Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 29

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Point of order re archives

Does anyone know why the archive list for this page only goes up to 22 whereas the MiszaBot that creates them last archived to number 27? Do we need to manually add each new archive page? This seems like something the bot should do. --sanfranman59 (talk) 17:58, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Correcting NRIS errors?

What's our procedure for correcting NRIS errors? The property listed as "Tottell House" in Washington County, Rhode Island, is actually the "Tootell House" (Tootell is a well-known name there). See http://www.ri.gov/preservation/search/view.php?idnumber=SOKI00550 . I've corrected it a few places here... --Orlady (talk) 16:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Several of us have been following the following procedure;
  • Make the correction in the article
  • Note the error at Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/NRIS information issues
  • Then, doncram has been responsible for creating batches of info to submit to the NRIS for correction. I believe he has corresponded with them regarding their willingness to receive such information, and the form they prefer it to take. It is my understanding that some corrections have already been made for a batch previously submitted.
Ultimately, taking the time to report them to the NRIS will, hopefully, prevent a cycle of making a change to the correct name in the article, and then having someone else change it back based on erroneous NRIS info. Hope this helps. Lvklock (talk) 17:49, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that's about it. This process should further enable us to get feedback on the apparent errors that we have been correcting in wikipedia articles, and perhaps in some cases to find out that the original information was correct and it was our "corrections" were errors. Note, when editors first find out that NRIS database has been shown to have errors, they can sometimes go on a small binge of seeing errors where there are not. For example, in many cases the NRIS correctly reports a nearest city that is in a different county than the location of a site, but the NRIS-based county tables we create show only the city and not "vicinity of". In these cases editor "corrections" are often/usually wrong. These may look like errors to an editor. But, overall, the NRIS database is extremely accurate. And, I reported at least 6 batches of corrections. I would welcome others' help in the reporting process. It seems important/helpful to batch issues by state, so that on the National Register end they can efficiently consult with state staff over issues that are not obviously typos within the NRIS database entry process. If an error originated in the NRHP application, the national staff requires state staff to submit some correction form. doncram (talk) 18:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Denton House

I was going through Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup as a part of the drive mentioned above, and I came across a problem. Denton House is individually listed on the NRHP, and it is a contributing property to Chestertown Historic District (Chestertown, Maryland). Well that's all well and good because the new infobox code can handle that, but the problem arose when I looked up Denton House to find out if the refnum already in the article was that of the house or of the district. While there, Elkman's Infobox tool said that Denton House (#71000377) was an NHL. I can't find any other source that says this house is an NHL.. it's not listed on List of NHLs in MD or on the actual NHL site, so I believe this is an error with Elkman's tool. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 17:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm...I also checked Elkman's county list generator tool, and there it's listed as an NRHP, not an NHL. I can't see any record of its having been delisted as an NHL, but still an NRHP, though I suppose it's a possibility. In light of conflicting Elkman tools, I'd go with NRHP as the one supported by other information. Lvklock (talk) 17:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Yea, that's what I did on the article, but I was just bringing attention to it. Where do you think the error could have come from? I mean I thought Elkman's tools pulled info directly from the NRIS, but the error isn't in the NRIS (that I can find at least), just in his tool.. Weird. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:04, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
I believe there is an ambiguous field in the NRIS database, basically NHL=yes or no, but where yes effectively means "NHL-associated": either the listing is itself an NHL or that it is in an NHL historic district or that the listing is a non-nhl historic district that includes an NHL. It used to be more helpful that Elkman infobox generator output included the nhl mention. However, articles on all NHLs were created with infoboxes a year ago, and all new infoboxes for other NHL-associated places display that they are NHLs, in error. I haven't looked in this case, but is Denton House within a NHLD district? doncram (talk) 18:14, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, Chestertown Historic District (Chestertown, Maryland) is an NHLD, so I guess that's where the error came in. Since all NHL articles have now been created and new ones don't even use the tool (if I remember correctly), wouldn't it be a good idea to remove the "nrhp_type=nhl" output from Elkman's tool? It's not really necessary any more, and leaving it in could cause confusion in future cases. (Also, on an unrelated note, could the underscore be removed from the output as well? Instead of "Infobox_nrhp", the output should be "Infobox nrhp".) --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:30, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
My money's on a data input error from the NHLD, so it should be an individually listed NRHP property contributing to the NHLD. Acroterion (talk) 18:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Mark Twain House GA Sweeps: On Hold

I have reviewed Mark Twain House for GA Sweeps to determine if it still qualifies as a Good Article. In reviewing the article I have found several issues, which I have detailed here. Since the article falls under the scope of this project, I figured you would be interested in contributing to further improve the article. Please comment there to help the article maintain its GA status. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 07:23, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Category:Historic districts in the United States

