Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/National Register of Historic Places listings in Linn County, Kansas/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

This is my first FLC in about a year, and only my second overall, so this may be a bit rusty. This is a list and description of all eight properties in Linn County, Kansas, that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: two historic sites, two bridges, two schools, a courthouse, and a former jail. Hog Farm _Talk 19:27, 5 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by comment

Colour by itself cannot be used to indicate something per WP:ACCESS - you will need to also use a symbol Ensure that color is not the only method used to convey important information. Especially, do not use colored text or background unless its status is also indicated using another method, such as an accessible symbol matched to a legend, or footnote labels. -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:32, 5 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comments

The map is fine, I'm sure, if you know where it is contextually, but for me (for instance) it's basically approximately a square to the right of an approximate rectangle. It would be useful to show it in the context of the US as well as just boxy ol' Kansas.
Avoid single-sentence paragraphs, bit clunky to read, we're looking for engaging prose.
Last para of lead, "National Register of Historic Places in Linn County, Kansas," all over overlinked.
- I've removed that whole sentence.
Linn County Courthouse is a dab link.
- Fixed by a dabfixer.
"Battle of Mine Creek Site " etc if you're not using the official/formal name, then write this kind of thing in sentence case, so "Site" should be "site".
- It's listed on the Register as the "Battle of Mine Site", so I'd say this is an official enough name to warrant the current capitalization
I think it's useful in the lead to describe what the "National Register of Historic Places" means and why/how things get added to it.
Please ensure that the use of templates like {{NRHP row}} meet MOS:DTT.
How does the image column sort?! I would make it unsortable.
Description being free text, sortability is also not sensible.
How does location sort?
"City or town" column seems to sort at least three different ways.
Ref 3 isn't a ref, it's a footnote.
Colourings etc, like Chris says, shouldn't be exclusively used to indicate something. And moreover, we shouldn't have to go to another article to find the key to this article.
Ref 13 has spaced hyphen, dash per MOS required.
- I'm not sure what you're seeing. All of the references with dashes in the title are bringing the dash through {{endash}}, so there shouldn't be any hyphens in there. Although the difference is evidently small enough that I don't see why MOS:DASH compliance is significant for FAC or FLC. Just another MOS hoop to jump through that doesn't really affect content
Turns out ref 1 and ref 5 are also footnotes, not refs.
If, as I suspect, The Wichita Eagle is a newspaper or similar, it should be in italics.
- Corrected

I haven't looked at the descriptions or the lead text in detail, the technical issues should be resolved though. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 20:03, 5 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

More comments (some may duplicate the above)

The opening could do with an explanation of what the Historic Register actually is, to give context (without the reader having to click away to another article to find out). This would also allow the opening paragraph to be beefed up from its current single sentence
"This is intended to be a complete list of the properties on the National Register of Historic Places in Linn County, Kansas, United States." - is there really any need to state this? I would have thought it reasonably obvious that an article entitled National Register of Historic Places listings in Linn County, Kansas would list all the places on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Linn County, Kansas.
- I've removed this. A holdover from an earlier version of this article where that statement was literally half of the lead.
"The locations of National Register properties for which the latitude and longitude coordinates are included below, may be seen in a map" - where's the map? I don't get this sentence at all......
- Also removed. Another holdover from before I started editing the article,
There's a large amount of whitespace between the last paragraph and the heading, can that be reduced?
- I've shuffled some stuff around and removed a random {{clear}}, and it looks a lot better on my screen now.
Could the first column be given a title, even if it is only "No."? It looks weird with a ref just floating there.
Also, as TRM pointed out, that ref isn't a ref, it's a footnote and should be formatted as such
And it's really weird that the ref/footnote essentially says "there's a key to these colours, but you are going to have to look elsewhere for it". The key to this article should be in this article.
Image, location, and description columns shouldn't be sortable
No queries on the text other than "The Old Linn County Jail is two stories tall" - is that the US spelling or a typo? In the UK, we spell that "storeys", but maybe the spelling is different in the States.......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:44, 5 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Stories is the proper spelling in the states.

