Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 44

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In the district, on the Register, but not contributing?

Here's another interesting situation. I used to wonder if it was possible for a building to be historic enough to be on the Register in its own right, but also within the boundaries of a historic district yet not considered a contributing property by virtue of not being as old as the surrounding buildings.

I wonder no more. I never thought that I'd find the proof of concept in my own work: U.S. Post Office (Albion, New York). Built in 1937 and listed in 1988 as part of New York's huge TR listing of present and former post offices all over the state, nine years earlier it had been deemed too new to be contributing to the Orleans County Courthouse Historic District, whose period of significance ends in 1910 when almost all of that section of downtown Albion was built (and of which two Greek Revival houses were demolished to clear the way for the post office during the Depression). The NRHP nom for the post office makes pretty clear that it even though it may get listed it is still not a contributing property.

So, any other instances of this we know about? I'm going to make a DYK hook out of this, and I'd like to know how unique it is. Daniel Case (talk) 05:31, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

[Original research coming] I can't remember where I've encountered this, but I know I've found it before, and I can't remember ever hearing of Albion, New York before. It's probably not extremely rare, especially in the East where a building might be old and well-preserved enough for the Register but located in a far older district. I'd guess that you could find situations like this in cities such as Boston or Philadelphia, because you could probably find at least one building in each that is rather historic but two centuries newer than all those surrounding it. Nyttend (talk) 13:14, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Also, the Orleans County Courthouse Historic District was designated in 1979, when the U.S. Post Office (Albion, New York) was only 42 years old, and thus ineligible for inclusion on the Register. It's possible that were the district designated in 1989 rather than 1979, the post office may have been included. Andrew Jameson (talk) 13:31, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Building on Andrew's point — you might want to look through various boundary increases. I'd suspect that boundaries are often increased because intrusions become old enough to be added, and it's probably happened in other situations that an intrusion is individually nominated to the Register before the boundaries are increased to include it. Nyttend (talk) 13:46, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

The boundary has never been changed, I know that (which brings to mind that it could have been, or even originally drawn to exclude the post office (it was very easy to exclude Troy, New York's incongruous modernist soon-to-be-former city hall from the Central Troy Historic District which otherwise surrounds it on three sides). The fact that it was included in the first place when it wouldn't have created any problems otherwise to exclude it (as opposed to the other non-contributing property, the county jail, smack in the middle of the district and impossible to exclude) makes me wonder if there was some debate locally about whether to include it that was settled by drawing it into the district so they could revisit the issue later. But, also, the post office (>50 years wasn't an issue ... some of those other NY POs hadn't quite reached that age when they were listed) doesn't fit into the district's narrative, so I doubt they'll decide to include it. Daniel Case (talk) 16:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusing wording; I was trying to answer your initial question of "any other instances", rather than telling you to see whether the Albion HD's boundaries had been increased to include the post office. I suspect that there are other places in which a boundary increase has been made to change an already-listed property from noncontributing to contributing. Nyttend (talk) 18:14, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, that depends on all the nomination forms being available. The scenario you suggest does remind of the Mill Street-North Clover Street Historic District in Poughkeepsie, which got me a DYK by virtue of a boundary increase made to include some buildings slated for demolition when the district was created that were later spared. Daniel Case (talk) 18:59, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

The Healy Chapel in Aurora, Illinois is a non-contributing property for the West Side Historic District (Aurora, Illinois). The building was old enough to be included (and was already on the NRHP), but the nominators did not believe that it fit in with the theme of the West Side district. Teemu08 (talk) 20:13, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:MPS

The MPS documents are available on the NPS Focus site. They can be found at http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/xxxxxxxx.pdf . Just replace the x's with the 8-digit refnum. The chart at WP:MPS needs to have the links changed from the old NRIS to the new NPS Focus. Einbierbitte (talk) 22:22, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

They should all be fixed? I changed them all a few days ago. If any are linking to the incorrect link, they're the ones that were recently added.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 23:06, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I asked both of you for help at the same time; Dudeman just saw the request first. Nyttend (talk) 01:18, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Florida NRHP stub template