Category:Historic districts in the United States is absurdly large, including 3,051 articles. I was about to start splitting it when I realised that {{Infobox nrhp}} automatically places an article in this category if it has "hd" in the "nrhp_type" line. I'd like to see this modified: not removed, or we'd probably have tons of HD articles not categorised as HDs anymore, but changed so that we can place a more local category instead. Is there any way to do this? As it is, even specifically-categorised articles such as the Franklin Square Historic District in Baltimore, a member of Category:Historic districts in Baltimore, Maryland, is also in the nationwide category. Nyttend (talk) 14:03, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, we could create categories like Category:Historic districts in Arizona, Category:Historic districts in Colorado, Category:Historic districts in Deleware, etc. for each state and use the {{{locmapin}}} parameter of the infobox to categorize those articles. I don't see the auto-categorization getting any more specific than that, though.. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 16:59, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
IMO, the automatic categorization "feature" should be removed from the template and the articles should be categorized manually. --Orlady (talk) 19:06, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Orlady about going manual. About the category names, is it meant to include non-NRHP historic districts or to have separate ones for NRHP vs. non-NRHP historic districts in each state? If they are allowed by their naming to include non-NRHP ones, then do they / should they get excluded from the NRHP parent category? In the course of developing the #NRHP bot request above, I have in fact noted a number of such state categories that are now included in NRHP parent, but perhaps should be dropped. I listed them all, and I am trying to exclude these categories from the bot request, anyhow, because they may have non-NRHP members. doncram (talk) 04:54, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
What if we added the temporary category Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup to the infobox so that it would appear on all HD articles.. then manually pick through all the articles that populate that category. When we're done, we can remove the auto-categorization completely. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 05:08, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be just as easy to go through Category:Historic districts in the United States, make sure that every page in that category is manually slotted into a historic district category, then remove that category specification from Template:NRHPconv? --Orlady (talk) 05:19, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Yea probably, but I was thinking Category:Historic districts in the United States would include some manually categorized items that may or may not include the NRHP infobox. For whatever reason, an editor found it appropriate to categorize that item in that category, so I wouldn't think we should mess with that. If we used the temp cat, we would only interfere with the automatically categorized articles, which are the ones we're worried about.
On the other hand, we could just go through the HDs in the US category and create all the Category:Historic districts in statename, so that no articles would be in the US category. I'm fine with whatever..--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 05:50, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
The reason people manually add articles to Category:Historic districts in the United States is that the article fits the category. (Not everyone knows that these infobox templates automatically place articles in categories.) When another narrower category is created, it's entirely reasonable to change an article's categorization -- happens all the time at Wikipedia, and it's not "messing" with a contributor's work. If statename categories are created for every state and territory, very few articles should need to remain in the United States category. --Orlady (talk) 16:01, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
[outdent] I've created several new Category:Historic districts in STATENAME categories, and all entries through "Alb" are now slotted in state-specific comments. (Many of the others are also slotted, but I have only systematically checked through "Alb".
There are several existing HD categories with names in the form "Registered Historic Districts in", apparently an incorrect reference to HDs on the National Register. I'm inclined to think they all should be renamed to "Historic districts in..." (If the district is on the National Register, as most are, that places it in an additional category.) --Orlady (talk) 17:41, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
As a result of a few minutes more work by Dudemanfellabra and me, checking is now complete through "All". One benefit of manual checking: I took the "HD" spec off a couple of articles that are individual properties, not historic districts. --Orlady (talk) 19:38, 28 June 2009 (UTC) Checking is now complete through the letter "A." --Orlady (talk) 16:27, 29 June 2009 (UTC) And "B" is done through "Beau". --Orlady (talk) 17:27, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Should there be a distinction between districts on the NRHP and ones that aren't? In Florida, I've run across at least two historic districts that are designated as such by the state, but not nationally. They're in Madison and Davis Islands in Tampa. Both have properties individually listed on the NRHP. Maybe something like Category:Districts on the National Register of Historic Places in STATENAME? --Ebyabe (talk) 20:10, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
At first blush, that makes sense, but on second blush I think it's over-categorization. First off, all of these pages currently are (and presumably will be) categorized in both a "National Register of Historic Places in" category and in an "historic districts" category, and it's not obvious that the intersection of "National Register" and "HD" needs to be a category. Second, many historic districts are recognized by multiple authorities (for example, NRHP plus a state, or NRHP plus a city and a state), so (if a separate category is created for each type of district) they could end up in several different extremely similar categories. IMO, the purposes of categorization can be served by slotting each listed district once in a "district" category and once each in the categories for each of the various different authorities that recognizes it. --Orlady (talk) 20:42, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
I've added state-level categories to all HDs in Ohio and Alaska — Ohio because I'm an Ohioan, and Alaska because it has so few of them. Everything sounds good here; however, I note that the each of the new categories is its state's NRHP category, which it shouldn't be. Nyttend (talk) 15:31, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Also North Dakota. Nyttend (talk) 15:39, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Texas is done, but there are 2 archeological districts in Texas. Would these be included or not? 25or6to4 (talk) 19:59, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
I say yes: the NRHP lists them as districts. Nyttend (talk) 22:22, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Minor update: The HD listings through "Bos" have been checked and are now listed in state (or lower-level HD categories) -- unless new articles have been added in the last few days. --Orlady (talk) 20:34, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