@The Rambling Man and ChrisTheDude: - So it seems like the standard NRHP templates that the hundreds of lists like this one on WP use is a blazing dumpster. Among other things, the two templates used are set up to where all rows are automatically sortable, the footnotes in the header are automatic and I can't figure out how to remove them, etc. I've cleanup up the extra whitespace at the top by removing a template that just generates whitespace and moving some stuff around, and nixed the "see map" sentence, which appears to be boilerplate for NRHP articles. However, to fix the hot mess with the table, I'm going to have to draft a table by hand in my sandbox, and then manage to convert everything over to that new table method, which could be an interesting process, as I'm not the most familiar with making tables. Would I be better off withdrawing this if it will take a few days to get things sorted out? I'm going to leave a note at WT:NRHP noting that there's a lot of issues with the standards templates used, as the sorting image columns and random unremovable footnotes is a very-widespread thing with these templates. Hog Farm _Talk 03:37, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm all for uniformity across lists of similar types but we have to get the basics right. Someone who is familiar with those templates needs to explain how they implement all the needs of MOS:ACCESS and the other various concerns above, and if it's all fine, that's cool. If we can't get the templates to do the "right thing" then they should be ditched. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 08:07, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Hog Farm: - I'm more than happy to help convert the table -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:40, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also, if the NRHP templates are inappropriate for use, then leave a hidden note on this list explaining why you're not using them, just for the avoidance of doubt should someone come along and re-insert them. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 08:54, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think the reviewers so far here (Rambling Man, ChrisTheDude) may want to consult WikiProject NRHP for some of these issues. Many of them are aspects of NRHP list articles are outside of the scope of this nomination, and that have been in place for years, if not a decade or more. This doesn't at all mean that they shouldn't be changed, but what I mean is that they are in place across countless articles, and in the case of the table templates used, would necessitate a larger discussion into how best to modify the existing template. While I appreciate Hog Farm's work to draft what a replacement template could look like, it does not use code that is easily replicable in other articles, unlike {{NRHP row}} (which has MOS issues but nevertheless has advanced coding that allows for easy user functions and tracking). Let's try to avoid reinventing the wheel here. I would suggest overlooking issues that involve editing {{NRHP row}} and {{NRHP header}} for now, while simultaneously requesting those changes on the template talk and NRHP wikiproject talk pages in detail. $ɱ$ (talk) 03:57, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'd personally rather not go through the hard process of changing the article over to my rather clunky homemade template unless there is clear consensus that template is appropriate. But I do agree that there are problems with the standard NRHP templates from access and other perspectives. I'd rather not have to withdraw this nomination, but it looks like it might come to that eventually. Hog Farm _Talk 04:16, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've handled most of the replies that don't involve the table, will try to get to the rest of the non-table ones soon. Hog Farm _Talk 04:26, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Personally for me, being able to sort on the image, location, and description columns is daft but I guess I wouldn't oppose based on that. The weird floating ref attached to nothing in the header of the first column could be fixed quite easily I would have thought. For me the major issues are:

Using colour only as an indicator of type is a clear WP:ACCESS failure
Not having the key in the article and requiring people to click away to find it is very unhelpful and user-unfriendly.

Those are my personal sticking points...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:21, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ɱ: It's the other way around. What the NRHP templates do or do not do are not within scope of FLC until an attempt is made to use them in an FL candidate. Hog Farm, you do not need to withdraw at all, the re-coded table looks much better and while it's useful for someone to leave a courtesy note at the NRHP project perhaps making various suggestions to improve those templates, it has no bearing on this candidate. There's no policy that says all NRHP articles need to use these templates, and until they are demonstrably improved, nor should they be for articles we are aiming to make the "best" on offer from Wikipedia. Once the NRHP templates are fixed to the satisfaction of MOS then they can be used in featured material. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 10:20, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ChrisTheDude - I think your larger sticking points are addressed in, as Magicpiano mentioned, List of NHLs in MI. And to Rambling Man too - This does not require edits to the templates themselves, and can be implemented in NRHP lists as seen here. Hog Farm can easily make these changes. As for those that involve template editing - you both don't see that this isn't how we make changes on Wikipedia. Problematic templates need to have their issues addressed centrally; complaining about them in an FLC to editors who can't directly make those changes is unhelpful. Your points are valid, but there are several other NRHP lists that are FLs; it seems there is a precedent that changes to template codes is beyond the scope here.