The Florida NRHP stub template is now: Florida-NRHP-struct-stub , rather than

. Elkman's tool still generates the incorrect one. I've corrected all the ones I found by what links to the old template. clariosophic (talk) 22:09, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

FYI, there's also a Florida-NRHP-district-stub. --Ebyabe (talk) 22:20, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Naming conventions for United States federal buildings

Opinions are requested at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Naming conventions for United States federal buildings, which affects this project to the extent that it deals with Congressional naming legislation, and buildings relating to this project. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:14, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I would like to see more opinions expressed at this discussion, which has relatively few editorial voices involved in determining an issue with broad reach. I believe that RFC's are traditionally kept open for a month, so opinions may be still posted for a few weeks. Cheers bd2412 T 19:13, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I'm not married to either proposal. I've not responded b/c it would amount to, "Whatever, dudes." So fine by me, either way. --Ebyabe (talk) 23:41, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

NHLs that are not NRHP-listed?

User:BD2412 has been digging around about the United States Supreme Court Building ‎ and the United States Capitol buildings, and it turns out they seem to have an odd status. I had said in a discussion that he was wrong in asserting they were NRHP-listed, because they seemed not to be. They're not in NRIS. They don't show up in PDF Focus (the Supreme Court ones there turn out to be in Puerto Rico and West Virginia). BD2412 found this NRHP travel itinerary webpage about the Supreme Court building though, and similar for the US Capitol, and has further pointed out they are National Historic Landmarks. Their NHL webpages (here and here give NRHP reference numbers. So should or shouldn't they be NRHP-listed? --doncram (talk) 02:59, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I would have said that if they have NRHP reference numbers then they are on the NRHP. Further, I would have said that I believe that the policy is that all NHLs are automatically NRHPs. Not so - reading the travel itinerary webpages (both - at the bottom), I read:

" The White House, U.S. Supreme Court Building, U.S. Capitol, and related buildings and grounds are legally exempted from listing in the National Register of Historic Places, according to the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966."

So unless somebody has evidence that the law has changed - they are NOT. BTW, I'd guess the law has something to do with separation of powers - the President - via the NPS - shouldn't be able to tell the Supreme Court or the Congress what they can do on their own turf, and the Congress - via funding the NPS - shouldn't be able to tell the President what to do on his turf. But, of course, I'm not a constitutional scholar... Smallbones (talk) 03:49, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the research, Smallbones. That is an odd status; you'd think that the three branches could come to some sort of agreement to have them placed on the Register without a separation of powers issue. By the way, I remember reading on Wikipedia a good long time ago that the White House was the only NHL not listed on the Register; any idea if this were stated in one of our project pages, or a mainspace article? Nyttend (talk) 15:39, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I emailed Edson Beall at the NPS a month or so ago to ask about the Supreme Court building (he's the contact who's given in the weekly listings), but I didn't receive a response. He's usually pretty good about getting back to me when I have questions. I'll follow up and will post his response here (assuming I get one). --sanfranman59 (talk) 01:40, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Every time I see that name, I think of Calvin Beale, forgetting that they're spelled differently...Nyttend (talk) 15:34, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Fully illustrated lists

I've taken the liberty to combine the 4 Denver lists - that are now all fully illustrated - into one entry on the list of Fully Illustrated Lists (FIL), with 286 pix. Kudos to User:Denverjeffrey who took the bulk of the photos, which are very high quality. As usual, User:Nyttend was working behind the scenes and the list wouldn't have been completed without him.

Given that 286 would have been at the top of the list (when combined), I thought I should also combine Wayne County, Michigan and Detroit (part of Wayne County), to put it at the top of the list with 305. User:Andrew Jameson deserves great credit for his work on these lists. If anybody objects to combining these lists in the FIL, now is the time to let us know.