taking HD spec off or not

It was mentioned within above "One benefit of manual checking: I took the "HD" spec off a couple of articles that are individual properties, not historic districts." What is the information that would lead one to believe the HD specification is incorrect? I believe that there are single-legal-parcel properties, such as some plantations, which are properly described in their NRHP listing as being "historic districts", by the NRHP definition. What's usually the source of an HD specification is the NRIS system identifying that way. In which case it probably also is shown that way in the corresponding NRHP state- or county-list table. I personally am not all enamored of making the HD vs. non-HD distinction, while we don't differentiate objects vs. structures vs. buildings. But since this distinction is made, shouldn't we be careful to stick to the NRIS source for these, unless there is significant evidence of a mistake in NRIS (in which case that should be recorded for reporting)? Note the NRHP.COM website and others will continue to slavishly follow the NRIS indication of HD. Are there some specific examples which could be reviewed? doncram (talk) 22:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for offering to check these instances, Doncram. They are Allendale Mill and Allen Grove.
Side comment: I looked at plenty of other minimal stubs about historic properties that zren't obviously HDs. If the article text is lacking basic info (such as the name of the county or even the name of the state), I'm prepared to ignore the absence of info about it being an historic district. In several instances I researched the properties and expanded the articles. However, these two articles had enough content about the properties to lead me to think that if they were really districts the article would have given some hint to that effect. --Orlady (talk) 01:40, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I tried to investigate one of these, but I struck out. I skimmed the 50-page nomination form for the MPS that is supposed to have included Allen Grove. I found one brief mention of the "Allen house" in the right town, but the property is not on the list of properties deemed eligible for listing (nor on the list of properties surveyed and deemed ineligible), and the mention of the Allen house does not say anything about outbuildings or surrounding lands that might have been treated as an HD. --Orlady (talk) 15:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
The NRHP.Com website carries area and number of buildings info about historic districts that is not available from Elkman's or the NPS's own interfaces to the same NRIS database. These two are reported to have 50 acres, each, and 6 and 3 buildings separately (adding to articles now). I guess i wouldn't change from HD to non-HD for any site, unless i could make an explicitly supported statement in the article that, contrary to the National Register's database indication, the area is not designated a historic district by the National Register. Essentially the only reason would be that it was a typo in NRIS, which i can't see happening often for these, since it seems there are additional fields filled out for them, which must be supplied from application forms that differ from non-HD application forms. In other cases i have put in different-than-NRIS info into articles, in cases where NRIS data entry errors are shown by review of NRHP app docs and/or NRHP weekly listing documents, but I haven't yet seen an HD vs. non-HD error documented. doncram (talk) 16:03, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I would believe errors in the other direction could possibly be common, that a site could actually be an HD although the NRIS database entry did not include the HD-related fields. Such errors could be established by the accepted NRHP application docs. doncram (talk) 16:10, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Changes to popular pages lists

There are a few important changes to the popular pages system. A quick summary:

  • The "importance" ranking (for projects that use it) will be included in the lists along with assessment.
  • The default list size has been lowered to 500 entries (from 1000)
  • I've set up a project on the Toolserver for the popular pages - tools:~alexz/pop/.
    • This includes a page to view the results for projects, including the in-progress results from the current month. Currently this can only show the results from a single project in one month. Features to see multiple projects or multiple months may be added later.
    • This includes a new interface for making requests to add a new project to the list.
    • There is also a form to request a change to the configuration for a project. Currently the configurable options are the size of the on-wiki list and the project subpage used for the list.
  • The on-wiki list should be generated and posted in a more timely and consistent manner than before.
  • The data is now retained indefinitely.
  • The script used to generate the pages has changed. The output should be the same. Please report any apparent inconsistencies (see below).
  • Bugs and feature requests should be reported using the Toolserver's bug tracker for "alexz's tools" - [1]

-- Mr.Z-man 00:22, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Proposal of modification of Template:Infobox nrhp

A bunch of NRHPs has its' profile page at the focus.nps.gov website, though most do not have their nomination forms digitalized yet. However if we introduce a new parameter refnumlink= it could link the reference number in the infobox to that website.

