Talk:Jackson County Courthouse

Promiscuous RedLinks

I cleaned up the accompanying Dab, with the edit summary

clean out underbrush; comment out entries w/ no evidence of notability

A colleague has reverted character for character to the horrible previous revision, summarizing

they have to be notable to be on NRHP

Two things need to be said immediately:

1. The colleague has almost certainly committed a fallacy of equivocation, since WP:N makes no mention of ""Historic" nor "Register" nor "NRHP".
2. They have also neglected what i consider due diligence, since neither the semicolon nor my "comment[ing] out" rather than simply "remov[ing]" seems consistent with failing to address either the separate point i made in the comments,

   towns do not help enuf to Dab to justify the clutter, unless, as in MO, there are *two* courthouses; in any case, the towns may not be linked to from here.

   or the more detailed argument next to the commented-out material:

   The two examples above, and the 6 NRHP ones below, demonstrate that NRHP is far from sufficient to show notability. If some of those below, or other not on NRHP, *are* notable either write at least a stub article, or say why someone else should create an article, before putting any of these back out of comments.

The indiscriminate reversion has also restored numerous additional unacceptable features of the previous revision, many of them deprecated by WP:MoSDab, but also including a lead sent that is absolutely unacceptable for a Dab (and probably for an article with the title and similar content) and replacement of a lk to an article by a lk to a Rdr to the article.
As to the notability of the rdlk'd 3/4 of the articles, the presumption of their n-n'ity based on their two year's existence without even a stub appearing is rebuttable, but such rebuttal is in order for each entry.
--Jerzy•t 06:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Places on the U.S. National Register are pretty much de facto notable. A little bit research would show that. These articles will be written regardless, but evidence of their notability could be found the Register nomination form, which is a high-quality source for any listing on the NRHP. IvoShandor (talk) 21:56, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Since there are so many Jackson Counties, I think some deference should be given to this DAB page. Readers are likely to find this page when looking for one of the buildings for which there is not yet an article. Showing a more complete list, even with red links will clarify the situation, whereas a list of only two blue links will likely confuse the reader.--Appraiser (talk) 23:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Jerzy has a reasonable point though, as i gather they have been sitting there for 2 years as red-links. I kinda dislike redlinks sitting out there like that, too. And i even dislike these red-links more, as they use naming conventions that are not up to date. "Jackson County Courthouse (Arkansas)" should be "Jackson County Courthouse (Newport, Arkansas)", instead, and so on, to be compatible with other NRHP site names. If this is not in the NRHP style guidelines, it should be.

And Jerzy suggested that at least a stub article should be created before moving one of the commented-out items back into visibility. That seems reasonable. Jerzy, sorry, if you feel we come at you in kind of a mob. Several of us do know each other over in WP:NRHP, and we do have shared belief that any NRHP is a notable NRHP. Guys, let's just do what he suggests!  :) doncram (talk) 00:16, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I would like to defend the initial "colleague" in question on the charge of "fallacy of equivocation" - words that address the colleague's argument rather than person, but which are nevertheless burdened with some unfortunate connotations. The colleague was not substituting the word "historic" for "notable" as Jerzy has assumed. Instead, the colleague intended to convey that by the fact of placement on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), these buildings have already been vetted for notability. The statutory criteria of the NRHP explicitly require that sites have a measure of national, state, or local significance (a much easier synonym for "notable" than is "historic"). Furthermore the administrative process for listing sites on the NRHP requires completion of a semi-scholarly research paper that is filed by the NRHP and made available to the public. This paper is required to include verifiable references, and qualifies as a reliable secondary source under Wikipedia guidelines. In short, a building is not listed on the NRHP unless it meets Wikipedia's notability criterion, and we may assume that any site found on the NRHP is therefore notable for Wikipedia purposes. These are issues which have been discussed extensively among the NRHP WikiProject members, and which the colleague attempted to compress into a single edit summary. Jerzy - or any other Wikipedian who has not participated in WP:NRHP - may absolutely be forgiven for not reading all this background into a few short words, and the colleague was guilty of being too brief. But the colleague certainly was not equivocating.

Be all that as it may, Doncram is the voice of reason here. If the problem can be resolved by creating articles for each of these buildings, then it should be done. Ipoellet (talk) 01:14, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I perhaps should have thought further about the wider use of "equivocation" as a form of dishonesty, compared to the usage that i lk'd, a fallacy that need not involve intent to deceive.

My real point is that the politics of whether something gets on NRHP is very different from the politics of whether it survives AfD; both systems are surely in some degree corrupt, but AfD is governed by our corruption.