ɱ

(talk) 15:16, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

you both don't see that this isn't how we make changes on Wikipedia... Um, not quite, but it's Sunday so it must be the day for patronising me. I said the template issues needed to be addressed centrally at the project. "other stuff exists" is not a valid argument, some of the lists to which you allude are nearly ten years old and would fail FLC quickly these days. In fact, I may go through and get them up at FLRC now you've mentioned it, it's obvious they need work to be considered the best we can do. I'm also not clear on how those templates meet MOS:DTT. But as I said, that's not for here, that's for elsewhere. There's no policy enforcing the use of sub-standard templates, and if an editor wants to use a simple hand-crafted MOS-compliant table, that's not a problem in the slightest. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 17:12, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mean to offend, but I am uncertain of your work on NRHP/historic site articles - consistency is important across the project. "Other stuff exists" may not itself be an argument, but when highly-regarded FLC reviewers had accessibility concerns then and mentioned that it's beyond the scope of the review, it sets an important precedent.

ɱ

(talk) 19:21, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's not relevant in any sense. We are here for FLC not to held hostage to a Wikiproject. Other stuff exists and is more than a decade old. Times and standards have changed. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 19:31, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Did you even read the review I linked there?

ɱ

(talk) 19:42, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've been following this discussion and agree with ChrisTheDude and The Rambling Man on the accessibility issues. I'd like to jump in and add a comment regarding the use of existing templates in FL candidates. We recently encountered a similar issue at the FLC for Gibraltar national football team results, which originally used templates from WikiProject Football and looked like this. After discussion, it was decided to convert the table away from the templates to use a table format; it now looks like this. In other words, there is established precedent for ignoring problematic templates with accessibility issues. If the relevant WikiProject can create a properly accessible template, FLs should use it, but we can't just ignore the FL criteria. RunningTiger123 (talk) 18:48, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think my example of the FLC for Michigan landmarks is precisely the opposite precedent; we're not about to reinvent what color coding is used for the roughly 88,000 NRHP-related articles (potentially over 100k eventually given 94k NRHP sites listed now), just within the course of this single FLC review, sorry. It's an important idea to bring up at the WikiProject, but breaking the standard here alone is improper.

ɱ

(talk) 19:26, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's not relevant really what a wikiproject thinks I'm afraid. The tables aren't compliant with MOS, they don't sort properly and that's just scratching the surface. They must be avoided in featured material until they are proven fixed. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 19:31, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ɱ: - I think your larger sticking points are addressed in, as Magicpiano mentioned, List of NHLs in MI - that list looks OK to me in terms of having the key actually in the article and not using just colour to signify something. If that was implemented here, I'd be happy with that (although I'd still prefer the first column to have an actual heading, as the "floating ref" just looks weird to me...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:11, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Again, that latter part is something that requires template editing, which will affect articles across the whole project. If other editors agree that "No." is okay, I can add that, but it's not a reference number, it's just numerically ordering the alphabetical list.

ɱ

(talk) 19:17, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Another good reason not to be bound by a project. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 19:31, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm done trying to convince against stubborn editors. Using a handmade table that can't be replicated elsewhere will mean the improvements will be useless to the rest of the encyclopedia. Your points are good, simply list all of them in a place where they can be properly addressed by actual template editors. The ideas have helped my historic place lists, but I don't see making them FLCs anytime soon without a spirit of cooperation and improvement to span across the project.

ɱ

(talk) 19:35, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@WP:FLC director and delegates: - I think it's best for this to be withdrawn. There's consensus that the current template system has a few quirks that may not be desirable, but there's no consensus my homemade table would be appropriate, either. And since the list is the backbone of this article, there's no real way to get this promoted at this time, I don't think. The list is an improvement over what it looked like before, so that content was improved is the most important thing. Hog Farm _Talk 20:00, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been withdrawn, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FLC/ar, and leave the {{featured list candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

National Register of Historic Places listings in Linn County, Kansas[edit]