If I looked correctly the code string

{{#if:{{{refnum<includeonly>|</includeonly>}}}| {{!}}'''NRHP- reference#:''' {{!}}{{{refnum}}}}}

just needs to be replaced by

{{#if: {{{refnum<includeonly>|</includeonly>}}}|{{!}}'''NRHP reference#:''' {{!}}{{#ifeq: {{{refnumlink}}} | yes | [http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/{{{refnum}}}.pdf {{{refnum}}}] [http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Photos/{{{refnum}}}.pdf (Photos)] | {{{refnum}}} }} }}

(Since i am not a template guru the code needs to be revised...)

In the case the reference number was 76000484 and refnumlink=yes was set, the template would show

NRHP reference#:  76000484 (Photos)

else only the number 76000484. If sometime later the profile page will get an permanent link (I requested the implementation at the NPS and got told they might consider it when updating the softwarewhatsoever since I wasn't the first who asked) we could easily fix it to the profile page rather than the PDFs.

What do you think? --Matthiasb (talk) 14:17, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this can be done, but why not just autolink the reference numbers anyway? Like without the refnumlink parameter. Eventually all the nom forms will be uploaded, and if they haven't been uploaded, then there's still a pdf there.. it just says something like "This NRHP nomination form has not yet been digitized." As time goes on, more and more nom forms will be digitized, so the refnumlink parameter will become obsolete. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:49, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
If I recall correctly, there are few pages that list the refnum and then the the refnum of a boundary increase in the same parameter (for example: Cashier's House). A url link would, no doubt, be broke in this circumstance. --​​​​D.B.talk•contribs 22:58, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
I definitely like the idea of working to add links to the available NRHP documents to their corresponding articles! One more complication with the automated part of this proposal is that some of the NPS Focus documents are at "docs/NHLS/Text" instead of "docs/NRHP/Text". And there are a few cases known where they have the document posted at an incorrect number (which could probably be fixed by them, if we report those cases). Another part of the proposal is that the NRHP documents should be linked in at the refnum in the infobox. But, if the NRHP document is available, wouldn't we want to use it as a regular footnote reference? Not sure whether the idea to provide it as an external link from the infobox instead or also, is elegant, or is counter-intuitive. FYI, the World Heritage Site articles do link to a WHS webpage for each one, from their equivalent refnum in their infoboxes. doncram (talk) 03:28, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
We have testet linking to the GNIS in the DE:WP template for U.S. settements for a while, see de:Red Lake Falls and so far there were no complaints. --Matthiasb (talk) 17:29, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I like the idea of having the link directly from the REFNUM in the infobox! Einbierbitte (talk) 17:42, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm all for it too, but Dtbohrer has a valid point. Sometimes more than one refnum is listed because of boundary increases to historic districts. In these cases, the autolink feature wouldn't work. A possible solution would be to add new capability to handle boundary increases in a more straightforward way. We could add like a "increase=date" parameter in which the date of the boundary increase is defined, and we could add an "increase_refnum=####" for the reference number of the increase. Then since the two refnums were in different places, we could link them separately. I don't know how we would find articles that needed this update, though, because it's (almost?) impossible to single out these articles. Any ideas? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:26, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I believe the availability and consistency of NRHP application documents is much less than for the World Heritage websites and for the GNIS links. In the NPS documents i linked from NYS NHL articles a while back, I found the documents in boundary increasse cases sometimes at the original refnum, sometimes at the boundary increase refnum. Sometimes with NHLS sometimes with NRHP in the url. In at least a few cases under a randomly different, otherwise unrelated refnum. The main point would be to provide a link to the available application documents, yes? So why not insert "NRHP application" or "NHL application" or "NHL Inventory" or other appropriately descriptive term for the available documents (which varies), and link from that term to wherever such documents actually are. Note that the NRHP documents are sometimes available at state websites instead or in addition to the NPS focus system. In some cases the version at the state website is better than the NPS version, such as in Virginia i think which includes additional maps not scanned by the NPS. Some state systems are more reliable than the NPS system, too.
Just to note a similarity, the MPS/TR documents automatically noted in Elkman-generated NRHP infoboxes, where applicable, show the title of the document (and not the document number, which is not available in NRIS downloaded data). It seems appropriate to wikilink an MPS title to the MPS document at the NPS, where known. See wp:MPS for a list of all the MPS documents. That may look somewhat inconsistent to refnum linking for the individual document, in the same infobox. doncram (talk) 19:34, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) That's a good idea.. Maybe a new parameter like "nomination_link="? The link could show up after the listing date (i.e. "Added to NRHP: January 1, 2000 (Nomination form)"). If there is no nomination form digitized, the text won't show up.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:14, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Did something anything concerning this? --Matthiasb (talk) 13:59, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox and NRHP embedding

Some semi-new code in {{Infobox nrhp}} allows an editor to embed the infobox into another infobox (examples can be seen at Template:Infobox nrhp/testcases), but there seems to be a problem. The meta-template {{Infobox}} doesn't seem to be compatible with the code in our infobox. A great example of this would be {{Infobox Windmill}}. Recently an editor changed that infobox to be meta-compatible, and it broke compatibility with our embed feature. Before the change to the meta-template, the infobox was completely compatible. The broken example can be seen on the testcases page.