I can't say how important I think it is to complete the illustrations in places such as Detroit and Denver. What could be more educational or encyclopedic? Given some of the problems the NRHP has in putting its material online (see above), who could do this better than Wikipedia? Smallbones (talk) 17:54, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the combining is very helpful and great for conveying recognition where due. This is great stuff. I agree wholeheartedly about the educational and encyclopedic value of these! --doncram (talk) 03:44, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Cut and Paste citation

Given that the NPS has now completely shut down the old www.nr.nps.gov website... I must request that members of this project stop linking to it in their standard "cut and paste" citation. Especially when it comes to sourcing new articles. I realize that there is still some debate as to what to cite in its place, but that is no excuse for continuing to cite a website that no longer exists. Blueboar (talk) 18:55, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

While I agree with you that we need to find a new citation (but the discussion has basically stalled), I don't think we should remove the citation from existing articles and leave information unsourced. I think a better alternative would be that we continue to use Elkman's infobox generator for new articles but remove the NRIS citation from its output and replace it with outside sources. As such, we would need to stop creating one-sentence stubs based only on Elkman's NRIS output (something a few editors have been griping about for a long time now) and find outside sources, which can be used to expand the stubs further.

Also, if we started a big drive to expand existing NRIS-only stubs with outside sources, technically we'd be killing two birds with one stone.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:57, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

It's a published reliable source, just no longer online. Not linking to it anymore is reasonable, but citing it still makes sense for those who have read the source, just as surely as citing a book. Ntsimp (talk) 20:02, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

What am eminently sensible solution, if I might say. How about something like:

{{citation|url=|title=National Register Information System|date=2009-03-13|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service}}

which would yield:

"National Register Information System", National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service, 2009-03-13

A possibility would be to have a bot do a search-and-replace. The nice thing about the "citation" template is it's multi-purpose. All the "cite web" refs could be changed to "citation", and the url to the old NRIS site removed. Then, when the new site is up, the bot could run through and add the new url. This is just off the top of my head; I'm sure others can come up with a more refined version.

I think we fall into the convenience trap sometimes on Wikipedia. It's easier to get a reference from a website than to, say, go to a library and get the same info from a book. The information from a book is as valid a reliable as an article on the Internet. Let's hope this can lead us to a consensus and resolution to this whole sticky-wicket, wot? :) --Ebyabe (talk) 22:40, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Blueboar, are you familiar with academic style guidelines, such as the MLA Handbook? They require citation dates because they admit that webpages may go down, and thus they admit that a citation can be valid even if the cited page changes or is no longer available. If guidelines for writing doctoral dissertations permit the use of citations to a now-dead source, there's no reason that we shouldn't. Nyttend (talk) 00:56, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Moreover, some of us (including me) have downloaded the complete database from that website, and thus that website is the only appropriate place to cite for the information in the database; it's not as if a flaw in Elkman's generator would throw us all off. Nyttend (talk) 01:00, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

The point of citation is so that others can verify the information... by looking at the source cited. If a website no longer exists, any information taken from it is no longer verifiable using that website. Please note... it may be verifiable using some other source. For example, If you have a downloaded full copy of the NRIS database from 3/13/09 ... you can still use it (cited as if it were in paper form). All I am saying is that a link to www.nr.nps.gov should no longer be included in any citations. Blueboar (talk) 18:21, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

That's super great news! All you want is for the URL to be dropped from the standard NRIS reference?!? I thot you were just saying differently elsewhere. I agree to having the now-dead URL simply deleted. I am thrilled that this is now resolved. --doncram (talk) 19:56, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Blueboar, but the database comes from nr.nps.gov. I cannot cite it except by citing that website; it's not available from any other websites. I ask again: are you familiar with academic style guidelines' provisions for citing websites? Nyttend (talk) 22:50, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't really care about academic style guidelines... what matters here is Wikipeida's style guildeines. Blueboar (talk) 01:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikiproject participants should be aware that there has been a vigorous campaign against NRIS at the reliable sources noticeboard. The topic is currently the first item on that page, so you can't miss it. --Orlady (talk) 02:55, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

