User:Doncram/Recipe

Recipe for Editing NRHP articles, especially ones that are NHLs

Here's a recipe for creating a new article about a NRHP, with special focus on NRHPs that are also National Historic Landmark. This can be used as a checklist in editing existing articles.

Establish name for the article

• Find existing references in Wikipedia to the landmark. Perhaps an article already exists, under a variation of the name. An article about a historic person may already include a link to the person's house that is your landmark, or it may already include a long section on the person's house. If you go on to create a separate article, you will want to edit links from each existing article referring to the landmark.
• Find the National Historic Landmark summary listing at the National Park Service. The name it gives for the site may or may not be the common name that you want to use for the article. For example, it gives "Fort Johnson", while the common name preferred for an article name is Old Fort Johnson. You will list alternative names for the site in your article. The NRHP infobox name will carry the historic, NHL name, which can be different. See, for example Eagle Rock Community Cultural Center.
• Consider
• For sites that are an official New York State Historic Site, the common

Create the article

From a related article, perhaps List of National Historic Landmarks in New York, create a link to the name of the article to be created. Follow the link to the new, blank article.

For the NRHP infobox

• Open a window onto the National Park Service NHL search site, at http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/default.cfm
• Search for your NHL site there. Try older names for the site.
• Open a window onto Elkman's NRHP infobox generator, at http://www2.elkman.net/nrhp/infobox.php
• It may generate infobox text for several sites that include the keyword that you search on. Search for your infobox information there. If you know the site's REFNUM already, you can search specifically for that site. However, searching on the site's name may lead you to multiple listings that are relevant and which you want to find out about, sooner rather than later. It may be that there was a boundary increase, so there are 2 relevant REFNUMS for the same article. Or for a HISTORIC DISTRICT spanning more than one township, there will be multiple separate results for each town.
• Paste the relevant result(s) into your new article and begin your editing.
• Note the reference that is attached to the refnum entry. Cut and paste that from the refnum to attach it to the Added equals date, instead. (In one editor's opinion, the date is a fact that a reader can wonder about, and there is mild value in providing a citation to address that. The reference number is not in question and does not need to be supported. Attaching the reference to the REFNUM may seem to serve to support all the info in the infobox, especially if it is the last item in the infobox. But there will be different sources for different pieces of data in the infobox, soon.)
• Edit the town location from being, say, "Poughkeepsie, NY" to being "Poughkeepsie, New York" so that it will display properly.
• Further, perhaps in a separate Wikipedia window, check the town article that you are targeting. Be careful to distinguish between cities/villages and towns in New York where they both have the same name. Linking to "Poughkeepsie, New York" just gets you to the disambiguation page (Almost all of Poughkeepsie's NHLs are located outside of the city, in the town, so you want to link to "Poughkeepsie (town), New York" in that case.)
• If there will not immediately be a photo in the infobox, insert "locmapin equals New York" so that it will be a New York State map that is automatically displayed based on latitude and longitude coordinates, rather than a United States map.
• If an architect name is given, it will be in Last Name, Comma, First Name format. Edit that into Firstname Lastname and make it into a link to the architect article (existing or to be created).
• If an architectural style is given, edit a link to the architectural style article. For example, replace "Greek Revival" by "Greek Revival".
• Add the NHL designation date:
• Cut and paste the following: designated equals

For main body of text

• Enter a basic one or two sentence description of the site.
• Include a mention of NHL, to which footnotes giving NHL info can be appended, for example: "It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1971."

Get the original nomination or registration document for the site

• This should be possible on-line for most NHLs.
• If it is not available on-line, email to the National Park Service to request a hard-copy to be mailed to you. Takes about two weeks. (Can one scan and post that document?)
• Find the original nomination or registration document and edit a reference to it:
  • Open a window onto the National Park Service http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreghome.do?searchtype=natreghome
  • Search for the site, using the NHL name and other old names, to find its original nomination or registration text. The search system is quirky, to say the least, so your providing a direct link to the documents adds value to the article. The quirkiness occurs especially when it yields a list of several possible links. (For example, searching for "Old Main" at Vassar College. Searching on "main" in "New York" yields three or four links, but clicking on "Main Building, Vassar College" does not go through. However, searching on "Vassar" yields just the one link, which goes through). So try searching on a different word so that your desired site comes up first in the list, then the link is more likely to go through to the desired documents. If that doesn't work, try editing a link to the REFNUM-based name that you can figure the document should have, and test that. (For example, "Sagamore" in New York is yielded by the system but the dynamic link provided does not load. However entering the REFNUM based name into a draft article, selecting Preview, then following that link, works to yield an informative 41 page nomination document and a set of 8 beautiful photos, well worth the effort.)

You may end up with no original document from the on-line system, though.

• • Assuming you find it, then download the text document, jotting down as it downloads what is the size of the file, for example 421 KB, or 1.1 MB.
  • Cut and paste a referencing of these sources, for example from the text of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton House article, and edit:
  • Edit the reference to your site's reference number.
  • Edit the filesize recorded, in KB. Record 421 KB or 1100 KB, for example.
  • Edit the name of the site.
  • In the text of the nomination or registration, find the preparer's name and date (usually section 11). Edit those in.
  • Use that preparation date to edit the date field in the reference to the text and in the reference to the photos.
  • Download the photos document, jotting down its filesize as it downloads.
  • Edit photos document filesize.
  • View the photos, noting how many. Edit the description of the photos, for example "Accompanying 6 photos, exterior and interior, from 1975." Usually the first page is a big photo, on its own with no preceding title. Without your description mentioning that there are more photos, many readers will not think to page down and find them. Also your description gives readers a sense of whether it is worthwhile for them to go through the download, which could take some time on slow connections. Photo set sizes range from 1 to 50(?) and filesizes range up to ___KB, for _____.