I've tried numerous times to extend compatibility of the embed feature to infoboxes that use the meta-template, all to no avail. Any infobox that doesn't use {{Infobox}} (or at least all the ones I've seen) work perfectly with the embed feature. Either something is wrong with our code that won't allow compatibility, or there's something wrong with the meta-template's code. If anyone can figure out what's causing this problem, it would greatly be appreciated. If compatibility can be extended to include the meta-template, the feature can be included in nearly all infoboxes, allowing numerous infoboxes to be seamlessly embedded together. It would be a great step forward in infobox technology in Wikipedia! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:31, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I recently embedded the NRHP template into {{Infobox Windmill}} on appropriate articles, such as Beebe Windmill and Boyd's Windmill. At the time, the embedding was sucessful and both templates displayed correctly. I later noticed that the embedding was not working. This must have happened between 7 June and 29 June. Maybe edits to the NRHP template between those dates need checking? Mjroots (talk) 06:18, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Did you even read what I said? Infobox Windmill was edited, not the NRHP infobox. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 06:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I did read it, but misunderstood. I see from the edit history that the Infobox Windmill template was edited on 23 June. Will contact the editor and point him/her here. Mjroots (talk) 06:43, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
The embedding won't work in {{infobox}}-based templates unless explicitly supported; you can't simple stick new rows in without having them attached to a declared attribute, and in any case they need to be wrapped in a sub-table (and so the label / data widths may be different from the parent template. I've encountered this on {{infobox skyscraper}}, and have now adjusted the sandbox to cope; see the bottom example at template:infobox skyscraper/testcases. In my opinion this strategy should always be used for embedding, because (as demonstrated by this thread) simply trying to stick new table rows into an existing template can lead to unpredictable results. As more templates will be moved to use {{infobox}} in future I'd start getting ready for this now. I've fixed the windmill articles in question; just add |nrhp = in front of the sub-template. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:28, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
As an addendum to this, though, it's not technically possible to get this as seamless with {{infobox}} templates as it is with wikitable ones. To be honest I would far rather that articles stacked rather than nested templates for this reason. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Sorry for my ignorance, but what do you mean by "you can't simpl[y] stick new rows in without having them attached to a declared attribute"? Also, what's a sub-table? I understand wikitables completely fine (and that's why this infobox is in wikitable syntax), but when this meta-template is involved, I have no idea what's going on. Thanks for editing Infobox Windmill and Infobox skyscraper, though! If this is the only way to do it, then I guess we'll just have to request the code's addition on any necessary templates.
About your edits to the nrhp sandbox, though, you added "width:inherit" to all the rows; what does this do? I thought the HTML default for table rows was width:inherit, so this doesn't seem necessary to me. Also, I used the 3-apostrophe bolding instead of the ! bolding because ! makes the labels centered, and they look better left-aligned. I see on the skyscraper testcases page that even without these edits, the embedding seems to work fine, so I don't see the code's purpose. Thanks for the replies though! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 17:45, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
This template's embedding code basically works by omitting the <table> element and just inserting HTML row elements into whatever the parent is. {{infobox}} abstracts the table logic away from its contents, such that it does not expect any data cell to contain any actual code. If it gets any, it will just echo the pipes and curly brackets as data (which was what caused this thread in the first place).
The width: inherit comments were test code, which doesn't work. Looking at it, I know why it doesn't work. The reason for using ! is because it creates HTML <th> elements and not <td>s, which is more semantically valid. You can hack around the alignment.
If you have any further comments or want to collaborate on further work here, feel free to ping me and I'll try to help out as best I can. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:57, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

NRHP Number

Old Randolph County Courthouse

I've created the Old Randolph County Courthouse article mainly to distinguish it from the "new" Randolph County Courthouse. However I have searched on the NRHP website and can't find the NRHP number for the old courthouse. Is there an easy way to determine this? -- Ichabod (talk) 14:52, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the refnum you are looking for is 73000390. I see you created an NRHP infobox in the article by hand. There's a neat tool, the Elkman NRHP infobox generator, based on the NRHP's database, which you can use to get a cut-and-paste ready infobox, or actually a whole stub article with proper categories and more. Try it, here: http://www2.elkman.net/nrhp/infobox.php. :) It's certainly easier than trying to get the same information from the National Register's interface. doncram (talk) 16:41, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks very much for the information and link to the Elkman tool. I'll use it for any future NRHP articles. -- Ichabod (talk) 17:01, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Great. And glad to see you developing the AR NRHP articles, which haven't yet gotten much attention. :) Nice work finding pics for that and Randolph County Courthouse (Pocahontas, Arkansas), in particular. I added an Arkansas Historic Preservation Program webpage link for the latter just now, by the way. Similar summaries from the full NRHP applications (full applications available from the National Register by request, for free) are available for many/most Arkansas NRHPs by searching at here at the Arkansas search screen, by the way. doncram (talk) 18:17, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Cleaning up Elkman's Infobox generator output

Is it possible to make a few changes to the output of Elkman's infobox generator? The infobox is called with "Infobox_nrhp" (notice the underscore), which is not correct. I have been going through a bunch of articles and removing the underscore (along with other cleanup), but the generator makes all new articles have it unless the editor takes it out, which is very rare.