In any case, i like the way the Dab is shaping up, but in my critique against the lks to the placenames i had no intention of objecting to the NRHP labels (see my version), which may aid Dab'n, as in the case (if i understand correctly) Kansas City vs. Independence, depending on the detail in the source or excerpt the user is working from. And do bear in mind that Jackson County Court Houses that are not historically notable, and not yet listed, may turn encyclopedically notable, e.g. if their construction turns out to have been the basis of the scandal that brings on the next gubernatorial resignation.
--Jerzy•t 05:05, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad the discussion and results turned out as they did. I should, probably, have explained my reversion better. But I knew others could explain more eloquently than I, and am glad such occurred. :)

When I created this disambig page almost a year and a half ago, I hoped the requisite articles would be created sooner than this. But with the number of entries on the Register (I think it's over 80,000), I knew it would take a while. Well, at least this one's down. But this doesn't solve all the other courthouse disambig pages, or church disambig pages, etc. The Register does like adding similarly named properties. Hmm, perhaps a discussion for the project page??? --Ebyabe (talk) 14:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

It's good to see all these articles. Thanks Don, and perhaps others. Is there a convention for the sequence on the DAB page? They don't appear to be in any logical order.--Appraiser (talk) 15:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it was only me creating the articles, plus Katr67(?) fixed up one responding to my request at Talk of WP:NRHP. You're right, should be in a logical sequence, i just tried putting them into alphabetical order by state.

What should be said about disambiguation pages in the draft NRHP style guide? We already have a statement to the effect that ambiguous place names should be made specific by appending (City, State) to the name, though perhaps not as eloquently worded.  :) Maybe a separate mention of disambiguation pages, and to point out that providing links to existing articles clearly adds value for readers and editors. Not sure what to say about the value of red-links.

To show my ignorance, by the way, what is a DAB and what is a dablink? I know those must have to do with disambiguation, but i don't know what the specific terms mean. Like, is Jackson County Courthouse a dab? If DA is for DisAmbiguate, what is the B. And like, is a dablink something that points to Jackson County Courthouse, or something within Jackson County Courthouse that points to specific ones like Jackson County Courthouse (Medford, Oregon)? doncram (talk) 19:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Glossary#Disambiguation. re: "Katr67?" I didn't respond to your message at WP:NRHP, I don't watch that page. I found it by checking "what links here" on the courthouse article, which I found when checking here. Here's the page history, too since you don't seem sure it was me who fixed the page. I usually arrange U.S. things with identical titles alphabetically by state--that seems to the convention. You can read more at WP:MOSDAB (WikiPedia Manual Of Style: DisAmBiguation). I can't speak for the other state WikiProjects, many of which aren't very active, but if there is ever any question about an Oregon-related topic, feel free to drop us a note on our talk page and someone should get back to you soon. Cheers, Katr67 (talk) 21:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Katr67. Although the glossary doesn't clarify everything for me, it doesn't matter, let's just say i am clear now. :) Sorry about the ambiguous question mark , i should have put it in as (sp?) because i just meant i wasn't sure how to spell your name, whether the number was 67 or not. I did understand and appreciate that you had come in to help out the article. Amazing to me that you can watch a category covering all of a whole WikiProject, if i am understanding it correctly. My mind would explode i think if i did that for WP:NRHP :( Thanks again for fixing up my sorry stub there. P.S. Never mentioned it, but I like the thread name of Promiscous RedLinks. doncram (talk) 22:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

new revisions and MOSDAB questions

An editor just revised this Jackson County Courthouse disambig to strip out identification of the NRHP mentions, and otherwise. I noted to the editor's Talk page that i assume the editor is unaware of a recent indepth discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#what is wp:NRHP doing wrong RE disambiguation?. That was a discussion in which i asked for and received guidance. This Jackson County Courthouse dab had eventually developped into full compliance with wikiproject and wp:MOSDAB I believe.

In particular, there was detailed guidance from disambiguation wikiproject members that somewhat repetitive mentions (like of NRHP listing) is appropriate.

So, I will look at whether there is some small change to be made about the non-NRHP entries in the list, but overall i will basically revert the changes now. Please discuss here, and/or we could expand the thread about NRHP at the WikiProject talk page. doncram (talk) 15:46, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I did restore nearly the previous version, but re-implemented Propaniac's helpful change of intro phrase to "may refer to" as recommended in MOS:DP which seems to be another shortcut to what i have been referring to as wp:MOSDAB. All entries have exactly one bluelink, which i understood to be perhaps the main concern previously with many dab pages involving NRHP sites. I believe the NRHP entries here are fully compliant; it happens that there is an article for each one, so no red-link issues.

Comments about how to describe the one non-NRHP entry here would be welcome. It was described in the dab, by me, as "a courthouse where Harry S. Truman worked". I thought that was probably the salient fact to mention, but I would be fine if someone wanted to change that. That one is apparently historical but not NRHP-listed, perhaps for lesser architectural merit or for extensive modifications that undermine its historical integrity. Stating for each of the others that they are NRHP-listed seems to be the correct thing to do, in part so that as new non-NRHP courthouses get added it will be clear which are the ones notable for their architecture or other history signified very briefly by mentio of their NRHP listing. Will watch here for any comments. doncram (talk) 16:01, 20 October 2008 (UTC)