[reply to Blueboar] So you're saying that Wikipedia needs to hold its writers to a higher standard than those required of doctoral dissertations? I can't see how following such a rule improves the encyclopedia. Nyttend (talk) 15:38, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Finally the wp:RSN discussion has expired (and is archived here). Let me say a BIG THANK YOU to Orlady for participating constructively and patiently there and at Talk:List of Masonic buildings, and for writing very clearly, in helping to address the issues raised in those overlapping discussions. (Also User:David Underdown was very helpful, as an independent, and got the last word in, or at least wrote the bottom-most statement that no one disputed, in the RSN discussion.) Thanks, hugely, for dealing very well with the various challenges posed there! --doncram (talk) 19:12, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

What was the consensus? I never saw any.

On a somewhat related note, User:Avicennasis has recently created a lot of the types of one-sentence stubs that were being discussed here and doesn't appear to be stopping any time soon. His/her edit summaries are "create referenced stub", which may be a bit contentious but whatever. The one that caught my eye was Masonic Temple (Meridian, Mississippi) (in my hometown), to which I have now added a sentence or two, but I still don't believe it should have been created. More can be found in the list at User:AlexNewArtBot/NRHPSearchResult. I haven't left a message on the user's talk page for fear of being chewed out by editors here, but I think we should at least let the guy know about this and other ongoing conversations about the validity of the NRIS citation, and hopefully pressure him to stop what he's doing or at least find better citations.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:18, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Stubs have a long history of being accepted contributions on Wikipedia, and as far as I know there are no rules against them. Therefore, I'd suggest "pressure him to stop what he is doing" is much too strong. That said, a little encouragement to write longer articles might go a long way. Don't Bite the Newbies, and Don't Give Up the Ship! Smallbones (talk) 04:29, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I think there was some useful sharing of information, and there is a rough consensus, rather than merely no consensus. In my view the rough consensus in the RSN and List of Masonic buildings discussions is mainly that there is no serious validity to various accusations that have been raised. There is no actual wp:R/reliability issue with the NRIS citation (conceded by Jayjg and others); there is no wp:V issue; there is no wp:SPS issue; and there is no real validity to various other hypothetical issues raised. It has been clarified that NRIS is the actual source of much material in wikipedia, that PDF Focus-based links cannot yet substitute adequately, that NRHP.COM and other alternatives for some of the NRIS info also have deficiencies. There is, obviously, a need to update the >20,000 standard NRIS footnotes in wikipedia, because the URL it includes is no longer valid. I guess there is consensus that the NRIS footnote should NOT be changed to include a link to Elkman's website (it was proposed by or for Blueboar but I conclude the suggestion turns out to cause too many wp:SPS accusations and misunderstanding to be worth exploring further). Elkman's website can usefully be viewed as providing a "convenience copy" of the NRIS database. There seems to be some potential merit in having a copy of the NRIS 3/13/2010 stashed in the WaybackMachine or some other internet archive (this would arguably satisfy a concern voiced mostly by Jayjg, but Jayjg did not actually comment on this, so it might not actually help achieve a wider consensus about the source). There is no obvious replacement for the usual NRIS reference (unless it is just to drop the URL that is included, i.e. literally change to "url=" from "url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/"). There is no solid news on what NPS is going to do with the PDF Focus site that would enable links to it to be more helpful than they now are.

Based on this, I think a bot run should be requested to make that substitution and I think Elkman should be requested to change the NRHP generator to make the same substitution. --doncram (talk) 02:36, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Fairfield article improvement drive update