Also, I think that listing an nrhp_type of "nhl" should be removed since all the NHL articles have now been created, and the generator doesn't work with the newest NHLs anyway because they're not in Elkman's database yet. The infobox sometimes erroneously outputs nrhp_type=nhl if the site is associated with an NHLD or even when an NHL is present in the same district as the site you're querying (I've only observed the first case, but Doncram suggested the second one). This can cause confusion with new infoboxes and people erroneously marking them as NHLs when they're not. Removing the output all together would prevent this problem.

Some more personal gripes are that the name parameter should be moved down a line for uniformity and the NRIS reference should be moved up to the "added" date, which is common practice in many articles.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:42, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Elkman just came back from wikibreak, why dont you ask him politely? dm (talk) 21:06, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
I've made the changes you suggested. I was getting the NHL parameter from a table named "othdocd", which includes documentation in other surveys. It might be possible that some NRHP properties were surveyed for an NHL, but weren't actually included in one. If you have an example of a property erroneously included in an NHL, let me know what it was, so I can see what the deal is.
By the way, I took pictures of some NRHP properties in Colorado when I was on vacation, so I'm in the process of uploading them. Oh, and I also got a lot of inline skating and mountain biking in too. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 22:28, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! Much better now! The only thing I see though is that the NRIS reference is with the refnum still, and I believe it should be moved up to the "added" date. Including the ref here is a common practice in many articles, especially articles with more than one nrhp_type. For an example/discussion of the NHL thing, see #Denton House above. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:46, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Railway station subcategories

State subcategories for states with railway stations on the NRHP have been created under Category:Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places and existing stations allocated to those subcategories.--Pubdog (talk) 16:21, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Meridian Baptist Seminary

Elkman's infobox generator shows the Meridian Baptist Seminary as being listed on the National Register in 2008 when it was actually listed in 1979 (according to this). The 2008 date corresponds to the date it was delisted (according to this), but Elkman's tool doesn't specify this. Usually there's an "NR" designation or something out to the side, but nothing for this. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 07:47, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

More subdivisions of New York NRHP listings

This winter(2008-2009) I started a crusade to subdivide the National Register of Historic Places listings in Suffolk County, New York by township. Now I have separate town lists for National Register of Historic Places listings in Nassau County, New York, prepared or almost prepared for the taking. I've already tagged Nassau and Weschester NRHP lists for excessive length, but I don't have anything set up for Weschester County yet. ----DanTD (talk) 13:42, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

UPDATE; The lists for NRHP sites in the Towns of Hempstead, North Hempstead, and Oyster Bay, are officially up. Do what you will with the main Nassau County, NRHP listing. ----DanTD (talk) 16:30, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
I don't happen to be a fan of splitting NRHP list-articles up too much, when they can easily be sorted by town. Note, the useful Google/Bing map links work well with up to 200 places, and article size is not a problem at lower than, say 120 kb articles. I only see that 200 NRHPs is worth avoiding, so that the Bing maps won't cut off at 200 coordinates without giving notice (an unannounced feature/bug). Also, I don't happen to like article titles that include parenthetical expressions unnecessarily, as in (my perception of the non-necessity), in National Register of Historic Places listings in Hempstead (town), New York. If you are working to fix up those town and county list-articles in other ways, i don't want to stand in your way, and I don't want to assert that my preferences are better than yours. However, I for one won't particularly value it if you are intending to extend a splitting program to other areas. Again, it is great that you are developing those Long Island lists. Is there some specific question or feedback that you are looking for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by doncram (talk • contribs) 19:11, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
I understand what you're saying regarding the title format, but it's still important to distinguish the towns from the villages and hamlets with the same names. I'm not going to call them National Register of Historic Places listings in Hempstead, New York, or National Register of Historic Places listings in Oyster Bay, New York, because somebody is liable to think that they might refer strictly to the Village of Hempstead or the Hamlet of Oyster Bay respectivley. Anyway, while the Nassau County NRHP list wasn't 120kb, it still took a long time to load. The same goes for the Westchester County NRHP list. ----DanTD (talk) 22:21, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
The large number of images is what's causing slow loading. 120 kb isn't a problem at all without images. --Polaron | Talk 22:42, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you'd split up Westchester, given that I already split off Yonkers. There is a tendency within the county to divide it into northern (the more rural areas north of White Plains) and southern (urban and suburban communities between White Plains and New York City). Is it also possible to create a separate list for New Rochelle? How many listings are in that city? Daniel Case (talk) 16:40, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Historic district categories crisis

