if the guideline were to be changed.

[Jim]

Those do not have articles because the B-roads are generally not considered notable enough for standalone articles; see discussions like this:Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/B1079_road (T-H-L) . There are probably Wikipedians willing to create them if the guideline were to be changed.

Well... you say that, but your link leads me ever onwards to: Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/B roads in the United Kingdom (T-H-L)

And I must confess to some sympathy with "Lord Bob", and his point of view:

Delete. A road is not notable because it is a road. There is more to notability than "being made of something hard and cars drive on you". The sheer abundance of these roads and the fact that for 99.9% of them there is absolutely nothing interesting to say about them tells me that we should get rid of the things. Consider, also, that keeping these B-roads opens up a further avalanche of similar roads from other countries in the world, which would be an unpleasant cluttering of uninteresting and trivial stubs. Lord Bob 19:25, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

[Vigilant]

Those do not have articles because the B-roads are generally not considered notable enough for standalone articles; see discussions like this:Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/B1079_road (T-H-L) . There are probably Wikipedians willing to create them if the guideline were to be changed.

Well... you say that, but your link leads me ever onwards to: Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/B roads in the United Kingdom (T-H-L)

And I must confess to some sympathy with "Lord Bob", and his point of view:

Delete. A road is not notable because it is a road. There is more to notability than "being made of something hard and cars drive on you". The sheer abundance of these roads and the fact that for 99.9% of them there is absolutely nothing interesting to say about them tells me that we should get rid of the things. Consider, also, that keeping these B-roads opens up a further avalanche of similar roads from other countries in the world, which would be an unpleasant cluttering of uninteresting and trivial stubs. Lord Bob 19:25, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Let's hook him up the the WP roads project crew...

They'd have so much to talk about.