There's an ongoing article improvement drive focussed on National Register of Historic Places listings in Fairfield County, Connecticut which covers 202 sites, after identifying two spanning into New Haven County that needed to be added. So far the drive has created articles for all former red-links (about 65) which each include NRHP nomination document as a reference, at least (except for 4 where NRHP nom is not available on-line). A Connecticut editor was going to help by adding pics but has not been able to, so it's mainly been just me plugging along. Polaron, KudzuVine, Daniel Case, JohnWBarber, and Sanfranman59 have made welcome contributions. The list-article now shows a dozen or more decently described places, reflecting decent development in the site articles corresponding to those. Its lede now provides something like a proper introduction (though everything could be improved). I found it interesting to note how many bridges are included, and to find that there are six Rochambeau-associated sites, and to identify the Harvard Five cluster of International Style houses in New Canaan, Connecticut. There are several open editorial issues regarding formatting of NRHP list-articles that come up in this list, which I'll ask for input about separately. Comments, help welcomed! --doncram (talk) 22:22, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Kudos on taking time write some quality articles! Is there any way of telling which ones still need expanding? If one piques my interest, I may very well take up one. ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 02:14, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Quality-wise, there's two DYK+ quality articles developed by Daniel Case at Glenville School (Greenwich, Connecticut) (DYK achieved) and Locust Avenue School (DYK in progress i suspect), and a pretty good article at Cannondale Historic District that JohnWBarber mostly developed. Otherwise everything is wide open for improvement. I'd be interested in working on a DYK for the Stephen Tyng Mather House maybe, or any other article for which there's a photo available. I've added NRHP nom doc refs to a number of the already-started articles, too, but probably about half are still missing those. It's just too long a list to improve them all very much, in one drive. For a drive I think it's reasonable to try for improving about 10 articles enough to enable improving their corresponding list-article descriptions, which i think has been done (and more). --doncram (talk) 03:59, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

List of ships on the NR?

I thought that we had a list of ships on the Register, but List of ships on the National Register of Historic Places doesn't exist. Is there such a list by a different name? I can't find anything by searching. Nyttend (talk) 13:11, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

List of U.S. National Historic Landmark ships, shipwrecks, and shipyards? That includes NHLs only, though. Andrew Jameson (talk) 14:59, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

We have a category but not a list. --Polaron | Talk 15:12, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

If you want to create such a list, I'd suggest partially breaking it down by state (We could also do the same with lighthouses, also part of the general navigation-related topic) as there are some states with a lot of those and some with, I would think, none. Daniel Case (talk) 16:47, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, not likely to be too many ships in Wyoming or Nevada :-) I just got back last week from a trip that included photographing 100 different NRHP listings, so I need to get photos taken care of before I create any lists. I wondered because one of the 100 places was the John W. Hubbard, a riverboat docked along the Ohio River near Cincinnati. Nyttend (talk) 18:16, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

There's a shipwreck in Arizona, though. Acroterion _(talk) 01:06, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

There's List of museum ships which covers all museum ships world-wide, to which many NRHP-listed ships should be added, if they are museum ships. Many NRHP-listed ships are museum ships, but many are not. About lighthouses, I think many or almost all significant lighthouses in some states are NRHP-listed, and the WikiProject Lighthouses people work from very complete lists of lighthouses from the U.S. Coast Guard. So I think List of lighthouses in the United States would overlap heavily with a "List of NRHP-listed lighthouses in the U.S." I am not sure a separate list of the historic / NRHP-listed ones would be that helpful. A list of NRHP-listed ships would be relatively more helpful, i think. By the way, the lists of NRHP-listed bridges created by User:NE2 a year or two ago (in Category:Lists of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places), were way out ahead of WikiProject Bridges' lists, and have been good to have out there, developing, i think. --doncram (talk) 02:10, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I've seen the state-by-state bridges lists — most particularly in Pennsylvania, since Ruhrfisch got a PD release for all images for a statewide MPS of bridges — but not done much with it. I've only produced two thematic lists, both for Pennsylvania: one for European archaeological sites, and the other for Native American archaeological sites. We'll see what I can do about ships, but not yet at least. Nyttend (talk) 15:44, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

There is also concern about the maintenance of the NRHP state ship lists. I updated the state NRHP bridge lists by going back through the weekly lists until I got past the date of the data base. I have tried to keep up with the new weekly lists for the bridges, but what happens when I don't! Pictures also should be posted to the state/county/city NRHP list as well as the state NHRP bridge list.