Hey, some editors are busy developing and adding to categories of the format "Category:Historic districts in State", and including that into parent NRHP category, and deleting the NRHP category in some NRHP HD articles (or at least one article, Main Street Historic District (Middletown, Connecticut)). This tends towards removing 14,000 NRHP HDs from NRHP categories! It is plain wrong to assume that all historic districts in states are included in the NRHP. There can be local historic districts. Even if all the current members of a state category are NRHP-listed, the system is not stable and the naming does not preclude the addition of local historic districts. So, IMO categories like Category:Historic districts in Connecticut, etc, have to be removed from the NRHP parent category, and then some NRHP HDs are dropped out of NRHP categories. (Actually i removed some such Historic districts in State categories from NRHP parent categories before, but didn't notice others coming back and adding them in again until just now.)

Is this a crisis? Well, who really cares about categories, so it can't really be a crisis. But still, how can this situation now be fixed?

In my view, if you add "Category:Historic districts in State" to an NRHP HD article, you can't drop the NRHP category for the article! And, all the Historic districts in State categories need to be revisited to drop from parent NRHP. doncram (talk) 04:58, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it is not so very widespread an issue. But i did just notice User:Altairisfar had re-added Category:Historic districts in Alabama to the NRHP parent category, with comment pointing out that all the AL then-current members were NRHP-listed. Since local historic districts could be added, i think the AL state HD category should not be included in the parent NRHP category. What are opinions for other states? doncram (talk) 05:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Why not just create Category:Locally designated historic districts in Alabama for those? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 06:23, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
I re-added Category:National Register of Historic Places in Alabama due to the fact that now the NRHP-designated historic districts do not show up at all in Alabama's NRHP category. All of the articles in Category:Historic districts in Alabama are NRHP designated and that's what I had in mind when I created it. For instance, Marion Courthouse Square Historic District is in both the Historic districts in the United States and the Historic districts in Alabama categories(which makes little sense, IMO), but it now has no NRHP categories. This really should only be an issue if and when new articles about non-NRHP historic districts in Alabama are created, which is doubtful in the case of Alabama. If you "must allow for non-NRHP districts," then you need to come up with a category that will place the articles in question back into the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama category tree. Do we really need a Category:Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama? That, Dudemanfellabra's suggestion, or adding the parent category Category:National Register of Historic Places in Alabama to each individual article, are about the only viable alternatives that I see. Altairisfartalk 14:32, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
The "Historic districts in the United States" category added by the NRHP infobox is supposed to go away soon, as soon as several editors working on adding the state categories are finished, I believe.
FYI (clarification), the "Historic districts in the United States" category will still exist, but it will mostly hold categories. It will no longer be automagically added by the infobox and it will no longer hold 3000+ individual pages. --Orlady (talk) 16:38, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Ah, Altairisfar, now i understand your edit summary from 19 June within the Historic districts in Alabama category history. Hmm. In other states, "Historic districts in State" will include local districts, so that type of category name should not be included in the NRHP parent category for any state, IMO. I agree, there are two alternatives:
I think that the first will make for a more solution that some will find more elegant in terms of having just one category not two for each individual NRHP HD article, and then I think future editors would tend to go in that direction, so I guess i would prefer to go that way now. But that would mean more work now: wherever "Historic districts in State" has been added recently it would need to be changed. (Actually, a bot could do the conversion in all the NRHP HD articles within the nation-wide category, easily, if there is consensus that this is the way to go.) doncram (talk) 16:18, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
  • For reasons indicated below, I strongly endorse Doncram's option 2. Option 1 would be a large amount of effor for almost no beneficial purpose. --Orlady (talk) 16:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
[EC] My apologies for my role in creating this situation. My involvement in this started because Category:Historic districts in the United States had become humongous, largely because the NRHP infobox automagically puts all NRHP historic districts there. In order to be able to move HDs into state-specific categories instead, I created a bunch of new state-specific categories and patterned them after an existing state-specific category -- probably the one for Massachusetts -- that placed the HD category in the state NRHP category. Also, when I found an existing category that didn't match the model I was following, I edited it to match.
It looks to me, however, like the underlying issue here is not specific to HDs. I see that many National Register properties are being moved out of categories defined solely by geography and moved into categories defined by some combination of property type and geography. Thus, a house in Alabama that is in a county without a county-specific or city-specific NRHP category is now no longer listed in Category:National Register of Historic Places in Alabama or any other NRHP category defined solely by geography, but is only listed in Category:Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama. After seeing how this affects category navigation, I think that's a mistake. It creates great confusion for people using categories to find articles. If a house in Hale County, Alabama (which has no county NRHP category) is listed on the NRHP, IMO it should be listed in both the general Alabama NRHP category and the category for houses in Alabama on the NRHP until such time as Category:National Register of Historic Places in Hale County, Alabama is created.
Since not all historic districts are on the National Register, the HD categories are not necessarily subsets of the NRHP categories. However, I think this is a fairly minor issue, since relatively few local jurisdictions designate HDs and most locally designated HDs are also on the National Register. If NRHP Wikiproject aficionados can tolerate the possibility of having NRHP categories include HD categories that might include some non-NRHP-listed HDs, then the HD categories could be included in NRHP categories. If that's unacceptable to the aficionados, then it's just doubly important for any historic district that's listed on the National Register be listed in both an HD category and a National-Register-by-geography category. --Orlady (talk) 16:34, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
For some reason geographic categories at the county-level hadn't even crossed my mind. I'll leave the HD issue to you all and create county-level NRHP categories for the Alabama properties. Altairisfartalk 17:17, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Graphical example of categories