Formatting PDF file references

This is not easy to get right, I don't have it figured out properly. An old example of my work: ,

A combo example:

A newer example is:

External Links section

• Search at New York State
• For a New York City site, check...

Categories

Add ""WikiProject National Register of Historic Places|class=stub"" If it's in NYS but not NYC, add ""WikiProject New York|class=|importance="" If it's in NYC, add {{class=stub}}

Find and connect to any corresponding FEDERAL, STATE and LOCAL landmark designations

• Check National Park Service listing of national parks that are Historic Sites and Monuments for your state. For new york, for example, New York state list of National Parks, Monuments, etc
• Check (which website at NYS?) to see if your site is also a state historic site, or a state park
  • If so, add "Category:New York state historic sites" or similar
  • If so, add State website as a reference (if you rely upon it within your main text) or as an external links. See Schuyler Mansion for a nice example of a reference footnote.
• Check (which website at NYC?) to see if your site is also a local historic site or park
  • If so, add "Category:New York City historic sites" (does that exist?) or similar
  • If so, add the local website to your external links

Blue Links

• Check all the wikilinks you have created, to see that they go to proper destinations, rather than to disambiguation pages.

Links In

• Go check the RHP lists for each county and update the name/link there (especially if you have renamed /moved your article). Add a link if there is none.
• Visit the articles on towns and locations that your site is associated with. Insert links to your article.
• Visit the articles on persons associated with your site, and add links.

For Landmark that is a SHIP or a SHIPWRECK

In response to my question, copied in at my Talk page:

Hi - You can find a conversation at Template_talk:DANFS#Link_parameter_added that should help you. And thanks very much for fixing the List of Liberty ships. That was a better alternative all around. --Brad (talk) 01:23, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Copied in from WP:SHIPS talk:

Hello Doncram! This is the web site for the Naval Vessel Register. If you click the "Quickfind" link you can search for ships by type or by the first letter of their name. This is the Navy's web site for DANFS. Click on the first letter of the ship's name to work your way to the ship's specific page. This is Hazegray.org's copy of DANFS; it was most useful before the Navy had all of DANFS online, but at this time I think the Navy's is a better resource because it continues to be updated. Please let us know if you have any more questions. TomTheHand (talk) 01:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

End of copying.

Proper display of USN ship names is to have the name italicized but the prefix and designation in plain text. Maralia wanted to point out an easier way to format these:

{{USS|Maine|ACR-1}} will produce USS Maine (ACR-1).

That displays properly and makes a link. She noted: "It's a fair bit less typing than [[USS Maine (ACR-1)|USS ''Maine'' (ACR-1)]], so if you can remember it, it's a good shortcut." Thanks, Maralia!

For ships,

• • the nomination document may be a "Maritime Heritage of the United States Theme Study--Large Vessels Registration", rather than, say, a NRHP Inventory-Registration, and should be described accordingly. See, for example, ...
  • If it is a museum ship, add "Category: Museum Ships of the United States" and go to somewhere and add it to the world-wide list of museum ships.
  • The notation {{ship-stub}} can be added to the article.
  • Add request for someone to create a ship infobox, can be added to the Talk page. (Where, if anywhere, are such requests listed, or does it just show here in your talk page?)
• For a shipwreck, add to wikiproject on shipwrecks. See, for example, ...

For Landmark that is a HISTORIC DISTRICT

• • If the district crosses town lines, as does Erie Canal (National Historic Landmark), the Elkman infobox generator will generate multiple separate listings, one for each town name. For the location field in your infobox, you want a list of the towns. So, manually edit in each town name.
  • Consider working in a link to historic district article.

For Landmark that is a BATTLEGROUND or is where a BATTLE was fought

• Usually there will already be a Wikipedia article about the battle itself. (If the site is of note because of a battle, the battle is of first interest. And war history wikipedians seem to be more numerous and to have been at it longer than the historic site wikipedians.)
• Consider adding NRHP information to the battle article without creating a separate article. Usually, however, it would detract from the battle article to have too much information about the historic site. Within a separate article, you may include a short summary of the battle, but make sure you refer readers back to the battle article for more detail about the battle.
• Edit a link to your new article from the corresponding article about the battle itself.
• Add category: "Category:American Revolutionary War sites" if applicable.
• Consider adding {{US-mil-hist-stub}} to your article

For PRODUCING MORE THAN ONE ARTICLE: Tips for streamlining your production

• Bookmark each of the initial search windows. If your browser includes tabbing, such as Firefox does, bookmark each into one folder labelled "My Wikipedia editing" or similarly.

This recipe is a work-in-progress. doncram 18:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC), doncram 01:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC), doncram 06:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC) doncram 17:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC), doncram 17:44, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

An infobox option Ruhrfisch was considering for Joseph Priestley House article

copied from User:Ruhrfisch/frog1. inserted into article by double squiggle bracketing that location.