I agree that a NRHP lighthouse list would not bring much more than improved lighthouse lists with consistent NRHP designation.KudzuVine (talk) 16:58, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

extends into another county

Another editorial issue is how to convey that a place spans into another county, in particular whether it is okay or not to mention a town in another county, in the town or city column of a NRHP county list-table. Consider either of two options to cover one Fairfield County listing:

	Landmark name	Image	Date listed	Location	City or Town	Summary
176A	Stevenson Dam Hydroelectric Plant		September 29, 2000	CT 34 41°23′3″N 73°10′16″W	Monroe and Oxford (in New Haven County)	Dam, bridge, and powerhouse built in 1917 on the Housatonic River.
176B	Stevenson Dam Hydroelectric Plant		September 29, 2000	CT 34 41°23′3″N 73°10′16″W	Monroe	Dam, bridge, and powerhouse built in 1917 on the Housatonic River. It extends into Oxford, Connecticut, in New Haven County.

The first row is consistent with a policy that the location of a place should show the towns it is located in. the second row is consistent with a policy that only towns of the county whose list-article it is, are allowed to be shown in the towns column, but other towns are allowed to be mentioned in the description column.

I would prefer for the first to be allowed, so the location columns can carry more location-type information and so the description can focus on describing the place and why it is notable (which usually is not because of its spanning two counties). It is an issue though, reflected in past reversions and discussions. --doncram (talk) 02:26, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Some previous discussion was at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven County, Connecticut#properties in more than one town/city/ --doncram (talk) 04:44, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Nyttend has done alot of work with marking sites that cross county lines in Pennsylvania and has used the second method. IMO, using the "City or Town" column for places that aren't in the county might become somewhat confusing, not mention that is what I believe the "Summary" column is for (extraneous data that is relevant to the site but doesn't quite fit into the other columns. ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 00:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

boundary increases

Another editorial issue is about treatment of boundary increases, and whether or not boundary increase dates may be included in the date listed column.

	Landmark name	Image	Date listed	Location	City or Town	Summary
37A	Downtown Stamford Historic District		October 6, 1983	Atlantic, Main, Bank, and Bedford Sts.; also bounded by Atlantic, Main, Bank, Bedford, Summer between Broad and Main Sts. and Summer Pl.; also roughly Bedford St. between Broad and Forest Sts. 41°3′8″N 73°32′25″W	Stamford	A historic district which first included the largest remaining area of pre-1930s commercial and institutional buildings in downtown Stamford. It was increased in 1985 to capture the only surviving area in downtown of lower-rent commercial structures such as warehouses, laundries, and stables. and in 2002 to add the 1939-built Avon Theatre and buildings of Late Gothic Revival and Art Deco architectural styles. Second and third sets of boundaries represent boundary increases of February 21, 1985 and January 31, 2003.
37B	Downtown Stamford Historic District		October 6, 1983 (original) February 21, 1985 (increase I) January 31, 2003 (increase II)	Atlantic, Main, Bank, and Bedford Sts.; also bounded by Atlantic, Main, Bank, Bedford, Summer between Broad and Main Sts. and Summer Pl.; also roughly Bedford St. between Broad and Forest Sts. 41°3′8″N 73°32′25″W	Stamford	A historic district which first included the largest remaining area of pre-1930s commercial and institutional buildings in downtown Stamford. It was increased in 1985 to capture the only surviving area in downtown of lower-rent commercial structures such as warehouses, laundries, and stables. and in 2002 to add the 1939-built Avon Theatre and buildings of Late Gothic Revival and Art Deco architectural styles.
19	St. Charles Historic District		September 22, 1970	Roughly bounded by the Missouri River and Madison, Chauncey, and 2nd Sts.; also 1000 S. Main St.; also bounded by Madison, 2nd, Jefferson, and the alley behind the 100 block of S. Main St.; also the 100, 200, and 300 blocks of N. Main St. 38°46′33″N 90°28′41″W	St. Charles	Second, third, and fourth sets of boundaries represent boundary increases of June 4, 1987, May 1, 1991, and October 10, 1996 respectively
19-B	St. Charles Historic District		September 22, 1970 with increases on June 4, 1987, May 1, 1991, and October 10, 1996	Roughly, Main St. from Adams St. on the north to Boone's Lick Rd. on the south, east to the Missouri river, west to 2nd St. 38°46′33″N 90°28′41″W	St. Charles	A historic district with over 100 contributing buildings