(outdent) Historic district (United States) claims that there are about 2,300 local historic districts. While this may be small in comparison to the many thousands of NRHP HDs, 2,300 is a pretty big number that deserves some attention. Of course all those districts don't have their own articles at the time being (I don't even know of one), but in the long term, let's say they eventually all have articles. One possible solution (using Alabama as the example) would be as follows:

  1. Category:National Register of Historic Places and Category:Historic districts in the United States would be "top-level" categories.
  2. Category:Federal historic districts in the United States (which would contain NRHP HDs) would be a subcategory of both categories, and Category:Local historic districts in the United States (which would contain non-NRHP HDs) would be a subcategory of only the "Historic districts" category and not the NRHP category.
  3. Category:Historic districts in Alabama would be a subcategory of Category:Historic districts in the United States but not a subcategory of Category:National Register of Historic Places.
  4. Category:Federal historic districts in Alabama would be a subcategory of Category:Federal historic districts in the United States and of Category:Historic districts in Alabama.
  5. Category:Local historic districts in Alabama (if needed) would be a subcategory of Category:Local historic districts in the United States and of Category:Historic districts in Alabama

This separates the "historic districts" term from the "NRHP" term at the top level, keeping the two separate all the way down to the state (and lower) level. Each state will have a category "Category:Historic districts in State" that will contain "Category:Federal historic districts in state". The federal category will only contain NRHP articles, so it will be a subcategory of "Category:National Register of Historic Places in State" as well.

Category:Local historic districts in the United States would hold all local districts in all states at first and would be a subcategory of only Category:Historic districts in the United States. If at some point in the future, we needed to split up the local districts category into state-level categories, those state-level categories (i.e. "Category:Local historic districts in State") would be a subcategory of "Category:Historic districts in State" but not of "Category:National Register of Historic Places in State".

A district in Alabama that is both on the NRHP and locally designated would include Category:Federal historic districts in Alabama and Category:Local historic districts in the United States as of now, but if Category:Local historic districts in Alabama is created, the article would be placed in that category and removed from the "Local historic districts in the US" category. A district that is only locally designated will only include Category:Local historic districts in the United States right now, but if Category:Local historic districts in Alabama is created it will be moved to the state level category and removed from the US category.

I included an image showing how the category "tree" would look for Alabama.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:57, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

It looks at first like it is going to be complicated, to understand the tree you provide, but it is exactly correct and I don't think it is hard at all to implement in practice. I like the "Federal historic districts in State" wording suggestion.
Orlady's point about keeping 2 categories in each article, so one can be further subdivided geographically by county (and Altairisfar's endorsement of that) seem compelling in favor of option 1 for many states. But wherever there are local historic districts, implementing option 2 also with Dudemanfellabra's suggested wording, seems appropriate, too. They're not mutually exclusive. Is there any decision that actually has to be made here? doncram (talk) 04:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I've completed creating geographical categories for all of the existing Alabama NRHP articles. There are now 44 county subcategories of Category:National Register of Historic Places in Alabama by county and 3 city subcategories of Category:National Register of Historic Places in Alabama by city The city categories are included in their respective county category. I only did the 3 largest cities since most of the others had only a handful of articles so far. Altairisfartalk 21:54, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

A question I don't see addressed here is, are local historic districts notable? I've been to a couple of places where they have big signs saying "Welcome to the Downtown Podunk Historic District" when my experience in many NRHP-listed HDs assures me that while maybe a couple of buildings might be worth a listing, the whole neighborhood isn't. I can see doing HD articles for ones designated in large cities, but most of those are eventually listed on the NRHP anyway. Daniel Case (talk) 16:36, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

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