The principles involved may be that the Date listed column should only include the original listing date and not listing dates for boundary increases or decreases, and that exceptional info should be carried in the description column only. Or, an opposing principle may be that the date column should carry dates of different types, in order to free up the description to focus otherwise. Again, one might think there should not be controversy over a question like this, but there have in fact been many edits going opposite ways on this issue, so some decision would be helpful. --doncram (talk) 03:40, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

First method, same as above (could become confusing, and extraneous info should be in the "Summary" column). ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 00:12, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I should say i have noticed Nyttend systematically adding boundary increase info to many list-articles, which is a great improvement relative to entries showing just one set of boundaries and giving no indication of expansion/change. No matter which way it is formatted, having the info is most important. About the alternatives for formatting, I do prefer to get more out of the otherwise sparse date column and town or city column in these. My preference applies more strongly for list-articles where descriptions are substantially developed, perhaps. Perhaps the choice could be left to editor discretion, for when a list-article is being seriously developed? And/or the formatting options can be reviewed within wp:FLC processes? FYI, the date sorting still works fine, when there are more than one date in the column; it sorts on first date, as confirmed in current Fairfield list-article. --doncram (talk) 00:41, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, I added the St. Charles, MO listing above. My point is only that many (all?) of the multiple boundary increases become incomprehensible. If anybody can get the map and figure out what that boundary means in less than 15 minutes, I'll ... (TBA). I put my guess of the net boundary with the picture text on commons, in case anybody wants to compare. One possible solution would be to put reasonable guesses in the table, rather than put in incomprehensible gobbledy-gook. I know there are good reasons not to do this, but some leeway is needed to counter the gobbledy-gook. Smallbones (talk) 02:30, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

If your point is that the NRIS-provided location information can/should be edited, I agree. Nyttend has greatly improved upon the NRIS-provided location info in many list-articles, by the way. Do you think the list-article entry's location summary could/should just give a description of the location/boundaries of the whole historic district without making the distinction there between which area was added in which addition? That additional detail can be covered in the article for the historic district. I started an alternate presentation for the St. Charles Historic District in another row ("19-B"). Maybe just giving 4 dates suffices in the date column without labelling those as increases? I would edit the location description but I think the NRHP nom docs aren't available on-line, and I don't know this area, so I don't feel informed enough to edit the location description in this case. --doncram (talk) 17:43, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course it is easier for me to just complain how unreadable the text is than come up with a viable alternative. The place for summarized info IMHO is in the table - since tables are by nature summaries. The place for the full "official text" would be in the article or the infobox. Accuracy is always an issue, but since the "official text" almost always starts out "Roughly bounded" we're not very accurate to start with. I'll put my summary in 19B, to see what you think. Smallbones (talk) 03:13, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, good. I started up the St. Charles Historic District article to capture/hold the detail. I didn't realize, but see now, that it is your nice pic here and you've uploaded other nice pics in the city/county (a couple more of which i added to the HD article). U bin dare! So you do have some familiarity, and i do defer to your summary and think it is fine. I added one sentence of description to the list-article row. I'll implement your summary now into the NRHP list-article. Thanks! --doncram (talk) 14:27, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Nice start on the article - you put me to shame: you write, I whine "but I can't figure out where the district is!" (and that's after visting the district). Thanks Smallbones (talk) 20:46, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

County/City-specific NRHP categories

Should there be new categories for county-specific and city-specific NRHP sites, or should the various state NRHP categories just be replaced with the existing County-listing and City-listing categories(i.e; "National Register of Historic Places listings in Suffolk County, New York, Bergen County, New Jersey, Fairfax County, Virginia, and what not? ----DanTD (talk) 14:27, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Confused, what do you mean? Could you link to a category name that you'd be interested in seeing? Nyttend (talk) 13:27, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, let me try to clear this up; The Big Duck is currently categorized as being in Category:National Register of Historic Places listings in Suffolk County, New York. I added three other sites since then. This seems okay for the lists, but what I had in mind was creating something like Category:National Register of Historic Places in Suffolk County, New York as a subcategory for Category:National Register of Historic Places in New York. I figured the county listings category would be just for the listings, or the city listings category would be just for the listings. A lot of state-categories are pretty crowded, and I just thought it'd be a good idea to sort them out a little more. ----DanTD (talk) 18:23, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Um, I'm a bit confused by the question. (Apologies if I misunderstood it.) However, I believe that Category:National Register of Historic Places listings in Suffolk County, New York should be renamed to Category:National Register of Historic Places in Suffolk County, New York for structural consistency with categories like Category:National Register of Historic Places in New York and Category:National Register of Historic Places in New York City. Because the recommended name would be consistent with established convention, it could qualify as a "speedy rename" at WP:CFD. --Orlady (talk) 18:39, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

PS - I think a similar renaming is needed for Category:National Register of Historic Places listings in Nassau County, New York and the town- and city-specific subcategories for the individual places in those two counties. --Orlady (talk) 18:45, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

What I've been asking is whether there should be separaten categories for county-specific sites. The Category:National Register of Historic Places listings in Suffolk County, New York would be good strictly for the lists themselves. I think for the time being though, I'm going to move more Suffok County-based NRHP sites to the listings category. The same goes for Nassau County, New York and every other county in the country. ----DanTD (talk) 18:51, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

We had some long and painful discussions a while back that led to the renaming of many National Register lists and categories. The name that was chosen for categories was in the general form of Category:National Register of Historic Places in New York and Category:National Register of Historic Places in Suffolk County, New York. Those categories are supposed to be able to include list-articles (which typically will appear as lists at the top of the category), articles about individual listed properties, and anything else that looks like it belongs in that particular category (for example, an article about a local issue related to historic district designation or an architect who designed several listed buildings in that place). You apparently have unilaterally decided that this naming structure is wrong, and that these categories should instead be named in the general form Category:National Register of Historic Places listings in New York and Category:National Register of Historic Places listings in Suffolk County, New York. Moreover, it appears that you have misinterpreted the meaning of "listings." This word "listing" is used here (after some of that long and painful discussion) to refer to an individual property that is listed on the National Register -- it does not refer to a Wikipedia list.

I personally wish that you wouldn't create new categories that deviate from the established naming convention. I particularly don't see any useful purpose in creating categories like Category:National Register of Historic Places listings in Babylon (town), New York that consist only of a list-article that has the same name as the category. --Orlady (talk) 17:26, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Check Category:National Register of Historic Places in Florida. I think the structure setup there should help answer your questions. 'Specially since you're familiar with some of the actual places, doncha know. :) --Ebyabe (talk) 19:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Orlady that the New York county-level NRHP categories should show, first, the corresponding list-article. There are 8 or 9 New York county-level categories which show as subcategories at Category:National Register of Historic Places in New York by county. Most of them did not have the list-article displaying first; i just fixed all of those.

I also agree with Orlady that the Suffolk County, New York NRHP category names should be renamed to drop "listings" for consistency with the nation-wide system. It also applies for Nassau County, new York categories, which also should be renamed. DanTD, would such renamings be okay by you?

The Category:National Register of Historic Places in Florida by county looks well-organized but doesn't happen to show any county-level subcategories like the New York one has. --doncram (talk) 20:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

CFD for renaming of the New York State categories opened at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 July 30#Category:National Register of Historic Places listings in several New York State subareas. --doncram (talk) 22:02, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

And I see that they were moved. My biggest concern now is keeping the lists separated from the sites. There are some county/borough categories in New York City that ought to be sorted out as well. ----DanTD (talk) 03:28, 13 August 2010 (UTC)